A systematic evaluation has been conducted of the potential for advanced nuclear fuel cycle strategies and options to address the issues ascribed to the use of nuclear power. Issues included nuclear waste management, proliferation risk, safety, security, economics and affordability, and sustainability. The two basic strategies, once-through and recycle, and the range of possibilities within each strategy, are considered for all aspects of the fuel cycle including options for nuclear material irradiation, separations if needed, and disposal. Options range from incremental changes to today’s implementation to revolutionary concepts that would require the development of advanced nuclear technologies.

The goal of this work is to develop a mechanistically based CFD model that can be used to simulate process equipment operating in the churn-turbulent regime. The simulations were performed using a state-of-the-art computational multiphase fluid dynamics code, NPHASE–CMFD [Antal et al,2000]. A complete four-field model, including the continuous liquid field and three dispersed gas fields representing bubbles of different sizes, was first carefully tested for numerical convergence and accuracy, and then used to reproduce the experimental results from the TOPFLOW test facility at Forschungszentrum Dresden-Rossendorf e.V. Institute of Safety Research [Prasser et al,2007]. Good progress has been made in simulating the churn-turbulent flows and comparison the NPHASE-CMFD simulations with TOPFLOW experimental data. The main objective of the paper is to demonstrate capability to predict the evolution of adiabatic churn-turbulent gas/liquid flows. The proposed modelling concept uses transport equations for the continuous liquid field and for dispersed bubble fields [Tselishcheva et al, 2009]. Along with closure laws based on interaction between bubbles and continuous liquid, the effect of height on air density has been included in the model. The figure below presents the developing flow results of the study, namely total void fraction at different axial locations along the TOPFLOW …

It can be shown in a solvable field theory model that the couplings of the composite vector mesons made of a fermion pair approach the gauge couplings in the limit of strong binding. Although this phenomenon may appear accidental and special to the vector bosons made of a fermion pair, we extend it to the case of bosons being constituents and find that the same phenomenon occurs in more an intriguing way. The functional formalism not only facilitates computation but also provides us with a better insight into the generating mechanism of approximate gauge symmetry, in particular, how the strong binding and global current conservation conspire to generate such an approximate symmetry. Remarks are made on its possible relevance or irrelevance to electroweak and higher symmetries.

We describe laboratory and field results of a novel arsenic removal adsorbent called 'Arsenic Removal Using Bottom Ash' (ARUBA). ARUBA is prepared by coating particles of coal bottom ash, a waste material from coal fired power plants, with iron (hydr)oxide. The coating process is simple and conducted at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. Material costs for ARUBA are estimated to be low (~;;$0.08 per kg) and arsenic remediation with ARUBA has the potential to be affordable to resource-constrained communities. ARUBA is used for removing arsenic via a dispersal-and-removal process, and we envision that ARUBA would be used in community-scale water treatment centers. We show that ARUBA is able to reduce arsenic concentrations in contaminated Bangladesh groundwater to below the Bangladesh standard of 50 ppb. Using the Langmuir isotherm (R2 = 0.77) ARUBA's adsorption capacity in treating real groundwater is 2.6x10-6 mol/g (0.20 mg/g). Time-to-90percent (defined as the time interval for ARUBA to remove 90percent of the total amount of arsenic that is removed at equilibrium) is less than one hour. Reaction rates (pseudo-second-order kinetic model, R2>_ 0.99) increase from 2.4x105 to 7.2x105 g mol-1 min-1 as the groundwater arsenic concentration decreases from 560 to 170 ppb. We show that ARUBA's …

The effectiveness of combined heat and power (CHP) systems for power interruption intolerant,"premium power," facilities is the focus of this study. Through three real-world case studies and economic cost minimization modeling, the economic and environmental performance of"premium power" CHP is analyzed. The results of the analysis for a brewery, data center, and hospital lead to some interesting conclusions about CHP limited to the specific CHP technologies installed at those sites. Firstly, facilities with high heating loads prove to be the most appropriate for CHP installations from a purely economic standpoint. Secondly, waste heat driven thermal cooling systems are only economically attractive if the technology for these chillers can increase above the current best system efficiency. Thirdly, if the reliability of CHP systems proves to be as high as diesel generators they could replace these generators at little or no additional cost if the thermal to electric (relative) load of those facilities was already high enough to economically justify a CHP system. Lastly, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the modeled CHP systems provide some degree of decreased emissions, estimated at approximately 10percent for the hospital, the application with the highest relative thermal load in this case

