The airborne release of /sup 14/C from various nuclear facilities has been identified as a potential biohazard due to the long half-life of /sup 14/C (5730 yrs) and the ease in which it may be assimilated into the biosphere. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, technology is under development, as part of the Airborne Waste Management Program, for the removal and immobilization of this radionuclide. Prior studies have indicated that the /sup 14/C will likely exist in the oxidized form as CO/sub 2/ and will contribute slightly to the bulk CO/sub 2/ concentration of the gas stream, which is airlike in nature (approx. 330 ppMv CO/sub 2/). The technology under development utilizes the CO/sub 2/ - Ba(OH)/sub 2/ 8H/sub 2/O gas-solid reaction with the mode of gas-solid contacting being a fixed bed. The product, BaCO/sub 3/, possessing excellent thermal and chemical stability, prerequisites for the long-term disposal of nuclear wastes. For optimal process operation, studies have indicated that an operating window of adequate size does exist. When operating within the window, high CO/sub 2/ removal efficiency (effluent concentrations < 100 ppBv), high reactant utilization (> 99%), and an acceptable pressure drop across the bed (3 kPa/m at 13 cm/s superficial velocity) …

A scoping study has been undertaken to determine the state-of-the-art of waste segregation technology as applied to the management of low-level waste (LLW). Present-day waste segregation practices were surveyed through a review of the recent literature and by means of personal interviews with personnel at selected facilities. Among the nuclear establishments surveyed were Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories and plants, nuclear fuel cycle plants, public and private laboratories, institutions, industrial plants, and DOE and commercially operated shallow land burial sites. These survey data were used to analyze the relationship between waste segregation practices and waste treatment/disposal processes, to assess the developmental needs for improved segregation technology, and to evaluate the costs and benefits associated with the implementation of waste segregation controls. This task was planned for completion in FY 1981. It should be noted that LLW management practices are now undergoing rapid change such that the technology and requirements for waste segregation in the near future may differ significantly from those of the present day. 8 figures.

Hydrologic and geologic site characterization is a critical phase in development of shallow land-burial sites for low-level radioactive-waste disposal, especially in humid environments. Structural features such as folds, faults, and bedding and textural features such as formation permeability, porosity, and mineralogy all affect the water balance and water movement and, in turn, radionuclide migration. Where these features vary over short distance scales, detailed mapping is required in order to enable accurate model predictions of site performance and to provide the basis for proper design and planning of site-disposal operations.

A tritium laboratory facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, was decommissioned in 1979. The project involved dismantling the laboratory equipment and disposing of the equipment and debris at an on-site waste disposal/storage area. The laboratory, constructed in 1953, was in service for tritium research and fabrication of lithium tritide components until 1974. The major features of the laboratory included 25 meters of gloveboxes and hoods, associated vacuum lines, utility lines, exhaust ducts, electrodryers, blowers, and laboratory benches. This report presents details on the decommissioning, health physics, waste management, environmental surveillance, and costs for the operation.

The adoption of improved waste segregation practices by waste generators and burial sites will result in the improved disposal of low-level wastes (LLW) in the future. Many of the problems connected with this disposal mode are directly attributable to or aggravated by the indiscriminate mixing of various waste types in burial trenches. Thus, subsidence effects, contact with ground fluids, movement of radioactivity in the vapor phase, migration of radionuclides due to the presence of chelating agents or products of biological degradation, deleterious chemical reactions, and other problems have occurred. Regulations are currently being promulgated which will require waste segregation to a high degree at LLW burial sites. The state-of-the-art of LLW segregation technology and current practices in the USA have been surveyed at representative facilities. Favorable experience has been reported at various sites following the application of segregation controls. This paper reports on the state-of-the-art survey and addresses current and projected LLW segregation practices and their relationship to other waste management activities.

With the rapid development of laser doppler anemometry, a new tool became available that proved to be quite useful for gas and particle velocity measurements under plasma conditions. The objective of the present study was to adapt this technique to measurements in an induction plasma and to obtain gas and particle velocity data in the discharge zone under different operating conditions.

Ion scattering, ion channeling, and cross-section electron microscopy were used to investigate Si single crystals implanted with /sup 205/Tl/sup +/ (0.29 - 1 x 10/sup 16/ Tl/cm/sup 2/, 90 keV) and annealed with pulses (1.6 J/cm/sup 2/, 15 ns) from a ruby laser. Coherent precipitates of Tl were found to form as a result of laser processing. The systematics of the effect are presented and a formation mechanism proposed.

Theoretical motivations are reviewed for investigation of multilayer relaxation in relatively simple metallic surfaces. Results from LEED analyses are presented which serve to demonstrate that multilayer relaxation measurably exists in Cu(100) and Cu(110) surfaces. The results from two independent LEED analyses for Cu(110) are shown to be in much better agreement with each other than the LEED results are with multilayer relaxation results obtained by high energy ion scattering. Multilayer relaxation results for other metallic surfaces also are reviewed briefly, and all available results are discussed in relationship to those obtained by a theoretical, model-type, inquiry of Landman, Hill and Mostoller.

