Japan Earthquake: Nuclear Plants at Fukushima Daiichi

[ian_scotland]

Originally Posted by Astronuc
FK-I Units 1-5 are MK I containment, but FK-I Unit 6 is Mk II.
Unit 1 is a BWR/3, Units 2-5 are BWR/4 and Unit 6 is a BWR/5.

Unit 4 containment is the advanced type (this is not necessarily the case of the other BWR/4 unit in the plant, and likely not the case)

Concerning the discussion as to possible explosion paths or visible damage to unit 4... Astronuc and Fred appear to have differences of opinion as to the containment types. Until we can be certain of the plan/layout of this building is it not difficult to understand what evidence we are seeing in the photo's?

EDIT Ok, it appears that its Astronuc who is correct about unit 4 containment, from the images in this linked METI document:
http://www.meti.go.jp/press/2011/04/20110408004/20110408004-3.pdf
Thank you to both for replying

 

[artax]

Inside Fukushima Evacuation Zone

http://energheia.bambooz.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=156%3Ainside-fukushima-evacuation-zone&catid=60%3Avideo&Itemid=85&lang=it

Tetsuo Jimbo, founder of Video News Network, a TV broadcasting website, and a colleague ventured into the area on Sunday. Before setting out, Mr. Jimbo consulted a radiation expert, who advised he spend a maximum of two hours in the zone. The 49-year-old journalist stayed for two and a half. A face mask -- the kind worn to fend off hay fever -- was his only protective gear. He admits he and his colleague got "kind of scared" when a host of large dump trucks drove by and the drivers were covered in what looked like "full radiation-proof suits" and gas masks.

I have a question,... The reporter in the video gets to within a few km of the power plant, (can't tell but I think he's south of it) and the dosimeter reads 106uS/Hr. He's holding the dosimeter at chest height. Now will that be mainly gammas from wherever or airbourne particulates giving alpha and Beta? or could be a combination of both.
AND would a ground reading (putting meter on the ground) be significantly higher.

If he was told a max of two hours then two and a half then an extra half hour isn't going to make that much difference, unless that half hour was at the area of highest activity. Must say I really feel for the dogs.

 

[elektrownik]

What this mean: radiation in drywell go from 30Sv (from previous nisa report) to 100Sv in newest report ?
source: http://www.meti.go.jp/press/2011/04/20110408004/20110408004-3.pdf

 

[denislaurent]

What this mean: radiation in drywell go from 30Sv (from previous nisa report) to 100Sv in newest report ?
source: http://www.meti.go.jp/press/2011/04/20110408004/20110408004-3.pdf

Unit#1 : Temperatures and Pressures quickly increasing too.

 

[elektrownik]

It look that N2 wasnt good idea... 100Sv wow

 

[ohohohoh]

If you are referring to the 1980's US mandatory Upgrade to Mark 1 design, I was stated on numerous occasion that Hitachi did implement those update on the Fukushima plant.

What exactly has been implemented? Do you have links?

Look at page 21 at the Areva Document http://fairewinds.com/sites/default/files/AREVA%20Fukushima.pdf
There you can see venting into the containment. And you can read "Release of unfiltered venting?"

Does Dr. Matthias Braun from the French-German nuclear power firm Areva not know for sure what is in Fukushima plant or was is not there?

 

[denislaurent]

It look that N2 wasnt good idea... 100Sv wow, in Chernobyl, after explosion in reactor core was 50Sv...

Nitrogen or earthquake ?

Temperature & Activity trend inversion looks simultaneous to N2 injection, which started 24 hours before the quake. (April 07 01h31 JST from Tepco)

100 Sv is what they had in Units #2 & #3 drywells on 15/18 March, now 3 weeks ago.

 

[NUCENG]

If you are referring to the 1980's US mandatory Upgrade to Mark 1 design, I was stated on numerous occasion that Hitachi did implement those update on the Fukushima plant.

One of the things I am watching is how we are getting information and how reliable sources are. Can you tell me what posts and sources contained that info? I did a search and saw some speculation both ways (including mine), but did not find a reference to official released information. Thanks.

