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
Most of these answers are wrong. The 5 year old answer is that a SCRAM is a shutdown of a nuclear reactor.
TL;DR: SCRAMs are a nornal part of reactor operation and don’t threaten the safety of the reactor or the fuel container inside it.
The more in depth answer is that SCRAM is an acronym that a stands for Safety Control Reactor Axe Man. It’s from the very very early days of reactor experimentation when they pulled control rods out using literal ropes and if there was an emergency the “axe man” would quite literally chop the rope allowing the control rods to fall into the core stopping the reaction. SCRAM, as a term is still used, today but signifies a shutdown. Modern reactors are much safer and despite comments by several others, a SCRAM isn’t something that can potentially damage the fuel or reactor components. Typical modern reactors control their shutdowns by lowering power slowly and then they initiate a manual SCRAM from a lower power level. That has nothing to do with the fuel but instead is for the non-nuclear component life like the main electrical turbine and sensitive control valves. The reactor is made to withstand any stress from a SCRAM unlimited times. When anything abnormal is experienced they’ll SCRAM from full power, either manually or automatically based on many monitor ed patameters. From the nuclear fuel side it’s exactly the same as a normal shutdown. The steam plant experiences higher stress but everything that protects nuclear fuel is unaffected. In the US, every nuclear plant is required to report every SCRAM, whether planned or I planned and it’s posted publicly along with any other events of note. You can find them here:
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2024/index.html
Source: was a licensed nuclear operator for many many years.
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