Fissile fuel production by linear accelerators has advantages over fast breeders with respect to the absence of criticality problems and a higher net production rate of fuel. As part of the NASAP effort, a design study of the light-water reactor fuel enricher/regenerator, has been performed under the restriction that fuel was not to be reprocessed. The enricher/regenerator uses liquid lead jets as the target for the accelerator beam. The generated neutrons were then captured in an LWR fuel assembly for in-situ generation of fissile fuel. If the restriction of no reprocessing is removed, uranium or thorium elements can be irradiated directly with high-energy protons. The fissile fuel production rate and the heat regeneration due to high- and low-energy fission reaction are thus considerably increased, i.e., by at least a factor of two, as compared with liquid lead targets.

Presented are results from a binary-cycle test loop. Results cover loop operational problems, overall heat transfer coefficients, LMTD's, and duties for six primary heaters in counterflow having brine in the tubes and hydrocarbon in the shells, and for a condenser. Fluids tested were isobutane and mixtures of isobutane/isopentane; each heated at supercritical conditions and condensed at subcritical conditions.

Accurate knowledge of the geothermal fluid chemistry at operating temperature is needed to optimize operation, prevent corrosion, increase equipment service life and maximize profit and use. Available electrochemical sensors do not survive at the temperatures encountered in geothermal fluids; and new developments in this area are required. Chemical control and monitoring instruments for measuring in situ characteristics of geothermal fluids are under development. Progress in the development of electrochemical sensors to measure pH, carbonate and sulfide-sulfur is discussed.

We investigate the structure of laminar flames with general complex chemistry networks in the limit of high activation energy asymptotics. Depending on the specific reaction network and other given thermomechanical data, a wide variety of flame configurations are possible. Here we present a first version of a systematic asymptotic reduction of complex chemistry networks and give practical criteria to determine the dominant reactions when transport and chemistry are coupled.

The original core design for the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant (CRBRP) was a homogeneous core, as are essentially all of present day liquid metal fast breeder reactors. A study was undertaken to determine if a rearrangement of the core into a heterogeneous configuration, with fertile elements interspersed within the fueled zone, would improve the breeding ratio significantly without excessive adverse effects on other aspects of the design. The result of the study was that the heterogeneous concept improved not only the breeding ratio and doubling time, but also the control assembly worth, core restraint response, and the fuel cycle cost. This paper describes the design evolution and the major effects of the change from a homogeneous to a heterogeneous core in the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant.

In the event a commercial power reactor is subjected to a Class 9 accident resulting in gross core melting and reactor pressure vessel penetration, it has been shown that the containment integrity may subsequently be threatened by steam overpressurization, combustible gas reactions, and basemat penetration. A major contributor to these events would be the interaction of molten core debris with the structural concrete. Modeling of core-concrete interactions involves many poorly understood and complicated heat transfer phenomena for which there exists a sparse data base. One of these phenomena, which has been shown to have significant impact upon code calculations of core-concrete interactions, is the rate of heat transfer between overlying immiscible layers of core oxides and molten metals whose interface is agitated by transverse gas flow. A mathematical model is developed to analyze this heat transfer.

The interaction of 1 eV to 20 MeV neutrons with /sup 238/U is discussed with emphasis on recently resolved and remaining issues relevant to both application need and physical understanding. The apparent inability of older /sup 238/U evaluations to predict the measured /sup 238/U capture rate in thermal critical lattices has stimulated several recent precise measurements of the /sup 238/U cross sections, reanalysis of older data, and improved evaluations. The recent evaluations predict satisfactorily the /sup 238/U capture rate in thermal critical lattices. In the region from 1.5 to 4 keV there are differences of the order of 15%, sometimes larger, between the values of the neutron widths of the main resonances reported by several experimenters or obtained by different evaluators. Above 4 keV there are only sparse results of resonance analysis and most evaluations adopt a statistical treatment of the resonance structure. Some factors affecting the determination of the average properties of the resonance parameters are discussed. Above the inelastic-scattering threshold, energy-averaged neutron total, scattering, capture and fission cross sections are reviewed in a unified manner integrating measurement, calculation and evaluation. (n;n') and (n;2n') energy-transfer mechanisms are addressed. Particular attention is given to neutron capture, stressing precisions consistent with …

This portion of the ORNL-SASA presentation deals with the analysis of the rate of movement of fission products from the overheated core through a series of reactor control volumes, the final one being the exterior of the reactor building. At this time, the analysis of a complete station blackout sequence at Browns Ferry has been completed. The fission product transport portion of the study was presented in preliminary form at the 1981 Water Reactor Safety Meeting. Currently, the analysis of the small-break LOCA outside of the containment is in process. The initial study traced noble gases and iodine through the reactor systems during the event sequence; the current work includes an analysis of cesium transport in addition to noble gases and iodine.

