Ahh, thanks. Could someone please confirm
please? I need to be sure, I don't want to misinform people.
Not that I'm saying I don't trust you or anything... ;)
-Emanfman
[/PLAIN]
OK, this clarifies a lot. Just one more question.
Why did the xenon poisoning only affect the upper part of the core? Shouldn't it affect the entire thing?
And from the above posts, the simple statement is that the people who designed the rods were... not very smart. XD
-Emanfman
XD I only read one post before replying!
Thank you very much for explaining, nearly all of these answers were helpful. From what I understand, only the ends of the rods were covered in graphite. This is to counteract poisoning. However, this increased the fission rate as it was being inserted...
Yes, I know about the xenon-135 poisoning. I was just perplexed.
I am not really looking for the reason of explosion, that was mostly the positive feedback loop.
My question is why do the control rods have graphite on them? If you look on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster you will see...
I am doing research on the Chernobyl disaster.
I came across something that seemed strange...
Apparently, the control rods were covered in graphite moderator.
As far as I'm concerned, a control rod absorbs the neutrons and stops fission reactions.
However, the graphite moderator's function...