Experimentation validated a simple moisture conditioning scheme to prepare Gr/Ep composite parts for precision applications by measuring dimensional changes over 90 days. It was shown that an elevated temperature moisture conditioning scheme produced a dimensionally stable part from which precision structures could be built/machined without significant moisture induced dimensional changes after fabrication. Conversely, that unconditioned Gr/Ep composite panels exhibited unacceptably large dimensional changes (i.e., greater than 125 ppM). It was also shown that time required to produce stable parts was shorter, by more than an order of magnitude, employing the conditioning scheme than using no conditioning scheme (46 days versus 1000+ days). Two final use environments were chosen for the experiments: 50% RH/21C and 0% RH/21C. Fiberite 3034K was chosen for its widespread use in aerospace applications. Two typical lay-ups were chosen, one with low sensitivity to hygrothermal distortions and the other high sensitivity: [0, {plus_minus} 45, 90]s, [0, {plus_minus} 15, 0]s. By employing an elevated temperature, constant humidity conditioning scheme, test panels achieved an equilibrium moisture content in less time, by more than an order of magnitude, than panels exposed to the same humidity environment and ambient temperature. Dimensional changes, over 90 days, were up to 4 times lower …

The +5 oxidation state of U, Np, Pu, and Am is a linear dioxo cation (AnO{sub 2}{sup +}) with a formal charge of +1. These cations form complexes with a variety of other cations, including actinide cations. Other oxidation states of actinides do not form these cation-cation complexes with any cation other than AnO{sub 2}{sup +}; therefore, cation-cation complexes indicate something unique about AnO{sub 2}{sup +} cations compared to actinide cations in general. The first cation-cation complex, NpO{sub 2}{sup +}{center_dot}UO{sub 2}{sup 2+}, was reported by Sullivan, Hindman, and Zielen in 1961. Of the four actinides that form AnO{sub 2}{sup +} species, the cation-cation complexes of NpO{sub 2}{sup +} have been studied most extensively while the other actinides have not. The only PuO{sub 2}{sup +} cation-cation complexes that have been studied are with Fe{sup 3+} and Cr{sup 3+} and neither one has had its equilibrium constant measured. Actinides have small molar absorptivities and cation-cation complexes have small equilibrium constants; therefore, to overcome these obstacles a sensitive technique is required. Spectroscopic techniques are used most often to study cation-cation complexes. Laser-Induced Photacoustic Spectroscopy equilibrium constants for the complexes NpO{sub 2}{sup +}{center_dot}UO{sub 2}{sup 2+}, NpO{sub 2}{sup +}{center_dot}Th{sup 4+}, PuO{sub 2}{sup +}{center_dot}UO{sub 2}{sup 2+}, …

This has application to astronomy and astrophysics. Selenium in Ge has been studied with a doping technique which limits complex formation. Only one ionization level has been found to correspond to selenium, which presumably occupies a substitutional site. This level is extremely unstable and its concentration decreases after annealing at 400C. Future work is planned to anneal the fast neutron damage before much selenium has formed in the {sup 74/76}Ge samples. It is expected that the observed selenium level can be better characterized and the missing selenium level is more likely to be discovered if other defects are removed before {sup 77}Se formation.

The {alpha}-induced thick-target {gamma}-ray yield from light elements has been measured in the energy range 5.6 MeV {le} E{sub {alpha}} {le} 10 MeV. The {gamma}-ray yield for > 2.1 MeV from thick targets of beryllium, boron nitride, sodium fluoride, magnesium, aluminum and silicon were measured using the {alpha}-particle beam from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories 88 in. cyclotron. The elemental yields from this experiment were used to construct the {alpha}-induced direct production {gamma}-ray spectrum from materials in the SNO detector, a large volume ultra-low background neutrino detector located in the Creighton mine near Sudbury, Canada. This background source was an order of magnitude lower than predicted by previous calculations. These measurements are in good agreement with theoretical calculations of this spectrum based on a statistical nuclear model of the reaction, with the gross high energy spectrum structure being reproduced to within a factor of two. Detailed comparison of experimental and theoretical excitation population distribution of several residual nuclei indicate the same level of agreement within experimental uncertainties.

