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BGRR Completion, 1949

The BGRR design was similar to a reactor in Oak Ridge, TN called the X-10, the second reactor ever built. In the course of the design study for the BGRR, project leader Lyle Borst (right) hit on a simple yet ingenious way of making a major improvement in the way the reactor was cooled. The cooling process is of paramount importance, for the amount of cooling ultimately controls the rate of neutron production (or flux) in a research reactor. The more effective the cooling of a given reactor, the higher the fission rate at which it can be run, and the higher the flux. The low-power X-10 was cooled by air that flowed from one end of the pile to the other through the fuel channels. Borst realized that the cooling would be much more efficient if the graphite cube were cut into two equal pieces separated by a small vertical gap. Air would enter the center of the reactor through the gap and be sucked out through the fuel channels. With the coolest air flowing directly into the central and hottest part of the reactor, it would be safe to achieve a much higher fission rate and neutron flux.*

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* from "Making Physics" by R. Crease, University of Chicago Press, 1999.
 


DOE, Office of ScienceOne of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

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