Delivering Enhanced Through-Life Nuclear Asset Management

核工程重新回到英国工业关注的前沿，英国政府史无前例的经济基础设施支出计划50多年来从未见过。民用核能的延长寿命和新建方案与延长寿命和建造新潜艇方案同时进行，这对一个已经在处理国内和国际技能短缺的工程领域提出了巨大的需求。民用和海军部门的现有和新资产都很重要，因为民用核电占英国发电量的21%，核潜艇提供英国独立的、持续的海上核威慑力量。巴布科克国际集团、BAM Nutall、Bruce Power、EDF-Energy、Kinectrics、伟尔集团和斯特拉斯克莱德大学组成的战略伙伴关系将建立一个对全国具有重要意义的研究方案，以提高能力和多学科专业知识，侧重于强化终身核资产管理。这一伙伴关系的总体目标有两个。首先，其目的是创造新的知识和理解，以支持现有基础设施的业务管理/维护，并提高对寿命和退化过程的了解和知识。这将显著延长现有资产的寿命，将运营风险降至最低，并降低整个生命周期成本。其次，这种新颖的知识可以用于下一代核电站和设备的开发，从而将这些突破转化为未来核资产的设计和建造。通过这样做，合作伙伴关系将提供改变游戏规则的知识、理解和技术，为合作伙伴、英国经济和全球核工业带来重大影响。此外，它还将确保英国科学和工程公司保持在全球市场的前沿。该方案的研究目标是支持行业合作伙伴雄心壮志所需的低技术准备水平(TRL)进步，并将交付具体的研究成果，这些成果将：-提供对寿命和退化过程的更好理解和知识；-提供诊断或预测植物退化的新方法或系统；-提供新的预测模型，允许延长工厂项目的寿命；或-提供修复关键工厂的新解决方案，以延长工厂的寿命。研究方案和影响途径将导致核资产的整个生命周期以高于单个部件总和的价值更有效地实施。运营商将看到发电量的增加和成本的降低，从而为消费者带来更低的能源成本。由于核能是一种碳中性能源，对核能的投资将有助于减少二氧化碳排放和全球变暖。该计划的目标是能源安全和效率，旨在通过投资于核电站延长寿命和效率来满足国家战略需求，在英国未来几年面临能源和电力供应短缺的情况下，这将有助于提高发电能力和减轻现有电力资产的负担。此外，一些行业合作伙伴的兴趣涉及多个行业，该计划的研究主题也与其他行业高度相关，包括航空航天、能源和海洋。最后，该方案的另一个目标是发展供应链，为核资产提供下一代技术和部件。此外，由于研究中心的一些工业成员不在英国，这项研究方案的成果以及随后的产品和服务可以出口到国际市场。这将导致英国公司成为外国供应链的一部分。

Nuclear engineering has returned to the forefront of UK industrial attention with an unprecedented government economic infrastructure spend programme not seen for over 50 years. The combined life extension and new build programmes in Civil Nuclear, running in parallel with life extension and new build in submarine nuclear programmes places a significant demand on an area of engineering already dealing with a National and International skills shortage. Existing and new assets in both civil and naval sectors are important as civil nuclear power accounts for 21% of the UK's electrical generation and nuclear submarines provide the UK's independent continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent. A strategic partnership comprising Babcock International Group, BAM Nutall, Bruce Power, EDF-Energy, Kinectrics, The Weir Group and the University of Strathclyde will establish a nationally significant research programme to increase capability and multidisciplinary expertise focussed on enhanced through-life nuclear asset management. The overall aim of the partnership is two-fold. First, the drive is to create new knowledge and understanding to underpin the operational management/maintenance of existing infrastructure and to improve understanding and knowledge of lifetime and degradation processes. This will significantly increase the life of existing assets, minimise operational risk and reduce through life costs. Second, this novel knowledge can then be fed into the development of the next generation of nuclear plants and equipment, and hence translate these breakthroughs into the design and build of future nuclear assets. In doing this, the partnership will provide game changing knowledge, understanding and technology to deliver significant impact for the partners, the UK economy and global nuclear industry.Additionally it will ensure UK scientific and engineering companies remain at the forefront of global markets. The research in this programme targets low technology readiness level (TRL) advances that are required to support the ambitions of the industry partners and will deliver specific research outcomes which:- Deliver improved understanding and knowledge of lifetime and degradation processes;- Deliver a novel method or system for diagnosing or predicting degradation in plant;- Deliver novel predictive models that allow the lifetime of plant items to be extended; or- Deliver novel solutions to repairing critical plant to allow plant lifetime to be extended.The research programme and the pathway to impact will result in the whole life cycle of nuclear assets being more effectively implemented at a value higher than the sum of the individual parts. Operators will see increases in generation and reductions in costs, resulting in lower cost energy for consumers. As nuclear energy is a carbon neutral energy, investment in nuclear will help decrease CO2 emissions and global warming.The programme targets Energy Security and Efficiency, aiming to meet National Strategic Needs in the Nuclear Sector by investing in nuclear plant life extensions and efficiencies which will help increase electrical generation capacity and reduce the burden on existing electrical assets at a time when the UK faces a shortage in energy and electricity supplies in the coming years.In addition, some of the industry partners' interests span a number of sectors and the research themes in this programme are also highly relevant to other sectors including aerospace, energy and marine. Finally, an additional aim of the programme, relates to development of supply chains to deliver the next generation of technologies and components for nuclear assets. Moreover, as a number of the industrial members of the research centres are non-UK based, outputs from this research programme and subsequent products and services can be exported into international markets. This will lead to UK companies being part of foreign supply chains.