Reactor cooling after shutdown

Reactor decay heat shown as % of thermal power from time of sustained fission shutdown using two different
correlations. Due to decay heat, solid fuel power reactors need high flows of coolant after a fission shutdown
for a considerable time to prevent fuel cladding damage, or in the worst case, a full core meltdown.

In power-generating operation, most of the heat generated in a nuclear reactor by its fuel rods is
derived from nuclear fission, but a significant fraction (over 6%) is derived from the radioactive
decay of the accumulated fission products; a process known as decay heat. This decay heat
continues for some time after the fission chain reaction has been stopped, such as following a
reactor shutdown, either emergency or planned, and continued pumped circulation of coolant is
essential to prevent core overheating, or in the worst case, core meltdown.[23] The RBMK reactors
like those at Chernobyl use water as a coolant, circulated by electrically-driven pumps.[24][25]The
coolant flow rate is considerable. Reactor No. 4 had 1661 individual fuel channels, each requiring a
coolant flow of 28,000 litres (7,400 US gal) per hour at full reactor power.[26]
To guard against an electrical power failure to the pumps, each of Chernobyl's reactors had three
backup diesel generators, but they took 60–75 seconds to attain full speed[26]:15 and generate the
5.5-megawatt output required to run one main pump.[26]:30 This delay was considered a significant
safety risk. It had been theorized that the rotational momentum of the steam turbines could be used
to generate the required electrical power to cover this gap. Analysis indicated that this might be
sufficient to provide electrical power to run the coolant pumps for 45 seconds,[26]:16 not quite bridging
the gap between an external power failure and the full availability of the emergency generators, but
alleviating the situation.[27]