HOW DANGEROUS REPAIR JOB WAS DONE AT ATOM STATION

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27961, 7 May 1956, Page 13

HOW DANGEROUS REPAIR JOB WAS DONE AT ATOM STATION

(Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, May 4. Workmen wearing protective suits and helmets defied deadly radioactive rays to repair a breakdown in a British atomic station. The heroic story of how they did it was told for the first time last night to the Institution of Chemical Engineers. Mr H. G. Davey, general works manager of the atomic research station at Sellafield, Cumberland, said that 51 volunteers tackled the fault. Their action saved millions of pounds and made possible big changes in the design of reactors. The fault occurred a year ago. Inside an atomic reactor a small bracket broke off. Immediate repair was essential to prevent dangerous radioactive fumes escaping.

To shut down the reactor for months to do safe maintenance would have cost the nation vital stocks of plutonium, the atom bomb explosive.

But the volunteers went ahead and showed how it was possible to repair in the face of lethal radioactivity. Riggers, electricians, scaffolders and instrument experts donned protective clothing. They aimed to cut the intake of radiation by any one man to not more than what he would get normally in two weeks of ordinary work. Radioactivity on the reactor face was about 2000 times what a man would meet normally in a day. They each agreed to work 25 minutes under a five ton two inch shield to replace the missing bracket. As a result, each received only two week’s normal dose of radioactivity.