Hanford Laboratories Operation Monthly Activities Report March 1958

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This document consists HANFOBOX No Q la RD LABORATORIES OPERATION I By Authorltv of.. & & f u Corn piled by HANFORD ATOMIC PRODUCTS OPERATI in the Atomic 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 o r opinions expressed in the reznnrt are thnne nf the aiithnve nnl - r THIS DOCUMENT.HAS BEEN SCANNED AND IS ST G REDON THE OPTICAL DISK DRIVE

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

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Force Report and Personnel Status Changes ........V General Summary ..............vi through xi Reactor and Fuels Research and Development Operation .. A l - 1 through A1-30 Physics and Instrument Research and Development Chemical Research and Development Operation . Operations Research and Synthesis Operation . . Radiation Protection Operation ...... Laboratory Auxiliaries Operation. ..... Employee Relations Operation ......

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Manager, Physics and Instrument Research and Manager, Reactor and Fuels Research and

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BUDGETS AND COSTS Fiscal year to-date costs Mid-Year Budget Review as March costs of $1,550,000 are $12,680,000 at the end of March o r 7 6 of the FY 1958 adjusted t o reflect changes received from the Product Changes during March increased the HLO budget by $479,000. were up $46,000 over February costs with the ma.ior increases occurring i n Plutonium Recycie and CPD-Separations Research and ievelopment . Cost-budget relationships f o r all programs are in accordance with plan. spending on Plutonium Recycle Research and Development is expected during the balance of this fiscd year due t o the realization of certain off - site commitments. FPD Research and Development Programs will require continued tight control for the balance of t h i s year and some adjustment of CPD - Separations Research and Development spending is planned i n the near future. The FY 1959 Revised Budget and the FY 1960 Annual Budget i s now complete for a l l ing and AEC have been supplied except f o r one research and development program A l l required schedules and data required by Contract AccountRESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 1. Reactor and Fuels Design of the Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor i s 5% complete overall. have been awarded by the AEC f o r Phase I reactor construction and for design of the reactor h e 1 charge-discharge vehicle. Fabrication Pilot Plant i s about 3046 complete. Design of the associated Plutonium Further generic studies of plutonium fuel cycles have been made, comparing maximum attainable exposures in reactors enriched with U-235 and with equal Taking into account the higher t o t a l cross-sections of the plutonium isotopes and the consequent lesser neutron leakage than i n comparable U-235 systems, Pu-239,241 appears gram-for-gram t o sustain longer exposures than U-235 inall cases analyzed t o date. Two Pu-A1 capsules (1.65 w/o Pu) , irradiated i n the MliR t o 55-66 burnup of the plutonium atoms revealed increases i n length and diameter by only about 0.2-0. $. accompanied by equilibrium amounts of Pu-240 and Pu-242. Reasonably good resistance t o corrosion by water i s required of Pu-Al alloy fuel material t o minimize loop contamination in the event of afuel element Al - 1 . 5 w/o U in t h i s respect have been confinned by additional data. This applies t o the as-cast structure; working destroys the corrosion resistance. It i s here assumed that the uranium alloy i s an adequate stand-in f o r Pu-Al. Previous observations that Al - 6 w/o U is dramatically superior t o Swaging studies of U02 continued during the month employing steel, Zircaloy and SAP (alumFnum) tubes, with encouraging results.

