The setting up, calibration operation, characteristics, and problems of the precision long counter for neutron intensity measurements are discussed. (WHK)

Headspace oxygen contents of several designated drums containing {minus}l inch and {minus}{1/4} inch coal were measured. These measurements were later discontinued by agreement with the Project Manager, as the leakage of plastic drums and buckets has been well documented. During the current reporting period a total of 65 data printouts were distributed. In addition, 10 special data requests were fulfilled by either search/sort and printout or creation of a data disk, resulting in distribution of limited information on 4,479 samples. Several preliminary requests for Sample Bank and Data Base information and price quotations have also been handled. Four hundred copies of the 61-page second edition of the booklet The Penn State Coal Sample Bank and Data Base'' were received from the printer. Changes in format have allowed increased content in fewer pages, to reduce printing and mailing costs. Three hundred thirty-nine copies were distributed. Data generated on samples DECS-1 through DECS-14 were added to the Penn State Coal Data Base. Map reference data were verified for all 14 samples.

The Advanced Experiments Group of B-Division, LLNL, has been seeking to improve the sensitivity and spatial resolution of stacked film screens for bremsstrahlung flash radiography of imploding, dense metal shells. In the work reported here, we experimentally measured the spreading of the x-ray shadow of the edge of a uranium block in two film-and-screen combinations. We also used the SANDYL code, which models photon and electron scattering, to calculate the theoretical edge spreading in an array of films and screens. Experimentally, the uranium edge was spread to a width of 1.7 mm in the combination 0.15-mm-Ta/NDT9-XAR5, and 1.5 mm in the combination 0.25-mm-Ta/NDT6-XAR5. The theoretical calculation agreed with these results.

The TPC's (Time Projection Chamber) used in E-810 at the AGS (Alternating Gradient Synchroton) were exposed to silicon ion fluxes equivalent to more than 10{sup 7} minimum ionizing particles per second to measure the distortion of the electric field caused by positive ions in the drift region. Results of these tests are presented and the consequences for the TPC based experiment at RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) are discussed.

A design study of a closed loop test facility for eight-inch hot dirty gas valves is presented. The objective of the facility is to quality valves for use in coal gasifiers, combined cycle plants, and pressurized fluid bed combustors. Outline sketches and estimated costs are presented for the selected design.

Information compiled in 1985 while assessing the environmental impact of radionuclides previously discharged with aqueous releases from the Rancho Seco Nuclear Power Generating Plant is presented. In October 1984, the quantities of gamma-emitting radionuclides in water discharged to Clay Creek from the plant were reduced below operationally defined detection limits for liquid effluents. However, radionuclides previously discharged persist in the downstream environment and are found in many aquatic dietary components. /sup 134/Cs and /sup 137/Cs are the primary gamma-emitting radionuclides detected in the edible flesh of different fish, crayfish, and frogs. Coefficients for exponential equations are generated, from a least square analysis, that relate the change in concentration of /sup 137/Cs in fish to distance downstream and time between March and October 1985. Concentrations of /sup 137/Cs in surface creek sediments also decreased in the downstream direction much in the same manner as concentrations decreased in fish. However, there was no significant difference in the radiocesium concentrations in surface sediements collected from comparable locations during both 1984 and 1985.

Completed sodium battery thermal model update from experimental performance; developed approach to evaluate thermal management strategies

The first phase of an experiment to study the performance of dielectric Cerenkov wakefield accelerating structures at extremely high gradients in the GV/m range has been completed. This experiment takes advantage of the unique SLAC FFTB electron beam and its demonstrated ultra-short pulse lengths and high currents (e.g., {sigma}{sub z} = 20 {micro}m at Q = 3 nC). The FFTB electron beam has been successfully focused down and sent through varying lengths of fused silica capillary tubing with two different sizes: ID = 200 {micro}m/OD = 325 {micro}m and ID = 100 {micro}m/OD = 325 {micro}m. The pulse length of the electron beam was varied in the range 20 {micro}m < {sigma}{sub z} < 100 {micro}m which produced a range of electric fields between 2 and 20 GV/m at the inner surface of the dielectric tubes. We observed a sharp increase in optical emissions from the capillaries in the middle part of this surface field range which we believe indicates the transition between sustainable field levels and breakdown. If this initial interpretation is correct, the surfaced fields that were sustained equate to on axis accelerating field of several GV/m. In future experiments we plan to collect and measure coherent Cerenkov …

