NPS/BURGHART Photos & MultimediaThe Manhattan Project is one of the most transformative events in human history. It is a story of humans learning to control the power of the atom. The Manhattan Project dawned the nuclear age, and the B Reactor played a key role in ushering in this new age. The B Reactor on the Hanford Site in south-eastern Washington state is the first full-scale nuclear production reactor in the world. Hanford produced the plutonium that was used in the Trinity Test and in the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. Ways to ExploreStart the Tour: Begin the tour by selecting the play icon in the middle of the first image below. When the tour opens, click on the white circles to choose your path. Click on hotspots, the white “i” icons of your choice, to access informative text and images. Audio Described Video WalkthroughTranscript
A pair of heavy, metal sliding barn doors frame the double glass and metal doors of the front entrance. At the right, a four-foot (one-point-two meter) tall granite sign commemorates the 50th anniversary of the B Reactor. The world's first full scale nuclear reactor operated from 1944 to 1968. Moving through the front doors, a long, wide hallway stretches 60 feet (18 meters) straight ahead to a set of open, metal double doors at the far end. White pipes of many diameters run along the ceiling and high along the walls. Circular, black metal valve handles protrude from the pipes, ranging from a few inches to over a foot in diameter (eight to 30 centimeters). Several doors and other hallways lead off to the left and right. Moving to the end of the hallway, an information panel on the open left-hand door presents some Hanford site history. On the left-hand wall, a large black-and-white photograph shows a dining hall at Camp Hanford beside a narrow information panel titled “A lot of workers, a lot of food.” A white, rectangular sign hangs above the metal doors. Four horizontal, rectangular colored bands, illuminated from behind, display four different messages. Top to bottom, they read: monitoring required (red), spline removal (black), start up (black), and crane operating (yellow).
Moving through the doors, we enter a large, cavernous concrete room. The Front Face Room, also known as the charging or work area, is 45 feet long by 35 feet wide and over 50 feet tall (14 by 10 by 15 meters). Turning to the left, the front face of the reactor is about 40 feet (12 meters) straight ahead. Moving to the front face, two thousand four precisely aligned rows and columns of aluminum tubes appear as a massive, metallic, square grid wall. Attached to the end of each tube is a thin, curling aluminum tube nozzle assembly that looks like a pigtail, with a numbered tag. The tubes, housed inside a lattice of graphite blocks, run nearly 40 feet (12 meters) straight back to the rear face of the reactor, adjacent to the Fuel Storage Basin. Across the front, a white, metal elevator platform spans the width of the reactor face, allowing workers to access any of the 46 rows of tubes.
Stretching from the front face to the back wall of the room is a storage rack for spare process tubes. It could be positioned in front of any of the tubes to accommodate the insertion and removal of the long aluminum tubes for maintenance. Facing away from the front of the reactor, two green, sliding metal barn doors appear at the back left corner of room. Above each door, a metal ladder encircled by a protective metal cage runs from the top of the doors to the top of the room. The ladder on the back wall is hung on rollers, which allowed it to be moved along a track across the width of the room.
Moving through the sliding barn door at the back left into a concrete corridor, a large fan sits on the floor at the left. A cluster of green and white pipes and valves surround a steam-driven motor and horizontal drive shaft. Massive, rectangular metal ductwork rises two stories high above the fan into the concrete ceiling. At the left, a large poster display on an easel presents information about the MOBOT, a remote controlled device used to retrieve highly radioactive fuel elements from the rear face of the reactor.
Continuing down the corridor, three more large fans line the nearly 80 foot (24 meter) long hallway. Each fan is housed in a separate concrete cubicle, about 20 feet wide by 25 feet deep (six by eight meters).
Moving down the hallway to the last fan at the left, a large, enclosed, cylindrical electric motor in front connects to a short drive shaft, attached to a pulley and a belt enclosed in an oblong metal cage. High capacity rectangular metal ductwork rises two stories high into the concrete ceiling.
Continuing down the hallway to the right, a large photograph on a short wall shows a Spring 1944 safety rally at the Hanford Construction Camp. A color guard stands at attention before a wide wooden platform decorated with red, white, and blue bunting. A crowd of workers stands at the right. On a sign hung at the front of the dais, the words “Universal Safety” surround a white cross.
Turning away from the photograph, the hallway back to the exhaust fans leads to the right. To the left, a second hallway leads into another large room with fans.
