Mechanical engineering services

Tender description

As part of a UK national programme (the STEP Programme), UKAEA are holding a blanket design challenge for industry to apply their expertise to fusion research and design a key system for a future fusion power plant, generating both useful heat and fuel. Breeder blanket design requires expertise in structural design, nuclear engineering, design for manufacture, corrosion protection, among other disciplines. In this project, successful applicants will work with UKAEA to design a breeder blanket module by applying their specific expertise. As part of a UK national programme (the STEP Programme), UKAEA are holding a blanket design challenge for industry to apply their expertise to fusion research and design a key system for a future fusion power plant, generating both useful heat and fuel. Breeder blanket design requires expertise in structural design, nuclear engineering, design for manufacture, corrosion protection, among other disciplines. In this project, successful applicants will work with UKAEA to design a breeder blanket module by applying their specific expertise. Breeder blanket concept designs have been in research and development for many years with many published works, although these technologies remain at low readiness levels. Breeder blanket research papers — https://www.sciencedirect.com/search/advanced?qs=breeder+blanket+design&pub=Fusion+Engineering+and+Design UKAEA are seeking proposals to develop breeder blanket designs in a way that will lead to improvements in readiness level, design simplicity, performance metrics or other aspects. We hope this challenge will produce an innovative structural design for a blanket module, using cross-sector expertise. UKAEA invites initial expressions of interest from engineering firms, consultancy groups and academia. The design challenge is to be issued for tender in October 2019 with work to be completed by February 2020, through one or more contracts placed up to a budget of 300 000,00 GBP. The total duration of the work will not exceed 3 months, with proposed follow-on activities to be carried out over the next 2-5 years. UKAEA will host a Blanket Challenge Webinar during the tender process. The webinar will include presentations on technical design challenges and Q&A sessions for potential applicants to gain more information. Potential applicants are encouraged to attend the webinar for technical information to inform their application. The webinar will be streamed and a recording will be made publicly available by UKAEA. If more than one proposal is received and if these seek to address sufficiently different aspects of the challenge, multiple contracts may be placed.