In a serious accident, a nuclear power plant%u2019s reactor vessel cracks, and a

Question

In a serious accident, a nuclear power plant%u2019s reactor vessel cracks, and all of the cooling water drains out. Although nuclear fission stops, radioactive decay continues to heat the reactor%u2019s 2.5 X 10^5 kg uranium core at a rate of 120 Mega-Watts. Once the core reaches its melting point, how much energy will it take to melt the core? How long will the melting take?

Cooling Water: Melting Point, k: 273 L1 kl/kg: 334 Boiling point, k: 373 L, kl/kg: 2257

(this is in a chart it comes with)

Explanation / Answer

latent heat of fusion for uranium is 50kJ/kg . so to melt 250000 kgs it requires 12.5X 10^6 kj of energy to melt.. so at the given rate, time taken for the core to melt is
104166 seconds or 28.9 hours to completely melt.

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