"Graphite reactor" directs here. For the graphite reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, see X-10 Graphite Reactor.
A graphite-moderated reactor is a nuclear reactor that uses carbon as a neutron moderator, which allows natural uranium to be used as nuclear fuel.
The first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, used nuclear graphite as a moderator. Graphite-moderated reactors were involved in two of the best-known nuclear disasters: an untested graphite annealing process contributed to the Windscale fire (but the graphite itself did not catch fire), while a graphite fire during the Chernobyl disaster contributed to the spread of radioactive material.
Several types of graphite-moderated nuclear reactors have been used in commercial electricity generation:
Gas-cooled reactors
Magnox
UNGG reactor
Advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR)
Water-cooled reactors
RBMK
MKER
EGP-6
Hanford N-Reactor (dual use)
High-temperature gas-cooled reactors (past)
Dragon reactor
AVR
Peach Bottom Nuclear Generating Station, Unit 1
THTR-300
Fort St. Vrain Generating Station
High temperature gas-cooled reactors (in development or construction)
Pebble-bed reactor
Very high temperature reactor
Prismatic fuel reactor
UHTREX Ultra-high-temperature reactor experiment
Other
Molten salt reactor
There have been a number of research or test reactors built that use graphite as the moderator.
Chicago Pile-1
Chicago Pile-2
Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT)
Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE)
The first artificial nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, a graphite-moderated device that produced between 0.5 watts and 200 watts , was constructed by a team led by Enrico Fermi in 1942. The construction and testing of this reactor (an "atomic pile") was part of the Manhattan Project. This work led to the construction of the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which was the first nuclear reactor designed and built for continuous operation, and began operation in 1943.
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"Graphite reactor" directs here. For the graphite reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, see X-10 Graphite Reactor. A graphite-moderated reactor is a nuclear reactor that uses carbon as a neutron moderator, which allows natural uranium to be used as nuclear fuel. The first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, used nuclear graphite as a moderator.
A nuclear reactor core is the portion of a nuclear reactor containing the nuclear fuel components where the nuclear reactions take place and the heat is generated. Typically, the fuel will be low-enriched uranium contained in thousands of individual fuel pins. The core also contains structural components, the means to both moderate the neutrons and control the reaction, and the means to transfer the heat from the fuel to where it is required, outside the core.
The pebble-bed reactor (PBR) is a design for a graphite-moderated, gas-cooled nuclear reactor. It is a type of very-high-temperature reactor (VHTR), one of the six classes of nuclear reactors in the Generation IV initiative. The basic design of pebble-bed reactors features spherical fuel elements called pebbles. These tennis ball-sized pebbles (approx. in diameter) are made of pyrolytic graphite (which acts as the moderator), and they contain thousands of micro-fuel particles called tristructural-isotropic (TRISO) particles.