The systematic tests of the gasifier simulator were conducted in this reporting period. In the systematic test, two (2) factors were considered as the experimental parameters, including air injection rate and water injection rate. Each experimental factor had two (2) levels, respectively. A special water-feeding device was designed and installed to the gasifier simulator. Analysis of Variances (ANOVA) was applied to the results of the systematic tests. The ANOVA shows that the air injection rate did have the significant impact to the temperature measurement in the gasifier simulator. The ANOVA also shows that the water injection rate did not have the significant impact to the temperature measurements in the gasifier simulator. The ANOVA analysis also proves that the thermocouple assembly we proposed was immune to the moisture environment, the temperature measurement remained accurate in moisture environment. Within this reporting period, the vibration application for cleaning purpose was explored. Both ultrasonic and sub-sonic vibrations were considered. A feasibility test was conducted to prove that the thermocouple vibration did not have the significant impact to the temperature measurements in the gasifier simulator. This feasibility test was a 2{sup 2} factorial design. Two factors including temperature levels and motor speeds were set to …

Properties of the multi-species electromagnetic Weibel and electrostatic two-stream instabilities are investigated for an intense ion beam propagating through background plasma. Assuming that the background plasma electrons provide complete charge and current neutralization, detailed linear stability properties are calculated within the framework of a macroscopic cold-fluid model for a wide range of system parameters.

The technology referred to as Cavity Like Completions (CLC) offers a new technique to complete wells in friable and unconsolidated sands. A successfully designed CLC provides significant increases in well PI (performance index) at lower costs than alternative completion techniques. CLC technology is being developed and documented by a partnership of major oil and gas companies through a GPRI (Global Petroleum Research Institute) joint venture. Through the DOE-funded PUMP program, the experiences of the members of the joint venture will be described for other oil and gas producing companies. To date six examples of CLC completions have been investigated by the JV. The project was performed to introduce a new type of completion (or recompletion) technique to the industry that, in many cases, offers a more cost effective method to produce oil and gas from friable reservoirs. The project's scope of work included: (1) Further develop theory, laboratory and field data into a unified model to predict performance of cavity completion; (2) Perform at least one well test for cavity completion (well provided by one of the sponsor companies); (3) Provide summary of geo-mechanical models for PI increase; and (4) Develop guidelines to evaluate success of potential cavity completion. The …

Third-party contact with pipelines (typically caused by contact with a digging or drilling device) can result in mechanical damage to the pipe, in addition to coating damage that can initiate corrosion. Because this type of damage often goes unreported and can lead to eventual catastrophic failure of the pipe, a reliable, cost-effective method is needed for monitoring and reporting third-party contact events. The impressed alternating cycle current (IACC) pipeline monitoring method consists of impressing electrical signals on the pipe by generating a time-varying voltage between the pipe and the soil at periodic locations where pipeline access is available. The signal voltage between the pipe and ground is monitored continuously at receiving stations located some distance away. Third-party contact to the pipe that breaks through the coating changes the signal received at the receiving stations. In this project, the IACC monitoring method is being developed, tested, and demonstrated. Work performed to date includes a technology assessment, development of an IACC model to predict performance and assist with selection of signal operating parameters, and experimental measurements on a buried pipe at a test site. Initial results show that simulated contact can be detected. Future work will involve further refinement of the method …

Hydrogen can be produced from many feed stocks including coal. The objectives of this project are to establish and prove a hydrogen production pathway from coal-derived methanol for fuel cell applications. This progress report is the first such report that will be submitted to the DOE reporting on the status and progress made during the course of the project. This report covers the time period of October 1--December 31, 2003. This quarter saw progress in three areas. These areas are: (1) Evaluations of coal based methanol and the fuel cell grade baseline fuel, (2) Design and set up of the autothermal reactor, as well as (3) Set up and data collection of baseline performance using the steam reformer. All of the projects are proceeding on schedule. During this quarter one conference paper was written that will be presented at the ASME Power 2004 conference in March 2004, which outlines the research direction and basis for looking at the coal to hydrogen pathway.

A model was needed to assess material throughput and validate the conceptual design of a production facility, including equipment lists and layout. The initial desire was to use a commercially available discrete event simulation package. However, the available software was found to be too limited in capability. Database interface software was used to develop autonomous intelligent manufacturing workstations and material transporters. The initial Extend model used to assess material throughput and develop equipment lists for the preconceptual design effort was upgraded with software add-ons from Simulation Dynamics, Inc. (SDI). Use of the SDI database interface allowed the upgraded model to include: 1. a material mass balance at any level of detail required by the user, and 2. a transport system model that includes all transport system movements, time delays, and transfers between systems. This model will assist in evaluating transport system capacity, sensitive time delays in the system, and optimal operating strategies. An additional benefit of using the SDI database interface is dramatically improved run time performance. This allows significantly more runs to be completed to provide better statistics for overall plant performance. The model has all system and process parameters entered into sub-component accessible tables. All information for the …

This report contains top-level requirements for the various areas of radiological protection for workers. Detailed quotations of the requirements for applicable regulatory documents can be found in the Radiological Design Summary Report Implementation Guide. For the purposes of demonstrating compliance with these requirements, per Engineering Standard 01064, ''shall consider / shall evaluate'' indicates that the designer must examine the requirement for the design and either incorporate or provide a technical justification as to why the requirement is not incorporated. This report describes how the Building 512-S, Actinide Removal Process meets the required radiological design criteria and requirements based on 10CFR835, DOE Order 420.1A, WSRC Manual 5Q and various other DOE guides and handbooks. The analyses supporting this Radiological Design Summary Report initially used a source term of 10.6 Ci/gallon of Cs-137 as the basis for bulk shielding calculations. As the project evolved, the source term was reduced to 1.1 Ci/gallon of Cs-137. This latter source term forms the basis for later dose rate evaluations.

Utilities in the U.S. operate over 75,000 km (47,000 miles) of old cast-iron pipes for gas distribution. The bell-and-spigot joints that connect pipe sections together tend to leak as these pipes age. Current repair practices are costly and highly disruptive. The objective of this program is to design, test and commercialize a robotic system capable of sealing multiple cast-iron bell and spigot joints from a single pipe entry point. The proposed system will perform repairs while the pipe remains in service by traveling through the pipe, cleaning each joint surface, and installing a stainless-steel sleeve lined with an epoxy-impregnated felt across the joint. This approach will save considerable time and labor, avoid traffic disruption, and eliminate any requirement to interrupt service to customers (which would result in enormous expense to utilities). Technical challenges include: (1) repair sleeves must compensate for diametric variation and eccentricity of cast-iron pipes; (2) the assembly must travel long distances through pipes containing debris; (3) the pipe wall must be effectively cleaned in the immediate area of the joint to assure good bonding of the sleeve; and (4) an innovative bolt-on entry fitting is required to conduct repair operations on live mains. The development effort is …

Precision cleaning studies done at Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies (FM&T), the Kansas City Plant (KCP), and at other locations within the Department of Energy (DOE) Weapons complex over the last 30 years have depended upon results from MESERAN Evaporative Rate Analysis for detecting low levels of organic contamination. The characterization of the surface being analyzed is carried out by depositing a Carbon-14 tagged radiochemical onto the test surface and monitoring the rate at which the radiochemical disappears from the surface with a Geiger-Mueller counter. In the past, the total number of counts over a 2-minute span have been used to judge whether a surface is contaminated or not and semi-quantitatively to what extent. This technique is very sensitive but has not enjoyed the broad acceptance of a purely quantitative analysis. The work on this project developed calibrations of various organic contaminants typically encountered in KCP operations. In addition, a new analysis method was developed to enhance the ability of MESERAN Analyzers to detect organic contamination and yield quantitative data in the microgram and nanogram levels.

The objective of this project is to design, fabricate and field demonstrate a cost effective, multi-spectral scanner for natural gas leak detection in transmission and distribution pipelines. During the first six months of the project, the design for a laboratory version of the multispectral scanner was completed. The optical, mechanical, and electronic design for the scanner was completed. The optical design was analyzed using Zeemax Optical Design software and found to provide sufficiently resolved performance for the scanner. The electronic design was evaluated using a bread board and very high signal to noise ratios were obtained. Fabrication of a laboratory version of the multi-spectral scanner is currently in progress. A technology status report and a research management plan was also completed during the same period.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) proposes to create a National Facility for Advanced Computational Science (NFACS) and to establish a new partnership between the American computer industry and a national consortium of laboratories, universities, and computing facilities. NFACS will provide leadership-class scientific computing capability to scientists and engineers nationwide, independent of their institutional affiliation or source of funding. This partnership will bring into existence a new class of computational capability in the United States that is optimal for science and will create a sustainable path towards petaflops performance.

Hydrogen can be produced from many feed stocks including coal. The objectives of this project are to establish and prove a hydrogen production pathway from coal-derived methanol for fuel cell applications. This progress report is the second report submitted to the DOE reporting on the status and progress made during the course of the project. This report covers the time period of January 1--March 31, 2004. This quarter saw progress in five areas. These areas are: (1) Internal and external evaluations of coal based methanol and the fuel cell grade baseline fuel; (2) Experimental investigations of heat and mass transfer enhancement methods by flow field manipulation; (3) Design and set up of the autothermal reactor; (4) Steam reformation of Coal Based Methanol; and (5) Initial catalyst degradation studies. All of the projects are proceeding on or slightly ahead of schedule.

