in his address dedicating the shipping for the atomic power station on may twenty sixth nineteen fifty eight the president of the united states said this plant has a secure place in american history it is the first of the world large scale and nuclear power station exclusively devoted to peaceful purpose it is with pride in what is it accomplished that shipping for pennsylvania and with equal confidence in the future that i now dedicate this shipping for comic power station to that cause the scientific progress to the cause of this transmission line is feeding sixty thousand kilowatts of power into the system of the duquesne light company serving pittsburgh the steel city of the united states the origin of this power is this atomic power station on the ohio river that shipping port pennsylvania primary objective to gain information and to advance reactor technology in addition the objective was to obtain a nuclear power plant that would be readily operable in a conventional electric utility enough work and with a high availability at all times it is the first full scale nuclear power plant for genera electricity in the united states westinghouse electric operation developed and designed the atomic reactor under the direction of and in technical cooperation with the naval reactors branch of the united states atomic energy commission duquesne light company provided the turban generator and is operating the entire plant hundreds of other companies large and small made valuable contributions to the project plant's generator was synchronised with the utility system just sixteen days after the reactor went critical for the first time and five days later sixty thousand kilowatts the reactor design rating went into the transmission lines what made this achievement possible this film report will show in part what had to be done from proposal of the project to production of the power basically the pressurized water reactors station operates on a simple principle and bodying a primary and a secondary heat transfer system in the primary system ordinary water of high purity kept under pressure to prevent boiling is pumped through the reactor this contains your rainy and fuel and control rods the water serves as a neutron moderator as well as a heat transfer medium heated by the fuel the water flows through a heat exchanger there it gives up some of its heat is then research related by the pump repeating the cycle in the secondary system which comprises a separate water circulation system saturated steam is generated in the heat exchanger flows through a steam drum containing steam separators and through a turban which drives the generator then goes through a condenser and as water is pumped back to complete and repeat the cycle the use of separate systems prevents the possibility of transferring radioactivity from the primary system through the term and condensor specifications were drawn up by the atomic energy commission in one nine hundred fifty three that included generation of at least sixty thousand k w net electrical output from saturated steam at six hundred pounds per square inch ordinary water as the coolant and moderator at two thousand pounds per square inch pressure and  well meant life as long as possible between chemical reprocess things with an initial goal in excess of three thousand  there were several other stipulations with safety within the plant and its vicinity to be an overriding feature here then was the basis on which the plant was to be built a plant that would provide experience and experimentation for the benefit of future nuclear power stations a facility in which a variety of reactor cores may eventually be operated plant made possible by a close working relationship between government and industry these basic ideas evolved into this schematic plan of the shipping port station it makes use of for similar loops all supplying steam to the one turban any loop can be shut down for maintenance or for instrumentation to permit studies and experiments while a plant is operating at full capacity behind the successful completion of shipping port was the blazing of trails into new territory the solution of countless problems in physics chemistry engineering manufacturing and construction these problems many completely without precedent fell into four general areas the first and foremost being the reactor to impose many new complex and interrelated problems in design and in technology the involved determining the most suitable fuel materials designing the sizes and configurations of fuel elements processing of fuel materials and manufacturing elements determination of control rod material and the design detection and location of any failed fuel elements the complex instrumentation needed for the gathering of highly useful information and core and planned operation and the design of the reactor vessel in the second ar problems involving the water what operating temperatures in the primary system how to control it two thousand pounds of pressure how to minimize corrosion what measure for water purity the third area concerned and problems of assuring complete safety for persons in the plant and in the surrounding areas these problems involved shielding and measures fo containment of fission products the first barrier confining the fuel a second one can finding the primary water and a third barrier the plant container surrounding the entire nuclear portion of the plant in the fourth area with the problems of special equipment zero leakage pumps of unprecedented size large remotely controlled hermetically sealed v instruments to continuously monitor reactivity from source to above full power levels and operational radiation monitoring equipment this illusions to some of the shipping board problems a physical form taken by the plant as seen in this scale model one fortieth the size of the actual plant the thick walls of ordinary reinforced concrete provide effective neutron and gamma shielding average is five feet at the heart of the plant is the reactor or inside a thirty eight foot sphere topped by a doctor nine feet in diameter the pressure vessel is over ten feet in diameter and thirty three feet high within it of course is the fuel and the control rods three underground chambers steel shells fifty feet in diameter and an engine a quarter thick along with the sphere containing the reactor make up the plant container this is one of the two similar boiler chambers a concrete shield or separates the two loops within total of over a million pounds of steam per hour this chamber one hundred fifty feet long is used for auxiliary equipment such as the primer a water pressure riser and the pressure relief system this is the canal area for underwater handling of a radiator fuel with facilities for core disassembly and temporary storage of used  before the plant could become a reality most of the problems of materials sizes shapes and workable arrangements had to be solved the biggest and most important problems naturally were those concerning the reactor these were solved at the united states atomic energy commission there were many problems in physics to be solved the first of these was to establish a core pattern this required reactor physics analysis and the thermal and hydraulic calculations mechanical design studies and investigations of fuel element configurations and materials were also being made one of the aspects considered was the desirability of using two types of uranium instead of the single type of slightly enriched uranium that was originally contemplated if some highly enriched uranium could be used along with a much larger quantity of un enriched or natural uranium there might be many advantages economic as well as physical in this new concept the enriched material was referred  and the surrounding it would be a blanket activated by the seed the pattern evolved was that of a hollow square of thirty two seed assemblies with blanket assemblies both inside and out such a blanket w have to satisfy certain requirements the material must pass severe tests of corrosion resistance to high temperature water radiation stability was necessary so that cladding would not tend to rupture if elements failed the failure should not progress to other elements and the blanket fuel must contain maximum your any unloading or content the problem was that no such fuel materials were known it was necessary to establish an extensive metallurgical program to do research and develop technologies it was recognised first of all that metallic any m could not serve as blanket material it had very poor corrosion resistance for one thing perhaps so ever a uranium alloy it could be used and other material being studied was your any i'm dioxide you all to radiation stability and it met the other criteria money its physical properties were not known even such fundamental properties as melting points and thermal conductivity had to be determined many aspects of the chemical behavior of the oxide were st these included such things as its reaction with hot water