Bethe Tait Incident
A Bethe Tait accident is a theoretically considered accident in an unmoderated reactor with fast neutrons (e.g. a breeder reactor ). If the incident is assumed, there is a performance excursion with prompt overcriticality . The name goes back to the physicists Hans Bethe and JH Tait.
The consideration relates exclusively to fast, not to thermal reactors and deliberately contains extremely pessimistic assumptions: the simultaneous complete disappearance of the coolant and failure of all shutdown systems are assumed. As a result, the facility is destroyed and radioactive material is released accordingly.
As a preventive measure against such an event, for example, the German breeder reactor SNR-300 in Kalkar , which had not been commissioned, had a redundant and diverse second system of absorber rods that was not intended to be used in normal operation, but only for rapid shutdown in an emergency. Furthermore, the entire system (containment including reactor) was designed in such a way that it would have withstood a sudden release of mechanical energy of 370 MJ (approx. 100 kWh).
literature
- Dieter Smidt: Reactor safety technology: Safety systems and incident analysis for light water reactors and fast breeders . New edition, Springer 2012, ISBN 3642502261
- AE Waltar, DR Todd, PV Svetkov: Fast Spectrum Reactors . Springer 2011, ISBN 1441995722
- RA Meyer, B. Wolfe, NF Friedman, R. Seifert: Fast Reactor Meltdown Accidents Using Bethe-Tait Analysis. In: GEAP-4809. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, January 1967, accessed August 17, 2019 .
Individual evidence
- ^ HA Bethe, JH Tait: An Estimate of the Order of Magnitude of the Vigorous Interaction Expected Should the Core of a Fast Reactor Collapse. In: RHM (56) / 113. UKAEA Reactor Group, April 1956, accessed August 17, 2019 .