Alloying of Pu-Al with Stainless Steel for Material Disposition

The Savannah River National Laboratory has evaluated several options for the disposition of stainless steel (SS)–clad plutonium metal alloy. One technologies under consideration is alloying material with SS. resulting SS-Pu alloy would be a nonproliferable waste form consisting secondary Pu composition region microencapsulated in refractory Two 8-kg ingots were made at SS-1.8Zr-0.4Pu alloys (in weight percent); 8 kg was determined previous study to maximum mass SS ingot target loading 350 g that result SS-4.4Pu percent). smaller 500-g also produced SS-1.6Zr-1.4Pu and SS-1.4Pu higher concentration than evaluated, necessity adding Zr incorporate control oxidation evaluated. Zirconium addition found unnecessary oxidation. Drill turnings collected from large small ingots, metallographic samples directly cut ingots. Both analyzed validate structure formation. Chemical analyses proved dispersed within