Research and development consultancy services

Tender description

NNL have supported Cammell Laird in the proposal for project FAITH, which has now been successful in obtaining grant funding from BEIS. Project FAITH is a 2 year R&D project to use the development of experimental rigs for thermal hydraulics tests as a model to implement modular construction techniques for the nuclear industry. A further aspect of the scope is the capture of the design process within a digital framework that can be used to accredit and support an asset throughout its lifetime. In terms of the thermal hydraulics capability it is intended that the experimental capability will be modular and will support a range of coolant options including boiling water reactors and sodium cooled fast reactors. We will develop a world leading CFD modelling capability to support the experimental facility and reduce the need for large scale rigs to develop new coolant technologies. 1) FNC bring in unique CFD and thermal hydraulics capability gained through the leadership of the Digital Reactor Design programme in thermal hydraulics modelling. This includes increasing the technology readiness levels of thermal hydraulics tools that will be vital to deliver the scale-up and digital aspects of project FAITH. Again, their leadership of the NIP programme has given them unique capability that cannot be sourced anywhere else in the supply chain. One key aspect is the benchmarking study FNC led for BEIS on international expertise. It is vital that project FAITH captures this knowledge to be successful and due to the IP residing with FNC, it is essential that we engage commercially with FNC to gain access to this IP; 2) The Virtual Engineering Centre will form part of a multi-disciplinary team on project FAITH including NNL and University of Liverpool to utilise the outputs of the DRD Nuclear Virtual Engineering capability as part of the digital design aspect of project FAITH. This aspect of the work will utilise the unique IP developed and owned by Wood and its partners and this is vital to the success of project FAITH. They are to be supported by the NNL/ UoL Royal Academy of Engineering chair in Reactor Physics, who as part of NVEC phase I developed a unique capability within his team to integrate reactor codes within an integrated digital framework. Specifications are available upon request to provide additional information.