DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - chernobyl: steam explosion or self contained nuclear explosion?

**arriplify** · 04-12-2010, 06:54 PM

good morning neeyik ;

the sourse(s) i had were from a number of years ago - they simply said that (when translated from russian) the explosion was nuclear in nature , and it was the americans who were saying it was a steam explosion - the conditions within the core caused the overheat and poorly regulated nuclear reaction `ran away` causing a lowl level nuclear explosion.

this is supported in the details - the RBMK design is a light water design (with a huge positive void co-efficient) using U 235/U238 natural mix ,as we know U238 which is a fertile material for production of plutonium , of which russia is the only country to use breeder reactors for producing power - intersting thought that one..... but U 238 can also be fissile with high energy neutrons;

so we have a positive void design , graphite tipped control rods and a low power setting at the time (un authorised test) and a shift change without the new shift being prepared for the test...

the core goes down to ultra low power , they remove the control rods to bring the power up , the switched off water pumps lower water pressure coupled with the increased nuclear reaction from removing the control rods boils more water quicker.The void co-efficient comes into effect and the reaction runs out of control , in 40 seconds iirc the plant ramps up to 3000MW or something high , the scram is pressed but since the control rods are graphite tipped they actually displace coolant and make it worse (and are motor lowered taking 20 seconds to fully lower) ; with the the void co-efficient effects we now have high energy neutrons effecting the usually fertile U238 , combined with the now high temp and pressure (and U239 pressence) we now have an uncontolled criticality core - and the effects are known.

so why no mushroom etc? different parts of the core would have been at different temps and pressures (ala windscale) so the explosion was part of the core and contained - the fuel fire after resulted in the disharge of the radioactive elements.

btw seen a great video of 2 australians going round prypiat - the detection equipment they used was on max when they went to the dogem cars

04-12-2010, 06:54 PM	#20
arriplify Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 383 Senior Member	good morning neeyik ; the sourse(s) i had were from a number of years ago - they simply said that (when translated from russian) the explosion was nuclear in nature , and it was the americans who were saying it was a steam explosion - the conditions within the core caused the overheat and poorly regulated nuclear reaction `ran away` causing a lowl level nuclear explosion. this is supported in the details - the RBMK design is a light water design (with a huge positive void co-efficient) using U 235/U238 natural mix ,as we know U238 which is a fertile material for production of plutonium , of which russia is the only country to use breeder reactors for producing power - intersting thought that one..... but U 238 can also be fissile with high energy neutrons; so we have a positive void design , graphite tipped control rods and a low power setting at the time (un authorised test) and a shift change without the new shift being prepared for the test... the core goes down to ultra low power , they remove the control rods to bring the power up , the switched off water pumps lower water pressure coupled with the increased nuclear reaction from removing the control rods boils more water quicker.The void co-efficient comes into effect and the reaction runs out of control , in 40 seconds iirc the plant ramps up to 3000MW or something high , the scram is pressed but since the control rods are graphite tipped they actually displace coolant and make it worse (and are motor lowered taking 20 seconds to fully lower) ; with the the void co-efficient effects we now have high energy neutrons effecting the usually fertile U238 , combined with the now high temp and pressure (and U239 pressence) we now have an uncontolled criticality core - and the effects are known. so why no mushroom etc? different parts of the core would have been at different temps and pressures (ala windscale) so the explosion was part of the core and contained - the fuel fire after resulted in the disharge of the radioactive elements. btw seen a great video of 2 australians going round prypiat - the detection equipment they used was on max when they went to the dogem cars
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