Using CARM (Computer Aided Reduction Method), a computer program that automates the mechanism reduction process, a variety of different reduced chemical kinetic mechanisms for ethylene and n-heptane have been generated. The reduced mechanisms have been compared to detailed chemistry calculations in simple homogeneous reactors and experiments. Reduced mechanisms for combustion of ethylene having as few as 10 species were found to give reasonable agreement with detailed chemistry over a range of stoichiometries and showed significant improvement over currently used global mechanisms. The performance of reduced mechanisms derived from a large detailed mechanism for n-heptane was compared to results from a reduced mechanism derived from a smaller semi-empirical mechanism. The semi-empirical mechanism was advantageous as a starting point for reduction for ignition delay, but not for PSR calculations. Reduced mechanisms with as few as 12 species gave excellent results for n-heptane/air PSR calculations but 16-25 or more species are needed to simulate n-heptane ignition delay.

Ignition tests and analyses of damage/corroded N-Reactor spent nuclear fuel (SNF) were performed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as part of a series of studies on the deteriorating spent fuel in the Hanford K-Basins. The ignition temperature tests were conducted to assess tie pyrophoric properties of selected spent fuel elements from K-West Basin. The objective of these tests was to determine pyrophoric characteristics of samples cut from both damaged and undamaged regions of fhel elements. Furnace ignition tests were also petiormed on samples subjected to the conditioning process proposed by the Independent Technical Assessment and the Integrated Process Strategy to establish any significant effect on the SNF pyrophoric pefiormance parameters. Part of the analysis of the ignition data in this report was petiormed by FIuor Daniel Northwest. One of the safety issues being evaluated is the possibility of a fiel ignition during processing, handling, and transportation to the interim storage facility.

'The primary purpose of this report is to document a Defense-in-Depth (DID) accident analysis evaluation for Department of Energy (DOE) Savannah River Site (SRS) Tritium Facility Buildings 232-H, 233-H, and 234-H. The purpose of a DID evaluation is to provide a more realistic view of facility radiological risks to the offsite public than the bounding deterministic analysis documented in the Safety Analysis Report, which credits only Safety Class items in the offsite dose evaluation.'

Independent Evaluation of Air Filter Media from Chornobyl Research performed for the U.S. Department of Energy under Cooperative Agreement DE-FC04-96AL76406 Edited by Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute

Charge-coupled devices (CCD's) of novel design have been fabricated at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and the first large-format science-grade chips for astronomical imaging are now being characterized at Lick Observatory. They are made on 300-μm thick n-type high-resistivity (~10,000 Ω-cm) silicon wafers, using a technology developed at LBNL to fabricate low-leakage silicon microstrip detectors for high-energy physics. A bias voltage applied via a transparent contact on the back side fully depletes the substrate, making the entire volume photosensitive and ensuring that charge reaches the potential wells with minimal lateral diffusion. The development of a thin, transparent back side contact compatible with fully depleted operation permits blue response comparable to that obtained with thinned CCD's. Since he entire region is active, high quantum efficiency is maintained to nearly λ = 1000 nm, above which the silicon bandgap effectively truncates photoproduction. Early characterization results indicate a charge transfer efficiency > 0.999995, readout noise 4 e's at -132°C, full well capacity > 300,000 e's, and quantum efficiency > 85% at λ = 900 nm.

No abstract currently available for this report as the present time.

The acceleration stages for a muon collider require that the muons be accelerated within a given ring in fewer than twenty turns. One type of accelerator that appears to be attractive for a synchrotron that accelerates the muon a factor of four in energy in a few turns is the Fixed Field Alternating Gradient (FFAG) type of accelerator. As the energy of the muon beam increases, the muons move toward a higher field region of a DC combined function dipole. The following dipole and quadrupole magnet characteristics are required for a muon FFAG machine to be successful: (1) The dipole will be a fixed field dipole with an impressed quadrupole and sextupole field. There may or may not be separate quadrupoles that mayor may not have added sextupole windings. (2) The horizontal aperture of the required good field region is wider than the vertical aperture of the required good field region. (3) The magnet is relatively short, so that the conventional SSC type of superconducting dipole or quadrupole ends can not be used. The field at the end of the magnet must fall off abruptly within the distance of less than one vertical aperture. For a magnet that is 400 …

None

None

This report covers how House committees plan and conduct hearings; it also reviews post-hearing activities of committees. It discusses applicable rules of the House, rules adopted by individual committees, and common committee practices.