Moving left into the intake fan room, a nearly 80 foot (24 meter) long hallway runs beside two dual-drive (steam and electric) supply fans along the left side of the room. White ductwork surrounding each fan rises to additional aluminum ductwork running across the top of the concrete ceiling. Moving out of the hallway, a metal grate walkway with metal railings runs around the periphery of a large, concrete room, roughly 40 feet (12 meters) square. Several short stairways lead down to a second lower level maze of metal walkways.
Large, 18 inch (45 centimeter) circular, black metal valve handles perforate or run alongside the metal walkways. Below these walkways, a massive network of pipes and valves completely fills the bottom of a 20 foot (six meter) deep pit. Other stairways lead down to the bottom of the pit itself.
Facing back towards the intake fan hallway, the walkway continues forward to a doorway at the right.
Moving to the doorway and turning right, we enter the first of three reflection rooms. Here in the History Room, a series of posters with period photographs and associated text hang across the four walls.
Spaced every couple feet (one-half meter), the posters present a chronological history of nuclear science and discovery. Beginning in 1932, they trace its development through the Manhattan Project and World War II, the Cuban Missile Crisis, numerous nuclear arms treaties, power plant accidents, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and up to the present day.
Facing the front wall, we move through a doorway in the front left corner into the Atomic Culture room.
A series of poster exhibits with period illustrations, photographs, and associated text hang across the four walls. Spaced evenly, they present how atomic and nuclear energy has permeated our culture.
In the front left corner, a poster entitled, “A Haiku for You,” displays a number of iconic illustrations and cartoons relating to the atomic age. An interactive exhibit asks visitors to write a haiku answering the question, "What does the nuclear age mean to you?" At the back right corner of the room, we move through an open doorway into the Break Room.
A wooden picnic table sits along the left side of a large, 35 foot by 15 foot (10 by five meter) concrete room. A 20 foot (six meter) long white banner above the table with blue and red lettering reads, “Buy U.S. Savings Bonds.” Several bulletin boards around the room display authentic patriotic posters of the period.
Moving right out of the Break Room through an open doorway, a poster on an easel at the right introduces the Reflection Room, should a visitor come this way.
Turning left down the concrete hallway, we move forward through a metal gate at the left down a flight of stairs into a low-ceiling, concrete room called the Turco Pit. Two large pumps with cylindrical motors stand on the floor in front of mixing tanks with two dials mounted on the front. Here, reactor staff introduced chemicals and injected cleaning solutions to maintain the health and flow of the cooling water system.
Returning to the doorway just outside the Break Room, we turn left on a 45-degree angle and move forward to an open doorway to the right of the gate.
A little further down the hallway to the right along the right-hand wall stands a tall, enclosed wooden phone booth with an open wood and glass panel accordion door. The phone booth was a quiet place to take a call inside the loud reactor. A sign on the booth reads, “Hear Here,” spelled h e a r, h e r e.
Moving through the doorway, numerous nuclear safety signs and posters fill the walls of a long, rectangular room. A poster at the left presents information about radiation detectors and working in a nuclear reactor. A piece of old electronic gear with a couple knobs, a dial, and a speaker in front and tubes on top sits on a small wooden table. Just inside the front door, a large poster talks about the science of protecting people and the environment from the potential harmful effects of radiation. Dozens of original, hand-painted warning signs from the Hanford site fill the rest of the right-hand wall.
Moving forward, the room turns 90-degrees to the right into a dressing and laundry area. At the left, metal bars jutting out from wall create slots for large, wooden laundry tubs. Two nearly life-size drawings of Hanford workers mounted on wooden cutouts stand between some of the bars, ready for work.
Opposite the laundry area, an eight foot (two and a half meter) long rack of white coveralls with different color back pockets hangs along the wall. Boxes of masks, hoods, and caps sit on the shelf above. A six foot (two meter) tall hand and foot counter stands in the far back right corner. It has a metal footplate at the bottom, hand holes in the front about chest high, and several dials on a top panel.
Moving through an open door next to the counter into a small changing room, at the left, many different kinds of respirators fill a wooden cubbie shelving unit along the right-hand wall. In the back right corner stand a set of three, tall metal lockers. Moving around the narrow room to the left, several protective garments hang on wooden pegs on the back wall, beside a white, wooden medical cabinet on the floor. Hand-painted letters on the front of the cabinet read: Oxygen supply. Gas Mask Number 1.
Turning to face the right-hand side of the room, a low, dark green, upholstered leather couch with a metal frame sits along the left-hand wall. Along the opposite wall, a long, low wooden bench runs under several posters of master safety rules, the many different parts of approved protective clothing, and radiation work procedures. A rectangular, wooden rack mounted on the wall has three vertical rows of angled holes for workers to deposit their pencil dosimeters.
