The use of failure-prone components in critical applications has been traditionally governed by removing such components from service prior to the expiration of their predicted life expectancy. Such early retirement of materials does not guarantee that a particular sample will not fail in actual usage. The increasing cost of such life expectancy based operation and increased demand for improved reliability in industrial settings has necessitated an alternate form of quality control. Modern applications employ nondestructive evaluation (NDE), also known as nondestructive testing (NDT), as a means of monitoring the levels and growth of defects in a material throughout its operational life. This thesis describes the modifications made to existing instrumentation used for magnetic measurements at the Center for Nondestructive Evaluation at Iowa State University. Development of a new portable instrument is also given. An overview of the structure and operation of this instrumentation is presented. This thesis discusses the application of the magnetic hysteresis and Barkhausen measurement techniques, described in Sections 1.3.1 and 1.3.2 respectively, to a number of ferromagnetic specimens. Specifically, measurements were made on a number of railroad steel specimens for fatigue characterization, and on specimens of Damascus steel and Terfenol-D for materials evaluation. 60 refs., 51 figs., …

Variables affecting the texture and grain size of uranium during beta treatment are summarized. The study of the effect of time and temperature in the beta phase on the growth index (G3) and grain size of the final alpha product is tentatively believed to show that higher beta temperatures for short times (up to about seven minutes) tend to promote slightly more negative growth indices and that higher beta temperatures give rise to somewhat finer grain sizes. Results of studies of both Jominy end-quenched bars and several full-sized rods and tubes quenched by total immersion showed that large thermal gradients promoted negative growth indices and produced grains somewhat elongated in the direction of the thermal gradient. The effects of endcooling in full-sized pieces quenched by total immersion in cold water showed that the axial growth index is negative up to distances from the end of about half the wall thickness of tubes and about half the radial dimension of rods. The grain refinement penetrates to a lesser distance from the ends. In the radial direction the growth index for these same pieces is largely negative to a distance below the outer diameter of about midwall in two tubes studied. In …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past decade, a series of devastating and deadly wildland fires has burned millions of acres of federal forests, grasslands, and deserts each year, requiring federal land management agencies to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to fight them. GAO was asked to assess opportunities to improve the way agencies manage fires through the use of geospatial information technologies, specifically, to (1) identify key geospatial information technologies for addressing different aspects of managing wildland fires, (2) summarize key challenges to the effective use of geospatial technologies in managing wildland fires, and (3) identify national opportunities to improve the effective use of geospatial technologies."

This report synthesizes the results of volcanism studies conducted by scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and collaborating institutions on behalf of the Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain Project. Chapter 1 introduces the volcanism issue for the Yucca Mountain site and provides the reader with an overview of the organization, content, and significant conclusions of this report. The hazard of future basaltic volcanism is the primary topic of concern including both events that intersect a potential repository and events that occur near or within the waste isolation system of a repository. Future volcanic events cannot be predicted with certainty but instead are estimated using formal methods of probabilistic volcanic hazard assessment (PVHA). Chapter 2 describes the volcanic history of the Yucca Mountain region (YMR) and emphasizes the Pliocene and Quaternary volcanic record, the interval of primary concern for volcanic risk assessment. The distribution, eruptive history, and geochronology of Plio-Quaternary basalt centers are described by individual center emphasizing the younger postcaldera basalt (<5 Ma). The Lathrop Wells volcanic center is described in detail because it is the youngest basalt center in the YMR. The age of the Lathrop Wells center is now confidently determined to be about 75 thousand years …

This report is submitted to Congress by the Secretary of the Air Force, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Interior pursuant to Section 6 of the Military Lands Withdrawal Act of 1986. It contains an analysis and evaluation of the effects on public health and safety resulting from DOD and Department of Energy (DOE) military and defense-related uses on withdrawn public lands in the State of Nevada and in airspace overlying the State. This report describes the cumulative impacts of those activities on public and private property in Nevada and on plants, fish and wildlife, cultural, historic, scientific, recreational, wilderness and other resources of the public lands of Nevada. An analysis and evaluation of possible measures to mitigate the cumulative effects of the withdrawal of lands and the use of airspace in Nevada for defense-related purposes was conducted, and those considered practical are listed.