Joshua Edward Narlesky

Surveillance and Monitoring Program Full-Scale Experiments to Evaluate the Potential for Corrosion in 3013 Containers

A set of six long-term, full-scale experiments were initiated to determine the type and extent of corrosion that occurs in 3013 containers packaged with chloride-bearing plutonium oxide materials. The materials were exposed to a high relative humidity environment representative of actual packaging conditions for the materials in storage. The materials were sealed in instrumented, inner 3013 containers with corrosion specimens designed to test the corrosiveness of the environment inside the containers under various conditions. This report focuses on initial loading conditions that are used to establish a baseline to show how the conditions change throughout the storage lifetime of the containers.

A summary of volatile impurity measurements and gas generation studies on MISSTD-1, a high-purity plutonium oxide produced by low-temperature calcination of plutonium oxalate

Plutonium dioxide of high specific surface area was subjected to long-term tests of gas generation in sealed containers. The material preparation and the storage conditions were outside the bounds of acceptable parameters defined by DOE-STD-3013-2012 in that the material was stabilized to a lower temperature than required and had higher moisture content than allowed. The data provide useful information for better defining the bounding conditions for safe storage. Net increases in internal pressure and transient increases in H{sub 2} and O{sub 2} were observed, but were well within the bounds of gas compositions previously shown to not threaten integrity of 3013 containers.