Turning back to the left, we move through an open doorway back into the entrance hall.
Facing the entrance doors, we turn right and move forward down a long, narrow, concrete hallway to the first doorway on the right. Turning right, we move through an open doorway into the Accumulator Room, and up a narrow, wooden staircase running along the wall at the left. Under a low ceiling, a three foot (one meter) wide metal grate walkway with a wooden railing runs beside the tops of three gigantic metal tanks below us at the right. At the far left, a blue tank at the end of the walkway supplied fresh air when there was a hazardous atmosphere in the reactor. At the opposite end of the walkway, several grey tanks provided clean, potable water for use throughout the reactor building.
Returning to the concrete hallway outside the Accumulator Room, we turn right and move forward into the room once again, to the right of the staircase.
A narrow, 25 foot (eight meter) long corridor runs beside three gigantic, silver, cylindrical metal tanks at the right. Each 10 feet in diameter by 20 feet tall (three by six meters), these hydraulically elevated tanks containing river rocks were suspended as a failsafe backup in case of an electrical failure. A wooden fence runs the length of the corridor in front of the tanks. Opposite the accumulators, beneath the staircase, additional machinery and instrumentation stand along the wall.
Outside the Accumulator Room once again, we continue forward down the concrete hallway and turn right to move into the Control Room.
From a position behind the central control desk, we circle counterclockwise around the room. More than 5,000 instruments cover the walls of the Control Room, used to monitor the conditions in the reactor. Several operators were required to monitor them all. Along one side of the Control Room is a large wall filled with row upon row of gauges and switches. Standing 24 feet long by nine feet high (seven by three meters), these gauges continuously monitored and recorded the water pressure of each of the 2,004 reactor tubes. A wooden, rolling ladder at the side allowed operators to physically climb to the location of all the gauges to take readings. A sign across the top of the wall reads, “Caution: Bumping panel may cause scram.” Moving forward to the central control desk, it is surrounded on three sides by racks of instruments, dials, displays, switches, and indicators. The wall above the desk is filled with a series of nine circular dials indicating the position of the regulating rods. Just below the dials, two dark rectangles indicated the power level. To the left of these dials, a panel of lights, arranged in rows and columns, signaled conditions that would require operator intervention or automatically shut down the reactor. Turning around 180 degrees from the control desk, a central core of additional equipment occupies the middle of the room.
Moving through a doorway at the back right corner of the Control Room, we continue forward down the hallway to the Fuel Storage Basin viewing room.
Along the back wall at the left is a large, a six-foot (two meter) square metal rack, composed of five stacks of grey, metal circuit breakers for various portions of the building. A shallow, electrical patch bay stands along the left wall. Opposite the electrical panel, a bank of closed, double-hung windows face the work area of the fuel storage and transfer basin. It is a large, open room, approximately 80 feet wide by 70 feet long (24 by 21 meters), with a wooden floor that completely covers a 20 foot (six meter) deep basin which was filled with water during operation. A radiation monitoring tag hangs on one of the window sashes. Moving through a door at the right into the storage basin, equally spaced steel support beams perforate the floor throughout. Overhead, a series of parallel monorail tracks on four-foot centers (a little over one meter) stretch left to right, front to back across the top of the room. There is a corresponding left-to-right slot in the wooden floor beneath each rail.
