A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on management actions needed to answer basic research questions about Gulf War Illnesses, focusing on the: (1) amount of money the Departments of Veterans' Affairs (VA), Defense (D0D), and Health and Human Services (HHS) spent on research and investigation of Gulf War veterans' illnesses and health concerns in the fiscal years 1997 and 1998, including current and projected spending by the Office of the Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Gulf War Illnesses; (2) productivity of this research spending, including the extent to which the Coordinating Board has determined that federal research objectives have been satisfied, and the extent to which the research has resulted in peer-reviewed publications and the identification of the causes or successful treatments for Gulf War veterans' illnesses; (3) extent of coordination between the Research Working Group of the Coordinating Board and the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses; and (4) Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses' contract management."

This report provides an overview federal regulatory reform.

The purpose of this waste analysis plan (WAP) is to document the waste acceptance process, sampling methodologies, analytical techniques, and overall processes that are undertaken for waste accepted for storage at the Central Waste Complex (CWC), which is located in the 200 West Area of the Hanford Facility, Richland, Washington. Because dangerous waste does not include the source special nuclear and by-product material components of mixed waste, radionuclides are not within the scope of this document. The information on radionuclides is provided only for general knowledge. This document has been revised to meet the interim status waste analysis plan requirements of Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 173 303-300(5). When the final status permit is issued, permit conditions will be incorporated and this document will be revised accordingly.

Acceptance testing of the SNF Fuel Basket Lift Grapple was accomplished to verify the design adequacy. This report shows the results affirming the design. The test was successful in demonstrating the adequacy of the grapple assembly's inconel actuator shaft and engagement balls for in loads excess of design basis loads (3200 pounds), 3X design basis loads (9600 pounds), and 5X design basis loads (16,000 pounds). The test data showed that no appreciable yielding for the inconel actuator shaft and engagement balls at loads in excess of 5X Design Basis loads. The test data also showed the grapple assembly and components to be fully functional after loads in excess of 5X Design Basis were applied and maintained for over 10 minutes. Following testing, each actuator shaft (Item 7) was liquid penetrant inspected per ASME Section 111, Division 1 1989 and accepted per requirements of NF-5350. This examination was performed to insure that no cracking had occurred. The test indicated that no cracking had occurred. The examination reports are included as Appendix C to this document. From this test, it is concluded that the design configuration meets or exceeds the requirements specified in ANSI N 14 6 for Special Lifting Devices for …

This documents the Fire Hazards Analysis (FHA) for the 200 Area Interim Storage Area. The Interim Storage Cask, Rad-Vault, and NAC-1 Cask are analyzed for fire hazards and the 200 Area Interim Storage Area is assessed according to HNF-PRO-350 and the objectives of DOE Order 5480 7A. This FHA addresses the potential fire hazards associated with the Interim Storage Area (ISA) facility in accordance with the requirements of DOE Order 5480 7A. It is intended to assess the risk from fire to ensure there are no undue fire hazards to site personnel and the public and to ensure property damage potential from fire is within acceptable limits. This FHA will be in the form of a graded approach commensurate with the complexity of the structure or area and the associated fire hazards.

The authors calculate microinstability growth rates in JET optimized shear plasmas with a comprehensive gyrofluid model, including sheared E x B flows, trapped electrons, and all dominant ion species in realistic magnetic geometry. They find good correlation between E x B shear suppression of microinstabilities and both the formation and collapse of the internal transport barrier.

The DOE has identified a need to sample vapor space and exhaust ducts of several waste tanks The In-Situ Vapor Sampling (ISVS) Type IV vapor sampling cart has been identified as the appropriate monitoring tool. The ISVS carts have been out of service for a number of years. This ETP outlines the work to be performed to ready the type IV gas sampler for operation Characterization Engineering will evaluate the Type IV gas sampler carts to determine their state of readiness and will proceed to update procedures and equipment documentation to make the sampler operationally acceptable.

