A method of fabricating a seal between a ceramic and an alloy comprising the steps of prefiring the alloy in an atmosphere with a very low partial pressure of oxygen, firing the assembled alloy and ceramic in air, and gradually cooling the fired assembly to avoid the formation of thermal stress in the ceramic. The method forms a bond between the alloy and the ceramic capable of withstanding the environment of a pressurized water reactor and suitable for use in an electrical conductivity sensitive liquid level transducer.

An atomic fission counting apparatus used for neutron detection is provided with spirally curved electrode plates uniformly spaced apart in a circular array and coated with fissile material.

Nuclear fuel is made by contacting an aqueous solution containing an actinide salt with an aqueous solution containing ammonium hydroxide, ammonium oxalate, or oxalic acid in an amount that will react with a fraction of the actinide salt to form a precipitate consisting of the hydroxide or oxalate of the actinide. A slurry consisting of the precipitate and solution containing the unreacted actinide salt is formed into drops which are gelled, calcined, and pressed to form pellets.

A separator assembly for use in a spent-nuclear-fuel shipping cask has a honeycomb-type wall structure defining parallel cavities for holding nuclear fuel assemblies. Tubes formed of an effective neutron-absorbing material are embedded in the wall structure around each of the cavities and provide neutron flux traps when filled with water.

The Tandem Mirror Experiment Upgrade (TMX Upgrade) vacuum system uses most of the vacuum system from the original TMX and substantially increases its capabilities. The vacuum system provides the main structure for the experimental apparatus, as well as providing and maintaining the vacuum environment. The vacuum vessel provides the structure supporting all magnets, as they are contained inside the vacuum vessel, all of the neutral-beam injectors, and the various diagnostics. The vessel provides the main vacuum enclosure and the various access ports required by the magnet system, injector system, internal vacuum system, and plasma diagnostics. The vacuum environment is created and maintained by two systems, the external vacuum system and the internal vacuum system. The external system consists of mechanical pumps, turbopumps, and cryopumps, and creates a vacuum inside the vessel down to a minimum pressure of 10/sup -6/ Torr. The internal vacuum system further reduces the pressure into the 10/sup -8/ Torr range and provides the fast pumping required to handle the excess gas from the neutral-beam injector system during a plasma shot. The internal vacuum system consists of titanium sublimators and liquid nitrogen (LN) liners that separate the vacuum vessel into various pumping regions.

A safety assessment was performed to determine if potential accidents at the 836 Complex at Site 300 could present undue hazards to the general public, personnel at Site 300, or have an adverse effect on the environment. The credible accidents that might have an effect on these facilities or have off-site consequences were considered. These were earthquake, extreme wind (including missiles), lightning, flood, criticality, high explosive (H) detonation that disperses uranium and beryllium, spontaneous oxidation of plutonium, explosions due to finely divided particles, and a fire.

Method and apparatus for minimizing energy required to inject reactant such as coal-oil slurry into a reaction vessel, using high pressure effluent from the latter to displace the reactant from a containment vessel into the reaction vessel with assistance of low pressure pump. Effluent is degassed in the containment vessel, and a heel of the degassed effluent is maintained between incoming effluent and reactant in the containment vessel.

Coal hydrogenation vessel has hydrogen heating passages extending vertically through its wall and opening into its interior.

A high power switching circuit is disclosed which utilizes a four-terminal Darlington transistor block to improve switching speed, particularly in rapid turn-off. Two independent reverse drive currents are utilized during turn-off in order to expel the minority carriers of the Darlington pair at their own charge sweep-out rate. The reverse drive current may be provided by a current transformer, the secondary of which is tapped to the base terminal of the power stage of the Darlington block. In one application, the switching circuit is used in each power switching element in a chopper-inverter drive of an electric vehicle propulsion system.

