Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
A meltdown isn't really well defined, but usually refers to the fuel rods melting.
This can be bad because you get reduced surface area for cooling (big blob rather than thin rods), and you also can't control things (i.e. having control rods in place) so the potential for areas of criticality to occur exists.
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Yeah, but one of the biggest issues is that temperatures of meltdowns tend to coincide with formation of potentially explosive materials (IE Hydrogen in a metal catalyst environment). I'm wondering how close these two were related (especially since hydrogen explosions were blamed for the destruction of the building and much of the non-reactor part of the complex).