Ellinger Miner Oboyle Schonfeld (1 results)
Constitution of Plutonium Alloys; LA-3870, UC-25 Metals, Ceramics, and Materials, TID-4500
Ellinger, E. H., and Miner, W. N., and O'Boyle, D. R., and Schonfeld, F. W.
Published by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory of the University of California, Los Alamos, NM, 1968
- First Edition
Seller: Ground Zero Books, Ltd., Silver Spring, MD, U.S.A.Ground Zero Books, Ltd.
Contact seller5-star sellerComb binder. Condition: Good. Presumed First Edition, First printing. vii, [1], 185, [1] pages. Figures. Tables. References. Inside the binder is a card, taped in, saying Compliments of the Authors. Comb binder holds the otherwise disbound pages together and in order. This document addresses Binary Systems and Ternary and Higher… Systems. This report summarizes the information that was available to the authors prior to July 1967 pertaining to the phase relationships and crystal structures of the intermediate phases in 75 binary and 17 ternary, or higher, alloy systems of plutonium with other elements. The alloy systems are presented in alphabetical order according to the chemical symbols o the nonplutonium elements. The information given here is mainly in the form of constitutional diagrams and crystal structure tables. Only brief descriptions accompany the diagrams. In general, these descriptions are intended to document information sources, point out any significant differences that may exist between different versions of the diagrams, and clarify certain details of the phase relationships that are known but may not be readily apparent from the diagrams. Many of the diagrams are composites base on the results of more than one group of investigators. Information about the allotropic modifications of plutonium, which may be helpful to the reader in understanding and using the equilibrium diagrams in this report, is summarized in Table I. From a work by Siegfried Hecker: Plutonium is an element at odds with itselfâ"with little provocation, it can change its density by as much as 25 percent; it can be as brittle as glass or as malleable as aluminum; it expands when it solidifies; and its freshly-machined silvery surface will tarnish in minutes, producing nearly every color in the rainbow. To make matters even more complex, plutonium ages from the outside in and from the inside out. It reacts vigorously with its environmentâ"particularly with oxygen, hydrogen, and waterâ"thereby, degrading its properties from the surface to the interior over time. In addition, plutonium's continuous radioactive decay causes self-irradiation damage that can fundamentally change its properties over time. Only physicists would think of using such a material. In the periodic table, plutonium is element 94, and it fits near the middle of the actinide series (ranging from thorium to lawrencium, atomic numbers 90 to 103). Plutonium is of practical interest principally because the 239 isotope has attractive nuclear properties for energy production and nuclear explosives. Manhattan Project physicists managed to extract the more than millionfold advantage of plutonium over conventional explosives. It was the chemists and metallurgists who learned how to extract plutonium, fabricate it, and keep it sound until the time of detonation.