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Blast from the past
Stumbled on this interesting photo from 1965- this was the KIWI TNT
(Transient nuclear Test) test; a KIWI nuclear rocket test reactor was purposely given a runaway nuclear reaction to see what its failure would result in: http://www.wps.com/archives/wxvax7.e...ages/ktntb.gif Note the railway tracks for scale, and the flying sparkling stuff- which given that uranium is pyrophoric, I assume are the uranium pellets from the reactor's fuel elements. Aren't these things supposed to melt down? This looks like an SRB exploding. How would you like to have been sitting on top of that when it malfunctioned? I'll bet this was one fun clean-up job. Pat |
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On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 01:11:48 -0500, Pat Flannery wrote:
Stumbled on this interesting photo from 1965- this was the KIWI TNT (Transient nuclear Test) test; a KIWI nuclear rocket test reactor was purposely given a runaway nuclear reaction to see what its failure would result in: http://www.wps.com/archives/wxvax7.e...ages/ktntb.gif Pat, Thanks; I hadn't seen that one before. Note the railway tracks for scale, and the flying sparkling stuff- which given that uranium is pyrophoric, I assume are the uranium pellets from the reactor's fuel elements. Would they have used uranium metal, or mixed oxide? I'd guess the latter, but I haven't studied up on NERVA. In any case, the fuel elements ought to be clad with something. They're probably just incandescent. Aren't these things supposed to melt down? This looks like an SRB exploding. How would you like to have been sitting on top of that when it malfunctioned? I'll bet this was one fun clean-up job. Indeed. But it's puzzling -- I've been researching nuclear accidents for a couple of months now, and I've seen no mention of contamination from the NERVA program. |
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On 2005-08-17, Christopher P Winter wrote:
I'll bet this was one fun clean-up job. Indeed. But it's puzzling -- I've been researching nuclear accidents for a couple of months now, and I've seen no mention of contamination from the NERVA program. Perhaps it was tested in an already-contaminated location? -- -Andrew Gray |
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Christopher P. Winter wrote: On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 01:11:48 -0500, Pat Flannery wrote: Stumbled on this interesting photo from 1965- this was the KIWI TNT (Transient nuclear Test) test; a KIWI nuclear rocket test reactor was purposely given a runaway nuclear reaction to see what its failure would result in: http://www.wps.com/archives/wxvax7.e...ages/ktntb.gif Pat, Thanks; I hadn't seen that one before. I'd never heard of it before; the photo has an odd history behind it- it was first posted on a Los Alamos website: http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/testpix/ But at least my machine won't do an enlargement of the photo on that website. But another website had copied the photos: http://www.wps.com/archives/wxvax7.esa.lanl.gov/ ....and this is where the big photo is from. There's more details of the KIWI program and this particular test he http://www.fas.org/nuke/space/c04rover.htm The KIWI reactors seemed to suffer a lot of problems from the description given there. I wonder if the flames visible in the photo are burning LH2? Note the railway tracks for scale, and the flying sparkling stuff- which given that uranium is pyrophoric, I assume are the uranium pellets from the reactor's fuel elements. Would they have used uranium metal, or mixed oxide? I'd guess the latter, but I haven't studied up on NERVA. In any case, the fuel elements ought to be clad with something. They're probably just incandescent. The report says it's a KIWI B reactor and they apparently used two types of fuel arrangements; uranium dioxide with niobium carbide coating, and uranium dioxide sealed in graphite blocks. Aren't these things supposed to melt down? This looks like an SRB exploding. How would you like to have been sitting on top of that when it malfunctioned? I'll bet this was one fun clean-up job. Indeed. But it's puzzling -- I've been researching nuclear accidents for a couple of months now, and I've seen no mention of contamination from the NERVA program. Well, maybe they didn't list this one as a accident, as it did exactly what it was intended to do- exploded. :-) Still, this seems to be a really off-the-wall test to conduct; maybe they wanted to see what launch site contamination would be like in case of a catastrophic failure of a nuclear rocket motor. Pat |
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In message , Pat Flannery
writes Christopher P. Winter wrote: Indeed. But it's puzzling -- I've been researching nuclear accidents for a couple of months now, and I've seen no mention of contamination from the NERVA program. Well, maybe they didn't list this one as a accident, as it did exactly what it was intended to do- exploded. :-) Still, this seems to be a really off-the-wall test to conduct; maybe they wanted to see what launch site contamination would be like in case of a catastrophic failure of a nuclear rocket motor. The whole programme was off-the-wall by modern standards. Look at the Reactor In Flight Test, which was suborbital I've said this before, but that seems designed to cause a RIFT in international relations. -- Remove spam and invalid from address to reply. |
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Andrew Gray wrote: Perhaps it was tested in an already-contaminated location? There do seem to be structures around it in the photo. Since this test occurs at the end of a railway track, did they just blow the thing right where all the KIWI reactors had been tested? Some of they had ejected parts of their nuclear fuel, so the area might will have already been contaminated. Pat |
