Resource Type

Inadvertent Intruder Analysis For The Portsmouth On-Site Waste Disposal Facility (OSWDF) (open access)

Inadvertent Intruder Analysis For The Portsmouth On-Site Waste Disposal Facility (OSWDF)

The inadvertent intruder analysis considers the radiological impacts to hypothetical persons who are assumed to inadvertently intrude on the Portsmouth OSWDF site after institutional control ceases 100 years after site closure. For the purposes of this analysis, we assume that the waste disposal in the OSWDF occurs at time zero, the site is under institutional control for the next 100 years, and inadvertent intrusion can occur over the following 1,000 year time period. Disposal of low-level radioactive waste in the OSWDF must meet a requirement to assess impacts on such individuals, and demonstrate that the effective dose equivalent to an intruder would not likely exceed 100 mrem per year for scenarios involving continuous exposure (i.e. chronic) or 500 mrem for scenarios involving a single acute exposure. The focus in development of exposure scenarios for inadvertent intruders was on selecting reasonable events that may occur, giving consideration to regional customs and construction practices. An important assumption in all scenarios is that an intruder has no prior knowledge of the existence of a waste disposal facility at the site. Results of the analysis show that a hypothetical inadvertent intruder at the OSWDF who, in the worst case scenario, resides on the site …
Date: January 22, 2014
Creator: Smith, Frank G. & Phifer, Mark A.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Instrument Qualification of Custom Fabricated Water Activity Meter for Hot Cell Use (open access)

Instrument Qualification of Custom Fabricated Water Activity Meter for Hot Cell Use

This report describes a custom fabricated water activity meter and the results of the qualification of this meter as described in the laboratory test plan LAB-PLN-11-00012, Testing and Validation of an Enhanced Acquisition and Control System. It was calibrated against several NaOH solutions of varying concentrations to quantify the accuracy and precision of the instrument at 20 °C and 60 °C. Also, a schematic and parts list of the equipment used to make the water activity meter will be presented in this report.
Date: January 22, 2014
Creator: McCoskey, Jacob K.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Coop Progress Report (open access)

Coop Progress Report

None
Date: November 22, 2013
Creator: Rivera, Z Z & Bond, E
System: The UNT Digital Library
Summary Report of Ecological Risk Assessment for the Operation of the Explosives Waste Treatment Facility at Site 300 of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. (open access)
Final Report for Regulation of Embryonic Development in Higher Plants (open access)

Final Report for Regulation of Embryonic Development in Higher Plants

The overall goal of the project was to define the cellular processes that underlie embryo development in plants at a mechanistic level. Our studies focused on a critical transcriptional regulator, Arabidopsis LEAFY COTYLEDON (LEC1), that is necessary and sufficient to induce processes required for embryo development. Because LEC1 regulates lipid accumulation during the maturation phase of embryo development, information about LEC1 may be useful in designing approaches to enhance biofuel production in plants. During the tenure of this project, we determined the molecular mechanisms by which LEC1 acts as a transcription factor in embryos. We also identified genes directly regulated by LEC1 and showed that many of these genes are involved in maturation processes. This information has been useful in dissecting the gene regulatory networks controlling embryo development. Finally, LEC1 is a novel isoform of a transcription factor that is conserved among eukaryotes, and LEC1 is active primarily in seeds. Therefore, we determined that the LEC1-type transcription factors first appeared in lycophytes during land plant evolution. Together, this study provides basic information that has implications for biofuel production.
Date: October 22, 2013
Creator: Harada, John J.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor (open access)

Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor

Uncertainties associated with the core bypass flow are some of the key issues that directly influence the coolant mass flow distribution and magnitude, and thus the operational core temperature profiles, in the very high-temperature reactor (VHTR). Designers will attempt to configure the core geometry so the core cooling flow rate magnitude and distribution conform to the design values. The objective of this project is to study the bypass flow both experimentally and computationally. Researchers will develop experimental data using state-of-the-art particle image velocimetry in a small test facility. The team will attempt to obtain full field temperature distribution using racks of thermocouples. The experimental data are intended to benchmark computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes by providing detailed information. These experimental data are urgently needed for validation of the CFD codes. The following are the project tasks: • Construct a small-scale bench-top experiment to resemble the bypass flow between the graphite blocks, varying parameters to address their impact on bypass flow. Wall roughness of the graphite block walls, spacing between the blocks, and temperature of the blocks are some of the parameters to be tested. • Perform CFD to evaluate pre- and post-test calculations and turbulence models, including sensitivity studies to …
Date: October 22, 2013
Creator: Hassan, Yassin
System: The UNT Digital Library
Active Flow Control on Bidirectional Rotors for Tidal MHK Applications (open access)

Active Flow Control on Bidirectional Rotors for Tidal MHK Applications

A marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) tidal turbine extracts energy from tidal currents, providing clean, sustainable electricity generation. In general, all MHK conversion technologies are confronted with significant operational hurdles, resulting in both increased capital and operations and maintenance (O&M) costs. To counter these high costs while maintaining reliability, MHK turbine designs can be simplified. Prior study found that a tidal turbine could be cost-effectively simplified by removing blade pitch and rotor/nacelle yaw. Its rotor would run in one direction during ebb and then reverse direction when the current switched to flood. We dubbed such a turbine a bidirectional rotor tidal turbine (BRTT). The bidirectional hydrofoils of a BRTT are less efficient than conventional hydrofoils and capture less energy, but the elimination of the pitch and yaw systems were estimated to reduce levelized cost of energy by 7.8%-9.6%. In this study, we investigated two mechanisms for recapturing some of the performance shortfall of the BRTT. First, we developed a novel set of hydrofoils, designated the yy series, for BRTT application. Second, we investigated the use of active flow control via microtabs. Microtabs are small deployable/retractable tabs, typically located near the leading or trailing edge of an air/hydrofoil with height on the …
Date: August 22, 2013
Creator: Shiu, Henry & van Dam, Cornelis P.
System: The UNT Digital Library
THE APPLICATION OF A STATISTICAL DOWNSCALING PROCESS TO DERIVE 21{sup ST} CENTURY RIVER FLOW PREDICTIONS USING A GLOBAL CLIMATE SIMULATION (open access)

THE APPLICATION OF A STATISTICAL DOWNSCALING PROCESS TO DERIVE 21{sup ST} CENTURY RIVER FLOW PREDICTIONS USING A GLOBAL CLIMATE SIMULATION

The ability of water managers to maintain adequate supplies in coming decades depends, in part, on future weather conditions, as climate change has the potential to alter river flows from their current values, possibly rendering them unable to meet demand. Reliable climate projections are therefore critical to predicting the future water supply for the United States. These projections cannot be provided solely by global climate models (GCMs), however, as their resolution is too coarse to resolve the small-scale climate changes that can affect hydrology, and hence water supply, at regional to local scales. A process is needed to ‘downscale’ the GCM results to the smaller scales and feed this into a surface hydrology model to help determine the ability of rivers to provide adequate flow to meet future needs. We apply a statistical downscaling to GCM projections of precipitation and temperature through the use of a scaling method. This technique involves the correction of the cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) of the GCM-derived temperature and precipitation results for the 20{sup th} century, and the application of the same correction to 21{sup st} century GCM projections. This is done for three meteorological stations located within the Coosa River basin in northern Georgia, …
Date: August 22, 2013
Creator: Werth, D. & Chen, K. F.
System: The UNT Digital Library
COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH:USING ARM OBSERVATIONS & ADVANCED STATISTICAL TECHNIQUES TO EVALUATE CAM3 CLOUDS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF STOCHASTIC CLOUD-RADIATION (open access)

COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH:USING ARM OBSERVATIONS & ADVANCED STATISTICAL TECHNIQUES TO EVALUATE CAM3 CLOUDS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF STOCHASTIC CLOUD-RADIATION

