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The purpose of this PVMaT subcontract was to establish manufacturing capability and enter commercial production with the SunSine{trademark}300 AC Module. This goal was achieved when production began in September 1997, first units were shipped in December 1997, and the pilot production of 109 units was completed in the spring of 1998. As of the completion of this PVMaT project, production capacity is 2500 units per year, which represents 627.5 kW AC {at} STC. This report provides the background of the development process that led to a commercial version of the SunSine{trademark}300; describes the SunSine{trademark}300 product, including theory of operation; provides a summary of all the significant test methods that were applied to prototypes of the product, with a summary of test results; and ends with a summary of the production process and a list of project sponsors who received units for evaluation.

A templated carbon was prepared by the pyrolysis of pyrene impregnated into pillared clay (PILC). The electrochemical performance of this was evaluated with the goal of using this material as an anode in Li-ion cells. The reversible capacity was measured as a function of C rate and the cycling characteristics were determined for various intercalation protocols. The performance of this material was compared to that of several commercial graphites tested under the same conditions. The PILC carbon shows great promise as a Li-ion anode if the fade and first-cycle losses can be controlled.

The objective of this study was to evaluate mercury speciation under reducing conditions expected in sediments at the TNX Outfall Delta Operable Unit. These changes in speciation would then be used to infer whether mercury toxicity and mobility would be expected to be significantly altered under reducing conditions. The results from this work suggest that mercury would likely become more strongly retained by the solid phase under reducing conditions than under oxidizing conditions at the TNX Outfall Delta Site. Considering that experimental results indicate that mercury is extremely tightly bound to the solid phase under oxidizing conditions, little mercury mobility would therefore be expected under reducing conditions.

As part of the HST Second Decade Study a subgroup consisting of Claire Max, James Beletic, Donald McCarthy, and Keith Noll has analyzed the expected performance of near-infra-red adaptive optics systems on the new generation of 8-10 meter ground-based telescopes, for comparison with HST. In addition the subgroup has polled the adaptive optics community regarding expected adaptive optics performance over the coming five years. Responses have been received from representatives of most of the major telescopes: Gemini, VLT, Keck, LBT, and the MMT, as well as of several operational 3-4 meter telescope AO systems. The present document outlines the conclusions to date, with emphasis on aspects relevant to the NICMOS cryocooler Independent Science Review. In general the near-infra-red capabilities of the new ground-based adaptive optics systems will be complementary to the capabilities of NICMOS. For example NICMOS will have greater H-band sensitivity, broader wavelength coverage, and higher point-spread-function stability, whereas ground-based adaptive optics instruments will have higher spatial and spectral resolution. Section 2 of this report outlines the operational constraints faced by the first generation of adaptive optics (AO) systems on new 8-10 meter telescopes. Section 3 describes the areas of relative strength of near-infra-red observing from the ground via …

Over the past twenty years, the Nuclear Power Engineering Corporation (NUPEC) of Japan has conducted a series of field model test programs to investigate various aspects of soil-structure interaction (SSI) effects on nuclear power plant structures, including embedment and dynamic structure-soil-structure interaction (SSSI) effects. As part of a collaborative agreement between the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and NUPEC, Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) performed a numerical analysis to predict the free field soil profile using industry standard methods and the recorded free field responses to actual earthquake events. This paper describes the BNL free-field analyses, including the methods and the analysis results and their comparison to recorded data in the free field. The free-field soil profiles determined from the BNL analyses are being used for both the embedment and SSSI studies, the results of which will be made available upon their completion.

Electrical resistance tomography (ERT) using multiple electrodes installed in boreholes has been shown to be useful for both site characterization and process monitoring. In some cases, however, installing multiple downhole electrodes is too costly (e.g., deep targets) or risky (e.g., contaminated sites). For these cases we have examined the possibility of using the steel casings of existing boreholes as electrodes. The first case we investigated used an array of steel casings as electrodes. This results in very few data and thus requires additional constraints to limit the domain of possible inverse solutions. Simulations indicate that the spatial resolution and sensitivity are understandably low but it is possible to coarsely map the lateral extent of subsurface processes such as steam floods. A hybrid case uses traditional point electrode arrays combined with long-conductor electrodes (steel casings). Although this arrangement provides more data, in many cases it results in poor reconstructions of test targets. Results indicate that this method may hold promise for low resolution imaging where steel casings can be used as electrodes.