Plans are presented for insolation testing of a full-scale test receiver panel and supporting hardware which essentially duplicate both physically and functionally the design planned for the 10 MWe pilot plant. Testing includes operation during normal start and shutdown, intermittent cloud conditions, and emergencies to determine the transient and steady state operating characteristics and performance under conditions equal to or exceeding those expected in the pilot plant. The effects of variations of input and output conditions on receiver operation are also to be investigated. A brief description of the pilot plant receiver subsystem is presented, followed by a detailed description of the receiver assembly to be tested at the Solar Thermal Test Facility. Major subassemblies are described, including the receiver panel, flow control, electrical control and instrumentation, and the structural assembly. Requirements of the Solar Thermal Test Facility for the tests are given. System safety measures are described. The tests, operating conditions, and expected results are presented. Quality assurance, task responsibilities, and test documentation are also discussed. (LEW)

The contract objective is to complete the design and development actions that upgrade the 40-kW fuel cell power plant to a configuration suitable for on-site demonstration testing. The modifications will improve operating capability, durability and maintenance interval and lead to reduced production costs. Equipment to recover and use the by-product heat of electric generation will be available on the power plant for field verification of on-site heat recovery. The 40-kW power plant will be compatible with the power characteristics required for conventional heat pumps and conventional 60 Hz, 120/208 volts electrically operated equipment. Progress is reported. (WHK)

An instrument is described which is designed to determine radioactive isotope spectra in the field under adverse environmental conditions. The instrument is battery-powered, stores and compares multiple spectra, and performs computations upon the resulting displayed graph. (auth)

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A system is described in which neutron interaction data are collected from nuclear physics laboratories throughout the world, organized, evaluated, and then stored for easy access in a computer network. Computer codes that use the data to solve neutron interaction problems were also developed. The system supplies reliable up-to-date data, selects specific types of data on request, provides output in a variety of forms (reports, microfiche, microfilm), and functions rapidly and efficiently. 3 figures.

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Inorganic analysis of solid, liquid and gaseous samples from the Paraho Semiworks Retort was completed using a multitechnique approach. The data were statistically analyzed to determine both the precision of each method and to see how closely the various techniques compared. The data were also used to determine the redistribution of 31 trace and major elements in the various effluents, including the offgas for the Paraho Retort operating in the direct mode. The computed mass balances show that approximately 1% or greater fractions of the As, Co, Hg, N, Ni, S and Se are released during retorting and redistributed to the product shale oil, retort water or product offgas. The fraction for these seven elements ranged from almost 1% for Co and Ni to 50 to 60% for Hg and N. Approximately 20% of the S and 5% of the As and Se are released. The mass balance redistribution during retorting for Al, Fe, Mg, V and Zn was observed to be no greater than .05%. These redistribution figures are generally in agreement with previous mass balance studies made for a limited number of elements on laboratory or smaller scale pilot retorts. 7 tables.

This report describes risk analyses performed on that portion of a nuclear fuel cycle which begins following solidification of high-level waste. Risks associated with handling, interim storage and transportation of the waste are assessed, as well as the long term implications of disposal in deep mined cavities. The risk is expressed in terms of expected dose to the general population and peak dose to individuals in the population. This volume consists of appendices which provide technical details of the work performed.

Research has been carried out in two broad areas, nonlinear saturation of instabilities in collisionless plasma and incorporation of important physical phenomena into linear stability theories appropriate to Tokamaks. The nonlinear work has established a general technique for dealing with the singular functions which arise and is now applied to the collisionless drift, the dissipative trapped electron in linear geometry and the drift cyclotron loss cone. Multimode problems are under study. The linear theory includes the influence of resonant electrons on the trapped electron instability in sheared magnetic fields. A further calculation includes the collisional broading of the untrapped electron response. Finally a general technique is developed for calculations when there are collisions and the product of the poloidal wave number and ion gyroradium is not necessarily small.

Progress in biochemical reaction kinetics of photosynthetic energy conversion is reported. (PCS)

Chemical getters can be used to scavenge tritium from inert gases. Cerium, which forms a hydride with a low dissociation pressure, has high reactivity, and is relatively inexpensive, is a good candidate getter material for such a scavenger system. Mathematical models for using cerium in both fixed- and fluidized-bed reactors predict satisfactory performance. Moreover, the capital cost of a gettering system, estimated to be between $115,000 and $166,000 (m/sup 3//s) flow, is competitive with that of the conventional catalytic-oxidation molecular-sieve system ($330,000/m/sup 3//s) now used. The gettering concept, therefore, warrants further investigation. This report assesses the feasibility of such a system.

Major improvements have been made to decrease the tritium release potential for LLL's tritium-handling facilities in Bldg. 331. Some of the major problems and solutions in designing and building the High Pressure Gas System, which was the first system to be rebuilt are described. To increase system safety, it was necessary to specify material and processes used in component manufacture, to inspect all materials and processes to ensure compliance with specifications, to use proper joint design, to use secondary containment in cases where specifications could not be met, and to exercise tighter control of operating procedures.

