United States Atomic Energy Commission Research Articles

Amchitka Island, Alaska: moving towards long term stewardship

ABSTRACTAmchitka Island, Alaska, is a historical underground nuclear test site. Three underground tests were conducted there by the United States Atomic Energy Commission, now US Department of Energy (USDOE), between 1965 and 1971. These were Long Shot, an 80 kiloton detonation; Milrow, a 1 megaton detonation; and Cannikin, a 5 megaton detonation. Subsequent to these tests, several scientific assessments have been conducted regarding the impacts of the tests on the terrestrial and marine environments surrounding the island. However, many citizens and groups still voice concerns over the potential for detrimental effects on human and ecological health. In its responsibility for the long term protection of human and ecological health consequent to its nuclear programme, USDOE has recently prepared a plan for the long term surveillance and monitoring of the site. The purpose of this paper is to summarise the history of the island, specifically with regards to its use as a nuclear test site, to summarise the results of investigative activities following testing, to summarise USDOE's plan for surveillance and monitoring, and to offer the authors' viewpoints on the long term stewardship of the island. The authors deemed the stewardship plan to be essentially protective of human and ecological health; however, they recommend a stronger commitment to site oversight and review, as well as to future research, for addressing uncertainties remaining at the island.

A contentious business: Industrial patents and the production of isotopes, 1930-1960

This paper analyses the role that patents played in the establishment of the isotope industry. In the first part I survey the number of issued patents on the production of isotopes, also arguing that the isotope industry was typified by inadequate patenting activities. Then I examine the factors that hindered these activities by looking at the history of industrial patents in the establishment of the isotope industry. I especially focus on the consequences of the Manhattan Project on patent legislation. As the Atomic Energy Act (1946) made the isotope industry a monopoly of the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), it contributed to transform the trading of its relevant patents in a «contentious» business. Since then, inventors and assignors already in possession of isotope production patents could only claim compensation to the AEC, which was authorised to seize them. And those who might have outlined new inventions were now deprived of the economic incentive to do so, being prohibited from free-trading them in the international market.

