We describe a coded-aperture based, gamma-ray imager that uses a unique hybrid germanium detector system. A planar, germanium strip detector, eleven millimeters thick is followed by a coaxial detector. The 19 x 19 strip detector (2 mm pitch) is used to determine the location and energy of low energy events. The location of high energy events are determined from the location of the Compton scatter in the planar detector and the energy is determined from the sum of the coaxial and planar energies. With this geometry, we obtain useful quantum efficiency in a position-sensitive mode out to 500 keV. The detector is used with a 19 x 17 URA coded aperture to obtain spectrally resolved images in the gamma-ray band. We discuss the performance of the planar detector, the hybrid system and present images taken of laboratory sources.

The Steven Test was developed to determine relative impact sensitivity of metal encased solid high explosives and also be amenable to two-dimensional modeling. Low level reaction thresholds occur at impact velocities below those required for shock initiation. To assist in understanding this test, multi-dimensional gauge techniques utilizing carbon foil and carbon resistor gauges were used to measure pressure and event times. Carbon resistor gauges indicated late time low level reactions 200-540 {micro}s after projectile impact, creating 0.39-2.00 kb peak shocks centered in PBX 9501 explosives discs and a 0.60 kb peak shock in a LX-04 disk. Steven Test modeling results, based on ignition and growth criteria, are presented for two PBX 9501 scenarios: one with projectile impact velocity just under threshold (51 m/s) and one with projectile impact velocity just over threshold (55 m/s). Modeling results are presented and compared to experimental data.

Single solid-state devices or arrays of solid-state devices are being incorporated into many pulsed power applications as a means of generating fast, high-power, high repetition-rate pulses and ultimately replacing hard tubes and thyratrons. While vendors' data sheets provide a starting point for selecting solid-state devices, most data sheets do not have sufficient information to determine performance in a pulsed application. To obtain this relevant information, MOSFET's and IGBT's from a number of vendors have been tested to determine rise times, fall times and current handling capabilities. The emphasis is on the evaluation of devices that can perform in the range of 100ns pulse widths and the test devices must be capable of switching 1000 volts or greater at a pulsed current of at least 25 amperes. Additionally, some devices were retest with a series magnetic switch to evaluate the effects on switching parameters and specifically rise times. All devices were evaluated under identical conditions and the complete test results are presented.

The National Ignition Facility (NIF), currently under construction at the University of California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a 192-beam, 1.8-Megajoule, 500-Terawat, 351-nm laser for inertial confinement fusion and high energy density experimental studies. NIF is being built by the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Agency to provide an experimental test bed for the U.S. Stockpile Stewardship Program to ensure the country's nuclear deterrent without underground nuclear testing. A number of significant technology breakthroughs have been achieved in the course of designing NIF. This presentation will discuss some of the technology challenges and solutions that have made NIF possible.

This paper presents a triple-continuum conceptual model forsimulating flow and transport processes in fractured rock. Field datacollected from the unsaturated zone of Yucca Mountain, a repository siteof high-level nuclear waste, show a large number of small-scalefractures. The effect of these small fractures has not been considered inprevious modeling investigations within the context of a continuumapproach. A new triple-continuum model (consisting of matrix,small-fracture, and large-fracture continua) has been developed toinvestigate the effect of these small fractures. This paper derives themodel formulation and discusses the basic triple-continuum behavior offlow and transport processes under different conditions, using bothanalytical solutions and numerical approaches. The simulation resultsfrom the site-scale model of the unsaturated zone of Yucca Mountainindicate that these small fractures may have an important effect onradionuclide transport within the mountain

The objective of the present work is to study and model the interfacial structure development of air-water two-phase flow in a confined test section. Experiments of a total of 9 flow conditions in a cap-turbulent and churn-turbulent flow regimes are carried out in a vertical air-water upward two-phase flow experimental loop with a test section of 20-cm in width and 1-cm in gap. The miniaturized four-sensor conductivity probes are used to measure local two-phase parameters at three different elevations for each flow condition. The bubbles captured by the probes are categorized into two groups in view of the two-group interfacial area transport equation, i.e., spherical/distorted bubbles as Group 1 and cap/churn-turbulent bubbles as Group 2. The acquired parameters are time-averaged local void fraction, interfacial velocity, bubble number frequency, interfacial area concentration, and bubble Sauter mean diameter for both groups of bubbles. Also, the line-averaged and area-averaged data are presented and discussed. The comparisons of these parameters at different elevations demonstrate the development of interfacial structure along the flow direction due to bubble interactions.

