@@ChernobylFamily Very very cool Those playlists are looking like some good content for my next couple days off work. I'm looking forward to exploring all this. Thank you.
One of the best most comprehensive videos I've seen on Chernobyl ! And I've seen most ! Your diagrams are amazing!! I very much look forward to your future content ! 👌🏻
I join the choir of praise below, excellent video! Very clear explanation of a hughely complex topic. Thanks so much for this, looking forward to future episodes! :)
Just a note, SCARLA provided real-time information on the control rods to PRISMA which then ran calculations and produced a printout. In the computer room. That someone would need to take to the control room, by hand. Minimum delay was about 2 minutes after “real time”. For what happened in Chernobyl-4 in 1986 this was in no way quick enough to provide useful information on the reactor state to its operators. Very good for waving around in a courtroom a year later though 😼
Not to mention that the Ministry of Medium Machine Building knew that the RBMK design had a high chance of a runaway chain reaction due to its positive void coefficient. They also knew that the RBMK had a high probability of such a runaway reaction under a specific set of circumstances - which just happened to be the exact same set of circumstances that were intentionally created by the plant operators the night of the explosion. However, nobody at the plant knew either of these things because the information about the reactor’s performance in those circumstances was so highly classified that even the power plant’s manager wasn’t cleared to be provided with that information.
@@user-me6td1up1m what is certainly true is that Dyatlov & Co were convinced that the margins they were operating the reactor under the regulations that night were safe, but that Legasov rewrote those reactor safety regulations in the 3 months between the accident and the first IAEA investigation meeting.
This is the best RBMK reactor presentation , i am working in the nuclear power plant industry (CANDU reactor) so i am very curios about various type of nuclear reactors , THANK YOU !!!
CANDUs are by design a sibling of RBMKs . Both are capable of on site refueling, were meant to work with unenriched uranium, are pretty big in size. The big differences being moderator and fuel rods orientation.
@@madapatisainikhilesh9533 Project power of our reactors (CANDU) was 650 MW net output but after some upgrades output power its 708/ 711 MW depending of reactor age ...
I think it is important to mention this reactor design was adapted from a military/research type reactor. From that perspective it was actually quite an achievement being as stable as it was. Also, the RBMK can run on low enriched uranium, making fuel much cheaper compared to BWR or PWR design. With current safety standards however, the RBMK would be a costly design to maintain.
Thank you once again for your time and effort to produce another excellent episode. Its been a while since your last episode, but it's well worth the wait for such well researched and produced content. This channel is now FIRST on my list of channels to watch when a new episode becomes available.
When I see the diagrams, and I look at how the water pipes are arranged, I find them to be every bit as terrifying and spine-chilling as the reactor core itself.
Thank you for a very good presentation - the RBMK reactor took the design for graphite moderated reactors (used to produce Plutonium-239 by irradiating Uranium-238) and scaled it up dramatically to produce electricity - the result is a vast array of pipes, sensors, wiring, pumps, separator drums and controls along with an inherent positive void coefficient - there are too many critical failure points - the failure of one fuel channel can barely be managed safely and is very costly to repair - a number of severe accidents occurred in the former USSR before the Chernobyl accident many of which caused high irradiation of plant personnel, deaths and radioactive contamination of the surrounding environment - the RBMK is simply too large and complex to be safely used especially without any containment features
The RMBK reactors were designed to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons as well as electricity. Why else would the Soviets scale up reactors used for their weapons programs as power plants?
one of the cursed thing about the shitty USSR safety culture is that many of the safety upgrades that today make the other RMBK safer were already known to be necessary and could have been made, since there were smaller accidents in other plants before that alerted some scientists to the possible flaws, but the goverment silenced the whole ordeal
I completely understand the theory and intentions of the RBMK design paradigm. There was no reason it shouldn't have worked if it was built and operated properly. But, the RBMK's biggest weakness was the poor safety culture and lack of full disclosure to the plant operators on how to run it. Past failures did happen but, it was organizational dysfunction that prevented corrective measures from being implemented. IMO, I can see the RBMK design reviving in the next century or so. Why? IMO, the world of the near future will be very very poor. All forms of capital will be exhausted and there will still be a great need for a power plant that can be built by lower skilled labor and feature less demanding design parameters. PWR systems won't be possible in the future. Our education system cannot produce what the future needs. The RBMK can be built by less capable workers and managers. It can take poor quality uranium fuel and work just fine. It just has to operated strictly within design parameters and that is the responsibility of the organization running it.
@@BlackPill-pu4vi I hope you are wrong. Any system that "just has to operated strictly within design parameters" is not inherently safe. And in nuclear this is what I would like to, designs that do not depend on operating it "just so". The now trending modular mini nuclear reactor ideas seem to me much safer.
@@Axel_Andersen I totally understand where you're coming from. Western PWR reactors are inherently stable and they also require strict operations to ensure their safety. However, PWR's require epic levels of technology and manufacturing expertise to build. Plus, the U.S. is so deindustrialized that we can no longer make our own pressure vessels or nuclear components and have to have countries like South Korea build them for us. The RBMK can be built with far less capital and expertise. But, the tradeoff is that positive void coefficient that requires active management. It operates at much lower pressures and temperatures and water is boiling in the channels. That has to be managed and many RBMK's have been operating stably for decades in the old USSR. If they failed, it was due to human factors unrelated to the fundamental parameters of how and why it works.
@@keeganplayz1875 Give it a century or even less. In the first reply, I asserted that all forms of capital in the West will soon be exhausted and the RBMK will be the only feasible way of producing affordable electricity.
Chernobyl disaster happened for 3 main reasons: a) Like every complex machine, if all security system are disabled, then there is nothing to separe human from disaster, that damned night operators did this mistake. b) No one of operators knew about the big problem of Xe-135 reactor contamination, this poisoning hid the true activity of the reactor leading operators to the big mistake of removing most of the safety rods made of boron. When the poisoning ended, the reactor showed all its true internal core reaction and, with only a few safety boron rods in place, this led to a very powerful and devastating reactor "over-revving". c) The real design flaw of the RBMK reactor was that it was built on a shoestring basis by fitting the boron rod extenders with graphite (rather than boron), which resulted in a temporary increase in the reaction before deceleration occurred. - Anyway this is a great video, thank you!
Im currently on the home stretch of finishing my commercial nuclear operator licence training and this video makes me so glad we have a simplified PWR design. Chernobyl really showed the importance of procedure adherence. Its shocking just how many horrible decisions led up to the chernobyl disaster.
This is by far one of the best informative videos made about the RBMK. And all these colourful schematics only makes it better. While the schematics from PWRs etc often look very sterile and clinical, the RBMK almost looks organic, like a giant living creature. This feeling is enhanced by those pretty schematics, in a good way. Well done on the video. You could make one 3 hrs long, and I would gladly sit through the whole thing. One day I hope to see an RBMK in real life to be able to see, and appreciate its ginormous size. Even if it's one that is no longer operating. Ah well, one can dream...
