RE: Submarine K-19

["Ted Rockwell" <tedrock@CPCUG.ORG>]

> "If the sea were sodium, they'd give us a

water reactor."



That was a spontaneous Rickover crack.  He was irked at what high value some

engineers placed on "performance," in a purely theoretical way.  They were

delighted at the high temperature the sodium plant could achieve, and the

resulting "good steam conditions" in the turbine.  But they didn't fully

appreciate that this all washed out when you factored in the shielding

required for a sodium system, the terrible thermal stresses created by

sodium's high conductivity, the constant threat of sodium/water reactions,

the potential need to operate massive system heaters when the reactor was

down for long period (to keep the sodiium from freezing), and (the final

blow)the fact that at the intermediate energies of the undermoderated

neutrons, nearly 25% (as I recall) of the neutron captures in U-235 did not

result in fission but in parasitic production of U-236 with virtually no

energy release.  So all these physics "advances" did not give us a better

power plant or a better submarine.



In exasperation, Rickover mused, "If the seas were sodium, some SOB at GE

would be pushing water reactors."



TR





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