Dragon reactor
Encyclopedia
Dragon was a high temperature gas cooled reactor
Gas Cooled Reactor
A gas-cooled reactor is a nuclear reactor that uses graphite as a neutron moderator and carbon dioxide as coolant...

 at Winfrith
Winfrith
Winfrith was a United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority site near Winfrith Newburgh in Dorset. It covered an area on Bovington Heath to the west of the village of Wool between the A352 road and the London Waterloo to Weymouth railway line....

 in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 operated by UKAEA. Its purpose was to test fuel and materials for the European high temperature reactor programme, and was built and managed as an OECD
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international economic organisation of 34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade...

/NEA
Nuclear Energy Agency
The Nuclear Energy Agency is an intergovernmental multinational agency that is organized under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development...

 international project. Dragon used helium
Helium
Helium is the chemical element with atomic number 2 and an atomic weight of 4.002602, which is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...

 gas as coolant and coated particle fuel.

The Dragon complex consists of the reactor and various buildings constructed in the late 1950s/early 1960s to support operations. The reactor is presently in care and maintenance. Construction started in 1959 and was completed in 1962. Operation started in 1965 with a power output of 20MW. The reactor operated until 1976 and was partially decommissioned in 2005.
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