@@ChernobylFamily Thank you for this most generous offer! It would be a dream come true for this old Master welder. And if you think I'm nerdy now, just wait until you set me loose in that place. My nerdiness will go off the charts🤣
Another advantage of the RBMK design is the ability to effectively utilize lower grade and thus much cheaper nuclear fuel, due to the sheer size (and scalability) of the active zone.
@@ChernobylFamily During my translation of the Dollezhal book I actually learned quite a bit more about the RBMKP-2400. If people think the RBMK-1000 is big, wait until you see the 2400. This thing would not just have its own zip code, at that size, you would be changing timezones when walking from one end of the central hall to the other. It's a good thing they never actually got to building it because the stability issues would have been something else! I pity the poor Skala computer having to keep that behemoth in check....😱
@@caav56 Oh dear Lord, that thing! This reactor would have been absolutely monstrous in size. Imagine the crew necessary to keep that thing bridled. I shudder when thinking what would happen if such a reactor would have a hissy fit. It would _not_ be pretty, we can be sure of that. As much as I like the RBMK, it's a good thing this one never got built.
Dude, I could watch You´s stuff all day. Yes, the choir of pray is right. Normally I dispise that but this time I gotta give them (YOU) credit. That picture of the turbine hall- istn´t that coming out of the series of pictures where the famous red Mercedes sensing equipment truck was seen? That truck and its crew deserve a vid of their own, it is lost in time… Another fascinating story. Anyways- thanks to You and the crew, please watch out, keep it safe. Kind Regards
Thank you! Those images partly came from an album which belonged to Anatoly Dyatlov (seriously: www.patreon.com/posts/anatoly-dyatlows-88873426), and from an earlier 1977 album by NIKIET promoting this reactor. Both had a set of transparent pages with prints on films picturing the schemes. Scanning those was a task worth a short tragicomedy movie :) Too bad all that was partly deteriorated and given that printing back then was not as good as now, we needed a lot of time to clear and redraw elements and align them together as it was planned. But when cleared, it looks much better than a physical thing. About Mercedes truck, yes, it is worth a talk about it.
It's always interesting to see what would have been possible and how history could have been. Can't wait for more to come. It's a topic with a complex technological subject but the presentation and explanation makes it possible even for someone not familiar to follow and understand
Yes, it took a lot of time to restore those historical pictures. Those, actually, partly originate from an album which belonged to Anatoly Dyatlov. Seriosly: www.patreon.com/posts/anatoly-dyatlows-88873426
Didn’t realize til some time last year all that went on at Chernobyl. Oddly enough, it was from a TikTok video of a tour guide for Chernobyl. But since then, I’ve been fascinated by nuclear energy. It’s amazing being able to see these diagrams and having someone explain them in such detail!
This series gives one a bit more insight on the history and the situation surrounding Chornobyl. There are a dozen other videos on the 1986's disaster, but none is able to give a deeper insight on the people, their history, culture, and the general political atmosphere at the time of the incident. The bonus is the in depth look at the equipment used at the time, this is really fascinating to see how they managed it even though the Cold War was raging at that moment. Really fascinating, interesting and is full of historical facts. Keep the good work up.
The bitter truth is, the widely accepted vision of disaster is based on Soviet version which, although partly contains true things, generally was put in the way convenient for that regime. There is, however, much more behind, and it goes far beyond the disaster raising quite inconvenient questions on virtually every step. I guess, someone needs to talk about it, and here we are.
As mentioned in this video, we had two of these reactors operating in my country of Lithuania, near the town of Ignalina. Whole 3 gigawatts of nuclear power. A third one was under construction but halted after the Chornobyl events. They supplied about 80% of the country's electricity needs. For some time, we were the country with the highest percentage of nuclear energy produced per person in the entire world. Sadly, they were shut down in the naughties. Phasing them out was demanded by the EU as one of the requirements for our country to join the EU. There was a plan to build a new nuclear power plant with modern Japanese reactors which was close to being approved but was sadly spoiled, mostly by pro-russian powers in the government.
Hello Chernobyl Family I became interested in the RBMK reactor after watching the HBO miniseries a few years ago, and have read several books about the Soviet Union's nuclear program. It is my opinion that Slavsky and Alexandrov bear as much responsibility as Diatlov for what happened. I have watched all your videos on this subject and was fascinated by your excellent pieces concerning the SKALA computer and the operating system at the DUGA 2 site. I wanted to salute you for providing such informative content and let you know how much I enjoy watching your videos. Please keep up the good work! Alan Hall Hendersonville, North Carolina.
@@ChernobylFamily Thank you very much, lately I started learning more about nuclear physics as a hobby, I am software engineer, these documentaries as my relaxation time, I am very grateful
@@c64cosmin We are mostly focused on the most obscure, early period of disaster elimination and related tech. I mean, we are in the close contact with Chornobyl engineers who really _saw things_ in 1986, we simply do not dare to talk about the disaster.
We are really happy if our little effort happened. Now, to blast your mind, the images you saw in this video are from the album that once belonged to Anatoly Dyatlov. Seriously - www.patreon.com/posts/anatoly-dyatlows-88873426
I knew nuclear reactors were complex machines but I never knew they used a computer to tell them which fuel rods to change. Now I also understand why they needed a computer to do so. I gained enormous respect for nuclear engineers now I know what goes into building and operating these monsters..
There is such a thing called SKFRE, which is stands for "System of Physical Control of Energy Emission". That has behind a mathematical model of process of heat generation, neutron field configuration, reactivity, etc... so the processes inside are very very complex, and uneven.
Thanks again for the interesting video. What is interesting about these RBMK reactors is that they can be refueled while they are running, while BWR reactors have to be shut down for the time being.
Its something other reactors can do, the British AGR and Magnox were capable of it (and have their own analogues of the fuelling machine) . As could the Canadian CANDU reactors.
@@planesguineapigs1712 Thanks for the information, I am not very familiar with AGR and Magnox reactors. CANDU is a bit more familiar, but I don't really know these three reactor types.
@@leopiipponen7693 Both of the British ones are CO2 cooled graphite moderated types. Sort of like a RBMK but using CO2 gas as the coolant. They like the RBMK are physically huge
The online refueling was a desired thing for producing Pu. For bombs. To produce plutonium, fuel needs to be irradiated for a short time, because plutonium itself is a fuel the reactor will consume. BWR needs to be opened (the lid is taken off) to be refuel, turning the whole containment building into the refueling machine that hangs above RBMKs, and it takes so much time that it's not practically possible to quickly swap fuel rods. BWRs produce more power (by size) and less bombs, but are way more expensive to operate.
One of the main problems of RBMK design is the low coherence of the core - it can have high activity in one zone, and low in another. This was demonstrated also in the accident , when a high activity zone was forming in the lower part of the core. So, probably in an RBMK with higher or much higher size this problem would have been much worse and present the probability of an even bigger disaster.
what an excellent video. and not to forget that RBMKs are in operation still today and someone in the world is assembling RBMK fuel as we speak. same as you can still buy new tape decks here in the shop in Germany, whereas america tells us that tapes died in the 90s.
