Nuclear meltdown

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A nuclear meltdown describes a special type of situation, which may happen at a nuclear reactor. Sometimes, the middle portion of the nuclear reactor (that is, its core) does not get cooled properly. Due to some defects, the cooling system fails or its functioning becomes defective. If this happens, then uranium or plutonium or similar materials inside the nuclear reactor become hot. When they become very hot, such materials start melting or dissolving. If such a position arises in a nuclear reactor, it is a nuclear meltdown.

[edit] Meltdowns

Around the world, some nuclear meltdowns have occurred. Some of them were mild, but few of them were very serious.

In 1979, a nuclear meltdown had occurred at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, United States. In 1986, a nuclear meltdown occurred in a place named Chernobyl (Ukraine). Many other nuclear meltdowns have also occurred, but they were not very dangerous. But some nuclear meltdowns were very dangerous. In these cases, all the persons living in the towns and the villages (near the defective nuclear) reactor had to move to far away places.

Many submarines of Russia get power from nuclear energy produced inside these submarines. These are nuclear submarines. Some such nuclear submarines have faced nuclear meltdown.

Sometimes, the nuclear meltdown may happen immediately. This happened immediately at the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl. Sometimes, the nuclear meltdown may take many hours to happen. For example, the nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island, (Pennsylvania, United States) took many hours to happen.

A nuclear meltdown may happen on account of one or more reasons.