Remote Repair and Modification of the HRE-2 Core Vessel

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  • Опубликовано: 19 окт 2024

Комментарии • 91

  • @laminat0996
    @laminat0996 Год назад +81

    Reminds of a joke about gynecologist becoming car mechanic and repairing the engine through the exhaust pipe

  • @IITDh
    @IITDh Год назад +30

    This repair job is truly a multidisciplinary work! People form mechanical engineering, nuclear, chemical and material science disciplines work together and fix the reactor.

    • @FreejackVesa
      @FreejackVesa Год назад +2

      That's the promise and the problem of nuclear reactors. With proper training and procedure they are pretty safe. Even with the accidents that have occurred, compared to the number in service and the time in service, it's incredibly safe. But at the same time it's not just something anyone can run. I think a coal plant could probably be figured out fairly easily, but with a nuclear reactor if anything is off it's a major and expensive repair job. I'm still pro nuclear by a long shot though

  • @obsidianjane4413
    @obsidianjane4413 Год назад +33

    Wow. Its amazing what they could accomplish with '50s technology when cost was literally no object.

    • @railgap
      @railgap Год назад

      The idea there was no budget would have caused strained laughter among the people who actually worked on such projects.
      You literally have no idea what you are talking about.
      You literally should read a literal book, because I'm literally not sure how literate you are.

    • @Ganiscol
      @Ganiscol Год назад +2

      "Piling up on the national debt since 1954 - It's the American way, it's the only way!"

    • @naughtiusmaximus830
      @naughtiusmaximus830 Год назад +1

      Cost was no object for the F-35 and it sucks.

    • @supersst838
      @supersst838 Год назад +1

      @@naughtiusmaximus830 thats not 50's tech either

    • @That_Birdy
      @That_Birdy Год назад +4

      ​@@naughtiusmaximus830 f35 is great

  • @douro20
    @douro20 Год назад +22

    There are still aqueous homogeneous reactors in operation. One of the most prominent of these in current use is the ARGUS reactor at the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow which is currently used to produce medical radioisotopes. The isotopes themselves are extracted chemically from the fuel solution and have been found by Belgian scientists to be of extremely high radiochemical purity, exceeding established radiopharmaceutical standards by 2-4 orders of magnitude.
    Currently operating reactors of this design often employ nitrate based fuel rather than sulfates due to the lower risk of corrosion.

  • @hellraizer322
    @hellraizer322 Год назад +5

    I am simply amazed by the ingenuity and engineering prowess of the workers who repaired the HRE-2 core vessel. The conditions they were working in were incredibly hazardous, with radiation levels that were off the charts. Yet they were able to develop and use specialized tools and equipment to diagnose and repair the holes in the vessel remotely.
    This video is a testament to the incredible skills and dedication of these workers. It is also a reminder of the important role that nuclear technology can play in our society.

  • @Dodgevair
    @Dodgevair Год назад +13

    My dad installed the trigga reactor on the Univ of Texas campus back in the '60s. I remember swimming in what would become the containment vessal....water was cold...lol

    • @hooviedoovie5220
      @hooviedoovie5220 Год назад +2

      Yeah you didn't do that. No fucking way.

    • @railgap
      @railgap Год назад

      Liar.

    • @bower31
      @bower31 Год назад

      @@hooviedoovie5220 Literally see no reason not

    • @Ganiscol
      @Ganiscol Год назад +5

      @@hooviedoovie5220 1960's at some U-campus? Of course that is plausible. It probably was a pool party with all the kids and a BBQ.

    • @AustralLabs
      @AustralLabs Год назад

      So the austinites lived years with this soft contraption downtown?

  • @dustrider5274
    @dustrider5274 Год назад +7

    Makes me thankful for today's bore scopes.

  • @65gtotrips
    @65gtotrips Год назад +3

    This is some crazy cool engineering !
    -> I’ll never use another drywall toggle bolt without thinking of this video. 😊

    • @erg0centric
      @erg0centric Год назад

      There is nothing a toggle bolt cannot fix.

  • @michalrzmichalrz6656
    @michalrzmichalrz6656 Год назад +2

    Absolutely amazing. The patience!

    • @FreejackVesa
      @FreejackVesa Год назад +1

      Sure the patience but also ignoring it (or at least letting it happen with foreknowledge) for two years! I guess they had their reasons, but a containment failure is a big problem engineering as it brings into question the stability of the entire vessel.

    • @michalrzmichalrz6656
      @michalrzmichalrz6656 Год назад

      @@FreejackVesa Yeah, IIRC they mentioned 100 000 Roentgens per hour in the inactive vessel. Massive...

  • @JamieSteam
    @JamieSteam Год назад +34

    The fuel is an acid, at 300°c, at 2000 psi, undergoing fission at 5 million watts! Truly a hostile environment.