@ i did not say that. talking analogue equipment is actually a very good idea to use. digital will become obsolete via AI fakes will make every digital record questionable
Can't believe of how much information you've managed to pack in such a short video. It's almost a commercial for RBMKs reactors :P It's really well presented. I'm almost wanting to buy and build one in my backyard ^^ A few never seen before pictures too, never knew how these reactors were built. Can I buy back the crane for my little home RBMK project? =) I also never knew about the carts doing spectrum analysis of individual tubes. It's almost a mine cart rolling on rails. It's a very strange design to rely on a mechanical device for such a task. About mine carts, this channel is a mine of information. You're digging deep to find all of this...
Because technically it is. Those illustrations mostly came from a 1977 brochure explaining how the reactor works, which belonged to A. Dyatlov. It was very destroyed, so many things we needed to clean and redraw. The brochure had transparent pages showing layers of the active zone... very colorful, but they way it was made, made it really complex to work with it.
What also adds to why the RBMK was designed differently from most nuclear power plants in the West, was its suitability to remove a fuel rod while it still wasn't exhausted. Then, the content of plutonium (Pu^239) was the highest, and you could extract it from the pellets to turn it into nuclear warheads.
Mmm.... Pu indeed appeared there, but in small amounts. Civilian NPPs never had a security regime even close required for military projects, compared to facilities which actually produced Pu, where Soviets had specialized reactors for that which were way more effective.
My friend told me about one of the early early computers they had to predict reactor Behavior at one of the testing areas out in idaho. He said that it was a huge block of analog electrical components using lrc circuitry to mimic how the reactor would change with input to and from the control rods
General had Neutron flux sensors in there but I'm not sure how they would have worked. They would have to be able to obviously withstand the high Neutron flux with a lot of materials that are electronic in nature that damages them very quickly. One problem is their Electronics were problematically made at best and had very poor tolerances. Especially stuff like capacitors. That's why they have problems with those Electronics is you put one in and the whole circuit works you put a slightly different one that's out of Tolerance and it doesn't work because they have very poor design methodology
A lot of RUclipsrs have cashed a lot of checks making videos about Chernobyl that are nowhere near as thoroughly researched as yours, and that ain’t fair.
I do not know what to say. Maybe, because this place is slowly transitioning to a binge-content place which we personally have quite an allergy to. Many things about Chornobyl are not simple, it is not possible to explain them short and simple. And sometimes they are also very boring, but essential for understanding. So... we have what we have.
Those partly came from an album which belonged to Anatoly Dyatlov, though we needed very very much work on them. Seriosly: www.patreon.com/posts/anatoly-dyatlows-88873426
Interesting history and specification of this reactor. I didn't realize it was capable of online refuelling like CANDU reactors, so I learned something today. Of course, in Canada we do have a more strict understanding of safety than the people who engineered the RBMK as well as our country officially promotes nuclear energy for peaceful use. It's one of the reasons our plants take the by-products of fission and provide them for scientific research and as radio-isotopes for medicine.
Most of these reactors function well to this day. What happenned in Chernobyl was a result of a criminally reckless behavior, where the reactor was literally fighting against the controllers to stay in safe mode, yet was not allowed to time and time again.
12:17 Correction: all the reactors in the Smolensk NPP are 1000MW, but the slide shows 2x1000 and 2x1500. The 1500MW version was only built at Ignalina NPP, and the Smolensk 4 was never finished. Maybe that was an expectation of what they wanted to build?
We'd love to do it but this would be much better to do in actual control room. For now it is a big problem to get there; I believe we might draw all the control room and explain this way, but it will take a lot of time.
From my understanding Chernobyl was unstable at low power levels, mainly because it was designed specifically for being able to do power generation, or plutonium production, the last was why it was so big. When you produce plutonium you dont want water moderation as it eats up a lot of neutrons thus producing less plutonium, downside it has a positive void coefficient. It was designed to operate on natural uranium or nearly no enrichment in its fuel (another plus side if you want to produce plutonium) but necessitates that the core is huge due to a lack of U-235 in the core.
It was not designed for plutonium production, because Soviets had specialized reactors for that which were far more effective. Another thing however, it was an evolution of a military reactor (basically, a Chicago pile).
Best demonstration I've seen. So was the reactor itself submerged under water, or is it essentially a dry shell and each pump just pumps through a fuel rod and goes out at the top?
It is a dry shell where each technological channel acts as a sealed environment. Moreover, because of this it was considered that a channel will act as an individual containment for localization of any problems.
Yes. And by memories of my fellow engineers, in operation this looked very impressive. The reactor made a low rumbling noise when it was running. Moving the reloading machine looked absolutely incredible as well.
Great explanation very detailed especially respectively to the short duration of the video, just one note not on the reactor itsel but about general turbine workings, probably it's mostly because of a not ideal phrasing but it would be better to make more clear that the water vapour condenses after the turbines as having more than 5% water condensate inside a turbine would destroy and corrode the blades way too fast
There were those then that worked within the Soviet agency that oversaw the power stations that felt the RBMK design was something that should've been scrapped early in its development!
The machine itself is not that bad - after all many are still working with no problems, and many countries in early period researched graphite-moderated reactors. Just... modifications came too late.
Excellent video! Since the RBMK reactor runs at a relatively low temperature, I wonder how its operators would deal with the twin problems of radiation-induced dimensional change in the graphite moderator, and accumulation of Wigner energy, especially for the cooler bricks in peripheral parts of the core.
Always magnificent Alex. Thank you so much for all the effort you put into your research and presentation, it really is most impressive. Love to you all there and, please God, peace soon.
What a great presentation. Thank you so much! I had no idea the Soviets were marketing the RBMK internationally - that's wild. Now one might say what one will about incidents in the west but I can't imagine US nuclear engineers being anything other than appalled at the shortcomings in the RBMK implementation (note not _design_ but rather implementation). I do have a question about the design of the plant itself if you can lend any insight? I've seen drawings, cutaway images and so on, that indicate structures in the facility called "Shelter Rooms". Do you know what I'm referring to, and what they're for? Shelter from what? Rooms where plant employees could safely ride out a disaster? Thank you as always for your great and informative channel.
In fears of second chernobyl, reactors of same/similar model at Ignalina in my country was shutdown in early 2000's. I believe us joining the EU around same time also played a role in that.
@1sonyzz i'd take it as a pure hysterical incompetence where politicians take over the engineers. RBMK after modernization are quite safe. Chernobyl Unit 3 could operate up to 2015, and its shutdown was a big problem for Ukraine, and we have a good selection of news articles of 1990-1997 regarding this... pure paranoia.
I think everything looks okay in the reactor, but having no upper containment chamber and having no fail-safe configuration in the computer control was deadly.
There was a configuration in the computer, and there were no problems with that; one of the problems was that there was an unknown behavior of the machine during an emergency due to the design of control rods.
