This technical report describes the design and construction of equipment and the development of methods for multiple mold, centrifugal casting of reactor fuel slugs. Advantages of the centrifugal casting method over the conventional fabrication methods were found to be (1) fewer operations, (2) fewer and more easily recovered residues, (3) less expensive equipment, and (4) the production of fuel slugs in shapes and in alloys not well adapted to other methods of manufacture. The method consisted of vacuum melting the alloy in stoppered crucibles and bottom pouring into a spinning rotor carrying 16 radially arranged copper molds. The castings so produced were used without further processing, except for cropping the sprue end to obtain the specified length.

Water corrosion tests on mechanically jacketed and pinholed thorium slugs show that these slugs fail in a manner similar to that observed for mechanically jacketed and tested uranium slugs. The proposed mechanism for the water corrosion of these jacketed slugs is analogous to the water corrosion mechanism of jacketed uranium slugs presented in the project lecture. A bare thorium slug appeared to be more resistant to corrosion by water than a mechanically jacketed slug during the first half of the autoclave test. After approximately 90 hours of testing both the bare and the mechanically jacketed thorium slugs were severely corroded by water.