SRTC is developing technology for direct disposal of aluminum spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The development program includes analyses and tests to support design and safe operation of a facility for ''road ready'' dry storage of SNF-filled canisters. The current technology development plan includes review of available SNF drying methods and recommendation of a drying method for aluminum SNF.

This report provides an evaluation of the corrosion behavior of aluminum cladding alloys and aluminum-uranium alloys at conditions relevant to dry storage. The details of the corrosion program are described and the results to date are discussed.

The use of natural excitation response data for the extraction of modal parameters has been an alluring idea for many years, The primary reason is that it offers the real world inputs (both spatial and temporal) and the associated responses of the system without the cost of a complex excitation system. The use of NExT allows for a linear representation of the system at operating levels, which is ideal for predictive linear simulation. The NExT parameter estimation methods have relied on using standard modal parameter extraction routines that do not exploit the special model form of NExT data. A parameter estimation method is developed here that is consistent with the form, thereby providing a more robust estimator in the presence of noise. This paper presents the basic methods used in NExT as well as some of the critical issues when using NExT.

The Energy Technology Division provides materials and engineering technology support to a wide range of programs important to the US Department of Energy. As shown on the preceding page, the Division is organized into ten sections, five with concentrations in the materials area and five in engineering technology. Materials expertise includes fabrication, mechanical properties, corrosion, friction and lubrication, and irradiation effects. Our major engineering strengths are in heat and mass flow, sensors and instrumentation, nondestructive testing, transportation, and electromechanics and superconductivity applications. The Division Safety Coordinator, Environmental Compliance Officers, Quality Assurance Representative, Financial Administrator, and Communication Coordinator report directly to the Division Director. The Division Director is personally responsible for cultural diversity and is a member of the Laboratory-wide Cultural Diversity Advisory Committee. The Division's capabilities are generally applied to issues associated with energy production, transportation, utilization or conservation, or with environmental issues linked to energy. As shown in the organization chart on the next page, the Division reports administratively to the Associate Laboratory Director (ALD) for Energy and Environmental Science and Technology (EEST) through the General Manager for Environmental and Industrial Technologies. While most of our programs are under the purview of the EEST ALD, we also have had …

This document describes the development of an instrumented, shielded test canister system to store and monitor aluminum-based spent nuclear duel under dry storage conditions.

The report provides an evaluation of: (1) the release rate of radionuclides through minor cladding penetrations (breaches) on aluminum-based spent nuclear fuel (AL SNF), and (2) the consequences of direct storage of breached AL SNF relative to the authorization basis for SRS basin operation.

In 1979, six years after selecting the Delaware Basin as a potential disposal area, Congress authorized the U.S. Department of Energy to build the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico, as a Research and development facility for the safe management storage, and disposal of waste contaminated with transuranic radioisotopes. In 1998, 19 years after authorization and after site selection, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certified that the WIPP disposal system complied with its regulations. The EPA's decision was primarily based on the results from a performance. assessment conducted in 1996, which is summarized in this special issue of Reliability Engineering and System Safety. This performance assessment was the culmination of four preliminary performance assessments conducted between 1989 and 1992. This paper provides a historical setting and context for how the performance of the deep geologic repository at the WIPP was analyzed. Also included is background on political forces acting on the project.

The processes of defining managerial roles and providing for delegation of authority are essential to any enterprise. At most large organizations, these processes are defined in policy manuals and through sets of standard operating procedures for many, if not all, business and administrative functions. Many of these staff-initiated, administrative functions require the routing of documents for approval to one or more levels of management. These employee-oriented, back office types of workflows tend to require more flexibility in determining to whom these documents should go to, while, at the same time, providing the responsible parties with the flexibility to delegate their approval authority or allow others to review their work. Although this practice is commonplace in manual, paper-based processes that exist in many organizations, it is difficult to provide the same flexibility in the more structured, electronic-based, workflow systems.

A range of pore diffusivities, D{sub p}, is implied by the high degree of pore-scale heterogeneity observed in core samples of the Culebra (dolomite) Member of the Rustler formation, NM. Earlier tracer tests in the culebra at the field-scale have confirmed significant heterogeneity in diffusion rate coefficients (the combination of D{sub p} and matrix block size). In this study, expressions for solute diffusion in the presence of multiple simultaneous matrix diffusivities are presented and used to model data from eight laboratory-scale diffusion experiments performed on five Culebra samples. A lognormal distribution of D{sub p} is assumed within each of the lab samples. The estimated standard deviation ({sigma}{sub d}) of In(D{sub p}) within each sample ranges from 0 to 1, with most values lying between 0.5 and 1. The variability over all samples leads to a combined {sigma}{sub d} in the range of 1.0 to 1.2, which appears to be consistent with a best-fit statistical distribution of formation factor measurements for similar Culebra samples. A comparison of the estimation results to other rock properties suggests that, at the lab-scale, the geometric mean of D{sub p} increases with bulk porosity and the quantity of macroscopic features such as vugs and fractures. However, …

The objective of this study is to develop a thermal analysis methodology and to perform analyses of codisposal storage configurations to estimate the SNF, HWGL, and WP temperatures in a geological repository for various boundary conditions.

