A criticality accident occurred on December 30, 1958, at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in the United States. It is one of 60 known criticality events that have occurred glo
Diagram of the criticality accident
Kelley Criticality Vessel 2
Criticality accident
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A criticality accident is an accidental uncontrolled nuclear fission chain reaction. It is sometimes referred to as a critical excursion, critical power excursion, divergent chain reaction, or simply
Cecil Kelley criticality accident
…A criticality accident occurred on December 30, 1958, at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in the United States. It is one of 60 known criticality…
The sphere of plutonium surrounded by neutron-reflecting tungsten carbide blocks in a re-enactment of Harry Daghlian's 1945 experiment
A re-creation of the Slotin incident. The plutonium "demon core" (the same as in the Daghlian incident) was inside at the time of the accident, and would not be visible.
Lady Godiva assembly in the scrammed (safe) configuration
Lady Godiva assembly, with damaged supporting rods after the excursion of February 1954. Note the images are of different assemblies.