This quarterly report discusses ongoing research and experiments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the Metallurgy Division. This report discusses water cooled reactors, liquid metal cooled reactors, reactor development metallurgy, basic metallurgy, applied metallurgy, and aqueous corrosion.

Report issued by the Argonne National Laboratory covering the quarterly report from the Reactor Engineering Division. A summary of reactor programs, designs, development, and experiments are presented. This report includes tables, illustrations, and photographs.

The fuel element to be used in the Savannah River reactors is a natural uranium slug 1.00 in. in diameter and 8 in. long, encased in a 2S aluminum can 1.080 in. O.D. having a wall thickness of 0.035 in. The slug is bonded to the can with an aluminum silicon alloy, using the Hanford Al-Si process.

Deposits of corrosion products form on heat transfer surfaces and in radiation flux zones at temperatures around 500F in stainless steel systems operating with circulating water. The report considers the possible harmful effects of such deposits on heat transfer and fluid flow, as well as factors involved in the origin of these corrosion products and in the mechanisms of deposition. The prevention of deposition by chemical, mechanical, and electrostatic methods is discussed.

This report describes the first estimation of the beta half-life of Pu241 and was made by determining the beta activity associated with plutonium formed by (d,xn) reactions on U258.

Surrounding the core of the Experimental Breeder Reactor (EBR) is located the Internal Blanket (see Figure 2 of Reference 1). This blanket is compromised of natural uranium rods jacketed in stainless steel. The active portion of each rod is made up of five natural uranium slugs 0.873" diameter x 4.050" long. The slugs, stacked one of top of another, are held together and protected by a drawn-on stainless steel tube with welded and closures. These internal blanket rods are located inside the external blanket the manufacture of which has been described previously.

Equations governing the variation of U235. U238, Pu239, Pu240, and Pu241 have been derived and their solutions plotted as a function of irradiation time. The initial U235 content of the uranium was varied from 0.5% to 2.0%. The range of conversion ratios was from 0.5 to 1.2. The irradiation was from 0 to 20,000 mwd/ton of fuel. Since a range of initial conversion ratios is associated with each value of enrichment, a solution results in a family of curves for each isotope, and, since the range of enrichments is large, the number of curves is quite large. Translation of the isotope curves to reactivity variation necessitates a calculation requiring a modest amount of time for a particular case but a prohibitive amount of time to cover the entire range of possible combinations of enrichment and initial conversion ratios. Reactivity variation as a function of irradiation time has been computed for a natural uranium reactor with an initial conversion ratio ranging from 0.7 to 1.2 and for 3 types of reactors in which there is a considerable current interest. Similar calculations for other reactors can be made by making use of the isotope curves and the calculation technique set forth in …

The feasibility of cladding plate type, corrosion resistant uranium-niobium fuel elements with Zircaloy-II by roll bonding has been demonstrated. Plates with cores of uranium alloyed with 3 w/o and 6 w/o Nb intended for irradiation testing in a high temperature water test loop in the MTR have been finished withing specified tolerances. The preparation of cladding billet core and clad components and the assembly of billets by enclosing cores in welded Zircaloy-II jackets can be readily accomplished with conventional fabrication equipment. Some machining operations and billet evacuations, as used in the preparation of most picture frame billet assemblies have been eliminated. Roll bonds were obtained with reductions of 75% to 80% in thickness. Reductions in excess of 90% in thickness, although not necessary for bonding , can be used for economical productions of long plates. Plates can be made with clad to core bond strengths from 30,000 psi to 60,000 psi. Properly heat treated plates have sufficient ductility to allow cold finishing by rolling, forming, bending, or twisting, with reductions of 20% to 30%. Edge bonds of Zircaloy to Zircaloy have been obtained which were corrosion resistant to 260 C water. End seals which were also corrosion resistant to water …

Thermal cycling tests on uranium have shown that the dimensional changes that occur on cycling in the alpha range are directly related to both the texture of the material and its grain size: cold rolled rods generally elongate in the direction of rolling, while the same rods, after a beta-treatment, grow at rates several orders of magnitude lower. This considerable improvement by beta-treatment has been attributed to the texture randomization accompanying the heat-treatment. In the course of this heat-treatment, however, considerable grain growth occurs, which ahs the effect of causing surface roughening on cycling (also referred to as "bumping"); fine grained material generally retains a smooth surface. These observations led to the speculation that the most desirable structure in uranium, from standpoint of dimensional stability, is one that combines both a random texture and a fine grain size. Heat treatment of rolled rod offered no easy method to obtain such a product; powder metallurgical techniques, however, appeared ideally suited for the purpose. To this end, early in 1949, the Sylvania Electric Products Company initiated a program to develop suitable techniques for producing uranium powder compacts having the above-mentioned desired characteristics. Because of the availability of thermal cycling equipment at Argonne, …

This technical report describes experimental nuclear physics, mass spectroscopy, crystallography, experimental reactor physics, theoretical physics (general), reactor theory, electronic digital computers, and applied mathematics and computations (general).

From Introduction: "The interpretation of the fluorescence and absorption spectrum of the uranyl ion, indicated in this introduction, is based on the spectroscopic work of Nichols, Howes and co-workers (1914-1919), Dieke and van Heel (1925), Moerman and Kraak (1939), and Freymann and co-workers (1946-1948); on infrared studies (cf., Section 3 below) and Raman spectra; but most of all, on the work of Dieke, Duncan, and co-workers, carried out in 1943-1944 under the Manhattan District program. In the present chapter we will review briefly the earlier investigations in the field of uranyl salt and spectroscopy and give a somewhat more detailed summary of the results of Nichols and Howes and, particularly, of Dieke and co-workers."

