Hanford Laboratories Operation Monthly Activities Report January, 1959

Page 1

HANFORD LABORATORIES OPERATION MONTHLY ACTIVITIES REPORT THiS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN SCANNED AND IS STORED ON: THE OPTiCAL DISK DRIVE HANFORD ATOMIC PRODUCTS OPERATION

Page 2

This report was prepared os 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 to 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 respecf 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 above, '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 informotion pursuant to his employment or contract with the Commission.

Page 3

HANFORD ATOMIC PRODUCTS OPERATION This report was prepared only for use within General Electric Company in the course of work under Atomic Energy Commission Contract W-31- 109-Eng-52. Any views or opinions expressed in the report are those of the authors only.

Page 4

Atomic Energy Commission, Hanforc E. J. Bloch, Director, Division of Production, Savannah River Ope rations Office, Aiken, South Carolina

Page 5

TABLE OF CONTENTS Force Report and Personnel Status Changes . . Reactor and Fuels Research and Development Physics and Instrument Research and DevelopChemical Research and Development Operations Research and Synthesis Operation . . Laboratory Auxiliaries Operation ....... Employee Relations Operation ........ Radiation Protection Opera t ion ........

Page 6

Manager, Hanford Laboratories............ Manager, Laboratory Auxiliaries. ........ Manager, Operations Research and Synthesis ... Manager, Physics and Instrument Research and Manager . Radiation Protection......... Manager, Reactor and Fuels Research and Manager, Employee Relations ..........

Page 8

BUDGETS AND COSTS Costs f o r January were $1,609,000, an increase of $38,000 over t h e month of Plutonium Recycle Program costs increased $101,000 in January. funds of $4,880,000 a r e 49$ spent at January 31. further decreased i n January improving the cost -budget relat.ionship RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT Fiscal year-to-date costs are 51s of the operating budget of $20,686,000. I 1. Reactor and Fuels The present PRTR shim control design wlll be replaced by ef%her a floating rod o r powered lead screw (friction) design t o prevent the rod from dropping out of the core inthe event of bead chin failure. Tkie choice will be based upon the results of experimental tests now i n progress;. The status of PRTR consfruetion is: Phase 11, 6@ complete versus 66$ sckeduled; Phase 11-A, 2% complete veraus PFPP building construction i s 6s c@mple+,eversus 7 3 scheduled. Calculations based on present 'PRn design indicate that. the p r k a r y loop pump flywheels are adequate t o prevent st.eam formation after power failure and during the period preceding act iv a tim of back-up power o r decay of the heat. generation rate to a level t.ha% can be dissipated by cccveetive cooling. The PRTR single-tube prototype fa e il iS y has been ac+,ivated azzd operated at 485 F end 1100 psi for a she& period, Calculations indicate that as much as 20$ of" light, water can be tolerated in the D20 prFmary coolant without appreciably affecting the reactivity of PRTRo Design criteria for the gas-cooled loop facility to be installed in PRTR have fuel assemblies for the first loading Q? PRTR w a ~s tar ted dur Lrodg t.he m0nt.h. been coq let ed in rough draft fom. Six swaged four-rod cluster fuel elaeT;Sis, 18 incbea long, consisting of 1.6 w/o enriched U02 in a 0.035-incb wall 304 sts in lees steel cladding, have been discharged from IlER Loop 1 a?t.er an irradiation peri,ad of five months. There was no visible cladding damage or rod dAstorzion. l?abri?at.icm of swaged UO Two Zircaloy rods containing a loose-packed Pu02-UO2 powder mixture were no jacket distortion occurred and the core was easily removable. Using electron microscope techniques, voids have been found at the grain boundaries in irradiated U02, indicating either trapping @f gasee during fabrication or migration of fi sei on gases. A central cavity developed and columnar grains formed, but Mixed PuO2 and U02 powders sintered at 1600 Cfor four hours showed complete solid solution on x-ray analysis. prior chemical procedures appears unnecessary. Formation of mixed crystal U02-Pu02 Ida

