The Characterization of Spent Nuclear Fuel in the sealed K West canisters involves four steps, (1) sampling of gas/liquid, (2) ``Lift-and-Look`` visual examinations of fuel elements, (3) sampling of canister sludge, and (4) retrieving fuel for hot cell examinations. This document indicates the choices of particular canisters that were examined during the second characterization campaign in the Hanford K West Basin.

In unreflected reactors, the probability of detecting chain-related counts is given by the well known Rossi-{alpha} expression. Using this the author derives an expression for the effective delayed neutron fraction, {beta}. He demonstrates that this expression for {beta} is equally applicable for a reflected systems in which two alphas are experimentally observed.

The adhesion of bacteria to sediment particle or rock surfaces considerably effects their transport in subsurface environments. This research focuses on the macromolecular properties of bacteria that determine their adhesiveness and on the significance of adhesion in transport of subsurface bacteria. Specific objectives include (1) to obtain adhesion mutants of subsurface Pseudomonas species altered in surface adhesives; (2) to determine alterations in adhesives in selected mutants; (3) to evaluate the effect of adhesiveness on transport and long-term distribution and colonization of bacteria in porous media. Primary methods will be tranposon mutagenesis to generate adhesion mutants, biochemical analyses of cell surface polymers, and the use of laboratory columns containing subsurface materials to study the distribution and transport of bacteria along flow paths over time.

This project involved collaboration in the design, construction and testing of a prototype chamber capable of detecting Cerenkov rings. The chamber incorporated several novel techniques in that it used parallel-plate pad readout and a Cesium-iodide (CsI) solid photocathode. The pad system used gas multiplication where the gas was kept at low pressure to minimize photon losses due to absorption and back-scattering and to minimize ion collection times. Low pressure also lowers the chamber response to charged particles. The chamber gas was ethane at 20 torr and the chamber was operated at room temperature. The chamber was built at the University of Pennsylvania by a University of Puerto Rico graduate student, Jorge Millan. Initial tests at Pennsylvania using a hydrogen-discharge lamp indicated a quantum efficiency of 13% at 190 nm. The chamber was then tested in the M-Test beam line at Fermilab and behind the C3 beamline dump at Brookhaven Lab. Cerenkov rings were clearly observed with each photoelectron typically exciting one pad. On average each ring had five struck pads and only 10% of the events had hits in the center due to the charged particle. These results indicate that a RICH detector using a solid CsI photocathode coupled to …

This report describes the criticality safety basis of the ITP and ESP processes, and of the salt dissolution process in Waste Tank 41H.

This characterization report summarizes information on the historical uses, current status, and sampling and analysis results of waste stored in tank 241-BY-102.