Cerberus Nuclear brings industry expertise to NTEC Radiation Shielding Module

Cerberus Nuclear is proud to have once again supported the NTEC Radiation Shielding Module at the University of Liverpool, providing industry-focused knowledge input to the module. 

As a key member of The Shielding Forum, Cerberus Nuclear delivered a lecture on the Shielding Design Process, providing a high-level overview of its practical application in the industry and its role in supporting facility designs.  

The presentation was delivered by John Billingsley and Sam Hilton, who also provided support to the students throughout the day by assisting with their radiation shielding workshop. During the workshop, John and Sam introduced the students to the benefits of Orthrus Software's tool, Cyclone, for visualisation of Monte Carlo models and results.

The session was well attended by industry professionals and students, who actively engaged with the lecture and posed thought-provoking questions. As alumni of the NTEC course themselves, John and Sam were able to provide valuable insights into their careers in the nuclear industry since graduating. 

We would like to thank Professor Andrew Boston and the University of Liverpool for inviting us back and providing us with the opportunity to contribute to the education of future nuclear professionals. 

“Thank you to the University of Liverpool for the invitation to deliver a lecture at the Radiation Shielding module. As an NTEC graduate, it was great to have the opportunity to contribute to the delivery of the course, and provide insight to students on my experience in the nuclear industry since then.  

A big thank you to Professor Andy Boston for organising a great module.” 

– John Billingsley 

“As an NTEC graduate myself, it was great to be welcomed back and engage with students providing guidance on their Monte Carlo transport coding.” 

– Sam Hilton 

Revolutionising 3D Dose Rate Visualisation

Radiation Safety and Efficient Delivery

The nuclear industry is faced with the challenge of ensuring radiation safety and efficient delivery while dealing with the complexities of designing and operating nuclear facilities. In this context, dose rate visualisation plays a vital role in evaluating and visualising radiation sources and their impact on the surrounding environment. This information is crucial in making informed decisions to maintain a safe working environment for the workforce and the general public. 

However, traditional methods for dose rate visualisation often result in bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the workflow. To address these issues, Cerberus Nuclear is committed to revolutionising the field by developing cutting-edge tools that simplify the production of 3D dose rate contour visualisation. This approach will allow our radiation shielding assessors to perform accurate assessments quickly and effectively, leading to better outcomes for our clients. 

At Cerberus Nuclear, we understand the importance of dose rate visualisation and are dedicated to providing innovative solutions that address the challenges faced by our clients. Our goal is to streamline the process and make it easier to visualise dose rates in real-world applications, thereby improving the overall safety and efficiency of delivery. 

Cyclone: Streamline your Radiation and Criticality Workflows

Orthrus Software, a subsidiary of Cerberus Nuclear, introduces Cyclone TM, a modern and intuitive web-based software suite aimed at simplifying Monte Carlo workflows. This powerful tool is specifically designed for radiation and criticality problems and offers a range of features to help you visualise and analyse your data with ease. 

Text Editor
Particle Tracks
3D & 2D Dose Rate Contours

Cyclone has already been deployed across a wide range of dose-uptake assessments and has revolutionised the workflows of our in-house radiation assessors. With Cyclone, you can combine 3D MCNP geometry and dose rate contours with ease, enhancing your capabilities and improving your outcomes. For more information and instant sign up check out orthrussoftware.com.

Dynamic Radiation Assessments using Dose Time 

Dose Time TM focuses on revolutionising dose visualisation in the nuclear industry. It uses novel interpolation methods for the calculation and visualisation of dynamic 2D and 3D dose rate contour maps, providing an effective tool for visualising and calculating dose uptake in a variety of radiation scenarios. 

Let us transform how radiation assessments are performed with Dose Time and experience the benefits of efficient and effective dose rate visualisation. 

If you're interested in learning more about 3D dose rate visualisation, or if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch at nuclear@cerberusnuclear.com. Our team is always ready to assist and provide the right solution for your needs.

UKAEA Fusion - STEP Reactor Shielding Design

Cerberus Nuclear and Assystem have been selected to deliver the STEP Reactor In-board Shield Design as part of the STEP Engineering Framework.

