H Division Progress Report, H-238 (May 20 - June 20, 1956)

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1. An employee of the Ordnance Crrmund spent t v o weeks with the Group for Leo Cheliu departed for the Pacific Proving Grounds on June ll. training i n plutonium monitoring during this montn. ‘1. on JlhDa 5 taw oi rarr rr0ck-m tuballoy and ora ~ o yn eutrm - i e assanblles received irOm PPG wao disanrembled a t S Site. outer blast ic container wa6 not activated nor contaminated. monitored rea$ 5 mr/hr end the c w t was thought to be due to the activation of t b sulphur content; the mock-HE was negative. The aluminum s h e l l was cracked and rcrd 300 mr,/hr shield open a t contact; this reading was thought to be due to radiation from the inner nuclear components. The f i r s t oralloy shell read 600 mr/hr inside background fran nanirradiatad oralloy. Final bisa$sanblies were xaade a t W-7. It VM found that the The rubber pruldlng ThC thild and inner sheU read 1 r/hr, or 8bout t h i r t y timer 0010.1 The dosage and air samples were all negative. 2. A Pu arrcmbly filled vith helium gas was evacuated at S Site. An Up tooperator wear laga Ccmfo mask removed a cap and replaced it with a valve. 1500 c/m were detected in the vicinity of the valve and two spots of 20,000 c/m were found on the floor. t o the atamsphere. Next tima, it may be wire t o Incorporate a filtering aevice while ranovhg the cap if this is mechanically feasible. The helium @LO met have carried sane Pu contsmination 3. On Jhne 7, W-3 relesaed appmximately 6 curies ~f trititm fKlm a assembly by diluting it with oxygen. Scott Air Paks were worn d po ~ res bin gabove 10 divisions on the 5-scale wa

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Number of Dloabling InJUries B. Industrfal Accident rience There were no l o r t tim injuries during this repart period, al.th~u& one, of a mlnor nature, is panding final diapositian. There were no Laboratory fire losses for t h i s report period. D. Motet Vehicle Accldtnts Jan. 1 to W e 1, 1956 9 2 2 Number of Accidents 13 30 Rate (Accidents per 100,OOO Miles 1.65 1.66 improper backing. TOW. vehicle damage: sll.57. Roy Relder and Austin Burch attended the AEC S d e t y and Fire Protection 3. Austin Burch returned from the Pacific PFOving Grounds May 22. 4. On the 12th of' Jtme, Aurrtln Burch gave a talk e t the Nev Mexico S t a t e 21st of May t o discuss safety matter6 with the Group Leader. Meeting at Berkeley, Cslifornla, May 22 Uwugh May 25. Military Weapons on the Fire Service". of H-Division on the 13th of June. 5 . George Henderson, EtsA Technical Repnrentatlve, visited various members 6. Roy Reider departed for the Pacific Proving G K I p a d . the 14th of Sune. 7. A meeting WM held ~ 5 t hrepresentatives of CWR-9 Vith rerpect to their liquid hydrogen-cooled magnet work. being used at the Berkeley Laboratory with rtspcct to Liquid under way to run a scaled test i n an effort to determine whe hydrogen when ignited igpitcs with explosive force. The Group Leader reported ea the. procedures 8 . The Lo8 Alemos AEC Safety Office nguceted our c m t 6 on an article Powder". It I s plarrnedentitled "Fire Protection Precautions for urarrium Scrap,

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ito bring this article up-to-drtt and republish it. body of the article, but suggested a stronger treatment be g i v m to the uranlrnn We concurred with the ppain 9. SCBIC concern b.been voiced about the porsible - Approximately U O submarine batteries are proeat Irechar- in this area. have been ma& and there have been no detectable concentrations of hydrogen one foot fraa the battery vents. as the batteries are being charged. concerned safety 6s it applies to OUT high explosive8 areas. Three recent checks of t h i s -far & caacrntnttlm A check Vill be made of thir w e b once 8 week for an long 10. Three lectures were given for the AESS Refresher Course. The Payroll Of'fice has informed ai15office of the following statistics in connection vith the Civil Defenee Test Evacuation held on May 1: The Safety Office was consulted by John Vineyard, Safety Engineer of Ntmber of caployees who did not participate - 409. It appears that 2010 earployees left work to parbicipate in the Livemore, California, Laboratory of UCRL on June 13, concerning design of chemical laboratories handling explosives. Petroleum Campany Rocket Fuel8 Plant at McGregor, Texas, on operating procedures established in explorives operations. The shake-table creates as hi& as 25 Os end 2000 cps and is considered a serious Repneentatives of this office weyed the proposed site at TA-33 for t h e installation of a new "hot" machine shop tbat involved cxploaive fragmentation 13. This office was also consulted by Burl McGafiahan of the Phillips Suitable reccmnendations were made to the Ebglneering Dtparbent. 16. Recently our supplier of bottled hydrogen gaa (Linbt of Denver) has refused to fill SpUn-tYpe cylinders vith hydrogen. of this type cylinder leaking hydrogen at the center of the Their refusal to fill our spun-type cylinders presented a p They have hd wveral incidents mgnitude for the Laboratory since roughly 34 of our cyliadc s-oun typt. It L s estimated that if we were able to type cylinders, It

