When reactor 3 exploded, it blew the core lid into the building next door.

reply to post by Virgil Cain


Check this post with aerial photo of #3, ongoing discussion there.

ATS thread

reply to post by 1SawSomeThings


Thanks for the link. I have been following that thread for a while now. I would like to add that I am in no way trying to minimize the serious nature unfolding with the reactors as I believe it is more dire than they are letting on. I just haven't seen any images that are clear enough to show the #3 containment vessel has been destroyed (that's not to say it hasn't happend) - it is certainly in bad shape...

reply to post by downtown436


I saw it clearly in the footage of Reactor #3 going BOOM. It was blasted into the air and can be clearly seen falling back out again behind the dust of the building.

Courtesy of the radio (yet again) they were also reporting that "leading nuclear experts" had said that the blast was too powerful to have simply been a hydrogen explosion and that they question the veracity of the claims by the Japanese and TEPCO about the integrity of the reactors.

From recent reports on the status of Reactor #2, it seem pretty evident now that Reactor #2 is no longer intact, and from this evidence you posted, that #3 is also destroyed.

I spent several hours analyzing the footage and photos as they became available right in the first few days of this disaster, and concluded that the reactor containment and maybe even the pressure vessels were destroyed, based upon information I could find regarding the layout and structure of the buildings.

My analysis was also supported by reports of "odd" actions of the authorities in cooling the reactors, such as flooding them with sea water, and spraying water on top of the reactor (from outside the building) to cool them. These are actions that are nonsensical when the primary containment and pressure vessels are supposedly intact.

It would seem my feeling was correct, and that history most certainly does repeat itself.

reply to post by downtown436



I believe #3 containment completely failed and the mushroom cloud sent directly up is the proof. The blast is directional and so that means the weakest point failed. I believe this to be the cap of the containment unit and that is why there was a mushroom cloud created (high velocity at that). The alternative is to believe that the roof was the weakest point in that structure (highly unlikely). In plant #1 you can see it was more than likely from hydrogen as it exploded almost evenly.

Path of least resistance my friends.

Originally posted by SammyB
reply to post by Curio

 

I certainly disagree, and yes, I believe they are able to hide the information. The MSM is complicit and they will do anything to protect the bottom line...money, stock market, etc.

Photos show that reactor 3 is basically destroyed. A hydrogen explosion would not have done that.

OK, the MSM could hide it. What about about everybody else with Geiger counters? Twitter would be going nuts. People in Tokyo would probably be getting sick. Also, the radiation would have made it over here by now - where are the high readings (and I mean HIGH) that the network of "amateurs" are recording?

You can disagree all you want, but there would be undeniable proof of a reactor explosion. End of story.

EDIT TO ADD: Of course a hydrogen explosion could do that How do you know the reactor is destroyed - have you seen pictures the rest of us haven't? All we can see are glimpses through piles of wreckage. Damaged - yes. Leaking - yes. Completely exploded? No proof.

Originally posted by Curio
OK, the MSM could hide it. What about about everybody else with Geiger counters? Twitter would be going nuts. People in Tokyo would probably be getting sick. Also, the radiation would have made it over here by now - where are the high readings (and I mean HIGH) that the network of "amateurs" are recording?

Thanks for making such a logical post, and case in point is Chernobyl.

They were hiding facts about the accident just as Sammy claims is happening now.

BUT, the way the world knew the accident was much worse than they were letting on, was from the huge clouds of radiation sweeping across the globe, which I think is exactly the point you're making. You can hide things at the accident scene, but you can't hide a hide cloud of radiation that will span the globe.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by Long Lance
4) with the core fully covered in (now pressurized) water, pressure goes off the scale (which may or may not go unnoticed, depending on the plant's condition) - and forcibly ejects the control rods.
any thoughts?

How would pressure forcibly eject the control rods?

I thought the pressure would be equal in all directions, .

all drawings i found indicate that control rods penetrate the reactor vessel, so there is a pressure differential it's just not clear to me whether it can grow large enough (combined with gravity, since BWRs insert from below) to eject the rods without failures of the drive systems.

i suspect the most likely way for that to happen would be a collapse of the whole mechanism's support structure, which is a single point of failure, while the drives themselves are redundant and divided into several groups, if not independent for every rod.


www.ansn-jp.org...

Originally posted by Long Lance
reply to post by Grifter.be

 

these are all above the surface and will produce a bright fireball and an initially glowing mushroom cloud.

the one i linked was at 190m below the surface, not too good either, but probably the closest we can get and voilà, the top portion looks quite similar while the arcing bits of debris are different, because they had to clear the crater, requiring at least a slight vertical component.


let me propose the following mechanism: sea water injection was said to have already commenced when the explosion occurred, so:

1) cover the (already damaged ?) core with water, which will keep it cool for a while at the expense of predictability, since the geometry of the core may have been compromised earlier due to overheating

2) sea water causes corrosion, especially at high temperatures, this won't affect the oxide pellets but steel parts will suffer very quickly, especially more delicate equipment like valves. buildup of precipitates at critical points will exacerbate the situation further.

