Nucléaire

With the value of the UK’s nuclear liabilities alone estimated at £48bn, measures that can reduce the duration of clean up activity can therefore bring significant financial return. The challenge is therefore to develop processes that deliver effective solutions, efficiently and on time.

Typically, the overall process comprises a number of subsystems, such as retrievals, processing and encapsulation. Overall capacity will also be impacted by how these subsystems interact; as material mix changes the bottleneck may shift.

Designing an efficient plant in this context presents difficulties. There are trade-offs to be made between investment costs in areas such as buffer storage and materials handling systems, and operating costs associated with different shift patterns and maintenance strategies.  This is where process simulation using WITNESS comes in.

Some of the Nuclear companies that have benefited from using Lanner’s WITNESS process simulation software include Sellafield Ltd, Bechtel, Washington Group, UKAEA, Urenco, Energy Solutions, National Nuclear Laboratory and Nuvia.


Lanner’s Nuclear customers have reported a wide range of uses and quantifiable business benefits from using Lanner simulation software, including:

• Comprehensive testing of proposed decommissioning facilities long before commitment to build is reached
• Demonstrating capability and compliance to key stakeholders to prove plant performance
• Applicable throughout the retrieval, processing and encapsulation processes as well as supply chain and logistics requirements
• Provides increased performance through better resource utilization and identification of bottlenecks
• Enables reduced operating costs and lower capital expenditure by engineering a solution to meet the needs of the business

These companies also report improved confidence in decision making, better communication of recommendations and team integration, and faster buy-in to proposed changes.

Due to the confidential nature of Lanner's involvement in the Nuclear industry we are unable to publish details on specific projects. An exception relates to the recent work undertaken at EnergySolutions. Contact us directly for more information on our services and experience.