The objective of this work was to use a simple compartment model of soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) dynamics to predict forest recovery on degraded soils and forest sustainability, following recovery, under different regimes of prescribed fire and timber management. This report describes the model and a model-based analysis of the effect of prescribed burning and forest thinning or clearcutting on stand recovery and sustainability at Fort Benning, GA. I developed the model using Stella{reg_sign} Research Software (High Performance Systems, Inc., Hanover, NH) and parameterized the model using data from field studies at Fort Benning, literature sources, and parameter fitting. The model included (1) a tree biomass submodel that predicted aboveground and belowground tree biomass, (2) a litter production submodel that predicted the dynamics of herbaceous aboveground and belowground biomass, (3) a soil C and N submodel that predicted soil C and N stocks (to a 30 cm soil depth) and net soil N mineralization, and (4) an excess N submodel that calculated the difference between predicted plant N demands and soil N supplies. There was a modeled feedback from potential excess N (PEN) to tree growth such that forest growth was limited under conditions of N deficiency. Two …

The role of soil C dynamics in the exchange of CO{sub 2} between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere is at the center of many science questions related to global climate change. The purpose of this report is to summarize measured trends in environmental factors and ecosystem processes that affect soil C balance along elevation gradients in the southern Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, USA. Three environmental factors that have potentially significant effects on soil C dynamics (temperature, precipitation, and soil N availability) vary in a predictable manner with altitude. Forest soil C stocks and calculated turnover times of labile soil C increase with elevation, and there is an apparent inverse relationship between soil C storage and mean annual temperature. Relationships between climate variables and soil C dynamics along elevation gradients must be interpreted with caution because litter chemistry, soil moisture, N availability, and temperature are confounded; all potentially interact in complex ways to regulate soil C storage through effects on decomposition. Some recommendations are presented for untangling these complexities. It is concluded that past studies along elevation gradients have contributed to a better but not complete understanding of environmental factors and processes that potentially affect …

We present a method for comparing shapes of grayscale images in noisy circumstances. By establishing correspondences in a new image with a shape model, we can estimate a transformation between the new region and the model. Using a cost function for deviations from the model, we can rank resulting shape matches. We compare two separate distinct region detectors: Scale Saliency and difference of gaussians. We show that this method is successful in comparing images of fluid mixing under anisotropic geometric distortions and additive gaussian noise. Scale Saliency outperforms the difference of Gaussians in this context.

At present the ETA beam energy as measured by the ETA energy analyzer and the DARHT spectrometer differ by {approx}12%. This discrepancy is due to two sources, an overestimate of the effective length of the ETA energy analyzer bending-field, and data reduction methods that are not valid. The discrepancy can be eliminated if we return to the original process of measuring the angular deflection of the beam and use a value of 43.2cm for the effective length of the axial field profile.

The Computational Physics Group of the Earth Sciences Division focuses much of its effort on improving current understanding of the response of geologic media to strong shock waves, and on the interaction of those waves with underground structures. Two codes have been developed and used to achieve these objectives: LDEC and GEODYN. Both codes are three-dimensional and massively parallel, and they have both been used on LLNLs high performance computing platforms to advance the state of the art in computational geophysics.

This report describes the work performed during the first semi-annual third year of the project, ''Preferred Waterflood Management Practices for the Spraberry Trend Area''. The objective of this project is to significantly increase field-wide production in the Spraberry Trend in a short time frame through the application of preferred practices for managing and optimizing water injection. Our goal is to dispel negative attitudes and lack of confidence in water injection and to document the methodology and results for public dissemination to motivate waterflood expansion in the Spraberry Trend. To achieve this objective, in this period we concentrated our effort on analyzing production and injection data to optimize the reservoir management strategies for Germania Spraberry Unit. This study address the reservoir characterization and monitoring of the waterflooding project and propose alternatives of development of the current and future conditions of the reservoir to improve field performance. This research should serve as a guide for future work in reservoir simulation and can be used to evaluate various scenarios for additional development as well as to optimize the operating practices in the field. The results indicate that under the current conditions, a total of 1.410 million barrels of oil can be produced in …

