Finite element method was used to analyze the three-point bend experimental data of A533B-1 pressure vessel steel obtained by Sherry, Lidbury, and Beardsmore [1] from -160 to -45 C within the ductile-brittle transition regime. As many researchers have shown, the failure stress ({sigma}{sub f}) of the material could be approximated as a constant. The characteristic length, or the critical distance (r{sub c}) from the crack tip, at which {sigma}{sub f} is reached, is shown to be temperature dependent based on the crack tip stress field calculated by the finite element method. With the J-A{sub 2} two-parameter constraint theory in fracture mechanics, the fracture toughness (J{sub C} or K{sub JC}) can be expressed as a function of the constraint level (A{sub 2}) and the critical distance r{sub c}. This relationship is used to predict the fracture toughness of A533B-1 in the ductile-brittle transition regime with a constant {sigma}{sub f} and a set of temperature-dependent r{sub c}. It can be shown that the prediction agrees well with the test data for wide range of constraint levels from shallow cracks (a/W= 0.075) to deep cracks (a/W= 0.5), where a is the crack length and W is the specimen width.

Sparse parallel factorization is among the most complicated and irregular algorithms to analyze and optimize. Performance depends both on system characteristics such as the floating point rate, the memory hierarchy, and the interconnect performance, as well as input matrix characteristics such as such as the number and location of nonzeros. We present LUsim, a simulation framework for modeling the performance of sparse LU factorization. Our framework uses micro-benchmarks to calibrate the parameters of machine characteristics and additional tools to facilitate real-time performance modeling. We are using LUsim to analyze an existing parallel sparse LU factorization code, and to explore a latency tolerant variant. We developed and validated a model of the factorization in SuperLU_DIST, then we modeled and implemented a new variant of slud, replacing a blocking collective communication phase with a non-blocking asynchronous point-to-point one. Our strategy realized a mean improvement of 11percent over a suite of test matrices.

The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN has a substantial collaborative Education and Outreach project. This article describes its activities and how it promotes physics to students around the world. With the extraordinary possibility to make groundbreaking discoveries, the ATLAS Experiment [1] at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN can play an important role in promoting contemporary physics at school. For many years ATLAS has had a substantial collaborative Education and Outreach (E&O) project in which physicists from various parts of the world take part. When the experiment begins in 2007, students from around the world will be analyzing data using cutting-edge technology. The unprecedented collision energies of the Large Hadron Collider allow ATLAS to decode the 'events' that unfold after the head-on collisions of protons (Fig. 1). The scientific results from these events will reveal much about the basic nature of matter, energy, space, and time. Students and others will be excited as they try to find events that may be signs for dark matter, extra dimensions of space, mini-black holes, string theory, and other fundamental discoveries. Science education and outreach and the promotion of awareness and appreciation of physics research have become important tasks for …

We will provide an overview of the physics which can be addressed by studying fluctuations and correlations in heavy ion collisions. Observables, which have been discussed in the literature will be briefly reviewed and put in context with experiment and information from Lattice QCD. Special attention will be given to the QCD critical point and the first order co-existence region.

As is becoming increasingly clear, the human species evolvedin the East African savannah. Details of the precise evolutionary chainremain unresolved however it appears that the process lasted severalmillion years, culminating with the emergence of modern Homo sapiensroughly 200,000 years ago. Following that final evolutionary developmentmodern Homo sapiens relatively quickly populated the entire world.Clearly modern Homo sapiens is a successful, resourceful and adaptablespecies. In the developed societies, modern humans live an existence farremoved from our evolutionary ancestors. As we have learned over the lastcentury, this "new" lifestyle can often result in unintendedconsequences. Clearly, our modern access to food, shelter, transportationand healthcare has resulted in greatly expanded expected lifespan butthis new lifestyle can also result in the emergence of different kinds ofdiseases and health problems. The environment in modern buildings haslittle resemblance to the environment of the savannah. We strive tocreate environments with little temperature, air movement and lightvariation. Building occupants often express great dissatisfaction withthese modern created environments and a significant fraction even developsomething akin to allergies to specific buildings (sick buildingsyndrome). Are the indoor environments we are creating fundamentallyunhealthy -- when examined from an evolutionary perspective?

