Abstract: This report presents the results of a study performed by the Ford Instrument Company, Division of Sperry Rand Corporation, and its subcontractor, Maryland Shipbuilding & Drydock Company, for the Maritime Administration, U. S. Department of Commerce, under terms of Study Contract No. MA-1893, dated March 11, 1959. The purpose of this study is to evaluate various techniques for pretesting and installing nuclear prototype power plants in merchant ships and develop that technique offering the widest general application using time, cost and safety as essential criteria. Acknowledgement is made for the valuable counsel received from personnel of the American Bureau of Shipping, Isbrandtsen Company, Inc., Maritime Administration, Atomic Energy Commission, and the United States Coast Guard.

Thorium bismuthide when crystallized from a solution i bismuth results in large platelets which may be as large a 1 centimeter in diameter. A slurry of these platelets is difficult to pump through pipe lines and filters. The particle size can be reduced by (1) very rapid cooing (approximately 1000 degree C per second) or (2) ultrasonic treatment. The latter, much easier to attain in large scale, gives equiaxed particles of thorium bismuthide.