In certain penetration events it is proposed that the primary mode of deformation of the target can be approximated by known analytical expressions. In the context of an analysis code, this approximation eliminates the need for discretizing the target as well as the need for a contact algorithm. Thus, this method substantially reduces the computer time and memory requirements. In this paper a forcing function which is derived from a spherical-cavity expansion (SCE) analysis has been implemented in a transient dynamic finite element code. This irnplementation is capable of computing the structural and component responses of a projectile due to a three dimensional penetration event. Simulations are presented for 7.1 l-mm-diameter, 74.7-mm-long, spherical-nose, vacuum- arc-remelted (VAR) 4340 steel projectiles that penetrate 6061-T6511 aluminum targets. Final projectile configurations obtained from the simulations are compared with post-test radiographs obtained from the corresponding experiments. It is shown that the simulations accurately predict the permanent projectile deformation for three dimensional loadings due to incident pitch and yaw over a wide range of striking velocities.

Staff from the Savannah River Site (SRS), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and ITT Flygt Corporation in Trumbull, Connecticut, are conducting a joint mixer testing program to evaluate the applicability of Flygt mixers to SRS Tank 19 waste retrieval and waste retrieval in other U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) tanks. This report provides the results of the Phase C Flygt mixer testing and summarizes the key findings from the Phase A and B tests. Phase C Flygt mixer testing used full-scale, Model 4680 Flygt mixers (37 kW, 51-cm propeller) installed in a fall-scale tank (25.9-m diameter) at SRS. Phase A testing used a 0.45-m tank and Flygt mixers with 7.8-cm diameter propellers. Phase B testing used Model 4640 Flygt mixers (3 kW, 37-cm propeller) installed in 1.8-m and 5.7-m tanks. Powell et al. (1999z4 1999b) provide detailed descriptions of the Phase A and B tests. In Phase C, stationary submerged jet mixers manufactured by ITT Flygt Corporation were tested in the 25.9-m diameter tank at the SRS TNX facility. The Model 4680 mixers used in Phase C have 37-kW (50-hp) electric motors that drive 51-cm (20-in.) diameter propellers at 860 rpm. Fluid velocity was measured …

Responses to a distributed pressure load are typically predicted through the use of a finite-element model. This procedure depends on the model to represent the actual structure accurately. Another technique that is developed in this work is to predict the response based upon an experi- mentally derived model. This model consists of frequency response functions. The pressure distribution is assumed to be known. In this work, the pressure load will be a blast load. The focus of this work will be to simulate a harsh, shock-like environment. Data from a reverse Hopkinson bar (RHB) test is used to generate the response to a symmetric, distributed load. The reverse Hopkinson bar generates a high ampli- tude, high frequency content pulse that excites components at near-blast levels. The frequency response functions gen- erated from the RHB are used to generate an experimental model of the structure, which is then used in conjunction with the known pressure distribution, to estimate the component response to a blast. This result can then be used with a model correlation technique to adjust a finite element model such that data from a true blast test can be used to only fine tune the model. This work details …

The establishment of a process to allow planarization of deep x-ray lithography based microfabncated metal components via diamond lapping has enabled examination of three additional microfabrication issues. The areas of improvement that are discussed include materials, microassembly and packaging, and multilevel fabrication. New materials work has centered on magnetic materials including precision micromagnets and surface treatments of electrodeposited materials. Assembly and packaging has been aided by deep silicon etch processing and the use of conventional precision milling equipment combined with press-tit assembly. Diffhsion bonding is shown to be a particularly important approach to achieving multilevel metal mechanisms and furthermore shows promise for achieving batch assembled and packaged high aspect-ratio metal micromechanics,

After the basic theory for SMAC is presented below, two applications of the algorithm with real hardware will be presented. The first moderate-damping application is a system with approximately 50 modes in the bandwidth with up to 5 percent damping. The second application has at least 70 modes in the bandwidth, but damping is always below 3 percent. In addition to the improved implementation of the SMAC root finder, coding has been written to extract the mode shapes based on quadrature fit, and this is described herein.

This project reactivates ARCO�s idle Pru Fee lease in the Midway-Sunset field, California and conducts a continuous steamflood enhanced oil recovery demonstration aided by an integration of modern reservoir characterization and simulation methods. Cyclic steaming is being used to reestablish baseline production within the reservoir characterization phase of the project. During the demonstration phase scheduled to begin in January 1997, a continuous steamflood enhanced oil recovery will be initiated to test the incremental value of this method as an alternative to cyclic steaming. Other economically marginal Class III reservoirs having similar producibility problems will benefit from insight gained in this project. The objectives of the project are: (1) to return the shut-in portion of the reservoir to optimal commercial production; (2) to accurately describe the reservoir and recovery process; and (3) to convey the details of this activity to the domestic petroleum industry, especially to other producers in California, through an aggressive technology transfer program.