The structural approach to joint inversion, entailing common boundaries or gradients, offers a flexible way to invert diverse types of surface-based and/or crosshole geophysical data. The cross-gradients function has been introduced as a means to construct models in which spatial changes in two models are parallel or anti-parallel. Inversion methods that use such structural constraints also provide estimates of non-linear and non-unique field-scale relationships between model parameters. Here, we invert jointly crosshole radar and seismic traveltimes for structurally similar models using an iterative non-linear traveltime tomography algorithm. Application of the inversion scheme to synthetic data demonstrates that it better resolves lithological boundaries than the individual inversions. Tests of the scheme on observed radar and seismic data acquired within a shallow aquifer illustrate that the resultant models have improved correlations with flowmeter data than with models based on individual inversions. The highest correlation with the flowmeter data is obtained when the joint inversion is combined with a stochastic regularization operator, where the vertical integral scale is estimated from the flowmeter data. Point-spread functions shows that the most significant resolution improvements of the joint inversion is in the horizontal direction.

The WARP code is a robust electrostatic particle-in-cell simulation package used to model charged particle beams with strong space-charge forces. A fundamental operation associated with seeding detailed simulations of a beam transport channel is to generate initial conditions where the beam distribution is matched to the structure of a periodic focusing lattice. This is done by solving for periodic, matched solutions to a coupled set of ODEs called the Kapchinskij-Vladimirskij (KV) envelope equations, which describe the evolution of low-order beam moments subject to applied lattice focusing, space-charge defocusing, and thermal defocusing forces. Recently, an iterative numerical method was developed (Lund, Chilton, and Lee, Efficient computation of matched solutions to the KV envelope equations for periodic focusing lattices, Physical Review Special Topics-Accelerators and Beams 9, 064201 2006) to generate matching conditions in a highly flexible, convergent, and fail-safe manner. This method is extended and implemented in the WARP code as a Python package to vastly ease the setup of detailed simulations. In particular, the Python package accommodates any linear applied lattice focusing functions without skew coupling, and a more general set of beam parameter specifications than its predecessor. Lattice strength iteration tools were added to facilitate the implementation of problems with …

The goal of this program was to increase the high-temperature strength of the H-Series of cast austenitic stainless steels by 50% and upper use temperature by 86 to 140 F (30 to 60 C). Meeting this goal is expected to result in energy savings of 38 trillion Btu/year by 2020 and energy cost savings of $185 million/year. The higher strength H-Series of cast stainless steels (HK and HP type) have applications for the production of ethylene in the chemical industry, for radiant burner tubes and transfer rolls for secondary processing of steel in the steel industry, and for many applications in the heat-treating industry. The project was led by Duraloy Technologies, Inc. with research participation by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and industrial participation by a diverse group of companies. Energy Industries of Ohio (EIO) was also a partner in this project. Each team partner had well-defined roles. Duraloy Technologies led the team by identifying the base alloys that were to be improved from this research. Duraloy Technologies also provided an extensive creep data base on current alloys, provided creep-tested specimens of certain commercial alloys, and carried out centrifugal casting and component fabrication of newly designed alloys. Nucor Steel …

In this report, we develop an atom layer stacking model to describe systematically the crystal structures of complex materials. To illustrate the concepts, we consider a sequence of oxide compounds in which the metal cations progress in oxidation state from monovalent (M{sup 1+}) to tetravalent (M{sup 4+}). We use concepts relating to geometric subdivisions of a triangular atom net to describe the layered atom patterns in these compounds (concepts originally proposed by Shuichi Iida). We demonstrate that as a function of increasing oxidation state (from M{sup 1+} to M{sup 4+}), the layer stacking motifs used to generate each successive structure (specifically, motifs along a 3 symmetry axis), progress through the following sequence: MMO, MO, M{sub r}O, MO{sub r/s}O{sub u/v}, MOO (where M and O represent fully dense triangular atom nets and r/s and u/v are fractions used to describe partially filled triangular atom nets). We also develop complete crystallographic descriptions for the compounds in our oxidation sequence using trigonal space group R{bar 3}.

