This idea is already being challenged by companies who are moving towards operating smaller hubs, strategically located at walking or cycling distance from the areas where staff live, often far from the city centre.. With people having demonstrated they are able to work from home effectively (and sometimes more effectively), offices do not need to be sized to operate constantly at full occupancy.
The seismic conditions in particular are very important, as they have a major impact on the design of the safety systems and therefore increase the complexity of the design.Existing power stations also vary in capacity, and the various nuclear reactor technologies are also different from each other..
The strategy for achieving the required level of standardisation is to isolate variability.Six standardised seismic isolation solutions can deal with most of the seismic conditions we will encounter.A standardised, customisable heat transfer system allows the new nuclear systems to plug in to the existing coal plant infrastructure.
A standardised cross-section design encloses the various types of reactor technologies while being able to expand to deal with various sizes of capacity that are required.The non-safety related systems for different reactors have strong similarities and can be standardised across different reactor technologies.. A key driver for cost and duration of projects is the complexity of design, construction, and approval process for safety related systems.
Traditionally, custom-designed nuclear grade facilities enclose a mixture of safety-critical, safety-supporting and other systems.
Our approach is to separate out these systems and then standardise and optimise them as much as possible..We have never, for example, had to use a Machine Learning solution, because we’ve never had a problem that it’s been the right technology for..
Nor do we think that the future of robotics in construction is in building robots to do jobs that we, or they, shouldn’t be doing in the first place.Technology is not fairy dust that you sprinkle onto a problem to sort it out.
You need to assess the entire process and engage actively with technology to see where – or whether – it will add value.You also have to be open to the very real possibility that its use may fundamentally alter that process for the better.As an industry, we have to get better at creating and sharing data, information and learning.
(Editor: Electric Infrared Sensors)