The spent fuel pool occupies part of the 4th floor and the 5th floor. These pictures were taken (I'm sure they took more) by the workers on June 10.
In the first photo, you can see the pipe that's bent. That was the pipe that TEPCO was counting on to connect the cooling system for the Spent Fuel Pool, according to Jiji News (6/11/2011). The cooling system for the Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool won't be operational at least until July, as TEPCO will have to either fix the pipe or come up with alternative connection.
The second photo shows a mess of broken pipes, concrete bits and equipments. Any mechanics, engineers, who want to dissect the photo?
The Reactor 4 was in a scheduled maintenance when the earthquake hit on March 11. All the fuel rods had been moved to the Spent Fuel Pool. The workers were in the process of replacing the stainless-steel shroud of the Reactor Pressure Vessel at the time of the earthquake.
From TEPCO's Photo for Press page (click to enlarge):
Earlier (on June 8), TEPCO had released the PDF document detailing the supporting beams underneath the Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool . Here's the PDF image:
For larger photos in the above document, click on these links:
- Steel support pillars
(pictured on 2:00 PM, June 7, 2011) - Installation of steel support pillars
(pictured on 2:00 PM, June 7, 2011) - Steel support pillars(highlighted in color are pillars)
(pictured on 2:00 PM, June 7, 2011)
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9 comments:
That is grievous damage.
The only clue that seems clear is that the cable cabinets were blown out, rather than blown in. That may indicate that the hydrogen leaked via the cable conduits from lower down.
The extent of the damage seems very large for an estimated 50kg or less of hydrogen, but an explosives expert could perhaps give an informed judgement.
A bent pipe is not normally serious but in the world of Murphy's law that TEPCO occupies ANY deformation of a line connected to a spent fuel pool is a major problem. Circulating pressurized water through an unsupported pipe will cause vibration and any bend could become a crimp and then a crack. Then instead of a ( more or less) intact pool you have a leak.
Seems to me they would be better off simply running hose lines into the SFP and circulate water through them rather than use and disturb obviously damaged piping.
it appears the small grey beam may be used for material movement as a cargo rail. That appears to be warped, which either indicates some massive blast pressure or the building is buckling.I'd
go for the the second.
Didn't TEPCO present their theory that Reactor 3 pumped hydrogen gas into building 4, so why when building 3 exploded didn't building 4 explode simultaneously?
They need to have their noses held to the grindstone on their information releases, instead of allowing them to offer them as one-off events.
Explosion order was 1, 3, 4?
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"On Friday, workers entered the 4th floor of the No.4 reactor building where the pool is located for the first time since the nuclear disaster took place."
"Water injection from a special vehicle has not been intense enough to cool the water in the pool, allowing the temperature to remain at more than 80 degrees Celsius."
tons of steam
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/12_02.html
The U.S. has been screwing around with that HAARP crap for a long time. Could the quake and the resulting Tsunami been the result of the US "punishing" Japan for ordering the US out of the bases they maintain in Japan? I would hope that if there are folks who work on the HAARP project and know that this is the case they would speak up. This not only is effecting Japan but it is having an an effect on the rest of the world. Further, Japan did not need to be spanked for wanting the US off their territory!!
Who the hell approved this, obviously, very defective design? Putting the spent fuel rods in a tank above the reactor in the reactor building is, even to a jerk like me, a bad idea. Did they not think that something like this could happen? If they didn't they should all be executed. You have to plan for the worst scenario not for what you are hoping will never happen. GE sux and their nuclear facilities are the worst. Even the US Navy won't use their crap when I was in the Navy they used Westinghouse type systems. Even then that was what Three Mile Island used. Thoruim reactors are the answer, but thorium reactors will not produce plutonium for the weapons industry!!!!!
I don't understand why there were no employees in the plants when the explosions took place. It doesn't make sense that no one was at work. Has anyone heard anything about that at all? Was there a total evacuation when the earthquake hit?
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