There is definitely a technical possibility that atomic power may gradually develop into one of the principal sources of useful power. If this expectation will prove correct, great advantages can be expected to come from the fact that the weight of the fuel is almost negligible. This feature may be particularly valuable for making power available to regions of difficult access and far from deposits of coal. It also may prove a great asset in mobile power units for example in a power plant for ship propulsion. On the negative side there are some technical limitations to be applicability of atomic power of which perhaps the most serious is the impossibility of constructing light power units; also there will be some peculiar difficulties in operating atomic plants, as for example the necessity of handling highly radioactive substances which will necessitate, at least for some considerable period, the use of specially skilled personnel for the operation. But the chief obstacle in the way of developing atomic power will be the difficulty of organizing a large scale industrial development in an internationally safe way. This presents actually problems much more difficult to solve than any of the technical developments that are necessary, …

This report details events of importance reported by the Hanford Operations Office for the week ending May 25, 1949.

The basis feed to the Redox plant is 5,000 lb/day of uranium, supplied both as current irradiated uranium metal slugs in jackets, and as uranium compounds from the existing metal waste storage tanks. The proportions of the two feeds are chosen according to the enrichment level of the irradiated metal, so as to give a plutonium production of about 650 gm/day. The design basis has been taken as 0 to 1,500 lb/day U from the waste storage system and 2,000--5,000 lb/day of irradiated metal. Only the feed preparation from irradiated metal is discussed in this process description, and a basis of 5,000 lb/day is used throughout. The metal feed has associated with it 172.5 lb. Al and 2.5 lb. Si as slug jackets, and contains about 650 gpm. plutonium and 3 {times} 10{sup 5} curies of gamma-emitting fission products (FP). The purpose of the feed preparation section is to remove the aluminum and silicon, and to dissolve the uranium as an aqueous solution for feed to the Redox extraction battery. Secondarily, it is tentatively proposed to provide equipment in this section to achieve a preliminary decontamination from ruthenium, which is poorly handled by the Redox extraction system, and from FP …

The overall testing of the vertical sheet rod system is a comprehensive program which has been divided into several phases. These phases are presented here, with a short resume of the testing required under each phase, to enable the formulation of the project proposal for the complete test program. It is intended that very detailed test requests will be issued for the separate phases as data from previous tests and further design studies indicate the exact information or data desired from a particular test.

The question of maximum permissible levels of fission products or corrosion products in the pile effluent water which you raised is not a simple problem that can be completely answered by a list of maximum permissible levels. This water is a complex mixture of various isotopes each of which contributes to the total hazard according to the amount present, its particular metabolic features, and its mode of radioactive decay. Unfortunately, also, application of maximum permissible limits determined for consumption by humans may give only a part of the picture since it is necessary to consider also the effect on the ecology of the Columbia River and the ultimate effect on the aquatic life. With these considerations, we can make estimates of some limits which may be applied in design of new systems with, however, the reservation that practical application may depend on the mixture of isotopes actually encountered in operation. This document provides a discussion of maximum permissible levels of radioactive effluents and corrosion products in the reactor cooling water. 5 tabs.

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A summary of research progress is given in this report. (1) Half-dollar size corrosion samples of aluminum-clad uranium, which were pressed with 3, 4, 5, and 6 thousand psi, have begun to fail by undercutting between 7 and 21 days. This behavior is contradictory to that of previous samples similarly pressed with 6,000 psi; corrosion of these samples was restricted to pimples, which grew slowly in diameter and did not undercut. (2) Moczik Tool and Die Co. has designed a streamlined die and a mandrel tip for use with the extrusion cladding equipment at BMI. Other methods of extrusion cladding are still under consideration. (3) Experiments on the internal cladding of tubes are awaiting the completion of tools. (4) Casting of uranium-aluminum alloy billets has begun for the purpose of determining the affects of the rate of solidification on segregation in the alloy. (5) An accurate determination of the uranium-aluminum constitution diagram in the range 16 w/o to 40% has been inconclusive to date. (6) Nickel-tin alloy plated over a flash coat of nickel did not provided to satisfactory bonding material on samples of uranium press-clad with aluminum at 950 C, 6,000 psi for 5 minutes.

This report addresses the constitution of zirconium-uranium alloys containing oxygen or nitrogen.

Since the installation of Ball 3X equipment on the older reactors, several inadvertent ball drops have been experienced, many of which have required considerable recovery time. Furthermore, it is very probable that these recovery times be significantly increased subsequent to the proposed installation of air accelerated vertical safety rods. Because of this, interest has been expressed by reactor operations personnel toward provision of a ball recovery system which would substantially reduce these outages.