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Laboratory will phase out this type of cylinder and will use thu prirrrily for spun type, for hydrogen. It wan wert ed that ve drill t h e*c e base oxygen and izrcrt -em. existing cylinders preeently used for of the rpun-type cyli- ~ n dput a sealed plug in them. ~n taa'-itztfwc, t h i o appears to be much too expensive. Consultant t o the Laboratory on gaa problems, for his recomandationr. With rU&t nrodificatlon, it is bell The follawing perronnel attended the American Nuclear Society meeting In chicago June 6-8, and gave the folloving papers: Payne -E, "MeMCuurmmnt of Radiation Dose from Vsrious Los Alamor, The above namsd personnel also visited Argonne, vhere they discussed power f'unction w i t h regard to publishing their decieions in the next issue of the Recamendations of the Intunational Cammission on Radiological Protection. Subccamlttce on Incineration of Radioactive Varte. Oak Ridge, May 30-June 3. Radiobiological. Laboratory, June 14-16. Society i n Ann Arbor, Michigan, June 8-10, where he pniented a paper entitled "Measurement of ]Excretion, Retention, and Distribution of R S d i d 9 q Ilotopes by Wright Lmghan MB in Boston May 3l-June 1 to attend the meeting of the John S t a r e r attended the meeting of the Biomedical Program Directors in 'drlght Langham attended the annual meeting of t h e University of Utah, Wright Langham attended the second annual meeting of the Health Physics

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of the shielding survey which was recently made in Japan. Anderson aad K e n t T. WooQmrd. Declaaslficd to be used as a A. "Determination of Internally Dcporlted Radioactive Isotopcs fram Ejrcretian AnalyseD", by W r i g h t E. LQn&an. submittad for publication in the AIHA Ott. Submitted for publication in the Internationel Journal o f Applied Radiation "Lipaid Scintillators. 111. The wenching of Liquid Scintillator "Inherent. Tuconeistancier in Fluorescence and Scintillation Spectra", ' I Reactions of 1,2-Epoxibes w i t h Salts of Organic Bases. the .a.C h a . SOC., 78, NO. 11, June 5 J 1956, pp 2527-2528. "The Effects frcrm Massive Doses o f High Dose Rate CanmLe Rsdiation on Monkeys", SECRET KD, Joint report of work performed by Group H-4 of LASL and the School of Aviation Medicine, Ftandolph Air Force Base. c . Major of Pro mrs in s cc tim s 1. Blochenistry Section (R. Gordon oould, Section Leader) a. In vitro Studfcs of Uptake by Bone of Plutonium, Strontium, and the mechanism of uptake of such ions as Pu+4 , Y+3, and rare ewth salts by bone. Cure nt work has been devoted to Fnvestigatlng The principal technique used i s one which has recently gained Wide acceptance in Investigating bone chemlatry, namely in v i t r o uptake studies. It has been found that maoy of the reactions undergone by bone in the k a t tsba e r e meenin- in explaining what heqpens in the body. reactions of bane are not mediated by enzymes but rather are namely. exchmgc reactions.

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In the prerent study wu-iow bone Aaetioar have been used v i t h ~u ina suitable buffer solution and from the uptake rates it isam sanething about Pu uptake by bone --i n vivo. Much t o our rurpri mineral phase of bone, both as ash (prepared i n a muffle f mineral obtained by alkaline treatment, took up far @eater greater rates than did organic fractions. Further quantifatlot rtady rhoved that this uptake probably VIS surface adsorption. uptake is not influenced by Cs* i n solution, indicating t h a t the Pu uptake could not be an ion exchange with Ca, as happens w i t h uranium. applied t o the body situation are results obtained by implanting various bone fractions i n t o the peritoneal cavity of rats, where they could be bathed by tirrrue fluids. The reeulte pamlleled the --i n v i t r o findings, namely, that bone mineral strongly takes up plutonium where organic fractions do not. In SMIPBC~, we feel these studies indicate that it is not the orgsnic fraction of bone that takes up plutonim, but mar plutopritm i~ datporittd in bone mineral along capillary zwhs Auxi liq ucperiments showed that this Indicative of the possible merningfUness of there findings vhen Nothing new t o report. Organic Chanlstry Section (Wight H. Langhem, Section Leader) tritium-labeled ,!!-sitosterol were made f o r the Bloclmmistry Section using eesentially the iame procedure as dercribed previously (April 1955), and auploying the tritirnn water-acetic acid mixture (approximately 55 curies) recovered from the previous m a . in a previous preparation. radiation-decmposition products, ora marked dependence on temperature for the These specific activities are considerably lower than MI obtained The cause may have been piosoning of the catalyst by 4. Radiobiolow Section (John B. Storer, Section Leader) Nothing new t o report.

