REACTOR DEVELOPMENT The contract will cover the design, development, fabrication, and test operation of the reactor. The power group has engaged Stone and Webster Engineering Corporation as architectengineer for the proposed project and has made arrangements with Westinghouse Electric Corporation to develop and furnish plant equipment, ‘Contract negotiations were in progress on Phase I of the Pennsylvania Power and Light Company — Westinghouse Electric Corporation project for an aqueous homogeneous reactor to be located in eastern Pennsylvania. Both companies continued research and development work on the project. Negotiations were begun on the contract with the East Central Nuclear Group— Florida West Coast Nuclear Groupfor their proposed gas-cooled, heavy-water-moderated reactor project. It is expected that the General Nuclear Engineering Corporation of Dunedin, Florida, will be the nuclear design agent and that the American Electric Power Service Corporation will be the principal design and construction engineer for the project. Research and development work on the ‘project began in March 1958, GENERAL ENGINEERING AND DEVELOPMENT Fuel Technology or The Materials Testing Reactor (MTR) at the National Reactor Testing Station was operated with plutonium fuel elements during August. After an initial period of operation at low power levels to determine reactor physics constants, the reactor was brought in successive steps to the level of 30,000 kilowatts. The run was completed without incident by the exhaustion of the fuel supply on August 31 after 262 megawatt days of operation. This experiment advanced the technology of plutonium fuel element handling and fabrication, and provided reactor physics data and valuable experience in the operation of a plutonium-fueled reactor. Preparations were made to load the MTR with fuel elements containing uranium 233, the fissionable material formed by irradiating thorium. led Samples of arc-melted and cast enriched uranium carbide were irradiated in the MTR at 600 degrees centigrade to a burnup of 1,000 megawatt days per ton. The test indicated that uranium carbide prepared in this method may be suitable for use at elevated temperatures as fuel in reactors other than water-cooled types. Fuel elements fabricated with uranium dioxide (UO). 2s loose powder in stainless steel tubes were being irradiated to high burnup in the General Electric Company’s Wallecitos Boiling Water Reactor. The resulting performance data will be of particular interest because of the low fabrication cost of this type of fuel element. Advanced Engineering Test Reactor (AETR) A contract is to be negotiated with the Internuclear Company for additional design and development of the AETR, a “flux-trap,” multicore reactor designed primarily to test a variety of fuel assemblies for power reactors. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is to perform the fuel element development work for the AETR. (End of- UNCLASSIFIED section.) The delivery of beryllium billet metal under the contracts with the Brush Beryllium Corporation and the Beryllium Corporation was cut back, effective July 1, 1958. To accord with revised requirements, scheduled annual deliveries by each contractor were reduced from —_ ee DOE ARCHIVES f Treert! 23 ment Gi EAe 33 tante Cf 68 ww \eraecog dees ‘ (a ~ TS Forge SET ye ot = 3° owe