Scanning Tunneling Microscopy studies were carried out on ordered overlayers on the (111) surface of rhodium. These adsorbates include carbon monoxide (CO), cyclohexane, cyclohexene, 1,4-cyclohexadiene, para-xylene, and meta-xylene. Coadsorbate systems included: CO with ethylidyne, CO with para- and meta-xylene, and para-xylene with meta-xylene. In the case of CO, the structure of the low coverage (2x2) overlayer has been observed. The symmetry of the unit cell in this layer suggests that the CO is adsorbed in the 3-fold hollow sites. There were also two higher coverage surface structures with ({radical}7x{radical}7) unit cells. One of these is composed of trimers of CO and has three CO molecules in each unit cell. The other structure has an additional CO molecule, making a total of four. This extra CO sits on a top site.

Many granular materials, including sedimentary rocks and soils, contain clay particles in the pores, grain contacts, or matrix. The amount and location of the clays and fluids can influence the mechanical and hydraulic properties of the granular material. This research investigated the mechanical effects of clay at grain-to-grain contacts in the presence of different fluids. Laboratory seismic wave propagation tests were conducted at ultrasonic frequencies using spherical glass beads coated with Montmorillonite clay (SWy-1) onto which different fluids were adsorbed. For all bead samples, seismic velocity increased and attenuation decreased as the contact stiffnesses increased with increasing stress demonstrating that grain contacts control seismic transmission in poorly consolidated and unconsolidated granular material. Coating the beads with clay added stiffness and introduced viscosity to the mechanical contact properties that increased the velocity and attenuation of the propagating seismic wave. Clay-fluid interactions were studied by allowing the clay coating to absorb water, ethyl alcohol, and hexadecane. Increasing water amounts initially increased seismic attenuation due to clay swelling at the contacts. Attenuation decreased for higher water amounts where the clay exceeded the plastic limit and was forced from the contact areas into the surrounding open pore space during sample consolidation. This work investigates …

This thesis presents an experimental study of neutral particle dynamics in the Alcator C-Mod tokamak. The primary diagnostic used is a set of six neutral pressure gauges, including special-purpose gauges built for in situ tokamak operation. While a low main chamber neutral pressure coincides with high plasma confinement regimes, high divertor pressure is required for heat and particle flux dispersion in future devices such as ITER. Thus we examine conditions that optimize divertor compression, defined here as a divertor-to-midplane pressure ratio. We find both pressures depend primarily on the edge plasma regimes defined by the scrape-off-layer heat transport. While the maximum divertor pressure is achieved at high core plasma densities corresponding to the detached divertor state, the maximum compression is achieved in the high-recycling regime. Variations in the divertor geometry have a weaker effect on the neutral pressures. For otherwise similar plasmas the divertor pressure and compression are maximum when the strike point is at the bottom of the vertical target plate. We introduce a simple flux balance model, which allows us to explain the divertor neutral pressure across a wide range of plasma densities. In particular, high pressure sustained in the detached divertor (despite a considerable drop in the …

Studies of groundwater flow and contaminant transport in saturated, fractured geologic media are of great interest to researchers studying the potential long-term storage of hazardous wastes in or near such media. A popular technique for conducting such studies is to introduce tracers having different chemical and physical properties into a system and then observe the tracers at one or more downstream locations, inferring flow and transport mechanisms from the breakthrough characteristics of the different tracers. Many tracer studies have been conducted in saturated, fractured media to help develop and/or refine models capable of predicting contaminant transport over large scales in such media.

The effect of process parameters and chemical additives on the specific cake resistance of zinc hydroxide precipitates was investigated. The ability of a slurry to be filtered is dependent upon the particle habit of the solid and the particle habit is influenced by certain process variables. The process variables studied include neutralization temperature, agitation type, and alkalinity source used for neutralization. Several commercially available chemical additives advertised to aid in solid/liquid separation were also examined in conjunction with hydroxide precipitation. A statistical analysis revealed that the neutralization temperature and the source of alkalinity were statistically significant in influencing the specific cake resistance of zinc hydroxide precipitates in this study. The type of agitation did not significantly effect the specific cake resistance of zinc hydroxide precipitates. The use of chemical additives in conjunction with hydroxide precipitation had a favorable effect on the filterability. The morphology of the hydroxide precipitates was analyzed using scanning electron microscopy.

Direct sub-level entity access is a seldom-used technique in discrete-event simulation modeling that addresses the accessibility of sub-level entity information. The technique has significant advantages over more common, alternative modeling methods--especially where hierarchical entity structures are modeled. As such, direct sub-level entity access is often preferable in modeling nuclear stockpile, life-extension issues, an area to which it has not been previously applied. Current nuclear stockpile, life-extension models were demonstrated to benefit greatly from the advantages of direct sub-level entity access. In specific cases, the application of the technique resulted in models that were up to 10 times faster than functionally equivalent models where alternative techniques were applied. Furthermore, specific implementations of direct sub-level entity access were observed to be more flexible, efficient, functional, and scalable than corresponding implementations using common modeling techniques. Common modeling techniques (''unbatch/batch'' and ''attribute-copying'') proved inefficient and cumbersome in handling many nuclear stockpile modeling complexities, including multiple weapon sites, true defect analysis, and large numbers of weapon and subsystem types. While significant effort was required to enable direct sub-level entity access in the nuclear stockpile simulation models, the enhancements were worth the effort--resulting in more efficient, more capable, and more informative models that effectively addressed the …

