SERPENT-2 online training course for beginners
Practical information

Dates:  27-31 May 2024
Time: 17:00-21:00 (CEST, Paris time)/10:00-14:00 (CDT USA/Mexico)/12:00-16:00 (UTC-3, Argentina)
Minimum enrollment: 12 participants
Maximum enrollment: 15 participants
Registration fee: 500 EUR
Registration deadline: 29 April 2024
Contact: hedvig.nahon@oecd-nea.org with copy to programs@oecd-nea.org

This course is full but interested candidates might register if they want to be included in the waiting list for the next SERPENT course.

This five-day course will be taught in English.

Pre-requirement for SERPENT program installation: Participants are expected to have SERPENT installed on their home institution servers, as the infrastructure for running the code will not be provided.

For any questions regarding the course please send an email to hedvig.nahon@oecd-nea.org with copy to programs@oecd-nea.org

Course description

SERPENT is a 3D continuous-energy Monte Carlo neutron and photon transport code, with built-in burnup calculation routine. The code is applicable to a wide range of reactor physics and radiation transport problems including traditional reactor physics, coupled multiphysics simulation, neutron and photon transport simulations for radiation dose calculation, etc.

This five-day online course is designed for beginners with no prior knowledge of SERPENT. The course focuses on reactor physics applications and equips the students with the necessary skills to independently set up and run their SERPENT models.

The course comprises the lectures, step-by step examples and hands-on exercises allowing students to practice and reinforce their understanding of SERPENT. The topics covered:

  • Overview of general input syntax rules and SERENT input structure;
  • Setting up nuclear data libraries;
  • Material definition;
  • Geometry definition started from a simple 2D fuel on level and progressing to 3D core reactor models;
  • Plotting and visualisation of the modeled geometry;
  • Setting up and initiating critical calculations;
  • Post-processing SERPENT outputs to extract meaningful insights;
  • Visualisation of results using mesh plots;
  • Defining detectors and mesh detectors to gather extended information from simulations;
  • Introduction to generating multi-group cross sections for diffuse core simulators.