The objectives of the program are to evaluate candidate alloys for Very High Temperature Reactor Nuclear Process Heat (NPH) and Direct Cycle Helium Turbine (DCHT) applications, in terms of the affect of simulated reactor primary coolant (Helium containing small amounts of various other gases), high temperatures, and long time exposures, on the mechanical properties and structural and surface stability of selected candidate alloys. A second objective is to select and recommend materials for future test facilities and more extensive qualification programs. Work covered in the report includes the activities associated with the procurement of the materials for the screening test program, information from vendor certification for the materials receiver, and preliminary information from the materials characterization tests performed by General Electric. The construction status of the simulated reactor helium supply system, testing equipment, and gas chemistry analysis instrumentation and equipment are discussed. The status of the data management system is also reviewed.

Candidate alloys for a Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) Nuclear Process Heal (NPH) and Direct Cycle Helium Turbine (DCHT) applications in terms of the effect of the primary coolant exposure and thermal exposure were evaluated. (FS)

Progress in LMFBR safety studies on accident debris behavior is reported under the following subtask titles: high-temperature-concentration aerosols, large-scale molten fuel tests, sodium release tests, and risk analysis.

Electrical conductivity studies of silicates are useful in determining temperature vs depth in the earth. Realistic laboratory measurements of conduction mechanisms require that exact determinations of oxygen fugacity (fo{sub 2}) be made in the experimental environment. An apparatus is described that monitors system fo{sub 2} with a calcia-doped zirconia-oxygen cell while measuring electrical conductivity of iron-bearing silicates at high temperature (greater than 1000 K). The fo{sub 2} calculated thermodynamically from CO/CO{sub 2} mixing ratios agreed well with measurements made with the zirconia cell at 1473 K, except for fo{sub 2} greater than 10{sup -4} Pa, where, on a log{sub 10} scale, mixing-ratio errors were as large as +- 0.2. These errors are attributed to oxygen contamination in the CO{sub 2} and to mobile carbon deposits that formed in the apparatus.

The essence of the idea is as follows: One or more beams of energetic ions (or neutral atoms that will become ionized) are injected, parallel to the field lines, at radii where the instability electric field has maximum amplitude (say roughly halfway between the axis and the outer radius of the plasma). While in transit through the plasma these ions acquire transverse energy by resonant acceleration, thereby extracting energy from the wave. This imparted energy is then carried out of the confined plasma by the beam particles as they exit through the far mirror. In this way the ballistic damping process introduces a damping mechanism that can be used to inhibit the growth of unstable waves and/or to damp them out before they reach unacceptably high amplitude. It is also shown that the beam power required is substantially lower than the plasma powers involved, scaling in a favorable way with increase in the size of the mirror cell.

A feasibility study is being conducted on utilizing basalt formations for terminal storage of commercial nuclear waste. Work is reported in the following projects: site studies, drilling, technology development, near-surface test facility, and repository. (DLC)

Washington State Department of Natural Resources has completed the reconnaissance mapping of the late Cenozoic sediments within the western half of the Columbia Plateau. The compilation of 1 : 250,000 base maps for the Columbia Plateau and of 1 : 100,000 base maps for the Pasco Basin has been completed by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. Hydrologic testing of DC-2 continued. Seismograph Services Corporation completed their processing of the seismic test data. The results indicate that the basalt surface can be mapped continuously. Lower horizons can be mapped locally. Preliminary data from Senturion Services, Inc. on the magnetotelluric test suggests that the basalt sequence is about four kilometers thick. Drilling operations were conducted at two locations and hydrologic testing at one location during the reporting period. Coring operations at DC-4 advanced from 749 feet to 1,074 feet. DC-4 is 21% complete based upon a total depth of 5,000 feet. Coring operations at DC-8 advanced from 2,959 feet to 3,956 feet. DC-8 is 96% complete, based upon a total depth of 4,100 feet. The Vitro Engineering Title I effort for facility requirements and site work was essentially completed during the month. Rockwell Hanford Operations reviewed the comment issues and …

Progress is reported for a program whose goals are to demonstrate an experimental upgraded gas turbine-powered automobile which meets the 1978 Federal Emissions Standards, has significantly improved fuel economy, and is competitive in performance, reliability, and potential manufacturing cost with the conventional piston engine-powered, compact-size American automobile. Activity during this twenty-first program quarter has continued to emphasize development towards correcting a power deficiency in the upgraded engine. Efforts are also being directed towards reducing fuel usage through improved heat recovery and towards improving the mechanical reliability and control of the engine.

