The Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor (OPAL) is a 20
megawatt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units, International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), ...
(MW)
swimming pool
A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable Human swimming, swimming or other leisure activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built ...
nuclear
research 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 maritim ...
. Officially opened in April 2007, it replaced the
High Flux Australian Reactor
The High Flux Australian Reactor (HIFAR) was Australia's first nuclear reactor. It was built at the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (later ANSTO) Research Establishment at , Sydney. The reactor was in operation between 1958 and 2007, when it ...
as Australia's only nuclear reactor, and is located at the
Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) is a statutory body of the Australian government, formed in 1987 to replace the Australian Atomic Energy Commission. Its head office and main facilities are in southern outs ...
(ANSTO) Research Establishment in
Lucas Heights, New South Wales
Lucas Heights is a suburb in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is near to the Royal National Park.
Geography
It is located 31 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government ...
, a suburb of
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
. Both OPAL and its predecessor have been commonly known simply as the Lucas Heights reactor.
Functions
The main reactor uses are:
* Irradiation of target materials to produce
radioisotopes
A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transferr ...
for medical and industrial applications
* Research in the fields of
materials science and
structural biology
Structural biology is a field that is many centuries old which, and as defined by the Journal of Structural Biology, deals with structural analysis of living material (formed, composed of, and/or maintained and refined by living cells) at every le ...
using neutron beams and its sophisticated suite of experimental equipment
* Analysis of minerals and samples using the
neutron activation technique and the delay neutron activation technique
* Irradiation of
silicon ingots in order to dope them with phosphorus and produce the basic material used in the manufacturing of semiconductor devices
The reactor runs on an operation cycle of 30 days non-stop at full power, followed by a stop of 5 days to reshuffle the fuel.
During year 2014 OPAL ran a total of 290 days at power, and over 300 days in 2015.
History
The
Argentine
Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...
company
INVAP
INVAP S.E. is an Argentine company that provides design, integration, construction and delivery of equipment, plants and devices. The company operates in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, and delivers p ...
was fully responsible through a
turnkey
A turnkey, a turnkey project, or a turnkey operation (also spelled turn-key) is a type of project that is constructed so that it can be sold to any buyer as a completed product. This is contrasted with build to order, where the constructor builds ...
contract, signed in June 2000, for the delivery of the reactor, performing the design, construction and commissioning. Local civil construction was performed by INVAP's partner,
John Holland-
Evans Deakin
Evans Deakin & Company was an Australian engineering company and shipbuilder. In 2019, the company was inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame in recognition of its major contributions to the Queensland economy for nearly a ce ...
Industries. The facility features a large () liquid-deuterium cold neutron source, modern
supermirror
A neutron supermirror is a highly polished, layered material used to reflect neutron beams. Supermirrors are a special case of multi-layer neutron reflectors with varying layer thicknesses.
The first neutron supermirror concept was proposed by , ...
guides, and a guide hall. The cold source was designed by the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, the cryogenic system designed and supplied by
Air Liquide
Air Liquide S.A. (; ; literally "liquid air"), is a French multinational company which supplies industrial gases and services to various industries including medical, chemical and electronic manufacturers. Founded in 1902, after Linde it is ...
and the initial set of four supermirror guides supplied by Mirrotron.
On 17 December 2001, 46 Greenpeace activists occupied the Lucas Heights facility to protest the construction of OPAL. Protestors gained access to the grounds, the HIFAR reactor, the high-level radioactive waste store and the radio tower. Their protest highlighted the security and environmental risks of the production of nuclear materials and the shipment of radioactive waste from the facility.
OPAL was opened on 20 April 2007 by then
Australian Prime Minister
The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The prime minister heads the executive branch of the federal government of Australia and is also accountable to federal parliament under the principl ...
John Howard
John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the s ...
and is the replacement for the
HIFAR
The High Flux Australian Reactor (HIFAR) was Australia's first nuclear reactor. It was built at the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (later ANSTO) Research Establishment at , Sydney. The reactor was in operation between 1958 and 2007, when i ...
reactor. ANSTO received an operating licence from the
Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency
The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) is a regulatory agency under the national Commonwealth government of Australia that aims to protect Australian citizens from both ionising and non-ionising radiation. ARPAN ...
