Amentum has been at the forefront of the nuclear industry for over 60 years. We are passionate about nuclear energy, its role in the world today and in the future.
Our reputation is founded on the very best technical expertise and the reach to deliver this knowledge locally to projects across the world. Our approach is highly collaborative and based on long-term relationships. We are a trusted partner for customers on five continents.
At the very heart of our business are our people: nuclear specialists including international technical leaders in their field. We choose to be technology independent so that we can bring our partners the very best-in-class experience from different technologies and vendors.
By combining engineering and technical excellence with innovation, research and development, we have the ability to solve the world’s most complex nuclear problems safely and cost effectively.
We focus on: safety; the management and maintenance of plant and equipment; plant life extension; technology and innovation; ageing and obsolescence; and output optimisation.
We were involved in the original design, construction and commissioning of the UK’s fleet of advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGR) and of Sizewell B and we remain lifetime partners for fleet critical projects and life extension support.
Life extension
We’re proud to have helped extend the life of the AGR stations by 65 years – an average of nine years each. This has prevented 74 million tonnes of carbon from entering the atmosphere – equivalent to taking every car off UK roads for a year.
We are supporting preliminary work on a proposed 20-year life extension of Sizewell B, the UK’s only gigawatt pressurised water reactor and the most modern and efficient plant in the U.K.’s civil nuclear fleet. Our business has worked at the station since initial construction and we bring intrinsic knowledge and experience of plant life extension to the program.
Our relationship with EDF is truly one of the most enduring and productive partnerships anywhere in UK industry.
In France, we have supported EDF with:
Probabilistic safety analysis of external hazards, including seismic activity and flooding, to support the justification to safety authorities for the life extension of NPPs;
Qualification and design of electrical equipment, covering new build and modifications on the existing fleet, including justification for renewing EQ during the life extension process;
Ageing management tests on various components using our laboratory facilities.
Amentum’s asset management capabilities cover two distinct methodologies: ageing management and equipment reliability. Our lifecycle asset management service involves managing the effect of ageing on systems, structures and components, using a combination of component condition assessments and plant lifetime assessments. It enables us to improve system reliability, extend the useful life of plant and reduce the lifecycle costs of ownership for our customers.
Fuel cycle management
We deliver an integrated fuel cycle management program that minimises lifetime fuel costs for on-site fuel route operations. Fuel cycle calculations is a fundamental aspect of fuel management, used to ensure the long-term, safe and sustainable operation of the reactor. This has a huge influence on cost and revenues, with relatively small improvements in efficiency and fuel utilisation, potentially resulting in multi-million-pound savings and increased generation across the nuclear fleet.
Drawing on our technical background in reactor physics, fuel and core design, coding skills, modelling and optimisation with the customers’ operational requirements and fuel management, we have developed a toolset to support the cost-effective operation through life and towards decommissioning.
Safety performance
We do not regard a project as successful unless it is delivered safely and we are committed to ensuring that our products and services conform to the expectations, needs and requirements of our customers. We are approved to international standards of quality, including: ISO 9001; ISO 14001; and OHSAS 18001.
In particular, we operate Lifetime Quality Assurance (QA) Programmes, which ensure quality policies are regularly reviewed, and we integrate quality, HSSE, project delivery and governance into a coherent approach that ensures projects are delivered to our customers’ requirements.
We support reactor operators on safety case production; independent safety analysis; HAZOPs, HAZANs, HAZIDs; probabilistic analysis; deterministic analysis; reliability analysis; health physics (RSA/RPA); in-house approved dosimetry services; contaminated land; contaminated oil; radionuclide and effluent abatement; shielding design and substantiation; human factors; safety management systems; NSC and INSA support; and fire and explosion analysis.
ANSWERS® Software Service
Amentum’s ANSWERS® Software Service provides nuclear codes which are used worldwide on a range of reactor types, including PWR, BWR, CANDU, VVER, RBMK, PBMR and experimental reactors. ANSWERS® products exist for nuclear criticality, reactor physics, radiation shielding, dosimetry and nuclear data applications.
For more than 30 years, these advanced analytical tools have enabled us to provide reactor operators with high-quality software and consultancy services.
Our global customer base helps us to stay at the forefront in nuclear code use and develop solutions that can be applied to all reactor systems. This learning is embedded in the software and applications we develop and implement with customers all around the world, across our full range of engineering services.
The ANSWERS® codes are constantly being developed adapting to evolving nuclear technologies and have been used recently for work on advanced modular and small modular, light water, helium, liquid metal, molten salt, and fusion reactors.
VVER cleaning technology
Soviet-designed VVER pressurised water reactors require a complex cleaning process during maintenance outages.
Sludge and impurities need to be pumped out of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) and the safety and control rod assembly channels and coolant in the reactor pressure vessel has to be filtered with larger particles removed from the bottom of the reactor.
During more than 15 years of work for Slovakian power plant operator Slovenské Elektrárne, Amentum has designed innovative equipment which not only meets the needs of the cleaning task but also provides a visual examination of the reactors’ internal structures, delivering valuable information for the customer about their overall condition.
A platform is installed on a flange at the top of the RPV and a remotely operated system is lowered inside it using a telescopic arm. Attached to the arm is a camera and a device which sucks waste material out of the vessel.
The system is remotely controlled so operators from and workers are exposed to significantly lower radiation dose. The cleaning process is fully independent of other systems and technologies in the reactor hall, enabling the work to be done more quickly and minimising the overall duration of the maintenance outage.