physics

Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor

Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor rather than just read about it. In short: 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 (HIFAR) as Australia's only nuclear reactor, and is located at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s (ANSTO) research establishment in Lucas Heights, a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales.

Key takeaways

Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

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 (HIFAR) as Australia's only nuclear reactor, and is located at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s (ANSTO) research establishment in Lucas Heights, a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales. Both OPAL and its predecessor have been known simply as the Lucas Heights reactor.

Uses

The main reactor uses are:

Irradiation of target materials to produce radioisotopes for medical and industrial applications Research in the fields of materials science and structural biology 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 [1] 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. Typically the reactor runs for a total of 300 days at power per year.

History The Argentine company INVAP was responsible through a turnkey 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 Industries. The facility features a large (20-litre (4.4 imp gal; 5.3 US gal)) liquid-deuterium cold neutron source, modern supermirror guides, and a 35 by 65 metres (115 ft × 213 ft) guide hall. The cold source was designed by the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, the cryogenic system designed and supplied by Air Liquide 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 John Howard and is the replacement for the HIFAR reactor. ANSTO received an operating licence from the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) in July 2006, allowing commencement of hot commissioning, where fuel is first loaded into the reactor core. OPAL went critical for the first time on the evening of 12 August 2006 and reached full power on the morning of 3 November 2006.

Facility details

The reactor core consists of 16 low-enriched plate-type fuel assemblies and is located under 13 metres (43 ft) of water in an open pool. Light water (normal H2O) is used as the coolant and moderator while heavy water (D2O) is used as the neutron 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 and radioisotope production, irradiation services (including neutron transmutation doping of silicon), neutron activation analysis and neutron beam research. OPAL is able to produce four times as many radioisotopes for nuclear medicine treatments as the old HIFAR reactor, and a wider array of radioisotopes for the treatment of disease. The modern design includes a cold neutron source (CNS). The OPAL reactor already has received seven awards in Australia.

Neutron scattering at OPAL The Bragg Institute at ANSTO hosts OPAL's neutron scattering 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

ECHIDNA is the name of the high-resolution neutron 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 Australian monotreme echidna, as the spiny peaks of the instrument looks like an echidna. It operates with thermal neutrons. 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's park of neutron scattering instruments.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor: The OPAL reactor pools. Made of stainless steel and 4.5-metre (15 ft) wide, it contains demineralised water used for shielding and cooling. — The OPAL reactor pools. Made of stainless steel and 4.5-metre (15 ft) wide, it contains demineralised water used for shielding and cooling.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor

In research: Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2007 establishments in Australia, Light water reactors, Lucas Heights, New South Wales, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor in simple terms?

Why does Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor.