Blast force?

1st Official Post

    Due to the horror stories I've heard around these places, I've got a small question.
    How powerful can nuclear explosions be? In particular, nuclear meltdowns?


    While it's entirely possible to make entirely safe nuclear reactors, they don't exactly use their uranium cells to the maximum. I'd like to use several high power nuclear reactors, preferably MKIII and MKIV, in order to power some fairly large facilities.


    Water's blast resistance is 500, and that has little effect. How thick would I need to make, say, an Obsidian wall to protect everything on the other side?

    • Official Post

    If I understand explosion resistance correctly, a 2-block wall of reinforced material (any combination of the alloy-enhanced stone, glass, and doors) or a 3-block wall of obsidian should be enough to keep you safe from even the most awesome of nuclear meltdowns. And I'm going to just leave this here, because it's relevant to the topic and awesome.

    I tested the blast radius and damage of a full reactor set filled up with uranium. It took a 7x7 11x11 cube (I looked at the cube and found that I miscounted lol) of reinforced stone to absorb the blast. Even then there was slight outside damage where one or two holes were made and blasted through. While I did not try obsidian, if the reactor and nuke operate like the normal tnt then I would say the encasing it fully in obsidian will grant you the best protection.


    Edit: I just tried with a 5x5 cube of obsidian. The result was not what I expected. MinecraftCreeper The meltdown completely destroyed the obsidian cube and the surrounding area. Looking at the blast radius it seems that the obsidian had little to no effect on the blast. Troubling...


    Edit: I also tried filling only a reactor full and encasing it in a 5x5 cube of obsidian. While not all the obsidian was destroyed the result was still a disastrous. So I would recommend fully encasing the reactor set in water with atleast 3-4 layers of obsidian. You must also take into account the wiring and must have the exit for that properly encased as much as possible.

    Quote from david8029

    I tested the blast radius and damage of a full reactor set filled up with uranium. It took a 7x7 11x11 cube (I looked at the cube and found that I miscounted lol) of reinforced stone to absorb the blast. Even then there was slight outside damage where one or two holes were made and blasted through. While I did not try obsidian, if the reactor and nuke operate like the normal tnt then I would say the encasing it fully in obsidian will grant you the best protection.


    Edit: I just tried with a 5x5 cube of obsidian. The result was not what I expected. MinecraftCreeper The meltdown completely destroyed the obsidian cube and the surrounding area. Looking at the blast radius it seems that the obsidian had little to no effect on the blast. Troubling...


    Indeed. the diamond tip drill rips threw obsidian in about 2 seconds while it takes a daimond pick about 15ish seconds. To go threw reinforced stone you NEED a daimond tip drill and it takes about 15 seconds, that should tell you something about the (blast) resistance difference.


    Also if the numbers are incorrect, ignore them, I somewhat made them up to prove the point :P

    My previous reply was edited right as you posted. Also I believe there is a way to safe guard the area around the reactor but it may prove to cost much more than it does to merely operate the reactor itself. So I guess 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure'.

    Quote from david8029

    My previous reply was edited right as you posted. Also I believe there is a way to safe guard the area around the reactor but it may prove to cost much more than it does to merely operate the reactor itself. So I guess 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure'.


    Haha well whynot provide an example of your safe guard so that people may decide for themselves if its worth it ^^


    I myself donot use nuclear power because tbh I havent much looked into the engineering process and Id rather wait till all the bugs are worked out so that I dont get used to a process that doesnt work :P

    In other words, with how difficult it is to get a large amount of Obsidian needed for that kind of thing, I should go with a thick Reinforced Stone container with water surrounding the reactor in order to make it reasonably safe if I, for some stupid reason, leave the thing running while in a MK-III or IV setup.


    Probably could easily use a piston based doorway to gain access too.

    I think at some point there should be Iridium shelding and Iridium Reinforced Blocks to stop a nuke blast. Also this would give Iridium so more useful crafting recipes.

    I have tested and a full meltdown will blow a hole through FIVE LAYERS OF OBSIDIAN (Albalaka: ლ(ಠ益ಠლ) Why you make obsidian obsolete?!?)
    I have however designed a Reactor containment chamber which will contain most mark IV reactor's meltdown,
    and yes it is of course way better to just stop your reactor from exploding than preparing for the imminent explosion
    I will post Schematics on my reactor thread later.

    • Official Post

    Yes, Obsidian is nerfed by IC². It seriously made reinforced Stone useless... why to produce expensive shielding if you can just mine loads of obsidian with a diamond drill.
    Reinforced Stone IS the best material to absorb a Nuclear Explosion.


    However, depending on the amount of Uranium Cells in a Reactor, you would need up to 5-6 layers of Reinforced Stone for the worst case.
    Assuming you are not designing a reactor meant to explode, merely containing a handfull of cells, 1-2 layers are sufficient, though.

    I did some tests of my own: Mark V Reactor Testing
    ***NOTE: All testing done in .90 not sure if stats will be the same in 1.00***


    if you want to make a complete containment system for the WORST possible scenario... your best bet is:


    7 layers of water, 1 layer of reinforced material <-- this SHOULD prevent ANY damage, other than the loss of the reactor and chambers (and about 5 layers of water that get evaporated)


    You can do as little as 5 layers of water if you put in 2 layers of reinforced material. (one of the layers of reinforced material will take damage.)


    ***NOTE***
    If you run your power cable from the reactor in a straight line, the blast will follow it like a hot knife through warm butter, so you want to put in at least 1, preferably 2 direction changes in your cable.


    P.S. These images were tested in .90 so I'm not sure if they are completely accurate anymore. And if you read the comments, they were made before I found out obsidian was nerfed to 60 blast resistence. I haven't taken screenshots of new tests with reinforced materials.