(ARPANSA) in July 2006, allowing commencement of hot commissioning, where fuel is first loaded into the reactor core. OPAL went
critical
Critical or Critically may refer to:
*Critical, or critical but stable, medical states
**Critical, or intensive care medicine
*Critical juncture, a discontinuous change studied in the social sciences.
*Critical Software, a company specializing in ...
for the first time on the evening of 12 August 2006 and reached full power for the first time on the morning of 3 November 2006.
Facility details
![OPAL reactorpools](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/OPAL_reactorpools.jpg)
The
reactor core
A nuclear reactor core is the portion of a nuclear reactor containing the nuclear fuel components where the nuclear reactions take place and the heat is generated. Typically, the fuel will be low-enriched uranium contained in thousands of indiv ...
consists of 16 low-enriched plate-type
fuel assemblies and is located under of water in an open pool. Light water (normal H
2O) is used as the coolant and
moderator while
heavy water (D
2O) is used as the
neutron
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...
reflector. The purpose of the neutron reflector is to improve neutron economy in the reactor, and hence to increase the maximum neutron flux.
OPAL is the centrepiece of the facilities at ANSTO, providing
radiopharmaceutical
Radiopharmaceuticals, or medicinal radiocompounds, are a group of pharmaceutical drugs containing radioactive isotopes. Radiopharmaceuticals can be used as diagnostic and therapeutic agents. Radiopharmaceuticals emit radiation themselves, which is ...
and
radioisotope
A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transferr ...
production,
irradiation
Irradiation is the process by which an object is exposed to radiation. The exposure can originate from various sources, including natural sources. Most frequently the term refers to ionizing radiation, and to a level of radiation that will serve ...
services (including neutron
transmutation doping of silicon),
neutron activation analysis
Neutron activation analysis (NAA) is the nuclear process used for determining the concentrations of elements in many materials. NAA allows discrete sampling of elements as it disregards the chemical form of a sample, and focuses solely on atomic ...
and
neutron beam research. OPAL is able to produce four times as many radioisotopes for
nuclear medicine
Nuclear medicine or nucleology is a medical specialty involving the application of radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nuclear imaging, in a sense, is "radiology done inside out" because it records radiation emitting ...
treatments as the old
HIFAR
The High Flux Australian Reactor (HIFAR) was Australia's first nuclear reactor. It was built at the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (later ANSTO) Research Establishment at , Sydney. The reactor was in operation between 1958 and 2007, when i ...
reactor, and a wider array of radioisotopes for the treatment of disease. The modern design includes a
cold
Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute thermodynamic ...
neutron source
A neutron source is any device that emits neutrons, irrespective of the mechanism used to produce the neutrons. Neutron sources are used in physics, engineering, medicine, nuclear weapons, petroleum exploration, biology, chemistry, and nuclear p ...
(CNS).
The OPAL reactor already has received seven awards in Australia.
Neutron scattering at OPAL
The
Bragg Institute
The Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering (ACNS), formerly the Bragg Institute, is a landmark neutron and X-ray scattering facility in Australia. It is located at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation's ( ANSTO) Lucas Heigh ...
at
ANSTO
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) is a statutory body of the Australian government, formed in 1987 to replace the Australian Atomic Energy Commission. Its head office and main facilities are in southern outs ...
hosts OPAL's
neutron scattering
Neutron scattering, the irregular dispersal of free neutrons by matter, can refer to either the naturally occurring physical process itself or to the man-made experimental techniques that use the natural process for investigating materials. Th ...
facility. It is now running as a user facility serving the scientific community in Australia and around the world. New funding was received in 2009 in order to install further competitive instruments and beamlines. The actual facility comprises the following instruments:
ECHIDNA
![NeutronMonochromatorBNL](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/NeutronMonochromatorBNL.jpg)
ECHIDNA is the name of the high-resolution
neutron
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...
powder diffractometer. The instrument serves to determine the crystalline structures of materials using
neutron radiation
Neutron radiation is a form of ionizing radiation that presents as free neutrons. Typical phenomena are nuclear fission or nuclear fusion causing the release of free neutrons, which then Neutron capture, react with Atomic nucleus, nuclei of other ...
analogous to X-ray techniques. It is named after the Australian
monotreme
Monotremes () are prototherian mammals of the order Monotremata. They are one of the three groups of living mammals, along with placentals (Eutheria), and marsupials (Metatheria). Monotremes are typified by structural differences in their brain ...
