This invention report suggests a method for drastically increasing the amount of Pu-241 in isotopic mixtures of plutonium. It is felt that with process experience, as much as 70 percent or more of the potential Pu-241 atoms can be concentrated in the fuel at one time. Such a concentration step would double the amount of production obtainable from Pu-241 by nuclear decay. The process to concentrate the Pu-241 consists of two basic steps: 1. Irradiate plutonium consisting largely of Pu-239 isotope until the Pu-239 has largely been converted to Pu-240 and 241 by thermal neutron fission and absorption events. Most of the fuel value has been taken advantage of at this point. The isotopic mixture will be largely Pu-240 but contain smaller percentages of 241 and 239. The irradiation is terminated at this point and the products are separated. 2. The depleted plutonium isotopes from the first irradiation are refabricated for a second irradiation with a thermal neutron absorber surrounding the depleted plutonium isotope. This element is again irradiated, preferably in an epithermal neutron flux with a peak energy slightly above 1 ev. The Pu-240 has a huge resonant cross section at the 1 ev level and will be most …

The purpose of this three year study is to develop a neutron focusing system to be used with the Texas Cold Neutron Source (TCNS) to produce an intense beam of neutrons. A prompt gamma activation analysis (PGAA) facility will also be designed, setup, and tested under this DOE grant. During the first year of the DOE grant, a new procedure was developed and used to design a focusing converging guide consisting of truncated rectangular cone sections. Detailed calculations were performed using a 3-D Monte Carlo code which the authors wrote to trace neutrons through the existing curved guide of the TCNS into the proposed converging guide. Using realistic reflectivities for Ni-Ti supermirrors, they obtained gains of 4 to 5 for the neutron flux averaged over an area of 1 x 1 cm. Two graduate students were supported by the first year of the DOE grant. Both have passed the Nuclear Engineering qualifying examination and have been admitted to candidacy for the doctoral degree at The University of Texas at Austin. Their programs of study and dissertation projects have been approved by the appropriate committees.

Measurement of Cs-137 concentrations in Steel Creek, 1984, have shown that L Reactor flow tests have not changed the Cs-137 concentrations and the initial phases of L Pond dam construction have only caused a slight increase in Cs-137 concentrations. The Cs-137 concentrations in 1984 were about 1 to 2 percent of the EPA drinking water concentration guide of 200 pCi/L. The concentration in Steel Creek is essentially the same as in 1980, before any major L Reactor refurbishing. The data obtained in 1984 indicate that initial Cs-137 remobilization estimates for Steel Creek are still valid.

This monthly report contains abstracts of the progress made in various projects from the applied technology section at the Savannah River Plant. Research areas include engineering modeling and simulation, applied physics, experimental thermal hydraulics, and packaging and transportation.

This report details the proposed E-N, tritium-plutonium producing reactor loading is made up of striped columns of lithium-aluminum (mint) target slugs and enriched uranium (.947 w/o U{sup 235}) slugs. Both target and uranium slugs are of the I & E geometry. The ratio of mint (N) to uranium (E) is determined by the requirement of sufficient k-excess to sustain an operable reactor. The designer of the lattice loading has a choice between natural lithium (7-5 w/o Li{sup 6}) or lithium enriched to {approximately} 38.5 w/o Li{sup 6} for the mint slugs, assuming enriched or ``black`` mint is available. It is possible to show at least 0.8% increase in total conversion ratio for an E-N load for enriched mint (38.5 w/o Li{sup 6}) over natural mint. The basis of the calculations rests on measured E-N length ratios for equivalent neutron multiplicative properties for both types of mint (in a dry pile) plus analytical calculations. It is shown that both increased Pu and H{sup 3} production are obtained by using blacker mint. The basic phenomena are (1) increased resonance capture in U{sup 238} due to more uranium volume in the black mint E-N lattice and (2) more efficient utilization of neutrons in …

This memo presents an analytical development for prediction of skew harmonics in a iron core C-magnet to due arbitrarily positioned electromagnet coils. A structured approach is presented for the suppression of an arbitrary number of harmonic components to arbitrarily low values. Application of the analytical harmonic strength calculations coupled to the structured harmonic suppression approach is presented in the context of the design of the ALS storage ring corrector magnets.

