In the 2011 nuclear accident at Fukushima, Japan, an ENV earthquake-triggered tsunami wiped out emergency generators, leaving three reactors without a source of cooling water. Although safety systems shut down the reactors during the earthquake, ra- dioactive decay continued to generate thermal energy at the rate of some 33 MW. In a desperate attempt to cool the reactors, operators used fire engines to pump seawater into the reactors. If 650 m3 of 10°C seawater were injected into a reactor, how long would it take that 33 MW of thermal power to bring the water to the boiling point?
Kinetic Theory of Gas
The Kinetic Theory of gases is a classical model of gases, according to which gases are composed of molecules/particles that are in random motion. While undergoing this random motion, kinetic energy in molecules can assume random velocity across all directions. It also says that the constituent particles/molecules undergo elastic collision, which means that the total kinetic energy remains constant before and after the collision. The average kinetic energy of the particles also determines the pressure of the gas.
P-V Diagram
A P-V diagram is a very important tool of the branch of physics known as thermodynamics, which is used to analyze the working and hence the efficiency of thermodynamic engines. As the name suggests, it is used to measure the changes in pressure (P) and volume (V) corresponding to the thermodynamic system under study. The P-V diagram is used as an indicator diagram to control the given thermodynamic system.
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