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Educational Resources

This page includes links to a number of free and paid-for training resources or courses that a criticality assessor may wish to consider at some point in their future. None of the materials linked here have been created by or are owned by the WPC.

The WPC takes no responsibility for the content included in these resources and the links provided should not be seen as an endorsement by the WPC of any specific resource, material or course.

Training Materials

The following are openly available resources that a criticality assessor may want to use to develop or review and refresh their skillset:

Course Providers

  • Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) – LANL offers a number of courses on the Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) code, including courses specifically on MCNP’s use for nuclear criticality safety applications.
  • Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) – ORNL offer courses on the SCALE suite of codes and their wide applications, which includes criticality safety and sensitivity/uncertainty analysis.
  • Nuclear Technology Education Consortium (NTEC) – The NTEC is an educational consortium consisting of the Universities of Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield, and the Royal Navy. The NTEC offers a series of modules that may be taken as a Master’s degree, a PG Cert or a PG Dip, or even individual modules taken as CPD. The NTEC includes a specific module on criticality safety, and other modules which may be of interest to criticality assessors or those within the wider industry.
  • UK National Nuclear Laboratory (UKNNL) – UKNNL, in collaboration with the University of New Mexico, deliver a biennial criticality safety course. Further information is to be provided when it is available.
  • ANSWERS Software Service – The ANSWERS Software Service, currently part of Amentum, maintain and develop a number of codes, including the MONK criticality code. ANSWERS run a number of courses throughout the year on their suite of codes.
  • NEA Data Bank – The NEA Data Bank along with being useful in-of-itself also provides a number of different training courses throughout the year on different topics and codes, including MCNP, OpenMC and Serpent, among others.