Problems with MoSi{sub 2} include low-temperature fracture toughness, high-temperature creep resistance, and ``pest`` phenomena. Oxygen introduced by powder processing may be the cause of some of these problems. This study led to the following conclusions: Supplied powders have significant oxygen present prior to processing (up to 2.5 %), in the form of silica on the surface. This oxygen contamination did not increase by exposure to air at room temperature. An improved powder processing method was developed that uses glass encapsulation. Analysis of microstructures created from powders that contained 4900 to 24,100 ppM oxygen showed that the silica was transferred to the fully dense MoSi{sub 2} as SiO{sub 2} inclusions. A method of producing MoSi{sub 2} with less oxygen was attempted.

The behavior of two structural clay tile infilled frames subjected to dynamic loading is investigated. The testing was performed by USACERL using a biaxial shake table machine on which two framed infills were spaced nine feet apart and connected by steel trusses and an eight inch concrete roof slab. The infills were composed of structural clay tile block which were laid with the cores horizontal. The specimen was loaded in both the out-of-plane and in-plane directions using a site specific time history record. The testing focused on determining frame and panel load-deflection behavior, acceleration amplification, and frequency degradation characteristics. The out-of-plane tests resulted in little degradation of frequency which means there was little loss of stiffness. There was no evidence of the infill {open_quotes}walking-out{close_quotes} of the steel frame; in fact the infill still had substantial stability after completion of the out-of-plane tests. As a result of the gradual increase in ground motion in the in-plane testing, the stiffness of the specimen gradually decreased. Strength and stiffness characteristics obtained from the dynamic testing were comparable to results and behavior seen in static tests. Degradation in the panel was much more rapid under the stronger ground motions which were produced during the …

The availability of high resolution digital images of borehole walls using the Borehole Scanner System has made it possible to develop new methods of in-situ rock characterization. This thesis addresses particularly new approaches to the characterization of in-situ joint strength arising from surface roughness. An image processing technique is used to extract the roughness profile from joints in the unrolled image of the borehole wall. A method for estimating in-situ Rengers envelopes using this data is presented along with results from using the method on joints in a borehole in porphyritic granite. Next, an analysis of the joint dilation angle anisotropy is described and applied to the porphyritic granite joints. The results indicate that the dilation angle of the joints studied are anisotropic at small scales and tend to reflect joint waviness as scale increases. A procedure to unroll the opposing roughness profiles to obtain a two dimensional sample is presented. The measurement of apertures during this process is shown to produce an error which increases with the dip of the joint. The two dimensional sample of opposing profiles is used in a new kinematic analysis of the joint shear stress-shear deformation behavior. Examples of applying these methods on the …

The research illustrated in this thesis was performed under the guidance of Professor Dennis C. Johnson beginning in March 1987. Chapter 2 concentrates on the development and electrocatalytic properties of iron-doped {beta}-PbO{sub 2} films on noble-metal substrates. Chapter 3 focuses attention on the preparation and characterization of iron-doped {beta}-PbO{sub 2} films on titanium substrates (Fe-PbO{sub 2}/Ti). Chapter 4 discusses anodic evolution of ozone at Fe-PbO{sub 2}/Ti electrodes. Chapter 5 describes electrochemical incineration of p-benzoquinone (BQ) at Fe-PbO{sub 2}/Ti electrodes. In addition, the Appendix includes another published paper which is a detailed study of {alpha}-PbO{sub 2} films deposited on various types of stainless steel substrates.

