The First Nuclear Related Fatality & Accident In America - Emergency Response - Documentary Video

U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
Idaho Operations Office

SL-1 The Accident: Phases I and II
A13886VNB1

Describes this nuclear accident from the point of view of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Considering the time, this film report is exceptionally candid about the vulnerabilities of nuclear reactors. This first civilian reactor accident was especially gruesome in that one of the reactor operators was shot into the ceiling by an expelled reactor vessel plug and control rod. Views of the internal wreckage are fascinating. The cause of this accident has never been determined, although operator error has been alleged.

Documentaries of this quality are rare in the U.S. nuclear community, at least for the general public.

Producer: U.S. Atomic Energy Commission; Creative Commons license: Public Domain

The SL-1, or Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, was a United States Army experimental nuclear power reactor which underwent a steam explosion and meltdown in January 1961, killing its three operators. The direct cause was the improper withdrawal of the only movable control rod. The event is the only fatal reactor accident in the United States.

The facility, located at the National Reactor Testing Station approximately forty miles (60 km) west of Idaho Falls, Idaho, was part of the Army Nuclear Power Program and was known as the Argonne Low Power Reactor (ALPR) during its design and build phase. It was intended to provide electrical power and heat for small, remote military facilities, such as radar sites near the Arctic Circle, and those in the DEW Line. The design power was 3 MW (thermal). Operating power was 200 kW electrical and 400 kW thermal for space heating. NASA system failure studies have cited that the core power level reached nearly 20 GW in just four milliseconds, precipitating the reactor accident and steam explosion.

On December 21, 1960, the reactor was shut down for maintenance, calibration of the instruments, installation of auxiliary instruments, and installation of 44 flux wires to monitor the neutron flux levels in the reactor core. The wires were made of aluminum, and contained slugs of aluminum-cobalt alloy.

On January 3, 1961 the reactor was restarted after a shutdown of eleven days. Maintenance procedures commenced, which required the main central control rod to be withdrawn a few inches; at 9:01 p.m. this rod was withdrawn almost to the top of the core, causing SL-1 to go prompt critical. In four milliseconds, the heat generated by the resulting enormous power surge caused water surrounding the core to begin to explosively vaporize. The water vapor caused a pressure wave to strike the top of the reactor vessel. This propelled the control rod and the entire reactor vessel upwards, which killed the operator who had been standing on top of the vessel, leaving him pinned to the ceiling by a control rod. The other two military personnel, a supervisor and a trainee, were also killed. The victims were Army Specialists John A. Byrnes and Richard L. McKinley and Navy Electrician's Mate Richard C. Legg.

Reactor principles and events
Fission produces neutrons with a wide range of energies. In all light-water-moderated reactors (LWR), to sustain fission of the U-235 the reactor core needs to have water present to moderate (slow down) the neutrons produced by the nuclear reaction. This process is called "thermalizing" and increases the probability of the neutrons causing fission. When reactivity is inserted in the reactor core, more neutrons are available and power rises. Several factors limit the increase in power.

The first limiting factor is that, given a proper initial spectrum of neutron energies, water has a negative reactivity coefficient. Having a negative reactivity coefficient means that, as the water heats up, the molecules are farther apart (water expands and eventually changes phase) and neutrons are less likely to hit hydrogen atoms, so fewer neutrons are thermalized by collisions with the hydrogen in the water and the probability of fission decreases. This removes reactivity from the core. The lower the temperature, the closer the molecules, the greater the number of neutrons thermalized and the greater the core reactivity. It is also possible to design a reactor core that has an entirely different neutron energy spectrum such that it has conditions for which water has a positive reactivity coefficient. A graphite-moderated, water-cooled reactor like the RBMK reactors at Chernobyl may have a positive reactivity coefficient for coolant (water) temperature.

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[WyllowMorrigan]

This is a great video, thanks for uploading. I love watching these old documentaries, because they are so telling of the era they portray

[rosaryfilms]

WyllowMorrigan, thank you very much for your comments!

[rubenpetran]

This video is really good.

How did you put 40 min video on youtube?

[rosaryfilms]

rubenpetran, thank you! My account is an old account -- no longer available to new users -- sorry!

[mnestic]

This film was really interesting. Thank you for posting it!

[rosaryfilms]

mnestic, you are welcome!

[meltdownman1]

Rumor was that one of the Army's Operators was cheating with the other Army Operator's wife. He committed suicide by manually pulling one of the control rods by hand. It subsequently caused a "prompt criticality" which meant instantly caused power to increase dramatically. It then instantly turned the water to steam and hence the reactor vessel exploded, impaling the operator pulling the rod to the ceiling. They used a forklift with a gurney to shake him free of the ceiling

The Meltdownman

[baileys60]

this wasnt the first nuclear related fatality in america. there was a guy who on died on the manhatten project

[Mikuruification]

Why the fuck did they have to touch it? If anything Wrong went down while I was experimenting with NUCLEAR material I would proceed to shit myself, and run out of the room....

[MerleOberon]

I remember when ambulances were Cadillacs, at least you could die in style...

[YeOldClipper]

Would it be wrong to say that nuclear energy is in itself the doomsday device, and that breeder reactors are tools of mass destruction as well as weapons, themselves? I cannot give an answer to that question. But I would not want to live next door to one.

[starlight2009xxx]

this isn't the first nuclear related fatality in america

[mdma4life]

@knackerFacker

He was talking about nuclear REACTOR safety.

The incidents with the demon core happened during EARLY EXPERIMENTS, it has nothing to do with nuclear reactors

[maxxasvideo]

this was a baby compared to the giant fukushima.....crazy stuff!

[sneakers55]

@wardenphil I would suspect the dead also had undergone radiolysis.

[knackerFacker]

Hah, lying bastards, search for the "demon core" here on youtobe, the damn thing caused two deaths durign the 40's

[z0nt21]

Epic rapid response, if portrayal is correct. 9 Roentgen dose is 90 mSv - not too bad. ;)