Daniel Joseph Zaffarano

Daniel Joseph Zaffarano died peace-fully in Ames, Iowa, on 3 December 2004 of pneumonia. He was a talented, productive physicist and administrator at Iowa State University, and he had a congenial, outgoing, and caring personality. His love of music made him equally comfortable in the music and physics departments. He was very proud of his son and five daughters; they and his wife, Suzanne, were by his side during his last days.Dan was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on 16 December 19×7. In 1939 he received his BS in physics from the Case Institute of Applied Science (now Case Western Reserve University). He then joined the National Carbon Co (a part of Union Carbide and Carbon Corp, now Union Carbide Corp) in Cleveland, where he became involved in the development and application of the battery used in proximity fuzes during World War II.After the war, a fuze project colleague of Dan’s, A. C. G. Mitchell, who was on leave from Indiana University, persuaded Dan to join him at Indiana for graduate work. Shortly after August 1946, he started that work; he completed his MS in physics two years later. For his doctoral work, he participated in the design, construction, and use of a state-of-the-art beta-ray spectrometer. Four papers in which he described data taken with that instrument were the basis of his 1949 dissertation.He subsequently joined Iowa State as a research associate professor in the physics department and in the Ames Laboratory of the US Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC, now the US Department of Energy). The director of the lab, Frank Spedding, had ordered a 70-MeV synchrotron from General Electric Co in 1947; for the next 22 years, Dan oversaw the use of that facility. He also helped plan and staff a 5-MW heavy-water research reactor later installed by the USAEC near the synchrotron.Dan spent an enjoyable 16 months in England during the mid-1950s, when he was the Office of Naval Research liaison scientist in Europe. In 1961, he became chair of Iowa State’s physics department and chief of the Ames Lab physics division. The fruits of his leadership included the recruiting of new faculty, growth in the number of graduate students, and a heightened level of sociability and interaction in the department. Dan’s foresight and efforts resulted in the construction of a physics building addition in the mid-1960s. The enormous positive impact of that facility on the department is arguably his major legacy to Iowa State. In winter 2004, the building was designated the Daniel J. Zaffarano Physics Addition. He also supervised PhD programs and regularly taught introductory courses. In 1967 the university honored him as a Distinguished Professor in Sciences and Humanities.Four years later Dan was named vice president for research and dean of Iowa State’s graduate college. He was highly popular and respected in those positions, and carried out his work with an enthusiasm that continued until his retirement. In 1977 Dan convinced Iowa State to host a well-attended international conference on the potential use of icebergs as a source of fresh water. He strongly supported the establishment of a university-wide biotechnology program, for which initial state funding was provided in 1986. That program is thriving today.After his retirement in 1988, the university established the Zaffarano Prize, given annually to the PhD recipient with the best publication record. Questions about the publication of research results were a standard part of the exit interview Dan conducted with each student. In 2002, on the occasion of his 85th birthday, colleagues and alumni celebrated his Iowa State career at a festival in his honor.Dan’s efforts during his career were not limited to Iowa State, however. In 1974, he directed a $3 million state project to explore the environmentally friendly strip mining of Iowa coal and the use of physical methods to reduce its high sulfur content. He was active with numerous groups, including the Argonne Universities Association, the Universities Research Association for Fermilab, and the Council of Graduate Schools in the US.Dan actively participated in community musical organizations. He enjoyed singing and was founder and first president of the Ames Choral Society. He and his wife, Suzy, provided leadership for the Ames Town and Gown Chamber Music Association, the Ames International Orchestra Festival Association, and the Friends of Music of Iowa State’s music department. One of his last public appearances was at the department’s scholarship musicale in the fall of 2004. We miss him. Daniel Joseph Zaffarano PPT|High resolution© 2005 American Institute of Physics.

James Arthur Krumhansl

James Arthur Krumhansl

An examination of the urban dispersion curves derived from the St. Louis dispersion study

We have reanalyzed the data collected during the St. Louis urban dispersion study (McElroy, J.L., Pooler, F., 1968a. The St. Louis Dispersion Study—Instrumentation, Procedures, and Data Tabulations, vol. I. National Air Pollution Control Administration, Pub. No. APTD-68-12, US DHEW, Arlington (352pp); McElroy, J.L., Pooler, F., 1968b. The St. Louis Dispersion Study—Analysis, vol. II. National Air Pollution Control Administration, Pub. No. AP-53, US DHEW, Arlington (50pp)) to address two questions: (1) How well do the empirical Briggs Urban (BU) curves (Briggs, G.A., 1973. Diffusion estimation for small emissions. ERL, ARL USAEC Report ATDL-106, US Atomic Energy Commission, Oak Ridge, TN), referred to as the McElroy–Pooler dispersion curves in industrial source complex, describe the observations that were used to derive them? (2) Can observed meteorological information yield dispersion curves and concentration estimates that are comparable to those based on the empirical BU curves? We find that the BU curves provide an adequate description of the observed horizontal spreads for both daytime and evening trials but underestimate the vertical spreads during daytime conditions. When the centerline ground-level concentrations based on these curves are compared with corresponding observations, we find that the logarithmic mean of the ratio of the modeled to the observed concentration m g = 1.17 , and the 95% confidence interval of the ratio, C p / C o , is 0.15–9.1 during the daytime trials. For the evening experiments, m g = 0.92 , and the 95% confidence interval is 0.23–3.7 for the ratio. When meteorological measurements made in the boundary layer are used to estimate plume spreads, the resulting model performance statistics are better than those obtained with the empirical BU curves. However, this conclusion is tentative because some of meteorological inputs were not measured but estimated from available measurements.