    • @curtwuollet2912
      @curtwuollet2912 Год назад +9

      What could go wrong?

    • @Ganiscol
      @Ganiscol Год назад +3

      @@curtwuollet2912 you would never know, they'd make sure of that! 😅

    • @AustralLabs
      @AustralLabs Год назад +2

      Safety was not a concern

    • @naughtiusmaximus830
      @naughtiusmaximus830 Год назад +4

      @@curtwuollet2912I know! Replace the coolant with highly reactive sodium metal!

    • @Sm0rezDev
      @Sm0rezDev Год назад +2

      so that's where the fiction nuclear waste barrels come from as its liquid..

  • @heintmeyer2296
    @heintmeyer2296 Год назад +7

    "Thus, the practicality of extremely difficult and totally unanticipated maintenance of circulating fuel reactors was demonstrated" Now that is how you finish a report asking for more funding for a project that has been a total catastrophe!

    • @philipnasadowski1060
      @philipnasadowski1060 6 месяцев назад

      Meanwhile, GE, Westinghouse, Combustion Engineering, and Bacock and Wilcox were filling their order books with light water plants. This turd went nowhere, but sucked up research dollars for....something. The Westinghouse 4 loop reactor went on the be the gold standard in the industry, while this thing went on to be a footnote in history.

  • @oculusangelicus8978
    @oculusangelicus8978 Год назад +2

    Talk about Bleeding edge technology! I had no idea that ultrasound transducers existed back in the 1950s, that must have been brand new technology back then and the cost of such tech would have been prohibitive for all but the nuclear power industry, or such as it was back then. This set up must have been used in the development of weapons grade plutonium or at least an integral part of it. I wonder how ling this reactor remained operational after its repair? I doubt that it would have lasted very much longer and would have been shut down and buried , since taking it out would have been a bad thing. This is why these experimental reactors were located next to hell's breakfast out in the middle of nowhere. Several of those experimental reactors suffered accidents that made them useless and were shut down, and the radioactive material from the reactor meltdown was buried out behind the building and then sectioned off to prevent people from ever accessing the land ever again.

  • @hmbpnz
    @hmbpnz Год назад +1

    I am a new subscriber to your channel and find the amazing films that you are posting to be extremely fascinating. THANK YOU!

  • @rarbiart
    @rarbiart Год назад +4

    any second i expected the narrator to reveal facts about the new turbo encabulator and it's six hydrocoptic marzlevanes.

  • @juslitor
    @juslitor Год назад +2

    very ingenious instruments invented for inspection and repair. Although one must wonder why they were so happy go lucky in their approach to the whole project,, planning for worst case contingencies are a must these days.

  • @jeremyindenver
    @jeremyindenver Год назад

    Wow, what a great video!

  • @hmbpnz
    @hmbpnz Год назад +3

    Absolutely fascinating....the madness I fear while they're building this stuff and I say to myself: "That's going to get extremely radioactive. How are you going to fix that pump if it fails?" Then I watch this and they have to patch holes in the core vessel itself....truly an amazing time, even though it all seems desperately futile right now. Maybe it's almost time for a second nuclear renaissance...?

  • @MitzvosGolem1
    @MitzvosGolem1 Год назад +1

    Awesome 👍

  • @jimsvideos7201
    @jimsvideos7201 Год назад +3

    I wonder what they considered an acceptable dose back then.

  • @69dblcab
    @69dblcab Год назад

    Thank You.

  • @NotSure416
    @NotSure416 Год назад +4

    16:30 "Specimen removal tool". Yeah, that's a hole saw. lol

  • @FreejackVesa
    @FreejackVesa Год назад +3

    I love well designed single use highly specific equipment and instrumentation. I wonder where the periscope and light system is today? Maybe in some ware house? Melted down?
    And some of that analog lab equipment looks entirely custom, I couldn't identify them. The one used for determining the thickness of the vessel wall looked particularly interesting.

    • @whatisnuclear
      @whatisnuclear  Год назад +1

      I also love those tools. I'm sure they're all buried in low-level radioactive waste landfills now.

    • @FreejackVesa
      @FreejackVesa Год назад

      @@whatisnuclear you're right - I finished watching the video after my comment and they said that all the tools were radioactive and had to be destroyed/disposed of accordingly. Such a shame, but understandable, I would have loved to take a look at them if it were possible.

  • @irishtino1595
    @irishtino1595 Год назад +1

    The last bit, the restart date of the reactor November 7th, 1960 - day I was born. Jezuz I'm old.

  • @killman369547
    @killman369547 Год назад +2

    I wonder how the reactor performed with the modifications.

