Downhammer
Vyemm Raider
- 1,588
- 4,124
I can't speak to the capacity of the soviet water pumps but remember the miner's joke; "What's as big as a house..." It's likely their pumps had no more throughput that yours.
Chernobyl
- Thread starter Xarpolis
- Start date
-
Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Lanx
<Prior Amod>
- 66,095
- 150,622
Jozu
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
- 6,986
- 6,295
Nah. Russian technology and domestic machinery might be inferior to the west in some regards, but a feedwater pump is a pretty simple and straight forward piece of equipment.
Look at the first pump, this is pretty much what I operate, horizontal centrifugal feedwater pump. Loud as fuck but usually reliable. The second one is like the one used at Chernobyl and used at most modern nuclear plants. (Runs at 5,000 rpm and is MUCH louder). That pump is most likely rated at 600,000 gallons of water per hour. The smaller pump is rated for about 40,000.
Another thing most people dont know is the water used in a nuclear power plant is much different than water used in a traditional plant. It cost millions of dollars to soften and de-mineralize the feedwater, as far as chemical and mechanical treatment. The conductivity of reactor water must have a conductivity of less than ONE.
I run an average of 3,000 conductivity in my boilers. Water with less than one conductivity is SO pure its poisonous for a human to drink.
Last edited:
- 6
Downhammer
Vyemm Raider
- 1,588
- 4,124
Ahh, the true cause of deaths at Chernobyl. There were in the feedwater too long. They should have been taken to the infirmary.
- 1
Hateyou
Not Great, Not Terrible
- 17,020
- 44,743
One of my good friends has a nuclear engineering degree, I got him to watch it over the weekend, he liked it. We were discussing the show from his point of view and he told me a cool story about the origin of the SCRAM / AZ-5 button. It’s probably on Wikipedia but whatever.
SCRAM stood for Super Critical Reactor Axe Man. The USA had a reactor in Idaho or somewhere called SL1, and the control rods were manually controlled with ropes. The guys would raise the rods and tie them off. If something went wrong, a guy with an axe could chop the main rope and all the rods would drop.
That reactor exploded because one of the rods got stuck. So a guy was jerking on it and when it finally came loose he was pulling so hard it came all the way out and the reactor blew up. That man was impaled to the ceiling by a garbage can sized control rod.
End of story.
SCRAM stood for Super Critical Reactor Axe Man. The USA had a reactor in Idaho or somewhere called SL1, and the control rods were manually controlled with ropes. The guys would raise the rods and tie them off. If something went wrong, a guy with an axe could chop the main rope and all the rods would drop.
That reactor exploded because one of the rods got stuck. So a guy was jerking on it and when it finally came loose he was pulling so hard it came all the way out and the reactor blew up. That man was impaled to the ceiling by a garbage can sized control rod.
End of story.
- 1
Jozu
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
- 6,986
- 6,295
The story is always more complex than people think though. Another thing that wasnt touched on too heavily is Teptunov making a mistake during Dyatlovs abusive tirade.
When switching out of global control to bypass safety measures in order to run the test, he over compensated or didnt control the rods correctly after the switch and caused further power loss and more reactor poisoning.
The subsequent attempt to gain power and stoppage of feedpumps resulted in a hotspot at the bottom of the reactor, which eventually lead to some sections of the fuel rod casings to crack causing the rods to get stuck.
The fucking computer for the reactor spit out a recorded command recommendation to shut down the reactor once they fell below 200 megawatts.
Like Legasov said, Dyatlov should have been executed for his actions that night.
When switching out of global control to bypass safety measures in order to run the test, he over compensated or didnt control the rods correctly after the switch and caused further power loss and more reactor poisoning.
The subsequent attempt to gain power and stoppage of feedpumps resulted in a hotspot at the bottom of the reactor, which eventually lead to some sections of the fuel rod casings to crack causing the rods to get stuck.
The fucking computer for the reactor spit out a recorded command recommendation to shut down the reactor once they fell below 200 megawatts.
Like Legasov said, Dyatlov should have been executed for his actions that night.
Last edited:
- 17,881
- 8,779
Hateyou
Not Great, Not Terrible
- 17,020
- 44,743
Adebisi
Clump of Cells
- 27,746
- 32,851
The SCRAM origin is an urban legend. It didn't come from SL-1. The myth originated during the Manhattan Project.
- 1
Hateyou
Not Great, Not Terrible
- 17,020
- 44,743
I read up on this. It looks like they just went back and made words for the letters, backronyming it into existence. My buddy had his words wrong for SCR, but I’m guessing that’s because it was never an official acronym from the start.
Scram - Wikipedia
Last edited:
- 1