TOKYO July/Aug. 2011 No. 143 NUKECitizens' Nuclear InformationINFO Center Akebonobashi Co-op 2F-B, 8-5 Sumiyoshi-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-0065, JAPAN Phone: +81 3 3357 3800 Fax: +81 3 3357 3801 URL: http://cnic.jp/english/ e-mail : [email protected] TEPCO will do anything to maintain the 'unforseeable' theory - The 'simulation analysis' deception technique - photo released by TEPCO Highly likely LOCA in Reactor Unit 1 power plants NPPs will be forced to undergo a If they possibly can, what the Japanese state fundamental review and it may become impossible and Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) ever to resume the operation of Chubu Electric would like to see buried once and for all is the Power Company’s (CEPCO) Hamaoka NPP. notion that the critical equipment at TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station However, the facts cannot be suppressed Reactor Units 1, 2, and 3 (1F 1-3) sustained forever. Judging from the various kinds of data serious damage from seismic motion unrelated to released by TEPCO thus far, there is an extremely the ‘unforeseeable’ giant tsunami. The reason is high probability that an LOCA occurred in the that if it becomes known that even in one of the reactor piping in at least Unit 1 at the time the three reactors critical piping was damaged in the seismic motion and that a ‘loss of coolant accident’ Contents (LOCA), where coolant gushes out from a damaged pipe into the containment vessel, occurred, then Fukushima: Deception by Simulation 1~5 the grave issue of ‘earthquake vulnerability of the Fukushima: Lax Radiation Dose Calculations 6,7 central structures of nuclear power stations’ would arise, shaking the very foundations of the safety of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa: Geology 8,9 nuclear power in ‘earthquake country Japan.’ If that Goodbye to Nuclear Power Plants Rally 9 happens, the tsunami measures and external power Who's Who: Atsuko Ogasawara 10 supply measures that are the current government’s basic policy conditions for the resumption or News Watch 11,12 continuation of operations of existing nuclear 10 Million Signature Campaign 12 July/Aug. 011 Nuke Info Tokyo No. 143 earthquake struck. Figure 1, based on data released hydrogen explosions). Immediately following the by TEPCO on 16 May, shows in one figure both earthquake, however, large amounts of coolant at the changes in the ‘reactor water level’ (the depth 7 MPa (roughly 70 atmospheres [atm]) began to of water above ‘top of active fuel’ [TAF]) and the gush out of the damaged piping, the pressure and changes in ‘containment vessel pressure’ (Note 1) in temperature inside the containment vessel began Unit 1 following the earthquake. Using this figure, to rise gradually, and 11 hours and 44 minutes I will describe below the outline of the ‘LOCA after the earthquake, i.e. at 02:30 on 12 March sequence’ that I presume occurred in 1F 1. the containment vessel pressure rose to 0.74 MPa (about 7.4 atm), greatly exceeding the design Note 1: TEPCO released only the ‘absolute pressure (approximately 0.4 MPa, about 4 atm) pressure’ data, which includes the atmospheric (Fig. 1, []). pressure component, for the containment vessel (drywell and [pressure] suppression chamber) Meanwhile, from data released by TEPCO, pressure, but since the problem from the viewpoint by almost the same time, 02:45 on 12 March, it of structural strength is the ‘gauge pressure,’ given is clear that the reactor pressure had declined to by subtracting the atmospheric pressure component 0.8MPa (about 8 atm). Thus, since at about this from the absolute pressure, this figure uses gauge time the pressure inside the reactor and inside the pressure. containment vessel were roughly equal, the leaking of coolant from the damaged piping had slowed, Before the earthquake struck, the reactor and for several hours after that the reactor water water level was 5 m above TAF, but some reactor level was almost unchanged (Fig. 1, [3]) piping (pipes entering or exiting the reactor, such as the main steam pipe, main feed-water pipe, Nevertheless, since the pressure in the recirculation piping, ECCS-related piping, and so containment vessel had greatly exceeded the design on) was damaged due to seismic motion, and as pressure, steam was beginning to leak from the coolant began to leak from the damaged piping, by bolted joint (flange) of the ‘upper lid’ at the top of 6 hours and 44 minutes after the earthquake struck, the containment vessel, causing the pressure inside i.e. at 21:30 on 11 March, the reactor water level the containment vessel to gradually subside (Fig. 1, had descended to a level only 45 cm above TAF [4]). (Fig. 1, [1]). Because of this, the pressure balance between The pressure in the containment vessel the reactor pressure and the containment vessel during normal operation is almost the same as pressure collapsed, coolant once again