TMI 25 Years Later: The Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant Accident and Its Impact
by Bonnie A. Osif, Anthony J. Baratta, Thomas W. Conkling
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Book Summary Information
Author: Anthony J. Baratta, Bonnie A. Osif, Thomas W. ConklingEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2004-03
ISBN: 027102383X
Number of pages: 158
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
Book Reviews of TMI 25 Years Later: The Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant Accident and Its Impact
Book Review: 20 minutes from a complete core melt down.
Summary: 5 Stars
1. The main feedwater system that supplies water to the steam generator malfunctioned and shutoff flow. "Water must be fed continually to the steam generators to make up for the flow of steam from the steam generators to the turbine.
2. Maintenance was being performed on the condensate polishing system. The polishing system is used to purify water in the feedwater system.
3. Alarms went off. An auxiliary feedwater system should have started automatically but it did not. The auxiliary system was to provide emergency source of cooling water to the steam generators, however, critical valves in the system were left closed. Without this critical water supply, the boiling water in the steam generators would boil away completely. A rapid rise in temperature and pressure occurred in the reactor's cooling system.
4. The turbine shutdown automatically.
5. Within seconds, the reactors control system shut down the reactor by dropping the control rods which insulate the neutrons generated from the U235 from striking other U235 atoms in adjacent fuel rods. The fission process stopped.
6. As temperatures and pressures rose water flowed into the pressurizer. The pressurizer is normal half full providing a cushion for expansion from the reactor. A power-operated relief valve also help control pressure during abnormal events.
7. A pressure-regulating valve opened to reduce pressure in the reactor and associated reactor systems.
8. Steam began flowing from the valve through piping into a collecting tank in the basement of the reactor containment building. The water was containinated with radioactive material. The flow caused the pressure to decrease.
9. The pressure regulating valve should have closed but it didn't. The operators had no way of monitoring the valve and therefore did not know it remained open.
10. Vital cooling water was flowing from the reactor out through the valve to the basement collecting tank. The tank overflowed spilling water on the basement floor and was pumped to storage tan in the adjacent building outside the containment building.
11. The emergency core cooling system started automatically.
12. The water level and volume in the reactor system was not measured directly. The operators relied on a measurement of the water level in the system's pressurizer. The operators thought there was adequate water inventory in the primary cooling system. Fearing the system might go solid (rupture from the reactor being 100 filled with water), they turned off the emergency core cooling system.
13. Pressure dropped from the escaping core water. By 5:30 am, the pressures had dropped so low that the large reactor coolant pumps used to circulate the water through the reactor and primary system began to vibrate.
14. The operators began shutting down the pumps to reduce damage.
15. Water began pouring onto the floor of the auxiliary building and radioactive gases found their way from the cooling water through the auxiliary building ventilation system to the outside world.
16. Despite the shutdown of the fission process at the beginning of the accident, energy was still being released in the fuel by the decay of the fission products generated during the operation of the reactor.
17. The rods eventual burst and melted, releasing large quantities of radioactivity into the cooling system.
18. When the fuel overheats the result is rapid oxidation of the zirconium alloy from which the fuel rods tubes are made. The process releases hydrogen. A hydrogen pocket formed at the top of the reactor, but did not ignite.
19. Radioactive gases normally contained in the rods were released into the cooling system, through the stuck valve, and to the reactor building. High radiation alarms began to sound. Radiation alarms began to sound at many points throughout the plant.
20. 6:22 am, the operators realized the power-operated relief valve was stuck open.
21. 6:55 am, a site emergency had been declared.
22. 9:00 am , TMI personnel discover water in the auxiliary building and stop the pumping from the containment building.
23. While operators were restoring the cooling system, the relief valve continued to release hydrogen into the containment-building atmosphere. The hydrogen combined with the oxygen and this mixture ignited. The building did not breach under the pressure of the igniting hydrogen.
24. The reactor system was cooled to a point where the reactor coolant pumps could be turned on and the normal process of heat removal resumed.
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