Electric motor systems are widely used in China to power fans, pumps, blowers, air compressors, refrigeration compressors, conveyers, machinery, and many other types of equipment. Overall, electric motor systems consume more than 600 billion kWh annually, accounting for more than 50 percent of China's electricity use. There are large opportunities to improve the efficiency of motor systems. Electric motors in China are approximately 2-4 percent less efficient on average than motors in the U.S. and Canada. Fans and pumps in China are approximately 3-5 percent less efficient than in developed countries. Even more importantly, motors, fans, pumps, air compressors and other motor-driven equipment are frequently applied with little attention to system efficiency. More optimized design, including appropriate sizing and use of speed control strategies, can reduce energy use by 20 percent or more in many applications. Unfortunately, few Chinese enterprises use or even know about these energy-saving practices. Opportunities for motor system improvements are probably greater in China than in the U.S. In order to begin capturing these savings, China is establishing a China Motor Systems Energy Conservation Program. Elements of this program include work to develop minimum efficiency standards for motors, a voluntary ''green motor'' labeling program for high-efficiency …

General features of the spectra of matter states in all 175 models found in a previous work by the author are discussed. Only twenty patterns of representations are found to occur. Accomodation of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) spectrum is addressed. States beyond those contained in the MSSM and nonstandard hypercharge normalization are shown to be generic, though some models do allow for the usual hypercharge normalization found in SU(5) embeddings of the Standard Model gauge group. The minimum value of the hypercharge normalization consistent with accommodation of the MSSM is determined for each model. In some cases, the normalization can be smaller than that corresponding to an SU(5) embedding of the Standard Model gauge group, similar to what has been found in free fermionic models. Bizarre hypercharges typically occur for exotic states, allowing for matter which does not occur in the decomposition of SU(5) representations--a result which has been noted many times before in four-dimensiona lstring models. Only one of the twenty patterns of representations, comprising seven of the 175 models, is found to be without an anomalous U(1). The sizes of nonvanishing vacuum expectation values induced by the anomalous U(1) are studied. It is found that large …

This paper presents the application of parallel computing techniques to large-scale modeling of fluid flow in the unsaturated zone (UZ) at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. In this study, parallel computing techniques, as implemented into the TOUGH2 code, are applied in large-scale numerical simulations on a distributed-memory parallel computer. The modeling study has been conducted using an over-one-million-cell three-dimensional numerical model, which incorporates a wide variety of field data for the highly heterogeneous fractured formation at Yucca Mountain. The objective of this study is to analyze the impact of various surface infiltration scenarios (under current and possible future climates) on flow through the UZ system, using various hydrogeological conceptual models with refined grids. The results indicate that the one-million-cell models produce better resolution results and reveal some flow patterns that cannot be obtained using coarse-grid modeling models.

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Houses do not perform optimally or even as many codes and forecasts predict. For example, Walker et al. (1998a) found large variations in thermal distribution system efficiency, as much as a factor of two even between side-by-side houses with the same system design and installation crew. This and other studies (e.g., Jump et al. 1996) indicate that duct leakage testing and sealing can readily achieve a 25 to 30% reduction in installed cooling capacity and energy consumption. As another example, consider that the building industry has recognized for at least 20 years the substantial impact that envelope airtightness has on thermal loads, energy use, comfort, and indoor air quality. However, Walker et al. (1998a) found 50% variances in airtightness for houses with the same design and construction crews, within the same subdivision. A substantial reason for these problems is that few houses are now built or retrofitted using formal design procedures, most are field assembled from a large number of components, and there is no consistent process to identify problems or to correct them. Solving the problems requires field performance evaluations of houses using appropriate and agreed upon procedures. Many procedural elements already exist in a fragmented environment; some are …