Acceptance testing of the production SNF Fuel Basket lift grapples to the required 150 percent maximum lift load is documented herein. The report shows the results affirming the proof test passage. The primary objective of this test was to confirm the load rating of the grapple per applicable requirements of ANSI 14 6 American National Standard For Radioactive Materials Special Lifting Devices for Shipping Containers Weighing 10,000 pounds (4500kg) or More. The above Standard requires a load test of 150% of the design load which must be held for a minimum of 10 minutes followed by a Liquid Penetrant or Magnetic Particle examination of critical areas and welds in accordance with the ANSI/ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code 1989 Section 111 Division 1 section NF 5350.

This report examines the contributing factors to NDA measurement uncertainty at WRAP The significance of each factor on the TMU is analyzed and a final method is given for determining the TMU for NDA measurements at WRAP. As more data becomes available and WRAP gains in operational experience this report will be reviewed semi annually and updated as necessary.

A variety of drop shear or impact scenarios have been identified for the Canister Storage Building. Some of these are being addressed by new calculations or require no specific action. This document describes five of them which are addressed by design features and/or existing design calculations. For each of the five a position is stated indicating the reason for assurance that the safety functions of the MCO will not be jeopardized by the accident. Following the position is a description of the basis for that position.

The possibility of achieving the high muon fluxes suggested in recent work on muon colliders has revived interest in the idea of using muon storage rings for neutrino production. Through proper design of the lattice, a significant fraction of the stored muons can be converted into an intense, low-divergence beam of neutrinos. This work examines the incorporation of a long, high-beta straight section for production of neutrino beams into a lattice which is otherwise optimized for transverse and longitudinal admittance. The ring must be able to accept a very large emittance and large momentum spread muon beam.

The executive branch of the United States government has acknowledged and identified threats to the water supply infrastructure of the United States. These threats include contamination of the water supply, aging infrastructure components, and malicious attack. Government recognition of the importance of providing safe, secure, and reliable water supplies has a historical precedence in the water works of the ancient Romans, who recognized the same basic threats to their water supply infrastructure the United States acknowledges today. System surety is the philosophy of ''designing for threats, planning for failure, and managing for success'' in system design and implementation. System surety is an alternative to traditional compliance-based approaches to safety, security, and reliability. Four types of surety are recognized: reactive surety; proactive surety, preventative surety; and fundamental, inherent surety. The five steps of the system surety approach can be used to establish the type of surety needed for the water infrastructure and the methods used to realize a sure water infrastructure. The benefit to the water industry of using the system surety approach to infrastructure design and assessment is a proactive approach to safety, security, and reliability for water transmission, treatment, distribution, and wastewater collection and treatment.

Two modes are being considered for a 50 on 50-GeV muon collider: one being a high-luminosity ring with broad momentum acceptance (dp/p of {approximately} 0.12%, rms) and the other lower luminosity with narrow momentum acceptance (dp/p of {approximately} 0.003%, rms). To reach the design luminosities, the value of beta at collision in the two rings must be 4 cm and 14 cm, respectively. In addition, the bunch length must be held comparable to the value of the collision beta to avoid luminosity dilution due to the hour-glass effect. To assist the rf system in preventing the bunch from spreading in time, the constraint of isochronicity is also imposed on the lattice. Finally, the circumference must be kept as small as possible to minimize luminosity degradation due to muon decay. Two lattice designs will be presented which meet all of these conditions. Furthermore, the lattice designs have been successfully merged into one physical ring with mutual components; the only difference being a short chicane required to match dispersion and floor coordinates from one lattice into the other.

A review of the latest experimental results on charm particle lifetimes is presented. The most significant update is that the D{sub s}{sup +} lifetime is conclusively larger than the D{sup 0} lifetime and signifies that W-exchange/W-annihilation contributions are large. Using new high statistics data on D{sup +} {r{underscore}arrow} K{sup +}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup {minus}} together with the D{sub s}{sup +} lifetime and some assumptions, one can phenomenologically extract the strength of the W-exchange contribution in D{sup 0} decays and of W-annihilation in D{sub s}{sup +} decays. These are larger than or at the limit of theoretical expectations using QCD-based operator production expansion techniques.

