Civil works for the construction began in October 2004.

It was initially planned that the reactor would begin nuclear operations in 2014. Overview.

IR-40 also known as Arak Nuclear Plant is an Iranian 40 megawatt (thermal) heavy water reactor under construction near Arak, adjacent to the 1990s era Arak Heavy Water Production Plant. Although it retains use of heavy water for neutron moderation, it uses light water as the primary coolant. This was concerning because of Heavy Water’s usefulness in producing and enriching weapons grade Plutonium.

Although most people now know that dirking heavy water is harmful they may not understand exactly why. Heavy water is a form of water where the hydrogen atoms are the isotope variant deuterium, which means it is slightly unstable chemically.

The Arak, or IR-40 nuclear reactor is a Heavy Water nuclear reactor located in northeastern Iran. Heavy water is used for several industrial reasons and should not be consumed.

At its conception in 2003, Arak was intended to be a large-scale producer of Heavy Water for Iran. The plants had produced enough heavy water and backup reactors were not needed as the Hanford reactors shipped plutonium to Los Alamos.

During the war, the Allies sought to … Fuel bundles consist of 54 pins of cladded mixed-oxide fuel, including 30 thorium-uranium oxide pins and 24 plutonium-thorium oxide pins. The three American facilities were shut down in the summer of 1945, while the Canadian plant stayed in operation until 1956. Norwegian heavy water sabotage (Bokmål: Tungtvannsaksjonen; Nynorsk: Tungtvassaksjonen) was a series of Allied-led efforts to halt German heavy water production via hydroelectric plants in Nazi Germany-occupied Norway during World War II.It was successfully undertaken by Norwegian commandos and Allied bombing raids.