Fukushima; About risks, Reliability and Robust Design

摘要

Friday, March 11th, 2011 Japan was hit by one of the most severe earthquakes ever recorded. The earthquake not only caused incredible immediate damage to people, buildings and infrastructure, but also initiated a Tsunami that caused incredible damage as well. As we all have seen, a combination of events caused the major damage and problems to the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plants. Since Japan is in a part of the world where earthquakes are quite common the reactors are designed to handle (the consequences of-) even major earthquakes. At the moment the earthquake was detected the reactors were automatically switched off. Diesel generators automatically powered up to generate electricity for the cooling systems of the reactors for the case that the power grid would be damaged. So far, so good. Unfortunately, the mentioned Tsunami flooded the diesel generators so that the cooling system also was without power, the reactors overheated, control was lost and currently many people are fighting an often heroic battle to prevent further escalation and to, as far as possible, minimize further damage to people and the environment.