General > General Technical Chat
Experimental Boiling Water Reactor from 1956
AlbertL:
I wonder if you can still buy a 5-watt "toy" reactor that fits in your garage: https://coldwar-c4i.net/EW-1957-01-28/059.html
BrokenYugo:
--- Quote from: AlbertL on September 08, 2021, 02:23:26 am ---I wonder if you can still buy a 5-watt "toy" reactor that fits in your garage: https://coldwar-c4i.net/EW-1957-01-28/059.html
--- End quote ---
Wikipedia is claiming it ran on 93% enriched uranium (weapons grade), I don't think Uncle Sam is gonna let you have that anymore.
T3sl4co1l:
Shrug, a "neutron howitzer" isn't uncommon in physics labs -- you're going to need a fair amount of paperwork to approve it though. Mind, those usually use alpha+beryllium reaction, not fission.
Want to say, research reactors these days are always more featureful than that, but new reactors aren't exactly an everyday occurrence these days, let alone publicized, so, no idea. Could very well be there's some lab somewhere, that's recently moved into nuclear physics and built one like that as a graduate project; wouldn't really need to order one whole (if indeed you could still find such), just procure the specialty materials.
Cool fact, my alma mater had (likely still has) a lump of plutonium in a handsome (classic 40s-50s hammertone) enclosure, with a Los Alamos placard neatly riveted to it. IIRC it came to something like 150mC or 50g. You'd need more than a few such units smushed together to get anywhere near criticality.
Tim
dmills:
Depends on how hard you smush and how good your reflectors are.
Last I heard, they did not think there was a meaningful lower limit on the theoretical mass required for prompt criticality if you could get it to smush hard enough, 50g is probably pushing it however.
Regards, Dan.
Ground_Loop:
--- Quote from: dmills on September 09, 2021, 11:23:24 am ---Depends on how hard you smush and how good your reflectors are.
Last I heard, they did not think there was a meaningful lower limit on the theoretical mass required for prompt criticality if you could get it to smush hard enough, 50g is probably pushing it however.
Regards, Dan.
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But can enough neutrons be prevented from escaping to sustain the reaction. BTW have any of you seen or maybe contributed to this web site: http:\\nuclearweaponarchive.org
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