The fluidized bed incinerator and waste immobilization processes are being developed to process various liquid and solid wastes that are generated by a nuclear facility. The versatility of the incinerator liquid waste handling system has been enhanced by recent changes made in the pumping and related piping system. Tributyl phosphate-solvent incineration has been evaluated thoroughly using the pilot plant fluidized bed incinerator. Vitrified glass pellets were made to determine operating parameters of a resistance-heated reactor and to produce samples for testing. Procedures were developed for testing the product pellets. A simplified start-up procedure was devised as development continued on a second type of reactor, the Joule-heated melter.

Two samples were precracked by fatigue and exposed to separated geothermal brines in a closed autoclave. Final load and crack length were measured and a fractographic examination performed on compact double cantilever beam samples. The fractographs are shown. (MHR)

Analysis is performed for three combinations of fuels, specifically: net petroleum gain (petroleum only); net premium fuel gain (natural gas and petroleum); and net energy gain (includes all fuels; does not include free energy from sun). The base case selected for evaluation was that of an energy-efficient coal-to-methanol plant located in Montana/Wyoming and using the Lurgi conversion process. The following variations of the base coal-methanol case are also analyzed: gasoline from coal with methanol as an intermediate step (Mobil-M); and methanol from coal (Texaco gasification process). For each process, computations are made for the product methanol as a replacement for unleaded gasoline in a conventional spark ignition engine and as a chemical feedstock. For the purpose of the energy analysis, computations are made for three situations regarding mileage of methanol/ gasoline compared to that of regular unleaded gasoline: mileage of the two fuels equal, mileage 4 percent better with gasohol, and mileage 4 percent worse with gasohol. The standard methodology described for the base case applies to all of the variations.

A research program is in progress at Rocky Flats to determine correlations between ultrasonic signal content and diffusion or eutectic bond joint condition, and to develop a computer-controlled scanning, data acquisition and analysis system which utilizes these correlations and waveform analysis techniques. The initial efforts to determine effective ultrasonic waveform parameters to characterize the strength of bond interfaces is complete. A development version of a computer-controlled, automated scanning and data acquisition system is in operation.

Electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) is necessary for forming and sustaining the thermal barrier in the plasma fan region at each end of the large MFTF-B tandem mirror. 1600 kW of gyrotron-generated power at 28 GHz and 56 GHz is planned to meet this requirement. Cold plasma ray-tracing calculations have been started in order to maximize the antenna-to-plasma coupling efficiency during startup of the experiment. However, a hot plasma formulation is needed at later times. In the cold plasma regime, the X-wave is found to be efficiently absorbed, but the O-wave absorption is still quite inefficient for most of the rays considered thus far.