Chapter 1468 A Flash of Light Worth 10 Research Points

Three hours later, the HFR Institute was completely shrouded in darkness.

Peng Juexian walked quickly through the corridor, his footsteps echoing in the empty passage.

Behind him were Fang Jianming and Huang Zhitao. The three of them remained silent all the way, but their tense shoulders and hurried pace revealed their inner anxiety.

After swiping the pass on the card reader at the door, the door lock of the HFR control center made a "click" sound, and then the signal light above the head flashed green.

"You two wait outside."

After a brief instruction, Peng Juexian pushed the door open and walked in.

As expected, in addition to several routine operators sitting in front of the console, there were several responsible persons standing scattered in the control room, who were checking the reactor safety data.

As a test reactor, HFR has a much higher allowable operating scale than commercial reactors. As long as there is no risk of leakage of radioactive materials, a simple startup failure is not a big deal.

It's just that after all the preparation, it was a bit embarrassing to end up with such a poor finish.

"I need to extract today's reactor operating data."

Peng Juexian got straight to the point:

"Including core temperature distribution, power distribution, coolant operation, nuclear fuel reactivity..."

He recited a long list of items as if he was reading out a menu, all of which he had already thought of on the way here.

This was originally part of the test protocol, so there was nothing to argue about. The operator immediately took the storage device from Peng Juexian and began to export the operating data.

Only then did Hans van der Weer step forward and stand in front of Peng Juexian:

"It's a shame that today's test was not successful... but I think it was still a very useful attempt."

This sentence may sound a bit sarcastic at first, but if you savor it carefully, you can seem to feel a lot of real regret and pity in it.

Obviously, HFR has mixed feelings about the experimental results. It is hard to say whether they are just gloating or sympathizing with the experimenter.

However, Peng Juexian was so busy analyzing the possible reasons for the test failure that he had no time to analyze the details. He just pretended to be calm and replied:

"Scientific research is a process of trial and error, so this is not surprising."

This is of course purely diplomatic rhetoric, and the implication is basically "I don't have time to talk to you about this right now, go somewhere cool and cool."

But Van der Weer may not have heard the hidden meaning, or he may have done so on purpose, anyway, he continued to ask:

"I noticed you were using unusual amounts of beryllium-9. Are you trying some new neutron reflection scheme?"

The German's straightforwardness was so obvious at this moment that the air in the room seemed to freeze for a moment, and Peng Juexian had to cough to cover up his embarrassment of not knowing how to answer for a moment.

"It's just a conventional material ratio." The latter made up a random excuse that no one would believe, "The isotope ratio of beryllium provided by the HFR supplier is slightly different from that in China. Just in case, I prepared a little more..."

Vanderville said "Oh" meaningfully, and was about to say something else when he was interrupted again.

"After all, there is always a deviation between the model and reality." Peng Juexian saw the progress bar jump to 100% out of the corner of his eye, "Sorry, we have to go back and analyze the data."

Having said that, Van der Wiel didn't know what to say.

Instead, Shulting, who had been silent, stepped forward before Peng Juexian left and said, "Academician Peng, if you have any technical difficulties, HFR will be happy to help."

He also did not forget to shake hands with the other party.

Peng Juexian felt the force from the other party's palm. This usually gentle white woman now had a sharp light flashing in her eyes.

"Thank you for your kindness." Peng Juexian slowly withdrew his hand, "We will ask for it if there is a need."

After sending a few people away, Shulting said meaningfully:

"I am somewhat inclined to agree with Hans's previous judgment."

This attracted the curious looks of the other three.

A few seconds later, she added:

"The Chinese may know something..."

In fact, it was entirely because of Peng Juexian's acting skills that he gave outsiders a feeling that "everything is under control" -

He was also very panicked.

……

In the makeshift laboratory, six computers were running different analysis programs simultaneously. The electronic clock on the wall showed 3:17 a.m., and coffee cups were lined up on the table.

"It's the seventh time to check it." Fang Jianming rubbed his bloodshot eyes.

