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THE PLUTONIUM PATH TO THE BOMB (1942-1944)
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The Plutonium Path to the Bomb, 1942-1944
Plutonium, produced in a uranium-fueled reactor (pile),
was the second path taken toward achieving an atomic
bomb.
Design work
on a full-scale plutonium production reactor began at the
Met Lab in June 1942. Scientists at the Met Lab had the
technical expertise to design a production pile, but
construction and management on an industrial scale
required an outside contractor. General Groves
convinced the
DuPont Corporation
to become the primary contractor for plutonium
production. With input from the Met Lab and DuPont,
Groves selected a site at Hanford, Washington, on the
Columbia River, to build the full-scale production
reactors.
On December 2, 1942, on a racket court under the west
grandstand at the University of Chicago's Stagg Field,
researchers headed by
Enrico Fermi achieved the
first self-sustaining chain reaction
in a graphite and uranium pile known as CP-1. Using
theoretical information garnered from the operation of
CP-1, DuPont constructed an air-cooled experimental
production reactor, known as X-10, and a pilot chemical
separation facility at Oak Ridge. The separation
facility, using
methods developed by Glenn T. Seaborg
and a team of researchers at the Met Lab, removed
plutonium from uranium irradiated in the X-10
reactor. Information from CP-1 was also useful to
Met Lab scientists
designing the water-cooled plutonium production
reactors
for Hanford. Construction at the site began in
mid-1943. Three production reactors and corresponding
chemical separation plants were built, with the
first pile, the B Reactor, becoming
operational
in late September 1944. Los Alamos received its
first plutonium from Hanford in early February 1945.
To learn more about any of these events associated with
the plutonium path to the bomb, choose a web page from the
menu below. To continue with a quick overview of the
Manhattan Project, jump ahead to the description of the
final process of
"Bringing It All Together,
1942-1945."
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Sources and notes for this page.
The text for this page is original to the Department of
Energy's
Office of History and Heritage Resources. The terms "atomic pile" and
"nuclear reactor" refer to the same
thing. The term "pile" was more common
during early atomic research, and it was gradually
replaced by "reactor" in the later years of
the Manhattan Project and afterwards. In this web
site, the phrase "pile (reactor)" is used to refer to early, experimental piles,
and "reactor (pile)" is used to refer to later
production reactors, which had more elaborate controls
and in general more-closely resembled post-war
reactors. Much as the term "pile"
gradually gave way to "reactor,"
"atomic" was gradually replaced by
"nuclear." The painting of
CP-1 going critical
is courtesy the
National Archives. Click
here for more information on the aerial photograph
of Hanford.
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