Hanford Laboratories Operation Monthly Activities Report April, 1960

Page 1

HANFORD LABORATORIES OPERATION MONTHLY ACTIVITIES REPORT THIS DC CU MENT HAS BEEN SCANNED AN!! IS STCRED ON THE CPTICAL DISK DRIVE HANFORD ATOMIC PRODUCTS OPERATION

Page 2

This report was prepared as an account of Government sponsored work. Neither the United States, . nor the Commission, nor any person acting an behalf of the Commission: Makes any warranty or representation, expressed or implied, with respect to the accurgcg coppleteness, or usefulness of the informotion contained in this report, or that the use of any informat&, apparatus, method, or process disclosed in this report may not infringe privately owned rights; or Assumes any liabilities with respect to the use of, or for damages resulting from the use of any information, apparatus, method, or process disclosed in this report. contractor of the Commission, or employee of such contractor, to the extent that such employee or contractor of the Commission, or employee of such controctor prepares, disseminates, or provides access to, any information pursuant to his employment or contract with the Commission, or his employment with As used in the above, "person acting on behalf of the Commission" includes any employee o r .

Page 3

Route To: I P. R. No. I Location Route Date This document consists Signature and Date HANFORD LABORATORIES OPERATION mU-w---- MONTHLY ACTIVITIES REPORT Oper a t ion Managers HANFOFLD ATOMIC PRODUCTS OPERATION PRELIMINARY RE PORT

Page 4

Atomic Energy Commission, Hanford Operations Office, G. F. Quinn, Director, Division of Production, Savannah River Operations Office, Aiken, South Carolina

Page 5

Force Report and Personnel Status Changes. Reactor and Fuels Research and Development Physics and Instrument Research and Development Chemical Research and Development Operation , Biology Ope r a t ion Operations Research and Synthesis Operation Laboratory Auxiliaries Operation . Professional Placement and Relations Practices.

Page 6

Manager, Physics and Instrument Research and Manager, Reactor and Fuels Research and Manager, Professional Placement and Relations Manager, Financial... W. Sale

Page 8

BUDGETS AND COSTS Costs for April were $1, 893, 000, a decrease of $179, 000 from March. Fiscal year to date costs are 7670 of the amounts currently authorized to Hanford Laboratories. The major portion of the decrease in April occurred in the programs sponsored by IPD and CPD. Hanford Laboratories research and development programs have the following cost-budget relationship as of A.pril 30. (Dollars in Thousands) cost RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT Reactor and Fuels Research and Development The Phase I11 PRTR contractor is estimated to be about 7970 completed versus a scheduled 9070, based on the official AEC schedule. The bottom PRTR shield h a s been installed and filled with shot, the weld repairs on the calandria have been completed, and a fifth valve has been added to the moderator level control system to limit reactivity addition at low moderator levels. Critical Facility project has been approved by the AEC in the The excessive vibration of the PRTR pumps is being corrected by stiffening the pump supports which had a critical vibrating frequency close to the pump speed, and by adding heavier flywheels, installing new bearings, and precision balancing the assembly. Comments received from the ACRS after their review of the PRTR Final Safeguards Analysis in January w e r e concerned with void coefficient effects, pressure tube ruptures, automatic control, rate of reactivity increase, and certain system interlocks. A d - ditional analyses have been made and a supplement to the Final Safeguards Analysis issued in response.

Page 9

The PFPP is estimated to be 92% complete. line and the zirconium etch facility were accepted from construction during the month. The oxide preparation Unsatisfactory autoclave films on the Zircaloy cladding of the PRTR A1-Pu fuel elements a r e delaying final assembly of the first 30 clusters.Further conditioning of the autoclaves and the availability of permanent etching facilities are expected to correct the present irradiated to high P u burnout a t full power in the ETR showed partial bonding of the core and cladding. As little as one mole per cent p U 0 2 in ZrO2 stabilized the tetragonal format room temperature enough to yield dimensionally stable pellets. However, some monoclinic Zr02persisted up to 25 mole p e r cent of added Pu02. The compound PuAlO3 has been produced from stoichiometric mixtures of A1203 and P u 0 2 in eight hours at 1500 C in hydrogen. Some compound has been formed a t 1 1 0 0 C under the s a m e conditions. The melting point of the compound is 1810 C . Prototypical PRTR tubular U 0 2 fuel elements have been fabricated by vibrational compaction. w i l l be fabricated by vibrational compaction, using integrally ribbed cladding tubes extruded by NMI. A full size tubular PRTR fuel element Fuel rods, composed of various U02 powders contained in various cladding materials,were successfully hot swaged a t cladding temperatures up to 1000 C. Significant improvements on densities obtained by room temperature swaging were achieved in some Post-irradiation examination of the second purposely defected Zircaloy-2 clad, swaged U02 rod revealed long stringers of zirconium hydride, in excess of the original 50 ppm concentration. A third defect test, employing Zircaloy-4 cladding has just been completed in the MTR.