Visit our keyboard shortcuts docs for details
An audio described walkthrough of the B Reactor at Hanford, Washington. Exhibit Panel Text & DescriptionsRead and view photos of the interpretive panels from the History Room, Atomic Culture Room, and Health Physics exhibits in the B Reactor. Text transcriptions and photo descriptions are provided on the Hanford Waysides & Exhibits page. Hotspot Text & Image DescriptionsThere are 29 hotspots in the virtual tour with text and photos. Below is the text and image descriptions for each of the virtual tour hotspots. Browse through all the hotspot titles or jump straight to a hotspot that interests you. The Manhattan Project is one of the most transformative events in human history. It is a story of humans learning to control the power of the atom, which is akin to when humans learned to control fire. The Manhattan Project dawned the nuclear age, and the B Reactor (pictured in 1944) played a key role in ushering in this new age. The B Reactor on the Hanford Site in south-eastern Washington state is the first full-scale nuclear production reactor in the world. At the height of the Manhattan Project, over 45,000 people from all walks of life and all 48 states worked at the Hanford Site. While many of the workers did not know their mission, their combined efforts proved that plutonium could be produced on an industrial scale. Plutonium, only discovered three years prior in 1940 by chemist Glenn Seaborg and colleagues, was a viable fuel for the Manhattan Project and America’s Cold War nuclear arsenal. Under a contract with the federal government the DuPont Corporation began construction on the reactor in October 1943, achieving criticality on September 26, 1944. The B Reactor’s sole purpose during the Manhattan Project was to produce plutonium to fuel for the Gadget, the world’s first atomic test device, and Fat Man, the atomic bomb the US dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. The B Reactor continued operation until it was shut down in 1968. It remained in “cold standby” until 1978 when it was permanently shut down. This virtual tour will take you on a walkthrough of the decommissioned B Reactor as it looks today. The granite marker at the entrance to the reactor includes plaques associated with the American Nuclear Society, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Society of Civil Engineers signifying the completed milestones for designating the B Reactor a National Historic Landmark in 2008 and its inclusion in Manhattan Project National Historical Park in 2015. A black and white photo of a large multi-story nuclear reactor with power lines and poles surrounding the building. A large, dark truck is parked in front of the building toward the left of the photo.
Between the physicists of the Metallurgical Lab and the DuPont engineers and supervisors was a large workforce of skilled and unskilled workers. Recruitment of workers was paramount to the success of the Hanford Engineer Works (HEW) and was hampered by the fact that most able-bodied men, 38 years of age or younger, had been drafted into the military service. DuPont worked with 11 War Manpower Commission offices to staff the project in the spring of 1943. At Hanford, approximately 260,000 people were interviewed and around 120,000 were hired. Despite those massive numbers, the high point of the workforce was approximately 45,000 at any one time as there was a significant turnover in personnel, due both to the rough living conditions and the normal progression of crafts needed during construction. Hanford workers came from all 48 states and over 700 communities. About 4,000 of the workers were women. Most of the women were in the Women’s Army Corp (WAC). Women worked as secretaries, drivers, nurses, payroll staff, waitresses, maids, researchers, glass blowers, and lab technicians to name a few. African Americans numbered over 15,000 at Hanford. They came mostly from the southern states and worked in segregated work groups. African American men were generally hired for unskilled labor while women were hired for domestic roles such as maids and waitresses despite promises of clerical work by recruiters. Pay was the same between White and Black workers due to recently passed laws governing wages on defense contracts. On the Hanford site, there were eight mess halls that served meals 24 hours a day. Meals cost workers 67 cents a day and were all-you-could-eat…and workers ate a lot. Each day 200 pounds (91 kg) of butter was used for sandwiches, 120 tons (181 mt) of potatoes were served, and 32,000 glasses of milk were drunk. Workers consumed 250,000 pounds (113,398 kg) of meat and drank 13 carloads of beer each week. A lot of calories were needed to power the Hanford workforce. A black and white photo of several African American men and women standing next to a counter. A large number of glass pitchers rest on the counter.
This is the front face of the reactor. First time visitors to the B Reactor often stop and gaze at the towering sight of the front face with its rows and rows of process tubes and “pig tails.” Some describe the B Reactor as a cathedral of science while others view it as a factory that made an essential ingredient in the most destructive weapons ever invented. As you navigate the labyrinth of hallways and 90 degree turns and learn about science and history of the Manhattan Project through this virtual tour, take time to reflect on what this place and the Manhattan Project and its legacies means to you. Does it ignite your scientific curiosity? Does it make you pause about the destructive power of nuclear weapons? Does it inspire hope for advances in nuclear medicine to find a cure for cancer? A color photo of a large, multi-story nuclear reactor face, gold in color, with a long elevator platform running the length of the face, about one-third of the way up the face.