A play portfolio is being constructed for the Permian Basin in west Texas and southeast New Mexico, the largest onshore petroleum-producing basin in the United States. Approximately 1,300 reservoirs in the Permian Basin have been identified as having cumulative production greater than 1 MMbbl (1.59 x 10{sup 5} m{sup 3}) of oil through 2000. Of these significant-sized reservoirs, approximately 1,000 are in Texas and 300 in New Mexico. There are 32 geologic plays that have been defined for Permian Basin oil reservoirs, and each of the 1,300 major reservoirs was assigned to a play. The reservoirs were mapped and compiled in a Geographic Information System (GIS) by play. The final reservoir shapefile for each play contains the geographic location of each reservoir. Associated reservoir information within the linked data tables includes RRC reservoir number and district (Texas only), official field and reservoir name, year reservoir was discovered, depth to top of the reservoir, production in 2000, and cumulative production through 2000. Some tables also list subplays. Play boundaries were drawn for each play; the boundaries include areas where fields in that play occur but are smaller than 1 MMbbl (1.59 x 10{sup 5} m{sup 3}) of cumulative production. Oil production …

The Albany Research Center (ARC) has developed a new Integrated Pollutant Removal (IPR) process for fossil-fueled boilers. Pursuant to a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with Jupiter Oxygen Corporation, ARC currently is studying the IPR process as applied to the oxygen fuel technology developed by Jupiter. As discussed further below, these two new technologies are complementary. This interim report summarizes the study results to date and outlines the potential activities under the next phase of the CRADA with Jupiter.

This report highlights significant achievements in the Enhanced Practical Photosynthetic CO{sub 2} Mitigation Project for the period ending 09/30/2004. The primary effort of this quarter was focused on mass transfer of carbon dioxide into the water film to study the potential effects on the photosynthetic organisms that depend on the carbon. Testing of the carbon dioxide scrubbing capability (mass transfer capability) of flowing water film appears to be relatively high and largely unaffected by transport of the gas through the bioreactor. The implications are that the transfer of carbon dioxide into the film is nearly at maximum and that it is sufficient to sustain photosynthesis at whatever rate the organisms can sustain. This finding is key to assuming that the process is an energy (photon) limited reaction and not a nutrient limited reaction.

The purpose of this scientific analysis report is to document calculations of the number of waste packages that could be damaged in a potential future igneous event through a repository at Yucca Mountain. The analyses include disruption from an intrusive igneous event and from an extrusive volcanic event. This analysis supports the evaluation of the potential consequences of future igneous activity as part of the total system performance assessment for the license application (TSPA-LA) for the Yucca Mountain Project (YMP). Igneous activity is a disruptive event that is included in the TSPA-LA analyses. Two igneous activity scenarios are considered: (1) The igneous intrusion groundwater release scenario (also called the igneous intrusion scenario) considers the in situ damage to waste packages or failure of waste packages that occurs if they are engulfed or otherwise affected by magma as a result of an igneous intrusion. (2) The volcanic eruption scenario depicts the direct release of radioactive waste due to an intrusion that intersects the repository followed by a volcanic eruption at the surface. An igneous intrusion is defined as the ascent of a basaltic dike or dike system (i.e., a set or swarm of multiple dikes comprising a single intrusive event) to …

The design specification for monosodium titanate (MST) requires that less than 1 per cent of the particles are larger than 35 micron and that less than 1 per cent of the particles are smaller than 1 micron. Blue Grass Chemical Specialties produced two batches of MST for the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) that do not meet the particle size specification. The material has more than 1 per cent of the particles smaller than 1 micron. This increase in the fraction of particles less than 1 micron could adversely affect filtration within the Actinide Removal Project (ARP). The authors conducted dead-end filtration testing with 0.45 micron polymeric filter media, 0.5 micron Mott sintered stainless steel filter media, and 0.1 micron Mott sintered stainless steel filter media. The authors make the following recommendations for MST particle size. If a 0.5 micron Mott filter is used for the ARP process, the existing particle size specification (less than 1 per cent of particles less than 1 micron and less than 1 per cent of particles greater than 35 micron) should be maintained. If a 0.1 micron Mott filter is used for the ARP process and the existing particle size specification is not met, …

The internal magnetic fields of plasmas can be measured under certain conditions from the integrated v x B deflection of MeV alpha particles emitted by a small radioactive source. This alpha source and large-area alpha particle detector would be located inside the vacuum vessel but outside the plasma. Alphas with a typical energy of 5.5 MeV (241Am) can reach the center of almost all laboratory plasmas and magnetic fusion devices, so this method can potentially determine the q(r) profile of tokamaks or STs. Orbit calculations, background evaluations, and conceptual designs for such a vxB (or ''AVB'') detector are described.

