An Alpha calutron tank removed from the magnet for recovery of uranium-235
A calutron is a mass spectrometer originally designed and used for separating the isotopes of uranium. It was developed by Ernest Lawrence during the Manhattan Project and was based on his earlier invention, the cyclotron. Its name was derived from California University Cyclotron, in tribute to Lawrence's institution, the University of California, where it was invented. Calutrons were used in the industrial-scale Y-12 uranium enrichment plant at the Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The enriched uranium produced was used in the Little Boy atomic bomb that was detonated over Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.
The calutron is a type of sector mass spectrometer, an instrument in which a sample is ionized and then accelerated by electric fields and deflected by magnetic fields. The ions ultimately collide with a plate and produce a measurable electric current. Since the ions of the different isotopes have the same electric charge but different masses, the heavier isotopes are deflected less by the magnetic field, causing the beam of particles to separate into several beams by mass, striking the plate at different locations. The mass of the ions can be calculated according to the strength of the field and the charge of the ions. During World War II, calutrons were developed to use this principle to obtain substantial quantities of high-purity uranium-235, by taking advantage of the small mass difference between uranium isotopes.
Electromagnetic separation for uranium enrichment was abandoned in the post-war period in favor of the more complicated, but more efficient, gaseous diffusion method. Although most of the calutrons of the Manhattan Project were dismantled at the end of the war, some remained in use to produce isotopically enriched samples of naturally occurring elements for military, scientific and medical purposes.
A calutron is a mass spectrometer originally designed and used for separating the isotopes of uranium. It was developed by Ernest Lawrence during the Manhattan...
The Calutron Girls were a group of young women, mostly high school graduates, who joined the Manhattan Project, the World War II efforts to develop nuclear...
electromagnetic separation methods which resulted in the invention of Calutron. Compton puts the case for plutonium before Bush and Conant. December 7:...
respective collection targets. A production-scale mass spectrometer named the Calutron was developed during World War II that provided some of the 235U used for...
isotope separation at the Radiation Laboratory. It used devices known as calutrons, a hybrid of the standard laboratory mass spectrometer and cyclotron....
included both 1200 mm and 600 mm separators. Tarmiya was the site of the 20 calutrons used to enrich uranium to 35%, located in two buildings at the site. This...
on loan from the United States Treasury were used in the making of the calutron magnets during World War II due to wartime shortages of copper. Aluminum...
to manage Y-12. The calutrons were turned over to trained Tennessee Eastman operators known as the Calutron Girls. The calutrons initially enriched the...
this instrument to verify the equivalence of mass and energy, E = mc2. A Calutron is a sector mass spectrometer that was used for separating the isotopes...
known as calutrons were developed by Ernest O. Lawrence and used for separating the isotopes of uranium during the Manhattan Project. Calutron mass spectrometers...
uranium-238. This was done in a quite different manner from that used by the calutron that was under development by a team under Wilson's former mentor, Ernest...
II in the US, 13540 tons of silver were used for the electromagnets in calutrons for enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper...
atomic experiments, but large high-current silver wires were used in the calutron isotope separator magnets in the project. It is estimated that 16% of the...
atomic bomb (see Manhattan Project). Devices using his principle are named calutrons. After the war the method was largely abandoned as impractical. It had...
contributing to the project. It has been rumoured that he visited the Calutron project. He wrote that his scientific research was motivated by his desire...
Project on 23 September 1942. He visited Berkeley to look at Lawrence's calutrons, and met with Oppenheimer, who gave him a report on bomb design on 8 October...
product of which was around 23% 235U. Finally, this material was fed into calutrons at the Y-12. These machines (a type of mass spectrometer) employed electromagnetic...
and were given a tour of the Y-12 National Security Complex's historic Calutrons (used to separate the uranium 235 for Little Boy, the first atomic bomb...
Thompson-Houston Amtrak, from American and track Bapes, from bathing and ape Calutron, from California University Cyclotron Citizendium, from Citizens' Compendium...
electromagnetic enrichment of uranium using their experience with cyclotrons. The calutrons (named after the University) became the basic unit of the massive Y-12...
to build the first atomic bomb used electromagnetic devices known as calutrons to enrich uranium. Thousands of tons of silver were borrowed from the...
more women, including the “Calutron Girls”, who worked at Y-12 at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory monitoring the Calutron. More than 60,000 Army nurses...
The Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where mass spectrometers called calutrons had enriched uranium for the Manhattan Project, was redesigned to make...
uranium enrichment plant required 14,700 tons of silver for its enrichment calutrons, as well as 22,000 employees and more electrical power than most entire...
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