Nuclear Reactor Research Laboratory

The first research reactor, located in a rock cavern in Stockholm at the Royal Technical University, was commissioned in 1954. It operated until 1970 and was eventually dismantled in the 1980-s. The site has been decommissioned to green field and the rock cavern is now used for other activities without any radiological restrictions. Several research reactors were also operated in the nuclear national research laboratories in Studsvik. From 1964 to 1974 a heavy water moderated PWR reactor was operated for district heating purposes in a suburb to Stockholm but also generating electricity. It was intended as a demonstration facility. It is now waiting dismantling. 

A number of pool, also called swimming pool, reactors have been built at educational institutions and research laboratories. The core in these reactors is located at the bottom of a large pool of water, 6 m deep, suspended from a bridge. The water serves as moderator, coolant, and shield. An example is the Lord nuclear reactor at the University of Michigan, started in 1957. The core is composed of fuel elements, each having 18 aluminum-clad plates of 20% enriched uranium. It operates at 2 MW, giving a thermal flux of 3 x 10 (cm -s). The reactor operates almost continuously, using a variety of beam tubes, for research purposes. 

Nuclear reactor and generator at Argonne National Laboratory used primarily for research and development in testing reactor fuels as weU as for training. The generation from the unit is used for internal consumption. 

Proponents of the laboratories counter that, despite these shortcomings, the laboratories seiwe a vital mission of undertaking the high risk and expensive investments that the private sector would never agree to invest in. Although natural gas research and development was minimal, DOE support accelerated technological advances on natural gas-fired turbines. Much of the research and development at the laboratories has provided a net social benefit to the nation and economy, work such as safe nuclear reactors and the development of sophisticated defense weapons. 

All isotopes of technetium (Z = 43) are unstable, so the element is not found an Avhere in the Earth s crust. Its absence left a gap in the periodic table below manganese. The search for this missing element occupied researchers for many years. It was not until 1937 that the first samples of technetium were prepared in a nuclear reactor. In fact, technetium was the first element to be made artificially in the laboratory. To date, 21 radioactive isotopes of technetium have been identified, some of them requiring millions of years to decompose. 

Research Laboratory for Nuclear Reactors, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Nl-22-2-12-1 O-okayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan E-mail yukitaka nr.titech.ac.jp... 

Research Associate of Research Laboratory of Nuclear Reactors, Tokyo Institute of Technology Lecturer of Faculty of Science, Nagoya University Associate Professor of Faculty of Science, Nagoya University... 

In 1932 James Chadwick (1891—1974) bombarded beryllium with alpha particles (helium nuclei) that produced free neutrons. Since then, this nuclear process has made beryhium a reliable neutron emitter for laboratory nuclear research. Beryhium is not only an excellent moderator to slow down high-speed neutrons in nuclear reactors, but it also can act as a... 

Because such small amounts of berkehum have been produced, not many uses for it have been found. One use is as a source for producing the element californium by bombarding isotopes of berkehum with high-energy neutrons in nuclear reactors. Berkelium is also used in some laboratory research. 

Increased environmental concern has accelerated research on the analysis of trace elements in fuels in many university and governmental facilities. Because instruments such as mass spectrometers and nuclear reactors for neutron activation analysis are available, much of this research uses sophisticated instrumentation and techniques. However, the wet chemistry laboratory is still the only available source of chemical... 

Refs l)D.J.Hudges, "The Nuclear Reactor as a Research Instrument , SciAm 189, No 2, 23 9 (1953) 2)R.A.Beth C.Lasky, "The Brookhaven Alternating Gradient Synchrotron , Science 128, No 3336, 1393 1401(1958) 3)D.Puleston, Head, Information Division, "Brookhaven National Laboratory-Present and Future Growth (June 1961) 4)Numerous booklets pamphlets available to the public, issued by the Information Division of the Directors Office, Brookhaven National Laboratory... 

Nuclear Reactor Design Nuclear Waste Management Research Laboratories Medical Isotopes Diagnostics... 

Research Laboratory for Nuclear Reactors Tokyo Institute of Technology Tokyo 152-8550, Japan... 

Many radionuclides can be produced in cyclotrons, thus avoiding the use of more costly nuclear reactors. Many research hospitals now have cyclotrons to provide shortlived radionuclides of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and fluorine. The longer-lived products are produced commercially or in government laboratories.25,26 28A list of major isotopes and their uses is shown in Table 21.9,... 

Advanced Proliferation Resistant, Lower Cost, Uranium-Thorium Dioxide Fuels for Light Water Reactors, Nuclear Energy Research Initiative, Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID, 2000. 

The 1946 prediction of Robert Oppenheimer, one of the pioneers in this field, that great nuclear reactors would be supplying enough energy to heat a large dty within ten years, had practically come true. Altogether there were some twenty-nine reactors operating in the United States, plus three national" reactor laboratories in full production in 1955. In January of that year the first atom-powered transport became a reality when the United States submarine Nautilus put to sea successfully. This boat and its sister ship, the submarine Sea Wolf, built soon after, became the forerunners of atom-powered merchant ships, locomotives, airplanes, and such portable nuclear plants as small house boilers and atomic reactors for medical research. 

The very first nuclear reactor built, where the main objective was to perform condensed matter research, was the High Flux Beam Reactor (HFBR) at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY. The first self-sustaining chain reaction at the HFBR took place on Halloween, 1965. For over 30 years, the HFBR was one of the premier beam reactors in the world, matched only by the ILL reactor in Grenoble, France. These reactor-based sources have been a continuous and reliable source of thermal neutrons for research in a wide range of different scientific fields from physics, chemistry, materials science, and biology to engineering and isotope emichment. The instrumentation that is in place at these sources has seen steady improvement from the days when Nobel laureates, Brockhouse and Shull, performed their pioneering work at these facilities. 

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