Declassified 21 Sep 1973. A summary of the experiments associated with the three uniformly loaded core configurations related to the 710 Mockup 1 Critical Experiment Reactor is presented. These configurations mocked up specific features of the then current 710 reactor experiment design. The experimental areas included initial loading, neutron lifetime, fission ratios, reflector control methods, reactivity coefficients and power distribution measurements. A major portion of the effort was applied to the latter two areas to determine the comparative effects between normally used fuel cells composed of rod-type materials and homogeneous fuel cells using fabricated fuel compacts". 7 references. (auth)

Using double exposure holographic interferometry, an investigation has been made of the Nd laser produced plasmas surrounding disk targets irradiated at different angles of incidence. Measurements have produced a detailed description of the plasma profile necessary for realistic simulations of resonance absorption. A 2660A 15 psec probe pulse is produced by frequency quadrupling a fraction of the main Nd laser pulse from the Janus laser. F/1 and f/10 lenses were utilized to irradiate the targets with intensities ranging from 10/sup 13/ w/cm/sup 2/ to 10/sup 16/ w/cm/sup 2/. Measurements have produced the shape of the electron density profile near critical, the direction of the plasma blowoff, and revealed transverse rippling of the isodensity surfaces.

We present a formulation of ab initio electronic structure calculations in a finite magnetic field, which retains the simplicity and efficiency of techniques widely used in first principles molecular dynamics simulations, based on plane-wave basis sets and Fourier transforms. In addition we discuss results obtained with this method for the energy spectrum of interacting electrons in quantum wells, and for the electronic properties of dense fluid deuterium in a uniform magnetic field.

During the six months of funding we have focused first on the completion of the research begun at the University of Washington in the previous funding cycle. Specifically, we developed a method to polymerize oriented networks of microtubules on lithographically patterned surfaces (M.S. thesis Robert Doot). The properties of active transport have been studied detail, yielding insights into the dispersion mechanisms (Nitta et al.). The assembly of multifunctional structures with a microtubule core has been investigated (Ramachandran et al.). Isaac Luria (B.S. in physics, U. of Florida 2005) worked on the directed assembly of nanoscale, non-equilibrium structures as a summer intern. He is now a graduate student in my group at the University of Florida. T. Nitta and H. Hess: “Dispersion in Active Transport by Kinesin-Powered Molecular Shuttles”, Nano Letters, 5, 1337-1342 (2005) S. Ramachandran, K.-H. Ernst, G. D. Bachand, V. Vogel, H. Hess*: “Selective Loading of Kinesin-Powered Molecular Shuttles with Protein Cargo and its Application to Biosensing”, submitted to Small (2005)

The overall objective of the Westinghouse coal gasification program is to demonstrate the viability of the Westinghouse pressurized, fluidized bed, gasification system for the production of medium-Btu fuel gas for syngas, electrical power generation, chemical feedstocks, or industrial fuels and to obtain performance and scaleup data for the process and hardware. Progress reports are presented for the following tasks: (1) operation and maintenance of the process development unit (PDU); (2) process analysis; (3) cold flow scaleup facility; (4) process and component engineering and design; and (5) laboratory support studies. Some of the highlights for this period are: TP-032-1, a single stage, oxygen-steam blown gasifier test was conducted in three operational phases from March 30, 1982 through May 2, 1982; TP-032-2 was conducted in two operational phases from May 20, 1982 through May 27, 1982; TP-032-1 and TP-032-2 successfully served as shakedown and demonstrations of the full cyclone cold wall; no visible deposits were found on the cold wall after processing highly fouling coals; samples of product gas produced during TP-032-1, were passed through four different scrubbing solutions and analyzed for 78 EPA primary organic pollutants, all of which were found to be below detection limits; TP-M004, a CO/sub 2/ tracer …

During this quarter, work was focused on characterizing the stability of layered composite membranes in a one hundred percent permeate environment. Permeation data was also collected on cermets as a function of thickness. A thin film deposition procedure was used to deposit dense thin BCY/Ni onto a tubular porous support. Thin film tubes were then tested for permeation at ambient pressure. Process flow diagrams were prepared for inclusion of hydrogen separation membranes into IGCC power plants under varying conditions. Finally, membrane promoted alkane dehydrogenation experiments were performed.