Page 9

Strong bonds have been obtained on injection casting of aluminum (Pu-Al stand-in) into Zircaloy tubing. can be eliminated by use of a different outgaesing procedure. It i s hoped that porosity i n the aluminum due t o hydrogen A four-rod PU-A1 cluster was discharged from Loop 3 of the KEFi after several months operatian ata power cf 60 ku/ft> i n 200 C coolaat.. good condition upon visual examim,%ion i n the reactor bash. The clugter was i n Thermocouples located in the coolmf-flow spaces, ina seven-rod cluster fuel assembly show a significant, but not alarming, temperature variation of approximately f 20 C from the bulk exit mt3erten;Ferat.ure ~2f 225 C, when operating The first KEB size NPR seven-rod cluster fuel elemeats have completed irradiation appear t o be unaffected externally. Kter exposure of 120 ~MMD/T in 270 c c3019nt, the element-s pressure drop penalty due tc the use of wire wrag as flow &'promoters in seven-rod cluster fuel elements i s muck less +-hacw d l Frevfouely believed. High-temperature irradiation testing of potential new graphites for the NPR i s being accelerated i n t h e M!El and ETR. C%e new type appears similar t o Kendall A high-temperature graphite irradis+.ion eqerfmeLt has been desi sed and is being constructed for insertion in the L-48 shim red in the MPRe Swelling has been observed i n urani-an metal, ex-reac%zr, though bombardment with xenon ions. parameters of the swelling phe nae not. The pos sibi li + y exfets o? meaningful e x - res c tsr study of the show generally promising failure charsct.erfetizs, wi%5 o Ly Plight Ewellieg and blistering at the jacket pre-deiecf in me. tc t w ~bao=cr-.e exposure. Beta heat -treated rods per3mned mare fawra3l.y t h n as -exr,xde8 material i n the The f a c t that excessively frangible bcsds i n AlSf canned Eanford slugs have been found to fail on sudden application of heat Fs being used a8 a basis for the development of a simple nondestructive test of bond quality. A Zircaloy-2 clad thin wall uranium tube has been fabricated by a direct cast - Controlled extraction of neptunium in the We x EA Column by addition of nitrous acid to the solvent (HAX stream) was shewn tv7 be technically feasible ' Although laboratory studies to dezfrze the most i a wr able operating conditions

Page 10

for this approach indicated near-quantitative neptunium recovery inthe HA Column should be possible, they also indicated that close control would be necessary. In the first three a ys of plant operation, neptunium losses i n the aqueous waste stream (HAW) were below the analytical detection limit. Preceding these plant tests,a third plant extraction of neptunium was very successful with 762 grams recovered. Laboratory work t o develop an anion exchange flowsheet f o r accomplishing purification of the Purex neptunium product was completed. The basic process used was demonstrated successfully inthe plant in purification of the material recovered atthe end of the December run period. Preliminary laboratory experiments show that su3st anti al fractions( > 45 per cent) of the radioisotopes, As 76, P-32, m-56,CU-64 and Zn 65, in reactor effluent water can be removed from solu%ion by passing the hot effluent water through a bed of aluminum turnings. There i s evidence that greater removal is possible by t h i s system such t h a t more than 90 per cent of the AS-76 and P-32 may be removed. sive range of experimental conditions. Studies of tne system are continuing over a more extenInstallation of a new pneumatic charge-discharge facility at t.he ICE Reactor, use o f high density linear polykhene ear yi ers, and modified counter arrangement has reduced the time needed t o get samples for activation analysis from the reactor tothe counter t o seven minutes average. ment of half - lives as low as two minutes; a mjsr inprovement over the former minimum half - life of 30 minutes. ExperFraental measurements of the rat.e of fission product vol at i liz ation from heated uranium indicate a considerable variation among various iso to resin the fraction vol at ili zed in a given length olthe. In tests oq ll-gram irrad - i a t e d bare uranium cylinders, cooled 1 ts 3 days and held at 1200 C furnace temperature, preliminary analytical results indicst.e essentially all the iodine and tellurium is released i n 80 nir;u+es. a t about 0.025 per cent per minute. Cesium vol at ili zed steadily Strontium a c d PuthenFun! releases were An 8-inch by l 0 - foot radiant heat expe ~ ime ~ t a lspray calcine r was put i n operation during the month and i s tc! be used t o extend the work on fixation of Purex waste. Laboratories t o perform scouting c&Lci.mtiorza CE synthetic Purex IWW i n a small fluid bed calcine r to aid the desi@ ~f proposed larger scaie experiments at Hanford. Also, arrangements have been coq let ed for Apgonne National Installation of the fission product isolation and packaging prototype was begun on January 9. per cent complete. this unit to the isolation of fission products other than cesium. Shop fabrication of equipmen% items is approximately 70 Studies are being undertaken t o evaluate application of Installation of the HasteUoy-F pilot plant, di610lver has been completed, first Ni flex d is6Ol U tiO11 of 304-L stain les e steel required additional nitric acid addition t o five stainless steel sclutfon coneenlmtions comparable t o those from laboratory tests.