A historical overview of probabilistic risk assessment development and its use in the nuclear power industry: a tribute to the late Professor Norman Carl Rasmussen

This paper reviews the historical development of the probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) methods and applications in the nuclear industry. A review of nuclear safety and regulatory developments in the early days of nuclear power in the United States has been presented. It is argued that due to technical difficulties for measuring and characterizing uncertainties and concerns over legal challenges, safety design and regulation of nuclear power plants has primarily relied upon conservative safety assessment methods derived based on a set of design and safety principles. Further, it is noted that the conservatism adopted in safety and design assessments has allowed the use of deterministic performance assessment methods. This approach worked successfully in the early years of nuclear power epoch as the reactor design proved to be safe enough. However, it has been observed that as the conservative approach to design and safety criteria proved arbitrary, and yielded inconsistencies in the degree to which different safety measures in nuclear power plants protect safety and public heath, the urge for a more consistent assessment of safety became apparent in the late 1960s. In the early 1970s, as a result of public and political pressures, then the US Atomic Energy Commission initiated a new look at the safety of the nuclear power plants through a comprehensive study called ‘Reactor Safety Study’ (WASH-1400, or ‘Rasmussen Study’—after its charismatic study leader Professor Norman Rasmussen of MIT) to demonstrate safety of the nuclear power plants. Completed in October 1975, this landmark study introduced a novel probabilistic, systematic and holistic approach to the assessment of safety, which ultimately resulted in a sweeping paradigm shift in safety design and regulation of nuclear power in the United States in the turn of the Century. Technical issues of historic significance and concerns raised by the subsequent reviews of the Rasmussen Study have been discussed. Effect of major events and developments such as the Three Mile Island accident and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Industry sponsored studies on the tools, techniques and applications of the PRA that culminated in the present day risk-informed initiatives has been discussed.

Henry Abraham Boorse

Henry Abraham Boorse

In Memoriam

In Memoriam

03/02652 Simulation of delayed neutrons using MCNP: Werner, C. J. Progress in Nuclear Energy, 2002, 41, (1–4), 385–389

The primary containment of a liquid metal fast breeder reactor (LMFBR) is designed to allow removal of decay heat from a damaged core in the event of a hypothetical core disruptive accident (HCDA). The primary containment consists of the reactor vessel, the vessel head and the primary loops (piping, heat exchangers, pumps, etc.) and must retain functional integrity if decay heat requirements are to be met following an HCDA. As part of an evaluation program, an experimental program was carried out by Stanford Research Institute (SRI) under the auspices of the Hanford Engineering Development Laboratory (HEDL) and the US Atomic Energy Commission ∗∗ to investigate the structural integrity of the primary containment of the fast flux test facility (FFTF) under an HCDA of 150 MW sec. The main objective of the program was to determine whether the structural envelope, comprised of the reactor vessel, vessel head and primary piping, would remain intact so that in the post-accident period coolant flow and decay heat removal through the heat transport system would not be precluded. Another objective was to provide data for correlation with predictions of computer codes so that they can eventually be applied with confidence to full-scale reactors. The two main parts of the program were: (1) development of an explosive energy source for simulating the HCDA, and (2) investigation of hydrodynamic and structural effects of an HCDA. In the source development, instrumented 1 : 30 and 1 : 10 scale models of the fast test reactor (FTR) were employed without the vessel head. In the investigation of hydrodynamic and structural effects of an HCDA, instrumented 1 : 30 and 1 : 10 scale simple models of the FTR were employed, as well as two instrumented 1 : 30 scale complex models of the FTR and one instrumented 1 : 10 scale complex model of the FTR with three primary loops.The paper presents selected detailed results from the experiments on the 1 : 30 and 1 : 10 scale simple rigid and flexible models of the FTR to increase the data available for computer code development. Source development and most of the general results of the simple model experiments have already been presented. For convenience, the paper includes the general results. To achieve the objective of providing experimental data for assisting computer code validation the description includes the FTR model dimensions and material properties. The specific results generated include: simulated HCDA core pressures; pressures at the vessel wall, head and outlet pipe; strains in the vessel wall and head; water surface displacement behavior; and final vessel and core barrel deformations. Observations drawn from the experimental results address the following subjects: overall structural response; energy partition among vessel, core barrel, head and holding-down bolts; strain and deformation magnitudes; reproducibility; and scaling.