This is a final report on DE-FG03-00ER45843 entitled ''Coulomb Glasses''. The work is continuing under grant DE-FG02-04ER46107 under the DOE Chicago Operations office. During the award period from August 15, 2000 to December 31, 2003, they studied the following: (1) 1/f Noise in Coulomb Glasses; (2) Coulomb glass phase transitions as a function of positional disorder; (3) a new structural probe of the structural glass transition; and (4) frequency dependence and equilibration of the specific heat of glass forming liquids.

The main objective of this work is to obtain a simplified asymptotic representation of the reflection of seismic signal from a fluid-saturated porous medium in the low-frequency domain. In the first part, we derive the equations of low-frequency harmonic waves in a fluid-saturated elastic porous medium from the basic concepts of filtration theory. We demonstrate that the obtained equations can be related to the poroelasticity model of Frenkel-Gassmann-Biot, and to pressure diffusion model routinely used in well test analysis as well. We thus try to put the poroelastic and filtration theories on the same ground. We study the reflection of a low-frequency signal from a plane interface between elastic and elastic fluid-saturated porous media. We obtain an asymptotic scaling of the frequency-dependent component of the reflection coefficient with respect to a dimensionless parameter depending on the frequency of the signal and the reservoir fluid mobility. We also investigate the impact of the relaxation time and tortuosity on this scaling.

The problem of particle loading in particle-in-cell gyrokinetic simulations is addressed using a quadratic optimization algorithm. Optimized loading in configuration space dramatically reduces the short wavelength modes in the electrostatic potential that are partly responsible for the non-conservation of total energy; further, the long wavelength modes are resolved with good accuracy. As a result, the conservation of energy for the optimized loading is much better that the conservation of energy for the random loading. The method is valid for any geometry and can be coupled to optimization algorithms in velocity space.

Research in automatic differentiation has led to a number of tools that implement various approaches and algorithms for the most important programming languages. While all these tools have the same mathematical underpinnings, the actual implementations have little in common and mostly are specialized for a particular programming language, compiler internal representation, or purpose. This specialization does not promote an open test bed for experimentation with new algorithms that arise from exploiting structural properties of numerical codes in a source transformation context. OpenAD is being designed to fill this need by providing a framework that allows for relative ease in the implementation of algorithms that operate on a representation of the numerical kernel of a program. Language independence is achieved by using an intermediate XML format and the abstraction of common compiler analyses in Open-Analysis. The intermediate format is mapped to concrete programming languages via two front/back end combinations. The design allows for reuse and combination of already implemented algorithms. We describe the set of algorithms and basic functionality currently implemented in OpenAD and explain the necessary steps to add a new algorithm to the framework.

We report observation of a high performance scenario in the National Spherical Torus Experiment with very small edge-localized modes (ELMs). These ELMs have no measurable impact on stored energy and are consistent with high bootstrap current operation with line average density approaching Greenwald scaling. The ELM perturbation is observed to typically originate near the lower divertor region, as opposed to the outer midplane for ELMs described in the literature. If extrapolable, this scenario would provide an attractive operating regime for next step fusion experiments

A Solid State Neutral Particle Analyzer (SSNPA) array has been installed on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX). The array consists of four chords viewing through a common vacuum flange. The tangency radii of the viewing chords are 60, 90, 100, and 120 cm. They view across the three co-injection neutral beam lines (deuterium, 80 keV (typ.) with tangency radii 48.7, 59.2, and 69.4 cm) on NSTX and detect co-going energetic ions. A silicon photodiode used was calibrated by using a mono-energetic deuteron beam source. Deuterons with energy above 40 keV can be detected with the present setup. The degradation of the performance was also investigated. Lead shots and epoxy are used for neutron shielding to reduce handling any hazardous heavy metal. This method also enables us to make an arbitrary shape to be fit into the complex flight tube.

