Scram
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A scram or SCRAM is an emergency shutdown of a nuclear reactor effected by terminating the fission reaction. It is also the name that is given to the manually operated kill switch that initiates the s
SCRAM button at the Experimental Breeder Reactor I in Idaho. Sometimes the switch will have a flip cover to prevent inadvertent operation.
Norman Hilberry (left) and Leó Szilárd at Stagg Field, site of the first self-sustaining nuclear chain-reaction
SCRAM button in the control room of the NS Savannah
Chernobyl disaster
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On 26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat, Ukraine, exploded. With dozens of direct casualties and thousands of health complications stemming from the disa
Scram
…lowering it. This was noticed when it caused a power surge at the startup of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant Unit number 1, in 1983. On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl disaster happened due to a fatally flawed shutdown system, after the AZ-5 shutdown system was initiated after a core overheat. RBMK reactors were subsequently…
Reactor 4 several months after the disaster. Reactor 3 can be seen behind the ventilation stack, Reactors 1 and 2 in the background.
Firefighter Leonid Telyatnikov being decorated for bravery
Image showing a graphite moderator block ejected from the core
Pripyat with the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the distance