Injection of carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) into saline aquifers has been proposed as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (geological carbon sequestration). The injection process can be classified as immiscible displacement of an aqueous phase by a less dense and less viscous gas phase. Under disposal conditions (supercritical CO{sub 2}) the viscosity of carbon dioxide can be less than the viscosity of the aqueous phase by a factor of 15. Because of the lower viscosity, the CO{sub 2} displacement front will have a tendency towards instability so that waves or rounded lobes of saturation may appear and grow into fingers that lead to enhanced dissolution, bypassing, and possibly poor sweep efficiency. This paper presents an analysis, through high-resolution numerical simulations, of the onset of instabilities (viscous fingering) during injection of CO{sub 2} into saline aquifers. We explore the influence of viscosity ratio, relative permeability functions, and capillary pressure on finger growth and spacing. In addition, we address the issues of finger triggering, convergence under grid refinement and boundary condition effects. Simulations were carried out on scalar machines, and on an IBM RS/6000 SP (a distributed-memory parallel computer with 6080 processors) with a parallelized version of TOUGH2.

Simulation studies for transmission of microwaves through electron clouds show good agreement with analytic results. The electron cloud produces a shift in phase of the microwave. Experimental observation of this phenomena would lead to a useful diagnostic tool for accessing the local density of electron clouds in an accelerator. These experiments are being carried out at the CERN SPS and the PEP-II LER at SLAC and is proposed to be done at the Fermilab main injector. In this study, a brief analysis of the phase shift is provided and the results are compared with that obtained from simulations.

Studies of submicron dust using Mie scattering from Nd:YAG lasers and video data of micron to sub-millimeter sized dust on DIII-D tokamak have provided the first data of dust sources and transport during tokamak discharges. During normal operation on DIII-D dust observation rates are low, a few events per discharge or less. The net carbon content of the dust corresponds to a carbon atom density a few orders of magnitude below the core impurity density. Statistical analysis of Mie data collected over months of operation reveal correlation of increased dust rate with increased heating power and impulsive wall loading due to edge localized modes (ELMs) and disruptions. Generation of significant amounts of dust by disruptions is confirmed by the camera data. However, dust production by disruptions alone is insufficient to account for estimated in-vessel dust inventory in DIII-D. After an extended entry vent, thousands of dust particles are observed by cameras in the first 2-3 plasma discharges. Individual particles moving at velocities up to {approx}300 m/s, breakup of larger particles into pieces, and collisions of particles with walls are observed. After {approx}70 discharges, dust levels are reduced to a few events per discharge. In order to calibrate diagnostics and benchmark …

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and American automotive manufacturers General Motors, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler began a five-year, cost-shared partnership in 1993. Currently, hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) research and development is conducted by DOE through its FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies (FCVT) program. The mission of the FCVT program is to develop more energy efficient and environmentally friendly highway transportation technologies. Program activities include research, development, demonstration, testing, technology validation, and technology transfer. These activities are aimed at developing technologies that can be domestically produced in a clean and cost-competitive manner. Under the FCVT program, support is provided through a three-phase approach [1] which is intended to: • Identify overall propulsion and vehicle-related needs by analyzing programmatic goals and reviewing industry’s recommendations and requirements, then develop the appropriate technical targets for systems, subsystems, and component research and development activities; • Develop and validate individual subsystems and components, including electric motors, emission control devices, battery systems, power electronics, accessories, and devices to reduce parasitic losses; and • Determine how well the components and subassemblies work together in a vehicle environment or as a complete propulsion system and whether the efficiency and performance targets at the vehicle level have been achieved. The research …

Nijmegen breakage syndrome (NBS) is a rare autosomal recessive chromosome instability syndrome characterized by microcephaly, growth retardation, immunodeficiency, and cancer predisposition, with cellular features similar to that of ataxia telangiectasia (AT). NBS results from mutations in the mammalian gene Nbs1 that codes for a 95-kDa protein called nibrin, NBS1, or p95. To establish an animal model for NBS, we attempted to generate NBS1 knockout mice. However, NBS1 gene knockouts were lethal at an early embryonic stage. NBS1 homozygous(-/-) blastocyst cells cultured in vitro showed retarded growth and subsequently underwent growth arrest within 5 days of culture. Apoptosis, assayed by TUNEL staining, was observed in NBSI homozygous(-/-) blastocyst cells cultured for four days. NBSI heterozygous(+/-) mice were normal, and exhibited no specific phenotype for at least one year. However, fibroblast cells from NBSI heterozygous(+/-) mice displayed an enhanced frequency of spontaneous transformation to anchorage-independent growth as compared to NBS1 wild-type(+/+) cells. Furthermore, heterozygous(+/-) mice exhibited a high incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma after one year compared to wild-type mice, even though no significant differences in the incidence of other tumors such as lung adenocarcinoma and lymphoma were observed. Taken together, these results strongly suggest that NBS1 heterozygosity and reduced NBSI expression induces …

