Fast thermal Argonaut reactor Karlsruhe

Fast thermal Argonaut reactor Karlsruhe
Coordinates	49 ° 5 '29 "  N , 8 ° 25' 46"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 5 '29 "  N , 8 ° 25' 46"  E
country	Germany
Data
operator	Nuclear Research Center Karlsruhe
start of building	1961
Installation	January 11, 1963
Shutdown	March 1976
Shutdown	1977
Reactor type	Argonaut
Thermal performance	10 watts
Neutron flux density	1.4 · 10 8  n / (cm 2 s)
was standing	February 7, 2009

The Rapid Thermal Argonaut Reactor Karlsruhe ( STARK ) was a research reactor that was operated from 1963 to 1976 at the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center (today's successor institution: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology ). The nuclear reactor had a thermal output of ten watts and was used exclusively for research purposes.

history

At the beginning of 1961, the Argonaut-type research reactor was imported from the USA by the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center . The first reactor of this type had been designed a few years earlier at the Argonne National Laboratory . The reactor reached its first criticality on January 11, 1963, and research operations could then begin at the end of June 1964.

After Research Reactor 2 , which had gone into operation two years earlier, the reactor was the second of a total of six nuclear facilities at the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center. Two years later the multi-purpose research reactor , three years later the fast zero energy arrangement and a Siemens teaching reactor were put into operation. The KNK nuclear power plant first became critical eight years later.

The nuclear reactor was shut down as the first of the five research reactors after 13 years of operation in March 1976. The reactor was then shut down and finally released from the scope of the German Atomic Energy Act in 1977 . Parts of the reactor were given away to a museum.

construction

The Rapid Thermal Argonaut Reactor was an Argonaut type nuclear reactor. It had a thermal output of 10 watts and was moderated and cooled with light water . Compared to a normal Argonaut reactor but the inner was graphite - reflector zone by a fast core zone exchanged variable material composition. The maximum thermal neutron flux was 1.4 · 10 ⁸ n / (cm ²  s).

research

The research reactor was used as a neutron source for the development of measurement methods for spectra and nuclear reaction rates as well as for the determination of reactivity and for noise analysis.

See also

• List of nuclear power plants
• List of nuclear reactors in Germany

swell

1. ^ History of the Karlsruhe Research Center - 1964 , information page of the Karlsruhe Research Center
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. ↑ The last reactor will be given away to the museum  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Press release of the Karlsruhe Research Center from February 25, 1997  
4. ↑ W. Marth. The fast breeder SNR 300 in the ups and downs of its history (PDF; 5.5 MB), report KFK 4666 of the Karlsruhe nuclear research center, May 1992
5. ^ Nuclear Research Reactors in the World , International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA