Workshop on the Role of Innovation in the Nuclear Back-End
Cerberus Nuclear had the opportunity to attend the Workshop on the Role of Innovation in the Nuclear Back-End, jointly organised by the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and Sellafield Ltd. Thomas Scone and Tom Page sat in on the various talks that ranged from the current accomplishments of robotics within nuclear environments around the world to the emerging potential of artificial intelligence to support various ongoing decommissioning challenges.
With representatives from across Europe and further afield, including China, South Korea, Canada and the US, the workshop showed the benefits of learning from the global nuclear industry. Looking forwards, Cerberus Nuclear is keen to keep an eye on further innovative work in different countries and will continue to seek new opportunities for our own expertise and technologies to find use wherever it may be best used.
OSSFE Conference 2025
Last week, our shielding consultant, John Billingsley, had the opportunity to attend the Open Source Software for Fusion Energy (OSSFE) Conference – a first-of-its-kind event dedicated to advancing the development of open-source tools within the fusion energy community. The conference brought together researchers, developers, and enthusiasts from around the world to share exciting open source developments designed to accelerate progress in one of the most complex scientific challenges of all time.
Throughout the day, there was a wide range of engaging sessions and discussions, including technical talks, poster presentations, software demos, Q&A panel sessions, and informal meetups. Researchers presented on a broad range of topics including plasma physics, neutronics, tritium transport, and materials science, and showcased new tools in practical software tutorials.
The event was hosted through Gather in fully customized virtual platform which had been designed to replicate a real-world conference space. This wasn’t something we’d used before and was an interesting new environment to explore. You could navigate the space just like a real conference – dropping into rooms where presentations where happening or using proximity chat to strike up conversations with other attendees as you “walked” past. It brought a surprisingly authentic feel to an online event.
A huge thank you to the organising committee - Rémi Delaporte-Mathurin, James Dark, Jonathan Shimwell, Nick Murphy, Patrick Shriwise, Samuele Meschini, Ethan Peterson, and Julien Hillairet – for putting together such a well-organised and engaging event. We are looking forward to attending again in 2026.
Cerberus Nuclear returned to the University of Birmingham to deliver an industrial lecture for the Physics and Technology of Nuclear Reactors (PTNR) masters course. Katrina, Toby, and Zac are all alumni of the PTNR course and were excited to return to campus for this presentation.
Katrina opened the presentation, introducing the students to Cerberus Nuclear and the work we do in radiation shielding, criticality safety, as well as nuclear characterisation and innovation.
Zac then discussed radiation shielding in more detail, talking to the students about the different areas of the shielding design process, the importance of these areas, and examples of how an assessment is carried out for each of these areas. The radiation shielding section of the presentation was capped off with a discussion of shielding verification techniques.
Toby delivered the criticality safety section of the lecture, engaging the students with quickfire questions about the factors affecting criticality. He also discussed his experience working as a criticality safety assessor, and introduced the students to criticality safety training resources including CARTA, Cerberus Nuclear's VR criticality training tool.
Katrina closed the presentation with a discussion of career opportunities in the nuclear industry, shining a spotlight on the Working Party on Criticality (WPC) and The Shielding Forum (TSF). It was a fantastic day and was great to catch up with Professor Paul Norman and meet the new cohort of PTNR students.
We would like to thank Paul for inviting us back and wish the current PTNR cohort the best of luck in the future!
HAWTT Team wins NDA Collaboration Award
Following on from the recent NDA supply chain event, we are proud to share that the Higher Activity Waste Thermal Treatment Team (HAWTT) were announced as the winners of the award for 'best example of delivering excellence through collaboration'! Cerberus Nuclear alongside NTS and NWS colleagues have been providing criticality expertise to the programme as part of a wider team composed of RED Engineering, Sellafield Ltd, Cavendish Nuclear, Tetronics, NNL and AtkinsRéalis.
Our congratulations to everyone on the project whose hard work has been recognised in this achievement!
We would like to recognise Sarah, Dan and Tom for their ongoing support on this project for Cerberus Nuclear (with extra thanks for Tom for kindly taking time away from a busy and successful supply chain event to represent Cerberus Nuclear at the receipt of the award).
Cerberus Nuclear Return to Support NTEC Radiation Shielding Module
Cerberus Nuclear were pleased to once again support the NTEC Radiation Shielding module at the University of Liverpool, marking another consecutive year of involvement. Our consultant, Nick Seibt, delivered a lecture on the Shielding Design Process in collaboration with The Shielding Forum (TSF), which outlined the industry’s best-practice approach to designing effective radiation shielding for facilities handling radiation sources.
We are proud to continue supporting this aspect of the course and to provide students with valuable insight into the practical challenges and considerations of shielding design in industry.
