Monthly Summary of Activities February 1948, U S Atomic Energy Commission

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Thid document consist so fI~ a pages Office of Budgets MONTHLY SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION

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Engineering and Construction ................ Research and Development .................... Biology and Eiedicine......................,. Organization and Fersonnel.. ................ Budget and Finance......... ................. Public and Tedhnical Information............

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Monthly Summary of Activities A dramatic development of the month was the threat of a work stoppage a t Oak Ridge National Laboratory (X-10). dispute arose between the new contractor and the Atomic Trades and Labor Council (AFL) over the terms of a new contract necessitated by the transfer of responsibility for operation from Monsanto Chemical Company t o Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation on March 1. Equally dramatic, yet possibly more significant in the long run, was the observation of negative mesons atthe Radiation Laboratory of the University of California where these particles were produced inthe 184-inch cyclotron. Achievement of this milestone draws attention to current plans forth n design and construction of two bevatrons, particle accelerators which are expected t o make possible the observation of a still greater variety of nuclear phenomena. Notable also was the decision t o raise the level o f product concentration inthe metal discharged from the piles at Hanford, thus reducing the amount of feed material required to produce a unit anount of plutonium,

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Colorado. - Administrative procedures were developed for the operation of the Colorado Raw LIaterials Office at Grand Junction. Drilling on the Colorado Plateau during the month was hampered by weather, but thirty holes were drilled nevertheless. Tennessee. - Flood conditions permitted only a small amount of--d ril ling in Tennessee. Oklahoma. - A comprehensive study of gamma ray well-logging was Advisory Committee. - Attention was given tothe domestic procurenent program by the Advisory Committee for Exploration and Kinin& meeting i n 'frashington on February 25. DuPont's Chief Geologist returned from Era z il where he had been gathering data on monazite possibilities. The AZC geologist investigating beryl ore deposits in Brazil made his report in February.

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For the next six months, atleast, Hanford piles are to be A s Hanford i s equipped t o produce charged with metal rolled in the alpha phase, rather than the garrmaextruded metal used until now. only the latter, NYDC, arranged for initial shipments of alpha-rolled metal by Joslyn Lhnufacturing and Supply Company, of Fort Vayne, Lockport, New York, i n order to det emine whether contracts should also be made with these companies t o supply some part of the requirements. Experimental runs by Simonds Saw and S t e e l Company of and possibly two other companies, were arranged Production of U235 reached a record level in February and shipments were somewhat i n excess of schedules. Fluorothene. - The new Fluorothene Plant began initial production on February 21, 1948. Fluorothene is a plastic material, highly resistant to the corrosive action of special materials used Barrier Production. - Tube fabrication in the new pilot plant i s proceeding with moderate success, despite difficulties caused by use of second-hand equipment and inexperienced personnel. loads of equipment f o r manufacturing base sheet have been received from the Linde Chandler Street Plant, Research and develcpment work directed to improved techniques Stable isotopes. - Collection runs of potassium, rhenium, and indium were concluded. the ten isotopes of tin was started. Separation of the isotopes of calcium and Nine Shipments were made i n February, sixto non-project users. February production and shipments exceeded schedules. necessary to increase the produc't concentration i n metal discharged from the piles. cient use of uranium feed material. One effect of this program should be the more effi -

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SluR blistering. - Schenectady i s extending its studies of crystal structure and orientation in uranium, working with slugs High purity graphitr-. - Following successful trial operations, the pilot plant at Bay City, Xichigan i s expected soon t o be producing at the rate of 3200 ibs. per week, following completion of the last two of four furnsces. L t Yanfora the first Troducti on line began operation inthe Graphite iihchining Build i ~ g(-l.Ol), wi’;h two more i in as to be i n A const.ruction contract was signed and steps were taken t o transfer the S cio to Ordnance '-arks from ” X A to the AEC. It i s expected that this prcperty will be operatco JSthe ScS.ota Lhborstory, similar in purpose tothe ::ounS h box tory,it Dayton.

