Corium As a Building Material

Ruslan_DR

Corium, as many of you probably don't already know (and why i found it so interesting) Is the name gvien to the central part of a nuclear reactor post meltdown. It is often called "Corium" which is pretty much an alloy consisting of all the different bits of a nuclear reactor.

Wikipedia states it as;

Corium, also called fuel containing material (FCM) or lava-like fuel containing material (LFCM), is a lava-like molten mixture of portions of nuclear reactor core, formed during a nuclear meltdown, the most severe class of a nuclear reactor accident.

It consists of nuclear fuel, fission products, control rods, structural materials from the affected parts of the reactor, products of their chemical reaction with air, water and steam, and, in the event that the reactor vessel is breached, molten concrete from the floor of the reactor room.

So that got me thinking, with all the different bits mixed in surely there could be some use for the material, even if to break it down into it's constituent parts.

This could be used as a possible retrievable, high-value building material from the wreck of the Aurora in a possible future segment. It had a reactor, it exploded, so did Chernobyl, and that still contains corium in the form of the "elephant's foot."

Of course some tool will be needed to contain and break it down safely.

Sildrae

Would be neat if it were a nuclear reactor...but it's a dark matter reactor, so who knows what kinda stuff it creates when it goes kerboom.

Ruslan_DR

Sildrae wrote: »

Would be neat if it were a nuclear reactor...but it's a dark matter reactor, so who knows what kinda stuff it creates when it goes kerboom.

MAGIC.

I don't know but it probably would contain some very rare and high value material used for only the best items. No doubt a reactor of any sort will have physical parts as well, so there would be something. It'd also be difficult to acquire because of the nature of corium. The elephant's foot for example, once it had been found was emmitting enough radiation to kill you in a mere 300 seconds which left youwith two days to live, likely in extreme illness.

so, what are you willing to risk for top-tier equipment? I figure getting corium should be sort of a challenge, you have to run through a hull to contain it but the path is narrow so it's a ticking race against death/time.

Sildrae

Well considering that one of the goals is to seal the breaches in the dark matter containment system, which only needs a lead lined suit...perhaps instead it'd be more along the lines of finding enough left over materials to make some self charging cells similar to what you have in the escape pod...only usable in, say, the cyclops or other submersibles...or perhaps for a base that's in a difficult to power location. [would also be nice to be able to dismantle the escape pod for its materials as well]