A study of the errors introduced when one-dimensional inverse heat conduction techniques are applied to problems involving two-dimensional heat transfer effects was performed. The geometry used for the study was a cylinder with similar dimensions as a typical container used for the transportation of radioactive materials. The finite element analysis code MSC P/Thermal was used to generate synthetic test data that was then used as input for an inverse heat conduction code. Four different problems were considered including one with uniform flux around the outer surface of the cylinder and three with non-uniform flux applied over 360{degree}, 180{degree}, and 90{degree} sections of the outer surface of the cylinder. The Sandia One-Dimensional Direct and Inverse Thermal (SODDIT) code was used to estimate the surface heat flux of all four cases. The error analysis was performed by comparing the results from SODDIT and the heat flux calculated based on the temperature results obtained from P/Thermal. Results showed an increase in error of the surface heat flux estimates as the applied heat became more localized. For the uniform case, SODDIT provided heat flux estimates with a maximum error of 0.5% whereas for the non-uniform cases, the maximum errors were found to be about …

Integrated Demonstration Runs for the Am/Cm vitrification process were initiated in the Coupled 5-inch Cylindrical Induction Melter (CIM5) on 11/30/98 and completed on 12/9/98. Four successful runs at 60 wt% lanthanide loading were completed which met or exceeded all established criteria. The operating parameters used in these runs established the base conditions for the 5-inch Cylindrical Induction Melter (CIM5) process and were summarized in the 5-inch CIM design basis, SRT-AMC-99-OO01. (1) In subsequent tests, a total of fourteen CIM5 runs were performed using various power inputs, ramp rates and target temperatures to define the preferred processing conditions (2) Process stability and process flexibility were the key criteria used in assessing the results for each run. A preferred set of operating parameters was defined for the CIM5 batch process and these conditions were used to generate a pre-programmed, automatic processing cycle that was used for the last six CIM.5 runs (3) These operational tests were successfully completed in the January-February time frame and were summarized in SRT-AMC-99-00584. The recommended set of operating conditions defined in Runs No.1 through No.14 was used as the starting point for further pilot system runs to determine the robustness of the process, evaluate a bubbler, and …

The rapid rate and cycle time required to efficiently accelerate muons precludes conventional circular accelerators. Recirculating linacs provide one option, but the separate return arcs per acceleration pass may prove costly. Recent work on muon acceleration schemes has concentrated on designing fixed-field circular accelerators whose strong superconducting fields can sustain a factor of 4 increase in energy from injection to extraction. A 4 to 16 GeV fixed-field circular accelerator has been designed which allows large orbit excursions and the tune to vary as a function of momentum. Acceleration is .6 GeV per turn so the entire cycle consists of only 20 turns. In addition, a 16 to 64 GeV fixed-field circular accelerator has been designed which is more in keeping with the traditional Fixed Field Alternating Gradient machines. In this work the two machine designs are described.

This report provides a summary of the results obtained for a limited variability study for glasses containing Precipitate Hydrolysis Aqueous, Monosodiumtitanate, and either simulated Purex or HM sludge.

In an effort to reduce fuel consumption and emissions, hybrid vehicles incorporating fuel cell systems are being developed by automotive manufacturers, their suppliers, federal agencies (specifically, the US Department of Energy) and national laboratories. The fuel cell system will require an air management subsystem that includes a compressor/expander. Certain components in the compressor will require innovative lubrication technology in order to reduce parasitic energy losses and improve their reliability and durability. One such component is the air bearing for air turbocompressors designed and fabricated by Meruit, Inc. Argonne National Laboratory recently developed a carbon-based coating with low friction and wear attributes; this near-frictionless-carbon (NFC) coating is a potential candidate for use in turbocompressor air bearings. The authors present here an evaluation of the Argonne coating for air compressor thrust bearings. With two parallel 440C stainless steel discs in unidirectional sliding contact, the NFC reduced the frictional force four times and the wear rate by more than two orders of magnitude. Wear mechanism on the uncoated surface involved oxidation and production of iron oxide debris. Wear occurred on the coated surfaces primarily by a polishing mechanism.

