Weekend tour of B Reactor

[sscherin]

We did the tour of B-Reactor last Saturday.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Reactor
http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/
http://www.b-reactor.org/

For those who don't know B reactor was built during WWII to produce Plutonium..
This is where the plutonium for the Trinity test bomb and Fat Man Bomb which was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan was produced.





Control Room




















Reactor Face






Valve Room

[Shep]

Wow, Thanks for sharing

[Uncle Cracker]

Interesting stuff!

[crokett]

That is really neat! Thanks for posting that.

[BobSch]

Thanks for sharing the pictures. A lot of history in that facility.

[sscherin]

Just to add some more info..

Those 9 big dials tell how far into the core the control rods are inserted


This is just a small part of the reactor face..
There are a total of 2000 fuel tubes that go all the way through the reactor.
They unscrewed the caps front and back.. pushed new fuel rods into the front and the enriched slugs fall out the back into a cooling pool..


This panel has a temperature gauge for every one of the 2000 fuel tubes in the core.
Any one of them can SCRAM the reactor.. The knob colors indicate a different type of fuel in that tube..



Back side of the pannel




The soviets still come and inspect the reactor every 5 years to be sure we are not using it to produce plutonium.

I have more pics at home I can post later..

[chopnhack]

Are you serious about the soviets? They are worried about this archaic reactor? Man, no wonder they have problems. I understand that this was state of the art back then, but I am sure we could have much higher yields from our other plants, or am I missing something? Thanks for the pics of this obscure bit of Americana. It is really cool to see something like this. Thanks for sharing!

[sscherin]

Are you serious about the soviets?

Yeah.. They are due to inspect in 6 months..

Notice the valves in the room of pipes on the right side have the covers off?

I was told they take pictures of them at each inspection to be sure the lids have not moved and all the rust flakes are the same. (or so I'm told)

We do the same to them..

[cabinetman]

Very interesting tour, thanks for posting. I like the sign: "CAUTION - BUMPING PANEL MAY CAUSE SCRAM".
.

[woodturner]

The soviets still come

Do you mean the Russians? Which country from the former Soviet Union inspects them?

[sscherin]

As it turns out it's the IAEA that does the inspections..
http://dtirp.dtra.mil/TIC/synopses/iaea-s.cfm
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Doc...aties/npt.html
Looks like it's the Russian Federation, United Kingdom and United States

More to come.. I didn't get a chance to post last night..

[JimD]

If you are interested in nuclear plants, there are visitors centers at the majority, possibly all, U. S. power producing reactors. In Washington state, for instance, is what we used to call WPPS (pronounced whoops) 2. Now it is called the Columbia generating station. There are a lot more electricity generating nuclear plants (which is a very different technology in the details) in the east but there is at least one plant in most states. The NRC website shows their location and a bit of informaiton. The utilities cannot let you into the plant but they will welcome you to the visitors center. The ones I have been to, have been relatively large with a bunch of interesting displays on electricity and nuclear generation.

Jim

[JoeyGee]

Boy, do I feel dumb. I always thought the Manhattan Project took place in NY. Unfortunately, I'm not joking .

Guess I should do some reading. Nah, I'll just rent Fatman and Little Boy.

[BobSch]

I'll just rent Fatman and Little Boy.

You can rent nuclear weapons? Boy, the federal deficit must be worse than I thought!

[luteman]

Does Homer Simpson still work there?