French nuclear industry report on Fukushima

Barrett808

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Sun Apr-24-11 12:49 PM
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French nuclear industry report on Fukushima

French nuclear conglomerate AREVA presented this slide deck during an invitation-only meeting at Stanford University on 21 March 2011. The Fukushima Daiichi Incident outlines the probable course of events, from the earthquake to the meltdowns. Most of this information hasn’t received widespread media coverage, but Arnie Gunderson and the folks at Fairewinds have liberated it for us. ...

2. Accident Progression

At ~1800°C

Melting of the cladding
Melting of the steel structures

At ~2500°C

Breaking of the fuel rods
Debris bed inside the core

At ~2700°C

Significant melting of uranium-
zirconium-oxides

French nuclear industry report on Fukushima

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flamingdem

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Sun Apr-24-11 12:56 PM
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1. I believe I read that zirconium melts at 1200 C

mon dieu

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caraher

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Sun Apr-24-11 05:19 PM
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2. It's a bit higher

Edited on Sun Apr-24-11 05:22 PM by caraher

Zircalloy melts above 2040 K according to the http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2685987">abstract of this paper, which is almost 1770 Celcius. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zirconium">Wikipedia quotes 1855 C for zirconium's melting point.

Still, it was and is hot in there, and nobody doubts there was too much melting...

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