On the 0000-0800 shift, October 15, 1959, the delayed neutron monitor on KER Loop 2 gave a high coolant activity signal indicating a possible fuel element failure in this loop. KE reactor was shutdown immediately thereafter. This report is being written to summarize the events pertinent to this KE reactor scram and to discuss the results and significance of data from analyses on coolant and coupon samples taken from KER Loop 2.

The objectives of this production test detailed in this report is to evaluate the behavior during irradiation of tubular fuel elements with hot-headed end closures. With natural uranium twenty-inch tube- and-tube elements will be irradiated to a goal of 2500 MWD/T in the KER loops. The inner tubes will be closed by the hot-heading technique and the outer tubes will have normal welded closures.

This document details activities of the irradiation processing department during the month of December, 1959. A general summary is included at the start of the report, after which the report is divided into the following sections: Research and Engineering Operations; Production and Reactor Operations; Facilities Engineering Operation; Employee Relations Operation; and Financial Operation.

This study proposes improvements in the process water piping adjacent to the front and rear faces of these reactors. This report covers the external piping of the reactors from the incoming valve pit to the inlets of the outgoing retention basins.

Current information relative to the pyrophoricity of uranium is reviewed and aspects of this troublesome phenomenon which can support further investigation are considered. Information on metallic uranium fuel element fires, up to the present, provide an inadequate base for extrapolation to future operations because of existing uncertainty with respect to causative mechanisms and fire control techniques. Experience at Hanford reactors indicates conditions which tend to reduce the fuel element fire hazard. These include minimizing of the in-core residence time of a fuel element with a cladding defect which permits uranium corrosion, employment of removal and discharge techniques which do not contribute to the deterioration of the fuel element, and minimizing of the time interval between discharge and entry into the retention basin. (J.R.D.)