From October, 17 to 21 advanced training courses for nuclear field employees were conducted in MEPhI, during which they learnt SCALE software, developed in Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The participants were representatives of Rosatom State Corporation and scientific research organisations, including MEPhI.
Education was conducted as a part of the Agreement between Rosatom State Corporation and Nuclear Energy Agency, NEA OECD, which includes conducting educational courses, where employees of Russian enterprises get acquainted with modern software. On behalf of MEPhI the event was organized by representatives of the Institute of nuclear physics and technologies.
16 people from 8 Rosatom organisations and three people from MEPhI attended a course of lectures in English as a part of courses, conducted in MEPhI. The difference from usual education was in the possibility of getting immediate feedback from program developers. As Russian audience already had an idea about the complex, this communication released from many questions. As the result, all the participants became certified users of program for analysis and projecting of nuclear objects’ safety.
This course was the first and it is planned to be held regularly. Cooperation with NEA OECD supposes conducting internships, participation in expert groups of the Agency, which defines integration of Russian representatives in the world nuclear industry. Since the signing of the Agreement the university actively orders and uses organization codes and databases, which are picked together in NEA Data Bank, which gives the possibility of using world experience in calculations and modelling of nuclear energy facilities in the educational process and compare the developments with best international examples.
On the last day of the courses representatives of Oak Ridge National Laboratory Germina Ilas and William Wieselquist told about their impressions:
We are impressed by the competence of Russian scientists, they studied very fast. The participants had a very high level of training in physics. We were shocked by their phrases: “This is clear, you shouldn’t explain further”. So, next time we will start with the questions.
Of course, there was a language barrier, but we coped with the help of gestures and pictures. Those, who knew English, helped us communicate the message across. This adds the value to the process – learning new program in another language is a challenge. We sometimes felt guilty for not knowing Russian and even learnt some of your words.
We hope that the next year a new course will be organized, because SCALE is a complex of programs, and we have considered only a part of it. The latest program, which had an access in Russia, was SCALE 4.4. 2 years ago an access to the new version was offered to NEA Data Bank. We think, it will be a push for scientific interaction in this sphere.
