Winfrith was a 350 acre prototype reactor site for civil nuclear power operating up to nine reactors and numerous other facilities.

James Fisher Nuclear (JFN) working with Magnox have designed and built remotely operated tooling and developed techniques to segment, size reduce, and package the Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor (SGHWR) Core for long term storage / disposal. The Upper Neutron Shield (UNS), weighing in at approximately 35 tonnes, is one of many items that presents technical challenges associated with this complex redundant reactor which will be the first power reactor to be fully decommissioned within the UK on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

There is no ‘on the shelf’ design for this type of project and the solutions developed are innovative applications of modified commercially available equipment supported by bespoke variations of nuclear designs from across the NDA estate.