Soviet submarine K-27
Project 645
Immersed: 4,370
2 × GTZA -601 - turbine sets
2 × 17,500 WPS ( 12,871 kW)
- 8 × torpedo tubes ∅ 533 mm
The K -27 was a nuclear submarine of the Soviet Navy. It was a pilot boat, which received two liquid- metal- cooled reactors instead of the normal pressurized water reactors in the hull of a Project 627- boat. From NATO, it was called the November class. The modified K- 27 was called Project 645. It suffered in 1968 a reactor damage and was known to the public through its dumping in 1982 and the resulting risks to the environment.
- 3.1 Remarks
- 3.2 Notes and references
- 3.3 Literature
- 3.4 External links
History
Construction
The boat was laid in 1958 in Severodvinsk on Kiel. It was intended to test a new type of nuclear reactor and its construction proceeded under strict deadlines. However, there were numerous delays in the delivery of important components, so the project was delayed. To make up for lost time, was led, for example, by the test of the pressure hull on the scheduled date, although that was not finished yet and we had to test the bow and stern section separately. To make matters worse still, that the pattern of the new reactor was to coincide with the construction of the boat in a country means constantly adapted and changed and you had to implement during building operation on K -27 these changes.
Use and accident
K -27 was launched in 1962, his commissioning took place in late October 1963 instead.
Having been in the first five years problems with the reactors had occurred again and again, it was on May 24, 1968 developed one serious accident. The boat was despite serious problems that contaminated by small amounts of water, which was invaded by undetected leaks in the primary coolant circuit of a reactor, has been ordered by the division commander Rear Admiral Mikhail Grigorievich Proskunow on a patrol. The boat ran out on May 21.
On May 24, around 12 clock noon, overheated backbords suddenly the reactor and the jacket of some fuel rods were destroyed. The exiting radioactivity passed into the primary cooling circuit by the evaporating water in the reactor and the pressure equalization inside and the fourth section of the boat.
The reactor had to be shut, his power output decreased rapidly within a short time from 83 to only 7%. The radiation exposure in Division IV reached 1,500 roentgens per hour. Several crew members were contaminated by deadly ionizing radiation during repairs. Four sailors have died at sea or shortly thereafter in the hospital, another died from the effects of radiation, which he had contracted in the harbor during guard duty on board. 30 sailors who had been involved in fighting the accident, died between 1968 and 2003.
Because of the accident parts of the reactor were not sufficiently cooled; radioactive portions, the circulating of the cooling liquid through the reactor, the contaminated parts of the large boat. K -27 was decommissioned and anchored near a base.
The findings that had been obtained through the use of a reactor with cooling by liquid metal on K -27, were fundamental for the mass production of Project 705 (Alfa class).
Dumping
The boat was never decontaminated and never repaired the reactor. In 1980 it was decided to sink the hull with two reactors in the Kara Sea before Novaya Zemlya. 1981, preparations were made and all lines to the reactor at the shipyard "star" in Severodvinsk filled with a fast-curing liquid to seal all the entrances. Then we filled the reactor department with a total of 270 tonnes of bitumen and filled some of the ballast tanks with polystyrene to improve the lift. In the fall of 1982 the boat [A 1] was dragged into the Kara Sea to the sink position at 72 ° 31'28 N and 55 ° 30'09 O, where it lies today in around 75 meters of water.
In September 2012, the case received new attention by the press: Report Mainz quoted an unpublished report by the Russian Ministry of the Environment. According to experts, the safety of the nuclear reactor was no longer guaranteed. The water can cause an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction. [A 2] It threatens a release of large quantities of radioactive material. At risk are among other fish in the Barents Sea. Therefore, should K -27 lifted until 2014 and the nuclear fuel to be recovered, as K- 159th According to the Russian State Institute for Radiation Protection ( IBRAE ) escape annually since 1981 and 851 million becquerels of radioactivity.