The long-range goal of several past and current projects in our DOE-supported research has been the development of new and improved parameterizations of cloud-radiation effects and related processes, using ARM data, and the implementation and testing of these parameterizations in global models. The main objective of the present project being reported on here has been to develop and apply advanced statistical techniques, including Bayesian posterior estimates, to diagnose and evaluate features of both observed and simulated clouds. The research carried out under this project has been novel in two important ways. The first is that it is a key step in the development of practical stochastic cloud-radiation parameterizations, a new category of parameterizations that offers great promise for overcoming many shortcomings of conventional schemes. The second is that this work has brought powerful new tools to bear on the problem, because it has been a collaboration between a meteorologist with long experience in ARM research (Somerville) and a mathematician who is an expert on a class of advanced statistical techniques that are well-suited for diagnosing model cloud simulations using ARM observations (Shen).
Date: August 22, 2013
Creator: Somerville, Richard
System: The UNT Digital Library
Crystal Williams NNSA Essay (open access)

Crystal Williams NNSA Essay

None
Date: August 22, 2013
Creator: Williams, C
System: The UNT Digital Library
Crystalline Ceramic Waste Forms: Comparison Of Reference Process For Ceramic Waste Form Fabrication (open access)

Crystalline Ceramic Waste Forms: Comparison Of Reference Process For Ceramic Waste Form Fabrication

The research conducted in this work package is aimed at taking advantage of the long term thermodynamic stability of crystalline ceramics to create more durable waste forms (as compared to high level waste glass) in order to reduce the reliance on engineered and natural barrier systems. Durable ceramic waste forms that incorporate a wide range of radionuclides have the potential to broaden the available disposal options and to lower the storage and disposal costs associated with advanced fuel cycles. Assemblages of several titanate phases have been successfully demonstrated to incorporate radioactive waste elements, and the multiphase nature of these materials allows them to accommodate variation in the waste composition. Recent work has shown that they can be produced from a melting and crystallization process. The objective of this report is to explore the phase formation and microstructural differences between lab scale melt processing in varying gas environments with alternative densification processes such as Hot Pressing (HP) and Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS). The waste stream used as the basis for the development and testing is a simulant derived from a combination of the projected Cs/Sr separated stream, the Trivalent Actinide - Lanthanide Separation by Phosphorous reagent Extraction from Aqueous Komplexes (TALSPEAK) …
Date: August 22, 2013
Creator: Brinkman, K. S.; Marra, J. C.; Amoroso, J. & Tang, M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Determination Of Reportable Radionuclides For DWPF Sludge Batch 7B (Macrobatch 9) (open access)

Determination Of Reportable Radionuclides For DWPF Sludge Batch 7B (Macrobatch 9)

The Waste Acceptance Product Specifications (WAPS) 1.2 require that “The Producer shall report the inventory of radionuclides (in Curies) that have half-lives longer than 10 years and that are, or will be, present in concentrations greater than 0.05 percent of the total inventory for each waste type indexed to the years 2015 and 3115”. As part of the strategy to comply with WAPS 1.2, the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) will report for each waste type, all radionuclides (with half-lives greater than 10 years) that have concentrations greater than 0.01 percent of the total inventory from time of production through the 1100 year period from 2015 through 3115. The initial listing of radionuclides to be included is based on the design-basis glass as identified in the Waste Form Compliance Plan (WCP) and Waste Form Qualification Report (WQR). However, it is required that this list be expanded if other radionuclides with half-lives greater than 10 years are identified that may meet the greater than 0.01% criterion for Curie content. Specification 1.6 of the WAPS, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safeguards Reporting for High Level Waste (HLW), requires that the ratio by weights of the following uranium and plutonium isotopes be reported: …
Date: August 22, 2013
Creator: Crawford, C. L. & DiPrete, D. P.
System: The UNT Digital Library
DHS HS-STEM Summer Report (open access)

