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This document presents a summary of work and progress at the Hanford Engineer Works for March 1954. The report is divided into sections by department. A plant wide general summary is included at the beginning of the report, after which the departmental summaries begin. The Manufacturing Department reports plant statistics, and summaries for the Metal Preparation, Reactor and Separation sections. The Engineering Department`s section summaries work for the Technical, Design, and Project Sections. Costs for the various departments are presented in the Financial Department`s summary. The Medical, Radiological Sciences, Utilities and General Services, Employee and Public Relations, and Community Real Estate and Service departments have sections presenting their monthly statistics, work, progress, and summaries.

This experiment was designed to furnish data on the quantitative relationship between exposure of enriched uranium metal to thermal neutron bombardment and the subsequent release of gaseous fission fragments from the metal. Studies of data obtained from the in-pile phase of the KAPL Fission Gas Experiment indicate, neglecting startup and shutdown transients, that gaseous fission fragments generated within a 6-mill foil of uranium metal maintained at an operating temperature of about 450 C are released from the foil nearly as fast as they are produced.

This report covers the preliminary data obtained in a metallurgical study of the three enriched uranium slugs which ruptured in the 100-C Pile. The three slugs were from PT-105-532-A2, ``Irradiation of Enriched Uranium Slugs,`` a test conducted by Pile Technology for the purpose of studying the effects of high specific powers in uranium slugs. The uranium used in this test was enriched to 1.75.

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Reductions in irradiation costs and increases in production rate have provided a continuing incentive for more efficient operation of the Hanford Piles. These improvements have been obtained by means of higher specific powers, greater water flow rates, and better water utilization. However, the extent of the improvements which can be made in this manner may be limited by such factors as tube and slug corrosion, slug stability, and graphite damage rates at higher operating temperatures. Water purification and pumping costs are also factors to be considered. New slug designs are being developed which may be capable of much higher specific power operation. Higher graphite temperatures may also prove feasible, but the water plant performance limitations for the present single pass cooling systems may prove much more expensive to relieve. The use of recirculating cooling water as a means of attaining higher temperature, higher power operation has received preliminary study. A preliminary economic evaluation of an operating area equipped for recirculation versus single pass cooling is needed to better determine the relative merits of the two cooling methods. This report presents the results of such an evaluation and discusses the direction of future development work in the field of pile cooling.

Preliminary experiments have been made to determine the vapor pressure of lanthanum fluoride between 0.001 and 0.1 millimeter of mercury by means of the Knudsen effusion method. A tantalum cell for this purpose is described. Only preliminary results were obtained and they were all in a relatively high pressure region. However, a plot of the vapor pressure against the reciprocal of absolute temperature approximates a straight line such as would be predicted from theoretical considerations.

Bevatron operation has been stopped temporarily due to a generator fault. While repairs are being instituted the tank will be down to air for repairs and target installation. Operation on one generator is scheduled for May 3. It has been previously proposed that one could investigate the {pi}{sub 0} lifetime by measuring the converted electron yield from {pi}{sub 0} decay photons as a function of the thickness of a thin target in which both the {pi}{sub 0} production and photon conversion occur. If the lifetime were effectively zero the electron yield should depend quadratically upon thickness; whereas if the lifetime is sufficiently great, this quadratic rise will be delayed as the thickness is increased, due to the distance travelled by the {pi}{sub 0} before decay. In fact, the beginning of the yield dependence is cubic rather than quadratic in character. It is estimated that a lifetime of 10{sup -15} seconds should provide a distinctly detectable effect. The investigation may be considered practical at the Bevatron providing: (a) the production cross section for {pi}{sub 0}'s at 6 Bev is about 100 times that at 340 Mev, (b) a Bevatron pulse of 10{sup 8} protons, with a recirculation of 1000 times thru …

On April 1, a new energy peak of 6.1 Bev was attained with the Bevatron. Scattered particles monitored with a counter telescope in triple coincidence gave approximately 100 counts per beam pulse. April 2s the machine was down to air to allow work on beam monitoring equipment. Test operations resumed April 5. Though the total number of accelerated particles is still small, due to low energy beam losses, some cloud chamber tracks have been observed. Several plates have been exposed for Goldhaber. Stars with up to 29 prongs have been observed. The following consists of a discussion of the administration, operation and some of the experimental techniques evolved in the use of the Cosmotron.

The occurrence of a fault April 7 caused a short in the stator winding of one of the main generators. Repairs will require at least one month and the total time the generator will be down can be determined only after a further inspection of the damage. In a week or two, after a thorough inspection of the generator and the ignitron system, Bevatron operation will be continued on one generator. Since the targets of use in a Bevatron experiment will depend greatly on the nature of the experiment and the techniques to be employed the ideas presented here relate primarily to the area of research which involves the detection with counters of heavy mesons emitted in the backward direction in the laboratory system. These mesons and their decay products have low kinetic energy over the entire range of Bevatron energies above threshold for production. For this reason discrimination by means of momentum resolution, collimating slits, ionization density and range will be possible.

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A red-brown liquid formed during the evaporation of simulated Recuplex product solutions containing plutonium, nitric acid, carbon tetrachloride, and tributyl phosphate (TBP). The liquid is soluble in carbon tetrachloride. Concentration of solutions containing a TBP to plutonyl nitrate weight ratio of 0.15 or greater to a pot temperature of 150 deg C caused reactions which produced enough heat to bring the pot contents to a red heat with copious evolution of gases. Evaporation path curves and boiling point data were obtained from batch evaporations with minimum reflux and are presented. Polymeric plutonium(IV) was formed upon concentrating plutonium nitrate solutions of low nitric acid content. The region of polymer formation was defined and is presented. (auth)

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This report addresses the determination of oxygen in uranium and uranium hydride by reaction with bromine trifluoride.

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