The article states --
Melted nuclear fuel debris is seen attached to pillars, walls and the ceiling, and accumulations between approximately 40 and 70 centimeters thick are piled up and cover the whole floor.
But nothing in these pictures give me any take on the thickness of the melt.
TEPCO's report is better and more detailed
http://photo.tepco.co.jp/en/date/2018-e/201804-e/180426-01e.html
----------------------here is an earlier story on the same photoshoot
https://phys.org/news/2018-01-nuclear-fuel-fukushima-reactor.html
In a PDF handout by TEPCO around Ja 31 2018 I found this diagram quite helpful in explaining what we are looking at.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2017/images/handouts_170130_02-e.pdf
the surface area of the containment bulb is quite large, such that if you distributed all of the melted fuel evenly on the surface, it would not be very thick. I did a calculation of this for ENEnews but forget the exact figures. The point was referring to the question 'where is the corium'. Indeed, we see the splatter from the violent maelstrom. How many different kinds of explosions could have taken place instantaneously? There appear to be cables intact...heat resistant!
ReplyDeleteyes, their claim of 40 to 70 mm, 2 to 3 inches appears to support a future claim of "good thing nothing got out, we found it!"
ReplyDeleteThe cables are curious for sure...even if its just the copper left, melting points don't make sense.
blogging this ...
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