Tracing the politics of changing postwar research practices: the export of ‘American’ radioisotopes to European biologists

This paper examines the US Atomic Energy Commission’s radioisotope distribution program, established in 1946, which employed the uranium piles built for the wartime bomb project to produce specific radioisotopes for use in scientific investigation and medical therapy. As soon as the program was announced, requests from researchers began pouring into the Commission’s office. During the first year of the program alone over 1000 radioisotope shipments were sent out. The numerous requests that came from scientists outside the United States, however, sparked a political debate about whether the Commission should or even could export radioisotopes. This controversy manifested the tension between the aims of the Marshall Plan and growing US national security concerns after World War II. Proponents of international circulation of radioisotopes emphasized the political and scientific value of collaborating with European scientists, especially biomedical researchers. In the end, radioisotopes were shipped from the Commission’s Oak Ridge facility to many laboratories in England and continental Europe, where they were used in biochemical research on animals, plants, and microbes. However, the issue of radioisotope export continued to draw political fire in the United States, even after the establishment of national atomic energy facilities elsewhere.

Peaceful Nuclear Explosions and the Geography of Scientific Authority

From 1957 to 1973, scientists and engineers working under the direction of the United States Atomic Energy Commission and its Livermore laboratory investigated, experimented with, and promoted the idea of ‘peaceful’ uses of nuclear explosives through a program called Project Plowshare. Proponents confidently argued that the ‘geographical engineering’ (as it was called) of harbors, canals, dams, and mountain passes could be accomplished safely, economically, and scientifically by means of nuclear-blasted excavation. But the nuclear earthmoving explosions also produced large amounts of radioactive fallout, and with it, significant challenges to the program on scientific grounds. This paper examines several moments from the contested career of nuclear earthmoving to show how scientific and technical research under the Plowshare program, developed out of the resources of Cold War American science, was structured by geographical variations in scientific authority.

Periodic solutions of equations of motion of a heavy solid applying Krylov–Bogoliubov–Mitropolski method

Poincaré's small parameter method and Krylov–Bogoliubov asymptotic method are among the number of basic methods used for the study of nonlinear oscillations. Poincaré's method was developed in conformity with stationary (periodic) oscillations (Malkin, Certain problems in the theory of nonlinear oscillations, ABC-tr-3766, United States Atomic Energy Commission, Technical Information Service, 1959), although it may be extended to nonstationary oscillations (Bakhmutskii, On the application of Poincaré's method to the study of unsteady oscillations, Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR OTN Mekh. Mashinostroenie (3) (1961)). The Krylov–Bogoliubov method may be used, first of all, for a study of nonstationary oscillations, but it is, of course, completely applicable to periodic oscillations (Bogoliubov and Mitropolski, Asymptotic Methods in the Theory of Nonlinear Oscillations, Gordon and Breach, New York, 1961.). It is sometimes asserted that these methods are different in principle. In the present paper, the method of Krylov–Bogoliubov–Mitropolski (Krylov and Bogoliubov, Introduction to Non-linear Mechanics, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1947, pp. 165–174) is modified to investigate periodic solutions, with nonzero basic amplitudes, for the equations of motion of a heavy solid, with one fixed point, rapidly spinning about the major or the minor axis of the ellipsoid of inertia. Numerical solutions for the reduced system of the equations of motion are obtained using fourth-order Runge–Kutta method (Rice, Numerical Methods, Software and Analysis, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1983). The analytical solutions are compared with the numerical ones in order to show the small deviation between them.