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This facility is called the Nuclear Rocket Development Site and is
located on Jackass Flats on the Nevada Test Site. So yes, there was probably some pre-existing contamination in the area from other activities (for example, pre-treaty atmospheric testing). I suspect the level of contamination was probably not enough to create a restricted area (restricted for the purposes of radiation protection . .. . other reasons notwithstanding). I was at the facility in 1980 when it was being used as a very large prop for a training scenario in the Radiological Emergency Response Operations (RERO) course. Now days, the class in taught somewhere in the east, apparently without the use of such a cool setting. A colleague of mine worked there on KIWI and tells me that, in a nutshell, they were attempting to "model" the way one of these things would come apart if it were involved in a launch or LEO accident. The data was to be used in assessing the radiological consequences of a "bad day". This was a long time before computer modeling was around. blue skies John |
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John wrote: This facility is called the Nuclear Rocket Development Site and is located on Jackass Flats on the Nevada Test Site. So yes, there was probably some pre-existing contamination in the area from other activities (for example, pre-treaty atmospheric testing). I suspect the level of contamination was probably not enough to create a restricted area (restricted for the purposes of radiation protection . . . other reasons notwithstanding). I'll bet they put in a few man hours cleaning up the after-effects of that little test. A colleague of mine worked there on KIWI and tells me that, in a nutshell, they were attempting to "model" the way one of these things would come apart if it were involved in a launch or LEO accident. The data was to be used in assessing the radiological consequences of a "bad day". This was a long time before computer modeling was around. Well, that was one day of doing it. It still seems kind of severe to me though. Pat |
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On 17 Aug 2005 15:28:14 GMT, Andrew Gray wrote:
On 2005-08-17, Christopher P Winter wrote: I'll bet this was one fun clean-up job. Indeed. But it's puzzling -- I've been researching nuclear accidents for a couple of months now, and I've seen no mention of contamination from the NERVA program. Perhaps it was tested in an already-contaminated location? Indeed the grounds of INEL were contaminated by the blowup of SL-1, and perhaps by other events. But that wouldn't have stopped certain sources from commenting on something like the KIWI test. Maybe they just figured it was "small change" as contamination incidents go. |
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On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 11:23:36 -0500, Pat Flannery wrote:
Christopher P. Winter wrote: On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 01:11:48 -0500, Pat Flannery wrote: Stumbled on this interesting photo from 1965- this was the KIWI TNT (Transient nuclear Test) test; a KIWI nuclear rocket test reactor was purposely given a runaway nuclear reaction to see what its failure would result in: http://www.wps.com/archives/wxvax7.e...ages/ktntb.gif Pat, Thanks; I hadn't seen that one before. I'd never heard of it before; the photo has an odd history behind it- it was first posted on a Los Alamos website: http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/testpix/ But at least my machine won't do an enlargement of the photo on that website. But another website had copied the photos: http://www.wps.com/archives/wxvax7.esa.lanl.gov/ ...and this is where the big photo is from. There's more details of the KIWI program and this particular test he http://www.fas.org/nuke/space/c04rover.htm The KIWI reactors seemed to suffer a lot of problems from the description given there. I wonder if the flames visible in the photo are burning LH2? I think so; and I guess the LH2 tank went up a few seconds after the reactor blew -- hence the fact that the metallic debris so far outpaces the fireball in the photo. Note the railway tracks for scale, and the flying sparkling stuff- which given that uranium is pyrophoric, I assume are the uranium pellets from the reactor's fuel elements. Would they have used uranium metal, or mixed oxide? I'd guess the latter, but I haven't studied up on NERVA. In any case, the fuel elements ought to be clad with something. They're probably just incandescent. The report says it's a KIWI B reactor and they apparently used two types of fuel arrangements; uranium dioxide with niobium carbide coating, and uranium dioxide sealed in graphite blocks. Aren't these things supposed to melt down? This looks like an SRB exploding. How would you like to have been sitting on top of that when it malfunctioned? I'll bet this was one fun clean-up job. Indeed. But it's puzzling -- I've been researching nuclear accidents for a couple of months now, and I've seen no mention of contamination from the NERVA program. Well, maybe they didn't list this one as a accident, as it did exactly what it was intended to do- exploded. :-) Still, this seems to be a really off-the-wall test to conduct; maybe they wanted to see what launch site contamination would be like in case of a catastrophic failure of a nuclear rocket motor. Let me rephrase that to make it clearer: I haven't seen contamination from the NERVA program mentioned by anyone. Accent on the "anyone". Greenpeace, for example doesn't mention it -- but they do list the dispersal of 1.2kg of plutonium from a re-entering U.S. satellite in 1964. |
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