An improved method of preparing composite multifilament superconducting wire of Nb/sub 3/Sn in a copper matrix which eliminates the necessity of coating the drawn wire with tin is described. A generalized cylindrical billet of an alloy of copper containing at least 15 weight percent niobium, present in the copper as discrete, randomly distributed and oriented dendritic-shaped particles, is provided with at least one longitudinal opening which is filled with tin to form a composite drawing rod. The drawing rod is then drawn to form a ductile composite multifilament wire containing a filament of tin. The ductile wire containing the tin can then be wound into magnet coils or other devices before heating to diffuse the tin through the wire to react with the niobium forming Nb/sub 3/Sn. Also described is an improved method for making large billets of the copper-niobium alloy by consumable-arc casting.

An inductive method and apparatus for forming detached spheromak plasma using a thin-walled metal toroidal ring are described that uses external current leads and internal poloidal and toroidal field coils located inside a vacuum chamber filled with low density hydrogen gas and an external axial field generating coil. The presence of a current in the poloidal field coils, and an externally generated axial field sets up the initial poloidal field configuration in which the field is strongest toward the major axis of the toroid. The internal toroidal-field-generating coil is then pulsed on, ionizing the gas and inducing poloidal current and toroidal magnetic field into the plasma region in the sleeve exterior to and adjacent to the ring and causing the plasma to expand away from the ring and toward the major axis. Next the current in the poloidal field coils in the ring is reversed. This induces toroidal current into the plasma and causes the poloidal magnetic field lines to reconnect. The reconnection continues until substantially all of the plasma is formed in a separated spheromak configuration held in equilibrium by the initial external field.

Instabilities with frequencies in the neighborhood of the electron cyclotron frequency are of interest in determining stable operating regimes of hot-electron plasmas in EBT devices and in tandem mirrors. Previous work used model distributions significantly different than those suggested by recent Fokker-Planck studies. We use much more realistic model distributions in a computer code that solves the full electromagnetic dispersion relation governing longitudinal and transverse waves in a uniform plasma. We allow for an arbitrary direction of wave propagation. Results for the whistler and upper-hybrid loss-cone instabilities are presented.

We have determined experimentally the fraction of laser light incident on DT filled cryogenic polymer coated and bare glass microsphere targets that is absorbed to produce target heating. Data have been obtained for bare glass and CH and CF polymer coated microspheres at 488 nm and 632 nm laser wavelengths. The measurement technique used and experimental results obtained are presented.

A magnet set, consisting of 24 coils, has been designed for the TMX Upgrade. Like the coil set designed for the TMX experiment, the coils for TMX Upgrade consist of a central-cell set with a minimum-B plug set on each end. Between the central cell and each end plug, there is a flux bundle recircularizing transition set. Physics considerations require that the TMX Upgrade magnet set be almost twice as long as the TMX magnet set (14 m between the outer mirrors). The central circular coils are the only coils used from TMX. The TMX transition set of two C-coils and an octupole is replaced by a C-coil and an Ioffe coil. The TMX plug composed of a baseball coil and two C-coils is replaced by an Ioffe coil, two C-coils and two circular coils. A comparison between the TMX and TMX Upgrade magnet sets is shown.

The seismic qualification requirements of auxiliary feedwater systems (AFWS) of Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) were developed over a number of years. These are formalized in the publication General Design Criteria (Appendix A to 10CFR50). The full recognition of the system as an engineered safety feature did not occur until publication of the Standard Review Plan (1975). Efforts to determine how to backfit seismic requirements to earlier plants has been undertaken primarily in the Systematic Evaluation Program (SEP) for a limited number of operating reactors. Nuclear Reactor Research (RES) and NRR have requested LLNL to perform a probabilistic study on the AFWS of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) Unit 1 utilizing the tools developed by the Seismic Safety Margins Research Program (SSMRP). The main objectives of this project are to: identify the weak links of AFWS; compare the failure probabilities of SONGS 1 and Zion 1 AFWS: and compare the seismic responses due to different input spectra and design values.

