Report on the environmental impact of Argonne National Laboratory.

This report discusses research activities and operations of the Advanced Computing Research Facility (ACRF) at Argonne National Laboratory from January 1985 through June 1986. During this period, the Mathematics and Computer Science Division (MCS) at Argonne received incremental funding from the Applied Mathematical Sciences program of the DOE Office of Energy Research to operate computers with innovative designs that promise to be useful for advanced scientific research. Over a five-month period, four new commercial multiprocessors (an Encore Multimax, a Sequent Balance 21000, an Aliant FX/8, and an Intel iPSC/d5) were installed in the ACRF, creating a new wave of research projects concerning computer systems with parallel and vector architectures. A list of projects, publications, and users supported by the ACRF is included.

Research activities and operations of the Advanced Computing Research Facility (ACRF) at Argonne National Laboratory are discussed for the period from July 1986 through October 1986. The facility is currently supported by the Department of Energy, and is operated by the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne. Over the past four-month period, a new commercial multiprocessor, the Intel iPSC-VX/d4 hypercube was installed. In addition, four other commercial multiprocessors continue to be available for research - an Encore Multimax, a Sequent Balance 21000, an Alliant FX/8, and an Intel iPSC/d5 - as well as a locally designed multiprocessor, the Lemur. These machines are being actively used by scientists at Argonne and throughout the nation in a wide variety of projects concerning computer systems with parallel and vector architectures.

This paper describes an alternative library of elementary functions prepared for use with the standard Fortran compiler under 4.2 BSD UNIX on a VAX 11/780. The library, written in C and based on the book ''Software Manual for the Elementary Functions'' by Cody and Waite, offers improved accuracy over the standard system library, as well as additional capabilities. Listings and output from the ELEFUNT suite of test programs are included in the appendix.

Heat transfer in evacuated-tube solar collectors with heat-pipe absorbers is compared with that for similar collectors with flow-through absorbers. In systems that produce hot water or other heated fluids, the heat-pipe absorber suffers a heat transfer penalty compared with the flow-through absorber, but in many cases the penalty can be minimized by proper design at the heat-pipe condenser and system manifold. The heat transfer penalty decreases with decreasing collector heat loss coefficient, suggesting that evacuated tubes with optical concentration are more appropriate for use with heat pipes than evacuated or non-evacuated flat-plate collectors. When the solar collector is used to drive an absorption chiller, the heat-pipe absorber has better heat transfer characteristics than the flow-through absorbers.

Highlights of the Chemical Technology (CMT) Division's activities during 1985 are presented. In this period, CMT conducted research and development in areas that include advanced batteries--mainly lithium-alloy/metal sulfide and sodium/sulfur, advanced fuel cells with molten carbonate or solid oxide electrolytes, corrosion-protective coatings for high-strength steel, coal utilization, including the heat and seed recovery technology for coal-fired magnetohydrodynamics plants and the technology for fluidized-bed combustion, methodologies for recovery of energy from municipal waste nuclear technology related to waste management, the recovery processes for discharged fuel and the uranium blanket in a sodium-cooled fast reactor, and proof of breeding in a light water breeder reactor, and physical chemistry of selected materials in environments simulating those of fission and fusion energy systems.

This paper presents an algorithm in PROLOG for compiling recursively computable descriptions of system behavior from computable descriptions of behavior for parts and lists of interconnections. We give a set of conditions that must be satisfied by various data structures in the computation. It seems possible to provide an informal verification (by hand) that these conditions are true also of the output.

A photographic study of a hydrogen chloride gas jet reacting in an aqueous solution of ammonia was conducted. The high-speed motion pictures taken revealed that the behavior of the reacting gas jet was highly dynamic and complex. The gaseous jet penetration (''plume'') was not stationary, but underwent a change in shape and size with time, which appeared to be periodic or cyclic. Certain observations made, including a high-pitched sound, exhibited a striking similarity to the so-called ''singing flame'' phenomenon. Such dynamic plume behavior is attributed to the vaporization of the bath liquid due to reaction heat release. The plume length measurements for large concentrations of ammonia seem to confirm the prediction that when the extent of vaporization is large, the plume length is mainly determined by the distance required for condensation of the vapor.

Proper charging is essential to achieve maximum performance and life of lead-acid batteries. Excessive overcharging gives rise to increased battery temperature, gassing rates, electrolyte maintenance, and component corrosion, whereas repeated undercharging causes a gradual decrease in battery capacity, which often becomes irreversible. To develop an optimal charge procedure, the relation between battery available capacity, applied overcharge, and the depth-of-discharge (DOD) level prior to charging needed to be established.

Performance of improved Ni/Fe electric vehicle batteries was measured at ambient temperatures of 0, 25, and 50 C for a range of overcharge levels, open-circuit stand times, and charge and discharge rates. Tests in which charges and discharges were performed at different battery operating temperatures showed that the discharge capacity of a Ni/Fe battery is directly related to its operating temperature, but its charge acceptance is decreased at 0 and 50 C by approx. 6% from that obtained at 25 C. The decline in battery efficiency at high temperatures is the result of increased self-discharge losses. In the first 0.5 h after charge, the Ah self-discharge loss at 50 C is twice (6%) that at 0 and 25 C (approx. 3%), corresponding to an increase in initial self-discharge rate from approx. 8 to 16 A. The increased self-discharge rate apparently occurs during the latter part of charging and, thereby, causes the 6% decline in charge acceptance. A decrease in battery efficiency also resulted at 50 C (6% coulombic and 4% energy efficiency loss) when the charge current was reduced from the 3-h to the 6-h rate. In comparison, low temperatures impact battery internal resistance and IR-free voltage more than high …

Report on technical progress in the various research and assessment activities of Argonne National Laboratory.

