Nuclear-Radiation-Resistant Circuitry Design and Test

Recent technological advances in the utilization of nuclear energy as a weapon and nuclear reactors as propulsion systems and in other applications have resulted in imposing severe radiation environments on automatic control systems. The work described in this paper concerns the design and testing of electronic circuits which comprise these systems. By special design the nuclear radiation damage thresholds of these circuits were raised from 1014 to 1017 fast neutrons/cm2. The nuclear environment in which the circuits were tested was generated by a 3-megawatt ground test reactor, the integrated dose over a 100-hour period being approximately 5×1016 fast neutrons/cm2. Twenty of the twenty-four circuits tested were operating properly at the termination of the test.