In spite of the remarkable safety record of the nuclear industry as a whole, recent public concern over the potential impact of the industry's accelerated growth has prompted ERDA to expand its emergency response procedures. The Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability, ARAC, is a computer communications system designed to enhance the existing emergency response capability of ERDA nuclear facilities. ARAC will add at least two new functions to this capability: centralized, real-time data acquisition and storage, and simulation of the long range atmospheric transport of hazardous materials. To perform these functions, ARAC employs four major sub-systems or facilities: the site facility, the central facility, the global weather center and the regional model. The system has been under development for the past two years at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory of the University of California. (auth)

Data taken from the Avco 200 kw Arc Coal Reactor facility provides increasing optimism for this acetylene producing process. Continued improvements in the reactor design have been accomplished over the past three months. These improvements result in data which, when reduced and analyzed, yield SER's well below 5.0. Further, these SER values are an improvement over those of the comparable OCR program test data results under the same test conditions. The anode and cathode designed for this 200 kw Chemical Facilities have performed well with no visible degradation after minor adjustments in the geometry and operating procedures. The data taken to date, both with and without quench, within this facility underline the importance of commencing work on the 1 Mw Arc Coal Acetylene PDU where SER values between 3.5 and 4.0 are a clear probability. With values of SER in this range, the arc coal process is economically attractive as a competitor to the ethylene process for manufacturing vinyl chloride monomer and vinyl acetate monomer. A summary of the 200 kw facility test results in Appendix A is a synopsis of a Topical Technical Report submitted earlier.

Results of the previous one-dimensional thermal analysis of interim storage accidents are confirmed by more detailed two-dimensional calculations. Waste temperatures calculated for interim storage accidents are moderately sensitive to assumptions concerning canister spacing and are much less sensitive to boundary conditions at the canister top. For an individual 100 m from a transportation accident involving solidified high-level waste, the expected dose from gamma radiation is on the order of or smaller than the other possible exposures in the same accident. For the calculation of expected doses to the worst-situated individual in accidents: Expected population dose should remain the primary measure of pre-emplacement risk in order to maintain comparability of consequences of different types of accidents.

Studies of technical issues relating to nuclear waste management are described. It supplements previous TASC reports on this topic. Volume 1 addresses events occurring before emplacement of the waste in a repository. The subjects addressed are thermal analysis of interim storage accidents and doses to the worst-situated individual in all types of pre-emplacement accidents. Volume 2 deals with the possible release of waste from a geologic repository. Aspects of long-term repository performance which are discussed include water flow around shafts and boreholes and use of water from contaminated wells. New methods and results pertaining to the analysis of uncertainties in long-term risk predictions are also presented.

CO methanantion rates have been measured in the all-glass internal recycle reactor developed for this work. The methanation rate over the cylinder Ni film catalyst at 400/sup 0/C is 3.9 sec/sup -1/ initially, and the catalyst undergoes deactivation to a value of 1.8 sec/sup -1/, comparable with a reported value of 2.5 sec/sup -1/. The activation energy for Ni film on alumina is 24 kcal/mole, that for Ni film on silica is 17.8 kcal/mole comparable to values for Ni on these supports. The kinetics suggest that CO dissociation is rate limiting; carbon on the Ni is easily hydrogenated off. H/sub 2/S causes severe deactivation and regeneration after sulfur poisoning is not easily achieved by oxidation in the reactor. However, sulfur is easily removed from Ni by oxygen from a molecular leak in the high-vacuum chamber of the Auger electron spectrometer. Atmospheric pressure studies using an ante-chamber connected to the spectrometer chamber show that sulfur cannot be removed from Ni under conditions similar to those in the reactor because of rapid oxide growth which buries the sulfur preventing removal. Standards allowing determination of concentration as well as chemical state for Ni, O, S, and C have been developed.

Research on the use of cements in radioactive waste isolation is reported. Other research is reported on the effects of thermal treatments of clays and shales on their cation exchange capacities and relative sorptive properties for cations. Development of instrumentation for measuring thermal properties of cements at atmospheric pressure was completed. A method was developed for measuring heat flow in shales and cement. Data on thermodynamic properties of cements and shales are included. Studies of shales, siltstones, and evaporites including scanning electron microscopy are in progress. (JRD)

Deposition of solids at the wall of a nozzle used to expand geothermal brine may be accounted for by a hydrodynamic model describing eddy formation near the wall. A conceptual design of a nozzle with injection of an annular ring of fluid at the wall is presented.

A preliminary Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) for the BIPS Flight System (FS) was published as AiResearch Report 76-311709 dated January 12, 1976. The FMECA presented a thorough review of the conceptual BIPS FS to identify areas of concern and activities necessary to avoid premature failures. In order to assure that the actions recommended by the FMECA are effected in both the FS and the Ground Demonstration System (GDS), a checklist (the BIPS-DIC) was prepared for the probability of occurrence of those failure modes that rated highest in criticality ranking. This checklist was circulated as an attachment to AiResearch Coordination Memo No. BIPS-GDS-A0106 dated January 23, 1976. The Brayton Isotope Power System-Design Integrity Checklist (BIPS-DIC) has been revised and is presented. Additional entries have been added that reference failure modes determined to rank highest in criticality ranking. The checklist will be updated periodically.

A 50 MHz bunching cavity was built and operated at BNL for studies into the effect of bunching on neutralization of a 750 keV proton beam. Since this cavity was intended for a short testing period, a low cost unit that could be assembled rapidly was desired. This cavity is described.

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