MANDATE

The primary mandate is to promote the transfer of nuclear science and engineering technical knowledge amongst CNS members and the CANDU nuclear industry at large.

The secondary mandate is the training of young scientists and engineers in the fundamentals of our craft to ensure our knowledge base is maintained and advanced.

These mandates are to be achieved through conferences, symposia, training courses, and specialist meetings.  These activities are to be budgeted to provide a surplus to help advance the general goals of the CNS.

NSED SYMPOSIA AND CONFERENCES:

The Nuclear Simulation Symposium has been the traditional conference under the purview of the NSED.  This conference typically draws anywhere from 40 to 70 attendees.  The conference is usually timed for early spring or late fall.  Every third year, the Simulation Symposium is replaced by the International Simulation Conference.  The main objective of this conference is to gather reactor physics, thermalhydraulics, fuel, and reactor-safety specialists in one place for the communication of recent work on CANDU andother reactors including GEN-VI reactors and SMR (Small Modular Reactor).

In the past 2 decades, the NSED has also organized a series of bi-national or international conferences on Super-Critical Water-cooled Reactors (SCWR). The NSED has, at times, assisted in other conference organization, such as the CNS annual conference.  Such conferences are not the direct responsibility of the NSED but do help fulfill the NSED mandates.

NSED COURSES:

In recent decades, the NSED has organized the CANDU Reactor Safety course (Introductory Level), Thermalhydraulic cpurse, Reactor Physics course, and the Regional Overpower Protection (ROP) system course.  NSED intends to expand the NSED courses to include an advanced CANDU Reactor-Safety course, a CANDU aging course, and a Trip-Coverage course.

The CANDU Reactor Safety course is an introductory-level course designed to broaden the scientist’s or engineer’s knowledge beyond his/her specialty.  The course covers CANDU safety through a series of lectures.  These lectures cover issues in design, licensing (regulation), reactor physics, thermalhydraulics, safety, risk (PSA/PRA analysis), severe accidents, and environmental impact.

The ROP course covers the design, operation, and analysis of the ROP protection system for the CANDU reactor.  This system is one of the most effective trip-coverage systems ensuring safe operation of the CANDU reactor.