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CP-5 turns into a proving ground
for new technologies, techniques

Located at Argonne-East, CP-5 has become a demonstration project for new and innovative decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) equipment and techniques.

The Strategic Alliance for Environmental Restoration, a consortium of nuclear utilities, industrial partners and Argonne, is using CP-5 to field-test a number of new technologies. The machines and techniques get a "real world" test, giving the companies a proven track record to help market these products, and Argonne gets the latest and best equipment to help in D&D.

CP-5 was the last of the direct descendants of the first nuclear reactor. Like the Advanced Photon Source, CP-5 was a powerful machine for studying the structure and behavior of materials. But instead of X-rays, it produced neutrons, uncharged particles found in nuclei.

During its 25-year career, CP-5 opened new horizons in materials research, taught future scientists, trained reactor operators, and served as a model for many other research reactors in the United States and abroad.

The reactor was shut down in 1979. Its fuel and experimental equipment have been removed and sent off-site for disposal. What remains are the reactor vessel and its shielding -- a 20-foot-tall octagonal monolith of high-density concrete, steel, lead and graphite.

Much of this material will require piece-by-piece disassembly and packaging in special containers. Some of it is radioactive enough to be a hazard even to workers in protective equipment -- which is where "Rosie" comes in.

Rosie is a 25-foot tall, 40-ton remotely operated device resembling a medium-size boom crane.

There is no cab for an operator; Rosie gets her instructions from CP-5's control room, where an operator controls the machine with a pair of joysticks and an array of buttons and rocker switches.

Rosie is festooned with video cameras, and the operator can see what's going on from any angle.

Various tools, from grippers to a jackhammer, can be mounted on Rosie's boom.

The CP-5 reactor dome is also home to a "dual-arm work platform," a pair of robot appendages with gripper claws. The dual-arm is also remotely operated from a station in the control room, partly surrounded by television screens, that looks very much like the navigator console on the starship Enterprise.

The dual-arm can be lifted by crane and taken to its work area, where it can operate various specialized power tools -- and even unspecialized ones purchased from the local hardware store. A recent job called for the dual-arm to use a band saw to cut a highly radioactive control rod, lifted from the inside of the reactor, into manageable pieces.

Other industrial technologies tested in the project include:

* A small hand tool for grinding away surface contamination

* A "robot" that surveys floor surfaces for radioactive contamination, and produces maps of the contaminated surfaces.

* Remotely operated devices that measure radioactive contamination inside piping systems, and can remove or contain contamination found there.

* A video camera that can "see" gamma radiation and superimpose its findings on a visible image.

* High-capacity water-treatment filters that selectively trap contaminants.

These technologies and others in the demonstration project will have applications throughout the Department of Energy complex and in the commercial nuclear power industry.

Planning, engineering skill (and luck)
take top honors at `Goldberg' contest

But Argonne's annual Rube Goldberg machine contest for high schools doesn't attract the usual brand of engineers. Nine teams of high school students entered this year's contest, held Feb. 28 at the Chicago Children's Museum at Navy Pier. Chicago's Marist High School won top honors, narrowly edging out Oswego High School.

Rube Goldberg machine contests are inspired by Reuben Lucius Goldberg, whose cartoons combined simple household items into complex devices to perform trivial tasks. The machines combine the principles of physics and engineering, using common objects such as marbles, mousetraps, stuffed animals, electric mixers, vacuum cleaners, rubber tubes, bicycle parts and anything else that happens to be on hand.

This year's contest challenged students to build a machine that would insert and play a compact disc in 20 or more steps.

As the judging neared, students made last-minute adjustments to tangles of string, wires, trestles, supports and marble ramps using cordless power drills, hot glue guns and the ubiquitous grey tape. The hall echoed with the sound of popping balloons, excited laughter and groans of frustration.

The teams were as varied as the machines. Well-groomed students in ties rubbed elbows with those in T-shirts touting heavy-metal bands. Some teams had as few as three members; the largest was a group of 13. One team started on its machine two days before the contest; others began brainstorming months ago.

The winning entry, Marist High School's "Mount Orts," was a three-level collection of items found in the students' attics and closets. They left little to chance -- even a series of "trees" that were meant to fall, domino-style, were mounted on hinges to prevent them from missing their targets.

Their machine completed its mission twice for the judges, finishing with Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man."

Despite the students' engineering skill, a small glitch caused a few tense moments during Mount Orts' second run.

A model train partially derailed and could only inch toward its target, a small plunger that set the next element of the machine in motion. The train inched toward the plunger, and finally jerked forward to cover the last two inches. The machine completed its run only nine seconds before its time limit expired.

