In order to perform the various experiments with a bubble chamber, a high intensity flash tube is used. This report briefly describes the power supplies designed and constructed to power these lamps.

The power supplies designed and constructed to power high intensity flash tubes used in bubble chamber experiments are briefly described and are accompanied by a schematic diagram of the layout. (D.C.W.)

Space has been reserved near the southeast corner of the 100-N Area for the 122-N Decontamination Facility. Previous correspondence between Burns and Roe, Inc and General Electric bae discussed various facilities which might be needed in the building. The concepts of the decontamination processes are under active development by research groups at Hanford. At present, there are several workable processes known; each one has one or more fairly serious drawbacks.

The ANGIE, one of a series of reactor neutronic programs for an IBM 709 or 7090 data processing system, solves the time-dependent, multi-group, neutron diffusion equation for 1 to 26 energy groups applied to a rectangular mesh superimposed on either an x-y or an r-z plane.

The objective of the Accurate Nuclear Fuel Burnup Analyses program is to develop more accurate methods for burnup analysis for general use than the current method of analysis of Ca-137 or Sr-90. The program will require from three to five years of effort.

The rapid advances in many technologically important areas have not only served to accentuate the increased demands for high temperature metals and ceramics but have necessitated a more through knowledge of their physical properties when exposed to high temperature service. Toward this latter end, the use of X-ray diffraction has proved an invaluable tool in providing data of regions of thermal stability, expansion coefficients, solid solubility limits, and phase transformations by direct examination at temperature. Since this Laboratory has for some time now been engaged in the study of refractory nuclear materials, it was thought desirable to employ and possibly extend this technique to temperatures ranging up to 3000°C. This communication will describe the equipment developed for this purpose, with experimental results to be described in subsequent publications.

Technical report describing a UO2-Mo cermet fuel assembly fabricated for long-term irradiation performance testing in the Vallecitos Boiling water Reactor. The design and fabrication histories of this assembly are described and pre-irradiation data on each individual rod are presented. Molybdenum was added to improve the bulk thermal conductivity of the fuel, so that fuel temperatures would remain comparatively low during high-power level operation of the fuel element. The molybdenum was incorporated into the compacts either as fibers or as a thin coating on individual UO2 particles. Fuel pellets were produced from these materials by vacuum hot pressing. The distribution of the molybdenum in both types of cermet fuels appeared favorable to good heat transfer. The fibers were oriented predominantly in the radial planes of the pellet as a result of the uni-directional compaction during the hot-pressing operation. In the pellets made from the coated particles, a continuous network of molybdenum occurred as a result of the coating welding together during the hot-pressing operation. The test assembly contains eight fuel rods; three contain UO2-Mo cermet, three contain the cermet produced from the coated particles, and two are for reference and contain the conventional sintered UO2 pellet fuel. The nominal outside diameter …

"The energy method is applied to study the stability of two types of difference approximations to parabolic partial differential equations, the alternating direction methods Douglas, Peaceman, and Rachford, and a new semi- explicit method. Each difference scheme is proved to be unconditionally stable. These results apply to parabolic equations with variable coefficients, defined in cylindrical domains with an essentially arbitrary bounded base."

The angle by which a magnet deflects the trajectory of a particle in the x-z plane is proportional to the integral [integral not transcribed] taken over the trajectory wherever B≠0. Alternating gradient focusing is achieved by designing magnets so that I=I(x) varies linearly with x over a suitable x interval. Usually this is done by shaping the poles to give a linear variation of By with x while keeping the length of the magnet constant for different x. Certain advantaged may be gained by varying the effective length of the magnet with x and keeping By constant so that the integral varies properly with x. Figure 1 shows several such poles for which the trajectory length, and hence the integral (1), varies approximately from 2/3 to 4/3 of the mean value.

A description is given of a method suitable for the automatic solution of certain optimum design problems on a digital computer for cases where the number of constraints imposed on the design is not greater than the number of design variables. The problem is transformed to one requiring the minimization or maximization of an unconstrained function, for which a gradient method is used.

"The purposes of the program being conducted under the present contract are: 1) To determine the feasibility of cladding zirconium on uranium by a direct casting process. 2) To investigate the diffusion of liquid metals in the fusion zone."

Late in 1958 it became apparent that some fuel elements were failing in the Hanford reactors as a result of water entering through the weld. The mode of entry appeared to be first through a void in the weld, then through a non-wet area or a train of voids in the braze, and finally to the uranium core. Defective closures of a similar nature were also typical of many fuel elements which have failed in the autoclaving operation as shown in Figure 1.

Technical report describing "A means for automatically determining the coordinates of a point at the center of a bubble chamber track." from the abstract.

