The
Eventually burying vehicles was abandoned and they were left to lay in open fields.
A large air conditioning system was installed to maintain temperature and humidity.
Regularly, holes are drilled into the old reactor to do various tests.
1. Guys, I want to tell you about project “Ukritie” (“Cover”) or, how people call it – “Sarkofag” (“sarcophagus”). Or more precise – about what lies beyond its walls.
2. A lot of people mistakenly think that nobody knows what is beyond walls of the sarcophagus but it’s not true. Regular works on studying the destruction of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant fourth power block are carried out after constructing “Ukritie”.
3. Sarcophagus was built in record time so there are some miscalculations which led to holes in the construction
4. On a photo you can see a lot of hanging cables that were left after “Ukritie” structures were constructed by a crane
5. There is dust suppression system under the sarcophagus that sprays the solution which forms a protective layer similar to the film during the solidification of PVA glue (white glue), which is designed to prevent the scattering of radioactive dust from the destroyed Unit
6. Scientists have mistakenly thought that the bulk of the nuclear fuel would be under the reactor itself. But fuel was not where they expected to find the main part of it by drilling in the reactor vessel in a room with a massive cross-like structure designed to hold the reactor itself. The fuel was on the lower levels of the destroyed 4th power block turned it into an unexpected state, in the form of lava-like mass mixed with concrete
7. Reactor RBMK-1000 was instaled in the 4th power block. Oh the photo you can see all that is left of it – the top lid of reactor which was ripped out from its place and flipped into the air by an explosion. It stands now between reactor and concrete plates. Three reinforced concrete slabs have fallen into the reactor pit where the active zone were. No traces of high temperature was found there in the former active zone. This slabs were the evidence of it – they were not exposed to high temperature and also there were no soot and grime on the reactor walls.
8. “Buoy” are devices with in the form of a truncated cone, which with the help of helicopters and later cranes, were mounted directly into the the reactor wreck in the central hall. Each buoy had detectors for temperature, heat flux and dose rate of gamma radiation, and also they had anemometers. Buoys had a long enough cable, the other end of which was connected to the remote control. Altogether during system operation (August – November) there were 15 buoys with approximately 160 different detectors installed. Use of the main buoys lasted until the end of September 1986, when by the terms the construction work cables linking them to a central control had been destroyed. Until November 1986 operational control of the wreck was performed with temperature and gamma radiation detectors on a single buoy number 11. Data from buoys pointed to a monotonic decrease in activity, consistent with the calculations (no signs of criticality). With their help cumulative amount of residual heat was estimated. This allowed us to say that more than 90% of fuel is left in the the 4th block.
9. Vladik097 wrote this and put photos together This is credits of the guy, who made this post. It was posted on pikabu.ru which is like one of this 9gag type sites
The abandoned control room