A project is being conducted in the Nuclear Safety Pilot Plant (NSPP), located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), to study the behavior of aerosols assumed to be generated during LWR reactor accident sequences and released into containment. This project, which is part of the ORNL Aerosol Release and Transport (ART) Program, is sponsored by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its purpose is to provide experimental qualification for LWR aerosol behavioral codes being developed independently by other NRC-sponsored programs. The program plan for the NSPP aerosol project provides for the study of the behavior of LWR accident aerosols emanating from fuel, reactor core structural materials, and from concrete-molten metal reactions. The behavior of each of these aerosols is being studied individually to establish their characteristics; future experiments will involve mixtures of these aerosols to establish their interaction and collective behavior within containment. The purpose of this paper is to document observations illustrating the influence that steam has on the behavior of U/sub 3/O/sub 8/ aerosols within the NSPP vessel.

Under the auspices of the DOE Passive/Hybrid Solar Division Class A Monitoring and Validation Program, SERI has engaged in several areas of research in fiscal year 1982. This research has included: (1) development of a validation methodology, (2) development of a performance monitoring methodology designed to meet the specific data needs for validation of analysis/design tools, (3) construction and monitoring of a 1000-ft/sup 2/ multizone skin-load-dominated test facility, (4) construction and monitoring of a two-zone test cell, and (5) sample validation studies using the DOE-2.1, BLAST-3.0, and SERIRES-1.0 computer programs. The status of these activities is reported and the validation methodology and the Class A data acquisition capabilities at SERI are described briefly.

Problems encountered in supercritical heat transfer calculations are discussed. Data evaluation models and results for primary heaters and condenser are presented. Results cover predicated areas, overall heat transfer coefficients, shell side film coefficients, mean temperature differences, pinch points, shell side pressure drops, and condensing coefficients. Test results are for isobutane and mixtures of isobutane/isopentane.

None

As part of The Geysers research activities of DOE`s Geothermal Reservoir Technology Program, LBL, in close co-operation with industry, is performing fundamental and applied studies of vapor- dominated geothermal systems. These studies include the development of new methods for evaluating cold water injection, monitoring of the seismic activity in The Geysers associated with injection and production, interpretation of pressure and geochemical changes measured during well tests and long-term production and injection operations, and improvement of existing models of the geothermal system. A review is given of the latest results of DOE-sponsored LBL reservoir engineering and seismic studies relevant to The Geysers.

A brief overview of {gamma}{gamma} physics is presented. Two-body final states are considered and a preliminary result on non-resonant {gamma}{gamma}{r_arrow}h{sup {minus}}h{sup +} (h = {pi}, K, p) is given. The most recent results on the {eta}{prime}, f{sup o}, A{sub 2}, and f{prime} resonances are tabulated and the status of {gamma}{gamma}{r_arrow}{rho}{sub o}{rho}{sup o} is discussed. The measurements of F{sub 2} and high p{sub {perpendicular}} jets are summarized.

Samples of 316 SS were preinjected with 15 appM helium either hot (650/sup 0/C) or cold (room temperature) and irradiated with 3 MeV Ni/sup +/ ions to a dose level of 25 dpa at 625/sup 0/C in order to test the validity of helium preinjection as a means of simulation of transmutant helium production. Results for preinjected and single-ion irradiated samples were compared to samples irradiated with 3 MeV Ni/sup +/ and simultaneously injected with helium at a rate of 15 appM He/dpa (dual-ion irradiated samples). Preinjected samples exhibited bimodal cavity size distributions. Preinjected samples of solution annealed or solution annealed and aged material showed lower swelling than dual-ion irradiated samples. However, He preinjection in 20% cold worked samples showed greater swelling than dual-ion irradiated samples 9 figures, 1 table.

It is shown that a sensitive search for neutrino oscillations involving more flavors than just nu/sub e/ and nu/sub ..mu../ is provided by measurement of the ratio of the total interaction rates of upward- and downward-going cosmic-ray neutrinos within a massive (approx. 10 kiloton) detector. Assuming mixing between all pairs of nu/sub e/, nu/sub ..mu../ and nu/sub tau/, the experiment is capable of observing time-averaging probabilities < P/sub e tau/>/sub t/ of magnitude set by mixing strengths corresponding to, e.g., the d- to s-quark mixing strength, and of reaching the limit ..delta..m/sub ij//sup 2/ identical with vertical bar m/sub i//sup 2/-m/sub j//sup 2/ vertical bar approx. = 10/sup -4/ eV/sup 2/, where m/sub i/, m/sub j/ are neutrino mass eigenstates, and P/sub e tau/ and p/sub ..mu.. tau/ are the probabilities for nu/sub e/ and nu/sub ..mu../, respectively, to oscillate into nu/sub tau/ after traversing a distance L approx. = diameter of the earth.