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Godzilla is helping ITER prepare for tokamak assembly
ITER employees stand by Godzilla, the most powerful commercially available industrial robot available. (Photo: ITER)
Many people are familiar with Godzilla as a giant reptilian monster that emerged from the sea off the coast of Japan, the product of radioactive contamination. These days, there is a new Godzilla, but it has a positive—and entirely fact-based—association with nuclear energy. This one has emerged inside the Tokamak Assembly Preparation Building of ITER in southern France.
G. Flamenbaum, A. Zaetta, M. Martini, M. Michenot, T. Newton, H. Sztark
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 106 | Number 1 | September 1990 | Pages 64-68
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE90-A23758
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Several experiments on Superphénix are used to compare calculations and measurements for various control rod configurations that show salient spatial effects: 1. “local criticality” configurations (i.e., in a subcritical reactor with all rods inserted, adjacent control rods are successively withdrawn up to criticality) 2. criticality achieved with one control rod curtain up and the other remaining fully inserted 3. “handling error” configurations (i.e., all rods inserted except one, which is supposed to be replaced by a fuel subassembly). These experiments and their analysis are described. The calculation-to-experiment comparison shows a good agreement.