The Réacteur Universitaire de Strasbourg (RUS) was a 100 kW
thermal
A thermal column (or thermal) is a rising mass of buoyant air, a convective current in the atmosphere, that transfers heat energy vertically. Thermals are created by the uneven heating of Earth's surface from solar radiation, and are an example ...
Argonaut-class reactor built at the
University Louis-Pasteur, located in the commune of
Schiltigheim near Strasbourg. RUS went
critical
Critical or Critically may refer to:
*Critical, or critical but stable, medical states
**Critical, or intensive care medicine
* Critical juncture, a discontinuous change studied in the social sciences.
*Critical Software, a company specializing i ...
on 22 November 1966 and ended operations on 31 May 1995. Its decommissioning was finalized in 2009.
[''Réacteur universitaire de Strasbourg''](_blank)
– ASN, 5 juillet 2013
History
The design of university training reactor RUS was based on the
Argonaut research reactor developed by the
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Lemont, Illinois, Lemont, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1946, the laboratory is owned by the United Sta ...
in the mid-1950s, in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. A second Argonaut-class reactor, the Ulysse reactor, was already in operation in France at the Saclay research centre of the
French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. The University Reactor of Strasbourg was the Basic Nuclear Installation (BNI) No. 44.
The reactor core consisted of an internal
graphite
Graphite () is a Crystallinity, crystalline allotrope (form) of the element carbon. It consists of many stacked Layered materials, layers of graphene, typically in excess of hundreds of layers. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable ...
neutron reflector
A neutron reflector is any material that reflects neutrons. This refers to elastic scattering rather than to a specular reflection. The material may be graphite, beryllium, steel, tungsten carbide, gold, or other materials. A neutron reflect ...
surrounded by a ring of
MTR
The Mass Transit Railway system, known locally by the initialism MTR, is a rapid transit system in Hong Kong and the territory's principal mode of Rail transport in Hong Kong, railway transportation. Operated by the MTR Corporation (MTRCL), ...
-type
nuclear fuel
Nuclear fuel refers to any substance, typically fissile material, which is used by nuclear power stations or other atomic nucleus, nuclear devices to generate energy.
Oxide fuel
For fission reactors, the fuel (typically based on uranium) is ...
elements with an average
235U enrichment of 92.5% and an external graphite neutron reflector. The
highly enriched uranium
Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238 ...
(93%) was supplied by the United States.
The reactor was primarily a research instrument for conducting experimental
irradiations,
activation-based analysis of nuclear chemistry, solid-state physics, biology and the production of short-lived
radioisotopes. A variety of cavities were available, including a 7.3-metre "biological cavity", to perform those experiments.
Pneumatic conveyor systems make short irradiations possible to immediately study the irradiated materials in the laboratories adjacent to the reactor hall.
The final shutdown of the RUS reactor was decided in February 2006.
The RUS reactor was dismantled from August 2006 to December 2008. The final decommissioning of INB No. 44 was pronounced in October 2012.
References
{{Coord, 48, 36, 0, N, 7, 42, 0, E, type:landmark_scale:10000_region:FR, display=title
University of Strasbourg
Argonaut class reactor
Defunct nuclear reactors
Science and technology in France