Published date: 16 April 2019

Closed opportunity - This means that the contract is currently closed. The buying department may be considering suppliers that have already applied, or no suitable offers were made.


Closing: 17 May 2019

Contract summary

Industry

  • Industrial process control equipment and remote-control equipment - 38800000

  • Industrial machinery - 42000000

  • Industrial robots - 42997300

Location of contract

Any region

Value of contract

£0 to £180,000

Procurement reference

20190416120106-72814

Published date

16 April 2019

Closing date

17 May 2019

Contract start date

27 May 2019

Contract end date

26 July 2019

Contract type

Supply contract

Procedure type

Open procedure

Any interested supplier may submit a tender in response to an opportunity notice.

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

No

Description

Working as part of the EUROfusion consortium, UKAEA's (the Purchaser's) remote handling centre: RACE (Remote Applications in Challenging Environments) is currently involved in a project to develop a concept design for the Remote Maintenance (RM) system for DEMO (Demonstration Fusion Power Plant).

Given the large number of maintenance operations that will need to be carried out remotely and the many years between maintenance shutdowns, there is a strong motivation to automate many of the tasks to reduce both timescales and the need to maintain the skill base between shutdowns.

It is therefore necessary to research the application of automated robotics to fusion relevant challenges. Some subject areas that are expected to require development include:

• Localisation of robotic systems deployed to arbitrary reactor locations
• Automated maintenance for complex geometries (e.g. pipe nest)
• Identification of individual components and recognition of deviations in their condition
• Accessing concealed systems
• Automated decontamination and swabbing of complex geometries.

To further this development an Automated Inspection and Maintenance Test Unit (AIM-TU) is being developed. This unit will provide researchers with an experimental platform on which to develop solutions for future fusion power plants. It will consist of 2 robotic arms on rails (with supplementary tooling) and a variety of representative plant hardware for them to act upon. The AIM-TU is envisioned as a versatile testing platform which allows significant reconfiguration to conduct different tests.

More information

Links

About the buyer

Contact name

Vincent Tsang

Address

Culham Science Centre
Abingdon
OX14 3DB
ENG

Telephone

+44 1235466444

Email

vincent.tsang@ukaea.uk

Website

www.gov.uk/government/organisations/uk-atomic-energy-authority