The Theoretical Physics of the Argonaut Reactor
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Lemont, IL (United States)
The Argonaut is a versatile, low-power reactor designed and constructed at Argonne for use as a training facility and for the conduct of experiments in reactor physics. The Argonaut assembly is comprised of a graphite cube with a central annulus formed by two concentric aluminum tanks. The inner tank contains a removable, graphite reflector. The outer tank, or core annulus, contains fuel assemblies, graphite, and water. The fuel plates are made of 20% enriched U3O8 in an aluminum matrix and are clad with aluminum. A fuel assembly is composed of a cluster of 17 plates. Moderation is provided by graphite wedges between clusters and by water between fuel plates in each cluster. The fuel loading is extremely flexible in principle. The annulus contains 24 graphite wedges outlining a like number of spaces of 3 x 6 in. cross section. Theoretically, each of these spaces could be filled with fuel assemblies or graphite blocks of equal cross section. This report is a summary of the methods used (with some degree of success) to compute the critical properties of four typical core loadings. Each loading requires a different type of solution of the critical problem.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP); US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-31-109-ENG-38
- NSA Number:
- NSA-11-009091
- OSTI ID:
- 4371597
- Report Number(s):
- ANL-5710
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Orig. Receipt Date: 31-DEC-57
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
COMPUTERS
CONFIGURATION
CP-11
CRITICALITY
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
FERMI AGE
GROUP THEORY
MASS
MATHEMATICS
NUCLEAR REACTIONS
NUMERICALS
REACTOR CORE
REACTOR FUELING
RESEARCH REACTORS
ZONES
Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
Training Facility
Reactor Physics
Annulus
U3O8
Fuel Assembly
Core Loading