Author Topic: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load  (Read 16591 times)

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Offline BeaminTopic starter

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RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« on: November 22, 2020, 01:41:06 am »
https://www.simgenics.com/

At bottom of page

Really cool download where you get to control a RBMK reactor and make it meltdown chernobyl style if you want. Very technical and takes a bit of a learning curve, but you can xenon poison it by going below 700Mwatts as the power graph shows.
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Offline jmelson

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2020, 04:36:09 pm »
https://www.simgenics.com/

At bottom of page

Really cool download where you get to control a RBMK reactor and make it meltdown chernobyl style if you want. Very technical and takes a bit of a learning curve, but you can xenon poison it by going below 700Mwatts as the power graph shows.
Yeesh!  Maybe this is actually a security/export controls violation, as the RBMK 1000 is a plutonium production reactor that also makes electricity and municipal heating on the side.  The sooner they get rid of these things, the better for everyone.  You don't want to be training people in how to operate them, or MIS-operate them!

Jon
 

Offline tom66

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2020, 09:40:17 pm »
Direct link if you don't want to supply details: https://www.simgenics.com/downloads/Chernobyl_Installer.zip

Very cool! (Or, the opposite, in meltdown...)
 
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Offline S. Petrukhin

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2020, 11:14:50 pm »
https://www.simgenics.com/

At bottom of page

Really cool download where you get to control a RBMK reactor and make it meltdown chernobyl style if you want. Very technical and takes a bit of a learning curve, but you can xenon poison it by going below 700Mwatts as the power graph shows.
Yeesh!  Maybe this is actually a security/export controls violation, as the RBMK 1000 is a plutonium production reactor that also makes electricity and municipal heating on the side.  The sooner they get rid of these things, the better for everyone.  You don't want to be training people in how to operate them, or MIS-operate them!

Jon

I find your words strange. :) I have lived near this reactor almost all my life, and for a while it was visible from my window. This is a complete analog of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. I'm not an expert in nuclear power, but I've never heard of plutonium in our reactor. This is a peaceful atom.
And sorry for my English.
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #4 on: November 23, 2020, 11:46:36 pm »
I find your words strange. :) I have lived near this reactor almost all my life, and for a while it was visible from my window. This is a complete analog of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. I'm not an expert in nuclear power, but I've never heard of plutonium in our reactor. This is a peaceful atom.
Dont worry friend, it only makes peaceful plutonium, yes?
Do you also read RT with the milk every morning?
 
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Offline Cerebus

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #5 on: November 24, 2020, 12:49:06 am »
https://www.simgenics.com/

At bottom of page

Really cool download where you get to control a RBMK reactor and make it meltdown chernobyl style if you want. Very technical and takes a bit of a learning curve, but you can xenon poison it by going below 700Mwatts as the power graph shows.
Yeesh!  Maybe this is actually a security/export controls violation, as the RBMK 1000 is a plutonium production reactor that also makes electricity and municipal heating on the side.  The sooner they get rid of these things, the better for everyone.  You don't want to be training people in how to operate them, or MIS-operate them!

Jon

I find your words strange. :) I have lived near this reactor almost all my life, and for a while it was visible from my window. This is a complete analog of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. I'm not an expert in nuclear power, but I've never heard of plutonium in our reactor. This is a peaceful atom.

The atoms know nothing about abstract concepts like "peace" they just understand physics. Where you have 238U and thermal neutrons flying about you're going to end up with 239Pu. So, there will be plutonium there, it's an inevitable consequence of operating the reactor.

The RMBK reactors are graphite moderated and, notably, use natural (not enriched) Uranium as fuel. The RMBK design was based on the earlier military reactors that were operated explicity to produce plutonium. The Hanford B reactor used to produce the plutonium for the American Fat Man bomb that was dropped on Japan was graphite moderated and fueled with unenriched uranium. So I think we can safely conclude that the RMBK reactors are 'dual use' designs, even if they were only ostensibly operated for power production.
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Offline S. Petrukhin

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #6 on: November 24, 2020, 12:55:28 am »
Dont worry friend, it only makes peaceful plutonium, yes?
Do you also read RT with the milk every morning?

