#Nuclear submarine reactor meltdown generator#

This kept pumping energy into the core for some time, raising the temperature and leading to the tremendous steam explosion that blew the reactor apart.Īnother problem was Chernobyl’s control rods – the bottom several inches not only didn’t absorb neutrons but were also made of graphite. In Chernobyl, when they lost their cooling water, the graphite kept moderating neutrons, causing fission. The problem with this design is that a loss of coolant won’t shut down the reactor because the graphite moderator is still present. Moderation slows down the neutrons, allowing for more fission and producing more plutonium. Chernobyl used graphite for moderating neutrons because graphite is a better moderator than is water. But Chernobyl’s reactor was designed to produce both heat and an isotope of plutonium, Pu-239, used in creating nuclear weapons. The now-liquid water is pumped back to be heated and start the cycle again.Ĭhernobyl – Problematic moderators, control rods, and containmentīoth Western-style nuclear reactors and Chernobyl used water for cooling. There, the steam passes through another nest of cooling tubes returning the steam to the liquid state.

In both cases, the steam spins turbines that extract every last bit of energy before the steam passes into a condenser. The water carrying the heat it picked up in the reactor passes through a nest of thousands of tubes to transfer that heat to water on the other side of those tubes, causing it to boil – the steam generator. Water in a PWR follows a more circuitous path. In the case of a BWR, the water is heated to boiling in the reactor vessel itself. More precisely, heat is exchanged in the reactor core, cooling the reactor and warming the coolant.

In both cases, the reactor heats water as it passes through the core. The reactor at Three Mile Island was a PWR, while the Fukushima reactors were BWR designs. Chernobyl was neither of these designs – those design decisions had enormous consequences. The BWR design boils the water in the reactor core itself.īig-picture-wise, a BWR is a simpler design but is more likely to have radioactive contamination in the steam side of the plant.

#Nuclear submarine reactor meltdown generator#

In the PWR, the water that turns to steam and spins the turbines is brought to a boil in a steam generator.

If you take a close look, you’ll see only one fundamental difference between these two designs. These two drawings show the two most common types of reactors used to produce electrical power. Not sure, then begin here, where I explain those terms. Before we do the analysis, you need to understanding coolants, moderators, reactor controls, and containment.