As a first step towards the development of a high field Nb{sub 3}Sn superconducting dipole for a Very Large Hadron Collider (VLHC), a short mechanical model was built and tested at Fermilab. The aim of this work was to develop simpler fabrication techniques and test new structural materials to use in the dipole model. The coil design was based on a two-layer cos({theta}) approach. The end parts were designed using ROXIE magnet optimization program and manufactured using a 6-axis EDM machine. The two layers of each half-coil were wound using one piece of cable without any interlayer splices. After winding, a ceramic matrix was applied to the each half-coil and the coil was cured under compression at 150 C. The two half-coils were then assembled together in a reaction fixture for heat treatment at 450 C for 8 hours. After reaction, the coils were placed in a curing fixture for epoxy impregnation. Finally some mechanical and electrical tests were performed after which the coils were sectioned to check the cable positioning and impregnation quality. This paper summarizes the results and experience obtained from the mechanical model.

A series of experiments have been completed at TNX for the sludge-only REDOX adjusted flowsheet using Tank 42 sludge simulant in response to the Technical Task Request HLW/DWPT/TTR-980013 to increase CPC batch sizes. By increasing the initial SRAT batch size, a melter feed batch at greater waste solids concentration can be prepared and thus increase melter output per batch by about one canister. The increased throughput would allow DWPF to dispose of more waste in a given time period thus shortening the overall campaign.

The Rogowski Loop is one of the most basic diagnostics for tokamak operations. On the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX), the plasma current Rogowski Loop had the constraints of the very limited space available on the center stack, 5,000 volt isolation, flexibility requirements as it remained a part of the Center Stack assembly after the first phase of operation, and a +120 C temperature requirement. For the second phase of operation, four Halo Current Rogowski Loops under the Center Stack tiles will be installed having +600 C and limited space requirements. Also as part of the second operational phase, up to ten Rogowski Loops will installed to measure eddy currents in the Passive Plate support structures with +350 C, restricted space, and flexibility requirements. This presentation will provide the details of the material selection, fabrication techniques, testing, and installation results of the Rogowski Loops that were fabricated for the high temperature operational and bakeout requirements, high voltage isolation requirements, and the space and flexibility requirements imposed upon the Rogowski Loops. In the future operational phases of NSTX, additional Rogowski Loops could be anticipated that will measure toroidal plasma currents in the vacuum vessel and in the Passive Plate assemblies.

The Nuclear Power Engineering Corporation of Japan and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, are co-sponsoring and jointly funding a Cooperative Containment Research Program at Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. As a part of this program, a steel containment vessel model and contact structure assembly was tested to failure with over pressurization at Sandia on December 11--12, 1996. The steel containment vessel model was a mixed-scale model (1:10 in geometry and 1:4 in shell thickness) of a steel containment for an improved Mark-II Boiling Water Reactor plant in Japan. The contact structure, which is a thick, bell-shaped steel shell separated at a nominally uniform distance from the model, provides a simplified representation of features of the concrete reactor shield building in the actual plant. The objective of the internal pressurization test was to provide measurement data of the structural response of the model up to its failure in order to validate analytical modeling, to find its pressure capacity, and to observe the failure model and mechanisms.

The NSTX is a new national facility for the study of plasma confinement, heating, and current drive in a low aspect ratio, spherical torus (ST) configuration. The ST configuration is an alternate magnetic confinement concept which is characterized by high beta (ratio plasma pressure to magnetic field pressure) and low toroidal field compared to conventional tokamaks, and could provide a pathway to the realization of a practical fusion power source. The NSTX depends on a real time, high speed, synchronous, and deterministic control system acting on a system of thyristor rectifier power supplies to (1) establish the initial magnetic field configuration; (2) initiate plasma within the vacuum vessel; (3) inductively drive plasma current; and (4) control plasma position and shape. For the initial ``day 0'' 1st plasma operations (Feb. 1999), the system was limited to closed loop proportional-integral current control of the power supplies based on preprogrammed reference waveforms. For the ``day 1'' phase of operations beginning Sept. 1999 the loop has been closed on plasma current and position. This paper focuses on the Power Supply Real Time Controller (PSRTC).