This progress report discusses activities at P Division for the month of March, 1949. All piles operated at 275 megawatts throughout the month except for the outages listed under Area Activities in this report. The average time operating efficiency''was 91.4%. A total of 47 tons of metal was discharged from the piles during the month. During the month, 16.6 tons of alpha-rolled, triple-dipped metal were discharged without difficulty at a nominal concentration of 320 megawatts day (MWD) per ton. Inspection of selected tubes of this material indicated that exposures at this level are satisfactory. In view of these results the programs of stepwise increases in concentration will be continued, with the next test tonnages being discharged at a nominal concentration of 360 MWD per ton. The nominal monthly production rate of acceptable canned pieces was reduced from 90 tons to 60 tons on March 28. This curtailment of production was possible in view of the favorable inventory of slugs available for charging DR and H piles.

On July 14, 1949, and office memorandum was written about operations of a reprocessing building on the Hanford Site being suspended due to the mishandling of some plutonium powder. The letter describes the process of decontamination of the building surfaces, and the ventilation of the rooms of that building. It also describes the problem with the ventilation fans due to increased temperature and pressures.

Due to a forecasted increase in pile area production as well as a possible decrease in batch size of the separations process, an increase in the capacities of the separations plants is indicated. It is the purpose of this report to review this relationship in the light of existing data and to determine how this additional capacity can best be attained through the use of either the proposed semiparallel or complete parallel methods of operation. Emphasis will necessarily be given to consideration of cost, timing, use of minimum buildings and equipment, and the obtaining of optimum production time cycles.

The quartz-fiber microbalances used in the Mound Laboratory operations are of the conventional Kirk-Craig type, but are housed in vacuum-tight cases which permit foil weighing by remote control.

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This progress report discusses activities at the P Division for the month of December 1948. All piles operated at 275 megawatts throughout the month except for the outages listed under Area activities in this report. An unscheduled power outage occurred in the 300 Area on December 2. No difficulties were encountered except for the lost operating time. A total of 103 tons of metal was discharged from the piles during the month. Operating schedules in the 300 Area were reduced from a six-day week to a five-day week on December 20 because of the favorable status of the inventory of canned slugs. All processes are now working one shift a day except Canning and Machining which work two shifts a day.

Recommendations discussed included the transfer of Waste Metal Recovery from the Kellex Corporation; the Kellex contract revisions for their work on the design of the Redox Production Plant; procurement and inspection procedures; aluminum nitrate supply and procurement; and waste recovery with the tributyl phosphate and hexane process.

This report details events of importance reported by the Hanford Operations Office for the week ending January 12, 1949.

Equipment was developed for the continuous burning and leaching of ground carbon in order to recover uranium for the proposed Closed Cycle Beta Process. The burning apparatus consisted of a vertical tube with a grate to support the carbon. An uppdraft of air was used to support combustion. The burning rate of the apparatus was 500 grams of carbon per hour; combustion averaged over 98% complete. The leacher consisted of a heated nitric acid bath divided in four compartments through which ground carbon was pushed by rotating paddles. The acid flowed, by gravity, countercurrent to the carbon.