Monthly newsletter discussing news and activities related to the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program, articles about weather and atmospheric phenomena, and other related topics.

Plans to eliminate the positron accumulator ring (PAR) from the Advanced Photon Source (APS) injector complex have created the need for a device to limit the allowable beam charge injected into the APS injector synchrotrons. The beam shut-off current monitor (BESOCM) was chosen to provide this function. This new application of the BESOCM provided the opportunity to explore new design philosophies. Two design goals were to de-emphasize reliance on external signals and to become insensitive to timing variations. Both of these goals were accomplished by deriving the trigger directly from the beam. This paper will discuss the features of the new BESOCM design and present data demonstrating its function.

The halogenated aliphatic hydrocarbon trichlorofluoromethane has been widely used as a refrigerant and aerosol propellant.

The French and British nuclear programs have prepared a series of natural uranium oxide fuel samples spiked with small amounts of the individual fission products which makeup a large fraction of the total neutron absorption by fission products in spent nuclear fuel. Both programs have utilized these samples in experimental reactors and have inferred the worth of the individual fission products. These results have been used to validate the cross sections used in criticality safety calculations. These measurements constitute a major element in support of spent fuel burnup credit in these countries.

A review is given of the prospects for future colliders and collider physics at the energy frontier. A proof-of-plausibility scenario is presented for maximizing the authors progress in elementary particle physics by extending the energy reach of hadron and lepton colliders as quickly and economically as might be technically and financially feasible. The scenario comprises 5 colliders beyond the LHC--one each of e{sup +}e{sup {minus}} and hadron colliders and three {mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup {minus}} colliders--and is able to hold to the historical rate of progress in the log-energy reach of hadron and lepton colliders, reaching the 1 PeV constituent mass scale by the early 2040's. The technical and fiscal requirements for the feasibility of the scenario are assessed and relevant long-term R and D projects are identified. Considerations of both cost and logistics seem to strongly favor housing most or all of the colliders in the scenario in a new world high energy physics laboratory.

This report documents a finite element code designed to model subsurface flow and contaminant transport, named FACT. FACT is a transient three-dimensional, finite element code designed to simulate isothermal groundwater flow, moisture movement, and solute transport in variably saturated and fully saturated subsurface porous media.

The Photovoltaic Manufacturing Research and Development project is a government/industry partnership between the U.S. Department of Energy and members of the U.S. photovoltaic (PV) industry. The purpose of the project is to work with industry to improve manufacturing processes, reduce manufacturing costs, and improve the performance of PV products. This project is conducted through phased solicitations with industry participants selected through a competitive evaluation process. Starting in 1995, the two most recent solicitations include manufacturing improvements for balance-of-system (BOS) components, energy storage, and PV system design improvements. This paper surveys the work accomplished since that time, as well as BOS work currently in progress in the PV Manufacturing R&D project to identify areas of continued interest and product trends. Industry participants continue to work to improve inverters and to expand the features and capabilities of this key component. The industry also continues to advance fully integrated systems that meet standards for performance and safety. All participants included manufacturing improvements to reduce costs and improve reliability. Accomplishments of the project's participants are summarized to illustrate the product and manufacturing trends.

The paper describes a proposed qualification standard for photovoltaic concentrator modules. The standard's purpose is to provide stress tests and procedures to identify any component weakness in photovoltaic concentrator modules intended for power generation applications. If no weaknesses are identified during qualification, both the manufacturer and the customer can expect a more reliable product. The qualification test program for the standard includes thermal cycles, humidity-freeze cycles, water spray, off-axis beam damage, hail impact, hot-spot endurance, as well as electrical tests for performance, ground continuity, isolation, wet insulation resistance, and bypass diodes. Because concentrator module performance can not be verified using solar simulator and reference cell procedures suitable for flat-plate modules, the standard specifies an outdoor I-V test analysis allowing a performance comparison before and after a test procedure. Two options to this complex analysis are the use of a reference concentrator module for side-by-side outdoor comparison with modules undergoing various tests and a dark I-V performance check.