The establishment of a process to allow planarization of deep x-ray lithography based microfabncated metal components via diamond lapping has enabled examination of three additional microfabrication issues. The areas of improvement that are discussed include materials, microassembly and packaging, and multilevel fabrication. New materials work has centered on magnetic materials including precision micromagnets and surface treatments of electrodeposited materials. Assembly and packaging has been aided by deep silicon etch processing and the use of conventional precision milling equipment combined with press-tit assembly. Diffhsion bonding is shown to be a particularly important approach to achieving multilevel metal mechanisms and furthermore shows promise for achieving batch assembled and packaged high aspect-ratio metal micromechanics,

Increased levels of blast furnace coal injection are needed to further lower coke requirements and provide more flexibility in furnace productivity. The direct injection of high temperature oxygen with coal in the blast furnace blowpipe and tuyere offers better coal dispersion at high local oxygen concentrations, optimizing the use of oxygen in the blast furnace. Based on pilot scale tests, coal injection can be increased by 75 pounds per ton of hot metal (lb/thm), yielding net savings of $0.84/tm. Potential productivity increases of 15 percent would yield another $1.95/thm. In this project, commercial-scale hot oxygen injection from a ''thermal nozzle'' system, patented by Praxair, Inc., has been developed, integrated into, and demonstrated on two tuyeres of the U.S. Steel Gary Works no. 6 blast furnace. The goals were to evaluate heat load on furnace components from hot oxygen injection, demonstrate a safe and reliable lance and flow control design, and qualitatively observe hot oxygen-coal interaction. All three goals have been successfully met. Heat load on the blowpipe is essentially unchanged with hot oxygen. Total heat load on the tuyere increases about 10% and heat load on the tuyere tip increases about 50%. Bosh temperatures remained within the usual operating range. …

Iron-free, dipole magnets are used extensively as steering magnets to correct for the bending, induced by extraneous magnetic fields, of particle beams that are being transported in vacuum. Generally, the dipoles are long enough that the space occupied by the end conductors is small compared to the overall magnet length. In a recent application, however, this criteria did not apply. This has motivated a reanalysis of the characteristics of a system of small aspect ratio (length/diameter) dipoles that are spaced at relatively large axial distances.

A superconducting cavity used in a microwave gun requires that the launcher and the pickup probes be on the same side of the cavity, which causes direct coupling between them, or crosstalk. At room temperature, the crosstalk causes serious distortion of the RF response. This note addresses the phenomenon, the simulation results and the analysis, so that one can extract the desired information from the confusing signal.

An assessment was performed to show the impact on airborne release fraction, respirable fraction, dose conversion factor and dose consequences of postulated accidents at the Plutonium Finishing Plant involving uranium dioxide rather than plutonium dioxide.

A FORTRAN subroutine for the calculation of the ac electrical conductivity in two-temperature, strongly coupled, overdense plasma is presented. The routine is the result of a model calculation based on classical transport theory with application to plasmas created by the interaction of short pulse lasers and solids. The formulation is analytic and the routine is self-contained.

This report provides results of an analytical study of high concentration PCB paint in a shutdown nuclear test reactor located at the US Department of Energy's Savannah River Site (SRS). The study was designed to obtain data relevant for an evaluation of potential hazards associated with the use of and exposure to such paints.

We present an alternative approach to optical probes that will ultimately allow us to measure chemical concentrations in microenvironments within cells and tissues. This approach is based on monitoring the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) response of functionalized metal nanoparticles (50-100 nm in diameter). SERS allows for the sensitive detection of changes in the state of chemical groups attached to individual nanoparticles and small clusters. Here, we present the development of a nanoscale pH meter. The pH response of these nanoprobes is tested in a cell-free medium, measuring the pH of the solution immediately surrounding the nanoparticles. Heterogeneities in the SERS signal, which can result from the formation of small nanoparticle clusters, are characterized using SERS correlation spectroscopy and single particle/cluster SERS spectroscopy. The response of the nanoscale pH meters is tested under a wide range of conditions to approach the complex environment encountered inside living cells and to optimize probe performance.

