Dynamic mechanical analysis has been used to characterize the effects of tritium gas (initially 1 atm. pressure, ambient temperature) exposure over times up to 2.3 years on several thermoplastics-ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMW-PE), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), and Vespel{reg_sign} polyimide, and on several formulations of elastomers based on ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM). Tritium exposure stiffened the elastic modulus of UHMW-PE up to about 1 year and then softened it, and reduced the viscous response monotonically with time. PTFE initially stiffened, however the samples became too weak to handle after nine months exposure. The dynamic properties of Vespel{reg_sign} were not affected. The glass transition temperature of the EPDM formulations increased approximately 4 C. following three months tritium exposure.

A CLIC designed 18 cells, low group velocity (2.4% to 1.0% c), X-band (11.4 GHz) accelerator structure (denoted T18) was designed at CERN, its cells were built at KEK, and it was assembled and tested at SLAC. An interesting feature of this structure is that the gradient in the last cell is about 50% higher than that in the first cell. This structure has been RF conditioned at SLAC NLCTA for about 1400 hours where it incurred about 2200 breakdowns. This paper presents the characteristics of these breakdowns, including (1) the breakdown rate dependence on gradient, pulse width and conditioning time, (2) the breakdown distribution along the structure, (3) relation between breakdown and pulsed heating dependence study and (4) electric field decay time for breakdown changing over the whole conditioning time. Overall, this structure performed very well, having a final breakdown rate of less than 1e-6/pulse/m at 106 MV/m with 230 ns pulse width.

The Department of Energy Savannah River Site vitrifies nuclear waste incident to defense programs through its Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF). The piping in the DWPF seal pot jumper configuration must withstand the stresses during an unlikely but potential deflagration event, and maintain its safety function for a 20-year service life. Carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy composites (CFR) were proposed for protection and reinforcement of piping during such an event. The proposed CFR materials have been ASME-approved (Section XI, Code Case N-589-1) for post-construction maintenance and is DOT-compliant per 49CFR 192 and 195. The proposed carbon fiber/epoxy composite reinforcement system was originally developed for pipeline rehabilitation and post-construction maintenance in petrochemical, refineries, DOT applications and other industries. The effects of ionizing radiation on polymers and organic materials have been studied for many years. The majority of available data are based on traditional exposures to gamma irradiation at high dose rates ({approx}10,000 Gy/hr) allowing high total dose within reasonable test periods and general comparison of different materials exposed at such conditions. However, studies in recent years have shown that degradation of many polymers are sensitive to dose rate, with more severe degradation often observed at similar or even lower total doses when exposed …

We derive an index theorem for the Dirac operator in the background of various topological excitations on an R{sup 3} x S{sup 1} geometry. The index theorem provides more refined data than the APS index for an instanton on R{sup 4} and reproduces it in decompactification limit. In the R{sup 3} limit, it reduces to the Callias index theorem. The index is expressed in terms of topological charge and the {eta}-invariant associated with the boundary Dirac operator. Neither topological charge nor {eta}-invariant is typically an integer, however, the non-integer parts cancel to give an integer-valued index. Our derivation is based on axial current non-conservation--an exact operator identity valid on any four-manifold--and on the existence of a center symmetric, or approximately center symmetric, boundary holonomy (Wilson line). We expect the index theorem to usefully apply to many physical systems of interest, such as low temperature (large S{sup 1}, confined) phases of gauge theories, center stabilized Yang-Mills theories with vector-like or chiral matter (at S{sup 1} of any size), and supersymmetric gauge theories with supersymmetry-preserving boundary conditions (also at any S{sup 1}). In QCD-like and chiral gauge theories, the index theorem should shed light into the nature of topological excitations responsible for …

Gas hydrates are a vast energy resource with global distribution in the permafrost and in the oceans. Even if conservative estimates are considered and only a small fraction is recoverable, the sheer size of the resource is so large that it demands evaluation as a potential energy source. In this review paper, we discuss the distribution of natural gas hydrate accumulations, the status of the primary international R&D programs, and the remaining science and technological challenges facing commercialization of production. After a brief examination of gas hydrate accumulations that are well characterized and appear to be models for future development and gas production, we analyze the role of numerical simulation in the assessment of the hydrate production potential, identify the data needs for reliable predictions, evaluate the status of knowledge with regard to these needs, discuss knowledge gaps and their impact, and reach the conclusion that the numerical simulation capabilities are quite advanced and that the related gaps are either not significant or are being addressed. We review the current body of literature relevant to potential productivity from different types of gas hydrate deposits, and determine that there are consistent indications of a large production potential at high rates over …

A 5-cell, normal-conducting, 1.3 GHz, standing-wave (SW) cavity was built as a prototype capture accelerator for the ILC positron source. Although the ILC uses predominantly superconducting cavities, the capture cavity location in both a high radiation environment and a solenoidal magnetic field requires it to be normal conducting. With the relatively high duty ILC beam pulses (1 msec at 5 Hz) and the high gradient required for efficient positron capture (15 MV/m), achieving adequate cavity cooling to prevent significant detuning is challenging. This paper presents the operational performance of this cavity including the processing history, characteristics of the breakdown events and the acceleration gradient witnessed by a single bunch at different injection times for different rf pulse lengths.

