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The attached document includes a plot plan, flow diagram and delineation of basic assumptions upon which the report was developed. It summarizes the work which has been accomplished to date under RDA No. DC-6 in developing a recirculating water system to serve a new reactor. In order to proceed with the work under RDA No. DC-6 it has been necessary to make certain basic assumptions relative to the primary circuit requirements of RDA No. DC-3. These assumptions are explained in the report and are presented by the exhibits contained therein. Subsequent to the compilation of the basic report certain additional considerations have come to the authors attention and are included in the addendum.

Mechanization of the 300 Area slug canning facilities is required to obtain uniform high quality product and to eliminate variables introduced by the human element. The work to be covered by this brochure will cover requirements for mechanization of only the operations occurring within the aluminum-silicon canning bath: can and cap preheating and wetting, canning assembly, and quenching operation. Briefly, this machine will be required to insert a prepared uranium slug into an aluminum can and close the can opening with an aluminum cap. All assembly operations are to be carried out underneath a molten bath of aluminum-silicon bonding alloy. The uranium slug is preheated and prewetted before being transferred to the assembly furnace; however, the process must be so timed that proper preheating and wetting is attained before the slug is inserted. After assembly the completed canned slug is transferred to the quenching station, where the components are to be firmly held together until the molten Al-Si has frozen, forming a homogeneously bonded assembly.

This document presents a summary of work and progress at the Hanford Engineer Works for October 1951. The report is divided into sections by department. A plant wide general summary is included at the beginning of the report, after which the departmental summaries begin. The Manufacturing Department reports plant statistics, and summaries for the Metal Preparation, Reactor and Separation sections. The Engineering Department`s section summarizes work for the Technical Design, and Project Sections. Costs for the various departments are presented in the Financial Department`s summary. The Medical, Radiological Sciences, Utilities and General Services, Employee and Public Relations, and Community Real Estate and Services departments have sections presenting their monthly statistics, work, progress, and summaries.

This report presents the cold shakedown run for the UO{sub 3} plan. One complete batch conversion will be made in each of the eighteen Calcining Pots using unirradiated uranium food solution. The objectives of this series of conversions are as follows. A mechanical test of the conversion units; a shakedown of the unloading, pulverizing and material handling equipment; a functional test of the Nitro Acid Absorber system operating at approximately 5 to 20% of its design capacity; the determination of the optimum temperature and time cycle conditions for 60% UNH feed solution. These conditions may be based upon calcination of the initial charge of 60% UNH solution to form UO{sub 3}, in one pot; a confirmation of the calibration of instruments; and to provide operating experience and process know-how.

This is a memorandum from the Hanford Operations Office about the possibility of tritium wastes escaping into the atmosphere. The waste which is disposed of in burial grounds eventually migrates to the Columbia River where it evaporates into the atmosphere. Also included in this memo is a statement of an error in the units of some data compiled for the monitoring of the tritium wastes. (MB)

This report discusses particle size measurements with a modified cascade impactor of the particulate matter in the dissolver off-gases during the period of maximum gas evolution, and during the air sparge of the dissolver solution after the completion of the dissolving cycle which indicate that the mass-size median of the particles was less than 0.1 micron in both cases. The measurements were made, unfortunately, at a time when the efficiency of the silver reactor upstream to the sampling point was low enough to permit appreciable amounts of iodine through to the cascade impactor. The samples were therefore permitted to decay for thirty-five days before the relative amounts of radioactivity on the stages of the impactor and the follow- up filter paper were evaluated. The size of the particles obtained, 0.1 micron, should be considered primarily as an order of magnitude rather than an absolute value, because the cascade impactor (as well as any other impaction device) can not give an accurate value for the particle size in this size range.

A kinetic product study of the carbonate cleavage of malonic ester has been made, and it is shown that the formation of carbonate from malonic ester in alkaline solution involves the direct fission of the half acid ester.

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A summary of the work which was done on the small pilot plant during the week's operation shows the following: (1) High vaporization rates can be obtained from a vibrating flash plate. (2) Feeding powder to the plate at a constant and controllable rate presented some difficulty. This may be overcome by pumping between Victoprene seals, proper outgassing of the powder, using a smaller diameter screw, and sloping the feed screw upward to avoid translation of the powder by vibration. (3) Deposition rates could not be properly studied because of high noncondensable pressures. There is an indication that too high a flow rate favors the deposition of ZrI/sub 2/ if the filiment temperature is too low. (4) No corrosion of the flash plate was evidenced during the short period the plant was in operation. A thorough study of corrosion must be made, however, since the entire process may depend on the durability of the flash plate. (5) This type of equipment offers a means of rapidly obtaining good data at a low cost on the fundamentals of an iodide-flow process for the production of zirconium metal. (auth)

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The recuplex Process is proposed by the Process Assistance group of the Separations Technology Unit as a feasible method for the simultaneous and efficient recovery of waste materials in the 234--5 Building and direct coupling of the product steams from the Redox and Bismuth Phosphate Processes to the 235-5 Building operations. Demonstration of the feasibility of the process has been accomplished through the cooperative efforts of the Chemical Research, Chemical Development, and Process Assistance groups of the Separations Technology Unit and LTS described in this document.

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The outstanding economy of the Redox process when compared with the BiPO{sub 4} process dictates that as much production as possible, and as soon as possible, should be shifted from the BiPO{sub 4} process to Redox (202-S). It is proposed that the capacity basis for the subject study be for as much as 200 tons of uranium and up to 105 kilograms of plutonium per month, assuming that facilities proposed for these capacity levels will not interfere with the operating flexibility of the plant, if it is required to produce at the original rate of an average of 75 tons of uranium per month with the attendant plutonium.

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This is a technical progress report for the Research and Development, and 234-5 Metallurgy Groups of the metallurgy-pile technology unit for the period Oct 1951. Numerous reports are attached under the general areas: P-10 alloy development; uranium metallurgy; metallurgy of Hanford structural materials; radiometallurgy, facility development; plutonium metallurgy program; canning development; plant service work; 234-5 metallurgy group, plutonium metallurgy program.

The relative physiological and toxicological properties of americium and plutonium have been studied following their intravenous administration to rats. The urinary and fecal excretion of americium was similar to that of plutonium administered as Pu(N0{sub 3}){sub 4}. The deposition of americium the tissues and organs of the rat was also similar to that observed for plutonium. The liver and the skeleton were the major sites of deposition. Zirconium citrate administered 15 minutes after injection of americium increased the urinary excretion of americium and decreased the amount found in the liver and the skeleton at 4 and 16 days. LD{sub 30}{sup 50} studies showed americium was slightly less toxic when given in the acute toxic range than was plutonium. The difference was, however, too slight to be important in establishing a larger tolerance does for americium. Survival studies, hematological observations, bone marrow observations, comparison of tumor incidence and the incidence of skeletal abnormalities indicated that americium and plutonium have essentially the same chronic toxicity when given on an equal {mu}c. basis. These studies support the conclusion that the tolerance values for americium should be essentially the same as those for Plutonium.