This report is the Corrective Action Decision Document (CADD) for the Nevada Test Site (NTS) Area 15 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Farm, Laboratory Building (Corrective Action Unit [CAU] No. 95), at the Nevada Test Site, Nye County, Nevada. The scope of this CADD is to identify and evaluate potential corrective action alternatives for the decommissioning and decontamination (D and D) of the Laboratory Building, which were selected based on the results of investigative activities. Based on this evaluation, a preferred corrective action alternative is recommended. Studies were conducted at the EPA Farm from 1963 to 1981 to determine the animal intake and retention of radionuclides. The main building, the Laboratory Building, has approximately 370 square meters (4,000 square feet) of operational space. Other CAUS at the EPA Farm facility that will be investigated and/or remediated through other environmental restoration subprojects are not included in this CADD, with the exception of housekeeping sites. Associated structures that do not require classification as CAUS are considered in the evaluation of corrective action alternatives for CAU 95.

We describe how the Production Code Control System (pCCS), written in Perl, has been used to control and monitor the execution of a large hydrodynamics simulation code in a production environment. We have been able to integrate new, disparate, and often independent, applications into the PCCS framework without the need to modify any of our existing application codes. Both users and code developers see a consistent interface to the simulation code and associated applications regardless of the physical platform, whether an MPP, SMP, server, or desktop workstation. We will also describe our use of Perl to develop a configuration management system for the simulation code, as well as a code usage database and report generator. We used Perl to write a backplane that allows us plug in preprocessors, the hydrocode, postprocessors, visualization tools, persistent storage requests, and other codes. We need only teach PCCS a minimal amount about any new tool or code to essentially plug it in and make it usable to the hydrocode. PCCS has made it easier to link together disparate codes, since using Perl has removed the need to learn the idiosyncrasies of system or RPC programming. The text handling in Perl makes it easy to …

As part of a new materials effort, we are exploring the use of sol- gel chemistry to manufacture energetic materials. Traditional manufacturing of energetic materials involves processing of granular solids. One application is the production of detonators where powders of energetic material and a binder are typically mixed and compacted at high pressure to make pellets. Performance properties are strongly dependent on particle size distribution, surface area of its constituents, homogeneity of the mix, and void volume. The goal is to produce detonators with fast energy release rate the are insensitive to unintended initiation. In this paper, we report results of our early work in this field of research, including the preparation of detonators from xerogel molding powders and aerogels, comparing the material properties with present state-of-the-art technology.

Aerogel materials posses such a wide variety of exceptional properties that a striking number of applications have developed for them. Many of the commercial applications of aerogels such as catalysts, thermal insulation, windows, and particle detectors are still under development and new application as have been publicized since the ISA4 Conference in 1994: e.g.; supercapacitors, insulation for heat storage in automobiles, electrodes for capacitive deionization, etc. More applications are evolving as the scientific and engineering community becomes familiar with the unusual and exceptional physical properties of aerogels, there are also scientific and technical application, as well. This paper discusses a variety of applications under development at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for which several types of aerogels are formed in custom sizes and shapes. Particular discussions will focus on the uses of aerogels for physics experiments which rely on the exceptional, sometimes unique, properties of aerogels.

Examination of the ability to model aqueous systems of interest to the repository proposed by the Yucca Mountain Project has revealed an historical deficit in the ability to model complex waterÐmaterial systems that contain ordinary Portland cement (OPC) at elevated temperature (e.g., Bruton et al., 1994; Meike et al., 1994). One of the reasons is that cement chemistry typically concentrates on two issues of importance to the concrete industry: the hydration of cement powder, which contains reactive phases that do not persist in the cured concrete, and the causes of mechanical degradation at earth surface temperatures such as delayed ettringite formation and alkali silica reaction. Such modeling capability is not available in the open literature, even from applications that might have developed high temperature approaches, such as deep drilling for oil and geothermal resource recovery. The ability to simulate the interaction between concrete, as it evolves over time, and water has become more critical as repository designers begin to consider the incorporation of OPC materials in the emplacement drifts. The Yucca Mountain Project is unique among the high-level radioactive waste repository projects in the world in terms of the need to understand and predict processes in excess of 100°C (see, …