Japan to conduct fuel meltdown experiment to analyse Fukushima disaster

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) is planning to conduct a fuel meltdown experiment in March in a bid to analyse the Fukushima incident of 2011 that occurred due to a natural disaster.

The experiment would see melting of a 30-cm-long nuclear fuel test rod placed inside a stainless-steel capsule at the Nuclear Safety Research Reactor in Tokai of Ibaraki Prefecture, the Japan Times reports.

The nuclear fission reactions inside the research facility are expected to offer a detailed explanation about the uncertain state of the melted fuel inside the three crippled Fukushima reactors.

According to the report, the biggest challenge in dismantling the plant remains removing the fuel from the reactors. During the Fukushima crisis, the reactors lost coolant water due to heat generated by the nuclear fuel, due to which the fuel inside reactors 1 to 3 is believed to have melted through the reactor pressure vessels and started accumulating in the outer primary containers.

JAEA is also considering installing a camera inside the capsule to record the process, the report added.