The decay heat of corium at 224 minutes after scram was estimated to be 0.13 W / g, falling to 0.096 W / g at scram + 600 minutes.
42.
After the dissolution of the third batch of uranium slugs, the liquid in the dissolver tank did not completely cover the slugs for about 29 hours, which overheated due to decay heat.
43.
Because decay heat does not go away quickly, there must be some long term method of suppression, but this may simply be heat exchange with the ambient air on the surface of containment.
44.
After the reactor has been depressurized, the decay heat is transferred to the containment as water inside the reactor boils and exits the reactor pressure vessel into the containment in the form of steam.
45.
In contrast to current commercial fission reactors, hybrid reactors potentially demonstrate what is considered inherently safe behavior because they remain deeply subcritical under all conditions and decay heat removal is possible via passive mechanisms.
46.
Lunokhod designers were called back from retirement, and in two weeks rovers were made which used nuclear decay heat sources for internal rack climate control, their electronic systems were already hardened to resist radiation.
47.
According to plan, the test should have been finished during the day shift, and the night shift would only have had to maintain decay heat cooling systems in an otherwise shut-down plant.
48.
A typical large 1000 MWe nuclear reactor produces 25 30 tons of vitrified, the waste volume would be only about three cubic meters per year, but the decay heat would be almost the same.
49.
These systems utilize natural circulation based on simple laws of physics to transfer the decay heat outside containment while maintaining water levels inside the reactor, keeping the nuclear fuel submerged in water and adequately cooled.
50.
Units 2 and 3 were equipped with steam turbine-driven emergency core cooling systems that could be directly operated by steam produced by decay heat, and which could inject water directly into the reactor.
