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.

In the past decade, ion implantation has been shown to reduce oxide thicknesses up to tenfold in survey experiments on Ti, Zr, Ni, Cu, and Cr, and to enhance the long-term oxidation resistance of some high-temperature alloys. This review summarizes the major results of previous work. Important concepts are illustrated using recent experimental results obtained from a He-implanted Ni-1 at.% Pt alloy. Collectively, the results indicate that ion implantation has considerable potential for reducing oxidation, and as a research tool to investigate the mechanisms of thermal oxidation in metals.

Ion-irradiation studies of the fundamental aspects of cascade damage in metals are reviewed. The emphasis of these studies has been the determination of the primary state of damage (i.e. the arrangement of atoms in the cascade region prior to thermal migration of defects). Progress has been made towards understanding the damage function (i.e. the number of Frenkel pairs produced as a function of primary recoil atom energy), the spatial configuration of vacancies and interstitials in the cascade and the cascade-induced mixing of atoms. It is concluded for these studies that the agitation of the lattice in the vicinity of energetic displacement cascades stimulates the defect motion and that such thermal spike motion induces recombination and clustering of Frenkel defects. 9 figures.

Vacancy formation in Ni and in dilute Ni(Ge) alloys was studied under thermal equilibrium conditions using positron-annihilation Doppler broadening. A monovacancy formation enthalpy of 1.8 +- 0.1 eV was determined for pure Ni; combining this result with that from previous tracer self-diffusion measurements, a monovacancy migration enthalpy of 1.1 +- 0.1 eV was also deduced. Analysis of the vacancy formation measurements in Ni(0.3 at.% Ge) and Ni(1 at.% Ge) yielded a value for the vacancy-Ge binding enthalpy of 0.20 +- 0.04 eV.

The prevacancy effects sometimes observed in high-purity, well-annealed metals, are discussed. It is concluded that these effects are extrinsic and are most likely due to positron trapping in defects. The nature of the defects is discussed, and it is pointed out that the presence of dislocations in the samples could cause prevacancy effects.

New techniques have been developed for the study of metals via positron annihilation which provide for the in-situ melting of the samples and subsequent measurements via Doppler broadening of positron-annihilation radiation. Here we report these metods currently in use at our laboratory; ion implantation of /sup 58/Co and the use of Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ crucibles for in-situ melting followed by the decomposition of the Doppler-broadened spectrum into a parabolic and a Gaussian component. Our earliest results obtained for pure Ni in the polycrystalline solid and in the liquid state are compared. An interesting similarity is reported for the distributions of the high-momentum (Gaussian) component for positrons annihilating in vacancies at high temperatures and those annihilating in liquid Ni.

For many enhanced recovery methods propagating fronts arise that may be steep or discontinuous. One example is the waterflooding of a petroleum reservoir, in which there is forced out residual oil that remains after outflow by decompression has declined. In this paper high-resolution numerical methods to solve porous flow problems having propagating discontinuities are discussed. The random choice method can track solution discontinuities sharply and accurately for one space dimension. The first phase of this study adapted this method for solving the Buckley-Leverett equation for immiscible displacement in one space dimension. Extensions to more than one space dimension for the random choice method were carried out subsequently by means of fractional splitting. Because inaccuracies could be introduced for some problems at dicontinuity fronts propagating obliquely to the splitting directions, efforts are currently being directed at investigating alternatives for multidimensional cases.

Control of information as an element of physical protection has a long history in the field of national security. The nuclear industry is familiar with the constraints on proprietary information; and, with an effective date of October 1, 1980 for Parts 25 and 95 in Title 10 of the code of Federal Regulations, certain activities had to cope with rules for safeguarding of classified information. In applying the rules it is important to understand the differences between national security information and restricted data, and how guidance is promulgated both by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and by the Department of Energy. More recently, with a fully effective date of January 20, 1982, the NRC published rules for the protection of unclassified safeguards information. The scope is much broader than for the classified information. For example, the rules are applicable to power reactors. In this paper the directives which provide the details for compliance with all these rules are identified, and their application is discussed. NRC inspectors will be checking for compliance with the rules. Once problems of compliance are resolved, the more difficult question of evaluating the impact of information control procedures on the effectiveness of a physical protection system …

Dissolved boron is required for control of reactivity in a pressurized water reactor that is shut down. TRAC-PF1 calculations for a typical PWR for vessel-closed and vessel-open configurations show that a high-power excursion (approaching 20% of nominal operating power) is possible if dilution of the boron solution occurs. The calculations also show that sufficient heat capacity exists in the primary system to prevent a large temperature increase and that natural circulation flow of high concentration boron solution from the primary system into the core region will terminate the excursion.

