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mheslep
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I'm just finishing the Rhodes history, "The Making of the ..." , and am curious about the resolution of the Xenon poisoning problem after it was first discovered in the first production reactor at Hanford, the 100-B pile.
According to Rhodes, shortly after starting the reactor for the first time they discovered the reactor dropping sub-critical every few hours due to Xenon poisoning, and the power up again as the Xenon decayed. The problem was resolved by adding another ~500 Uranium slugs, which overcame the neutron losses.
My question is, with the additional U slugs, I assume power levels would still cycle up and down with Xenon production while staying critical, so how was control accomplished at that time with the B-pile? Apparently Fermi used Cadium rods in the Chicago experimental pile. Were these also used with the B-pile, and would they then need to be constantly pushed and pulled in and out of the pile, manually, to maintain constant power?
According to Rhodes, shortly after starting the reactor for the first time they discovered the reactor dropping sub-critical every few hours due to Xenon poisoning, and the power up again as the Xenon decayed. The problem was resolved by adding another ~500 Uranium slugs, which overcame the neutron losses.
My question is, with the additional U slugs, I assume power levels would still cycle up and down with Xenon production while staying critical, so how was control accomplished at that time with the B-pile? Apparently Fermi used Cadium rods in the Chicago experimental pile. Were these also used with the B-pile, and would they then need to be constantly pushed and pulled in and out of the pile, manually, to maintain constant power?