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mg in ee ring and Construction Redox,- Acceleration was planned for the plant designs a t Hanford, with date of scale-up revised from 15 Yay t o 15 April. A GE representative is being stationed in New York City to effect better liaison with the Kellex Corporation, and premium payments have been authorized for materials needed for the accelerated Schenectady Area discussed with Blaw-Knag Company the possibility of its undertaking engineering responsibility for the Redox pilot plant at that site, can be complete by August 1948, with initial operations i n It i s hoped that buildings Alterations to Building #a,a t Schenectady, were on settler and related equipment should permit a shakedown test Installation of the demonstration model mixerA stainless steel mixerrsett.'sr nodel consisting of 15 stages made into a single unit was sei; up by Standard Oil Development Company and test runs were being made of nitric acid-hexone-amnonium nitrate solutions h simila.: node1 will be sent to ANL for 'lhot'' runs if fe a sibi ? - ityis denonstrated. Raste Metal Recovery Agreement mas reached between NYDO and Kellex on most provisions of a definitive contract, The contractor has presm bed a preliminary flow sheet for a solvent extraction type Scale a t Kellogg's Jersey City plant,to be augmented by tracer studies when laboratory facilities become available there, probably Void" chemistry studies were initiated on a small Representatives of AEC and GE met with representatives of Carbide and Kellex t o discuss the waste metal recovery studies the latter are conducting. GE accepted the sampling device and procedure designed by Carbide and during the month provided a 30-gallon sample of waste supernatant t o the staff at K-25 for analysis and initial tracer level studies,

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Beryllium safety hazards. - NYDO concluded that continued operation of the Lorain plant of the Brush Beryllium Company, which i s necessary to satisfy AEC requirements, should be permitted only on the condition that cert a iq stipulations of NYDO'S Medical Division and Publio Information Branch be met and strictly observed durlng operation of this plant. ORDO is negotiating with the Trans-Tennessee Gas Company relative to bringing natural gas t o Oak Ridge, will be ready for the Commission's consideration i n hilarch. A formal co h tract Construction of New Plants Hanford piles, - Topographieal surveys were completed for wall footings was well started for Replac2ment Pile Building Pouring of concrete for the process block and the Building 234-5. - Construction of t h e Metal Casting Building (234-5) and of aerial trunk cable through North Richland have been included inthe CPFF contract held by Atkinson-Jones Company. Initial operation of the 234-5 Building i s estimated for January 1, Brown Oxide Plant. - A lump-sum contract for $664,741 was sign-d and ' construction started on Harshaw's new brown oxide plant in Cleveland. Mound Laboratorz, - Construction work was about 85 percent complete atthe &nd of February, Construction of Community Facilities Hanford employment, - The rapidly rising number of construction workers engaged on Hanford housing, plant, and public vrosks projects is indicated belaw:

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Richland Village housing, - The 450 pre cut houses were 80 percent compl & te, ' against scheduled progress of 100 percent. Forty-five ofthe 81 completed houses were occupied. The 500 permanent type houses were 19 percent complete, compared with scheduled progress of 47 percant. One had been A lump-sum contract for $9,312,460 to build 1,000.houses (950 of 3-bedroom, 50 of &bedroom size) was signed with the joint venture f i r m of Nettleton, Baldwin and Anderson, Inc., and Sound Construction and Engineering Company, planned for mid-April, first completed houses for late June, and final completion for November 1948. - Initial construction is - _ Housing demand and supply are shown by the following figures : Total houses leased 3,853 3,903 Total houses available - Housing applications pending 1,819 1,Sg6 North Richland construction camE. - The first trailer resident moved i n February 9 and by the end of the month 360 traihrs were i n place. at the c ~ p . GE was authorized t o procure material for additional barracks ' and trailer bathhouses which, when completsd, will enable the camp t o accommodate 19,300 people, including 13,300 workers, i >..I A total of 6,200 workers were living Los Alamos. - There were 1,227 construction workers on the pay roll at the end of February, The contract for Pringfoot houses was increased from 86 t o The location and scheduling of these new houses125 units, depends in part upon decisions as to the demolition of substandard Utilities are being installed for the permanent trailer site is esse rit i ally conplete, to build 152 new housing units. The Normac Company has contracted

