PDLP Chapter 1483 Jincheng 504 Factory
Chapter 1483 Jincheng 504 Factory
The helicopter's rotors stirred the dry air over the northwest Gobi Desert. Peng Juexian looked out the porthole at the land that had been eroded by wind and sand for tens of millions of years.
In the distance, the gray-white buildings of Factory 504 stood like an isolated island in the yellow-brown desert. A few slender chimneys pointed to the sky, but there was no trace of smoke.
This half-century-old nuclear facility has successfully completed the transformation from isotope production to the forefront of scientific research.
He handed over the original functions to younger generations with newer technology and larger scale, while he began to make use of his remaining energy.
Just like Peng Juexian himself, who is nearly 70 years old.
"Academician Peng, we will land in five minutes."
The pilot's voice came from the headset, interrupting his thoughts.
Peng Juexian nodded, his fingers unconsciously stroking the password box on his knees. It contained the test data brought back from Peten, the Netherlands. Every byte in the hard drive condensed the team's three months of sweat and wisdom.
He recalled his last phone call with Chang Haonan before returning home.
"Lao Peng, this ground test is the last hurdle. Once we get past it, we can send the reactor into space."
"Teacher Peng, I have recalculated the transient response data of HFR three times." Huang Zhitao turned his head, his eyes flashing with excitement behind his glasses, "Especially the attenuation curve of the neutron flux in the magnetic fluid coupling zone, the error with our simulation results is no more than 2%."
"Well done." Peng Juexian nodded approvingly. "When we meet Chief Engineer Han later, you will be responsible for reporting this part."
The helicopter landed on the helipad in the east area of Factory 504. As the hatch opened, the dry heat wave unique to the Gobi Desert hit us in the face.
Peng Juexian jumped off the plane carrying the password box and saw Han Chenfeng waiting at the edge of the apron with two technicians.
This reactor engineering expert was much thinner than the last time they met, and there were a few oil stains on his dark blue overalls, but his eyes were shining with the excitement that Peng Juexian was familiar with, the kind of excitement that one would feel when facing a technical challenge.
Next to him stood a slightly short engineer - Su Yun, the person in charge of the reactor control system.
He was holding a tablet in his hand, quickly browsing some data.
"Director Han, Xiao Su..." Peng Juexian strode over and the two held hands in the air.
"Did you have a smooth journey?" Han Chenfeng put a cotton jacket on Peng Juexian and signaled the technician to lead the way. "Let's go directly to the conference room. Academician Chang called this morning to ask about your situation."
Huang Zhitao quickly followed and walked side by side with Su Yun: "Engineer Su, the core control system you modified..."
"We use a brand new FPGA architecture," Su Yun continued to operate the tablet without looking up, "and the latency has been reduced by 40%, and the sampling rate has been increased to 200 million times per second. However, the algorithm for the magnetic fluid coupling part still needs your approval."
After passing through three explosion-proof doors and a corridor several dozen meters long, the group arrived at the core area control room located in the center of the factory.
The screen on the wall displays the real-time status diagram of each reactor system, and a dozen technicians in white coats are debugging the equipment.
It looks like it has entered the final preparation stage.
Peng Juexian opened the password box, took out an encrypted hard drive and inserted it into the conference system.
While reading the data, he asked:
"Tell me about the situation here."
Han Chenfeng walked to the main console and called up the reactor plane model that had been prepared long ago: "According to Academician Chang's requirements, we have completely converted the original pool-type reactor into a pebble-bed modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactor." On the screen, a complex spherical structure was displayed from two angles: side view and top view. "The whole reactor uses two nuclear plasma supply systems connected to a disk-type magnetohydrodynamic generator set, which can be flexibly switched according to power requirements."
Hearing this, Peng Juexian suddenly raised his head and stared at the structural diagram in front of him for a while:
"Two to one?"
"Yes."
After getting Han Chenfeng's approval, Su Yun took over the conversation and replied:
"In order to shorten the design cycle and control risks, we referred to the nuclear steam supply system on the HTR-10. Although there are major changes in structure, the two-to-one design can still weaken the coupling effect between modules and reduce the difficulty of control."