The RBMK was orginally used by the military to make Plutonium, where the dangerous positive power coefficient (reactor runaway) never occurred because they never used up all of the fuel. When the difficulty of making VVER reactor began to stunt the Soviet civilian nuclear power program in the 1960’s, Anatoly Alexandrov signed off on RBMK use instead. The large crane was a real advantage in making weapons grade Plutonium without having to shut down the reactor for the military, and civilian power stations found it useful too, but it stopped a secondary shield being installed around the building (a technically impossible size at the time). As such military RBMK reactors where all located in Siberia, it had never come up before as a problem.
At 08:40 What you call cylinders are in fact called STAGES or TURBINE WHEELS. Interesting video. I used to visit the same type of reactor in northern Lithuania. They are now closed.
@@ChernobylFamily Then the technical description is clearly wrong. It looks like they are writing about a steam engine with pistons moving in cylinders. They often have several cylinders for high, medium, and low-pressure steam. The high-pressure cylinder is the smallest, and the low-pressure is the biggest. In a steam TURBINE, the high-pressure turbine wheel is the smaller one. The low-pressure wheel is the biggest.
@@ChernobylFamily That is correct. It is just the word "CYLINDERS" that is incorrect. They are turbine wheels or turbine stages. But it's an interesting video! I visited the Ignalina Nuclear Power plant in Lithuania...
I believe the intention of the RBMK design was to have a dual-use reactor that would both produce power and also weapons grade materials for the Soviet arsenal…
It is indeed an evolution of a chicago-pile like military installation, though in tlcase of RBMK,it was purely for energy generation (ok, they also enriched silicon at ChNPP). For Pu, there were dedicated machines, far more effective.
I am surprised at how extensive the primary cooling loop was. Eight pumps, massive steam separators, hundreds or thousands of pipes operating at 60bar and 280*C conveying pressurized water full of dangerous fission products. How was the pressure seal maintained when a rod had to be moved/replaced? I would imagine the reactor power had to be reduced for days prior for the rod to "calm down" enough that it could be lifted out with no or limited cooling.
Yes, probably if not tshernobyl, the story would be indeed different - f.e. 3600MW unit would rupture during routine test 5 years later polluting entire continent. Also Tshernobyl cannot work without Mayak. Perhaps it would be interesting to make a video about RBMK waste, where it goes and why no other country ever bothering into RBMK again. Also note RBMK is up scaled Hanford reactor N. It had known problems, it is interesting to study those.
Thank you! Those images partly came from an album which actually belonged to Anatoly Dyatlov (see the public-accessible guide to bonus reading: www.patreon.com/posts/chornobyl-pt-4-114369152), and partly from an earlier 1977 album by NIKIET promoting this reactor. Both had a set of transparent pages with prints on films picturing the schemes. Scanning those was a task worth a short tragicomedy movie :) Too bad all that was partly deteriorated and given that printing back then was not as good as now, we needed a lot of time to clear and redraw elements and align them together as it was planned. But when cleared, it looks much better than a physical thing. That album pictured in the video contains only photos.
![Jack Harlow - Hello Miss Johnson [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Q86_nlRoIGw/mqdefault.jpg)
I found myself here by accident, but I think I'll stay for a very long time.
You are warmly welcome. Check our other videos. We have many documentaries.
@@ChernobylFamily
Very very cool
Those playlists are looking like some good content for my next couple days off work.
I'm looking forward to exploring all this. Thank you.
was it a... _nuclear accident?_ *badumm tss
One of the best most comprehensive videos I've seen on Chernobyl ! And I've seen most ! Your diagrams are amazing!!
I very much look forward to your future content ! 👌🏻
Same here :)
Thank you for actually explaining the design and not just chasing the money shot of failure.
About that we will also talk, we just did not want to put all in one heap.
I’m really glad to see this channel growing. It’s really top-notch content that you can’t find anywhere else!
Thank you for your kind words!
The closest to CuriousMarc on our side of the former Iron Curtain!
I join the choir of praise below, excellent video! Very clear explanation of a hughely complex topic. Thanks so much for this, looking forward to future episodes! :)
Thank you!
Just a note, SCARLA provided real-time information on the control rods to PRISMA which then ran calculations and produced a printout. In the computer room. That someone would need to take to the control room, by hand. Minimum delay was about 2 minutes after “real time”. For what happened in Chernobyl-4 in 1986 this was in no way quick enough to provide useful information on the reactor state to its operators. Very good for waving around in a courtroom a year later though 😼
Yes, there was this issue.
Not to mention that the Ministry of Medium Machine Building knew that the RBMK design had a high chance of a runaway chain reaction due to its positive void coefficient. They also knew that the RBMK had a high probability of such a runaway reaction under a specific set of circumstances - which just happened to be the exact same set of circumstances that were intentionally created by the plant operators the night of the explosion. However, nobody at the plant knew either of these things because the information about the reactor’s performance in those circumstances was so highly classified that even the power plant’s manager wasn’t cleared to be provided with that information.
@@user-me6td1up1m what is certainly true is that Dyatlov & Co were convinced that the margins they were operating the reactor under the regulations that night were safe, but that Legasov rewrote those reactor safety regulations in the 3 months between the accident and the first IAEA investigation meeting.
This is the best RBMK reactor presentation , i am working in the nuclear power plant industry (CANDU reactor) so i am very curios about various type of nuclear reactors , THANK YOU !!!
CANDUs are by design a sibling of RBMKs . Both are capable of on site refueling, were meant to work with unenriched uranium, are pretty big in size.
The big differences being moderator and fuel rods orientation.
Candu
So cool
I wish the world could embrace the potential offered from that idea.
What is the maximum power output
@@madapatisainikhilesh9533 Project power of our reactors (CANDU) was 650 MW net output but after some upgrades output power its 708/ 711 MW depending of reactor age ...
I'm a big faggot
This is the best video on the RBMK topic ever made. So pleasant to watch. Thank you. Big support from me!
@@AvramBlackmith98 so happy to hear that! Thank you!
I think it is important to mention this reactor design was adapted from a military/research type reactor. From that perspective it was actually quite an achievement being as stable as it was.
Also, the RBMK can run on low enriched uranium, making fuel much cheaper compared to BWR or PWR design.
With current safety standards however, the RBMK would be a costly design to maintain.
....and hell to decommission.
Thank you for providing the simplest, surprisingly-detailed, yet most-comprehensible depiction of how the RBMK PEAKTOP works!
Insanely complex.
Nice video. Good to have you back!
We are happy you liked!
Thank you once again for your time and effort to produce another excellent episode. Its been a while since your last episode, but it's well worth the wait for such well researched and produced content. This channel is now FIRST on my list of channels to watch when a new episode becomes available.
Thank you. I had some health-related issues so I needed to take a little pause. Now all is better. Thank you so much!
I've never understood until this video if the water in the core stays in tube's or floods in a open cavity around the graphite. Very good explanation.
Glad to help!
