Rossendorfer ring zone reactor

Rossendorfer ring zone reactor
Coordinates	51 ° 3 '35 "  N , 13 ° 57' 17"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 3 '35 "  N , 13 ° 57' 17"  E
country	Germany
Data
owner	Free State of Saxony
operator	Central Institute for Nuclear Research
start of building	1961
Installation	December 16, 1962
Shutdown	September 25, 1991
Shutdown	May 11, 2000
Reactor type	Tank / critical arrangement
Thermal performance	1 kW
Neutron flux density	1.5 × 10 11  n / (cm 2 s)
was standing	February 6, 2009

The Rossendorfer Ring Zone Reactor ( RRR ) was a research reactor that was operated from 1962 to 1991 at what was then the Central Institute for Nuclear Research in Dresden-Rossendorf . The nuclear reactor had a thermal output of 1000  watts and was used as a neutron source exclusively for research purposes. It was the first reactor that was built independently in the GDR .

history

In early 1961, a small Argonaut-type research reactor was imported from the USA . The first reactor of this type was designed at the Argonne National Laboratory . On December 16, 1962, the reactor reached its first criticality . This made it the first nuclear reactor to be built exclusively by scientists and technicians from the GDR on the basis of US plans. The ring zone reactor was the second of three nuclear facilities at the Central Institute for Nuclear Research in Rossendorf; the Rossendorf research reactor had been put into operation five years earlier , and the Rossendorfer arrangement for critical experiments was installed seven years later . The Rossendorf ring zone reactor was then expanded into a coupled rapid / thermal system in 1972 by installing a fast insert grid.

After almost 29 years of operation, the reactor was finally shut down on September 25, 1991, the same year as the other two research reactors. On March 31, 1999, the Saxon State Ministry for the Environment and Regional Development issued a permit to shut down the plant. The Association for Nuclear Process Engineering and Analysis Rossendorf was commissioned by the Free State of Saxony with the decommissioning and dismantling . The nuclear fuel was then unloaded and secured, and the reactor facility was then completely dismantled. On May 11, 2000, the plant was finally released from the scope of the German Atomic Energy Act .

construction

The Rossendorfer ring zone reactor was a nuclear reactor of the Argonaut type, which was cooled and moderated with light water . The reactor had a thermal power of 1 kW, the maximum thermal neutron flux was 1.5 × 10 ¹¹ n / cm ² s. The neutrons were here by graphite - reflectors bundled.

research

The ring zone reactor was used for basic research in reactor physics , in particular measurement methods in neutron spectrometry , for reactivity measurement technology and reactor diagnostics were developed and tested.

See also

• List of nuclear facilities
• List of nuclear reactors in Germany

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b} Rossendorf Ring Zone Reactor (RRR), information page of the Association for Nuclear Process Engineering and Analytics Rossendorf ( Memento from March 26, 2002 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ List of nuclear facilities in the Federal Republic of Germany ( Memento from January 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Federal Office for Radiation Protection, November 2013
3. ^ Nuclear Research Reactors in the World , International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA