Talk:RBMK

message: I was under the belief that RBMK reactors produced "weapons-grade" plutonium. It seems I was wrong. So, what is the nature of the plutonium produced, and how much processing does it require before being weapons-grade?  -- FP 04:33, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)
:When you make plutonium for weapons, you expose U-238 to neutrons, and it turns (indirectly) into Pu-239. If you expose Pu-239 to neutrons, it turns into the useless Pu-240.  So the way you make weapons-grade plutonium is by exposing uranium to neutrons for a while (not long), then chemically extracting the plutonium.  Easier than isotope separation, but still nontrivial (especially since the various components are poisonous and radioactive).  
:RBMKs were designed to make this easy by having big cranes to hoist hunks of uranium in and out of the reactor so that they could be exposed to neutrons for an appropriate amount of time; this made it infeasible to have a proper containment structure. 
:I should say that since reactors are all full of uranium, they all produce plutonium, but when the isotopes are mixed (because of long exposure) and they're mixed with all the other crud that's in a used fuel pellet, it's a real pain to use it for weapons. --Andrew 09:20, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)
:I've added stuff to plutonium explaining some of this. --Andrew 13:11, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)
::
::As well as I know it, RBMK was designed for military plutonium production, but it was not actually used that way. Gah4 (talk) 21:54, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Weapons grade plutonium

message: In russian article on this reactor there is reference to a follow-up project, focusing on removing positive void coeff, futher enhancing general efficiency and lowering fuel:power ratio, with ability to generate anuthe radioactive matter, this time not weapon plutonium but rather medicine cobalt
http://reactors.narod.ru/mker/mker.html —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.249.152.137 (talk) 23:24, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Neat - they show a full containment and actually use the word "containment" (using Russian letters). Simesa 23:42, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Derivatives?

message: What does the phrase "Unfortunately, such a configuration is also unstable." means? What kind of "stability"?... And what about that link to "stability"  that doesn't explain absolutely nothing?
Is this simply a reference to the positive void coefficient? This phrase should either be better explained, or removed. -- NIC1138 (talk) 16:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Stability

message: What is said in this article makes me wonder: is it possible to simply take some natural uranium metal or even a naturally occurring uranium mineral, grind it up with boron-free carbon (lamp black?) and dump the mixture into a container whose size would determine how hot it would get?  From what is claimed in the article the notion of Neolithic nuclear power (well, heating) doesn't seem so impossible. Wnt (talk) 21:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Forget neolithic, check out Natural nuclear fission reactor. --96.241.226.166 (talk) 22:45, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Simple mixtures?

message: MKER says that Kursk-5 is an MKER-1000 - a newer version of RBMK with a full containment structure and passive safety. This page says that Kursk-5 is an RBMK. Which statement is true? --Tweenk (talk) 19:43, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Kursk-5 is an RBMK-1000. But the active zone of the reactor also the physical characteristic is like an MKER-1000. Any person always deletes in the article MKEK the word physical before the word prototype. Greetings ChNPP (talk) 09:46, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: RBMK-1000 or MKER-1000?

message: Is the above phrase in reference no. 26 a vandalism?  83.149.209.253 (talk) 15:14, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it is vandalism. I delete the sentence. Best Regards ChNPP (talk) 16:46, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of references for locations of detonations 

message: "The reactor vessel is a steel cylinder with outer diameter of 14.52 m (47 ft 8 in), wall thickness 16 m (52 ft 6 in), height 9.75 m (32 ft 0 in), and is equipped with a bellows compensator to absorb axial thermal expansion loads."
A wall thickness greater than the outer diameter of the vessel? I don't know where I'd find more accurate data, but this is clearly incorrect. 82.41.24.25 (talk) 01:24, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The proper thickness is 16mm, not 16m; I just fixed it. It was broken on 03:48, 23 April 2011 by an edit which added the convert templates. -- 203.82.93.98 (talk) 12:45, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah... I don't know how I missed that... Magus732 (talk) 16:09, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Erroneous containment system values

message: In the design flaws section it is incorrect to state that heavy water requires enriched uranium "because it does not absorb neutrons". The opposite is true, light water requires enriched uranium for neutron economy. CANDU reactors are a prime example of using heavy water to enable use of unenriched uranium. The author has already stated the correct reason for using graphite rather than heavy water as a moderator, that being that heavy water is rare and was being used for military applications.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.218.29.239 (talk) 17:56, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Light water vs. heavy needing enriched fuel 

message: What was the motivation behind this design feature of the control rods? This must have had some sort of intended purpose, otherwise as it being counter intuitive would not have made it into the design. Hogdotmac (talk) 03:44, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This information is already in the article and was so on the 30th May. 86.156.154.237 (talk) 11:17, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graphite Tips 

message: The thermal output of the reactor plants is missing. The RBMK-1000, for example, is rated for 1 GWe. The little "e" is electric output. Not to be technical, but this is a very important little "e" that is likely misunderstood. It should be a subscript, not kust little.
Anyway, I would assume that the thermal output is around 3 GW. Or I should say 3 GWt. I like to saw logs! (talk) 07:45, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thermal ratings 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The article does not currently mention the positive power coefficient (short for power coefficient of reactivity) as far as I can see, just the void coefficient. It is the combination of these two, rather than either on its own, that made the RBMK reactor highly unstable, as I understand it. Andrewa (talk) 20:24, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Power coefficient 

message: The article stated the graphite rings transfered 80-85% of core thermal power.  Reference 9 (group II question5) explains that these rings cool the graphite blocks, transfering approximately 80-85% of the energy deposited in them to the pressure tubes.  It further clarifies that only about 5.5% of rated thermal power is from the graphite. Robot1marvin (talk) 19:59, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graphite rings cool the graphite blocks

message: according to the IAEA, https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/RDS-2-38_web.pdf there are still 15 RBMK reactors running in Russia, with a rated power of 10219 MWe. This does not relate to the power output of around 950 MWe per reactor, and also does not specify the location of each. In this wiki, 11 are said to be running. What would be the correct number?¬¬¬¬  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fsikkema (talk • contribs) 12:42, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the IAEA also includes the reactors at Bilibino Nuclear Power Plant, scaled down versions of the RMBK reactor. --Ita140188 (talk) 08:06, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Number of reactors still in operation

message: Were the shortened control rods from below the reactor under the control of the RCPS and/or the EPS system, or were they under manual control only?  Were they inserted into the reactor by pressing AZ-5? 2601:646:8A01:B180:B4DA:DC4F:C5F3:9C50 (talk) 09:17, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Shortened (UPS) rods were under manual control and not inserted upon an EPS signal.Sredmash (talk) 16:20, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shortened rods