Chapter 1469 Targeted Destruction

Since his rebirth, except for very few special cases, Chang Haonan rarely used the system to directly promote an entire project, but instead focused on completing key technical links.

The reason for this is that, on the one hand, the related testing and manufacturing links are unable to keep up with the progress. Even if the R&D end is accelerated, the final feedback on the project cycle will not have any particularly obvious changes, but will miss the opportunity to train the technical team.

On the other hand, and more importantly, the system is often too demanding when faced with a complete project.

But even so, the cost of a regular subsystem-level project is only around six figures.

However, this time, just to find out the cause of failure in a seemingly routine test, the price was 10 research points.

Chang Haonan was so frightened that he trembled.

"What a hell..."

He counted again to make sure that the 1 was indeed followed by five zeros.

You should know that when the WS-20 was designed before, the ingenious design of combining the compressor stator blades and the intercooler only used a little more than half of this number.

"But...why?"

This is of course a question you only ask yourself.

Although the system is very powerful, it does not have the ability to communicate in the true sense and can only give some specific prompts.

For example, it was explained in the early years that the "pricing" of a project is the same as the reward for completing the project, and it depends on both difficulty and impact.

Based on the experience of the past decade or so, this difficulty is not completely equivalent to the results of human subjective judgment, but rather has a set of logic that is closer to artificial intelligence.

Requirements like "finding problems after searching large amounts of data" are extremely difficult for humans, but the difficulty rating given by the system is often only medium.

In other words, the outrageous price of 10 research points is mostly due to the influence that may be generated behind this matter.

This made Chang Haonan alert immediately.

Just like determining difficulty, influence may not necessarily be intuitively reflected.

If the subsequent analysis and operation are not proper, then it is entirely possible that he will be cheated out of a large sum of money, just like he got the system's judgment on the research and development direction for free but did not pay in the end.

"One hundred thousand is one hundred thousand..."

Chang Haonan gritted his teeth and chose to confirm in his mind.

Then, he leaned back in his seat and enjoyed the rapid flow of data into his brain...

……

Five days later, Torch Laboratory Underground Research Center.

On the huge LCD display, the three-dimensional neutron flux distribution diagram that overlaps the nuclear reactor simulation structure is slowly rotating, and as Chang Haonan's fingers tap quickly on the keyboard, it continuously displays the dynamic simulation of the fuel temperature feedback effect of each part.

Nearly a decade has passed, and China's supercomputing industry, represented by the Sugon series, has largely embarked on a development path of its own. Although it is still unable to completely break away from the support of the international division of labor in terms of lithography equipment, wafer materials, and exposure processes, at least it no longer needs to completely import computing and image processing chips from abroad as it did at the beginning of this century.

The "Dawn-7000" supercomputer now installed in the underground computer room is the latest equipment that arrived at the beginning of the year.

"It's been less than a week, and you...you've already looked through all the data?"

After receiving Chang Haonan's call, Peng Juexian and his team rushed to the Torch Laboratory almost non-stop, only to find that the other party had even prepared a schematic diagram with image rendering.

In fact, with the help of the system, it took Chang Haonan less than a day to find the problem. He then further analyzed the causes and prepared this very intuitive situation report.

But it certainly cannot be said that:

"I said before that I wouldn't use the traversal method..."

After shaking hands with Peng Juexian, Chang Haonan sat back in front of the computer at the head of the conference table:

"And we were lucky enough to find anomalies in the data of the core active area, which was the second priority."

Seeing that he had entered the main topic, Peng Juexian calmed down his doubts and shock and asked seriously:

"So... is there something wrong with the stimulated neutron yield we calculated?"

"Yes." Chang Haonan nodded, "But the problem is not with us."

He highlighted two sets of data on the screen and displayed them side by side:

"Look at this temperature-reactivity coefficient curve."

He moved the mouse pointer over it:

"The parameter file provided by HFR shows that in the range of 200-400c, the Doppler coefficient should be a smooth -2.3pcm/c..."

