Secret Soviet project: atomic car. Nuclear fuel for a car is a fantastic idea

01.04.2019

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"And with equal speed, atomic machines of the most varied types invaded industry. Railways paid huge sums for the right to be the first to introduce atomic traction, atomic smelting of metals was introduced with such haste that several factories exploded due to inept handling of new energy ... "
H. G. Wells "The World Set Free"

The problem of creating compact nuclear reactors has long been of concern to mankind. An incredibly economical, practically eternal, rather environmentally friendly (if you do not take into account the likelihood of an accident) engine could save the Earth from resource depletion, help cleanse the atmosphere, and make life easier for an ordinary person. But so far, only large ships and submarines are moving on nuclear power; when it comes to cars and trains - is unknown. Although history knows several attempts to put the reactor on wheels.

Dimensions - this is the main problem that does not allow to supply a car with a nuclear engine. The cooling system alone, which requires a constant supply of fresh coolant, takes up so much space that the useful space of a nuclear car is reduced to zero. Stationary nuclear power plants use water from external tanks for cooling, nuclear ships and submarines also have no shortage of heat-removing material, but ground transport the entire supply of cooler will have to be carried with you. Purely theoretically, the problem can be solved by the creation of a reactor operating on the principle of controlled thermonuclear fusion. It will be noticeably safer and more compact. existing systems. But, unfortunately, such a source of energy remains only a fantasy. The M103 was about to be rebuilt for testing on its nuclear reactor chassis. But the Ministry of Defense eventually cut off funding for a complex and not very promising project. The soldiers had other tasks ahead of them.

Chapter 1. Ford Nucleon (1957)

The Ford Nucleon concept car has become the most famous nuclear car. There are a number of reasons for this. He became the first such development, as well as one of two such machines, created at least in the form of a layout and demonstrated at the auto show.

The question “whether it is necessary to develop an atomic concept” did not stand in those days. "Nucleon" was not a private attempt by a lone designer, but the product of serious work of engineers and technicians. The car was thought out from the first to the last screw, taking into account the need for maintenance on public roads and the hazard factor of passenger exposure. The matter remained small: to create the required engine.

The most serious disadvantage of the use of atomic energy is the excessive bulkiness of the reactor. In the picture - NPP Enrico Fermi II (Michigan, USA)

However, several concepts for nuclear vehicles saw the light of day in the 20th century. Some are in the form of layouts, some are in the form of hand-drawn sketches. Two outbreaks of interest in land-based nuclear transport can be distinguished - in the 1950-1960s and in 2010-2011. The first was connected with the arms race and the desire of the two superpowers, the USSR and the USA, to overtake each other technologically. In addition, in those days, scientists sincerely believed that the atom was about to be subjugated completely and irrevocably (and things, to be honest, are still there). The second period of interest has a different justification. Today, the discovery of controlled thermonuclear fusion is indeed on the horizon, and companies are trying to develop a concept in advance where this principle will be applicable, thereby overtaking competitors. Well, let's see how meaningful these developments are.

nuclear tank

An interesting area of development in the field of nuclear-powered ground vehicles has become the topic of an atomic tank. When the atom was supposed to be used exclusively for military purposes, in the early 1950s, the US Army command allocated a serious grant to develop a tank capable of using the power of a nuclear reaction.

Tank TV-1 was presented at the third conference on tank building in the form of a layout.

At the third conference on tank building (Question Mark III), held by the army command in 1954, the question of the possibility of creating nuclear engine for the tank. Unlike automotive concepts, did not occur here serious problems with mass and volume: it was quite possible to put a slightly modified reactor from a submarine on the tank. The first concept of a heavy nuclear tank was named TV-1. It was assumed that the machine would weigh about 70 tons (half of them - the engine), the thickness of the armor reached 350 mm. But one problem in those years could not be solved in any way - crew shielding. If automotive designers could afford to dream up, then the army team did not differ in wild imagination and looked at the world from an operational point of view. And something told the engineers that it was still impossible to build an atomic tank.

The terms of reference were received by a group of Ford engineers in 1956, and a year later the concept was ready. Of course, the functionality of the Ford Nucleon was in doubt. Only two passenger seats and a tiny trunk in front: the car could only serve as entertainment. vehicle. As family car he clearly didn't fit. But such a goal was not set. The nuclear plant, which occupied 2/3 of the volume and mass of the car, was a reduced copy of the standard S2W reactor from the USS Nautilus submarine. True, it was not possible to reduce a 35-ton colossus 6 meters high to “automobile” dimensions: the designers understood this very well. In a limited volume, it was necessary to place the reactor itself, the steam generator and two turbines: one was supposed to create torque (in other words, turn the wheels), the other - to turn the generator. The cooling problem was planned to be solved by condensing the exhaust steam back into water.

William Ford next to a concept car model, 1957

In principle, the idea looked feasible and even workable. The main advantage was the complete absence of emissions into the atmosphere and the monstrous durability of the power unit. Of course, it was problematic to fill new uranium rods into the old reactor, so the machine was “refueled” by changing the reactor. But one gas station should have been enough for at least 8,000 kilometers (options up to 30,000 were considered), so this was not considered a problem. It was planned to enrich the used reactors at the factory - this is how, for example, charging and exchange stations work today. gas cylinders. Finally, the most important advantage was the noiselessness of the Nucleon. In the absence of the internal combustion process, nothing but the barely audible hum of turbines would disturb the peace of the surrounding world. Still, the car remained very bulky. The futuristic design, of course, smoothed this impression, but the engineers understood the importance of isolating the cabin from the reactor, and therefore the mass and dimensions of the protective plates were commensurate with the mass and dimensions of the engine itself. It was for safety reasons, and not at the whim of the artist, that the cabin was moved forward in order to move passengers as far as possible from the dangerous “heart” of the car. The fuel capsule was placed in the part farthest from the cockpit - below, under the engine, with a triple layer of insulation. But what is 1-2 meters for radioactive radiation? Nothing, puff.

