Quote:
Originally Posted by Frazod
Yeah, that much is a given. I'm just curious as to how accurate it is from a scientific standpoint. Shows like this always take some liberties with the actual events or combine characters for dramatic purposes, but I really hope there's no glaring stupid shit with the science.
|
I thought they would start with the events that led to the actual explosion, but given the structure of the narrative it looks like the filmmakers view that as less important than the structures which orchestrated the coverup, which was indicative of the inherent flaw/rot in the Soviet system.
The Cliffs Notes version of what actually happened:
They were going to test the RBMK reactors at low power to see what would happen if they suffered a sudden loss of power (Dyatlov also told them to drop down to a power level far lower than the reactor's design). In the event of a power failure, the diesel generators that would would pump the coolant water would take about 45 seconds to spin up and deliver it to the core to prevent overheating.
The thought was that there would be enough residual steam from the water that it could keep spinning the turbines, and providing enough power to keep the pumps running, and thus, cooling the reactor.
As they slowly reduced power in the reactor they went too far, dropping it to a fraction of the intended power for the test. They couldn't get the power up because of the creation of some of the isotopes in the lower power environment. To compensate, they removed almost all of the control rods and filled the reactor with water, which made the reactor both unstable and highly volatile from a power perspective.
Due to Dyatlov's insistence, they ignored the automatic shutdowns and proceeded with the test. Due to the absence of control rods and the prevalent water, power began to rise uncontrollably. This acted synergistically with another element of the reactor design--the void coefficient, which was the opposite design of Western reactors. As more steam was produced in the core the reactor became even more reactive. This led to a positive feedback loop and an exponential increase in power.
Once the engineers realized that the reactor was getting away from them they panicked and dropped all of the control rods. The problem is that the control rods were graphite tipped, and don't absorb neutrons like the rest of the rod. As they were lowered and displaced the water that hadn't yet boiled off to steam, it created a hot spot in the reactor core, which lead to a massive steam explosion and graphite fire. As the containment vessel itself was also substandard, the reactor blew its top.