One of the key engineered barriers in the design of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository is the waste canister that encapsulates the spent fuel elements. Current candidate metals for the canisters to be emplaced at Yucca Mountain include cast iron, carbon steel, Incoloy 825 and titanium code-12. This project was designed to evaluate passive electrochemical noise techniques for measuring pitting and corrosion characteristics of candidate materials under prototypical repository conditions. Experimental techniques were also developed and optimized for measurements in a radiation environment. These techniques provide a new method for understanding material response to environmental effects (i.e., gamma radiation, temperature, solution chemistry) through the measurement of electrochemical noise generated during the corrosion of the metal surface. In addition, because of the passive nature of the measurement the technique could offer a means of in-situ monitoring of barrier performance.

Results of this thesis show that STM measurements can provide information about the surfaces and their adsorbates. Stability of Pt(110) under high pressures of H2, O2, and CO was studied (Chap. 4). In situ UHV and high vacuum experiments were carried out for sulfur on Pt(111) (Chap.5). STM studies of CO/S/Pt(111) in high CO pressures showed that the Pt substrate undergoes a stacking-fault-domain reconstruction involving periodic transitions from fcc to hcp stacking of top-layer atoms (Chap.6). In Chap.7, the stability of propylene on Pt(111) and the decomposition products were studied in situ with the HPSTM. Finally, in Chap.8, results are presented which show how the Pt tip of the HPSTM was used to locally rehydrogenate and oxidize carbonaceous clusters deposited on the Pt(111) surface; the Pt tip acted as a catalyst after activation by short voltage pulses.

In this work, a measurement of the strong coupling constant {alpha}{sub s} in e{sup +}e{sup {minus}} annihilation at a center-of-mass energy of 91.6 GeV is presented. The measurement was performed with the SLD at the Stanford Linear Collider facility located at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California. The procedure used consisted of measuring the rate of hard gluon radiation from the primary quarks in a sample of 9,878 hadronic events. After defining the asymptotic manifestation of partons as `jets`, various phenomenological models were used to correct for the hadronization process. A value for the QCD scale parameter {Lambda}{sub bar MS}, defined in the {sub bar MS} renormalization convention with 5 active quark flavors, was then obtained by a direct fit to O({alpha}{sub s}{sup 2}) calculations. The value of {alpha}{sub s} obtained was {alpha}{sub s}(M{sub z0}) = 0.122 {plus_minus} 0.004 {sub {minus}0.007} {sup +0.008} where the uncertainties are experimental (combined statistical and systematic) and theoretical (systematic) respectively. Equivalently, {Lambda}{sub bar MS} = 0.28 {sub {minus}0.10}{sup +0.16} GeV where the experimental and theoretical uncertainties have been combined.

Focus of the study is C acceptor doping of GaAs, since C diffusion coefficient is at least one order of magnitude lower than that of other common p-type dopants in GaAs. C ion implantation results in a concentration of free holes in the valence band < 10% of that of the implanted C atoms for doses > 10{sup 14}/cm{sup 2}. Rutherford backscattering, electrical measurements, Raman spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were amonth the techniques used. Ga co-implantation increased the C activation in two steps: first, the additional radiation damage creates vacant As sites that the implanted C can occupy, and second, it maintains the stoichiometry of the implanted layer, reducing the number of compensating native defects. In InP, the behavior of C was different from that in GaAs. C acts as n-type dopant in the In site; however, its incorporation by implantation was difficult to control; experiments using P co-implants were inconsistent. The lattice position of inactive C in GaAs in implanted and epitaxial layers is discussed; evidence for formation of C precipitates in GaAs and InP was found. Correlation of the results with literature on C doping in III-V semiconductors led to a phenomenological description of C in …