We investigated ZnO(0001) single crystals annealed in high vacuum with respect to their magnetic properties and cluster formation tendency after implant-doping with Fe. While metallic Fe cluster formation is suppressed, no evidence for the relevance of the Fe magnetic moment to the observed ferromagnetism was found. The latter along with the cluster suppression is discussed with respect to defects in the ZnO host matrix, since the crystalline quality of the substrates was lowered due to the preparation as observed by x-ray diffraction.

As part of a study to characterize the detailed coordination behavior of Pu(IV), single crystal X-ray diffraction structures have been determined for Pu(IV) and Ce(IV) complexes with the naturally-occurring ligand maltol (3-hydroxy-2-methyl-pyran-4-one) and its derivative bromomaltol (5-bromo-3-hydroxy-2-methyl-pyran-4-one). Although Ce(IV) is generally accepted as a structural analog for Pu(IV), and the maltol complexes of these two metals are isostructural, the corresponding bromomaltol complexes are strikingly different with respect to ligand orientation about the metal ion: All complexes exhibit trigonal dodecahedral coordination geometry but the Ce(IV)-bromomaltol complex displays an uncommon ligand arrangement not mirrored in the Pu(IV) complex, although the two metal species are generally accepted to be structural analogs.

Spatial resolution tests were performed on beamline 1.4.4 at the Advanced Light Source in Berkeley, CA, USA, a third-generation synchrotron light source. This beamline couples the high-brightness synchrotron source to a Thermo-Electron Continumum XL infrared microscope. Two types of resolution tests were performed in both the mid-IR and near-IR. The results are compared with a diffraction-limited spot size theory. At shorter near-IR wavelengths the experimental results begin to deviate from diffraction-limited so a combined diffraction-limit and electron-beam-source-size model is employed. This description shows how the physical electron beam size of the synchrotron source begins to dominate the focused spot size at higher energies. The transition from diffraction-limited to electron-beam-size-limited performance is a function of storage-ring parameters and the optical demagnification within the beamline and microscope optics. The discussion includes how different facilities, beamlines and microscopes will affect the achievable spatial resolution. As synchrotron light sources and other next-generation accelerators such as energy-recovery LINACs and free-electron lasers achieve smaller beam emittances, beta-functions and/or energy spreads, diffraction-limited performance can continue to higher-energy beams, perhaps ultimately into the extreme ultraviolet.

Starting from the Hamiltonian equation of motion in QCD we find a single variable light-front equation for QCD which determines the eigenspectrum and the light-front wavefunctions of hadrons for general spin and orbital angular momentum. This light-front wave equation is equivalent to the equations of motion which describe the propagation of spin-J modes on anti-de Sitter (AdS) space.

Hexavalent chromium is a widespread contaminant found in groundwater. In order to stimulate microbially mediated Cr(VI)-reduction, a poly-lactate compound was injected into Cr(VI)-contaminated aquifers at site 100H at Hanford. Investigation of bacterial community composition using high-density DNA microarray analysis of 16S rRNA gene products revealed a stimulation of Pseudomonas, Desulfovibrio and Geobacter species amongst others. Enrichment of these organisms coincided with continued Cr(VI) depletion. Functional gene-array analysis of DNA from monitoring well indicated high abundance of genes involved in nitrate-reduction, sulfate-reduction, iron-reduction, methanogenesis, chromium tolerance/reduction. Clone-library data revealed Psedomonas was the dominant genus in these samples. Based on above results, we conducted lab investigations to study the dominant anaerobic culturable microbial populations present at this site and their role in Cr(VI)-reduction. Enrichments using defined anaerobic media resulted in isolation of an iron-reducing, a sulfate-reducing and a nitrate-reducing isolate among several others. Preliminary 16S rDNA sequence analysis identified the isolates as Geobacter metallireducens, Pseudomonas stutzeri and Desulfovibrio vulgaris species respectively. The Pseudomonas isolate utilized acetate, lactate, glycerol and pyruvate as alternative carbon sources, and reduced Cr(VI). Anaerobic washed cell suspension of strain HLN reduced almost 95?M Cr(VI) within 4 hr. Further, with 100?M Cr(VI) as sole electron-acceptor, cells grew to 4.05 …