When I see the diagrams, and I look at how the water pipes are arranged, I find them to be every bit as terrifying and spine-chilling as the reactor core itself.
Thank you for a very good presentation - the RBMK reactor took the design for graphite moderated reactors (used to produce Plutonium-239 by irradiating Uranium-238) and scaled it up dramatically to produce electricity - the result is a vast array of pipes, sensors, wiring, pumps, separator drums and controls along with an inherent positive void coefficient - there are too many critical failure points - the failure of one fuel channel can barely be managed safely and is very costly to repair - a number of severe accidents occurred in the former USSR before the Chernobyl accident many of which caused high irradiation of plant personnel, deaths and radioactive contamination of the surrounding environment - the RBMK is simply too large and complex to be safely used especially without any containment features
The RMBK reactors were designed to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons as well as electricity. Why else would the Soviets scale up reactors used for their weapons programs as power plants?
one of the cursed thing about the shitty USSR safety culture is that many of the safety upgrades that today make the other RMBK safer were already known to be necessary and could have been made, since there were smaller accidents in other plants before that alerted some scientists to the possible flaws, but the goverment silenced the whole ordeal
I completely understand the theory and intentions of the RBMK design paradigm. There was no reason it shouldn't have worked if it was built and operated properly. But, the RBMK's biggest weakness was the poor safety culture and lack of full disclosure to the plant operators on how to run it. Past failures did happen but, it was organizational dysfunction that prevented corrective measures from being implemented.
IMO, I can see the RBMK design reviving in the next century or so. Why? IMO, the world of the near future will be very very poor. All forms of capital will be exhausted and there will still be a great need for a power plant that can be built by lower skilled labor and feature less demanding design parameters. PWR systems won't be possible in the future. Our education system cannot produce what the future needs. The RBMK can be built by less capable workers and managers. It can take poor quality uranium fuel and work just fine. It just has to operated strictly within design parameters and that is the responsibility of the organization running it.
@@BlackPill-pu4vi I hope you are wrong. Any system that "just has to operated strictly within design parameters" is not inherently safe. And in nuclear this is what I would like to, designs that do not depend on operating it "just so". The now trending modular mini nuclear reactor ideas seem to me much safer.
@@Axel_Andersen I totally understand where you're coming from. Western PWR reactors are inherently stable and they also require strict operations to ensure their safety. However, PWR's require epic levels of technology and manufacturing expertise to build. Plus, the U.S. is so deindustrialized that we can no longer make our own pressure vessels or nuclear components and have to have countries like South Korea build them for us.
The RBMK can be built with far less capital and expertise. But, the tradeoff is that positive void coefficient that requires active management. It operates at much lower pressures and temperatures and water is boiling in the channels. That has to be managed and many RBMK's have been operating stably for decades in the old USSR. If they failed, it was due to human factors unrelated to the fundamental parameters of how and why it works.
it's going to be sad to see the last RBMK cores retire in the coming decades. They're a part of post WW2 Peaceful Nuclear Technogical History!
@@keeganplayz1875 Give it a century or even less. In the first reply, I asserted that all forms of capital in the West will soon be exhausted and the RBMK will be the only feasible way of producing affordable electricity.
Chernobyl disaster happened for 3 main reasons:
a) Like every complex machine, if all security system are disabled, then there is nothing to separe human from disaster, that damned night operators did this mistake.
b) No one of operators knew about the big problem of Xe-135 reactor contamination, this poisoning hid the true activity of the reactor leading operators to the big mistake of removing most of the safety rods made of boron. When the poisoning ended, the reactor showed all its true internal core reaction and, with only a few safety boron rods in place, this led to a very powerful and devastating reactor "over-revving".
c) The real design flaw of the RBMK reactor was that it was built on a shoestring basis by fitting the boron rod extenders with graphite (rather than boron), which resulted in a temporary increase in the reaction before deceleration occurred.
-
Anyway this is a great video, thank you!
Thanks for uploading this. Really well presented and summarised explanation. Looking forward to the next episode.
Thank you! :)
Im currently on the home stretch of finishing my commercial nuclear operator licence training and this video makes me so glad we have a simplified PWR design. Chernobyl really showed the importance of procedure adherence. Its shocking just how many horrible decisions led up to the chernobyl disaster.
Yes.
Wow! I’m so glad I stumbled on this video and channel! Very easy to understand explanations on a rather complex and complicated piece of history!
Thank you! Check other episodes!
This is by far one of the best informative videos made about the RBMK. And all these colourful schematics only makes it better. While the schematics from PWRs etc often look very sterile and clinical, the RBMK almost looks organic, like a giant living creature. This feeling is enhanced by those pretty schematics, in a good way. Well done on the video. You could make one 3 hrs long, and I would gladly sit through the whole thing. One day I hope to see an RBMK in real life to be able to see, and appreciate its ginormous size. Even if it's one that is no longer operating. Ah well, one can dream...
Thank you! If something, contact us, we'll bring you there when it will be possible.
@@ChernobylFamily
Thank you for this most generous offer! It would be a dream come true for this old Master welder. And if you think I'm nerdy now, just wait until you set me loose in that place. My nerdiness will go off the charts🤣
I would also love to see this giant living creature! Ever since I was a child I have been fascinated by nuclear reactor and the events of 1986
This video is as clear as the subject is complex ! well done, sir
Thank you!
Another advantage of the RBMK design is the ability to effectively utilize lower grade and thus much cheaper nuclear fuel, due to the sheer size (and scalability) of the active zone.
@@Ivan-pr7ku exactly. Here come RBMKPs and so.
@@ChernobylFamily
During my translation of the Dollezhal book I actually learned quite a bit more about the RBMKP-2400. If people think the RBMK-1000 is big, wait until you see the 2400. This thing would not just have its own zip code, at that size, you would be changing timezones when walking from one end of the central hall to the other. It's a good thing they never actually got to building it because the stability issues would have been something else! I pity the poor Skala computer having to keep that behemoth in check....😱
@@swokatsamsiyu3590 I am screaming
@@swokatsamsiyu3590 And then you get to RBMKP-4800...
@@caav56
Oh dear Lord, that thing! This reactor would have been absolutely monstrous in size. Imagine the crew necessary to keep that thing bridled. I shudder when thinking what would happen if such a reactor would have a hissy fit. It would _not_ be pretty, we can be sure of that. As much as I like the RBMK, it's a good thing this one never got built.
Dude, I could watch You´s stuff all day. Yes, the choir of pray is right. Normally I dispise that but this time I gotta give them (YOU) credit. That picture of the turbine hall- istn´t that coming out of the series of pictures where the famous red Mercedes sensing equipment truck was seen?
