I have a question about nuclear weapons. Anyone here know much about them?

[AtheistCrusader]

98. The rods moved.

The simple fact they moved indicated neither explosion had yet occurred. Timing seems incredibly convenient if the rods weren't the element that pushed it over the edge.

The rods displaced coolant prior to introducing a moderator.


"The increased power caused more increased power - due to Xenon instability."

Negative. Without the temperature increase, the power would have increased anyway, due to the xenon wearing off. With the xenon out of the way, the neutrons can travel freely and reactivity goes up.

Look to the retrofit of the other RBMK reactors still in service, the primary change being in the control rods. They no longer displace water, when inserting the rods. This reduces the variability of the reactivity of the core, due to steam voids, because there is no water in the control rod channel to displace, or lose to steam, at all.

I would like to see the model you reference, but from everything I have reviewed to date, even outside the wiki article, points to the attempt to scram as being the ignition point of the explosion. Without scramming the core, they may have been able to feed the circ pumps with electricity from the other reactors, and introduce more coolant, and back away from the edge, in hindsight.

Interesting bits and bobs on the spin-down residual cooling of the main circ pumps on an RBMK reactor (ignalina) where all pumps tripped simultaneously in 1986.
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/stni/2008/672519/

I would say, the only major remaining flaw of the RBMK reactors (gen three, post-Chernobyl modifications) is the lack of a containment. They still have the pvc issue, due to the design, but the leeway for an excursion has been drastically reduced with the modifications.