Cerberus’s neutronics and radiation transport expertise will play a key role working alongside Assystem’s well-established fusion experience in thermal and mechanical analysis.

The project concerns the extreme environment within the central column of the STEP fusion reactor where temperatures can range from over 100 million of degrees Celsius within the plasma to less than -200 degrees within just a few metres.

Tokamak Reactor MCNP® Geometry, produced using Cyclone™ Viewer by Orthrus Software.
Example Plasma Source & Neutron Interaction Cross Section used in Neutronics Calculations.

Cerberus Nuclear and Assystem are working closely with the STEP research team at UKAEA to develop radiation shielding and cooling strategies within the in-board shield section of the central column. The overall aim is to protect the sensitive toroidal magnets within the central column that work to contain the high temperature plasma. Cerberus role involves optimisation of the shielding to maximise the operational lifetime of these crucial reactor components. Using our knowledge and expertise in neutronics transport as well as interaction cross sections will be simulating a wide variety of arrangements to support continued development.

The delivery of this project is key in advancing the STEP fusion reactor design to the next phase, moving us closer to achieving a commercially viable fusion power plant.

“We are pleased to be working alongside Cerberus Nuclear on this key aspect of STEP. Collectively we will pool the engineering and design expertise, and specialist knowledge needed to ensure success in this project.

“Assystem is a well-established fusion engineering company working on multiple international projects, and we are invested in the UK’s ambition to accelerate progress in the development of this game-changing technology.”

Gary Reed, Transitional Energy Business Manager, Assystem

In its 13 countries of operation, Assystem’s 6,000+ experts are supporting energy transition. To achieve an affordable low-carbon energy supply, Assystem is committed to the development of decarbonised electricity (nuclear, renewables and electricity grids) and clean hydrogen. The Group is also helping drive the use of decarbonised electricity in industrial sectors such as transportation. Assystem is currently ranked as the second nuclear engineering group in the world.

"Cerberus is very proud to be contributing to such a noteworthy project with worldwide importance.

“The skills and experience we have in-house regarding radiation shielding is uniquely suited to support the project. Working closely with our colleagues at Assystem we look forward to the challenge of what will be a highly significant and exciting project.”

Daniel Cork, Director, Cerberus Nuclear

Cerberus Nuclear is an SME dedicated to radiation shielding, criticality safety and nuclear characterisation. Founded in 2016 we have grown rapidly to establish ourselves as an industry leader with a reputation for innovation and promoting good practice.

Our team has supported a wide range of projects within the civil nuclear, fusion, medical, research and defence sectors. Our mission is to “to provide high quality technical solutions with an emphasis on creativity and innovation. We achieve this by being an exemplary employer of talented individuals”

Featured image of STEP courtesy of UKAEA. Example tokamak reactor was based upon ITER Project Paper (2020) and Paramak ITER 2020 reactor model.

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.

Images: docs.openmc.org & paramak.readthedocs.io

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

Nuclear Institute - Dynamic Dose Rates

As part of Cerberus Nuclear’s Radiation Protection Training Aid (RAPTA) continued development work has been performed regarding the visualisation of dynamic radiation systems.

A dynamic radiation system is where radiation sources can move or change properties in 3D space either during a task or a facility operation. Cerberus Nuclear have developed in-house software to process these complex systems and simulate dynamic radiation scenarios within reasonable timescales.

Sam Hilton will be presenting at the North West Nuclear Institute talking about the advantages of accurately modelling dynamic radiation systems and how this can improve the accuracy of dose uptake assessments. The event is on 16th June, is free to attend, registration can be found at:

NWNI Webinar Register - https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YhBFB8E6QHO267kLetdNhA

University of Liverpool – NTEC Shielding Design Process Lecture

The UK Shielding Forum (TSF) has provided support for the Radiation Shielding Module of the University of Liverpool’s NTEC course for many years, providing an industry focused knowledge input to the radiation shielding module.

Several TSF member organisations provide lectures on a wide range of subjects, from Monte Carlo and deterministic codes to practical radiation shielding applications.

Cerberus Nuclear is key member of TSF and 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.

This year, due to the restrictions of Covid-19, our own Geoff Hall pre-recorded the lecture, which was shown to students and very well received. This was then followed up the next day by 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 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. Indeed, the session proved so popular that it ran an additional 30 minutes until the start of the next session!

