Notice

Competition brief: advanced nuclear manufacturing and materials

Updated 11 January 2017

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sbri-funding-competition-advanced-nuclear-manufacturing-and-materials/competition-brief-advanced-nuclear-manufacturing-and-materials

1. Dates and deadlines

Competition opens Monday 7 November 2016
Briefing event for applicants Monday 17 November 2016
Registration deadline Midday (12.00pm) on 11 January 2017
Application deadline Midday (12.00pm) on 18 January 2017

2. The competition scope

This competition aims to stimulate innovation in the civil nuclear sector. It covers structural materials, manufacturing technologies and modular construction processes. Projects that develop new technologies or that transfer technology from other sectors are eligible.

Projects must allow industry to take advantage of future national and global opportunities in the nuclear sector. We expect all projects to help boost growth and reduce costs in the nuclear industry. This could be through creating jobs for new projects, gaining long term service contracts, exploiting intellectual property ownership or working with international partners.

Applications must be in one of the following categories:

1. Structural materials

  • materials development: identifying potential structural materials, manufacturing processes and testing environments for targeted R&D. These should meet the material requirements of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and selected Generation IV reactors
  • materials modelling development: developing advanced modelling approaches, validated against experimental data, that can simulate manufacturing processes. They should also predict the performance of materials in real operational conditions

2. Mechanisation and automation of component manufacture

  • solving the challenges caused by introducing advanced and/or automated techniques to the manufacture of nuclear components, particularly for SMRs. Solutions must maintain the quality of components and enable new techniques to be codified to nuclear standards

3. Large scale component manufacturing and assembly

  • developing and demonstrating advanced techniques for the precision machining of large, complex, integrated nuclear components, such as SMR modules and large heat exchangers
  • developing and demonstrating techniques for large scale metrology, to measure assemblies more quickly and accurately
  • developing and demonstrating significantly better techniques to control and mitigate distortion during the machining of large nuclear components
  • developing and demonstrating non-intrusive and rapid inspection and measurement techniques. This will enable faster, cheaper and more accurate inspections when integrating large complex assemblies

4. Development and verification of pre-fabricated modules

  • developing better, faster, cheaper approaches to the construction and installation of large scale nuclear-qualified plant modules weighing up to 1,000 tonnes
  • developing potential solutions for the off-site inspection and verification of critical features within large modules

5. Design codes and standards

  • developing a strategy to codify new manufacturing techniques that are relevant to SMR and Generation IV reactor concepts
  • engaging with international committees
  • developing guidance documents that bring together international nuclear codes and standards

3. Find out if you are eligible to apply

This competition is open to any type of organisation.

You are encouraged to work with others. Contracts will be awarded to the lead organisation in any application.

Pre start-ups are eligible, but you will need to register as a business if you are awarded a contract.

All applicants will need to show that their proposed idea has a credible and practical route to market.

4. Funding and project details

This competition has 2 stages for themes 1 to 3. Themes 4 and 5 will be single stage and successful applicants will be offered a stage 1 contract.

In stage 1, you will need to show the technical feasibility of your proposed concept. We have allocated up to £800,000 for stage 1 projects. Contracts for technical feasibility studies in themes 1 to 3 will last up to 3 months and will be worth up to £25,000.

Contracts for theme 4 projects will be worth up to £200,000 and last up to 12 months. Contracts for theme 5 projects will be worth up to £300,000 and last up to 24 months.

For projects in themes 1 to 3, in stage 2 you will need to develop and evaluate prototypes and demonstrators based on your stage 1 proposal. We have allocated up to £4.2 million for stage 2. Development contracts for stage 2 projects will be worth up to £1.9 million. All stage 2 projects must be completed by March 2019.

For projects in themes 1 to 3, stage 2 is only open to organisations that have satisfactorily completed stage 1. We will take the most promising projects from stage 1 into stage 2, subject to independent assessment and budget limitations.

We will decide whether to move forward with stage 2 when we know the outcomes of stage 1. You should provide a plan and details of your goals for stage 2 in your stage 1 proposal. This should include plans for full commercialisation.

BEIS reserve the right to adopt a portfolio approach to ensure there is adequate coverage of all themes in the competition, subject to quality and budget.

5. How to apply

To apply:

We will not accept late submissions. Your application is confidential.

6. Background and further information

The nuclear manufacturing and materials research programme aims to improve the economic prospects of nuclear power technologies in the UK. It is one of 6 such programmes prioritised by government and industry. The 6 programmes are:

  • advanced manufacturing and materials
  • advanced fuels
  • reactor design: digital
  • reactor design: safety
  • recycling and waste management
  • nuclear facilities and strategic toolkit

If you want help to find a project partner, contact the Knowledge Transfer Network.

If you need more information, contact the competition helpline on 0300 321 4357 or email us at support@innovateuk.gov.uk.

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