4 ms·
It's one of the most studied disasters in history, but basically the main causes boil down to: 1. Personnel who didn't understand the risks of deviating from w
by bityard 6y ago
It's one of the most studied disasters in history, but basically the main causes boil down to:
1. Personnel who didn't understand the risks of deviating from written procedure
2. Engineers who didn't anticipate or underestimated certain failure modes and didn't design the reactor and monitoring systems with sufficient redundancy and failsafes
3. Grossly insufficient monitoring systems
4. Denial at every level once it was obvious that something was Seriously Wrong
- throwawayboise 6y agoThe failure modes were already known before the disaster. They were kept secret from the rank-and-file reactor operators and supervisors, as the Soviet regime was loathe to admit they were imperfect in any way. The monitors and failsafes were there. Maybe could have been better, but they would have worked had they not been disregarded and deliberately overriden. It was completely preventable. RBMK reactors of the same design are still operating safely today.