Hanford Laboratories Operation Monthly Activities Report April, 1959

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THIS DOCCME?JT HACE ZEN SCANNED IS STORED ON TXE O?TIZA!. DISK DRIV EA N D HANFORD ATOMIC PRODUCTS OPERATION

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This report was prepared as an account of Government sponsored work. Neither the United States, nor the Commission, nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission: Makes any warranty or representation, express or implied, with respect t o the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of the information contained in this report, or that the use of any information, 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. As used in the obove, "person acting on behalf of the Commission" includes any employee or contractor of the Commission to the extent that such employee or contractor prepares, handles or distributes, or provides access to, any information pursuant to his employment or contract with the Commission.

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This document consists HANFORD LABORATORIES OPERATION MONTHLY ACTIVITIES REPORT HANFORD ATOMIC PRODUCTS OPERATION This report was prepared only for use within General Electric Company in the course of work under ' Atomic Energy Commission the report are those of the authors only, Any views or opinions expressed in

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Atomic Energy Commission, Hanford Operations Office Savannah River Operations Office , Aiken, South Carolina

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Force Report and Personnel Status Changes Reactor and Fuels Research and Development Physics and Instrument Research and Development Chemical Research and Development Operation. Operations Research and Synthesis Operation. Radiation Protection Operation. Laboratory Auxiliaries Operation. Professional Placement and Relations Practices

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Manager, Hanford Laboratories.. Manager,Operations Research and Synthesis. Manager,Physics and Instrument Research and Manager, Radiation Protection. Manager,Reactor and Fuels Research and Manager,Professional Placement and Relations

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BUDGETS AND COSTS Costs for April were $1, 832,000, a decrease of $54, 000 from the month of March.Fiscal year - P o - date costs are $16, 001, 000 o r 7870 of the operating the additional funds required for the Plutonium Recycle and Swelling Studies programs which were forecasted in our Midyear Budget Review. A request is being made to HOO-AEC to provide RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 1. Reactor and Fuels Phase I PR TR construction is 9370 completed versus 99% scheduled. Phase I1 PR TR construction is 90% completed versus 9770 scheduled. Phase II-A PR TR construction is 63% completed versus 88% scheduled PFPP Phase I1 construction is 977” completed versus 99% scheduled. extended contract completion date is May 10. is 1570 completed versus 1370 scheduled. A scope revision to add a gamma - neutron burst detector system to the PFPP has been submitted. A 100-hour hot loop test of the PRTR shaft - seal primary pump has been completed with performance, including leakage,well within specifications. draw‘ings have been completed. Procurement has started. Project CGH-834 (high pressure heat transfer apparatus modification) has been approved, and design and procurement have been started. Beneficial use on NPR design testing is expected within four months. Out - o f - reactor creep tests of Z irc alo y - 2run at 18, 000 psi and 400 C show the creep rate for45percent cold worked specimens to be approximately 30 percent greater than that for 25 percent cold worked material. are being awarded to three different vendors on the basis of demonstrated fabrication competence and bids submitted. orders is expected to be started in May. Fabrication work on these The first 20Z irc alo y - 2PR TR process tubes have arrived at Hanford, and 30 more have been inspected at the vendor ’ s plant and are ready for ship - ment.The balance of the 100-tube order is expected by the end of June.

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traction for a Hanford equivalent exposure of approximately 7000 MWD /AT. This confirms the bulk of the previous data with the exception of one high have been installed in the MTR and the E TR. New high temperature graphite irradiation experiments The degradation of pre - defected, coextruded uranium - zirconium clad fuel elements in water at 200 t o 300 Chas been studied by measuring the volume of hydrogen gas evolved as a function of exposure time at temperature. Typical tests at 300 C show a 50-minute induction period with essentially no hydrogen evolution, followed by hydrogen evolution equivalent to a corrosion rate of 0. 2 g of uranium per minute, increasing to 1. 1gper minute after two hours. Standard e x - reactor rupture tests of pre - defected, coextruded U - Z r clad fuel elements continue to show a quite tolerable time - deformation TWONPR tubular fuel elements have attained an exposure of 1350 MWD/T in A tubular element has been shipped to the ETR for irradiation at a specific power about three times the maximum expected in NPR. Light swaging reductions of NPR fuel rod induce variable cold work in the jacket that leads to spotty and excessive grain growth during subsequent uniform grain size results in the jacketing. If the reduction of area is greater than about 12 percent, A simple method for providing intermediate supports on rod cluster elements Examination of a cored coaxial fuel element has been completed in Radiometallurgy.The entire inner tube was found t o have operated in the beta phase and increased in volume about seven percent. However, i t did not Formal approval has been received from Washington to install the 6x9 loop in the ETR. with stainless steel elements to determine the gamma heating. The first experiment, scheduled for mid-May, will be atest Feasibility of large diameter U02elements was indicated by a n uneventful irradiation of 3/4” diameter capsules a the at fluxes of ca. BTU / h r / sq. ft. A central void and radially oriented grains were formed. The final shipment of enriched U02rings to Atomic s International was made. These rings will be irradiated in SRE in two fuel assemblies.