Safety analyses of nuclear reactors require knowledge of the evaporation behavior of UO/sub 2/ at temperatures well above the melting point of 3140 K. In this study, rapid transient heating of a small spot on a UO/sub 2/ specimen was accomplished by a laser pulse which generates a surface temperature excursion. This in turn vaporizes the target surface and the gas expands into vacuum. The surface temperature transient was monitored by a fast-response automatic optical pyrometer. A computer program was developed to simulate the laser heating process and calculate the surface temperature evolution. A quadrupole mass spectrometer was used to identify and analyze the major vapor species in the vaporizing flow, and to measure the rate of evaporation from the target surface. The information yielded the partial vapor pressure of each species and the composition in the vapor jet. The maximum surface temperatures investigated range from approx. 3700 K to approx. 4300 K.

The major reported work on joining uranium comes from the USA, Great Britain, France and the USSR. The driving force for producing this technology base stems from the uses of uranium as a nuclear fuel for energy production, compact structures requiring high density, projectiles, radiation shielding, and nuclear weapons. This review examines the state-of-the-art of this technology and presents current welding process and parameter information. The welding metallurgy of uranium and the influence of microstructure on mechanical properties is developed for a number of the more commonly used welding processes.

Difficult stiff system problems encountered at LLNL are typified by those arising from various atmospheric kinetics models, which include reaction kinetics and transport in up to two space dimensions. Approaches devised for these problems resulted in several general purpose stiff system solvers. These have since evolved into a new systematized collection of solvers, called ODEPACK, based on backward differentiation formulas in the stiff case. A model kinetics-transport problem is used to illustrate the various solvers.

The Fifteenth LAMPF Users Group Meeting was held November 2-3, 1981 at the Clinton P. Anderson Meson Physical Facility. The program of papers scheduled to be presented was amended to include a Report from Washington by Clarence R. Richardson, US Department of Energy. The general meeting ended with a round-table working group discussion concerning the Planning for a Kaon Factory. Individual items from the meeting were prepared separately for the data base.

Open circuit failures (up to 100%) in small-diameter thermocouples used in electrically heated nuclear fuel rod simulator prototypes during thermal cycling tests were investigated to determine the cause(s) of the failures. The experiments conducted to determine the relative effects of differential thermal expansion, wire size, grain size, and manufacturing technology are described. It was concluded that the large grain size and embrittlement which result from certain common manufacturing annealing and drawing procedures were a major contributing factor in the breakage of the thermocouple wires.

Sandia A and F systems Division 1132 provided arming and firing support for the DISTANT RUNNER Test Program at White Sands Missile Range. This report describes the field support and the firing system that was used.

The basic parameters are discussed which determine the accuracy of timing measurements and their effect in a practical application, specifically timing with thin-surface barrier detectors. The discussion focusses on properties of the detector, low-noise amplifiers, trigger circuits and time converters. New material presented in this paper includes bipolar transistor input stages with noise performance superior to currently available FETs, noiseless input terminations in sub-nanosecond preamplifiers and methods using transmission lines to couple the detector to remotely mounted preamplifiers. Trigger circuits are characterized in terms of effective rise time, equivalent input noise and residual jitter.

Employing the current world average ..lambda../sub MS/ = 0.160 GeV as input, the minimal Georgi-Glashow SU(5) model predicts sin/sup 2/theta/sub W/(m/sub W/) = 0.214, m/sub b//m/sub tau/ approx. = 2.8 and tau/sub p/ approx. = (0.4 approx. 12) x 10/sup 29/ yr. The first two predictions are in excellent agreement with experiment; but the implied proton lifetime is already somewhat below the present experimental bound. In this status report, uncertainties in tau/sub p/ are described and effects of appendages to the SU(5) model (such as new fermion generations, scalars, supersymmetry, etc.) are examined.

