The successful commissioning of the idling once made Duke feel confident, at least it shows that the design of Billem has not many problems in terms of monitoring and automatic control, and when the engineers have comprehensively checked the entire equipment again, and the idling debugging is successful, it can really be put into nuclear fuel for actual operation.

Therefore, it will take a few days of patience to carry out the actual operation, but the nuclear fuel and materials such as Duke's unique catalyst, moderator, coolant and control rods have been prepared for the nuclear reaction, and the equipment can be put into operation when it is foolproof.

After the successful commissioning of the idling, Duke rejected the offer to hold a celebration banquet, and in his opinion, everything was only the beginning without waiting for the actual power generation equipment to be successfully driven by the commissioning.

Five days later, the critical moment came.

"The monitoring system is activated!" With Duke's order, Operator No. 1 in the main control room activated the monitoring system of the entire experimental reactor and kicked off the first criticality process of Duke's experimental reactor.

"Report, the monitoring system self-test is normal!" Operator 1 reported, "The various inspection points are in working condition. ”

"The control system is detecting normally!"

"Teleportation system detects normal!"

"The recovery system is testing properly!"

After a flurry of reports, looking at the giant screen showing that everything was normal, Duke closed his eyes, took a deep breath, slowly spit it out and suppressed his excitement, and then ordered in a deep voice: "Put 1 unit of nuclear fuel!" ”

One unit of nuclear fuel is the minimum output power of 10 MW of the experimental reactor that has been rigorously determined.

The No. 7 nuclear fuel delivery operator pressed the release confirmation button, and on the large screen, the automatic manipulator of the automatic conveyor system took out the prepared 1 unit of nuclear fuel from the warehouse, and then sent it to the core of the experimental reactor on the conveyor belt.

"Put the catalyst in!" Seeing that the nuclear fuel was in place, Duke continued to order, this catalyst is Duke's exclusive invention, and the manufacturing process and recipe are now known only to Duke, which is Duke's core research achievement, according to the design requirements, within 30 minutes after putting the catalyst, the experimental reactor should enter a critical state.

Only when it enters the critical state does it mark the official start of the Duke's nuclear reactor and enter the operating state, laying a solid foundation for the grid-connected power generation and full power operation of the unit.

The big screen soon showed that the catalyst was successfully delivered, the countdown on the side began, and the time began to pass minute by minute, Duke looked nervously at the big screen, staring at the critical reaction check status display, and unconsciously held a cold sweat in his palms.

The critical process of the experimental nuclear reactor is very similar to the ignition process of a conventional thermal power plant boiler. Only after entering the critical state will the nuclear reaction of the reactor core enter the self-sustaining stage, that is, the real continuous nuclear reaction will be started, and the huge energy brought by nuclear fission will be output, creating conditions for the future power generation and full power operation of the unit.

Of course, after the first criticality, it will not really be connected to the power generation equipment to generate electricity directly, but will carry out zero-power physical tests to verify the core performance, the availability of nuclear instrument monitoring system equipment and the correctness of core loading, so as to ensure that the unit can be upgraded to power operation.

Duke felt that the countdown time was too slow, like an old lady who couldn't take a step for half a day, and it was like a year, and after ten minutes, the detector that detected the neutrons showed that the density of the neutrons was gradually increasing, and the temperature inside the reactor began to rise rapidly. Duke immediately felt his heart begin to rise to his throat.

This information shows that nuclear fission has begun because when the nucleus of uranium-235 is bombarded by foreign neutrons, one nucleus absorbs one neutron and splits into two smaller nuclei, releasing 2-3 neutrons at the same time. The neutrons produced by this fission bombard the other uranium-235 nuclei, causing a new fission. This is a chain reaction of fission.

The chain reaction releases a huge amount of energy in the form of heat, which can be used to drive a steam turbine to generate electricity by using the right materials to export this heat energy so that it turns the peripheral water into water vapor. It's a very simple process, but it's not easy.

First of all, it is very difficult to ensure that this chain reaction is durable and within a certain controllable range under the effective control of human beings.

Because new neutrons are released during the fission process of the atomic nucleus, it is very difficult to properly control these neutrons to ensure that these neutrons can continue to attack the nucleus and ensure that the nuclear fission reaction does not stop.

