Tech-Etch has considerable experience in numerous related high precision etched Kapton® products including production of GEM foils. The required precision and production process for 2-D readout boards is similar to that developed for GEM foil production. Additionally, Tech-Etch has strong ties with several research institutions (namely Brookhaven National Laboratory, MIT and Yale University) that can help design and evaluate the performance of the readout boards produced at Tech-Etch. Since Tech-Etch is a small company, it also has the capability to produce a large variety of part configurations, optimized for a particular customer’s requirements. We report results from research aimed at developing and demonstrating production of 2-D readout structures for GEM (Gas Electron Multiplier) charged particle tracking chambers at Tech-Etch. Readout boards of two types, bi-planar and single plane, were fabricated and evaluated. The results show that Tech-Etch can produce suitable boards of either type however the single plane board has a number of advantages both in production and use that will likely make it the preferred choice for GEM tracking chambers.

The National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) project is planning upgrades to the toroidal field, plasma current and pulse length. This involves the replacement of the center-stack, including the inner legs of the TF, OH, and inner PF coils. A second neutral beam will also be added. The increased performance of the upgrade requires qualification of the remaining components including the vessel, passive plates, and divertor for higher disruption loads. The hardware needing qualification is more complex than is typically accessible by large scale electromagnetic (EM) simulations of the plasma disruptions. The usual method is to include simplified representations of components in the large EM models and attempt to extract forces to apply to more detailed models. This paper describes a more efficient approach of combining comprehensive modeling of the plasma and tokamak conducting structures, using the 2D OPERA code, with much more detailed treatment of individual components using ANSYS electromagnetic (EM) and mechanical analysis. This capture local eddy currents and resulting loads in complex details, and allows efficient non-linear, and dynamic structural analyses.

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The objective of this survey was to obtain user feedback to, among other things, determine how to organize the exponentially growing data within the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility, and identify users’ preferred data analysis system. The survey findings appear to have met this objective, having received approximately 300 responses that give insight into the type of work users perform, usage of the data, percentage of data analysis users might perform on an ARM-hosted computing resource, downloading volume level where users begin having reservations, opinion about usage if given more powerful computing resources (including ability to manipulate data), types of tools that would be most beneficial to them, preferred programming language and data analysis system, level of importance for certain types of capabilities, and finally, level of interest in participating in a code-sharing community.

Liquid metal plasma facing components (PFCs) have been identified as an alternative material for fusion plasma experiments. The use of a liquid conductor where significant magnetic fields are present is considered risky, with the possibility of macroscopic fluid motion and possible ejection into the plasma core. Analysis is carried out on thermoelectric magnetohydrodynamic (TEMHD) forces caused by temperature gradients in the liquid-container system itself in addition to scrape-off-layer currents interacting with the PFC from a diverted plasma. Capillary effects at the liquid-container interface will be examined which govern droplet ejection criteria. Stability of the interface is determined using linear stability methods. In addition to application to liquidmetal PFCs, thin film liquidmetal effects have application to current and future devices where off-normal events may liquefy portions of the first wall and other plasma facing components.

In this study, a hydrodynamic model based on the unstructured-grid finite volume coastal ocean model (FVCOM) was developed for Bellingham Bay, Washington. The model simulates water surface elevation, velocity, temperature, and salinity in a three-dimensional domain that covers the entire Bellingham Bay and adjacent water bodies, including Lummi Bay, Samish Bay, Padilla Bay, and Rosario Strait. The model was developed using Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s high-resolution Puget Sound and Northwest Straits circulation and transport model. A sub-model grid for Bellingham Bay and adjacent coastal waters was extracted from the Puget Sound model and refined in Bellingham Bay using bathymetric light detection and ranging (LIDAR) and river channel cross-section data. The model uses tides, river inflows, and meteorological inputs to predict water surface elevations, currents, salinity, and temperature. A tidal open boundary condition was specified using standard National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predictions. Temperature and salinity open boundary conditions were specified based on observed data. Meteorological forcing (wind, solar radiation, and net surface heat flux) was obtained from NOAA real observations and National Center for Environmental Prediction North American Regional Analysis outputs. The model was run in parallel with 48 cores using a time step of 2.5 seconds. It took …

