Chapter 1176 Safety Experiment and Causes of Accidents

Fuming's calculation was good. There is a training session right now, but it is not for newcomers like Zhang Heng, but for old people who have worked at the nuclear power plant for a period of time. This is actually equivalent to a refresher class, and they are on the list. People are more likely to be promoted after training.

Fuming did not say hello to the chief engineer of Zhang Heng's department, but when he got the list, he found that Ivan's name was also listed.

Fuming was shocked, and when he asked someone to ask, he felt dumbfounded. He didn't expect that he didn't mention this matter, but Zhang Heng directly found the leader of the department, and then pulled his tiger skin. Many people already know that he spoke for Zhang Heng during the interview, and he also talked to Zhang Heng privately afterwards.

Fuming originally wanted to show his approachable side and win people's hearts, but he didn't expect that he would be used by Zhang Heng instead. Moreover, the latter didn't even say anything about death, but just hinted, and the head of the department gave his name to After all, Fuming is the chief engineer of the nuclear power plant operation department, and no department wants to offend him.

Even people who don't like him usually won't want to go against him on such a trivial matter. It's just a training quota, and no one even comes to claim credit from him. This is why Fuming didn't know Zhang Heng was on it until he got the list.

However, the list still needs to be approved by him. Fuming's pen paused on Ivan's name for a moment, and finally moved to the lower right corner, wrote the words "agree" and signed his name.

Although Fuming was a little dissatisfied with Zhang Heng's self-assertion, his intention to recruit Zhang Heng has not changed. Not saying hello is one thing, but taking the initiative to cross out Zhang Heng's name is another thing. Completely forced to be his opposite. So Fuming finally pinched his nose and admitted it.

Facts have proved that Zhang Heng, who has been baptized by the Black Sail Pirate Island, cannot easily deal with the factional struggle in a mere nuclear power plant. Even ten Fuming will not be his opponent.

It only took Zhang Heng less than a year and a half to figure out the relevant physics knowledge, the design drawings and design principles of the reactor, and even all the equipment lines of the entire nuclear power plant, and in the second year of Chernobyl He also got the safety experiment plan designed by Fu Ming, and even watched the failure of the first safety experiment.

During the day, he worked at the nuclear power plant, and at night when he returned to his residence, he continued to learn Russian and Ukrainian with the receptionist. In addition, Zhang Heng also took the time to go to the hospital in Kiev for two reexaminations, probably because he was young and strong enough, at least. So far, it seems that the body is recovering quite well, and no malignant tumors have been detected.

After Zhang Heng practiced Ukrainian to the level where he could communicate normally, his language proficiency skills that had been silent were finally upgraded from lv2 to lv3. So far, Zhang Heng has spoken 11 languages, including his mother tongue, to the level where he can communicate on a daily basis.

Moreover, this parallel copy also allowed him to gain another nuclear engineering skill, which is now level 2. Of course, Zhang Heng's biggest gain is to understand the flaws in Fuming's safety experiment and reactor design.

It must be admitted that compared to the pressurized water reactors used by most countries in the world today, RMBK has natural flaws at the beginning of its design. It sacrifices part of its safety in exchange for faster construction speed and more advanced equipment. It has the advantages of low operating costs, refueling without shutting down, and the ability to produce military plutonium.

From the perspective of people at that time, if there were any shortcomings, it was probably that the radioactivity of the RMBK reactor emissions was slightly higher and not as clean as that of the VVER pressurized water reactor.

But in fact, the more serious problem lies in the design of the control rods. Dyatlov once said before that the control rods are used to regulate the nuclear fission reaction, because the boron that makes up the control rods can absorb neutrons, which can reduce the reactor's efficiency. Power, but the problem is that there is a small section of graphite at the lower end of the control rod. As a neutron moderator, graphite has the opposite effect of boron. It is used to slow down fast neutrons into slow neutrons to increase the reactor power.

Of course, the reason why the earlier designers designed it this way was not to let the reactor operators feel the "surprise" brought by the reversal. The graphite at the bottom also has its role, because the graphite stack has a significant decelerating effect on neutrons, which can be appropriately Reduce the purity of uranium fuel, thereby saving costs.

From an economic point of view, this is not a problem, but low-abundance uranium fuel is not stable enough during the reaction, especially when the reactor is running at low power. At this time, the graphite at the lower end of the control rod can play a role, allowing the reactor to Get better control.

However, this design will bring potential risks. When the control rod is completely withdrawn from the reactor and then inserted back, the graphite instead of boron contacts the core first. At this time, the reaction power will not decrease but will increase. High, although the whole process is short.

What surprised Zhang Heng was that according to the information he collected, before the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, other nuclear power plants had discovered the problem of the power first rising and then falling after the control rods were inserted into the reactor, and reported it to The relevant departments were notified, but because it did not cause any safety accidents, it did not receive enough attention.

On the other hand, we must also admit that the designers of the RMBK reactor have also made a lot of efforts to ensure the safety of the reactor. For example, the safety manual clearly stipulates that during the operation of the reactor, the core must ensure at least 28 to 30 control wires. The rod is inserted.

In addition, the reactor is also equipped with an emergency core cooling system. When the cavitation coefficient in the reactor increases, the water tank of the emergency core cooling system will be opened immediately and injected into the reactor. However, in order to prevent cooling water from entering the high-temperature reactor, Fuming , causing thermal shock, disconnecting this life-saving device at critical moments from the multiple forced circulation loops during the experiment.

After seeing Fuming's first failed experiment, Zhang Heng was almost certain that on the night of the explosion, the people in the central control room did not fully comply with the safety manual as they had said before.

The situation on the night of the explosion was much more complicated than the first experiment, because the safety experiment failed to go as planned. The reactor had been running at low power for a long time and fell into the iodine pit. In order to climb out, In the iodine pit, the operator pulled out too many control rods, which eventually caused the reactor power to rise rapidly. Later, because the safety system was cut off, it could not take effect immediately. People in the central control room could only hurriedly insert all the control rods back into the core. , want to inhibit the fission reaction.

Unexpectedly, a design flaw in the reactor was triggered, which eventually led to the destruction of the entire nuclear power plant.