Ford Nucleon was made in the form of a 3/8 scale model, shown at a number of exhibitions and salons. But time passed, and compact reactors did not appear and did not appear. full size copy it didn’t make sense to build cars, especially since she herself Ford company did not have sufficient capacity to develop its own atomic engine. Leading American manufacturer reactors for submarines, Westinghouse Electric was also in no hurry to change the form factor of its designs. And the ambitious project was turned off, so plainly and without giving it a start. But five years later, he got a sequel.

Chapter 2. Ford Seattle-ite XXI (1962)

In 1961, the UN adopted the famous declaration on the prohibition of the use of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. Accordingly, a huge number of laboratories working in this area had to suspend research. Efforts urgently needed to be directed in a peaceful direction. Ford marketers noticed a certain signal in this and immediately sent a task to the engineers: to continue the Nucleon theme. And there was Ford Seattle-ite XXI.

This time, the developers tried not to repeat the mistakes made in the design of the previous model. In particular, they retained the traditional automotive layout: the engine in front, then the passenger compartment, then the trunk of a normal size. Of course, the car turned out to be huge, but it was in the spirit of the Americans of the 1960s and did not violate the layman's concept of beauty. A problem arose immediately. In the Nucleon, the heavy reactor "lay" on an uncontrolled rear axle. In Seattle-ite, the entire mass of the engine had to be somehow placed on front axle, while providing a normal turning radius of the car and adequate handling. A rather original way out of the situation was found: two front axles were made. All four wheels turned, while calmly supporting the mass of the reactor.

Unlike its predecessor, the Seattle-ite was built in 1:1 scale.

Even more surprising was the ability to "unfasten" the entire front of the car and replace it with another. Today, many cars are offered with several engine options. In the Seattle-ite, powertrains could be changed; an economical version with a capacity of 60 hp was supposed. and high-speed power of 400 hp.

Since the compact atomic engine still did not exist in 1962, the engineers were not very worried about its design and systems. But they tried to fit into the concept as many fantastic ideas as possible, which at that time were often technologically impossible. Why waste time on trifles if you can’t build a car anyway (yet).

Seattle-ite promo picture: the company hoped that in soon man will subdue the atom and the car can be put into series

So, in the design of the Ford Seattle-ite XXI, a number of solutions found a place ahead of their time by half a century. For example, the concept car did not have a steering wheel as such. Manage "Ford" was supposed to touch with your fingers special panel- the prototype of the modern touchscreen. Also in the cabin was provided on-board computer(also with a touchscreen, which did not exist at that time), whose interface, invented by the artists, was somewhat reminiscent of Windows (I remind you: Bill Gates was then 7 years old). The main purpose of the computer was to plot a route - this became the prototype of a GPS navigator. Sensors installed throughout the body took into account traffic situation, the proximity of other cars, weather conditions. In fact, Ford engineers predicted the appearance of both parking sensors and rain sensors with automatic switching on brushes. Ford Seattle-ite XXI glass had a variable degree of dimming depending on the light flux from the outside.

Another highlight was the possibility of installing a fuel cell power unit instead of a nuclear engine. Again, it is worth recalling that the first workable and compact fuel cells appeared in the 1980s, and they began to be used everywhere only in the 21st century.

The scheme of fastening the power unit to the car: it could be replaced with a more powerful one

Ford Seattle-ite XXI, unlike its predecessor, was made in the form of a full-size layout. The car turned out to be very low and elegant, it made a splash at a number of car dealerships (especially in conjunction with promo girls), but technological barriers did not allow even a prototype concept car to be created. Today, almost all the fantastic ideas proposed in Seattle-ite are easily implemented. In addition to the most important - a compact nuclear engine. Therefore, this amazing car continues to amaze the imagination of designers around the world.

Caterpillar nuclear power plant

In the Soviet Union, atomic tanks and vehicles were not developed, realizing that this was originally fantastic projects. But a mobile nuclear power plant that fits into several all-terrain vehicles was not only designed, but even built and put into operation. The amazing project was called TES-3.

Numerous photographs of the first energy self-propelled vehicle (the one that housed the control panel) appeared in Soviet newspapers.

The first talk about a mobile nuclear power plant came in the mid-1950s. Initiated the development similar system Efim Pavlovich Slavsky, at that time First Deputy Minister of Medium Machine Building of the USSR, and later the head of the entire Soviet nuclear industry. The development was carried out by a number of factories and institutes. The project of the Obninsk Physics and Energy Institute was recognized as the most promising.

The power plant itself was a small-sized double-circuit pressurized water reactor. Water also acted as a working fluid; the generator turbine was driven by steam. The equipment was placed on a chassis extended to 10 rollers from a heavy T-10 tank. The chassis received the general name "energy self-propelled".

The whole power plant consisted of four self-propelled vehicles. On the first - the reactor itself with bioprotection and an air radiator, on the second - steam generators and circulation pumps, on the third - a turbogenerator, and on the fourth - a control panel and backup equipment. The deployment of the station took several hours; it could not function on the move, because all self-propelled vehicles had to be connected by wires and pipelines. It was not so difficult to provide biosecurity at TPP-3. Since the reactor requiring isolation was located on a separate energy self-propelled vehicle, it was simply placed in a closed lead container, and during operation the operators did not approach this self-propelled vehicle.

In 1960, the mobile nuclear power plant was ready for operation. On October 13, 1961, the first experimental launch of the station took place. She showed herself well, the tests continued until 1965. But there was one problem. Neither industrialists nor scientists have been able to find any sensible application for the remarkable installation. Initially, it was designed to operate in the Far North, but traditional liquid fuel power plants turned out to be simpler and more economical. Economic inexpediency forced to close the project, and in 1969 TPP-3, which was never used anywhere, was mothballed.

At the same time, the development of the second mobile nuclear power plant, Pamir-630D, was underway. MAZ heavy equipment was used as a chassis. This station in many respects was more successful than TES-3, but its first experimental launch took place, unfortunately, in 1985, shortly before the Chernobyl tragedy. After the accident, most of the work in the nuclear direction was closed for one reason or another, and the promising Pamir was no exception.

Chapter 3. Ariel Atom (2010)

A whole eternity passed before the human imagination turned again to atomic cars. But this time, not engineers, but designers took over. Fortunately, today any self-respecting 3D artist considers it necessary to draw a couple of cars of the original design.

