Forging partnership for nuclear SMRs

摘要

Sheffield Forgemasters is to work with US small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) specialist Nu! ale Power to develop manufacturing techniques for its reactor technology. The two companies have announced that Forgemasters is to make a trial reactor vessel head for NuScale's SMR design by the end of 2017, as part of a £4m project funded by Innovate UK. NuScale's technology is based around 50MW reactors (around 5 per cent of the generating capacity of a typical civil reactor) that are intended to be deployed singly or in clusters of up to 12 units. The advantage of this technology is that the reactors are designed to be made on production lines in factories, more cheaply and efficiently than the huge facilities required for conventional reactors.