OpenMC Fusion Technology Course
Cerberus Nuclear recently provided OpenMC support to the Fusion CDT course at the University of York. As part of the course the students attend a week-long fusion technology module to learn about all aspects fusion including reactor technology, plasma physics and neutronics modelling. The week concluded with a workshop on the open-source neutronics transport code OpenMC.
The OpenMC workshop was run by John Billingsley (Cerberus Nuclear) and Jon Shimwell (Firstlight Fusion). Together they presented a course on OpenMC teaching fusion neutronic transport analysis as well as providing the students with valuable insights from their industry experience.
The students covered the use of Paramak for fusion reactor parametric geometry creation.
The workshop was aimed at beginners covering a wide range of topics including transport theory, running neutronic simulations, understanding material cross-sections, creating simulation geometries, scoring tallies, source definitions plus many more.
The course was very well attended with students from master's to PhD level looking to gain industry experience and knowledge related to the exciting and rapidly developing field of nuclear fusion.
"After delivering the workshop remotely in 2021, it was great to be back at University of York. The workshop was a great success, with students developing from having little or no neutronics knowledge at all, to having a fundamental understanding of neutronics and its application, and being able to perform a variety of studies using OpenMC.
Many thanks to Prof. Bruce Lipschultz for inviting us back."
John Billingsley, Cerberus Nuclear
To find out more check out the links to OpenMC and University of York Fusion CDT.
Cerberus Nuclear have recruited a number of graduate and early career staff over the last three years, including three new members of the radiation shielding team in September and October last year.
In order to train and maintain SQEP shielding assessors, our very own Peter Evans has been running "Shielding School", which consists of structured training and mentoring sessions to support advanced and early career members of the team along side their project work.
"It is essential that shielding assessors have the background knowledge to put their work into context, and are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the tools available to them." - Peter Evans, Principal Shielding Consultant
The sessions are a mixture of lectures and demonstrations, and the attendees are encouraged to interact presenting challenges and lessons learnt each week. Each part of the Shielding Design Process is covered in detail, highlighting the input, calculations and output requirements for each step. "Homework" tasks for the attendees are set so that everyone has a chance to put the training into practice. This mix of theory and practical training is developing our graduate recruits into well rounded shielding assessors.
"Cerberus's shielding training is ace! It provides a wealth of insight into shielding techniques and best practises all within a friendly and interesting course." - Sam Hilton, attendee
"The feedback we have received within the company has been extremely positive. Having dedicated time within the business for the shielding team to come together, share knowledge and good practice is essential in achieving high standards for our clients. The time and effort put into the course is recognised by all the directors, well done Pete.” - Daniel Cork, Director
NTEC Shielding Design Process Lecture
The UK Shielding Forum (TSF) provides support for the Radiation Shielding Module of the University of Liverpool’s NTEC course, providing an industry focused knowledge input to the module.
Several TSF member organisations provide lectures on a wide range of subjects, from Monte Carlo and deterministic codes to practical radiation shielding applications.
As a key member of TSF, Cerberus Nuclear provides a student lecture on the Shielding Design Process. Our talk focuses on how this high-level process is used in industry to supporting facility design.
Due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, our own Geoff Hall pre-recorded the lecture for the second year running, which was shown to students and very well received. Geoff then followed up the lecture with a live Q&A session where students were tasked to think about the practicalities of defining a shielding design basis and performing shielding calculations based on that design basis for a realistic scenario. They were then given the chance to ask general questions about the subjects covered in the lecture.
"The Radiation Shielding course has greatly benefited from input provided by professional experts from the shielding community. Geoff Hall recorded a lecture on the shielding design process and provided a follow up live structured Question and Answer session. These sessions were extremely well received by the students and provide an excellent insight into the professional skills required for shielding design." - Andy Boston, Course Lead.
The live session was well attended by students, who engaged with the exercise and asked a variety of pertinent questions both about the exercise and the lecture itself.
"Cerberus Nuclear has a long association supporting the NTEC course. It's great to see new people passionate about working in the industry and we hope that our involvement further encourages the students to take up a career in the nuclear sector." - Daniel Cork, Director
UK Working Party on Criticality, November 2021
Cerberus Nuclear attended the second Working Party on Criticality (WPC) meeting of the year, taking place as a web-conference.
Stewart Hay attended as our representative with graduate, Katrina Christaki, attending as an observer for the first time. As the meeting was held online, it was a good opportunity for Katrina to progress her professional development gaining insight to the range of issues considered by the WPC and its sub-groups as well as how they interact with licenced sites.
There were discussions surrounding criticality resources and training with and improvements that could be made in the future. We also gave an update on our Alpha Resilience Capability (ARC) Programme funded project, CARTA.
