Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to Air + graphite at 2600 C means BIG FIRE.

Assuming Oxygen
Davin :. — (archived)

Why would there be Oxygen *inside* the reactor capsule? And from what I understand the pebbles are a composition of carbon in a silicon carbide shell, with possible substitution of zirconium carbide for even higher temperature resistance.

Basically, you have to imagine a situation where the capsule was sundered, lost pressure, was induced to take on ambient air, and somehow a capsule was crushed or flawed which caused ignition- but then what? I doubt the heat of the fire is going to add much to a nuclear sustained 2600 degrees, and I doubt the flames would spread unless (a) The Zirconium Carbide was not flame resistent or (b) multiple pebbles were flawed. I'm not a materials engineer, and I don't know the intimate details of the pebble coating, so I don't know. But its obviously an issue the designers considered. Its not like they're just pulling this stuff out of thin air. Not to say all bases are covered, but low-level stuff like this...

And if were talking about something coming along and actively crushing the containment capsule and compromising pebbles, then were already talking about sabotage or rather extreme situations like structural failure of the housing building.

Frankly, I'd be more concerned about changing the pebbles and starting/ending the reaction. I'm also not sure about the convection process which is supposed to allow spent pebbles to migrate to the bottom of the heap (again, just what I've read), where they can be extracted while fresh ones are cycled in up top.

But at least the fire thing and the heat issues are sort of explainable.

I really would like some links to some hard research or numbers backing up your concerns. We're both sort of just endulging in cosmic ass scratching at this point.

Davin L.

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (54 posts)