Neutron transport is the study of the motions and interactions of neutrons with materials. Nuclear scientists and engineers often need to know where neutrons are in an apparatus, in what direction they are going, and how quickly they are moving. It is commonly used to determine the behavior of nuclear reactor cores and experimental or industrial neutron beams. Neutron transport is a type of radiative transport.
DIDO was a materials testing nuclear reactor at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom. It used enriched uranium metal fuel, and heavy water as both neutron moderator and primary coolant. There was also a graphite neutron reflector surrounding the core. In the design phase, DIDO was known as AE334 after its engineering design number.
The Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor (OPAL) is a 20 megawatt (MW) swimming pool nuclear research reactor. Officially opened in April 2007, it replaced the High Flux Australian Reactor as Australia's only nuclear reactor, and is located at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) Research Establishment in Lucas Heights, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney. Both OPAL and its predecessor have been known simply as the Lucas Heights reactor.
Research reactors are nuclear fission-based nuclear reactors that serve primarily as a neutron source. They are also called non-power reactors, in contrast to power reactors that are used for electricity production, heat generation, or maritime propulsion.
The National Research Universal (NRU) reactor was a 135 MW nuclear research reactor built in the Chalk River Laboratories, Ontario, one of Canada’s national science facilities. It was a multipurpose science facility that served three main roles. It generated radionuclides used to treat or diagnose over 20 million people in 80 countries every year. It was the neutron source for the NRC Canadian Neutron Beam Centre: a materials research centre that grew from the Nobel Prize-winning work of Bertram Brockhouse. It was the test bed for Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to develop fuels and materials for the CANDU reactor. At the time of its retirement on March 31, 2018, it was the world's oldest operating nuclear reactor.
The High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) is a nuclear research reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Operating at 85 MW, HFIR is one of the highest flux reactor-based sources of neutrons for condensed matter physics research in the United States, and it has one of the highest steady-state neutron fluxes of any research reactor in the world. The thermal and cold neutrons produced by HFIR are used to study physics, chemistry, materials science, engineering, and biology. The intense neutron flux, constant power density, and constant-length fuel cycles are used by more than 500 researchers each year for neutron scattering research into the fundamental properties of condensed matter. HFIR has about 600 users each year for both scattering and in-core research.
The McMaster Nuclear Reactor (MNR) is a 5 MWth open pool reactor located on the campus of McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
North Carolina State University in 1950 founded the first university-based reactor program and Nuclear Engineering curriculum in the United States. The program continues in the early 21st century. That year, NC State College administrators approved construction of a reactor and the establishment of a collegiate nuclear engineering program. The first research reactor was completed in 1953; it was scaled up in 1957 and 1960. It was deactivated in 1973 to make way for the PULSTAR reactor. The old reactor has been decommissioned.
The Ford Nuclear Reactor was a facility at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor dedicated to investigating the peaceful uses of nuclear power. It was a part of the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project, a living memorial created to honor the casualties of World War II. The reactor operated from September 1957 until July 3, 2003. During its operation, the FNR was used to study medicine, cellular biology, chemistry, physics, mineralogy, archeology, anthropology, and nuclear science.
The Maria reactor is Poland's second nuclear research reactor and is the only one still in use. It is located at Narodowe Centrum Badań Jądrowych - "NCBJ" at Świerk-Otwock, near Warsaw and named in honor of Maria Skłodowska-Curie. It is the only reactor of Polish design.
The MIT Nuclear Research Reactor (MITR) serves the research purposes of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a tank-type 6 megawatt reactor that is moderated and cooled by light water and uses heavy water as a reflector. It is the second largest university-based research reactor in the U.S. and has been in operation since 1958. It is the fourth-oldest operating reactor in the country.
Iran's nuclear program is made up of a number of nuclear facilities, including nuclear reactors and various nuclear fuel cycle facilities.
Universities Research Reactor, also known as Universities' Research Reactor or University Research Reactor, was a small Argonaut class nuclear research reactor in Risley, Warrington, England that went critical on 7 July 1964. It was jointly owned and operated by Manchester and Liverpool universities and used for performing neutron activation work and training reactor operators.
The Research Neutron Source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz is a leading German research reactor and neutron source, named in honor of the physicist Heinz Maier-Leibnitz who had conducted a highly successful research program at its predecessor, the FRM I. Operated by the Technical University of Munich, it is located on its campus in Garching.
A neutron research facility is most commonly a big laboratory operating a large-scale neutron source that provides thermal neutrons to a suite of research instruments. The neutron source usually is a research reactor or a spallation source. In some cases, a smaller facility will provide high energy neutrons using existing neutron generator technologies.
The Omega West Reactor (OWR) was an experimental nuclear reactor located at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos NM. OWR was completed in 1956 and primarily used for scientific scale nuclear research until it was fully decommissioned in 1994. It operated 24 hours a day, five days a week until 1972, when it went to eight hours a day, five days a week operation. The original purpose of the reactor was to collect nuclear material properties in support of the United States nuclear weapons program. Other uses included production of useful medical isotopes. The reactor was capable of producing an external beam of neutrons via beam tubes which extended through the reactor shielding. These were provided for external neutron beam experiments including: neutron radiography, neutron capture studies, gamma ray studies, neutron cross section measurements and neutron activation studies.
The Washington State University Reactor (WSUR) is housed in the Dodgen Research Facility, and was completed in 1961. The (then) Washington State College Reactor was the brainchild of Harold W. Dodgen, a former researcher on the Manhattan Project where he earned his PhD from 1943 to 1946. He secured funding for the ambitious 'Reactor Project' from the National Science Foundation, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the College administration totaling $479,000. Dodgen's basis for constructing a reactor was that the College was primely located as a training facility for the Hanford site, as well as Idaho National Laboratory because there was no other research reactor in the West at that time. After completing the extensive application and design process with the help of contractors from General Electric they broke ground in August 1957 and the first criticality was achieved on March 7, 1961 at a power level of 1W. They gradually increased power over the next year to achieve their maximum licensed operating power of 100 kW.
The Netherlands' only commercial nuclear reactor is Borssele nuclear power plant, which became operational in 1973 and as of 2011 produces 485 MW and about 4% of the country's electricity.
Neutron capture therapy (NCT) is a type of radiotherapy for treating locally invasive malignant tumors such as primary brain tumors, recurrent cancers of the head and neck region, and cutaneous and extracutaneous melanomas. It is a two-step process: first, the patient is injected with a tumor-localizing drug containing the stable isotope boron-10 (10B), which has a high propensity to capture low energy "thermal" neutrons. The neutron cross section of 10B is 1,000 times more than that of other elements, such as nitrogen, hydrogen, or oxygen, that occur in tissue. In the second step, the patient is radiated with epithermal neutrons, the sources of which in the past have been nuclear reactors and now are accelerators that produce higher energy epithermal neutrons. After losing energy as they penetrate tissue, the resultant low energy "thermal" neutrons are captured by the 10B atoms. The resulting decay reaction yields high-energy alpha particles that kill the cancer cells that have taken up enough 10B.
The High Flux Beam Reactor (HFBR) was a research reactor located at Brookhaven National Laboratory, a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, New York, on Long Island, approximately 60 miles east of New York City. A successor to the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor, the HFBR operated from 1965 until 1996 and has been partially decommissioned.
