What are some possible malfunctions that could happen in a nuclear reactor? Malfunctions like nuclear core meltdown, accidents that could happen due to disfunctioning parts of nuclear reactor ( such as nuclear waste disporsal problem would not count as "malfunction").

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What are some possible malfunctions that could happen in a nuclear reactor? Malfunctions like nuclear core meltdown, accidents that could happen due to disfunctioning parts of nuclear reactor ( such as nuclear waste disporsal problem would not count as "malfunction").

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Step 1

The malfunctions that could happen in a nuclear reactor is the nuclear core meltdown. In a nuclear core meltdown, overheat melt the core.

A core meltdown accident takes place when the heat generated by a nuclear reactor becomes greater than the heat discarded by the cooling systems. And this point happens where at least one nuclear fuel element surmounts its melting point. This makes a difference from a fuel element failure. Because higher temperature is not a reason for fuel element failure.

A meltdown may be caused by a loss of coolant pressure, or low coolant flow rate or be the result of a criticality excursion in which the reactor is operated at a power level that exceeds its design limits.

Step 2

Another malfunction could be an excursion. Excursion takes place when a nuclear chain reaction is accidentally allowed to take place in fissile material such as plutonium or enriched uranium.

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