That truck and its crew deserve a vid of their own, it is lost in time…
Another fascinating story. Anyways- thanks to You and the crew, please watch out, keep it safe. Kind Regards
Thank you! Those images partly came from an album which belonged to Anatoly Dyatlov (seriously: www.patreon.com/posts/anatoly-dyatlows-88873426), and from an earlier 1977 album by NIKIET promoting this reactor. Both had a set of transparent pages with prints on films picturing the schemes. Scanning those was a task worth a short tragicomedy movie :) Too bad all that was partly deteriorated and given that printing back then was not as good as now, we needed a lot of time to clear and redraw elements and align them together as it was planned. But when cleared, it looks much better than a physical thing.
About Mercedes truck, yes, it is worth a talk about it.
I have been a fan of this topic for a long time, and you provided new information I've never seen before. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
It's always interesting to see what would have been possible and how history could have been.
Can't wait for more to come. It's a topic with a complex technological subject but the presentation and explanation makes it possible even for someone not familiar to follow and understand
Thank you!
very detailed video with great visuals and quality as usual. respect for hard work put into making this!
Yes, it took a lot of time to restore those historical pictures. Those, actually, partly originate from an album which belonged to Anatoly Dyatlov. Seriosly: www.patreon.com/posts/anatoly-dyatlows-88873426
Impressive . Well researched video . Gives insight . Thanks a lot for your effort .
Thank you! Check our other episodes.
Didn’t realize til some time last year all that went on at Chernobyl. Oddly enough, it was from a TikTok video of a tour guide for Chernobyl. But since then, I’ve been fascinated by nuclear energy. It’s amazing being able to see these diagrams and having someone explain them in such detail!
It is a very deep, literally endless subject to discover. So... more to come!
i am again awestruck by mans ingenuity and ...and folly. Another brilliant document !!
Thank you! Next is coming!
This series gives one a bit more insight on the history and the situation surrounding Chornobyl.
There are a dozen other videos on the 1986's disaster, but none is able to give a deeper insight on the people, their history, culture, and the general political atmosphere at the time of the incident.
The bonus is the in depth look at the equipment used at the time, this is really fascinating to see how they managed it even though the Cold War was raging at that moment.
Really fascinating, interesting and is full of historical facts.
Keep the good work up.
The bitter truth is, the widely accepted vision of disaster is based on Soviet version which, although partly contains true things, generally was put in the way convenient for that regime. There is, however, much more behind, and it goes far beyond the disaster raising quite inconvenient questions on virtually every step. I guess, someone needs to talk about it, and here we are.
@@ChernobylFamily Absolutely. The truth need to be told for the world to know.
@@emilschw8924 i do not mean that we are also correct with everything. But at least we can give some things to think about.
As mentioned in this video, we had two of these reactors operating in my country of Lithuania, near the town of Ignalina. Whole 3 gigawatts of nuclear power. A third one was under construction but halted after the Chornobyl events.
They supplied about 80% of the country's electricity needs. For some time, we were the country with the highest percentage of nuclear energy produced per person in the entire world. Sadly, they were shut down in the naughties. Phasing them out was demanded by the EU as one of the requirements for our country to join the EU.
There was a plan to build a new nuclear power plant with modern Japanese reactors which was close to being approved but was sadly spoiled, mostly by pro-russian powers in the government.
That is sad.
Hello Chernobyl Family
I became interested in the RBMK reactor after watching the HBO miniseries a few years ago, and have read several books about the Soviet Union's nuclear program. It is my opinion that Slavsky and Alexandrov bear as much responsibility as Diatlov for what happened.
I have watched all your videos on this subject and was fascinated by your excellent pieces concerning the SKALA computer and the operating system at the DUGA 2 site.
I wanted to salute you for providing such informative content and let you know how much I enjoy watching your videos.
Please keep up the good work!
Alan Hall
Hendersonville, North Carolina.
Thank you very much for this quality content. Keep up the good work.
Glad you enjoy it!
Чергове чудове відео. Дуже дякую!
дякуємо вам!
This is so informational, so lucky to have found you through Reddit, thank you for the documentary!
we are really happy! Check out other videos. And soon a new one is out!
@@ChernobylFamily Thank you very much, lately I started learning more about nuclear physics as a hobby, I am software engineer, these documentaries as my relaxation time, I am very grateful
@@c64cosmin We are mostly focused on the most obscure, early period of disaster elimination and related tech. I mean, we are in the close contact with Chornobyl engineers who really _saw things_ in 1986, we simply do not dare to talk about the disaster.
Again. Just a super video. I truly enjoy your efforts put in these videos
Glad you like them!
Positive void coefficient reactors are insane and it's crazy the other RNMK reactors were kept online for so long.
This is incredibly informative. I've never really understood the complexity of this reactor but now I realize how much more I still don't understand.
We are really happy if our little effort happened. Now, to blast your mind, the images you saw in this video are from the album that once belonged to Anatoly Dyatlov. Seriously - www.patreon.com/posts/anatoly-dyatlows-88873426
I knew nuclear reactors were complex machines but I never knew they used a computer to tell them which fuel rods to change. Now I also understand why they needed a computer to do so. I gained enormous respect for nuclear engineers now I know what goes into building and operating these monsters..
There is such a thing called SKFRE, which is stands for "System of Physical Control of Energy Emission". That has behind a mathematical model of process of heat generation, neutron field configuration, reactivity, etc... so the processes inside are very very complex, and uneven.
Excellent video!
Thank you!
Excellent video, thanks for explaining the reactor's construction! :)
Glad you liked it!
Thanks again for the interesting video. What is interesting about these RBMK reactors is that they can be refueled while they are running, while BWR reactors have to be shut down for the time being.
Yes.
Its something other reactors can do, the British AGR and Magnox were capable of it (and have their own analogues of the fuelling machine) . As could the Canadian CANDU reactors.
@@planesguineapigs1712 Thanks for the information, I am not very familiar with AGR and Magnox reactors. CANDU is a bit more familiar, but I don't really know these three reactor types.
@@leopiipponen7693 Both of the British ones are CO2 cooled graphite moderated types. Sort of like a RBMK but using CO2 gas as the coolant. They like the RBMK are physically huge
The online refueling was a desired thing for producing Pu. For bombs. To produce plutonium, fuel needs to be irradiated for a short time, because plutonium itself is a fuel the reactor will consume. BWR needs to be opened (the lid is taken off) to be refuel, turning the whole containment building into the refueling machine that hangs above RBMKs, and it takes so much time that it's not practically possible to quickly swap fuel rods.
BWRs produce more power (by size) and less bombs, but are way more expensive to operate.
Fantastic video!
The folds in scheme "Kzh" are not reinforcements but compensators, to compensate for thermal expansion.
Thank you for this correction!
One of the main problems of RBMK design is the low coherence of the core - it can have high activity in one zone, and low in another. This was demonstrated also in the accident , when a high activity zone was forming in the lower part of the core. So, probably in an RBMK with higher or much higher size this problem would have been much worse and present the probability of an even bigger disaster.
what an excellent video. and not to forget that RBMKs are in operation still today and someone in the world is assembling RBMK fuel as we speak. same as you can still buy new tape decks here in the shop in Germany, whereas america tells us that tapes died in the 90s.
:)
Just because something still works doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to use it….
