Published: 1960
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In the reactor technical assistance program, it has been shown that the fuel content of the ETR control rods can be increased by 75% to give a generated power increase (in a control rod) of 50% and a typical increase in excess reactivity of 0.55%, without exceeding heat transfer limitations. A metal fabrication facility was completed for developing and fabricating sample fuel plates for local research programs. Hydraulic tests on experimental thin-plate narrowchannel fuel elements showed flow distribution improved over that of conventional MTR fuel elements. In the search for stronger alloys to make possible elements having thinner plates, comparative strength tests were made on plates of 6061 and 1100 aluminum alloys (in the fully-annealed condition); results are reported. Oxidation rates for an aluminum-uranium sample exposed to water vapor have been shown to follow a linear rate law within close limits. A method has been developed for use of the RMF to determine effective cross sections in terms of neutron density, cadmium ratio, and characteristic neutron temperature. This method makes it possible to determine for a sample. by a reactivity measurement, parameters which can be used to express effective cross sections for the sample in other reactor spectra, provided their neutron temperature and 1/v cadmium ratio are known. Dow energy (
