Word: weinbergs
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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When Russia's top nuclear engineers visited Oak Ridge National Laboratory last fall, the thing that impressed them most was a cylindrical, tanklike object 55 ft. long. They sat in rows of chairs while short, slender Dr. Alvin M. Weinberg, the 44-year-old physicist who is the lab's director, told them what was inside the tank: an experimental reactor in which liquid fuel replaces the troublesome solid-fuel elements of conventional power reactors. "A very bold idea," conceded Professor Vasily S. Emelyanov, chief of the Russian group. Last week Dr. Weinberg cautiously told his laboratory mates...
Largely a brainchild of Dr. Weinberg, the reactor HRE-2 (for Homogeneous Reactor Experiment No. 2) is an attempt to avoid some of the worst disadvantages of solid-fuel reactors. Since solid uranium is quickly corroded at high temperature, it must be enclosed in a more resistant metal such as zirconium or stainless steel. As the uranium fissions, it generates gases that tend to burst the container. Other fission products absorb neutrons, and when too much of this "poison" has accumulated, it makes the nuclear reaction slow down or stop. At intervals, the fuel elements must be removed and their...