Nuclear Engineer Reacts to Nucleares PWR Reactor Simulator Part 2

[@tfolsenuclear]

Thanks so much for watching! If you want to see my reaction to the Roblox Realistic BWR, please check out: kzbin.info/www/bejne/i6fFfqCYhc-eY7csi=_THewCAe7xvjXnBs

[@Stoney3K]

RBWR has already received an update, the new unit 1 is improved. And they are working on a PWR simulation right now. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hpzEnHdqhMmofaM

[@laurdy]

There's a simulator for Chernobyl unit 3 in a game called: Chernobyl - the legacy continues, although it was designed for Windows 3.1 a more modern cut down version is available on simgenics website and from what i've heard it uses the same simulation core as the actual training simulators.

[@trollied]

He doesn't claim to know everything nuclear, but can certainly share some knowledge.

[@An_M4A3]

No way I thought he didn't know anything!!

[@rigbyatnight6921]

I hear this in my dreams.

[@Merennulli]

I used to know everything, but I forgot most of it.

[@anthonyshiels9273]

B. Sc. Nuclear and Radiological Engineering, Georgia Tech. 2014.

[@Generic_Tech_Support]

Amazing 👏

[@vylbird8014]

The pumps in the game are operated much as you say - once you have it running you'll be constantly making small adjustments, on the order of a few percent in pump speed. You'll only have to slam things hard when you're in a hurry because something is going horribly wrong. Condenser overheating is a thing in this game, for it is a wimpy, under-speced condenser. I find I overwhelm it when I am switching between steam generators for servicing. As the video said, it's something you'll want to upgrade. If you're curious about the cooling system, the level thinks of that - you can walk outside and see two big cooling towers, and following the pipes shows they are connected to the condenser and pump exactly as you'd expect.

[@aaronhall6987]

So I've been playing this since I saw your first video and I have a few comments. The game now is a lot different than the one shown. There are now vacuum pumps with the condenser. You no longer just flip a switch to go on the grid you have to request a connection and they tell you when to start generating or when you won't just be sending the electrical power to the resistor banks. A comment on the video of the game I have is the condenser can just be run at 100 but the coolant flow in the secondary can be limited to generate more steam pressure and thus more power but you run the coolant level in the yellow or just the caution area but generate a lot more power cause your not dumping the thermal energy into the atmosphere of the game. There are also transformers now in the game and they can only safely run up to a certain level before insuring increased wear but you can add more. I know it's not super realistic cause nuclear plants are just on or off and not ramping up and down constantly for different demands, but I think they've just added these things as game mechanics to give us something to do and make it a bit of fun.

[@Sho-td8wg]

Pretty sure that operator is going to end up testifying to the NRC in a month or two. 😂

[@trentondickey9061]

Alright man. You know we need a play through now right?

[@ElderonAnalas]

so, the weird thing about this condenser system. is, it seems to be open air. it's not a closed system. if the water in the condenser gets to hot, it's seemingly evaporating and boiling off into the atmosphere... basically, boiling off the water in that reservoir at your own plant. it's very odd. And, i think as far as that Current Position system is for, is "percent inserted" for the rods. so, you more or less have to invert it. if it reads 99.2% like at around 12:33 and such, that means he's only getting 0.8% reactivity out of the fuel.

[@carlsojos]

I've played the game personally- ordinary nominal operations, even with the grid operator changing the demand over the course of the day to prevent you from just running at full power, it's much less chaotic than how this video shows. With the current version with a vacuum pump for the condensor, you can balance the system so you only have to verify the primary loop's still got the right pressure every few hours. I looked into the game's Discord the other day, apparently the game actually started out as something completely different, and it just morphed into a nuclear game during development.

[@Delta_310]

What did it start as?

[@carlsojos]

​@@Delta_310 Trying to run generate power while also dealing with zombies at the same time.

[@vylbird8014]

He's reading the display wrong - it's not 7KW, it's 7MW. It's a small nuclear reactor, but it is a pilot plant. I have it running comfortably at 14MW, and I gather going over 25 requires a somewhat lax approach to safe operating margins.

[@Kokally]

30:30 “If you look closely you can actually pinpoint the exact moment where he's done with this video!"

