A research tool, NRU provides knowledge that helps AECL build safer and more efficient nuclear power plants. It has also been the birthplace of many scientific achievements.
NRU has the honour of being the workplace of Canadian physicist Bertram Brockhouse, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his influential work at NRX, then later NRU, using neutron scattering to explore materials.
NRU produces neutrons used by the National Research Council’s Canadian Neutron Beam Centre, to investigate and non-destructively study all types of industrial and biological materials.
Each year more than 200 professors, students and industrial researchers come to the Centre to make use of this national resource. Because neutrons can probe any kind of material, they can be applied to research in metals, alloys, polymers, biomaterials, glass, ceramics, thin films, cement and minerals. This work is leading to advances in medical, industrial and scientific fields to the benefit of all Canadians.
As one of the world’s most versatile research reactors, NRU also produced the fundamental knowledge required to develop, maintain and evolve Canada's fleet of CANDU power stations. While NRU doesn’t produce electricity, it is Canada’s only major materials and fuel testing reactor used to support and advance the CANDU design.
NRU contains testing equipment that allows scientists and engineers to replicate a power reactor’s working conditions. This allows them to apply that knowledge to building safer and more efficient CANDU technology for use in Canada and abroad.