Several control design techniques including PlD, LQG, and PPF are investigated For adive vibration damping of a cantilever beam with uncertain boundary conditions. Step disturbances were used to evaluate the performance of the designed controllers.

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Structures that are members of an ensemble of nominally identical systems actually differ due to variations in details among individuals. Furthermore, there are variations in the system response of an individual structure that can be attributed to unmeasured conditions (such as temperature and humidity) that are present during experiments. Finally, noise is present in all measurements of structural excitations and responses. For these reasons, there is always random variation associated with the characterizations of structural dynamic systems, and descriptions of results must be in statistical or probabilistic terms;. This study identifies and assesses the sources and the degrees of randomness in a metric of structural dynamics of a given system through experiments and analysis.

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Proceedings of the 21st Information Transfer Meeting on environmental issues related to the offshore oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico. Summary reports include studies of marine life, coastal environmental issues, socioeconomic impact of offshore drilling on coastal communities, removal of offshore structures, technology allowing expansion into deepwater, Gulf currents, and more.

Thermite materials are attractive energetic materials because the reactions are highly exothermic, have high energy densities, and high temperatures of combustion. However, the application of thermite materials has been limited because of the relative slow release of energy compared to other energetic materials. Engineered nano-scale composite energetic materials, such as Al/MoO{sub 3}, show promise for additional energetic material applications because they can react very rapidly. The composite material studied in this work consists of tailored, ultra-fine grain (30-200 nm diameter) aluminum particles that dramatically increase energy release rates of these thermite materials. These reactant clusters of fuel and oxidizer particles are in nearly atomic scale proximity to each other but are constrained from reaction until triggered. Despite the growing importance of nano-scale energetic materials, even the most basic combustion characteristics of these materials have not been thoroughly studied. This paper reports initial studies of the ignition and combustion of metastable intermolecular composites (MIC) materials. The goals were lo obtain an improved understanding of flame propagation mechanisms and combustion behaviors associated with nano-structured energetic materials. Information on issues such as reaction rate and behavior as a function of composition (mixture ratio), initial static charge, and particle size are essential and will …

Text describes the area, climate, agricultural history and statistics, soil-survey methods and definitions, soils and crops, land uses and agricultural methods, irrigation, and morphology and genesis of soils of Houston County, Texas.

The primary changes that have been made to this revision reflect the relocation of the Waste Certification Official (WCO) organizationally from the Quality Services Division (QSD) into the Laboratory Waste Services (LWS) Organization. Additionally, the responsibilities for program oversight have been differentiated between the QSD and LWS. The intent of this effort is to ensure that those oversight functions, which properly belonged to the WCO, moved with that function; but retain an independent oversight function outside of the LWS Organization ensuring the potential for introduction of organizational bias, regarding programmatic and technical issues, is minimized. The Waste Certification Program (WCP) itself has been modified to allow the waste certification function to be performed by any of the personnel within the LWS Waste Acceptance/Certification functional area. However, a single individual may not perform both the technical waste acceptance review and the final certification review on the same 2109 data package. Those reviews must be performed by separate individuals in a peer review process. There will continue to be a designated WCO who will have lead programmatic responsibility for the WCP and will exercise overall program operational oversite as well as determine the overall requirements of the certification program. The quality assurance …

This Corrective Action Investigation Plan contains the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Operations Office's approach to collect the data necessary to evaluate corrective action alternatives appropriate for the closure of Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 165 under the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order. Corrective Action Unit 165 consists of eight Corrective Action Sites (CASs): CAS 25-20-01, Lab Drain Dry Well; CAS 25-51-02, Dry Well; CAS 25-59-01, Septic System; CAS 26-59-01, Septic System; CAS 25-07-06, Train Decontamination Area; CAS 25-07-07, Vehicle Washdown; CAS 26-07-01, Vehicle Washdown Station; and CAS 25-47-01, Reservoir and French Drain. All eight CASs are located in the Nevada Test Site, Nevada. Six of these CASs are located in Area 25 facilities and two CASs are located in Area 26 facilities. The eight CASs at CAU 165 consist of dry wells, septic systems, decontamination pads, and a reservoir. The six CASs in Area 25 are associated with the Nuclear Rocket Development Station that operated from 1958 to 1973. The two CASs in Area 26 are associated with facilities constructed for Project Pluto, a series of nuclear reactor tests conducted between 1961 to 1964 to develop a nuclear-powered ramjet engine. Based on site history, the …

