The Autoignition of Nuclear Reactor Power Plant Explosions

Abstract

Explosive research proves that there is a common cause for most explosions in nuclear reactor power plants during normal operations and accident conditions. The autoignition of flammable hydrogen is a common cause for nuclear power plant explosions, where complex corrosion processes, nuclear reactions, and thermal-fluid transients autoignite explosions. Research evaluated increasingly complicated accidents. First, piping explosions occurred at Hamaoka and Brunsbuttel. Fluid transients compressed oxygen and flammable hydrogen to heat these gases to autoignition, where resultant explosions shredded steel pipes. This identical mechanism was responsible for pipe and pump damages to U.S. reactor systems since the 1950s, where water hammer alone has been assumed to cause damages. Small explosions inside the piping actually cause damages during nuclear reactor startups and flow rate changes. Second, explosions are caused by thermal-fluid transients during nuclear reactor restarts, following accidental nuclear reactor meltdowns. Disastrous explosions destroyed nuclear reactor buildings (RBs) at Fukushima Daiichi. Previously considered to be a fire, a 319 kilogram hydrogen explosion occurred at Three Mile Island (TMI). The explosion cause following each of these loss-of-coolant accidents was identical, i.e., after meltdowns, pump operations heated gases, which in turn acted as the heat source to autoignite sequential hydrogen explosions in reactor systems to ignite RBs. Third, the Chernobyl explosion followed a reactor meltdown that was complicated by a high energy nuclear criticality. The hydrogen ignition and explosion causes are more complicated as well, where two sequential hydrogen explosions were ignited by high-temperature reactor fuel.

Nuclear Power Plants Are Not So Safe: Fluid Transients / Water Hammers, Autoignition, Explosions, Accident Predictions and Ethics

“…Three of the primary accidents of concern to this study merit a brief summary, i.e., TMI-2, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. These accidents and their causes were detailed in a previous paper, supported by extensive references (Leishear [1] 2 ). That paper is the technical basis for the following conclusions with respect to these accidents.…”

“…This publication is the next step to save lives by changing the way that engineers think about nuclear power plant explosions, both ethically and technically. With respect to technology, this work clearly proves that the next nuclear power plant explosion is likely to occur within 20 1 Figure 1 was planned to be a dramatic photo of a large fire that was shown on Japanese television following the Fukushima explosions. When permission was requested to use that photo for this paper, NHK television station conceded that the photo was a chemical plant fire used on the news since they were not allowed to access Fukushima.…”

“…Third, there were three explosions during the TMI-2 accident -this theory is a recent addition to the engineering literature (Leishear [1]). The first explosion occurred inside the reactor at the time of meltdown, and the operators did not know that there was a meltdown in process.…”

“…With respect to nuclear power plant explosions, recent theory is briefly reviewed which proves that fluid transients, which include water hammers and steam hammers that depend on the primary system fluid at the time of the transient (Leishear [1]). These transients cause explosions in nuclear power plants.…”

“…The TMI-2 accident had multiple contributing causes, e.g., an inadequate safety analysis, inadequate lessons learned processes since a similar accident was successfully averted at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant at an earlier date, inadequate operator training where the operators responded in accordance with U.S. Navy nuclear training that was inappropriate, a stuck open valve that emptied the coolant system while the indicators showed that the valve was closed, and inadequate engineering support where the Shift Technical Engineer position was later developed to provide full-time technical support during all operations. In spite of difficulties, operators brought the accident under control before a complete meltdown occurred where the fact that a partial meltdown occurred was unknown for six years until 2 This section on Primary Accident Descriptions is paraphrased from an earlier reference (Leishear [1]). Other accidents could also be described in detail, but these three accidents provide an overview of accident complexities and similarities.…”