On this day in 1950, the pile achieved criticality in the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor (BGRR), the world’s first nuclear reactor dedicated to the peaceful applications of atomic energy. It was patterned after a successful reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The improved reactor design of the BGRR added facilities to accommodate research in medicine, biology, chemistry, physics and nuclear engineering. The reactor pile consisted of a 700-ton, 25-foot cube of graphite fueled by uranium, enclosed in a steel-lined, high-density, five-foot-thick concrete shield. A total of 1,369 fuel channels were available with roughly half in use at any given time. Reactor power was controlled by insertion and removal of boron steel control rods.
August 22nd
204500login-checkAugust 22nd