Carbon monoxide oxidation was performed over the three different oxidation states of copper -- metallic (Cu), copper (I) oxide (Cu{sub 2}O), and copper (II) oxide (CuO) as a test case for developing a model metal oxide catalyst amenable to study by the methods of modern surface science and catalysis. Copper was deposited and oxidized on oxidized supports of aluminum, silicon, molybdenum, tantalum, stainless steel, and iron as well as on graphite. The catalytic activity was found to decrease with increasing oxidation state (Cu > Cu{sub 2}O > CuO) and the activation energy increased with increasing oxidation state (Cu, 9 kcal/mol < Cu{sub 2}O, 14 kcal/mol < CuO, 17 kcal/mol). Reaction mechanisms were determined for the different oxidation states. Lastly, NO reduction by CO was studied. A Cu and CuO catalyst were exposed to an equal mixture of CO and NO at 300--350 C to observe the production of N{sub 2} and CO{sub 2}. At the end of each reaction, the catalyst was found to be Cu{sub 2}O. There is a need to study the kinetics of this reaction over the different oxidation states of copper.

Until recently, Pb was the preferred heat exchanger matrix material used in low temperature cryocoolers; however, the heat capacity of Pb drops drastically below {approximately}15K and new matrix materials based on the lanthanide elements have been developed. These materials magnetically order at low temperatures and the entropy change associated with ordering contributes to the materials` heat capacities. The drawback to widespread use of lanthanide intermetallic compounds in cryocoolers has been the difficulty in manufacturing high-quality particulates. The purpose of this project was to develop a technique for producing high-quality powders of lanthanide metals and lanthanide intermetallic compounds for use in cryocooler heat exchangers. A series of atomization experiments was performed using Er{sub 3}Ni, Nd, Nd{sub 3}Ni, and (Er{sub 0.5}Nd{sub 0.5}){sub 3}Ni. Atomization of these materials resulted in particles ranging from mostly spherical to extremely flattened. Analyses of size distributions for the experiments indicate that increased atomization disk speed and superheat result in smaller mean particle diameters and narrower size distributions. Chemical analyses of the atomized powders indicate that the CA/RQB technique produces particulate with much lower interstitial contamination than other techniques. The Er{sub 3}Ni and Nd{sub 3}Ni powders were predominantly of the desired phase and the (Er{sub 0.5}Nd{sub 0.5}){sub 3}Ni …

We have measured and assigned rate constants for energy transfer between chromophores in the light-harvesting protein C-phycocyanin (PC), in the monomeric and trimeric aggregation states, isolated from Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002. In order to compare the measured rate constants with those predicted by Fdrster`s theory of inductive resonance in the weak coupling limit, we have experimentally resolved several properties of the three chromophore types ({beta}{sub 155} {alpha}{sub 84}, {beta}{sub 84}) found in PC monomers, including absorption and fluorescence spectra, extinction coefficients, fluorescence quantum yields, and fluorescence lifetimes. The cpcB/C155S mutant, whose PC is missing the {beta}{sub 155} chromophore, was, useful in effecting the resolution of the chromophore properties and in assigning the experimentally observed rate constants for energy transfer to specific pathways.

A prototype Compton scatter camera for imaging gamma rays has been built and tested. This camera addresses unique aspects of gamma-ray imaging at nuclear industrial sites, including gamma-ray energies in the 0.5 to 3.0 MeV range and polychromatic fields. Analytic models of camera efficiency, resolution and contaminating events are developed. The response of the camera bears strong similarity to emission computed tomography devices used in nuclear medicine. A direct Fourier based algorithm is developed to reconstruct two-dimensional images of measured gamma-ray fields. Iterative ART and MLE algorithms are also investigated. The point response of the camera to gamma rays of energies from 0.5 to 2.8 MeV is measured and compared to the analytic models. The direct reconstruction algorithm is at least ten times more efficient than the iterative algorithms are also investigated. The point response of the camera to gamma rays energies from 0.5 to 2.8 MeV is measured and compared to the analytic models. The direct reconstruction algorithm is at least ten times more efficient than the iterative algorithms and produces images that are, in general, of the same quality. Measured images of several phantoms are shown. Important results include angular resolutions as low as 4.4{degrees}, reproduction of phantom …