Task 2 (Preparation of the Sampling and Analysis Plan) activities involved the incorporation of the offshore site selection process into the Sampling and Analysis Plan. Task 3 (Environmental Field Sampling and Analysis of NORM, Heavy Metals, and Organics) work included making decisions on tissue analyses and performing analyses of water and sediment samples. Task 4 (Monitoring of the Recovery of Impacted Wetland and Open Bay Produced Water Discharge Sites in Coastal Louisiana and Texas) activities involved the completion of the spring benthos samples collection on pre-termination samples at Four Isle Dome and the first post-termination samples at Delacroix Island. Task 5 (Assessment of Economic Impacts of Offshore and Coastal Discharge Requirements on Present and Future Operations in the Gum of Mexico Region) activities included continued work on development of a base case production forecast, modeling future production, and determining economic impact of treatment technologies. Task 6 (Synthesis of Gulf of Mexico Seafood Consumption and Use Patterns) work involved the completion of the fall survey season and the initiation of the survey data assembly. Task 7 (Technology Transfer Plan) activities included presentations at the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry annual meeting and Minerals Management Service Information Transfer Meeting. Task 8 …

Many emergency response dispersion modeling systems provide simple Gaussian models driven by single meteorological tower inputs to estimate the downwind consequences from accidental spills or stack releases. Complex meteorological or terrain settings demand more sophisticated resolution of the three-dimensional structure of the atmosphere to reliably calculate plume dispersion. Mountain valleys and sea breeze flows are two common examples of such settings. To address these complexities, the authors have implemented the three-dimensional diagnostic MATHEW mass-adjusted wind field and ADPIC particle-in-cell dispersion models on a workstation for use in real-time emergency response modeling. MATHEW/ADPIC have shown their utility in a variety of complex settings over the last 15 years within the Department of Energy`s Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability (ARAC) project. The models are initialized using an array of surface wind measurements from meteorological towers coupled with vertical profiles from an acoustic sounder (sodar). The workstation automatically acquires the meteorological data every 15 minutes. A source term is generated using either defaults or a real-time stack monitor. Model outputs include contoured isopleths displayed on site geography or plume densities shown over 3-D color shaded terrain. The models are automatically updated every 15 minutes to provide the emergency response manager with a continuous display …

Redox operations and waste metal recovery are reported. Construction in the 100-H, 100-DR, P-10 area pile areas and in the 234-5, 241-BY waste storage, and redox areas, process areas and Richland village are described. Visitor information is given. And construction progress at Schenectady is reported.

This is a report on Analytical Services of the Pile Area Laboratories at Hanford. Pertinent facts are listed regarding the analytical services currently provided by the Analytical Section in the pile areas. The work of the Analytical Section in the pile areas may be classified into five categories as follows: Analysis of pile process water, analysis of power plant (boiler) waters, analysis of drinking water, analysis of columbia (non-process) and Yakima River water, and preparation of reagents and standard solutions.

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The performance and unique features of the RHIC polarized jet target and our solutions to the important design constraints imposed on the jet by the RHIC environment are described. The target polarization and thickness were measured to be 0.924 {+-} 2% and 1.3 {+-} 0.2 x 10{sup 12} atoms/cm{sup 2} respectively.

Background: Women who are diagnosed with breast cancer often self-administer complementary and alternative medicines to augment their conventional treatments, improve health, or prevent recurrence. Flor-Essence{reg_sign} Tonic is a complex mixture of herbal extracts used by cancer patients because of anecdotal evidence that it can treat or prevent disease. Methods: Female Sprague Dawley rats were given water or exposed to 3% or 6% Flor-Essence{reg_sign} beginning at one day of age. Mammary tumors were induced with a single oral 40 mg/kg/bw dose of dimethylbenz(a)anthracene at 50 days of age and sacrificed at 23 weeks. Rats were maintained on AIN-76A diet. Results: Control rats had palpable mammary tumor incidence of 51.0% at 19 weeks of age compared to 65.0% and 59.4% for the 3% and 6% Flor-Essence{reg_sign} groups respectively. Overall, no significant difference in time until first palpable tumor was detected among any of the groups. At necropsy, mammary tumor incidence was 82.5% for controls compared to 90.0% and 97.3% for rats consuming 3% and 6% Flor-Essence{reg_sign}, respectively. Mean mammary tumor multiplicity ({+-}SES) for the controls was 2.8 ({+-} 0.5) and statistically different from the 3% or 6% Flor- Essence{reg_sign} groups with 5.2 ({+-} 0.7), and 4.8 ({+-} 0.6), respectively (p{<=}0.01). As expected, …

