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JOSEPH ROBERT DIETRICH
1914-1982
BY DAVID OKRENT
jOSEPH ROBERT DIETRICH, retired Chief Scientist, Nuclear Power
Systems, Combustion Engineering, Inc., died in Newport News,
Virginia, on November 4, 1982, at the age of sixty-eight, from
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, sometimes called Lou Gehrig's dis-
ease. Dr. Dietrich was internationally known for a pioneering career
in nuclear power reactor development that spanned more than thirty
years and included the nuclear design of the prototype power plant
for the world's first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus, and the Atomic
Energy Commission's first boiling-water reactors.
Joe Dietrich was a natural leader in a quiet, reflective way. At
heart a scientist and a thinker who was moved more by the power of
logic than the desire for power, he was widely respected for his
judgment, for his ability to get to the technical heart of the matter,
for his lack of bias, and for his knack of dealing with people who had
opposing views and getting them to settle their differences. A prag-
matic physicist, he combined an intimate knowledge of the theory of
reactors and the engineering details of reactor design and construc-
tion that was rarely matched.
Dr. Dietrich was born in Miles City, Montana, on August 25,
1914, but grew up with his three brothers on the family farm on the
banks of the James River outside of Newport News. During his
teenage years he helped out both on the farm and in the family
restaurant business, which prospered until his father's death and the
onset of the Great Depression. Dr. Dietrich did his undergraduate
71
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72
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
college studies at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg,
Virginia, and received a B.S. in physics and chemistry in June 1935.
He went on to earn his M.S. and Ph.D., both in physics, from the
University of Virginia in June 1937 and June 1939, respectively.
Following a postdoctoral year at Yale University, Dr. Dietrich was
employed by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
(NACA), the forerunner of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), first at its Langley Field Laboratory and
then at the new NACA laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio. As Head of
the Rockets Section, he worked on jet-assisted take-off. During this
time period he met Adelia Perkins of Newport News and they mar-
ried in 1943. Joe and Dee had three children- Christine (Kit),
David, and Joseph.
Dr. Dietrich became very interested in the potential for civilian
application of the fission process, and in 1946 he arranged to have
NACA send him on loan to Oak Ridge National Laboratory where
he undertook a crash course in reactor physics together with then
Captain Hyman Rickover of the Navy and John Simpson of
Westinghouse, among others. Dr. Dietrich worked on the Daniels
Pile, a very ambitious, gas-cooled reactor concept. However, it
was dropped shortly after establishment of the Atomic Energy
Commission.
Rickover set up a group to design a nuclear power plant for
submarines, and floe Dietrich was placed in charge of the physics
design. This project was moved to Argonne National Laboratory in
Illinois in 1948, where Dr. Dietrich worked under Harold
Etherington and Walter Zinn, the Laboratory Director. The Mark I
land-based prototype was designed and built as planned, beginning
operation in 1953, in spite of the fact that they had only Marchant
mechanical calculators on which to perform the needed analysis and
were faced with the formidable constraints posed by submarine
operational requirements as well as limits on the availability of
highly enriched uranium-235. The Nautilus itself was launched the
following summer.
In 1953 Dr. Dietrich formally joined Argonne National Labora-
tory as Associate Director of the Reactor Engineering Division with
responsibility for the nuclear design and analysis of experimental
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JOSEPH ROBERT DIETRICH
73
power reactors. An Argonne scientist named Sam Untermyer had
proposed an experiment designed to test two hypotheses. The first
was that a water-moderated reactor would be self-limiting in the
event of an accident involving a rapid increase in the neutron multi-
plication rate; the other idea was that one could design a boiling
reactor that would really work. Walter Zinn approved the experi-
ments, and foe Dietrich headed up the theoretical work. Three
separate experiments, which became known as the boiling reactor
experiments (BORAX) series, were rapidly built and run, very
successfully. They included the first experiment in which a water-
cooled reactor was subjected intentionally to large, rapid increases in
multiplication rate well into the region where the reactor was critical
on prompt neutrons alone, and demonstrated the inherent shut-
down capability of the boiling process.
The final experiment on BORAX I involved deliberate destruc-
tion of the reactor by inducing a transient severe enough to melt the
core. This experiment, which was run partly to introduce a sobering
effect on those who prematurely thought nothing could go wrong,
led, among other things, to much subsequent exploration of the
"steam explosion," a rapid exchange of heat between the molten
fuel and liquid water that led to damaging pressures. The BORAX
experiments also represented the first instance of public use of
nuclear-generated electricity in the United States, in 1955, although
nuclear electricity was first generated in December 1951 at the liq-
uid-metal-cooled, fast neutron Experimental Breeder Reactor
(EBRI). The papers on the BORAX experiments were among the
principal highlights of the First International Conference on Peaceful
Uses of Atomic Energy held by the United Nations in Geneva in
1955, and represented an important beginning in establishing Dr.
Dietrich's international recognition.
In 1956 Dr. Dietrich left Argonne to join Dr. Zinn in forming the
General Nudear Engineering Corporation in Dunedin, Florida.
Dr. Dietrich served as Vice-President and Director of Physics for
projects that included the ambitious Boiling Nuclear Superheater
(BONUS) Power Station. General Nuclear Engineering became a
part of Combustion Engineering (CE) in 1959, and in 1964, when
the CE nuclear power efforts were consolidated in West Hartford,
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74
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
Connecticut, Dr. Dietrich took on the technical direction of the
nuclear analytical and safety design and development of the CE
pressurized water, nuclear steam supply systems. He retired from
the position of Chief Scientist of Nuclear Power Systems a few years
before his death and moved back to Newport News where, together
with his wife, he built a new home on the old Dietrich family farm.
Dr. Dietrich was elected to the National Academy of Engineering
in 1975. He was elected Vice-President of the American Nuclear
Society in 1976 and served as President of that society from June
1977 to June 1978. Among his other professional activities was the
position of Editor of the quarterly review, Power Reactor Technology,
from 1958 to 1965.
Among the major publications by Dr. Dietrich are the chapter
titled "The Reactor Core" in Volume I of the classic, The Technology
of Nuclear Reactor Safety; the chapter on reactor calculations in the
Nuclear Er~gine~r~g Hand{loook edited by Etherington; and the book
Solid Fuel Reactors (written with Walter Zinn), a presentational vol-
ume by the U.S. delegation at the Second International Conference
on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, Geneva, 1958.
Joe, as he was known to his many, many friends (or Bob as he was
known to his family), was a remarkable person as well as a very able
scientist. Warm, thoughtful, considerate, kind, fair, wise these are
all adjectives that could most properly be attributed to Joe. He was
good to work with, to work for, or to have working for you. His
steady, quiet, yet forthright approach to issues, both personal and
technical, was a pleasure to behold. A real gentleman in the best
sense of the word, Joe Dietrich will be truly missed.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
joseph robert