Singaporean designer Muhammad Imran was inspired by two cars. The first is the Ford Seattle-ite XXI, and the second is the Ariel Atom light-frame English sports car, produced by a small Somerset company. The sports car has a rather strange layout: it has no doors, no roof, luggage compartment; it is made on the basis of a rigid tubular exoskeleton and is equipped with a powerful 245-horsepower Honda engine. Due to the low mass Ariel Atom is able to accelerate to 100 km / h in a fantastic 2.8 seconds.

Ariel Atom by Singaporean designer Muhammad Imran is futuristic but impossible

Ariel Atom Muhammad Imran differs from both "prototypes". The designer tried to make his concept as compact as possible. In this regard, he placed the two passengers of the car not side by side, but one after the other, and the driver's legs reach almost to front bumper(naturally, from within). The isolated reactor, according to Muhammad's idea, should be located at the rear of the machine. Is it true, technical training Imran is somewhat embarrassed. For example, beautiful exhaust pipes in the form of a radiation hazard sign, they look spectacular, but why does a nuclear car need an exhaust system as such? In any case, the concept of the Singaporean will remain a beautiful concept, part of his portfolio.

Serial Ariel Atom is produced in Somerset and has nothing to do with atomic energy

But not everything is so sad. Because six months after Imran's sketches, an atomic car flashed in the news, developed by a real group of scientists and quite possible in the conditions of modern technological development.

Chapter 4. Cadillac World Thorium Fuel (2011)

The specialists of a small company Laser Power Systems decided to go the right way: starting not from futuristic design, but from technological possibilities and practical tasks. First of all, they decided to abandon the uranium reactor, as a complex and excessively dangerous car for passengers. Thorium was chosen as an alternative.

In principle, thorium has repeatedly tried to use in the nuclear industry. Being less radioactive, it is quite capable of replacing the uranium and plutonium used today. In addition, thorium is much more common and therefore relatively cheap. True, the scheme of operation of thorium in a nuclear reactor is quite ingenious. First, the thorium-232 isotope must capture a thermal neutron and, through the reaction, turn into the uranium-233 isotope; the latter is directly involved in the reaction.

The layout of the Thorium repeats that invented by Ford engineers for the Nucleon concept.

Volga-Atom - the first civilian car, powered not by the combustion of fossil fuels, but by the energy of the atom!

In 1949 Soviet Union became the second country in the world to successfully build and test a sample of an atomic weapon. On the one hand, this, of course, was a serious success for Soviet scientists and engineers. On the other hand, a no less serious blow to the pride of the Soviet leadership. Indeed, in the race of the two countries, the second place is the last. It was then that many leaders of the country began to think about those areas in which the USSR could break ahead. In particular, on projects for the peaceful use of atomic energy.

From car to car

The 1957 Ford Nucleon was supposed to use a compact nuclear reactor as a power source. The cabin was moved beyond the front axle, and the heavy reactor, along with biological protection, was installed far behind. According to Ford engineers, the Nucleon could travel 5,000 miles (8,000 km) on a single load of fuel, after which the entire power plant had to be replaced entirely, while the owner could choose any power plant - more powerful or more economical.

The race for a peaceful atom

In 1949, the government of the USSR, listening to the arguments of scientists, among whom were Academician Pyotr Kapitsa, President of the Academy of Sciences Sergei Vavilov and the "father of the Soviet atomic bomb" Igor Kurchatov, decided to build the first purely civilian nuclear facility - a nuclear power plant. In October 1954, the Obninsk nuclear power plant was officially included in the Mosenergo network, and ordinary people got the opportunity to light a light bulb from nuclear electricity. The Soviet Union won the first segment of the relay race for the "peaceful atom".
But the Americans were not idle either. In 1952, the Nautilus submarine was laid down at the Groton shipyards, which was supposed to be the first nuclear submarine in the world. By 1954, when the Obninsk nuclear power plant was built, the Nautilus was launched, and in January 1955 went to sea, becoming the first transport (though not civilian) vehicle driven by the energy of atomic decay.

Atom in harness

When developing Volga-Atom, the design of the existing GAZ-21 chassis could not be strengthened in any way. As a result, the layout idea was borrowed from the 1962 concept car. year Ford Seattle-ite XXI with two front axles. All four front wheels of the Volga-Atom were steering (two of them were driving). Despite the long hood, space for bio-protection and cooling systems in engine compartment was not enough. I had to use the front of the cabin, and driver's seat placed at the back.

However, the Union was already ready to respond. In 1953, the Council of Ministers of the USSR decided to build a nuclear icebreaker. The ship was laid down in 1956 at the Leningrad shipbuilding plant named after V.I. Marty was launched a year later, after which the installation of a nuclear power plant developed by the team of the Nizhny Novgorod Experimental Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering (OKBM) under the leadership of Igor Afrikantov began. In December 1959, the Lenin nuclear icebreaker was officially handed over to the USSR Ministry of the Navy, and although by that time the Nautilus was already in operation and even managed to reach the North Pole under its own power, the score could be considered at least equal. It is important that the Lenin icebreaker was a purely civilian ship, and the Nautilus a warship, because in the eyes of the international community, the weight of civilian nuclear projects was significantly higher. A few years later, several more nuclear-powered civilian ships entered the ocean - the American Savannah (1964) and the German Otto Gan (1968) (the Japanese ship Mutsu was very late due to technical problems and was delivered in 1990). But, figuratively speaking, they came to the start when the race was already over.

How a nuclear engine works

The design of the first generation is a classic "cannon scheme". Subcritical uranium washers on the piston and end of the cylinder approach each other, increasing criticality, and the fission reaction heats up working body(helium) in cylinders. The helium expands and pushes the piston, doing work. The camshaft advances the cadmium absorber rod, the reaction is damped. In the second generation, gas-phase uranium hexafluoride is used as fuel, which is also a working fluid. The graphite moderator is made porous so that the gas is more efficiently mixed and the fission reaction takes place in it.