Peng Juexian leaned forward and raised his glasses slightly to see more clearly.

Chang Haonan had already noticed something was wrong halfway through his speech: "But the actual data showed an obvious turning point at 325c?" He pointed to the abrupt depression on the screen, "This second-order derivative change... looks like an abnormal distortion of the fuel core?"

"To be precise, it should be the temperature feedback effect."

Chang Haonan stated his own judgment, and then added a detailed explanation given by the system:

"As you know, at the end of the first delayed supercritical state, as the core temperature gradually rises, the fuel Doppler temperature reactivity effect and thermal expansion effect will gradually increase, thereby introducing negative reactivity into the reactor and automatically adjusting the power growth rate. Engineers generally use this time to ensure that the cooling system is fully involved before entering the second delayed supercritical state."

As a technician in the field of nuclear energy, this knowledge was quite basic for Peng Juexian, but he still listened patiently and nodded to indicate that the other party was correct.

"But the data provided by HFR seriously underestimated the temperature reactivity effect of aluminum-clad uranium fuel... The calculation results show that the actual Doppler effect reached an astonishing -7.4pcm/c, which is 3.2 times the reported value. Therefore, the negative reactivity introduced by the reactor is an order of magnitude higher than the previous estimate, resulting in the reactor being unable to enter the second delayed supercritical state and failing to start."

Chang Haonan finished speaking the rest of the story in one breath:

"Of course, the solution is simple: just reintroduce an additional correction term into the assessment model."

The conference room fell into dead silence.

After a long time, Huang Zhitao, who was sitting behind Peng Juexian, finally couldn't help but break the silence:

"This explains why there is a reactivity cliff before criticality..."

The other people present did not respond, and it was obvious that they were no longer paying attention to the technical issues.

"But..." Peng Juexian's voice trembled, "HFR is the world's top research reactor, how could it make such a low-level mistake?"

“It’s not necessarily a mistake they made.”

Chang Haonan rubbed his nose and stated his own inference:

"No matter how professional HFR is, its nuclear fuel, design and production are all dependent on outsiders, and the data disclosed to the public is definitely a direct copy of the parameters given by the supplier."

In one sentence, everyone was shocked.

"!!!"

Huang Zhitao then realized that the focus of the big guys in front of him had already shifted, but his brain was still a little behind, and he asked in confusion:

"But if that's the case... they didn't notice it before?"

Chang Haonan smiled:

"First, the conventional startup method relies on a strong external neutron source, so this negative reactivity is insignificant and will not cause startup failure. Even if there are some deviations in the data during the startup process, since no one in the past could accurately estimate the critical parameters like us, it will be regarded as an error in the simulation calculation stage."

"But our passive starting scheme is already very extreme. Introducing additional negative reactivity is like tying sandbags to the feet of a sprinter." Peng Juexian slammed his fist on the table. "No wonder we always fail every time we get close to the critical point!"

Chang Haonan let the other party vent for a while, and then continued:

"Secondly, it cannot be ruled out that some individuals within HFR knew about this and assisted... or at least allowed this to happen."

Thanks to this change in timeline, European unionism is still mainstream, but the level of US penetration into European countries cannot be underestimated.

Peng Juexian's eyes were now dangerous: "So, someone wants to deliberately sabotage or delay our non-external source activation plan..."

However, this time, Chang Haonan waved his hand to deny his guess:

"Not very likely."

Peng Juexian and Huang Zhitao both looked puzzled.

"We only decided to test the launch of the neutron source a few months ago. Not to mention that the scope of knowledge was very small and it was not easy to leak, the upgrade and transformation process of HFR was already completed at that time. Even if it was leaked immediately, there would be no time to come up with such a complicated operation."

After hearing this analysis, Peng Juexian gradually calmed down:

"so……"

"So no matter who is behind this, the real target should be us, or it may also include the subsequent tritium proliferation tests conducted by various countries!"