Page 10

Experiments performed to investigate the effects of changes in wire wrap orientation on the coolant temperatures throughout across - section of a 19-rod PRTR fuel element indicate little change in During April two KER loops operated with enriched tube/tube fuel elements a t NPR conditions of heat flux and internal temperature. The exposure of the Loop 2 charge is now 2400 MWD/T. tube elements under irradiation in KER Loop 4 at similar thermal conditions were discharged on A.pril 24 a t 1200 MWD/T exposure after indications of rupture. The ruptured 20-mil Zircaloy-2 clad rod f r o m the KER Loop 1 failure of February 8, 1960, received further examination. A section cut through the base of the split revealed a five-mil wide radial crack in the uranium immediately under the split in the clad. This is the first time a fuel defect has been found to be directly associated with clad failure in testing of coextruded elements. In simulated N P R fuel rupture tests of coextruded, unirradiated samples at 400 and 500 C, induction times were comparable, but the r a t e of rupturing w a s about twice as fast as at 300 C. In the use of a beryllium-containing braze compound for closure of coextruded Zircaloy-2 clad uranium fuel elements, the high brazing temperature of 1050 C has been found t o ' cause undesirable bond growth and crystallographic transformations. It now appears that these effects are much less severe using uranium alloyed with Sheffield steel performs satisfactorily as the bearing surface on a fuel element support down to contact a r e a s between the bearing and autoclaved process tube surfaces of approximately 1/ 8" diameter. However, by adding a lubricant such as water soluble oil, the contact area can be reduced to a point contact and cause no scratch damage to the autoclave film. Preliminary radiometallurgical examination of the remains of 15% cold worked Zircaloy-2 cladding capsules previously burst tested in-reactor resulted in an estimate of two to three per cent of uniform strain. Control specimens burst ex-reactor showed 1'?'%.

Page 11

Results of corrosion tests on zirconium show that all heat treat - ments in air, helium, or vacuum at temperatures of 300 to 700 C for times of 10to 1000 minutes improved corrosion behavior over due to heating in air o r helium previously observed with Zircaloy-2 This contrasts with a deleterious effect Hydrogen which diffuses slowly through a good, protective ZrO2 film into the underlying Zircaloy m e t a l tends to diffuse uniformly through the metal without causing massive local hydriding, as long as the rate of entry is slow relative to the diffusion r a t e in the m e t a l and the solubility limit of hydride is not exceeded. Neither dry nitrogen added to adry hydrogen atmosphere nor a surface plate of chromium successfully prevented hydriding of Zircaloy by molecular hydrogen. A mathematical equation was derived to express the outlet water temperature limits for Hanford reactors as based on thermal amount of experimental data and is expected to s a v e time in determining limits as compared to the graphical method now in The equation is based on a considerable A full-scale test section for heat transfer experiments has been designed to simulate the downstream half of a charge of N P R tube and tube fuel elements. The final formal report on the shielding properties of ferrophosphorus concrete as a function of temperature has been written. dose rate (due to both neutrons and gammas) through four feet of this material in the as-cured condition was found to be due primarily to gamma leakage. at 300 C, the principal contribution came from resonance neutrons. After loss of water through prolonged heating 2. Chemical Research and Development Design was completed fora pilot plant facility at 100-KW to study reactor effluent decontamination by means of aluminum metal beds. A promising method was reported for producing stable uranium (IV) suitable for use as a partitioning reductant in the Pure x process.

