Recovery at Trinity

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Recovery at Trinity In confirmation of a conversation with Carlson, November 24, 1944, I should like to state our estimates of the equipment whieh will be necessary for the chemical recovery at Trinity. Our general procediare for the removal of material from Jumbo we now think will be as follows. As much of the mixture of liner, tamper, and HE decomposition products as possible will be removed from the vessel as a dry. solid» placed in driais and shipped back to Los Alamos for separation of the 25* The remainder of the 25 will be removed from Jumbo by a water wash and a leaching operation with concentrated nitric acid* The resulting large volume of strongly acid solution can be shipped back to Los Alamos or treated at Trinity to extract the 25. Lt. Shaeffer is now firing a series of shots vising tuballoy spheres inside the old spherical Jumbino on whieh we shall determine what percentage of the tuballoy can be removed as a solid and what percentage is removed by acid leaching• The first of these (a three-quarter inch diameter tuballoy sphere inside a 12" diameter Jumbino) showed 9S% in the dry solid and 7% in the acid wash. I want to make it clear that, even should all the small scale shots show approximately this distribution, we do not want to commit ourselves to getting any of the 25 baek from the full-scale test by suoh a simple operation as shoveling it out* It is iq> to an ordnance expert to decide how such an effect will seale* It seems possible that the melting of the inside stirface of Jumbo predicted by lliilsskopf might become noticeable with two tons of HE, and complicate the dry recovery* I want to emphasise this point because all the recovery that we can get with no laboratory spaee at Trinity is that material which we can scrape out of the vessel with a scoop and we cannot predict hew low this might be. The following is a suaunary of the space required for the operations which we think may be necessary to get complete recovery. 1. Removal of dry solid from Jiatbe. Some sort of scaffolding and 2. Water wash of Junbo. Roofed concrete slab adjacent to Jumbo in iriiieh to do pltaibing and to provide storage space} electric power to operate ptBips and toolsI a room 12* x 20' to be used as a chemical laboratory for

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analyses, preferably adjacent to Jxmibo, equipped with water euad electric power; at least 1000 gallons of water at Jumbo; use of crane truck (^ ton capacity) to mount tanks. These requirements are all met by building listed 3. Acid treatment of Jumbo. A. If acid solution is hauled baek to Los Alamos for subsequent treatment — equipment as listed under =§2, steam for heating purposes, acidresistant tanks in which to haul solution to Los Alsmos (total solvition to be transported may be as much as 1000 gallons). B. If acid solution is processed at Trinity. The attached drawing shows a building which meets all requirements listed under =§2 and ^ A . It sho\ild be adjacent to Jvubo — acid solution to be processed here and solid sent back to Los Alamos. To sinmiarixe the above, if no recovery is contemplated except that of whatever material can be removed from Jumbo as a dry solid, no space is necessary at Trinity. If washing of the vessel is to be done, space for tanks, pumps, analyses, and plmbing work must be provided. If the resulting solutions are to be shipped back to Los Alamos, suitable vessels must be acquired. If the solutions are to be processed at Trinity, a building similar to the attached sketch must be built* If it is desired to get the 25 back in as short a time as possible, all installations should be coopleted at aa early enough date so that the operations ccui be tested before the actual recovery is done.