Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor (BGRR) was a

research reactor Research reactors are nuclear fission-based nuclear reactors that serve primarily as a neutron source. They are also called non-power reactors, in contrast to power reactors that are used for electricity production, heat generation, or marit ...

located at

Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...

, a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in

Upton, New York Upton is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) on Long Island in the town of Brookhaven. It is the home of the Brookhaven National Laboratory and a National Weather Service weather forecast office. Upton is located on eastern Long Island in ...

, on

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...

, approximately 60 miles east of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

.Brookhaven History: Using Reactors as Research Tools - Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor
Brookhaven National Laboratory. Accessed December 19, 2020 The BGRR operated from 1950 until 1968 and has been fully decommissioned.https://www.bnl.gov/bgrr/ Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor. BNL Environmental Protection Division. Accessed December 19, 2020.

History

The BGRR was the first nuclear reactor built after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

for exclusively peaceful use. It was the first reactor constructed at BNL. The primary purposes of the BGRR were to produce

neutrons The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons behave ...

for scientific use and to refine nuclear reactor design. The reactor provided a source of neutrons for multidisciplinary scientific research in materials science, chemistry, biology, and physics. Construction started on the reactor in 1947 and it became operational in August 1950.https://riverheadlocal.com/2012/07/19/decommissioning-of-nations-first-peacetime-research-reactor-completed-at-bnl/ Civiletti, Denise. "Decommissioning of nation’s first peacetime research reactor completed at BNL." Riverhead Local. July 19, 2012.

Design

The BGRR was an air cooled, graphite moderated, uranium fueled research reactor. The 700 ton reactor core consisted of a graphite cube 25 ft. on a side constructed from over 60,000 individual pieces of graphite. The reactor was cooled by air drawn through the core by three 1,000 hp. fans. The biological shield was constructed of high-density concrete containing steel spheres and the notably dense

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the ...

limonite Limonite () is an iron ore consisting of a mixture of hydrated iron(III) oxide-hydroxides in varying composition. The generic formula is frequently written as FeO(OH)·H2O, although this is not entirely accurate as the ratio of oxide to hydroxide ...

. As a research reactor, BGRR never had a power conversion system to generate electricity; heat from the nuclear reactions was exhausted through a tall stack to the atmosphere. The BGRR fuel elements were charged and discharged through graphite channel openings on the south pile face. Reactor operations were controlled by the position of 16

control rods Control rods are used in nuclear reactors to control the rate of fission of the nuclear fuel – uranium or plutonium. Their compositions include chemical elements such as boron, cadmium, silver, hafnium, or indium, that are capable of absorbing ...

that penetrated the reactor horizontally in directions parallel to the diagonals of the reactor base. The initial fuel of the BGRR was natural

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

(NU) which utilized aluminum fuel elements that were 11 feet long and contained 33 NU fuel slugs each. During the operation with the NU fuel, there were 28 fuel element failures. In 1958, the NU fuel was replaced with highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel clad with aluminum. Each HEU element was 24 inches long. The fuel elements each contained 15 grams of HEU at 93%

uranium-235 Uranium-235 (235U or U-235) is an isotope of uranium making up about 0.72% of natural uranium. Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it is fissile, i.e., it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. It is the only fissile isotope that exi ...

. The fissionable material was a uranium-aluminum alloy slab, covered on the top and bottom by aluminum sheets at least 20 mils thick with the edges welded all around. The reactor was designed for 32 megawatts thermal, with a design-operating limit of 28 megawatts thermal for NU fuel. The reactor normally operated at approximately 20 megawatts with HEU. The reactor facility design included both neutron beam lines for experiments external to the reactor core and also pipe loops which allowed experiments to be conducted as fluids flowed through the operating reactor core. External to the reactor building, and shared with the subsequently constructed HFBR, was the Reactor Bypass Filter Facility (RBFF). This facility provided improved air cleaning prior to exhaust to the atmosphere in the unlikely event of a fuel element failure at either the BGRR or the HFBR. It also provided sufficient air cleaning to allow the use of air cooling as a method of combating a graphite fire at the BGRR. The facility was placed into operation in 1965.https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4508009 The Design, Test and Use of the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) Reactor Bypass Filter Facility. August 22, 1966.

Decommissioning

After operating for 18 years, BGRR was functionally obsolete. The BGRR was placed in standby mode in June 1968, then permanently shut down in 1969. All fuel was removed from the reactor and shipped to the

Savannah River Site The Savannah River Site (SRS) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reservation in the United States in the state of South Carolina, located on land in Aiken, Allendale, and Barnwell counties adjacent to the Savannah River, southeast of August ...

by 1972. The BGRR was fully decommissioned in 2012 following a 13-year, $148 million process. Contaminated materials were shipped to Nevada and Utah for disposal. Several buildings and structures which housed the BGRR and associated facilities remain in safe storage or repurposed for other uses as of 2020.https://www.bnl.gov/bgrr/bgrr-complex.php Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor Complex Description. BNL Environmental Protection Division. Accessed December 19, 2020. Over its lifetime an estimated 25,000 individual experiments were performed by the reactor and accompanying scientists and engineers. The BGRR was the predecessor for the High Flux Beam Reactor also located at BNL. The red and white, 320-foot-tall exhaust stack constructed for the BGRR in 1949 and later shared with the HFBR was a distinctive landmark for the area until its demolition in 2020.https://www.energy.gov/em/articles/cleanup-workers-set-tear-down-iconic-brookhaven-reactor-stack-year Cleanup Workers Set to Tear Down Iconic Brookhaven Reactor Stack This Year. February 25, 2020. Department of Energy.

References

;Citations

External links

* *Department of Energy Photo of the Week (May 30, 2014): The Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor - https://www.energy.gov/articles/photo-week-brookhaven-graphite-research-reactor {{U.S. Nuclear Plants Nuclear research reactors

History

Design

Decommissioning

See also

References

External links