Laboratory "B" / IPPE imeni A.I.Leipunsky

JSC SSC RF - IPPE
Joint Stock Company State Scientific Center of the Russian Federation - 
Institute for Physics and Power Engineering named after A.I.Leypunsky

Obninsk — Russia's first Naukograd - is a nuclear city centered around the Institute for Physics and Power Engineering of the Ministry for Atomic Energy (Minatom), but with 15 institutes covering advanced materials, medical radiology, meteorology, radiation chemistry, agricultural ecology, and technical education.

The State Scientific Center of the Russian Federation IPPE is a multidisciplinary scientific organization conducting comprehensive studies of the physical and technical problems of nuclear energy. IPPE is the scientific "headquarters" of the domestic nuclear industry for fast reactors. nstitute for Physics and Power Engineering is a multidisiplinary institution focusing of the complex research of nuclear reactor physics and reactor technology development. It has got on its account over 120 designs of various nuclear systems including fast reactors design.

The Institute for Physics and Power Engineering was established in May 1946 to develop nuclear reactor technology. The world's first nuclear power reactor, AM-1, was commissioned at IPPE on 27 June 1954. The Institute also developed fast breeder reactors, research reactors, space reactors, and naval lead-bismuth liquid metal reactors. In case of fast power reactors (BN), chief designer is ‘OKBM Afrikantov’, steam generator designer is ‘GIDROPRESS’, and scientific leader is ‘Leipunskiy Institute of Physics and Power Engineering’ (Obninsk FEI).

The Decree of the USSR Council of Ministers on the establishment of Laboratory B was signed on December 19, 1945 by Order of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs dated April 27, 1946. Laboratory B was initially created as the first scientific research organization in the USSR to create power reactors. Already in 1946 - early 1947. the laboratory is studying the feasibility of creating a “uranium machine with enriched uranium and light water” that gives energy “in technically applicable amounts”. In 1947, A.I. Leipunsky instructs her to "clarify the problems associated with model experiments on uranium boilers with beryllium as a braking substance."

In late 1949 - early 1950 Famous Soviet scientists A.I. transfer to permanent work at Laboratory “B” Leipunsky (student of academicians A.F. Ioffe and N.N. Semenov, one of the first nuclear physicists in the country) and D.I. Blokhintsev (Moscow Physical School). On July 21, 1950, Blokhintsev headed Laboratory “B” and became its first director-scientist. A.I. Leipunsky created at Laboratory “B” an outstanding scientific school in the field of nuclear and reactor physics and technology, the bright representatives of which were B.F. Gromov , O.D. Kazachkovsky , P.L. Kirillov, L.A. Kochetkov, V.A. Kuznetsov, V.V. Orlov, V.Ya. Pupko , V.I. Subbotin , G.I. Toshinsky, M.F. Troyanov, L.N. UsachevV.V. Chekunov and many others.

A.I. Leipunsky believed that “a leader should not only be a good scientist (this is necessary), but also a person ... such human qualities as goodwill, generosity of mind, perseverance and organization are important ...”). Such an approach allowed young scientists to feel their own significance, personal responsibility for the assigned work and freedom in choosing ways to solve the problem.

In 1949 - the beginning of the 1950s, Leipunsky organized preliminary calculations for reactors with various active zones, coolants, protection, etc., taking on a significant part of this work. All this allows him to get an idea about the future development program of the institute and to highlight the main directions of his independent scientific activity (fast and intermediate neutron reactors). Blokhintsev agrees with the proposal of I.V. Kurchatov on the transfer to Laboratory “B” of work on the creation of the First NPP (slow neutron reactor), and the program of A.I. Leipunsky is supplemented by another direction.

On June 12, 1951, the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the construction of an experimental power station (installations B-10) on the territory of Laboratory "B" was issued. On the proposal of I.V. Kurchatov, on June 27, 1951, all available design materials for the water-cooled uranium-graphite reactor were transferred to Laboratory "B". On July 12, 1951, Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR assigned Laboratory B the task of designing and constructing water-cooled nuclear power plants.

In 1951, construction began on the building of the nuclear power plant. The head of construction was appointed P.I. Zakharov, chief engineer of the facility - D.M. Ovechkin. At the beginning of 1954, verification and testing of various station systems began. Remembering the launch, D.I. Blokhintsev wrote: “Gradually, the power of the reactor increased, and finally somewhere near the building of the thermal power plant, where steam was supplied from the reactor, we saw a jet bursting out of the valve with a loud hiss. The white cloud of ordinary steam, and besides, still not hot enough to rotate the turbine, seemed to us a miracle: after all, this is the first steam received from atomic energy .."

The leading role in developing the foundations and creating the firstborn of fast-neutron nuclear energy in the Soviet Union, of course, belongs to the Physics and Energy Institute. The foundations of this direction were laid by A.I. Leipunsky. In June 1950, he prepared an analytical note for the NTS PSU “Fast Neutron Systems”, in which, as one of the Institute’s veterans said, “there is everything that we had to work on for many years”. In practice, this note served as a justification (as a first approximation) of the possible characteristics of the reactor and a program of scientific research for the future.