At the heart of the B Reactor is the pile or nuclear reactor. It was modeled after Enrico Fermi's CP-1 and later experimental piles. But the scale of the B Reactor dwarfed all aspects of its predecessors. This one tenth scale model shows the internal structure of the reactor core as well as piping and safety systems associated with the reactor. Graphite Blocks: Behind the visible front face are 75,000 graphite blocks precisely laid in place by bricklayers. These blocks are 36 feet wide (10.97 m), 36 feet tall (10.97 m), and 28 feet (8.53 m) front to rear. The graphite serves a valuable purpose in making the fission (splitting apart) happen. The graphite moderates (slows down or reduce the energy of) the fast (high energy) neutrons released by the fissioning of a uranium 235 nucleus. The slowed neutrons are then able to do two things: impact other U-235 atoms, causing another fission (a chain reaction), or be absorbed by the more plentiful U-238 atoms that might then undergo the transmutation process to plutonium 239. Don’t worry—uranium in the natural world would not just start a chain reaction, rather it’s the graphite that creates the artificial conditions for a controlled chain reaction. Process Tubes: On the front face of the reactor are the 2,004 aluminum process tubes, running from the front face to the rear face of the pile, that hold the uranium fuel and carry the cooling water. When fully loaded, the reactor contained up to 64,000 aluminum-clad fuel slugs. Each fuel slug was approximately 8 inches (20.3 cm) long and approximately 1.5 inches (3.81 cm) in diameter and weighed about 8 pounds (3.63 kg)—about the size of two regular snickers bars stacked end to end but much heavier. A full load of reactor fuel equaled approximately 250 tons (7.25 mt) of natural uranium. That is equivalent to the approximate weight of two average-sized blue whales, the largest mammals on earth. Shielding: The reactor has many different layers and types of shielding to protect the reactor operators. The levels of radioactivity and heat in the reactor are intense. The graphite pile sits on a thick concrete foundation (needed for the weight of the reactor) and is surrounded by a cast iron thermal shield designed to keep the heat in. Surrounding this is a biological shield that prevents neutrons and gamma radiation from escaping the pile and harming biological organisms, humans mostly, and is comprised of 50 inches (127 cm) of alternating steel and Masonite layers. Masonite, more commonly known as the stuff clipboards are made up of, has a high hydrogen component, and hydrogen is great at blocking and slowing down fast neutrons. The entire pile, seams and seals, was welded gas-tight—or completely sealed up so air and gas would not get in or out. A color photo of a reactor model, an approximately 4-foot-tall silver cube with multi-colored edges. Superimposed text and arrows point to specific things on the model. Lise Meitner (pictured) was the first woman to become a full professor of physics in Germany. She lost her position due to the anti-Jewish laws in Nazi Germany and fled to Sweden in 1938. Despite this, Meitner continued working with her German colleagues, Fritz Strassman and Otto Hahn, by correspondence. In Berlin, Hahn achieved nuclear fission during an experiment but did not realize it. Hahn asked Meitner for help in explaining his puzzling results. Meitner, aided by her nephew Otto Frisch, correctly interpreted that Hahn had split the atom. Meitner was the first person to articulate the process of nuclear fission. Prior to this discovery, it was though the atom could not be split. The term atom comes from Ancient Greek for “impossible to cut,” or in other words, atoms could never be divided into anything smaller. The discovery of fission was a true revelation one that would alter the human experience with the dawning of the nuclear age in less than a decade. A black and white photo of a middle-aged woman wearing white, seated at a desk covered in scientific equipment. Fission is the action of dividing or splitting something into two or more parts. Nuclear fission as a heavy nucleus splitting spontaneously or on impact with another particle. The purpose of the B Reactor was to make plutonium. The scientific discoveries of how to slow down neutrons and synthesize plutonium happened less than 10 years prior to the construction and operation of the B Reactor, which came online on September 26, 1944. A black and white photo of a middle-aged man in a suit, writing equations on a chalkboard with his right hand. To fully fuel the reactor, workers loaded approximately 250 tons (7.25 mt) of uranium into the reactor. How did they load the equivalent weight of two average-sized blue whales of uranium into the reactor? Manhattan Project workers were adept at developing new tools and solutions needed to produce plutonium on an industrial scale for the very first time. One such tool was the front face elevator that moved up and down the face of the reactor for the operators to charge (load) new fuel into the reactor while discharging irradiated fuel out the back of the reactor. There are two charging machines used to air pressure to push fuel into the process tubes. To unload the fuel/discharge reactor, workers, using an identical elevator on the rear face, removed the caps from the process tubes at the back of the reactor. Then they removed the caps on the front of the reactor and pushed fresh fuel into the front of the process tubes forcing spent fuel out the back of the reactor. Spent fuel fell into a 20 foot (6 m) deep pool of water and was stored there to allow the short-lived radioisotopes to decay and much of the heat to dissipate. A black and white elevated photo of a large reactor face. Approximately a dozen workers stand on the floor in front of the face. The Columbia River with its ample supply of cool clean water was the primary reason Lieutenant Colonel Franklin Matthias recommended the Hanford Site to General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project. Groves directed Matthias to search the United States for the perfect location to produce plutonium. In addition to a large source of water, Matthias also needed to find a vast area of land that had access