[@aftbit]

12:30 I read that display as saying that the control rods are 99.2% inserted.

[@vylbird8014]

Regarding the steam generators: You start out with one, and will very rapidly be adding more. Part of the very unrealistic game mechanic! Although I find I don't run all three, because the pumps have a distressingly short interval between required servicing - so I have two in operation, and one down for servicing. Everything in the game runs on accelerated time, for gameplay reasons - you'll be lucky to run for a week continuously before the time comes to signal to the grid operator that you need to conduct a scheduled shutdown, get everything serviced, and start it all up again.

[@Merennulli]

I'd love to see one of these designed by someone working with actual nuclear industry professionals for functional accuracy. Of course, for gameplay reasons, you couldn't have a full team doing their jobs properly while the player character bumbles through one role, but going through the reactor startup and other maintenance with timeskips past the parts that have minimal human input would be fun and educational. Basically just play as the guy who has the worst luck on shift assignments in the industry. 😂

[@nextalcupfan]

31:38 @tfolsenuclear you are correct this version of the game the condenser wasn't under a vacuum. That mechanic has actually recently been added to the game recently and did increase the efficiency of the condenser though its still too small. After purchasing all upgrades I was able to manage 60-70MWe output for a short time before my electrical generating turbine grenaded itself due to overrevving.

[@EvelynNdenial]

the guy's wearing gloves because the game is set during peak covid, you just cant see the mask.

[@mr.purplenurple2200]

If you come back to the game. Hes added vaccum for condenser and chemical treatments like boron

[@TrystyKat]

I've been playing Nucleares a bit and there are some other weird foibles like how you can't draw power from the grid to start up. The only sources of electrical power for parasitic loads are the turbine-generator set and the emergency diesel set. If you have to routinely run the emergency generator in startup, then it's a routine generator, not an emergency generator. The rod position is percent inserted. Going critical at only 3% withdrawal seems a bit off to me, but I am not an operator, so IDK. It also behaves more like a throttle than controlling reactivity. I was trying to achieve a reactivity of 1.0 ($0) at the target power by pulling rods to plus a few cents, then pushing back in to stabilise at the target power, but then there's no flux-derived power readout in the control room, and the reactivity dial is not reactivity. There's also no load-following, and the effectiveness of the control rods decreases with temperature, giving the reactor a slight positive temperature coefficient(!). In general, the units are all off. They're metric (yay) but kWh and kW are used interchangeably, so you have to guess from context if it's power or energy. Lastly, equipment wears out much faster than you would expect. A primary circuit coolant pump or a condensate pump will require maintenance between outages, which is basically impossible to do while online in game until you have multiple loops. Not that you would overhaul a coolant pump online in real life.

[@CedricGniewek]

Thank you for this video. About 11:00, that's true I think for most countries. But here in France, apparently, the power level of nuclear power plants is changed according to the demand. But of course, it's not used for small variations but the larger variations that happens during a day.

[@tylisirn]

France is rather unique because you make 70% of you electricity with nuclear. The highest percentage of any nation. If you didn't adjust, the peak demand and low demand wouldn't match with the amount of nuclear generation online.

[@brianslattum7090]

do a revisit they now have syncro clock and vacuum gauges and much more

[@patrickraemcgown9740]

Would like to see you look at Nucleares again as it is still being updated and adding new features such as the synchroscope and using boron added to the water to control the reactivity.

[@johnk.327]

This was very interesting to watch. It would also be interesting if you checked out the game again. They have added a lot of stuff to the game, including some things that you mentioned in this and the previous video. I would love to see your reaction and see if the game has gotten a bit more realistic. Thanks!

[@Antares2]

I wish you would do a follow-up, as I've seen that Nucleares has gotten a lot of patches apparently. Would love your take on the "realism" of it.

[@network_king]

You should take a look at Abandoned Nuclear Facility | Wood River Junction Criticality Accident | Rhode Island. i just found by accident never even heard of this one before.

[@hauntedshadowslegacy2826]

Yo, yes! I wonder if he's heard of that incident in a course or smth.

[@jordananderson2728]

So this version of the game doesn't have the vacuum pump, but the latest version does have a vacuum pump for the condenser to increase the accuracy. Edit: this video covers much of the game at a high level, but the game has changed significantly since the gameplay footage was made.