DHS HS-STEM Summer Report

None
Date: August 22, 2013
Creator: Patel, Y H; Conway, A M & Swanberg, E L
System: The UNT Digital Library
High Performance Cathodes for Li-Air Batteries (open access)

High Performance Cathodes for Li-Air Batteries

The overall objective of this project was to develop and fabricate a multifunctional cathode with high activities in acidic electrolytes for the oxygen reduction and evolution reactions for Li-air batteries. It should enable the development of Li-air batteries that operate on hybrid electrolytes, with acidic catholytes in particular. The use of hybrid electrolytes eliminates the problems of lithium reaction with water and of lithium oxide deposition in the cathode with sole organic electrolytes. The use of acid electrolytes can eliminate carbonate formation inside the cathode, making air breathing Li-air batteries viable. The tasks of the project were focused on developing hierarchical cathode structures and bifunctional catalysts. Development and testing of a prototype hybrid Li-air battery were also conducted. We succeeded in developing a hierarchical cathode structure and an effective bifunctional catalyst. We accomplished integrating the cathode with existing anode technologies and made a pouch prototype Li-air battery using sulfuric acid as catholyte. The battery cathodes contain a nanoscale multilayer structure made with carbon nanotubes and nanofibers. The structure was demonstrated to improve battery performance substantially. The bifunctional catalyst developed contains a conductive oxide support with ultra-low loading of platinum and iridium oxides. The work performed in this project has been …
Date: August 22, 2013
Creator: Xing, Yangchuan
System: The UNT Digital Library
Particle Physics-Final Report (open access)

Particle Physics-Final Report

Final Report for DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-90ER40546 "Experimental/Theoretical Particle Physics"
Date: August 22, 2013
Creator: Kuti, Julius
System: The UNT Digital Library
Deep Eutectic Salt Formulations Suitable as Advanced Heat Transfer Fluids (open access)

Deep Eutectic Salt Formulations Suitable as Advanced Heat Transfer Fluids

Concentrating solar power (CSP) facilities are comprised of many miles of fluid-filled pipes arranged in large grids with reflective mirrors used to capture radiation from the sun. Solar radiation heats the fluid which is used to produce steam necessary to power large electricity generation turbines. Currently, organic, oil-based fluid in the pipes has a maximum temperature threshold of 400 °C, allowing for the production of electricity at approximately 15 cents per kilowatt hour. The DOE hopes to foster the development of an advanced heat transfer fluid that can operate within higher temperature ranges. The new heat transfer fluid, when used with other advanced technologies, could significantly decrease solar electricity cost. Lower costs would make solar thermal electricity competitive with gas and coal and would offer a clean, renewable source of energy. Molten salts exhibit many desirable heat transfer qualities within the range of the project objectives. Halotechnics developed advanced heat transfer fluids (HTFs) for application in solar thermal power generation. This project focused on complex mixtures of inorganic salts that exhibited a high thermal stability, a low melting point, and other favorable characteristics. A high-throughput combinatorial research and development program was conducted in order to achieve the project objective. Over …
Date: July 22, 2013
Creator: Raade, Justin; Roark, Thomas; Vaughn, John & Bradshaw, Robert
System: The UNT Digital Library
Experimental And Theoretical High Energy Physics Research At UCLA (open access)

Experimental And Theoretical High Energy Physics Research At UCLA

This is the final report of the UCLA High Energy Physics DOE Grant No. DE-FG02- 91ER40662. This report covers the last grant project period, namely the three years beginning January 15, 2010, plus extensions through April 30, 2013. The report describes the broad range of our experimental research spanning direct dark matter detection searches using both liquid xenon (XENON) and liquid argon (DARKSIDE); present (ICARUS) and R&D for future (LBNE) neutrino physics; ultra-high-energy neutrino and cosmic ray detection (ANITA); and the highest-energy accelerator-based physics with the CMS experiment and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. For our theory group, the report describes frontier activities including particle astrophysics and cosmology; neutrino physics; LHC interaction cross section calculations now feasible due to breakthroughs in theoretical techniques; and advances in the formal theory of supergravity.
Date: July 22, 2013
Creator: Cousins, Robert D.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Final Report for Enhancing the MPI Programming Model for PetaScale Systems (open access)