The amounts of hydrocarbon gases trapped in natural hydrate accumulations are enormous, leading to a recent interest in the evaluation of their potential as an energy source. Earlier studies have demonstrated that large volumes of gas can be readily produced at high rates for long times from gas hydrate accumulations by means of depressurization-induced dissociation, using conventional technology and vertical wells. The results of this numerical study indicate that the use of horizontal wells does not confer any practical advantages to gas production from Class 1 deposits. This is because of the large disparity in permeabilities between the hydrate layer (HL) and the underlying free gas zone, leading to a hydrate dissociation that proceeds in a horizontally dominant direction and is uniform along the length of the reservoir. When horizontal wells are placed near the base of the HL in Class 2 deposits, the delay in the evolution of a significant gas production rate outweighs their advantages, which include higher rates and the prevention of flow obstruction problems that often hamper the performance of vertical wells. Conversely, placement of a horizontal well near to top of the HL can lead to dramatic increases in gas production from Class 2 and …

The primary goal of this project is to increase the fatigue life of a welded-joint by 10 times and to reduce energy use by 25% through product performance and productivity improvements using an integrated modeling approach. The fatigue strength of a welded-joint is currently the bottleneck to design high performance and lightweight welded structures using advanced materials such as high strength steels. In order to achieve high fatigue strength in a welded-joint it is necessary to manage the weld bead shape for lower stress concentration, produce preferable residual stress distribution, and obtain the desired microstructure for improved material toughness and strength. This is a systems challenge that requires the optimization of the welding process, the welding consumable, the base material, as well as the structure design. The concept of virtual welded-joint design has been proposed and established in this project. The goal of virtual welded-joint design is to develop a thorough procedure to predict the relationship of welding process, microstructure, property, residual stress, and the ultimate weld fatigue strength by a systematic modeling approach. The systematic approach combines five sub-models: weld thermal-fluid model, weld microstructure model, weld material property model, weld residual stress model, and weld fatigue model. The systematic …

The electronic contribution to friction at semiconductor surfaces was investigated by using a Pt-coated tip with 50nm radius in an atomic force microscope sliding against an n-type GaAs(100) substrate. The GaAs surface was covered by an approximately 1 nm thick oxide layer. Charge accumulation or depletion was induced by the application of forward or reverse bias voltages. We observed a substantial increase in friction force in accumulation (forward bias) with respect to depletion (reverse bias). We propose a model based on the force exerted by the trapped charges that quantitatively explains the experimental observations of excess friction.

The Department of Energy (DOE), National Energy Technology Center (NETL), has initiated a strategic plan for the development of advanced technologies needed to design and build fossil fuel plants with very high efficiency and environmental performance. These plants, referred to as 'Vision 21' and FutureGen programs by DOE, will produce electricity, chemicals, fuels, or a combination of these products, and possibly secondary products such as steam/heat for industrial use. MA956 is a prime candidate material being considered for a high temperature heat exchanger in the 'Vision 21' and FutureGen programs. This material is an oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) alloy; however, there are some gaps in the data required to commit to the use of these alloys in a full-size plant. To fill the technology gaps for commercial production and use of the material for 'Advanced Power Generation Systems' this project has performed development activity to significant increase in circumferential strength of MA956 as compared to currently available material, investigated bonding technologies for bonding tube-to-tube joints through joining development, and performed tensile, creep and fire-side corrosion tests to validate the use and fabrication processes of MA956 to heat exchanger tubing applications. Development activities within this projected has demonstrated increased circumferential strength …

Paleooceanographic evidence has been used to postulate that methane from oceanic hydrates may have had a significant role in regulating global climate, implicating global oceanic deposits of methane gas hydrate as the main culprit in instances of rapid climate change that have occurred in the past. However, the behavior of contemporary oceanic methane hydrate deposits subjected to rapid temperature changes, like those predicted under future climate change scenarios, is poorly understood. To determine the fate of the carbon stored in these hydrates, we performed simulations of oceanic gas hydrate accumulations subjected to temperature changes at the seafloor and assessed the potential for methane release into the ocean. Our modeling analysis considered the properties of benthic sediments, the saturation and distribution of the hydrates, the ocean depth, the initial seafloor temperature, and for the first time, estimated the effect of benthic biogeochemical activity. The results show that shallow deposits--such as those found in arctic regions or in the Gulf of Mexico--can undergo rapid dissociation and produce significant methane fluxes of 2 to 13 mol/yr/m{sup 2} over a period of decades, and release up to 1,100 mol of methane per m{sup 2} of seafloor in a century. These fluxes may exceed the …