This project is designed to develop methods for precombustion coal remediation by implementing recent advances in enzyme biochemistry. The novel approach of this study is incorporation of hydrophilic oxidative enzymes in reverse micelles in an organic solvent. Enzymes from commercial sources or microbial extracts are being investigated for their capacity to remove organic sulfur from coal by oxidation of the sulfur groups, splitting of C-S bonds and loss of sulfur as sulfuric acid (Figure 1). Dibenzothiophene (DBT) and ethylphenylsulfide (EPS) are serving as models of organic sulfur-containing components of coal in initial studies. A goal of this project is to define a reverse micelle system that optimizes the catalytic activity of enzymes toward desulfurization of model compounds and ultimately coal samples. 12 refs., 2 figs., 7 tabs.

The RESIL4D family of computer codes was developed to provide a scientifically defensible answer to the question ''How clean is clean?'' and to provide useful tools for evaluating human health risk at sites contaminated with radioactive residues. The RESRAD codes include (1) RESRAD for soil contaminated with radionuclides; (2) RESRAD-BUILD for buildings contaminated with radionuclides; (3) RESRAD-CHEM for soil contaminated with hazardous chemicals; (4) RESRAD-BASELINE for baseline risk assessment with measured media concentrations of both radionuclides and chemicals; (5) RESRAD-ECORISK for ecological risk assessment; (6) RESRAD-RECYCLE for recycle and reuse of radiologically contaminated metals and equipment; and (7) RESRAD-OFFSITE for off-site receptor radiological dose assessment. Four of these seven codes (RESRAD, RESRAD-BUILD, RESRAD-RECYCLE, and RESRAD-OFFSITE) also have uncertainty analysis capabilities that allow the user to input distributions of parameters. RESRAD has been widely used in the United States and abroad and approved by many federal and state agencies. Experience has shown that the RESRAD codes are useful tools for evaluating sites contaminated with radioactive residues. The use of RESRAD codes has resulted in significant savings in cleanup cost. Analysis of 19 site-specific uranium guidelines is discussed in the paper.

Coherent vector meson production in peripheral nucleus-nucleus collisions is discussed. These interactions may occur for impact parameters much larger than the sum of the nuclear radii. Since the vector meson production is always localized to one of the nuclei, the system acts as a two-source interferometer in the transverse plane. By tagging the outgoing nuclei for Coulomb dissociation it is possible to obtain a measure of the impact parameter and thus the source separation in the interferometer. This is of particular interest since the life-time of the vector mesons are generally much shorter than the impact parameters of the collisions.

We compare force fields (FF's) that have been used in molecular dynamic (MD) simulations of silica in order to assess their applicability for use in simulating IR-laser damage mitigation. Although pairwise FF?s obtained by fitting quantum mechanical calculations such as the BKS and CHIK potentials have been shown to reproduce many of the properties of silica including the stability of silica polymorphs and the densification of the liquid, we show that melting temperatures and fictive temperatures are much too high. Softer empirical force fields give liquid and glass properties at experimental temperatures but may not predict all properties important to laser mitigation experiments.

The United States Forest Service-Savannah River (USFS) routinely performs prescribed fires at the Savannah River Site (SRS), a Department of Energy (DOE) facility located in southwest South Carolina. This facility covers {approx}800 square kilometers and is mainly wooded except for scattered industrial areas containing facilities used in managing nuclear materials for national defense and waste processing. Prescribed fires of forest undergrowth are necessary to reduce the risk of inadvertent wild fires which have the potential to destroy large areas and threaten nuclear facility operations. This paper discusses meteorological observations and numerical model simulations from a period in early 2002 of an incident involving an early-morning multicar accident caused by poor visibility along a major roadway on the northern border of the SRS. At the time of the accident, it was not clear if the limited visibility was due solely to fog or whether smoke from a prescribed burn conducted the previous day just to the northwest of the crash site had contributed to the visibility. Through use of available meteorological information and detailed modeling, it was determined that the primary reason for the low visibility on this night was fog induced by meteorological conditions.

