K-27
 Project 645
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The K-27 was a nuclear submarine of the Soviet Navy . It was a test boat that received two liquid metal-cooled reactors instead of the normal pressurized water reactors in the hull of a Project 627 boat. The modified K-27 was called Project 645 . It suffered reactor damage in 1968 and became known to the public for its dump in 1982 and the resulting environmental hazards.
history
construction
The boat was laid down in Severodvinsk in 1958 . It was intended to test a new type of nuclear reactor and its construction was carried out under tight deadlines. However, there were numerous delays in the delivery of important components, so that the project was delayed. To make up for the lost time, for example, the pressure hull test was carried out on the planned date, although it was not yet completed and the bow and stern sections had to be tested separately. To make matters worse, the design of the new reactor was constantly being adapted and changed at the same time as the construction of the boat in a shore facility and these changes had to be implemented on the K-27 during construction.
Use and accident
K-27 was launched in 1962 and commissioned at the end of October 1963.
After repeated problems with the reactors in the first five years, there was a serious accident on May 24, 1968. Despite serious problems caused by small amounts of contaminated water that had penetrated the primary cooling circuit of a reactor through undetected leaks, division commander Rear Admiral Mikhail Grigorievich Proskunov had ordered the boat to go on patrol. The boat left on May 21st.
On May 24th, around 12 noon, the port port reactor suddenly overheated and the sheathing of some fuel rods was destroyed. The escaping radioactivity got into the primary cooling circuit via the evaporating water in the reactor, and through the pressure equalization also into the interior of the fourth compartment of the boat.
The reactor had to be shut down and its output dropped rapidly from 83% to only 7% within a very short time. The radiation exposure in Department IV reached 1,500 roentgen per hour. Several crew members received a lethal dose of radiation during repair work. Four seafarers died at sea or shortly afterwards in hospital, and another died as a result of the effects of radiation that he received in the port while he was on watch on board. 30 seafarers who were involved in fighting the accident died between 1968 and 2003.
As a result of the accident, parts of the reactor were not adequately cooled; the radioactive particles that circulated through the reactor via the cooling liquid contaminated large parts of the boat. K-27 was decommissioned and anchored near a base.
The knowledge gained through the use of a liquid metal cooling reactor on K-27 was fundamental to the series production of Project 705 (Alfa class).
Dump
The boat was never decontaminated and the reactor was never repaired. In 1980 it was decided to sink the hull with both reactors in the Kara Sea off Novaya Zemlya . In 1981 the preparations were made and all lines to the reactor at the Zvezda shipyard in Severodvinsk were filled with a fast-hardening liquid to seal all entrances. The reactor department was then filled with a total of 270 tons of bitumen and some of the ballast tanks were foamed with polystyrene to improve buoyancy. In autumn 1982 the boat was towed in the Kara Sea to the sinking position at 72 ° 31'28 N and 55 ° 30'09 E, where it is now around 75 meters deep.
In September 2012, the case received new attention from the press: Report Mainz cited an unpublished report by the Russian Ministry of the Environment. According to experts, the safety of the nuclear reactor is no longer guaranteed. The water could cause an uncontrollable nuclear chain reaction. This threatens to release large amounts of radioactive material. Fish in the Barents Sea , among other things, are at risk . Therefore, K-27 must be lifted and the nuclear fuel recovered by 2014, as well as K-159 . According to the Russian State Institute for Radiation Protection (IBRAE), 851 million becquerels of radioactivity have been released annually since 1981.
According to the Bellona Foundation , the salvage of the two submerged submarines and the other nuclear waste in the Arctic was carried out by the Russian government mainly due to the plans to explore arctic natural gas and oil deposits and the danger posed by the reactors and nuclear waste deposits , A higher priority in recent years and led to the complete removal plan by the Federal Atomic Energy Agency of Russia (Rosatom). In the case of the K-27 in particular, there is concern that an uncontrolled chain reaction and an explosion could occur during the rescue. In January 2016 it was announced that the Italian-made salvage ship Itarus would be used to salvage the submarines and the nuclear waste containers.
See also
Evidence and references
Remarks
- ↑ Not 75, but only 30 meters of water depth are mentioned in an article by Anna Kireewa on Bellona.org from February 27, 2012 [1]
- ↑ According to a tape recording that was played in the television report, and on which the Deputy Minister for Atomic Energy, Sergei Antipov, is supposed to be heard, 5 liters of water are enough to trigger such a reaction.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Ю.В. Апальков: Подводные лодки советского флота 1945–1991, том I. P. 101, 102
- ↑ a b K-27 at deepstorm.ru, viewed on September 26, 2012
- ↑ a b Вячеслав Николаевич Мазуренко: К-27 "Жидкий Металл"
- ^ Report Mainz from September 25, 2012: Secretly sunk nuclear submarine threatens to radioactively contaminate the Arctic
- ↑ Anna Kireeva: Raising sunken nuclear subs finally taking center stage. Bellona Foundation , April 22, 2015.
- ^ Charles Digges: Russia receiving ship capable of lifting nuclear waste from Arctic waters from Italy. Bellona Foundation , July 24, 2015.
- ^ Charles Digges: Italy sending Russia a new nuclear waste transport vessel to haul submarine reactors. Bellona Foundation , February 19, 2016.
literature
- Ю.В. Апальков: Подводные лодки советского флота 1945–1991, том I (for example: JW Apalkow: U-Boats of the Soviet Navy 1945–1991, Part 1. ) 2009, ISBN 978-5-903080-55-7 (Russian)
- Вячеслав Николаевич Мазуренко: К-27 "Жидкий Металл" , (for example: Vyacheslav Nikolaevich Masurenko: K-27 "Liquid Metal" ) on collection on world.lib.ru (Russian)
- С.А. Спирихин: Надводные корабли, суда и подводные лодки постройки завода №402. (for example: SA Spirichin: Surface ships, vehicles and submarines built at shipyard No. 402. ) Arkhangelsk, 2004, ISBN 5-85879-155-7 (Russian)
- Виталий Петрович Власов: ПОДВОДНЫЕ ЛОДКИ ИСТОРИЯ РАЗВИТИЯ. (For example: Vitali Vlasov: History of Submarines. ) Yekaterinburg, 2003
Web links
- Short story at Bellona (Engl.)