福島第一 Fukushima Unit 3 Report - Steam-Explosion Model

[Tekknorg]

TEPCO covers up all reactor fuel location by showing us weekly / daily spent fuel pool videos. They found zirconium from the cladding already in march / april 2011 outside of the plant. So, fuel was blown out.

[iamgoddard]

@Tekknorg, the scenario you propose seems to rest on accepting the premise: "They found zirconium from the cladding already in march / april 2011 outside of the plant." But how do you know that is true?

Even if it is true, it's possible that that the explosive projection that blasted out the south side of Unit 3 took out the SFP3 gate and with it some contents like fuel assemblies. But I'm skeptical and I don't know that your premise that Zr-cladding was found outside is accurate.

[GoddardsJournal]

@Tekknorg, seems that the Japanese paper The Yomiuri Shimbun reported back in March that Zirconium 95 was detected in water at an outlet that empties into the sea. The expert opinion reported was that the Zr-95 detection indicated fuel rods were melting in a spent-fuel pool.

That finding of Zr in water would not be suggestive of a direct ejection of core fuel. Is there another case of finding Zr cladding?

[Tekknorg]

if the fuel was melting, but NOT melting DOWN, then the fuel was evaporated and left the containment. maybe the reason why they couldn't find any reactor fuel in Number 2. the control rods melted. they are made out of cadmium-silver-indium. here is the melting point for the reactor fuel: 2800°C. and here are the melting points for the control rods: cadmium: 321.07 °C silver: 961.78 °C indium: 156.59 °C we have not seen the control rods through the grid in TEPCO's reactor 2 video.

[Tekknorg]

but they should have been there. And we have not seen the fuel, because it is no longer there. to cover this up, they show us daily some spent fuel videos and call us panic makers. Hypothetically, how could vaporized UO² reactor fuel leave the containment: Via Steam nozzle flow restrictor? Shutdown cooling outlet? Head vent?

[Tekknorg]

Some basics for all readers: UO² melts at 2800+°C . Hydrogen and oxygen no longer explode at such temperatures. Steam explosion: Impossible. Steam ionizes at such temperatures. It was a nuclear explosion of the reactor type and fuel was blown out from the containment. TEPCO's latest video shows an undamaged grid (which is below the core) in reactor 2. Some fuel melted, bust most was blown out. Bye.

[iamgoddard]

@Tekknorg, nonsense! And how about citing a scientific source that says steam explosions are "impossible" during a meltdown. Or did you just make that up? In contrast, I've cited research in my report linked above that concludes an ex-vessel steam explosion is a serious risk during a meltdown.

Moreover, the Borax-reactor test explosion

watch?v=yUhVGH-WHKk#t=4m00s

was a steam explosion caused by a nuclear criticality. So a steam explosion does not exclude a nuclear-energy release.

[Tekknorg]

@iamgoddard you know nothing about anything nuclear, I assume, nor about chemical things. UO² melting point 2865°C. Hydrogen and oxygen no longer explode at 2100°C. Steam ionizes into hydrogen and oxygen at such temperatures. And both do not explode. You delivered nothing than and empty box and "nonsense". This is backed up by: Prof. Jay Gould, USA, Robert Hesketh and Don Arnott. Search for it. Byebye.

[iamgoddard]

@Tekknorg, your strange opinion on steam explosions is at odds with the literature, such as that I cite in my report above and that you've been made aware of:

"The steam explosion caused by the contact of molten core and coolant [water] is recognized as one of the potential threats to the integrity of the containment vessel during a severe accident of light water reactors ."

Google: Evaluation of Containment Failure Probability by Ex-Vessel Steam Explosion in Japanese LWR Plants.

[GoddardsJournal]

@Tekknorg, yes, UO2 melts at 2865°C, which is 3140 K. However, according to Song et al: "corium has a very high melting temperature of about 2900 K." [*]

To study steam-explosion risk during meltdowns, Song et al. modeled meltdowns and reported: "About 4-9 kg of corium melt jet is delivered into a sub-cooled water pool at atmospheric pressure. Spontaneous steam explosions are observed in four tests among six tests."