Progress is reported for a program whose goals are to demonstrate an experimental Upgraded gas turbine-powered automobile which meets the 1978 Federal Emissions Standards, has significantly improved fuel economy, and is competitive in performance, reliability, and potential manufacturing cost with the conventional piston engine-powered, compact-size American automobile. This is the concluding progress report for this program; it covers the period from May 1, 1978 to January 31, 1979. The next formal report will be the final report, which is currently in process. Activity during this reporting period has continued to emphasize development towards correcting a power deficiency in the Upgraded Engine. Efforts are also being directed towards reducing fuel usage through improved heat recovery and towards improving the mechanical reliability and control of the engine.

Sandia is investigating the use of /sup 137/Cs from radioactive waste to reduce the pathogen levels of municipal sewage sludges so that they can be used in agriculture, either as fertilizer or as feed supplement. The Sandia Irradiator for Dried Sewage Solids (SIDSS) is a pilot plant for treating 16 tons per day to a dose of 500 krad, using 1 MCi of /sup 137/Cs. A larger (25 ton/day) demonstration plant is also planned. A cost/benefit study of this application was made. Use of /sup 99/Tc for marine bifouling and corrosion inhibition is also being investigated. (DLC)

An approach for the research effort required to meet the program objective is described, leading to an outline of nine tasks comprising the planned program. Results of effort applied to tasks during the first quarter effort are described. Highlights include fabrication and evaluation of cells in Mo foil substrates, a new chemical etch method which may allow easy, rapid determination of CdS grain diameters in films, and preparation and preliminary evaluation of cell structures on single crystal CdS substrates. Several problems will require special effort in the future: poor adhesion of CdS film to Zn-plated Cu foil substrates and a high incidence of film defects attributed to particle spatter from the CdS evaporation source.

The investigative studies required to develop a low cost, high performance flat plate heat exchanger design suitable for sea thermal power plants are covered. The studies indicate that higher boiling transfer coefficients quoted in the literature can be attained in a flat plate exchanger. The study has examined the effect of various fouling rates. A cleaning concept is proposed that is simple, high speed and easy to operate without plant or exchanger shutdown during the cleaning process. The exchanger concept for both boilers and condensers is a low profile, mechanical assembled structure with no welding, soldering, or brazing required. The exchanger design has been evaluated for manufacturability and ease of shipping, installation, and maintenance in a power plant. A preliminary arrangement for exchangers of this construction in a full scale power plant has been examined to provide confidence that the design would be usable in such a plant. Computer programs have been written to optimize design conditions for boilers and condensers in a power plant, recognizing costs of exchangers, cost of warm and cold water, water pumping power and effect of cycle efficiency. After optimizing design conditions a conceptual design has been prepared for a test boiler and a test …

Atomics International and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory are involved in the conceptual design of a laser fusion power plant incorporating the lithium fall target chamber. In this paper we discuss some of the more important design considerations for the target chamber and evaluate its nuclear performance. Sizing and configuration of the fall, hydraulic effects, and mechanical design considerations are addressed. The nuclear aspects examined include tritium breeding, energy deposition, and radiation damage.

A two-year project was conducted to gather data that would assist in the evaluation of the methane potential of the coal beds of Colorado. It was found that a number of closed underground coal mines in the State had reported gassy conditions or had experienced fires and explosions of varied intensity and frequency. The majority of such occurrences have been in those areas characterized by coals of relatively low (i.e., below 31%) volatile matter (VM) content. The south half of the Raton Mesa coal region (Las Animas County) and the southeastern part of the Unita region (in Gunnison and Pitkin Counties) contain coals with the lowest percentages of VM, the gassiest producing mines, and the highest grade coking coal in the State. Five active mines in Pitkin County presently are emitting a total of over 8 million cu ft of methane per day. These mines produce the highest quality metallurgical-grade coal in the western US (high-volatile A and medium-volatile bituminous). The gassy coals in these two regions range from Late Cretaceous to Paleocene in age and usually occur in areas related to igneous activity of late Tertiary age. The VM percentages of Colorado coals can be used, with some caution, …

Bar specimens were cut from ingots of single crystal silicon, and acid-etched prior to testing. Artificial surface flaws were introduced in specimens by indentation with a Knoop hardness tester. The specimens were loaded in four-point bending to 95% of the nominal fracture stress, while keeping the surface area, containing the flaw, wet with test liquids. No evidence of delayed fracture, and, therefore stress corrosion, of single crystal silicon was observed for liquid environments including water, acetone and aqueous solutions of NaCl, NH/sub 4/OH, and HNO/sub 3/, when tested with a flaw parallel to a (110) surface. The fracture toughness was calculated to be K/sub IC/ = 0.591 x 10/sup 6/ N/m/sup 3/2/.

