UMD Radiation Facilities to Receive DOE Contribution of Reactor Fuel

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DoE) Office of Nuclear Energy issued a press release this week announcing its new policy of providing lightly irradiated fuel – a scarce commodity indeed – to the University of Maryland Radiation Facilities. This will enable the Maryland University Training Reactor, or MUTR, located within the Department of Materials Science Engineering, to continue its nuclear energy program, which includes training students (of any discipline) on how to run the reactor. A DoE site in Idaho provided the fuel, a one-time shipment that arrived on campus over spring break.

“Currently, it is not possible to obtain new TRIGA [Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics] fuel and a source isn’t expected to become available until approximately 2020,” said Douglas Morrell, INL fuel manager for the DOE-NE Research Reactor Infrastructure Program [in the press release]. “We were grateful for the opportunity to support the University’s research program while also reducing our inventory of lightly irradiated fuel in Idaho.”

Published April 21, 2017