Nuclear Power Plant I: Chernobyl Reactor Meltdown

CH320 - Seminar III

Presented By:
Course Instructor:
Amit Bhuradia 2019chb1037
Dr. Arghya Banerjee
Anchal Gupta 2019chb1038

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Overview

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Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
➢ The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, first plant on Ukrainian
soil consists of four RBMK-1000 nuclear reactors each
capable of producing 1,000 megawatts (MW) of electric
power.

➢ The four together produced about 10% of Ukraine's

electricity at the time of the disaster.

➢ The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is located near the city

of Pripyat in northern Ukraine, 16.5 kilometers northwest of
the city of Chernobyl, 16 kilometers from the
Belarus–Ukraine border.
○
➢ An artificial lake of some 22 square kilometres, situated
beside the river Pripyat was constructed to provide cooling
water for the reactors.

Fig 01: Aerial View of Chernobyl Power Plant

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Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant: Layout
The RBMK plant

➢ Reactor Building : Main Coolant Circulation system

➢ Turbine Hall: Turbogenerators
➢ Deaerator building : Houses feedwater equipment (including deaerators), individual unit and other control rooms

Additional pairwise-shared equipment for coolant chemistry control, ventilation, and waste management is housed in a
structure adjoining paired reactor buildings.

Transformers are located outside the turbine hall.

➢ Generator transformer serves the turbine generators

➢ Working-own requirement transformer provides power for running plant auxiliary equipment such as feedwater
pumps and main circulation pumps.
➢ Reserve own-requirement transformer backup source of power to plant auxiliary equipment.

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Fig 02: Phase 01 of Chernobyl Power Plant

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Fig 03: Phase 02 of Chernobyl Power Plant
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Chernobyl Disaster
➢ The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that
occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

➢ It is one of the only two nuclear energy accidents

rated at seven on the International Nuclear Event
Scale.

➢ A sudden surge of power during a reactor systems

test destroyed Unit 4 of the nuclear power station at
Chernobyl. The accident and the fire that followed
released massive amounts of radioactive material into
the environment.

Fig 04: Chernobyl Power Plant Weeks After DIsaster

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Chernobyl Reactor Meltdown: Sequence of Events

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Sequence of Events
Preparations for Test
The reactor crew at
Chernobyl 4 began
preparing for a safety
test on 25 April, at 1 a.m.
to determine how long
turbines would spin and
supply power to the main
circulating pumps
following a loss of main
electrical power supply.
Disabling of
Unstable Condition
Automatic Shutdown
of Reactor
Mechanisms
A series of operator The interaction of very
actions, including the hot fuel with the cooling
disabling of automatic water led to fuel
shutdown mechanisms, fragmentation along with
process of shutdown rapid steam production
done on 26 April at 1 a.m. and an increase in
pressure. This led to an
unstable condition at
1:23 :04 a.m
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Sequence of Events
First Steam Second Steam
Rupturing of Fuel Channels
Explosion Explosion

The overpressure caused Intense steam generation About two to three

the 1000 t cover plate of then spread throughout seconds later, a second
the reactor to become the whole core causing a explosion threw out
partially detached, steam explosion at fragments from the fuel
rupturing the fuel 1:23:58 a.m. and channels and hot
channels and jamming all releasing fission graphite likely caused by
the control rods, at products to the the production of
1:23:40 a.m. which by atmosphere. hydrogen from
that time were only zirconium-steam
halfway down reactions.

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Sequence of Events
Fires

The graphite and fuel

became incandescent
and started a number of
fires, causing the main
release of radioactivity
into the environment.

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Underlying Concepts

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Nuclear Fission
➢ The fission process involves the splitting of atoms into fragments.

➢ In a nuclear reactor a neutron is fired at an atom, which then

fissions into two smaller atoms and some additional neutrons.

➢ Some of the neutrons that are released then hit other atoms, causing
them to fission too and release more neutrons resulting in a chain
reaction.

Fig 05: Nuclear Fission Animation

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Nuclear Fission

Fig 06: Uranium-235 Fission

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Nuclear Reactor
➢ A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction.
➢ Reactors are used for generating electricity, moving aircraft carriers and submarines, producing medical isotopes for
imaging and cancer treatment, and for conducting research.

