YGN Introduction to Safety Case, Criticality and Shielding Seminar
For the second year running, Cerberus Nuclear have sponsored the Nuclear Institute (NI)Young Generation Network (YGN) “Introduction to Safety Case, Criticality and Shielding” seminar. This is one of a series of “Intro to” events which aims to give YGN members and early career professionals a valuable insight into different specialisms within the nuclear industry.
The day featured an array of talks covering topics on radiation safety assessment, safety case procedure, shielding and criticality, and the Cerberus Nuclear team were involved throughout the day! Tom, a Cerberus Nuclear director, started the day with an introduction to our company history and capability. Daniel gave a lecture on what a criticality is, covering the underlying physics and the factors affecting criticality. Sarah and Zac gave an overview of interesting applications of both criticality and shielding that Cerberus has been involved in. This showcased our virtual reality criticality training tool CARTA, our recent Game Changers project for Sellafield Ltd in collaboration with Jacobs, development work in shielding for fusion reactors and previous shielding verification work.
The day concluded with a Q&A panel, with Sarah and Tom helping the panellists to provide insight and advice on careers in criticality, shielding and safety cases. There was plenty of opportunity for discussions with delegates, who all had very thoughtful and inquisitive questions and we also had some exciting networking conversations with the other speakers, so expect upcoming collaborations and future events!
Thank you to Ellie Ford and the NI YGN for organising a successful event!
The forum brought together industry and academia, exploring current research and advancements. Particular presentation standouts were Ewan Woodbridge (University of Bristol) “The Utilization of Legacy Mine Sites as Training Environments for Radiological Emergency Response Preparedness”, and Dr Mariia Zimina (University of Bristol) “ Neutron irradiated materials studies: challenges and prospects”. It was interesting to reflect on the current work at Cerberus Nuclear and the potential applications of research into industry.
As part of the event Haleema was able to tour the MULTIForm laboratory facilities, which specialise in experimental investigation into the study of multiphase flows in water/acidic systems and high temperature molten salt systems. Lastly Haleema really enjoyed seeing the famous University of Leeds rabbits that were enjoying the summer weather in St. Georges field.
Thank you to the event organisers for putting on an excellent event in the historic University of Leeds campus.
Retain, Sustain, and Thrive: Cerberus Nuclear attend the IDN Conference 2024
Last week, three members of the Cerberus Nuclear team, Katrina Christaki, Hannah Evans, and Dan Rutland, attended the Inclusion and Diversity in Nuclear (IDN) Conference 2024 in Manchester. The theme of this years conference was "Retain, Sustain, and Thrive: Harnessing Inclusion to Power Growth in the UK Nuclear Sector", which focused on how to retain people within the sector by creating environments where everyone feels welcomed and enabled to thrive.
The morning featured a panel from industry leaders on how they implement cultural change and a engaging keynote speech from Prof. Jason Arday on Intersectionality and Belonging in the Workplace. The afternoon saw the team split up to cover a wide range of available workshops covering topics on retaining neurodivergent colleagues, embracing privilege, confronting microaggressions in the workplace, and how to achieve EDI accreditation.
We look forward to sharing and embracing the lessons learned from the event amongst the team, and using that knowledge to help continually improve making the company and nuclear industry a welcoming and supportive place to be. We will be using our learnings from the event to develop an EDI Strategy for the company, which we look forward to sharing in the future!
Cerberus Nuclear joins University of Birmingham Nuclear Masters Steering Committee
A steering committee meeting was held yesterday (19th June), and Katrina Christaki and Daniel Rutland were delighted to take part! The meeting was attended by a number of industry leaders. The purpose of the steering committee was to discuss key issues, including the course content, opportunities for students, and the continual need from across the nuclear industry for skills taught on both courses, such as criticality and shielding.
Cerberus Nuclear has enjoyed a successful relationship with the university, taking on students for summer placements and in graduate roles in previous years. We look forward to becoming more involved with the courses as part of the steering committee.
We would like to thank Paul Norman for inviting us to be involved in the steering committee, and for organising an interesting and thought provoking day!
Cerberus Nuclear attend SRP Conference
Recently, Hannah, Sam and Haleema had the pleasure of attending the 2024 Society for Radiological Protection (SRP) Conference in Eastbourne. It was especially significant as this was Cerberus Nuclear’s first year attending as an SRP Affiliated Organisation.
The conference itself was a hub of knowledge, innovation and learning, with many great presentations, posters and stands. Particular presentation standouts included James Cairns from Aurora Health Physics Services with “Not my CuP of Tea? A radiological insight into the first 48 hours of the Litvinenko Murder Investigation”, and Amjad Khursheed from the ONR with “Importance of Age and Sex in Prospective Analysis of Off-Site Radiological Consequences following an Accident at a UK Nuclear Site”.