to plentiful amounts of electricity, accessible rail service, and no large cities or major highways nearby. When Mattias flew over what would become the Hanford site in December 1942, he knew he found the perfect location for plutonium production. The Hanford area is 586 square miles (1,517 sq km) in size, only three small communities—Richland, White Bluffs, and Hanford (the namesake of the Hanford site)—were nearby, and the newly built Grand Coulee Dam and other dams on the Columbia River provided the needed electricity. Groves approved the acquisition of the Hanford site in January 1943, and construction began that summer. During initial operation, the B reactor was designed to operate at 250 megawatts and used approximately 27,000 gallons (100,000 l) per minute of Columbia River water to cool the reactor core. Water was pumped from the river to a filter plant. Once the water was filtered, it came into the reactor in large diameter pipes. Every second 400 gallons (1514.16 l) of water passed through the reactor. In that one second of time those 400 gallons (1514.16 l) would go from ambient Columbia River temperature with a seasonal average of about 53.6 °F (12 °C) to nearly boiling at 190 °F (88 °C). Once the water left the reactor it flowed to a retention basin where it stayed on average three to four hours for short-lived radionuclides to decay before the relatively thermally hot water was discharged into the Columbia River. While it may sound alarming that hot water was discharged into the river, during operation the discharge amount was a very small fraction of the river water, and the hot water was quickly diluted. A Black and white aerial photo of a large industrial complex on a vast desert plain. Several dozen buildings of varying sizes and shapes dot the landscape. This historic photo is also on the wall in the B Reactor. The image shows Hanford workers in the spring of 1944 gathered for a safety rally in the Hanford Construction Camp. These types of gatherings where one approach managers with the DuPont Company took to emphasize safety, security, and secrecy among the workforce. A black and white photo of an outdoor parade. Several dozen people line the road or stand on scaffolding. A three-person color guard stands in the road in front of two large banners. If you have ever stood near a thundering waterfall, you know it is hard to have a conversation with anyone nearby. The deafening sound of rushing water filled the reactor and most acutely in the valve pit. This is where the water for cooling the reactor entered the building. Initial water flow was approximately 27,000 gallons (100,000 l) per minute of water pumped from the Columbia River. When the reactor power level was increased to 2,000 megawatts in the 1950s, the water flow increased to approximately 70,000 gallons (264,978 l) per minute. This is a comparable water supply for a city with a population of 60,000 people. Large diameter pipes delivered the much-needed cooling water to the valve pit. From there the water was divided into two sets of pipes that ran under the floor of the front face room. One set of pipes fed the right side of the reactor and the other fed the left side. If the flow of water to the reactor was ever interrupted, the reactor could overheat and melt down or irreparably damage the reactor core. DuPont understood this danger and developed backup systems to prevent such a disaster. A black and white photo of a room filled floor-to ceiling with pipes of all sizes. This room once housed a laboratory where water quality analyses were made. Today, it is the History Room, the first of three rooms that make up the Reflection Room exhibits. Here, you can take a journey through the scientific discoveries that led to the nuclear age and the historical events that made the Manhattan Project one of the most consequential events of the last century. The exhibits are intended to prompt personal thoughts and reflections. A color photo of a woman in a pink shirt and blue jeans viewing several exhibit panels on the walls of a white and green concrete room. From Dr. Strangelove to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the nuclear age has and continues to influence popular culture. This Atomic Culture exhibit highlights just a few examples in cinema, literature, and music of how we collectively grapple with the profundity of the nuclear age. A color photo of a man in a blue plaid shirt and dark pants views serval exhibit panels on the walls of a green and white concrete room. This is the final stop in the Reflection Room exhibits. Here cafeteria tables provide a quiet spot for visitors to sit and reflect. Throughout the Reflection Room exhibits, there are exhibits with prompting questions for visitors to respond to by writing in a lab notebook, typing a message using a vintage typewriter, creating a haiku using 3D printed words, and writing a post card to future generations. There is one hotspot in this room for each of interactive exhibits in the History and Atomic Culture rooms. Take time to read these exhibits and write down your own thoughts and reflections on what the B Reactor, the Manhattan Project, and its many legacies means to you. A color photo of a blond woman in a black sleeveless shirt sitting at a wooden table, writing on a card in a green and white concrete room. Scientists are often driven by curiosity and the desire to learn, make discoveries, and find answers. Chadwick, Meitner, Fermi, McMillan, and Seaborg experimented over and over until they discovered answers to big questions that made the nuclear age possible. An exhibit panel with text and a man in a white shirt writing equations on a large chalkboard. The Manhattan Project launched the nuclear age and paved the way for future generations to live in a nuclear world. The reactor building where you are standing opened the door to this new age by industrializing the science that unleashed the energy held within the atom and made large-scale production of plutonium possible. An exhibit panel with text and a man standing at a podium with several men and women seated behind him. The discovery of the neutron set in motion a series of scientific discoveries that ultimately led to the launching of the nuclear age.
