The Development, Content, Design, and Conduct of the 2011 Piloted US DOE Nuclear Criticality Safety Program Criticality Safety Engineering Training and Education Project

Conference · Mon Sep 19 00:00:00 EDT 2011

OSTI ID:1026740

Hopper, Calvin Mitchell ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

In May 1973 the University of New Mexico conducted the first nationwide criticality safety training and education week-long short course for nuclear criticality safety engineers. Subsequent to that course, the Los Alamos Critical Experiments Facility (LACEF) developed very successful 'hands-on' subcritical and critical training programs for operators, supervisors, and engineering staff. Since the inception of the US Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Criticality Technology and Safety Project (NCT&SP) in 1983, the DOE has stimulated contractor facilities and laboratories to collaborate in the furthering of nuclear criticality as a discipline. That effort included the education and training of nuclear criticality safety engineers (NCSEs). In 1985 a textbook was written that established a path toward formalizing education and training for NCSEs. Though the NCT&SP went through a brief hiatus from 1990 to 1992, other DOE-supported programs were evolving to the benefit of NCSE training and education. In 1993 the DOE established a Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP) and undertook a comprehensive development effort to expand the extant LACEF 'hands-on' course specifically for the education and training of NCSEs. That successful education and training was interrupted in 2006 for the closing of the LACEF and the accompanying movement of materials and critical experiment machines to the Nevada Test Site. Prior to that closing, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) was commissioned by the US DOE NCSP to establish an independent hands-on NCSE subcritical education and training course. The course provided an interim transition for the establishment of a reinvigorated and expanded two-week NCSE education and training program in 2011. The 2011 piloted two-week course was coordinated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and jointly conducted by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) classroom education and facility training, the Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) hands-on criticality experiments training, and the US DOE National Criticality Experiment Research Center (NCERC) hands-on criticality experiments training that is jointly supported by LLNL and LANL and located at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) This paper provides the description of the bases, content, and conduct of the piloted, and future US DOE NCSP Criticality Safety Engineer Training and Education Project.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1026740
• Resource Relation: Conference: 9. International Conference on Nuclear Criticality Safety (ICNC 2011), Edinburgh (United Kingdom), 19-22 Sep 2011
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
CRITICALITY
DESIGN
EDUCATION
LANL
LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY
NATIONAL SECURITY
NEVADA TEST SITE
NEW MEXICO
ORNL
REACTOR SAFETY
SAFETY ENGINEERING
TRAINING
US DOE
Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
Training
Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineer Training
Background