Fig 07: Nuclear Reactor in Action

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Nuclear Reactor Components
➢ Core is the site of nuclear fission and contains the fuel elements
in suitably fabricated form.

➢ Moderators having light nucleus are provided along with the

fissionable material to slow down the neutrons by elastic
scattering. Examples(heavy water, graphite)

➢ Control-rods made out of neutron absorbing material like

cadmium are provided to control the reaction rate.

➢ The core is surrounded by a reflector to reduce leakage and

reflect back the neutrons that leak out of the core surface.

➢ The energy or heat released in fission is continuously removed

by a coolant (Example: Hg, Co2) and is transferred to a turbine
which transfers it to a mechanical form
Fig 08: Nuclear Reactor Core

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Nuclear Reactor Components
➢ The Cooling Tower eliminates the excess heat that is not converted or transferred.
➢ The enveloping structure that separated the nuclear reactor from the surrounding environment is called the
containment.

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RBMK -1000 Nuclear Reactor

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RBMK -1000 Features
➢ The RBMK series of nuclear reactors are classified as Light Water Graphite Reactors (LGR) having a light water coolant
passing through fuel channels in a graphite moderator.

➢ Reactor Core:
○ Made up of prismatic graphite blocks

○ Approximately 12 m in diameter and 7 m in height

○ Surrounded by a reflector to give a total core size of about 14

m in diameter and 8 m in height

○ Series of graphite blocks acting as moderator surround and

hence separate the pressure tubes.

➢ Control of the reactor core is done through various control rods

(Boron Carbide) In the RBMK reactor there are 179 control rods.

Fig 09: RBMK -1000 Reactor Core Animation

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RBMK -1000 Features
➢ Fuel: The fuel used in the LGR is high purity uranium dioxide.
○ The uranium is primarily U-238 but contains from 1.4
% to 2.4 % U-235 which is the fissionable isotope.

○ Uranium dioxide is fabricated into pellets that are

encapsulated into a zirconium alloy sheath (cladding)
forming fuel rod

○ 18 fuel rods are cylindrically arranged to form a fuel

assembly
○ Two such fuel assemblies are arranged end to end in
a pressure tube

➢ Through the graphite core, pressure tubes carry saturated water and small amounts of steam which have been
generated. There are 847 of these pressure tubes.

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Chernobyl Reactors: RBMK -1000
➢ Light water or H2O passes through the reactor
core and absorbs heat.

➢ Two separate water coolant loops circulate

water through the pressure tubes to
remove most of the heat from fission.

➢ Each of the two loops has two steam

drums, where steam from the heated
coolant is fed to the turbine to produce
electricity in the generator

➢ The steam is then condensed and fed back

into the circulating coolant.

Fig 10: Schematic diagram of main water and steam circuits in RBMK
-1000 21
Capable of producing 1,000 megawatts (MW) of electric power or 3,200 MW of thermal power

Fig 11: Structure of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

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Products of Fission
There is no set pair of fission products. Instead, there is a range of probabilities of fission products.There is no set pair of fission
products. Instead, there is a range of probabilities of fission products.

Fig 12: Fission Products of Uranium - 235

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Fig 13: Fission of Uranium -235
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RBMK-1000 : Positive Void Coefficient
➢ Water is a more effective neutron absorber than steam, and
so a change in the proportion of steam bubbles, or 'voids', in
the coolant will result in a change in core reactivity.

➢ The RBMK reactor possess a positive void coefficient,

where an increase in steam bubbles ('voids') is accompanied
by an increase in core reactivity

➢ The safety test conducted minutes before the Chernobyl

disaster shut down the reactor and the remaining water
boiled away generating more steam.

➢ The steam makes the nuclear fission more efficient,

speeding it up resulting in more heat. More heat boils the
water away faster forming even more steam.

