This twenty-second quarterly report of the research and development activities of the Radiological Sciences Department, Hanford Atomic Products Operations, as before, includes some items charged to control but included for general interest. Such are identified as "not charged to research." The previous report of this series was numbered: HW-34408 January 10, 1955

In conjunction with the fuel element development program at Hanford, it is desired to determine the effects of cladding and core temperatures, cladding thickness, and exposure upon the swelling behavior of unalloyed uranium. To obtain this information, it is proposed to irradiate several fuel rods, clad by coextrusion with Zr-2, in NeK filled stainless steel capsules. The central uranium temperatures are to be monitored by axial thermocouples. Irradiation tests in the MTR and ETR using capsules of similar design have been and are now being conducted. GKH 3-31, a fuel rod, clad with 0.030" Zr-2, operated in the MTR at an average center fuel temperature of 425 C to an exposure of 2100 MWD/T. GKH 3-57, 3-58, and 3-59 are presently undergoing irradiation in the ETR.

Crib evaluation studies showed the soil uptake of plutonium from the Recuplex process (CAW) waste to be low. Preliminary studies of the low soil adsorption of plutonium revealed the presence of a plutonium nitrate anion complex which could be removed by adsorption on a strong base anion exchange resin.

Thermal Resistance of the contact between to core and the jackets or unbonded fuel elements may easily be the largest source of error in core temperature predictions. The object of this work is to improve contact conductance predictions by measuring conductance of the joint between reactor fuel and cladding materials at joint pressures, temperatures and thermal flux levels approaching reactor service conditions.

In order to obtain the most economical utilization of underground storage facilities it is desirable to maintain a running inventory of heat generation and available self concentration in a given tank. Further, it is believed that such knowledge will be helpful in studying underground storage technology. The calculation of fission product heat generation and available self concentration factor in separations waste storage tanks is a complex process. The complexity is increased greatly when material of varying irradiation history, cooling time, etc., is stored at varying production rates. This document presents in tabular form the power generated from the fission product activity associated with one ton of irradiated uranium using the various operating conditions and decay periods of interest for waste storage considerations.