Clean design and stuffing

Nevertheless, the ideological victory in the atomic race still could not be considered completely clean, and Soviet scientists, engineers and leaders were looking for an opportunity to consolidate their success. Out-of-the-box ideas were required, and one of them came through diplomatic channels.
In 1957, Ford presented to the public one of the most ambitious concepts in its history - the Ford Nucleon. The designers depicted their vision of the car of the future, and not even on a full-size layout, but on a 3:8 scale model. Nucleon looked extremely futuristic, but the most unusual was not at all appearance, and the proposed power source is a very compact nuclear reactor. Further scale model and its conceptual description did not go well, but it is generally accepted that the Ford Nucleon became a kind of symbol atomic age.
dead end branch
Faced with scaling issues, Kamnev suggested creating by-product- an atomic machine for road construction, more precisely, an atomic road roller. Slavsky voiced the idea to Khrushchev, and he was delighted when he learned that with the help of such a skating rink it was possible, using the excess heat generated by the reactor, to build a road as straight as an arrow and as smooth as a mirror even in the densest forests at minimal cost. One such skating rink was built by the end of 1959, an eyewitness describes it like this: “Even in the most big quarries I have not seen such giants. Mahina, as high as a seven-story house and 20 meters wide, lays a straight line in the forest and flat road by simply sintering the top layer of soil at over 500 degrees.” Tests carried out in Siberia left a 25-kilometer stretch of the most magnificent road right through the taiga about halfway between Tomsk and Novosibirsk. The road would have been paved to the end, but a nuisance happened: the tired operator of the rink fell asleep behind the levers, and the one-of-a-kind construction vehicle drowned in the swamp, at the bottom of which it still lies. A perfect road lonely begins and ends in the middle of the taiga - like a monument to the atomic fantasy of a bygone era.
Ford Nucleon was presented at various exhibitions, and in 1958, at one of the American car dealerships, he was seen by the second secretary of the Soviet embassy, Vladimir Sinyavin. He was a great enthusiast of technological progress and enthusiastically described the idea of a car in his report. Since the atomic project was mentioned there, the report was carefully studied at home. He was not interested in the military, since they considered what was described to be an empty fantasy, but just in case, the report was sent to the USSR Ministry of Medium Machine Building, which then oversaw all nuclear projects. He was seen by one of the deputy ministers, the legendary Yefim Pavlovich Slavsky. This is how it started unknown history amazing car, which could turn the entire global automotive industry.

The nuclear engine produced a lot of heat, which required an efficient cooling system to dissipate. The engineers were inexperienced with such designs, so they looked to 1950s American concept cars such as the 1951 Buick Le-Sabre (pictured) or the 1958 Ford X 2000 to find solutions. For all their pretentiousness, they had an important advantage: they made it possible to fit the huge air intakes of the cooling system into the overall design of the body.

Achieve the impossible

Slavsky seemed interested in the idea, and he confidentially asked several atomic physicists to study the possibility of implementing such a project. The answer was quite unequivocal: "Empty fantasies!". At the next meeting in the Kremlin, Slavsky casually jokingly mentioned this - that's what the Americans are doing. He expected Khrushchev to laugh with him, but the reaction was completely different. Nikita Sergeevich listened to the minister and suddenly said seriously: “Why don't we make such a car? After all, it worked out well with the icebreaker! Attempts to convince the general secretary were unsuccessful, Khrushchev dismissed all objections with a wave of his hand: "If these physicists cannot, find others."
And such physicists have been found. To design a car driven by atomic energy, the Automobile Design Bureau (AKB) was created under the leadership of Alexander Eduardovich Kamnev. AKB was engaged in the development of a nuclear power plant.

According to the cannon scheme

Battery physicists, based on the atomic power plant icebreaker "Lenin", quickly became convinced that it cannot be scaled down. It was unthinkable to build a car for an existing reactor - the car turned out to be so huge. Physicists worked on this problem until 1960, but without much success, until at the next meeting someone exclaimed in their hearts: “It doesn’t work, even put uranium in the engine cylinders!” - and this led Kamnev to an idea that turned out to be very fruitful.
The idea was the following. A conventional reactor requires a fairly significant amount of radioactive uranium. With a decrease in the mass of fuel, the neutron multiplication factor drops, and the reactor ceases to be critical - it “fades out”. Meanwhile, the criticality of a reactor depends not only on the mass of radioactive material loaded into it, but also on its design and configuration. Kamnev suggested using the classical "cannon scheme", which is well known to nuclear physicists for the design of the first atomic bombs from uranium (more advanced plutonium bombs were made according to a different scheme - implosion). The essence of her work is that when two pieces of enriched uranium approach each other, a chain reaction begins, the neutron multiplication factor increases, and the reaction becomes self-sustaining. In a bomb, it goes even further - a growing chain reaction begins, and an explosion occurs. But the work of an ordinary internal combustion engine is a series of small explosions! It is only necessary to stop the reaction in time to close the cycle of the engine.

atomic heart

By the end of 1961, the design was basically worked out. The A21 engine was a completely traditional four-cylinder unit, in which washers made of uranium enriched in the 235 isotope were located at the ends of the pistons and cylinders. At the end of the cylinder was also located a washer made of graphite - a neutron moderator. The working fluid was helium pumped into the cylinders. As the compression progressed, the uranium masses approached each other, and the neutron multiplication factor began to increase. Due to heat release, the helium heated up and began to expand, pushing the piston up - this was the working stroke. It was possible to control the speed and stop the engine with the help of absorber rods, which were located in place of the valves and were advanced by an independently rotating camshaft with variable cam phases. As the nuclear fuel was consumed, the phases shifted to compensate for the "burn-up" of the fuel. As an emergency "quenching" of the reactor during supercritical accidents, the injection of a solution of boric acid into the cylinders was envisaged. The entire unit was placed in a fully sealed bio-protection shell, only the pipelines of the secondary cooling circuit and the magnetic clutch that rotated the gearbox were brought out.
After six months of adjustments and experiments, the engine installed on the test bench worked perfectly normally for three months, while the conditional mileage was about 70,000 km. It was time to put it to the test. Engineers from a specially created working group were involved in the design of the chassis. Gorky Automobile Plant(GAS). The task at hand took them by surprise. The suspension needed to be significantly strengthened: the A23 weighed not 200 kg, like the standard GAZ-21 engine, but almost 500. At the same time, the engine had absolutely fantastic characteristics for those times: power 320 hp. and torque of more than 800 Nm at low speeds (60 rpm). The requirements also stipulated the complete exclusion of access under the hood, the absence fuel system And mounted units, and especially - the presence of a productive cooling system.