The match between the Linac beam energy and the energy determined by the bending field of the Booster magnets is crucial for rf capture, beam quality, and the transmission efficiency in a Booster cycle. The observation of the injection energy match is important for injection tuning. Several signals, such as phase shift drive (PSD), radial position error (RPOS), synchrotron phase (SPD), and fast phase error (FPERR), provide consistent information on the energy match and can be used for an injection match tuning.

This year we focused on investigating the effect of particulate fines in both the hot flow and cold flow studies. This report summarizes the results of those studies in the hot flow and cold flow geometries. In the hot flow studies, increasing the fines content in the pulverized coal enhances combustion stability producing attached flames that were otherwise detached. NO{sub x} emissions are reduced by up to 50% through flame attachment. For always-attached flames, increasing the fraction of fines had little impact on total NO emissions. In the cold flow studies we found that the presence of the fine particles enhanced the velocity fluctuations of the coarse particles. The presence of coarse particles, however, did not affect the motion of the fine particles.

The purpose of this model report is to assess the potential impacts of igneous intrusion on waste packages and waste forms in the emplacement drifts at the Yucca Mountain Repository. The models are based on conceptual models and includes an assessment of deleterious dynamic, thermal, hydrologic, and chemical impacts. The models described in this report constitute the waste package and waste form impacts submodel of the Total System Performance Assessment for the License Application (TSPA-LA) model assessing the impacts of a hypothetical igneous intrusion event on the repository total system performance. This submodel is carried out in accordance with Technical Work Plan for Waste Form Degradation Modeling, Testing, and Analyses in Support of LA (BSC 2004 [DIRS:167796]) and Total System Performance Assessment-License Application Methods and Approaches (BSC 2003 [DIRS: 166296]). The technical work plan was prepared in accordance with AP-2.27Q, Planning for Science Activities. Any deviations from the technical work plan are documented in the following sections as they occur. The TSPA-LA approach to implementing the models for waste package and waste form response during igneous intrusion is based on identification of damage zones. Zone 1 includes all emplacement drifts intruded by the basalt dike, and Zone 2 includes all …

The main objective of this project is to measure heat of dissolution of CO{sub 2} in carefully selected mixed alkanolamine solvent systems, and provide such directly measured data that might be used for efficient design of CO{sub 2} capture processes, or for better understanding of thermodynamics of CO{sub 2}-alkanolamine systems. Carbon dioxide is one of the major greenhouse gases, and the need for stabilization of its composition in earth's atmosphere is vital for the future of mankind. Although technologies are available for capture and storage of CO{sub 2}, these technologies are far too expensive for economical commercialization. Reduction of cost would require research for refinement of the technology. For more economical CO{sub 2} capture and regeneration, there is a need for development of more efficient solvent systems. In this project we will extend the thermodynamic database by measuring heat of solution data of CO{sub 2} in mixed solvents made of MEA (monoethanolamine), MDEA (methyldiethanolamine), piperazine, and water. Mixed solvents of different compositions will be selected and in each case data will be measured at temperatures 40 and 80 C and various partial pressures of CO{sub 2}. At the end of the project, observations, conclusions, and recommendations will be derived for …

When using an out-of-core indexing method to answer a query, it is generally assumed that the I/O cost dominates the overall query response time. Because of this, most research on indexing methods concentrate on reducing the sizes of indices. For bitmap indices, compression has been used for this purpose. However, in most cases, operations on these compressed bitmaps, mostly bitwise logical operations such as AND, OR, and NOT, spend more time in CPU than in I/O. To speedup these operations, a number of specialized bitmap compression schemes have been developed; the best known of which is the byte-aligned bitmap code (BBC). They are usually faster in performing logical operations than the general purpose compression schemes, but, the time spent in CPU still dominates the total query response time. To reduce the query response time, we designed a CPU-friendly scheme named the word-aligned hybrid (WAH) code. In this paper, we prove that the sizes of WAH compressed bitmap indices are about two words per row for large range of attributes. This size is smaller than typical sizes of commonly used indices, such as a B-tree. Therefore, WAH compressed indices are not only appropriate for low cardinality attributes but also for high …

A thin foil Faraday cup array is being built to measure the loss of 3.5 MeV alpha particles and MeV ion cyclotron heating (ICH) tail ions on JET. It will consist of nine detectors spread over five different poloidal locations and three radial positions. They will measure the poloidal distribution and radial scrape off of the losses. The detectors will be comprised of four layers of thin (2.5 micron) Ni foil, giving some resolution of the lost particle energy distribution as different ranges of energies will stop in different layers of the detector. One detector will utilize eight thinner (1.0 micron) foils to obtain a better resolved energy distribution. These detectors will accept particles incident up to 45{sup o} from the normal to the foils.

