The SLOWPOKE Laboratory
The SLOWPOKE Laboratory
The main piece of equipment is the SLOWPOKE nuclear reactor. This small pool-type reactor operated from 1976 to 1997 with the original fuel, 1 kg of 93% enriched uranium. In 1997, thanks to an NSERC Major Installation Grant, the reactor was refuelled with 5 kg of uranium enriched to 20% in U-235. At full power of 20 kW, the neutron flux in the five inner irradiation sites of the reactor is 1012 /cm2/s. The power and the neutron flux are highly reproducible and the reactor can operate unattended for up to 24 hours. It is used mainly for neutron activation analysis and for the production of radioactive tracers. For irradiating materials, access to the neutrons is through pneumatic rabbit systems. One of the six rabbit systems is automated and can be programmed to send a set of samples directly from reactor to detector.
Instrumentation is also available for training nuclear engineering students in reactor kinetics.
The neutron activation analysis laboratory adjacent to the reactor has four state of the art gamma-ray spectrometers with high-resolution germanium semiconductor detectors and mechanical sample changers.
