The
Atomic Energy Research Establishment (known as
AERE or colloquially
Harwell) near
HarwellHarwell is a large village and civil parish in the English county of Oxfordshire. It lies near The Ridgeway long-distance footpath, halfway between Abingdon, Oxfordshire and Newbury, Berkshire and two miles from Didcot. Harwell has a population of about 2,400...
,
OxfordshireOxfordshire is a county in the South East England region, bordering on Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire....
was the main centre for
atomic energyNuclear energy is released by the splitting or merging together of the nuclei of atom. The conversion of nuclear mass to energy is consistent with the mass-energy equivalence formula ΔE = Δm.c², in which ΔE = energy release, Δm = mass defect, and c = the speed of light in a vacuum...
research and development in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
from the 1940s to the 1990s.
In 1945
John CockcroftSir John Douglas Cockcroft, OM, KCB, CBE was a British physicist. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics for splitting the atomic nucleus, and was instrumental in the development of nuclear power....
was asked to set up a research laboratory to further the use of
nuclear fissionIn nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts, often producing free neutrons and lighter nuclei, which may eventually produce photons...
for both
militaryA military is an organization authorized by its nation to use force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. As an adjective the term "military" is also used to refer to any property or aspect of a military...
purposes and generating energy. The criteria for selection involved finding somewhere remote with a good water supply, but within reach of good transport links and a university with a
nuclear physicsNuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei.The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power and nuclear weapons, but the research has provided wider applications, including those in medicine , materials...
laboratory.
The
Atomic Energy Research Establishment (known as
AERE or colloquially
Harwell) near
HarwellHarwell is a large village and civil parish in the English county of Oxfordshire. It lies near The Ridgeway long-distance footpath, halfway between Abingdon, Oxfordshire and Newbury, Berkshire and two miles from Didcot. Harwell has a population of about 2,400...
,
OxfordshireOxfordshire is a county in the South East England region, bordering on Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire....
was the main centre for
atomic energyNuclear energy is released by the splitting or merging together of the nuclei of atom. The conversion of nuclear mass to energy is consistent with the mass-energy equivalence formula ΔE = Δm.c², in which ΔE = energy release, Δm = mass defect, and c = the speed of light in a vacuum...
research and development in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
from the 1940s to the 1990s.
Founding
In 1945
John CockcroftSir John Douglas Cockcroft, OM, KCB, CBE was a British physicist. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics for splitting the atomic nucleus, and was instrumental in the development of nuclear power....
was asked to set up a research laboratory to further the use of
nuclear fissionIn nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts, often producing free neutrons and lighter nuclei, which may eventually produce photons...
for both
militaryA military is an organization authorized by its nation to use force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. As an adjective the term "military" is also used to refer to any property or aspect of a military...
purposes and generating energy. The criteria for selection involved finding somewhere remote with a good water supply, but within reach of good transport links and a university with a
nuclear physicsNuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei.The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power and nuclear weapons, but the research has provided wider applications, including those in medicine , materials...
laboratory. This more or less limited the choice to
OxfordOxford is a city, and the county town of Oxfordshire, in South East England. The city has a population of just under 165,000, with 151,000 living within the district boundary. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre...
or
CambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. It is also at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen....
. It had been decided that an RAF airfield would be chosen; the aircraft hangars being ideal to house the large atomic piles that would need to be built. Although Cambridge University had the better
nuclear physicsNuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei.The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power and nuclear weapons, but the research has provided wider applications, including those in medicine , materials...
facility (the
Cavendish LaboratoryThe Cavendish Laboratory is the University of Cambridge's Department of Physics, and is part of the university's School of Physical Sciences. It was opened in 1874 as a teaching laboratory and was initially located on the New Museums Site, Free School Lane, in the centre of Cambridge. After...
), the RAF did not want to abandon any of its eastern airfields (because of the new threat of the cold war), therefore Harwell was chosen when the RAF made the airfield available.
RAF HarwellRAF Harwell was a Royal Air Force airfield in Berkshire, England, near the village of Harwell, later the site of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. The site is now in Oxfordshire....
, was some sixteen miles south of
OxfordOxford is a city, and the county town of Oxfordshire, in South East England. The city has a population of just under 165,000, with 151,000 living within the district boundary. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre...
near
DidcotDidcot is a town in Oxfordshire about south of Oxford. It was transferred from Berkshire to Oxfordshire in 1974.-History and economy:Didcot dates back to the Iron Age The settlement was situated on the ridge in the town, and the remainder of the surrounding area was marshland.The Romans attempted...
and the village of
HarwellHarwell is a large village and civil parish in the English county of Oxfordshire. It lies near The Ridgeway long-distance footpath, halfway between Abingdon, Oxfordshire and Newbury, Berkshire and two miles from Didcot. Harwell has a population of about 2,400...