A dense array of 99 Langmuir probes has been installed in the lower divertor region of the National Spherical Torus Experiments (NSTX). This array is instrumented with a system of elec- tronics that allows flexibility in the choice of probes to bias as well as the type of measurement (including standard swept, single probe, triple probe and operation as passive floating potential and scrape-off-layer (SOL) current monitors). The use of flush-mounted probes requires careful inter- pretation. The time dependent nature of the SOL makes swept-probe traces difficult to interpret. To overcome these challenges, the single- and triple-Langmuir probe signals are used in comple- mentary fashion to determine the temperature and density at the probe location. A comparison to mid-plane measurements is made. Work is supported by DOE contracts DE-AC02-09CHI1466 and DE-PS02-07ER07-29.

The mission of the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Environmental Management (EM) is to clean up the environmental legacy of nuclear weapons research and production during the Cold War. That mission includes cleaning up nuclear waste, contaminated groundwater and soil, nuclear materials, and contaminated facilities covering two million acres of land in thirty-five states. EM's principal program goals include timely completion of tank waste treatment facilities, reduction of the life-cycle costs and acceleration of the cleanup of the Cold War legacy, and reduction of the EM footprint. The mission of the EM Technology Innovation and Development program is to transform science and innovation into practical solutions to achieve the EM mission. During fiscal year 2010 (October 2009-September 2010), EM focused upon accelerating environmental cleanup by expeditiously filling identified gaps in available knowledge and technology in the EM program areas. This report describes some of the approaches and transformational technologies in tank waste processing, groundwater and soil remediation, nuclear materials disposition, and facility deactivation and decommissioning developed during fiscal year 2010 that will enable EM to meet its most pressing program goals.

The presence of corrosive and inhibiting chemicals on the tank walls in the vapor space, arising from the waste supernatant, dictate the type and degree of corrosion that occurs there. An understanding of how waste chemicals are transported to the walls and the affect on vapor species from changing supernatant chemistry (e.g., pH, etc.), are basic to the evaluation of risks and impacts of waste changes on vapor space corrosion (VSC). In order to address these issues the expert panel workshop on double-shell tank (DST) vapor space corrosion testing (RPP-RPT-31129) participants made several recommendations on the future data and modeling needs in the area of DST corrosion. In particular, the drying of vapor phase condensates or supernatants can form salt or other deposits at the carbon steel interface resulting in a chemical composition at the near surface substantially different from that observed directly in the condensates or the supernatants. As a result, over the past three years chemical modeling and experimental studies have been performed on DST supernatants and condensates to predict the changes in chemical composition that might occur as condensates or supernatants equilibrate with the vapor space species and dry at the carbon steel surface. The experimental studies …

The energy efficiency services sector (EESS) is poised to become an increasingly important part of the U.S. economy. Climate change and energy supply concerns, volatile and increasing energy prices, and a desire for greater energy independence have led many state and national leaders to support an increasingly prominent role for energy efficiency in U.S. energy policy. The national economic recession has also helped to boost the visibility of energy efficiency, as part of a strategy to support economic recovery. We expect investment in energy efficiency to increase dramatically both in the near-term and through 2020 and beyond. This increase will come both from public support, such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and significant increases in utility ratepayer funds directed toward efficiency, and also from increased private spending due to codes and standards, increasing energy prices, and voluntary standards for industry. Given the growing attention on energy efficiency, there is a concern among policy makers, program administrators, and others that there is an insufficiently trained workforce in place to meet the energy efficiency goals being put in place by local, state, and federal policy. To understand the likelihood of a potential workforce gap and appropriate response strategies, one …

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is responsible for environmental remediation at the Hanford Site in Washington State, a former nuclear weapons production site. Retrieving, processing, immobilizing, and disposing of the 2.2 × 105 m3 of radioactive wastes stored in the Hanford underground storage tanks dominates the overall environmental remediation effort at Hanford. The cornerstone of the tank waste remediation effort is the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). As currently designed, the capability of the WTP to treat and immobilize the Hanford tank wastes in the expected lifetime of the plant is questionable. For this reason, DOE has been pursuing supplemental treatment options for selected wastes. If implemented, these supplemental treatments will route certain waste components to processing and disposition pathways outside of WTP and thus will accelerate the overall Hanford tank waste remediation mission.

