Hanford Laboratories Monthly Activities Report February, 1963

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MONTHLY ACTIVITIES , REPORT THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN SCANNED AND IS STORED ON THE OPTICAL DISK DRIVE HANFORD ATOMIC PRODUCTS OPERATION

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This nport was p r o p a r d os an occount of Govornment sponsored work. Neithmr tho United Stotos, nw tho Commission, nor ony pwson acting on boholf of the Commission: A. Makos any warton*/ or r.prosontotion, e x p r o d or impliod, with respectto the accurocy, compktanrr;. oc. Ut.fulm of Itn information contained in this report, or thot the use of any information, apparatus, method, or pr0c.u disclosod in this report may not infringe privately owned rights; or Assumes any liabilities with raspoct to the use of, or for damaga resulting from tho use of any information, apparatus, method, or process disclosed in this report. As d in tho above, 'penon acting on b h a l f of the Commission' ineludos any employee or contmctor of the Commission, or e m p l o p of such contractor, to the extent that such employee or contractor of tho Commission, or employoe of such controdor propores, disseminates, or provides access to, any information pursuant to his employment or contract with the Commission, or his employmont with

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This document consists 1 &-of 198 pages. Copy No. of 26 copies. Serie sMONTHLY ACTIVITIES REPORT PRE LIMINARY RE PORT

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UNC LASSIFIED ii Atomic Energy Commission, Richland Operations Office F. P. Baranowski, Director, Division of Production Savannah River Operations Office, Aiken, South Carolina

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Force Report and Personnel Status Changes . iv Reactor and Fuels Laboratory Physics and Instruments Laboratory Applied Mathematics Operation Radiation Protection Operation Finance and Administration Operation Test Reactor and Auxiliaries Operation Manager, W. D. Richmond 1-1 through 1-6

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BUDGETS AND COSTS February operating costs totaled $2, 680,000,a n increase of $325,000 from the previous month; fiscal year-to-date costs a r e $18, 676,000, o r 62% of the $30,239,000 control budget. February ' s cost of the Plutonium Recycle Program includes $109,000 for chemical processing of PRTR fuels. Hanford Laboratories I research and development costs for February compared with last month and the control budget are thous ands 1 Month Month To Date Budget Spent RESEARCH AND DEVELOPNIENT 1. Reactor and Fuels Two fluted single tube N -Reactor fuel elements have successfully completed one cycle of irradiation in the E T R and will be recharged. irradiation tests of fluted N-inner elements are a l s o continuing. Radiometallurgy examination of prototypical N -outer components exposed t o 1250 Mwd/ton reveal no detrimental features. in a fuel support crevice was noted.

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Improvements in hot heading techniques have permitted an improved design of the projection welded cap. High temperature out-of-reactor loop tests of the braze layer of a self brazed" closure revealed no evidence of corrosive attack.11 T h r e e thousand N-outer and 10,000 N-inner supports have been fabricated to supply emergency needs of NRD for fuel supports. T e s t s simulating the wear of N-Reactor fuel supports on process tubes have shown a maximum wear of 1.3 mils after three series of tests. Tests were simulated by passing steel support shoes over a single path on the process tube 40 times, then autoclaving the tube, and repeating the A charging test to evaluate the effect on N-Reactor fuel elements pas sing over the magazine -to -nozzle transition and nozzle -to - p r e s s u r e - tube roll joint was conducted. Ten fuel charges were made with fuel of various lengths and support types. No cases of stripping of supports o r support shoes w a s noted, but the leading edges of s o m e Arch" type fuel supports were damaged apparently as a result of passing over the tube-tonozzle roll joint. The effect of heat treatment on the s i z e and dispersion of aluminum and iron compounds in uranium is being studied by metallographic techniques. UA12 particles in the 0. 1 to 3 micron s i z e range have been revealed. Techniques are being developed to reveal both the iron and aluminum constituents and to determine that the true structure is being revealed. An optical readout system has been devised for measuring c irc um - ferential elongation of a tube specimen undergoing stress rupture test. scale is read with a n accuracy of f 0.002-inch. On a n N-Reactor tube section this represents about * 0.027'0 of the circumference. Experiments were conducted to determine if the addition of a large compressible fluid volume to the test system would affect "upstream" boiling burnout. It did not.