In this paper, the authors discuss options for developing institutions for joint implementation (JI) projects. They focus on the tasks which are unique to JI projects or require additional institutional needs--accepting the project by the host and investor countries and assessing the project`s greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction or sequestration--and they suggest the types of institutions that would enhance their performance. The evaluation is based on four sets of governmental and international criteria for JI projects, the experiences of ten pilot JI projects, and the perspectives of seven collaborating authors from China, Egypt, India, Mexico, and Thailand, who interviewed relevant government and non-government staff involved in JI issue assessment in their countries. After examining the roles for potential JI institutions, they present early findings arguing for a decentralized national JI structure, which includes: (1) national governmental panels providing host country acceptance of proposed JI projects; (2) project parties providing the assessment data on the GHG reduction or sequestration for the projects; (3) technical experts calculating these GHG flows; (4) certified verification teams checking the GHG calculations; and (5) members of an international JI Secretariat training and certifying the assessors, as well as resolving challenges to the verifications. 86 refs.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), through the Interagency Agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), has initiated a three-phase program with the Consortium for Coal-Water Mixture Technology, with the aim of decreasing DOD`s reliance on imported oil by increasing its use of coal. The program is being conducted as a cooperative agreement between the Consortium and DOE. Activities this reporting period are summarized by phase. During this reporting period, preparation of the Phase I final report continued. Work on Phase II focused on emissions reductions, coal beneficiation/preparation studies, and economic analyses of coal use. Emissions reductions investigations included initiating a study to identify appropriate SO{sub 2} and NO{sub x} control technologies for coal-fired industrial boilers. In addition, work started on the design of a ceramic filtering device for installation on the demonstration boiler. The ceramic filter device will be used to demonstrate a more compact and efficient filtering device for retrofit applications. Coal preparation and utilization activities, and the economic analysis were completed and work focused on preparing the final report. Work on Phase III focused on coal preparation studies and economic analyses of coal use. Coal preparation studies were focused on continuing activities on particle size control, …

The purpose of this report is to compile all documentation associated with facility preparation of WESF to receive 25 cesium capsules from ARECO. The WESF validated it`s preparedness by completing a facility preparedness review using a performance indicator checklist.

This document is the final laboratory report for tank 241-T-105 push mode core segments collected between June 24, 1997 and June 30, 1997. The segments were subsampled and analyzed in accordance with the {ital Tank Push Mode Core Sampling and Analysis Plan} (TSAP) (Field,1997), the {ital Tank Safety Screening Data Quality Objective} (Safety DQO) (Dukelow, et al., 1995) and {ital Tank 241-T-105 Sample Analysis} (memo) (Field, 1997a). The analytical results are included in Table 1. None of the subsamples submitted for the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis or total alpha activity (AT) exceeded the notification limits as stated in the TSAP (Field, 1997). The statistical results of the 95% confidence interval on the mean calculations are provided by the Tank Waste Remediation Systems (TWRS) Technical Basis Group in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding (Schreiber, 1997) and not considered in this report.

This document supports the development and presentation of the following accident scenario in the TWRS Final Safety Analysis Report: Natural Phenomena - High Wind. The calculations needed to quantify the risk associated with this accident scenario are included within.

Hazardous-materials workers and firefighters wear clothing that protects them from external hazards, but the sealed environment of a protective suit makes its wearer susceptible to heat stress. A prototype of the Telemetric Heat Stress Monitor (THSM) was developed at LANL to warn workers, and personnel monitoring the workers, of incipient heat stress by detecting the workers` elevated temperatures and heart rates. The purpose of this CRADA was to transfer the information and technology from LANL to the industrial partner, and to assist in the further development of a commercial THSM product. The THSM is the first extensive telemetric physiological monitor to be developed; previous monitors used wires between the sensors and the recording and display equipment. Developing a reliable, small, battery-powered, inexpensive telemetry system to share the RF spectrum with today`s proliferating wireless devices was a significant technical accomplishment.

This report provides results of an analytical study of high concentration PCB paint in a shutdown nuclear test reactor located at the US Department of Energy's Savannah River Site (SRS). The study was designed to obtain data relevant for an evaluation of potential hazards associated with the use of and exposure to such paints.

The authors describe a numerical optimization scheme for fusion reactors. The particular application described is to find the smallest copper coil spherical tokamak, although the numerical scheme is sufficiently general to allow many other problems to be solved. The solution to the steady state energy balance is found by first selecting the fixed variables. The range of all remaining variables is then selected, except for the temperature. Within the specified ranges, the temperature which satisfies the power balance is then found. Tests are applied to determine that remaining constraints are satisfied, and the acceptable results then stored. Results are presented for a range of auxiliary current drive efficiencies and different scaling relationships; for the range of variables chosen the machine encompassing volume increases or remains approximately unchanged as the aspect ratio is reduced.