Calculations of heat removal due to natural convection in the TMI core with postulated damage

Calculations are presented of the temperature distribution inside the damaged reactor core at Metropolitan Edison's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. These results were obtained after the breakdown occurred at a time during reactor shut-down when one of the reactor core coolant pumps was still operating. Their purpose was to determine whether the temperature of the liquid within the core would reach or exceed the saturation temperature when the final core coolant pump was turned off. Our conclusion, arrived at and reported before the pump was actually stopped and based upon assumptions about the extent and type of damage to the fuel rod assembly within the core, was that the fluid temperature would rise significantly, but that boiling would not occur. Events at Three Mile Island confirmed these predictions