We report the deflagration behavior of PBX 9501 at pressures up to 300 MPa and temperatures of 150-180 C where the sample has been held at the test temperature for several hours before ignition. The purpose is to determine the effect on the deflagration behavior of material damage caused by prolonged exposure to high temperature. This conditioning is similar to that experienced by an explosive while it being heated to eventual explosion. The results are made more complicated by the presence of a significant thermal gradient along the sample during the temperature ramp and soak. Three major conclusions are: the presence of nitroplasticizer makes PBX 9501 more thermally sensitive than LX-04 with an inert Viton binder; the deflagration behavior of PBX 9501 is more extreme and more inconsistent than that of LX-04; and something in PBX 9501 causes thermal damage to 'heal' as the deflagration proceeds, resulting in a decelerating deflagration front as it travels along the sample.

The 'Criticality HazOp' technique, as developed at Hanford's Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP), has allowed for efficiencies enabling shortening of the time necessary to complete new or revised criticality safety evaluation reports (CSERs). For example, in the last half of 2007 at PFP, CSER revisions undergoing the 'Criticality HazOp' process were completed at a higher rate than previously achievable. The efficiencies gained through use of the 'Criticality HazOp' process come from the preliminary narrowing of potential scenarios for the Criticality analyst to fully evaluate in preparation of the new or revised CSER, and from the use of a systematized 'Criticality HazOp' group assessment of the relevant conditions to show which few parameter/condition/deviation combinations actually require analytical effort. The 'Criticality HazOp' has not only provided efficiencies of time, but has brought to criticality safety evaluation revisions the benefits of a structured hazard evaluation method and the enhanced insight that may be gained from direct involvement of a team in the process. In addition, involved personnel have gained a higher degree of confidence and understanding of the resulting CSER product.

The recent Nevada Earthquake (M=6) produced an extraordinary set of crustal guided waves. In this study, we examine the three-component data at all the USArray stations in terms of how well existing models perform in predicting the various phases, Rayleigh waves, Love waves, and Pnl waves. To establish the source parameters, we applied the Cut and Paste Code up to distance of 5° for an average local crustal model which produced a normal mechanism (strike=35°,dip=41°,rake=-85°) at a depth of 9 km and Mw=5.9. Assuming this mechanism, we generated synthetics at all distances for a number of 1D and 3D models. The Pnl observations fit the synthetics for the simple models well both in timing (VPn=7.9km/s) and waveform fits out to a distance of about 5°. Beyond this distance a great deal of complexity can be seen to the northwest apparently caused by shallow subducted slab material. These paths require considerable crustal thinning and higher P-velocities. Small delays and advances outline the various tectonic province to the south, Colorado Plateau, etc. with velocities compatible with that reported on by Song et al.(1996). Five-second Rayleigh waves (Airy Phase) can be observed throughout the whole array and show a great deal of variation …

Volatile organic compound (VOC) data that had already been collected using EPA method TO-15 at four different sites under regulatory scrutiny (a school, strip mall, apartment complex, and business/residential neighborhood) were evaluated to determine whether the source of indoor air benzene was outdoor air or vapor intrusion from contaminated soil. Both the use of tracer organics characteristic of different sources and principal component statistical analysis demonstrated that the source of indoor air at virtually all indoor sampling locations was a result of outdoor air, and not contaminated soil in and near the indoor air-sampling locations. These results show that proposed remediation activities to remove benzene-contaminated soil are highly unlikely to reduce indoor air benzene concentrations. A manuscript describing these results is presently being prepared for submission to a peer-reviewed journal.

The electrostatic particle-in-cell codeWARP is currently being expanded in order to study electron cloud effects on the dynamics of the beam in storage rings. Results for the Fermilab main injector (MI) show the existence of a threshold in the electron density beyond which there is rapid emittance growth. The Fermilab MI is being considered for an upgrade as part of the high intensity neutrino source (HINS) effort, which will result in a significant increasing of the bunch intensity relative to its present value, placing it in a regime where electron-cloud effects are expected to become important. Various results from the simulations using WARP are discussed here.