Specifications including detail dimension, materials, fabrication steps, acceptance criteria, and final assembly steps for the swaged uranium dioxide, 19-rod cluster Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor fuel element.

Report discussing an improvement program on lithium mass spectrometers.

Abstract: This report describes an advanced sodium-cooled, graphite-moderated nuclear power plant which utilizes high-pressure, high-temperature steam to generate electricity at a high thermal efficiency.

Abstract: It has been proposed that a fuel element containing porous uranium be used for moderately high temperature applications. In an effort to determine the structural integrity of this type of fuel body, thermal cycling tests have been conducted on porous uranium.

From purpose of report: The primary purpose of this report and its appendices is to transmit to the AEC the principal results of the experimental and engineering work done on the low-temperature process and to describe the factors which led to the designs finally adopted.

Report describing technical progress on the design and construction of an Organic Moderated Reactor Experiment (OMRE), to be operated at the National Reactor Testing Station in Arco, Idaho. "This is the first report of the series and coves the period from the initiation of the project to July 31, 1956. Also included as an appendix to the report is a detailed description of the OMRE facility" (p. 3).

From abstract: Impact tests on the Mark III Hanford safety element indicate that the design is mechanically adequate and does not constitute a personnel hazard.

Abstract: A method is described for the determination of radium by alpha counting. A dilute hydrochloric acid solution of the radium sample is passed through a short column of copper powder to remove polonium. The effluent is mounted on glass slides and alpha counted four to five hours after mounting. Twenty-four hours after mounting, the slides are counted again, and the percentage increase in counts is used to determine a correction factor for the growth of radon and its daughters. Precision and accuracy are within the limits of the counting instrument used.

This report follows an investigation on Great Lakes Carbon with the objectives to demonstrate their ability to make and F process purify reactor carbon on a commercial scale; and construct an F process pilot plant and use it in a survey of U.S. petroleum cokes to discover additional supplies of raw coke suitable for making reactor grade carbon.

Report discussing protactinium, including the element's history and the results of various experiments.

Final report documenting a high-sensitivity airborne gamma radiation and magnetic field survey of the Walker Lake National Topographic Map segment (NJ 11-4 quadrangle) including a description of the program and results.

Abstract: In the March-April 1962 shutdown of SM-1 Core II, the SM-28 element will be re-inserted in SM-1 Core II and an SM-1 Core I element will be removed. An SM-1 Core II europium absorber will be replaced by a Ag-Cd-In absorber, and surveillance specimens will be inserted above the core support structure. Analysis of these changes concludes that re-insertion of the SM-2B stationary element and insertion of surveillance specimens do not affect hazards potential previously defined for SM-1. Replacement of the europium absorber by the Ag-Cd-In absorber will have negligible effect on reactivity control worth of the rod. The absorber meat section is encapsulated to prevent exposure of silver alloy to the primary coolant; postulated release of silver due to a cladding defect, after 2 years irradiation in SM-1, would not cause a hazard such as to restrict access to the vapor container. Possibility of steam formation in the air gap between the absorber core and cladding, causing a cladding failure, is remote. Deformation of the absorber section sufficient to cause the rod to stick, would not impair the ability of the other rods to shut down the reactor safely.

Abstract: An element by element reactivity check for SM-1 Core II fuel elements and control rod absorber sections was performed and the burnable nuclear poison loading in the SM-1 Core II stationary fuel elements was established. An approach to criticality of the SM-1 Core II was performed by the inverse multiplication method and the critical rod bank position obtained as a function of fuel loading up to the full SM-1 Core II loading. Maximum and minimum core reactivity measurements were obtained by selective loading of stationary fuel elements and the total "excess K" for the core established. Power distribution measurements in the region of the core-reflector interface and the fuel-absorber interface in the control rod assemblies were performed. The effectiveness of europium flux suppressors in the top of control rod fuel elements and the power peaking in stationary elements adjacent to water gaps in control rod assemblies were measured. Survey measurements established the worth of spiking cold clean SM-1 cores with SM-2 elements, and of water holes in the SM-1 core which might be utilized as flux traps for materials irradiation.

"Measurements of the intra-cell neutron flux distributing for a proposed Uranium Production Reactor have been made using a mock-up of a portion of the reactor core. Thermal neutron and thorium resonance neutron flux-distributions were investigated. As a result of the experimental measurements on the first mock-up, a decrease in thorium content appeared necessary in the reactor design studies. Experiments are now in progress on a second mock-up in which this change has been made."

Technical report with short reports on (1) Effect of radiation on water and aqueous systems; (2) Gas evolution from uranyl solutions; (3) Effect of radiation on solid compounds; (4) Instruments; and (5) Scattering.

"Adlam and Allen and Davis, Lust, and Schluter have studied nonlinear plane-waves, propagating normal to the magnetic field, in a cold plasma. One solution of particular interest is a solitary wave, or single pulse. We present a method for solving the analogous problem for a plasma with finite temperature, in the limiting case where the amplitude of the wave is small and where, consequently, the width of the waver is very large."

"Results of the continuing stratospheric flight test evaluation program for the Del Model I Electrostatic Precipitator Sampler and the Del Electrical Discharge Altimeter are described and discussed. Only one of four balloon launches reached floating altitude. The altimeter obtained an altitude recording consistent with concurrent aneroid barocoder readings. The reported gross gamma concentration for the precipitator sampler was approximates 25 and 80% higher than those of the two simultaneous direct flow filter samples. The completion of the design and construction of two prototype units of the Del Electrical Discharge Altimeter and their laboratory evaluation are described. A preliminary design concept is presented for an operational high volume electrostatic precipitator sampler to operate with high collection efficiency at an ambient flowrate of 500 cfm throughout the altitude range 100,000 to 150,000 ft."

In the course of recovering uranium from Rand cyanide residues, large volumes of barren acid liquors are produced. With the flowsheets now under consideration it is not advisable to recycle such liquors and they are to be discarded. Consideration was given to the removal of manganese under conditions that would permit its recovery as MnO2.

A series of leaching, thickening, and filtration tests was undertaken to determine minimum conditions for high uranium extractions and to obtain thickening and filtration data.

The kinetics of transformation of zirconium binary alloys is being pursued. Mechanical property variation as a function of transformation if also being investigated. Zirconium-tin and zirconium-titanium alloys transform very rapidly when quenched from the beta field. These alloys have, generally speaking, been demonstrated to be not amenable to heat treatment in the normal sense of the word. Eutectoid alloys, principally zirconium-molybdenum alloys, have shown a definite response to heat treatment in terms of mechanical property variation. An embrittling agent, probably "omega" phase, is suspect at this time for the brittleness observed in certain molybdenum alloys and the very high hardness levels reached in other alloys such as zirconium-niobium and zirconium-thorium. Work to establish the existence of omega phase is in progress and, it is hoped, suggestions for avoiding the brittle condition associated with it will be forthcoming.