South African students visit Russian nuclear plants
Students and postgraduate students of South African universities, winners in the national competition in the area of peaceful use of nuclear technologies, together with their thesis advisers recently visited Russian nuclear enterprises.
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The trip to Russia was the award to the students who had won the first three places in national students contest, 'Fulfilling energy needs and developing nuclear industry in South Africa', held in early 2015 by Rosatom Africa in conjunction with the Faculty of Engineering at North-West University (NWU) in South Africa.
"We have invited all students across the country interested in developing South Africa's energy sector or who are fascinated by the thought of using nuclear technology in the fields of industry, medicine, biology and agriculture to take part in the competition," said Viktor Polikarpov, regional vice-president at Rosatom International Network.
"The competition targeted young engineers and scientists and aimed to promote popularity of technical and engineering professions and to raise awareness about modern nuclear technologies available."
Capabilities demonstrated
In the course of the visit at Rosenergoatom Concern OJSC, the South African delegation met with executives of the concern who presented the WWER-TOI project to the guests and demonstrated the capabilities of the Centre for Virtual Prototyping of Rosenergoatom Concern OJSC.
At the meeting with the representatives of Rosatom's engineering company OAO NIAEP - ZAO Atomstroyexport the guests had a chance to see the capabilities of Multi-D technologies used to optimise construction and erection work when building nuclear power plants (NPPs). Multi-D technologies are primarily aimed to reduce the period for constructing reactor units for NPPs. The technology enables to make up a precise construction schedule and to address problems related to construction phases at the stage of engineering.
At National Research Nuclear University MEPhI the South African delegation met with executives of the university and foreign students studying there, and also had a chance to see the achievements of the Engineering Centre.
Career path
Within their visit to Russia, the South African representatives also visited the Kalinin NPP and met with the plant management. Mikhail Konyshev, head of the Kalinin NPP, told the guests about the operation of the nuclear enterprise and its employees in detail. The guests were very interested to learn about training and career path of a reactor system operator.
At the Kalinin NPP the delegation took part in the technical tour on the enterprise's industrial site, on the turbine island, and main control room of the reactor unit No. 4, visited the training center and Public Information ?entre.
