Highlights of the Chemical Engineering (CEN) Division's activities during 1981 are presented. In this period, CEN conducted research and development in the following areas: rechargeable lithium-alloy/iron sulfide batteries for electric vehicles and other applications, aqueous batteries--improved lead-acid, nickel/zinc, and nickel/iron--for electric vehicles, as well as advanced lead-acid batteries for electric.-utility load leveling, energy-efficient industrial electrochemical processes, molten carbonate fuel cells for use by electric utilities, coal technology, mainly fluidized-bed combustion of coal in the presence of an SO2 sorbent of limestone, heat- and seed-recovery technology for open-cycle magnetohydrodynamic systems.

This proceedings contains the summaries and contents of a number of papers presented at the 1982 NEANDC/NEACRP specialists meeting on fast-neutron capture cross sections. The table of contents has been summarized to provide a sketch of the topical matter.

An analysis of the transient swelling rate of oxide fuel, based on fission-gas bubble conditions calculated with the FRAS3 code, has been developed and implemented in the code. The need for this capability arises in the coupling of the FRAS3 fission-gas analysis code to the FPIN fuel-pin mechanics code. An efficient means of closely coupling the calculations of swelling strains and stresses between the modules is required. The present analysis provides parameters that allow the FPIN calculation to proceed through a fairly large time step, using estimated swelling rates, to calculate the stresses. These stress values can then be applied in the FRAS3 detailed calculation to refine the swelling calculation, and to provide new values for the parameters to estimate the swelling in the next time step. The swelling rates were calculated for two representative transients and used to estimate swelling over a short time period for various stress levels.