Izvestiya vuzov. Yadernaya Energetika

The peer-reviewed scientific and technology journal. ISSN: 0204-3327

TES-3 –Transportable Nuclear Power Plant Installed on Self-Propelled Tracked Transporters

1/20/2022 2022 - #01 History of science

Naumenko N.Yu. Mokhireva I.M.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26583/npe.2022.1.14

UDC: 621.039

Until the mid-1950s, scientists and engineers at the Obninsk Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (IPPE) had worked out a number of unique projects that served as the foundation for the development of domestic and world nuclear power engineering. The list of these projects includes, in particular, TES-3, the first mobile nuclear power plant, which has become a symbol of small-scale nuclear power engineering, a historical achievement of Russian scientists, and part of the heritage of the «city of peaceful atom».

TES-3, a demonstration and experimental plant, being one of the possible nuclear power sources for remote areas, was a mobile power-generating unit consisting of four tracked platforms with a reactor unit equipped with a water-cooled water-moderated reactor with a 1.5 MW turbogenerator. The «self-propelled uranium-fueled machine» was created in record time due to the scale and cooperation of the project participants under the scientific guidance of the «V» Laboratory staff. The plant showed reliability in operation, good controllability, safety and maintainability. Over the entire operating period in the power generation mode, TES-3 worked for about 1300 hours without any radiation accidents. After the completion of the first fuel campaign in 1965, the reactor was shut down, but the idea of mobile large-component low-power nuclear plants was further developed in the form of mobile nuclear power plants of the next generation.

References

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TPP-3 nuclear power train the first mobile low-power nuclear power plant transportable land-based nuclear-fueled power plant power self-propelled power plant water-moderated reactor atoms for peace history «V» Laboratory

Link for citing the article: Naumenko N.Yu., Mokhireva I.M. TES-3 –Transportable Nuclear Power Plant Installed on Self-Propelled Tracked Transporters. Izvestiya vuzov. Yadernaya Energetika. 2022, no. 1, pp. 161-168; DOI: https://doi.org/10.26583/npe.2022.1.14 (in Russian).

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