There is a nearly ubiquitous assumption in PSA that parameter values are at least piecewise-constant in time. As a result, Bayesian inference tends to incorporate many years of plant operation, over which there have been significant changes in plant operational and maintenance practices, plant management, etc. These changes can cause significant changes in parameter values over time; however, failure to perform Bayesian inference in the proper time-dependent framework can mask these changes. Failure to question the assumption of constant parameter values, and failure to perform Bayesian inference in the proper time-dependent framework were noted as important issues in NUREG/CR-6813, performed for the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards in 2003. That report noted that “industry lacks tools to perform time-trend analysis with Bayesian updating.” This paper describes an application of time-dependent Bayesian inference methods developed for the European Commission Ageing PSA Network. These methods utilize open-source software, implementing Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. The paper also illustrates the development of a generic prior distribution, which incorporates multiple sources of generic data via weighting factors that address differences in key influences, such as vendor, component boundaries, conditions of the operating environment, etc.

The March 2010 edition of the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) Handbook includes additional benchmark data that can be implemented in the validation of data and methods for Generation IV (GEN-IV) reactor designs. Evaluations supporting sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) efforts include the initial isothermal tests of the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) at the Hanford Site, the Zero Power Physics Reactor (ZPPR) 10B and 10C experiments at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), and the burn-up reactivity coefficient of Japan’s JOYO reactor. An assessment of Russia’s BFS-61 assemblies at the Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (IPPE) provides additional information for lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR) systems. Benchmarks in support of the very high temperature reactor (VHTR) project include evaluations of the HTR-PROTEUS experiments performed at the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) in Switzerland and the start-up core physics tests of Japan’s High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor. The critical configuration of the Power Burst Facility (PBF) at the INL which used ternary ceramic fuel, U(18)O2-CaO-ZrO2, is of interest for fuel cycle research and development (FCR&D) and has some similarities to “inert-matrix” fuels that are of interest in GEN-IV advanced reactor design. Two additional evaluations were revised to include additional evaluated experimental …

An extensive series of delayed critical experiments were performed at the Oak Ridge Critical Experiments Facility using enriched uranium metal during the 1960s and 1970s in support of criticality safety operations at the Y-12 Plant. These experiments were designed to evaluate the storage, casting, and handling limits of the Y-12 Plant and to provide data for the verification of cross sections and calculation methods utilized in nuclear criticality safety applications. Many of these experiments have already been evaluated and included in the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP) Handbook: unreflected (HEU-MET-FAST-051), graphite-reflected (HEU-MET-FAST-071), and polyethylene-reflected (HEU-MET-FAST-076). Three of the experiments consisted of highly-enriched uranium (HEU, ~93.2% 235U) metal parts reflected by beryllium metal discs. The first evaluated experiment was constructed from a stack of 7-in.-diameter, 4-1/8-in.-high stack of HEU discs top-reflected by a 7-in.-diameter, 5-9/16-in.-high stack of beryllium discs. The other two experiments were formed from stacks of concentric HEU metal annular rings surrounding a 7-in.diameter beryllium core. The nominal outer diameters were 13 and 15 in. with a nominal stack height of 5 and 4 in., respectively. These experiments have been evaluated for inclusion in the ICSBEP Handbook.

An overview is presented of the design of a 10 GeV laser plasma accelerator (LPA) that will be driven by a PW-class laser system and of the BELLA Project, which has as its primary goal to build and install the required Ti:sapphire laser system for the acceleration experiments. The basic design of the 10 GeV stage aims at operation in the quasi-linear regime, where the laser excited wakes are largely sinusoidal and offer the possibility of accelerating both electrons and positrons. Simulations show that a 10 GeV electron beam can be generated in a meter scale plasma channel guided LPA operating at a density of about 1017 cm-3 and powered by laser pulses containing 30-40 J of energy in a 50- 200 fs duration pulse, focused to a spotsize of 50-100 micron. The lay-out of the facility and laser system will be presented as well as the progress on building the facility.

We show how to improve the molecular dynamics step of Hybrid Monte Carlo, both by tuning the integrator using Poisson brackets measurements and by the use of force gradient integrators. We present results for moderate lattice sizes.

Controlling diesel particulate emissions to meet the 2007 U.S. standard requires the use of a diesel particulate filter (DPF). The reactivity of soot, or the carbon fraction of particulate matter, in the DPF and the kinetics of soot oxidation are important in achieving better control of aftertreatment devices. Studies showed that biodiesel in the fuel can increase soot reactivity. This study therefore investigated which biodiesel fuel properties impact reactivity. Three fuel properties of interest included fuel oxygen content and functionality, fuel aromatic content, and the presence of alkali metals. To determine fuel effects on soot reactivity, the performance of a catalyzed DPF was measured with different test fuels through engine testing and thermo-gravimetric analysis. Results showed no dependence on the aromatic content or the presence of alkali metals in the fuel. The presence and form of fuel oxygen was the dominant contributor to faster DPF regeneration times and soot reactivity.