Fig 14: Positive and Negative Void Coefficient

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Factors Leading to Chernobyl Disaster
Positive Void
Coefficient
Led to production of large
amounts of steam creating high
pressure inside the reactor core
which it could not withstand.
Few Control Lack of
Rods Containment
Vessel
During systems test, only 6-8
No external structure to keep
control rods were inside reactor core
and could not control the rate of radiation inside the plant in the
reaction inside the core. event of such an accident
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Immediate Effects

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Uncontrolled Radioactive Release
➢ It is estimated that all of the xenon gas, about half of the
iodine and caesium, and at least 5% of the remaining
radioactive material in the Chernobyl 4 reactor core (which
had 192 tonnes of fuel) was released in the accident.

➢ Most of the released material was deposited close by as

dust and debris, but the lighter material was carried by
wind over Ukraine, Belarus, Russia.

➢ Harmful radionuclides released from the reactor were

iodine-131, caesium-134, caesium-137, strontium-90, etc.

Fig 15: Radiation Deposits from Chernobyl

Disaster 28
Radiation Exposure & Casualties
➢ Two workers died as a result of the steam explosions.

➢ The doses received by the firefighters and power

plant workers were high enough to result in acute
radiation syndrome (ARS), common symptoms being
nausea, vomiting, headaches, burns and fever.

➢ Of 600 workers present on the site during the early

morning of 26 April 1986, 203 people were
hospitalized immediately, of whom 28 died from acute
radiation exposure.

➢ Among the 600 workers onsite, increased incidences

of leukemia and cataracts were recorded for those
exposed to higher doses of radiation.

Fig 16: Man with ARS receiving medical attention

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Long Term Effects

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Residual Radioactivity in the Environment
➢ Radioactive mixtures that are presented in the food chain, for
example, some isotopes of iodine and strontium are especially
harmful. Half life of Plutonium is 24,400 years so it will take too many
years to decompose.

➢ Levels of radioactivity (especially radioiodine: I-131, radiocaesium:

Cs-137 and radiostrontium: Sr-90) in drinking water caused worry
during the long stretches of time after the disaster.

➢ Longer-lived radionuclides such as radiocaesium and radiostrontium

were adsorbed to surface soils

Fig 17: Air Contamination with

Radionuclides

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Fig 18: Environmental pathways of human radiation exposure
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Health Effects
Thyroid cancer

➢ A huge expansion in the rate of

thyroid cancer growth has happened
among small kids and teenagers
because of the high emission of
radioactive iodine.

➢ Radioactive iodine was stored in

pastures eaten by cows who then, at
that point, gathered it in their milk
which was taken by kids.

Fig 19: Number of thyroid cancer cases over time after the Chernobyl
Disaster
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Health Effects
➢ According to several international studies, people exposed to radiation from Chernobyl have high
anxiety levels and are more likely to report unexplained physical symptoms and poor health.

➢ Long term hazards such as caesium tends to accumulate in vital organs such as the heart, while
strontium accumulates in bones and may thus be a risk to bone-marrow and lymphocytes.

➢ Researchers found no evidence that radiation exposure from the Chernobyl accident caused genetic
changes that were passed on to children.

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Impact on Flora & Fauna
➢ After the disaster, four square kilometres of pine forest directly
downwind of the reactor turned reddish-brown and died, earning the
name of the "Red Forest".

➢ Nearby pine trees develop enormous pine cones, pine needles of the
needle-like leaves multiple times heavier than typical.
Fig 20: Red Forest
➢ On farms in Narodychi Raion of Ukraine it is claimed that from 1986
to 1990 nearly 350 animals were born with gross deformities such as
missing or extra limbs, missing eyes, heads or ribs, or deformed
skulls

Fig 21: Piglet with birth defects 35

Impact on the Economy
➢ The Chernobyl disaster forced the closure of many businesses which led to unemployment.

➢ The agricultural sector was worst hit by the effects of the accident.
○ 784,320 hectares of agricultural land was removed from service in the three countries
○ Timber production was halted for a total of 694,200 hectares of forest
○ Restrictions on agricultural production crippled the market for foodstuffs

➢ In Belarus, government spending on Chernobyl added up to 22.3% of the national budget plan in 1991 and absolute
spending by Belarus on Chernobyl somewhere in 1991 and 2003 was more than USD 13 billion.

