Case Study
Using innovation to address the global energy shortage
PBMR
Product lifecycle management (PLM) technology plays a critical role in bringing safe and sustainable power to the world
Innovating for change
The initial rationale behind PBMR is simple – there is a huge global requirement for sustainable energy. With the world’s energy demands increasing all the time, a solution to the potential energy shortage is urgently required. Although wind, solar and wave energy sources have had their benefits, they cannot currently provide enough power to address the shortage. And although fossil fuels currently provide 80 percent of global energy requirements, they pose a serious threat to the environment and undermine the Kyoto Protocol’s environmental targets.
With this in mind, a South African company, Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Pty) Ltd (PBMR) was established in 1999 with the intention to develop and market small-scale, high-temperature nuclear reactors both locally and internationally. The 650-member PBMR project team is based in Centurion near Pretoria, South Africa, and is a truly collaborative group, pushing the boundaries of innovation in its field.
The PBMR solution
The PBMR solution is a high temperature reactor (HTR), which is destined to be small, clean, cost-effective and adaptable. Locally it could provide South Africa with competitive power generation in coastal areas, and globally can compete with any other form of energy generation. Born out of a desire for energy sustainability, the PBMR technology defines 21st-century energy thinking. Its ability to economically generate electricity and create high value co-products such as hydrogen (for the fuel of the future), desalinated water and industrial or residential process heat, not only sets it apart from all previous nuclear reactors, but also from the next generation of energy sources.
This way of thinking is not confined to the South African PBMR company. There are other HTR projects currently in development around the world, most notably in China and France. However, PBMR is currently regarded as the leader due to the fact that it offers extremely high-efficiency and attractive economics without compromising the high levels of passive safety expected.
“PBMR has a number of time targets that it needs to meet to stay ahead of the other projects,” says Dirk Oosthuizen, product data management systems support manager at the company. “We plan to begin construction by 2007, complete the demonstration plant by 2011, and have the first commercial PBMR modules ready for 2013. Siemens PLM Software solutions have already played a big part in the PBMR project, and will continue to do so moving forward.”
Collaborating from the start
When dealing with nuclear power, safety is paramount. Previous incidents have made the public wary of nuclear power, so when PBMR got underway, ensuring the complete safety of the project was essential. This meant that effective collaboration between different teams was even more important than usual. It was also essential for the PBMR team to get off to a speedy start, as such complex and involved projects can get held up.
The team at PBMR relies heavily on Teamcenter. The Teamcenter capabilities it finds especially useful include engineering process management, visualization, requirements management and community collaboration. Due to the enormous amounts of data involved in the project, it soon became clear that an integrated product data management (PDM) system was also required, and that Teamcenter’s information management capabilities were the best fit for PBMR. With Teamcenter, the company gained a full engineering process management solution for multi-site product teams. Teamcenter is particularly adept at helping product development teams improve efficiency at the earliest stages of the product lifecycle.
“For PBMR, Teamcenter helps synchronize design data across the many personnel involved,” Oosthuizen explains. “It also allows the sharing of design models in workflow-driven processes and collaboration across a fully digital environment. This enabled PBMR in its early stages to accelerate the product lifecycle and get the project off to the good start that was required.”
Teamcenter also facilitates multisite collaboration and knowledge sharing, managing all productrelated data across the various sites. In a project of the complexity of PBMR, Teamcenter’s integrated visualization capabilities and workflow management improve communications among teams. Most significantly, they allow the capture of all product and process data and enable PBMR to share the data among its users.
Building a community
As the project progresses, data can be made available to suppliers involved in the PBMR project using Teamcenter’s community collaboration capabilities. This Microsoft-based collaboration environment enables real-time product collaboration on every desktop across the enterprise. On a project of this scale, PBMR works with organizations across the world: on different continents, at different companies, in different time zones and using different computing platforms. These organizations require a comprehensive set of collaboration services to connect each other, and to connect them with the product knowledge of the new extended enterprise. An in-depth safety analysis report was required at an early stage of the project, and was such an integral and important part of the project, it could not continue until the report was complete. Teamcenter was a valued tool when it came to the input, and completion of, this report.
PBMR needed to control and manage selected design information, and found Teamcenter well suited to this purpose. Information and figures were extracted from applicable source documentation and stored in specially defined Teamcenter properties. A Teamcenter view showing all applicable properties was created to enable the responsible system engineers to approve the information. A link was set up to the source document as stored and controlled in Teamcenter. Several baselines were placed on the controlled information in Teamcenter to facilitate the collection and approval processes.
Mechanical CAD for power plant design
Because the PBMR module is technically a power plant, when it came to the actual design it may have been expected that the company would select some form of specific power plant CAD. However, the PBMR project had specific demands, including a lifespan of 40 years before the product is phased out. Also, these plants are modular and can consist of a single module or multiple modules. These considerations made NX, the next-generation digital product development system, the design tool of choice. “NX has helped PBMR speed its product lifecycle,” Oosthuizen says.
Often, multiple design engineers are working on the project, aided by NX’s advanced assembly techniques. The software’s managed development environment enables collaboration within the extended enterprise ensuring that the right data is delivered to the right people at the right time, and changes made by one design engineer would be obvious and visible to the others working on that part of the project.
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Challenges:
- Develop a nuclear reactor capable of providing safe and sustainable power
- Build a demonstration unit by 2011
Keys To Success:
- Use Siemens’ PLM solutions – Teamcenter® software and NX® software – throughout design, development and manufacturing
Results:
- Significant early success with safety analysis report
- On course for 2011 target despite increasing complexity of design
Industry:
- Energy & Utilities
Client's Primary Business:
PBMR was founded to developand market small-scale, high-temperature reactors, and intends to be the leading global provider of standardized nuclear energy systems, fuel and lifecycle support.
Business Initiatives:
- Production Efficiency
Solutions/Services:
- NX
- Teamcenter
Client Location:
Centurion
South Africa
"NX and Teamcenter have played an important role in the PBMR success story so far, and will continue to do so as we get nearer to our 2011 demonstration model deadline."
Dirk Oosthuizen
Product Data Management Systems Support Manager
PBMR