Cell proliferation on the actively growing periosteal surface of the femur of rabbits aged two weeks, has been investigated using autoradiographic techniques. Injections of tritiated glycine and tritiated thymidine were given simultaneously and the animals sacrificed at intervals from one hour to 5 days after injection. The glycine labelled the position of the bone surface at the time of injection and the thymidine labelled the cells which were synthesizing DNA . The rate of increase in the cell population was determined by counting the number of cells beyond the glycine label at different times after injection. The cell kinetics of the fibroblast--pre-osteoblast--osteoblast--osteocyte system has been studied. The fibroblasts are relatively unimportant from the point of view of increase in the cell population. The main site of cell proliferation is the layer of preosteoblasts on the periosteal surface. The rate of movement of cells from the pre-osteoblast to the osteoblast and osteocyte compartments has been measured. The incorporation of osteoblasts into the bone is not a random process, but it appears that the osteoblast must spend a certain time on the periosteal surface before becoming either an osteocyte or a relatively inactive osteoblast lining a haversian canal. During its most active …

A study of the cell kinetics on the actively growing periosteal surface of the femur of rabbits ages two weeks has been continues. A single injection of tritiated thymidine was given and the rabbits killed from one hour to four days after injection. The grain count spectra of the different cell types, pre-osteoblast, osteoblast and osteocyte, have been compared at different times after injection. The results showed evidence for the uptake of thymidine in nuclei which is not associated with cell division. A small percentage of osteoblasts was initially labelled at one hour and there was evidence that the majority of these had not divided by 3 or 4 days after injection. Some thymidine labelled cells had also become osteocytes without division. Furthermore, it appeared that a considerable fraction of the initially labelled pre-osteoblasts did not divide. The S-period for the pre-osteoblasts and osteoblasts was measured using a double-labelled thymidine technique.

Studies are being made on the recovery of thorium (and uranium) from granitic rock, since this source represents a very large potential thorium reserve for the nuclear power industry. In preliminary leaching studies on 16 granite samples (containing 8-95 ppm thorium and 1.5-16 ppm uranium), maximum recoveries of thorium and uranium ranged 30-85% and 15-65% respectively, and sulfuric acid consumption was high (30-120 lbs H2SO4 per ton of granite). A relatively high acidity was needed to obtain rapid and efficient dissolution of the soluble thorium fraction. The cost of treating granite was estimated at $3.50-5.20 per ton, variations within this range being dependent primarily on differences in acid consumption for different granites. Estimated costs per pound of thorium plus uranium recovered ranged $30-500.

"A survey of the current theoretical picture of plasma containment in cusped magnetic configurations is presented together with a mention of the points of contact which exist or might soon be made to exist with experiment. A theory of containment was developed which is applicable to the whole range of plasma densities from a tenuous plasma in an essentially vacuum magnetic field to a fully developed plasma which completely excludes the magnetic field from its interior. Also presented are cursory accounts of the situation with regard to stability, cyclotron radiation, and methods of creating this type of plasma configuration."

"The correction to photon-photon scattering processes due to the existence of the particles other than electrons is reported. The correction is of the same order in the electric charge as the lowest order term in the perturbation expansion in quantum electrodynamics, although the relevant corrections to the electron-photon and electron-electron scattering are all of higher order."

A comparison of methods of capital cost estimation used for nuclear fuel reprocessing plants shows that, because of the special nature and complexity of such plants, cost estimation methods for conventional chemical plants involving the use of cost factors are not applicable and will give low estimates. Cost factors which are available from other countries where reprocessing plants are installed should be used with caution since those factors apply only for the particular design philosophy used and pertain to industrial conditions which are different in this county. Capital cost estimation methods involving direct take-offs from detailed design drawings are necessary to obtain reliable estimates. The methods of estimating operating costs for nuclear reprocessing and conventional chemical plants are similar.

In many cases of analysis of two-phase flow in systems, considerable computation or program time could be saved if the critical pressures ratio were known. If a reservoir or plenum pressure is fixed, the usual computational procedure involves the assumption of several critical pressures and the generation of several momentum terms to find the applicable critical pressure ratio and thereby the critical flow. The formulation of an equation of state make it possible to compute critical pressure ratios directly.

From report : "It has become apparent that pragmatic resonance data alone are insufficient to correctly evaluate crystal field parameters for rare-earth ethylsulfates, and that heat capacity data above 20°K are a useful aid in determining whether low lying levels obtained by absorption spectroscopy have been correctly identified."

Abstract: "The purpose of this investigation is to determine the extent to which zirconium and zirconium alloys exhibit delayed failure (static fatigue) as caused by a combination of absorbed hydrogen and applied stress. Both notched and unnotched specimens of unalloyed zirconium and Zircaloy-2 have been hydrogenated to 200 ppm by means of a modified Sieverts apparatus; specimens were evaluated at room temperature. Thus far, no time-dependent fracture has been observed which can be attributed to the delayed failure phenomenon; it appears that these materials are relatively insensitive to static fatigue. The effects of grain size, temperature, cold deformation, and superheated water and steam corrosion on susceptibility to delayed failure are being determined."

The work described was undertaken to provide data for nuclear safety studies concerning NPF reprocessing equipment. The original objective was to determine the uranium density and water (hydrogen) content of UO2-H2O mixtures ranging from compact centrifuge cakes to dilute slurries. The scope was later expanded to include mixtures of UO2 with hydrocarbon oil and mixtures of UO3-H2O.

Quarterly progress report describing work related to a study of radiation physics problems involved in the design of high-level cesium-137 gamma sources. It outlines work completed and ongoing goals for the project.