You may be surprised, but in Russia, the operation of nuclear reactors is studied at school.
Rosatom organizes excursions for bloggers even to operating reactors and spent fuel storage facilities. I can find these videos for you if you don't find it difficult to read the translation of the subtitles (they are in Russian). This is not a secret and Rosatom encourages people to talk about their work.

The nuclear power plant provides powerful lines that power entire regions and heavy industry - a good side effect for producing plutonium, isn't it? Russia has 11 nuclear power plants, a total of 38 operating nuclear reactors - do you think we collect mountains of plutonium from them to destroy the whole World?  :)

Of course, Russia has enterprises for the production of weapons-grade plutonium and has nuclear weapons. But our nuclear power plants are designed to produce electricity.

And RT is not on the Russian air, very few people watch it in Russia. This is a channel for foreign broadcasting. After all, we learn from Western countries - for a long time, broadcasting went in our direction: Voice of America, Radio liberty, etc. Why shouldn't Russia have its own foreign broadcasting channel to express its position? In the free World, you are free to choose which TV to watch. If you don't like RT, don't watch it.
If you find a lie in the RT broadcast, let me know - I will write them a complaint.  :)
And sorry for my English.
 

Offline S. Petrukhin

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #7 on: November 24, 2020, 01:14:05 am »

The RMBK reactors are graphite moderated and, notably, use natural (not enriched) Uranium as fuel. The RMBK design was based on the earlier military reactors that were operated explicity to produce plutonium. The Hanford B reactor used to produce the plutonium for the American Fat Man bomb that was dropped on Japan was graphite moderated and fueled with unenriched uranium. So I think we can safely conclude that the RMBK reactors are 'dual use' designs, even if they were only ostensibly operated for power production.

Getting weapons-grade plutonium is much more difficult than getting it from a nuclear power plant reactor.  :)
There are special companies for this purpose. Whether they use spent fuel from nuclear power plants or not, I do not know. But I know that fuel assemblies are stored for 3 years next to the reactor in the cooling pool after work.
And sorry for my English.
 

Offline Canis Dirus Leidy

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #8 on: November 24, 2020, 03:04:15 am »
Maybe this is actually a security/export controls violation, as the RBMK 1000 is a plutonium production reactor that also makes electricity and municipal heating on the side.
Although, according to the initial terms of reference, the RBMK was supposed to be a double purpose reactor, but during the design this requirement was dropped.
 

Offline Berni

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #9 on: November 24, 2020, 06:20:31 am »
That is pretty neat looking, tho i would have expected them to update it to there fancy pants sleek dark theme GUI style that they are selling (Tho to be fair this oldschool GUI is a lot more readable)

I don't see the problem with this being available on the internet. You can already get plenty of pretty deep information on how nuclear reactors work out there, heck even just on YouTube (And its probably also perfectly advertiser friendly unlike a lot of other topics).

As for plutonium, yes pretty much all operating power generating nuclear reactors produce plutonium, some are just more efficient at doing it. But its not like plutonium just drops out the bottom of it, instead the huge pile of fuel rods have to be all processed in a quite involved procedure to extract the plutonium. Getting your hands on all that is not easy.
 

Offline Kleinstein

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #10 on: November 24, 2020, 08:36:28 am »
The reactor is only one part in the process of producing plutonium. Essentially all reactors that use uranium generate some plutonium, but the difficult part is separating it from the rest. To get weapons grade plutonium one needs the fuel to be in the reactor only for a relatively short time, so that less of heavier plutonium isotopes are generated.  The RMBK allows for a relatively easy removal of the fuel and thus can make is practical to use is for plutonium production. Also for non weapons grade material a low burn down rate, as typical for lower enrichment is beneficial. However other reactors can be used for that purpose as well, it is just less economical and more unusual to remove the fuel early.

