Spanish nuclear engineering group ENSA is joining the University of Sheffield’s Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre to develop new capabilities in electron beam welding.
The company manufactures large components for nuclear power plants, including steam generators, reactor pressure vessels and heads and heat exchangers, as well as fuel containers, racks and nozzles.
Thomas Dutilleul, welding engineer at the Nuclear AMRC, said: “We will work together to explore the use of electron beam welding to fabricate such components, and collaborate to assess the maturity of this new technology and understand where it fits and how it differentiates itself from other technologies, to help ENSA decide if it makes sense to adopt electron beam welding and what work is necessary to do so.”
The Nuclear AMRC is part of the UK’s High Value Manufacturing Catapult, and collaborates with companies of all sizes to help them develop and prove advanced manufacturing techniques.
ENSA has previously collaborated with the Nuclear AMRC on a number of projects, including international R&D projects funded by the European Horizon 2020 programme, in areas such as intelligent robotic systems for automated weld grinding, and addressing the root causes of stress corrosion cracking in reactor components.