Each member of the winning team received an Argonne 50th anniversary commemorative silver coin and an Argonne T-shirt.

Oswego High School's machine had a nursery rhyme theme, including a motorized Jack climbing a beanstalk and a plastic cow jumping over a moon fashioned from a softball.

The third-place machine, by students from Maine South High School, Park Ridge, was dominated by a large loop-the loop marble ramp and various parts constructed of Lego building blocks.

"Mount Orts" and its inventors, Peter Baumhart, Ryan Chmiel, Brandan Hartmann, Steve Koziol, Phil Mazurek and Brian Pokrzywa and faculty advisor Jim Johns, will appear at Argonne in the near future. The team will demonstrate the machine, tour the laboratory and lunch with scientists. The team will also demonstrate its machine at Purdue University's national Rube Goldberg machine contest, April 5.

Argonne's Division of Educational Programs and Office of Public Affairs sponsored the event in collaboration with the Chicago Children's Museum, Rube Goldberg, Inc., and the national Rube Goldberg machine contest.

Argonne's web page named 'best'
for research facility or university

The judges singled out the Argonne home page for its "clarity of presentation" and "superb organization" that tells the story of the "laboratory's long and distinguished history" in "a compelling way." The "Gee Whiz" button on the home page earned special praise for "proving that a site can be serious without being stuffy."

Judges considered quality of information, navigation and organization, design, and overall impression in choosing only five winners.

The other four winners were:

* DuPont for "best web site for a product manufacturer,"

* Intergraph for "best web site for an automation or computer hardware/software company,"

* EJM Metal for "best web site for a distributor, reseller, or service center," and

* Water Environment Federation for "best web site for an association or technical society."

"Quite simply, these sites help manufacturing professionals do their jobs better," said Daniel Freedman, chairman of the judges' panel and chief editor of Manufacturing Marketplace.

Winners receive a commemorative plaque and the right to display the Manufacturing Marketplace Editors' Choice logo on their home page.

Winners will be announced March 10 at National Manufacturing Week meeting in Chicago.

Vienna Virtuosi
tickets go on sale
week of March 10

Tickets are $15. Remaining tickets will be sold at the auditorium box office before the performance.

The concert will begin at 8 p.m. at the Building 402 Auditorium (Advanced Photon Source Conference Center). A reception will follow the performance.

The program includes selections by Mozart, Dvorák and Schubert.

For more information, visit the Arts at Argonne World Wide Web page.

Writer, futurist Frederik Pohl
to speak at Argonne-East March 13

Pohl has combined three careers: writer, book and magazine editor and lecturer and consultant. His books, including the Gateway series, have won science fiction's most prestigious prizes, including several John F. Campbell and Hugo Awards and a Grand Master Nebula, given by professional writers in the field for lifetime achievement. His talk will focus on social, technological and environmental change and its complex ramifications.

The lecture is sponsored by the Energy Technology Division.

Cafeteria to host
St. Pat's party

A D.J. will provide music. Food and beverages will be available for purchase. The party is sponsored by Marriott Corp.

Scam artists continue
to target lab employees

According to Security Deparment Manager Dave Metta, the themes of these letters generally involve requests for participation in the following activities:

* Offering millions of dollars to someone in Europe or the United States who can help procure a chemical which can remove a stamp printed on 20 million U.S. dollars supposedly confiscated from corrupt government officials to make the money unusable.

* The need for an "urgent" business relationship with an individual outside Nigeria to help the Nigerian government free up "trapped" funds set aside for importing goods.

* Seeking a foreign company for the transfer of funds from a Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation.

Under no circumstances should employees respond to correspondence of this type, Metta said. In one instance, a U.S. citizen was lured to Nigeria and subsequently kidnapped and killed after a ransom of $1 million was paid.

Suspicious letters should be sent to Argonne Security, Building 302, which will send them to the local Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Drivers asked
to help keep
road open

Argonne employees are asked to cooperate by leaving space for drivers entering the frontage road.

Visitors' spouses
invited to coffee

Spouses and young children of visiting scientists and engineers are invited to attend. For more information and directions, call Susan Berger at (630) 963-3735. Rides can be arranged.

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Deadline Information

Story ideas, comments and suggestions are welcome. The Argonne News office is in Building 201, room 2Q-02 (OPA-201). The fax number is ext. 2-5274. Send E-mail to Argonne News editor Dave Jacque.

Seminar listings: Send by inter-office mail to Evie Fagan, Building 201, room 2U-09 (OPA-201). Fax to ext. 2-5274, or send by E-mail.

Classified ads: Please limit ads to 25 words. Send by inter-office mail to Evelyn Fagan, Building 201, room 2U-09 (OPA-201). A drop box is located at the Argonne News office.

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