Just the simulation of the basic physics / control has nothing secret, it is more like a way to educate about nuclear energy and complex control systems.  Real reactor operation should be quite different in that one has less control an hopefully more security measures in place.  For the fun of it, it would not be much different if the simulation would be about a virus or a fish tank.
 

Offline daqq

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #11 on: November 24, 2020, 09:00:49 am »
If you already have access to a reactor, nuclear fuel, the industry needed to separate plutonium, then I don't think the thing stopping you from making a nuke or something nasty is the lack of a freely downloadable app simulating the rough operation of the most famous and publicly documented reactor in the world.

I mean, I can't see a situation where a supervilain/rogue state/whatever acquires all of that and in the end curses his luck on the download being removed.
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Offline CJay

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #12 on: November 24, 2020, 12:27:22 pm »

The RMBK reactors are graphite moderated and, notably, use natural (not enriched) Uranium as fuel. The RMBK design was based on the earlier military reactors that were operated explicity to produce plutonium. The Hanford B reactor used to produce the plutonium for the American Fat Man bomb that was dropped on Japan was graphite moderated and fueled with unenriched uranium. So I think we can safely conclude that the RMBK reactors are 'dual use' designs, even if they were only ostensibly operated for power production.

Getting weapons-grade plutonium is much more difficult than getting it from a nuclear power plant reactor.  :)
There are special companies for this purpose. Whether they use spent fuel from nuclear power plants or not, I do not know. But I know that fuel assemblies are stored for 3 years next to the reactor in the cooling pool after work.

How touchingly naive.

Of course spent nuclear fuel from power plants is used, why would you *not* use it if it contains by products that can be refined and used?

Whywould you waste that valuable fissile material?
 

Offline S. Petrukhin

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #13 on: November 24, 2020, 12:45:52 pm »

The RMBK reactors are graphite moderated and, notably, use natural (not enriched) Uranium as fuel. The RMBK design was based on the earlier military reactors that were operated explicity to produce plutonium. The Hanford B reactor used to produce the plutonium for the American Fat Man bomb that was dropped on Japan was graphite moderated and fueled with unenriched uranium. So I think we can safely conclude that the RMBK reactors are 'dual use' designs, even if they were only ostensibly operated for power production.

Getting weapons-grade plutonium is much more difficult than getting it from a nuclear power plant reactor.  :)
There are special companies for this purpose. Whether they use spent fuel from nuclear power plants or not, I do not know. But I know that fuel assemblies are stored for 3 years next to the reactor in the cooling pool after work.

How touchingly naive.

Of course spent nuclear fuel from power plants is used, why would you *not* use it if it contains by products that can be refined and used?

Whywould you waste that valuable fissile material?

Due to the fact that the fuel assemblies are in the reactor for a long time, they contain a lot of isotopes, and to get plutonium, as I know from school education, you need to conduct a fairly subtle and short-term reaction.

And I'm surprised: do you really all think that in Russia 38 civilian nuclear reactors are only engaged in producing weapons-grade plutonium?
« Last Edit: November 24, 2020, 12:51:23 pm by S. Petrukhin »
And sorry for my English.
 

Online wraper

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #14 on: November 24, 2020, 12:55:30 pm »

The RMBK reactors are graphite moderated and, notably, use natural (not enriched) Uranium as fuel. The RMBK design was based on the earlier military reactors that were operated explicity to produce plutonium. The Hanford B reactor used to produce the plutonium for the American Fat Man bomb that was dropped on Japan was graphite moderated and fueled with unenriched uranium. So I think we can safely conclude that the RMBK reactors are 'dual use' designs, even if they were only ostensibly operated for power production.

Getting weapons-grade plutonium is much more difficult than getting it from a nuclear power plant reactor.  :)
There are special companies for this purpose. Whether they use spent fuel from nuclear power plants or not, I do not know. But I know that fuel assemblies are stored for 3 years next to the reactor in the cooling pool after work.
Nuclear reactors is the only place where you get it from. There is no plutonium in nature other than trace amounts. According to Russian wiki, initially RBMK was meant to be dual use (capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium), however during it's design it was changed to single use. It still produces Pu-239 which is used in weapons, however, most of it is turned into higher number Pu isotopes. As I understand, to get Pu-239, you need to extract a relatively fresh nuclear fuel from the reactor.
 

