Restart of the Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility Neutron Radiography Program

The Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) radiography system is used to perform neutron radiography of fuels, experiments, and other specimens before and after irradiation within the TREAT reactor. The TREAT neutron radiography facility performed approximately 5000 radiographs by the spring of 1977. Originally built in 1958, the TREAT Facility was in operation until it was placed in a shutdown status in 1994. Following the Fukishima disaster and seeing a need for enhanced accident-tolerant fuels, the U.S. Department of Energy decided to restart the TREAT Facility and resume transient operations. In November 2017, the TREAT reactor was successfully restarted and is currently performing operational testing in preparation for initial experiment irradiations and transient testing. This paper discusses efforts to reactivate the TREAT neutron radiography facility. To characterize the neutron beam, gold foil activation measurements were made to determine an average neutron flux and flux profile. An open beam image provides the information about variations in the beam profile. A series of system qualification radiographs have been acquired to determine the effective image acquisition parameters, resulting image quality, and the relationships between the two.