US-based NuScale Power and Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC) have signed an initial contract for a new Center for Advanced Nuclear Manufacturing (CANM) to be operated by CTC.
The agreement covers prototype work for manufacturing NuScale’s helical coil steam generators, a significant component in NuScale’s small modular reactor (SMR) design, now under certification review by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“We have been making great progress with the network of companies and facilities that will be needed to manufacture the NuScale Power ModuleTM,” said Dale Atkinson, chief operating officer and chief nuclear officer for NuScale.
“The center’s mission to apply advanced manufacturing approaches to our advanced SMR components fills an important gap needed to transition advanced nuclear energy and materials research and development to the shop floor, cost-effectively and at the highest quality standards.”
In the first phase the contract, CTC will demonstrate the manufacture of straight tubes of the maximum required length, show tube bending to prototypic final helical geometry with transition bends, and demonstrate helical tube bundle assembly.
CTC, an independent, nonprofit, applied scientific research and development professional services organisation set up in 1987, has gained extensive expertise in operating national centres of excellence. CANM will leverage a significant investment by the US government in CTC’s facilities, equipment, personnel and network of manufacturing technology specialists.