B Reactor

Infobox nrhp
name = Hanford B Reactor
nrhp_type = nhl

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caption = Hanford Site in 1945. B Reactor is the building just to the right of the water tower.
location = Near jct. of WA 24 and WA 240, Hanford Site
nearest_city = Richland, Washington
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built = June 7, 1943 [cite web |url=http://www.energy.gov/about/breactor.htm |title=World's first nuclear reactor now a landmark |accessdate=2008-08-26 |work= |author=Shannon Dininny |publisher=Associated Press |date=2008-08-26 |quote=Construction began on June 7, 1943...] to September 1944 [cite web |url=http://www.energy.gov/about/breactor.htm |title=Department of Energy - B Reactor |accessdate=2008-08-26 |work= |publisher=United States Department of Energy |date=2007-04-20 |quote=Completed in September 1944...]
architect = E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co.
architecture =
designated=August 19, 2008cite web|url=http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/listings/20080829.HTM |title=Weekly List Actions |accessdate=2008-08-30|work= |author= |publisher= National Park Service |date=2008-08-29 |quote=]
added = April 3, 1992
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refnum = 92000245
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governing_body = U.S. Department of Energy

The B Reactor at Hanford Site, Washington, was the first large scale plutonium production reactor ever built. The project was commissioned under the Manhattan Project, during World War II, to develop the first nuclear weapons. It was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark on August 19, 2008.citation|title=PDFlink| [http://www.nps.gov/history/nhl/Fall07Nominations/B%20Reactor.pdf National Historic Landmark Nomination: B Reactor / 105-B; The 105-B Building in the 100-B/C Area at Hanford] |167 KB|date=February, 2007 |author=Michele S. Gerber, Brian Casserly, Frederick L. Brown |publisher=National Park Service]

The reactor was designed and built by the DuPont company based on experimental designs tested by Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago, and tests from the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It was designed to operate at 250 megawatts. The reactor was graphite moderated and water cooled. It consisted of a 28 by 36-foot, 1,200-ton graphite cylinder lying on its side, penetrated through its entire length horizontally by 2,004 aluminum tubes. Two hundred tons of uranium slugs the size of rolls of quarters and sealed in aluminum cans went into the tubes. Cooling water was pumped through the aluminum tubes around the uranium slugs at the rate of 75,000 gallons per minute. The reactor produced plutonium-239 by irradiating uranium-238 with neutrons.

The B Reactor was one of three reactors—along with the D and F reactors—built about six miles apart on the south bank of the Columbia River. The B Reactor started production in September, 1944, the D-Reactor in December, 1944 and the F-Reactor in February, 1945. Each reactor had its own auxiliary facilities that included a river pump house, large storage and settling basins, a filtration plant, huge motor-driven pumps for delivering water to the face of the pile, and facilities for emergency cooling in case of a power failure.

The plutonium for the Trinity device, tested at Los Alamos in New Mexico, and the Fat Man bomb, later dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, was created in the B, D and F reactors. Additional reactors were constructed later, but the first three reactors ran for two decades. The B Reactor was shut down in February 1968. It is now in "interim safe storage" mode. The D and F reactors were shut down in June, 1967 and June 1965, respectively. In a process called cocooning or entombment, the reactor buildings are demolished up to the four foot-thick concrete shield around the reactor core. Any openings are sealed and a new roof is built. The D and F reactors have already been entombed, as have the C and DR reactors. Most auxiliary buildings at the first three reactors have been demolished, as well. The H, K-East and K-West reactors and the N-Reactor are scheduled to be entombed in that order. There is interest in turning the B Reactor into a museum. On August 25 2008, the B reactor was declared a National Historic Landmark.

ources

*PDFlink| [http://www.washingtonclosure.com/News/WCH_Newsletter1/Vol_01_Issue_04/Vol_01_Issue_04.pdf Washington Closure Hanford - Newsletter] |666 KB
*PDFlink| [http://www.hanford.gov/doe/history/docs/rl-97-1047/dates.pdf Hanford Site - Timeline 1943-1990] |168 KB
* [http://www.energy.gov/about/breactor.htm United States Department of Energy - B Reactor]
* [http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2008/08/25/daily6.html B Reactor a historic Landmark]

References

External links

* [http://www.b-reactor.org/ B Reactor Museum Association] A collection of Hanford-related documents from a group fighting to preserve the B-100 Reactor at Hanford.
*Reactor 105-B (museum) location: coord|46|37|49|N|119|38|51|W|type:landmark_region:US|display=inline,title