The conversion of plutonium nitrate to metal, the fabrication and assembly of plutonium devices and the recovery of scrap by Atlantic Richfield Hanford Company (ARHCO) has been studied previously in support of the Plowshare Program. Previous studies and Plowshare Task Force meetings along with a teletype directive form the bases for Study 4. The major changes and additions in Study 4 as compared to Study 3 are: a complete new building is considered as an alternate to the use of existing facilities, waste storage tankage is added to capital costs, operating costs are divided into labor, material and overheads, and are based on 1976 dollars, depreciation on capital costing is excluded from unit costs, and features of the existing ARHCO plant coupled with comments on actual operating experience and further explanation of the flowsheets are added to the appendix.

Scrap status reports requested by P.A. Craig of the Nuclear Materials Management Branch on July 14, 1972 are presented. The additional detail required disclosed the enriched uranium covered by the scrap declaration HYA-15 was not reported as scrap on the June 30 COEI Reports.

A predictive model of the time-dependent evolution of radial Pu/U + Pu gradients in operating nonmolten mixed oxide fuels is being developed. This model is based on preferential evaporation-condensation and vapor transport of metal-bearing species either along cracks and porosity channels within the fuel or inside closed pores migrating up the temperature gradient; equilibrium thermodynamics are applied to calculate the continually changing vapor composition over the hot fuel. Predictions of the model are used in combination with recent in-pile experimental data (from nonmolten mixed oxide fuel pins irradiated in EBR-II from 0.2 to about 11 at. % burnup at varying powers) to delineate the key parameters in radial actinide redistribution. A correlation between fuel stoichiometry (O-to-Pu ratio) and the degree of redistribution (described by an enrichment factor ..gamma../sub Pu/) identified, however, the degree of restructuring of the fuel - as determined by the peak linear power rating, time at this power, and the initial fuel density - also has a strong influence on the final value of ..gamma../sub Pu/. Certain kinetic features of the process and intended modifications to the present model are discussed, and evidence for axial actinide vapor transport in an irradiated annular fuel is also presented.

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Analyses for plutonium in air, water, and foodstuffs have long been part of the routine surveillance program at Hanford. In addition, the ground and other surfaces have been surveyed for plutonium where there was possible deposition from stack emissions, waste spills, etc., using direct instrument measurements. Detectable plutonium deposition from the few such incidents has been confined to restricted areas. The surface contamination level that can be detected with the portable instruments is approximately 0.007 mu g Pu per 100 cm/ sup 2/. The desire to obtain additional information regarding any spread of Pu beyond the restricted areas, as well as to distinguish between any Pu in soil resulting from plant activities and that resulting from fallout led to a screening survey for plutonium in surface soils both on and off-site in February 1970. The results to date and the procedures followed are discussed. The limited amount of subsequent data has given resuits within the same range of Pu concentrations. (auth)

The possibility of an antiproton-neutron bound state for explaining a narrow peak which was found recently in the experiment p + n yields 4 pi and 6 pi is discussed. It is pointed out that the state is likely to be a /sup 1/P/ sub 1/ state or a higher angular momentum state. (auth)

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The authors propose to search for particles produced by 200-400 GeV protons with mass between 5 and 25 GeV/c{sup 2} which have a lifetime {ge} 10{sup -7} sec.

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We wish to measure the EMI efficiency at hadron momenta higher than the 3 GeV used at the Beavatron. We propose to use the 30 M{sup 3} bubble chamber as the momentum and spatial analyzer of charged hadrons both of the incident beam and those final state hadrons of interactions that occur within the chamber. We would use the EMI modules as mounted on the bubble chamber vacuum tank to measure the efficiency of the EMI absorbers (coils and zinc) over a wide range of momenta. A hadron signature would be either the lack of a proportional chamber (pc) encoding within the '96% muon-circle' or a multiple PC encoding. We shall attempt to identify {pi}-{mu} decays in the chamber to use as a source of muons. Such a test would give us experience in spatially reconstructing tracks within the chamber and in projecting their trajectories out to the EMI detector modules. The early portion of this test could utilize whatever hadron beam the NAL bubble chamber group would be using at the time. We would make a copy of an adequate number of the original frames and compare the film quality with the original ones to test whether the EMI …