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The accuracy with which the breeding ratio of HRE-3 could be determined after a period of reactor operation was investigated. Inaccuracies in measurement of the core U/sup 233/ inventory and blanket U/sup 233/ and Pa/sup 233/ inventories appear to be the major sources of error. Appreciable errors could result from attempting to determine these inventories by sampling the reactor contents. For example, if generalized attack on stainless steel is at a rate of 1.0 mpy and if the associated film of corrosion products is 1% uranium, failure to account for this fuel in evaluation of the core inventory would cause an error of about 5% in the breeding ratio. (auth)

An analysis of the temperature structure in the CCR-2 fuel elements and coolant stream at the position where the maximum fuel element surface temperature exists is presented. Results were obtained by numerical methods on the IBM 704 digital computer. The effect of variation in channel size is shown, and a method of data correlation is suggested. Preliminary conclusions are presented as to the effect of temperature structure on the design and testing of gas cooled reactor fuel element configurations. In view of the rate at which gas cooled reactor work is proceeding results of the calculations are being published in their current incomplete form. The study is continuing in an effort to refine the calculations, and experimental data will eventually be available with which to verify the analytical conclusions. (auth)

Program F/sub 3/ provides an anslysts of a three group, one-dimensionni reactor in multi-region slab or cylindrical geometry. Input consists of a description of the geometry of the assembly, energy group constants defining the nuclear characteristics of each region, and control information specifying the type of calculation desired. The fission density and neutron flux, computed at each lattice point, are used to calculate the reactivity of the system. (auth)

The reduction in HRE-3 breeding ratio resulting from neutron absorptions in the core-inlet line was examined for spherical and cylindrical cores; it was found to be less than 0.5% if the pipe does not extend more than 1/4 the way from the top to the bottom of the core. The power density at the end of the pipe would be 57 kw/l if it extended 5 in. into the sphere. (auth)

Sections of the dummies furnished by Radiological Engineering, Process Reactor Development Operation were machined into 1/4 inch diameter by 1 inch long cylinders and irradiated in the Quickie Facility at F area. The pieces were discharged directly into a holder one foot from the Beckman chamber. The transient time from in-pile to the chamber is approximately 30 seconds. The readings were taken using a Beckman chamber, Beckman Micro-Micro Ammeter and Recorder. This system has been calibrated with Co{sup 60} sources obtained from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We are including data taken from a sample of 61-S and 99.998 per cent aluminum which may be of interest.

Cutoff energies were calculated for height/diameter (H/D) values of 1, 3, 6, and 11.25 for cadmium cylinders. These are presented along with the values for H/D = 2 for comparison. Similar values for boron filters for H/D values of 1 and 2 are shown. (M.C.G.)

A resume of Health Physics activities for January, February, and March, 1960 is presented. Discussions and tabulations which summarize results of field surveys, bioassay, personnel monitoring, and environmental surveys are included.

The rapidly increasing volume of new data in scientific and technical fields demands faster and better ways to communicate the new information to those concerned. A working system, System of Automatic Processing and Indexing of Reports (SAPIR), for doing this is described. SAPIR makes use of the Keyword-in- Context Index principle, by which certain keywords, together with surrounding words that act as modifiers, are selected from the titles of the technical publications. These keywords with their modifiers serve as index entries from each title, therefore, there will be as many index entries generated as there are keywords contained in the title. The index entries are sorted alphabetically by the keywords. The first letters of the keywords in each of the index entries form a column in the printed format, which makes scanning for the soughtafter item easier. The SAPIR system is automatic and the list of citations is machine- generated on an IBM 1401 Computer. (auth)

This report summarizes the technical progress on the subject contract for the period March 15 to May 14 1963.

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Production of {Lambda} + K{sup 0}, {Sigma}{sup 0} + K{sup 0}, and {Sigma}{sup -} + K{sup +} by 1170-MeV/c {pi}{sup -} mesons has been studied in the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory 72-inch hydrogen bubble chamber, Cross sections, angular distributions, and polarizations are presented. The polarization of the {Sigma}{sup 0} is determined at four center-of-mass angles and found to be small everywhere. Based on published results for the reaction {pi}{sup +} + p {yields} {Sigma}{sup +}, K{sup +}, a comparison of the polarizations of {Sigma}{sup +}, {Sigma}{sup -}, and {Sigma}{sup 0} is made from the charge-independence triangle. A conclusion is reached that the {Sigma}{sup -} polarization should be large, and that the {Sigma}{sup -} and {Sigma}{sup +} polarizations should be opposite in sign.

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