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Advanced Reactivity Measurement Facility I (ARMF-I) was a research reactor which was located at the Argonne National Laboratory, a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, facility located in the high desert of southeastern Idaho between Idaho Falls, Idaho and Arco, Idaho. ARMF-I was nearly identical to ARMF-II.
The ARMF-I, a reactor located in a small pool in a building east of the MTR in the Test Reactor Area, was used to determine the nuclear characteristics of reactor fuels and other materials subject to testing in the MTR. Together with the MTR, the reactor helped improve the performance, reliability, and quality of reactor core components. Until the next generation reactor, the ARMF-II, this was considered the most sensitive device for reactivity determinations then in existence. [1]
The Advanced Reactivity Measurement Facilities, ARMF-I and ARMF-II, were nearly identical critical facilities and were used almost exclusively for measuring reactor physics parameters, such as reactor-spectrum cross sections and resonance integral cross sections. They were designed to (a) have large statistical weights for fuels and poisons, (b) be mechanically stable enough to produce reproducible reactivity measurements, and (c) have sensitive instrumentation capable of measuring very small reactivities. [2]
ARMF-I operated from October 10, 1960, until 1974. [1]
ARMF-I and ARMF-II were near identical pool reactors. [1] ARMF-I and ARMF-II were housed in a 40-foot by 60-foot cinder block building located just east of the MTR canal tunnel; the building was designed from the initial concept for two reactors. These facilities were swimming-pool-type reactors having light-water moderated cores made up of plate-type fuel elements containing high enriched uranium at 93% U-235. The facilities were located at the National Reactor Testing Station near the Materials Testing Reactor (MTR). Being located near the MTR permitted measurements on short-lived fission products and transmuted isotopes. By use of the capsule 'transfer tube' connecting the MTR and ARMF canals, a capsule could be transferred from the MTR hydraulic rabbit to the ARMF and prepared for reactivity measurements in 15 minutes. [2]
Argonne National Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center in Lemont, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1946, the laboratory is now sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered by UChicago Argonne LLC of the University of Chicago. The facility is the largest national laboratory by size and scope in the Midwest.
The Naval Reactors Facility (NRF) is located 52 miles northwest of Idaho Falls, Idaho. The NRF is a United States Department of Energy-Naval Reactors facility where three nuclear propulsion prototypes A1W, S1W and S5G were located. It is contractor-operated for the government by Fluor Corporation through their subsidiary, Fluor Marine Propulsion, LLC, which also operates Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory and Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory.
Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, also known as SL-1 or the Argonne Low Power Reactor (ALPR), was a United States Army experimental nuclear reactor in the western United States at the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS) in Idaho about forty miles (65 km) west of Idaho Falls, now the Idaho National Laboratory. On January 3, 1961, a steam explosion killed all three of its young military operators, pinning one of them to the ceiling with a reactor vessel plug. It remains the only U.S. reactor accident to cause immediate deaths.
Experimental Breeder Reactor I (EBR-I) is a decommissioned research reactor and U.S. National Historic Landmark located in the desert about 18 miles (29 km) southeast of Arco, Idaho. It was the world's first breeder reactor. At 1:50 p.m. on December 20, 1951, it became one of the world's first electricity-generating nuclear power plants when it produced sufficient electricity to illuminate four 200-watt light bulbs. EBR-I subsequently generated sufficient electricity to power its building, and continued to be used for experimental purposes until it was decommissioned in 1964. The museum is open for visitors from late May until early September.
The S1W reactor was the first prototype naval reactor used by the United States Navy to prove that the technology could be used for electricity generation and propulsion on submarines.
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The BORAX Experiments were a series of safety experiments on boiling water nuclear reactors conducted by Argonne National Laboratory in the 1950s and 1960s at the National Reactor Testing Station in eastern Idaho. They were performed using the five BORAX reactors that were designed and built by Argonne. BORAX-III was the first nuclear reactor to supply electrical power to the grid in the United States in 1955.
Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) was a sodium-cooled fast reactor designed, built and operated by Argonne National Laboratory at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho. It was shut down in 1994. Custody of the reactor was transferred to Idaho National Laboratory after its founding in 2005.
The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) is a research reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory, located east of Arco, Idaho. This reactor was designed and is used to test nuclear fuels and materials to be used in power plants, naval propulsion, research and advanced reactors. It can operate at a maximum thermal power of 250 MW and has a "Four Leaf Clover" core design that allows for a variety of testing locations. The unique design allows for different neutron flux conditions in various locations. Six of the test locations allow an experiment to be isolated from the primary cooling system, providing its own environment for temperature, pressure, flow and chemistry, replicating the physical environment while accelerating the nuclear conditions.
The Zero Power Physics Reactor or ZPPR was a split-table-type critical facility located at the Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho, USA. It was designed for the study of the physics of power breeder systems and was capable of simulating fast reactor core compositions characteristic of 300-500 MWe demonstration plants and 1000 MWe commercial plants.
The Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) is an agency of the United States Department of Energy which promotes nuclear power as a resource capable of meeting the energy, environmental, and national security needs of the United States by resolving technical and regulatory barriers through research, development, and demonstration.
The Materials Testing Reactor (MTR) was an early nuclear reactor specifically designed to facilitate the conception and design of future reactors. It produced much of the foundational irradiation data that underlies the nuclear power industry. It operated in Idaho at the National Reactor Testing Station from 1952 to 1970.
The Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) is an air-cooled, graphite moderated, thermal spectrum test nuclear reactor designed to test reactor fuels and structural materials. Constructed in 1958, and operated from 1959 until 1994, TREAT was built to conduct transient reactor tests where the test material is subjected to neutron pulses that can simulate conditions ranging from mild transients to reactor accidents. TREAT was designed by Argonne National Laboratory, and is located at the Idaho National Laboratory. Since original construction, the facility had additions or systems upgrades in 1963, 1972, 1982, and 1988. The 1988 addition was extensive, and included upgrades of most of the instrumentation and control systems.
The Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) was a project by the U.S. Department of Energy to build a fast-neutron test reactor by 2026. Funding for the project was scrapped in 2022
The Aurora powerhouse is an advanced fission plant concept design that received a site use permit for testing in 2020 from the United States Department of Energy (DOE). The site use permit, issued in December 2019 is not a Nuclear Regulatory Commission permit. It is the "first and only permit ever issued in the U.S. to a nuclear plant using something other than a light water ("water-cooled") reactor". It will use "recycled" high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel originally fabricated for the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II), and if fully operational, would become "the first fuel-recycling commercial reactor in the United States". The DOE's Idaho National Laboratory (INL) said it would provide 10 tons of HALEU for the test reactor which corresponds to most of the available supply. Reprocessing would occur at INL's Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) and possibly also the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center (INTEC), neither of which are operational facilities as of early 2020.
Argonne Fast Source Reactor (AFSR) was a research reactor which was located at the Argonne National Laboratory, a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, facility located in the high desert of southeastern Idaho between Idaho Falls, Idaho and Arco, Idaho.
Advanced Reactivity Measurement Facility II (ARMF-II) was a research reactor which was located at the Argonne National Laboratory, a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, facility located in the high desert of southeastern Idaho between Idaho Falls, Idaho and Arco, Idaho. ARMF-II was nearly identical to ARMF-I.
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