They had been working non-stop for several days before, but as we all know, the mentality when preparing for a test is completely different from the mentality when summarizing the reasons after the test fails, so now they have almost reached their limit.

"The neutron proliferation model is completely accurate and does not seem to be a theoretical problem."

On the other side of the room, Huang Zhitao ruffled his hair: "The source definition is fine, and all boundary conditions have been checked..."

Peng Juexian stood in front of a whiteboard covered with densely packed formulas. He had already taken off his suit jacket and his shirt cuffs were rolled up to his elbows, revealing his forearms with bulging veins.

"Check the reactor parameters again." He grabbed the mug and took a sip of cold coffee. "Are you sure that the core model calculated earlier matches the actual situation?"

Fang Jianming called up the data: "The geometries of the core and the control drum are a hexagonal prism module and a cylinder of different radii, respectively. Their geometric dimensions are consistent with the neutron model, and the delayed neutron parameters of the reactor under the fast neutron energy spectrum also match..."

"..."

Obviously, the problem is no longer something they can solve here.

Peng Juexian stared at the numbers, struggling internally.

A few minutes later, he suddenly grabbed his coat and said, "Get ready to go back home."

Without waiting for others to react, he added:

"Some data is difficult to transmit, so it's more convenient to take it back directly. Professor Fang will stay and continue the routine experiments. Xiao Huang, you come with me."

……

When Chang Haonan first heard about the test failure in the Netherlands, he didn't take it too seriously.

How can it be possible for a brand-new conceptual technology to go completely error-free during the testing process? As long as we can summarize the experience and ensure that problems do not occur again, it can be considered as a smooth progress.

It was not until Peng Juexian said that he would make a special trip back to China and bring him the test data for analysis that he realized the situation might be a little troublesome.

After all, the other party is also an expert in nuclear research. Although he is not very professional in the calculation of models without external neutron sources, he is definitely capable of solving ordinary plans or operational loopholes on the spot.

"I really failed to live up to the trust of the organization this time..."

Meeting with his own people in China, Peng Juexian no longer had to force himself to be tense. He showed some disappointment and guilt right from the start:

"Not only did we fail to get off to a good start, we didn't even understand where the problem lay..."

Chang Haonan knew that it was useless to comfort the other party at this time. The key was to quickly find out the crux of the problem.

"You must have analyzed the startup characteristics, and more than once, so there is probably little point in me repeating the work."

He said bluntly:

"So, I'm going to focus on the reactor startup parameters."

Peng Juexian:

Tactical fallback.jpg

“This is an unimaginable amount of work…”

Theoretically, just like the running log of a program, as long as the code is written by yourself and you can check it word for word from beginning to end, you can always find where the bug is.

But anyone who has written a program knows that debugging is never that easy.

People are not machines, there will always be mistakes.

"Don't worry about that. I'm not going to use the stupid method of indiscriminate traversal."

Chang Haonan's tone was so certain that although Peng Juexian was still a little skeptical, he still agreed to the other party's plan and suggested:

"Do you need me to transfer some knowledgeable people from the nuclear industry to you? It will definitely speed up the progress."

Chang Haonan shook his head:

"No need, this job won't work just by having more people..."

"..."

After seeing Peng Juexian off, Chang Haonan returned to his computer.

With such a large amount of data, it would take two or three times of reading and analysis by the naked eye, which would be endless.

If it were an ordinary project, it wouldn't matter, but HFR's schedule is very tight. If you miss these months, you will have to wait for several more years. There is not that much time to waste right now.

So, he decided to cheat.

There is no doubt that it is theoretically possible to start up without an external neutron source, and Chang Haonan is absolutely confident in this.

Therefore, you can rely on the system to quickly find the problem.

Over the years, his theoretical level has been stagnant at LV4, but fortunately he has accumulated six-digit scientific research points, which are even enough to directly complete a medium-sized system project.

However, after opening the log file and expressing his requirements to the system, the requirements that came to his mind surprised him -

[Research Points Consumed: 100000]