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Education & Training

Examples of courses offered for students at TRIGA Reactor in Vienna:

  • Practical Course on RESEARCH REACTOR INSTRUMENTATION (Duration 1 full week, usually in summer semester, in groups of 3 students, max 9 students)

CONTENT

  1. Introduction into a typical reactor instrumentation

  2. Reactor safety principles

  3. Calibration of the nuclear channels

  4. Measurement of control rod drop times

  5. Neutron flux measurement with compensated ionisation chambers

  6. Fission chambers

  7. Self-powered neutron detectors

  8. Simulator program for PWR

  • Practical Course on REACTOR PHYSICS AND KINETICS
    (2 full weeks in January in groups of 4 students, max. 12 students)

CONTENT      

  1. Measurement of the thermal neutron flux density in the reactor core

  2. Measurement of the epithermal and fast neutron flux density in the reactor core

  3. Determination of the importance function and the void-coefficient

  4. Determination of the neutron absorption cross section according to the danger coefficient method

  5. Measurement of the reactor period

  6. Measurement of neutron cross sections at a beam port

  7. Critical experiment

  8. Control rod calibration and determination of the core excess reactivity

  9. Determination of the reactivity value of uranium fuel and graphite elements in different core positions

  10. Reactor power calibration and determination of the temperature coefficient of the reactivity

  11. Demonstration of a reactor pulse with different reactivity insertion

  • Practical Course on NEUTRON PHYSICS
    (in summer semester, in group of 3 students max 9 students)

CONTENT

  1. Neutron sources and moderators

  2. Activation detectors

  3. Experiments

    Diffusion length
    Relaxation length
    Transport mean free path
    Maxwell spectrum
    Neutron flux density

    Slowing-down area
    Migration length
    Slowing-down length
    1/E-spectrum
    Neutron density

    Fermi age
    Diffusion coefficient

    3.1   Spatial distribution of thermal and intermediate neutrons around a source of fast neutrons

    3.2   The neutron temperature of a reactor Maxwellian spectrum

    3.3   Albedo and thermal neutron flux depression

    3.4   Measurement of the diffusion lengths L of water

    3.5   Determination of the resonance energy according to the boron absorption method

    3.6   Determination of resonance parameters according to "integral" methods

    3.7   Resonance integral, intermediate neutron flux density, energy distribution of the intermediate neutron flux density

    3.8   Slowing-down area ("Fermi age")

International Training Courses at  the Vienna TRIGA Reactor

  • Eugene Wigner Course

    The Eugene Wigner Course was established in 2005 in cooperation between the TU Bratislava, TU Budapest, TU Prague and the VUT. A group of about 15 students was subdivided into four groups, started all together in Bratislava and then rotated among the involved Technical universities. At this course they carried out practical work at three different research reactors including theoretical lectures, and a final examination which was accredited by their home university with 6 ECTS. During the last two years, financing of this course became very difficult and the course was stopped although the feedback from all participants was very positive.

  • Training Course for the MTR+3I EU project

    The Atominstitut took part in the above mentioned EU project together with about 25 other European research centres. The contribution of the Atominstitut was to prepare a practical demonstration training course for future reactor operators. This course took place in March 2009 with five international participants and was successfully accepted as a demo course by the EU.

  • Nuclear Technology Education Consortium NTEC, UK

    In 2007, the NTEC coordinated by the University of Manchester contacted the Atominstitut if it could offer a one week academic reactor course for NTEC students. The contract was signed and since this time totally six courses (two per year) were carried out, each course with six NTEC students. The course is credited by NTEC with six ECTS.

  • NPP Staff from Slovakia

    Since several years, the Technical University of Bratislava is involved in the re-training of the NPP; staff of the NPP Bohunice and Mochovce. Since Slovakia does not operate a research reactor and Bratislava is very close to Vienna, the Atominstitut was asked to take over the practical part of the training course which has been performed six times since 2002.

  • MOL Courses

    The Belgian research centre MOL is requested by the regulatory body to offer a re-training programme for their operators. In view of this task, the Atominstitut was asked to host totally 36 operators divided into six groups of six participants each to perform a course using experiments both from the standard reactor physics and kinetics course as well as from the reactor instrumentation and control course.

  • IAEA Junior Safeguards Traineeship Program

    The IAEA recruits in regular intervals new safeguards inspectors, however developing countries complained that they do not have the prerequisites to apply for this job. Therefore the IAEA initiated as far back as 1984 every two years a 9 month training course for about 6 technicians from developing countries which are then in a position to apply for a job as safeguards inspector. The first practical part of this course takes place at the Atominstitut for one month every two years. In total about 120 junior safeguards trainees have passed through the Atominstitut.

  • Eastern European Research Reactor Coalition (EERRI)

    In 2008, the IAEA initiated several research reactor coalition programs to increase cooperation and utilization of research reactors in various regions. One region is Central and Eastern Europe and therefore the Eastern European Research Reactor Initiative (EERRI) was created. The Atominstitut is part of this coalition and one target of this initiative is to offer practical training to young professionals. Since the formation of EERRI two such courses were carried out, the first course coordinated by the Atominstitut in cooperation with the Institute Josef Stefan in Ljubljana/Slovenia, the KFKI and Technical University in Budapest/Hungary, the second course was coordinated by the TU Prague in cooperation with the Atominstitut and the Institute Josef Stefan in Ljubljana/Slovenia. More courses are planned for 2011. Participants came through IAEA Technical Cooperation projects from all over the world.

  • Selected Courses for IAEA Technical Cooperation projects

    The Atominstitut hosts IAEA fellows for periods of one month to one year through IAEA Technical Cooperation projects. Since 1983, more than 200 fellows participated at highly specialised training project from all over the world, the fellows are attached according to their interest to one of the working groups. Experience shows that after their return to their home institute long term relation and cooperation between the two institutes result as a positive outcome from these fellowships.

Source: by Helmuth Böck, Vienna University of Technology/Atominstitut