There has been strong interest in the new and emerging field called resilience engineering. This field has been quick to align itself with many existing safety disciplines, but it has also distanced itself from the field of human reliability analysis. To date, the discussion has been somewhat one-sided, with much discussion about the new insights afforded by resilience engineering. This paper presents an attempt to address resilience engineering from the perspective of human reliability analysis (HRA). It is argued that HRA shares much in common with resilience engineering and that, in fact, it can help strengthen nascent ideas in resilience engineering. This paper seeks to clarify and ultimately refute the arguments that have served to divide HRA and resilience engineering.

We review the subject of central exclusive particle production at high energy hadron colliders. In particular we consider reactions of the type A + B {yields} A + X + B, where X is a fully specified system of particles that is well separated in rapidity from the outgoing beam particles. We focus on the case where the colliding particles are strongly interacting and mainly they will be protons (or antiprotons) as at the ISR, Sp{bar p}S, Tevatron and LHC. The data are surveyed and placed within the context of theoretical developments.

This paper describes experimental approaches and apparatus that we have developed to study solute and colloid transport in porous media using Idaho National Laboratory's 2-m radius centrifuge. The ex-perimental techniques include water flux scaling with applied acceleration at the top of the column and sub-atmospheric pressure control at the column base, automation of data collection, and remote experimental con-trol over the internet. These apparatus include a constant displacement piston pump, a custom designed liquid fraction collector based on switching valve technology, and modified moisture monitoring equipment. Suc-cessful development of these experimental techniques and equipment is illustrated through application to transport of a conservative tracer through unsaturated sand column, with centrifugal acceleration up to 40 gs. Development of such experimental equipment that can withstand high accelerations enhances the centrifuge technique to conduct highly controlled unsaturated solute/colloid transport experiments and allows in-flight liquid sample collection of the effluent.

The Heavy Water Component Test Reactor (HWCTR) facility is a pressurized heavy water reactor that was used to test candidate fuel designs for heavy water power reactors. The reactor operated at nominal power of 50 MW{sub th}. The reactor coolant loop operated at 1200 psig and 250 C. Two isolated test loop were designed into the reactor to provide special test conditions. Fig. 1 shows a cut-away view of the reactor. The two loops are contained in four inch diameter stainless steel piping. The HWCTR was operated for only a short duration, from March 1962 to December 1964 in order to test the viability of test fuel elements and other reactor components for use in a heavy water power reactor. The reactor achieved 13,882 MWd of total power while testing 36 different fuel assemblies. In the course of operation, HWCTR experienced the cladding failures of 10 separate test fuel assemblies. In each case, the cladding was breached with some release of fuel core material into the isolated test loop, causing fission product and actinide contamination in the main coolant loop and the liquid and boiling test loops. Despite the contribution of the contamination from the failed fuel, the primary source …

The electron energy dependence of a scintillating screen (Lanex Fast) was studied with sub-nanosecond electron beams ranging from 106 MeV to 1522 MeV at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Advanced Light Source (ALS) synchrotron booster accelerator. The sensitivity of the Lanex Fast decreased by 1percent per 100 MeV increase of the energy. The linear response of the screen against the charge was verified with charge density and intensity up to 160 pC/mm2 and 0.4 pC/ps/mm2, respectively. For electron beams from the laser plasma accelerator, a comprehensive study of charge diagnostics has been performed using a Lanex screen, an integrating current transformer, and an activation based measurement. The charge measured by each diagnostic was found to be within +/-10 percent.

Event assessment is an application of probabilistic risk assessment in which observed equipment failures and outages are mapped into the risk model to obtain a numerical estimate of the event’s risk significance. In this paper, we focus on retrospective assessments to estimate the risk significance of degraded conditions such as equipment failure accompanied by a deficiency in a process such as maintenance practices. In modeling such events, the basic events in the risk model that are associated with observed failures and other off-normal situations are typically configured to be failed, while those associated with observed successes and unchallenged components are assumed capable of failing, typically with their baseline probabilities. This is referred to as the failure memory approach to event assessment. The conditioning of common-cause failure probabilities for the common cause component group associated with the observed component failure is particularly important, as it is insufficient to simply leave these probabilities at their baseline values, and doing so may result in a significant underestimate of risk significance for the event. Past work in this area has focused on the mathematics of the adjustment. In this paper, we review the Basic Parameter Model for common-cause failure, which underlies most current risk …

