# STEP WP5 - Fusion Power Plant - Diverter Heat Exchanger Design Challenge

> Contract award record from UK public-sector procurement sources.

## Key facts

- Public buyer: [United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority](/buyers/united-kingdom-atomic-energy-authority/contract-awards)
- Contract winner: Norton Straw
- Award value: £170,602
- Award date: 18 November 2019
- Published: 22 November 2019
- Contract start: 18 November 2019
- Contract end: 13 March 2020
- Stage: awarded
- Procurement category: services
- Notice ID: 060d2c2a-621f-4af9-9293-be62e74387b0-327959
- OCID: ocds-b5fd17-7ec31059-e016-46be-a380-8e8f6a5c8e55

## Description

Manging the heat exhaust from a fusion reactor is one of the most pressing challenges facing those seeking to realise a commercial power plant design\. A fusion reactor heat exhaust is handled via a divertor, which needs to handle large heat fluxes \(>10 MWm-2\) especially in the divertor target\. For spherical tokamak designs such as STEP, the compact nature of the device potentially increases the heat fluxes on the plasma-facing components, such as the divertor target, and restricts the space for incorporating cooling when compared to conventional larger aspect-ratio tokamaks such as ITER or EU-DEMO\. Parallels can be drawn between the heat management challenges faced in the fusion community and those faced outside the fusion community, particularly in sectors such as motorsport, aerospace, power electronics, and renewable energy where high performance heat exchangers are utilized\. The STEP Work Package 5 \(Resilient Nuclear Components\) wishes to harness industrial expertise in heat exchanger design outside the fusion community and to identify whether this expertise can be applied to developing an innovative heat exchanger concept design for the STEP divertor target\.

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## Source

[View the original notice on Contracts Finder](https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/060d2c2a-621f-4af9-9293-be62e74387b0-327959)