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The test in KER-1 to evaluate use of NH40H to regulate pH was terminated because of operating difficulties. charged at the next shutdown and a new test w i l l be started. of thermocouple slugs is continuing. The elements will be dis - N-Reactor instrumentation evaluation has been continued. A procedure for water hardness has been evaluated and shown to be satisfactory effects of oxygen; there is some interference but no quantitative results are yet available. The hydrazine procedure has been tested to determine Dilute decontaminant solutions suggested by Bettis for decontaminating Shippingport are ineffective in removing PRTR films. gaskets during decontamination, using the procedure developed for PRTR, does not affect the sealing ability of the gasket. Several modifications of the 4518 procedure appear effective in reducing amounts of precipitate. Moderate leakage into The use of quachrom glucosate and low pH appears to be satisfactory for corrosion control in present reactors. are not yet available. Marking inks appear to protect aluminum surfaces, with some inks being more effective. Corrosion rates of aluminum pieces in Zircaloy-2 tubes corrode at the same rate as do pieces in aluminum tubes. Quantitative data on weight loss In September 1962, 19 graphite cores were removed from D-Reactor for total stored energy (TSE) determinations. X - ray examination a t that time disclosed extreme broadening of the 002 diffraction line, a n indication (based on part correlation of line shift, c r y s t a l disorder and stored energy) of an increase in stored energy. This implication w a s -not confirmed by recent National Bureau of Standards TSE determinations on five of these samples, as they showed only s m a l l changes in comparison with 1958 samples. The pretreatment of uranium samples by anodic etching in nitric acid produced surfaces which were plateable in sulfate o r sulfamage nickel plating baths. Plating adhesion is being studied.

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During startup of PRTR at low temperature and high flow, several tubes vibrated, giving a n audible signal, noted only when Pump No. 2 w a s used. Water analyses at the s a m e time showed a high zirconium concentration, > 10 ppb compared with 0-2 ppb observed normally, indicating fretting was occurring. A program will be followed during the next few PRTR operating cycles to determine validity of zirconium analyses as an indication of fretting. Study of decontamination methods f o r use after plutonium fuel rupture continues in laboratory and out-of - r e a c t o r loop tests .. Refractory fired P u 0 2 resists chemical dissolution as expected. The boiling-burnout tube power limit for PRTR Mark-I fuel elements a t a coolant flow r a t e of 1. 5 times the design value is predicted to be in Design and fabrication of the second generation mechanical shim rod -es c 'facility is estimated 9570 complete for mechanical work and 65% complete Installation of the shim rod environmental Tests of stressed stainless steel with 1870 NaOH contamination in 275 C steam show rapid cracking. tion exhibits a mild inhibiting effect until reduced to Mn02. of 0 . 1 to 370KMn04 in 1870 NaOH were studied. The corrosion of a s m a l l "dead leg" on the PRTR secondary water system w a s found to be primarily pitting corrosion of carbon steel. tematic investigation of the cause and frequency of this corrosion is under Accelerated out -of - reactor corrosion tests in steam of Zircaloy- 2 coupons, representing different levels of cold work, have failed to show the reduced pickup of hydrogen in the vicinity of 10% cold work found after

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A number of new creep tests have been started under the BMI Zircaloy-2 creep testing program using specimens given a heat treat of 48 hours in vacuum at 400 C, analogous to process tube autoclave t r e a t - ment, following a standard anneal at 750 C for 1/4 hour. After standard annealing only, s t r i p tested at 550 F at a stress of 25, 000 psi exhibits about 470 primary creeps train and failure occurs in a few hours. However, annealed and heat treated s t r i p when tested at 550 F and 35,000 psi exhibits only about 0.470 primary creeps train and the stress rupture life is in excess of 1000 hours. Similar tests at higher stresses also show substantially lower primary creep strains and indicate that a 48-hour, 400 C heat treatment subs tantially increases the creep strength of annealed An in-reactor c r e e p test at 20,000 psi stress and 350 C on 2070 cold worked Zircaloy-2 has been in progress for 600 hours as part of a series to determine the stress dependency of creep during irradiation. AIS1 406 stainless steel tensile specimens have been prepared for irradiation in the ETR. Additional Zircaloy-2 specimens from N-Reactor process tubes, representing the various fabrication histories employed in their manufacture, are being machined and will also be irradiated in ETR. An analytical model to evaluate the complex elastic energy distributions in a notched beam under load is being prepared using relaxation methods. To test the model, a fatigue fixture for the initiation of sharp defects in Zircaloy- 2 is being built. Cold-worked Zircaloy- 2 undergoes substantial strength recovery (loss of strength) with annealing at 360 C after irradiation at 300 C in the unirradiated Zircaloy-2 below 450 C. Further mor e, specimens in the annealed condition before irradiation show only a small amount of radiation recovery as a result of postirradiation annealing at 360 C. Apparently,

