Lab Home | Phone | Search
Center for Nonlinear Studies  Center for Nonlinear Studies
 Home 
 People 
 Current 
 Executive Committee 
 Postdocs 
 Visitors 
 Students 
 Research 
 Publications 
 Conferences 
 Workshops 
 Sponsorship 
 Talks 
 Seminars 
 Postdoc Seminars Archive 
 Quantum Lunch 
 Quantum Lunch Archive 
 P/T Colloquia 
 Archive 
 Ulam Scholar 
 
 Postdoc Nominations 
 Student Requests 
 Student Program 
 Visitor Requests 
 Description 
 Past Visitors 
 Services 
 General 
 
 History of CNLS 
 
 Maps, Directions 
 CNLS Office 
 T-Division 
 LANL 
 
Monday, December 17, 2012
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
CNLS Conference Room (TA-3, Bldg 1690)

Colloquium

Crisis at Fukushima NPP – The Incidents and the Aftermath

Joseph Shepherd
California Institute of Technology

The March 11, 2011 Tohoku-Pacific earthquake and the resulting tsunami on the northeastern shore of Honshu resulted in an unprecedented test of safety systems, severe accident management plans, and emergency response capability at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) complex. I will discuss the progression of the accident from the viewpoint of nuclear engineering and past severe accident research, focusing on the events leading up to the hydrogen explosions that resulted in extensive damage to three of the four reactor buildings. Following the discussion of the accident progression, I will describe the radiological consequences, provide some comparisons to previous severe accidents, and discuss the progress in cleaning up the plant and surrounding environment.

Host: Bob Ecke, CNLS