Progress is reported for a program to demonstrate by 1976 an experimental gas turbine powered automobile which meets the 1976 Federal Emission Standards, has significantly improved fuel economy, and is competitive in performance, reliability, and potential manufacturing cost with the conventional piston engine powered, standard-size American automobile. Procurement delays have caused an additional one-month slippage in engine deliveries. All test cell conversion and preparation tasks are complete. Assembly, qualification, and delivery to NASA of Engine 3 were accomplished. Vehicle installation design tasks were completed. Vehicle structural modifications were completed. Initial operation of the first vehicle has slipped two weeks due to engine delivery schedule changes. The planned training activity for the NASA technician took place. Endurance activity has included continued testing of molded insulation and the start of testing of new coarse pitch regenerator drive gears. Testing of a variable geometry combustor for control schedule optimization started. The all-ceramic regenerator core program was formulated, and work started on design and fabrication or procurement of core, drive, and seal hardware required specifically for these cores. The integrated control system sub-contract is delayed pending resolution of the adjustments to the scope of work. An elasto-plastic stress analysis program is being written in …

A description is given of an out-of-pile experiment which simulated fission-gas release in current-design uranium-oxide fuel subassemblies of liquid- metal-cooled fast breeder reactors (LMFBR's) and which was performed to evaluate the potential for pin-to-pin failure propagation due to thermal transients induced in adjacent fuel pins. A sodium-cooled test section containing three electrically heated pins was used. Gas (angon or xenon), injected as a jet through a needle protruding into the flow cross-sectional area of the test section, was made to impinge on one of the heater pins. Data are presented regarding the measured cladding-temperature rise and the calculated local heat- transfer coefficient in the impingement area, with the following parameters: gas type, needle internal diameter, heat flux, coolant flow rate, gas-plenum pressure and temperature, and axial location with respect to the gas jet. The cladding- temperature rises measured represent upper values, since the conditions under which they were obtained are conservative. There are two reasons for this: (a) The gasrelease rates correspond to those that would prevail if the internal resistance to the flow of gas, between the gas plenum and the point of release of the fuel pin, were negligibly small; (b) the tests were performed under steady- state …

The United Aircraft Research Laboratories are engaged in a program to investigate the use of a dense, mirror-confined, laser-produced plasma as the target for a neutral-injection beam and to examine this technique for establishing and maintaining a high-temperature, high-density, steady-state, mirrorconfined fusion plasma. The program is a direct extension of the current UARL investigations of the capture and confinement of laser-produced plasmas in a minimum-B mirror field. The overall program plan of the UARL Laser-Initiated Target Experiment involves four parts. The first of these is the laser heating of a solid particle positioned within the experiment chamber by an ultrahigh- vacuum suspension system to create a filly ionized plasma of ~10/sup 16/ to 10/ sup 17/ ions and electrons at a temperature of 0.5 to 1 keV. The second part of the program is the capture and confinement of the high-temperature laser-produced plasma to form a stable, high-density (>10/sup13/ cm/sup -3/), mirror-confined target plasma which fills an appreciable fraction of the mirror field volume. Heating of the confined-target plasma to ~10 keV by charge-exchange interaction with an injected energetic neutral beam comprises the third part of the program, and the fourth is the creation of a collisional, steady-state, mirror-confined plasma …

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This report describes a Direct Numerical Control (DNC) System proposed for use in the LLL Mechanical Shops. The DNC system includes a small digital computer that will provide the capability to store, manipulate, and distribute parts programs to the various machine tool stations. The system will also provide editing capabilities for parts program development and optimization. Diagnostic routines will be included to provide preventive maintenance. Logging of machine on'' time can be instituted to provide data for improved scheduling and machine tool usage. (auth)

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Information on the development of LMFBR in-core instrumentation and in- vessel surveillance systems is presented concerning high-temperature neutron detectors and cable assemblies, acoustic monitoring systems, reactor core exit instrumentation, and an on-line reactivity computer system. (JWR)

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Conversion of high-level solid radioactive waste to a nonleachable silicate glass is accomplished in the Endothermic process by simple melting of a mixture of the waste with crushed basalt. Dense (2.5 g cm/sup -3/) green-black glasses are obtained by melting mixtures containing 30 to 40 wt% Hanford In-Tank Solidified (ITS) waste, 50 to 70 wt% basalt, and 0 to 10 wt% B/sub 2/O/sub 3/. Addition of B/sub 2/O/sub 3/ to the process charge is desirable to lower its melting range from about 1100--1150 deg C to 1000--1050 deg C. Leach rates of these glasses (calculated from the sum of the concentrations of Fe, Na, Ca, Si, Mg, Al, Sr, and Cs in the leach liquor) in water at 25 deg C range from 10/sup -7/ to 10/sup -5/ g/cm/sup 2/ day. The lea ch rate, based on /sup 137/Cs, of a typical Endothermic process glass made from actual ITS waste, is 3.0 x 10/sup -8/ g/cm/sup 2/ day. This leach rate corresponds to removal of 2.1 x 10/sup -14/ g / sup 137/Cs per day from a square centimeter of glass containing 57 mu Ci /sup 137/Cs per gram. Judging from initial tests, the Endothermic process is a very promising …

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Projects in support of the Aerospace Nuclear Safety Program are summarized. The objective of the program was to evaluate the radiological safety of SNAP systems and to develop methods and designs to assure that safety. Projects summarized are analyses and experiments for determining: (1) the disintegration of reactors reentering the atmosphere; (2) the burnup of fuel elements reentering the atmosphere, including ablation and dispersal of particles; (3) reactor criticality conditions and the assurance of subcriticality in water; (4) the behavior of reactors in transient power operation; (5) the nuclear behavior of reactors on impact with the earth and in handling accidents; (6) the assurance of shutdown at the end of the power production lifetime; (7) risks by various exposure modes from different methods of reactor disposal; and (8) thermophysical properties of SNAP fuel materials. (auth)

Dense ionization in the stopping region as negative pions come to rest in matter makes them attractive for treatment of cancer. Pions of the same energy have essentially the same range in matter which means that a monoenergetic beam will produce a Bragg peak region of maximum ionization as they come to rest. In cancer therapy, the entire treatment volume should be exposed, if possible, to the Bragg peak. A distribution of energy and adjustment of lateral dimensions could theoretically adjust the Bragg peak to fit into most any treatment volume but this inight be difficult in practice to accomplish. As an alternative, the beam can be tuned to produce a peak with known properties, and this peak can be moved in a controlled manner so as to scan the treatment volume. For a vertical beam, this method usually will require vertical oscillations of the beam as well as horizontal motion to cover the entire volume. Both of these motions can result in undesirable dose distributions. It is shown how to avoid or minimize the unwanted effects and it is also shown how velocity distributions can be determined for uniform effective dose throughout a treatment volume. (auth)

Ultrasonic tagged, adult chinook salmon and steelhead trout were tracked in the Columbia River in 1967 during upstream migration past cooling water discharges from nuclear reactors. All fish migrated near shorelines, showing preference for the river bank opposite reactors. Clear responses to local temperaature differences were exhibited by few fish, these responses being to small shoreline seepages rather than to main centerchannel outfalls. (auth)