Many granular materials, including sedimentary rocks and soils, contain clay particles in the pores, grain contacts, or matrix. The amount and location of the clays and fluids can influence the mechanical and hydraulic properties of the granular material. This research investigated the mechanical effects of clay at grain-to-grain contacts in the presence of different fluids. Laboratory seismic wave propagation tests were conducted at ultrasonic frequencies using spherical glass beads coated with Montmorillonite clay (SWy-1) onto which different fluids were adsorbed. For all bead samples, seismic velocity increased and attenuation decreased as the contact stiffnesses increased with increasing stress demonstrating that grain contacts control seismic transmission in poorly consolidated and unconsolidated granular material. Coating the beads with clay added stiffness and introduced viscosity to the mechanical contact properties that increased the velocity and attenuation of the propagating seismic wave. Clay-fluid interactions were studied by allowing the clay coating to absorb water, ethyl alcohol, and hexadecane. Increasing water amounts initially increased seismic attenuation due to clay swelling at the contacts. Attenuation decreased for higher water amounts where the clay exceeded the plastic limit and was forced from the contact areas into the surrounding open pore space during sample consolidation. This work investigates …

The Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR) aboard the COBE satellite has detected anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. A two-point correlation function analysis which helped lead to this discovery is presented in detail. The results of a correlation function analysis of the two year DMR data set is presented. The first and second year data sets are compared and found to be reasonably consistent. The positive correlation for separation angles less than {approximately}20{degree} is robust to Galactic latitude cuts and is very stable from year to year. The Galactic latitude cut independence of the correlation function is strong evidence that the signal is not Galactic in origin. The statistical significance of the structure seen in the correlation function of the first, second and two year maps is respectively > 9{sigma}, > 10{sigma} and > 18{sigma} above the noise. The noise in the DMR sky maps is correlated at a low level. The structure of the pixel temperature covariance matrix is given. The noise covariance matrix of a DMR sky map is diagonal to an accuracy of better than 1%. For a given sky pixel, the dominant noise covariance occurs with the ring of pixels at an angular separation of …

Crosswell electromagnetic measurements are a promising new geophysical technique for mapping subsurface electrical conductivity which can provide information about the subsurface distribution of water, oil or steam. In this work the fields from a low frequency vertical magnetic dipole have been examined from the specific point of view of their application to the determination of the conductivity of a layered medium. The source and the receiver were placed inside two separate boreholes. The range of penetration of such a crosswell system for typical earth resistivities and for currently available transmitter and receiver technologies was found to be up to 1,000 meters so problems in ground water and petroleum reservoir characteristics can be practically examined. An analysis of the behavior of the magnetic fields at the boundary between two half-spaces showed that the horizontal magnetic field component, H{rho}, and the vertical derivative of a vertical component, {delta}H{sub z}/{delta}z, are more sensitive to conductivity variations than H{sub z}. The analysis of derivatives led to the concept of measuring the conductivity directly using a second vertical derivative of H{sub z}. Conductivity profiles interpreted from field data using this technique reproduced accurately the electrical logs for a test site near Devine, Texas. It was …

With the volume of software in production use dramatically increasing, the importance of software maintenance has become strikingly apparent. Techniques now sought and developed for reverse engineering and design extraction and recovery. At present, numerous commercial products and research tools exist which are capable of visualizing a variety of programming languages and software constructs. The list of new tools and services continues to grow rapidly. Although the scope of the existing commercial and academic product set is quite broad, these tools still share a common underlying problem. The ability of each tool to visually organize object representations is increasingly impaired as the number of components and component dependencies within systems increases. Regardless of how objects are defined, complex ``spaghetti`` networks result in nearly all large system cases. While this problem is immediately apparent in modem systems analysis involving large software implementations, it is not new. As will be discussed in Chapter 2, related problems involving the theory of graphs were identified long ago. This important theoretical foundation provides a useful vehicle for representing and analyzing complex system structures. While the utility of directed graph based concepts in software tool design has been demonstrated in literature, these tools still lack the …

