The PWR Plant was operated at approximately 60 MW net electrical output for a total of 1000 EFPH from February 3, 1959 to March 28, 1959. During this period, while performing DL-S-225, there were two planned shutdowns, no safety shutdowns or safety insertions and one flux title. The performance of the plant was satisfactory during the period of the test.

The purpose of the test was to determine if failed blanket elements exist in other regions of the core beside F-2. FEDAL sampling ports that have indicted the greatest deviation as determined in a statistical analysis performed on a number of traverses in the FEDAL system will be tested. Data obtained from the start up runs of the FEDAL sample port Nos. 11, 31, 36 and 37 of Monitor 2 and port Nos. 14, 46, 11, 49 and 7 of Monitor 1 gave no indications of a blanket element failure. At each power increase, the radiation increase was normal with no signs of bursts or peaks of radiation which would indication the failure of a blanket fuel element.

This review lists some of the salient features of semiconductor particle counters and cannot claim to contain an exhaustive listing of all the work in the field. Performance results on the surface-barrier counters as developed at California Institute of Technology are included as typical for this type of counter, though comparable results have been obtained elsewhere.