A review is presented of the historical contributions of Gilbert N. Lewis to science and a discussion of the influence of Lewis on the research of the members of the physical-organic staff at Berkeley, including Melvin Calvin, during the twenties, thirties and forties. Some specific examples are discussed. Also, the effect of Lewis, his science and administrative concepts in the creation of excellence in a department of chemistry are reviewed.

The actinides produced by transmutation reactions in nuclear reactor fuels are a significant factor in nuclear fuel burnup, transportation and reprocessing. Irradiation testing is a primary source of data of this type. A segmented pin design was developed which provides for incorporation of multiple specimens of actinide oxides for irradiation in the UK's Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR) at Dounreay Scotland. Results from irradiation of these pins will extend the basic neutronic and material irradiation behavior data for key actinide isotopes.

Commercially prepared aluminide coatings on Hastelloy X and Inconel 617 substrates were exposed to controlled-impurity helium at 850/sup 0/ and 950/sup 0/C for 3000 h. Optical and scanning electron (SEM) microscopy, electron microprobe profiles, and SEM X-ray mapping were used to evaluate and compare exposed and unexposed control samples. Four coatings were evaluated: aluminide, aluminide with platinum, aluminide with chromium, and aluminide with rhodium. With extended time at elevated temperature, nickel diffused into the aluminide coatings to form epsilon-phase (Ni/sub 3/Al). This diffusion was the primary cause of porosity formation at the aluminide/alloy interface.

Intense, pulsed beams of low-energy positrons have been produced by a high-energy beam from an electron linac. The production efficiency for low-energy positrons has been determined for electrons with 60 to 120 MeV energy, low-energy positron beams from a linac can be of much higher intensity than those beams currently derived from radioactive sources.

The performance of a 15 x 15 cm/sup 2/ MultiWire Proportional Chamber (MWPC) with lead glass tube converter is presented. A standard Argon-Methane (70-30) gas mixture has been used at various pressures between 1.0 and 2.0 atm. For 511 keV ..gamma..-rays incident almost perpendicular onto a 1.0 cm thick lead glass tube converter, a detection efficiency of 4.5%, a time resolution of 130 ns (FWHM) and a spatial resolution of 1.3 mm (FWHM) has been obtained at 2 atm. Fast delay lines, capacitively coupled to the cathodes, standard integrated amplifiers and comparator electronics have been adopted for the position read-out. The use of fast delay lines (specific delay 8 ns/cm) ensures a high rate capability. A multiplanar positron camera is proposed, made of six MWPC modules arranged to form the lateral surface of a hexagonal prism. Each module (50 x 50 cm/sup 2/) will have a 2 cm thick converter on both sides of the chamber and will be operating at 2 atm. The expected performance is presented and compared with that of a recent multi-ring BGO camera, and is shown to be superior in spatial resolution and comparable in event rate at a considerably lower cost.

After two and a half years of development and construction, an electronic 4..pi.. detector has been used for the first time in studying relativistic nuclear collisions. This detector complements the visual 4..pi.. detectors like emulsions, AgCl detectors, and the streamer chamber, which have been in use for many years. Only the streamer chamber has the same important feature as the Plastic Ball in being triggerable for specific event types. In a series of experiments with beams of /sup 20/Ne, /sup 40/Ar, and /sup 40/Ca up to energies of 1.05 GeV/u, approximately three million events were measured with various trigger conditions. In contrast to the visual detectors, these events are already totally digitized and ready for immediate analysis. All multiparticle correlations of charged particles are measured in each event and do not have to be determined as an average quantity from two particle inclusive data. Besides the particle identification of the hydrogen and helium isotopes, the Plastic Ball identifies the positive pions. This makes it interesting for the study of pion production, which sets in at around 100 MeV/u incident energy, and has promise to shed some light onto the equation of state of nuclear matter. Besides the analysis of the …

It is suggested that the presence of c anti c-pairs on the 1 to 2% level in the hadron Fock state decomposition (intrinsic charm) gives a natural description of the ISR data for charm hadron production. The theoretical foundations of the intrinsic charm hypothesis together with its consequences for lepton- and hadron-induced reactions are discussed in some detail. There is no contradiction with the EMC data on F/sub 2//sup c/ provided the appropriate threshold dependence is taken into account.