, and on 1 January 1946 the Atomic Energy Research Establishment was formed, coming under the
Ministry of SupplyThe Ministry of Supply was a department of the UK Government formed in 1939 to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Minister of Supply. There was, however, a separate ministry responsible for aircraft production and the Admiralty retained...
. The scientists mostly took over both accommodations and work buildings from the departing
RAFThe Royal Air Force is the United Kingdom's air force, the oldest independent air force in the world. Formed on 1 April 1918, the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history ever since, playing a large part in World War II and in more recent conflicts.The RAF operates almost 1,109...
.
The early laboratory had several specialist divisions: Chemistry (initially headed by
Egon BretscherBorn near Zurich, Switzerland in 1901 and educated at the ETH there, Bretscher gained a PhD degree in organic chemistry at Edinburgh in 1926. He returned to Zurich as privat docent to Peter Debye, later moving in 1936 to work in Rutherford’s laboratory at the Cavendish in Cambridge as a Rockefeller...
, later by Robert Spence), General Physics (
H.W.B. Skinner), Nuclear Physics (initially headed by Otto Frisch, later E. Bretscher), Reactor Physics (John Dunworth), Theoretical Physics (
Klaus FuchsKlaus Emil Julius Fuchs , was a German-born British theoretical physicist and atomic spy who in 1950 was convicted of supplying information from the British and American atomic bomb research to the USSR during and shortly after World War II. Fuchs was an extremely competent scientist...
, later Brian Flowers), Isotopes (Henry Seligmann) and Engineering (Harold Tongue, later Robert Jackson). Directors after Cockcroft included
Basil SchonlandSir Basil Ferdinand Jamieson Schonland CBE FRS was the first president of the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.-Birth and Parentage:...
, Arthur Vick and
Walter MarshallWalter Marshall studied mathematical physics at Birmingham University and gained a PhD there under Rudolf Peierls...
.
Early reactors
Such was the interest in nuclear power and the priority devoted to it in those days that the first reactor,
GLEEPGLEEP, which stood for Graphite Low Energy Experimental Pile, was a long-lived experimental British nuclear reactor. Run for the first time on August 15 1947, it was the first reactor to operate in Western Europe....
, was operating by 15 August 1947. GLEEP (Graphite Low Energy Experimental Pile) was a low energy (3 kilowatt) graphite-moderated air-cooled reactor. The first reactor in Western Europe, it was remarkably long-lived, operating until 1990.
A successor to GLEEP, called BEPO (British Experimental Pile 0) was constructed based on the experience with GLEEP, and commenced operation in 1948. BEPO was shut down in 1968.
LIDO was an enriched uranium thermal swimming pool reactor which operated from 1956 to 1972 and was mainly used for shielding and nuclear physics experiments. It was fully dismantled and returned to a green field site in 1995.
A pair of larger 26 MW reactors,
DIDODIDO was a nuclear reactor at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom. It used enriched uranium metal fuel, and heavy water as both neutron moderator and primary coolant...
and
PLUTOPLUTO was a nuclear reactor at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom, one of five reactors on the site....
, which used enriched
uraniumUranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table that has the symbol U and atomic number 92. Besides its 92 protons, a uranium nucleus can have between 141 and 146 neutrons. The most common uranium isotopes are U-238 and U-235 . A uranium atom has...
with a
heavy waterHeavy water is water that contains a higher proportion than normal of the isotope deuterium, as deuterium oxide, D2O or ²H2O, or as deuterium protium oxide, HDO or ¹H²HO. Its physical and chemical properties are somewhat similar to those of water, H2O...
moderatorIn nuclear engineering, a neutron moderator is a medium which reduces the speed of fast neutrons, thereby turning them into thermal neutrons capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction involving uranium-235....
came online in 1956 and 1957 respectively. These small reactors were used primarily for testing the behaviour of different materials under intense
neutronThe neutron is a subatomic particle with no net electric charge and a mass slightly larger than that of a proton.Neutron are usually found in atomic nuclei. The nuclei of most atoms consist of protons and neutrons, which are therefore collectively referred to as nucleons. The number of protons in a...
irradiation to help decide what materials to build reactor components out of. A sample could be irradiated for a few months to simulate the radiation dose that it would receive over the lifetime of a power reactor. They also took over commercial
isotopeIsotopes are different types of atoms of the same chemical element, each having a different number of neutrons. Correspondingly, isotopes differ in mass number but not in atomic number. The difference in the number of nucleons comes from a difference how many neutrons are in the atomic nucleus...
production from BEPO after that was shut down. DIDO and PLUTO themselves were shut down in 1990 and the fuel, moderator and ancillary buildings removed. The GLEEP reactor and the hangar it was situated in were decommissioned 2005. The current plans are to decommission the BEPO, DIDO and PLUTO reactors by 2020.
