ALCO Historical Tid Bit

[Doctor G]

Did you know that in the 1950s ALCO built a nuclear reactor?  The US Army was developing portable nuclear reactors for use in remote locations like Antartica and the Panama Canal and needed an industrial manufacturer to build a test reactor to test the nuclear characteristics of the core.  The US Navy went with GE, Westinghouse and Combustion Engineering, but the Army selected ALCO as one of its suppliers.

ALCO built the facility and the reactor vessel at its works in Schenectady NY, and the Atomic Energy Commission (replaced by the Department of Energy) supplied the reactor core.  The test program was completed and ALCO retained the reactor until they were bought by GE.  GE eventually shut down ALCO, but divesting yourself of a nuclear reactor is a different matter.  GE operated several research reactors, and was not interested in the old Army design, so they sold the reactor (Called the Reactor Critical Facility) to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute which  used it for research and teaching nuclear engineering students for $1.00. 

[YoHo1975]

GE bought Alco?!? When did that happen? Anyway, this is not right, SM-1 was built by Alco, At Fort Belvior Virginia. 18 miles outside of Washington DC. It was owned by the Army. they used it for training. It was decomissioned in 1973 and still sits there. The buildings will probably come down in the 2030s.

[Overmod]

Alco made a 'big thing' of its transitioning into a nuclear-products company in the '50s, renaming itself 'Alco Products' in 1955.  We had a thread several years ago which specifically noted how much Alco probably regretted scrapping the vertical boiler-normalizing facility it built in the late 1940s for the welded-boiler revolution that never quite happened -- it would have given them a distinct advantage in making many nuclear-power-specific components.

[Doctor G]

That's right.  SM-1 was built in Virginia.  It was a prototype built for power and training for the army's small scale and ultimately un-viable nuclear power program.

The reactor I'm referring to preceded SM-1 and was built specifically to conduct zero power physics testing of the army core.  The old army core was returned to the Department of Energy in the early 90's and replaced by low enrichment fuel provided by the DOE.

The reactor still exists and is still in use by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute using the low enriched uranium core.

Following the zero power Schenectady reactor a larger test facility with an enclosed reactor vessel for higher power testing of the army core called SL-1 was built in Idaho.  It failed catastrophally resulting in three fatalities in 1961.

[D.Carleton]

All of us in the business were indoctrinated with the SL-1 film.

[erikem]

Best write-up on the SL-1 accident I've seen was in a 1962 issue of Popular Science. Nuclear News may have done a better one, but the back issues are not on Google Books as is the 2010 and earlier issues of PopSci. Response of the SL-1 to super prompt critical excursions was a bit different than a TRIGA.

 - Erik