Collaboration with industry
Our group has close links with industry
British Energy Generation Ltd (BEGL) is a major sponsor of research work with the Nuclear Reactor Research Group since 2001. This relationship was further strengthened in 2006 with the creation of a strategic partnership with the Material Performance Centre, which the NGRG is a member. This collaboration involves BEGL and the University of Manchester working closely together in the area of structural integrity of graphite components, which also include other areas such as corrosion, residual stress management, damage characterisation, fracture mechanics, creep continuum modelling and computational fluid dynamics. The first of a series of joint research meetings with BEGL was held at The University of Manchester on Wednesday 14th February 2007and was very well attended by both industry and academia. Presentations were delivered by British Energy, British Nuclear Group, Serco Assurance, University of Sussex, University of Strathclyde, The University of Hull and The University of Manchester.
Facilities at The University of Manchester which British Energy projects are make use of are optical microscopy, HRTEM, TEM, SEM FIB-FEGSEM, RAMAN, X-ray tomography, XRD, thermal and mechanical testing. The work also involves multi-scale modelling using finite element amongst numerical other techniques.
Nexia Solutions Ltd formerly part of BNFL provides technical support to all aspects of the Nuclear Industry. In 2005 Nexia Solutions made a decision to invest in a number of core research subjects at various UK universities forming research alliances based upon their real business needs. A main aim of this imitative was to readdress a decline in the numbers of people undertaking research in the Nuclear Sciences.
These Research Alliances include:
- The Materials Performance Centre at The University of Manchester
- Radiochemistry at The University of Manchester
- Particle Science and Technology at the University of Leeds
- Immobilisation Science Laboratory at the University of Sheffield
Nexia Solutions now manage the Materials Performance Centre (MPC) and sponsor several PhD students working within the Nuclear Graphite Research Group.
Sellafield site is home to of the world's first commercial nuclear power station, Calder Hall, operating from the early 1950's until 2004, and the Windscale Nuclear Reactor (Piles) - Britain's first attempt at a nuclear reactor to produce plutonium for the war effort, which suffered a major incident in 1957.
Here also is the Sellafield Reprocessing Plant - a controversial site that converts the spent fuel from nuclear reactors worldwide into re-useable uranium, plutonium, and highly radioactive fission products that will have to be safely stored for thousands of years.
AMEC NNC is involved with several collaboration
projects within the School of MACE and the Nuclear Graphite Research
Group (NGRG). At MACE AMEC NNC is contributing to the establishment
of a teaching module in Nuclear Systems. In addition AMEC NNC fund
an Nuclear EngD student working in the area of nuclear decommissioning.
In Addition AMEC NNC is collaborating with the NGRG on two FP6 European
Framework projects RAPHAEL and EXTEMAT as described below.
SERCO Assurance is a specialist technical support organisation working in partnership with the University of Manchester. Serco is built a reputation formulated on experience and knowledge within the nuclear industry resulting in a complimentary relationship between SERCO Assurance and the Nuclear Graphite Research group within MACE. Serco has excellent facilities utilised by students within MACE and Materials Schools as part of their PhD research including an excellently equipped low active graphite laboratory. In exchange SERCO Assurance has access to the facilities at UOM.
The Nuclear Research & consultancy Group (NRG) operate the High Flux Reactor (HFR) in the Netherlands where they carry out irradiation of materials and Post Irradiation Examination PIE for various customers including the European Union. A significant part of the irradiation and research at NRG work is related to Nuclear Graphite for Generation IV VHTR systems. The Nuclear Graphite Research Group (NGRG) collaborates closely with NRG on the RAPHAEL and EXTREMAT project as well as on further joint research initiatives.
The High Flux Reactor (HFR) in Petten is owned by the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Union in Petten. The research reactor has a thermal power of 45 MW. The reactor is operated and maintained by NRG-staff. The HFR is crucial for some activities of NRG and offers many possibilities for research, industrial applications and gaining expertise and experience on nuclear technology.