Volga-Atom

In April 1965, the car drove to the test site near Seversk. According to the memoirs of Valentin Semenov, who took part in the development of the engine, who managed to drive a car (or a car?), The sensations were very unusual: the car was very heavy, but the engine power compensated for the increased mass. Acceleration was brisk, but braking was worse. And the engine got very hot, and in the car, despite the cool Siberian spring, it was very hot.
The tests carried out showed that the design is quite working, while real resource mileage was more than 60,000 km. However, after that all power unit it was necessary to change, and this is very troublesome and wasteful for civilian equipment. Therefore, physicists began work on the second version of the engine - with gas-phase fuel in the form of uranium hexafluoride instead of solid uranium. Hexafluoride simultaneously served as a working fluid instead of helium, which also caused a lot of trouble in the first version, escaping through the smallest gaps in the seals and even through the walls (to maintain its level, the engine was equipped with a helium cylinder and automatic system cost compensation). True, the graphite moderator had to be made porous so that the gas was more efficiently mixed and a fission reaction took place in it. New engine was less powerful (200 hp, 600 N m), and the mileage on one load of fuel decreased to about 40,000 (according to test results). But for "refueling" now it was not necessary to change the entire engine, it was enough to pump a new supply of uranium hexafluoride into the cylinders.
It was originally planned to make several experimental machines to demonstrate them at exhibitions and ride guests of honor. However, while the designers were developing the engine and the car itself, the situation changed. Khrushchev resigned as General Secretary, and Brezhnev, who replaced him, had no such ambitions. So the project was closed without much noise. And two prototype cars (without engines that were removed for decontamination and burial) for a long time stood at the landfill, and then were disposed of. With them went the boundless and reckless enthusiasm of that era in which people were not afraid to grab the atom by the tail.

... And with equal speed, atomic machines of the most diverse types invaded industry. The railroads paid huge sums for the right
were the first to introduce atomic traction, atomic smelting of metals was introduced with such haste that due to the inept handling of new energy, several factories exploded ...
H. G. Wells "The World Set Free"

Dimensions - this is the main problem that does not allow the car to be equipped with a nuclear engine. The cooling system alone, which requires a constant supply of fresh coolant, takes up so much space that the useful space of a nuclear car is reduced to zero. Stationary nuclear power plants use water from external tanks for cooling, nuclear ships and submarines also have no shortage of heat-removing material, but land transport will have to carry the entire supply of coolant with them. Purely theoretically, the problem can be solved by the creation of a reactor operating on the principle of controlled thermonuclear fusion. It will be noticeably safer and more compact than existing systems. But, unfortunately, such a source of energy remains only a fantasy.

The most serious disadvantage of the use of atomic energy is the excessive bulkiness of the reactor. In the picture - NPP Enrico Fermi II (Michigan, USA)

However, several concepts for nuclear vehicles saw the light of day in the 20th century. Some - in the form of layouts, some - in the form of hand-drawn sketches. Two outbreaks of interest in land-based nuclear transport can be distinguished - in the 1950s-1960s and in 2010-2011. The first was connected with the arms race and the desire of the two superpowers, the USSR and the USA, to overtake each other technologically. In addition, in those days, scientists sincerely believed that the atom was about to be subjugated completely and irrevocably (and things, to be honest, are still there). The second period of interest has a different justification. Today, the discovery of controlled thermonuclear fusion is indeed on the horizon, and companies are trying to develop a concept in advance where this principle will be applicable, thereby overtaking competitors. Well, let's see how meaningful these developments are.

nuclear tank

Tank TV-1 was presented at the third conference on tank building in the form of a layout.

At the third conference on tank building (Question Mark III), held by the army command in 1954, the question of the possibility of creating a nuclear engine for a tank was first raised. Unlike automobile concepts, there were no serious problems with mass and volume: it was quite possible to put a slightly modified reactor from a submarine on the tank. The first concept of a heavy nuclear tank was named TV-1. It was assumed that the machine would weigh about 70 tons (of which half is the engine), the thickness of the armor reached 350 mm. But one problem in those years could not be solved in any way - crew shielding. If automotive designers could afford to dream up, then the army team did not differ in wild imagination and looked at the world from an operational point of view. And something told the engineers that it was still impossible to build an atomic tank.

In 1955, at the next such conference, the second R32 project with a lighter reactor was presented. The theoretical mass of the tank is 50 tons, 120 mm armor, 90 mm smooth bore gun: this concept was already close to the truth. But the lack of a crew shielding solution sent the R32 to the dustbin of history. The last attempt to build an atomic tank occurred in 1959, when the M103 heavy tank was about to be rebuilt for testing on its nuclear reactor chassis. But the Ministry of Defense eventually cut off funding for a complex and not very promising project. The soldiers had other tasks ahead of them.

Chapter 1. Ford Nucleon (1957)

Ford Nucleon impressed contemporaries with futuristic design

The terms of reference were received by a group of Ford engineers in 1956, and a year later the concept was ready. Of course, the functionality of the Ford Nucleon was in doubt. With only two passenger seats and a tiny trunk in the front, the car could only serve as a recreational vehicle. As a family car, he clearly did not fit. But such a goal was not set. The nuclear plant, which occupied 2/3 of the volume and mass of the car, was a reduced copy of the standard S2W reactor from the USS Nautilus submarine. True, it was not possible to reduce a 35-ton colossus 6 meters high to “automobile” dimensions: the designers understood this very well. In a limited volume, it was necessary to place the reactor itself, the steam generator and two turbines: one was supposed to create torque (in other words, turn the wheels), the other - to turn the electric generator. The cooling problem was planned to be solved by condensing the exhaust steam back into water.