The effects of growth interruption on the quality of GaInAsSb/AlGaAsSb heterostructures grown by organometallic vapor phase epitaxy are reported. In-situ reflectance monitoring and ex-situ characterization by high-resolution x-ray diffraction, 4K photoluminescence (PL), and time-resolved PL indicate that GaInAsSb is extremely sensitive to growth interruption time as well as the ambient atmosphere during interruption. By optimizing the interruption sequence, surface recombination velocity as low as 20 cm/s was achieved for GaInAsSb/AlGaAsSb double heterostructures.

The University of Utah and the University of Idaho investigated the carbonation of silicate minerals by mechanochemical processing. This method uses intense grinding, and has the potential of being much less expensive than other methods of mineral sequestration. Tests were conducted in three types of grinding devices. In these tests, natural and synthetic silicate compounds were ground for varying times in the presence of gaseous CO{sub 2}. A significant change takes place in the lizardite variety of serpentine after 15 to 20 minutes of intense grinding in the presence of gaseous CO{sub 2}. The X-ray diffraction spectrum of lizardite thus treated was much different than that of the untreated mineral. This spectrum could not be identified as that of any natural or synthetic material. Laboratory analyses showed that small amounts of carbon are fixed by grinding lizardite, forsterite, and wollastonite (all naturally-occurring minerals), and synthetic magnesium silicate, in the presence of gaseous CO{sub 2}. It was thus concluded that further investigation was warranted, and a follow-up proposal was submitted to the Department of Energy under solicitation number.

The original proposal described the construction and operation of a 1-MMscfd treatment system to be operated at a Butcher Energy gas field in Ohio. The gas produced at this field contained 17% nitrogen. During pre-commissioning of the project, a series of well tests showed that the amount of gas in the field was significantly smaller than expected and that the nitrogen content of the wells was very high (25 to 30%). After evaluating the revised cost of the project, Butcher Energy decided that the plant would not be economical and withdrew from the project. Since that time, Membrane Technology and Research, Inc. (MTR) has signed a marketing and sales partnership with ABB Lummus Global, a large multinational corporation. MTR will be working with the company's Randall Gas Technologies group, a supplier of equipment and processing technology to the natural gas industry. Randall's engineering group has found a new site for the project at a North Texas Exploration (NTE) gas processing plant. The plant produces about 1 MMscfd of gas containing 24% nitrogen. The membrane unit will bring this gas to 4% nitrogen for delivery to the pipeline. The system has been installed in the field and initial startup activities have …

In December of 2003 a large amount of water from the Santa Rosa wastewater project began being pumped to The Geysers for injection. Millions of dollars are being spent on this injection project in the anticipation that the additional fluid will not only extend the life of The Geysers but also greatly increase the net amount of energy extracted. Optimal use of the injected water, however, will require that the water be injected at the right place, in the right amount and at the proper rate. It has been shown that Microearthquake (MEQ) generation is a direct indicator of the effect of fluid injection at The Geysers (Majer and McEvilly 1979; Eberhart-Phillips and Oppenheimer 1984; Enedy et al. 1992; Stark 1992; Kirkpatrick et al. 1999; Smith et al. 2000). It is one of the few, if not only methods, practical to monitor the volumetric effect of water injection at The Geysers. At the beginning of this project there was not a detailed MEQ response, Geysers-wide, to a large influx of water such as will be the case from the Santa Rosa injection project. New technology in MEQ acquisition and analysis, while used in parts of The Geysers for short periods …

Understanding the transition-crossing process is crucial for improving Booster performance at high intensity. The synchronous phase appears to drop toward 90{sup o} right after transition regardless of beam intensity, more so at higher beam intensity. The implication is that the effective rf voltage (RFSUM) will run into a limit right after transition when the synchronous phase reaches 90{sup o} for high intensity beam. A reduction in RFSUM is also observed at the same time. Solutions, such as raising the rf voltage during the transition period or controlling the RFSUM reduction by increasing longitudinal emittance before transition, are potentially important for high intensity operation.

The overall objective of this research is to delineate the process of the dilute-acid hydrolysis of biomass and seek better understanding of the reactions involving dilute-acid treatment of lignocellulosic biomass. Specifically the scope of the work entails the following two primary technical elements: Verification of the heterogeneous nature of the reaction mechanism in dilute-acid hydrolysis of cellulosic component of the biomass. Experimental investigation to identify the overall reaction pattern and the kinetic constants associated with dilute-acid hydrolysis of the cellulosic component of the agricultural residues.