Nuclear reactor accidents in the United States the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy that: "the cumulative effect of all design defects and deficiencies in the design, construction and operations of nuclear power plants makes a nuclear power plant accident, in our opinion, a certain event. The only question is when, and where. On March 28, 1979, equipment failures and operator error contributed to loss of coolant and a partial core meltdown of Unit 2's pressurized water reactor at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania. The scope and complexity of this reactor accident became clear over the course of five days, as a number of
Nuclear reactor heat removal total heat produced in the nuclear reactor is: formula_5 where formula_6 is the mean neutronic flux and V is the fuel volume (normally measured in formula_7). Recovery of this amount of heat is achieved by using cooling fluids whose temperature at the entrance to the reactor channel formula_8 will increase with the distance traveled in the channel. The thermal balance of the channel is expressed by the relationship: formula_9 where formula_10 is the flow rate of the cooling agent, formula_11 is the specific heat at constant pressure, formula_12 is the increase in the temperature of the fluid after passing a