In the movie *Shin Godzilla*, the humans came up with a blood coagulant and a plan to inject it into Godzilla in order to freeze him. It’s mentioned in the film that doing so would force him to perform a nuclear SCRAM since he’s fueled by an internal nuclear reactor. The coagulant works, shutting down his circulation (which is his cooling system), and causes him to freeze.
But what IS a nuclear SCRAM? i’ve looked it up before, but I just can’t seem to make heads or tails of it.
In: Physics
SCRAM stands for **S**afety **C**ontrol **R**od **A**xe **M**an. It’s an emergency shut down of the reactor.
In a nuclear reactor, you need free, slow-moving neutrons bouncing around inside the reactor core in order to split uranium atoms in the fuel. That’s where all the heat and energy comes from. Control rods absorb those neutrons, preventing them from doing their thing.
You can carefully control the amount of energy you’re producing by sliding the control rods in and out of the reactor. All the way out, and the reactor is at max capacity. All the way in, and the reactor stops.
When a SCRAM happens, ALL control rods (there are many) are immediately and forcefully inserted into the reactor to kill it as fast as possible. There are even some extra rods that never get used except in a SCRAM situation just to make sure the reactor is dead.
The very first reactor pile at the University of Chicago had a single control rod attached to a rope hanging from a pulley. A man with an axe was in position to cut the rope and drop the rod just in case the shit hit the fan. Fortunately, it never did, but this is where the “Axe Man” part of the acronym comes from.
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