In 1957 an engineer with Phillips Petroleum, which was then managing the National Reactor Testing Station in remote Idaho, published an article in a trade journal, “Special Power Excursion Reactor Test III.” All of the countries who have embarked on major nuclear power programs have set up laboratories and testing devices, to explore design and safety features of reactors under consideration. However, only the United States had the size, budget, and ego to start constructing from the mid-1950s a series of intricate small test reactors—SPERT-I to SPERT-IV— designed specifically to “fail” or “blow up” or whatever might be in designers’ heads that might lead to a nuclear plant catastrophe.
The SPERT program ran for a decade and a half, and is something I don’t cover in depth in my book, simply because it is too technical. That said, I think a job beckons to an aspiring historian, to examine the SPERTs in detail, exploring how their experimental results fed into the safety controversies of the 60s and 70s.
Despite mostly ignoring them, I do find articles such as the 1957 one most fascinating. Listen:
The SPERT project has been established as a part of the AEC’s reactor safety program for the purpose ‘of conducting studies of heterogeneous, water moderated, enriched-fuel reactors. The experimental findings to date with the unpressurized, water moderated SPERT-I reactor have already been reported. SPERT efforts will next be focused on investigations with a high-temperature, high-pressure, water-cooled reactor. Although chronologically it is to be the second SPERT reactor placed in operation, it is referred to as SPERT-III. The reactor will be used to gather basic reactor safety and engineering data during such reactor power excursions as 2 watts to 510 Mw in 0.75 sec. This will be accomplished by rapid insertion into the core of a considerable amount of excess reactivity. In designing SPERT-III, the primary objectives have been to provide a reactor in which all phases of safety associated with pressurized water reactors might be investigated. Specifically, these objectives are:
Wilson, T. R. 1957. “Special Power Excursion Reactor Test III.” Nucleonics 15 (Aug.), pp. 68-71.
To provide a facility in which the safety characteristics of pressurized reactors can be conducted under a wide variety of operating conditions of initial power, flow, temperature, pressure, etc. This is meant to include reactor behavior during simulated excursions and oscillations.
To provide a reactor whose core size and shape can be varied within limits, and whose core is as accessible as possible for instrumentation.
To provide a reactor in which the hazards associated with such practical problems as the loss-of-flow accident, the cold-water accident, etc., can be investigated without hazard.