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Slight additions of Pu02 to U02markedly decrease the sintered density of density for small additions, but a t 10 w / o PUOg the sintered density is slightly greater than for U02 alone. Additions of mixed crystal oxide to U02decrease its sintered AU02 - Pu02 solid solution obtained by sintering a mechanical mixture of the oxides was found to dissolve in acidic solution at nearly the same rate as mixed crystal oxide obtained by chemical co -precipitation. Pu02 and graphite heated to 1100 C in vacuo produced a mixture of pU2C3, 2.Chemical Research and Development Laboratory experiments and Purex "Mini" runs were continued to confirm and extend the useful range of a reducing environment during the removal of neptunium in the 2A - 2B Pure x columns from 3WB backcycled waste. Increasing the system temperature was investigated as well as varying the concentrations of re duct ants and nitric acid. were investigated and found to be primarily aluminum,iron, and silicon. Solids in the 3WB stream Laboratory experiments on Purex aqueous waste of current composition showed the cerium and promethium can be readily precipitated as sulfate salt with good yields.Preliminary tests on the use of ion exchange tech - niques for recovery of americium were also encouraging. Product Isolation and Packaging Prototype is nearing completion. On Non-Production Reactor Fuels Processing technical studies,simulated cutting of NaK containing fuels continued to explore methods to minimize hazards. Cold sawing methods received more attention because less small particulate matter resulted from their use. Modifications were made to the Has tell oy - F pilot plant to permit dissolution of stainless steel using the Sulfex process. Bench scale preliminary runs were initiated to pilot the larger scale studies. Niflex pilot runs continued t o show small undissolved residues of stainless steel from stainless clad uranium rods. ferric ion to stabilize U-Mo dissolve r solutions continues to look Preliminary batch calcination studies on simulated formaldehyde treated Purex 1WW waste appear encouraging with residue volumes of less than two gallons per ton of uranium feed. A cooperative effort was continued to determine the behavior of similar synthetic Pure x waste during calcination in a fluid bed facility a t the Argonne National Laboratory.Product powder fusion was observed as low a s 600 to 680 C and may establish an upper limit on operating temperature. Arsenic,gallium, and copper were measured in the parts - per - billion range in aluminum using neutron activation analysis.

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Laboratory study of volatile fission product evolution from small uranium cylinders having low irradiation histories have been extended to include the effects of aluminum jackets in a flowing air atmosphere. aluminum oxide particles were dissipated throughout the downstream regions of the system,a behavior not observe data system temperature of 1200 C. For bare uranium heated in a flowing helium atmosphere far less iodine, tellurium and xenon were evolved than was the case for air whereas more cesium was released. This behavior in a helium environment followed Further work on molten salt cycling of U02 by oxidation-reduction in molten alkali chloride included an experiment using a 5/1 mole ratio U02-pU02 obtained by filtering dissolved U02C12 from the remaining residue after phosgene was bubbled through the melt for two hours at 800 C. A uranium - plutonium separation factor of about 60was The UF6 mass spectrometer was modified to analyze for mercury isotopes. Five to ten milligram samples of natural mercury gave relative isotope distributions within 21percent of accepted values. Plans were established for the drilling of ten closely - spaced hydrological wells north of Gable Mountain to provide a ground water sampling complex to determine as quantitatively as possible the dispersal of solutes in the ground water domain. A laboratory model representing a two - dimensional slice through a crib was used to obtain data to test a mathematical representation of the flow pattern beneath acrib.Moisture content and tension measurements were made at32positions over the face of the model. The data, when applied in the previously derived unsaturated flow formula,will permit estimates of the flow pattern beneath the crib. A field test facility was installed at a site southwest of Gable Mountain. site chosen consists of a 15-foot profile of uniform so ii above the water the application of laboratory column data to the prediction of the break - through curve for a crib. Small - scale crib experiments will be performed here to demonstrate The exponential pile program for the NPR has been accelerated so that two experiments can now be run concurrently. received and the first lattice with a tube-in-tube element was constructed. Tubular fuel elements have been In the critical mass field experiments continued on 370 enriched uranium in both heterogeneous and homogeneous situations. Also, a series of water - moderated exponential experiments were completed with 1. 2570 enriched

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I and E type fuels Invitations for bids for construction of Phase I of the Critical Mass Labor a - tory were issued by the AEC. Bid openings are now scheduled for May 20. The acquisition and assembly of materials and equipment for this summer ' s atmospheric dispersion experiments was on o r ahead of schedule. erection of poles and towers proceeded satisfactorily exclept for an accident on April 22 when a n 18-foot section of a tower under ' construction fell and seriously injured an offsite contractor ' s employee. The order for the new analog computer was placed with delivery in October estimated by the vendor. PRTR, and from other sources continues high. Meanwhile, the backlog of problems for NPR, Orderly progress was made on the many projects in the instrument field, among which the installation of a continuous flow stack gas monitor a t 100-D, and the check-out of the central station equipment for the Radio - telemetry Network were notable. In the basic data field, information was obtained on the rate of energy exchange between thermal i zed neutrons and graphite at various temperatures, cross sections for neutron scattering in water were obtained at near - thermal energies, and final values of the age of 950 kev neutrons in water and kero - s ene were derived from previously obtained data, 1-131 in rodent thyroids dropped to about two percent of what it was one year seems to b e developing a thyroid tumor. between 5, 000 and 10, 000 rads. Thyroid dose is estimated Assaulting animals with both plutonium and X - irradiation does not appear to harm the animals more than the sum of the separate effects caused by mrt her work on attempting to remove pU23902 from lungs with NaCl aerosols did not show as much promise as a therapeutic tool as earlier A study was completed for the Chemical Processing Department covering the costs of degradation resulting from the blending of various enrich -