Engineering consultancy Frazer-Nash has joined the UK’s R6 nuclear research and development panel.
Frazer-Nash joins British Energy, Serco, Rolls-Royce and The Welding Institute (TWI) on the panel, which conducts research into residual stresses and fracture mechanics in structural steels for the nuclear energy industry.
R6 panel meetings are held every six months, in which future research and development priorities are agreed by all member companies. The research conducted by the group then forms the basis of technical procedures on fracture mechanics and residual stresses.
One of Frazer-Nash’s first tasks as part of the panel is to undertake a review of current industry practice into assessing fractures in thin-walled welded structures of nuclear reactors. To date, assessments of such fractures have been significantly conservative. By drawing on its extensive thin-weld experience in the oil and gas and civil aerospace sectors, Frazer-Nash will be making recommendations to the R6 panel around how such conservatisms could in the future be removed.
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