The China Syndrome

[MudPuppy176]

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

I received my initial reactor training at Bettis Labs - Naval Reactors in Idaho, not far from the SL1 site. We were given a tour of the facility and as I recall, it happened during reactor maintenance, not operations. For reasons not known (or I can't remember) they pulled a rod (they were not motorized) and took the reactor super-critical.

As I recall, one of the maintenance workers was impaled by the rod itself...

One was impaled, I believe 3 died. The one impaled was launched into the ceiling by the control rod where his body was found. We saw the training video when I went through operator licensing. No one knew why he pulled the rod up, but he had to do it quickly to get the steam generation required to eject the control rod. I saw the video around 1983, kinda foggy by now....

[BajaGringo]

Originally Posted by MudPuppy176

One was impaled, I believe 3 died. The one impaled was launched into the ceiling by the control rod where his body was found. We saw the training video when I went through operator licensing. No one knew why he pulled the rod up, but he had to do it quickly to get the steam generation required to eject the control rod. I saw the video around 1983, kinda foggy by now....

My training took place in 1976, so you can imagine how foggy my memory is. There are some pretty cool sites out there in the Idaho desert. Because of my security clearance and bilingual ability, I was asked to accompany a tour from Spain to visit a few of the areas that were normally off-limits, including the spent fuel handling facility and others.

The one I found most interesting was a test site where they were setting up to see if a water cooled thermal fuel core would simply go sub-critical and shutdown if the all water were rapidly drained, simulating a major loss of coolant accident. The theory was that there would be some minor meltdown but that overall the core would remain intact, going against the popular "China Syndrome" scare.

I listened to the project lead explain the theory and it sounded feasible. Unfortunately the actual testing was scheduled to begin after my training at Idaho.

I suppose it wasn't something that would make the news. I still am curious as to what happened...

[MudPuppy176]

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

The one I found most interesting was a test site where they were setting up to see if a water cooled thermal fuel core would simply go sub-critical and shutdown if the all water were rapidly drained, simulating a major loss of coolant accident. The theory was that there would be some minor meltdown but that overall the core would remain intact, going against the popular "China Syndrome" scare.

I listened to the project lead explain the theory and it sounded feasible. Unfortunately the actual testing was scheduled to begin after my training at Idaho.

I suppose it wasn't something that would make the news. I still am curious as to what happened...

I'm sure it would go sub-critical without moderation, let alone doppler's effects. Fast fission alone wouldn't yield a Keffective over 1. The decay heat however would pose problems....
We've already been warned by moderators that this thread is about a nuclear power movie, and not about nuclear power. We should discuss cardboard and styrofoam to keep the thread on track.