Google: Fuel coolant interaction experiments in TROI using a UO2/ZrO2 mixture

[GoddardsJournal]

Song et al. (not free online) is described in Min et al. (free online), which describes the Song experiment: "a liquid jet stream of molten corium at about 3000 K was discharged from the exit of the crucible into a pool of water at room temperature. [...] It can lead to either an energetic steam explosion or non-energetic reaction." [*]

Fact: corium-induced steam explosions are considered possible.

[*] Goggle: A physical and chemical analysis of fast quenched particles of UO2 and ZrO2 mixture

[HOTDotaku]

I doubt its from the shared stack from 3 on unit 4 , because the photos show pipe detached from 3 so it was no longer shared. Also theres a huge amount of FOIA documents coming out on Enformable you might like to see , sheds a lot of light on who knew what when , and lots of extra info that wasnt known before . that reactor 4 pool was on fire is sure .

[iamgoddard]

@HOTDotaku, but Unit 3's stack-vent most likely broke during its explosion. And there's visible evidence that it vented hydrogen as U3 exploded.

A white wisp is visible ejecting from the U3 stack here

watch?v=l3CJLNJpUVo#t=1m23s

during the U3 explosion. On the timer I added to the video, from 2:00 to 2:20 you can see a vaporous ejection from the U3 stack. This matches other known ventings, except with more force. So the vents probably had hydrogen blast through, then broke.

[HOTDotaku]

@iamgoddard wait. back up a second, two different things here, I agree , that the vent blew of in unit 3 explosion, thats why i find it difficult to believe that the explosion at U4 was related to Hydrogen in a shared stack with U3. U3 was a day before U4 explosion , vent was off U3 for a day , stack was open at top .Hydrogen , lighter than air , would have gone up the stack , theres no way it came from U3 after U3 blew up , thats the point of U4 not sounding right on the official story.

[iamgoddard]

@HOTDotaku, I don't see two different things here, I described one continuous event. As pointed to, hydrogen ejects from the shared stack as U3 explodes. That's all that's needed to happen (presuming that there's also the possibility of venting at that same instant backwards along U4's vent into U4). That makes the vent brake that must have followed irrelevant.

That that happened the day before U4 exploded is irrelevant as hydrogen explodes randomly. Pool 4 would also add hydrogen.

[iamgoddard]

@HOTDotaku, also, seems you're saying once H was injected into U4, it would have flowed back out. But I doubt that. Tepco would initiate deliberate ventings. It's not like air inside a unit just casually flows out the stacks. The whisp we see ejected with the U3 explosion was ejected only due to explosive force as opposed to intentional activation of venting.

The path to refuting Tepco's U4 theory seems to be proving gas could not flow backward into U4. That's claimed to be possible.

[iamgoddard]

cont ... so I'm addressing your two points, noting

(1) The broken U3 vent is irrelevant because we can see H vented inherently before the vent broke, and that's when some H could have been injected into U4 (if the backward venting into U4 is possible as is claimed).

(2) If such H injection occurred a day before U4 exploded, that's also irrelevant because H can explode spontaneously at any time. There's no requirement that a suitable mixture of H and O explode in any time frame.

[HOTDotaku]

Hi Ian , have you thought much about reactor 4 and how it exploded ? Ive gone round and round on Reactor 3 and this is a very plausible explanation . There are certain problems with reactor 4 exploding thru the vents from reactor 3 a day after this event in the official explanation .There is some talk of a large basement explosion going up thru 4 . Last thing , have you seen or heard anything about the nature of how tritium explodes, like in the atomic bomb as a secondary ?

[iamgoddard]

@HOTDotaku, indeed, Unit-4 explosion is a real mystery. It gets so little attention probably because we don't have good imagery of it.

The theory that U4 exploded due to hydrogen-gas injection from Unit 3's explosion via their shared stack has some attractive features. For example, the vents open into the lower floor, and the U4 explosion was uniquely lower than the other two. The delay isn't necessarily a problem as hydrogen explodes randomly. But the U4 fuel pool was probably also involved.

[intrptr]

All power to you man. This is precisely what I thought happened to the #3 reactor. Especially when reviewed in light of the 3 explosive sounds and rending noises that were heard. Good work.

