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After the Second World War, the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory turned to science. An exhibit panel at the reactor, part of Manhattan Project National Historical Park, marks what was discovered there from 1946 on — a Nobel Prize, a new element and the first electricity from a reactor's heat.
U.S. Department of Energy
What the reactor did next
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1946 onward | Clifford Shull and Ernest Wollan pioneer neutron scattering: bouncing neutrons off crystals to work out how their atoms are arranged. It showed that neutrons could probe the structure of matter, and Shull shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in physics for it |
| 1947 | the discovery of element 61, promethium, is announced. Jacob Marinsky, Lawrence Glendenin and Charles Coryell first produced and identified it, isolating it in 1945 from the waste products of uranium fission in the Graphite Reactor |
| 1948 | Logan Emlet runs a small engine on electricity generated with heat from the reactor — the first demonstration that a reactor's heat could produce electricity |
Today, with both reactor and accelerator sources of neutrons, Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the world's leading center for neutron scattering.
An irradiation factory
The reactor could hold 36 experiments at once, each exposed to its neutrons:
- piston rings and cylinder liners, to study how engine parts wear;
- seeds, placed in tunnels through the reactor, to study the mutations radiation causes in living things;
- insects and animals, to estimate what radiation does to people.
The reactor building itself was long and low, five Quonset-hut sections joined side by side.
Visiting
The X-10 Graphite Reactor stands on the secure grounds of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It can be visited only on guided tours.
Sources
Written from "Oak Ridge X-10: 1946 – Neutron Science and Nuclear Power," Manhattan Project National Historical Park, National Park Service, which describes an exhibit panel at the reactor; a work of the United States government in the public domain.
Dans ces collectionsManhattan Project National Historical Park
Licence : CC0 1.0 (domaine public) · Adapté de www.nps.gov
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