TERMIUM Plus®

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PLUTONIUM PILE [1 record]

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Record 1 2009-10-07

English

Subject field(s)
  • Nuclear Fission Reactors
OBS

These early plutonium reactors were crude affairs with the main objective being to get the weapons material as quickly as possible. Each "pile" was a honeycomb of carved graphite blocks. Hundreds of horizontal channels ran from the front (charge face) of the reactor to the rear discharge face. Some 35,000 aluminium cans of uranium were pushed into these channels to assemble the critical mass for the chain reactions to burn away.

French

Domaine(s)
  • Réacteurs nucléaires de fission
CONT

Description sommaire de la pile plutonigène n° 1 de Windscale [.] La conception des piles plutonigènes était très rustique; elles avaient pour objet essentiel de produire du plutonium de qualité militaire par irradiation, dans un empilement octogonal, de 15,2 m de diamètre et de 7,6 m de longueur, constitué de blocs de graphite, de boîtiers d'aluminium.

Spanish

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