Sheffield Forgemasters has been awarded £8m in funding to support its largest-ever research and development project.

The engineering giant is leading a consortium of partners to explore industrialisation of Electron Beam Welding (EBW) in civil nuclear assemblies.

The £10.5m project will examine the potential to integrate welding into the manufacturing process, offering material improvements and vast reductions in manufacturing time and cost.

Sheffield Forgemasters has been awarded £8m of funding from the government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to lead strategic partners in the project. This is the largest single grant given under its £20m Nuclear Innovation Programme.

The company will collaborate with partners from CVE, TWI, Arc Energy, NAMRC, The University of Manchester and Cambridge University. It will also work with an invited steering committee of Rolls Royce Civil Nuclear, Rolls Royce (Submarines) Cavendish Nuclear, the MOD and the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

Jesus Talamantes-Silva, research, design and technology director at Sheffield Forgemasters, said: “This is a landmark project for the UK, building on three years of work we completed in partnership with Innovate UK (the UK’s innovation agency), to refine the basic science of electron beam welding in nuclear applications.

“It is our largest research project to date, which launched in August, running until March 2021, and the implications of accelerating this technology for civil nuclear power are significant, but could also benefit other sectors including defence, offshore and petrochemical industries.”