The Purdue High Energy Physics Group conducts research in experimental and theoretical elementary particle physics and experimental high energy astrophysics. Our goals, which we share with high energy physics colleagues around the world, are to understand at the most fundamental level the nature of matter, energy, space and time, and in order to explain the birth, evolution and fate of the Universe. The experiments in which we are currently involved are: CDF, CLEO-c, CMS, LSST, and VERITAS. We have been instrumental in establishing two major in-house facilities: The Purdue Particle Physics Microstructure Detector Facility (P3MD) in 1995 and the CMS Tier-2 center in 2005. The research efforts of the theory group span phenomenological and theoretical aspects of the Standard Model as well as many of its possible extensions. Recent work includes phenomenological consequences of supersymmetric models, string theory and applications of gauge/gravity duality, the cosmological implications of massive gravitons, and the physics of extra dimensions.

Environmental monitoring data are collected at and around the Area 3 and Area 5 Radioactive Waste Management Sites (RWMSs) at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). These data are associated with radiation exposure, air, groundwater, meteorology, and vadose zone. This report summarizes the 2011 environmental data to provide an overall evaluation of RWMS performance and to support environmental compliance and performance assessment (PA) activities. Some of these data (e.g., radiation exposure, air, and groundwater) are presented in other reports. Direct radiation monitoring data indicate exposure levels at the RWMSs are within the range of background levels measured at the NNSS. Slightly elevated exposure levels outside the Area 3 RWMS are attributed to nearby historical aboveground nuclear weapons tests. Air monitoring data show tritium concentrations in water vapor and americium and plutonium concentrations in air particles are only slightly above detection limits and background levels. The measured levels of radionuclides in air particulates and moisture are below derived concentration guides for these radionuclides. During the last 2 weeks of March 2011, gamma spectroscopy results for air particles showed measurable activities of iodine-131 (131I), cesium-134 (134Cs), and cesium-137 (137Cs). These results are attributed to the release of fission products from the damaged …

The main objective of this research program was to design and develop an optimal coating system that extends die life by minimizing premature die failure. In high-pressure aluminum die-casting, the die, core pins and inserts must withstand severe processing conditions. Many of the dies and tools in the industry are being coated to improve wear-resistance and decrease down-time for maintenance. However, thermal fatigue in metal itself can still be a major problem, especially since it often leads to catastrophic failure (i.e. die breakage) as opposed to a wear-based failure (parts begin to go out of tolerance). Tooling costs remain the largest portion of production costs for many of these parts, so the ability prevent catastrophic failures would be transformative for the manufacturing industry.The technology offers energy savings through reduced energy use in the die casting process from several factors, including increased life of the tools and dies, reuse of the dies and die components, reduction/elimination of lubricants, and reduced machine down time, and reduction of Al solder sticking on the die. The use of the optimized die coating system will also reduce environmental wastes and scrap parts. Current (2012) annual energy saving estimates, based on initial dissemination to the casting …

The Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center (FRMAC) is a federal emergency response asset whose assistance may be requested by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Defense (DoD), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and state and local agencies to respond to a nuclear or radiological incident. It is an interagency organization with representation from the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA), the Department of Defense (DoD), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and other federal agencies. FRMAC, in its present form, was created in 1987 when the radiological support mission was assigned to the DOE’s Nevada Operations Office by DOE Headquarters. The FRMAC asset, including its predecessor entities, was created, grew, and evolved to function as a response to radiological incidents. Radiological emergency response exercises showed the need for a coordinated approach to managing federal emergency monitoring and assessment activities. The mission of FRMAC is to coordinate and manage all federal radiological environmental monitoring and assessment activities during a nuclear or radiological incident within the United States in support of state,local, tribal governments, DHS, and the federal …

The FRMAC Monitoring and Sampling Manual, Volume 2 provides standard operating procedures (SOPs) for field radiation monitoring and sample collection activities that are performed by the Monitoring group during a FRMAC response to a radiological emergency.

This summary report provides a high-level lessons learned by WCH of the impact to its project performance. The context is limited to the WCH project alone.

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A series of experiments were performed to examine the effect of metal cations common to high level waste on the phase of aluminum formed. Experiments were performed at temperature of 150 C, 75 C, and room temperature, either without additional metal cation, or with 0.01-0.2 molar equivalents of either Ni{sup 2+}, Fe{sup 3+}, Mn{sup 2+}, or Cr{sup 3+}. Results showed that temperature has the greatest effect on the phase obtained. At 150 C, boehmite is the only phase obtained, independent of the presence of other metal cations, with only one exception where a small amount of gibbsite was also detected in the product when 0.2 equivalents of Ni{sup 2+} was present. At 75 C, a mixture of phases is obtained, most commonly including bayerite and gibbsite; however, boehmite is also formed under some conditions, including in the absence of additional metal ion. At room temperature, in the absence of additional metal ion, a mixture of bayerite and gibbsite is obtained. The addition of another metal cation suppresses the formation of gibbsite, with a couple of exceptions (0.2 equivalents of Ni{sup 2+} or 0.01 equivalents of Cr{sup 3+}) where both phases are still obtained.