 

[ceebs]

Nitrogen or earthquake ?

Temperature & Activity trend inversion looks simultaneous to N2 injection, which started 24 hours before the quake. (April 07 01h31 JST from Tepco)

100 Sv is what they had in Units #2 & #3 drywells on 15/18 March, now 3 weeks ago.

if you look at the last weeks readings for dry and wet wells, reactor one has been acting oddly for at least a week.

 

[htf]

Thank you for the updated estimates. ZAMG:s upper boundary is still less than the total Chernobyl emissions of the same isotopes (from the great source of Wikipedia).

Yes, I know, I haven't seen any total estimations of emission of any nuclide directly to the sea. That is one of the reasons I myself dared the task.

They also estimate the uncertainty of their simulation between 10 to 1000, depending on the location of the measured data. And their estimation is based on the emission only to the atmosphere.

You made a simple estimation of the amount of radioactivity released to the ocean by one(!) leakage. It is probably an overestimation but nevertheless it shows that we have to expect a huge amount of radioactivity released to the ground and the ocean. I don't think anybody can quantify this amount at the moment.

There was a report in the news of a simulation done by French scientists (not the Areva thing, that analysis was performed by the German division of Areva). The analysis was performed and published a few days after the accident and they reported that ~10% of Chernobyl accident has been released in the first days of the Fukushima accident.

But it could be much more in my opinion: what damage was done by the Earth quake? You wouldn't expect the leakage in the cable channel from a "normal" accident. And what about the fuel pools? There are now speculations that a part of the core has melted through the RPV. ...

I think it cannot be excluded the we already exceeded Chernobyl. The impact on the people is less severe because only a minor part was deposited to populated areas.

So there is plenty of room for speculations!

 

[MadderDoc]

Sorry, I may not be able to update my plots of Fukushima Daiichi vars until next tuesday.
(However the scripts and files are availabe at the site, if anyone cares...)
http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/EXPORT/projects/fukushima/plots/cur/

While you are away, people may use these monitor fies (pressure, waterlevel, temperature and major events):
http://www.gyldengrisgaard.dk/fukmon/

I attempt to keep these data sets updated with the most recent data from the Japanese METI site:
http://www.meti.go.jp/press/

 

[artax]

Another interesting video inside the zone, if a bit over the top at the end.

 

[|Fred]

Concerning the discussion as to possible explosion paths or visible damage to unit 4... Astronuc and Fred appear to have differences of opinion as to the containment types.

Hi, Ian

I do not believe we have different opinion , as Astroduc pointed out according to the Japanese released information Units 2-5 are based on GE MK1 BWR/4.
I have no reason do dispute this information.

having said that Unit 4 GE MK1 BWR/4 used the advanced primary containment, this information was hinted by a Japanese engineer (who's name I've currently forgot but did mentioned in a previous post) Engineer who toke part in the built of the Unit 4 (and only 4).

Furthermore when looking at the blue print that I found I can not help but notice that those blue print seems to fit better unit 1 and 3 but less so 4( no proper analysis is possible on 2). As mentioned earlier I'll gladly assume similarity until better material is provided

 

[Sirius (b)]

You are a new poster here and i understand you haven't gone over the thousands of posts. All the things you mention were discussed here a while ago and debunked basically.
Reactor 3: The big blast is not directly related to the destruction of the top parts of the reactor, there were images posted here that show it's still there, with a crane collapsed over it, and steam escaping from the connection chute between that and the SFP. Also notice that the truss structure over the containment is intact unlike over the SFP. The thermal imagery, somehow surprisingly paints a rather rosy picture, with nothing substantially warm. A lot of seemingly hot spots arise from changes in the range of the IR measurements, with debris lying around at essentially ambient temperature. There are hot spots (70degC) over the SFP and the leaking parts from the PCV but that's about it, the rest are more or less cooler than a human being (less than 36degC), if a person was there it would be glowing red.

