|
Y-12: OPERATION (Oak Ridge: Clinton, 1943-1944)
Events
>
The Uranium Path to the Bomb, 1942-1944
During the summer and fall of 1943, the
Y-12 Electromagnetic Plant at
Oak Ridge began to take shape. The
huge buildings to house the operating equipment were
readied as manufacturers began delivering everything from
electrical switches to motors, valves, and tanks.
While construction and outfitting proceeded, almost 5,000
operating and maintenance personnel were hired and
trained. Then, between October and mid-December,
Y-12 paid the price for being a new technology that had
not been put through its paces in a pilot plant.
Vacuum tanks in the first Alpha racetrack leaked and
shimmied out of line due to magnetic pressure, welds
failed, electrical circuits malfunctioned, and operators
made frequent mistakes. Most seriously, the magnet
coils shorted out because of rust and sediment in the
cooling oil.
Leslie Groves arrived on December 15 and
shut the racetrack down. The coils were sent to
Allis-Chalmers with hope that they could be cleaned
without being dismantled entirely, while measures were
taken to prevent recurrence of the shorting problem.
The second Alpha track (Alpha 2, not to be confused with
the Alpha II phase of the Y-12 Extension) now bore the
weight of the electromagnetic effort. In spite
of precautions aimed at correcting the electrical and
oil-related problems that had shut down the first
racetrack, Alpha 2 fared little better when it started up
in mid-January 1944. While all tanks operated at
least for short periods, performance was sporadic and
maintenance could not keep up with electrical failures and
defective parts. Like its predecessor, Alpha 2 was a
maintenance nightmare.
Alpha 2 produced about 200 grams of twelve-percent
uranium-235 by the end of February, enough to send samples
to Los Alamos for experimentation and
feed the first Beta unit but not enough to satisfy
estimates of weapon requirements. The first four
Alpha tracks did not operate together until April 1944, a
full four months late. While maintenance improved,
output was well under previous expectations. The
opening of the Beta building on March 11 led to further
disappointment. Beam resolution was so
unsatisfactory that complete redesign was
required.
Ernest Lawrence and others, nonetheless,
remained convinced that Y-12 still offered the only
realistic avenue to a bomb by 1945. Despite his
concern that the construction could not be
completed in time, Groves therefore approved in May 1944
the construction of a third Beta building containing two
racetracks. Groves also agreed to a series of
complicated changes in the racetracks that would allow
their Alpha units to process the material originating from
the gaseous diffusion plant,
K-25. This was necessary because
K-25 had been experiencing even greater problems during
1943 and 1944 than Y-12.
Previous Next
Sources and notes for this page.
The text for this page was adapted from, and portions
were taken directly from the
Office of History and Heritage Resources
publication:
F. G. Gosling,
The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb
(DOE/MA-0001; Washington: History Division, Department
of Energy, January 1999), 23-24. See also the History Office publication:
Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr.,
The New World, 1939-1946: Volume I,
A History of the United States
Atomic Energy Commission
(Washington: U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, 1972),
165-167, 294-296. Click
here for more information on the picture of the
Alpha racetrack at Y-12. The two photographs of the calutron operators
at their control panels are both courtesy the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The photograph of the shift change at
Y-12 is reproduced from the photo
insert in F. G. Gosling,
The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb
(DOE/MA-0002; Washington: History Division,
Department of Energy, October 2001).
Home |
History Office
|
OpenNet
|
DOE
|
Privacy and Security Notices
About this Site
|
How to Navigate this Site
|
Note on Sources
|
Site Map |
Contact Us
|