Franco-British nuclear program

[Cjc]

So the details on the 1954-58 Harwell/Admiralty effort are pretty skimpy. It may have begun as a liquid-metal cooled reactor but clearly had run into design issues by 1957 and perhaps had been changed to a PWR at that time.

This is intriguing. A liquid metal reactor is possible, but they have their own set of issues.

They started out with a gas cooled reactor to begin with right?

Considering the only service submarines using liquid metal reactors, were the Soviet Alfa class and no more such reactors built. Suggests they are more trouble than they are worth save for squeezing high performance into a compact hull.

That said as we can see, such was once envisioned for the RN as an alternative to the HTP Walter submarine.

Could we have seen a British Alfa type SSN?

Well the alfa weren't liquid metal, they were iquid lead, and there issues were because the were gust a bit to small (seriously if the channels had been gust a little bit bigger the reactor would have had no issues), as for the seawolf, most of its issues were fixed by the time that experiment ended, but rickover never wanted it so used the programs early history to force its closer (even to the point of forcing the ship to be "refitted" (more like rebuilt) with pwr.

Rickover did a lot of good, but he had decided by 1948! That pwrs were the way to go and never really considered anything else. Why before anyone else had even fully figured out what would be the best reactor design, and when you consider how fallow the leader military procuring can be (especially during the cold war) i would be careful drawing conclusions about this.

 

[zen]

When did lead stop being classified as a metal?

Intriguing about the Seawolf reactor though.

Edited additional
Dounreay liquid NaK reactor started up in 1959......
So it's feasible that an AH scenario of continuing with liquid metal cooled reactor option could achieve similar timescales to the PWR-1.

 

[Hood]

They started out with a gas cooled reactor to begin with right?

Yes but quickly ruled out as impractical due to problems with the gas circulation and the graphite moderator were too weak to withstand combat shocks. Though it seems it was consider feasible for commercial ships.

The big drawback of metal-cooled reactors is that you can't shut them down. The metal coolant cannot be allowed to cool under any circumstances at it will seize solid.

The US S2G used on the USS Seawolf was a liquid metallic sodium cooled reactor. Sodium coolant leaks were a hazard as they were explosively reactive with oxygen and producing hydrogen at the same time.
The experimental modified November-class K-27 and the Alfa-class used lead-bismuth alloy (notably two different reactor designs were used on the Alfas). Lead-bismuth reactors can operate at a lower temperature to prevent the freezing of the metal coolant.

From the Dounreay experiments we might conjecture that the liquid-metal design was a sodium and NaK (sodium-potassium alloy) cooled design. It would still be highly dangerous should a coolant leak occur.
I suppose even if the Sodium NAK reactor had proved a failure then a new US-sourced rear end could have been bolted onto HMS Dreadnought. The Valiants though would have been delayed I suspect for a redesigned rear end.

 

[zen]

But what happens if the Nak reactor works and can be made practically safe?

Arguably it would end up being a limited run as with Soviet Alfas

 

[Archibald]

Yep, sodium and lead are the coolants often used for such reactors. For breeders like Superphoenix or Monju or Clinch River, sodium came on top of plutonium as a major safety issue. The plutonium economy was one heck of a nightmare.

 

[uk 75]

