Brief History of Nuclear Reactor Accidents

Serge Marguet is a French engineer in Fluid Mechanics from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Hydraulique of Grenoble (France) and an engineer in Numerical Analysis from the Ecole Nationale d'Informatique et de Mathématiques Appliquées of Grenoble. He is an expert in Reactor Physics, a field in which he has worked for 35 years. Expert for I2EN, a French governmental nuclear certification body, and for the European Commission in the field of severe nuclear accidents, he has written numerous reference books in Neutronics, Reactor Physics and Reactor Technology, both in French and in English. He is married and has two grown-up children (who are moderately interested in nuclear energy!).

• 1. Introduction.- 2. The Physics of Severe Nuclear Accidents.- 3. Pre-1980 Severe Accidents.- 4. Three Mile Island.- 5. Chernobyl.- 6. Fukushima.