Rosatom rocket engine failure

[Snark]

Hi folks,

A gigantic amount of completely off-topic speculation about how to make a magic, physically impossible rocket that's a perpetual momentum machine has been split off into a separate thread.

The topic of this thread is the Rosatom engine explosion.  Please try to stay on topic, everyone.  Thank you for your understanding.

[lajoswinkler]

14 hours ago, KeranoKerman said:

I believe that it wasn’t an RTG power source but instead a nuclear ramjet. The flash of radiation detected looks like a nuclear reactor going supercritical and for a brief moment becoming a small nuclear bomb. The flash would have created an initial flash and then atoms hit remitting the radiation. From my knowledge (not very much) it is a lot easier for a nuclear  reactor to go critical compared to an RTG.

Nuclear reactor does not become a nuclear bomb. That just doesn't happen. It can merely heat itself up and splatter. Violently, yes, but the energy released is several orders of magnitude smaller than a nuclear detonation. Those two things simply aren't the same.

 

What's up with this "flash" thing? There has been an increase in (almost entirely sure) gamma rays for apparently half an hour. That is not flash. We're not talking about rays going around for half an hour or more. This was contamination with volatile, radioactive material.

RTG can not go critical because RTG is not a reactor. It's a lump of radioactive material that's decaying fast enough its heat power is useful.

[kerbiloid]

7 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

Nuclear reactor does not become a nuclear bomb.

A fast-neutron breeder can, iirc. But unlikely this is this case.

[kerbiloid]

The killed specialists are officially named

Alexey Vyushin, who developed special hardware and software;
Evgeny Korotaev, Leading Electronics Engineer of the Department;
Vyacheslav Lipshev, head of the research and testing group;
Sergey Pichugin, Category 1 Test Engineer;
Vladislav Yanovsky, Deputy Head of the Research and Testing Department

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=ru&sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rbc.ru%2Fpolitics%2F11%2F08%2F2019%2F5d5033e69a7947578b04d49c

[Cheif Operations Director]

30 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

The killed specialists are officially named

Alexey Vyushin, who developed special hardware and software;
Evgeny Korotaev, Leading Electronics Engineer of the Department;
Vyacheslav Lipshev, head of the research and testing group;
Sergey Pichugin, Category 1 Test Engineer;
Vladislav Yanovsky, Deputy Head of the Research and Testing Department

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=ru&sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rbc.ru%2Fpolitics%2F11%2F08%2F2019%2F5d5033e69a7947578b04d49c

Have they had their press conference yet?

[kerbiloid]

2 minutes ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

Have they had their press conference yet?

Unlikely it will happen, as what to tell?
The Nuclear Center director has named them on local TV.

[Cheif Operations Director]

2 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Unlikely it will happen, as what to tell?
The Nuclear Center director has named them on local TV.

Nothing to see here in glorious Soviet Russia! Move along press, nothing to see. 

[Nothalogh]

1 hour ago, lajoswinkler said:

What's up with this "flash" thing? There has been an increase in (almost entirely sure) gamma rays for apparently half an hour. That is not flash. We're not talking about rays going around for half an hour or more.

The power excursion of Prompt Criticality results in cherenkov radiation produced in the ambient air, for the brief duration of the power excursion, thus resulting in a flash of visible light.

[kerbiloid]

Official statement (in Russian, obviously)

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Scotius]

7 hours ago, DDE said:

They have. The last such incident was in 2004 in the village of Valentin. The RIT-90 isotope slug was thrown out, while all thermocouples and shielding were scavenged.

But was there a flash, as opposed to a "short-term increase"?

Jokes aside, alcohol does help resist extreme radiation doses. It won't prevent cancer, but it will help reduce the probability of you dropping dead on the spot. So, not RadAway, but Rad-X.

However, B-190 works better.

Huh. I always thought stalkers in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe excuse their heavy drinking habits by half-jokingly insisting booze reduces harmful effects of radiation doses. And all the time it was (at least partially) true... Today i learned something new

[kerbiloid]

You can be shocked, but leaves of fleawort or lettuce protect from all kinds of ionizing radiation and even neutrons.

Spoiler

About 3 cm thick layer of the leaves absorbs every second neutron, while 20 cm of them reduce gamma radiation two times.

 

Edited August 11, 2019 by kerbiloid

[lajoswinkler]

1 hour ago, Nothalogh said:

The power excursion of Prompt Criticality results in cherenkov radiation produced in the ambient air, for the brief duration of the power excursion, thus resulting in a flash of visible light.

