The Oregon State University Radiation Center (OSURC) is a research facility that houses a

nuclear reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering co ...

(OSU) in

Corvallis, Oregon Corvallis ( ) is a city and the county seat of Benton County in central western Oregon, United States. It is the principal city of the Corvallis, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Benton County. As of the 2020 United ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The Oregon State TRIGA Reactor (OSTR) serves the research needs of the OSU

nuclear engineering Nuclear engineering is the branch of engineering concerned with the application of breaking down atomic nuclei ( fission) or of combining atomic nuclei (fusion), or with the application of other sub-atomic processes based on the principles of n ...

department along with other departments (notably medical applications). About 70% of the research projects at the OSU Radiation Center use the reactor.

Reactor overview

The radiation center is located on the west side of the OSU campus, across the street from the

Environmental Protection Agency A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

(EPA) offices and about half a mile from

Reser Stadium Reser Stadium is an outdoor athletic stadium in the northwest United States, on the campus of Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. It is the home of the Oregon State Beavers of the Pac-12 Conference, and opened in 1953 as Parker Stadium ...

.ABC News: Oregon State University
/ref> The reactor is a Mark II TRIGA reactor with a maximum thermal output of 1.1 MW and can be pulsed up to a power of 3000 MW for a very short time. The fuel is low enriched uranium. Operation began in 1967. The reactor supported 96 academic courses in 1999. These courses were in

chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

civil engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage ...

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

geosciences Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four spheres ...

oceanography Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamic ...

and

atmospheric sciences Atmospheric science is the study of the Earth's atmosphere and its various inner-working physical processes. Meteorology includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics with a major focus on weather forecasting. Climatology is the study of ...

bioresource engineering Bioresource engineering is similar to biological engineering, except that it is based on biological and/or agricultural feedstocks. Bioresource engineering is more general and encompasses a wider range of technologies and various elements such as ...

, honors college and

naval engineering Naval architecture, or naval engineering, is an engineering discipline incorporating elements of mechanical, electrical, electronic, software and safety engineering as applied to the engineering design process, shipbuilding, maintenance, and o ...

disciplines. The OSU Radiation center supported 126 projects in 2000 with 69% directly involving use of the OSTR. Contracts supporting these projects in 2000 totaled $3 million. The mission statement of the center is

To serve as the campus wide teaching, research, and service facility for programs involving the use of ionizing radiation and radioactive materials.

Thermal column

The thermal column is a large

graphite Graphite () is a crystalline form of the element carbon. It consists of stacked layers of graphene. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on large ...

slab that pierces the concrete bioshield of the reactor and makes contact with the graphite neutron reflector surrounding the core. The purpose of the thermal column is to create an irradiation facility that filters out high energy neutrons to create a high

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 ...

flux. The thermal column is primarily used for fission tracking of certain minerals that contain fissile material.

In-Core Irradiation Facilities

OSTR has six in-core irradiation facilities: The

Cadmium Cadmium is a chemical element with the symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, silvery-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury. Like zinc, it demonstrates oxidation state +2 in most of ...

-Lined In-Core Irradiation Tube (or CLICIT) is a vacuum-filled irradiation facility occupying a fuel slot in the central area of the core. Cadmium is a

absorber, allowing only epithermal neutrons and fast neutrons to enter. The primary purpose of this facility is

Ar-Ar dating Arar or Ar-Ar may refer to: Geography and history * Arar, Saudi Arabia, the capital of Al Hudud ash Shamaliyah (The Northern Border) province ** Arar border crossing, a Saudi-Iraqi border crossing near Arar, Saudi Arabia and Nukhayb, Iraq * Arar, ...

and K-Ar dating via

neutron activation Neutron activation is the process in which neutron radiation induces radioactivity in materials, and occurs when atomic nuclei capture free neutrons, becoming heavier and entering excited states. The excited nucleus decays immediately by emittin ...

. The

-Lined Outer-Core Irradiation Tube (or CLOCIT) is a vacuum-filled irradiation facility occupying a fuel slot in one of the outer rings of the core. Its purpose is similar to the CLICIT, however due to its location, irradiations take 1.8 times longer than the CLICIT. The In-Core Irradiation Tube (or ICIT) is located in the same ring as the CLOCIT and is the highest neutron flux facility offered at OSTR. It is similar to the CLICIT and CLOCIT but it lacks Cadmium lining, resulting in unfiltered neutron irradiation. The Rotating Rack, colloquially known as the Lazy Susan, is a ring surrounding the core between the core and the graphite

neutron reflector A neutron reflector is any material that reflects neutrons. This refers to elastic scattering rather than to a specular reflection. The material may be graphite, beryllium, steel, tungsten carbide, gold, or other materials. A neutron reflector ...

. It rotates around the core about once a minute, providing an even flux to the samples inside. This facility has 40 nitrogen-filled slots for samples to be irradiated in. The

Pneumatic Pneumatics (from Greek ‘wind, breath’) is a branch of engineering that makes use of gas or pressurized air. Pneumatic systems used in Industrial sector, industry are commonly powered by compressed air or compressed inert gases. A central ...

Transfer System, colloquially known as the Rabbit, is an irradiation facility that is pneumatically operated to rapidly insert and remove samples during operation. The primary purpose of this facility is perform

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 ...

on isotopes with short

half-lives Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable at ...

. The Central Thimble is a water-filled tube extending down the central position of the core. Its purpose is to provide the highest flux available in the core; however, it is currently not in use at OSTR.

Safety

Oregon Department of Energy has coordinated the HAZMAT Radiological Training Courses at the center for HAZMAT response teams throughout the state of Oregon for the last 15 years. Further, instead of only having a Public Safety force on campus and/or local Police, OSU's primary security force are

Oregon State Police The Oregon State Police (OSP) is a law enforcement agency of the U.S. state of Oregon. The OSP enforces all of Oregon's criminal laws and assists local law enforcement agencies. Terri Davie has served as Superintendent since November 1, 2020. The ...

Forensic analysis

The reactor has also used

Neutron activation Neutron activation is the process in which neutron radiation induces radioactivity in materials, and occurs when atomic nuclei capture free neutrons, becoming heavier and entering excited states. The excited nucleus decays immediately by emittin ...

analysis to help with the forensic analysis in a high-profile

serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

case (the I-5 Bandit) and several other cases.4-07-98 TV detective series to dust off old technology
/ref>

Research

The following are some ongoing projects in conjunction with the reactor: *

analysis * Radiotracer techniques * Medical isotope development and production * Geological age dating *

Neutron radiography Neutron imaging is the process of making an image with neutrons. The resulting image is based on the neutron attenuation properties of the imaged object. The resulting images have much in common with industrial X-ray images, but since the image i ...

Thermal hydraulics Thermal hydraulics (also called thermohydraulics) is the study of hydraulic flow in thermal fluids. The area can be mainly divided into three parts: thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer, but they are often closely linked to each oth ...

of nuclear steam systems * Radiation sterilization * Radiation dosimeter testing *

Boron Neutron Capture Therapy 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 proc ...

* Radiochemical methodologies

References

External links

OSU Radiation Center
(official site)
OSU Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Health PhysicsABC's Radioactive Roadtrip Security Review
{{authority control Oregon State University buildings Nuclear reactors Nuclear research reactors