Global temperature series have contributions from different sources, such as volcanic eruptions and El Nino Southern Oscillation variations. We investigate independent component analysis as a technique to separate unrelated sources present in such series. We first use artificial data, with known independent components, to study the conditions under which ICA can separate the individual sources. We then illustrate the method with climate data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

This project developed a prototype system that can rapidly differentiate between undirected cyber attacks, and those that have a more specific and concerning intent behind them. The system responds to important cyber attacks in a tactically significant way as the attack is proceeding. It is also creates a prioritized list for the human analysts allowing them to focus on the threats mostly likely to be of interest. In the recent years the volume of attacks over the internet has increased exponentially, as they have become more and more automated. The result of this is that real threats are harder and harder to distinguish from the general threat. It is possible with our current systems to identify network packets that originated from thousands of IP addresses as probing a site like LLNL in a single day. Human analysis of these threats does not result in information that can be used for tactical response because most of the attacks are short and over before the human starts the analysis. Only a very small percentage of attacks can even be evaluated manually due to the volume. This project developed methods, and prototyped tools, that can identify attacks, slow the attack down and aid …

We present a microscopic model of the interface between liquid water and a hydrophilic, solid surface, as obtained from ab-initio molecular dynamics simulations. In particular, we focused on the (100)surface of cubic SiC, a leading candidate semiconductor for bio-compatible devices. Our results show that, in the liquid in contact with the clean substrate, molecular dissociation occurs in a manner unexpectedly similar to that observed in the gas phase. After full hydroxylation takes place, the formation of a thin ({approx}3 {angstrom})interfacial layer is observed, which has higher density than bulk water and forms stable hydrogen bonds with the substrate. The liquid does not uniformly wet the surface, rather molecules preferably bind along directions parallel to the Si dimer rows. Our calculations also predict that one dimensional confinement between two hydrophilic surfaces at about 1.3 nm distance does not affect the structural and electronic properties of the whole water sample.

A series of coupled neutron-photon transport Monte-Carlo calculations was performed to estimate the roof shielding required to limit the skyshine dose to less than 1 mrem/y at the site boundary when conducting DT experiments with annual fusion yields up to 1200 MJ (4.2E20 neutrons/y). The NIF shielding design consists of many different components. The basic components include 10-cm-thick Al chamber with 40-cm-thick target chamber gunite shield having multiple penetrations, 1.83-m-thick concrete Target Bay walls, 1.37-m-thick concrete roof, and multiple concrete floors with numerous penetrations. Under this shielding configuration, the skyshine dose at the nearest site-boundary was calculated to be less than 0.2 mrem/y for all possible target illumination configurations. The potential dose at the site boundary would be about one-tenth of the cosmic neutron dose that we measured with bubble neutron detectors on board a commercial roundtrip flight from SF to Rochester. This incremental dose increase is well within the normal fluctuations (noise) of the natural background radiation in the Livermore area. The skyshine dose has no impact on the public. The skyshine dose trends at ground and elevated levels are plotted as a function of distance from 20 m to 1000 m from the center of the target bay. …

To determine the effect of ion-cyclotron heating on EBT-S plasma parameters, a one-dimensional, time dependent neoclassical model of plasma particle and energy transport was used. For EBT-S the code was run with the following parameters: B/sub O/ = 0.7 tesla (axial field at the midplane), B/sub O/ = 1.4 tesla (axial field at the throat), R/sub T/ = 150 cm (major radius), a = 15 cm (minor radius at the midplane).