William Ford next to a concept car model, 1957

Design solution with rear fenders, the second version of the "Nucleon"

And yet the car remained very bulky. The futuristic design, of course, smoothed this impression, but the engineers understood the importance of isolating the cabin from the reactor, and therefore the mass and dimensions of the protective plates were commensurate with the mass and dimensions of the engine itself. It was for safety reasons, and not at the whim of the artist, that the cabin was moved forward in order to move passengers as far as possible from the dangerous “heart” of the car. The fuel capsule was placed in the part farthest from the cockpit - below, under the engine, with a triple layer of insulation. But what is 1-2 meters for radioactive radiation? Nothing, puff.

Ford Nucleon was made in the form of a 3/8 scale model, shown at a number of exhibitions and salons. But time passed, and compact reactors did not appear and did not appear. It made no sense to build a full-size copy of the car, especially since Ford itself did not have sufficient capacity to develop its own nuclear engine. America's leading submarine reactor manufacturer, Westinghouse Electric, has also been slow to change the form factor of its designs. And the ambitious project was turned off, so plainly and without giving it a start. But five years later, he got a sequel.

Chapter 2. Ford Seattle-ite XXI (1962)

This time, the developers tried not to repeat the mistakes made in the design of the previous model. In particular, they retained the traditional automotive layout: the engine in front, then the passenger compartment, then the normal-sized trunk. Of course, the car turned out to be huge, but it was in the spirit of the Americans of the 1960s and did not violate the layman's concept of beauty. A problem arose immediately. In the Nucleon, the heavy reactor "lay" on an uncontrolled rear axle. In the Seattle-ite, the entire mass of the engine had to somehow be placed on the front axle, while providing a normal turning radius of the car and adequate handling. A rather original way out of the situation was found: two front axles were made. All four wheels turned, while calmly supporting the mass of the reactor.

Unlike its predecessor, the Seattle-ite was built in 1:1 scale.

Seattle-ite promo picture: the company hoped that in the near future a person would subdue the atom and the car could be put into series

So, in the design of the Ford Seattle-ite XXI, a number of solutions found a place ahead of their time by half a century. For example, the concept car did not have a steering wheel as such. It was supposed to control the Ford by touching a special panel with the fingers - the prototype of the modern touchscreen. Also, an on-board computer was provided in the cabin (also with a touchscreen, which did not exist at that time), the interface invented by the artists was somewhat reminiscent of Windows (I remind you: Bill Gates was then 7 years old). The main purpose of the computer was to plot a route - this became the prototype of a GPS navigator. Sensors installed throughout the body took into account the traffic situation, the proximity of other cars, and weather conditions. In fact, Ford engineers predicted the appearance of both parking sensors and rain sensors with automatic switching on of the brushes. Ford Seattle-ite XXI glass had a variable degree of dimming depending on the light flux from the outside.

The scheme of fastening the power unit to the car: it could be replaced with a more powerful one

Caterpillar nuclear power plant

In the Soviet Union, atomic tanks and cars were not developed, realizing that these were initially fantastic projects. But a mobile nuclear power plant that fits into several all-terrain vehicles was not only designed, but even built and put into operation. The amazing project was called TES-3.

Numerous photographs of the first energy self-propelled vehicle (the one that housed the control panel) appeared in Soviet newspapers.

The first talk about a mobile nuclear power plant came in the mid-1950s. The development of such a system was initiated by Yefim Pavlovich Slavsky, at that time the First Deputy Minister of Medium Machine Building of the USSR, and later the head of the entire Soviet nuclear industry. The development was carried out by a number of factories and institutes. The project of the Obninsk Physics and Energy Institute was recognized as the most promising.

Chapter 3. Ariel Atom (2010)

Singaporean designer Muhammad Imran was inspired by two cars. The first is the Ford Seattle-ite XXI, and the second is the Ariel Atom light-frame English sports car manufactured by a small Somerset company. The sports car has a rather strange layout: it has no doors, no roof, no luggage compartment; it is made on the basis of a rigid tubular exoskeleton and is equipped with a powerful 245-horsepower Honda engine. Due to the low mass Ariel Atom is able to accelerate to 100 km / h in a fantastic 2.8 seconds.

Ariel Atom by Singaporean designer Muhammad Imran is futuristic but impossible

Ariel Atom Muhammad Imran differs from both "prototypes". The designer tried to make his concept as compact as possible. In this regard, he placed the two passengers of the car not side by side, but one after the other, and the driver's legs almost reach the front bumper (naturally, from the inside). The isolated reactor, according to Muhammad's idea, should be located at the rear of the machine. True, Imran's technical training is somewhat embarrassing. For example, beautiful exhaust pipes in the form of a sign of radiation hazard look spectacular, but why does a nuclear car need an exhaust system as such? In any case, the concept of the Singaporean will remain a beautiful concept, part of his portfolio.

Serial Ariel Atom is produced in Somerset and has nothing to do with atomic energy

Chapter 4. Cadillac World Thorium Fuel (2011)

The layout of the Thorium repeats that invented by Ford engineers for the Nucleon concept

The idea of a thorium reactor for a car came to the engineers in the process of developing a thorium-based laser (lasers are the main direction of the company). Oddly enough, a thorium laser produces not a beam of light at the output, but a thermal wave, and a narrowly directed one at that. And heat is the same energy. Experts say that on 1 gram of thorium you can go around the equator twice, and, most likely, they are not mistaken.

The Thorium concept car was developed from Cadillac. In terms of layout, it exactly repeats the Ford Nucleon: a forward-facing cabin and a reactor that occupies 70% of the usable space of the car. The designer and leader of the ambitious project is engineer Lauren Kulesus.

The beauty of the car suggests that a supercar in this design will be released in any case - albeit on a conventional, gasoline traction.

A number of components and parts of the car already exist "in metal". The development of each node is carried out with the expectation of an uninterrupted service life of 100 years (approximately this should be enough for one thorium filling). Only here the tires will have to be changed every few years. It is related to the original technical solution used in the development of the wheels. Each "wheel" consists of 6 individual thin disks sitting on the same axle. Each disc is equipped with its own induction motor; thus, Thorium is driven by 24 motor-wheels.

It is difficult to say whether Laser Power Systems engineers will build their car in a full-size version. But if built, they will have a chance to become the world's first creators of a nuclear car.