Only when the number of new neutrons produced by nuclear fission is just enough to meet the needs of the reactor to continue fission, can the entire nuclear reactor be in a stable and continuous fission state, which is the so-called critical state.

If the neutron count is too high due to improper control, the reactor operation will be unstable, and in severe cases, there is even a danger of explosion; Conversely, if the number of neutrons is too low, the fission reaction will stop.

Neutron detectors showed more and more neutrons detected, more and more nuclei of uranium-235 showing fission, and the temperature of the core reactor began to climb to 800 degrees. At this time, the heat transfer system starts to work, and it begins to turn the incoming seawater on the periphery of the heat transfer system into water vapor output.

When the countdown reached 28 minutes, only a crisp prompt sound was heard, "The reactor has entered a critical state!" Then all the people began to cheer.

This basically marks the start of the experimental nuclear reactor this time, and the beginning of the self-sustaining period!

In other words, from now on, this experimental reactor can continue to operate under the current conditions.

Duke was thrilled in his heart, but he didn't cheer with the crowd, staring at the pressure of the idling water vapor out.

According to the design instructions of Billem, the secondary steam pressure of the secondary circuit should be stable at this time, and the reactor outlet temperature should be 510~550 °C. But what Duke sees at this moment is far from this indicator, but just like a conventional reactor, the steam pressure of the secondary circuit is 6-7MPa, and the temperature of the steam is 275-290 °C!

This means that the power output is far below the expected standard of the Billem design!

Another 10 minutes passed, and Duke saw that these two indicators still did not increase significantly, and the excitement in his heart gradually faded as time passed, and then became colder and colder!

The people who were still cheering in the main control room seemed to have discovered Duke's abnormal state - this was an experimental reactor designed by Duke, and many people did not know what the values of some indicators were normal. But looking at Duke's face becoming more and more silent, and the two indicator values on the big screen that have been indicating that they are yellow, it seems that everyone's excitement is quickly extinguished like a summer rain.

"Dr. Duke, is there a big difference between the output power and the design?" Sitting next to Duke was Zhu Yunqian, the white-haired chief expert of Project No. 10, who was now holding a brief description of Duke's experimental reactor and asked calmly.

"Yes, it's just that the output power is not enough" These design parameters of Duke have already been provided for everyone to review, although they can't hide it from everyone at all, and Duke doesn't want to hide it from anyone. "Based on the current vapor pressure and temperature, it is at least about five times smaller than the design expectation."

For Duke, this is a very fatal thing, because it means that the experimental reactor, which was originally expected to provide at least 20 times more efficiency, can now only increase by about 4-5 times, although it is more efficient than the current mainstream nuclear reactors, but it is far from the level of replacement products.

To put it bluntly, in terms of efficiency, the Duke reactor can only be regarded as a 3-and-a-half generation at best, and it is not close to the side of the 4th generation nuclear reactor at all.

"How so? Why did the design of Billem deviate so much? What went wrong? A series of questions kept popping up in Duke's mind, and the design of Billem and the related simulation experiments, which Duke did on the Titan II supercomputer at MIT, were basically not much of a problem.

But why is it that the intermediate effect is so far from the development of the actual operating heap now?

Duke was lost in thought, not even hearing the words of Professor Zhu Yunqian, who was trying to greet him.

Seeing Duke's dejected appearance, Zhu Yunqian knew the pain of an avid researcher when the experimental effect was unsatisfactory, "Dr. Duke, although the current effect is not satisfactory, but today's one-time critical success shows that your design is still very effective." ”

Zhu Yunqian comforted. "Now is the time to finish today's experimental process first, and we can study this problem of insufficient output power through the recorded data in detail."

"Victory and defeat are just a common thing in soldiers."

Duke came back to his senses in horror, and looked at Professor Zhu Yunqian with a concerned face with some embarrassment, "Thank you, Professor Zhu, for this specific reason, I will mobilize all kinds of data for thorough analysis." Duke thanked him sincerely. Professor Zhu Yunqian's words temporarily freed him from the heavy setback.

Now is indeed not the time to cry sadly, I have always been used to it, and for a while I even felt a little unbearable for this little setback, which is indeed a specific manifestation of self-expansion to a new height.