The analyzing power A{sub N} for pp elastic scattering is expected to reach a peak value of 0.045 in the Coulomb Nuclear Interference (CNI) region at a momentum transfer -t of 0.003 (GeV/c){sup 2}. During the 2004 RHIC Run, we completed a measurement of A{sub N} in the CNI region by detecting the recoil protons from pp elastic scattering using a polarized atomic hydrogen gas jet target and the 100 GeV RHIC proton beam. We report the first measurements of the A{sub N} absolute value and shape in the -t range from 0.0015 to 0.010 (GeV/c){sup 2} with a precision better than 0.005 for each A{sub N} data point. The recoil protons were detected with two arrays of Si detectors. The absolute target polarization as monitored by a Breit-Rabi polarimeter was stable at 0.924 {+-} 0.018. This result allows us to further investigate the spin dependence of elastic pp scattering in the very low -t region.

Scientific applications already generate many terabytes and even petabytes of data from supercomputer runs and large-scale experiments. The need for transferring data chunks of ever-increasing sizes through the network shows no sign of abating. Hence, we need high-bandwidth high speed networks such as ESnet (Energy Sciences Network). Network reservation systems, i.e. ESnet's OSCARS (On-demand Secure Circuits and Advance Reservation System) establish guaranteed bandwidth of secure virtual circuits at a certain time, for a certain bandwidth and length of time. OSCARS checks network availability and capacity for the specified period of time, and allocates requested bandwidth for that user if it is available. If the requested reservation cannot be granted, no further suggestion is returned back to the user. Further, there is no possibility from the users view-point to make an optimal choice. We report a new algorithm, where the user specifies the total volume that needs to be transferred, a maximum bandwidth that he/she can use, and a desired time period within which the transfer should be done. The algorithm can find alternate allocation possibilities, including earliest time for completion, or shortest transfer duration - leaving the choice to the user. We present a novel approach for path finding in …

Savannah River Site has five dormant nuclear production reactors. Long term disposition will require filling some reactor buildings with grout up to ground level. Portland cement based grout will be used to fill the buildings with the exception of some reactor tanks. Some reactor tanks contain significant quantities of aluminum which could react with Portland cement based grout to form hydrogen. Hydrogen production is a safety concern and gas generation could also compromise the structural integrity of the grout pour. Therefore, it was necessary to develop a non-Portland cement grout to fill reactors that contain significant quantities of aluminum. Grouts generate heat when they set, so the potential exists for large temperature increases in a large pour, which could compromise the integrity of the pour. The primary purpose of the testing reported here was to measure heat of hydration, specific heat, thermal conductivity and density of various reactor grouts under consideration so that these properties could be used to model transient heat transfer for different pouring strategies. A secondary purpose was to make qualitative judgments of grout pourability and hardened strength. Some reactor grout formulations were unacceptable because they generated too much heat, or started setting too fast, or required …

We present a fourth-order accurate finite-volume method for solving time-dependent hyperbolic systems of conservation laws on Cartesian grids with multiple levels of refinement. The underlying method is a generalization of that in [5] to nonlinear systems, and is based on using fourth-order accurate quadratures for computing fluxes on faces, combined with fourth-order accurate Runge?Kutta discretization in time. To interpolate boundary conditions at refinement boundaries, we interpolate in time in a manner consistent with the individual stages of the Runge-Kutta method, and interpolate in space by solving a least-squares problem over a neighborhood of each target cell for the coefficients of a cubic polynomial. The method also uses a variation on the extremum-preserving limiter in [8], as well as slope flattening and a fourth-order accurate artificial viscosity for strong shocks. We show that the resulting method is fourth-order accurate for smooth solutions, and is robust in the presence of complex combinations of shocks and smooth flows.

In this work, the development of model-based feedback control that stabilizes an unstable equilibrium is obtained for the Modi ed Hasegawa-Wakatani (MHW) equations, a classic model in plasma turbulence. First, a balanced truncation (a model reduction technique that has proven successful in ow control design problems) is applied to obtain a low dimensional model of the linearized MHW equation. Then a modelbased feedback controller is designed for the reduced order model using linear quadratic regulators (LQR). Finally, a linear quadratic gaussian (LQG) controller, which is more resistant to disturbances is deduced. The controller is applied on the non-reduced, nonlinear MHW equations to stabilize the equilibrium and suppress the transition to drift-wave induced turbulence.

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