Significant increases in flow damping were observed for a tube passing through a plate when a sharp-edge raised-diameter constriction was added to the hole in a plate subject to a constant pressure drop. A correlation of the data in the form of a concentrated viscous damper (dashpot) is given which will be useful in structural dynamic analysis.

Some years ago a theory was published describing compilation of digital logic system build descriptions (list of behaviors for elementary components and connections between them) into recursively computable system behavior descriptions. The current work describes an analogous theory for computer programs.

This report documents the design considerations and test results of two heat extraction systems for the ANL Research Salt Gradient Solar Pond (RSGSP). Since operation began in November 1980, the RSGSP has been used to study a wide variety of solar pond phenomena, and the behavior of the RSGSP without heat extraction has been well characterized. Heat extraction equipment was installed in the spring of 1984, with heat extraction experiments conducted the following summer and fall and in the fall of 1985. The experiments simulated the use of the solar pond for grain drying. The effects of both heat extraction methods on the stability of the salt gradient are investigated.

An experimental study is reported to investigate the jump phenomenon in critical flow velocities for tube rows with different pitch-to-diameter ratios and the excited and intrinsic instabilities for a tube row with a pitch-to-diameter ratio of 1.75. The experimental data provide additional insights into the instability phenomena of tube arrays in crossflow.

This collection of exercises has been prepared to teach the use of the automated reasoning system ITP. Previous knowledge of automated reasoning is not presumed. The exercises are designed for use with the UNIX operating system.

Report on research and development of the lead-acid battery for electric vehicle propulsion, focusing on continuing development on the forced electrolyte flow-through concept with some work on the composite, plastic/lead grid.

The conditions are given for which the more flexible of two cantilevered, telescoping tubes conveying fluid can be self-excited by flow leaking from an un-constricted slip joint. Also, a physical explanation of the excitation mechanism is discussed, and a design rule to avoid the mechanism is presented. In addition, the results for the un-constricted slip joint are shown to be similar to those for slip joints having annulus constrictions at very short engagement lengths.

Variations in the design of a specific slip joint separating two cantilevered, telescoping tubes conveying water were studied to determine their effect upon the leakage flow-induced vibration self-excitation mechanism known to exist for the original slip joint geometry. The important parameters controlling the self-excitation mechanism were identified, which, along with previous results, allowed the determination of a comprehensive set of design rules to avoid unstable vibrations. This was possible even though a new self-excitation mechanism was found when the engagement of the two tubes was small.

This paper surveys work recently done at Argonne National Laboratory in an attempt to discover ways to construct numerical software for high-performance computers. The numerical algorithms are taken from several areas of numerical linear algebra. Discussion of certain architectural features of advanced-computer architectures that will affect the design of algorithms. The technique of restructuring algorithms in terms of certain modules is reviewed. This technique has proved successful in obtaining a high level of transportability without severe loss of performance on a wide variety of both vector and parallel computers.

This report sets forth the plans for the Mathematics and Computer Science Division during the next five years. These plans build on the Division's strong research programs in applied analysis, computational mathematics, software methodology, and advanced computing. The report addresses five major issues: research programs, research environment, dissemination of research techniques, initiatives, and resource projections.

A precision built moveable endplate Geiger-Mueller counter was used to measure the absolute disintegration rate of a beta-emitting radioactive gas. A Geiger-Mueller counter used for measuring gaseous radioactivity has <100% counting efficiency owing to two factors: (1) ''end effect, '' due to decreased and distorted fields at the ends where wire-insulator joints are placed, and (2) ''wall effect, '' due to non-ionization by beta particles emitted near to and heading into the wall. The end effect was evaluated by making one end of the counter movable and measuring counting rates at a number of endplate positions. Much of the wall effect was calculated theoretically, based on known data for primary ionization of electrons as a function of energy and gas composition. Corrections were then made for the ''shakeoff'' effect in beta decay and for backscattering of electrons from the counter wall. Measurements and calculations were made for a sample of krypton-85 (beta energy, 0.67 MeV). The wall effect calculation is readily extendable to other beta energies.

Motion-dependent fluid forces acting on a tube row with a pitch-to-diameter ratio of 1.35 are measured for several flow velocities and a series of oscillation frequencies. Fluid-damping and fluid-stiffness coefficients are obtained from motion-dependent fluid forces as a function of reduced flow velocity. Fluid-force coefficients agree reasonably with published data. Based on the fluid-force coefficients, the critical flow velocity and instability characteristics of tube arrays in crossflow can be predicted.

Investigation of the volcanic tuff beds of Yucca Mountain Nevada, as a potential site for a high-level waste repository is a function of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Storage Investigations (NNWSI). A series of tests with SRL 165 type glass was performed to determine whether the NNWSI Unsaturated Test could be used to produce data that would be useful in assessing waste form performance under unsaturated conditions anticipated for the NNWSI repository site.