Real-world aspects of the nuclear criticality safety program at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville

Journal Article · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society

OSTI ID:436796

Bentley, C L; Dunn, M E; Goluoglu, S; Paschal, L S ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States); and others

The nuclear criticality safety (NCS) program at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (UTK) emphasizes the {open_quotes}real world{close_quotes} in the NCS courses that are offered and also the NCS research that is conducted. Two NCS courses are offered at UTK. The first course is an introduction to the NCS field, which uses the text by Knief and includes an overview of criticality accidents that have actually happened, standards that are currently in use and being developed, and state-of-the-art computer methods and codes. The students learn the same codes, including both theory and application, that are used by most professionals in the NCS field. Thus, if a student accepts a job offer in the NCS area after graduation, he or she is capable of doing productive NCS work the first day on the job. Subcritical limits, hand-calculation methods, current regulations [both U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)] and current practices are also discussed in the introductory course. The second course emphasizes real world experience and is taught by five instructors with over 100 years of combined experience.

• OSTI ID: 436796
• Report Number(s): CONF-9606116--
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Vol. 74; ISSN 0003-018X; ISSN TANSAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
42 ENGINEERING
CALCULATION METHODS
CRITICALITY
EDUCATION
ENGINEERS
RECOMMENDATIONS
SAFETY
TRAINING