SCI-FI-TEK

UKAEA renews engineering framework agreement to boost fusion

Four-year Engineering Design Services Framework is renewed with nine companies.

From:

UK Atomic Energy Authority

Published

20 May 2024

Representatives from UKAEA and companies supporting the Engineering Design Services Framework, at UKAEA’s Fusion Technology Facility in Rotherham - Image credit UK Atomic Energy Authority

The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) has renewed its multimillion-pound Engineering Design Services Framework (“the Framework”) with nine companies. The renewal is based on a successful four-year delivery of various engineering and design desk-based projects.

The Framework, with a value up to £9m, supports the development of a UK industrial supply chain capability by allowing the companies to work closely with UKAEA as it undertakes fusion energy research.

It is vital in the mission to develop commercial fusion energy, while also helping to grow the UK economy by ensuring industry are fully involved.

Colette Broadwith, Strategic Procurement Business Partner for UKAEA, said: “This framework has enabled UKAEA to work collaboratively and with maximum efficiency with the fusion supply chain.

“By renewing it for another four years, UKAEA can continue to leverage the engineering and technical expertise of our industrial partners to help accelerate fusion energy’s commercialisation, for the benefit of all.

There will be continued opportunities for suppliers to collaborate with each other, and crucially to utilise their supply chain on many of their initiatives.

The framework features companies with expertise in some, or all of the following disciplines:

• Mechanical Engineering
• Process Engineering
• Systems Engineering
• Electrical, Control & Instrumentation Engineering
• Computer Based Modelling
• Specialist Nuclear Services

Successes from the last four years include work on the following:

• Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP): Tritium transport and parametric breeder blanket modelling development, shielding concept design, heat transfer enhancement assessments and liquid metal armour design assessments.
• Coolant flow loops: In-vessel component prototype verification, corrosion experiments, magnetohydrodynamic experiments and liquid metal technology assessment, research and development.
• Breeder blanket concept designs: Development of example breeder blanket concepts focussed on maximising different high level requirements.
• Joint European Torus (JET): Preliminary design of JET’s graphite main processing system and ancillary systems for cutting divertor coils in the JET tokamak.
• Fusion Innovation Challenge: A pilot project to tackle some of fusion energy’s most complex challenges. Click here to read the full article.

The companies which are part of the renewed framework are: Assystem, AtkinsRealis, Demcon, Eadon, Frazer Nash, IDOM, Jacobs, M5tec and Optima.