A color exhibit panel with text and an image of a large, damaged dome-like structure. Our collective fascination and fear of nuclear technology is expressed in popular culture in many ways from the atomic awakening of mutant creatures to a comically inept nuclear safety operator. A colorful exhibit panel with text and a black drawing of Godzilla, a large, fire-breathing lizard. World War II was the most deadly and destructive war in history. An estimated 70 to 85 million people died as a result of direct warfare, the Holocaust, and war-related disease and famine*. Today, the populations of the capital cities of the major players in World War II—Beijing, Berlin, London, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, and Washington D.C.— totals approximately 80 million. An exhibit panel with a collage of black and white photographs with a cream-colored postcard over the top of the photos. The pile needed clean cooling water to prevent corrosion and buildup of scaling deposits on the aluminum fuel jackets and process tubes. The slightest impediment to water flow in the cooling tubes could make a substantial difference in the pile's plutonium output and its safety. A black and white aerial photo of a large industrial complex on a flat desert. Several large, flat structures and two smokestacks are visible. Due to the incredible amount of water rushing through the pipes in the valve pit, it was nearly impossible to have a conversation here. Sound absorbing materials were added to this telephone booth, and once modified, it was christened a “Hear Here.” This booth provided a quiet place for workers to communicate to other parts of the reactor building. The noise level in the valve pit was significant enough to warrant hearing protection. A color photo of an old-style wooden phone booth with a shelf and a phone above the shelf sits in the hallway of a green and white concrete room. This exhibit explores the development of health physics, which is the science of protecting people and the environment from the potential harmful effects of radiation. The Manhattan Project introduced a new work-place hazard: radiation. Safety controls needed to be developed to ensure the safety of radiation workers. Learn about innovations at Hanford during the Manhattan Project that led to a better understanding of the effects of radiation on human health, enhanced protections for workers, and the emergence of a field that continued to protect lives long after the Manhattan Project ended. A black and white photo of several men in white protective gear in a room with counters and round lights hanging from the ceiling. The outer dress/undress corridor and would have been stocked respiratory protection (masks) and other clothing workers would don (dress) or doff (undress) while on a shift. Examples of masks used in the B Reactor during the operating years from 1944 to 1968 are on display in this room. Many of these masks bear the name MSA, which is an abbreviation for Mine Safety Appliances. As a new industry in the 1940s, the nuclear industry adopted safety standards from other industries as appropriate. In an oral history, Jack Rhoades, a second-generation Hanford Worker whose career was quality assurance and safety said about Hanford safety standards, “Because when they built the nuclear industry, they did not have safety standards for the nuclear industry, because it was a brand new industry. So, if you looked at the operation of the uranium side, then they used the safety standards of a steel mill and a blast furnace to do the safety standards for Fernald and these other uranium enrichment places. And if you look at the chemical processing in the canyons, they looked to the petroleum fracking industry for safety standards. And if you look at the waste disposal, which was the operation of the tank farms and the burial grounds, it had the same basic safety standards and the interest as a commercial landfill.” A black and white photo of two men donning white protective suits and dark rubber boots. Several more items of protective clothing hang on the wall behind them. The second floor of the accumulator room offers a bird’s-eye view of the accumulators, which are large tanks filled with river rock. Their purpose is to provide an automatic means to shut down the reactor should there be a loss of electrical power. Seven of the nine horizontal control rods were designated as shim rods, or rods that control the radioactivity of the reactor (the neutron flux) and have a poison, or neutron absorber, in them. Shim rods provide a baseline of control while the two remaining regulating rods performed minute-to-minute adjustments. The shim rods were operated by a hydraulic drive mechanism and the regulating rods were electrically driven. These tanks provided a weighted hydraulic accumulator that stored oil under high pressure, like the hydraulic lift used to elevate a car in an auto repair shop. To safely shut down the reactor in the event of a power outage or other emergency, the electric clutch holding the tanks suspended above the floor would release and the weight of the accumulator would fall to the floor. This downward motion would pump the hydraulic oil in the horizontal control rod system to insert the shim rods into the reactor at the relatively fast rate of 30 inches (76.2 cm) per second, thus shutting the reactor down without any human intervention. One notable instance of loss of electrical power occurred in the spring of 1945, when a Japanese Fu-Go Balloon Bomb (pictured) fell on the main electrical transmission line at Hanford, temporarily shutting down the reactor. A black and white photo of a large round balloon with ropes and an object hanging underneath it.