Zeta
One of the most significant experiments to occur at AERE was the
ZETAIn fusion power research, the Z-pinch, or zeta pinch, is a type of plasma confinement system that uses an electrical current in the plasma to generate a magnetic field that compresses it...
fusion powerFusion power is the power generated by nuclear fusion reactions. In this kind of reaction, two light atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus and in doing so, release a large amount of energy...
experiment. An early attempt to build a large-scale nuclear fusion reactor, the project was started in 1954, and the first successes were achieved in 1957. In 1958 the project was shut down, as it was believed that no further progress could be made with the kind of design that ZETA represented. (see
Timeline of nuclear fusionTimeline of significant events in the study and use of nuclear fusion:*1929 - Atkinson and Houtermans used the measured masses of low mass elements and applied Einstein's discovery that E=mc
2 to predict that large amounts of energy could be released by fusing small nuclei together .*1932...
).
Organisational history
In 1954 AERE was incorporated into the newly formed
United Kingdom Atomic Energy AuthorityThe United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority was established in 1954 as a statutory corporation to oversee and pioneer the development of nuclear energy within the United Kingdom...
(UKAEA). Harwell and other laboratories were to assume responsibility for atomic energy research and development. It was part of the
Department of Trade and IndustryThe Department of Trade and Industry was a United Kingdom government department which was replaced with the announcement of the creation of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills on 28 June 2007.The department was...
(DTI).
During the 1980s the slowdown of the British nuclear energy program resulted in a greatly reduced demand for the kind of work being done by the UKAEA. Pressures on government spending also reduced the funding available. Reluctant to merely disband a quality scientific research organisation, UKAEA was required to divert its research effort to the solving of scientific problems for industry by providing paid consultancy or services. UKAEA was ordered to operate on a
Trading FundA trading fund is a UK government department, or an executive agency or part of the department, which has been established as such by means of a Trading Fund Order made under the Government Trading Funds Act 1973....
basis, i.e. to account for itself financially as though it was a private corporation, while remaining fully government owned. After several years of transition, UKAEA was divided in the early 1990s. UKAEA retained ownership of all land and infrastructure and of all nuclear facilities, and of businesses directly related to nuclear power. The remainder was privatised as
AEA TechnologyAEA Technology plc was formed in 1996 as the privatised offshoot of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. Originally it consisted of divisions with expertise in a wide variety of areas, mostly the products of nuclear-related research. These included nuclear safety, nuclear engineering,...
and floated on the
London Stock ExchangeThe London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1801, it is one of the largest stock exchanges in the world, with many overseas listings as well as British companies...
. Harwell Laboratory contained elements of both organisations, though the land and infrastructure was owned by UKAEA.
The name Atomic Energy Research Establishment was dropped at the same time, and the site became known as the
Harwell International Business Centre. The adjacent site known as Chilton/Harwell Science Campus houses the
Rutherford Appleton LaboratoryThe Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council . It is located on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus at Chilton near Didcot in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom...
(including the
ISIS neutron sourceISIS is a pulsed neutron and muon source. It is situated at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom and is part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council...
and
Diamond Light SourceDiamond Light Source is a synchrotron research facility in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. It produced its first user beam towards the end of January 2007...
). In 2007, both sites started to use the name
Harwell Science and Innovation CampusThe Harwell Science and Innovation Campus is a science and technology campus near the villages of Harwell and Chilton, Oxfordshire, England. The site is about south of Oxford...
.
See also
- Atomic Weapons Establishment
The Atomic Weapons Establishment is responsible for the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent. AWE plc is responsible for the day-to-day operations of AWE...
- Dounreay Nuclear Power Development Establishment
- JET
JET, the Joint European Torus is the largest man-made magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment currently in operation. Its main purpose is to open the way to future nuclear fusion experimental reactors such as ITER and DEMO.-Construction:...
fusion reactor
- List of nuclear reactors
- WITCH (computer)
The Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell , originally known as The Harwell Computer and later as The Harwell Dekatron Computer, was an early British relay-based computer.-Construction and use at Harwell:...
, an early DekatronIn electronics, a Dekatron is a gas-filled decade counting tube. Dekatrons were used in computers, calculators and other counting-related devices during the 1940s to 1970s...
-based computer constructed at Harwell and donated to computer science in the late 1950s
- Harwell CADET
The Harwell CADET was the first fully transistorised computer in Europe, and may have been the first fully transistorised computer in the world....
, an early transistorised computer
External links