Y'know how I was so curious about the explosion in the Fukushima #3 reactor building, and why is was so different from the one at #1?
What with the huge vertical gray plume, and all?
There's been plenty of speculation floating around, much of it attaining chiroptera-guano levels of reasonableness. Fer example: one chap was insisting that the pressure vessel had blown its top, and that the gray plume was definitely pulverized MOX, and Japan would have to be entirely evacuated.
In which case, there shouldn't have been, y'know, any difficulty at all in detecting plutonium contamination in the local soil. And the cleanup workers should have been dropping like flies, or mutating like marine iguanas, or something.
Anyway:
The WORM's commentariat has, once again, come through, with a pointer to some good high-res photos of the site.
I still can't tell a darn thing about what's under the rubble at #3, but there's this:
Look at #1. Notice that the roof didn't blow off the framework; the side panels blew off the framework, and the roof fell in. Notice the construction of the still-standing framework of the upper section of the building.
Now look at #3 and #4. Look at the framework of the upper section. Oops, did I say framework? They've got bloody great concrete pillars!
So: the superstructure of #1 was built like a fireworks factory, and allowed the hydrogen explosion to blow the (presumably lightweight) panels off at high speed, limiting the overpressure and structural damage. This is the construction shown in the cross-section diagrams that have been circulating, and I've been assuming it was built that way on purpose.
The superstructure of #3 and #4 was built differently, and perhaps more sturdily; I'm assuming that whatever plugged the holes in the walls was a lot heavier than what covered the walls of #1. Thus, the explosion at #3 was constrained on the sides, the roofing material was blasted skyward, and there was significant structural damage.
I'm still missing a lot of the details, but at least I now have an explanation that makes some kind of sense, and this reduces the urge to dig out my Junior Chem-O-Kit to see if one can make a Drano bomb with cesium hydroxide and zirconium.
For all I know, this may have been covered already, in some respectable place where I didn't encounter it, but (as with any sanity in relation to nuclear botherments of any sort) the word didn't get out past all the running in circles and screaming which seem to be the order of the day for the mainstream press.
Update: Watching the video at the above link, I notice that some of the rectangular gaps in the heavy concrete superstructure of #4 are still partially occupied... with thinner concrete, still hanging on its steel mesh, as becomes evident on closer examination of the stills. So, yes, #3 and #4 had heavy walls, built like concrete office buildings rather then like fireworks factories.
No need to postulate an explosion inside the drywell, or worse; the building provided sufficient horizontal confinement to explain the vertical blast.
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