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) was used to study the dissociative adsorption of H{sub 2} on Ru(001) near saturation coverage, when the number of residual hydrogen vacancies (i.e., unoccupied Ru sites) is small. We found that H{sub 2} dissociation takes place only on Ru sites where the metal atom is not bound to any H atom. Such active sites are formed when at least 3 H-vacancies aggregate by thermal diffusion. Sites formed by single H-vacancies or pairs of adjoining vacancies were found to be unreactive toward H{sub 2}. As a similar phenomenon was found previously on Pd(111), the present results indicate that the active sites for H2 dissociation share a common characteristic among catalytically active transition metals.

Hamiltonian light-front quantum field theory constitutes a framework for the non-perturbative solution of invariant masses and correlated parton amplitudes of self-bound systems. By choosing light-front gauge and adopting a basis function representation, we obtain a large, sparse, Hamiltonian-matrix for mass eigenstates of gauge theories that is solvable by adapting the ab initio no-core methods of nuclear many-body theory. Full covariance is recovered in the continuum limit, the infinite matrix limit. We outline our approach and discuss the computational challenges.

We give a representation of the parity-even part of the planar two-loop six-gluon MHV amplitude of N = 4 super-Yang-Mills theory, in terms of loop-momentum integrals with simple dual conformal properties. We evaluate the integrals numerically in order to test directly the ABDK/BDS all-loop ansatz for planar MHV amplitudes. We find that the ansatz requires an additive remainder function, in accord with previous indications from strong-coupling and Regge limits. The planar six-gluon amplitude can also be compared with the hexagonal Wilson loop computed by Drummond, Henn, Korchemsky and Sokatchev in arXiv:0803.1466 [hep-th]. After accounting for differing singularities and other constants independent of the kinematics, we find that the Wilson loop and MHV-amplitude remainders are identical, to within our numerical precision. This result provides non-trivial confirmation of a proposed n-point equivalence between Wilson loops and planar MHV amplitudes, and suggests that an additional mechanism besides dual conformal symmetry fixes their form at six points and beyond.

The incorporation of silver into the diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings has shown excellent potential in various applications; therefore the surface and tribological properties of silver-containing DLC thin films deserve to be investigated. In this study we have deposited silver-containing hydrogenated and hydrogen-free DLC coatings by plasma immersion ion implantation and deposition (PIII-D) methods. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and nano-scratch tests were used to study the surface and tribological properties. The silver incorporation had only slight effects on hydrogenated DLC coatings. However, the incorporation of silver has significant effect on hydrogen-free DLC of smoothing the surface and increasing the surface energy. Those effects have been illustrated and explained in the context of experimental results.

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The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM) was established to achieve the safe and compliant disposition of legacy wastes and facilities from defense nuclear applications. The scope of work is diverse, with projects ranging from single acquisitions to collections of projects and operations that span several decades and costs from hundreds of millions to billions US$. The need to be able to manage and understand the technical risks from the project to senior management level has been recognized as an enabler to successfully completing the mission. In 2008, DOE-EM developed the Technical Risk Rating as a new method to assist in managing technical risk based on specific criteria. The Technical Risk Rating, and the criteria used to determine the rating, provides a mechanism to foster open, meaningful communication between the Federal Project Directors and DOE-EM management concerning project technical risks. Four indicators (technical maturity, risk urgency, handling difficulty and resolution path) are used to focus attention on the issues and key aspects related to the risks. Pressing risk issues are brought to the forefront, keeping DOE-EM management informed and engaged such that they fully understand risk impact. Use of the Technical Risk Rating and criteria during reviews …

Detailed chemical speciation of the dry residue particles from individual cloud droplets and interstitial aerosol collected during the Marine Stratus Experiment (MASE) was performed using a combination of complementary microanalysis techniques. Techniques include computer controlled scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersed analysis of X-rays (CCSEM/EDX), time-of-flight secondary ionization mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS), and scanning transmission X-ray microscopy with near edge X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy (STXM/NEXAFS). Samples were collected at the ground site located in Point Reyes National Seashore, approximately 1 km from the coast. This manuscript focuses on the analysis of individual particles sampled from air masses that originated over the open ocean and then passed through the area of the California current located along the northern California coast. Based on composition, morphology, and chemical bonding information, two externally mixed, distinct classes of sulfur containing particles were identified: chemically modified (aged) sea salt particles and secondary formed sulfate particles. The results indicate substantial heterogeneous replacement of chloride by methanesulfonate (CH3SO3-) and non-sea salt sulfate (nss-SO42-) in sea-salt particles with characteristic ratios of nss-S/Na>0.10 and CH3SO3-/nss-SO42->0.6.

