May 08 Issue - Employee Monthly Magazine

Queen of SHEBA

Researcher revamps unique criticality equipment

Charlene Cappiello does some final tidying of the Planet critical assembly machine before it is shipped to the Critical Experiments Facility at the Nevada Test Site. Photo by Sandra Valdez

One-of-a-kind is a reasonable way to describe Charlene Cappiello, the smiling face behind the newly refurbished critical assembly equipment that's transitioning from Technical Area 18 to a new home at the Nevada Test Site. Then again, each of the remarkable machines on which Cappiello has worked also could be described that way. The experimental nuclear reactors on which she's based her career have allowed generations of scientists to more closely, yet safely, peer into some of the deepest secrets of nuclear materials.

Cappiello graduated from the University of Colorado in 1974 with a bachelor's degree in engineering and worked as a systems engineer on the Fast Flux Test Facility experimental reactor in Hanford, Washington, until 1980. She then came to Los Alamos as a design engineer, working on equipment from a gadgeteer's dreams: small portable reactors, tritium-handling equipment, experimental oil shale retorts, accelerators, fusion energy machines, and nuclear radiation detection systems—except that here at a national laboratory, those are simply tools of the job.

She retired in June 2005, returning as a contractor on this special project to move the machines to the Critical Experiments Facility at the Nevada Test Site.

Her skills, said Nuclear Nonproliferation Division Leader Nancy Jo Nicholas, are unique, part of what allowed TA-18's criticality team to provide a remarkable science service to the nation. Understanding nuclear cross sections, remotely reconstructing nuclear industry accidents, establishing safety guidelines for research and industry, training first responders—all have been part of the job for the critical assembly teams.

While working at TA-18, Cappiello became the principal investigator for the liquid solution reactor, SHEBA. She conducted many first-of-a-kind experiments on uranium fluoride solutions on the machine.

"Unfortunately, my favorite machine is SHEBA, which is the one that is not going [to the Critical Experiments Facility at the Nevada Test Site]. Of the four that are going, I like Godiva, our pulse reactor, the best."

For more information, see the LANL NewsLetter story at http://int.lanl.gov/news/newsletter/120406.pdf, "Relocating TA-18's Critical Assembly Machines."

-Nancy Ambrosiano