A fluidized-bed, reductive decomposition process has been developed for regenerating calcium sulfate, a product of fluidized-bed combustion. The effect of process operating variables on the extent of regeneration and on the SO2 levels in the off-gas has been determined, and a process model has been proposed. A process for regenerating spent SO2 sorbents has been developed on a PDU scale. Tymochtee dolomite that had been sulfated during fluidized-bed combustion of coal is regenerated (reductive decomposition of calcium sulfate to calcium oxide and SO2) by the incomplete combustion of either methane or coal in a fluidized-bed reactor.

Transient thermal phenomena in Pb/PbO2 (lead-acid) batteries during charging processes were investigated. Mathematical models were formulated for the studies of heat transfer behavior across the electrode/electrolyte interface within a porous PbO2 electrode during charging, thermal behavior and temperature distribution over a lead-acid battery during different charging processes designed for electric-vehicle propulsion application, and cooling methods for lead-acid batteries during recharge cycles. Numerical solutions show that the heat transfer across the solid electrode and the electrolyte within the porous electrode is so fast that their temperatures may be regarded as the same. The results also show that, in a lead-acid battery designed for electric-vehicle propulsion, the heat generated in the cell during fast charging processes may cause a noticeable rise of temperature in the cell if the heat is not removed properly. The studies of heat-removal processes indicate that incorporation of cooling tubes within the cell cannot effectively remove the heat being released from the cell. However, the heat may be removed effectively by circulation of electrolyte through the battery. Numerical solutions are provided for the engineering evaluation of heat-removal design during battery cycling processes.

Test data from an in-pile failure experiment of high-power LMFBR-type fuel pins in a simulated $3/s transient-overpower (TOP) accident are reported and analyzed. Major conclusions are that (1) a series of cladding ruptures during the 100-ms period preceding fuel release injected small bursts of fission gas into the flow stream; (2) gas release influenced subsequent cladding melting and fuel release (there were no measurable FCI's (fuel-coolant interactions), and all fuel motion observed by the hodoscope was very slow); (3) the predominant post-failure fuel motion appears to be radial swelling that left a spongy fuel crust on the holder wall; (4) less than 4 to 6 percent of the fuel moved axially out of the original fuel zone, and most of this froze within a 10-cm region above the original top of the fuel zone to form the outlet blockage. An inlet blockage approximately 1 cm long was formed and consisted of large interconnected void regions. Both blockages began just beyond the ends of the fuel pellets.

As part of the studies preliminary to the acquisition of additional computing capability at Argonne National Laboratory, six groups of jobs were run on the IBM 370/195 at the Applied Mathematics Division of Argonne National Laboratory, on an Amdahl 470V/6 at the Amdahl manufacturing facilities in Sunnyvale, California, and on an IBM 370/168 MODEL 3 at the IBM Field Support Center in Gaithersburg, Maryland. This report compares the performance of the IBM 370/168 MOD 3 with that of the other two machines. Differences in machine configurations were minimized. The memory size of each machine was identical, the I/O configurations were as similar as possible, and the same versions of OS/MVT 21.7 and ASP 3.1 were used on all three machines. This allowed the comparison to be based on the relative performance of the three CPUs.

Quarterly report on batteries being developed for electric-vehicle propulsion and for stationary energy storage applications.