A contract was awarded to build the Transuranium Processing Facility (TRU) at ORNL for the production, isolation, and recovery of transuranium elements so vital for basic research. The elements include the spontaneous fissioning isotopes of americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, and fermium. Also under construction and adjacent to the TRU will be the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), a 100 megawatt thermal water-cooled, flux trap reactor to be used for the production of transuranium elements for basic research, by successive neutron captures in plutonium target elements. The HFIR is scheduled for full power operation in late 1964. The TRU is scheduled for full power operation in late 1965 to provide for the recovery of products in the recycle of unused feed materials to the HFIR.
ORNL's Biophysical Separations Laboratory located at the Gaseous Diffusion Plant, is involved in experimental work utilizing zonal centrifuge machines capable of isolating large quantities of live viruses, cellular components and other submicroscopic entities. This new facility was organized under the joint sponsorship of the National Institutes of Health and the AEC to solve the basic physical problems in separation of small particles. Preliminary studies were conducted at ORNL in 1961 in collaboration with Jonas Salk, discoverer of the Salk Vaccine, that showed the zonal centrifuge was potentially capable of separating comparatively large amounts of the polio virus.
The Neutron Physics Division is using a water-filled spherical phantom in radiation shielding experiments for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space program. The phantom is a transparent sphere, approximately 16 ½ inches in diameter, which is rotated on a horizontal or vertical axis, while a radiation monitor inside the sphere traverses the interior, measuring the response to all types of radiation. ORNL was selected to perform this work for NASA because of the Lab's experience in developing reactor and accelerator shields and the versatile computing facilities needed for the theoretical phase of the program.