Lenin (1957 icebreaker)
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Lenin docked at Murmansk
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History | |
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Soviet Union | |
Name | Lenin (Ленин) |
Namesake | Vladimir Lenin |
Builder | Admiralty Shipyards, Leningrad USSR[1] |
Launched | 1957[1] |
Completed | 1959 |
In service | 1959–1989 |
Identification | IMO number: 5206087 |
Status | Preserved as a museum ship |
General characteristics | |
Displacement | 16,000 tonnes [2] |
Length | 134 m (440 ft)[1][2] |
Beam | 27.6 m (91 ft)[1][2] |
Draught | 10.5 m (34 ft)[1] |
Depth | 16.1 m (53 ft) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion | Nuclear-turbo-electric, three shafts[1] |
Speed | 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph)[1] |
Crew | 243 |
Lenin (
Propulsion
When launched in 1957, Lenin was powered by three OK-150 reactors. In its late-1960s configuration, at full capacity the ship used five to six pounds of uranium-235 per 100 days.[2]
In the configuration employed from 1970, two
Nuclear accidents
In February 1965, there was a loss-of-coolant accident. After being shut down for refueling, the coolant was removed from the number two reactor before the spent fuel had been removed. As a result, some of the fuel elements melted and deformed inside the reactor. When the spent elements were being unloaded for storage and disposal, it was found that 124 fuel assemblies (about 60% of the total) were stuck in the reactor core. It was decided to remove the fuel, control grid, and control rods as a unit for disposal; they were placed in a special cask, solidified, stored for two years, and dumped in Tsivolki Bay (near the Novaya Zemlya archipelago) in 1967.[citation needed]
The second accident was a cooling system leak which occurred in 1967, shortly after refueling. Finding the leak required breaking through the concrete and metal biological shield with sledgehammers. Once the leak was found, it became apparent that the sledgehammer damage could not be repaired; subsequently, all three reactors were removed by blowing them off the ship with shaped charges above a burial site off Novaya Zemlya,[4] and replaced by two OK-900 reactors. This was completed in early 1970.[5]
Retirement
Lenin was decommissioned in 1989, because its hull had worn thin from ice friction. She was laid up at
References
- ^ LCCN 97-12872.
- ^ Soviet Life. 2 (149): 57. February 1969.
- ISBN 87-7893-200-9. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2018-04-17. Retrieved 2017-08-22.
- ^ Выгрузка атомной установки ОК – 150 с ледокола «Ленин». Retrieved 2018-09-15.
- ^ "Nuclear icebreaker Lenin". Russian nuclear icebreaker fleet. www.bellona.org. Archived from the original on 2007-10-15. Retrieved 2013-03-07.
- ^ "Lenin (Ship)". Britannica. Retrieved 2020-05-28.
External links
- NKS Evaluation of Russian Marine Nuclear Reactors
- Bellona Foundation Article on Icebreaker Lenin
- Barbara Jancar-Webster (July 2001). "Red Atom: Russia's Nuclear Power Program from Stalin to Today by Paul R. Josephson (review)". Russian Review. 60 (3): 452–454. JSTOR 2679691. Critical article on Lenin Icebreaker
- The world's first nuclear-powered icebreaker Lenin – Official video material from Rosatom with English subtitles on YouTube