Argonne National Laboratory’s thermal reactor program in Idaho

In May’s Nuclear News (p. 86), we reviewed Argonne National Laboratory’s comprehensive work on fast reactors in Idaho. In this article, we summarize the light water reactor work there.¹

In the early days, there were few data on the behavior of reactor materials under severe neutron bombardment. In collaboration, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory developed the Materials Testing Reactor (MTR) for the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS) in Idaho. The materials tested in it over the course of 15,000 experiments were reactor fuel materials, structures, cooling systems, and shields. It operated from 1952 to 1970.