Nuclear Operations
The Nuclear Operations capability consists of 4 capabilities providing technical support (commercial work, R&D, nuclear foresight & advice) to a wide range of customers including the UK government.
Modelling and Simulation
The capability covers the full spectrum of modelling tool sets that support all areas of the nuclear fuel cycle. Allowing for future design, accurate forecasting, optimisation, verification and validation.
The team includes the following modelling capabilities:
Structural and Thermal Modelling
- Computational Fluid dynamics Modelling- analysing different fluid flow regimes
- Finite Element Analysis- Thermal and structural analysis
- Seismic analysis
- Impact analysis-Modelling package drops etc
- Fracture and Fatigue
- Software development
- Rig validations
- Developing Robotics simulator
- Knowledge of robotics technology to be used in decommissioning activities
- Provides technical support to help develop robotics strategy for decommissioning activities.
Chemical and Process Modelling
- Plant process: dynamic modelling; flowsheeting; optimisation
- Thermodynamic and kinetic modelling of solutions and materials
- Mechanistic materials modelling
- Aqueous speciation modelling
- Software development
- Model validation
- Applied statistics (model parameterisation and validation)
Decision Science and Operation Research
- Covers the spectrum from planning data collection to forecasting and optimisation
Statistics
- Design of Experiments
- Analysis of data
- Development of forecasting models
Operational Research
- Problem structuring & analysis (Inc. workshop facilitation & Roadmapping)
- Throughput modelling (Discrete event simulation & TRAM)
- Risk modelling
- Numerical optimisation
Software Development / Inventory Management
- Bespoke system development, specialising in complete inventory management systems, e.g. transfer of Pu Cans to & across Sellafield site
Skills: Subject matter experts in the following areas;
- Thermal Analysis
- Computational Fluid Dynamics
- Structural and Impact analysis
- Seismic Assessment
- Process modelling
- Chemical modelling
- Materials modelling
- Statistics
- Operational Research
- Software Development
- Experimental DesignRobotics software development
- Mathcad
- UNITY
- KUKA Simulator
Specialist software includes:
- ANSYS
- Fieldview
- LS-Dyna
- PATRAN
- Oasys
- MATLAB
- Mathcad
- UNITY
- KUKA Simulator
- Witness (Discrete Event Simulation software by Lanner)
- R (Statistical Package)
- MSDN (Software development)
- gPROMS, from Process Systems Enterprise
- Aspen Custom Modeller (ACM), from AspenTech
- Aspen Exchanger Design (EDR), from AspenTech
- Materials Studio (Quantum mechanics), from Biovia
- LAMMPS (Molecular dynamics)
- MTDATA (thermodynamics), from Hampton thermodynamics
- Mathematica, from Wolfram Research
- COSSAN (uncertainty quantification), from University of Liverpool
- PHREEQC (aqueous speciation), from US Geological Survey
- Microsoft Visual Studio (software development)
- R (Statistics)
Facilities: High Performance Computing (HPC) facility – GEMSTONE
Collaborations:
- Universities links with Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds
- Previous collaborations with STFC, EDF, Wood and Sellafield Ltd.
Customers: The main customer base has been Sellafield Limited (THORP, HALES, SIXEP, MSSS and FHP etc.). In the past, team has delivered work for INS, EDF, Dounraey NDA and RWM.