The operators at B Reactor had more than 5,000 instruments to monitor. Some instruments displayed their readings, others recorded them, sounded an alarm, or controlled the reactor. Just about all of them were in the control room. It was here that personnel controlled the power level of the pile and monitored the reactivity of the pile, the temperature of the graphite and shields, the temperature, pressure, and flow rate of the cooling water, and much more. A minimum crew of three people would be stationed in this room 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A black and white photo of large dark panels along a wall. The panels have various dials and meters on them. One operator sat in front of the main control panel in the control room (pictured) where he could watch the instruments that displayed the pile's power level and control rod positions. This position would be occupied 24 hours a day whether the reactor was operating or shut down. • Water pressure at the inlet of each of the 2,004 process tubes • Water temperature at the outlet of each process tube • Water flow through the pile • Water supply pressure • The state of the helium gas system • Radiation in various parts of the building A black and white photo of a reactor control room showing a wall full of dials and meters. A wooden table rests in front of the wall of dials and meters. With more than 5,000 instruments to monitor, there was little downtime for control room workers. A wall of 2,004 Panellit gauges, named after the company that manufactured them, measured water flow through each of the 2,004 process tubes was just one set of instruments workers monitored during their shifts. Workers recorded the pressure from each of the Panellit gauges. In an eight-hour shift, the crew would read one-third of the gauges and enter the data on paper. A sensing line ran from the inlet end of each process tube, just downstream of the orifice that controlled the flow of water, to the Panellit pressure gauges and switches in the control room. Two magnets on the dial were positioned for high and low trips. During initial use, small variations in pressure caused several accidental scrams, a fast shutdown of the pile, most often because the gauges were not properly dampened. In fact, a worker just bumping against the Panellit board might cause any one of the gauges to trigger a scram. Additional operating experience showed sufficient protection was obtained by bypassing the safety circuit and having only an alarm sound when any of the 2,004 switches opened. After gaining yet more experience with the system of Panellit gauges, they were once again added as an input to the safety circuit. A black and white photo of a man in a striped shirt, glasses, and dark hair stands in front of a wall covered in numerous switches. He is touching a switch with his right hand. Does this panel remind you of an old-fashioned telephone operator switchboard? That’s because it is! This is a great example of the creativity and ingenuity required to build something that had never been built before. Operators were able to monitor plutonium production within the individual process tubes in part by monitoring the temperature of the water that exited the rear face. Operators would record the temperature of this water every day. It took two men three hours to complete this task. In the early 1950s, an automated method for collecting this information was created, using this Flexo-writer. Thermocouples at the discharge end of each process tube that were connected to the Flexo-writer and it took only ten minutes for this machine to collect the data. Information was displayed in real time and recorded on to paper tape. This information, along with inlet water temperature and water pressure was then used in a series of calculations that estimated how much plutonium was produced and which process tubes were ready to be discharged. A black and white photo of a telephone switchboard on a wall. Several more switches appear on the wall. Fuel spent a varying amount of time in the reactor, depending on where it was located within the core. Fuel in the center of the reactor received the greatest amount of neutron radiation and it might spend as little as four to six weeks, while fuel around the outer edges might spend six to nine months. A black and white photo of a narrow, steep drop-off between a wall and a balcony with a railing. A man stands at a small table next to the railing. The first "official" batch of irradiated fuel slugs from the B Reactor was processed at the T Plant beginning on December 26, 1944. On February 5, 1945, first small batch of plutonium nitrate was ready for shipment to Los Alamos. This was Hanford's first product, and it was up to Col. Matthias to get it to Los Angeles, where he would transfer the material to a representative from Los Alamos. No armored cars were involved, nor any snaking convoys of military vehicles. Instead, Matthias hand-carried the plutonium, which was secured within the box in a small test-tube, surrounded by lead. He and an aide drove from Hanford to Portland, Oregon, where they caught a train to Los Angeles. There they met an officer from Los Alamos who would take the shipment by train the rest of the way. A black and white photo of a city of rubble, with a damaged statue at the foreground of the photo. |
Last updated: February 15, 2024