A series of room temperature, low pressure (10.8 to 40 Pa), low power (25 to 210 W) RF plasma glow discharge experiments with UO{sub 2} were conducted to demonstrate that plasma treatment is a viable method for decontaminating UO{sub 2} from stainless steel substrates. Experiments were conducted using NF{sub 3} gas to decontaminate depleted uranium dioxide from stainless-steel substrates. Depleted UO{sub 2} samples each containing 129.4 Bq were prepared from 100 microliter solutions of uranyl nitrate hexahydrate solution. The amorphous UO{sub 2} in the samples had a relatively low density of 4.8 gm/cm{sub 3}. Counting of the depleted UO{sub 2} on the substrate following plasma immersion was performed using liquid scintillation counting with alpha/beta discrimination due to the presence of confounding beta emitting daughter products, {sup 234}Th and {sup 234}Pa. The alpha emission peak from each sample was integrated using a gaussian and first order polynomial fit to improve quantification. The uncertainties in the experimental measurement of the etched material were estimated at about {+-} 2%. Results demonstrated that UO{sub 2} can be completely removed from stainless-steel substrates after several minutes processing at under 200 W. At 180 W and 32.7 Pa gas pressure, over 99% of all UO{sub 2} …

Vitrification has been declared by the Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) as the Best Demonstrated Available Technology (BDAT) for the permanent disposal of high-level radioactive waste. Savannah River Site currently uses a sodium tetraphenylborate (NaTPB) precipitation process to remove Cs-137 from a wastewater solution created from the processing of nuclear fuel. This process has several disadvantages such as the formation of a benzene waste stream. It has been proposed to replace the precipitation process with an ion exchange process using a new resorcinol-formaldehyde resin developed by Savannah River Technical Center (SRTC). Preliminary tests, however, showed that problems such as crust formation and a reduced final glass wasteform exist when the resin is placed in the melter environment. The newly developed stirred melter could be capable of overcoming these problems. This research explored the operational feasibility of using the stirred tank melter to vitrify an organic ion exchange resin. Preliminary tests included crucible studies to determine the reducing potential of the resin and the extent of oxygen consuming reactions and oxygen transfer tests to approximate the extent of oxygen transfer into the molten glass using an impeller and a combination of the impeller and an external oxygen transfer system. These preliminary studies …

None

The form factors are fundamental properties of the nucleon representing the effect of its structure on its response to electromagnetic probes such as electrons. They are functions of the four-momentum transfer squared Q{sup 2} between the electron and the proton. This thesis reports the results of a new measurement of the ratio of the electric and magnetic form factors of the proton up to Q{sup 2} = 5.66 (GeV/c){sup 2} using the double spin asymmetry with a polarized beam and target. Experiment E07-003 (SANE, Spin Asymmetries of the Nucleon Experiment) was carried out in Hall C at Jefferson Lab in 2009 to study the proton spin structure functions with a dynamically polarized ammonia target and longitudinally polarized electron beam. By detecting elastically scattered protons in the High-Momentum Spectrometer (HMS) in coincidence with the electrons in the Big Electron Telescope Array (BETA), elastic measurements were carried out in parallel. The elastic double spin asymmetry allows one to extract the proton electric to magnetic form factor ratio G{sup p}{sub E}/G{sup p}{sub M} at high-momentum transfer, Q{sup 2} = 5.66 (GeV/c){sup 2}. In addition to the coincidence data, inclusively scattered electrons from the polarized ammonia target were detected by HMS, which allows to …

The objective of this study is to devise a detailed description of the tokamak scrape-off-layer (SOL), which includes the best available models of both the plasma and neutral species and the strong coupling between the two in many SOL regimes. A good estimate of both particle flux and heat flux profiles at the limiter/divertor target plates is desired. Peak heat flux is one of the limiting factors in determining the survival probability of plasma-facing-components at high power levels. Plate particle flux affects the neutral flux to the pump, which determines the particle exhaust rate. A technique which couples a two-dimensional (2-D) plasma and a 2-D neutral transport code has been developed (coupled code technique), but this procedure requires large amounts of computer time. Relevant physics has been added to an existing two-neutral-species model which takes the SOL plasma/neutral coupling into account in a simple manner (molecular physics model), and this model is compared with the coupled code technique mentioned above. The molecular physics model is benchmarked against experimental data from a divertor tokamak (DIII-D), and a similar model (single-species model) is benchmarked against data from a pump-limiter tokamak (Tore Supra). The models are then used to examine two key issues: …

Associated with the use of 2{sup 238}Pu in thermoelectric power sources for space probes and power supplies for cardiac devices is the potential for human exposure to {sup 238}Pu, primarily by inhalation. In the event of human internal exposure, a means is needed for assessing the level of intake and calculating radiation doses. Several bioassay/dosimetry models have been developed for {sup 239}Pu. However, results from studies with laboratory animals have indicated that the biokinetics, and therefore the descriptive models, of {sup 238}Pu are significantly different from those for {sup 239}Pu. A canine model accounting for these differences has been applied in this work to urinary excretion data from seven humans occupationally exposed to low levels of an insoluble {sup 238}Pu compound. The modified model provides a good description of the urinary excretion kinetics observed in the exposed humans. The modified model was also used to provide estimates of the initial intakes of {sup 238}Pu for the seven individuals; these estimates ranged from 4.5 nCi (170 Bq) to 87 nCi (3200 Bq). Autopsy data on the amount and distribution of {sup 238}Pu retained in the organs may be used in the future to validate or refute both these estimates and the …