AUSTIN, Texas -- Sean O’Kelly, associate director of the Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin, has received a $41,000 contract to provide reactor operator training for U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff for the next five months.
The university laboratory was the only U.S. research reactor selected out of the 26 U.S. research reactors to develop and implement the week-long pilot program. Future programs may be requested following an NRC evaluation.
Training will be provided for up to 12 new staff members in the Research and Test Reactor Branch of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation to familiarize the personnel with the design features and experimental programs of the unique reactor facilities that they regulate. The hands-on program will provide supplemental theory to practice training for NRC inspectors, examiners and managers that have little or no experience with the operating characteristics and design specifics of a research reactor.
The training initiative complements the NRC’s one-week Research and Test Reactor classroom training program by providing the missing element of direct laboratory experience to NRC staff who did not have the benefit of receiving a degree from a university that owned and operated a research reactor.
Under the supervision of a licensed senior reactor operator from the laboratory, trainees will physically manipulate the reactor controls to start the reactor and perform several fundamental physics measurements and calibrations.
The university’s teaching laboratory routinely provides reactor operations training and laboratory courses for university students interested in a career in the nuclear industry. It was contracted recently by the United States Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration to develop and provide a two-week reactor operations workshop for 21 individuals from Malaysia, Thailand, Algeria, Morocco and Egypt.
Currently, seven university students are in training to take an NRC-administered reactor operator licensing examination in January 2009.
