Access to the building was providedīy ordinary doors. The majority of the plant equipment was located in a cylindrical steel reactor building 38.5 feet (11.7 m) in diameter and an overall height of 48 feet (15 m) The building was made of plate steel, most of which had a thickness of 1/4 inch. Army, called cadre, began training as plant operators. Army in December 1958 after extensive testing, with Combustion Engineering acting as the lead contractor beginning in February 1959. The system operated at 300 pounds per square inch (2,100 kPa) using 90 percent U-235 in the fuel plates, made of a uranium-aluminum alloy. ANL used its experience from the BORAX experiments to design the BWR. It operated with natural circulation, using light water as a coolant and moderator. The 3 MW (thermal) boiling water reactor (BWR) used highly enriched uranium fuel. The prototype was constructed at the NRTS site from July 1957 to July 1958. 3-year fuel operating lifetime per core loading.All components able to be transported by air.Some of the more important criteria included: The Army Reactors Branch formed the guidelines for the project and contracted with Argonne National Laboratory to design, build, and test a prototype reactor plant to be called the Argonne Low Power Reactor (ALPR). The reactors were to replace diesel generators and boilers that provided electricity and space heating for the Army's radar stations. Army evaluated their need for nuclear reactor plants that would be operable in remote regions of the Arctic. Miscellaneous support and administration buildings surround it.įrom 1954 to 1955, the U.S. The large cylindrical building holds the nuclear reactor embedded in gravel at the bottom, the main operating area or operating floor in the middle, and the condenser fan room near the top. Operating power was 200 kW electrical and 400 kW thermal for space heating.ĭuring the incident the core power level reached nearly 20 GW in just four milliseconds, precipitating the steam explosion. It was intended to provide electrical power and heat for small, remote military facilities, such as radar sites near the Arctic Circle, and those in the DEW Line. The facility, located at the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS) approximately 40 miles (64 km) west of Idaho Falls, Idaho, was part of the Army Nuclear Power Program and was known as the Argonne Low Power Reactor (ALPR) during its design and build phase. About 1,100 curies (41 TBq) of fission products were released into the atmosphere. The incident released about 80 curies (3.0 TBq) of iodine-131, which was not considered significant due to its location in a remote desert of Idaho. The event is the only known fatal reactor incident in the United States. The direct cause was the improper withdrawal of the central control rod, responsible for absorbing neutrons in the reactor core.
The SL-1, or Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, was a United States Army experimental nuclear power reactor which underwent a steam explosion and meltdown on January 3, 1961, killing its three operators. The 60-ton Manitowoc Model 3900 crane had a 5.25-inch (13.3 cm) steel shield with a 9-inch (23 cm) thick lead glass window to protect the operator. November 29, 1961: The SL-1 reactor vessel being removed from the reactor building, which acted substantially like the containment building used in modern nuclear facilities. Only a fraction of the core inventory ends up being transported off-site.This article is about The SL-1 Nuclear Reactor. In addition to this, the design of reactors and their various systems keep the bulk of the materials on-site. The added decay time afforded by these systems allows the most radioactive materials time to decay before they're released. With a meltdown, the plant has various systems and countermeasures that delay the release of those materials, giving them time to decay, knocking down vapors, etc. The radiation from those materials is extremely intense because there are a lot of highly radioactive, short-lived materials decaying. In a nuclear detonation, the fission products (or nuclear waste products) are generated and immediately dispersed. Even with Chernobyl, where the top portion of the reactor exploded, the resulting damage wasn't on par with even the smallest nuclear detonations.Ī nuclear detonation is also a far more efficient in generating and dispersing fallout. Despite having a smaller fissile mass, the warhead releases nearly all of its energy (90% of it) in a short period (milliseconds to minutes). Unless you're talking about a trivially small yield, a nuclear detonation from an "ICBM" as you put it, would do far more damage.
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