''
echidna
Echidnas (), sometimes known as spiny anteaters, are quill-covered monotremes (egg-laying mammals) belonging to the family Tachyglossidae . The four extant species of echidnas and the platypus are the only living mammals that lay eggs and the ...
'', as the spiny peaks of the instrument looks like an echidna.
It operates with
thermal neutron
The neutron detection temperature, also called the neutron energy, indicates a free neutron's kinetic energy, usually given in electron volts. The term ''temperature'' is used, since hot, thermal and cold neutrons are moderated in a medium with ...
s. One of the main features is the array of 128 collimators and position sensitive detectors for rapid data acquisition. ECHIDNA allows for structure determinations, texture measurements and reciprocal space mapping of single crystals in most different sample environments serving the physics, chemistry, materials, minerals and earth-science communities. ECHIDNA is part of the
Bragg Institute
The Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering (ACNS), formerly the Bragg Institute, is a landmark neutron and X-ray scattering facility in Australia. It is located at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation's ( ANSTO) Lucas Heigh ...
's park of
neutron scattering
Neutron scattering, the irregular dispersal of free neutrons by matter, can refer to either the naturally occurring physical process itself or to the man-made experimental techniques that use the natural process for investigating materials. Th ...
instruments.
Components
* Neutron guide
*: The instrument is located on the TG1
thermal neutron
The neutron detection temperature, also called the neutron energy, indicates a free neutron's kinetic energy, usually given in electron volts. The term ''temperature'' is used, since hot, thermal and cold neutrons are moderated in a medium with ...
guide of the OPAL reactor. The distance from the reactor is . The position is the second on the guide after the
WOMBAT
Wombats are short-legged, muscular quadrupedal marsupials that are native to Australia. They are about in length with small, stubby tails and weigh between . All three of the extant species are members of the family Vombatidae. They are adap ...
instrument. The size of the guide is high by wide, and it is plated with
supermirror
A neutron supermirror is a highly polished, layered material used to reflect neutron beams. Supermirrors are a special case of multi-layer neutron reflectors with varying layer thicknesses.
The first neutron supermirror concept was proposed by , ...
coatings.
* Primary
collimator
A collimator is a device which narrows a beam of particles or waves. To narrow can mean either to cause the directions of motion to become more aligned in a specific direction (i.e., make collimated light or parallel rays), or to cause the spati ...
*: There are Söller
collimator
A collimator is a device which narrows a beam of particles or waves. To narrow can mean either to cause the directions of motion to become more aligned in a specific direction (i.e., make collimated light or parallel rays), or to cause the spati ...
s prior to the monochromator in order to reduce the divergence of the beam and to increase the angular resolution of the instrument. Since this is an intensity compromise, two items of
5' and
10', respectively, can be interchanged or fully removed by an automated mechanism. The collimators cover the full size of the beam delivered by the neutron guide.
*
Monochromator
A monochromator is an optical device that transmits a mechanically selectable narrow band of wavelengths of light or other radiation chosen from a wider range of wavelengths available at the input. The name is from the Greek roots ''mono-'', "s ...
*: The monochromator is made by slabs of
/nowiki>">15/nowiki> oriented Germanium crystals which are inclined towards each other in order to focus down the Bragg reflected beam. The device has been acquired from the
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...
in the US after the shutdown of their neutron facility.
* Secondary collimator
*: Optionally a secondary collimator with
10' angular acceptance and can be placed in the monochromatic beam between the monochromator and the sample, which again influences the resolution function of the instrument.
* Slit system
*: Two automated sets of horizontal and vertical pairs of absorbing plates allow to cut down the size of the monochromatic beam prior to the secondary collimator and sample size. They remove unwanted neutrons and reduce the background near the detector. In addition, they allow selection of the sample position to be studied.
