Heinrichs, D P

Tancock, N P

Wysong, A R

UNT Digital Library

LLNL-CONF-609946Comparison between the United Statesand United Kingdom Criticality SafetyPersonnel Training Program GuidanceA. R. Wysong, D. P. Heinrichs, N. P. TancockJanuary 11, 2013American Nuclear SocietyAtlanta, GA, United StatesJune 16, 2013 through June 20, 2013Disclaimer  This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States government. Neither the United States government nor Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, nor any of their employees makes any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States government or Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States government or Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.  Comparison between the United States and United Kingdom Criticality Safety Personnel Training Program Guidance Andrew R. Wysong Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 7000 East Avenue, L-360, Livermore, CA 94550, wysong1@llnl.gov David P. Heinrichs Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 7000 East Avenue, L-198, Livermore, CA 94550, heinrichs1@llnl.gov Nigel P. Tancock Atomic Weapons Establishment, A-85.1, Aldermaston, Reading, Berkshire, RG7 4PR, UK, nigel.tancock@awe.co.uk INTRODUCTION The discipline of criticality safety (CS) has been developed in order to maintain safety in operations where significant amounts of fissionable material are to be manipulated. The operation is assessed by an individual or team of CS practitioners and an operational safety envelope is developed. The envelope can consist of limits on materials (i.e. fissionable mass, reflectors, moderators etc.), geometry (i.e. spacing, volume, etc.), and/or proscribed operating procedures which uphold a level of safety margin for personnel and equipment involved. The following paper is an overview of the similarities and differences in guidance on training programs for CS personnel at United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) laboratories. This work was performed under the auspices of Joint Working Group 30 of the Mutual Defence Agreement between the United States and United Kingdom. US CS TRAINING GUIDANCE The US requirements for “Training and Qualification of Contractor Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineers” in the Department of Energy (DOE) complex are contained within the DOE Standard “Guidance for Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineer Training and Qualification.” The guidance is provided to facilitate hiring and maintaining of trained and qualified CS staff within the DOE complex. Within DOE-STD-1135-99 there are ten sections defining the areas of training required to become qualified in the discipline of CS. These sections are: 1. Nuclear Theory 2. Calculational Methods 3. Critical Experiments and Data 4. Rules, Standards, and Guides 5. Nuclear Criticality Safety Evaluations 6. Safety Analysis and Control 7. Criticality Alarm Systems (CAS) and Criticality Detection Systems (CDS) 8. Accountability Practices 9. Hands on Experimental Training 10. Process/Facility Knowledge In each of these sections a further breakdown of specific skill requirements is listed to further clarify the expectations of the DOE. Another resource available for training guidance in the US is the national consensus standard ANSI/ANS-8.26-2007 which was created subsequently to DOE-STD-1135-99. The standard supplements the DOE document and provides useful reference material.  UK CS TRAINING GUIDANCE  The UK CS training programs have little official guidance from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The guidance document utilized by many nuclear CS programs is “The WPC Criticality Safety Competence Framework.” The Working Party on Criticality (WPC) is a group of senior CS professionals from a variety of nuclear organisations in the UK. The WPC created the criticality competence framework in response to several issues in the UK nuclear CS community including: attrition of many senior criticality professionals, decline in number of organisations that were once major contributors to the profession, and increase in number of small firms involved in criticality assessment. The competence framework was divided into four major sections: 1. Criticality Background Knowledge 2. Criticality Safety Management 3. Criticality Assessment Methods 4. Criticality Safety Assessment Methodologies In each section specific skills and associated key knowledge/experiences were listed for use as a guide to creation of training programs which encompassed all important areas of CS.     COMPARISON OF TRAINING REQUIREMENTS The comparison was performed by generating eight main subject areas important to CS Training: 1. Academic 2. Experimental 3. Assessment Methodology 4. Assessment Analysis 5. Rules, Standards, Guides 6. Alarms, Accidents, Response 7. Process/Facility Knowledge 8. Special Concerns Each of the eight main subject areas included a list of topics which were further divided into areas of key knowledge/experience important to CS. The entire comparison matrix is too extensive to duplicate in full in the format of this paper. However, the significant results from the comparison are discussed in the following sections.  UNIQUE GUIDANCE SUBJECTS The US and UK guidance on CS training includes a number of key knowledge/experience subjects that are unique to either country. A small number of differences between CS training guidance can be attributed to regulatory system and/or organizational discrepancies between the US and UK. For example, the subjects of ALARP and Optioneering arise out of the need to satisfy UK Health and Safety Executive regulations found in “Safety Assessment Principles for Nuclear Installations.” The UK regulations also increase the time and effort spent on fault analysis training as probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) and other risk quantification techniques must be employed. While these topics are included in US training programs, the topic is discussed at a cursory level as the use of risk quantification is rarely required in an evaluation.  An example of organizational difference that creates disparity in guidance relates to the placement, use, and testing of criticality alarm systems. In the US these responsibilities lie within the purview of the CS program.  Conversely, in the UK these functions generally reside within the Radiological Instrumentation and/or Dosimetry organizations and thus are not part of a CS training program. Many differences in the CS training guidance cannot be attributed to regulatory systems or organizational discrepancies.  