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

[AtheistCrusader]

101. I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree to disagree until I see this model.

I strongly disagree with the language you have used to describe this:

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

That is entirely backwards to my understanding. The Xenon inhibits the reaction until neutrons have burned enough of it away, hence the lack of power increase when they withdrew the control rods, expecting it to crank up to 700mw thermal. The reaction increases as the xenon is removed. The increase in reaction accelerates the removal of the Xe by the neutrons, and power spikes. That's bad, when you have a cooling issue.

I stand by my earlier assertion, the coolant/void issue is only part of the mechanical trigger for the explosion. The Xe issue being the other half of the power spike. The SCRAM just pulled the trigger.

Did your model show a proper course of action to prevent the explosion, prior to the SCRAM, with or without 'saving' the reactor for future production use?