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This report documents the results of examining the deposition velocity of water to forests, the residence time of HTO in forests, and the relation between deposition velocity and residence time with specific consideration given to the topography and experimental work performed at SRS. A simple mechanistic model is used to obtain plausible deposition velocity and residence time values where experimental data are not available and recommendations are made for practical application in a safety analysis model.

Non-radioactive cerium (Ce) and radioactive plutonium (Pu) anion exchange column experiments using scaled HB-Line designs were performed to investigate the feasibility of using either gadolinium nitrate (Gd) or boric acid (B as H{sub 3}BO{sub 3}) as a neutron poison in the H-Canyon dissolution process. Expected typical concentrations of probable impurities were tested and the removal of these impurities by a decontamination wash was measured. Impurity concentrations are compared to two specifications - designated as Column A or Column B (most restrictive) - proposed for plutonium oxide (PuO{sub 2}) product shipped to the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). Use of Gd as a neutron poison requires a larger volume of wash for the proposed Column A specification. Since boron (B) has a higher proposed specification and is more easily removed by washing, it appears to be the better candidate for use in the H-Canyon dissolution process. Some difficulty was observed in achieving the Column A specification due to the limited effectiveness that the wash step has in removing the residual B after ~4 BV's wash. However a combination of the experimental 10 BV's wash results and a calculated DF from the oxalate precipitation process yields an overall DF sufficient …

A one-dimensional model for a radial inflow turbine has been developed for super-critical carbon dioxide (S-CO{sub 2}) Brayton cycle applications. The model accounts for the main phenomena present in the volute, nozzle, and impeller of a single-stage turbine. These phenomena include internal losses due to friction, blade loading, and angle of incidence and parasitic losses due to windage and blade-housing leakage. The model has been added as a component to the G-PASS plant systems code. The model was developed to support the analysis of S-CO{sub 2} cycles in conjunction with small-scale loop experiments. Such loops operate at less than a MWt thermal input. Their size permits components to be reconfigured in new arrangements relatively easily and economically. However, the small thermal input combined with the properties of carbon dioxide lead to turbomachines with impeller diameters of only one to two inches. At these sizes the dominant phenomena differ from those in larger more typical machines. There is almost no treatment in the literature of turbomachines at these sizes. The present work therefore is aimed at developing turbomachine models that support the task of S-CO{sub 2} cycle analysis using small-scale tests. Model predictions were compared against data from an experiment performed …

Testing was conducted at the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) to investigate filter membrane performance in an effort to increase rotary microfilter (RMF) throughput. Membranes were tested in the SpinTek Filtration, Inc. Static Test Cell (STC), which permitted quick and easy testing of several different membranes. Testing consisted of 100 hours tests with two different slurry feeds, based on recommendations from the phase 1 testing. One feed contained Monosodium Titanate (MST) solids in a simulated salt solution. The other feed contained simulated sludge batch 6 (SB6) solids in a simulated salt solution. Five membranes were tested, one each from filter manufactures Pall and Porvair and three from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The membrane from Pall is the current membrane used on the latest generation RMF. The Porvair membrane performed well in previous STC tests as well as one of the ORNL membranes. The other two membranes from ORNL were recently developed and not available for the previous STC test. The results indicate that the Porvair filter performed best with the MST slurry and the ORNL SVB6-1B filter performed best with the SB6 slurry. Difficulty was encountered with the ORNL filters due to their dimensional thickness, which was greater …

The time series of Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) of carbon by an entire forest ecosystem on time scales from hourly to decadal was measured by eddy-covariance supplemented with plot-level measurements of biomass and tree demography. The results demonstrate the response of forest carbon fluxes and long-term budgets to climatic factors and to successional change. The data from this project have been extensively used worldwide by the carbon cycle science community in support of model development and validation of remote sensing observations.

