The idea of establishing close cooperation between academia and nuclear industry experts was born three years ago in the minds of Doc. Ing. Vaclav Dostal, Sc.D., of the Czech Technical University, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering., and Mr. Tomáš Ivančík, Czech branch office of Dassault Systemes. Both call this project their child, since they are standing at its birth from inception and are enthusiastically watching how the project has grown and developed.
The project work started in early 2013. In the first half of the year there was various preparatory work performed, especially the delivery of licenses for the design software CatiaV6 from the company Dassault Systémes (DS). On top of that there were obtained licences of the computational software Dymola which is based on object-oriented modeling. A great contribution to the project was a series of training (the software Dymola in the Laboratory of Biocybernetics of the First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, the software CatiaV6 and ENOVIA software at the company Dytron)from which doctoral students graduated. Now they can pass on their knowledge to others who may be involved.
The basis of the first step leading to the establishment of the project Cenelín were several ideas that would reconcile academia and industry:
- Popularization of nuclear energy and nuclear industry among general public.
- Creation of an extensive library of 3D models of components of nuclear power plants – the so called all specialized catalog. From all these models a final 3D model of a nuclear power plant will be assembled. Concurrently the created models will be serving as teaching tools.
- Creation of a database of materials for construction and design of nuclear power plants, its assemblies and components.
- Development of nuclear programs at Czech universities. In particular, the development of the construction and design of nuclear facilities and development of application software tools in line with international practice.
- Increased cooperation between the nuclear industries in the Czech Republic – the creation of a national community.
- Development of cooperation on nuclear programs of Czech universities and the nuclear industry. Interposition of an opportunity for future students-graduates to contact experts from the nuclear industry.
- Establishment of a new specialization – technology projects IT specialist.
Cenelín project has a positive contribution to academia. From the perspective of a university it helps to popularize nuclear industries among potential students and helps to obtain licenses for specialized software for engineering and design. It is a major asset in acquisition of materials for teaching and it connects with the nuclear industry and its professionals. In terms of graduate / student the project brings a higher quality of expertise and interposition of a contact with practice field (contact with potential employers). It also helps to teach the basics of working with modern software for the design and construction of nuclear power plants. The project helps industrial markets as well, as the students can become potential employees with the necessary expertise in the field. It also provides the possibility to influence the syllabus to the needs of the nuclear industry.
At this moment the program CatiaV6 is installed at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in two classrooms, at a total of 25 workstations. Currently the type of course is only a modeling of the major and minor components of the primary circuit of nuclear power stations in the FS Czech Technical University in Prague. In the future there will be a composition of created components and modeling of larger technological systems of nuclear power plants. Since 2014, Energy Institute of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Brno University of Technology actively participated at the project. There was also a cooperation with SPŠ Pelhřimov established. There students model the basic machine components, which are then used in reports of large components.
The vision of the project is to expand in the future to other faculties and not only on the Czech Technical University in Prague and Brno, but also at other universities or high schools in the country. With the expansion to other faculties this adheres an expansion into other training courses which the CatiaV6 software can help in their field and vice versa, these courses could help the project. The most important benefit of the project Cenelín is linking academia with practice, i.e. with the industry. This is what project wants to achieve by making contact practitioners with students when solving tasks in the project.