Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has developed and tested for the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission a procedure for the evaluation of Material Control and Accounting (MC and A) Systems at Nuclear Fuel Facilities. This procedure, called the Structured Assessment Approach, SAA, subjects the MC and A system at a facility to a series of increasingly sophisticated adversaries and strategies. A fully integrated version of the computer codes which assist the analyst in this assessment was made available in October, 1979. The concepts of the SAA and the results of the assessment of a hypothetical but typical facility are presented.

Layered synthetic microstructures have been built and tested for use as medium-resolution x-ray diffraction monochromators, in the 1 to 10 angstrom wavelength region. They can be employed to good advantage in spectrometry and imaging instruments that are used to determine the nature of the x-ray emission of high-temperature plasmas. When the micro-structures are used in spectrometers, we find that they gather much more light than natural crystals and are not troubled by high order diffraction response, yet have better spectral resolution than that provided by spectrometer channels formed by Ross filter or filter/fluorescer techniques. For use in imaging instruments such as the grazing-incidence reflection Kirkpatrick-Baez microscope, the microstructures provide high reflectivity at wavelengths shorter than the practical limit of total external reflection. We will present calibration data that describes the diffraction properties and piece-to-piece uniformity of microstructures built especially for use in the 1 to 10 angstrom region. We will also describe in detail two instruments that will be used at the Shiva laser system to determine the spectral and spatial distributions of x-rays radiated by inertial confinement fusion targets.

The influence of laser pulse propagation on multiple-photon excitation of many-level absorbers, and the significance of SIRF for SF/sub 6/ dissociation are discussed.

A technique is described for fabricating minature, high-density capsules of curium-244 oxide contained in three concentric jackets of metallic gold (or silver), with the outer surface being free of alpha contamination. The completed capsules are right circular cylinders 0.2500-inch diameter and 0.125-inch tall, with each level of containment soldered (or brazed) closed. A typical capsule would contain approx. 70 mg of /sup 244/Cm (5.7 Ci) mixed with 120 mg of gold powder in the form of a cermet wafer clad in three concentric, 0.010-inch thick, liquid tight jackets. This method of fabrication eliminates voids between the jackets and produces a minimum size, maximum density capsule. Cermet densities of 11.5 g/cc were obtained, with an overall density of 17.3 g/cc for the finished capsule.

Stimulated Raman scattering is of concern to laser fusion since it can create a hot electron environment which can increase the difficulty of achieving high final fuel densities. In earlier experiments with one micron laser light, the energy measured in Raman-scattered light has been insignificant. But these experiments were done with, at most, about 100 joules of laser energy. The Raman instability has a high threshold which also requires a large plasma to be irradiated with a large diameter spot. Only with a long interaction length can the Raman-scattered light wave convectively grow to a large amplitude, and only in recent long pulse, high energy experiments (4000 joules in 2 ns) at the Shiva laser facility have we observed as much as several percent of the laser light to be Raman-scattered. We find that the Raman instability has a much lower intensity threshold for longer laser pulselength and larger laser spot size on a solid target.

This report addresses the breeder reactor fuel fabrication development overview.

Experimental and theoretical studies of field reversal in a mirror machine are reported. Plasma-gun experiments demonstrate that reversed-field plasma layers are formed. Low energy plasma flowing behind the initially produced plasma front prevents tearing of the layer from the gun muzzle. MHD simulation shows that tearing can be obtained by impeding the slow plasma flow with a plasma divider. It is demonstrated theoretically that a field-reversed mirror imbedded in a multipole field can be sustained in steady state with neutral-beam injection even in the absence of impurities. MHD stability analysis shows that growth rates of elongated reversed-field theta-pinch configurations decrease with axial extension, which indicates the importance of including finite Larmor radius in the analysis. Tilting-mode criteria are improved by proper shaping, and a problimak shape is proposed. Tearing mode stability of reversed-field theta-pinches is greatly enhanced by flux exclusion. Self-consistent, 1-1/2-dimensional transport codes have been developed, and initial results are presented.