BIRCHWOOD-based Amec Foster Wheeler are to host an international seminar for experts in high-temperature structural materials.
The seminar, to be held at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester on 19-21 September, will help shape the direction of research and identify emergent testing requirements.
Research and development on this topic is vital to the future of the world’s energy industry because the next generation of nuclear reactors will be critically dependent on the ability to predict the performance of advanced materials at high temperatures.
The knowledge gained through test programmes conducted at the HTF, being set up at Birchwood Park in Warrington, will also benefit conventional power plant and other advanced concepts involving high temperature structural materials.
The HTF, funded through a £2m grant from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, will be an open access facility.
Managed by Amec Foster Wheeler for use by industry and academics, it will be capable of testing materials at up to 1,000°C in novel and demanding conditions such as pressurised gas and liquid metal.
Greg Willetts, Vice President for Consultancy in Amec Foster Wheeler’s Clean Energy business, said: “This seminar is an opportunity to share understanding of the structural material R&D challenges relevant to current high-temperature and Generation IV nuclear power plants, alongside other technologies including conventional coal and gas generation, concentrated solar and nuclear fusion.
“The HTF Alliance welcomes participation from technical specialists with an interest in high-temperature materials performance and structural integrity assessments, including those in academia, national laboratories and a range of industrial sectors with an emphasis on nuclear.”
Technical specialists who would like to participate, either as a speaker or a delegate, should contact [email protected] for an application form before 15 June 2016.
Amec Foster Wheeler’s Clean Energy Europe business employs 1,200 people in Knutsford and Birchwood in Cheshire and 250 at Sellafield and Barrow in Cumbria.
