福岛核事故分析-英文.docVIP

How Is Japans Nuclear Disaster Different? 王小亮 学号：1090230113 班级：0902301 Abstract：There are some key differences that set the current Fukushima situation apart from the 1979 Three Mile Island emergency and the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. In terms of reactor type, Japans Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex is made up of six boiling-water reactors, or BWRs—a type of Light Water Reactor. Whereas the Three Mile Island used another type of Light Water Reactor known as a pressurized-water reactor, or PWR. In a PWR, the water is kept under pressure. This means the temperature can be higher than the boiling point of water without generating a significant amount steam (a less efficient coolant). So the reactor core operates at a higher temperature in these systems, and heat can be transferred more efficiently. Boiling-water reactors operate at lower temperatures, and they tend to be simpler, with fewer parts. Chernobyls reactors were a type called RBMK, which also used water for the coolant. But unlike the Light Water Reactors, the RMBK used graphite as a moderator. As a matter of fact, BWR or PWR technologies are equally safe. Both types of reactors have a kind of self-regulation or negative feedback loop: As the reactor gets hotter, the fission reaction slows down, decreasing power. The RMBK design, on the other hand, could go into positive feedback, where higher temperature begets more power, which in turn increases the temperature, and so on. In the aspect of accident causes, the tsunami appears to be the immediate culprit in the Fukushima disaster, since the plants shut down as they were designed to do following the earthquake. While the operator error was the fundamental cause of the Three Mile Island disaster accident, because emergency cooling systems were shut down , with direct consequences. At the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine, an ill-conceived, badly executed safety test initiated the disaster. A sudden surge of power triggered a steam explosion that ruptur