This field investigation report for WMA S-SX addresses the results and modeling efforts from field investigation over the last three years ( 1997 through 2000)

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) believes that more than 20,000 bodies of water throughout the country are too polluted to meet water quality standards. States use different approaches to identify impaired waters. This variation has led not only to inconsistencies in the listing of impaired waters but also to difficulties in identifying the total number of impaired waters nationwide and the total number of total maximum daily loads (TMDL) needed to bring such waters up to standards. Under the Clean Water Act and its regulations, EPA has given the states some flexibility to develop listing approaches that are tailored to their circumstances. However, some of the approaches have no appropriate scientific basis. States apply a range of quality assurance procedures to ensure the quality of data used to make impairment decisions. Although states have long used quality assurance procedures for the data they collect directly, they have become increasingly vigilant about applying such procedures to data from other sources. Because of inconsistencies in states' approaches to identifying impaired waters, the information in EPA's database of impaired waters is of questionable reliability. The number of impaired waters …

This project was undertaken to fill needs in ODE's human and ecosystem health effects research, site remediation, rapid emergency response, and regulatory compliance monitoring programs. Doe has greatly stimulated development and validation of antibody-based, rapid, field-portable detection systems for small hazardous compounds. These range from simple dipsticks, microplate enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs), and hand-held colorimeters, to ultrasensitive microfluidic reactors, fiber-optic sensors and microarrays that can identify multiple analytes from patterns of cross-reactivity. Unfortunately, the technology to produce antibodies with the most desirable properties did not keep pace. Lack of antibodies remains a limiting factor in production and practical use of such devices. The goals of our project were to determine the chemical and structural bases for the antibody-analyte binding interactions using advanced computational chemistry, and to use this information to create useful new binding properties through in vitro genetic engineering and combinatorial library methods.

Weekly newspaper from Emory, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Sapulpa, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Project Gasbuggy was the first of three joint government-industry experiments conducted to test the effectiveness of nuclear explosives to fracture deeply buried, low-permeability natural gas reservoirs to stimulate production. The scope of this work plan is to document the environmental objectives and the proposed technical site investigation strategies that will be utilized for the site characterization of the Project Gasbuggy Site. Its goal is the collection of data in sufficient quantity and quality to determine current site conditions, support a risk assessment for the site surfaces, and evaluate if further remedial action is required to achieve permanent closure of the site that is both protective of human health and the environment. The Gasbuggy Site is located approximately 55 air miles east of Farmington, New Mexico, in Rio Arriba County within the Carson National Forest in the northeast portion of the San Juan Basin. Historically, Project Gasbuggy consisted of the joint government-industry detonation of a nuclear device on December 10, 1967, followed by reentry drilling and gas production testing and project evaluation activities in post-detonation operations from 1967 to 1976. Based on historical documentation, no chemical release sites other than the mud pits were identified; additionally, there was no material buried …

In February 1997, the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Operations Office (NNSA/NV) issued the Mitigation Action Plan which addressed potential impacts described in the ''Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Nevada Test Site and Off-Site Locations in the State of Nevada'' (DOE/EIS 0243). NNSA/NV committed to several actions, including the preparation of an annual report, which summarizes waste shipments to and from the Nevada Test Site (NTS) Radioactive Waste Management Sites (RWMSs) at Area 3 and Area 5. This document satisfies requirements with regard to low-level radioactive waste (LLW) and mixed low-level radioactive waste (MLLW) transported to or from the NTS during fiscal year (FY 2001).

Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 254 is located in Area 25 of the Nevada Test Site (NTS), approximately 100 kilometers (km) (62 miles) northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. The site is located within the Reactor Maintenance, Assembly and Disassembly (R-MAD) compound and consists of Building 3126, two outdoor decontamination pads, and surrounding areas within an existing fenced area measuring approximately 50 x 37 meters (160 x 120 feet). The site was used from the early 1960s to the early 1970s as part of the Nuclear Rocket Development Station program to decontaminate test-car hardware and tooling. The site was reactivated in the early 1980s to decontaminate a radiologically contaminated military tank. This Closure Report (CR) describes the closure activities performed to allow un-restricted release of the R-MAD Decontamination Facility.

