Report of highlights of Argonne program on the development of lithium/metal sulfide batteries. These batteries are being developed for electric-vehicle propulsion and for stationary energy-storage applications.

Suspected fission-product releases from 18 subassemblies between April 1977 and May 1978 are presented. Post-irradiation examinations pm 15 of the suspect subassemblies confirmed that all contained one or more breached elements. Except for two untagged subassemblies, xenon tagging was the primary method of identification, although other methods were used where appropriate. Methods to monitor and identify fission product sources are discussed. Problems encountered elements on plant availability were minimal during this reporting period. From all evidence, cladding breaching on elements in EBR-II continues to be a benign process.

By perturbing a linear program to a quadratic program, it is possible to solve the latter in its dual variable space by iterative techniques such as successive over-relaxation (SOR) methods. This provides a solution to the original linear program.

Argonne National Laboratory is decommissioning a facility used to fabricate reactor fuel elements. The equipment is contaminated with alpha emitters. The objective of decontamination is to reduce the TRU concentrations below 10 nCi/g of waste. A portable NDA procedure using Na I (TI ) gamma-spectrometric techniques was selected to measure the residual Pu and 2i 1 Am in the glove boxes. Assays were performed at different stages in the decontamination process to estimate the detection system sensitivity and the effectiveness of the cleaning efforts.

The author proves the mean ergodic theorem for nonlinear non-expansive mappings in Banach spaces, extends it by a different argument, deduces several consequences, and points out open problems.

Significant increases in energy utilization efficiency can be achieved through the recovery of low-temperature rejected heat. This energy conserving possibility provides incentive for the development of heat exchangers which could be employed in applications where conventional units cannot be used. Some unique anticorrosion and nonstick characteristics of plastics make this material very attractive for heat recovery where condensation, especially sulfuric acid, and fouling occur. Some of the unique characteristics of plastics led to the commercial success of DuPont's heat exchangers utilizing polytetrafluoroethylene (trade name Teflon) tubes. Attributes which were exploited in this application were the extreme chemical inertness of the material and its flexibility, which enabled utilization in odd-shaped spaces. The wide variety of polymeric materials available ensures chemical inertness for almost any application. Lower cost, compoundability with fillers to improve thermal/mechanical properties, and versatile fabrication methods are incentives for many uses. Also, since many plastics resist corrosion, they can be employed in lower temperature applications (< 436 K), where condensation can occur and metal units have been unable to function. It is clear that if application and design can be merged to produce a cost-effective alternate to present methods of handling low-temperature rejected heat, then there is significant incentive …

Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) is engaged in a project to determine the impact of advanced scientific computers on Argonne's computing workload. The CRAY-1 was chosen to begin our investigation because it was the only machine currently available that qualifies as an advanced scientific computer, or Class VI (one capable of executing 20 to 60 million floating point operations per second).

Available information on the corrosion behavior and mechanical properties of structural materials in a high-temperature sodium environment has been reviewed to compile a data base for selection of materials for advanced central-receiver solar-power systems, for which sodium is being considered as a heat-transfer fluid and thermal-storage medium. Candidate materials for this application (e.g., Types 304, 316, and 321 stainless steel, Alloy 800, and Fe-2 1/4 Cr-1Mo and Fe-9Cr-1Mo ferritic steels) have been used in the construction of various components for liquid-metal fast-breeder reactors in this country and abroad with considerable success. Requirements for additional information on material properties in a sodium environment are identified. The additional data coupled with more quantitative deformation models, failure criteria, and component design rules will further reduce uncertainties in the assessment of performance limits and component reliability in large sodium heat-transport systems.

Annual report of the Argonne National Laboratory Chemical Engineering Division regarding studies of nuclear waste migration in geologic media. This report discusses research regarding nuclide migration and cesium absorption on limestone.

Quarterly report discussing fuel cell research and development work at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). This report describes efforts directed toward understanding and improving the components of molten-carbonate-electrolyte fuel cells operated at temperatures near 925 K.

Evaluation of melt-slagging techniques as a decontamination and consolidation step for metals contaminated with oxides of plutonium and americium.