The Russian Federation Ministry for Atomic Energy (MINATOM) and the US Department of Energy (USDOE) have formed International Nuclear Safety Centers to collaborate on nuclear safety research. USDOE established the US Center (ISINSC) at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in October 1995. MINATOM established the Russian Center (RINSC) at the Research and Development Institute of Power Engineering (RDIPE) in Moscow in July 1996. In April 1998 the Russian center became a semi-independent, autonomous organization under MINATOM. The goals of the center are to: Cooperate in the development of technologies associated with nuclear safety in nuclear power engineering; Be international centers for the collection of information important for safety and technical improvements in nuclear power engineering; and Maintain a base for fundamental knowledge needed to design nuclear reactors. The strategic approach is being used to accomplish these goals is for the two centers to work together to use the resources and the talents of the scientists associated with the US Center and the Russian Center to do collaborative research to improve the safety of Russian-designed nuclear reactors. The two centers started conducting joint research and development projects in January 1997. Since that time the following ten joint projects have been initiated: INSC …

The US Department of Energy and the Institute for Ecology of Industrial Area have been working together to develop mutually beneficial, cost-effective environmental remediation technologies such as the demonstration of bioremediation techniques for the clean up of acidic petroleum sludge impacted soils at an oil refinery in southern Poland. After an expedited site characterization, treatability study, and a risk assessment study, a remediation strategy was devised. The waste material was composed primarily of high molecular weight paraffinic and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons. A biopile design which employed a combination of passive and active aeration in conjunction with nutrient and surfactant application as used to increase the biodegradation of the contaminants of concern.

An overview is given of the potential for neutrino physics studies through parasitic use of the intense high energy neutrino beams that would be produced at future many-TeV muon colliders. Neutrino experiments clearly cannot compete with the collider physics. Except at the very highest energy muon colliders, the main thrust of the neutrino physics program would be to improve on the measurements from preceding neutrino experiments at lower energy muon colliders, particularly in the fields of B physics, quark mixing and CP violation. Muon colliders at the 10 TeV energy scale might already produce of order 10{sup 8} B hadrons per year in a favorable and unique enough experimental environment to have some analytical capabilities beyond any of the currently operating or proposed B factories. The most important of the quark mixing measurements at these energies might well be the improved measurements of the important CKM matrix elements {vert_bar}V{sub ub}{vert_bar} and {vert_bar}V{sub cb}{vert_bar} and, possibly, the first measurements of {vert_bar}V{sub td}{vert_bar} in the process of flavor changing neutral current interactions involving a top quark loop. Muon colliders at the highest center-of-mass energies that have been conjectured, 100--1,000 TeV, would produce neutrino beams for neutrino-nucleon interaction experiments with maximum center-of-mass energies …

Neutrino radiation is expected to impose major design and siting constraints on many-TeV muon colliders. Previous predictions for radiation doses at TeV energy scales are briefly reviewed and then modified for extension to the many-TeV energy regime. The energy-cubed dependence of lower energy colliders is found to soften to an increase of slightly less than quadratic when averaged over the plane of the collider ring and slightly less than linear for the radiation hot spots downstream from straight sections in the collider ring. Despite this, the numerical values are judged to be sufficiently high that any many-TeV muon colliders will likely be constructed on large isolated sites specifically chosen to minimize or eliminate human exposure to the neutrino radiation. It is pointed out that such sites would be of an appropriate size scale to also house future proton-proton and electron-positron colliders at the high energy frontier, which naturally leads to conjecture on the possibilities for a new world laboratory for high energy physics. Radiation dose predictions are also presented for the speculative possibility of linear muon colliders. These have greatly reduced radiation constraints relative to circular muon colliders because radiation is only emitted in two pencil beams directed along the …

Crossflow filtration will be used to filter radioactive waste slurry as part of the Late Wash Process.

A focal point for the HEMC'99 workshop was the evaluation of straw-man parameter sets for the acceleration and collider rings of muon colliders at center of mass energies of 10 TeV and 100 TeV. These self-consistent parameter sets are presented and discussed. The methods and assumptions used in their generation are described and motivations are given for the specific choices of parameter values. The assessment of the parameter sets during the workshop is then reviewed and the implications for the feasibility of many-TeV muon colliders are evaluated. Finally, a preview is given of plans for iterating on the parameter sets and, more generally, for future feasibility studies on many-TeV muon colliders.

