Engineering

Cavendish Nuclear has over 50 years of nuclear engineering design experience, with a strong base of highly skilled and experienced engineering and technical staff who have undertaken tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 delivery roles across the project lifecycle (from conceptual design, to client handover, to performing roles on operational plant). We can provide a complete design lifecycle, from concept through to fully justified, detailed designs. This has resulted in Cavendish Nuclear (amongst others) being included in the 15 year Design Services Alliance framework contract covering all nuclear design work at the NDA’s Sellafield site.

We are a major provider of technical, engineering and environmental services to the nuclear industry within the UK and internationally. Through our team of professional engineers and technical specialists, our integrated and multi-discipline design capability covers the following functional areas.

Mechanical engineering is our largest capability, delivered through a team of experienced professional engineers. We are therefore able to provide a full suite of mechanical engineering skills and services including:

  • General mechanical design
  • Mechanical handling systems
  • Manipulators
  • Nuclear cranes & lifting
  • Beta-gamma remote handling
  • Alpha plant design
  • Vessels & pipe work
  • Pressure systems
  • Nuclear ventilation & containment
  • Retrieval systems
  • Decommissioning systems
  • Building services
  • Plant layout and space management
  • 2D and 3D CAD modelling (inc. animation)
  • Design for decommissioning
  • Design Failure Mode & Effects Analysis

Process engineering capability resides within engineers with industry recognised expertise in delivery of Front End Design. This nuclear expertise is complimented with experience from the waste water, sewage and other effluent dominated industries. This ensures that equipment and innovation from other industries can be credibly integrated into our nuclear solutions. We are therefore able to provide expertise in areas such as:

  • General process design (fixed & modular)
  • Sludges, resins & slurries handling
  • Wastewater & liquid effluent management
  • Organics / oils / greases
  • LLW / ILW / HLW processing plant design
  • Process Ventilation system design
  • Technology research & process development
  • Operations Research (OR) modelling

Our EC&I capability of professional electrical power, instrumentation, control and software engineers have many years’ experience of working within the nuclear industry. As such, we can provide comprehensive expertise in:

  • Control & instrumentation systems
  • PLC & Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems
  • CE&I safety systems
  • Radiological assaying systems
  • Plant monitoring & alarm systems
  • Power distribution systems
  • Plant lighting and small power systems
  • Building services
  • Atmospheric Explosive (ATEX) / Hazardous area classification
  • Electro Magnetic Conformance (EMC) assessment and testing

Cavendish Nuclear has a team of Civil, Structural, Geotechnical and Environmental Engineers supported by Nuclear Layout and Building Services specialists, in strategic locations throughout the UK. This allows us to deliver full facility, equipment design, and construction support to the UK’s nuclear decommissioning, power generation and defence markets, with a proven track record in delivering innovative solutions.

Our expertise within the nuclear industry encompasses the entire development lifecycle from concept design and optioneering through to decommissioning, for both new build and existing facilities. We are experienced in leading multi-discipline workshops at each project stage. The provision of multiple solutions that satisfy complex project interfaces and constraints forms a key part of our approach. We are also extremely conversant on the interaction between our engineering activities and the nuclear safety case process, such that the two are fully integrated at all project stages. A number of our projects involve the application of novel loading scenarios (such as dynamic, seismic, and impact actions), complex geometries, and non-linear material behaviour. Consequently we have access to, and experience in the use of advanced analytical software to deal with such situations, as well as verified and integrated design packages that provide optimised solutions whilst ensuring full traceability of results.

  • Review/assessment of civil and structural designs
  • Review/assessment of designs for extreme environmental conditions (seismic/extreme wind)
  • Structural surveys and assessments
  • Stress analysis
  • Civil and structural drawings
  • Architectural drawings
  • Space management
  • 3-D modelling/visualisation
  • Ground investigations
  • Civil input to front end/concept designs

To support all stages of the project lifecycle our technical and engineering specialists bring valuable expertise to our designs. The team consists of specialists and consultants who have gained their experience from many years working within the industry. In brief, this capability includes:

  • Strategy formulation & development
  • Waste management & decommissioning
  • Decommissioning support
  • Conventional & low level waste
  • Nuclear criticality support
  • Nuclear fuel expertise
  • Structural / stress analysis
  • Seismic analysis
  • Vibration and impact analysis
  • Thermal analysis
  • Gas flow analysis
  • Shielding and radiation dose assessment

Cavendish Nuclear has extensive capabilities in the application of Finite Element Methods for the solution of more complex 3 dimensional geometries and non-linear loading often encountered in Nuclear applications. Typical examples involve non-linear material properties and geometry in addition to complex loading such as encountered in the assessment of extreme loading events, e.g. seismic and impact. Both Implicit and Explicit Finite Element Analysis (FEA) codes are used to assess a wide range of problems, typical examples include:

  • Static and Dynamic Analysis of Structures
  • Non-linear analysis of structural components
  • Seismic Analysis of Structures
  • Non-linear transient analysis
  • Heat Transfer and Fluid Dynamics
  • Impact Analysis
  • Pressure Vessel and Pipework Analysis