➢ In Ukraine, 5-7 % of government spending every year is as yet given to Chernobyl-related advantages and projects.

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Strategies to Tackle the Issue

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Extinguishing the Fire
➢ About 200-300 tonnes of water per hour
was injected into the intact half of the
reactor but this was stopped after half a day
owing to the danger of it flowing into and
flooding units 1 and 2.

➢ From the second to tenth day after the

accident, some 5000 tonnes of boron,
dolomite, sand, clay, and lead were dropped
on to the burning core by helicopter in an
effort to extinguish the blaze and limit the
release of radioactive particles.

Fig 22: Military helicopter releasing decontamination fluids

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Evacuation

➢ Soviet authorities started evacuating people from

the area around Chernobyl within 36 hours of the
accident.

➢ In 1986, 115,000 people were evacuated. The

government subsequently resettled another
220,000 people.

Fig 23: Chernobyl Evacuation

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Exclusion Zone
➢ The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone of
Alienation or Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was initially
aan area of 30 km radius from the Chernobyl
Nuclear Power Plant designated for evacuation and
placed under military control.

➢ The Exclusion Zone's purpose is to restrict access

to hazardous areas, reduce the spread of
radiological contamination, and conduct
radiological and ecological monitoring activities

Fig 24: Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

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Shelter Structure or Sarcophagus
➢ The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sarcophagus or
Shelter Structure is a massive steel and concrete
structure covering the nuclear reactor number 4 building
of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

➢ The sarcophagus was built between May and November

1986, to limit radioactive contamination of the
environment following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, by
encasing the most dangerous area and protecting it from
climate exposure.

Fig 25: Close-up of sarcophagus

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New Safe Confinement (NSC)
➢ The New Safe Confinement was designed to allow
for the dismantlement of the current Shelter,
removal of highly radioactive Fuel Containing
Mass (FCM) from Unit 4, and eventual
decommissioning of the damaged reactor.

➢ The structure was completed in 2017.

➢ The arches are made of tubular steel and is

externally clad by three-layer steel panels.
Internally, polycarbonate panels cover each arch
to prevent the accumulation of radioactive
Fig 26: NSC Cross Section
particles on the frame members.

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Environmental Countermeasures
➢ The most effective agricultural countermeasures in the early phase were exclusion of
contaminated pasture grasses from animal diets and rejection of milk based on radiation
monitoring data.

➢ In order to reduce long term contamination of milk and meat with radioactive caesium, the
land used for fodder crops was treated and animals were given not only clean fodder but
also chemicals that trap the radioactive caesium.

➢ The most effective countermeasure was switching to uncontaminated drinking water

supplies. Restrictions on consumption of freshwater fish were followed in some areas.

Fig 27: Application of

Cs-binder prussian blue for
land treatment

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Conclusion & References

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Conclusion
➢ The Chernobyl disaster was the most severe nuclear accident in the history of the world of nuclear
chemistry.

➢ Large amounts of radiation was released into the environment traces of which can be found till date.

➢ Release of radiation had a negative impact on humans, flora fauna and the economy as a whole.

➢ Counter measures taken by the government have shown to reduce radiation levels and should be
continued.

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References
1. Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant , (accessed 17.01.22)
2. Chernobyl Accident -1986,
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident.aspx,
(accessed 17.01.22)
3. Management of Contaminated Areas,
https://www.greenfacts.org/en/chernobyl/l-3/4-management-contaminated-areas.htm#1p0 , (accessed 21.01.22)
4. Products of Nuclear Reactors,https://www.env.go.jp/en/chemi/rhm/basic-info/1st/02-02-03.html, (accessed 20.01.22)
5. Components of Nuclear Reactor, https://www.slideshare.net/bapikumar144/components-of-nuclear-reactor , (accessed
18.01.22)
6. Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident ,
https://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/resources/health/health-effects-chernobyl-accident.cfm, 2018 (accessed 19.01.22)
7. Effects of the Chernobyl Disaster, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster ,(accessed
19.01.22)
8. Layout of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant,
https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-layout-of-the-Chernobyl-Nuclear-Power-Plant, (accessed 24.01.22)

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Thank You!

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