Tag Archives: fukushima

Fukushima coolant recirculation with siphon

Posted on April 11, 2011 by engineerzero

This design avoids damage to recirculation pumps from sea water sediment. A gravity siphon is used to draw water out of the building into a pit where sediment is collected into a shipping container. Water is then pumped from the … Continue reading →

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Coolant Recirculation System at Fukushima

Posted on April 9, 2011 by engineerzero

They’ve been using sea water to cool the rods, but when the level threatens to overflow the reactor buildings, they’re flushing the water back into the ocean (ref here and here). This is an obvious radioactivity hazard to the environment, … Continue reading →

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Teleoperated Radioactivity Sample Boat

Posted on April 7, 2011 by engineerzero

The high levels of radioactivity in the waters off the Fukushima nuclear plant require constant monitoring, which is best conducted without exposing human workers. Hence this design for a teleoperated radioactivity sample boat. To make the modification effort as simple … Continue reading →

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A Roof for Fukushima

Posted on April 7, 2011 by engineerzero

On the right is the baseball stadium known as Safeco Field in Seattle, USA. It is famous for its retractable roof, which rolls back for sunshine on the rare days in Seattle when there is sunshine. Why bring this up? … Continue reading →

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Fukushima Cooling Pump Cascade

Posted on April 6, 2011 by engineerzero

A German concrete pump is being used at Fukushima to spray cooling water on the spent fuel rods. Now that the plant’s own cooling pumps are down and the cooling pools are empty of water, this pump may be all … Continue reading →

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Fukushima: Removing Spent Fuel Rods

Posted on April 4, 2011 by engineerzero

If you’ve ever looked at Fairewinds Associates videos, you know that the big problem at Fukushima is the drying up of the cooling pools which are suspended over the reactor vessel and contain the spent (but extremely radioactive) fuel rods. … Continue reading →

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Robot door-opening tool

Posted on March 31, 2011 by engineerzero

“Robots to the Rescue” (Technology Review, March 29, 2011): Some experts also question how helpful robots would be after a nuclear plant disaster. Something as simple as a locked door could prevent a robot from doing its job. Is it … Continue reading →

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Robot re-design

Posted on March 27, 2011 by engineerzero

The elbows-back manipulator arms of the previous version always make me think of Fozzie Bear going, “Waka waka!” The design was taken from a space robot and doesn’t really work on a ground vehicle, so I replaced it with the … Continue reading →

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Japan Solar Energy Graphics

Posted on March 27, 2011 by engineerzero

Sometimes it seems that nuclear power advocates are attempting to insinuate that Japan doesn’t have enough land area to use solar energy in place of nuclear energy. Here’s what the solar panel requirements actually look like. Per person: [Calculations: Electrical … Continue reading →

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Robot Arm in Sketchup

Posted on March 26, 2011 by engineerzero

This design is based on the first iRobot photo shown here. Sketchup, by the way, is not for CAD, it’s for quickly illustrating concepts. Sketchup can draw smooth curves as in the iRobot photo, but boxes are of course faster … Continue reading →

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