The Working Party on Nuclear Criticality Safety (WPNCS) deals with technical and scientific issues relevant to criticality safety. Specific areas of interest include (but are not limited to) investigations of static and transient configurations encountered in the nuclear fuel cycle. These include fuel fabrication, transport and storage. The objectives of WPNCS are to:
exchange information on national programmes in the area of criticality safety;
guide, promote and co-ordinate high priority activities of common interest to the international criticality safety community, establish co-operation;
monitor the progress of all activities and report to the Nuclear Science Committee (NSC);
publish databases, handbooks, and reports;
facilitate communications within the international criticality safety community through relevant websites;
co-ordinate the ongoing series of International Conferences on Nuclear Criticality Safety (ICNC), to be held every four years;
co-ordinate WPNCS activities with other working groups within the NEA and in other international frameworks to avoid duplication of activities;
provide a technical basis for the activities of other international organisations (e.g. ISO, IAEA).
The primary purpose of the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP) Working Group is to compile critical and subcritical benchmark experiment data into a standardised format that allows criticality safety analysts to easily use the data to validate calculation tools and cross-section libraries.
The handbook is produced in electronic format (pdf files) where the experiments are grouped into evaluations, categorised by:fissile media (plutonium, highly enriched uranium, intermediate and mixed enrichment uranium, low enriched uranium, uranium-233, mixed plutonium-uranium and special isotope systems); physical form of the fissile material (metal, compound, solution and miscellaneous systems); and neutron energy range where the majority of the fissions occur (fast, intermediate, thermal).
The primary goal of the NEA in this area is to disseminate nuclear data and associated documentation to member country users. In order to accomplish this goal, the NEA is currently:
compiling experimental nuclear data and bibliographic information;
co-ordinating the development of computer software for managing and disseminating nuclear data.
collecting evaluated nuclear data;
exchanging of nuclear data of all types with other data centres;
promoting the development of special purpose evaluated data files;
developing common formats for computerised exchange of nuclear data;