* Beam monitor
*: A
235U fission monitor measures the amount of neutrons incident to the sample. The efficiency is
10−4 and most neutrons traverse the device undisturbed. The monitor counts are important to correct for beam flux variations due to changes in the reactor or at the upstream instrument.
* Sample stage
*:The sample is supported by a heavy load
goniometer consisting of a 360° vertical omega rotation axis, x-y translation tables and a chi-phi cross tilt stage of ±20° range. It can hold a few hundred kilograms in order to support heavier sample environments, such as cryostats, furnaces, magnets, load frames, reaction chambers and others. A typical powder sample is filled into vanadium cans which give little unstructured background. The mentioned sample environment allows measurement of changes in the sample as a function of external parameters, like temperature, pressure, magnetic field, etc. The goniometer stage is redundant for most powder diffraction measurements, but will be important for single crystal and texture measurements, where the orientation of the sample plays a role.
* Detector
collimator
A collimator is a device which narrows a beam of particles or waves. To narrow can mean either to cause the directions of motion to become more aligned in a specific direction (i.e., make collimated light or parallel rays), or to cause the spati ...
s
*:A set of 128 detectors each equipped which a 5' collimator in front are arranged in a 160° sector focusing to the sample. The collimators select the scattered radiation into the well defined ranges of 128 angular positions. The whole collimator and detector setup is mounted on a common table which is scanned in finer steps around the sample, to be combined further into a continuous diffraction pattern.
* Detector tubes
*:The 128 linear position-sensitive
3He gas detector tubes cover the full opening height of behind the collimators. They determine the position of the neutron event by charge division over the resistive anode towards each end of the detector. Overall and local count rates lie in the several 10000 Hz range.
PLATYPUS
PLATYPUS is a
time-of-flight
Time of flight (ToF) is the measurement of the time taken by an object, particle or wave (be it acoustic, electromagnetic, etc.) to travel a distance through a medium. This information can then be used to measure velocity or path length, or as a w ...
reflectometer built on the
cold neutron
The neutron detection temperature, also called the neutron energy, indicates a free neutron's kinetic energy, usually given in electron volts. The term ''temperature'' is used, since hot, thermal and cold neutrons are Neutron moderator, moderate ...
source. The instrument serves to determine the structure of interfaces using highly collimated
neutron beams. These beams are shone on to the surface at low angles (typically less than 2 degrees) and the intensity of the reflected radiation is measured as a function of angle of incidence.
It operates using cold neutrons with a wavelength band of 0.2–2.0 nm. Although up to three different angles of incidence are required for each reflectivity curve, the time-of-flight nature means that timescales of kinetic processes are accessible. By analysing the reflected signal one builds a picture of the chemical structure of the interface. This instrument can be used for examining biomembranes, lipid bilayers, magnetism, adsorbed surfactant layers, etc.
It is named after
''Ornithorhynchus anatinus'', the semi-aquatic monotreme mammal native to Australia.
WOMBAT
WOMBAT is a high-intensity
neutron
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...
powder diffractometer. The instrument serves to determine the crystalline structures of materials using neutron radiation analogous to X-ray techniques. It is named after the
wombat
Wombats are short-legged, muscular quadrupedal marsupials that are native to Australia. They are about in length with small, stubby tails and weigh between . All three of the extant species are members of the family Vombatidae. They are adap ...
, a
marsupial
Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a po ...
indigenous to Australia.
It will operate with
thermal neutron
The neutron detection temperature, also called the neutron energy, indicates a free neutron's kinetic energy, usually given in electron volts. The term ''temperature'' is used, since hot, thermal and cold neutrons are moderated in a medium with ...
s. It has been designed for highest flux and data acquisition speed in order to deliver time resolved diffraction patterns in a fraction of a second. Wombat will concentrate on ''in-situ'' studies and time critical investigations, such as structure determinations, texture measurements and reciprocal space mapping of single crystals in most different sample environments serving the physics, chemistry, materials, minerals and earth-science communities.
KOWARI
KOWARI is a
neutron
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...
residual stress
In materials science and solid mechanics, residual stresses are Stress (physics), stresses that remain in a solid material after the original cause of the stresses has been removed. Residual stress may be desirable or undesirable. For example, l ...
diffractometer.