This research investigates a control system for HCCI engines, where equivalence ratio, fraction of EGR and intake pressure are adjusted as needed to obtain satisfactory combustion. HCCI engine operation is analyzed with a detailed chemical kinetics code, HCT (Hydrodynamics, Chemistry and Transport), that has been extensively modified for application to engines. HCT is linked to an optimizer that determines the operating conditions that result in maximum brake thermal efficiency, while meeting the peak cylinder pressure restriction. The results show the values of the operating conditions that yield optimum efficiency as a function of torque and rpm. The engine has high NO{sub x} emissions for high power operation, so the possibility of switching to stoichiometric operation for high torque conditions is considered. Stoichiometric operation would allow the use of a three-way catalyst to reduce NO{sub x} emissions to acceptable levels. Finally, the paper discusses the possibility of transitioning from HCCI operation to SI operation to achieve high power output.

The use of ultrafast laser pulses to generate very high brightness, ultra short (fs to ps) pulses of x-rays is a topic of great interest to the x-ray user community. In principle, femtosecond-scale pump-probe experiments can be used to temporally resolve structural dynamics of materials on the time scale of atomic motion. The development of sub-ps x-ray pulses will make possible a wide range of materials and plasma physics studies with unprecedented time resolution. A current project at LLNL will provide such a novel x-ray source based on Thomson scattering of high power, short laser pulses with a high peak brightness, relativistic electron bunch. The system is based on a 5 mm-mrad normalized emittance photoinjector, a 100 MeV electron RF linac, and a 300 mJ, 35 fs solid-state laser system. The Thomson x-ray source produces ultra fast pulses with x-ray energies capable of probing into high-Z metals, and a high flux per pulse enabling single shot experiments. The system will also operate at a high repetition rate ({approx} 10 Hz).

Wavelet Analysis provides an orthogonal basis set which is localized in both the physical space and the Fourier transform space. We present here a domain decomposition method that uses wavelet analysis to maintain roughly uniform error throughout the computation domain while keeping the computational work balanced in a parallel computing environment.

Beam-envelope radius, envelope angle, and beam emittance can be derived from measurements of beam radius for at least three different transport conditions. We have used this technique to reconstruct exit parameters from the FXR injector and accelerator. We use a diamagnetic loop (DML) to measure the magnetic moment of the high current beam. With no assumptions about radial profile, we can derive the beam mean squire radius from the moment under certain easily met conditions. Since it is this parameter which is required for the reconstruction, it is evident that the DML is the ideal diagnostic for this technique. The simplest application of this technique requires at least three shots for a reconstruction but in reality requires averaging over many more shots because of shot to shot variation. Since DML measurements do not interfere with the beam, single shot time resolved measurements of the beam parameters appear feasible if one uses an array of at least three DMLs separated by known transport conditions.

A better understanding of thermal cook-off is important for safe handling and storing explosive devices. A number of safety issues exist about what occurs when a cased explosive thermally cooks off. For example, violence of the events as a function of confinement are important for predictions of collateral damage. This paper demonstrates how adjacent materials can be gauged to measure the resulting pressure wave and how this wave propagates in this adjacent material. The output pulse from the thermal cook-off explosive containing fixture is of obvious interest for assessing many scenarios.

In 1999, we presented our plan to upgrade the adaptive optics (AO) system on the Lick Observatory Shane telescope (3m) from a prototype instrument pressed into field service to a facility instrument. This paper updates the progress of that plan and details several important improvements in the alignment and calibration of the AO bench. The paper also includes a discussion of the problems seen in the original design of the tip/tilt (t/t) sensor used in laser guide star mode, and how these problems were corrected with excellent results.

