HIFAR Control Room Left Side

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D850
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 14mm · f/7.1 · 0.4s · ISO 64
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

The left side of the HIFAR control room reveals a complex console. Rows of dormant switches and analogue gauges line the panel. This station once monitored Australia's first nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, now silent.

Edition

Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

Limited edition
A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

$100.00 AUD

Colour

Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 10 to 20 business days (framed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.

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In situ

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: HIFAR Control Room Left Side
Series: ANSTO HIFAR
Catalogue: AHF-016
Process: Giclée
Captured: 7 October 2022
Camera: NIKON D850
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/7.1
Shutter: 0.4s s
ISO: 64
Focal length: 14 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 290 × 200 mm
Location: Lucas Heights, New South Wales, Australia
Authenticity: C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Lucas Heights, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

The left side of the HIFAR control room at Lucas Heights, where rows of switches and analogue gauges line the console. The switches are the toggle and rotary types of post-war industrial control gear. The gauges are analogue, the dial faces hand-marked in the units of the reactor's operating parameters: neutron flux, heavy water flow, control rod position, temperatures at the key points of the circuit. The console is now silent.

The control room was staffed around the clock through every day of HIFAR's 49 years of operation. Operators sat at consoles like this one monitoring the reactor's flux, coolant flow, and shielding integrity. The reactor produced medical isotopes for hospitals across Australia and the Asia-Pacific, ran neutron-beam experiments for materials science, and irradiated silicon for the semiconductor industry from about 1985 onwards. HIFAR was permanently shut down on 30 January 2007.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Six teams of four highly trained technical staff worked in shifts to operate the ANSTO HIFAR reactor, with the control room desk manned 24/7 to ensure constant monitoring of every critical function. Every decision made here was guided by precise instrumentation, with alarms, gauges, and system diagrams providing real-time oversight of reactor operations.

Brett Patman

The series

ANSTO HIFAR

2022 · 49 photographs

At 11:15 pm on Sunday 26 January 1958, Australia Day, the High Flux Australian Reactor went critical for the first time with 11 of 25 fuel elements loaded. The men in the control room had come from Oak Ridge, Chalk River and Harwell. HIFAR was Australia's first nuclear reactor.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.