Of course the hot core can melt the containment vessel and release radioactivity, but fission stops.

As the temperature rises the core melts and fills the spaces between the rods.

When it was possible to investigate, it was found that over a third of the reactor core had melted, leaving one of the biggest radioactive waste disposal headaches ever known.

Conventional reactors have stricter limitations because the core would melt if the fuel temperature were to rise too high.

As a result the nuclear fuel was damaged, and the core partially melted.

But if both cores had "melted" into pools of unconfined quarks able to move about at random, their color would not necessarily average out to neutrality everywhere.

Should the action of the compressor heat the air above a safe temperature the core will melt and release the pressure.

This was like a nuclear meltdown where the core melted through all the layers.

In that accident, the nuclear core melted, causing the country's worst civilian nuclear accident.

"Core melt accident" and "partial core melt" are the analogous technical terms for a meltdown.