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WASH-740
WASH-740 was a report published by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC) in 1957. This report, called "Theoretical Possibilities and Consequences of Major Accidents in Large Nuclear Power Plants" (also known as "The Brookhaven Report"), estimated maximum possible damage from a meltdown with no containment building at a large nuclear reactor. The conclusions of this study estimated the possible effects of a "maximum credible accident" for nuclear reactors then envisioned as being 3400 deaths, 43,000 injuries and property damage of $7 billion ($57bn adjusted for inflation in 2012 since 1957). The estimate of probability was one in a hundred thousand to one in a billion per reactor-year. When WASH-740 was revised in 1964-65 to account for the larger reactors then being designed, the new figures indicated that there could be as many as 45,000 deaths, 100,000 injuries, and $17 billion in property damage ($125bn adjusted for inflation since 1964). However, the assumptions underlyi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WASH-1400
WASH-1400, 'The Reactor Safety Study', was a report produced in 1975 for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by a committee of specialists under Professor Norman Rasmussen. It "generated a storm of criticism in the years following its release". In the years immediately after its release, WASH-1400 was followed by a number of reports that either peer reviewed its methodology or offered their own judgments about probabilities and consequences of various events at commercial reactors. In at least a few instances, some offered critiques of the study's assumptions, methodology, calculations, peer review procedures, and objectivity.John Byrne and Steven M. Hoffman (1996). ''Governing the Atom: The Politics of Risk'', Transaction Publishers, p. 147. A succession of reports, including NUREG-1150, the State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses and others, have carried-on the tradition of PRA and its application to commercial power plants. The report correctly foresaw the impact a tsunami ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CRAC-II
CRAC-II is both a computer code (titled Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences) and the 1982 report of the simulation results performed by Sandia National Laboratories for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The report is sometimes referred to as the CRAC-II report because it is the computer program used in the calculations, but the report is also known as the 1982 Sandia Siting Study or as NUREG/CR-2239. The computer program MACCS2 has since replaced CRAC-II for consequences of radioactive release. CRAC-II has been declared to be obsolete and will be replaced by the State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses study. The CRAC-II simulations calculated the possible consequences of a worst-case accident under worst-case conditions (a so-called "class-9 accident") for a number of different U.S. nuclear power plants. In the Sandia Siting Study, the Indian Point Energy Center was calculated to have the largest possible consequences for an SST1 (spectrum of source terms) release, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses
The State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses (SOARCA) is a study of nuclear power plant safety conducted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The purpose of the SOARCA is assessment of possible impact on population caused by major radiation accidents that might occur at NPPs. This new study updates older studies with the latest state-of-the-art computer models and incorporates new plant safety and security enhancements. History Older studies * WASH-740 (1957) *WASH-1400 (1975) * CRAC-II (1982) *NUREG-1150 (1991) See also *Incident response team *Nuclear power *Nuclear power debate * Nuclear safety in the U.S. *Nuclear safety systems :''This article covers the technical aspects of active nuclear safety systems in the United States. For a general approach to nuclear safety, see nuclear safety.'' The three primary objectives of nuclear reactor safety systems as defined by the ... * Nuclear fuel response to reactor accidents * Nuclear accidents in the United States External ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S. Truman signed the McMahon/Atomic Energy Act on August 1, 1946, transferring the control of atomic energy from military to civilian hands, effective on January 1, 1947. This shift gave the members of the AEC complete control of the plants, laboratories, equipment, and personnel assembled during the war to produce the atomic bomb. An increasing number of critics during the 1960s charged that the AEC's regulations were insufficiently rigorous in several important areas, including radiation protection standards, nuclear reactor safety, plant siting, and environmental protection. By 1974, the AEC's regulatory programs had come under such strong attack that the U.S. Congress decided to abolish the AEC. The AEC was abolished by the En ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Meltdown
A nuclear meltdown (core meltdown, core melt accident, meltdown or partial core melt) is a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in core damage from overheating. The term ''nuclear meltdown'' is not officially defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency or by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It has been defined to mean the accidental melting of the core of a nuclear reactor, however, and is in common usage a reference to the core's either complete or partial collapse. A core meltdown accident occurs when the heat generated by a nuclear reactor exceeds the heat removed by the cooling systems to the point where at least one nuclear fuel element exceeds its melting point. This differs from a fuel element failure, which is not caused by high temperatures. A meltdown may be caused by a loss of coolant, loss of coolant pressure, or low coolant flow rate or be the result of a criticality excursion in which the reactor is operated at a power level that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Containment Building