* * *

Every year humanity is getting closer and closer to the subordination of atomic energy. Oil reserves on Earth are limited, coal reserves are also limited, but radioactive fuel will last for tens of thousands of years, and even with wasteful spending. The main thing is to learn how to properly use this dangerous energy.

The history of nuclear energy began not so long ago. 100 years ago we did not know what it was, and 60 years ago we only knew how to destroy with its help. Today the nuclear industry is the future. And who knows, maybe cars with compact nuclear engines will actually run along the roads of the 22nd century. And the creators of the first Ford concepts will have monuments on every corner.

First nuclear powered car January 23rd, 2013

In any case, science is moving forward! No matter how funny, unrealistic or ridiculous something seems to us, it is not a fact that this particular thing will not become commonplace. For example, the first concept car appeared, running on practically waste-free and environmentally friendly nuclear fuel. As conceived by the creators, the materials used and the technical stuffing of the car will allow the owner not to worry about repairing his “favorite” for 100 years, and this is with daily use!

As fuel, the development team used the weakly radioactive metal thorium (Thorium (Th)). For the first time the idea of using this element was expressed by American inventor Lawrence Kulesus in 2009 at the Chicago Auto Show. Well, the engineers at Laser Power Systems, led by inventor Charles Stevenson, were able not only to develop the concept of a nuclear engine, but also to successfully bring it to life. New concept was named Cadillac World Thorium Fuel (Cadillac WTF).

Thorium was first used during the Second World War, because it is considered the safest substance among other radioactive elements. According to scientists and developers, a gram of thorium will successfully replace about 30,000 liters of conventional fuel. Well, 8 grams is enough for the owner of the car for life. In addition, the excess energy released during the reaction is enough to recharge the battery and other devices.

Cadillac WTF is able to turn today's idea of cars upside down. task non-standard solutions that have found a place in the development of the concept car is the fight against environmental damage. Modern cars not only have a short service life, but also have a negative impact on the environment during production, operation and disposal. While the novelty from Cadillac is designed to work without refueling and repair for a whole century.

All concept systems also differ from traditional counterparts. The energy of thorium most effectively activates all internal programs, acting akin to the human nervous system. The main components of the car have an insurance function in case of an unforeseen breakdown, so that the Cadillac WTF continues to function without repair.

The concept car has 24 wheels, 6 on each side. Each of them is quite narrow and is equipped with a built-in induction electric motor. Such wheels will need to be adjusted every 5 years, without the need for replacement.

The very design of the Cadillac WTF is very flexible, the car is able to transform like muscles, making control intuitive. For example, the angle of the wheels changes depending on the road surface. The car's reactor was placed at the rear of the concept car for safety reasons.

If thorium proves to be a positive energy source, and the concept car becomes a reality, then Australia and India could become world leaders in the field of energy. About 30% of the deposits of this metal from all the deposits of the planet are located on the territory of these countries.

Yes, by the way, for some reason I thought and remembered: WTF can be translated into Russian "what the hell?" , literally stands for "What The Fuck?" . That's the way it is on the internet! :-)

This month marks 50 years since the Volga-Atom, the first civilian vehicle powered not by the combustion of fossil fuels, but by the energy of the atom, drove out of the gates of the assembly shop.

In 1949, the Soviet Union became the second country in the world to successfully build and test an atomic weapon. On the one hand, this, of course, was a serious success for Soviet scientists and engineers. On the other hand, a no less serious blow to the pride of the Soviet leadership. Indeed, in the race of the two countries, the second place is the last. It was then that many leaders of the country began to think about those areas in which the USSR could break ahead. In particular, on projects for the peaceful use of atomic energy.

From car to car
The 1957 Ford Nucleon was supposed to use a compact nuclear reactor as a power source. The cabin was moved beyond the front axle, and the heavy reactor, along with biological protection, was installed far behind. According to Ford engineers, the Nucleon could travel 5,000 miles (8,000 km) on a single load of fuel, after which the entire power plant had to be replaced entirely, while the owner could choose any power plant - more powerful or more economical.

The race for a peaceful atom

But the Americans were not idle either. In 1952, the Nautilus submarine was laid down at the Groton shipyards, which was supposed to be the first nuclear submarine in the world. By 1954, when the Obninsk nuclear power plant was built, the Nautilus was launched, and in January 1955 went to sea, becoming the first transport (though not civilian) vehicle driven by the energy of atomic decay.
Atom in harness

When developing Volga-Atom, the design of the existing GAZ-21 chassis could not be strengthened in any way. As a result, the layout idea was borrowed from the 1962 Ford Seattle-ite XXI concept car with two front axles. All four front wheels of the Volga-Atom were steering (two of them were driving). Despite the long hood, there was not enough space for bioprotection and a cooling system in the engine compartment. I had to use the front of the cabin, and the driver's seat was placed at the back.

However, the Union was already ready to respond. In 1953, the Council of Ministers of the USSR decided to build a nuclear icebreaker. The ship was laid down in 1956 at the Leningrad shipbuilding plant named after V.I. Marty was launched a year later, after which the installation of a nuclear power plant developed by the team of the Nizhny Novgorod Experimental Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering (OKBM) under the leadership of Igor Afrikantov began. In December 1959, the Lenin nuclear icebreaker was officially handed over to the USSR Ministry of the Navy, and although by that time the Nautilus was already in operation and even managed to reach the North Pole under its own power, the score could be considered at least equal. It is important that the Lenin icebreaker was a purely civilian ship, and the Nautilus a warship, because in the eyes of the international community, the weight of civilian nuclear projects was significantly higher. A few years later, several more nuclear-powered civilian ships entered the ocean - the American Savannah (1964) and the German Otto Gan (1968) (the Japanese ship Mutsu was very late due to technical problems and was commissioned in 1990). But, figuratively speaking, they came to the start when the race was already over.

How a nuclear engine works
The design of the first generation is a classic "cannon scheme". Subcritical uranium washers on the piston and end of the cylinder approach each other, increasing criticality, and the fission reaction heats up the working fluid (helium) in the cylinders. The helium expands and pushes the piston, doing work. The camshaft advances the cadmium absorber rod, the reaction is damped. In the second generation, gas-phase uranium hexafluoride is used as fuel, which is also a working fluid. The graphite moderator is made porous so that the gas is more efficiently mixed and the fission reaction takes place in it.