I haven't read physicsforums during this three-week period, instead I was in a company of Russian nuclear engineers & Chernobyl liquidators, and you better take my word for it, when I say that they are still scarred by the accident of April, 1986 and wouldn't want the events that I've mentioned to have taken place.

There was steam, as well as black & grey smoke coming out directly from the RPV during the first week, much later the SFP South of it began to give off steam. The "(70degC)" figure you're quoting is from the Ministry of Defense of Japan operation with CH-47 hovering 3000 feet above the plant, facing West and taking those thermal images - their press releases contain those figures with hilarious arrows pointing who-knows-where, they might as well be pointing to a bucket full of liquid nitrogen.

First week photo Unit 3:

Second week

No water in the containment or RPV on the 2.5-3rd week inside reactor 3, SPF steaming, tho:

Fred, N-S line runs along the coast, please sort out your directions, before replying.

Unit 4 blown hole: http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/810/unit4sfp.jpg

There was a lot of insider information not available to the general public, but you can't hide contaminated soil out to 50 km for long.

Broken pieces of fuel rods have been found outside of Reactor No. 2, and are now being covered with bulldozers, he said. The pieces may be from rods in the spent-fuel pools that were flung out by hydrogen explosions. Looks like we where right about fuel rods blown out of spent fuel pools .

Those are from Unit 3.

 

[|Fred]

What exactly has been implemented? Do you have links?

One of the things I am watching is how we are getting information and how reliable sources are. Can you tell me what posts and sources contained that info?

I don't write down my sources I got those information from a page somewhere one Hitachi web site, and a concurring hint on GE web page . could not find the Hitachi page .. managed to google the GE

All of the modifications were made in accordance with regulatory requirements. In the United States, for example, the NRC issued a generic industry requirement in 1980 for the Mark I containment that the industry used to make modifications.

We understand that all of the BWR Mark I containment units at Fukushima Daiichi also addressed these issues and implemented modifications in accordance with Japanese regulatory requirements.

The modifications made to Mark I containments include:
“Quenchers” were installed to distribute the steam bubbles in order to produce rapid condensation and to reduce loads on the unit. In a reactor, exhaust steam is piped into a suppression chamber, which is known as the torus and is a large, rounded suppression pool that sits next to the reactor core. It is used to remove heat when large quantities of steam are released from the reactor. In the torus, the steam bubbles go under water. With the modification to the Mark I, the quenchers, which are also underwater, make steam bubbles smaller by breaking up the larger bubbles. This in turn reduces pressure.

Another modification is the installation of deflectors inside the torus. When that steam goes in, the water level rises. The deflectors that were added break up the pressure wave that is produced and help relieve pressure on the torus.

A further modification was made to the “saddles” on which the torus sits — basically the series of leg-like structures that support it. The con

 

[artax]

fascinating Tokaimura accident (INES level 4) which I don't remeber so can't have been highly publicised?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident

 

[|Fred]

...

Thank you, I'll pay extra attention to my directions. Now, in red the hole that you pointed at in your earlier post .
Concerning it's location it is S/N on the west part of the unit 4, and according to the photo it is on the level just bellow the operating floor and not bellow as you state, it would match the isolation condenser level that I mentioned earlier if we assume blueprint are accurate for this point on unit 4.
There is no crossing of fuel storage located (in blue) as it is located on the east part of the building
[PLAIN]http://i.min.us/ikC5W8.jpg

 

[tsutsuji]

The Japanese government and Tepco are investigating the possibility of circulating water in the containment, which they call the "water-sarcophagus" technique : http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/national/news/CK2011040802000039.html

 

[|Fred]

Ps:

No water in the containment or RPV on the 2.5-3rd week inside reactor 3, SPF steaming, tho:

I personally don't make out of rare pictures a compelling evidence for an evolution on the water in the RPV.. Considering picture were few, and not necessarily representing evolving status across the days... and I can actually prove it with the below time coded picture 27/03 where we do get vapor coming out of PCV.

