Queen And Duke See Atom Research Station

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28217, 4 March 1957, Page 7

Queen And Duke See Atom Research Station

(N.z Press Association—Copyright)

HARWELL. March 1 The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh learned some of the secrets. of the development of Britain s first nuclear-powered submarine during a five-hour visit today to the Harwell Atomic Energy Research Establishment. In the building which houses the reactor known as ‘ ‘Lido” a towering. lilac-painted piece of apparttus shielded bv concrete the Queen and the Duke looked down into 25ft of purified water and watched the blue glow from the reactor core.

It is here that the Naval Section at the establishment is carrying out research into the lightweight shielding of small nuclear propulsion units for the submarine.

While the Queen and the Duke looked down into “Lido.” which is known as a “swimming pool” reactor, they had the experiments explained to them. The reactor itself, which is used for radiation tests and for studies in the structure of solids, nuclear physics and radiation chemistry, is about the size of a large tea chest, but is shielded with a vast yellow-painted concrete shell. They saw a model of the reactor and the Queen pressed a red button to raise the lower level in the reactor.

On' a television screen thev watched the fuel element after its

removal from the reactor, and saw a demonstration of the vast slave manipulators” for handling highly radioactive material. Delicacy of Handling ..Mr R. A. G. Welsher, head of the remote handling section, showed the delicacy of the machine "by lighting two candles with a box of matches picked up in its jaws. Then the Duke had a try, and at the first attempt successfully picked up a test tube from a rack and replaced it. Their host. Sir Edwin Plowden, presented the Queen with a pack of cards and a geiger counter. The Queen of Spades in the pack is marked with a harmless amount of a • radioactive isotope, Cobalt 60, and the geiger counter can detect it with the back of the pack upwards on the table. Later the Queen and the Duke visited the reactor school, where they met students from the Commonwealth.