Final Report for Enhancing the MPI Programming Model for PetaScale Systems

This project performed research into enhancing the MPI programming model in two ways: developing improved algorithms and implementation strategies, tested and realized in the MPICH implementation, and exploring extensions to the MPI standard to better support PetaScale and ExaScale systems.
Date: July 22, 2013
Creator: Gropp, William Douglas
System: The UNT Digital Library
Final Technical Report for Collaborative Research: Regional climate-change projections through next-generation empirical and dynamical models, DE-FG02-07ER64429 (open access)

Final Technical Report for Collaborative Research: Regional climate-change projections through next-generation empirical and dynamical models, DE-FG02-07ER64429

This is the final report for a DOE-funded research project describing the outcome of research on non-homogeneous hidden Markov models (NHMMs) and coupled ocean-atmosphere (O-A) intermediate-complexity models (ICMs) to identify the potentially predictable modes of climate variability, and to investigate their impacts on the regional-scale. The main results consist of extensive development of the hidden Markov models for rainfall simulation and downscaling specifically within the non-stationary climate change context together with the development of parallelized software; application of NHMMs to downscaling of rainfall projections over India; identification and analysis of decadal climate signals in data and models; and, studies of climate variability in terms of the dynamics of atmospheric flow regimes.
Date: July 22, 2013
Creator: Smyth, Padhraic
System: The UNT Digital Library
LULESH 2.0 Updates and Changes (open access)

LULESH 2.0 Updates and Changes

None
Date: July 22, 2013
Creator: Karlin, I; Keasler, J & Neely, J R
System: The UNT Digital Library
Swift Wind Turbine Testing (open access)

Swift Wind Turbine Testing

Swift wind turbine testing to AWEA small wind turbine test standards.
Date: July 22, 2013
Creator: Peek, Richard T.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Report on the AMF2 RPH Stabilization Platform: Design and Evaluation (open access)

Report on the AMF2 RPH Stabilization Platform: Design and Evaluation

None
Date: June 22, 2013
Creator: Coulter, R.L. & Martin, T.J. (Environmental Science Division)
System: The UNT Digital Library
Environmental Impacts of Wind Power Development on the Population Biology of Greater Prairie-Chickens (open access)

Environmental Impacts of Wind Power Development on the Population Biology of Greater Prairie-Chickens

Executive Summary 1. We investigated the impacts of wind power development on the demography, movements, and population genetics of Greater Prairie-Chickens (Tympanuchus cupido) at three sites in northcentral and eastern Kansas for a 7-year period. Only 1 of 3 sites was developed for wind power, the 201MW Meridan Way Wind Power Facility at the Smoky Hills site in northcentral Kansas. Our project report is based on population data for prairie chickens collected during a 2-year preconstruction period (2007-2008), a 3-year postconstruction period (2009-2011) and one final year of lek surveys (2012). Where relevant, we present preconstruction data from our field studies at reference sites in the northern Flint Hills (2007-2009) and southern Flint Hills (2006-2008). 2. We addressed seven potential impacts of wind power development on prairie chickens: lek attendance, mating behavior, use of breeding habitat, fecundity rates, natal dispersal, survival rates, and population numbers. Our analyses of pre- and postconstruction impacts are based on an analysis of covariance design where we modeled population performance as a function of treatment period, distance to eventual or actual site of the nearest wind turbine, and the interaction of these factors. Our demographic and movement data from the 6-year study period at the …
Date: May 22, 2013
Creator: Sandercock, Brett K.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Modeling Electro-Magnetic Fields from HE Explosions (open access)

Modeling Electro-Magnetic Fields from HE Explosions

None
Date: May 22, 2013
Creator: Kuhl, A L
System: The UNT Digital Library