Sandia LabNews

Then and now: Reactor facility


POWERFUL REACTION — A 1959 photo depicts construction of the Sandia Engineering Reactor Facility, which provided intense bursts of fast neutrons and gamma rays to measure the effect of radiation on equipment. The facility included a 5-megawatt heterogeneous light water reactor, as shown in the recent photo. The facility retired in 1969 when the Annular Core Research Reactor was built, which operates more economically in either a steady-state or pulsed mode. (Historical photo from the Lab News archives; Recent photo by Craig Fritz; Video by Andrew Dormody)