NCNR Engineering Services

NIST awarded a Master IDIQ for engineering services to the National Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) reactor facility at its Gaithersburg, Maryland campus on August 18, 2014, with a combined potential value of $30 million. Ordering under the vehicle closed on August 16, 2019, and this vehicle is no longer active for new task orders.

Seven task orders totaling $3 million in combined potential value have been issued, with all $3 million now obligated. Activity peaked in 2015 with three orders, followed by sparse ordering — one order per year in 2016, 2017, and 2018, and one final order in February 2020 after the ordering window closed. All task orders funded NIST/NCNR requirements. Work performed encompasses heavy-water reactor maintenance and neutron beam facility upgrades: D2O pump and valve replacement ($1.29 million), cooling-tower data acquisition system design and installation ($781 thousand), thermal shield header design and fabrication ($194 thousand), helium piping for the helium refrigerator ($350 thousand), regulating rod drive fabrication ($190 thousand), cooling-tower maintenance platform design ($158 thousand), and thermal column inspection and 3D modeling ($40 thousand). All delivery orders were firm-fixed-price.

Competition across the vehicle was distributed. Merrick & Company holds the largest share with two orders totaling $1.5 million (50% of combined potential value); Tetra Tech, Inc. secured one order for $781 thousand; and Scientific & Biomedical Microsystems, LLC won two orders for $509 thousand combined. AVS US Inc. and Framatome Inc. each received one order. Six of seven orders carried no set-aside designation; one was awarded to a small business.

The vehicle is effectively closed to new pursuits. The 2019 ordering deadline has passed, and the most recent obligated task order completed in April 2024. No successor vehicle has been identified in the source material.

NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) has awarded a Master IDIQ for engineering services for the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) at its main Gaithersburg, Maryland campus. The NCNR owns and operates a heavy water moderated nuclear test reactor and associated neutron beam research facility. In order to keep the reactor running safely and reliably as well as to take full advantage of advances in neutron measurement science and methodology, at any given time a large variety of engineering projects are being undertaken simultaneously at the NCNR.