3-year fuel operating lifetime per core loading.Adaptable to the Arctic permafrost region.All components able to be transported by air.Some of the more important criteria included: The Army Reactors Branch formed the guidelines for the project and contracted with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to design, build, and test a prototype reactor plant to be called the Argonne Low Power Reactor (ALPR). The reactors were to replace diesel generators and boilers that provided electricity and space heating for the Army's radar stations. Army evaluated their need for nuclear reactor plants that would be operable in remote regions of the Arctic. During the accident, the core power level reached nearly 20 GW in just four milliseconds, precipitating the steam explosion. Operating power was 200 kW electrical and 400 kW thermal for space heating. The design power was 3 MW ( thermal), but some 4.7 MW tests were performed in the months prior to the accident. The reactor was intended to provide electrical power and heat for small, remote military facilities, such as radar sites near the Arctic Circle, and those in the DEW Line. The facility housing SL-1, located approximately forty miles (65 km) west of Idaho Falls, was part of the Army Nuclear Power Program. About 1,100 curies (41 TBq) of fission products were released into the atmosphere. The accident released about 80 curies (3.0 TBq) of iodine-131, which was not considered significant due to its location in the remote high desert of eastern Idaho.
history to have resulted in immediate fatalities.
The event is the only reactor accident in U.S. The direct cause was the improper withdrawal of the central control rod, responsible for absorbing neutrons in the reactor's core. It is best known for the meltdown and steam explosion which occurred on the night of January 3, 1961, killing all three of its young military operators, one of whom was pinned to the ceiling of the facility by a reactor vessel plug. Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, also known as SL-1 or the Argonne Low Power Reactor ( ALPR), was a United States Army experimental nuclear reactor in the western United States, located at the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS), basis of what is now the Idaho National Laboratory, west of Idaho Falls, Idaho.