You can't get Cherenkov radiation in air. Only ionized air glow.

Yes, that does happen, but Keranokerman refers to the radiation spike. It's perfectly unrelated to such power excursions and a classical case of not understanding the difference between radiation and radiological contamination.

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

A fast-neutron breeder can, iirc. But unlikely this is this case.

No, reactors simply aren't able to perform a nuclear explosion. Not PWR, not breeders, not RBMK, nothing.

If it was that simple, Manhattan project wouldn't be needed. It would be enough to just pile up lots of highly enriched uranium dioxide and watch the fireworks. But it's not how it works.

[Nothalogh]

1 minute ago, lajoswinkler said:

You can't get Cherenkov radiation in air

That seems dubious

[lajoswinkler]

Just now, Nothalogh said:

That seems dubious

It's not dubious, it's a fact. The glow is proportional to the refractive index of the medium (therefore speed of light in it) and flux.

Vacuum has n=1, air n=1.000277, water n=1.33.

By the time the Cherenkov glow in air is visible, the ionizing is already so powerful it not only makes it glow, but turns it into plasma that glows from the sheer high temperature.

[kerbiloid]

11 minutes ago, Nothalogh said:

14 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

You can't get Cherenkov radiation in air

That seems dubious

Why? Air is almost a vacuum, lightspeed doesn't differ a lot.
Cherenkov's appears when a particle is moving through a medium faster than its local lightspeed.
(Oops, ninja'd, but let it be.)

P.S.
A bottle diameter is ~7 cm. So, alcohol decreases a neutron flow two times, if hold it in front of you.
Also it can produce Cherenkov's radiation (as it's mostly water), so you can use it as an indicator. If a bottle glows blue, it's dangerous.

Edited August 11, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Scotius]

5 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Why? Air is almost a vacuum, lightspeed doesn't differ a lot.
Cherenkov's appears when a particle is moving through a medium faster than its local lightspeed.
(Oops, ninja'd, but let it be.)

P.S.
A bottle diameter is ~7 cm. So, alcohol decreases a neutron flow two times, if hold it in front of you.
Also it can produce Cherenkov's radiation (as it's mostly water), so you can use it as an indicator. If a bottle glows blue, it's dangerous.

Everybody!!! RUUUUUUUNNNNNN!!!

[Cheif Operations Director]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Official statement (in Russian, obviously)

  Hide contents

 

 

 

@DDE or @NiL

 

Can you translate?

[sh1pman]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Official statement (in Russian, obviously)

They didn’t give a lot of useful information. Looks like the radiation background increased two-fold for 2 hours, then returned back to normal. It also looks like it was an explosion of a radioisotope power source. Test engineers were trying to fight the problem till the very end, but didn’t make it.

[kerbiloid]

7 minutes ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

Can you translate?

Condolences.

1 minute ago, sh1pman said:

trying to fight the problem till the very end

A standard condolence phrase.

[Cheif Operations Director]

1 minute ago, kerbiloid said:

Condolences.

What?

3 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

They didn’t give a lot of useful information. Looks like the radiation background increased two-fold for 2 hours, then returned back to normal. It also looks like it was an explosion of a radioisotope power source. Test engineers were trying to fight the problem till the very end, but didn’t make it.

2 fold is not too bad. Why did the engineers not make it though?

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

What?

?
Words of compassion.
 

[Cheif Operations Director]

1 minute ago, kerbiloid said:

?
Words of compassion.
 

For what though?

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

For what though?

For five are killed?

[Cheif Operations Director]

1 minute ago, kerbiloid said:

For five are killed?

Yes, but why did you reply to me with condolences?

[DDE]

4 hours ago, Snark said:

Hi folks,

A gigantic amount of completely off-topic speculation about how to make a magic, physically impossible rocket that's a perpetual momentum machine has been split off into a separate thread.

The topic of this thread is the Rosatom engine explosion.  Please try to stay on topic, everyone.  Thank you for your understanding.

You're a hero. I never thought it would be possible to salvage this thread.

2 hours ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

Have they had their press conference yet?

• They state that the injuries are primarily fractures - implying that it's not radiation poisoning. The radiation levels doubled for an hour and have since subsided.
• Most of the speech is sweet nothings (e.g. monument in Sarov to open next year). One guy goes on a tangent to explain RTG use, and mentions the US Kilopower program.

No, literally no information on subject matter. Channel 16 is based in Sarov/Arzamas-16, what did we expect?

Edited August 11, 2019 by DDE