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High temperature studies show that U02 melts ina helium atmosphere whereas a t reduced pressures it sublimes t o cooler portions of the specimen holder. contrast, UC melted under both conditions. These observations have relevance t o the potential for very high temperature operation of oxide fuels. Definitive tests of the effect of hydriding Zircaloy-2 on the mechanical proper ties of the material showed high probability that the practical upper limit of hydride tolerable i n Zircaloy-2 reactor components may be higher than Steel jacketed four-rod, metallic uranium cluster elements operating i n the KER-3 loop a t a power of 42 kw/ft have attained an integrated exposure of 1600 Various f u e l element fabrications i n support of the NPFi program are nearing Zircaloy process tube development contracts continue t o show encouraging progress for application t o existing reactors. New data on the damage t o graphite irradiated i n the MCR a t high temperatures indicate linear contractions of 0.13 and 0.5 percent a t 975 C and 1050 C , traction value a t 975 C of 1.1percent. important t o IPD's ultimate potential with the production reactors, and i n other graphite moderated reactor technologies. These are not i n good agreement with a previously reported conResolution of this point i s highly After a year in 105-KE effluent water, samples of ASTM A7 carbon s t e e l had corroded quite evenly toa degree representing a uniform overall rate of 0.85 t o 0.88 mil per month. Experimental heat transfer studies of the response of reactor process tube assemblies t o imposed hazardous operating conditions were continued. Steady state boiling curves representative of "C" I and Efuel elements in a "K" process tube were determined f o r a range of tube powers between 500 and 1250 KW. 2. Chemical Research and DeveloDment Permutit SK, the exchange resin currently i n use f o r plutonium recovery at Purex, proved more stable t o gamma radiation than other resins tested. Confirmation of cesium recovery chemistry i n a liter quantity scale has begun in the 222-S Multicurie Cell. Progress i s limited by inadequacies of the test Flurex Process) further clarified the influence of variables such as inter fer - ing ions, cathode current densities, limiting membrane current densities, and A model "zebra" pulsed solvent extraction column was constructed and operated t o provide specifications fora similar model at the Geneva International

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Zirflex pilot plant studies continued to explore process variables pertinent to non-production fuels reprocessing. solver was completed and installation was initiated. The Darex pilot plant titanium disThe potential use of an EN03-HF'dissolver system for power reactor fuels was further enhanced by engineering studies and corrosion tests on various alloys. Distribution of fission product elements was studied for aged irradiated U02 reduced in aluminum-cryolite and then contacted with molten W C l 4 at TOO C. Most Sr and Cs-Ba activity remained in the cryolite phase. Trivalent rare earths, Ru-Rh, and Zr-Nb follow through with uranium. Another check of ground water movement using fluorescein dye tracer and well sampling showed average movement rates of 150 to 160 feet per day over a 2.5 mile distance. These data confirm previous rates in the more rapidly moving ground water in glacio-fluviatile sediments. If such channels could persist for substantially the whole path from the Separations area to the river, the RAP0 ground disposal program could lose its expected safety margin. Continuing tests show good strontium removal on calcite beds provided phosphate ion is present in the aqueous Sr containing solution. Recent tests with actual wastes showed Pu239 is a l s o effectively retained on the calcite bed by a mechanism postulated to be similar to Sr retention; e-g. the formation of the apatite mineral from calcite and phosphate, Sr, or Pu ions. Physics and Instruments For the Plutonium Recycle Program, a new type experiment was conducted in the PCTR in which the reactivity was determined for a super-lattice consisting of one lattice cell fueled with plutonium-aluminum rods surrounded by six lattice cells fueled with uranium oxide. This experiment was the first attempt to use the PCTR for measurements on a region larger than a single lattice cell. Results indicate that the use of plutonium fuel in this way in the PRTR w i l l require 2% less to achieve the same reactivity as compared with distributing the Pu-A1 rods uniformly through the entire reactor. Measurements have been completed of the reactivity of Plutonium-Graphite fuel rods but doubt as to the plutonium concentration in the rods has delayed final interpretation of the results. A document giving nuclear safety requirements in the handling of Pu-A1 alloys was issued. Two experiments were performed in the PCTR to determine the reactivity temperature coefficient of existing production reactors when uncooled and containing higher exposure slugs. Analysis of the results is in progress. In the NPR program the work was primarily in the theoretical direction this month with attention given to correlation of results of previous experiments in exponential piles with the aim of improving calculational methods. computer codes were adapted for local use. cluster fuel elements using 0.9-inch diameter rods was performed to round out One additional experiment with Continued work on the slightly enriched uranium dissolver problem included measurements with I and E slugs containing 1.6% U-235. These experiments involved