Progress in the design and development of a continuously variable ratio transmission for an automotive vehicle is reported. The Major automotive hydromechanical transmission development problem continues to be the reduction of hydrostatic noise and the project plan, therefore, concentrated on the new hydrostatic module. The potential for achieving acceptably low noise levels in the second generation hydromechanical transmission is to be assessed by comparing the noise levels of the hydrostatic modules for the first and second generation transmissions. A set of twelve test points was selected comprising of road load steady state and wide-open-throttle acceleration at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 mph. The module operating conditions for the two transmissions at each of these twelve points were calculated. Baseline noise data was measured on the first generation module. The results are given testing of co-axial hydrostatic module for second generation hydromechanical transmission will be emphasized. (LCL)

A standard procedure for the determintion of the minority carrier diffusion length by means of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) consists in scanning across an angle-lapped surface of a P--N junction and measuring the resultant short circuit current I/sub sc/ as a function of beam position. A detailed analysis of the I/sub sc/ originating from this configuration is presented. It is found that, for a point source excitation, the I/sub sc/ depends very simply on x, the variable distance between the surfce and the junction edge. The expression for the I/sub sc/ of a planar junction device is well known. If d, the constant distance between the plane of the surface of the semiconductor and the junction edge in the expression for the I/sub sc/ of a planar junction is merely replaced by x, the variable distance of the corresponding angle-lapped junction, an expression results which is correct to within a small fraction of a percent as long as the angle between the surfaces, 2 theta/sub 1/, is amaller than 10/sup 0/.

The objective of the Detroit Lakes Energy Systems Study is to determine the economic feasibility of alternative renewable energy system configurations in the northern latitudes. A forecast through both 1990 and the year 2000 is made of the demand for electrical energy in the Detroit Lakes area. An assessment of renewable energy resources including biomass, wind, and insolation is provided. A detailed analysis is made of system costs including biomass, wind, solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, selected hybrids, and conventional fuel systems. Lessons learned and recommendations for prototype fabrication are highlighted. (MHR)

Information is given for each of the following topics: (1) requirements for experimental fusion power reactors, (2) tritium requirements, (3) sources of T, (4) T availability from DOE production reactors, (5) T availability from heavy-water reactors, (6) T availability from light-water reactors, (7) T availability from fuel reprocessing plants, (8) natural Li requirements and availability, (9) /sup 6/Li requirements and availability, and (10) availability of /sup 3/He or /sup 4/He. (MOW)

Unique capabilities of plasma arc welding in the keyhole mode are described, and the potential applicability of these capabilities to Rocky Flats production needs are evaluated. For the areas of potential benefits studied, the benefits of this welding technique either did not materialize or the complication of implementing the process in production was not warranted by the demonstrated benefits.

Development of a process for producing high-purity silicon by zinc reduction of silicon tetrachloride in a fluidized bed of seed particles to yield a free-flowing granular product is reviewed. Progress in finalizing the design of a 50 MT/year experimental process facility is reported. (MHR)

A series of experiments were performed on Waste Disposal Facility (WD) influent using Romicon hollow fiber ultrafiltration modules with molecular weight cutoffs ranging from 2000 to 80,000. The rejection of conductivity was low in most cases. The rejection of radioactivity ranged from 90 to 98%, depending on the membrane type and on the feed concentration. Typical product activity ranged from 7 to 100 dis/min/ml of alpha radiation. Experiments were also performed on alpha-contaminated laundry wastewater. Results ranged from 98 to >99.8%, depending on the membrane type. This yielded a product concentration of less than 0.1 dis/min/ml of alpha radiation. Tests on PP-Building decontamination water yielded rejections of 85 to 88% alpha radiation depending on the membrane type. These experiments show that the ability to remove radioactivity by membrane is a function of the contents of the waste stream because the radioactivity in the wastewater is in various forms: ionic, polymeric, colloidal, and absorbed onto suspended solids. Although removal of suspended or colloidal material is very high, removal of ionic material is not as effective. Alpha-contaminated laundry wastewater proved to be the easiest to decontaminate, whereas the low-level PP-Building decontamination water proved to be the most difficult to decontaminate. Decontamination of …

This report summarizes the technical progress in the following areas of study: (1) low-frequency instabilities; (2) high-frequency microinstabilities; (3) nonlinear effects and radiative processes; (4) ideal and resistive, linear and nonlinear, MHD numerical studies of tokamak plasma configurations; (5) numerical studies of the implosion dynamics and post-implosion anomalous transport properties of high-density pinches; (6) development of computer codes for solving complex dispersion relations; and (7) nonlocal eigenvalue problems for microstability analysis.

Chemical inhomogeneities produced during arc melting of uranium--6 weight percent niobium alloy normally persist during fabrication of the ingot to a finished product. An investigation was directed toward producing a more homogeneous product (approx. 13.0-mm plate) by a combination of mechanical working and homogenization. Ingots were cast, forged to various reductions, homogenized under different conditions, and finally rolled to 13.0-mm-thick plate. It was concluded that increased forging reductions prior to homogenization resulted in a more homogeneous plate. Comparison of calculated and experimentally measured niobium concentration profiles indicated that the activation energy for the diffusion of niobium in uranium--niobium alloys may be lower than previously observed.