Coherent oscillations with frequency 0.3 {le} {omega}/{omega}{sub ci} {le} 1, are seen in the National Spherical Torus Experiment [M. Ono, S.M. Kaye, Y-K.M. Peng, et al., Nucl. Fusion 40, 557 (2000)]. This paper presents new data and analysis comparing characteristics of the observed modes to the model of compressional Alfven eigenmodes (CAE). The toroidal mode number has been measured and is typically between 7 < n < 9. The polarization of the modes, measured using an array of four Mirnov coils, is found to be compressional. The frequency scaling of the modes agrees with the predictions of a numerical 2-D code, but the detailed structure of the spectrum is not captured with the simple model. The fast ion distribution function, as calculated with the beam deposition code in TRANSP [R.V. Budny, Nucl. Fusion 34, 1247 (1994)], is shown to be qualitatively consistent with the constraints of the Doppler-shifted cyclotron resonance drive model. This model also predicts the observed scaling of the low frequency limit for CAE.

The SpinTek rotary microfilter is being considered as an alternative to crossflow filtration. Prior testing evaluated the vendor's standard design for a 1-disk and 3-disk design. We noted several areas of improvement during the testing of the two filter systems that can be included in the 25-disk plant size unit.This report outlines several potential enhancements and improvements to the vendor's standard design which would extend the lifetime of the unit and increase the ability to perform maintenance for units deployed in radioactive service. The enhancements proposed in this report can be implemented to the current design with minimal impact to the cost and schedule of the purchase of the standard unit. An example of this is the replacement of the current mechanical seal with a bellows seal. The improvements proposed will require an extensive redesign of components found in the current system such as the filter chamber.

This funding supported investigations of the behavior of complex materials. Very often the chosen materials were structurally complex, since in such cases more and new degrees of freedom that lead to more complicated interactions and more variable behavior. We summarize the most successful parts of that research: (1) implementation of Wannier functions to obtain magnetic coupling constants in magnetic insulators; (2) quasiparticle (single-particle excitation) studies of LiH under high pressure; (3) time-dependent density functional theory applied to study energy loss processes in superconducting MgB2.

A new chemical detection technology has been realized that addresses DOE environmental management needs. The new technology is based on a variant of the sensitive optical absorption technique, cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS). Termed evanescent-wave cavity ring-down spectroscopy (EW-CRDS), the technology employs a miniature solid-state optical resonator having an extremely high Q-factor as the sensing element, where the high-Q is achieved by using ultra-low-attenuation optical materials, ultra-smooth surfaces, and ultra-high reflectivity coatings, as well as low-diffraction-loss designs. At least one total-internal reflection (TIR) mirror is integral to the resonator permitting the concomitant evanescent wave to probe the ambient environment. Several prototypes have been designed, fabricated, characterized, and applied to chemical detection. Moreover, extensions of the sensing concept have been explored to enhance selectivity, sensitivity, and range of application. Operating primarily in the visible and near IR regions, the technology inherently enables remote detection by optical fiber. Producing 11 archival publications, 5 patents, 19 invited talks, 4 conference proceedings, a CRADA, and a patent-license agreement, the project has realized a new chemical detection technology providing >100 times more sensitivity than comparable technologies, while also providing practical advantages.

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Stress corrosion cracking is one of the most common corrosion-related causes for premature breach of metal structural components. Stress corrosion cracking is the initiation and propagation of cracks in structural components due to three factors that must be present simultaneously: metallurgical susceptibility, critical environment, and static (or sustained) tensile stresses. This report was prepared according to ''Technical Work Plan for: Regulatory Integration Modeling and Analysis of the Waste Form and Waste Package'' (BSC 2004 [DIRS 171583]). The purpose of this report is to provide an evaluation of the potential for stress corrosion cracking of the engineered barrier system components (i.e., the drip shield, waste package outer barrier, and waste package stainless steel inner structural cylinder) under exposure conditions consistent with the repository during the regulatory period of 10,000 years after permanent closure. For the drip shield and waste package outer barrier, the critical environment is conservatively taken as any aqueous environment contacting the metal surfaces. Appendix B of this report describes the development of the SCC-relevant seismic crack density model (SCDM). The consequence of a stress corrosion cracking breach of the drip shield, the waste package outer barrier, or the stainless steel inner structural cylinder material is the initiation and …