Page 11

The experimental study of the use of anion exchange t o accomplish purification and concentration of plutonium i n m e x 1BP laas been concluded. indicate that a process consisting of as fig le cycle at anion exchange coupled t o a single solvent extraction cycle such as Purex HA-HS-m Cycle should be capable of producing routinely a 50 gPu / liter product well wlthln present plutonium purity specifications.A single cycle of anion exchange designed t o operate i n remote equipment could thus replace t h e lBS, 2A, and 2B solvent extraction columns and the unshielded anion exchmige contactor presently in use in the Pura Plant. 3 . Physics and Instrument Research and Development The study of .temperature effects ori t.he neuxrori eco zo q of pre3en.t reactors made significant progress with the beginning of aset of experiments to deter - mine the change i n the effect of wa%er on reactivity as the graphite temperaCluster element experiments i n th.e PCTR far t.he New Production Reactor program were completed and the data is currer t ly being analyzed. The experiments on large solid fuels mentioned last mon'h hve csont9mued. Bequests f o r advice on nuclear safe+.ypr?biem have increased i n number. the month recommendations on nuclear safety were made t o all three product departaents as well. as t o other groups in the Laboratories. An experiment to correlate our PCllR meacuz-ementa inthe nuclear safety field with critical mass measurements at OWL has been coq let ed, analysis of the data indicates no sericus disagreement between the two Nuclear safety experiments designed t~ set limits for the handling of low enrichment uranium fuel elements hme cmtiaued bmh here and at ORNL. Inthe Plutonium Recycle Program, ef5or-t was concentzated on techniques for correcting for various perturbing eff ems in PCTR meamrements and significant progress was made in these theoretical sm dies. t o many of t h e probleme of reactor theo-ry has been worked out which pramfses t o become useful in deciding many quest ims of interpretation of the results Also, a new general approach General Electric received the Annual. Award OL the American Meteorological Society for the Application of Me%ec-ralogyi n IIidustry. in recognition of the excellent work of 6;. R.Elst and associates in the Atmospheric Physics Operation. The award was made The shielded personnel monitoring station (body monitor) was occupied early in Tests of shielding and instrumentation show them t o be quite satis - An alarm t o warn of a nuclear incident. has been designed and a breadboard model checked out. can be setto alarm a t any desired level wi%in a wide range arid can be activated by either gamma rays or neutrons. According t o present plans the gamma-type alarms w i l l be adopted f o r the project now being prepared by CPD for immediate installation of some nuclear incident alarms. Two prototype models a r e being fabricated. The device

Page 12

Satisfactory progress.was made on the many other projects in the instrument field.In the basic data field, work on the scattering cross section of water for low energy neutrons was begun. The simulation of PRTR control system behavior on t h e analog computer has uncovered some areas related to the transient response of the system which will require further attention. Radiostrontium added as insoluble compounds to soil con4,inued t o be about onetenth as available t o growing plants afk era second cropping of contaminated soil as soluble strontium added under sid lar conditions. The Cs/k ratio has recently appeared in the literature. justification for it is based on the presumed Inverse relationship between uptake of cesium and potassium. very markedly less than inverse. Again, Fart of the We have repeated some of this work using t h e The proportional decrease i n cesilun uptake due t o potassium was Administration of MTA should occur wlthln one kLollp a f t e r Pu contamlnstion. This is better than repeated doses up t o 21 hours. It appears that only 1% of orally administered MTA i s absorbed. Further alternate methods for head-end treatment of non-production fuels were studied. Among these, one of considersble merit comprises a simplified, critically safe total dissolution facility. of the circulating "spray-tray" type diESOlUtfQn of integral full length fuel are small enough t o assure critical safety fer any of the anticipated low t ional head end processing. Wis praposal involves the use Intermediate solution hold-up vessels i n the dissolving circuit This proposal afzords majcr simplifications over convenThe first portion of a detailed stllqy of FRTR fuel burnout, and isotopic and fission product composition was completed and areps3 issued. assemblies during irradiation at constmt flux. and graphic form. scheduling and shielding are shmm. Wta are presented i n tabular Effects of bum-up rai. ~ sand resultant, compositions on Significant progress was made i n an analysis t o characterize the economic potential of stainless …