The origins of the British nuclear deterrent lay in the huge Bomber Command of WW2 and it's close working relationship with the US equivalent.
With the Cold War this relationship continues with Curtis Le May's SAC. The RAF gets B29 Washingtons to cover the gap until its jets arrive.
France has no such relationship for obvious reasons.
When Skybolt fails and Hound Dog is unsuitable Mountbatten's Royal Navy had already established a similar relationship with the US Navy notably in the North Atlantic covert battle with Soviet subs.
France realises after Indo China, Suez and Algeria that the US can be an unreliable ally. Kennedy's move away from 'massive retaliation' to "flexible response" was too much for De Gaulle. The Force de Disuasion is just that. France withdraws from the military alliance but retains an Army Corps in Germany and creates nuclear weapons designed to warn the Soviet Union not to attack France.
The radically different starting points and purposes of the UK and French deterrents really have to be unpicked before you can combine them.
The US for its part wanted to extend its nuclear relationship to include France and Germany. The relationship with UK was not so special for Washington as it was for London.
A NATO without the British and French national deterrents and a single US controlled force could have been created in the 50s and 60s.
UK and French forces (possibly even West German and Italian) would have received Polaris submarines, F111 strike aircraft and Pershing missiles with NATO tags and markings.
An intriguing alternate world that could have produced a UK French nuclear force was Churchill's idea of uniting Britain and France in a single country.
Though this seems far fetched today Churchill Eden and Macmillan all spoke French. The British upper classes spent much time in France and saw it as a natural partner.
A Codominion between London and Paris continues after the liberation of metropolitan France. France remains a Republic but joins the Commonwealth of Nations. The young Elizabeth the Second charms Paris and even the bluff German Duke of Edinburgh finds the city a welcome break from the stuffiness of London.
The realignment of British and French industry after 1945 has a major impact on aviation. Marcel Dassault becomes the chief supplier of fighter aircraft over his rival Sydney Camm. But Frederick Page forces his evolved Victor on the Royal Air Force and Armee del'Air with missiles designed in France.

 

[Cjc]

They started out with a gas cooled reactor to begin with right?

Yes but quickly ruled out as impractical due to problems with the gas circulation and the graphite moderator were too weak to withstand combat shocks. Though it seems it was consider feasible for commercial ships.

The big drawback of metal-cooled reactors is that you can't shut them down. The metal coolant cannot be allowed to cool under any circumstances at it will seize solid.

The US S2G used on the USS Seawolf was a liquid metallic sodium cooled reactor. Sodium coolant leaks were a hazard as they were explosively reactive with oxygen and producing hydrogen at the same time.
The experimental modified November-class K-27 and the Alfa-class used lead-bismuth alloy (notably two different reactor designs were used on the Alfas). Lead-bismuth reactors can operate at a lower temperature to prevent the freezing of the metal coolant.

From the Dounreay experiments we might conjecture that the liquid-metal design was a sodium and NaK (sodium-potassium alloy) cooled design. It would still be highly dangerous should a coolant leak occur.
I suppose even if the Sodium NAK reactor had proved a failure then a new US-sourced rear end could have been bolted onto HMS Dreadnought. The Valiants though would have been delayed I suspect for a redesigned rear end.

Ya sodium reactors can provide more power (there full can be made smaller) they can also be gust (if not more) hideously dangerous as regular pwrs. Real shame molten salt became a airforce project insted of a navy one (therfore makeing shure they navy will never touch it) consdering it could be made smaller and walk away safe (less crew requirements).

Frankly without us suport the best bet may be for Britain to pigg back of canadas natural uranium, natural circulation candu reactor. Probably can't more a sub as fast as pwr but it is quiter and allows the RN to avoid the plutonium economy intierly.

​

 

[zen]

Frankly without us suport the best bet may be for Britain to pigg back of canadas natural uranium, natural circulation candu reactor. Probably can't more a sub as fast as pwr but it is quiter and allows the RN to avoid the plutonium economy intierly.

No UK was a leading developer of nuclear reactors and as this thread shows RN considerations of such go back to 1947 and was never entirely given up on through what we might call the HTP years.

Without US help, the RN reactor effort will still deliver, just a bit later than hoped at the time.

The intriguing thing is the possibility of an AH using metal or salt as a coolant. Which was being studied and the Dounreay NaK reactor went online in 1959.

So the idea the UK was helpless without US or Canadian involvement is frankly ridiculous.

 

[Michel Van]

With British-French Union in Nuclear armament

Germany Politician look anxiously west and East,
on one side the British-French and other the USSR.

I wonder how British react if Adenauer become Friend with De Gaulle...
Another thing as the ECC was founded refused De Gaulle that Britain became a Member
Here De Gaulle has to take Britain as Allies into ECC to keep sacred Union intact...

 

[zen]

Depending on the timing, the EEC might be completely different.

 

[Archibald]

Molten Salt Reactors are among the best. Even more when coupled with Tokamaks. The two trading tritium for fast neutrons, the latter used to breed Thorium into U233. The whole thing can also run on dismantled bomb cores, nuclear waste, natural uranium, or the plutonium cycle.
That's the best of fusion and fission, working hand in hand.