Passive solar collection/storage/distribution systems were surveyed, designed, fabricated, and mechanically and thermally tested. The types studied were clear and opaque fiberglass tubes, metal tubes with plastic liners, and thermosyphoning tubes. (MHR)

Thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and thermal linear expansion were measured on two samples of Avery Island rock salt up to simultaneous temperatures and pressures of 573/sup 0/K and 50 MPa. Thermal conductivity at room temperature measured 6.3 +- 0.6 W/mK and decreased monotonically to 3.3 +- 0.4 W/mK at 573/sup 0/K. Thermal diffusivity decreased from 3.0 +- 0.8 x 10/sup -6/ m/sup 2//s at room temperature to 1.4 +- 0.5 x 10/sup -6/ m/sup 2//s at 573/sup 0/K. Thermal linear expansivity increased from 4.8 +- 0.3 x 10/sup -5/ K/sup -1/ at room temperature to 5.6 +- 0.3 x 10/sup -5/ K/sup -1/ at 573/sup 0/K. The thermal properties showed no measurable (+-5%) dependence on confining pressure from 0 to 50 MPa for any temperature tested. The thermal conductivity values were not distinguishable (+-5%) from intrinsic (single crystal) values measured by others. Diffusivity fell about 20% below intrinsic values, and linear expansivity about 20% above intrinsic values. Thermal conductivity values for Avery Island salt measured recently by Morgan are as much as 50% lower than values measured here and were probably strongly affected by sample handling prior to measurement. The pressure independence of the thermal properties measured in our study …

A heavy ion beam propagating through a hard or near vacuum (< 10/sup -3/ torr) is subject to emittance growth due to the phase space distortions caused by anharmonic self-forces. If the distortion remains uncorrected, an enlarged focal spot results. Analytic predictions of an increase in rms emittance and focal spot size are given for the hard vacuum case and are shown to agree with computer simuations for initially cold beams. Some effects of the beam preconditioning in the region from accelerator output to final focusing magnet are discussed. For the case of near vacuum transport (10/sup -4/ to 10/sup -3/ torr), prediction of final focal spot size requires consideration of additional effects such as beam stripping to high charge state and charge neutralization by electrons which are produced internally in the vessel and/or are injected from outside.

Measurement of inertial-fusion targets has stimulated the development of many new techniques and instruments. This paper reviews the basis for selected target measurement requirements and the development of optical interferometry, optical scattering, microradiography and scanning electron microscopy as applied to target measurement. We summarize the resolution and speed which have been achieved to date, and describe several systems in which these are traded off to fill specific measurement applications. We point out the extent to which present capabilities meet the requirements for target measurement and the key problems which remain to be solved.

Research progress is reported - for an investigation of aspects of the carbon cycle through the use of C13/C12 and C14/C12 abundance ratios. The objective is to increase knowledge of past biospheric carbon reservoir changes that have resulted in increases or reductions of atmospheric CO/sub 2/ levels. C13 trends in trees from Kodiak Island, Alaska, and from Chile were determined. (ACR)

Two fiber optic connectors for field use in high efficiency, long distance systems are described and evaluated in this report. The transmission testing arrangement and other considerations are included with the test results. Techniques for optimizing the transmission through these connectors are also described and the results are reported. Many desirable characteristics of connectors for field use are considered and compared to the ITT and Amphenol connectors tested here.

This paper presents an interferometer set-up in which two wavelengths are used simultaneously. This enables one to determine separately the phase shifts caused by changes in plasma density and by mechanical vibrations of the interferometer structure.

A human factors engineering preliminary design review of the Shoreham control room was performed at the site on March 30 through April 3, 1981. This design review was carried out by a team from the Human Factors Engineering Branch, Division of Human Factors Safety. This report was prepared on the basis of the HFEB's review of the applicant's Preliminary Design Assessment and the human factors engineering design review/audit performed at the site. The presented sections are numbered to conform to the guidelines of the draft version of NUREG-0700. They summarize the teams's observations of the control room design and layout, and of the control room operators' interface with the control room environment.