This report summarizes the core research, development, and technology accomplishments in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Engineering Directorate for FY2007. These efforts exemplify Engineering's more than 50-year history of developing and applying the technologies needed to support the Laboratory's national security missions. A partner in every major program and project at the Laboratory throughout its existence, Engineering has prepared for this role with a skilled workforce and technical resources developed through both internal and external venues. These accomplishments embody Engineering's mission: 'Enable program success today and ensure the Laboratory's vitality tomorrow'. Engineering's mission is carried out through research and technology. Research is the vehicle for creating competencies that are cutting-edge, or require discovery-class groundwork to be fully understood. The technology efforts are discipline-oriented, preparing research breakthroughs for broader application to a variety of Laboratory needs. The term commonly used for technology-based projects is 'reduction to practice'. This report combines the work in research and technology into one volume, organized into thematic technical areas: Engineering Modeling and Simulation; Measurement Technologies; Micro/Nano-Devices and Structures; Engineering Systems for Knowledge and Inference; and Energy Manipulation.

The Upper Skagit Indian Tribe was honored with a grant through the DOE's Tribal Energy Program - Golden Field Office to develop a Strategic Energy Plan for the Tribal Lands.

The concept of this project is to develop a process that improves the kinetics of the hydrous carbonate formation reaction enabling steelmakers to directly remove CO2 from their furnace exhaust gas. It is proposed to bring the furnace exhaust stream containing CO2 in contact with reclaimed steelmaking slag in a reactor that has an environment near the unit activity of water resulting in the production of carbonates. The CO2 emissions from the plant would be reduced by the amount sequestered in the formation of carbonates. The main raw materials for the process are furnace exhaust gases and specially prepared slag.

The development of hydropower systems within the Columbia and Snake River basins has affected a tremendous amount of fish and wildlife species. The dams have played a major role in the rapid extinction of anadromous runs of salmon and steelhead as well as other native salmonids. Inundation of these dams and the construction of reservoirs for irrigation have also severely impacted wildlife species. In some cases, fluctuating water levels caused by dam and reservoir operations have created barren vegetation zones that expose wildlife to predation and a reduction in recruitment. In association with hydropower activities, secondary impacts have also challenged and highly impacted a majority of wildlife species. The construction of roads, facilities, urban development, channelization, and diversions of streams and rivers often have negative long-term effects on fish, wildlife, and vegetation. In response to these concerns, the United States Congress passed the Pacific Electric Power Planning Conservation Act (Act) in 1980. The Act authorized four states (Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington) and 13 Indian Tribes (including the Burns Paiute Tribe) to create the Northwest Power Planning Council (Council). The role of the Council is to prepare a program in conjunction with several participants that protects, mitigates and enhances affected …

The Pre-Amplifier Modules (PAMs) are the heart of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), providing most of the energy gain for the most energetic laser in the world. Upon completion, NIF will be the only laboratory in which scientists can examine the fusion processes that occur inside stars, supernovae, and exploding nuclear weapons and that may someday serve as a virtually inexhaustible energy source for electricity. Consider that in a fusion power plant 50 cups of water could provide the energy comparable to 2 tons of coal. Of paramount importance for achieving laser-driven fusion ignition with the least energy input is the synchronous and symmetric compression of the target fuel--a condition known as laser power balance. NIF's 48 PAMs thus must provide energy gain in an exquisitely stable and consistent manner. While building one module that meets performance requirements is challenging enough, our design has already enabled the construction and fielding of 48 PAMs that are stable, uniform, and interchangeable. PAM systems are being tested at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics, and the Atomic Weapons Enterprise of Great Britain has purchased the PAM power system.

This is the Final Report for LDRD 04-ERD-086, 'Electro-Thermal-Mechanical Simulation Capability'. The accomplishments are well documented in five peer-reviewed publications and six conference presentations and hence will not be detailed here. The purpose of this LDRD was to research and develop numerical algorithms for three-dimensional (3D) Electro-Thermal-Mechanical simulations. LLNL has long been a world leader in the area of computational mechanics, and recently several mechanics codes have become 'multiphysics' codes with the addition of fluid dynamics, heat transfer, and chemistry. However, these multiphysics codes do not incorporate the electromagnetics that is required for a coupled Electro-Thermal-Mechanical (ETM) simulation. There are numerous applications for an ETM simulation capability, such as explosively-driven magnetic flux compressors, electromagnetic launchers, inductive heating and mixing of metals, and MEMS. A robust ETM simulation capability will enable LLNL physicists and engineers to better support current DOE programs, and will prepare LLNL for some very exciting long-term DoD opportunities. We define a coupled Electro-Thermal-Mechanical (ETM) simulation as a simulation that solves, in a self-consistent manner, the equations of electromagnetics (primarily statics and diffusion), heat transfer (primarily conduction), and non-linear mechanics (elastic-plastic deformation, and contact with friction). There is no existing parallel 3D code for simulating ETM systems at …