@ i did not say that. talking analogue equipment is actually a very good idea to use. digital will become obsolete via AI fakes will make every digital record questionable
Phenomenal amount of information!
Thank you!
This was an impressive presentation, by Chornobyl Family. Thank You.
Glad you liked it!
Can't believe of how much information you've managed to pack in such a short video. It's almost a commercial for RBMKs reactors :P It's really well presented. I'm almost wanting to buy and build one in my backyard ^^ A few never seen before pictures too, never knew how these reactors were built. Can I buy back the crane for my little home RBMK project? =)
I also never knew about the carts doing spectrum analysis of individual tubes. It's almost a mine cart rolling on rails. It's a very strange design to rely on a mechanical device for such a task.
About mine carts, this channel is a mine of information. You're digging deep to find all of this...
Because technically it is. Those illustrations mostly came from a 1977 brochure explaining how the reactor works, which belonged to A. Dyatlov. It was very destroyed, so many things we needed to clean and redraw. The brochure had transparent pages showing layers of the active zone... very colorful, but they way it was made, made it really complex to work with it.
@@ChernobylFamily Fantastic work. Looks like brand new illustrations. Do you plan to do prints from these pictures?
@@Damien.D considering that.
What also adds to why the RBMK was designed differently from most nuclear power plants in the West, was its suitability to remove a fuel rod while it still wasn't exhausted. Then, the content of plutonium (Pu^239) was the highest, and you could extract it from the pellets to turn it into nuclear warheads.
However, this capability was never fully developed or used.
Mmm.... Pu indeed appeared there, but in small amounts. Civilian NPPs never had a security regime even close required for military projects, compared to facilities which actually produced Pu, where Soviets had specialized reactors for that which were way more effective.
Best explaination of how the reactor really works.
Glad you liked!
Keep the stories coming! Great stuff!
Thanks! Will do!
My friend told me about one of the early early computers they had to predict reactor Behavior at one of the testing areas out in idaho. He said that it was a huge block of analog electrical components using lrc circuitry to mimic how the reactor would change with input to and from the control rods
We literally have a documentary about that machine. See ruclips.net/video/ZbaptQh2AM4/видео.html
General had Neutron flux sensors in there but I'm not sure how they would have worked. They would have to be able to obviously withstand the high Neutron flux with a lot of materials that are electronic in nature that damages them very quickly. One problem is their Electronics were problematically made at best and had very poor tolerances. Especially stuff like capacitors. That's why they have problems with those Electronics is you put one in and the whole circuit works you put a slightly different one that's out of Tolerance and it doesn't work because they have very poor design methodology
OMGG released 1 Minute ago
So, you are the first!
A lot of RUclipsrs have cashed a lot of checks making videos about Chernobyl that are nowhere near as thoroughly researched as yours, and that ain’t fair.
I do not know what to say. Maybe, because this place is slowly transitioning to a binge-content place which we personally have quite an allergy to. Many things about Chornobyl are not simple, it is not possible to explain them short and simple. And sometimes they are also very boring, but essential for understanding. So... we have what we have.
RIP to the brave Comrades who responded to the initial event. They gave their lives for their fellow Humans.
It is still a long journey ahead to understand how large and dark all what happened here actually was...
Yay for another episode in this fascinating series!
Thank you!
Very nice technical illustrations.
Those partly came from an album which belonged to Anatoly Dyatlov, though we needed very very much work on them. Seriosly: www.patreon.com/posts/anatoly-dyatlows-88873426
Interesting history and specification of this reactor. I didn't realize it was capable of online refuelling like CANDU reactors, so I learned something today. Of course, in Canada we do have a more strict understanding of safety than the people who engineered the RBMK as well as our country officially promotes nuclear energy for peaceful use. It's one of the reasons our plants take the by-products of fission and provide them for scientific research and as radio-isotopes for medicine.
Thank you for sharing!
Thank you❤️
You’re welcome 😊
I finally found the most descriptive rbmk explanation. great job
Glad you liked it!
Most of these reactors function well to this day. What happenned in Chernobyl was a result of a criminally reckless behavior, where the reactor was literally fighting against the controllers to stay in safe mode, yet was not allowed to time and time again.
I'd take it much wider; operators were only a part involved,l.
I wish I could give more than just one thumbs up
Thank you!
12:17 Correction: all the reactors in the Smolensk NPP are 1000MW, but the slide shows 2x1000 and 2x1500.
The 1500MW version was only built at Ignalina NPP, and the Smolensk 4 was never finished.
Maybe that was an expectation of what they wanted to build?
Exactly. This is a fragment of a 1977 promotion brochure (translated, though)
I'm surprised how large the scale of Chornobyl was. I knew it was a large project, but hearing the numbers behind it makes it seem absolutely insane
You did not see our Zaporizhya NPP...
@@ChernobylFamily Searching that on your channel didn't give any results, so I don't know what you mean by that
Just check Wikipedia. I mean it is much bigger than Chornobyl.
Great video! Have you done a video about all of the controls at the reactor? Particularly many of the complex controls in RBMK reactors?
We'd love to do it but this would be much better to do in actual control room. For now it is a big problem to get there; I believe we might draw all the control room and explain this way, but it will take a lot of time.
From my understanding Chernobyl was unstable at low power levels, mainly because it was designed specifically for being able to do power generation, or plutonium production, the last was why it was so big.
When you produce plutonium you dont want water moderation as it eats up a lot of neutrons thus producing less plutonium, downside it has a positive void coefficient. It was designed to operate on natural uranium or nearly no enrichment in its fuel (another plus side if you want to produce plutonium) but necessitates that the core is huge due to a lack of U-235 in the core.
It was not designed for plutonium production, because Soviets had specialized reactors for that which were far more effective. Another thing however, it was an evolution of a military reactor (basically, a Chicago pile).
Exatly that video I have been waiting for a very long time
Glad you liked!
once again a very informative video, thank you.
Glad you liked it!
Can you tell something about the iconic chimneys of the Rbmk's in future? Why were the chimneys of the ignalina npp different?
O, that is an interesting subject. And in the scope of the Chornobyl NPP rather creepy.
Great video as usual!
Thanks again!
Best demonstration I've seen. So was the reactor itself submerged under water, or is it essentially a dry shell and each pump just pumps through a fuel rod and goes out at the top?
It is a dry shell where each technological channel acts as a sealed environment. Moreover, because of this it was considered that a channel will act as an individual containment for localization of any problems.
Even though they are much more dangerous than many other reactors, i still like their design, aesthetically.
Yes. And by memories of my fellow engineers, in operation this looked very impressive. The reactor made a low rumbling noise when it was running. Moving the reloading machine looked absolutely incredible as well.
Ah yes, aesthetics, the most important part of nuclear reactor design
RBMK is a really elegant and efficient design, if the safety could be improved it would be perfect.
It actually was improved. Though more efficient machines appeared by then, so it was discontinued.
Excellent video 👍 thank you
Glad you liked!
Very well explained, amazing video!
