Re:Scram Switch
by ggm on Wednesday March 31, 2021 @08:26PM
(#26655161)
According to Rhodes A-Bomb book, for the original Pile in Chicago there was a rope, and there was a guy with an axe.
There was a backup to the backup: people with a solution of something (borate?) to pour into the pile to soak up surplus neutrons. This was a really bad thing to do, for the future use of the pile: the carbon would be soaked, useless, the reactivity of the pile would be next to impossible to get back without completely re-constructing it so the Scram by lowering rods, was the preference, and was done by a counter for accellerated scaling aside from the guy with the axe after a while.
There was a backup to the backup: people with a solution of something (borate?) to pour into the pile to soak up surplus neutrons. This was a really bad thing to do, for the future use of the pile: the carbon would be soaked, useless, the reactivity of the pile would be next to impossible to get back without completely re-constructing it so the Scram by lowering rods, was the preference, and was done by a counter for accellerated scaling aside from the guy with the axe after a while.