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The Beryllitan Shop har had a very heavy load during 80 a i r eamples collectad in the shop and ducts and d.1 were Group Q4X-4 msde 2 shots with Beryllium at RSite. bel- 1 pgr/gr soil. Tke respirator filters fram four workmen vere analyzed and The noise and ozone problem associated w i t h operation of a high voltage Ventilation for control of the ozonedischarge device of P-5 WM investimteb. has alraady been recamPended and will be incorporated i n the new P-5 Installation in the Administration Build-. with an impact noise analyzer. srsoclated with a "@haketable" to be installed at WSite. The noise problem will require further investigation Groups E-3 and W - 1 coneulted w i t h the Group regorillng the noise problem A noire survcy VIW made for E-2 to locate a suitable roan f o r audiometric testing. A roan which can be modified f o r this purpose was located. Group €I-5 has been working closely v l t h H-1, H-7, Englneerlng-2, and Ehgineering-4 on a study of air cleaning problems a t Ten Site. Because of the very CcrnpleX maintenance problems involved and the time schedule of Ten S i t e operations the situation has became quite critical. Work on this all continue Ventilation necessary for the new Ebonal taaks a t the TD Plating Laboratory The prellmlnary plans for the new process exhaust system at DP West were reviewed and discussed vith H-1, CMR-7, and CMR-U.. An Inspection was madc of a proposed solvent shed Ia8tallation at DP West. Plans a r e t o be redrawn by Eng-2 t o incorporate needed modifications. H-6 i n the Administration Building. w't!! asbestos floc to increase the filtering efficiency. Reccmnendatione were made i n Eng-2 re@- a fume hood imt all ation for vere coatedThe new bsg filters a t Additional time was epcnt on a final review of the pre tilatian requirements of the nev Si- Buildiw

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Building 5 at DP West was surveyed and air sampling p o l e located in 5 0 0 and 501 for a central air sampling eystem. H-1 w i l l Secure the A paper on "Problems inthe Incineration of Radioactive canpleted f o r presentation at the Health Physics Conference in 1 work on the preparation of a new NBS Bendbook on incineration. Six neu portsble Gast air sauplers (Giraffes) have been campleted end Three of these will be used on the new Omega Glest Reactor. The background sampling prowam harr been continued d d n g the month. The alpha monitoring program a t the SSite AssdlPbly Building has n w been Studies a d reccIpmLDbBtlon8 have been made for safe handling during plastic one day the level reached Mcc the am1back wd level. coatlng of s c ~ era lhundred ~ OUX ~ Sof lithium carbonate atS Site. Group W%-2 h a been working vith -thy1 forrppPide and has been preparing thallium azide. mest operations are being followed closely. TWO phyricisnr and an industrial hygiene engineer from the Ordnaace Department and Pro3ect Sugar visited the Group during this period. spent two weeks with the Group learning various analytic el procedures and visitin;; various sites and aperations. Neu Mexico Health Departaheat spent one day with the Group discuss in^; whole body counting and a propored new radiation control lew for New Mexico. Duncan HolaQy of the U. S Public Health Service and C s r l Jensen of the 1. Air samples collected or field tests made for: Beta backgwnd sample Water samples collected

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Plutoniaap in urine 1% Arptricim in urine Actinium 227 in urine h. Trltim in urine 75 Polonium in urine 15 Beryl liu n in soil 19 Beryllium on swipes 6 W e y Israel returned on June 12 frau Eniwetok, having been gone since b. S. Shlaer l e f t for PPO on May 11 end retuxtad on June U. c. E . Storm left for PPG on May 21 and i s expected t o return the week of June 25. a. A auccaref'ul run was made with our equipPcnt t o integrate the exposure for 24 hours in a f a l l o u t are8 reading about 33 mr/hr 28 hours post detonation. The results show that the TU reads about 2@ high caanpared to Victoreen thimble chub.n (uacalibrated) and Sigoloff ' a chemical dosimeters. A similar ucperFment in a field of older fission products vas c&ed aut j u s t before E. Bclnis left for PPG. The &ta have not been reduced as yet. The equipnent was turned …