On the touchscreen, he selected the control area for the nuclear instrumentation, selected the source range channel selector switch, and put it into the mode labeled “startup range.” He selected the rod group control function area on the touchscreen and selected group one rods to inverter A. He reached down to the panel for the pistol grip for the control rods. “Latching group one rods,” he said to MacHinery as he pulled out the pistol grip and rotated it to the nine o’clock position. He got a light on the display. He rotated the grip to the three o’clock position to withdraw rods. “Pulling out group one to the top of the core.”
It took thirty seconds to get group one rods out. The last time he’d been in maneuvering, group one was fully withdrawn and the reactor was controlled by group two, with group three halfway withdrawn. He selected inverter C to group three rods, then latched them as before. “Pulling group three to forty inches,” he said, again rotating the pistol grip to three o’clock. Fifteen seconds later, he selected group two rods to inverter B, latched them and started pulling.
“Pulling group two to criticality.” On the display, he monitored the source range nuclear instrument, the power level slowly climbing out of the startup range. He looked at the startup rate meter, which was climbing up from two decades per minute to three. Each decade was an increase in the neutron flux power level by a factor of ten. Startup rate climbed. Seven, eight, nine decades per minute, a rate fast enough to make a civilian nuclear operator faint dead away, and in fact, the procedure was so dangerous that the ship was required to be more than fifty miles from land to execute it.
Pacino released the pistol grip, the rods holding at eighteen inches from the bottom. At nine decades per minute, the reactor power was screaming out of the startup range and headed for the intermediate range. He reached to the touch screen and deactivated the source range nuclear instrument, which would be burned out by the flux of the intermediate range. The intermediate startup rate meter came alive and showed a startup rate of eight decades per minute. Pacino shimmed out until the needle was steady at nine decades per minute.
Thirty seconds later, the reactor power level had reached the power range, that level of neutron flux where additional reactivity insertion into the core could heat up the water of the primary loop.
Pacino clicked the 1MC mike. “The reactor… is
Pacino pulled rods out and watched reactor average temperature. Normally, the heat-up rate was required to be slow, to avoid blowing up the reactor vessel from thermal stress, but this was an emergency. The core temperature came up from 300 to 350, then 400. Soon average core temperature was 500 degrees. It was time for the reactor to take over from the battery.
“Reactor is in the power range,” he announced on the 1MC. “Your show, Chief,” he shouted to MacHinery. “Start up the engineroom.”
“Give me main seawater pumps one and two, aux feedwater pump one and engineroom freshwater pump two,” he said. Pacino spun around to the aft panel and hit the toggle switches for the pumps. As he did, MacHinery left to start the steam plant.
The faint hiss of steam could be heard in the piping overhead. On the display panel, Pacino watched the steam generator levels. The trick was to get a steam turbine generator online before the boilers went dry, and since the main feed pump to the boilers couldn’t be started on the battery, there was a huge hurry to get a steam turbine on the grid. Failure at this would mean the reactor plant would die.
The steam sound was roaring and screaming now as the steam headers dumped out the condensation and warmed up. Chief MacHinery skidded to a halt at the door to maneuvering.
“I’ve got full vacuum on the port condenser. I’m gonna crank the port SSTG now,” he said, then disappeared. Aft of maneuvering, on the port side, the sound of a turbine rolling could be heard. Soon it was loud in the space, the sound a bass whining, then starting a soprano scream, almost as if a jet engine were roaring up to full throttle right outside the maneuvering room. Finally, the shrieking scream steadied on pitch, and a moment later MacHinery put his head into the room.
“Port turbine generator is on the governor and ready for loading! I’m going to the feed station! Get that SSTG on the bus!”
Pacino selected the ship’s service turbine generator frequency meter and touched the function to parallel it into the AC bus, whose frequency was managed by the motor-generator. It would be disastrous if the steam turbine came online out of synchronization — it could jump right off its steel foundation. But the auto-synch function worked perfectly. Pacino loaded up the turbine generator, taking the load off the battery.
