Intracell activity distributions were measured in three natural uranium, heavy water lattices of 1. 010 inch diameter, aluminum clad rods on triangular spacings of 4. 5 inches, 5. 0 inches, and 5. 75 inches, respectively, and in a uranium, heavy water lattice of 0. 25 inch diameter, 1. 03% U 2235, aluminum-clad rods on a triangular spacing of 1. 25 inches. The distributions were measured with bare and cadmium-covered foils of gold, lutetium, and europium. The gold was used as a 1/v absorber to measure the thermal neutron density distribution. Because the activation cross sections of lutetium and europium depart considerably from 1/v behavior, their activation depends strongly on the thermal neutron energy spectrum. Hence, they were used to make integral measurements of the change in the neutron energy spectrum with position in the lattice cell. A method was developed for treating the partial absorption, by cadmium covers, of neutrons at the 0. 46 ev europium resonance, and it was found possible to correct the europium activations to energy cutoffs just above and just below the resonance. The measured activity distributions were compared with those computed with the THERMOS code. In the natural uranium lattices, THERMOS gave excellent agreement with the measured gold activity distributions and very good agreement with the lutetium and europium distributions, indicating that THERMOS gives a very good estimate of the spatial and energy distribution of thermal neutrons in these lattices. In the enriched lattice, THERMOS gave a large overestimate of the activity dip in the fuel for all three detectors. The discrepancy was attributed to a breakdown in the Wigner-Seitz cylindrical cell approximation at small cell radii. However, the measured ratios of lutetium and europium activity to gold activity were in good agreement with the THERMOS values, indicating that THERMOS still gave a good estimate of the degree of spectral hardening. Neutron temperature calculations were made from the data by using Westcott effective cross sections. The temperature changes so calculated agreed well with those predicted by THERMOS. Disadvantage factors calculated by the Amouyal-Benoist-Horowitz (ABH) method were in excellent agreement with the measured values in the natural uranium lattices. The agreement was not as good in the enriched lattice because of an expected breakdown in the ABH method at small cell radii. Values of the thermal utilization obtained from experiment, from THERMOS, and with the ABH method were in excellent agreement for all the lattices studied. Radial and axial buckling measurements made with lutetium were in excellent agreement with similar measurements made with gold, indicating that the thermal neutron spectrum was uniform throughout the lattice tank. Measurements of intracell gold activity distributions made in off-center cells differed only slightly from those made in the central cell of the lattice, indicating that the radial flux distribution was almost completely separable into a macroscopic Jo and a microscopic cell distribution.

The total cross sections of twelve different elements were measured using the neutron beam from the 184-in. cyclotron, operating with deuterons. Bismuth fission ionization chambers were employed as both monitor and detector in conventional 'good geometry' attenuation measurements in the neutron flux emerging from the 3-in. diameter collimating port in the 10-ft-thick concrete shielding. The mean energy of detection of the neutrons in this experiment is estimated to be 95 Mev. Measurements were also made with a monitor and detector placed inside the concrete shielding where an intense neutron flux over a large area could be obtained. Attenuators of four different elements were placed in front of the detector in a 'poor geometry' arrangement so that attenuation was due essentially to inelastic collisions which degrade the neutron energy below the fission threshold. A second detector was placed outside the concrete shielding In the collimated neutron beam in line with the neutron source, absorber, and first detector. Attenuation in it is caused by both inelastic and elastic scattering. By this arrangement the ratio of inelastic to total cross section can be determined directly in one experiment. The nuclear radii as calculated from the observed cross section, using the theory of the transparent nucleus, vary as 1.38 x 10(exp-13) A(exp(1/3)) cm. In this energy range the ratios of the inelastic to total cross sections are all less than one-half.