Welcome to the McClellan Nuclear Radiation Center (MNRC). At the heart of the MNRC is the newest research reactor in the United States. The nuclear reactor at the MNRC attained first operation in 1990, and has over 30 years of productive service remaining.

The custom designed TRIGA (Training, Research, and Isotope Production General Atomics) reactor can operate at a steady state power of up to 2 MW or pulse to approximately 1000 MW for 20 milliseconds. Our staff of 20 reactor operators, health physics technicians, scientists and engineers has over 100 years of experience with the MNRC. Normal operations are 16 hours per day, five days a week, with two shifts. We have the flexibility to change operating schedules to meet customer requirements.

The MNRC was originally developed by the USAF to detect low-level corrosion and hidden defects in aircraft structures using neutron radiography. Since then, MNRC service has expanded to include computer tomography (three-dimensional neutron radiography), silicon doping, isotope production, neutron activation analysis, and radiation effects testing. We have the capability of moving materials and parts into the central core facility and locations adjacent to the core while the reactor is operating.

UCD McClellan Nuclear Radiation Center

Preprocessing of backprojection images in the McClellan Nuclear Radiation Center tomography system