None

None

This report describes the SNS's management, project costs, schedule, site selection, and funding, and discusses issues raised by some congressional critics of the project, such as management problems, potential cost overruns, and schedule delays.

None

The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 identify a number of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) as candidates for regulation. Should regulations be imposed on HAP emissions from coal-fired power plants, a sound understanding of the fundamental principles controlling the formation and partitioning of toxic species during coal combustion will be needed. With support from the Federal Energy Technology Center (FETC), the Electric Power Research Institute, and VTT (Finland), Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) has teamed with researchers from USGS, MIT, the University of Arizona (UA), the University of Kentucky (UK), the University of Connecticut (UC), the University of Utah (UU) and the University of North Dakota Energy and Environ-mental Research Center (EERC) to develop a broadly applicable emissions model useful to regulators and utility planners. The new Toxics Partitioning Engineering Model (ToPEM) will be applicable to all combustion conditions including new fuels and coal blends, low-NOx combustion systems, and new power generation plants. Development of ToPEM will be based on PSI's existing Engineering Model for Ash Formation (EMAF). This report covers the reporting period from 1 January 1999 to 31 March 1999. During this period, a full Program Review Meeting was held at the University of Arizona. At this meeting, the …

XPS studies have been carried out on sputter deposited copper on a substantially hydroxylated {alpha}-Al{sub 2}O{sub 3}(0001) (sapphire) surface under ultra-high vacuum (UHV) conditions. XPS-derived Cu uptake curves show a sharp change in slope at a coverage of 0.35 monolayer (on a Cu/O atomic basis), indicative of initial layer-by-layer growth. CU(LMM) lineshape data indicate that, prior to the first break in the curve, Cu is oxidized to Cu(I). At higher coverages, metallic CU(0) is. observed. These data agree with first principles theoretical calculations, indicating that the presence of ad-hydroxyl groups greatly enhances the binding of Cu to bulk sapphire surfaces, stabilizing Cu(I) adatoms over two-dimensional metallic islands. In the absence of hydroxylation, calculations indicate significantly weaker Cu binding to the bulk sapphire substrate and non-wetting. Calculations also predict that at Cu coverages above 1/3 monolayer (ML), Cu-Cu interactions predominate, leading to Cu(0) formation. These results are in excellent agreement with experiment. The ability of surface hydroxyl groups to enhance binding to alumina substrates suggests a reason for contradictory experimental results reported in the literature for Cu wetting of alumina.

The purpose of this analysis is to develop a generic set of degradation scenarios and associated configurations for various Department of Energy (DOE) spent nuclear fuel (SNF) types when codisposed with the high-level waste (HLW) glass inside a waste package (WP). The degradation takes place inside the WP. These scenarios and configurations are developed as refinements of the standard degradation scenarios and potentially critical configuration classes given in Section 3.1 of the ''Disposal Criticality Analysis Methodology Topical Report'' (Ref. 1). Certain degradation scenarios and configurations will change when EDA II design is baselined. In accordance with AP-3.10Q, Revision 0, ICN 0, a work direction was developed, issued, and used in the preparation of this document (Ref. 13, p. 7).

A spent fuel storage cask must efficiently transfer the heat released by the fuel assemblies through the cask walls to the environment. This heat must be transferred through passive means, limiting the energy transfer mechanisms from the cask to natural convection and radiation heat transfer.. Natural convection is essentially independent of the characteristics of the array of casks, provided there is space between casks to permit a convection loop. Radiation heat transfer, however, depends on the geometric arrangement of the array of casks because the peripheral casks will shadow the interior casks and restrict radiant heat transfer from all casks to the environment. The shadowing of one cask by its neighbors is determined by a view factor that represents the fraction of radiant energy that leaves the surface of a cask and reaches the environment. This paper addresses the evaluation of the view factor between a centrally located spent fuel storage cask and the environment. By combining analytic expressions for the view factor of (1) infinitely long cylinders and (2) finite cylinders with a length-to-diameter ratio of 2 to represent spent fuel storage casks, the view factor can be evaluated for any practical array of spent fuel storage casks.

