ITER awards: To support the ITER fusion research project at Cadarache, France, the ITER Organization appointed Jacobs to its integrated engineering framework as part of a consortium with Orano Projects and Madrid’s Universidad Nacional de Educatión a Distancia. Jacobs has been tasked with minimizing operator exposure to radiation during planned maintenance activities through the consortium’s combined knowledge of ITER maintenance activities, remote handling, radiation and contamination assessment, and hazard risk reduction.
As part of an existing contract with the ITER Organization, Jacobs is also developing and supplying technology to monitor for corrosion in the ITER tokamak. This contract includes the production of safety documentation for submission to French regulators. In addition, Jacobs has been awarded both lots of a framework contract to provide the ITER Organization with engineering support in relation to the Tokamak Complex Detritiation System, which supports decontamination and fuel recycling.
In support of Fusion for Energy, which is responsible for the European Union’s contribution to ITER, Jacobs said that it is demonstrating safe operating and maintenance methods for helium-cooled pebble bed test blanket technology and is undertaking the construction design of the hydrogen monitoring system in the tokamak and tritium buildings, a major safety feature of the ITER facility.
U.K. awards: To support the UKAEA’s research into the design, engineering, and manufacturing of components for fusion power stations, Jacobs has been awarded $18.4 million to design and build a test facility to replicate typical fusion conditions of extreme heat flux, high-pressure cooling, and immensely strong electromagnetic fields. The facility will test components for any fusion reactor, whether experimental, such as ITER, or designs for commercial electricity generation.
The UKAEA also awarded Jacobs a range of work to support the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP), a U.K. government–funded program to design and build a prototype fusion reactor for demonstrating commercial viability. According to the company, the contracts address several key areas where Jacobs can develop innovations to help drive the design and implementation of STEP, including modeling and simulation, alloy development and materials science, breeder blanket and divertor design, digital engineering, balance of plant, and siting.