A containment building is a reinforced steel, concrete or lead structure enclosing a nuclear reactor. It is designed, in any emergency, to contain the escape of radioactive steam or gas to a maximum pressure in the range of . The containment is the fourth and final barrier to radioactive release (part of a nuclear reactor's defence in depth strategy), the first being the fuel ceramic itself, the second being the metal fuel cladding tubes, the third being the reactor vessel and coolant system. Each nuclear plant in the US is designed to withstand certain conditions which are spelled out as "Design Basis Accidents" in the Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR). The FSAR is available for public viewing, usually at a public library near the nuclear plant. The containment building itself is typically an airtight steel structure enclosing the reactor normally sealed off from the outside atmosphere. The steel is either free-standing or attached to the concrete missile shield. In the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid (water or gas), which in turn runs through steam turbines. These either drive a ship's propellers or turn electrical generators' shafts. Nuclear generated steam in principle can be used for industrial process heat or for district heating. Some reactors are used to produce isotopes for medical and industrial use, or for production of weapons-grade plutonium. , the International Atomic Energy Agency reports there are 422 nuclear power reactors and 223 nuclear research reactors in operation around the world. In the early era of nuclear reactors (1940s), a reactor was known as a nuclear pile or atomic pile (so-called because the graphite moderator blocks of the first reactor were placed in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atomic Bomb
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first test of a fission ("atomic") bomb released an amount of energy approximately equal to . The first thermonuclear ("hydrogen") bomb test released energy approximately equal to . Nuclear bombs have had yields between 10 tons TNT (the W54) and 50 megatons for the Tsar Bomba (see TNT equivalent). A thermonuclear weapon weighing as little as can release energy equal to more than . A nuclear device no larger than a conventional bomb can devastate an entire city by blast, fire, and radiation. Since they are weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a focus of international relations policy. Nuclear weapons have been dep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Fallout
Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioactive dust and ash created when a nuclear weapon explodes. The amount and spread of fallout is a product of the size of the weapon and the altitude at which it is detonated. Fallout may get entrained with the products of a pyrocumulus cloud and fall as black rain (rain darkened by soot and other particulates, which fell within 30–40 minutes of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). This radioactive dust, usually consisting of fission products mixed with bystanding atoms that are neutron-activated by exposure, is a form of radioactive contamination. Types of fallout Fallout comes in two varieties. The first is a small amount of carcinogenic material with a long half-life. The second, depending on the height of detonation, is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NUREG-1150
NUREG-1150 "Severe Accident Risks: An Assessment for Five U.S. Nuclear Power Plants", published December 1990 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is a follow-up to the WASH-1400 and CRAC-II safety studies that employs the methodology of plant-specific Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA). The research team, led by Denwood Ross, Joseph Murphy, and Mark Cunningham, concluded that the current generation of nuclear power plants exceeded NRC safety goals. "This study was a significant turning point in the use of risk-based concepts in the regulatory process and enabled the NRC to greatly improve its methods for assessing containment performance after core damage and accident progression.However significant, and sometimes unrealistic, conservatisms were applied in this studand it is () being replaced with a new state-of-the-art study entitled State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses(see below). Results Results of NUREG-1150 (page 12-3): *Average probability of an individua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Safety In The U
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Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: * Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics *Nuclear space *Nuclear operator *Nuclear congruence *Nuclear C*-algebra Biology Relating to the nucleus of the cell: * Nuclear DNA Society * Nuclear family, a family consisting of a pair of adults and their children Music * "Nuclear" (band), group music. * "Nuclear" (Ryan Adams song), 2002 *"Nuclear", a song by Mike Oldfield from his ''Man on the Rocks'' album * ''Nu.Clear'' (EP) by South Korean girl group CLC See also *Nucleus (other) *Nucleolus * Nucleation * Nucleic acid *Nucular ''Nucular'' is a common, proscribed pronunciation of the word "nuclear". It is a rough phonetic spelling of . The ''Oxford English Dictionary''s entry dates the word's first published appearance to 1943. Dictionary notes This is one of two con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Power
Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear ''fission'' of uranium and plutonium in nuclear power plants. Nuclear ''decay'' processes are used in niche applications such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators in some space probes such as ''Voyager 2''. Generating electricity from ''fusion'' power remains the focus of international research. Most nuclear power plants use thermal reactors with enriched uranium in a once-through fuel cycle. Fuel is removed when the percentage of neutron absorbing atoms becomes so large that a chain reaction can no longer be sustained, typically three years. It is then cooled for several years in on-site spent fuel pools before being transferred to long term storage. The spent fuel, though low in volume, is high-level radioactive wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
