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 would have reduced the radiological release. If the basement of the reactor building had been penetrated, the groundwater would be severely contaminated, and its flow could carry the contamination far afield. The Chernobyl reactor was a RBMK type. The disaster was caused by a power excursion that led to a steam explosion, meltdown and extensive offsite consequences. Operator error and a faulty shutdown system led to a sudden, massive spike in the neutron multiplication rate, a sudden decrease in the neutron period, and a consequent increase in neutron population; thus, core heat flux increased rapidly beyond the design limits of