A portable, light weight transistorized alpha, beta, and gamma survey meter was designed and fabricated.

The automatic polarograph is ideally suited for the analysis of waste streams for uranium in the Metal Recovery Process, and with modification, it is applicable to other processes, pilot plants, and even to laboratory set ups. The instrument is simple, dependable, and relatively trouble free in operation. It provides an immediate record of the uranium in the waste and, through better control of the process, lower processing costs.

Objective: The objective of this study is to develop a simple method of either removing the C1- ion from the RAW or converting the ion into a less corrosive valence state.

It is anticipated that neptunium will be recovered in the Purex process by solvent extraction or ion exchange methods as a nitric acid solution of greater than 0.1 g. Np/1 and containing varying amounts of fission products, plutonium, uranium, and thorium, including Th234 (UX1). At the present time this solution is thermally concentrated in the Purex L-cell package to several grams of neptunium per liter. In this operation the solution is contaminated rather badly with plutonium and stainless steel corrosion products. The present specifications are for the neptunium final product to contain less than 0.1 weight percent plutonium, to be relatively free of gross metallic contaminates, and to be low enough in fission product game activity and Th234-Pa234 (UX1-UX2) beta activity to be handled without resorting to remote techniques.

Considerable interest has developed in the use of ion-exchange in the nuclear energy field in the last decade. Aside from the obvious use of providing demineralized coolant water for reactors, the projected uses of ion-exchange include the recovery of fission products from aquaeous waste streams and the separation and purification of fissionable materials from spent reactor fuels. The latter process may be incidental to the over-all operation, as is the case with the Purex anion exchange facility, or it may be the prime separation process, as may be the case in the recovery of Pu or U from spent power reactor (PRTR) fuel elements.

Feasibility of conversion of uranyl nitrate to uranium trioxide by the continuous addition of concentrated uranyl nitrate solution to hot, agitated UO3 powder.

A means for decontaminating the primary system of recirculating type reactor is necessary to insure operation and maintenance. This recirculation system can be contaminated by fuel element rupture products and induced corrosion product activities.

Introduction: "The adoption of aluminum nitrate as salting agent in the Redox process made it imperative that a method be available for determining plutonium in the presence of aluminum. However, large amounts of aluminum have been found to interfere with the determination of plutonium by the lanthanum fluoride procedure. Previous attempts to increase the accuracy of the lanthanum fluoride method, by precipitating LaF3 from 4 M HF (rather than 2 M), have been successful only when the initial plutonium level was high."

The following report describes methods used to determine tributylphosphate in a deodorized shell base. An infrared absorption method is developed to emphasize toward determination of TBP in RCW streams, the organic waste streams.

In 1949 Barad presented two solutions to the general diffusion equation. Basic in both solutions is the assumption that in very stable atmospheres a point source may be replaced by a vertical area of uniform concentration at a short distance downwind. This vertical area is considered to exist at the distance at which the plume finally "levels-off" and assumes a flat ribbon-like appearance. In addition if the distance over which diffusion takes place is limited to one or two miles and if only the stable atmosphere with its narrow range of eddy sizes is considered, the average diffusion co-efficient (K) has a signficance which it does not have in the case of neutral equilibrium.

The measurements reported here are companion measurements to those reported earlier in HW-63585. The only significant difference between the measurements is that 1.8 w/o enrichment UO2 fuel was used for the first set, and 2.6 w/o enrichment UO2 fuel was used for the measurements described in this report. The new results will be presented graphically, and for completeness, the details of the measurement will be included here as well as in HW-63585.

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.

Pressure drops are reported for forced circulation flow of steam-water mixtures in a 23.5 foot long, 1.43 inch ID, 0.1 inch thick, horizontal annulus. The inner surface of the annulus was uniformly heated over a range from 97,000 to 233,000 Btu/hr-ft², exit pressures extended from 100 to 500 psig, and exit steam qualities varied from 0 to 60% by weight. Liquid water entered the annulus and boiling lengths up to 15 feet were investigated. Moreover, the Woods and the Martinelli and Nelson methods of calculating two-phase pressure drop were applied to the experimental conditions, and the deviations between the analytical and the test results are presented.

The conservative design criteria applied to process tubing may seriously hinder the advancement of high temperature reactor development. Factors of safety of 3 to 4 applied to an arbitrarily defined yield strength are used to calculate allowable internal working pressures. The effect of biaxial stressing on the tubes has been shown (2) to cause yielding at a lower internal pressure. However, tests conducted on biaxially stressed short lengths of tubing indicated that the ultimate tensile strength of the material was not affected.

Abstract: "The sensitivity to fast neutrons of a CP Meter ionization chamber of the type used for health physics beta and gamma survey measurements has been investigated."

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.

The Zircaloy-a clad, swaged UOa, 19-rod cluster fuel element for the PRTR was designed to use Zircaloy-a wire spirally wrapped around the fuel rods as spacing members. Such use of unbonded, Zircaloy-a spacers introduced the possibility of fretting corrosion. This paper reports preliminary irradiation tests conducted to determine whether or not such corrosions occurs in this fuel element design.

Thermal oxidation of graphite in flowing CO2 is being studied at 650 to 850 C, in a single-pass gas system at atmospheric pressure, by observing weight loss rates. The method is used to provide comparative data for candidate reactor graphites. The effects on oxidation rates of graphite purity, structure, coke type, graphitization temperatures and other manufacturing variables are determined. In addition, the effects of gas flow rates and graphite surface to volume ratios are observed.

A series of diffusion length measurements were carried out on graphite stacks of various constructions in an attempt to resolve the discrepancies between the graphite diffusion lengths measured in the Hanford reactors and that value measured in the Hanford Standard Pile. It was found that the diffusion length of the graphite in the Hanford reactors is in good agreement with the value for the Hanford Standard Pile when corrections are made for the absorption and scattering of neutrons by the aluminum process tubes, and for neutrons streaming in the channels of the reactors.

The following report records a total of forty-nine graphite core samples that have been bored from process tube blocks in the Hanford piles with the intention to provide results to indicate that core boring is an entirely practical operation over bore scraping in obtaining powder samples.

This report discusses the the surface characteristics of virgin and irradiated artificial graphites and the changes which occur upon irradiation.

Various non-linear calculations for heat conduction in an istropic, homogeneous medium are presented.

From introduction: "The purpose of this report is to summarize some of the observations on the dispersion and rate of disengaging of liquid-liquid systems and suggest some possible lines of future work."

It was suggested to the writer by K.A. Eschbach that liquid magnesium might offer certain advantages as a reactor coolant. As a result of this suggestion, a preliminary investigation of the possibilities of this material was made. Definite advantages for a restricted class of applications were found, but a detailed evaluation would seem to require further basic experimental research on the heat transfer, corrosion and flux-mechanical properties of the substance.