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the highest bucklings ever measured i n exponential experiments at Hanford. The amount of material involved was 6O$ of that required for critical it y.A new dissolver design f o r handling E-Metal was reviewed and some changes were suggested. PCTR experiments were run t o obtain data on the reactivity of Uranyl nitrate-water mixtures a t three enrichments near 2$ and at two water t o enrichment i s being fabricated. Equipment f o r measurements on oxide, water mixtures at 3$1 Advice was provided on nuclear safety problems in 234-5 Bldg. and i n the Unsuitable weather conditions prevented experimental work on the Wahluke Slope problem but assistance was given t o Radiation Protection Operation in the preparation of a report for the ACRS. Work on the methods of forecasting 200-mile trajectories of clouds released from disasters indicates that the methods considered t o date w i l l give only Instrument development continued satisfactorily. completion of afive month field test of a scintillation, transistorized alpha no recalibration was necessary. Particularly gratifying was During this test no down time was required f o r maintenance and In the basic data field, wor rogresse on the determination of the low-energy ments with other laboratories. f i s s i o n cross sections of Np’3’i and Am20 and on standardization of our measurePresent findings on metabolism i n sheep show a significant depression of thyroid metabolism at a feeding l e v e l of 5 pc I1a per day. occurs a t 1 . 5 yc per day, and borderline depression a t 0.5 pc per day. Six years ago, 5 p c per day was stated t o be apparently safe; 0.5 pc per day was chosen as a reasonable working 1Fmit. tat ionis based on this, with some rounding-off that gives an extra safety margin. The new data confirm t h a t this approach was well-conceived. Cs137 limits f o r drinking water cannot be applied t o waters containing forms of l i f e eaten by man because of marked concentration of this element by members of natural aquatic communities. T h i s further enhances Cs137 as one of the main contributors t o long term waste disposal problems. The permissible deposition on vegeTechnical and Other Services One minor case of plutonium deposition was confirmed bringing the t o t a l number of confirmed plutonium cases t o date toUg. contamination occurred when an undiscovered minor injury was later found t o conti ally all of the offending material. The average emission of 113 from separations stacks was 27 curies. T h i s excessive emission was reported t o be the r e s u l t of decreased aging time of metal and operating difficulties with iodine removal equipment. vegetation outside the plant perimeter was below the Hanford limit of Samples i n the vicinity of the 200 Areas were as high as five times this A potent is ll y serious case of plutonium Local excision of the affected area removed essenThe average I1u deposit on on

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The f a l l o u t of nuclear materials from foreign bomb tests caused vegetation contamination levels to be 2to 25 times higher than normal. connotation, already includes a fallout contribution greater than that caused by Agreement was reached on the formation of a task force t o examine methods, based on economic ground rules, for the evaluation of long-range capital expenditure Further discussions concerning the nature and scope of a simulation model of HAPO were held during the month, and specific plans for the implementation of this work have been formulated. Work on the CPD Control Study was concentrated primarily on t h e effectiveness of the Book Physical Inventory Difference as a control and accounting tool. Several of the accountability matrices completed as part of this study are being used and maintained by other groups because of their intrinsic value independent o f the In response t o outside requests, consultations on activities relating to Operation Pool were held with three different groups during the month. Statistical and mathematical assistance on 41 separate problems was given t o other HAPO components. Of particular interest was work on a mathematical model for the prediction of t h e deposition of radioactive materials from Hanford sources, and additional work on the analysis of fuel element f a i l u r e data and the construction of mathematical models of these phenomena. Excluding the major Plutonium Recycle Program projects, there w e r e 15 authorized projects at month end with total authorized funds o f $3,591,000. The total est i - mated project cost of these authorized projects i s $5,016,500. There were no projects completed during the month and no new projects authorized. Five new projects are awaiting AEC authorization; these have a t o t a l estimated project cost All projects are proceeding substantially i n accordance with the official schedules and within the authorized funds. project planning schedules due t o delays i n obtaining certain authorizations. However, many projects are behind the original Radiographic Testing volume of work hita new high for the month in total number of tests performed and feet of material examined. in core thickness of MTR fuel plates was developed enabling f o r the first time scribing of the true cross-section of the core by non-destructive means - A method o f measuring the changes As a result of the increased per diem allowance retroactive t o January 1, 1958 a credit adjustment of $249 has been made t o Haaford Laboratories Operation travel and living account. The amount of underruns on appropriation requests continue t o exceed t h e overruns; however, of the 72 completed requests since July 1, 1956, 47 (65$) have deviated (either over o r under) by more …