New digital reactor partnership announced
8 Sep 2017 by Evoluted New Media
The University of Liverpool has been appointed academic lead to set up and run a UK Digital Reactor Design partnership.
The University of Liverpool has been appointed academic lead to set up and run a UK Digital Reactor Design partnership.
The programme will use the expertise and facilities of the University’s Virtual Engineering Centre (VEC) to improve new nuclear reactors’ design and build of. It will also aim to optimise their operating performance during its lifetime.
Professor Eann Patterson, programme lead at the University of Liverpool, said: “This the first stage in transforming the way that the UK nuclear industry will design and build new facilities, strengthening capabilities across the sector for the future.”
Digital Twin
The VEC will provide expertise in the development and integration of virtual engineering technologies, having provided similar services in the automotive, aerospace and energy sectors. Over the next two years, VEC experts will work on the first phase development of a digital framework to enable a better way to develop and build nuclear reactor facilities. Initially, this will form a non-physical backbone for future development of a digital twin – a like-for-like copy of a physical system. The digital twin will then be used ahead of real world construction.This £3m initiative is supported by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and is led by Amec Foster Wheeler, an engineering and project management company. Other partners included in the programme include the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Hartree Centre National Nuclear Laboratory, Rolls-Royce, EDF Energy, Cambridge University and Imperial College London.
