![]() The design was also influenced by the Homogeneous Reactor Experiment at Oak Ridge, where potential advantages were thought to include the simple chemical processing of fuel, the simplicity of construction and the elimination of fuel fabrication. It was known that the STR had evolved from a prototype constructed and tested by the Argonne National Laboratory in 1953 at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho. When our predecessors were reporting on developments, details were still relatively thin on the ground. ![]() “A number of early American reactors were water cooled,” The Engineer wrote, “and this technology was advanced considerably more by the recent work of Westinghouse on the Submarine Thermal Reactor and on the cancelled large ship reactor project at Bettis Field.” ![]() The result was the Submarine Thermal Reactor (STR, later redesignated the S2W), a pressurised water reactor that delivered 13,400hp (10,000kW) of power. Its reactor had been even longer in the planning, with Westinghouse Electric Corporation instructed to develop a nuclear power plant for a submarine as far back as 1947. But, nearly 65 years on, it’s the report on the USS Nautilus that stands out.Īuthorised by Congress three years previously, Nautilus was the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, a pioneering piece of engineering that heralded a new era of military strategy and geopolitics. With the Atomic Age well and truly under way, there was no shortage of news to fill the column inches, including the progress of plants at Savannah River, Paducah and Oak Ridge. Spring of 1954 saw The Engineer’s American Correspondent reporting on the work of the US Atomic Energy Commission.
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