Two ergodic theorems are presented for means of nonlinear contraction semigroups in a Hilbert space. These means are generated by a class of averaging kernels which includes the usual Abel and Cesaro-(C,cap alpha) kernels.

Report discusses the development of the existing ALICE Image Processing System into a computer-aided digitization, encoding, analysis and display system for mapped information pertaining to the environment and its elements.

Volume 2 presents information which is directly related to the actual computer code arid operational characteristics (keys and subroutines) of the software. The authors expect that Volume I will be of more interest to developers of software than to users of the software. However, developers of software should be aware that the code developed for the ALICE System operates in an environment where much of the peripheral hardware to the PDP-10 is ANL/AMD built. For this reason, portions of the code may have to be modified for implementation on other computer system configurations.

This report is concerned with ergodic theorems for Abel means of nonlinear contraction mappings and nonlinear contraction semigroups in a Hilbert space.

Let E be a reflexive Banach space with a uniformly Gateaux differentiable norm, D a closed convex subset of E, and C a nonexpansive retract of D.

Quarterly report discussing fuel cell research and development work at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). This report describes activities focuses on the development of electrolyte structures that have good electrolyte retention and mechanical properties as well as long term stability, and on developing methods of synthesis amenable to mass production.

This report describes the 14 releases of fission products that occurred in EBR-II from April 1975 to March 1977. Each release was readily detected, and all but one (in a driver-fuel subassembly) was identified with a particular subassembly. Xenon tagging was the primary method of identification, although other methods were used where appropriate. Methods of monitoring and identifying fission-product sources are discussed, and each release and identification is described. Effects of breached elements on plant availability were minimal in this period. From all evidence, cladding breaching on elements in EBR-II continues to be a benign process.

This report covers the research, development, and management activities of the programs at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and at subcontractors' laboratories on high-temperature batteries during the period October 1978 - March 1979. These batteries are being developed for electric-vehicle propulsion and for stationary energy--storage applications. The present cells, which operate at 400-500 C, are of a vertically oriented, prismatic design with one or more inner positive electrodes of FeS or FeS2, facing electrodes of lithium-aluminum alloy, and molten LiCl-KC1 electrolyte.

A computer program (ARDISC, the Argonne Dispersion Code) is described which simulates the migration of nuclides in porous media and includes first order kinetic effects on the retention constants. The code allows for different absorption and desorption rates and solves the coupled migration equations by arithmetic reiterations. Input data needed are the absorption and desorption rates, equilibrium surface absorption coefficients, flow rates and volumes, and media porosities.

Quarterly report of the Argonne National Laboratory Chemical Engineering Division regarding activities related to properties and handling of radioactive materials, operation of nuclear reactors, and other relevant research. This report includes fuel cycle studies in advanced solvent extraction techniques focused on development of centrifugal contactors for use in Purex processes and dispersion of liquids by explosions.

Biaxial creep-fatigue test data for Type 316 stainless steel tubes at 1100*Y are presented. The specimens were subjected to constant internal pressure and fluctuating axial strain with and without hold times in tension as well as compress ion. The results show that internal pressure significantly affects diametral ratchetting and axial stress range. Axial tensile hold is found to he more damaging than axial compressive hold even cinder a biaxial state of stress.

The available thermodynamic information is reviewed for three categories of materials that meet essential criteria for use as breeding blankets in deuterium-tritium (D-T) fueled fusion reactors: liquid lithium, solid lithium alloys, and lithium-containing ceramics. The leading candidate, liquid lithium, which also has potential for use as a coolant, has been studied more extensively than have the solid alloys or ceramics.

This report examines the dynamic elastic response of flawed and unflawed reactor subassembly ducts. A plane- strain finite-element analysis is presented for hexagonal ducts containing either internal corner cracks or external midflat cracks. Two geometric loading conditions are considered: uniform internal pressurization and point loads applied at opposite midflats. The time dependence of these loads was chosen as a Heaviside step function for the worst-case situation and as a triangular pulse to simulate the more likely condition.