Welcome to The Radiation Center
The OSU Radiation Center is a unique institutional facility designed to provide support to instructional and research programs for all OSU departments and to other organizations statewide, nationally, and internationally.
The Radiation Center occupies approximately 45,000 square feet of floor space and houses the Oregon State TRIGA Reactor (OSTR) which is licensed to operate continuously at a power level of 1.1 MW. The Radiation Center has a staff of approximately 15 permanent employees as well as provides office and laboratory space for approximately 100 other individuals comprised of faculty, staff, and students, most of which are associated with the School of Nuclear Science and Engineering and the Chemistry department's program in nuclear and radiochemistry.
One of the more unusual things the OSTR can do is perform a pulse. This is a video of a $1.40 pulse performed on June 1, 2012. A reactor pulse occurs when the number of neutrons is allowed to quickly increase by rapidly removing a control rod. We use the term “dollars” to describe the amount of control rod removed, in this case $1.40, where the total worth of the control rod is on the order of $2.50. The power (thermal power or heat) also rapidly increases along with the increase in neutrons undergo a fission reaction with Uranium-235. In the OSTR, as the power increases, the likelihood of fission to occur goes rapidly down. As the fissions decrease, so does the power. The result is a pulse of power that is exhibited by the Cherenkov flash seen in this video. It's very rapid, on the order of milliseconds. Enjoy!