Nuclear meltdown of fission product radioactivity, by simple convection. The second test, deliberate shut-off of the secondary coolant loop that supplies the generators, caused the primary circuit to undergo the same safe shutdown. This test simulated the case of a water-cooled reactor losing its steam turbine circuit, perhaps by a leak. This is a list of the major reactor failures in which meltdown played a role: The China syndrome (loss-of-coolant accident) is a hypothetical nuclear reactor operations accident characterized by the severe meltdown of the core components of the reactor, which then burn through the containment vessel and the housing building, then
Nuclear meltdown inert nitrogen, which prevented hydrogen from burning in the containment. However, the hydrogen leaked from the containment to the reactor building where it mixed with air and exploded. During the 1979 Three Mile Island accident a hydrogen bubble formed in the pressure vessel dome. There were initial concerns that this hydrogen bubble might ignite and damage the pressure vessel or even damage the containment building; but it was soon realized that a lack of oxygen precluded a burnable or explosive mixture from forming inside the pressure vessel. One scenario consists of the reactor pressure vessel failing all at once, with