A system for providing a means of remote ejection and examination of sodium bonded shroud encapsulated fuels has been in use at LASL for over a year. The system is remotely capable of precise machining for clad separation and splitting at specified areas. Controlled heating and constant temperature monitoring is incorporated for sodium melting. The system provides for numerous operations such as: visual examinations, measurements, photography, and sodium dissolution.

The Closed Loop In-Reactor Assembly (CLIRA) is a test vehicle for in-core material and fuel experiments in the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF). The FFTF is a fast flux nuclear test reactor operated for the Department of Energy (DOE) by Westinghouse Hanford Company in Richland, Washington. The CLIRA is a removable/replaceable part of the Closed Loop System (CLS) which is a sodium coolant system providing flow and temperature control independent of the reactor coolant system. The primary purpose of the CLIRA is to provide a test vehicle which will permit testing of nuclear fuels and materials at conditions more severe than exist in the FTR core, and to isolate these materials from the reactor core.

A control system utilizing a microcomputer has been developed that controls the power supplies driving the Tandem Mirror Experiment (TMX) magnet set and monitors magnet coil operation. The magnet set consists of 18 magnet coils that are driven by 26 dc power supplies. There are two possible modes of operation with this system: a pulse mode where the coils are pulsed on for several seconds with a dc power consumption of 16 MW; and a continuous mode where the coils can run steady state at 10 percent of maximum current ratings. The processor has been given an active control role and serves as an interface between the operator and electronic circuitry that controls the magnet power supplies. This microcomputer also collects and processes data from many analog singal monitors in the coil circuits and numerous status signals from the supplies. Placing the microcomputer in an active control role has yielded a compact, cost effective system that simplifies the magnet system operation and has proven to be very reliable. This paper will describe the TMX magnet control sytem and discuss its development.

The reactor design is a multicell arrangement wherein a series of field-reversed plasma layers are arranged along the axis of a long superconducting solenoid which provides the background magnetic field. Normal copper mirror coils and Ioffe bars placed at the first wall radius provide shallow axial and radial magnetic wells for each plasma layer. Each of 11 plasma layers requires the injection of 3.6 MW of 200 keV deuterium and tritium and produces 20 MW of fusion power. The reactor has a net electric output of 74 MWe and an estimated direct capital cost of $1200/kWe.

Particle removal procedures such as plasma cleaning, ultrasonic agitation of solvents, detergents, solvent wiping, mild abrasives, vapor degreasing, high pressure solvent spraying and others have been evaluated and the results are reported here. Wiping with a lens tissue wetted with an organic solvent and high pressure fluid spraying are the only methods by which particles as small as 5 ..mu..m can be effectively removed. All of the other methods tested were found to be at least two orders of magnitude less effective at removing small insoluble particles. An additional and as yet unresolved problem is the development of a reliable method for evaluating particulate surface cleanliness. Without such a reproducible monitoring technique, the large diversity of cleaning methods currently available cannot be quantitatively evaluated.

The simple mirror configuration, consisting of a long solenoid with increased field strength at the ends (magnetic mirrors), proved to be an unstable plasma container and was replaced by the minimum absolute value of B mirror configuration. The Yin-Yang minimum absolute value of B coil was chosen for the Mirror Fusion Test Facility (MFTF) experiment and recent conceptual designs of standard mirror reactors. For the multicell field-reversed mirror reactor concept we returned to the long solenoid configuration, augmented by normal copper mirror coils and Ioffe bars placed at the first wall radius to provide a shallow magnetic well for each field-reversed plasma layer. The central cell of the tandem mirror is also a long solenoid while the end plug cells require a minimum absolute value of B configuration.

For the past two years Alan Swain and Henry E. Guttmann, of the Statistics, Computing, and Human Factors Division, Sandia Laboratories, have been developing a handbook to aid qualified persons to evaluate the effect of human error on the availability of engineered safety systems and features in nuclear power plants. The handbook includes a mathematical model, procedures, derived human failure data, and principles of human behavior and ergonomics. The handbook is expanding the human error analyses which were presented in WASH--1400. The work, under the sponsorship of Probabilistic Analysis Staff, NRC Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research (Dr. M.C. Cullingford, NRC Program Manager), is about half completed. An outline of the handbook contents is given in copies of vugraphs (attached), followed by copies of human performance model abstractors (also attached). A first draft of the handbook is scheduled for NRC review by July 1, 1979.

92,000 BeO--UO/sub 2/ fuel elements were fabricated for the upgrading of the Sandia Annular Core Pulse Reactor. The toxicity of BeO and the radioactivity of /sup 235/U necessitated special handling procedures and equipment. This document describes the materials, specifications, and fabrication process. (DLC)

An experimental program was conducted to assess the endurance and lifetime of HEPA filters exposed to fire-generated aerosols, and to reduce the aerosol exposure by installing engineering countermeasures in the duct between the fire source and HEPA filters. Large cribs of wood and other potential fuels of interest were ''forcefully burned'' in a partially ventilated enclosure. In a ''forceful burn'' the crib of fuel is continuously exposed to an energetic premixed methane flame during the entire experimental period. This tactic serves two purposes: it optimizes the production of smoke rich in unburned pyrolyzates which provides severe exposure to the filters, and it facilitates the ignition and enhances the combustion of cribs formed with synthetic polymers. The experiments were conducted in an enclosure specifically designed and instrumented for fire tests. The test cell has a volume of 100 m/sup 3/ and includes instrumentation to measure the internal temperature distribution, pressure, thermal radiation field, flow fields, gas concentration, particulate size distribution and mass, fuel weight loss, inlet and exit air velocities, and smoke optical density. The countermeasure techniques include the use of passively operated sprinkler systems in the fire test cell, of fine and dense water scrubbing sprays, and of rolling prefiltration …

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Based on the Administration's policy to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation through diversion of fuel from commercial reactor fuel cycles, a ''benchmark'' set of nonproliferation criteria was prepared for the commercial nuclear fuel cycle. These criteria should eliminate incremental risks of proliferation beyond those inherent in the present generation of low-enriched-uranium-fueled reactors operating in a once-through mode, with internationally safeguarded storage of spent fuel. They focus on the balanced application of technical constraints consistent with the state of the technology, with minimal requirements for institutional constraints, to provide a basis for assessing the proliferation resistance of proposed fission power systems. The paper contains: (1) our perception of the nuclear energy policy and of the baseline proliferation risk accepted under this policy; (2) objectives for a reactor and fuel cycle strategy which address the technical, political, and institutional aspects of diversion and proliferation and, at the same time, satisfy the Nation's needs for efficient, timely, and economical utilization of nuclear fuel resources; (3) criteria which are responsive to these objectives and can therefore be used to screen proposed reactor and fuel cycle strategies; and (4) a rationale for these criteria.