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defects associated with cold work have been rearranged by radiationinduced defects to form amore thermally-unstable structure. effect is substantiated by the increased in-reactor creep rate observed for Procurement of materials for the coordinated Irradiation Effects on Reactor Structural Materials Program is continuing. One 10-ton heat of A302B which originally did not meet specifications w a s reheat treated to improve its ductility and is being shipped. A212B stock is also being shipped. Sheet and rod stock of columbium, columbium-1 wt% zirconium, tantalum, and tantalum-10 WWOtungsten refractory alloys, and rod stock have been received on site. Presently on o r d e r is a TZM sheet alloy and a tungsten-25 wt% rhenium alloy in both sheet and rod form. A FORTRAN computer program has been written to facilitate the analysis of single crystal tensile tests. It provides for correction of elongation values for deformation of the loading system and computation of engineering stress, engineering strain, true stress, true strain, and resolved shear stress and glide strain on any crystallographic slip system. In order to supplement the research program on molybdenum and to gain an understanding of radiation damage in other crystal systems, work has been initiated on parallel studies of nickel, a face-centered cubic metal, and rhenium (a close-packed hexagonal metal). Single crystals of these metals are being procured, with purities of 99.999% (Nil and 99, 99570 (Re). Polycrystalline materials are also being obtained in the form of rod, foil, Analysis is continuing on the tensile deformation of irradiated and unirradiated molybdenum single crystals containing various amounts of carbon content is a restriction of the ease with which cross - siip (i.e., transfer The results obtained to date suggest that the effect of increasing

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of moving dislocations from one slip system to another) occurs, and that the effect of neutron irradiation is to restrict the extent of dislocation interX - r a y lattice parameter and line broadening studies have been completed on nonirradiated and irradiated molybdenum foils. show the effect of purity very markedly. the neutron irradiation could be observed in the high purity foils while foils containing excess carbon showed greater changes in lattice parameter and line breadth after irradiation. Very little change attributable to Quenching experiments have continued on molybdenum foils containing carbon. After quenching from temperatures as high as the melting point and subsequent thinning, no defects of the type observed in neutron bombarded molybdenum have been observed. Aging of quenched foils is currently in progress to determine whether quenched-in defects can cluster. A series of nonirradiated U-Zr diffusion couples have been vacuum annealed at 650, 700, 800, and 950 C for 100 hours. These samples w i l l serve as control samples for the study of irradiated U-Zr diffusion couples that were recently completed. Processing f o r metallography, hardness and density of two thorium specimens irradiated at C 300 C to burnups of 0. 18 and 0. 92 at. 70, respectively, Preliminary metallographic examination has revealed no irraBeing determined is the size-distribution of second-phase particles in a series of heat-treated specimens from a n uranium alloy containing Fe-A1 additions. A series of micrographs have been analyzed. Also, a computer program normally employed in determining pore s i z e distributions has been appropriately modified to handle second-phase particles. will be employed to s e l e c t appropriate heat treatments for studying the influence of various types of second-phase particle s i z e distributions on the irradiation behavior of uranium.

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Specimens recovered from two swelling capsules irradiated at 575 C to 0. 15 at. 70 burnup are being processed for metallography and density. Preliminary density values indicate volume changes in the o r d e r of 3070 which correlates with previous data. This volume change is a result of with resultant internal tearing. and replicas have been prepared f r o m two of the specimens. growth" which leads to the development of micro stresses between grains1 1 Light microscopy is partially completed A nondestructive gamma-scan test for determination of plutonium segregation in a mixed oxide fuel rod correlates well (qualitatively) with Extended surface, clip-on w e a r pads continue to perform satisfactorily on PRTRMark-Lfuel elements. Further repadding of P u 0 2 - U 0 2 and selected U02 elements is planned. Stagnant water tests of fuel elements suspected of contaminating PRTR primary coolant indicate an A1-Pu element may have a cladding leak o r surface contamination. An experimental fuel element is being fabricated in which additional fissionable material can be added to the active fuel region during irradiation. Calculations have been made of the amount of low exposure plutonium needed to restore a spent PRTR mixed oxide fuel element to its initial reactivity The simulated storage basin for experimental fuel element repair studies w …