Achieving a high fuel burnup in the Deep-Burn (DB) pebble bed reactor design, while remaining within the limits for fuel temperature, power peaking and temperature reactivity feedback, is challenging. The high content of Pu and Minor Actinides in the Deep-Burn fuel significantly impacts the thermal neutron energy spectrum as compared to a ’standard’ UO2 fueled core. This can result in power and temperature peaking in the pebble bed core in locally thermalized regions near the graphite reflectors. Furthermore, the interplay of the Pu resonances of the neutron absorption cross sections at low-lying energies can lead to a positive temperature reactivity coefficient for the graphite moderator at certain operating conditions. The DB concept focuses on the destruction of spent fuel transuranics in TRISO coated particle fueled gas-cooled reactors with the aim of a fractional fuel burnup of 60-70% in fissions per initial metal atom (FIMA), using a single-pass, multi in-core fuel (re)cycling scheme. In principle, the DB pebble bed concept employs the same reactor designs as the present low enriched uranium core designs, i.e. the 400 MWth Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR-400). A Pu and Minor Actinide fueled PBMR-400 design serves as the starting point for a core optimization study. The …

Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is performing high-temperature electrolysis research to generate hydrogen using solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs). The project goals are to address the technical and degradation issues associated with the SOECs. This paper provides a summary of various ongoing INL and INL sponsored activities aimed at addressing SOEC degradation. These activities include stack testing, post-test examination, degradation modeling, and a list of issues that need to be addressed in future. Major degradation issues relating to solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) are relatively better understood than those for SOECs. Some of the degradation mechanisms in SOFCs include contact problems between adjacent cell components, microstructural deterioration (coarsening) of the porous electrodes, and blocking of the reaction sites within the electrodes. Contact problems include delamination of an electrode from the electrolyte, growth of a poorly (electronically) conducting oxide layer between the metallic interconnect plates and the electrodes, and lack of contact between the interconnect and the electrode. INL’s test results on high temperature electrolysis (HTE) using solid oxide cells do not provide a clear evidence whether different events lead to similar or drastically different electrochemical degradation mechanisms. Post-test examination of the solid oxide electrolysis cells showed that the hydrogen electrode and …

Plasma accelerators may be driven by the ponderomotive force of an intense laser or the space-charge force of a charged particle beam. The implications for accelerator design and the different physical mechanisms of laser-driven and beam-driven plasma acceleration are discussed. Driver propagation is examined, as well as the effects of the excited plasma wave phase velocity. The driver coupling to subsequent plasma accelerator stages for high-energy physics applications is addressed.

The strong coupling constant as and its dependence on the momentum scale is determined from the pT dependence of the inclusive jet cross section in p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV measured with the D0 experiment. The jet transverse momentum range of 50 < p{sub T} < 145 GeV contributes to the determination. Using perturbative QCD caclulations to order {theta}({alpha}{sup 3}{sub s}) combined with resummed threshold corrections to order {theta}({alpha}{sup 3}{sub s}) an {alpha}{sub s}(MZ) = 0.1161{sup +0.0041}{sub -0.0048} is obtained. This is the most precise result from a hadron-hadron collider.

This paper addresses use of an importance measure interaction study of a probabilistic risk analysis (PSA) performed for a hypothetical aerospace lunar mission. The PSA methods used in this study follow the general guidance provided in the NASA Probabilistic Risk Assessment Procedures Guide for NASA Managers and Practitioners. For the PSA portion, we used phased-based event tree and fault tree logic structures are used to model a lunar mission, including multiple phases (from launch to return to the Earth surface) and multiple critical systems. Details of the analysis results are not provided in this paper – instead specific basic events are denoted by number (e.g., the first event is 1, the second is 2, and so on). However, in the model, we used approximately 150 fault trees and over 800 basic events. Following analysis and truncation of cut sets, we were left with about 400 basic events to evaluate. We used this model to explore interactions between different basic events and systems. These sensitivity studies provide high-level insights into features of the PSA for the hypothetical lunar mission.

Development of an equivalent wind plant power-curve becomes highly desirable and useful in predicting plant output for a given wind forecast. Such a development is described and summarized in this paper.

Magnetically confined hollow electron beams for controlled halo removal in high-energy colliders such as the Tevatron or the LHC may extend traditional collimation systems beyond the intensity limits imposed by tolerable material damage. They may also improve collimation performance by suppressing loss spikes due to beam jitter and by increasing capture efficiency. A hollow electron gun was designed and built. Its performance and stability were measured at the Fermilab test stand. The gun will be installed in one of the existing Tevatron electron lenses for preliminary tests of the hollow-beam collimator concept, addressing critical issues such as alignment and instabilities of the overlapping proton and electron beams.