Not a "nuke", just a verrrrry dirrrrty core steam boiler burst shot out the top of the "upside down" light bulb containment vessel like a mortar.

[getincarihavecandy]

Is this simulation you created is correct we are in big trouble.  It means the fuel which was inside of the reactor was thrown out of it into the atmosphere just like chernobyl.

[cbuchner1]

Your explanation seems more probable to me than Arnie Gundersen's theory of prompt criticality insidethe spent fuel pool - in particular in light of more recent admission by Tepco and others that it was indeed a full meltdown in three reactors.

You are posting good research here and this deserves a lot of viewers.

[GoddardsJournal]

@cbuchner1, thanks! I hope to eventually post a proper video on this theoretical model. This video was just a pointer to my written report.

[NuclearNotSafe]

You and others like Chris Busby should be on the mass media instead of all that talking heads that are payed by the nuclear industry.

[Squirrelcaster]

Good stuff Ian, been waiting for this from yourself for some time, beats all the 'stuff' I have to filter through on here. When it comes to these things, I like to look towards Arnie G and your good self for some scientific based facts, or at least conclusions.

[GoddardsJournal]

@Squirrelcaster, thanks Bruce!!

An attractive feature of a steam explosion is that its likelihood is well-founded in the literature. Even before I developed the data-fitting model above I found this to be a problem for the exploding-fuel-pool theory I'd considered. The possibility of that has no grounding, even theoretical, in the scientific literature. Only zirconium-cladding fires in fuel pools have a grounding, but there seems no reason to assume even such burning fuel would explode.

[GoddardsJournal]

@churchmn, and thank you! : )

[MrChinasyndrome]

Great work.

[ichicax4]

i have been under the impression for quite some time the the RPV was EMPTY at the time...isnt that what TEPCO said early on?

[GoddardsJournal]

@ichicax4, no, Tepco didn't say the Reactor Pressure Vessel was empty when Unit 3 exploded.

[hurchel]

Welcome aboard, hang on it is going to be a bumpy ride. Hugs G

[timwecycle]

many thanks to you and your efforts...your videos are informative, precise and direct to the point....now if more people were like you and told us the truth.....

[GoddardsJournal]

@timwecycle, thank you so much! That's so kind to say! I really try my hardest to acheive those goals! I've spent so much time researching this topic I've not had time to actually create a video of the model shown here. So, because some big life-demands are encroaching, I opted for a written report that's less time consuming than a proper video. But I hope to produce a video on this in the not too distant future.

[redbuttonstudio]

is that the one, where 3 bangs were heard?

[GoddardsJournal]

@redbuttonstudio, well, it's the one where someone added three sounds to a video of the explosion. Those noises that some people seem to think sound like explosions (but they don't to me) I'm sure are not genuine records of the event.

[redbuttonstudio]

@GoddardsJournal hmm could be added,but i did watch the clips immediately after they came out & the bangs were there already.The time difference from the explosion occurring and the sound becoming audible is also about right. Is there maybe a clip with sound of the first explosion for reference?Also, maybe the seismograph activity of the area in that moment could confirm the number of bangs... i listened to a lot of sounds in my life... i never really heard nothing sounding like that. scary!

[GoddardsJournal]

@redbuttonstudio, actually the timing proves that the sound effects are fake : watch?v=P6-BEOWKpAU

The camera position was 5 to 6 miles away (I mapped the exact spot on Google Earth here: watch?v=DGnKN7NzYik#t=0m26s ) but the fake bangs start before the explosions. Sound travels approx 1 mile in 5 secs, so any explosion sound should arrive at the camera 25 seconds after the explosion starts, not before or right near it. The clip with 'bangs' shows the explosion come & go and is only 20 sec.

[redbuttonstudio]

@GoddardsJournal Yes, I agree with you. It actually never crossed my mind the sound not being real, so I checked again all i could find about it & it appears that original video was taken from much greater distance & without the sound. I couldn't find seismograph reading. There are ways the sound could travel at this distance faster. sound travels faster through the ground & camera could pick that up, another way - auto zoom for the sound on the camera, but i don't think these are the case here)

[redbuttonstudio]

good work!

[GoddardsJournal]

@redbuttonstudio, thanks! :)