began to atmospheric pressure (although the gas inside it gush from the damaged piping, and the reactor is not air; nitrogen is enclosed inside it to prevent water level plunged (Fig. 1, [5]). The result of Nuke Info Tokyo No. 143 July/Aug 011 3 this was that the nuclear fuel rods were exposed LOCA that I assume occurred was, at least at first, far above the surface of the water, finally leading a quite unpretentious one. I think it was a relatively to the melting of the vast majority of them. small or medium LOCA of this nature: First, a Large amounts of hydrogen being produced by a relatively small crack appeared in some reactor ‘zirconium-steam reaction’ within the reactor then pipe, from which coolant began to blow out, and gushed out into the containment vessel along with as this crack grew gradually larger, increasing the steam from the damaged piping, and following amounts of coolant began to gush out. However, that, hydrogen, being light, migrated to the top of if this is so, then all the more reason to be puzzled the containment vessel and finally leaked out into about why, in just half a day after the earthquake the operation floor through the upper lid flange. struck, the containment vessel pressure rose ‘abnormally’ and exceeded the design pressure. Thus, at 15:36 on 12 March, a hydrogen explosion occurred on the operation floor. Unresolved safety issue of the Mark-I containment vessel The most puzzling aspect of the accident – Why Already by the early 1970s, General Electric did the containment vessel pressure exceed the (GE, a US company) engineers were whistle- design pressure? blowing the so-called Mark-I containment, used The most puzzling aspect of the 1F 1 accident in 1F 1-5 as a ‘defective’ containment vessel. This sequence data is why the containment vessel was frequently reported in all Japanese media pressure rose very rapidly from 0 MPa to 0.74 for some time immediately after the Fukushima MPa (about 7.4 atm), far above the approximately Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. The issue 0.4 MPa (about 4 atm) design pressure (Fig. ). raised by GE engineers was later named the I think it is not too much to say that this is the ‘Unresolved Safety Issue’ by the United States greatest puzzle of the 1F 1 accident. The reason is Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and in that the containment vessel design pressure is set 1980 the NRC published technical guidelines for to the theoretically presumed greatest overpressure the issue. What was this unresolved safety issue? created when the reactor piping with the greatest diameter (in actuality the recirculation outlet pipe) Kindly refer once again to Figure . When a undergoes an instantaneous guillotine break, and pipe breaks and an LOCA occurs, large amounts then a little more for safety. of steam blow out into the drywell from the crack (marked as B in Fig. ) and head furiously I do not believe that a large diameter pipe toward the (pressure) suppression chamber. The such as a recirculation outlet pipe experienced steam entering the suppression chamber is at first a guillotine break at the time of the 11 March guided to a doughnut-shaped pipe called a ‘ring earthquake. If such a massive LOCA had taken header,’ and is then introduced into the water in the place, the reactor water level would have dropped suppression chamber through a large number of precipitously, as if the plug had been pulled out of pipes known as downcomers. When this happens, the bath, but no such phenomenon took place. The the volume of the steam is reduced as it condenses 4 July/Aug. 011 Nuke Info Tokyo No. 143 into water, and thus the pressure is relieved chamber (1750 tons of water in the case of 1F 1) (‘suppressed’). must have been ‘sloshing’ violently during the main earthquake and the aftershocks, and thus the However, in fact, ‘before’ the steam passes suppression chamber mechanism may not have through the downcomers and enters the water, been functioning correctly or the downcomers the nitrogen gas filling the containment vessel and ring header may have been damaged. is firstly pushed violently down through the downcomers and into the water. Since nitrogen The ‘simulation analysis’ deception technique gas does not dissolve in water, the instant it exits It seems to me that an LOCA occurred due to the downcomers the nitrogen gas greatly expands pipe damage; large amounts of steam blew out in the water (called ‘swelling’). This causes the into the containment vessel (drywell) heading large mass of water in the suppression chamber to toward the suppression chamber, but due to the shake violently, both vertically and horizontally. hydrodynamic loads and the ‘sloshing’ at the time This can result in the ends of the downcomers to of the earthquake, the structures were damaged come above the water level, failing to introduce the and the pressure suppression mechanism was steam into the water correctly.