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'Construction of Research Facilities Los Alamos. - New Tech Area plans are receiving intensive study from the Los Alanios Laboratory group, the Division of Engineering, and the architects. Argonne National Laboratory. - Space requirements f o r the permanent facilities have bain' setat 1,200,000 square feet. Excavating and foundation work for the first of the temporary bui-ldings was well under way Bzrkeleg. - OCDO author iz xl construction of a Ccntral Research L3boratory Building for the Uni vw s it y of C7liforni.a. Radiation Labora.tory a t a cost of $985,000. Construction xork on t h e sjmchroton was about 99 pzrccnt tion is continuing satis factor ll y. Redesign of the l a - inch cyclotron for proton accelerafinles.- - Bad weather held progress on the Ik tall u rgy Building t o 15 percent of completion, compared with schzdul?d progress of 25 percent. Construction of R.esearch Facilities Brookhaven National Laboratory. - Pile building p is rs, footings, and supports - $ r e r G conplated and construction of the fan house begun. reactor project included (a) the helium system, (b) handling ing progress was 51 per csn t complete, construction 16 percent, and procurement 35 percent for the entire reactor project. Major design work still under way for the H. K. Ferguson Company reported February 27 t h a t engineerKnolls Atomic Power Laboratory. - The extre:nPly severe winter and snow condition has restricted over-all progress t o-~ site during February. About 470 construction workers were on t h e

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Existing AEC research contracts require all results to go through the established de classification program before the in for - mation mag be treated 3s unrestricted, t o be a source of some ir ritz tion and an obstacle to enlisting qualified personnel for AEC researah. OCDO has urged that AZC enter contracts with established research organizations for study of specific problems which can be declared unclassified from the outset. OCDO believes, for example, that work which rrigl;t be done by the University of Ks cons in in determining the nuclear properties of various materials, making use of an electrostatic generator, could appropriately be arranged for on an unclassified basis. This requirement i s believed High flux reactor. - The Reactor Safeguard Conunittee met February 8 and 9in Oak Ridge t o review the hazards associated with the operation of the high flux pile, , Zero power pile. - Equipment was largely assembled and several dry runs were made to test its operation. fission able material will begin i n March, of normal uranium, totaling 18,201r. pounds, were received from Oak and shipped t o Oak Ridge for machining early in Idarch. Xachined blanket pieces The last three shapes wers cast by idallinckrodt Brookhaven meteorological progl'am. - To in sure complete safety to project personnel and surrounding communities from air - borne contaminants, steel towers 420' and 160' high areto be construct ed, beginning i n March. These will provide means for carrying out precise weather forecasts, extending t n atmospheric turbulence 1 and other factors affecting the dispersal and dilution of exhaust gases from the reactor stack. Vind velocities and temperature readin gs will be taken at eight fixed elevations on the higher tower, and similarly at five fixed elevations on the second tower. Instrument readings will also be taken along a wire raceway running between the two towsrs. Men sive studies of smoke behavior are planned prior to starting up the reactor. Yind observations will be made from several other nearby elevated points and various readin gs will be recorded by a network of ten surface weather recording s ht ions which will surround the laboratory at varying distances, These studies should prme valuable i n deciding where to locate future reactors in relation to populous areas.

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It i s now tentatively planned, subject to budgetary approval, that BEC will sponsor construction of two Bevatrons. duce protons of approximately 2.5 - 3billion electronvolts and will be designed and constructed by t h e Brookhaven National Labor2tory. The other will impart energies in the range o f seven billion electron volts and will be designed and constructed by the Radiation Laboratory atthc University of California prove possible at these energy levels. Abundant meson production should Negative mesons (of rrass 313 - 16 electron masses) were observed a t WRL during the bombardment of carbon with 380 MEV alpha particles in the 18k1'cyslotron. were observed i n photographic emulsions, produced stars at the end of their range. These particles are apparently identical wich the p i mesons observed i n COS~ICCray experiments, Even with existing equipment, progress in this field of discovery m y no2 be greiitly accelerated, asthe observed intensities are about 10 from cosmic rays. Cosmic Ray Studies Most of t h e mesons, whose paths I n cooperation with the Office of ihval Research, Brookhaven's Physics Department made arrangements for successive four-hour flights to altitudes of 25,000 feet to study the interaction of cosmic rays with different nuclei, using seven dozen photographic plates shielded by materials varying widely i n atomic number. Materials and Metallurgv A rrietallurgy information meeting was held atthe krgonne National Laboratory on February 12 and 13, attended by about 75 representatives of various AEC installations, which met all urd and ceramics research could most fruitfully be expanded were discussed. The directions in Beryllium chloride. - Analysis by XIT indicates that very pure BeC12 can bi: manufactured from Be0 by t h e Sheer-Korman process. may offer to sponsor pilot plant operations by Laboratory for Elecall types of low-grade beryllium ore. The process suggests a low-cost method for bene fic i ation of

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Uranium powder. - Plans for quantity production of porous uranium powder by icetal Hydrides, Inc, were alto red because of the extreme fire hazard Fnvolved i n shipment. and testing will be followed by direct preparation i n …