The author presents and analyzes three approaches to calculating explicit two-dimensional (2D) depth-extrapolation filters for all propagation modes (P, SV, and SH) in transversely isotropic media with vertical and tilted axis of symmetry. These extrapolation filters are used to do 2D poststack depth migration, and also, just as for isotropic media, these 2D filters are used in the McClellan transformation to do poststack 3D depth migration. Furthermore, the same explicit filters can also be used to do depth-extrapolation of prestack data. The explicit filters are derived by generalizations of three different approaches: the modified Taylor series, least-squares, and minimax methods initially developed for isotropic media. The examples here show that the least-squares and minimax methods produce filters with accurate extrapolation (measured in the ability to position steep reflectors) for a wider range of propagation angles than that obtained using the modified Taylor series method. However, for low propagation angles, the modified Taylor series method has smaller amplitude and phase errors than those produced by the least-squares and minimax methods. These results suggest that to get accurate amplitude estimation, modified Taylor series filters would be somewhat preferred in areas with low dips. In areas with larger dips, the least-squares and minimax …

A twenty barrel hydrogen pellet injector has been designed, built and tested both in the laboratory and on the Alcator C-Mod Tokamak at MIT. The injector functions by firing pellets of frozen hydrogen or deuterium deep into the plasma discharge for the purpose of fueling the plasma, modifying the density profile and increasing the global energy confinement time. The design goals of the injector are: (1) Operational flexibility, (2) High reliability, (3) Remote operation with minimal maintenance. These requirements have lead to a single stage, pipe gun design with twenty barrels. Pellets are formed by in- situ condensation of the fuel gas, thus avoiding moving parts at cryogenic temperatures. The injector is the first to dispense with the need for cryogenic fluids and instead uses a closed cycle refrigerator to cool the thermal system components. The twenty barrels of the injector produce pellets of four different size groups and allow for a high degree of flexibility in fueling experiments. Operation of the injector is under PLC control allowing for remote operation, interlocked safety features and automated pellet manufacturing. The injector has been extrusively tested and shown to produce pellets reliably with velocities up to 1400 m/sec. During the period from …

Thousands of wildland firefighters are exposed to high levels of toxic materials every year. Carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and acrolein gases, along with high particulate concentrations, are the major toxics encountered. Currently, the only respiratory protection wildland firefighters use is a bandanna over the mouth and nose. In this study, a modem activated carbon cartridge with an electrostatic prefilter was compared to a typical bandanna for its ability to filter wildland smoke toxics such as formaldehyde and particulates. The results of the tests were disappointing; neither filter performed very well. The activated carbon cartridge and prefilter efficiently collected formaldehyde gas for up to 60 minutes; however, it only collected 85 percent of the challenge particulate. ]Me bandanna, as expected, was only partially effective at collecting smoke particulate and filtered no toxic gases.

One of the most significant advances in computer systems over the past decade is parallel processing. To be scalable to a large number of processing nodes and to be able to support multiple levels and forms of parallelism and its flexible use, new parallel machines have to be multicomputer architectures that have general networking support and extremely low internode communication latencies. The performance of a program when ported to a parallel machine is limited mainly by the internode communication latencies of the machine. Therefore, the best parallel applications are those that seldom require communications which must be routed through the nodes. Thus the ratio of computation time to that of communication time is what determines, to a large extent, the performance metrics of an algorithm. The cost of synchronization and load imbalance appear secondary to that of the time required for internode communication and I/O, for communication intensive applications. This thesis is organized in chapters. The first chapter deals with the communication strategies in various message-passing computers. A taxonomy of inter-node communication strategies is presented in the second chapter and a comparison of the strategies in some existing machines is done. The implementation of communication in nCUBE Vertex O.S is …