This Corrective Action Investigation Plan contains the US Department of Energy, Nevada Operation Office's approach to collect the data necessary to evaluate corrective action alternatives appropriate for the closure of Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 230/320 under the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order. Corrective Action Unit 230 consists of Corrective Action Site (CAS) 22-03-01, Sewage Lagoon; while CAU 320 consists of CAS 22-99-01, Strainer Box. These CAUs are referred to as CAU 230/320 or the Sewage Lagoons Site. The Sewage Lagoons Site also includes an Imhoff tank, sludge bed, and associated buried sewer piping. Located in Area 22, the site was used between 1951 to 1958 for disposal of sanitary sewage effluent from the historic Camp Desert Rock Facility at the Nevada Test Site in Nevada. Based on site history, the contaminants of potential concern include volatile organic compounds (VOCs), semivolatile organic compounds, total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), and radionuclides. Vertical migration is estimated to be less than 12 feet below ground surface, and lateral migration is limited to the soil immediately adjacent to or within areas of concern. The proposed investigation will involve a combination of field screening for VOCs and TPH using the direct-push method and excavation using a …

Quartz crystal microbalance techniques and in situ spectroscopic ellipsometry are used to probe the structure-dependent intrinsic viscoelastic properties of self-assembled CH{sub 3}(CH{sub 2}){sub 8}SH alkanethiol monolayer adsorbed from the gas phase onto Au(111)-textured substrates. Physisorbed molecules, mixed chemisorbed-fluid/solid phases and solid-phase domain boundaries make sequentially dominant contributions to the measured energy dissipation in the growing monolayer. Deviations from Langmuir adsorption kinetics reveal a precursor-mediated adsorption channel. These studies reveal the impact of structural heterogeneity in tribological studies of monolayer lubricants.

Approximately 2100 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) discharged from the N-Reactor have been stored underwater at the K-Basins in the 100 Area of the Hanford Site. The spent fuel has been stored in the K-East Basin since 1975 and in the K-West Basin since 1981. Some of the SNF elements in these basins have corroded because of various breaches in the Zircaloy cladding that occurred during fuel discharge operations and/or subsequent handling and storage in the basins. Consequently, radioactive material in the fuel has been released into the basin water, and water has leaked from the K-East Basin into the soil below. To protect the Columbia River, which is only 380 m from the basins, the SNF is scheduled to be removed and transported for interim dry storage in the 200 East Area, in the central portion of the Site. However, before being shipped, the corroded fuel elements will be loaded into Multi-Canister OverPacks and conditioned. The conditioning process will be selected based on the Integrated Process Strategy (IPS) (WHC 1995), which was prepared on the basis of the dry storage concept developed by the Independent Technical Assessment (ITA) team (ITA 1994).

The research performed this year marked the beginning of a collaboration between Howard University and LLNL to advance and apply remote sensing technology to a broad range of applications centered on probing the state of the atmosphere. Central to this research was the evolution of a telescope facility at Howard University into an atmospheric observatory and instrument development test-bed. Our work in applying laser technology to remote sensing helped lead to the development and subsequent patent application of a laser heterodyne amplifier and progress toward the development of a multi-wavelength laser probe to determine the range resolved size distribution of particulate matter and aerosols in the atmosphere. Work performed this year also helped us motivate further studies to understand atmospheric radiance and radiation transport in three-dimensions. Our involvement in these programs as supported by the LLNL Research Collaborations Program for Historically Black College s and Universities is reported here.

The objective of this design analysis is -to update the assessment of estimated annual secondary low-level waste (LLW) generation rates resulting from the repackaging of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level waste (HLW) for disposal at the Monitored Geologic Repository (MGR). This analysis supports the preparation of documentation necessary for license application (LA) for the MGR. For the purposes of this analysis, secondary LLW is defined, in brief terms, as LLW generated as a direct result of processing SNF/HLW through the receiving and repackaging operations. The current Waste Handling Building (WHB) design is based on the predominant movement of fuel assemblies through the wet handling lines within the WHB. Dry handling lines are also included in the current WHB design to accommodate canistered waste (i.e., SNF and/or HLW packages). Major input changes to this analysis in comparison to previous analyses include: (1) changes in the SNF/HLW arrival schedules; (2) changes to the WHB and the Waste Treatment Building (WTB) dimensions; and (3) changes in operational staff sizes within the WHB and WTB. The rates generated in this analysis can be utilized to define necessary waste processes, waste flow rates, and equipment sizes for the processing of secondary LLW for proper …

'The Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC) has participated in a round robin testing program which was conducted under the auspices of the Department of Energy''s (DOE) Tanks Focus Area (TFA) for Immobilization.'