Nuclear reactors and pollution

[Bubblehead Nuke]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

The russian reactors are nothing like the american ones, there has been reactor shut downs in the past but its a safty feature in the reactor to stop anything bad happening.

They are more alike that you imagine. Yes, I know a lot about them. It was a hobby so to speak. The main difference in the reactors is fuel enrichment and power density. All the rest is cosmestic and/or different design philosopies. You have the same basic engineering problems and goals. The Russians had some unique solutions to some problems. Some worked better than ours IMHO.

What I was talking about was operational procedure. Now there are some MAJOR differences in how American and Russians run thier boats. Having a switch locatation all over the boat that could scram your reactor is just inviting trouble IMHO. LIke I said, someone in one compartment can have a brain fart and mis-interpret a casualty, SCRAM your plant, and then make a managable caualty a life or death game of catch-up.

[Alpha]

The wonderful thing as though with a nuclear reactor is that the radiation is contained underwater. ie: the Control rods in a reactor, are highly radioactive and are placed underwater. The water acts as a shield for the radiation people can walk around in the room where the reaction takes place without ever being exposed to nuclear radation. So if a sub like that was to go down in an area of around 500 meters or around 1650 feet, the radation should be contained underwater and shouldn;t ever affect the people on the island. However "greenpeace" is going to be unhappy seeing as how many fish and other water wildlife will proably die. I figure that would be kept classified if it ever happened.

[Kapitan]

You probably know more about the reactors than me, of all the russian submarines i have been on board im not allowed to view any engineering machinary.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Kurushio

Though as Bubblehead Nuke said, if there is a danger there could be pollution if the sub is torn apart in an explosion...do they design torps so it doesn't destroy the sub but just damages it enough to make it sink?

It's actually unclear exactly how much you really need to sink a submarine. If you just rattle it enough so that a the right pipe breaks at the right depth, you won't even have to pierce the hull. By the same token, submarines are typically quite hardened, intended to withstand nearby nuclear explosions. Exactly how the likelihood of the weak components and the strong components failing catastrophically plays out isn't exactly clear.

[Bubblehead Nuke]

Originally Posted by SeaQueen

It's actually unclear exactly how much you really need to sink a submarine. If you just rattle it enough so that a the right pipe breaks at the right depth, you won't even have to pierce the hull. By the same token, submarines are typically quite hardened, intended to withstand nearby nuclear explosions. Exactly how the likelihood of the weak components and the strong components failing catastrophically plays out isn't exactly clear.

There was a 688 that was intentionally depth charged with explosive devices at various ranges and with various amounts of explosives in order to test this very point. It was called 'Shock Testing'. Granted, this was done at periscope depth (they used the scope as a reference point on when to detonate the explosives at the proper time and range). From what was heard about it, there were some rather large explosive packages used.

From what I understand there was some REALLY impressive film footage from inside the sub as things moved and such. Scuttlebutt has it that one of the test runs removed the upper hatch of the weapon shipping hatch. At that point they said enough was enough.

How big were the charges and how. close to the hull were they? I can not say.

This link: http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-IMPA...y-21/i1308.htm

Talks about using 1000 lb charges to test the Seawolf class in shock testing.

Thx for all the responses...very interesting reading. I never actually knew nuclear depth charges existed.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead Nuke

How big were the charges and how. close to the hull were they? I can not say.

It's most likely classified. It you knew that, you could design a better torpedo to from it. :-)

I know that the NSWC in Carderock, MD used to have a pool for doing scale model testing of this sort of thing. I took a tour of that when I was a scout, and when they detonated the charge to demonstrate for the crowd, I nearly jumped out of my skin!

I suspect that someone probably has a fairly good idea of what it takes to sink a sub from various engineering tests and computer models. I know that the probability of failure for situations where there is a weakest link follows the Weibull distribution. It would make sense to me that the engineering testing would be designed to fit parameters to that distribution, as well as to identify points of failure and try to harden them.

There's also some other stuff I've seen, but can't really talk about here.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Kurushio

I never actually knew nuclear depth charges existed.

At one point, they were the primary ASW weapon in the USN's arsenal. Other nations had them as well, even nations that were officially non-nuclear, such as the Netherlands. The ASROC and SUBROC were primarily nuclear weapons. My boss started his career studying the effects of nuclear depth charges and nuclear tipped cruise missiles.

I think sometimes people like to make themselves feel good and think, "Awww... it never would have really gone nuclear." The truth is if WWIII happened, it'd would have become a nuclear conflict almost immediately. It probably would have been nuclear at sea before it was nuclear on land too, I think, simply because nuclear weapons make very natural weapons of ASW.

As time goes by, that mindset seems to fade, and real horror of what the world was faced with in the Cold War becomes romanticized or forgotten.

I think the thing that will ultimately make nuclear weapons obsolete will almost certainly be precision guided weapons. At this point, there's a lot of talk that the proper response to a nuclear attack might actually be a precision conventional strike. They really are that powerful, but focused. They're also more verstatile in a lot of ways. If there is a second best choice to a peaceful world, I suspect it might be a world where those conflicts which do exist are confined to willing participants. In Africa, there's a saying, "When elephants fight, the grass suffers." It is never more the case than with nuclear weapons.

[Deathblow]

Originally Posted by Kurushio

...also related...has anyone ever seen a photo of a nuclear torpedo exploding underwater? Would love to see one...or it's effects on the surface.

Various nukes with some underwater test: http://www.break.com/index/nuclearpower.html

Underground nuke test just for kicks: http://www.break.com/index/nuketest.html

Wow....those nukes are pure evil. Gave me the shivers watching that... Good though....

[OneShot]

I think Einstein said this (well, something close to it) : "I don't know what weapons we will use in World War 3, but I am sure that the war after that will be fought with sticks and stones".

Fortunatly it looks like an all-out Nuclear war is not likely at the moment, tho we better not underestimate local use of (dirty) Nukes.

Anyway, as for the pollution, aside from the places where nuke subs have sunk, does anybody have a good idea how much the enviroment is contaminated in places like Tschernobyl, or the Nuke Test Ranges? I think there is more danger then from small capsuled, shut down, reactors.

[Molon Labe]

Heh, there's one patch of ground somewhere in the US where the nuclear engine for a sort-of drone/cruise missile aircraft was tested. It literally sprayed radioactive exhaust. Fortunately, it never left its concrete bunker in the desert.

[Bubblehead Nuke]

Originally Posted by Molon Labe

Heh, there's one patch of ground somewhere in the US where the nuclear engine for a sort-of drone/cruise missile aircraft was tested. It literally sprayed radioactive exhaust. Fortunately, it never left its concrete bunker in the desert.

Actually, it was a nuclear jet engine. Thats right, a jet engine. It used a reactor to heat the air (hence the reactor was air cooled) instead of compressors, fuel cans and all that. Plan was for it to go airbourne and pretty much stay there till they dropped the bomb. They had plans for inflight crew change and everything. They were going to use the old B-36 PeaceMaker.

Check out http://www.cowtown.net/proweb/nb36h.htm for a picture of the plane that actually carried a reactor on-board. Note: they NEVER actually flew the plane on atomic power, they only got as far as actually lighting one up in a bombay to test the thing while in flight.

Anyway, during a ground test of the actual engine, a thermocouple failed and they lost indication of ACCURATE core temperature. They had a material failure due to overheating and it SPEWED parts of the core out of the back. Luckily, someone had a clue and decided that these things spewing radiactive entrails over the U.S. would not be a polically correct thing to do and cancelled the whole project.

[TLAM Strike]

John Craven talks a little about this in his book, 'The Silent War'.