On July 2, TASS reported that staff from the "Digital Engineering" department at the Higher School of Engineering of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (PISh SPbPU) have used digital twin technology to model and improve furnace components for producing new, highly efficient nuclear fuel. This technology will make future nuclear reactors safer.

According to the university's press office, project leader Dmitry Zhuravlev, head of the Systems Engineering Department at SPbPU's Engineering Center, stated that optimizing the base design of the pusher furnace used for sintering SNP fuel opens new prospects for enhancing nuclear power safety, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. Reducing the base weight decreases equipment wear, lowers nuclear fuel production costs, and improves process safety.

The client for this scientific project is Progress JSC, part of Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom. The development aligns with the goal of creating a new technological platform for nuclear power engineering based on a closed nuclear fuel cycle with fast-neutron reactors. This technology eliminates severe accidents at nuclear power plants (no evacuation or resettlement required in case of accidents), generates power without accumulating irradiated nuclear fuel, reuses spent fuel, and addresses the limited resource base for nuclear power engineering.

Optimization calculations yielded base plate design variants that reduce the original design weight by up to 50% while maintaining required strength and performance, significantly lowering product costs.

Yuri Mochalov, chief technical expert for the "Proryv" (Breakthrough) project direction, stated that based on testing and full-scale operation results of lightweight product manufacturing technology, this approach will be applied to the development and modernization of other equipment to optimize design and technical parameters.

The project is implemented using advanced technology on a digital twin development and application platform.