From introduction: "This report covers the development of nondestructive techniques for measuring quantitatively: (1) thickness of electrodeposited-nickel diffusion barriers, and (2) thickness of aluminum cladding on flat-plate fuel elements."

Technical report covering the work done to explore heat transfer analytically and experimentally in liquid metals in turbulent flow within the thermal entrance region of circular tubes having uniform well temperature. Includes implications of this research. [From Summary]

The process of age calculation for Hanford exponential lattices containing aluminum-matrix slugs, where the sums run over the materials of the lattice cell.

Report discussing details of the design for the Bevatron at the University of California Radiation Laboratory. The Bevatron is a "6-billion-electron-volt (Bev) proton synchotron. This device will receive a 10-million-electron-volt (Mev) proton beam from a linear accelerator, and further accelerate a reasonable percentage of these protons, at a nominally constant radius of 600 inches, to a final energy greater than 6 Bev."

This report follows the work on the Kjedahl digestion procedure in sealed tubes at 470 C. as well as analyzing factors influencing ammonia decomposition within these tubes.

Report discussing experiments to evaluate ion sources for possible use in a thermonuclear reactor.

The following document describes how to determine the measurements of the optical density or absorption spectra of suspensions of micro-organisms.

Report presenting data on the thermal conductivity of fuel element materials with short summaries.

Progress report of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Metallurgy Division providing updates on various projects, experiments, and other work. This report includes a summary of nondestructive testing, physical chemistry of corrosion, fundamental physico-metallurgical research, HRP metallurgy, process metallurgy, metallurgical materials and processing, metallography, and ceramics research.

This report brings together an extensive accumulation of material replacement (danger coefficient) data for the various oralloy critical assemblies at Pajarito. Corresponding values of effective absorption and transport cross sections are derived. In certain favorable cases, inelastic scattering contributions to the effective absorption cross sections are estimated. Special applications of material replacement data include computation of the relationship between oralloy critical mass and concentration of a diluent and hydrogen isotopic analysis of heavy water and heavy polythene.

The increased use of tritium monitoring devices has made it necessary to devise a scheme for the calibration of such instruments. Several methods for setting up known concentrations of tritium were considered. A dynamic system containing tritium as HTO vapor or gaseous HT was selected because of the ease of control of variables. The variables that have been considered are: ,1. The effect of rate of air flow through the instruments. 2. The effect of humidity on instrument response. 3. The effect of ion collection ahead of the ion chamber. 4. The variation of “hold time” from the generation of tritium to its passage through the ion chamber. 5. The instrument response to several concentrations of tritium as HTO vapor and gaseous HT. The following three types of monitoring devices have been calibrated:1. Model 101 Sniffer of Group P-1. 2. Cl-1 Vibrating Reed Electrometer of Group CMR-7. 3. Modified TIB of Group H-6.

The development of sampling methods and some field results of the off- site air sampling stations at the Nevada Proving Ground are reviewed. A technique of radioautography is presented which yields information about the activities of individual fall-out particles. This technique gives a comparison of particle activities from air drops and tower shots and a reason for the greater contamination associated with the latter. It also indicates that air samplers do not capture the most active fall-out particles, presumably because of their large size.

Introduction - The work of the Chemical Development Group has included studies on the thermal and radiation stability of organic materials suitable for reactor coolants, the thermal and radiation stability of zirconium hydride, reactor safety devices involving chemical systems, and general analytical development.

An ion exchange testing program was completed on Gunnar acid leach liquors and pulps. A standard column system and a resin-in-pulp system, both using anion exchange resins, were investigated. The Gunnar leach liquors are readily amenable to the recovery of uranium by ion exchange.

The non-project literature concerning the chemistry of vanadium has been summarized through November, 1952. The report is presented in terms of izo- and heteropoly vanadates and cationic forms of pentavalent vanadium, complexes of di-, tri-, and pentavalent vanadium, and oxidation potentials of various vanadium systems. A bibliography of 93 references is included.

A short review of the field of internal conversions. Isomeric transitions teach us many details of nuclear structure. In these studies electromagnetic theory is considered as a "tool". It is a quite quantitative tool in the case of "internal conversion" - a phenomenon which has been widely studied for many years. Internal conversion takes place in competition with γ-ray emission: a fraction of the nuclei in excited states decay by γ-ray emission, the remaining fraction by transferring the energy to K, or L, etc. electrons in the atomic shell. Thus the lifetime of an excited nuclear state depends on the internal conversion coefficient. As internal conversion must be expected to depend on the details of the electronic environment, the lifetime of an isomeric state depends on the state of chemical combination of the isomer - as was recently shown explicitly in one case, that of Te-99m(6hr.).