Nuclear meltdown facts for kids
A nuclear meltdown describes a malfunction of a nuclear reactor. A nuclear meltdown occurs when the middle portion of the nuclear reactor (its "core") is not properly cooled. This can occur when the cooling system fails or is otherwise defective. If this happens, uranium or plutonium or similar materials inside the nuclear reactor become hot and may start melting or dissolving. It is this melting that is a nuclear meltdown.
Meltdowns
Around the world, some nuclear meltdowns have occurred. Some of them were mild, but few of them were very serious. Nuclear meltdowns can kill people from radiation poisoning.
The very last accident was the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011. Four reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant had cooling problems after back-up diesel generators were destroyed by the tsunami.
In 1986, a nuclear meltdown occurred in a place named Chernobyl (Ukraine). In this case, all the people living in the towns and the villages (near the defective nuclear reactor) had to move to far away places.
Many Russian submarines get power from nuclear energy produced inside these submarines. These are nuclear submarines. Some such nuclear submarines have faced nuclear meltdown.
Sometimes, the nuclear meltdown may happen immediately. For example, the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl. Sometimes, the nuclear meltdown may take many hours to happen. For example, the nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island, (Pennsylvania, United States) took many hours to happen.
Images for kids
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A simulated animation of a core melt in a Light Water Reactor after a loss-of-coolant accident. After reaching an extremely high temperature, the nuclear fuel and accompanying cladding liquefies and flows to the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel.
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Three of the reactors at Fukushima I overheated because the cooling systems failed after a tsunami flooded the power station, causing core meltdowns. This was compounded by hydrogen gas explosions and the venting of contaminated steam that released large amounts of radioactive material into the air.
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Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station consisted of two pressurized water reactors manufactured by Babcock & Wilcox, each inside its own containment building and connected cooling towers. Unit 2, which suffered a partial core melt, is in the background.
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SL-1 core damage after a nuclear excursion.
See also
In Spanish: Fusión de núcleo para niños