The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) has been requested to perform analyses on samples of the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) decon frit slurry (i.e., supernate samples and sump solid samples). Four 1-L liquid slurry samples were provided to SRNL by Savannah River Remediation (SRR) from the 'front-end' decon activities. Additionally, two 1-L sump solids samples were provided to SRNL for compositional and physical analysis. This report contains the results of the supernate analyses, while the solids (sump and slurry) results will be reported in a supplemental report. The analytical data from the decon frit supernate indicate that all of the radionuclide, organic, and inorganic concentrations met the limits in Revision 4 of the Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC) with the exception of boron. The ETP WAC limit for boron is 15.0 mg/L while the average measured concentration (based on quadruplicate analysis) was 15.5 mg/L. The measured concentrations of Li, Na, and Si were also relatively high in the supernate analysis. These results are consistent with the relatively high measured value of B given the compositional make-up of Frit 418. Given these results, it was speculated that either (a) Frit 418 was dissolving into the supernate or …

Flowsheets for the dissolution of aluminum-clad spent nuclear fuel have been proposed using 0.002 M mercuric nitrate catalyst in 5 to 6 M nitric acid. Previous calculations for flammable gas control during the dissolution of spent nuclear fuel have been extended to cover a range of dissolver purge rates from 40 to 55 scfm. A range of dissolver solution volumes from 12000 to 15000 liters were considered for the large H-Canyon dissolver (6.4D). Depending on the purge rate, anywhere from four to six bundles of MURR fuel can be initially charged to the dissolver (6.4D). For successive charges where the dissolver solution already contains 0.002 M mercury catalyst and the dissolved aluminum from five bundles of MURR fuel, five to nine bundles of additional fuel can be charged depending on the purge rate and the dissolver solution volume. Similar calculations have been performed for the small H-Canyon dissolver (6.1D) for solution volumes that ranged from 6000 to 7500 liters and purge rates from 40 to 55 scfm. The limitations on the initial charge are four to six bundles depending on the purge rate. The aluminum from four bundles of fuel in an initial charge will allow nine to ten bundles …

The Primary objective of the proposed project is to apply and extend the latest advancements in LWR fuel management optimization to the design of advanced boiling water reactor (BWR) fuel assemblies specifically for the recycling of minor actinides (MAs).

A Demonstration tokamak (Demo) is an essential next step toward a magnetic-fusion based reactor. One based on advanced-tokamak (AT) plasmas is especially appealing because of its relative compactness. However, it will require many plasma measurements to provide the necessary signals to feed to ancillary systems to protect the device and control the plasma. This note addresses the question of how much intrusion into the blanket system will be required to allow the measurements needed to provide the information required for plasma control. All diagnostics will require, at least, the same shielding designs as planned for ITER, while having the capability to maintain their calibration through very long pulses. Much work is required to define better the measurement needs and the quantity and quality of the measurements that will have to be made, and how they can be integrated into the other tokamak structures.

Tall wind turbines, with hub heights at 80 m or above, can extract large amounts of energy from the atmosphere because they are likely to encounter higher wind speeds, but they face challenges given the complex nature of wind flow and turbulence at these heights in the boundary layer. Depending on whether the boundary layer is stable, neutral, or convective, the mean wind speed, direction, and turbulence properties may vary greatly across the tall turbine swept area (40 to 120 m AGL). This variability can cause tall turbines to produce difference amounts of power during time periods with identical hub height wind speeds. Using meteorological and power generation data from a West Coast North American wind farm over a one-year period, our study synthesizes standard wind park observations, such as wind speed from turbine nacelles and sparse meteorological tower observations, with high-resolution profiles of wind speed and turbulence from a remote sensing platform, to quantify the impact of atmospheric stability on power output. We first compare approaches to defining atmospheric stability. The standard, limited, wind farm operations enable the calculation only of a wind shear exponent ({alpha}) or turbulence intensity (I{sub U}) from cup anemometers, while the presence at this …