The Gamma-ray Large Area Space telescope (GLAST) is a gamma-ray satellite scheduled for launch in 2008. Before the assembly of the Tracker subsystem of the Large Area Telescope (LAT) science instrument of GLAST, every component (tray) and module (tower) has been subjected to extensive ground testing required to ensure successful launch and on-orbit operation. This paper describes the sequence and results of the environmental tests performed on an engineering model and all the flight hardware of the GLAST LAT Tracker. Environmental tests include vibration testing, thermal cycles and thermal-vacuum cycles of every tray and tower as well as the verification of their electrical performance.

In this work we report on thevacuum-ultraviolet (VUV) photoionization of small methanol and methanol-water clusters. Clusters of methanol with water are generated via co-expansion of the gas phase constituents in a continuous supersonic jet expansion of methanol and water seeded in Ar. The resulting clusters are investigated by single photon ionization with tunable vacuumultraviolet synchrotron radiation and mass analyzed using reflectron mass spectrometry. Protonated methanol clusters of the form (CH3OH)nH + (n=1-12) dominate the mass spectrum below the ionization energy of the methanol monomer. With an increase in water concentration, small amounts of mixed clusters of the form (CH3OH)n(H2O)H + (n=2-11) are detected. The only unprotonated species observed in this work are the methanol monomer and dimer. Appearance energies are obtained from the photoionization efficiency (PIE) curves for CH3OH +, (CH 3OH)2 +, (CH3OH)nH + (n=1-9), and (CH 3OH)n(H2O)H + (n=2-9 ) as a function of photon energy. With an increase in the water content in the molecular beam, there is an enhancement of photoionization intensity for methanol dimer and protonated methanol monomer at threshold. These results are compared and contrasted to previous experimental observations.

Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolysis is a potential alternative technology to crack water in specialty applications where a dry gas stream is needed, such as isotope production. One design proposal is to feed the cathode of the electrolyzer with vapor phase water. This feed configuration would allow isotopic water to be isolated on the cathode side of the electrolyzer and the isotope recovery system could be operated in a closed loop. Tests were performed to characterize the difference in the current-voltage behavior between a PEM electrolyzer operated with a cathode water vapor feed and with an anode liquid water feed. The cathode water vapor feed cell had a maximum limiting current density of 100 mA/cm2 at 70 C compared to a current density of 800 mA/cm2 for the anode liquid feed cell at 70 C. The limiting current densities for the cathode water vapor feed cell were approximately 3 times lower than predicted by a water mass transfer model. It is estimated that a cathode water vapor feed electrolyzer system will need to be between 8-14 times larger in active area or number of cells than an anode liquid feed system.

Various model equations are available for representing the excess Gibbs energy properties (osmotic and activity coefficients) of aqueous and other liquid mixed-electrolyte solutions. Scatchard's neutral-electrolyte model is among the simplest of these equations for ternary systems and contains terms that represent both symmetrical and asymmetric deviations from ideal mixing behavior when two single-electrolyte solutions are mixed in different proportions at constant ionic strengths. The usual form of this model allows from zero to six mixing parameters. In this report we present an analytical method for transforming the mixing parameters of neutral-electrolyte-type models with larger numbers of mixing parameters directly to those of models with fewer mixing parameters, without recourse to the source data used for evaluation of the original model parameters. The equations for this parameter conversion are based on an extension to ternary systems of the methodology of Rard and Wijesinghe [J. Chem. Thermodyn. 35, 439-473 (2003)] and Wijesinghe and Rard [J. Chem. Thermodyn. 37, 1196-1218 (2005)] that was applied by them to binary systems. It was found that the use of this approach with a constant ionic-strength cutoff of I {le} 6.2 mol {center_dot} kg{sup -1} (the NaCl solubility limit) yielded parameters for the NaCl + SrCl{sub 2} …

Development of advanced hydrogen separation membranes in support of hydrogen production processes such as coal gasification and as front end gas purifiers for fuel cell based system is paramount to the successful implementation of a national hydrogen economy. Current generation metallic hydrogen separation membranes are based on Pd-alloys. Although the technology has proven successful, at issue is the high cost of palladium. Evaluation of non-noble metal based dense metallic separation membranes is currently receiving national and international attention. The focal point of the reported work was to evaluate two different classes of materials for potential replacement of conventional Pd-alloy purification/diffuser membranes. Crystalline V-Ni-Ti and Amorphous Fe- and Co-based metallic glass alloys have been evaluated using gaseous hydrogen permeation testing techniques.