03-03-2004 – New step on RRR building

On January 23rd, 2004, the main pool of the Repalecement Research Reactor INVAP is building in Australia was put in its final place. This is a significant milestone in the project, since it marks the beginning of the assembly of the reactor itself. This task will insume 2004 and the first half of 2005. The start-up of the RRR will be done during the rest of 2005 until completion of the project, which will take place duroing the first months of 2006.

The main pool is a stainless steel tank, 14 metres high and 4 m diameter; it was built in Australia by a subcontractor. This tank is one of the key pieces of the whole project. In this tank will be placed under several metres depth of highly purified distilled water which serves as refrigerant, all the vital components of the RRR, such as fuel elements and control bars that constitute the reactor core, the neutron exit channels to be used in experiments performed outside, the sample access channels to the irradiation zone as well as many other devices such as the neutron flux monitors and other measuring devices.