In 1960-1964 A preliminary and two technical designs of the BN-350 reactor with sodium as a heat carrier were developed at the IPPE . As VV writes Orlov, at this stage, "our first tasks were to provide scientific guidance for the design and construction of BN-350, to carry out a program of its design, experimental and engineering justifications, simultaneously with the design work of BOR-60 and design studies of the large (at that time) BN fast reactor -600 . The scale and responsibility of the tasks required the expansion of research and experimental work, the experimental base, the attraction of new people and teams ... "

Since 1973, the bulk of the research work at the IPPE on fast reactors has been moving towards the BN-600 reactor , which has been studied since 1963. In 1965-1968. A new BN-600 concept was developed. In support of the parameters of this reactor, an experimental nuclear power plant was created with the BOR-60 reactor, which was launched in 1969 in Dimitrovgrad. The BN-600 reactor was the third power unit of the Beloyarsk NPP. The reactor was physically launched in February 1980. After the development process, in December 1981, the unit was brought to the design power level.

Most of the time after lithium was discovered, it was not claimed in science or engineering. However, not every metal is used so widely now as lithium (maybe not always on a large scale) in a broad spectrum of science and engineering. In many cases, the use of lithium enables one to develop unique facilities, devices and technologies. This is favored by the unique physical and other properties of lithium. Lithium is the lightest of all metals and has the highest specific heat per unit mass. Lithium is characterized by large thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity, low viscosity, low vapor pressure. Lithium is outstanding in its high heat of vaporization. Due to the combination of these properties, liquid lithium is considered as the most efficient coolant for nuclear power installations, mainly, for space purpose, because it makes possible to create a nuclear power installation of small weight and size.

Therefore, lithium is the best coolant for space nuclear power installations of high power. Lithium shows up as a most promising coolant for thermonuclear power installations with inertially- and magnetically-confined plasma. Tritium is a component of fusionable fuel. Tritium does not occur in nature in large amounts. Tritium can be obtained from lithium with nuclear reactions in fission nuclear reactors or blankets of fusion reactors. Thus, lithium provides raw nuclear fuel to implement fusion reaction. In the 50s in the Soviet Union lithium came to be regarded as a coolant capable of being competitive with sodium coolant for breeder reactors as well as high temperature nuclear power installations with record-small mass and dimensions parameters.

The Institute for Physics and Power Engineering (at present SSC RF IPPE) was a pioneer in the development of lithium coolant. Upon initiation by the academician of the Academy of Ukraine, A.I. Leypunsky, and Head of Department, V.I. Subbotin, the large-scale study of lithium coolant was started. In 1961 the laboratory was founded aimed at the study of lithium as a coolant of nuclear power installations. M.N. Ivanovsky, who was the Head of Laboratory up to 1976, contributed significantly to its organization and formation. From the very beginning the experience of research showed that the efficiency of use of lithium as a coolant depends greatly on its purity. Therefore much attention was given in this study to the problems of molten lithium purification and its purity control. The peculiarities of lithium technology were considered for other applications.

The fast physical stand (BFS) is the largest operating critical test facility of its kind in the world. The Leypunsky Institute's BFS-1 and BFS-2 critical assemblies are designed to carry out experimental physics research on fast-neutron reactors. The principle of the facility's operation has been described by physicists as something akin to 'nuclear Lego', with dozens of configurations possible thanks to interchangeable assemblies, which allow physicists to carry out experiments on a variety of systems.

Once it's up and running, the BFS complex will carry out important experiments to confirm the safety and reliability of the new BN-800 fast-neutron reactor at the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Station in Russia's Sverdlovsk region. Work on the latter will help Russian physicists to create a number of technologies to be used by the nuclear power industry of the future.

Fast-neutron reactors have a number of advantages over thermal-neutron reactors, including a closed nuclear fuel cycle, which dramatically reduces the amount of radioactive waste through the 'burning out' of dangerous radionuclides. The concept also has the advantage of being able to use abundant sources of depleted uranium, thorium, and light water reactor waste, to operate. The tradeoff is a higher cost to build, although these costs are partially offset by fluctuating uranium prices. The Russian nuclear industry is broadly considered to be the foremost authority in the world in the development of fast-neutron reactors.

Power units with fast neutron reactors are believed to have great advantages. With their help, it will be possible to close the nuclear fuel cycle, in which, due to the expanded reproduction of nuclear "fuel", the fuel base of nuclear energy will expand significantly, and it will also be possible to reduce the volume of radioactive waste due to the "burning" of dangerous radionuclides. Russia, experts say, is the first in the world in the construction of fast neutron reactors.

In 2016, the commercial operation of the fourth power unit of the Beloyarsk NPP with the BN-800 reactor began, on which the nuclear fuel cycle closure technologies will be developed, and which will become the prototype of the more powerful BN-1200 commercial nuclear power unit. The BN-800 reactor is designed to use mixed oxide uranium-plutonium MOX fuel in it, in which plutonium extracted during the processing of spent nuclear fuel from thermal neutron reactors that form the basis of modern nuclear energy can be used. One of the tasks of developing technologies for closing the nuclear fuel cycle is the formation of the active zone of the BN-800 reactor with a full load of MOX fuel.