Seismic wave propagation through the earth is often strongly affected by the presence of fractures. When these fractures are filled with fluids (oil, gas, water, CO{sub 2}, etc.), the type and state of the fluid (liquid or gas) can make a large difference in the response of the seismic waves. This paper will summarize some early work of the author on methods of deconstructing the effects of fractures, and any fluids within these fractures, on seismic wave propagation as observed in reflection seismic data. Methods to be explored here include Thomsen's anisotropy parameters for wave moveout (since fractures often induce elastic anisotropy), and some very convenient fracture parameters introduced by Sayers and Kachanov that permit a relatively simple deconstruction of the elastic behavior in terms of fracture parameters (whenever this is appropriate).

Under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Energy/National Energy Technology Laboratory, a multi-disciplinary team led by the Advanced Power and Energy Program of the University of California at Irvine is defining the system engineering issues associated with the integration of key components and subsystems into advanced power plant systems with goals of achieving high efficiency and minimized environmental impact while using fossil fuels. These power plant concepts include ''Zero Emission'' power plants and the ''FutureGen'' H{sub 2} co-production facilities. The study is broken down into three phases. Phase 1 of this study consisted of utilizing advanced technologies that are expected to be available in the ''Vision 21'' time frame such as mega scale fuel cell based hybrids. Phase 2 includes current state-of-the-art technologies and those expected to be deployed in the nearer term such as advanced gas turbines and high temperature membranes for separating gas species and advanced gasifier concepts. Phase 3 includes identification of gas turbine based cycles and engine configurations suitable to coal-based gasification applications and the conceptualization of the balance of plant technology, heat integration, and the bottoming cycle for analysis in a future study. Also included in Phase 3 is the task of acquiring/providing turbo-machinery …

Volume independence in large N{sub c} gauge theories may be viewed as a generalized orbifold equivalence. The reduction to zero volume (or Eguchi-Kawai reduction) is a special case of this equivalence. So is temperature independence in confining phases. A natural generalization concerns volume independence in ''theory space'' of quiver gauge theories. In pure Yang-Mills theory, the failure of volume independence for sufficiently small volumes (at weak coupling) due to spontaneous breaking of center symmetry, together with its validity above a critical size, nicely illustrate the symmetry realization conditions which are both necessary and sufficient for large N{sub c} orbifold equivalence. The existence of a minimal size below which volume independence fails also applies to Yang-Mills theory with antisymmetric representation fermions [QCD(AS)]. However, in Yang-Mills theory with adjoint representation fermions [QCD(Adj)], endowed with periodic boundary conditions, volume independence remains valid down to arbitrarily small size. In sufficiently large volumes, QCD(Adj) and QCD(AS) have a large N{sub c} ''orientifold'' equivalence, provided charge conjugation symmetry is unbroken in the latter theory. Therefore, via a combined orbifold-orientifold mapping, a well-defined large N{sub c} equivalence exists between QCD(AS) in large, or infinite, volume and QCD(Adj) in arbitrarily small volume. Since asymptotically free gauge theories, such …

The BABAR experiment at the PEP-II B-factory offers excellent opportunities in charm and charmonium spectroscopy. The recent observation of new states in the D{sub s} and in the charmonium mass regions revived the interest in this field. Recent BABAR results are presented.

Over forty years, there have been major efforts to aim at understanding the properties of surfaces, structure, composition, dynamics on the molecular level and at developing the surface science of heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis. Since most catalysts (heterogeneous, enzyme and homogeneous) are nanoparticles, colloid synthesis methods were developed to produce monodispersed metal nanoparticles in the 1-10 nm range and controlled shapes to use them as new model catalyst systems in two-dimensional thin film form or deposited in mezoporous three-dimensional oxides. Studies of reaction selectivity in multipath reactions (hydrogenation of benzene, cyclohexene and crotonaldehyde) showed that reaction selectivity depends on both nanoparticle size and shape. The oxide-metal nanoparticle interface was found to be an important catalytic site because of the hot electron flow induced by exothermic reactions like carbon monoxide oxidation.