Peng Xianjue nodded, indicating that he was quite satisfied with the plan.
Seeing this, Han Chenfeng continued his introduction as he had prepared before:
"Each plasma supply system is equipped with an independent helium circulation loop, using a three-stage centrifugal compressor with an operating pressure of 8MPa."
He called up a set of fluid dynamics simulation diagrams and said: "We designed a convergence-divergence nozzle structure at the throat to make the helium flow through the reactor outlet in a turbulent form. This ensures the uniformity of the plasma when it enters the power generation channel."
The model is enlarged to the core, where tens of thousands of fuel balls with a diameter of 6 cm fill the reaction area in a precise geometric arrangement.
Inside each fuel ball, tens of thousands of TRISO particles are arranged closely like pomegranate seeds. Each particle contains uranium nuclear fuel and four layers of protective shells made of different materials - the innermost layer is a porous carbon buffer layer, followed by pyrolytic carbon, silicon carbide and dense carbon layers.
"The fuel ball uses uranium-thorium mixed oxide. After capturing neutrons, thorium 232 will be transformed into fissionable uranium 233 to achieve fuel proliferation." Han Chenfeng's finger slid across the touch screen. "The silicon carbide coating of TRISO particles can withstand high temperatures above 1600 degrees. We tested it at 1300 degrees for 2000 hours, and the retention rate of fission products was still over 99.99%."
Peng Juexian moved closer to the screen:
"The secondary circuit system is still retained?"
"That's right, but the original steam system is only used as a cooling backup." Han Chenfeng called up the pipeline diagram. "Under the ground environment, we can't use ultra-large heat sinks like the space base, so we retained the secondary heat exchanger... In addition, we also optimized the fin structure of the heat exchanger and used nanoporous ceramic coating to increase the heat exchange efficiency by 35%."
After explaining, perhaps worried that the other party still had concerns, he added:
"Don't worry, it doesn't participate in the power generation cycle at all. It is only responsible for taking away the waste heat in an emergency. It will not affect Academician Chang's test results."
At the same time, the technical staff brought by Peng Juexian have begun distributing test plans.
After making sure everyone got a copy, he signaled to Huang Zhitao next to him with his eyes.
The latter quickly stood up:
"Hello, seniors. I am Huang Zhitao, a doctoral student in Academician Peng's team. Now I will introduce this startup plan that has passed the verification test..."
After a brief self-introduction, he immediately got to the point:
"For ground reactors, conventional external neutron source startup is naturally the most mature and safest startup method. However, Academician Chang plans to use nuclear reactor magnetohydrodynamic power generation technology in space. Then, inserting external neutron source rods into the compact space reactor core will increase the complexity of the reactor structure design and drive mechanism. At the same time, if the launch fails, the reactor may reach critical conditions after falling to the ground, and it is very likely to be dangerous under the condition of the external neutron source..."
"Therefore, the space reactor should adopt a non-external neutron source start-up system, using high-energy particle beams to bombard tungsten targets, produce fast neutrons through (p, n) reactions, and then amplify the neutron flux through beryllium multipliers." Huang Zhitao enlarged a schematic diagram, "The entire system simulates the energy spectrum characteristics of galactic cosmic rays superimposed on solar flares, and the highest energy can reach 100MeV."
Han Chenfeng’s eyes lit up: “Just like the natural conditions in space!”
"That's right." Peng Juexian took over the conversation and nodded. "The relevant equipment was ordered at the end of last year and is now on the way. It is expected to arrive in three days."
The meeting lasted until late at night. The two teams checked the test process item by item, from the start-up sequence of the helium circulation system to the pre-excitation procedure of the magnetohydrodynamic generator. Every parameter was repeatedly scrutinized.
Huang Zhitao and Su Yun were responsible for the interface protocol between the plasma and the control system. They argued about the sampling frequency and delay compensation for nearly an hour and finally reached a compromise...
When Peng Juexian finally signed the plan, the night sky outside the window was already lit up with stars.