• Save time, reduce risk,

and support innovation

with a single, reliable,

easy-to-use source of

corporate materials data

• Implement best practice

as defi ned by leading

energy and nuclear

organizations, meeting

key requirements such

as traceability & security

• Integrate access to

in-house test, QA, and

design data with leading

references such as

ASME BPV Code

• Empower your materials

scientists & engineers by

dramatically improving

the capture, analysis,

and deployment of

critical data

Relevant products &

services:

• GRANTA MI

• Aerospace & Energy

Data Series

• CES Selector

• Granta Services

Example customers:

• AWE

• GE - Energy

• Los Alamos National

Labs

• Oak Ridge National Labs

• Toshiba Corporation

• Westinghouse

Electric Company

Energy generation, whether from fossil fuels, wind, or nuclear, can place

substantial demands on materials. The same is true of other nuclear engineering

applications—for example, in medicine, defense, and research. Materials must

meet requirements for strength, fatigue, and other mechanical and thermal

properties reliably over many years, sometimes under extreme conditions.

It is essential that materials engineers and designers have the right information

and apply it effectively to make the right materials and process choices. But it

can be diffi cult to manage in-house test and QA data effi ciently, and to retain

and re-use materials knowledge, particularly when projects may run for decades.

Yet such information management is vital—both to ensure ‘traceability’ of design

decisions for regulatory purposes and to enable the best results in maintenance

and new design. Granta can help.

Industry overview

www.grantadesign.com

Example solutions for energy and nuclear

Managing mission-critical data

Materials data is mission-critical in conventional power (e.g., developing next-

generation coal-fi red power stations); nuclear applications (for energy, research,

and defense); and renewable energy (for example, composite materials for wind

turbines). You need to capture and retain data from sources such as materials tests

and quality assurance. You need to deploy up-to-date, accurate data to designers

and engineers in a secure, controlled, but easily usable manner. And data must

be fully ‘traceable’. The Materials Data Management Consortium, a group of top

aerospace, defense, and energy enterprises, works with Granta to develop a best-

practice approach to these challenges, embodied in the GRANTAMI™ software

system.

Reference data for energy and nuclear

Reference data on materials properties is often required in design or analysis. This

information must be drawn from reliable, traceable sources. Often, these sources

require regulatory approval. Granta provides easy, cost-effective, enterprise-wide

access to key references such the ASME Boiler & Pressure Vessel Code materials

and NIMS creep and fatigue data. GRANTA MI even enables access to these data

sources via your CAE, FEA or other third-party software.

Eco design and eco regulations

Every engineering organization must now design with environmental regulations

such as REACH in mind. Eco objectives, such as reducing wastes and emissions,

are also increasingly important. Materials are central to these issues, because

regulation constrains what materials can be used, and because materials

properties determine much of the environmental impact of products. Granta

provides software tools and reference data to help address environmental issues

during design.

Energy and Nuclear

Case Study: Westinghouse Electric Company

Paula Freyer is a Fellow Engineer with the Westinghouse Electric Company. She has

been leading a project to optimize the management of the organization’s materials

data, which she described at a Granta seminar in 2008. The following is extracted

from the seminar report.

The history of Westinghouse Electric and the nuclear industry provides

important context for materials information management requirements in the

sector. The nuclear industry underwent a 30-year decline from its heyday in

the early 1970s. It is now in the midst of a renaissance, as countries adopt

their energy policies in the light of climate change, volatile oil prices, and the

need for energy independence. Demand for new nuclear power stations is

rising, and the industry is seeking to extend the life of existing facilities—many

of which are coming to the end of their original 40-year lifespan.

This is good news for the industry, but also poses a challenge. It needs to scale up

quickly. But, with low recruitment levels for the last several decades, it is also set

to lose much of its workforce and expertise. 35% of the engineers in the nuclear

industry are eligible for retirement in the next 5 years. These facts are making

organizations re-evaluate how they capture, store, and access knowledge in

their design and maintenance processes—including materials knowledge.

A major corporate asset at Westinghouse is its long history of materials

research, and the resulting rich materials data resource, comprising tens of

thousands of laboratory reports, test results, and documents. The challenge

is that, in common with most engineering enterprises, this resource is spread

across fi ling cabinets, discs, computer fi les, proprietary databases, and

handbooks. This makes it hard to fi nd and share materials information across

the materials team and the hundreds of engineers who may require data, for

example as input to their analysis codes. And knowledge about what data is

available, and where to access it, will dissipate as materials experts retire or

move on.

The risk of losing data or duplicating tests that have already been done

represents a major cost in the nuclear industry. Samples with suffi cient

irradiation exposure to represent, for example, a component in a 40-year

old nuclear reactor, are extremely rare. Tests must evaluate a wide range

of parameters, and these tests are logistically complex—requiring highly

specialized hot cell laboratory testing facilities and highly skilled radiologically

trained personnel.

These are the reasons behind a new project to give Westinghouse Electric

a ‘21st century materials data management system’. The goal is to create

a server-based system, accessible only on the company’s intranet, which

becomes the single, central place to store materials data. The system will

enable anyone with a web browser to fi nd key materials data intuitively and to

compare materials, plot curves, and prepare reports. Data will be exportable

to Excel and to key CAD and FEA codes. Key reference information“for

example, the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code data, will be included.

Security and traceability features are vital.

Westinghouse has defi ned a four-stage process to implement such a system

corporation-wide. The fi rst stage is a data management pilot project, which is

currently being implemented using the GRANTA MI system”selected because

it meets all of the requirements outlined above.

Westinghouse Electric Company, and the nuclear industry in general, offers a

particularly compelling example of the need for effective materials information

management to help preserve materials knowledge and fully leverage

investment in expensive materials testing.

www.grantadesign.com | info@grantadesign.com

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+44 (0)1223 518895 (800) 241-1546 0800 182 5026 08 00 76 12 90

© 2012 Granta Design Ltd. GRANTA MI and CES Selector are trademarks of Granta Design Ltd.

Industry overview

Further information

We can help with almost any problem

relating to materials information.

In addition to the tools described

here, our CES Selector software is a

unique tool for materials and process

selection and substitution.

For complete information on Granta’s

solutions in this area see:

www.grantadesign.com/

solutions/energy/

EN-12-07

Data stored, analyzed, and viewed within

GRANTA MI—such as the materials property

on this datasheet (front)—can be easily

accessed and applied within computer-aided

design & engineering tools (back).

GRANTA MI captures all of your critical

materials information in a single, shared

system, enabling materials scientists to

analyze properties and publish certifi ed

information for use by engineers. In this

screenshot a user has searched for a

material and is graphically viewing key

multidimensional data.