Clean design and stuffing

In 1957, Ford presented to the public one of the most ambitious concepts in its history - the Ford Nucleon. The designers depicted their vision of the car of the future, and not even on a full-size layout, but on a 3:8 scale model. Nucleon looked extremely futuristic, but the most unusual was not at all its appearance, but the alleged source of energy - a very compact nuclear reactor. Things did not go further than a scale model and its conceptual description, but it is generally accepted that the Ford Nucleon has become a kind of symbol of the atomic era.

dead end branch

Faced with scaling issues, Kamnev suggested creating a spin-off, an atomic road-building machine, more precisely, an atomic road roller. Slavsky voiced the idea to Khrushchev, and he was delighted when he learned that with the help of such a skating rink it was possible, using the excess heat generated by the reactor, to build a road as straight as an arrow and as smooth as a mirror even in the densest forests at minimal cost. One such skating rink was built by the end of 1959, an eyewitness describes it like this: “Even in the largest quarries, I have not seen such giants. Makhina, as high as a seven-story house and 20 meters wide, lays a straight and even road in the forest, simply baking the top layer of soil at a temperature of over 500 degrees. Tests carried out in Siberia left a 25-kilometer stretch of the most magnificent road right through the taiga about halfway between Tomsk and Novosibirsk. The road would have been paved to the end, but a nuisance happened: the tired operator of the rink fell asleep behind the levers, and the one-of-a-kind construction vehicle drowned in the swamp, at the bottom of which it still lies. And the ideal road begins and ends lonely in the middle of the taiga - like a monument to the atomic fantasy of a bygone era.

Ford Nucleon was presented at various exhibitions, and in 1958, at one of the American car dealerships, he was seen by the second secretary of the Soviet embassy, Vladimir Sinyavin. He was a great enthusiast of technological progress and enthusiastically described the idea of a car in his report. Since the atomic project was mentioned there, the report was carefully studied at home. He was not interested in the military, since they considered what was described to be an empty fantasy, but just in case, the report was sent to the USSR Ministry of Medium Machine Building, which then oversaw all nuclear projects. He was seen by one of the deputy ministers, the legendary Yefim Pavlovich Slavsky. Thus began the unknown story of an amazing machine that could turn the entire global automotive industry upside down.

Achieve the impossible

And such physicists have been found. To design a car driven by atomic energy, the Automobile Design Bureau (AKB) was created under the leadership of Alexander Eduardovich Kamnev. AKB was engaged in the development of a nuclear power plant.

According to the cannon scheme

The physicists of the battery, taking the nuclear power plant of the Lenin icebreaker as a basis, quickly became convinced that it could not be scaled down. It was unthinkable to build a car for an existing reactor - the car turned out to be so huge. Physicists worked on this problem until 1960, but without much success, until at the next meeting someone exclaimed in their hearts: “It doesn’t work, even put uranium in the engine cylinders!” - and this led Kamnev to an idea that turned out to be very fruitful.

The idea was the following. A conventional reactor requires a fairly significant amount of radioactive uranium. With a decrease in the mass of fuel, the neutron multiplication factor drops, and the reactor ceases to be critical - it “fades out”. Meanwhile, the criticality of a reactor depends not only on the mass of radioactive material loaded into it, but also on its design and configuration. Kamnev suggested using the classical "cannon scheme", which is well known to nuclear physicists for the design of the first atomic bombs from uranium (more advanced plutonium bombs were made according to a different scheme - implosion). The essence of her work is that when two pieces of enriched uranium approach each other, a chain reaction begins, the neutron multiplication factor increases, and the reaction becomes self-sustaining. In a bomb, it goes even further - a growing chain reaction begins, and an explosion occurs. But the work of an ordinary internal combustion engine is a series of small explosions! It is only necessary to stop the reaction in time to close the cycle of the engine.

atomic heart

After six months of adjustments and experiments, the engine installed on the test bench worked perfectly normally for three months, while the conditional mileage was about 70,000 km. It was time to put it to the test. To design the chassis, engineers from a specially created working group of the Gorky Automobile Plant (GAZ) were involved. The task at hand took them by surprise. The suspension needed to be significantly strengthened: the A23 weighed not 200 kg, like the standard GAZ-21 engine, but almost 500. At the same time, the engine had absolutely fantastic characteristics for those times: power 320 hp. and torque of more than 800 Nm at low speeds (60 rpm). The requirements also stipulated the complete exclusion of access under the hood, the absence of a fuel system and attachments, and especially the presence of a productive cooling system.

Volga-Atom

The tests carried out showed that the design is quite working, while the actual mileage was more than 60,000 km. However, after that, the entire power unit had to be changed, and this is very troublesome and wasteful for civilian equipment. Therefore, physicists began work on the second version of the engine - with gas-phase fuel in the form of uranium hexafluoride instead of solid uranium. Hexafluoride simultaneously served as a working fluid instead of helium, which also caused a lot of trouble in the first version, escaping through the smallest gaps in the seals and even through the walls (to maintain its level, the engine was equipped with a helium cylinder and an automatic flow compensation system). True, the graphite moderator had to be made porous so that the gas was more efficiently mixed and a fission reaction took place in it. The new engine was less powerful (200 hp, 600 Nm), and the mileage per fuel load was reduced to about 40,000 (according to test results). But for "refueling" now it was not necessary to change the entire engine, it was enough to pump a new supply of uranium hexafluoride into the cylinders.

Initially, it was planned to make several experimental cars in order to demonstrate them at exhibitions and ride guests of honor. However, while the designers were developing the engine and the car itself, the situation changed. Khrushchev resigned as General Secretary, and Brezhnev, who replaced him, had no such ambitions. So the project was closed without much noise. And two prototypes of cars (without engines that were removed for decontamination and burial) stood at the landfill for a long time, and then were disposed of. With them went the boundless and reckless enthusiasm of that era in which people were not afraid to grab the atom by the tail.