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

[PamW]

100. That's part of it.

First, the process is very complex. But I'm not just waving my hands and thinking off the top of my head.

I was involved in an extremely detailed computer modeling of the accident, and I know of what I speak.

You have the trigger backwards. Xenon instability responds to increased neutron flux, hence increased power.

In order to get the increased power - the reactivity temperature coefficient induced the power increase.

It's thermal effect due to pump cutoff triggers increased power due to temperature coefficient, which only THEN triggers the Xenon induced runaway.

The followers on the control rods were identified as contributory - but the accident would have happened anyway. They fixed it because you fix even contributory flaws.

I was working at Argonne National Labs back then - and we did EXTENSIVE computer modeling.

Lack of containment is by FAR NOT the only remaining flaw.

The RBMK are all over-moderated. An RBMK is essentially 8 Soviet production reactors stacked in a cube ( 2 X 2 X 2 ).

That lowers the leakage relative to if you had them all separate. Therefore you need LESS moderator.

However, the RBMK was fueled with the SAME fuel as the production reactors, with the SAME moderator to fuel ratio which is appropriate to a reactor that leaks neutrons TWICE as much as the RBMK .

PamW