Chernobyl Disaster
-26 April'86
Presented by :
Madamsetty Anoop
Ramkrishna Bihani
Introduction
A city lost forever…
What was the experiment all about?
The experiment was carried out in reactor number 4.
A safety experiment was to be performed involving an emergency
shutdown.
Diesel generators required to run the cooling pumps during emergency
shutdown.
Rotational momentum of the winding down steam turbine was assumed to
power up the pumps.
Was that enough to power up the cooling pumps in the time lag?
Events Leading to the Disaster
Flawed Soviet Reactor Design
Errors made by operators
Cold war isolation
RBMK Reactor
RBMK reactor
Different design from that of western world
Design Principle : Plutonium production(but was used for power production
as well)
Control rod design and positive void coefficient-unsafe!
Operator errors
Experiment was left to be conducted by junior engineers
Frequent fluctuation in power during the experiment.
Faulty steps taken by engineers.
1. A minimum of 26 control rods were to be present in reactor core at any
point of time.
2. Water supply was reduced.
these followed a series of explosions...
Cold war isolation
America and USSR were in a nuclear weapon race.
Most of nuclear plans were kept secretive and hence a possible check on
plant was kept away from international agencies and thus safety was
compromised with.
Any failure would have been considered as a national shame, and hence
the event wasn’t disclosed until 28 April.
Fire Containment
Tremendous amount of heat and radioactive chemicals were exposed to
atmosphere.
The immediate priority was to extinguish fires on the top of the roof of the
station containing reactor 4 to protect reactor 3
Combined efforts of helicopters dropping over 5,000 metric tones of
materials(like boron carbide) extinguished the fire and a check on
radiation.
Equipment like remote-controlled bulldozers and robot-carts were
deployed that could detect radioactivity and carry hot debris.
Immediate effects of the accident
Uncontrolled radioactive release for 10 days.
Caused serious social and economic disruption for large populations in
Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
Released material deposited nearby as dust and debris and lighter
particles were carried over the other countries.
28 deaths was caused out of which 6 were firemen by the end of July
1986
There was a danger of radioactive molten lava (that was formed as a
result of extreme heat)to enter into ground water.
There were many involved in cleaning up the radioactivity to prevent the
restart of other reactors all of whom received severe doses of radiation.
Results of the Catastrophe
Long term effects:
1. Thyroid cancer
2. Chromosomal aberrations
3. Effects on vegetation as well.
Evacuation of the Pripyat city:
Evacuation of Pripyat city
City wasn't immediately evacuated.
State commission was set up on the same day and was headed by Valery
Legasov
After a 24hour investigation, evacuation was ordered through national
radio
Armed forces were called in to maintain order and buses were at disposal
near every apartment.
Nearly 53,000 people were displaced and moved to nearby villages of city
Kiev.
An exclusion zone of 30km remains in place today.
Learnings from the accident
Increased safety of the reactors notably in Eastern Europe.
Safety of early Soviet reactor designs were exposed from which the lessons
were learnt and applied to the western plants.
Modifications have been made to overcome deficiencies in all the RMBK
reactors still operating.
Automatic shut-down mechanisms now operate faster and other safety
mechanisms have been improved.
Automated inspection equipment has also been installed.
Many organizations were formed which integrated the methods of west
and east to enhance safety.
Case analysis and self-learning
According to Lost cosmonauts, a conspiracy theory two
manned mission were launched to space prior to Yuri Gagarin
but weren't patriotic enough to hold their breath when life
support stopped so they were erased from history books.
The soviet system put national pride over human life, the
following story is an example of that.
Several flaws were ignored in reactor design. Had they been
looked after such a tragedy could have been avoided.
Ignorance of value of a human life is a sin like no other and no
amount of Rubble or Dollar can pay for it.
Thus, any mistake be it small or big, shouldn’t be left unchecked,
that compromises with a life!
Bibliography
Wikipedia- Chernobyl disaster
youtube-Seconds to disaster(documentary on chernobyl)
[Link]
Plants/Chernobyl-Accident/#.Uge_5pKnqxs
[Link]
Studies/Chernobyl
[Link]
[Link]