A variety of TeV scale Higgs and flavor sectors are discussed. Key questions are addressed: how can we tell if there is a light Higgs boson or if the Higgs sector is strongly interacting. What new signatures can be used to search for supersymmetry. Can flavor physics be described at a TeV without Yukawa couplings. Ideas are reviewed and some new developments mentioned. 51 refs., 13 figs.

Borohydrides such as LiBH{sub 4} have been studied as candidates for hydrogen storage because of their high hydrogen contents (18.4 wt% for LiBH{sub 4}). Limited success has been made in reducing the dehydrogenation temperature by adding reactants such as metals, metal oxides and metal halides. However, full rehydrogenation has not been realized because of multi-step decomposition processes and the stable intermediate species produced. It is suggested that adding second cation in LiBH{sub 4} may reduce the binding energy of B-H. The second cation may also provide the pathway for full rehydrogenation. In this work, several bimetallic borohydrides were synthesized using wet chemistry, high pressure reactive ball milling and sintering processes. The investigation found that the thermodynamic stability was reduced, but the full rehydrogenation is still a challenge. Although our experiments show the partial reversibility of the bimetallic borohydrides, it was not sustainable during dehydriding-rehydriding cycles because of the accumulation of hydrogen inert species.

The overall objective of the project is to develop and optimize a two-stage fermentation process for the conversion of coal derived synthesis gas in an mixture of alcohols. The goals include the development of superior strains with high product tolerance and productivity, optimization of process conditions for high volumetric productivity and product concentrations, integration and optimization of two stage syngas fermentation, evaluation of bioreactor configurations for enhanced mass transfer, evaluation of syngas conversion by a culture of Butyribacterium methyltrophicum and Clostridium acetobutylicum, development of a membrane based pervaporation system for in situ removal of alcohols, and development of a process for reduction of carbon and electron loss. The specific goals for year one (September 1992 - September 1993) were (1) development of a project work plan, (2) development of superior CO-utilizing strains, (3) optimization of process conditions for conversion of synthesis gas to a mixture of acids in a continuously stirred reactor (CSTR), (4) evaluation of different bioreactor configurations for maximization of mass transfer of synthesis gas, (5) development of a membrane based pervaporation system, and (6) reduction of carbon and electron loss via H{sub 2}CO{sub 2} fermentation. Experimentation and progress toward these goals are described in this report.

Data are tabulated from studies of the long-term turnover rates for calcium-45 and strontium-90 in monkeys and rats Progress is reported in studies on the thyroid uptake and mammary tumor incidence in female rats as a function of dose of injected astatine211. Data are presented from studies on the radiation chemistry of solutions of pepsin. gelatin, chymotrypsin, yeast dehydrogenase, aqueous acetic acid --oxygen mixtures, oxygen-free formic acid solutions, and glysine -water systems at elevated temperatures. Encouraging results are reported following 340-Mev proton beam or 900-Mev alpha beam pituitary irradiation in patients with breast carcinoma, acromegaly. diabetes mellitus, and other conditdons that are under endocrine control through mediation of the pituitary Laboratory and clinical data indicating the degree of completeness of hypophysectomy are being collected on all patients. Studies were made of the thyroid function of animals subjected to intense alpha-particle or deuteron irradiation of the thyroid area. A method was developed for the separation of iodinated amino acids of the thyroid, and the method applied in tracer studies of the effect of pituitary irradiation on thyroid function in rats. Progress is reported in studies on: the effects of radiation on the permeability of yeast cells to sodium and potassium ions; …

This Phase I project was designed to demonstrate feasibility of in situ waste destruction and vitrification technology as a means of remediating hard-to-treat buried radioactive and hazardous wastes and focused on proving viability of the concentric graphite arc melter technique as a robust, safe, and economic tool for use as the IWDV process heat source. Oak Ridge National Laboratory provided technical support to Montec Research including the volatile behavior of elements during silicate melting operations and temperature viscosity modeling of silicate melts. Further research will be needed to develop this technology into a competitive remediation technique.