Control valves

Tender description

The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) is a non-departmental government body carrying out research into nuclear fusion as a future source of energy. At the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) the Authority hosts the world's largest magnetic fusion experiment, JET (Join European Torus), on behalf of its European partners. The Jet facilities are collectively used by all European fusion laboratories under the EUROfusion consortium. The Deuterium Tritium Experiment 2 (DTE2) project has been initiated to prepare JET for a major campaign of DT pulses. It has been a number of years since DT pulses were last completed in JET so before we start operation with tritium, we need to make sure all the equipment is still suitable for DT operation and we can still operate DT pulses in a safe manner. UKAEA are raising this Prior Information Notice (PIN) to investigate the market/ initiate market sounding for a ‘Fast Acting Absolute Tritium Valve’. Currently UKAEA has a list of requirements for the valve and wishes to engage with the supply chain to understand if these requirements are valid/technically feasible. Although the valve is a fast acting valve it will need to act as both a fast acting valve and as an absolute valve (primary containment to the vacuum). During the DT campaign not only will the fast acting tritium valve need to withstand the radiation from the tritium, it must also be capable of withstanding neutron bombardment from the DT reactions. The valve will also be encased in secondary containment which will be filled with nitrogen gas. At this stage UKAEA require (where possible) the electronic components controlling the valve to be 2-3m away from the valve outside the secondary containment. It is intended the fast acting tritium valve will: — Deliver 800mbar litres per second of tritium. — The maximum acceptable helium leak rate across the seal face (input to output) shall be less than10-4mbarl/s for a pressure differential up to 1.5 bar. — Achieve 10000 cycles. If the project goes ahead the UKAEA will require 11 valves for installation by April 2018. The supplier will need to be capable of design, manufacture, test and delivery of the valves to UKAEA UKAEA will conduct dialogue with the marketplace and this may result in a call for competition based on the requirements developed during the dialogue.