Abstract: "A study of plastic flow during the extrusion of tubing was made by extruding colored Plasticine billets in a small-scale extrusion press. Decreasing the included angle of the conical die and tapering the ram end of the billet decreased the amount of coextrusion of the backer block into the tubing, lubricating the billet also decreased coextrusion."

The following report studies the dissolution of aluminum-canned thorium, providing results that suggest a dissolution cycle that permits the separation of the canned-slug components.

Report discussing progress made in testing methods for preparation of ductile zirconium by the National Research Corporation for the month of June, 1949.

The following report provides equations that result from a seminar in reactor physics.

The rapid development of the field of atomic energy during the past few years now permits the exploration of applications to medicine involving new concepts in the treatment of cancer. One such has been the study of neutron capture therapy which is being developed at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

The so-called Fluoride Volatility Processes refer to several proposed non-aqueous methods of processing irradiated fuel elements. In each of these methods, the uranium is fluorinated to uranium hexafluoride and then decontaminated by distillation. One of the methods, involving direct fluorination of the uranium by bromine trifluoride, has been under investigation at BNL since 1950; subsequently a pilot plant was built to study this step of the process. The objectives of the program were to investigate the technical feasibility of continuous dissolution, and to determine the effect of process variables on the capacity of the equipment; namely the effect of temperature, solution composition, flow rate, and uranium history on dissolving time as related to fuel elements of the types used at BNL, ORNL, and Hanford. The nominal capacity of the dissolver was five pounds of uranium per hour and all process equipment was fabricated of Monel. Special equipment components and numerous safety features were utilized. The major equipment development was a canned-rotor pump used for circulation of the dissolver stream through the heat exchanger. A system for continually charging slugs to the pressurized dissolver was also developed. Operation consisted of batch runs which were made with unirradiated BNL slugs in order …

Summary: Technical report describing the testing of eight Potter Meters, for metering inlet flow and measuring exit steam qualities in the Consumers Big Rock Point Instrumented Fuel Assemblies, were individually calibrated for flow and pressure drop up to 500 gpm in the low temperature (130 F) fluid flow facility. The flow calibration comparison made with an ASME orifice installation, agreed to within + - 1 percent among seven of the meters, and meter Serial No. 8 was 2.8 percent lower than the others. Pressure drop among the meters was within about 5 percent. Locked rotor pressure drop data was obtained on one meter. A fully instrumented fuel bundle was tested in the low temperature facility and pressure drop data obtained for the tieplates and meters, spacers, and channel rods. A mock-up of the exit end of the instrumented fuel bundles, composed of 1 foot of fuel rods, tieplate, and Potter Meter was tested in the High Pressure Heat Transfer Facility. Data was obtained for single- and two-phase calibration of total flow and exit steam quality in an instrumented bundle. Each meter was operated, for a minimum of 6-8 hours after bearing modifications necessitated by seizure of the rotors, in the …

From abstract: "The high temperature enthalpies of five rare-earth metals were measured from 0° to 1100°C using a Bunsen ice calorimeter. The enthalphy of yttrium metal was studied from 1100° to 1675°C using a modified high temperature vacuum Bunsen calorimeter. The data were fitted to empirical equations from which the heat of transition and fusion, the heat capacity, and the related thermodynamic quantities were calculated. These results confirmed indications from other properties that europium and ytterbium metals are primarily in the divalent state.Small anomalies observed in europium were attributed to transitions between electronic states when some trivalent ions occur in these metals. The entropy of the fcc-bcc transition for ytterbium was found to be approximately two-thirds that of the other rare-earth metals for which a close-paced to body-centered cubic transformation has been observed."

It is assumed that when a hole appears in the cladding of a reactor fuel tube the fission products in the space between the fuel and the cladding will diffuse towards the hole. There they are swept away by the flow of steam past the hole. The process of diffusion is assumed to be governed by the ordinary diffusion equation with the boundary condition that the density of the fission products is zero at the surface of the hole. The diffusion equation is solved for the case of steady-state emission for a number of geometrical arrangements: long slit in plane surface; long slit in cylindrical surfaces circular hole in plane surface; circular hole in cylindrical surface; hole at end of cylindrical fuel rods and diffusion space of variable thickness. The time dependent solution of the diffusion equation is also found for a planar diffusion space. The effect of a temperature gradient is discussed.