Abstract:

In the last decade, and mainly due to the technology advancement, the effectiveness of exploring new teaching strategies has been proven. The most widespread trend is to provide a more “active” role to students to promote their learning motivation and to improve their content retention. Among other techniques, it is worth mentioning the use of computational simulators, which allow to enhance the involvement of students in learning. Considerable improvement in training has been demonstrated, as well as a better understanding of the underlying concepts when using educational simulators.

This methodology is being applied in the subject "Nuclear Energy and Radiations" of the second year of the Master's Degree in Industrial Engineering, specialty "Power Generation" of the Industrial Engineers Degree of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV).

In this subject, four practical classes are taught, with an eminently practical approach. In one of these classes, different simulators of various types of nuclear reactors are used for the learning of theoretical principles and technological details of reactors. The main objective is optimizing teaching through "experience", and it has been shown how this practice has a more effective approach than theoretical classes to teach the fundamentals of nuclear technology and settle the theoretical contents on the real physical behavior of a nuclear power plant in various conditions.

The PCTRAN simulator (from Micro-Simulation Technology©), is part of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) campaign for the education and training of nuclear researchers and engineers around the world. The library of PCTRAN reactor simulators includes models of conventional and advanced PWR and BWR power plants. Combined with experimental pool reactor models and with the ability to study real accidents scenarios and dose dispersion analysis, it forms a complete series for nuclear technology education.

The practical class integrates active learning based on teaching basic reactor principles with these software simulators, which provides a comprehensive practical demonstration of the basic operating principles of various nuclear power plants by illustrating general concepts and demonstrating fundamental safety processes under normal and transient conditions/accidents.

Based mainly on the conventional PWR and BWR models, different exercises are carried out focused in the normal reactor operation, maneuvering of reactor power drop and shutdown, different operating transients and simulation of accidents. The serious accident model allows core fusion and containment failure, in case of multiple failures of the emergency core cooling system or human error. These exercises help the students to learn the complex system interactions within a nuclear power plant, reaching an active learning, which ultimately increases the retention rate.

Keywords:

Training, nuclear power plants, active learning, simulators.