Simulators to practice safe operation of nuclear installations in Belarusian universities

Computer simulators have been installed in the Belarusian State University (BSU) and the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics (BSUIR) to practice reactor physics, control and safe operation of nuclear power installations. Professors and specialists have been trained in the safe operation of nuclear installations, representatives of the Belarusian Education Ministry told BelTA.

The certified program has been granted to the Belarusian universities by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The professors have been trained with assistance of the Moscow-based national nuclear research university MEPHI.

Belarusian students will practice the operation of specific equipment, hardware and software that their graduates will have to deal with after graduation. The measure will allow reducing the time young specialists need to settle in their jobs. The simulators are software solutions that can model the operation of an entire nuclear energy-generating unit, including the reactor compartment. The software can be used to learn about the general principles of the reactor operation and to study various modes of its operation, including abnormal ones.

Close attention is paid to on-the-job training of Belarusian students. Many of them were able to enjoy theoretical and practical training abroad in 2012. Thus, fourth-year students of the Belarusian State University (the physics department) carried out a series of lab work using the nuclear research reactor IR-100 of the Sevastopol National Nuclear Energy and Industry University. Meanwhile, second-year students of the Belarusian State University (the chemistry department) went for a course of theoretical and practical education in nuclear fuel. Fifth-year students of the BSU chemistry department went for practical training in the United Nuclear Research Institute in Dubna, Russia. Practical training was arranged for students as part of the program designed to teach measurements and methods to determine the activity while handling radioactive waste in Obninsk, Russia. Belarusian students were trained in the thermodynamics of transition and emergency modes of reactor installations in the Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University, in fundamentals of inventorying and control of radioactive substances and radioactive waste in the training center of the Balakovo nuclear power plant, in radiation safety and radiation control in Sochi.

On the job training for students of the Belarusian National Technical University (BNTU) was arranged in Germany. The future engineers also visited the Sevastopol National Nuclear Energy and Industry University. Students of the International Sakharov Environmental University performed a series of lab work in nuclear physics in the Obninsk Nuclear Energy Institute (a branch of MEPHI) and visited the information center of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Apart from that, foreign professors are invited to train future nuclear industry specialists. For instance, in 2012 in the Belarusian State University Professor of the Saint Petersburg State University Mr Valery Rubchenya read a series of lectures on neutron physics and the nuclear fuel cycle while professors of the Obninsk Nuclear Energy Institute read a series of lectures on the scientific, technical, social, and political problems of the nuclear energy development in the world as well as the kinetics and modeling of nuclear reactor processes. In the Belarusian State University professors of the Sevastopol National Nuclear Energy and Industry University read a series of lectures about nuclear station equipment diagnostics systems, physical protection fundamentals, the main and auxiliary equipment and reactor compartment systems of nuclear power plants with water-moderated power reactors. A representative of the Ivanovo State Energy University read a series of lectures about nuclear reactor physics.

The Belarusian National Technical University and the International Sakharov Environmental University also invite professors from abroad. In the BNTU pedagogues of the Sevastopol National Nuclear Energy and Industry University read a series of lectures about typical components of automated control systems and about nuclear station turbines. Professor of the Obninsk Nuclear Energy Institute Mr Yuri Kazansky read a series of lectures about the kinetics of nuclear reactors in the International Sakharov Environmental University.