Thank you!
Great video! I was impressed by the color diagrams of the reactor, how can I get them?
Thank you! Here are links to all bonus content: www.patreon.com/posts/chornobyl-pt-4-114369152
Another wonderful video 💛💛💙💙
Thank you!
Great explanation very detailed especially respectively to the short duration of the video, just one note not on the reactor itsel but about general turbine workings, probably it's mostly because of a not ideal phrasing but it would be better to make more clear that the water vapour condenses after the turbines as having more than 5% water condensate inside a turbine would destroy and corrode the blades way too fast
Thank you. You are right.
There were those then that worked within the Soviet agency that oversaw the power stations that felt the RBMK design was something that should've been scrapped early in its development!
The machine itself is not that bad - after all many are still working with no problems, and many countries in early period researched graphite-moderated reactors. Just... modifications came too late.
Excellent video! Since the RBMK reactor runs at a relatively low temperature, I wonder how its operators would deal with the twin problems of radiation-induced dimensional change in the graphite moderator, and accumulation of Wigner energy, especially for the cooler bricks in peripheral parts of the core.
This looks suspiciously organic... Almost kaiju-like
!
RMBKs even have hairs....
Always magnificent Alex. Thank you so much for all the effort you put into your research and presentation, it really is most impressive. Love to you all there and, please God, peace soon.
Thank you!
What a great presentation. Thank you so much! I had no idea the Soviets were marketing the RBMK internationally - that's wild. Now one might say what one will about incidents in the west but I can't imagine US nuclear engineers being anything other than appalled at the shortcomings in the RBMK implementation (note not _design_ but rather implementation).
I do have a question about the design of the plant itself if you can lend any insight? I've seen drawings, cutaway images and so on, that indicate structures in the facility called "Shelter Rooms". Do you know what I'm referring to, and what they're for? Shelter from what? Rooms where plant employees could safely ride out a disaster?
Thank you as always for your great and informative channel.
I believe it refers to the Object Shelter - the actual _official_ name of the Sarcophagus.
@@ChernobylFamily Thank you. Yeah that would make sense.
Thanks for the video. Very interesting.
Do you know if VVER the successor of RBMK?
Those are completely parallel technologies.
The most uncharitable take I've ever heard about the Chornobyl RBMK's was that they were nothing more than scaled up proof of concepts.
In fears of second chernobyl, reactors of same/similar model at Ignalina in my country was shutdown in early 2000's. I believe us joining the EU around same time also played a role in that.
@1sonyzz i'd take it as a pure hysterical incompetence where politicians take over the engineers. RBMK after modernization are quite safe. Chernobyl Unit 3 could operate up to 2015, and its shutdown was a big problem for Ukraine, and we have a good selection of news articles of 1990-1997 regarding this... pure paranoia.
great video
Thank you!
I think everything looks okay in the reactor, but having no upper containment chamber and having no fail-safe configuration in the computer control was deadly.
There was a configuration in the computer, and there were no problems with that; one of the problems was that there was an unknown behavior of the machine during an emergency due to the design of control rods.
The RBMK was orginally used by the military to make Plutonium, where the dangerous positive power coefficient (reactor runaway) never occurred because they never used up all of the fuel. When the difficulty of making VVER reactor began to stunt the Soviet civilian nuclear power program in the 1960’s, Anatoly Alexandrov signed off on RBMK use instead. The large crane was a real advantage in making weapons grade Plutonium without having to shut down the reactor for the military, and civilian power stations found it useful too, but it stopped a secondary shield being installed around the building (a technically impossible size at the time). As such military RBMK reactors where all located in Siberia, it had never come up before as a problem.
Thank you.
You're welcome!
At 08:40
What you call cylinders are in fact called STAGES or TURBINE WHEELS.
Interesting video. I used to visit the same type of reactor in northern Lithuania. They are now closed.
I am using the terminology used in the technical description, but thank you.
@@ChernobylFamily Then the technical description is clearly wrong.
It looks like they are writing about a steam engine with pistons moving in cylinders.
They often have several cylinders for high, medium, and low-pressure steam.
The high-pressure cylinder is the smallest, and the low-pressure is the biggest.
In a steam TURBINE, the high-pressure turbine wheel is the smaller one. The low-pressure wheel is the biggest.
...and? This is what is written. Bigger are for low pressure, and the smaller is for high.
@@ChernobylFamily That is correct. It is just the word "CYLINDERS" that is incorrect. They are turbine wheels or turbine stages.
But it's an interesting video!
I visited the Ignalina Nuclear Power plant in Lithuania...
Very informative
Thank you!
Very interesting!
Thank you!
this is soo useful
Thank you! More to come!
I believe the intention of the RBMK design was to have a dual-use reactor that would both produce power and also weapons grade materials for the Soviet arsenal…
It is indeed an evolution of a chicago-pile like military installation, though in tlcase of RBMK,it was purely for energy generation (ok, they also enriched silicon at ChNPP). For Pu, there were dedicated machines, far more effective.
RBMK was not great, not terrible. Most important is that RBMK reactors do not explode.
I am surprised at how extensive the primary cooling loop was. Eight pumps, massive steam separators, hundreds or thousands of pipes operating at 60bar and 280*C conveying pressurized water full of dangerous fission products. How was the pressure seal maintained when a rod had to be moved/replaced? I would imagine the reactor power had to be reduced for days prior for the rod to "calm down" enough that it could be lifted out with no or limited cooling.
The machine made an equalization after the scaphander was connected to the chosen channel.
Yes, probably if not tshernobyl, the story would be indeed different - f.e. 3600MW unit would rupture during routine test 5 years later polluting entire continent.
Also Tshernobyl cannot work without Mayak. Perhaps it would be interesting to make a video about RBMK waste, where it goes and why no other country ever bothering into RBMK again.
Also note RBMK is up scaled Hanford reactor N. It had known problems, it is interesting to study those.
Could anyone please tell me the title of the book you showed in the video. Are the beautiful illustrations from there?
Thank you! Those images partly came from an album which actually belonged to Anatoly Dyatlov (see the public-accessible guide to bonus reading: www.patreon.com/posts/chornobyl-pt-4-114369152), and partly from an earlier 1977 album by NIKIET promoting this reactor. Both had a set of transparent pages with prints on films picturing the schemes. Scanning those was a task worth a short tragicomedy movie :) Too bad all that was partly deteriorated and given that printing back then was not as good as now, we needed a lot of time to clear and redraw elements and align them together as it was planned. But when cleared, it looks much better than a physical thing.
That album pictured in the video contains only photos.
Lets build reactor inside a tent - it will be fine comrade
Da
😂😂😂😂😂 тупица, даже не в курсе для чего строились эти реакторы, и почему произошел Чернобыль.
Tell us more. willywonka.jpg
Well the others did in fact function properly...
Thank you this episode is also excellent you are a genius 🇺🇦🛸
We are just a couple with a fluffy cat who for many many years work in the Zone :)
Nice.
Thank you!