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Nuclear Engineering
How Close Did Windscale Come to a Major Nuclear Disaster?
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[QUOTE="Astronuc, post: 5821715, member: 15685"] Had they not turned off the cooling fans, presumably, the fire would have continued and the release of volatile and gaseous fission products would have continued until the fire consumed available fuel. Fortunately, Tom Tuohy made the critical decision to turn off the fans, which cut off the air feeding the flames. The pile design was flawed in the sense that it lacked a fire suppression system, and the operators lacked a plan to preclude a fire in the pile. [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Tuohy[/URL] There was a lot of criticism of the air cooled design, but the British government was in a rush to produce material for their program before some deadlines of international agreements limiting or suspending such activities. One must recognize that Britain and the world had just come out of a brutal world war (WW II) in which new technologies, long range ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, were introduced. Britain helped the US program, but after being excluded, felt compelled to develop their own program. Indeed, the Soviet Union, and subsequently China, were set on developing their on nuclear capability. [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield#History[/URL] [/QUOTE]
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How Close Did Windscale Come to a Major Nuclear Disaster?
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