Operation, rehabilitation, and expansion of Hanford Works was undertaken by GE from Sept. 1946 to the end of 1950. As a result of engineering progress, graphite reactors continue to be the country`s primary source of plutonium in production quantities; at the end of 1950, the plutonium production rate from the Hanford reactors was 299% of the 1946 rate with a 67% increase in reactor facilities. Improvements to existing plant facilities and processes resulted in savings of $53.3 M; in addition, it would have been necessary, in order to produce the amount of Pu delivered through 1950, to have constructed facilities costing $225.4 M if the following improvements had not been made: an irradiation-stable uranium slug; annealing of graphite; increased operating power level of the reactors; and improved separation methods. Tritium production, health/safety, and community management are mentioned.

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The functional operation of the flapper nozzle was tested by charging slugs through it while water flow rates up to 48.4 gpm and inlet header pressures up to 400 psig. were maintained. Comparative damage to the slugs by the flapper nozzle and an H-type inlet nozzle was determined by charging slugs through the nozzles with a 105-D type air cylinder charging machine under conditions of no water flow or lubrication. The effect of the nozzle design on the inlet pressure fluctuations was determined while using 0.140, 0.200, and 0.285 inlet orifices as well as no orifice. The flapper nozzles operated satisfactorily for all conditions tested, without leakage from the flapper valve or the needle valve. However, the flapper valve became loosened on the shaft after several operations, and it is felt that the design should be changed to insure that it is rigidly fastened to the shaft at all times. Damage to the slugs by either the flapper nozzle or the H-type inlet nozzle was negligible. The ribs of the process tube caused the normal parallel, longitudinal scratches the length of the slugs. Maximum fluctuations of {+-} 5 psig were noted on the inlet pressure gauge reading, at compared with …

As originally installed, the primary process pump turbines in 190-B were arranged to accelerate considerably upon loss of BPA electric power supply to the Process Pump House. However, the acceleration comes too late to be of value in maintaining top of riser pressure within the first second or two, and the acceleration results only in maintaining final process water pressure and flow at values higher than needed. It is desired to limit the acceleration of the turbines to a relatively small amount in order to decrease the emergency steam demands and keep the combined steam demands of 100-B and 100-C Areas within the capacity of 184-B Boiler House, as outlined in Document HDC-2106, revised June 4, 1951. This report recommends that the desired results be obtained by simply reducing the speed setting of the turbine speed governors. No new equipment is needed. The setting of the emergency over speed trips would be left unchanged.

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This is a progress report of the production reactors on the Hanford Reservation for the month of November 1951. This report takes each division (e.g., manufacturing, medical, accounting, occupational safety, security, reactor operations, etc.) of the site and summarizes its accomplishments and employee relations for that month.

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The inlet portions of pile process tubes, which originally contained a pattern of aluminum dummy slugs, have been reported subject to pitting corrosion since the removal of the slugs. This corrosion is more severe than that found in the other portions of the tubes. The insertion of magnesium dummy slugs has been recommended to arrest this corrosion. A pile test of the effect of magnesium dummies is in progress and preliminary results are reported. Current-voltage relationships between magnesium and aluminum have been found to be satisfactory. A study of previously reported data on front tube corrosion has been made. It is concluded that the overall corrosion of the tubes is low, but that pitting is occurring in the inlet portion. This pitting is not necessarily the result of removal of the front dummy pattern. Magnesium dummies, when tested, were found safe for the aluminum tubes, but no data were obtained as to their ability to protect the aluminum. The tubes are not considered to be in imminent danger of failure, and if a dummy pattern is inserted it will probably result in a small production loss.

The fused fluoride-Inconel reactor system was studied under irradiation with nominal 19 Mev deuterons as supplied by the Berkeley 60-inch cyclotron. Chemical, metallographic, magnetic susceptibility, electron diffraction and X-ray diffraction studies were made on the as-received materials, one control run and two irradiated runs. No changes in the fused fluoride fuel were noted. Accelerated intergranular corrosion and increased grain size were observed in the irradiated Inconel specimens. This report is based upon studies conducted for the Atomic Energy Commission under Contract AT-40-1-GEN-1064.

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Results on the investigation of the rate of diffusion of hydrogen through several types of stainless steel and other materials of construction are reported with particular emphasis on Type 347 stainless steel.

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A simple mass spectrometer using 60 degree focusing was set up to study the (illegible) of the ions produced by various types of sources. A schematic diagram of the apparatus is shown in Fig. 1, which is to a large extent self-explanatory. The isolation transformer was simply a piece of RG (illegible) cable about three feet long and was used in order to operate the source at high accelerating voltage allowing the collector to be at essentially ground potential. The collimating slits were 0.05 (illegible) wide and were space 4 (illegible-cm?) apart. The coarse slit immediately preceding the collector cup was 0.3 (illegible) wide. The electrometer was the integrating type which indicated the potential due to the charge collected on known capacitance. The vacuum tube voltmeter indicated the potential of the 0.5 (illegible) capacitor due to the total charge reaching the slit system. It thus served as a monitor of the source output for each firing. The neon lamp was a protection for the condenser against breakdown discharges of the tube.

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Activities discussed in this report are as follows: shielding studies; xenon generator; assay of xenon sample counting techniques; crystal diffraction neutron spectrometer; C{sup 12} cross sections measurements; magnetic spectrometer; scintillation spectroscopy; improved pile structure; criticality for the untamped 16 inch spherical reactor; exponential experiments; large scale pile structure; and operational pile physics.

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