[@dominiktuchowicz7680]

This game have progressed strongly. Still a game but have a synchroscope, vacuum condenser, bypass valves, much more failures scenarios on equipment and demands to act accordingly. Soon there will be chemicals as well, so Boron etc...

[@ShuRugal]

Forget conceivably, I never touched a diesel generator in the Army which was less than 10 kW

[@Kontro_7]

Hey! I have a game recommendation for you to react too! Its a pretty unknown game called "the powder toy" its a nice sandbox game and you can create nuclear bombs and reactors.

[@MattsMadnessOfficial]

I actually play this game a lot just uploaded a video of it lol the update they just did makes the game way better

[@ElderonAnalas]

I'm curious what control rod material would lose integrity at around say 500*C given that vague temp gague on them. Be the rods are cracking, melting, warping or some other such "lost of integrity" as the tooltip displays

[@aftbit]

I wonder how the condenser works here. This reactor uses SI units, so 1 bar means it is running at just about atmospheric pressure, which explains why it would boil at 100°C.

[@vylbird8014]

It works poorly. The dev doesn't have much understanding of that area, at least not yet.

[@jordananderson2728]

They are working to improve the simulation and accuracy of the plant; but it does have a ways to go, that is correct

[@blackenderman9269]

in that game you start off with 1 of everything and have to upgrade the plant by buying new generators and pumps. and the rods number is still insertion but i think in % he is just using some wrong terms.

[@Theoneandonly9038]

ngl that would be a fun game running biger and bigger reactors

[@hauntedshadowslegacy2826]

So, what I've gleaned from this video: You want the precision rod insertion controls to be a real thing, and the reactor in this video is a piece of dangerous junk.

[@oganvildevil]

So when's your let's play on this come out?

[@network_king]

There was a simulator game i liked but i can't find anymore seems the domain is gone. Was not this complex but more just a display of parameters and you had to adjust them all and keep it balanced and i think every game day the fuel got weaker so you had to readjust to keep power the same.

[@brianslattum7090]

reach out to the developer and suggest more realism like the reactor core piping underground and whatever you think is important

[@NoahKuzel]

"Who'da thought a nuclear reactoe can be so complicated"

[@TrystyKat]

Spicy rocks get hot Squeezed water moves heat to steam generators Non-squeezed water gets hot and makes angry water Angry water turns the spinny thing Spinny thing makes the power Tired angry water is calmed down by the condenser

[@NoahKuzel]

@@TrystyKat go watch the Simpsons season 3 episode 2 and you will understand the refrence

[@swig_gigolo]

Are the mini reactors in semi trucks just on all the time then? Or are they able to turn off? Going off what you said about if it’s not at 100% it’s shut down.

[@wendell_parham]

the game goes by the percentage the control rods are inside the core the game handles the actual location of the rods

[@williamsplays8528]

Please review RBWR again. It got updates which have fixed some of your feedback : D (unit 2 mostly, unit 1 got a reskin)

[@chompsy7395]

I also want to be a nuclear engineer when I grow up. Can you recommend what streams to choose and what to do? Thanks!

[@anusblaster8671]

I know this is not the purpose of the game, but I have to ask, how do I make it explode?

[@robertschultz6922]

Um restarting the reactor after only a few minutes would have created xenon poisoning wouldn’t it?😊

[@TYKUHN2]

I've seen another youtube video of someone playing this game and they played it VERY differently, with many of the pumps at full, and they generated substantially, maybe even a magnitude, more energy, so I actually suspect that this video is either old or just not correct.

[@GoldenAura32]

This video was more of a very basic how to get started. You won't do much if any damage using the procedure or values in the video. It give a lot of breathing room to try stuff out before it causes problems. You are correct that it wasn't much power.

[@MrVolodus]

Control rods are in % of length inserted. You are to hard on this :) This is just a game, very simplified, based on Power Plant operation with focus on gameplay. You make money (prestige) by delivering power on demand, managing repairs and (if enabled) random failures. You upgrade system, to generate more and better handle possible issues. Lot of stuff is made to be more dramatic, like that initial pulse. It is not real, but people like to see stuff happening. But great info about real stuff, thank you :)

[@leftclick2win]

no way!