 

[Yellow Palace]

Switzerland ? I smell a stupid autocorrect here...

Nope, it's in an official IAEA publication, plain as day.

If you remove the reactors that the US and USSR dumped at sea from the equation, the leaders are the UK (by a country mile, nearly three-quarters of all the non-reactor waste) and Switzerland. Belgium, the USSR and the USA are all around the same mark. France and the Netherlands dumped small but non-negligible amounts, and everyone else is basically a rounding error.

I suspect that the main factor there is that the USA and USSR had vast amounts of uninhabited land that could be used for waste storage instead. Small countries didn't have that option, and in the 1950s and 1960s there was definitely an attitude that things could be dumped at sea without fear of consequences.

 

[Hood]

The main drawback for sodium reactors on a submarine is a coolant leak will be nasty - don't fancy having explosive reactions with air in the reactor compartment that actually produces more hydrogen to burn.
But then I guess sitting on tons of HTP in the keel wasn't fun either - and there are stories of flames being seen licking around the Walter turbines casings during high power tests aboard "HMS Exploder" so I suppose for the Admiralty either choice looks bloody hazardous. Maybe they might have had to bump up the bonus for submariners?

 

[Archibald]

Switzerland ? I smell a stupid autocorrect here...

Nope, it's in an official IAEA publication, plain as day.

If you remove the reactors that the US and USSR dumped at sea from the equation, the leaders are the UK (by a country mile, nearly three-quarters of all the non-reactor waste) and Switzerland. Belgium, the USSR and the USA are all around the same mark. France and the Netherlands dumped small but non-negligible amounts, and everyone else is basically a rounding error.

I suspect that the main factor there is that the USA and USSR had vast amounts of uninhabited land that could be used for waste storage instead. Small countries didn't have that option, and in the 1950s and 1960s there was definitely an attitude that things could be dumped at sea without fear of consequences.

I had forgotten why we were discussing Switzerland in the first place. Wait, this means that, relative to its surface and population, Switzerland dumped more radioactive shit into the oceans, that the USA ?
My mind is blown.
Even more since Switzerland has no coastline with no ocean.
You can guess by this point that I'm a little confused about the whole thing !!

 

[Yellow Palace]

Wait, this means that, relative to its surface and population, Switzerland dumped more radioactive shit into the oceans, that the USA ?

Not even relative to its size and population. Just straight-up more.

 

[Archibald]

Was Switzerland (civilian ?) nuclear program so big ? to think they are so removed from any coastline... who did their dirty job then ? Belgium, in the North Sea ?

 

[PMN1]

Was Switzerland (civilian ?) nuclear program so big ? to think they are so removed from any coastline... who did their dirty job then ? Belgium, in the North Sea ?

Don't ask about the Swiss nuclear program.....

 

[Cjc]

While we are on various types of reactors, I know someone on the site made a short lost showing how big the various types reactors (sodium and a few others) would need to be to have the same power output as a regular sub reactor but I can't for the life of me find it.

 

[martinbayer]

Was Switzerland (civilian ?) nuclear program so big ? to think they are so removed from any coastline... who did their dirty job then ? Belgium, in the North Sea ?

Don't ask about the Swiss nuclear program.....

You must well know that a response like that on a site like this cannot go unchallenged. As the saying goes, put up or shut up.

 

[Hood]

During the latest diplomatic hoo-har created by the Conservative leadership campaign a comment by Peter Ricketts, a former British ambassador to Paris, indicates that the 2010 Lancaster House agreement to share nuclear warhead testing for the next 50 years is still in effect, perhaps one of the few parts of that agreement that actually became reality.

 

[zen]

Of course in an Franco-British military alliance AH Scenario. The French would have to input more than money into a collaborative nuclear weapons program.

I dimly reccal s suggestion it might have been France that actually built single and twin point initiation devices at least to demonstrate the technology....the Apple and the Rugby ball.
Mostly to cut diameter down in one axis and fit into a missile.....possibly ASMP?
Problem was the explosive mould has to be increasingly accurately shaped and increasingly careful with the explosive to keep to the exact dimensions needed. But the initiator timing gets easier the fewer you use.