The location of the ionization front in a generic, detached plasma has been studied in a two-dimensional slab geometry by varying the core plasma density and input heating power. The ratio of the recombination to ionization current and the momentum losses in the computational domain have been used to quantify the degree of detachment. Contours of constant ratio of these parameter in the core plasma density--heating power parameter space show that at high input power higher momentum losses can be achieved even at low density. High fraction of recombination, however, require high core densities to sufficiently separate the plasma from the target plate.

Article on the solubility of pyrene in ternary propanol + butanol + 2,2,4-trimethylpentane solvent mixtures at 299.15 K.

A simple mathematical technique for improving mass calibration accuracy of linear delayed extraction matrix assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (DE MALDI-TOF MS) spectra is presented. The method involves fitting a parabola to a plot of Dm vs. mass data where Dm is the difference between the theoretical mass of calibrants and the mass obtained from a linear relationship between the square root of m/z and ion time of flight. The quadratic equation that describes the parabola is then used to correct the mass of unknowns by subtracting the deviation predicted by the quadratic equation from measured data. By subtracting the value of the parabola at each mass from the calibrated data, the accuracy of mass data points can be improved by factors of 10 or more. This method produces highly similar results whether or not initial ion velocity is accounted for in the calibration equation; consequently, there is no need to depend on that uncertain parameter when using the quadratic correction. This method can be used to correct the internally calibrated masses of protein digest peaks. The effect of nitrocellulose as a matrix additive is also briefly discussed, and it is shown that using nitrocellulose as an additive …

CYP1B1 expression in non-tumor breast tissue from breast cancer patients and cancer-free individuals was determined to test the hypothesis that high CYP1B1 expression is a risk factor for breast cancer. Large interindividual variations in CYP1B1 expression were found with CYP1B1 levels notably higher in breast cancer patients than cancer-free individuals. The results indicate that CYP1B1 might play a role in breast cancer either through increased PAH activation or through metabolism of endogenous estrogen to a carcinogenic derivative.

In 1996, the US Department of Energy s Office of Industrial Technologies (OIT) Motor Challenge program began a unique collaboration with industry called the Allied Partner program. Partnerships were sought with equipment suppliers and manufacturers, utilities, consultants, and state agencies that had extensive existing relationships with industrial customers. Partners were neither paid nor charged a fee for participation. The assumption was that these relationships could serve as the foundation for conveying a motor system efficiency message to many more industrial facilities than could be reached through a typical government-to-end-user program model. A substantial effort was made to engage industrial suppliers in delivering program information as part of their customer interactions. A recent independent evaluation of the Motor Challenge program attributes $16.9 million or nearly 67 percent of the total annual program energy savings to the efforts of Allied Partners in the first three years of operation.In 1997, the Compressed Air Challenge(R) (CAC) was developed as an outgrowth of the partnership concept. In this model, OIT is one of 15 sponsors who collaborated to create a national program of compressed air system training. The CAC has gone a step further by setting up a development and deployment model based on shared …

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Plugging of flow paths caused by mineral precipitation in fractures above the potential repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, would reduce the probability of water seeping into the repository. As part of an ongoing effort to evaluate thermal-hydrologic-chemical (THC) effects on flow in fractured media, we performed a laboratory experiment and numerical simulations to investigate mineral dissolution and precipitation under anticipated temperature and pressure conditions in the repository. To replicate mineral dissolution by vapor condensate in fractured tuff, water was flowed through crushed Yucca Mountain tuff at 94 C. The resulting steady-state fluid composition had a total dissolved solids content of about 140 mg/L; silica was the dominant dissolved constituent. A portion of the steady-state mineralized water was flowed into a vertically oriented planar fracture in a block of welded Topopah Spring Tuff that was maintained at 80 C at the top and 130 C at the bottom. The fracture began to seal with amorphous silica within five days. A 1-D plug-flow numerical model was used to simulate mineral dissolution, and a similar model was developed to simulate the flow of mineralized water through a planar fracture, where boiling conditions led to mineral precipitation. Predicted concentrations of the major dissolved constituents …