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Christmas Light
’Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house
No electrons were flowing through even my mouse.
All devices were plugged by the chimney with care
With the hope that St. Nikola Tesla would share.
G. E. Miller
Nuclear Technology | Volume 5 | Number 2 | August 1968 | Pages 68-73
Technical Paper and Note | doi.org/10.13182/NT68-A27953
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Eight hundred fifty aluminum-10 wt% plutonium alloy fuel rods containing ∼55 kg of plutonium were fabricated by an injection casting process and encapsulated in Zircaloy-2 tubing. Casting was accomplished by inserting one end of a 0.610-in.-i.d. × 42-in.-long Pyrex glass mold into the molten alloy and then evacuating the mold. The diameter of the cast rods was 0.600 in. ± 0.001 in. with an average length of 38 in. Each element contained two or more of the fuel rods, totaling 47.75 in. in length. Unheated Pyrex molds produced higher quality castings than 1) unheated mild steel molds, 2) heated Pyrex molds, or 3) heated mild steel molds. Plutonium melt homogeneity was significantly improved by changing from intermittent melt stirring to continuous melt stirring prior to casting.