Abstract: "The thermal and electrical conductivities of a series of Pu-Al alloys have been determined in the range 0.12 atomic percent Pu. The conductivities are approximately proportional to the volume of free aluminum."

Abstract: A method is described for the determination of radium by alpha counting. A dilute hydrochloric acid solution of the radium sample is passed through a short column of copper powder to remove polonium. The effluent is mounted on glass slides and alpha counted four to five hours after mounting. Twenty-four hours after mounting, the slides are counted again, and the percentage increase in counts is used to determine a correction factor for the growth of radon and its daughters. Precision and accuracy are within the limits of the counting instrument used.

This report follows an investigation on Great Lakes Carbon with the objectives to demonstrate their ability to make and F process purify reactor carbon on a commercial scale; and construct an F process pilot plant and use it in a survey of U.S. petroleum cokes to discover additional supplies of raw coke suitable for making reactor grade carbon.

Report discussing protactinium, including the element's history and the results of various experiments.

Abstract: In the March-April 1962 shutdown of SM-1 Core II, the SM-28 element will be re-inserted in SM-1 Core II and an SM-1 Core I element will be removed. An SM-1 Core II europium absorber will be replaced by a Ag-Cd-In absorber, and surveillance specimens will be inserted above the core support structure. Analysis of these changes concludes that re-insertion of the SM-2B stationary element and insertion of surveillance specimens do not affect hazards potential previously defined for SM-1. Replacement of the europium absorber by the Ag-Cd-In absorber will have negligible effect on reactivity control worth of the rod. The absorber meat section is encapsulated to prevent exposure of silver alloy to the primary coolant; postulated release of silver due to a cladding defect, after 2 years irradiation in SM-1, would not cause a hazard such as to restrict access to the vapor container. Possibility of steam formation in the air gap between the absorber core and cladding, causing a cladding failure, is remote. Deformation of the absorber section sufficient to cause the rod to stick, would not impair the ability of the other rods to shut down the reactor safely.

Abstract: An element by element reactivity check for SM-1 Core II fuel elements and control rod absorber sections was performed and the burnable nuclear poison loading in the SM-1 Core II stationary fuel elements was established. An approach to criticality of the SM-1 Core II was performed by the inverse multiplication method and the critical rod bank position obtained as a function of fuel loading up to the full SM-1 Core II loading. Maximum and minimum core reactivity measurements were obtained by selective loading of stationary fuel elements and the total "excess K" for the core established. Power distribution measurements in the region of the core-reflector interface and the fuel-absorber interface in the control rod assemblies were performed. The effectiveness of europium flux suppressors in the top of control rod fuel elements and the power peaking in stationary elements adjacent to water gaps in control rod assemblies were measured. Survey measurements established the worth of spiking cold clean SM-1 cores with SM-2 elements, and of water holes in the SM-1 core which might be utilized as flux traps for materials irradiation.

Both in magnetohydrodynamic shocks and in accelerated partially ionized gas flow across a magnetic field, space charge separation occurs that establishes very large electric fields in the direction of motion. The width of the current layers associated with the acceleration is never less than the electron Larmor radius with no collisions and is broadened by electron collisions to a width solely determined by the effective resistivity. The electrons gain an energy regardless of collisions equal to the electric potential difference across the layer. This potential corresponds to the change in kinetic energy of mass motion per ion. For slightly ionized gases, the additional stress of neutral ion collisions within the layer can make the electric potential and hence gain in electron energy very large for only modest changes in mass velocity. Hence ionization may occur when the change in kinetic energy of the ions is small compared to the ionization potential.

Measurement of the color intensity of the uranium thiocyanate complex is discussed as a method for the quantitative determination of uranium. Two procedures for amounts from 1 microgram to 1 milligram are described, and standard curves are shown. The effects of numerous foreign ions are shown, and methods of removal for some of these are discussed.

Report issued by the Argonne National Laboratory covering the quarterly report from the Reactor Engineering Division. A summary of reactor programs, research, designs, development, and experiments are presented. This report includes tables, illustrations, and photographs.

"Measurements of the intra-cell neutron flux distributing for a proposed Uranium Production Reactor have been made using a mock-up of a portion of the reactor core. Thermal neutron and thorium resonance neutron flux-distributions were investigated. As a result of the experimental measurements on the first mock-up, a decrease in thorium content appeared necessary in the reactor design studies. Experiments are now in progress on a second mock-up in which this change has been made."

Technical report with short reports on (1) Effect of radiation on water and aqueous systems; (2) Gas evolution from uranyl solutions; (3) Effect of radiation on solid compounds; (4) Instruments; and (5) Scattering.