  • @marvintpandroid2213
    @marvintpandroid2213 Год назад +6

    " we found a hole and continued to use it "😱

    • @FreejackVesa
      @FreejackVesa Год назад

      Yeah, I was rather surprised at that. Overall nuclear is pretty safe as long as you handle the waste correctly and it doesn't go critical out of control. Still, a compromised vessel to an engineer is a huge red flag and I'd think they'd stop using it.

    • @marvintpandroid2213
      @marvintpandroid2213 Год назад

      @@FreejackVesa It was a simpler time.

    • @FreejackVesa
      @FreejackVesa Год назад

      @@marvintpandroid2213 Pepperidge Farms remembers the hole in our containment vessel

  • @Yaivenov
    @Yaivenov Год назад +5

    100,000 Röntgen/hour on the inside. When shut down. 😮

    • @killman369547
      @killman369547 Год назад +2

      I know right. If that's how much radiation was in there after being shut down for a few days i can only imagine the radiation level when it was running.

  • @LuciFeric137
    @LuciFeric137 Год назад

    Amazing. Id never heard of this reactor. It reminds me of Zubrins uranium salt water rocket design. Theoretically capable of .04 C

  • @phenohunter2504
    @phenohunter2504 Год назад +1

    Urinal sulfate? Very clever siphoning what's needed off of urinals

  • @jfbeam
    @jfbeam Год назад +2

    Today, we'd fill it with cement and build another one.

  • @vapormissile
    @vapormissile Год назад

    Scotty, while Spock is getting cooked: "the ray. ... diation."

  • @Mikeb8134
    @Mikeb8134 Год назад +1

    nice

  • @davidm2645
    @davidm2645 Год назад

    Interesting that they dubbed in music. What was the reason for music?

  • @rtqii
    @rtqii 4 месяца назад

    1:40 - A heavy water solution of uranyl sulfate, copper sulfate, and sulfuric acid on the low pressure side. I bet you that solution is completely non-corrosive. I wonder how it would be possible to eat through metal?

  • @MichaelVLang
    @MichaelVLang Год назад

    What about the turboencabulator?

  • @Tore_Lund
    @Tore_Lund Год назад +5

    A technical overview engineering video about a nuclear test reactor, with music from Tom & Jerry! So YT professional engineering videos nowadays with ridiculous background music, is not something new?

    • @Peter_S_
      @Peter_S_ Год назад +4

      This is what today's videos are copying. The 1950s and 1960s were full of 'filler music'.

  • @sim-sam
    @sim-sam Год назад

    oh yeah, very, very safe thourgh and through...

  • @danillo.eu.rodrigues
    @danillo.eu.rodrigues Год назад

    I was wondering what the Holy Roman Empire had to do with a nuclear energy channel and core vessels

  • @Awesomes007
    @Awesomes007 Год назад +2

    Holy sh*t. I would have just thrown the whole nuclear facility in the river and built a new one.

    • @killman369547
      @killman369547 Год назад +1

      And contaminated an entire river? Well to be fair the Russians did it too so you wouldn't be the first.

    • @Awesomes007
      @Awesomes007 Месяц назад

      You then gotta hurl the river into the sun.

  • @maxasaurus3008
    @maxasaurus3008 Год назад +1

    🤯

  • @chrisingle5839
    @chrisingle5839 Год назад +2

    America today would simply give up. No one smart enough to do it anymore.

    • @petevenuti7355
      @petevenuti7355 Год назад +1

      I wouldn't say that, there's always a few..
      Nowadays good luck finding one who would want to work even if paid well .. or anyone willing to even pay a fair wage.
      Went from a $20 a week mortgage on a $5000 house, same house today almost $1000 a week on a $500000 house , but wages only went from $50 to $400
      Cost of rent went from like 30% of salary to 130%
      how is anyone supposed to do anything?

  • @Ed-ty1kr
    @Ed-ty1kr Месяц назад

    🥸 So skipping a step by running the trans uranic caustic acid mixtures directly in the reactor, caused a melt down after all. Oh well, back to producing weapons grade materials the old fashioned way...
    🤓 But what about those kids in Simi valley with leukemia?
    🥸 What about them? Plausible denyability, there is a rocket engine shop down the road...

  • @erg0centric
    @erg0centric Год назад

    Beer atom fission achieved.

  • @mohinderkaur6671
    @mohinderkaur6671 Год назад +1

    Contaminated tools likely disposed off on ebay or craigs list

  • @heintmeyer2296
    @heintmeyer2296 Год назад +1

    Now that's what i call a hot mess...

  • @AustralLabs
    @AustralLabs Год назад

    Murr complex! Murr complex!

  • @thefathermind327
    @thefathermind327 Год назад

    For some unknown reason all those guys have since died of cancer....