Global increase in oil demand and depleting reserves has derived a need to find new oil resources. To find these untapped reservoirs, oil companies are exploring various remote and harsh locations such as deep waters in Gulf of Mexico, remote arctic regions, unexplored deep deserts, etc. Further, the depth of new oil/gas wells being drilled has increased considerably to tap these new resources. With the increase in the well depth, the bottomhole temperature and pressure are also increasing to extreme values (i.e. up to 500 F and 35,000 psi). The density and viscosity of natural gas and crude oil at reservoir conditions are critical fundamental properties required for accurate assessment of the amount of recoverable petroleum within a reservoir and the modeling of the flow of these fluids within the porous media. These properties are also used to design appropriate drilling and production equipment such as blow out preventers, risers, etc. With the present state of art, there is no accurate database for these fluid properties at extreme conditions. As we have begun to expand this experimental database it has become apparent that there are neither equations of state for density or transport models for viscosity that can be used …

This report describes the results of the final implementation and testing of a hybrid micro-grid system designed for off-grid applications in underserved Colonias along the Texas/Mexico border. The project is a federally funded follow-on to a project funded by the Texas State Energy Conservation Office in 2007 that developed and demonstrated initial prototype hybrid generation systems consisting of a proprietary energy storage technology, high efficiency charging and inverting systems, photovoltaic cells, a wind turbine, and bio-diesel generators. This combination of technologies provided continuous power to dwellings that are not grid connected, with a significant savings in fuel by allowing power generation at highly efficient operating conditions. The objective of this project was to complete development of the prototype systems and to finalize and engineering design; to install and operate the systems in the intended environment, and to evaluate the technical and economic effectiveness of the systems. The objectives of this project were met. This report documents the final design that was achieved and includes the engineering design documents for the system. The system operated as designed, with the system availability limited by maintenance requirements of the diesel gensets. Overall, the system achieved a 96% availability over the operation of the …

Radiochemical analyses of surface water samples, in the framework of Environmental Monitoring, have associated uncertainties for the radioisotopic results reported. These uncertainty analyses pertain to the tritium results from surface water samples collected at five locations on the Savannah River near the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site (SRS). Uncertainties can result from the field-sampling routine, can be incurred during transport due to the physical properties of the sample, from equipment limitations, and from the measurement instrumentation used. The uncertainty reported by the SRS in their Annual Site Environmental Report currently considers only the counting uncertainty in the measurements, which is the standard reporting protocol for radioanalytical chemistry results. The focus of this work is to provide an overview of all uncertainty components associated with SRS tritium measurements, estimate the total uncertainty according to ISO 17025, and to propose additional experiments to verify some of the estimated uncertainties. The main uncertainty components discovered and investigated in this paper are tritium absorption or desorption in the sample container, HTO/H{sub 2}O isotopic effect during distillation, pipette volume, and tritium standard uncertainty. The goal is to quantify these uncertainties and to establish a combined uncertainty in order to increase the scientific depth …

Current liquid-liquid extraction processes used in recycling irradiated nuclear fuel rely on (1) strong nitric acid to dissolve uranium oxide fuel, and (2) the use of aliphatic hydrocarbons as a diluent in formulating the solvent used to extract uranium. The nitric acid dissolution process is not selective. It dissolves virtually the entire fuel meat which complicates the uranium extraction process. In addition, a solvent washing process is used to remove TBP degradation products, which adds complexity to the recycling plant and increases the overall plant footprint and cost. A liquid or supercritical carbon dioxide (l/sc -CO2) system was designed to mitigate these problems. Indeed, TBP nitric acid complexes are highly soluble in l/sc -CO2 and are capable of extracting uranium directly from UO2, UO3 and U3O8 powders. This eliminates the need for total acid dissolution of the irradiated fuel. Furthermore, since CO2 is easily recycled by evaporation at room temperature and pressure, it eliminates the complex solvent washing process. In this report, we demonstrate: (1) A reprocessing scheme starting with the selective extraction of uranium from solid uranium oxides into a TBP-HNO3 loaded Sc-CO2 phase, (2) Back extraction of uranium into an aqueous phase, and (3) Conversion of recovered purified …

The Monitoring division is primarily responsible for the coordination and direction of: Aerial measurements to delineate the footprint of radioactive contaminants that have been released into the environment. Monitoring of radiation levels in the environment; Sampling to determine the extent of contaminant deposition in soil, water, air and on vegetation; Preliminary field analyses to quantify soil concentrations or depositions; and Environmental and personal dosimetry for FRMAC field personnel, during a Consequence Management Response Team (CMRT) and Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center (FRMAC) response. Monitoring and sampling techniques used during CM/FRMAC operations are specifically selected for use during radiological emergencies where large numbers of measurements and samples must be acquired, analyzed, and interpreted in the shortest amount of time possible. In addition, techniques and procedures are flexible so that they can be used during a variety of different scenarios; e.g., accidents involving releases from nuclear reactors, contamination by nuclear waste, nuclear weapon accidents, space vehicle reentries, or contamination from a radiological dispersal device. The Monitoring division also provides technicians to support specific Health and Safety Division activities including: The operation of the Hotline; FRMAC facility surveys; Assistance with Health and Safety at Check Points; and Assistance at population assembly areas …

