[en] A PAssively Cooled, Electrically heated hydride (PACE) Bed has been deployed into tritium service in the Savannah River Site (SRS) Tritium Facilities. The bed design, absorption and desorption performance, and cold (non-radioactive) in-bed accountability (IBA) results have been reported previously. Six PACE Beds were fitted with instrumentation to perform the steady-state, flowing gas calorimetric inventory method. An IBA inventory calibration curve, flowing gas temperature rise (ΔT) versus simulated or actual tritium loading, was generated for each bed. Results for non-radioactive ('cold') tests using the internal electric heaters and tritium calibration results are presented. Changes in vacuum jacket pressure significantly impact measured IBA ΔT values. Higher jacket pressures produce lower IBA ΔT values which underestimate bed tritium inventories. The exhaust pressure of the IBA gas flow through the bed's U-tube has little influence on measured IBA ΔT values, but larger gas flows reduce the time to reach steady-state conditions and produce smaller tritium measurement uncertainties.

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[en] A preliminary compatibility study was carried out between the plastic-bonded PETN-based high explosive LX-16 and the adhesive Halthane 73-18. The work, based on the Chemical Reactivity Test (CRT), used non-standard times and temperatures to find conditions corresponding to accelerated decomposition. This study is a prequel to a more comprehensive isothermal and thermal cycling study that will include both material evaluation and test fire

[en] The dose records estimation and management system DREAMS developed at AEE Winfrith is described. System Design and capacity are discussed

[en] A diffuser/permeator commercially fabricated by Johnson-Matthey was purchased for characterization testing at the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL). A test system was fabricated to not only feed and bleed flows and pressures, but also permeate pressure for flows up to 20 SLPM

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[en] In the PUREX process, extraction disturbances are caused by the formation, at the aqueous/organic interface, of a cumbersome stable emulsion, called 'interfacial crud', stabilized by solid products. These solids are insoluble residues of fission products and precipitates. The effect of insoluble residues, on crud phenomenon, was investigated using submicronic particles of ruthenium (IV) oxide in a 3 M nitric acid/30% TBP-dodecane system under electron irradiations. It was shown that irradiation strongly modifies the behavior of these particles which were gradually collected at the aqueous/organic interface with increasing radiation doses. Such a behaviour can be assigned to a chemical modification of ruthenium (IV) into nitrosyl ruthenium (III) species which is likely to increase the affinity of the irradiated ruthenium oxide particles for the organic phase. However, these particles were not effective in stabilizing emulsions. Thus, the presence of both ruthenium oxide particles and zirconium precipitates has been studied. In such conditions, a bulky and very stable emulsion, whose characteristics are very similar to those of industrial crud, was for the first time obtained. Therefore, the critical condition of crud formation seems to be the simultaneous presence of precipitates and insoluble residues at the aqueous/organic interface. (author)

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[en] This paper describes the enhancements being made to the instrumentation and control (I and C) architecture and design approaches for the display/control systems in the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) Enhanced CANDU 6 (EC6) plant design. These enhancements and design approaches ensure that the fundamental premise of independence between safety and process control is not compromised and that the reliability targets for each layer of protection are fulfilled to meet overall plant safety goals. Advances in digital technology and modern human factors engineering principles must be considered by I and C designers without sacrificing the overall principles of defence-in-depth and the independence of safety functions (credited in the safety case). AECL has put a significant amount of effort into applying new technologies to the existing CANDU 6 (C6) design while taking precautions to retain the original design intent and support the documented safety case. (author)