In addition, our consultant, John Billingsley, provided support throughout the day, guiding students in the use of MCNP. It was also great to see so many students working with Cyclone, a state-of-the-art MCNP model viewer developed by Orthrus Software, which significantly streamlined the modelling of the students' experimental setups. The positive feedback on its usability and impact was especially rewarding to receive.
A big thank you to Professor Andy Boston and the NTEC course team for inviting us back again this year. We look forward to continuing our support in the future.
Cyclone Sage at RPSD 2024
Cerberus Nuclear were proud to support Orthrus Software at the ANS Winter Conference 2024 hosted at Sea World, Orlando, running from 17th to 21st Nov. This prestigious event brings together experts from across the nuclear industry, offering a platform to share progress, showcase projects, and discuss advancements in the nuclear sector. We were thrilled to connect with experts in the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (RPSD) and attend a variety of interesting technical sessions.
Orthrus Software presented a talk on Cyclone Sage – a cutting-edge AI assistant designed to revolutionise MCNP input deck creation. Cyclone Sage stands out by delivering precise, hallucination-free inputs seamlessly integrated within Orthrus’ Cyclone UI. It’s an exciting step forward in the world of AI and Monte Carlo simulations, and we’re thrilled to see the positive response from the community. We look forward to continuing our support of the development of Cyclone Sage and trying out its exciting new features.
A huge thank you to the organisers of the conference and to everyone who put on such a great event. We look forward to coming back soon.
Our delegates, Dan, John and Pete (Orthrus Software) also managed to squeeze in some Florida sights, including an airboat tour – complete with lots of alligators!
Fire Safety Training
A group from Cerberus Nuclear recently received fire safety training. Our trainer for the morning was Steve Wilcock from North West Fire Training. The course started with a presentation on fire safety, which included what fire extinguishers to use in the event of a fire and fire marshal strategies.
A huge amount of content was covered as part of the training course, but the team’s key takeaways included:
Doors are a powerful tool in preventing the spread of fire, even if they are not a fire door;
Always check the detector which has gone off, and;
Do not use a powder extinguisher in an office or home environment.
The presentation was interesting and Steve was very engaging! We were particularly in awe of how in sync he was with his presentation slides!
After the presentation, the group had a chance to put what they had learnt to the test by putting out fires using a CO2 and foam fire extinguisher.
We’d like to say a massive thank you to Steve for delivering a great training course, and to Birchwood Golf Club for hosting us!
Both trips were a success! We had the opportunity to talk to lots of interesting people with a wide variety of backgrounds and future career plans. We would like to thank the University of Birmingham, University of York, and the White Rose Industrial Physics Academy for their hands in organising these events and their hospitality throughout.
We love being able to introduce people to Radiation Shielding and Criticality Safety at these types of events as well as talking to those who already have aspirations to work within these fields. Cerberus Nuclear look forward to attending similar events throughout the year and hopefully returning to both of these events next year!
Big Science Business Forum 2024
Cerberus Nuclear had the pleasure of attending the Big Science Business Forum 2024 in Trieste, running from 1st to 4th October. 'Big Science' refers to large scale collaboration on scientific projects funded by governments or international agencies. Sam and Dan had an excellent time at the forum, which was a great opportunity for networking, sharing knowledge, and exploring the latest trends across Big Science.
This year’s event showcased cutting-edge innovations and brought together organisations at the forefront of their industry with major names like CERN, the European Space Agency, and Fusion for Energy in attendance. We were particularly interested in discussions on fields where we can utilise our expertise in radiation shielding and activation analysis.
We were grateful to attend through the SME Track and were proud to present our poster on radiation shielding as part of the poster session. This was well received by attendees, and a big thank you goes to Andrew Weaver for his hard work in creating the poster.
The forum attracted organisations from across the globe, and we were glad to see strong representation from the North West and the Midlands. We had several valuable discussions throughout the forum, as well as during the social dinner in the city, which was a particular highlight of the trip.
The historic city of Trieste provided a wonderful backdrop to this year's event. Sam and Dan made some great connections and we look forward to any future collaborative projects that come from this.
New Starter: Thomas Scone
We are delighted to announce that Thomas Scone has joined Cerberus Nuclear!
Thomas has joined us after working as a Teaching Fellow for the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Birmingham, for the last 2 and a half years. Thomas was the Mechanical Engineering Lab Lead for the School of Engineering, managing the design and delivery of various module labs for students. In addition, he developed materials for delivering teaching on ethics in engineering, Finite Element Analysis (FEA), and design practises across various modules. His PhD research covered the statistical analysis of large gait data sets and the modelling of magnetic fluids for soft robotic gait rehabilitation.
Thomas will be putting his experience to good use supporting our Nuclear Characterisation team and Innovation Projects, as well as training in Radiation Shielding and Criticality Safety. Welcome to the team Thomas!