Offline S. Petrukhin

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #15 on: November 24, 2020, 12:59:03 pm »

The RMBK reactors are graphite moderated and, notably, use natural (not enriched) Uranium as fuel. The RMBK design was based on the earlier military reactors that were operated explicity to produce plutonium. The Hanford B reactor used to produce the plutonium for the American Fat Man bomb that was dropped on Japan was graphite moderated and fueled with unenriched uranium. So I think we can safely conclude that the RMBK reactors are 'dual use' designs, even if they were only ostensibly operated for power production.

Getting weapons-grade plutonium is much more difficult than getting it from a nuclear power plant reactor.  :)
There are special companies for this purpose. Whether they use spent fuel from nuclear power plants or not, I do not know. But I know that fuel assemblies are stored for 3 years next to the reactor in the cooling pool after work.
Nuclear reactors is the only place where you get it from. There is no plutonium in nature other than trace amounts. According to Russian wiki, initially RBMK was meant to be dual use (capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium), however during it's design it was changed to single use. It still produces Pu-239 which is used in weapons, however, most of it is turned into higher number Pu isotopes. As I understand, to get Pu-239, you need to extract a relatively fresh nuclear fuel from the reactor.

For this purpose special reactors are used in the defense industry.
And sorry for my English.
 

Online wraper

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #16 on: November 24, 2020, 01:02:49 pm »
Of course spent nuclear fuel from power plants is used, why would you *not* use it if it contains by products that can be refined and used?

Whywould you waste that valuable fissile material?
Spent fuel contains barely any weapons grade plutonium (Pu-239). Other isotopes such as Pu-240, 241 and 242 though technically possible, are not feasible for producing weapons.
 

Offline Kleinstein

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #17 on: November 24, 2020, 01:51:00 pm »
The plutonium in spend fuel left longer in the reactor still contain quite a lot of Pu239, but also more Pu240,241,.. which make it no longer usably for weapons. So one can separate the plutonium from the fuel, but is would be reactor grade plutonium useful in MOX fuel or in a fast reactor.

The point in the RMBK is not so much that it uses a graphite moderator, but that allow easy access to the fuel and thus if wanted to remove some fuel early to produce weapons material. This also applies to the Canadian CANDU reactors, so not a unique feature.
The more conventional reactors need to shut down the reactor for quite some time to exchange fuel and thus make it less attractive and near impossible to do it in secret. Essentially any reactor could be used to generate weapons grade material, but the RMBK and CANDU are designs that make it easier and less expensive. Anyway Russia, the US and likely even GB and France should have plenty of weapons grade material, so there is no real need to produce new.

 

Offline CJay

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #18 on: November 24, 2020, 02:21:06 pm »


And I'm surprised: do you really all think that in Russia 38 civilian nuclear reactors are only engaged in producing weapons-grade plutonium?

I don't recall saying that.

I do recall form declassified documents and my school education that reactors that were 'built for energy generation' were often *EDITED* dual purpose or no such thing and were often used for the production of material used for weapons.

I'm also old and cynical enough to not 100% trust government declarations.

But as I said, you seem touchingly naive, long may your innocence last.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2020, 02:37:57 pm by CJay »
 
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Offline LaserSteve

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #19 on: November 25, 2020, 04:54:13 pm »
Even if you had access to the full size simulator, without some serious training in how to warm up the beast, you would not get far in the actual control room.
Warming up too fast,  will cause many reactors to level off from poisoning that can take days to recover from.  Other issues  like Wigner effect in the graphite of an RBMK could cause surprises. There are things like  mechanical limits on how many rods you can pull at once, by design.

