Quarterly progress report on metallurgy research operations at Hanford Atomic Products Operation in Richland, Washington.

The Chapman-Jouguet pressure and equation of state of the high explosives PBX 9404 and LX04-01 have been experimentally derived. To assure a strictly one-dimensional geometry, spheres of high explosives were used. Experimental measurements of the radius-time history of material accelerated by the explosive gases were used in conjunction with finite difference calculations of the hydrodynamic equations to obtain some previous inaccessible data on high explosives.

The angle errors of a rotary table can be accurately measured by stepping off the angles with an optical caliper and computing table error from (1) the error readings at each angle measured and (2) the cumulative caliper error that will be evident when the circle is closed at 360', eliminating the necessity of adjusting the caliper to the exact setting.

Report evaluating the technical and economic feasibility of four zirconium fuel processes: the present STR process, the modified Zirflex process, the barium fluozirconate process, and the sodium formate process.

Presented herein is a philosophy for designing wideband multistage transistor amplifiers. The amplifier is visualized as an integral unit, the interstage networks constituting the elements of the amplifier unit. By designing the amplifier as a unit and adjusting the overall response (gain and bandwidth) with the interstage time constants, an increase in gain-bandwidth product is realized over the iteratively designed amplifiers. The resulting increase in gain-bandwidth product results from absence of the bandwidth shrinkage factor for multistage amplifiers. Formulas are derived for both a two- and three-transistor integrally designed wideband amplifier, in which shunt peaking networks are used for coupling. Experimental amplifiers were constructed following these formulas, and the observed performance agreed quite well with the calculations.

Report discussing a studies regarding "imaging qualities and the thermal neutron and gamma-ray sensitivities of several neutron imaging detectors".

Report discussing variations in comparative tests of portland cements that could lead to the rejection of a material fully conforming to specification requirements, or the acceptance of a material with undesirable chemical or physical properties. Many of the causes for variation in chemical analyses and physical test results are listed in this discussion, and remedies for some of the more frequently encountered deficiencies in apparatus and methods are suggested.