This Closure Report documents the closure activities that were conducted to close Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 392--Spill Sites and Construction Materials located on the Nevada Test Site (NTS). CAU 392 is listed on in Appendix III of the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order (FFACO) (FFACO, 1996) and consists of the following six Corrective Action Sites (CASs) located in Areas 5 and 6 of the NTS: CAS 05-17-02 Construction Materials/Lead Bricks; CAS 06-17-03 Cement Mud Pit; CAS 06-1 9-01 Cable Pile; Powder Piles (3); CAS 06-44-02 Paint Spill; CAS 06-44-03 Plaster Spill; CAS 06-44-04 Cutting Fluid Discharge Ditch. Closure activities were performed in two phases. Phase 1 activities consisted of collecting waste characterization samples of soil and material present on-site, and where appropriate, performing radiological screening of debris at the six CASs. Results were used to determine how waste generated during closure activities would be handled and disposed of, i.e., as nonhazardous sanitary or hazardous waste, etc. Phase 2 activities consisted of closing each CAS by removing debris and/or soil, disposing of the generated waste, and verifying that each CAS was clean closed by visual inspection and/or by the collecting soil verification samples for laboratory analysis. Copies of the analytical …

The requirements in modeling and simulation are driven by two fundamental changes in the nuclear weapons landscape: (1) The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and (2) The Stockpile Life Extension Program which extends weapon lifetimes well beyond their originally anticipated field lifetimes. The move from confidence based on nuclear testing to confidence based on predictive simulation forces a profound change in the performance asked of codes. The scope of this document is to improve the confidence in the computational results by demonstration and documentation of the predictive capability of electrical circuit codes and the underlying conceptual, mathematical and numerical models as applied to a specific stockpile driver. This document describes the High Performance Electrical Modeling and Simulation software normal environment Verification and Validation Plan.

The Detention Pond is a constructed and lined storm water treatment basin at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that serves multiple stakeholder objectives and programmatic goals. This paper examines the process and outcome involved in the development of a new management plan for the Detention Pond. The plan was created using a new ecosystem management tool, the Legacy Framework. This stakeholder-driven conceptual framework provides an interdisciplinary methodology for determining ecosystem health, appropriate management strategies, and sensitive indicators. The conceptual framework, the Detention Ponds project, and the use of the framework in the context of the project, are described and evaluated, and evaluative criteria for this and other ecosystem management frameworks are offered. The project benefited in several ways from use of the Legacy Framework, although refinements to the framework are suggested. The stakeholder process created a context and environment in which team members became receptive to using an ecosystem management approach to evaluate and support management alternatives previously not considered. This allowed for the unanimous agreement to pursue support from upper management and organizational funding to implement a progressive management strategy. The greatly improved stakeholder relations resulted in upper management support for the project.

An offgas emissions inventory and liquid stream characterization of the Idaho New Waste Calcining Facility (NWCF) Evaporator Tank System (ETS), formerly known as the High Level Liquid Waste Evaporator (HLLWE), has been completed. The emissions rates of volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds, multiple metals, particulate, and hydrochloric acid were measured in accordance with an approved Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPjP) and Test Plan that invoked U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard sample collection and analysis procedures. Offgas samples were collected during the start up and at the end of evaporator batches when it was hypothesized the emissions would be at peak rates. Corresponding collection of samples from the evaporator feed overhead condensate, and bottoms was made at approximately the same time as the emissions inventory to support material balance determinations for the evaporator process. The data indicate that organic compound emissions are slightly higher at the beginning of the batch while metals emissions, including mercury, are slightly higher at the end of the evaporator batch. The maximum emissions concentrations are low for all constituents of primary concern. Mercury emissions were less than 5 ppbv, while the sum of HCl and Cl2 emissions was less than 1 ppmv. The sum of …

Student newspaper of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma that includes national, local, and campus news along with advertising.

This report discusses the human health risks, specifically from endocrine disruptors that are chemical compounds in drugs, food, consumer products, or the ambient environment that can interfere with internal biological processes of animals that normally are regulated by their hormones.