Work has continued on the development of accurate nuclear fuel burnup analysis. Work performed during the fourth quarter is summarized here.

The Big Rock Point Reactor of the Consumers Power Company went critical for the first time on September 27, 1962. Summarized here are objectives and accomplishments of the pre-operational period as well as an indication of work scope remaining.

Work has continued on the development of accurate nuclear fuel burnup analysis. Work performed by the third quarter of 1962 is summarized.

During the eighth quarter the instrumented assemblies were removed from VBWR and examined for effects of the exposure to reactor conditions. Also during this period the Big Rock developmental fuel assembly design was completed and a topical report was issued. A summary of progress by task is presented here.

This phase of the program is concerned with irradiation of fuel assemblies to determine central temperature limitations.

Some numerical calculations have been done which permit the deduction of many properties of the synchrotron oscillation problem. For the presentation of the numerical results, it is useful to review the formulation framework to which the results are to be fitted. These are worked out for an arbitrary circular accelerator. The algebra woud have to be modified slightly to include straight sections but the numerical results are still useful.

"Uranium and zirconium were bonded by melting the two metals in contact with one another in a bimetallic casting process. Tensile tests of specimens containing the original zone of interface between the two metals showed that all failures were at locations other than the interface. The coefficients obtained for diffusion between molten uranium and molten zirconium varied from 2.13 cm squared per day at 3,380 degrees F. to 9.17 cm squared per day at 3,510 degrees F. the activation energy for the diffusion process was calculated to be 182,000 calories per gram mole."

"We will consider two finite difference schemes for the solution of the Navier-Stokes equations in one space dimension. The first is a method used by Lax and Wendroff. The second method is based on an approximate solution of the centered, implicit difference equations. Since this approximate solution is obtained by successive substitutions, we will refer to this second method as an iterative method."

Abstract: This technical report evaluates hazards involved with SM- 1 plant response and system performance tests (Task XII), to determine the response of the SM-1 plant to step electrical and steam load changes. The report describes the changes in plant equipment and operating procedures for this task and evaluates these changes for possible additional hazards to those described in APAE No. 2, Revision 1, "Hazards Summary Report for the Army Package Power Reactor SM-1."

The objective of the Accurate Nuclear Fuel Burnup Analyses program is to develop more accurate methods for burnup analysis for general use than the current method of analysis of Ca-137 or Sr-90. The program will require from three to five years of effort.

The objective of the Accurate Nuclear Fuel Burnup Analyses program is to develop more accurate methods for burnup analysis for general use than the current method of analysis of Ca-137 or Sr-90. The program will require from three to five years of effort.

The following quarterly progress report covers the period of August 15 to November 15, 1962. It summarizes three activities of the group. The first part is the optical study of the absorption band associated with the F-center in RbCl. The second part discusses some elementary calculations of the spin-lattice relaxation times, the primary purpose of this step is to indicate the nature of the theoretical problem faced and show the large gap between the value calculated theoretically and measured experimentally. The last section includes more data on the shape and recovery of the hole in a EPR band associated with the F-center in KCl.