"Adlam and Allen and Davis, Lust, and Schluter have studied nonlinear plane-waves, propagating normal to the magnetic field, in a cold plasma. One solution of particular interest is a solitary wave, or single pulse. We present a method for solving the analogous problem for a plasma with finite temperature, in the limiting case where the amplitude of the wave is small and where, consequently, the width of the waver is very large."

"Results of the continuing stratospheric flight test evaluation program for the Del Model I Electrostatic Precipitator Sampler and the Del Electrical Discharge Altimeter are described and discussed. Only one of four balloon launches reached floating altitude. The altimeter obtained an altitude recording consistent with concurrent aneroid barocoder readings. The reported gross gamma concentration for the precipitator sampler was approximates 25 and 80% higher than those of the two simultaneous direct flow filter samples. The completion of the design and construction of two prototype units of the Del Electrical Discharge Altimeter and their laboratory evaluation are described. A preliminary design concept is presented for an operational high volume electrostatic precipitator sampler to operate with high collection efficiency at an ambient flowrate of 500 cfm throughout the altitude range 100,000 to 150,000 ft."

The purpose of this report is to present a HAPO proposal for the design and construction of a high-temperature, high-pressure light water recirculation test facility for the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Atomic Power Division This report does not attempt to justify the feasibility of site location nor does it attempt to elaborate on such technical considerations as permissible test specimen heat generation and enrichment requirements which have been covered in an earlier document. Instead, detail information is developed on the proposed design with major emphasis on detail descriptions of the proposed loop and auxiliaries, design and construction scheduling and costs, and operating costs.

Plutonium Oxide Fuels. Mixtures of PWR grade UO2 containing 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 w/o PuO2 were sintered in hydrogen for 44 hours at 1600 C to get additional data on solubility in this system. Densities of all the pieces were low, approximately 80 percent of theoretical; however, solid solution formation was complete in every case. The low density material should not affect lattice parameter values, but it did slightly reduce the intensity of the reflections.

The fabrication processes applied to nuclear fuels are subject to severe limitations because of the conditions imposed by the reactor environment. The combined problems of neutrons fluxes, high heat fluxes, corrosion by the coolant , and embrittlement by hydriding or similar reactions may be minimized through establishing rigorous materials and fabrication specifications for fuel and cladding.

The result of a leak in a PRTR process tube between the flow monitor and the heated section would be to increase the flow through the monitor, but to decrease the flow through the heated section. The concern for the case of small leaks is whether the increase in flow through the flow monitor is sufficient to cause a high flow tip and a reactor scram for the condition where the flow through the heated section is reduced to the point to cause excessive fuel element temperatures.

The power supplies designed and constructed to power high intensity flash tubes used in bubble chamber experiments are briefly described and are accompanied by a schematic diagram of the layout. (D.C.W.)

In order to perform the various experiments with a bubble chamber, a high intensity flash tube is used. This report briefly describes the power supplies designed and constructed to power these lamps.

In the course of recovering uranium from Rand cyanide residues, large volumes of barren acid liquors are produced. With the flowsheets now under consideration it is not advisable to recycle such liquors and they are to be discarded. Consideration was given to the removal of manganese under conditions that would permit its recovery as MnO2.

A series of leaching, thickening, and filtration tests was undertaken to determine minimum conditions for high uranium extractions and to obtain thickening and filtration data.

VARI solves on the IBM-650 a system of simultaneous, first-order, ordinary, differential equations. The program was written so that a large number of calculations could be done in a reasonable length of time. The program permits the consideration of the production of the isotope by absorption and/or decay of one or more of any of the other isotopes in the chain.

It has been reported in the literature that prolonged soaking of 16 wt & uranium-aluminum alloys at elevated temperatures induces a microstructural changed termed "conglobulation". this process is essentially a spheroidization of the UAl4 eutectic. Conclusions of the tests: (1) Extended soaking of 48 wt $ uranium-aluminum alloy billets at 600 C does not improve their hot-rolling characteristics. (2) Soaking periods of 50 hours and greater reduce the tensile and yield strengths of these alloys. (3) Soaking for 50 hours results in complete spheroidization of the eutectic in 48 wt % uranium-aluminum alloys.

The kinetics of transformation of zirconium binary alloys is being pursued. Mechanical property variation as a function of transformation if also being investigated. Zirconium-tin and zirconium-titanium alloys transform very rapidly when quenched from the beta field. These alloys have, generally speaking, been demonstrated to be not amenable to heat treatment in the normal sense of the word. Eutectoid alloys, principally zirconium-molybdenum alloys, have shown a definite response to heat treatment in terms of mechanical property variation. An embrittling agent, probably "omega" phase, is suspect at this time for the brittleness observed in certain molybdenum alloys and the very high hardness levels reached in other alloys such as zirconium-niobium and zirconium-thorium. Work to establish the existence of omega phase is in progress and, it is hoped, suggestions for avoiding the brittle condition associated with it will be forthcoming.