Value Engineering — An Approach to Optimizing Neutral Beam Heating Cost and Performance

摘要

The neutral beam value engineering effort was conceived as a method of improving the performance and, hopefully, reducing the costs of neutral beam heating of magnetically confined plasmas. The value engineering effort offered several opportunities to the fusion community;it offered the opportunity to assemble a data base of costs, to examine the trend of costs, and to identify high cost areas. It also offered the opportunity to assemble industry and governmentnlaboratory management and technical personnel, to solicit recommendations, suggestions and criticisms, both technical and managerial, and, perhaps mostiimportantly, it offered the opportunity to discuss the most advantageous role of the laboratories and industry in the future. This report is divided into two parts. Section I provides condensed cost data in tabular form, along with a brief description of the technical aspects of each major experiment using neutral beams. Section II attempts to summarize discussions concerning the concept of value engineering, the role and timing of industry involvement, the role of procurement methodology, and a wide ranging group of recommendations.