AIF Vertical Dry Tube
The auxiliary irradiation facility (AIF) vertical dry tube is a 2.4-inch inner-diameter tube that extends from above the reactor pool down into a position in the core grid along the south edge of the core. It has a ~1x1013 n/cm2/s maximum total flux and ~5x1012 n/cm2/s maximum thermal flux. See the facility fluxes page for the present values for total and thermal flux.
The shielding plug for each tube has a cableway that allows cabling out of the dry tube to enable in-situ measurements from instrumented experiments, and for irradiating samples there is an aluminum sample basket available.
An aluminum irradiation basket is available for irradiating samples in the AIF, and it can accommodate samples with a diameter up to 2 inches. Another irradiation basket is available for irradiation with a hard neutron spectrum. The basket has a cadmium liner to screen out neutrons with energies less than ~0.5 eV, which is useful for neutron displacement damage experiments in which minimal activation from thermal neutrons is desired. The cadmium liner allows for samples with a cross section up to 1.25 inches x 1.25 inches.
