Everything about Chicago Pile-1 totally explained
Chicago Pile-1 (
CP-1) was the world's first artificial
nuclear reactor. CP-1 was built on a
racquets court, under the abandoned west stands of the original Alonzo Stagg Field stadium, at the
University of Chicago. The first artificial, self-sustaining,
nuclear chain reaction was initiated within CP-1, on
December 2,
1942. The site of the first nuclear reaction received designation as a
National Historic Landmark in 1965 and added to the newly created National Register of Historic Places a little over a year later. The site was named a
Chicago Landmark in 1971.
Reactor
The reactor was a pile of
uranium and
graphite blocks, assembled under the supervision of the renowned
Italian physicist
Enrico Fermi. It contained
critical mass of the fissile material, together with
control rods, and was built as a part of
Manhattan Project research done by the
University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory. The shape of the pile was intended to be roughly spherical, but as work proceeded, Fermi calculated that critical mass could be achieved without finishing the entire pile as planned.
A labor strike prevented the construction of the pile at a laboratory in the
Argonne forest preserve, so Fermi and his associates
Martin Whittaker and
Walter Zinn set about building the pile (the world's first "nuclear reactor," although that term wasn't used until
1952) in a racquets court under the abandoned west stands of the university’s Stagg Field. The pile consisted of uranium pellets as a
neutron–producing "core" separated from one another by graphite blocks
to slow the neutrons. Fermi himself described the apparatus as "a crude pile of black bricks and wooden timbers." The controls consisted of
cadmium-coated rods that absorbed neutrons. Withdrawing the rods would increase neutron activity in the pile to lead to a self-sustaining chain reaction. Re-inserting the rods would dampen the reaction.
First nuclear reaction
On December 2, 1942, CP-1 was ready for a demonstration. Before a group of dignitaries, a young scientist named
George Weil worked the final control rod while Fermi carefully monitored the neutron activity. The pile went
critical at 3:20 p.m. Fermi shut it down 33 minutes later.
Operation of CP-1 was terminated in February
1943. The reactor was then dismantled and moved to
Red Gate Woods, the former site of
Argonne National Laboratory, where it was reconstructed using the original materials, plus an enlarged
radiation shield, and renamed
Chicago Pile-2 (CP-2). CP-2 began operation in March
1943 and was later buried at the same site, now known as the
Site A/Plot M Disposal Site. The site was named a
Chicago Landmark on
October 27,
1971.
A small graphite block from the pile is on display at the
Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The old Stagg Field plot of land is currently home to the
Regenstein Library. A
Henry Moore sculpture,
Nuclear Energy, in a small quadrangle commemorates the nuclear experiment.
[Further Information]
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