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History proves—propulsion systems contribute to growth in the nuclear industry.

CZERNIEWSKI 09—B.S. in Science at Kansas State University

(SARAH, “THE FEASIBILITY OF MODERN TECHNOLOGIES FOR REINFORCED CONCRETE CONTAINMENT STRUCTURES OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS”, Kansas State University, 2009, http://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/bitstream/2097/1354/1/SarahCzerniewski2009.pdf)//AW
The success of the nuclear submarine program could be attributed to Hyman Rickover and the perseverance and hard work of Westinghouse employees. Rickover had been sent to Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to learn about reactor design. Also, engineers from Westinghouse and General Electric (GE) were also brought in to ORNL to learn about nuclear reactors in order to include both companies in the development of nuclear propulsion (Simpson, 1995). After Rickover’s time at ORNL, he strongly recommended the importance of nuclear propulsion for submarines to the Navy (Simpson, 1995). Once the Navy decided this was an important strategic concept to national defense, it requested the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to take action per the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, discussed later on p.6 (Simpson, 1995). Since Rickover pushed for the research into nuclear submarine propulsion, the Navy put him in charge of their nuclear power division on August 4, 1948. A month later, he was appointed head of the AEC’s naval reactors branch. When questions of financing occurred, he could switch his authorization and determine which group would produce the funding. This provided continuous funding to develop nuclear power systems (Simpson, 1995). Meanwhile, Westinghouse Electric Corporation was the first private industry enlisted by the United States military to develop nuclear propulsion. Westinghouse’s role in nuclear power started with the Bettis Contract, signed December 10, 1948, under which Westinghouse engineers designed an engine, the Mark I, and a nuclear propulsion plant for a naval ship, the Mark II, for the United States Navy (Simpson, 1995). In turn, the Navy provided Westinghouse with the design criteria for a submarine, mainly involving the propulsion equipment and the generation of speed of the submarine (Simpson, 1995). Westinghouse engineers, in cooperation with the employees at what became the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory (BAPL), had many technical challenges to overcome since nuclear reactor theory was still developmental and therefore not as accurate as design is today (Simpson, 1995). Then, nuclear reactor theory consisted of the necessary use of enriched uranium fuel components that during the fission process would produce heat. Subsequently, a coolant would be used to flow over the fuel components and then turn into steam, which would then turn the turbine, which in turn would rotate the propeller shaft, causing forward propulsion, whereas current technology produces electricity via a generator (Simpson, 1995). However, initial nuclear reactor theory was not as extensive as the engineers needed; therefore they had to 4 develop the theory further through experimentation to determine the amount of fuel, the specific coolant to use, and the corrosion resistance of the hardware or cladding (Simpson, 1995). Meanwhile, GE was working separately under an AEC contract, which provided GE with the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL), allowing the company to develop a liquid-metalcooled intermediate-energy spectrum breeder reactor (Simpson, 1995). Determining the amount of fuel necessary to sustain the chain reaction was very important. In particular, the coolant’s importance stems from the process’ dependence on the chain reaction to produce thermal energy (heat); therefore, the coolant would need to change into a gaseous state to turn the turbine. Initially, three types of coolant were considered: pressurized water, helium gas, and extremely hot liquid metal (Simpson, 1995). GE’s power laboratory decided to pursue liquid metal, but Westinghouse chose pressurized water by the spring of 1949, which Rickover preferred as the correct coolant choice following his experience at ORNL (Simpson, 1995). Pressurized water was chosen because it was considered “most likely to be completed successful in a reasonable amount of time” (Simpson, 1995). Pressurized water as a coolant has the disadvantage that water is highly corrosive at high temperatures (Simpson, 1995). Liquid metal could be used as a coolant for a fast neutron reactor because it has low neutron absorption as well as high melting and boiling points, but each of the common liquid metals used has disadvantages, such as flammability and toxicity. However, even into today’s nuclear industrial world no consensus for the type of coolant used for reactors exists, although sixty percent of the world’s nuclear reactors use pressurized water reactors (PWR) (Simpson, 1995). The Bettis Group, comprising both Bettis engineers and Westinghouse engineers, worked on integrating the component parts of a nuclear system (Simpson, 1995). A major component part would be the cladding or fuel pellet casing, which would need to be accurately determined due to the extremely high temperatures of the water. Additionally, a corrosive resistant material was needed for the reactor to run continuously to avoid deterioration of materials. After innovating the hardware and instrumentation, as well as performing extensive time-consuming mathematical calculations, the Bettis group tested each component and the whole system to confirm the efficiency of the new technology as it was developed (Simpson, 1995).