This project represented a joint effort between Florida State University (FSU), Rutgers University (RU), and the University of Illinois (U of I). FSU served as the lead institution and Dr. J.E. Kostka was responsible for project coordination, integration, and deliverables. This project was designed to elucidate the microbial ecology and geochemistry of metal reduction in subsurface environments at the U.S. DOE-NABIR Field Research Center at Oak Ridge, Tennessee (ORFRC). Our objectives were to: 1) characterize the dominant iron minerals and related geochemical parameters likely to limit U(VI) speciation, 2) directly quantify reaction rates and pathways of microbial respiration (terminal-electron-accepting) processes which control subsurface sediment chemistry, and 3) identify and enumerate the organisms mediating U(VI) transformation. A total of 31 publications and 47 seminars or meeting presentations were completed under this project. One M.S. thesis (by Nadia North) and a Ph.D. dissertation (by Lainie Petrie-Edwards) were completed at FSU during fall of 2003 and spring of 2005, respectively. Ph.D. students, Denise Akob and Thomas Gihring have continued the student involvement in this research since fall of 2004. All of the above FSU graduate students were heavily involved in the research, as evidenced by their regular attendance at PI meetings and ORFRC …

The goal of the project was to extend the lifetime of hardware submerged in molten metal by an order of magnitude and to improve energy efficiency of molten metal handling process. Assuming broad implementation of project results, energy savings in 2020 were projected to be 10 trillion BTU/year, with cost savings of approximately $100 million/year. The project team was comprised of materials research groups from West Virginia University and the Missouri University of Science and Technology formerly University of Missouri – Rolla, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, International Lead and Zinc Research Organization, Secat and Energy Industries of Ohio. Industry partners included six suppliers to the hot dip galvanizing industry, four end-user steel companies with hot-dip Galvanize and/or Galvalume lines, eight refractory suppliers, and seven refractory end-user companies. The results of the project included the development of: (1) New families of materials more resistant to degradation in hot-dip galvanizing bath conditions were developed; (2) Alloy 2020 weld overlay material and process were developed and applied to GI rolls; (3) New Alloys and dross-cleaning procedures were developed for Galvalume processes; (4) Two new refractory compositions, including new anti-wetting agents, were identified for use with liquid aluminum alloys; (5) A new thermal conductivity …

AVA Solar has developed a very low cost solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing process and has demonstrated the significant economic and commercial potential of this technology. This I & I Category 3 project provided significant assistance toward accomplishing these milestones. The original goals of this project were to design, construct and test a production prototype system, fabricate PV modules and test the module performance. The original module manufacturing costs in the proposal were estimated at $2/Watt. The objectives of this project have been exceeded. An advanced processing line was designed, fabricated and installed. Using this automated, high throughput system, high efficiency devices and fully encapsulated modules were manufactured. AVA Solar has obtained 2 rounds of private equity funding, expand to 50 people and initiated the development of a large scale factory for 100+ megawatts of annual production. Modules will be manufactured at an industry leading cost which will enable AVA Solar's modules to produce power that is cost-competitive with traditional energy resources. With low manufacturing costs and the ability to scale manufacturing, AVA Solar has been contacted by some of the largest customers in the PV industry to negotiate long-term supply contracts. The current market for PV has continued to grow …

Cold crucible induction melters (CCIM) have been proposed as an alternative technology for waste glass melting at the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) at Savannah River Site (SRS) as well as for other waste vitrification facilities. Proponents of this technology cite high temperature operation, high tolerance for noble metals and aluminum, high waste loading, high throughput capacity, and low equipment cost as the advantages over existing Joule Heated Melter (JHM) technology. The CCIM uses induction heating to maintain molten glass at high temperature. A water-cooled helical induction coil is connected to an AC current supply, typically operating at frequencies from 100 KHz to 5 MHz. The oscillating magnetic field generated by the oscillating current flow through the coil induces eddy currents in conductive materials within the coil. Those oscillating eddy currents, in turn, generate heat in the material. In the CCIM, the induction coil surrounds a 'Cold Crucible' which is formed by metal tubes, typically copper or stainless steel. The tubes are constructed such that the magnetic field does not couple with the crucible. Therefore, the field generated by the induction coil couples primarily with the conductive medium (hot glass) within. The crucible tubes are water cooled to maintain their …

Inflation may occur while rolling into the metastable supersymmetry-breaking vacuum of massive supersymmetric QCD. We explore the range of parameters in which slow-roll inflation and long-lived metastable supersymmetry breaking may be simultaneously realized. The end of slow-roll inflation in this context coincides with the spontaneous breaking of a global symmetry, which may give rise to significant curvature perturbations via inhomogeneous preheating. Such spontaneous symmetry breaking at the end of inflation may give rise to observable non-gaussianities, distinguishing this scenario from more conventional models of supersymmetric hybrid inflation.