GE Hitachi successfully tests composite block for nuclear construction

A GE Hitachi Nuclear-led research team successfully tested new building blocks that could potentially reduce the cost of nuclear construction.

In 2021, the Department of Energy (DOE) partnered up with GE Hitachi to develop three construction technologies that can collectively reduce the cost of new nuclear builds by around 10%.

Through the initiative, GE Hitachi developed its Diaphragm Plate Steel Composite (DPSC), a modular steel-concrete composite, for panels that can be used in reactor walls and other parts of a containment structure. It is one of the three new advanced construction technologies the DOE is evaluating to reduce nuclear construction costs, as stated in a Monday press release.

For the test, the researchers filled the modular plates with concrete to simulate a reactor containment wall. The structure was soon put through various conditions to replicate real-life situations, such as an earthquake.

The small-scale demonstration, which was performed at Purdue University’s Bowen Laboratory in Indiana, was deemed successful. In DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy’s Monday press release, it said the data from the small-scale demonstration will be used to support licensing of the modules for use in future reactor containment construction.

DOE’s National Reactor Innovation Center, led by the Idaho National Laboratory, is currently evaluating a proposal from GE Hitachi to build a part of a reactor containment building the DSPC design to further test the technology.

GE Hitachi intends to use the DSPC technology in its first four units of the BWXR-300 small modular reactor in Ontario, Canada. The Canada Nuclear Safety Commission issued the construction permit to the company for its SMR on April 4.