Eurochemic Assistance Program: Comments by FMPC, dated July 6, 1959, on Eurochemic Technical Documents (open access)

Eurochemic Assistance Program: Comments by FMPC, dated July 6, 1959, on Eurochemic Technical Documents

The nuclear safety portion of this report is inclined to ignore the factors by which safety limits can be increased. It makes no mention of the control that can be exercised by limiting the assay of the U-235 being processed in the plant. From some of the previous reports, it is apparent that this plant is not anticipating processing U-235 of assay greater than approximately 20%. At this value, many of the numbers that are presented in the tables could be increased markedly. Rough examination indicates that these values all refer to top product U-235. The general discussion is, however, excellent. The references apparently used are those unclassified references with which we are all familiar and think highly of. We would recommend the inclusion of TID-7016.
Date: July 14, 1959
Creator: Cuthbert, F. L.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Determination of Plutonium and Uranium in Scrup Dissolver Solutions (open access)

Determination of Plutonium and Uranium in Scrup Dissolver Solutions

Methods for the determination of plutonium and uranium in highly radioactive scrup dissolver solutions have been developed. Plutonium was separated from the dissolver solutions by solvent-extraction and ion-exchange techniques and determined by potentiometric titration. Uranium was separated by ion exchange and determined by potentiometric titration. Solutions that were similar to the actual dissolver solutions and that contained known amounts of plutonium and uranium were analyzed by these methods. Evaluation of the data secured for the determination of plutonium and uranium by the methods given herein indicated that, within the limits of the precision of the methods, there was no bias. The precision of the data obtained for the determination of plutonium, expressed as the relative standard deviation, was better than 2% for plutonium in the concentration range of 0.27 to 0.64 mg/ml. The precision for uranium was estimated to be about 0.2% for uranium concentrations of 425 mg/ml. These methods and the data obtained by then are discussed in this report; the procedures are appended.
Date: July 14, 1955
Creator: Foster, R. W.; Cooper, J. H. & Raaen, H. P.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Homogenous Reactor Project Quarterly Progress Report For Period Ending April 30, 1955 (open access)

Homogenous Reactor Project Quarterly Progress Report For Period Ending April 30, 1955

Part I. Experimental Reactors: The effect of prompt-neutron lifetime upon reactor safety was investigated for the HRT. It was found that for a given pressure rise the allowable rate of reactivity addition was relatively insensitive to the average prompt-neutron lifetime, although the rate de creased somewhat with decreasing lifetime for the higher pressure rises. With only source neutrons present and the reactor initially subcritical, the allowable rate was practically independent of the initial value of k£. For a core-pressure rise of 400 psi, the corresponding rate of reactivity addition was about 0.8% per second; for a pressure rise of 4000 psi, the rate was 2.5 to 3.0% per second. Part II. Thorium Breeder Reactor: An economic study of one-region thorium breeder reactors was completed. Where possible, the process characteristics and cost factors were the same as those used previously in studies of two-region-type reactors. The mini mum-cost reactor is about 12 ft in diameter, operating with 260 g of thorium per liter on a chemical processing cycle of about 450 days. The ratio of U232 to U233 produced is approximately 2 x 10~4 VIM in the minimum-cost one-region system, compared with 4 x 10 5 in the two-region system. The …
Date: July 14, 1955
Creator: McDuffie, H. F. & Kelly, D. C.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Effect of Gaps on Pile Reactivity (open access)

The Effect of Gaps on Pile Reactivity

From abstract: "The variation of the reactivity of a pile as a function of width of a transverse gap is obtained. The method involves first finding the boundary condition satisfied by the flux at the gap face. This, in principle, provides enough information for a complete solution of the pile equations. A method for calculating the reactivity change is presented. The calculated reactivity is compared with experiment and a brief discussion of the validity of the approximations is given."
Date: July 14, 1952
Creator: Tamor, S. & Ergen, W. K.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Homogeneous Reactor Project Quarterly Progress Report: March 1952 (open access)

Homogeneous Reactor Project Quarterly Progress Report: March 1952

This quarterly progress report details the ongoing research happening at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In particular, this report discusses the current status of the Homogenous Reactor Experiment, boiling reactor and slurry studies, and general homogenous reactor studies.
Date: July 14, 1952
Creator: Swartout, J. A.; Secoy, C. H.; Welton, T. A.; Winters, C. E. & Thompson, W. E.
System: The UNT Digital Library