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Breaking ground on a new approach to construction
The drive to Kairos Power’s reactor demonstration site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is not only scenic—it’s historic. Nearly 85 years ago, roughly 30,000 construction workers transformed orchards and farmland into a key Manhattan Project site. Depending on your route, you may pass by one of the three gatehouses that were once military checkpoints controlling access to Atomic Energy Commission production facilities.
T. F. Wimett, H. C. Paxton
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 78 | Number 4 | August 1981 | Pages 425-431
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE81-A21379
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A critical assembly with circulating enriched uranium solution was operated for brief periods at power up to 2 MW corresponding to a core temperature differential of 13°C. Although delayed neutron precursors were swept out of the critical region, contributing little to control, power followed excess reactivity satisfactorily. At excess reactivity of 0.2 dollar, power oscillations began to appear, and above ∼0.5 dollar they diverged. The 1-s period appears to be associated with vibration of unconstrained piping. Reactivity quench coefficients are greater than those measured without flow. The difference is attributed to macroscopic release of radiolytic gas.