The fusion-fission hybrid is a combination of the fusion and fission processes, having features which are complementary. Fission energy is running out of readily available fuel, and fusion has extra neutrons which can be used to breed that fission fuel. Fusion would have to take on an extra burden of radioactivity, but this early application would give fusion, which does not work well enough now to make power, practical experience which may accelerate development of pure fusion.

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An account is given of the obervations of the pitch angle distributions of energetic particles in the near equatorial regions of the Earth's magnetosphere. The emphasis is on relating the observed distributions to the field configuration responsible for the observed effects. The observed effects relate to drift-shell splitting, to the breakdown of adiabatic guiding center motion in regions of sharp field curvature relative to partial gyro radii, to wave-particle interactions, and to moving field configurations. 39 references.

In a recent study of the convergence properties of finite element methods in nonlinear fluid mechanics, an indirect approach was taken. A two-dimensional example with a known exact solution was chosen as the vehicle for the study, and various mesh refinements were tested in an attempt to extract information on the effect of the local Reynolds number. However, more direct approaches are usually preferred. In this study one such direct approach is followed, based upon the spectral decomposition of the solution operator. Spectral decomposition is widely employed as a solution technique for linear structural dynamics problems and can be applied readily to linear, transient heat transfer analysis; in this case, the extension to nonlinear problems is of interest. It was shown previously that spectral techniques were applicable to stiff systems of rate equations, while recent studies of geometrically and materially nonlinear structural dynamics have demonstrated the increased information content of the numerical results. The use of spectral decomposition in nonlinear problems of heat and mass transfer would be expected to yield equally increased flow of information to the analyst, and this information could include a quantitative comparison of various solution strategies, meshes, and element hierarchies.

The Weibull distribution arises as an example of the theory of extreme events. It is commonly used to fit statistical data arising in the failure analysis of electrical components and in DC breakdown of materials. This distribution is employed to analyze time-to-damage and intensity-to-damage statistics obtained when irradiating thin film coated samples of SiO/sub 2/, ZrO/sub 2/, and Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ with tightly focused laser beams. The data used is furnished by Milam. The fit to the data is excellent; and least squared correlation coefficients greater than 0.9 are often obtained.

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In response to the increasing severity of target surface finish requirements for laser fusion experiments, it has become necessary to examine spherical targets in the Scanning Electron Microscope prior to laser irradiation on an orderly nondestructive basis. A new sample manipulation technique has been developed which rolls a thin wall sphere through 4..pi.. steradians without damage and allows easy recovery by placing the sphere between two parallel plane surfaces formed in silicone rubber on the ends of two 0.9 mm capillaries. Mechanical slides, actuated by normal stage controls, cause the capillaries in contact with the sphere to translate laterally and roll the ball. Using theta Z and theta Y motions, the entire surface of the sphere can be brought into a position for examination. With the capillaries oriented for best secondary electron collection and conductively coated, resolutions comparable with traditional mounting techniques are attained. A side looking tilted crystal Si(Li) detector has been incorporated to increase the utility of the system and allow simultaneous EDX microanalysis.