The next WPC will be the 100th meeting, expected to take place around May 2022. It is hoped that this may take place in-person once again.
We have been working hard to implement our Business Management System (BMS). The system provides the policies, processes, procedures and records of forms/templates for consistent management of the business, projects and personnel with regards to Quality, Environment and Health and Safety. At the heart of this system are our Quality, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety Policies.
The impact of the BMS can already be seen. The entire company was recently first aid trained, and we have been using Microsoft Forms for recording communication and training sessions, such as the mentoring sessions lead by experienced assessors for our new starters.
In August our BMS was audited by the British Assessment Bureau. We are excited to announce that, as a result of this external audit, we are now UKAS accredited for ISO Standards 9001 (Quality Management), 14001 (Environmental Management) and 45001 (Occupational Health and Safety)!
You can verify the validity of our ISO certificates by entering our certificate numbers (229161, 230299, 230300) via this link: www.british-assessment.co.uk/verify
Cerberus Nuclear are proud to announce that two graduate consultants have recently joined the company. Henry Faulkner and Jacob Westerman have recently completed the NTEC (Nuclear Technology and Education Consortium) Nuclear Science and Technology Masters. They completed their Summer Placements with Cerberus and have since started full time.
Henry gained extensive experience using MCNP to model fissile arrays of barrels containing separated plutonium waste with differing compositions during his summer project. He analysed results using machine learning methods in Python to predict the safest possible arrangement of units. Henry is looking to build upon his knowledge and academic experience in both the shielding and criticality safety teams. In addition to his consultancy work, he is attending shielding and criticality mentoring sessions lead by our experienced team members in line with industry standards.
Jacob’s summer project included criticality calculations on three distinct fissile systems including a random and uniform heterogeneous system with immiscible liquids. He developed software using Python to generate all MCNP input files. This allowed for quick changes to be made and a range of properties investigated such as enrichment, particulate size and material, volume fraction and moderator material. Jacob is also attending shielding mentoring sessions lead by experienced members of the shielding team in order to further his career as a shielding consultant.
Since starting with the company, both Jacob and Henry have attended the company First Aid training course with St John’s Ambulance, and PHITS training run by JAEA to further develop their shielding skills.
Emergency First Aid Training at Work
Cerberus Nuclear recently took part in ‘Emergency First Aid Training at Work’, delivered by St John Ambulance.
Julie (St John Ambulance) delivered an informative and engaging course with lots of interaction from team. The course is aimed at first aiders in small, low risk working environments, like ours, and teaches basic life saving first aid skills including CPR, bleeding, choking adults, use of defibrillators, and health & safety regulation.
In recognition of the flexible way in which we work, we decided it would be best for everyone to undertake the training so as not to be reliant on ‘nominated first aiders’. This was the first time (almost) all of the company were together since before the pandemic and provided an opportunity for the recent new starters to meet everyone (more news on this soon!). The fact that we were also able to go for a meal afterwards was a bonus.
Following on from the training, we have made improvements to our office first aid kit and fitted a defibrillator in our Birchwood Park office. The feedback from the course was very positive and we would recommend it to other organisations.
Cerberus Nuclear at the World Nuclear Exhibition in Paris
Cerberus Nuclear are attending the World Nuclear Exhibition in Paris on 30th November - 2nd December 2021.
The WNE is the world's largest exhibition dedicated to nuclear energy, and the first platform dedicated to the global civil nuclear community. The three day event combines business meetings, guided tours, workshops, debates and panel discussions. This year's event theme is "the nuclear industry, a key partner for a low carbon society in a responsible future".
Our booth is in the Start Up Planet, a dedicated exhibition space for about 20 new companies in the nuclear field which has been specially designed to optimise product demonstrations, pitches, networking and new encounters. In addition to our exhibition booth, we have also been entered into the WNE Innovation Awards for the Radiation Protection Training Aid (RAPTA).
This year, the WNE Awards Ceremony will take place at 5pm on 30th November. There will be two prizes for each of the four innovation categories - Nuclear Safety, Operational Excellence, Products & Services, and Skills & Knowledge Management.
Dan, Tom and Emily will be attending the exhibition, so head over to booth M29 in the Start Up Planet to meet them!
The end of September was dissertation deadline time for our three NTEC summer students. This was our busiest year to date, welcoming three students from the University of Manchester.
NTEC (Nuclear Technology Education Consortium) offer a postgraduate-level masters degree in Nuclear Science and Technology, which is delivered in both directly taught and distance learning formats. Students produce a dissertation over the summer, often involving support of industry partners like Cerberus Nuclear.
This year, students worked on projects involving modelling of arrays in criticality safety, analytical methods for radiation shielding and machine learning optimisation.
All of our students successfully completed their projects and we wait in anticipation for their results!
