0
Want this question answered?
Be notified when an answer is posted
Add your answer:
Earn +20 pts
What was the difference about chernobyl and the integral fast reactor when they both lost coolant?
At Chernobyl there was a steam explosion which blew off the top of the reactor followed by a fire due to the graphite moderator burning in air, and a huge amount of radioactive material was discharged, including fission products from the fuel. I'm not sure which fast reactor you are referring to, but certainly the incident did not involve massive catastrophic failure of the reactor vessel, or it would have become a world incident as Chernobyl did.
How can the chernobyl disaster avoided in the future?
The reactor at Chernobyl was not a water cooled reactor like virtually all of the United States reactors. This was certainly a contributing factor to the disaster. More safety controls and more testing of these devices would have also helped the issue, along with backups to the safety shutdown devices.
How was chernobyl reactor accident controlled or put out?
It was not controlled, once the top of the reactor was blown off there was nothing anyone could do. The fuel melted and ran down, whilst the graphite burned away, so this would stop the nuclear reaction. The task then was to put out the fire which was still raising radioactive material into the atmosphere. This was done partly by firemen with hoses (many of whom died from radiation) and by dropping material onto the burning reactor from helicopters.
Would the radiation from a nuclear reactor be fatal?
The radiation from a properly functioning nuclear power reactor is heavily shielded and cannot be approached close enough to be fatal. Radiation from damaged or malfunctioning nuclear power plants can be, and has been, fatal. The nuclear reactor incident at Chernobyl is one example. Nuclear reactor failures aboard ships and submarines also prove fatal but are often hidden behind national security; submarine K-19 'the widowmaker' was one such example. And of course, if one were to get into the reactor room past all of the shielding, any reactor would be fatal.
Why can't nuclear reactor in Japan be used ever again?
The worst damaged reactor would require complete demolition and rebuilding to repair it and the levels of radiological contamination in the area are unsafe for such work and of a nature as to make cleanup impractical. The best course of action at this time is encapsulation of the reactor to prevent further contamination of the surrounding area (much like at Chernobyl).
When did the disaster in chernobyl occur?
The chernobyl reactor had only been finished and placed in operation a few years earlier and had been rushed in construction, skipping several important safety tests to meet the construction schedule. The primary cause of the accident that night was trying to perform one of these tests with the reactor in a very unstable range of operation that the procedures required immediate shutdown of the reactor for safety. The test supervisor ordered the operators to keep the reactor running and disable automatic shutdown and safety systems so he could proceed with the test without interruption. If they would not follow his orders he would replace them with operators that would. They did. The result was the reactor was destroyed, many people died, and vast areas around it were contaminated. RBMK reactors are inherently unsafe. The chernobyl reactor site will remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. Unfortunately the sarcophagus is already wearing out and will have to be replaced at least every 50 years.
How a fusion reactor would be similar to a fission reactor?
explain how a fusion reactor would be similar to a fission reaction
How Chernobyl's incident change safety feature in nuclear reactors?
The incident changed safety precautions throughout the world because it showed the world what could happen if a reactor did explode and what the effects would have been and the effects were devastating.
What is a dangerous condition caused by the overheating of the nuclear core of the reactor?
Overheating of the reactor fuel rods could damage the zircaloy sheaths and enable gaseous fission products to enter the reactor coolant stream. This alone would not be dangerous, but if a loss of coolant had caused the overheating then this could release activity into the secondary containment. What would follow from this depends on the individual design of the plant.
Proper training would have saved the chernobyl disaster?
There were so many things that went wrong at Chernobyl that it's not entirely clear whether "proper training" would have helped or not. It's true that the a delay in the test that resulted in the disaster meant that it was being performed by the night shift instead of by the day shift who had been prepared in advance for the reactor shutdown and testing. However, many people who had had sufficient training to know better made bad decisions that cumulatively led to this situation, and there were some problems with the reactor design itself that certainly at least contributed to the disaster.
What is the half life of the Chernobyl reactor?
There were four reactors put into operation, nos 5 and 6 were never completed. The initial startup and final shutdown years for each reactor were: No 1 1977 to 1996. No 2 1978 to 1991. No 3 1981 to 2000. No 4 1983 to 1986. (No 4 was the damaged one). Nos 1,2,and 3 continued to operate, the country needed the power. No 2 was shutdown because of a turbine hall fire, not a reactor problem, Nos 1 and 3 were shutdown after international pressure to do so.
If the control rods in a nuclear reactor are removed would the condition be supercritical or subcritical?
If the control rods in a nuclear reactor were somehow to be instantly "jerked" out of the reactor, the reactor would go supercritical. If they were pulled at a normal rate and all of the control rods were pulled out, the reactor would start up and heat up and would end up running far too hot. Any one of several safety systems would shut the reactor down before this could happen. If the safety systems were disabled, the reactor would overheat and a meltdown may occur.