 

[htf]

fascinating Tokaimura accident (INES level 4) which I don't remeber so can't have been highly publicised?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident

I do remember it. There were several reports in German news.

Here is a chronology of Japan's accidents in nuclear industry (in German only):

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/1292992/Tickende-Zeitbomben-Japans-Atomanlagen#/beitrag/video/1292992/Tickende-Zeitbomben-Japans-Atomanlagen

The Tokaimura accident is at 2:00 min. You can see how careless the workers acted - they used buckets to fill a Uranium solution into a tank - to save time they filled it with 10 times the allowed quantity.

Is using buckets to handle enriched Uranium common in nuclear industry?

 

[Sirius (b)]

Thank you, I'll pay extra attention to my directions. Now, in red the hole that you pointed at in your earlier post .
Concerning it's location it is S/N on the west part of the unit 4, and according to the photo it is on the level just bellow the operating floor and not bellow as you state, it would match the isolation condenser level that I mentioned earlier if we assume blueprint are accurate for this point on unit 4.
There is no crossing of fuel storage located (in blue) as it is located on the east part of the building
[PLAIN]http://i.min.us/ikC5W8.jpg[/QUOTE]

The pool runs the whole length and does cover the damaged area, and it just shows how much you know, or pretend to know. Thank you all for your side of the perspective, I will now return to the real world.

Artax,

There's been a documented INES Level 3 at Fukushima Dai-ni on March 11th.

 

[TCups]

I haven't read physicsforums during this three-week period, instead I was in a company of Russian nuclear engineers & Chernobyl liquidators, and you better take my word for it, when I say that they are still scarred by the accident of April, 1986 and wouldn't want the events that I've mentioned to have taken place.

There was steam, as well as black & grey smoke coming out directly from the RPV during the first week, much later the SFP South of it began to give off steam. The "(70degC)" figure you're quoting is from the Ministry of Defense of Japan operation with CH-47 hovering 3000 feet above the plant, facing West and taking those thermal images - their press releases contain those figures with hilarious arrows pointing who-knows-where, they might as well be pointing to a bucket full of liquid nitrogen.

First week photo Unit 3:

Second week

No water in the containment or RPV on the 2.5-3rd week inside reactor 3, SPF steaming, tho:

Fred, N-S line runs along the coast, please sort out your directions, before replying.

Unit 4 blown hole: http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/810/unit4sfp.jpg

There was a lot of insider information not available to the general public, but you can't hide contaminated soil out to 50 km for long.



Those are from Unit 3.

I reviewed the thermal images and the hilarious arrows you refer to -- I believe that the arrows were indicating the hot spot temperature measurements, keyed to the window width and window levels (which varied from image to image). Most were monitoring the temperatures at the surface of the spent fuel pools, as I recall.

All of the additional photos you list are at the level of the access floor to the reactor and spent fuel pools, including one that seems, very convincingly, to show not only the rails of the overhead crane, but also the large winch atop the rails, directly over the location of the top of the reactor containment vessel. That same arrangement, sort of an "H" with the two long rails running east-west and the winch machinery spanning the two rails, can be seen as a cold defect, also directly over the reactor containment vessel with some heat signatures at the periphery of what would be the reactor containment plug. The latter is consistent with steam leakage. All of that is concordant with all of the photos that have been analyzed in depth, right down to the details of the crane, the crane position, the location of the venting, steam, etc.

Further, the explosion out of spent fuel pool of unit 3 had ample energy to send rods and fragments of rods aloft. Actually, that point is not debatable, because we have the video of the explosion. The only debate is whether or not the explosion came from the SFP or vertically, out of the reactor containment. An explosion within the reactor containment is not excluded by an intact plug, but it would certainly exclude vertical ejection of damaged fuel rods from the reactor pressure vessel.

For the sake of argument, even if the rods came from the reactor pressure vessel, and even if the containment plug were blown, the the ejected rods would still have to get past the plug, the drywell cap, and the pressure vessel cap to be ejected vertically and thrown a long distance away from Bldg 3.

