10-04-2016, 07:51 PM
(10-04-2016, 06:59 PM)Dill Wrote: Where is Oak Ridge?
Oak Ridge is a city in the eastern part of Tennessee, about 25 miles (40 km) west of Knoxville.
Oak Ridge was established in 1942 as a production site for the Manhattan Project—the massive American, British, and Canadian operation that developed the atomic bomb.
The K-25,S-50, and Y-12 plants were each built in Oak Ridge to separate the fissile isotope uranium-235 from natural uranium, which consists almost entirely of the isotope uranium-238. The X-10 site, now the location of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was established as a pilot plant for production of plutonium using the Graphite Reactor.
Two of the four major facilities created for the wartime bomb production are still standing today:
- Y-12, originally used for electromagnetic separation of uranium, is used for nuclear weapons processing and materials storage.
- X-10, site of a test graphite reactor, is now the site of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
