Nuclear Powered car ?
Discussion
Ok, I know it will probably never happen due to the very real safety issues but I think it could be fun to discuss, imagine for example that the safety issues were no worse than a normal car.
What would a Nuclear car be like ? how big ? how heavy ? what would drive it ? am thinking a small reactor with some steam generation of electricity to power a motor or would there be a better way ?
What kind of performance could you get from a car sized reactor and how often would you have to fuel it, what kind of cooling would you need ?
So, anyone here with a Physics degree ?
What would a Nuclear car be like ? how big ? how heavy ? what would drive it ? am thinking a small reactor with some steam generation of electricity to power a motor or would there be a better way ?
What kind of performance could you get from a car sized reactor and how often would you have to fuel it, what kind of cooling would you need ?
So, anyone here with a Physics degree ?
It depends on the sort of reactor that you'd want to use and how much power you get out of it. The reactors on the Voyager space probes are still going but don't prodcue that much electrictiy compare to what i presume a car needs. There were prototypes built for a nuclear powered aircraft, both the Soviet Union and the US had working prototypes but the American's decided that far to much weight would need to be put into the reactor shielding to make it usable and the Soviets didn't bother about shielding so the pilots all died of cancer.
Have thought about this as well.
Think the shielding would be too heavy to make it practical.
No issue of blowing up etc.
Maybe for very large industrial vehicles such as those used for mining/quarrying etc it might be feasible?!
A more suitable solution would be something along the lines of cold fusion/fission.
Don't have a degree in physics, so I could be totally off, but it's fun for the untrained mind!
Think the shielding would be too heavy to make it practical.
No issue of blowing up etc.
Maybe for very large industrial vehicles such as those used for mining/quarrying etc it might be feasible?!
A more suitable solution would be something along the lines of cold fusion/fission.
Don't have a degree in physics, so I could be totally off, but it's fun for the untrained mind!
tinoproductions said:
A more suitable solution would be something along the lines of cold fusion/fission.
When cold fission happens to produce any power, please let me know. So far it takes more going in than usefully comes out, as well as having equipment the size of a large barn.Fission is what happens in the nuclear reactor previously mentioned.
My degree is engineering rather than physics (my uncle's the nuclear physicist in the family).
RH
Cold fusion doesn't work and the thorium laser stuff is snakeoil.
You can make the core of a fission reactor very small indeed. Assuming you're using Uranium, generally speaking the smaller you want it to be the higher your Uranium enrichment has to be. Submarine reactors run over 90% I believe. Many of the small reactors, like the Imperial Uni one that's closed now, also ran high enrichment. There's increasing pressure for such reactors to switch to alternate fuels because of the weapon proliferation risk. Anyway, ignoring politics, the core's not the limiting factor - you could make one about a foot across easily. A number of reactors have been put into space that weighed several hundred kilos, up to about a ton. SNAP-10A for example, actual reactor's the bit on the top;
Only one the yanks launched. Never worked but the principle was sound. Soviets launched a bunch of them.
The limiting thing in a car is the shielding to keep the driver and people nearby alive. I don't know what the minimum to keep people under the dose limit for a very small reactor would be. Several meters though is my guess. You couldn't do it in a car unfortunately.
Much more 'practical' for a car would be a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Basically a lump of something that's so radioactive it's generating an enormous amount of heat just sitting there - Polonium-210, Plutonium-238 etc. The shielding's trivial, 10's of mm of lead. Plut's about 500W per kilo but would last for decades, polonium ~140kW per kilo but you'd have to replace it yearly (and it's much, much rarer).
You can make the core of a fission reactor very small indeed. Assuming you're using Uranium, generally speaking the smaller you want it to be the higher your Uranium enrichment has to be. Submarine reactors run over 90% I believe. Many of the small reactors, like the Imperial Uni one that's closed now, also ran high enrichment. There's increasing pressure for such reactors to switch to alternate fuels because of the weapon proliferation risk. Anyway, ignoring politics, the core's not the limiting factor - you could make one about a foot across easily. A number of reactors have been put into space that weighed several hundred kilos, up to about a ton. SNAP-10A for example, actual reactor's the bit on the top;
Only one the yanks launched. Never worked but the principle was sound. Soviets launched a bunch of them.
The limiting thing in a car is the shielding to keep the driver and people nearby alive. I don't know what the minimum to keep people under the dose limit for a very small reactor would be. Several meters though is my guess. You couldn't do it in a car unfortunately.
Much more 'practical' for a car would be a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Basically a lump of something that's so radioactive it's generating an enormous amount of heat just sitting there - Polonium-210, Plutonium-238 etc. The shielding's trivial, 10's of mm of lead. Plut's about 500W per kilo but would last for decades, polonium ~140kW per kilo but you'd have to replace it yearly (and it's much, much rarer).
doogz said:
Thing is, the sheilding might be trivial, from a static, radiation point of view. But in reality, it's in a car, and people regularly crash them. So it's going to have to be encased in something much stronger, which as a result will be much heavier. Which will make crashing it much nastier for the occupants, momentum's a b
h.
Another trivial problem I'd say. In reality you'd combine the shielding/protection It wouldn't need to be that heavy - you'd just encapsulate it in a lump of something. No matter how hard you crash you're never going to split a seamless lump of titanium alloy. It'd be easy to make it lighter than a conventional engine, I think.h.In reality you'd make it a hybrid. RTG to charge a battery pack. Massively reduces the size of the RTG you'd need.
The two things that kill it as a concept are people deliberately trying to get at the isotopes and the very limited supply, and hence enormous cost, of elements that are suitable.
submarine reactors are about as small as is practical (and they are not that small!)
Yanks/Russians tested Nuclear powered planes back on the 50's (not 100% as the yanks just flew round with a reactor on board, as opposed to the Ruskies that actually had the plane powered by the reactor)
the Yank one was NB-36H, the Ruskies used a Tu-119
Yanks/Russians tested Nuclear powered planes back on the 50's (not 100% as the yanks just flew round with a reactor on board, as opposed to the Ruskies that actually had the plane powered by the reactor)
the Yank one was NB-36H, the Ruskies used a Tu-119
doogz said:
Really? lead lined and with a somehow seamless titanium casting around it, it'd be lighter than a conventional engine? I'm not so sure tbh. You're aware that the fuel itself is likely to be rather heavy. And whatever you encase it in is going to have to be able to withstand a very hefty thump, without cracking at all. I'm not sure why you think "no matter how hard you crash you're never going to split a seamless lump of titanium alloy"
It's strong stuf, but not that strong.
Don't forget that your radioisotope lump's not going to have to be that big. Polonium would give you ~190hp per kilo thermal. It's strong stuf, but not that strong.
Problem with nuclear is that all it generates is heat - you then have to convert that into electricity. Normally you a have a reactor vessel, a high-pressure primary coolant system that takes the heat from the reactor to a heat exchanger and then a second low pressure system that uses steam to drive turbines that then drive a generator. How you'd pack that into the engine bay of a car I've no idea (unless it's an Escalade).
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