UK engineering and technology provider Frazer-Nash has won a four-year contract with the UKAEA to support its involvement in three major fusion reactor programmes.
The contract is part of a multi-supplier framework agreement in which participating companies are given the opportunity to bid for contracts on an ad-hoc basis.
Frazer-Nash will provide design, structural, neutronics and thermal analysis services to UKAEA as part of its involvement in the MAST (Mega-Ampere Spherical Tokamak) upgrade and the world’s largest tokamak magnetic chamber, JET (Joint European Torus), located in Culham, Oxfordshire.
In addition, Frazer-Nash will support UKAEA’s work on the International Tokamak Experimental Reactor (ITER) programme - a scheme designed to demonstrate the capabilities of fusion nuclear power on a large scale.
Ken Neal, nuclear business manager at Frazer-Nash, said: ‘Fusion power has the potential to transform the way nuclear energy is generated on a global scale and UKAEA plays a crucial role in the development of fusion technology, both in the UK and internationally.
‘Our expert knowledge of structural and thermal analysis in particular will be crucial here and we will be calling on our highly-skilled nuclear teams from across the UK to deliver this important piece of work.’
Comment: The UK is closer to deindustrialisation than reindustrialisation
"..have been years in the making" and are embedded in the actors - thus making it difficult for UK industry to move on and develop and apply...