3) pressure rises again, either quickly, due to material failure and unexpected recriticality or slowly from decay heat, but with some crucial valve(s) stuck on 'OMG!!'

______________

interjection: BWRs are operating with considerable voids in the core (steam bubbles) which means the core becomes progressively under moderated (moderation scales with density d'uh...) with height, so the top portion contributes relatively less to the chain reaction in normal operations. by contrast, PWRs don't have such voids and therefore tend to utilise the fuel more efficiently....
______________

4) with the core fully covered in (now pressurized) water, pressure goes off the scale (which may or may not go unnoticed, depending on the plant's condition) - and forcibly ejects the control rods.

5) with the loss of neutron absorbing control rods and underlying overmoderation (for a BWR), the reactor becomes prompt critical....

6) KABOOM

7) water is gone, so is an undetermined fraction of the core, no more chain reactions for now. unfortunately, decay heat is directly proportional to the power level at shutdown (aka: kaboom), ie. sky high, which explains the prominent plume emanating from the wreck immediately after the explosion.

any thoughts?

Could be, the explosion was big... But somehow, i don't think it was that... yet...

Originally posted by Long Lance
all drawings i found indicate that control rods penetrate the reactor vessel, so there is a pressure differential it's just not clear to me whether it can grow large enough (combined with gravity, since BWRs insert from below) to eject the rods without failures of the drive systems.

www.ansn-jp.org...

Yeah I looked at the drawings wearing my engineering hat but I don't see enough detail to be sure. I will say the small training nuclear reactor I toured when I took a course in nuclear engineering had the control rods on top, and if power was lost the control rods would fall into the core which seemed like a good safety measure to me, so of course when the control rods are underneath the core like at Fukushima I do have to wonder if that's as reliable in the event of a power loss. When nothing else works, gravity still seems to work.

Does that pdf relate to the Fukushima plants? It looks too new. In fact on page 36 there's a schedule of hearings for 2011 regarding new nuclear plants in the IS.

Does anyone besides me think those hearings won't go too well since the Fukushima accident?

And reading about all those safety system backups in that pdf almost could make one think there's no way it can fail, but we know better. I will say that both Three mile Island and Chernobyl were caused by operator error, but so far I'm not seeing that's the case with Fukushima, so this may be the first commercial nuclear power plant disaster ever not caused by the operators. But I think it was still caused by people, moreso the designers, in not expecting a tsunami that large; from what I've read, they should have expected it.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Does that pdf relate to the Fukushima plants? It looks too new. In fact on page 36 there's a schedule of hearings for 2011 regarding new nuclear plants in the IS.

Does anyone besides me think those hearings won't go too well since the Fukushima accident?

And reading about all those safety system backups in that pdf almost could make one think there's no way it can fail, but we know better.

it's about all designs currently in use in Japan, all BWRs of varying vintage, of course including the BWR Mk.1 design at Fukushima.

these hearings will be very interesting, if they have even the slightest clue what happened, which is not a given, of course, it's unfortunate all of this happens behind closed doors.


all of these backup plans should imho include branches for use in case of failure, which means that even a melt down should be a controlled affair. it might be hot, but if you evaporate all water and inert the entire unit with argon (not nitrogen, because it reacts even if mostly endothermically), pressure will remain low. if the melt can be dispersed and cooled by heat conduction alone, you've won, just let it rest a couple of decades and demolish when cold.

nothing signals loss of control better than an explosion that can be heard 30 miles away, does it? that's the real problem, along with failure to improvise successfully. just my 2c

After doing some research on the layout of the buildings, I am convinced that the hole you see in that picture is one of the spent fuel pools.

reply to post by downtown436

The explosion at reactor 1 was a typical blast, force more or less equal in all directions event. The explosion at reactor 3 was a shaped explosion, something forced most of the energy released in one direction. It could not be caused by just a room full of gas, something else was a work here. The experts on the scene know exactly what happened but they are not about to inform the public being fearful of panic.

I ran across this amazing site that has models, blueprints, all kind of hi-res pictures and most of all it lays out with pictures and diagrams what they think is proof that the containment cap was blown of reactor 3. It takes awhile to go through the entire site but it is well worth it.
Reactor 3 images

reply to post by genomega


To be honest none of the photos show any evidence that the core lid has been blown of. it shows plenty of the spent fuel ponds, and I put this question forward, if these holes show so clearly why would a hole of 12meters wide not show up in the photos just as clear? and also as I said before why is there no corresponding hole in the framework?

I'd have to say that the damage isnt enough for the lid to have come off but its highly likely that is leaking. I saw something elsewhere on ATS that suggested the reactors have been over pressure for a while now.

Didnt TEPCO say recently that the explosion in #3 SFP chucked material upto a mile from the area and that it dropped alot of stuff in between #3 and #4 (so much so they had to bulldoze earth etc over it to make the radiation less)

Im sure I didnt dream it.

If someone has a link to an external source for that Id love to have it. (I was having a lively debate with a denial sheeple and couldnt bring the evidence to the table)