I have no idea whether your "inside" information is valid or not; but if it is, then we should rename Unit 3 " The Houdini Unit" because it was one helluva impressive escape that is impossible to see from any of the photos or IR images available on line, so far, and would be akin to one of Harry's great tricks, IMO.

http://www.houdinitribute.com/img/cell1.jpg

(sorry, linked the wrong photo first time)

 

[|Fred]

The pool runs the whole length, you stupid ignorant.

Assessment (that the pool did not run the whole length) was based on available literature,diagrams and photo.
If you have otherwise knowledge and new informations they are more than welcome. Having said that It would be appreciated thought if those informations could come from something a bit more conclusive and elaborate than "I know because I know an you don't".

 

[Borek]

To all: please don't post images wider than about 700-800 pixels. If you have wider images either resize them before posting, or post only links. Wide images break forum formatting and make it difficult to read the thread.

 

[TCups]

REGARDING IMAGE POSTINGS, IMAGE SIZE

Hmm. As a Mac user, I feel left out of this. I must be missing something. None of the postings I see in this thread come up with images automatically displayed -- only the link to the image. And clicking on the link opens the image sized to the window, with the capability to click and zoom.

Are any of the images or image links I am posting causing this problem? Apologies if so, but if so, it is a problem that isn't at all apparent when I am viewing the thread, so it is an easy thing to overlook. Please send me a PM if my posting are a problem. Thanks.

 

[|Fred]

Tcups when you post image you use the board hosting function , it make thumbnail and ajax pop up display.. it's fine..

The issue Borek is Referring to is inlay image using the [ img] [/ img] code

 

[WhoWee]

Broken pieces of fuel rods have been found outside of Reactor No. 2, and are now being covered with bulldozers, he said. The pieces may be from rods in the spent-fuel pools that were flung out by hydrogen explosions. Looks like we where right about fuel rods blown out of spent fuel pools .

Is there any new information available regarding the distribution pattern?

 

[Astronuc]

Broken pieces of fuel rods have been found outside of Reactor No. 2, and are now being covered with bulldozers, he said. The pieces may be from rods in the spent-fuel pools that were flung out by hydrogen explosions. Looks like we where right about fuel rods blown out of spent fuel pools .

According to whom? Please cite sources when making claims.

 

[artax]

Racer,

The height of the gas vent towers is 130 metres. There 3 are distinct pieces of debris seen emerging from the vertical dust cloud, they could be either: FHM, PCV dome, concrete DW plug, reactor lid itself. The SFP is not the cause of the explosion, there may have been hydrogen in the secondary containment (reactor room), but the trigger was the thermal explosion inside the RPV - cold water coming into contact with 3/4 melted core, which, possibly fell down to the bottom of the RPV, triggering the steam release via the most likely route - bolted top. While the torus may have been destroyed in the event, I would worry about fuel from the core and SFP of Unit 3.

Concrete was pulverised in the detonation, that is steel debris flying sky-high to 500 metres+, with the cloud reaching up-to 1 km, or more.

P.S. What pressure was reported for Unit 3 D/W, RPV prior to the explosion? The core had already melted to some percentage before then, otherwise you can't have the observed events.
Yes. Whatever was the cause of the damages seen to Unit 4 building, it blew a hole 8 metres in diameter South to North through it, around the level the fuel assemblies would be stored at.

If anyone is interested in latest thermal imagery of the plant, PM me and I'll get them sourced and uploaded.

I'm interested in the latest thermal imaging of the site, can you get hold of it?

 

[Krikkosnack]

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/216487/...ctions-on-drinking-water-in-4-fukushima-areas

Plutonium half life

* Pu-238 - 87.74 years
* Pu-239 - 24065 years
* Pu-240 - 6537 years
* Pu-241 - 14.4 years
* Pu-242 - 3.76E5 years
* Pu-243 - 4.956 hours
* Pu-244 - 8.26E7 years

Are they found different types of plutonium near fukushima ?

List of The half-life of a radioactive element
http://www.iem-inc.com/toolhalf.html