On October 7, 8, and 9, 1953, the Atomic Energy Commission Division of Reactor Development held a reactor information meeting at the Argonne National Laboratory. The objective of the meeting was exchange of information among people actively concerned with the design of reactors for power to the end that the power reactor program would move more speedily and more economically to another milestone of success. In this volume all the papers presented at the meeting are listed. Copies are given of those papers which are available, and references to published reports are indicated where know for those papers not included in this collections. In order to facilitate handling, this volume is being issued in six parts: Part I Power Reactors; Part II Reactor Physics. Critical and Exponential Experiments Measurements; Part III Reactor Components. Reactor Economics Considerations. Reactor Safeguard and Control; Part IV Fuel Element Design and Problems. Corrosion and Chemistry; Part V Heat Transfer; Part VI Processing. The Author Index is being bound and distributed with Part I of this volume.

Tests were made to determine the effects of heat treatment and composition on the corrosion resistance of low-uranium, zirconium-base alloys to water at 600F. A total of 57 compositions were tested. The zirconium alloys contained up to 9% natural uranium plus small amounts of tin, antimony, lead, bismuth, yttrium, beryllium, germanium, niobium, nickel, and aluminum in various combinations. Data are presented in both tabular and graphical form. The effect of heat treatment on corrosion resistance of zirconium-uranium-tin alloys is partially masked by impurities in alloys made from sponge or bomb-reduced zirconium. In ternary alloys made from crystal bar zirconium, the effect of heat treatment on corrosion resistance is definite, and varies with the composition of the alloy. The range of ternary compositions from approximately % to 6 weight-per cent uranium and from 2 to4 per cent time, are the most attractive fuel element core alloys.

This quarterly report discusses ongoing research and experiments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the Metallurgy Division. This report discusses water cooled reactors, liquid metal cooled reactors, reactor development metallurgy, basic metallurgy, applied metallurgy, and aqueous corrosion,

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.

In the course of the development at Argonne of high purity uranium metal in ingot form, some questions arose as to the validity of the chemical analyses of some of the impurities (particularly those for carbon, boron, and silicon), with one analytical laboratory reporting concentrations in some instances of an order of magnitude greater than another laboratory. Since the low concentrations of impurities in this material involved, in some cases, the development of modified analytical procedures and standards, it was decided to check these discrepancies by having identically prepared samples analyzed by several AEC and associated laboratories. This report is a compilation of the results obtained.

The rolling and recrystallization textures in 300 C rolled uranium sheet were investigated using a Geiger counter diffractometer with the modified Schulz reflection technique. Seven sections of sheet material were used in order to obtain sufficient data for quantitative pole figures by the reflection technique. A special integrating specimen table was used for obtaining and recording the data atomically.

Report issued by the Argonne National Laboratory covering the quarterly report from the Reactor Engineering Division. A summary of reactor programs (including the Power Breeder Reactor (PBR) and the Central Station Water Reactor (CSWR)), designs, development, and experiments are presented. This report includes tables, illustrations, and photographs.

Corrosion-stability tests have been made in static autoclaves at 500 and 600F on solutions of compounds having high neutron cross sections to evaluate their usefulness for shutdown purposes. The only compound tested which appeared to be completely stable in 600F water was boric acid. Limited corrosion data did not show it to cause excessive corrosion of zirconium or stainless steel.

An improved continuous ether extractor is described. The modifications include a means of safely disposing of the active raffinate and a means of positivity checking the raffinate for completeness of uranium extraction. The results obtained on synthetic samples and on dissolver solutions are given. This work was undertaken because of a need for the determination of uranium in dissolver solutions with an accuracy of 0.1 per cent. After a review of available methods it was decided that a gravimetric determination would meet the requirements of precision and accuracy.

This report deals with the (1.1) physical properties of graphite, (1.2) effects of pile irradiation on the properties of graphite, (1.3) effect of irradiation on "ceramic" materials, (1.4) exposure and dosage for radiation damage experiments, (1.5) apparatus for the measurement of the thermal conductivity of solids, (1.6) effects of radiation on ice -- the thermoluminescence of ice, (1.7) investigation of color centers and other optical properties of single crystals. (2.1) radiation chemistry of liquids, (3.1) radiochemical investigation of the spontaneous fission of Cm242, (3.2) radiochemical service, (3.3) on the one-body model of alpha, (4.1) spectrographic analysis, (4.2) chemical analysis, (5.1) the 60-inch cyclotron.

Report issued by the Argonne National Laboratory discussing engineering properties of diphenyl. As stated in the abstract, "data collected from the literature on the vapor pressure, enthalpy, liquid density, and vapor density of pure diphenyl are presented. A Mollier diagram, a temperature entropy diagram, and data on viscosity of diphenyl as a function of temperature are also presented" (p. 5). This report includes tables, and illustrations.

This technical report describes work done on the electrolytic refining of natural uranium in fused salt baths composed of various eutectics of alkali metal chlorides in which were dissolved UF, or UCl3.

The ZPR-I is a facility to study low power critical assemblies using enriched uranium as fuel, having a light water moderator and an essentially infinite water reflector on all sides. The fuel is held in elements 43" long with a 1" square cross section. Any of these elements may be placed in or removed from any position in the reactor tank. Thus, any desired core configuration may be easily obtained.