Given the importance of hydraulic fracturing and proppant performance for development of the Bakken and Three Forks Formations within the Williston Basin, a study was conducted to evaluate the key factors that may result in conductivity loss within the reservoirs. Various proppants and reservoir rock cores were exposed to several different fracturing and formation fluids at reservoir conditions. The hardness of the rock cores and the strength of the proppants were evaluated prior to and following fluid exposure. In addition, the conductivity of various proppants, as well as formation embedment and spalling, was evaluated at reservoir temperatures and pressures using actual reservoir rock cores. The results of this work suggest that certain fluids may affect both rock and proppant strength, and therefore, fluid exposure needs to be considered in the field. In addition, conductivity decreases within the Bakken Formation appear to be a function of a variety of factors, including proppant and rock strength, as well as formation embedment and spalling. The results of this study highlight the need for advanced conductivity testing, coupled with quantification of formation embedment and spalling. Given the importance of proppant performance on conductivity loss and, ultimately, oil recovery, better understanding the effects of these …

Dense Pd, Pd-Cu and Pd-Ag composite membranes on microporous stainless steel substrate (MPSS) were fabricated by a novel electroless plating (EP) process. In the conventional Pd-EP process, the oxidation-reduction reactions between Pd-complex and hydrazine result in an evolution of NH{sub 3} and N{sub 2} gas bubbles. When adhered to the substrate surface and in the pores, these gas bubbles hinder uniform Pd-film deposition which results in dendrite growth leading to poor film formation. This problem was addressed by introducing cationic surfactant in the electroless plating process known as surfactant induced electroless plating (SIEP). The unique features of this innovation provide control of Pd-deposition rate, and Pd-grain size distribution. The surfactant molecules play an important role in the EP process by tailoring grain size and the process of agglomeration by removing tiny gas bubbles through adsorption at the gas-liquid interface. As a result surfactant can tailor a nanocrystalline Pd, Cu and Ag deposition in the film resulting in reduced membrane film thickness. Also, it produces a uniform, agglomerated film structure. The Pd-Cu and Pd-Ag membranes on MPSS support were fabricated by sequential deposition using SIEP method. The pre- and post-annealing characterizations of these membranes (Pd, Pd-Cu and Pd-Ag on MPSS substrate) …

During the course of this research we published 33 papers in various physics/material journals. We select four representing papers in this report and their results are summarized as follows. I. To study shear banding process, it is pertinent to know the intrinsic shear strain rate within a propagating shear band. To this aim, we used nanoindentation technique to probe the mechanical response of a Au49Ag5.5Pd2.3Cu26.9Si16.3 bulk metallic glass in locality and found notable pop-in events associated with shear band emission. Using a free volume model and under the situation when temperature and stress/hardness are fixed result in an equation, which predicts that hardness serration caused by pop-in decreases exponentially with the strain rate. Our data are in good agreement with the prediction. The result also predicts that, when strain rate is higher than a critical strain rate of 1700 s^-1, there will be no hardness serration, thereby no pop-in. In other words, multiple shear bandings will take place and material will flow homogeneously. The critical strain rate of 1700 s^-1 can be treated as the intrinsic strain rate within a shear band. We subsequently carried out a simulation study and showed that, if the imposed strain rate was over , …

Steel foundries melt recycled scrap in electric furnaces and typically consume 35-100% excess energy from the theoretical energy requirement required to pour metal castings. This excess melting energy is multiplied by yield losses during casting and finishing operations resulting in the embodied energy in a cast product typically being three to six times the theoretical energy requirement. The purpose of this research project was to study steel foundry melting operations to understand energy use and requirements for casting operations, define variations in energy consumption, determine technologies and practices that are successful in reducing melting energy and develop new melting techniques and tools to improve the energy efficiency of melting in steel foundry operations.

The objective of this program is to develop key knowledge and make critical connections between technologies needed to enable low-cost manufacturing of OLED lighting products. In particular, the program was intended to demonstrate the feasibility of making high performance Small-Molecule OLEDs (SM-OLED) using a roll-to-roll (R2R) wet-coating technique by addressing the following technical risks (1) Whether the wet-coating technique can provide high performance OLEDs, (2) Whether SM-OLED can be made in a R2R manner, (3) What are the requirements for coating equipment, and (4) Whether R2R OLEDs can have the same performance as the lab controls. The program has been managed and executed according to the Program Management Plan (PMP) that was first developed at the beginning of the program and further revised accordingly as the program progressed. Significant progress and risk reductions have been accomplished by the end of the program. Specific achievements include: (1) Demonstrated that wet-coating can provide OLEDs with high LPW and long lifetime; (2) Demonstrated R2R OLEDs can be as efficient as batch controls (Figure 1) (3) Developed & validated basic designs for key equipment necessary for R2R SM-OLEDs; (4) Developed know-hows & specifications on materials & ink formulations critical to wetcoating; (5) Developed key …