Page 12

The method involves straight-forward chemical steps and could prove superior to the Flu rex process developed earlier. Two weeks of continuous operation proved flawless the performance of the ion exchange equipment in the A c e l l of the High Level Radiofission product ratios was satisfactorily separated and purified A synthetic mixture of rare earths typical of Twenty per cent of the technetium entering the Purex Plant was found to follow through with the uranium product and occur a t 4 ppm in the uranium oxide shipped offsite. The addition of ferric oxide to the cesium-zinc ferrocyanide slurry proved effective in stabilizing following hydrolysis and filtration steps in the Fission Product Packaging Prototype. also provided the bases for revised design of leaching and filtering As one of a number of tests in a recirculating dissolver prototype, using the conventional Zirflex process. decladding solution was 0. 03 per cent. Uranium loss to the The novel incorporation of a hydroclone in a by-pass line to canned motor pump bearings gave encouraging preliminary results and may prove to be an innovation which will significantly extend bearing Lowering the Salt Cycle temperature from 750 to 700C during electrodeposition of U 0 2 appears to improve the oxygen to uranium 2. 01; the lowest produced to date (electrochemically). LiC1-KC1 eutectic was tested as a lower melting alternate to NaC1-KC1 but s o m e expected difficulty was observed because of the hygroscopic nature of the lithium salt. to the LiC1-KC1 melt at 450 C was as rapid as a similar operation The first batch made at the lower temperature had a ratio of Dissolution of U3O8 on chlorine addition Very precise measurements showed U02 solubility to be extremely small in molten NaC1-KC1; l e s s than 1 6 ppm.

Page 13

Engineering scale data froma multi-stage agitated-bed ion exchange contactor (called MABIE) showed 80 p e r cent theoretical stage efficiency with excellent system stability over wide ranges of aqueous and resin flow rates. No significant change in cesium absorption was noted for clinoptilolite irradiated to doses up to 5. 5xlo8 r. ported wherein aged Redox high level waste tank supernate was diluted and passed through a clinoptilolite bed with v e r y encouraging cesium extraction resulting. stability of the bed material must await further tests. Laboratory studies arere - The question of long term radiation Over 100 basalt flows were revealed from examination of the drill - ing logs acquired from the Standard Oil Company test well on the Rattlesnake Hills. Seventy p e r cent of the 10, 655 foot section is No significant gross beta activity concentration differences were noted between s a m p l e s taken at the top and bottom of the ground water aquifer in 19 wells tested. 3. Physics and Instrument Research and Development In the NPR program, development and fabrication of the full-scale mockup of the dual scanning type fuel failure monitor is proceeding interim status report, HW-64639. Development of several of the NPR building radiation monitoring instruments is nearing success - good agreement was obtained between PCTR, exponential piles, and theoretical calculations for a tube-in-tube type fuel in one lattice. However, because of the relatively complex geometry, the prediction of neutron capture during the moderating process is not yet generally satisfactory. Development results to date were reported in an Study of lattice physics parameters continued and In the automatic control field, analysis of dynamic behavior of reactor power levels encountered difficulties when analog computer results failed to confirm analytic work. is being sought further. The source of the difficulty In the nuclear safety program, determination of the maximum safe concentration of plutonium i n hydrogenous solvents was the object

Page 14

of a series of experiments begun in the PCTR. Additional information w a s also obtained on the u s e of boron to prevent criticality in dissolving enriched uranium. The last major hindrance to completion of the Critical Mass Labora tory was passed with delivery on April 8 of the control panels and instrumentation. Installation of these is under way. In the Plutonium Recycle Program, experiments continued to determine reactivities of --A1 rods in light water with indications that the minimum critical mass will be near 1. 5 kg. parameters were also obtained for two plutonium fueled graphite lattices. Development began on instruments t o make i n - reactor measurements of PRTR process tube diameters and gas gap spacings between the process and shroud tubes. Our agreed target date of April 30 for obtaining basic lattice para - meters of the more highly enriched (2. 670) Gas Cooled Reactor lattice was met. Effects of fuel temperatures were obtained with one slug diameter up to 750 C. Encouraging results were obtained in two facets of the Nondestructive Testing research. The two variables, clad thickness and air gap thickness in unbonded fuel elements, a r e now being resolved by improved broadband eddy current methods. bonded fuel claddings also w e r e successfully detected by infrared Small unbonded areas in Performance of a laboratory model of a personally carried alarm - ing dosimeter h a s been satisfactory and design of a packaged prototype for field testing was started. Work continued on development of a number of other radiological instruments. transistor i zed beta-gamma scintillation dose rate meter was commodified for use at low (10-150 Kev) energies. lation crystal for the Biology Total Body Monitor was received and tested and is now ready for installation. A previaus ly developed portable gamma energy analyzer was Instrument development assistance was provided fora variety of evaluation of linear motion transducers for i n - reactor creep measure - ments on metallurgical specimens. One major new problem is the calibration and

Page 15

In the basic data field, fission of U236 and U238 by low energy neutrons w a s determined to be …