Conspiracy of silence

Between 1951 and 1963, 126 atomic explosions rocked the desert of the Nevada test site, an area considered “virtually uninhabited” by the United States Atomic Energy Commission. In 1979 Carole Gallagher, photographer and documentarian, discovered a declassified memo from the commission which described people living downwind of the test site as “a low-use segment of the population.” This simple statement led her to spend 10 years interviewing and photographing these “downwinders.” The resulting photographs and oral histories were on show at the International Center of Photography in New York City, April-June 1994, and have been published by MIT Press. The exhibition begins with a map from the commission showing the nuclear fallout paths. It disturbingly shows how fallout clouds were carried throughout North America - making us all downwinders. Next are stark images of destroyed desert landscape, altered by unimaginably powerful underground explosions - mountains were literally moved. To us the most eerie photograph, however, was of an empty children's playground 10 miles from ground zero, which seemed to emit muffled sounds of children playing. The hardy faces of the “downwinders,” captured in black and white portraits, are as weathered and tragic as the surrounding landscape. Their stories, in their own words, are displayed beside each picture. These are stories of the personal consequences of radiation …

Radiological weapons and radioactive waste in the United States: insiders' and outsiders' views, 1941-55.

The Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb, the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the post-war nuclear arms race with fission and fusion bombs have been the subject of many discussions and historical studies. In fact, these subjects, and the way in which they were generally dealt with, have led to retrospective distortion with respect to the spectrum of ‘atomic’ weapons discussed and explored during the wartime Manhattan Project and immediately after the Second World War. Specifically, it has made observers of the cold war's early nuclear arms race overlook the fact that the military use of radioactive reactor fission products in so-called radiological warfare weapons, was a very real possibility at the time, both for the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the military, as well as for relative outsiders and the general public. Thus, for many observers it came as something of a surprise when the United States in 1976 introduced radiological weapons as an issue of UN arms control negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Eight Years of the AEC: Atoms for Peace and War, 1953-1961 . Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission (A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, vol. 3.) Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1989. xxx, 696 pp. $60. California Studies in the History of Science, vol. 4.

Eight Years of the AEC: <i>Atoms for Peace and War, 1953-1961</i> . Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission (A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, vol. 3.) Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1989. xxx, 696 pp. $60. California Studies in the History of Science, vol. 4.

John von Neumann on Technological Prospects and Global Limits

The slow recognition (and, albeit in a field known for its oscillations of opinion, current dominance) of the view that natural resources are not a binding constraint on human development often leads the unwary to the inference that there are no other constraints. It is as if once humanity is well fed and supplied with abundant raw materials, nothing can preclude an economic nirvana. In an insightful paper written in 1955 about technological prospects in the next 25 years, a period now safely behind us, John von Neumann drew a more modulated picture. The paper, which appeared under the title Can We Survive Technology? in the June 1955 issue of Fortune magazine, is reproduced here in full with the permission of TimelLife Inc. It also appears in Vol. VI of von Neumann's Collected Works published by Pergamon Press in 1963 and distributed by Macmillan. The Hungarian-born von Neumann, 1903-57, was one of the century's great mathematicians. He also played an important role in the Manhattan Project and in subsequent programs of weapons development; was a major figure in the development of the electronic computer; and made seminal contributions to the social sciences, most notably through his 1944 book The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, coauthored with Oscar Morgenstern. Although long associated with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, when this article was written he was serving in the full-time post of Member of the US Atomic Energy Commission. As is clear from the propositions setforth in the paper, von Neumann was an unabashed technological optimist. He foresaw free energy, the transmutation of elements, and control of the climate-futures that seem rather more distant today than they did 30 years ago. His forecasts on other matters, such as industrial automation, proved more prescient. But the most notable aspect of von Neumann's analysis is the identification of an absolute limiting factorspace-thatframes the accelerating technological change of industrial societies, in eftect negating the presumed beneficence of technology. Due to the finiteness of the globe and the size of existing political units, von Neumann argues, further acceleration of technological progress can no longer be absorbed, as it was in the past, by an extension of the area of operations; hence it becomes a source of instability and deepening crisis.