47th Shielding Forum Meeting

Cerberus Nuclear hosted the 47th Shielding Forum meeting online this week. It had been hoped that the meeting would be held as part of the ANSWERS Seminar as usual; however, due to ongoing restrictions associated with COVID19 an online format was once again chosen, with the experience of hosting the previous meeting online making for a smoother and more involved process.

Attendees from Cerberus Nuclear, ARC, Atkins, Aurora, BAE Systems, Cavendish Nuclear, Davis & Musgrove, EDF, Edvance UK, INS, Jacobs, Magnox Ltd, Mott MacDonald, NNL, ONR, Orano, PHE, Rolls-Royce, RPS, Sellafield Ltd, SRP, STFC, Tokamak Energy, TUV SUD and UKAEA were there and the meeting was very well received by all participants.

Learning from the previous meeting was taken onboard and the opportunity was taken to break participants out into smaller groups to discuss topics of interest. Answers from these groups were obtained and collated using the online collaboration tool Menti, which allowed word clouds to be generated of the results. This was considered to be a very successful exercise by all concerned.

    “Once again, a big thank you to all attendees of TSF47, online engagement from members was up even from the last meeting, which itself far exceeded expectations. Therefore, we would like to thank everyone for their contributions during the meeting, particularly during the breakout sessions and to those who provided technical presentations for the meeting.”

Daniel Cork (TSF Chair)

One of the best received technical presentations was given by Cerberus’ own Peter Evans. The presentation was on Eddy, a program (freely available on GitHub either as an EXE or as source code) that Pete has written that takes MCNP outputs and processes them into a much more user-friendly HTML format. Significant interest was shown in the program from participants who use MCNP as their primary or cross-check shielding code and Pete fielded numerous questions on the current and planned capabilities of the program.

The next TSF members meeting (TSF48) is currently due to be held in May 2021 at the ANSWERS Seminar, COVID19 allowing. Further details will be found closer to the event at https://www.shieldingforum.com/.

Eddy - MCNP & SCALE Html Generator

Cerberus Nuclear has created Eddy, an open-source Html output generator for MCNP and SCALE.  The function of Eddy is to parse MCNP and SCALE output files into an easy-to-read and user-friendly format. Eddy has been written to work for both radiation transport and criticality calculations.

Eddy collates key information from an output file so that it can be quickly reviewed. Normalisation factors can also be specified to simplify interpretation of tally outputs.

Eddy Html outputs include:

Normalised Tally Results with Error

Highlighted Statistical Checks

K-effective and Error

Comments and Warnings

Cell Mass and Volumes

Particle Populations

Full MCNP Input

Eddy is simple to use from the command line or via its built-in interface. Hyperlinks within the Html enable the user to navigate to the required part of the output with ease.

The Html output from Eddy assists in the preparation of technical reports supports QA processes and improves workflow efficiency. The contained nature of the Html output and its small file size also facilitates the sharing of calculation outputs for independent review purposes.

Eddy is freely available and can be downloaded as an executable from here

If you would like to provide any feedback or would like to request additional features please get in touch by emailing nuclear@cerberusnuclear.com

46th Shielding Forum Meeting

Cerberus Nuclear hosted the 46th Shielding Forum meeting online this week. An online format was chosen due to the recent travel and meeting restrictions due to the COVID19 outbreak.

Attendees from  EDF Energy, Edvance, BAES, Cavendish Nuclear, Orano Projects, Kinectrics, UKAEA, Rolls Royce, Jacobs, SRP and ONR were there and the meeting spanned several different countries including United States, Canada and France.

Daniel Cork (TSF Chair)

A big thank you to all attendees of TSF46, online engagement from members far exceeded expectations and we would just like to thank everyone for their contributions during the meeting."

One of the key topic discussed was the proposed 2021 Shielding Awareness Course in which Cerberus Nuclear will be playing a key role. The course will be a collaboration between TSF and the Society of Radiological Protection (SRP).

The next TSF members meeting is currently due to be held in November 2020 at the ANSWERS Seminar. Further details will be found closer to the event at https://www.shieldingforum.com/