Date: 14-17 November 2023

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 problems including traditional reactor physics, coupled multi-physics simulations, neutron and photon transport simulations for radiation dose rate calculations, etc.

This three and a half day interactive course is designed for beginners with no prior knowledge of Serpent. The course focuses on reactor physics applications and equips students with the necessary skills to independently set up and run their own Serpent models.

The course comprises of lectures, step-by-step examples, and practical exercises allowing students to practice and reinforce their understanding of Serpent. The topics covered:

• Overview of general input syntax rules and Serpent input structure
• Setting up nuclear data libraries
• Material definitions
• Geometry definition, starting from a simple 2D fuel pin level and progressing to 3D reactor core models
• Plotting and visualisation of modeled geometries
• Setting up and initiating criticality calculations
• Post-processing Serpent outputs to extract meaningful insights
• Visualisation of the results using mesh plots
• Defining detectors and mesh detectors to gather extended information from simulations
• Introduction to generating multi-group cross sections for diffusion core simulators