SCRAM

See scram; the use of uppercase letters may be because the word is thought to be an acronym of phrases like “safety control rod actuator mechanism”, “safety control rod axe man”, and “safety control rods activation mechanism”, but these are most likely backronyms.

SCRAM (countable and uncountable, plural SCRAMs)

1. Alternative letter-case form of scram
   • 1993, Tom Clancy, Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit‎, New York, N.Y.: Berkley Books, published November 1996, →ISBN:

     She watched as the Marine technical team leader pressed the red SCRAM buttons for each reactor, setting off a chorus of alarms.

   • 2016, Nabil Abu el Ata, Rudolf Schmandt, “Understanding the Hidden Risk of Dynamic Complexity”, in The Tyranny of Uncertainty: A New Framework to Predict, Remediate and Monitor Risk, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, →DOI, →ISBN, part I (Once upon a Time), page 21:

     Although fission stops almost immediately with a SCRAM, fission products in the fuel continue to release decay heat, initially about 6.5% of full reactor power. [...] Corresponding with the SCRAM, emergency generators were automatically activated to power electronics and cooling systems.

SCRAM (third-person singular simple present SCRAMs, present participle SCRAMing, simple past and past participle SCRAMed)

1. Alternative letter-case form of scram
   • 2012 December 12, D. Michael Battey, chapter 35, in Tenacity Gene, Bloomington, Ind.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 174:

     Raising group eight rods and brining a nuclear reactor fully to life for the first time in nearly ten years—everyone was so ready they were all ready to pee in their pants. Andrews did not know he could do it without SCRAMing the reactor—in other words, pushing it into an automatic shutdown that might be too little too late.

   • 2016, Nabil Abu el Ata, Rudolf Schmandt, “Understanding the Hidden Risk of Dynamic Complexity”, in The Tyranny of Uncertainty: A New Framework to Predict, Remediate and Monitor Risk, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, →DOI, →ISBN, part I (Once upon a Time), page 21:

     Immediately after the earthquake, following government regulations, the remaining reactors, 1–3, automatically SCRAMed; control rods shut down sustained fission reactions.

• Crams, MRCAs, crams, marcs, mrcas