Most chemistry in nature occurs within a closed and confined space. In contrast to this time-evolved [m?] organic chemists have focused their interests in developing reaction methods in solution. The price for this is paid in terms of non-selectivity in product formation, expensive reagents, and enormous wastes. Eventually 'man-developed' solution methods to make molecules have to be replaced by more selective, more environmentally friendly, and less expensive strategies. One approach in this direction would be to use controlled environments. The project focused towards developing energy efficient methods to prepare energy rich molecules that were useful to the public. In this context synthetic zeolites, the counterpart of naturally occurring minerals, were explored as the reaction media.

A divergence-free, parameter-free, path-based discrete-time quantum dynamics is designed to not only enlarge the achievements of general relativity and the standard particle model, by approximations at spacetime scales far above Planck scale while far below Hubble scale, but to allow tackling of hitherto inaccessible questions. ''Path space'' is larger than and precursor to Hilbert-space basis. The wave-function-propagating paths are action-carrying structured graphs-cubic and quartic structured vertices connected by structured ''fermionic'' or ''bosonic'' ''particle'' and ''nonparticle'' arcs. A Planck-scale path step determines the gravitational constant while controlling all graph structure. The basis of the theory's (zero-rest-mass) elementary-particle Hilbert space (which includes neither gravitons nor scalar bosons) resides in particle arcs. Nonparticle arcs within a path are responsible for energy and rest mass.

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We report upon recent experimental measurements made of RF properties of the intercell assembly of the second axis accelerator[1] of Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT) facility at LANL. The intercells provide both pumping and diagnostic access to the main DARHT-II beamline. Their design includes a pumping plenum separated from the main beam pipe by return current rods together with RF shielding provided by a copper-coated stainless steel mesh. Measurements using the twin lead technique (see Ref. [2]) at low frequencies (f < 200 MHz) suggest a constant value for the ratio h of the radial and azimuthal magnetic field components to which the transverse impedance is linearly related. We find that these results compare favorably to predictions from a simple analytic, lumped circuit model which includes the effects of the mesh and return current rods. We also present RF loop-to-loop frequency scans above beam pipe cutoff ({approx}600 MHz) showing the existence of many RF modes with relatively high Q's.

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Since the early 1950's Savannah River Site (SRS) has received over 100 million gallons of waste into the F and H Tank Farms, commonly known as the High Level Waste System (HLW) system. This waste was neutralized, insoluble sludge settled, and supernate was evaporated to form saltcake such that as of January 2003 only 37 million gallons of waste is stored in F and H tank farm. This waste contains approximately 417 million curies of radioactivity and includes approximately 3 million gallons of sludge and 34 million gallons of salt waste. Additionally, 5 million curies have already been dispositioned by the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) into glass canisters. The Accelerated Clean-up Plan (ACP)1 will result in the acceleration of risk reduction by emptying HLW tanks sooner, shipping HLW glass canisters and Transuranic Waste (TRU) to their geologic repositories sooner and decommissioning the F Canyon facilities and other excess facilities sooner. This document discusses the planned disposition of the material currently stored in the HLW System.

This report focuses on an assessment of melt rate for various frit/sludge combinations. The results provided should not be used as the sole decision-making tool, but they are an important input into the decision making process with respect to the SB3 frit.

Frequency Selective Surfaces/Volumes (FSS/Vs), periodic structures with frequency selective properties, have widely been used for millimeter and microwave applications. Some applications include filters (band pass, band stop), reflectors, radoms etc. FSS/Vs typically consist of a single or multiple material layers. Multiple layers (with each layer having a different frequency selectivity) are used for broadband applications. In recent years there has been an interest in using these structures at optical wavelengths. One of the applications is in thermophotovoltaic filters used to convert thermal energy into electricity. The filter is designed to transmit those wavelengths that can be efficiently converted into electricity, and to reflect other spectra, which leads to energy conservation and an increase in overall system efficiency. These filters can be used in space missions to help decrease energy consumption and reduce spacecraft mass, cost, and fuel loading. Numerical simulations of such filters are very limited in the literature. Existing modeling approaches are based on the assumption of purely metallic (perfectly conducting) structures on substrates. however, in practice, metals have finite conductivity that can lead to power absorption in the metal. At optical frequencies the usual material properties and perfect electric conductor (PEC) assumption is not applicable. Moreover, the conventional …

A cross-platform component for EPICS Simple Channel Access (SCA) has been developed. EPICS client programs with GUI become portable at their C++ source-code level both on Windows and Linux by using Borland C++ Builder 6 and Kylix 3 on these platforms respectively.

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