Strain
Strain may refer to:
Science and technology
* Strain (biology), variants of plants, viruses or bacteria; or an inbred animal used for experimental purposes
* Strain (chemistry), a chemical stress of a molecule
* Strain (injury), an injury to a mu ...
scanning using
thermal neutron
The neutron detection temperature, also called the neutron energy, indicates a free neutron's kinetic energy, usually given in electron volts. The term ''temperature'' is used, since hot, thermal and cold neutrons are moderated in a medium with ...
s is a
powder diffraction
Powder diffraction is a scientific technique using X-ray, neutron, or electron diffraction on powder or microcrystalline samples for structural characterization of materials. An instrument dedicated to performing such powder measurements is call ...
technique in a polycrystalline block of material probing the change of atomic spacing due to internal or external
stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
. It is named after the
kowari
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 locat ...
, an Australian marsupial.
It provides a diagnostic non-destructive tool to optimise e.g.
post weld heat treatment (PWHT, similar to
tempering) of welded structures. Tensile stresses for example drive crack growth in engineering components and compressive stresses inhibit crack growth (for example cold-expanded holes subject to fatigue cycling). Life extension strategies have high economic impact and strain scanning provides the stresses needed to calculate remaining life as well as the means to monitor the condition of components since it is non-destructive. One of the main features is the sample table that will allow examination of large engineering components while orienting and positioning them very accurately.
Others
* TAIPAN - Thermal 3-Axis Spectrometer
* KOALA - Laue Diffractometer
* QUOKKA - Small-Angle Neutron Scattering
* PELICAN - Cold-Neutron Time-of-Flight Spectrometer
* SIKA - Cold 3-Axis Spectrometer
* KOOKABURRA - Ultra-Small-Angle Neutron Scattering (USANS)
* DINGO - Neutron Radiography, Tomography and Imaging
Performance
During the initial testing and commissioning stages each equipment and system was tested isolated and then in an integrated manner. First tests were carried out without nuclear fuel loaded into the core, and then a careful plan was followed for loading nuclear fuel in the reactor core and reaching a nuclear chain for the first time. Successive increasing power steps were followed to get the reactor to run at full power. Once commissioning was completed, the Australian Nuclear regulatory Body (ARPANSA) issued a licence that authorise its operation at full power. During the first operation cycles a typical teething period of a
first of a kind design followed.
The reactor has shown to be a reliable supplier of
radiopharmaceutical
Radiopharmaceuticals, or medicinal radiocompounds, are a group of pharmaceutical drugs containing radioactive isotopes. Radiopharmaceuticals can be used as diagnostic and therapeutic agents. Radiopharmaceuticals emit radiation themselves, which is ...
s, while also serving as a neutron source to conduct material research activities using the several instruments.
[
]
Since commissioned the reactor has been running with a very high availability, during the term 2012-13 it operated 265 days at full power (including an extended routine maintenance period), during 2013-14 for 294 days at full power, and during 2014-15 it operated 307 days at full power.
As at September 2016 it has accumulated a total of 2200 equivalent Full Power Days. Each 30 days operating cycle more than 150 batches of Silicon are irradiated, Mo99 is produced on a regular basis for the nuclear medicine market. OPAL has delivered 4 million doses. Regarding research with neutrons the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering (formerly Bragg Institute) features more than 120 scientists and 13 neutron beam operational instruments, and has produced more than 600 scientific research papers using the neutrons coming from OPAL core.
See also
*
Spallation Neutron Source
The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is an accelerator-based neutron source facility in the U.S. that provides the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world for scientific research and industrial development.In 2007, SNS was entered into thG ...
*
Nuclear medicine
Nuclear medicine or nucleology is a medical specialty involving the application of radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nuclear imaging, in a sense, is "radiology done inside out" because it records radiation emitting ...
References
External links
OPALKOWARIECHIDNA''Bragg Institute''''INVAP Nuclear Division designs''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Opal
Nuclear research reactors
Light water reactors
Neutron facilities
Nuclear research institutes
Research institutes in Australia
Lucas Heights, New South Wales
2007 establishments in Australia