Our Shielding Lead Hannah had the important role of judging awards for posters and oral presentations, while Senior Shielding Consultant Sam, delivered a fantastic affiliated organisations presentation about Cerberus Nuclear, and Criticality Consultant Haleema, who is also a member of the SRP Magazine Editorial Team, connected with SRP members and interviewed for an upcoming SRP magazine article.
We look forward to implementing the knowledge gained and building on the connections made. A massive thank you to the SRP organisers for another fantastic SRP conference and we very much look forward to seeing everyone again next year!
Over the course of the week, they developed their knowledge of FLUKA, studying the basic concepts such as geometry and material definitions, as well as sources and scoring to provide a solid understanding of the code. They also studied advanced topics such as neutronics, radioprotection, and activation.
Zac's Example of the Death Star in FLUKA.
Cerberus Nuclear’s access to the FLUKA code has bolstered our radiation shielding and nuclear characterisation resources. It will allow us to consolidate our capability in a broad range of high energy physics disciplines such as accelerator and beam line design, as well as particle physics, aerospace, and medical applications.
Cerberus Nuclear would like to thank CERN for hosting the course and INTA for their role in the local organisation of the course. Sam, Zac, and John also had the opportunity to visit various INTA facilities during the course, which we are excited to tell you about over the next few weeks!
Cerberus Nuclear attends Early Career Criticality Safety Network launch
Haleema, Tu, and Andrew recently represented Cerberus Nuclear on a two-day event for the launch of the Early Career Criticality Safety Network (ECSN), which included two site visits to the Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) and Sellafield.
The first day began with a presentation on the history of LLWR, as well as its place and future in the modern nuclear industry. This was then followed by a tour of the site, guiding us through the waste repository system.
The tour was followed in the afternoon by the launch event for ECSN, beginning with a talk on criticality safety delivered by an expert from Sellafield. This was followed by presentations from the ECSN committee members on the current goals for the ECSN, ranging from a dedicated webpage under the Working Party on Criticality (WPC) and social media accounts, to outreach to schools and universities to develop outside awareness of criticality. This was then broken up into smaller discussions across the room, which was an excellent opportunity for networking and meeting new people also early in their careers.
The second day comprised of a tour of the Sellafield site, including a more in depth look at the THORP building, and the process that would have taken place during reprocessing.
Our thanks extend to the ECSN & WPC for organising this launch event and implementing the idea of an early careers network. We would also like to extend thanks to the members of Sellafield, NWS, and LLWR that organised for us to go on two excellent site tours as part of the launch event.
The lecture began with an introduction to Cerberus Nuclear including our specialisms in radiation shielding, criticality safety, and nuclear characterisation.
Katrina took a deeper look into criticality safety, highlighting a day in the life and how criticality safety is used within the nuclear industry, as well as discussing more technical topics such as the factors affecting criticality. The students were very interested in CARTA, a criticality training tool developed by Cerberus Nuclear that utilises VR.
Zac detailed the company's radiation shielding work, talking about the shielding design process and how Monte Carlo techniques are used for shielding assessments. The shielding verification procedure as well as dynamic visualisation techniques were presented before rounding off the lecture highlighting our nuclear characterisation work and discussing our software developments through Orthrus Software.
We would like to thank Paul Norman for inviting the team to present again this year!
New Starter: Daniel Rutland
We are excited to announce the latest addition to our Criticality Safety and Radiation Shielding Team, Daniel Rutland. Daniel has over three years’ experience in the nuclear industry, and one as a criticality safety assessor. As part of his experience, he has performed criticality sensitivity analyses of fissile waste packages for transportation in MONK, ensuring subcriticality and compliance with nuclear transport safety regulations.
Daniel joined the company last Monday following a couple of weeks walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain. We are delighted he has decided to join the team at Cerberus Nuclear!
Cerberus Nuclear Invest in Resilience Training for Employees
At Cerberus Nuclear we are committed to the wellbeing of our employees. Over the last year we have trained mental health first aiders, supported two of our employees at the CALM Design School and focussed on social and wellbeing activities such as knitting, climbing, roller disco and sunflower growing. The next step in this process was a Resilience Training Day, given by the amazing Bernie from St John Ambulance.
Eleven members of the team attended the training day, where Bernie took us through the 5 pillars of resilience. The training room was a safe space for people to share their feelings and opinions. We would like to thank everyone who attended for their openness on the day, which helped drive conversation, group learning and understanding.
The group worked together to come up with ideas that individuals could then include in their personal action plans. Actions included tasks like meal planning for healthier eating, no phones in bed, thinking about what went well each day, and exercising more, either alone or with friends and family.
Thanks to St John Ambulance, we all have additional tools at our disposal to help foster a resilient workplace culture and improve the wellbeing of the team.
