Development of New Neutron Methods and Applications at NRU

Abstract

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) endeavours to make the greatest use of the remaining lifetime of the NRU (National Research Universal) reactor. On one hand, this means using NRU to support current CNL programs, but a forward-looking approach also includes the development of new research & development (R&D) capabilities and national interest that can be deployed at other sources after the shutdown of NRU. In the context of neutron-based materials research, this has included augmenting current capabilities to meet the needs of active CNL and national programs, and developing equipment and techniques that can be developed and demonstrated at NRU to be deployed elsewhere.We report on two development activities. 1) Development of an in-beam delayed neutron (DN) analysis facility with applications in security and nuclear forensics. 2) Simulation work to develop approaches to increase the thermal neutron flux delivered to the sample; the enhanced flux is needed to advance current studies on thermal neutron irradiation effects on human blood, and will also significantly improve the in-beam DN capability.