Radiation Resources
Three facilities are licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Among them, AFRRI's Mark-F TRIGA research reactor, has been used since 1962 and is the United States' sole remaining reactor dedicated to radiobiology studies. It is similar to reactors at the University of Maryland in Baltimore and the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
The Mark-F TRIGA research reactor runs at a steady state of 1 megawatt or in pulses of up to 2,500 megawatts occurring in about 0.1 second. Passive control features of the moveable core and its fuel elements make the reactor inherently safe. It is used primarily for biological studies, for TREE (transient radiation electronic effects) studies and the production of isotopes.
A second radiation resource, the Cobalt-60 facility, provides large uniform gamma-ray fields with a wide array of exposure configurations.
The last AFRRI radiation resource, the Cobalt-60 low-level irradiation facility, delivers chronic radiation doses to biological samples.