What happens in nuclear reactors in Japan?

The largest earthquake in Japan logs cleared the cooling of support from severalaffected reactors at a nuclear plant in Fukushima prefecture north of Tokyo, causing a buildup of heat and pressure.

All this raises a question: What happens now in the nuclear reactor core?

The reactor core consists of a series of tubes or zirconium metal rods containinguranium fuel pellets stored in which engineers call fuel equipment.

Water is pumped from the rods to keep them fresh and to create steam that drives a turbine generator electrician

The cooling of support had problems several times during the past three days inreactors 1, 2 and 3 at the Fukushima plant.

In the normal operation of a reactor, high energy neutrons of uranium fuel and break hitatoms in a chain reaction that generates heat, new radioactive elements such asstrontium and cesium, and new neutrons which continue the process.

The chain reaction stopped a few seconds of the earthquake in all nuclear reactors inJapan, including those most affected, and that turn off automatically, control rods made ​​of boron were inserted into the fuel, which absorbed neutrons.

However, the natural breakdown of radioactive materials in the reactor core continues to produce heat, so-called waste heat, falling to a quarter of its original level during the firsthour and then slowly disappears.

Normally this heat is removed by cooling pum

ps at the plant in Fukushima lostemergency power supply because of the earthquake, tsunami, or both.