A decade of nuclear pacing.

In April, 1973, a decade-long study was begun on nuclear-powered pacemakers. The first 15 of these were designed by the Numec Corporation under a contract from the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Altogether 151 units powered by the isotope plutonium 238 were implanted in 131 patients; the pacemakers of 4 different manufacturers were used. The last nuclear pacemaker was implanted in January, 1983. The actuarial survival at 10 years was 92%, meeting the original performance goal of the Commission of 90%. Ninety pulse generators are still in service today; 25 patients have died and 36 pulse generators have been replaced with non-nuclear units. The most common indication for replacement was an inappropriate pacing mode. This high reliability and superior performance suggest that continued use of a radioisotopic power source is justified, particularly if combined with the electronic circuits of today's dual-chambered, multiprogrammable, and multifunctional pacemakers.

Atomic Power Safety: The Case of the Power Reactor Development Company Fast Breeder, 1955-1956

Controversy over the safety of atomic power, dramatized by demonstrations at reactor sites; by countless articles, editorials, and speeches; by the popular film The China Syndrome; and, above all, by the accident at Three Mile Island, has made atomic energy a national issue. Polemical arguments are many, but few writers have devoted much attention to the early history of America's atomic policies or placed those policies in the context of their times. Current debate stems from the 1950s, when the government first opened atomic power to development by private enterprise. Under the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) acquired a dual role: promoting private-sector electric power generation by atomic reactors, and licensing and regulating those plants to protect the public health and safety. When this duality was established, it appeared necessary because of limited technical knowledge and qualified personnel. But issuance by the AEC of a construction permit for the Power Reactor Development Company's fast breeder power reactor soon embroiled the agency in a controversy that underscored the difficulties of promoting privately owned power reactors while at the same time assuring adequate health and safety protection to the public. The episode focused public attention on the agency's licensing process for atomic power plants, particularly on the manner in which the AEC resolved safety questions. Equally important were the ramifications for the future development of the agency's regulatory system.1

The origins of the American Scientific debate over fallout hazards.

The American scientific debate over fallout hazards during the 1950s was rooted in differing disciplinary, institutional, and political interests. These interests did not function independently, but rather were interconnected with one another. Scientists who expressed concern about fallout hazards were more likely to be from a biological disciplme, especially genetics; to have an academic position; to distrust US Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss's role In the Oppenheimer case; and to support a partial or total ban on nuclear weapons testing. Scientists who argued that fallout hazards were small or insignificant were more likely to be from disciplines in the physical or medical sciences; to have institutional affiliations with the AEC; and to support continued nuclear weapons testing. This case study suggests that sociological analyses of scientific controversies need to take into account interrelations between interest groups.

Determination of Extremely Low-Level Radioiodine in Milk

The determination procedure for extremely low-level radio-iodine (131I) in milk ( (23) × 10-9 μCi/ml) which corresponds to 15 mrem/yr of exposure dose for thyroid of a critical person (i.e. a baby) were published recently by both United States Atomic Energy Com-mission and Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories. However, error of determination, lower limit of detection and time required for preconcentration and radiation counting were not shown. Therefore we examined these conditions for those two kinds of methods to know whether they are useful for practical performance or not.(1) Recovery of iodine in milk was about 7075 % in both methods.(2) Lower limit of detection of 131I in milk was 6.7 x 10-11 μCi/ml with 30.4% of CV for counting. The determination conditions are : (1) sample volume 4l, (2) counting time 1, 000 min (16 2/3 hr), (3) iodine recovery 70 (4) efficiency of β-ray counting 30 %, background counting 0.8 cpm.(3) In case of two-sample treatment in parallel, it took about 1.52 days for preconcentration procedure, and about 45 days for over-all determination.(4) From the result mentioned above, it was clarified that extremely low-level radioiodine in milk which corresponds to 15 mrem/yr could be practically carried out by the both methods with experimental conditions mentioned in (2).