Chicago Pile

The smallest possible Chicago pile (5x5x5) with all 3 components attached to it.

The Chicago Pile is an early-game modular breeding reactor used to transmute uranium into plutonium isotopes. It has no GUI and must therefore be operated manually or via redstone-over-radio.

Construction

A 'pile' consists of various Chicago pile graphite bricks arranged in a rectangular prism with minimum side lengths of 5 blocks and maximum side lengths of 15 blocks, meaning that the smallest possible pile is a 5x5x5 cube. The pile itself is formed when a block in a lateral face which isn't in the edges is drilled with a hand drill, at which point the drilled block will become the core.

Drilling the sides will result in different channels appearing, those being straight lines which span across the entire pile:

1. Drilling on faces that follow the core's orientation will result in fuel channels, where Chicago pile rods can be inserted; furthermore, a channel can hold as many rods as its total length, meaning that 1 block of length equals 1 rod. Fuel channels consist of an input fuel loading port and an output fuel ejection port: fuel loading ports use fuel loaders to insert rods into the reactor, while fuel ejection ports eject the last rod if another one is inserted while the channel is full.
2. Drilling on faces perpendicular to the core's orientation will result in ventilation channels, which are practically mandatory in order to cool the pile and prevent it from reaching the 800 °C required for it to explode. Ventilation channels consist of an air inlet, which accepts compressed air pressurized at 1 PU via a vent; and an air outlet, which requires no attachments and just emits air particles to indicate that it it working, it can also be covered with blocks without affecting performance.
3. Drilling on the top or bottom faces will result in control rod channels, where control rods can be attached to. Control rods are used to reduce the interaction between channels, which is useful to shutdown and startup piles whenever needed.

Channels may not intersect each other.

Components

The Chicago pile has 3 different components:

• The Chicago pile fuel loader is a mandatory component that is used to insert rods into fuel channels. It can be right clicked to insert a fuel rod into the loader, and then right clicked again to load that rod into the pile; this can also be done using a redstone signal. Hovering over it yields information on the temperature of the channel, the fuel rod on the last block of the channel, and the depletion of that rod in percentage.
• The Chicago pile vent is a semi-mandatory component which inserts compressed air at 1 PU in the pile's ventilation channels at a minimum rate of 1 mB/t; this air attempts to cool fuel channels down to 20 °C. When operational, its fan will start spinning and begin to emit air particles. The vent is semi-mandatory because the Chicago pile can passively cool, however it is slow and impossible to use with multiple fuel rods. Vents only affect fuel channels which are 1 block above or below it.
• The Chicago pile control rod is an optional component which is used to reduce reactivity between fuel rods. The amount of reactivity is determined by the extraction level: 0% is fully inserted, and 100% is fully withdrawn; these 2 can be toggled with a redstone signal, or a precise value can be set using redstone-over-radio controllers. A full withdrawl takes 3 seconds.

Recipes

Chicago Pile Recipes

Item	Recipe
Chicago Pile Graphite Bricks	4 2
Chicago Pile Fuel Loader
Chicago Pile Vent
Chicago Pile Control Rod

Fuel

The Chicago pile has a total of 7 fuel rods, 2 of which being neutron sources:

Chicago Pile Fuel Rods

Rod	Lifetime	Heat Multiplier	Turns into	Meta	Tooltip
Chicago Pile Ra226Be Neutron source	Infinite	0	N/A	0	Basic radium-beryllium neutron source for starting the Chicago Pile's reaction.
Chicago Pile Po210Be Neutron source	Infinite	0	N/A	1	Advanced polonium-beryllium neutron source for starting the Chicago Pile's reaction.
Chicago Pile Zirconium Rod	Infinite	0	N/A	2	Inert zirconium rod which is transparent to neutrons. Ideal for pushing other rods safely out of the reactor.
Chicago Pile Natural Uranium Rod	25000	0.25	Chicago Pile Plutonium-239 Rod	3	Basic breeding target for making plutonium-239.
Chicago Pile Plutonium-239 Rod	500	0.5	Chicago Pile RGP Rod	4	Plutonium bred from natural uranium, can be bred further into RGP.
Chicago Pile RGP Rod	1000	0.5	Chicago Pile Nuclear Waste Rod	5	Reactor-grade plutonium rod, mainly plutonium-239 with plutonium-240 impurities.
Chicago Pile Nuclear Waste Rod	Infinite	1.5	N/A	6	Highly reactive end product from leaving a Chicago Pile fuel rod in the reactor for too long.

Recipes

Four rods are craftable from regularly available materials in order to begin breeding new isotopes.

Chicago Pile Craftable rods

Rod	Production
Chicago Pile Ra226Be Neutron source	3
Chicago Pile Po210Be Neutron source	3
Chicago Pile Zirconium Rod	3 3
Chicago Pile Natural Uranium Rod	3

Natural uranium rods will breed into the other rod types in series, each stage can be recycled in a  PUREX to get new isotopes.

Chicago Pile PUREX Processing

Rod	Processing
Chicago Pile Plutonium-239 Rod	100mB 2 2
Chicago Pile RGP Rod	100mB 2
Chicago Pile Nuclear Waste Rod	100mB 2

Trivia

• The Chicago Pile is based off of the real Chicago Pile 1, the world's first artificial nuclear reactor built as part of the Manhattan Project.