Bright flash neutron radiography capability of the research reactor at the McClellan Nuclear Research Center

The capability to produce a bright, short neutron pulse at the McClellan Nuclear Research Center (MNRC) can be very attractive for some neutron imaging applications. Complementary to conventional thermal neutron radiography conducted at the reactor, operating at the average power of 1 MW, a short pulse of ~25 ms FWHM duration can be produced at MNRC with the peak power exceeding 350 MW. Combination of a fast thermal neutron counting detector with a short neutron pulse at MNRC, enables high-resolution stroboscopic imaging to complement conventional neutron radiography. The results presented in this paper demonstrate the MNRC capabilities for conducting conventional thermal neutron radiography, demonstrating imaging spatial resolution below 100 μm, as well as bright flash neutron radiography with multiple nearly simultaneous events detected with microsecond timing resolution.