If you read the translation of one of the more candid  Russian reports on Chernobyl, much of what would be known physics  to a US operator was considered classified need to know  by the Russians at the time, partially  leading to the disaster.  I do not have time to download the sim, but does it require you to pre-warm the coolant by running the pumps before startup?  Do you have to insert a start-up source? Do you have to pull  the low level reactivity monitor out of the core before throttling up?   Not knowing little things like that can halt the sequence easily enough.   


Pulling the hot reactor fuel without a storage  cask or years of cool down in the fuel pool would have you dead in an hour or two, if not in 15 minutes.
You would not live long enough to fab even a dirty bomb working close up  with even a few grams of  hot spent fuel.  There is a reason they have it cool down before transporting to a hot cell.

Pu production is highly specialized, enough that it is very easy to spot on a IAEA inspection. 

Having the training software out there is good for education and understanding. No matter what side of the debate your on, having some experience at running a sim could make you more aware of the care, expense, and  planning that is required to commission,  run, or decommission a reactor.  As my state (Ohio)  is tied up with the House Bill Six reactor bailout  fiasco right now, I can't see how having a bit of education on the issue is a bad thing.

This video  makes it look easy, but note the Cherenkov glow.  That fuel is really, really radioactive, requiring the facilities of a nation-state  to handle.   You think the cranes you'd need to move the fuel  would not be a give away?  Reactor crime would not be a one person effort either.  You think the RO has access to the  the keys to open the  containment, and the fuel pool gates and channels?

https://youtu.be/DogPLc0IzQM

Non-issue.

Steve 
« Last Edit: November 25, 2020, 05:30:03 pm by LaserSteve »
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Offline dmills

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #20 on: November 25, 2020, 05:51:31 pm »
The real tell for a weapons Pu producer is the time a fuel element spends in the reactor.

Basically if you leave them in too long and try for a high burnup design you get a mixture of Pu isotopes instead of the pure Pu239 you want for weapons.

If the RBMK neutron energy distribution is anything like that of a UK style MAGNOX (Also graphite moderated, but CO2 gas cooled, of about the same vintage), then 6 months was more or less the magic number by my back of an envelope calcs.

The issue is that one the Pu240 starts to build up the stuff gets difficult to use in a weapon because the spontaneous fission rate increases so the finely timed neutron pulse to trigger the thing gets buried in the spontaneous neutron emission and it will tend to fizzle.   

Separating Pu isotopes is of course even more difficult then separating uranium isotopes.

Personally I suspect that both designs were really about Pu production, with the power as a nice biproduct.
 

Offline schmitt trigger

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #21 on: November 25, 2020, 06:53:51 pm »
We all know that the accuracy of the operating details that one can acquire from a simulator, any simulator, is whole dependent on how accurately the higher order effects are modeled.

To develop and debug those, takes some serious time and effort. Don’t think they would be available with an amusement-grade simulator.
 
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Online vad

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #22 on: November 25, 2020, 08:00:34 pm »
Personally I suspect that both designs were really about Pu production, with the power as a nice biproduct.

This and powering Russian Woodpecker military radar conveniently located few dozen miles from Chernobyl power plant.
 

Offline S. Petrukhin

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #23 on: November 26, 2020, 07:27:13 am »
Personally I suspect that both designs were really about Pu production, with the power as a nice biproduct.

This and powering Russian Woodpecker military radar conveniently located few dozen miles from Chernobyl power plant.

The radar is not Russian for a long time and has long been turned off and almost destroyed.
And sorry for my English.
 

Offline Berni

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Re: RBMK nuclear reactor simulator down load
« Reply #24 on: November 26, 2020, 07:49:22 am »
Personally I suspect that both designs were really about Pu production, with the power as a nice biproduct.

This and powering Russian Woodpecker military radar conveniently located few dozen miles from Chernobyl power plant.

The radar is not Russian for a long time and has long been turned off and almost destroyed.

Yep, cause they now have much better ways of detecting missiles from the US.

The massive radar was still quite an engineering feat at the time and the powers it operated at was insane.
 


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