These subjects are listed below: UK:  Implications of Controls, Nuclear Data, Engineering Drawings, Reactor Physics, Reactor Kinetics and Transients, Fissile Assay Methods, Waste and Long Term Disposal, Burn-Up Credit, MOX US: Hands-On Training, Container Labelling & Postings While the US and UK guidance on CS training may not specifically call out the above subjects, this does not prevent many of the respective facilities from covering the topic in their training programs. For example, criticality assessors from the UK routinely attend the Training Assembly for Criticality Safety Hands-On course offered in the US.  And in many US CS programs, MOX, Long Term Disposal, and other facility specific disciplines are included as general CS training. Several of the unique training subjects have been identified as best practice subject additions to training programs and are discussed further in the following section. BEST PRACTICES Training Subject Additions There are a few training subjects unique to the UK or US that would increase the competency and efficiency of CS staff in both countries if included in CS training programs.  Implications of Controls, Engineering Drawings, and Nuclear Data, currently unique to the UK training guidance, would add value in US training programs. The subject of Implications of Controls refers to the effects that a criticality control will have on operations and personnel working within the affected safety envelope. CS professionals may be incognizant of slowdowns in operations due to a criticality control because of the tendency to focus solely on safety margin. Additionally, ignoring implications of controls on interconnected processes can cause unforeseen negative impacts on safety outside the boundary of the specific operation being analyzed. The understanding of engineering drawings allows for more efficient and accurate assumptions to be formulated in the fault identification process. Engineering drawings are commonly used in computer modelling and reactivity calculation where accuracy is a key factor in determining a credible safety margin. A CS professional’s ability to understand the validity, precision, and accuracy of nuclear data is another important component of the utilization of computer simulations for reactivity calculation. Without at least a fundamental grasp of the way nuclear data is measured and analyzed experimentally, as well as formatted and manipulated in reactivity calculation software, there is a possibility of a user relying on an erroneous result in a safety argument. Although the US training guidance does not specifically call out nuclear data, training material for   this topic has been developed in the form of the Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineer Training Module 13, “Measurement and Development of Cross Section Sets.” The US training guidance subjects of Hands-On Training and Container Labelling & Postings would be beneficial inclusions in UK guidance. Hands-On training provides CS professionals a more concrete understanding of the main factors that effect reactivity. More significantly, it makes CS assessors mindful of the reality of operations involving nuclear material and the constraints and inconveniences encountered by operations staff. Training on container labelling and postings allows CS professionals to reduce the occurrence of human errors. Although it is omitted from the UK guidance it is reasonable to expect each facility has training to cover the specific procedures and format for labelling containers and creating postings. Even with the assumption of this training subject being covered, it would be beneficial to include it in UK training guidance. Increased Collaboration Increased collaboration in the field of training will benefit both US and UK laboratories through access to larger and more diverse training materials and the benchmarking of both countries training guidance to their respective CS programs. A successful example is the US DOE Nuclear Criticality Safety Program Hands-On Training and Education Course, which provided UK CS professionals opportunity to gain Hands-On experience that does not exist domestically. This cooperation between the US and UK allows for cost sharing and increased awareness and knowledge in the international CS community. Other opportunities for shared training resources and lessons learned in the areas of new facility build, retrofitting of facilities, fabrication of weapons components, and assembly/disassembly of weapons which are areas where the US and UK share common CS concerns. Conclusion The US and UK share many commonalities in training programs, however disparity does exist. Some of the differences are driven by the contrasting regulatory systems while others result from responsibilities placed elsewhere in the business organization. However, there are several unique subject areas apparent in each nation’s training guidance which have been identified as best practices for inclusion into CS training guidance in both the US and UK. Furthermore, opportunities exist for additional collaboration between the US and UK in the training of CS staff resulting in an increase of competency and efficiency for all involved personnel and programs. REFERENCES 1. “Guidance for Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineer Training and Qualification,” DOE-STD-1135-99, Department of Energy, Washington, DC, USA, September 1999. 2. “Criticality Safety Engineer Training and Qualification Program,” ANSI/ANS-8.26-2007, American National Standard, American Nuclear Society, La Grange Park, IL, USA, June 20, 2007. 3. “The WPC Criticality Safety Competence Framework,” WPC/P243 Issue 1, Working Party on Criticality, UK, November 2008. 4. “Safety Assessment Principles for Nuclear Facilities,” Health and Safety Executive, Merseyside, UK, 2006. 5. “Measurement and Development of Cross Section Sets,” NCSET Mod 13, Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineer Training, Nuclear Criticality Safety Program, Department of Energy, http://ncsp.llnl.gov/trainingMain.html. 6. “Nuclear Criticality Safety Program – Hands-On Training Course,” Nuclear Criticality Safety Program, Department of Energy, http://ncsp.llnl.gov/classMain.html. 

Comparison between the United States and United Kingdom Criticality Safety Personnel Training Program Guidance

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Comparison between the United States and United Kingdom Criticality Safety Personnel Training Program Guidance

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