IVery High Temperature Reactors (VHTR) utilize the TRISO microsphere as the fundamental fuel unit in the core. The TRISO microsphere (~ 1- mm diameter) is composed of a UO2 kernel surrounded by a porous pyrolytic graphite buffer, an inner pyrolytic graphite layer, a silicon carbide (SiC) coating, and an outer pyrolytic graphite layer. The U-235 enrichment of the fuel is expected to range from 4% – 10% (higher enrichments are also being considered). The layer/coating system that surrounds the UO2 kernel acts as the containment and main barrier against the environmental release of radioactivity. To understand better the behavior of this fuel under in-core conditions (e.g., high temperature, intense fast neutron flux, etc.), the US Department of Energy (DOE) is launching a fuel testing program that will take place at the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) located at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). During this project North Carolina State University (NCSU) researchers will collaborate with INL staff for establishing an optimized system for fuel monitoring for the ATR tests. In addition, it is expected that the developed system and methods will be of general use for fuel failure monitoring in gas cooled VHTRs.

Report on activities working with stakeholders in the emerging marine and hydrokinetic energy industry during FY09, for DOE EERE Office of Waterpower.

This research program was designed to look at basic radiation damage and effects and mechanical properties in Fe and ferritic alloys. The program scope included a number of materials ranging from pure single crystal Fe to more complex Fe-Cr-C alloys. The range of materials was designed to examine materials response and performance on ideal/model systems and gradually move to more complex systems. The experimental program was coordinated with a modeling effort. The use of pure and model alloys also facilitated the ability to develop and employ atomistic-scale modeling techniques to understand the inherent physics underlying materials performance

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has been tasked by Bechtel National Inc. (BNI) on the River Protection Project-Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (RPP-WTP) project to perform research and development activities to resolve technical issues identified for the Pretreatment Facility (PTF). The Pretreatment Engineering Platform (PEP) was designed, constructed, and operated as part of a plan to respond to issue M12, “Undemonstrated Leaching Processes” of the External Flowsheet Review Team (EFRT) issue response plan.(a) The PEP is a 1/4.5-scale test platform designed to simulate the WTP pretreatment caustic leaching, oxidative leaching, ultrafiltration solids concentration, and slurry washing processes. The PEP replicates the WTP leaching processes using prototypic equipment and control strategies. The PEP also includes non-prototypic ancillary equipment to support the core processing.

WPP is a computer program for simulating seismic wave propagation on parallel machines. WPP solves the governing equations in second order formulation using a node-based finite difference approach. The basic numerical method is described in [9]. WPP implements substantial capabilities for 3-D seismic modeling, with a free surface condition on the top boundary, non-reflecting far-field boundary conditions on the other boundaries, point force and point moment tensor source terms with many predefined time dependencies, fully 3-D heterogeneous material model specification, output of synthetic seismograms in the SAC [4] format, output of GMT [11] scripts for laying out simulation information on a map, and output of 2-D slices of (derived quantites of) the solution field as well as the material model. Version 2.0 of WPP allows the free surface boundary condition to be imposed on a curved topography. For this purpose a curvilinear mesh is used near the free surface, extending into the computational domain down to a user specified level. The elastic wave equations and the free surface boundary conditions are discretized on the curvilinear mesh using the energy conserving technique described in [2]. A curvilinear mesh generator is built into WPP and the curvilinear mesh is automatically generated from …

The primary objectives of this proposal was to define the subset of proteins required for the ionizing radiation (IR) resistance of Deinococcus radiodurans R1, characterize the activities of those proteins, and apply what was learned to problems of interest to the Department of Energy.

Lincoln Composites operates a facility for designing, testing, and manufacturing composite pressure vessels. Lincoln Composites also has a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-funded project to develop composite tanks for high-pressure hydrogen storage. The initial stage of this project involves testing the permeation of high-pressure hydrogen through polymer liners. The company recently moved and is constructing a dedicated research/testing laboratory at their new location. In the meantime, permeation tests are being performed in a corner of a large manufacturing facility. The safety review team visited the Lincoln Composites site on May 25, 2010. The project team presented an overview of the company and project and took the safety review team on a tour of the facility. The safety review team saw the entire process of winding a carbon fiber/resin tank on a liner, installing the boss and valves, and curing and painting the tank. The review team also saw the new laboratory that is being built for the DOE project and the temporary arrangement for the hydrogen permeation tests.

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