Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and GrafTech International have collaborated to develop and demonstrate the performance of high temperature thermal insulation prototypes made from lignin-based carbon fibers. This project will potentially lead to the first commercial application of lignin-based carbon fibers (LBCF). The goal of the commercial application is to replace expensive, Chinese-sourced isotropic pitch carbon fibers with lower cost carbon fibers made from a domestically sourced, bio-derived (renewable) feedstock. LBCF can help recapture jobs that were previously exported to China while resolving a supply chain vulnerability and reducing the production cost for GrafTech s high temperature thermal insulation. The performance of the LBCF prototypes was measured and found to be comparable to that of the current commercial product. During production of the insulation prototypes, ORNL and GrafTech demonstrated lignin compounding/pelletization, fiber production, heat treatment, and compositing at scales far surpassing those previously demonstrated in LBCF R&D or production. A plan was developed for the commercialization of LBCF thermal insulation, with key milestones including qualification of multiple scalable lignin sources in 2013, tons-scale production and field testing by customers in 2014, and product launch as soon thereafter as production capabilities can be constructed and commissioned.

The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) has been working with the Savannah River Remediation (SRR) Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) in the development and implementation of a flammability control strategy for DWPF’s melter operation during the processing of Sludge Batch 8 (SB8). SRNL’s support has been in response to technical task requests that have been made by SRR’s Waste Solidification Engineering (WSE) organization. The flammability control strategy relies on measurements that are performed on Slurry Mix Evaporator (SME) samples by the DWPF Laboratory. Measurements of nitrate, oxalate, formate, and total organic carbon (TOC) standards generated by the DWPF Laboratory are presented in this report, and an evaluation of the uncertainties of these measurements is provided. The impact of the uncertainties of these measurements on DWPF’s strategy for controlling melter flammability also is evaluated. The strategy includes monitoring each SME batch for its nitrate content and its TOC content relative to the nitrate content and relative to the antifoam additions made during the preparation of the SME batch. A linearized approach for monitoring the relationship between TOC and nitrate is developed, equations are provided that integrate the measurement uncertainties into the flammability control strategy, and sample calculations for these equations are …

This study evaluates the business case for additional bulk electric energy storage in the Southern Company service territory for the year 2020. The model was used to examine how system operations are likely to change as additional storage is added. The storage resources were allowed to provide energy time shift, regulation reserve, and spinning reserve services. Several storage facilities, including pumped hydroelectric systems, flywheels, and bulk-scale batteries, were considered. These scenarios were tested against a range of sensitivities: three different natural gas price assumptions, a 15% decrease in coal-fired generation capacity, and a high renewable penetration (10% of total generation from wind energy). Only in the elevated natural gas price sensitivities did some of the additional bulk-scale storage projects appear justifiable on the basis of projected production cost savings. Enabling existing peak shaving hydroelectric plants to provide regulation and spinning reserve, however, is likely to provide savings that justify the project cost even at anticipated natural gas price levels. Transmission and distribution applications of storage were not examined in this study. Allowing new storage facilities to serve both bulk grid and transmission/distribution-level needs may provide for increased benefit streams, and thus make a stronger business case for additional storage.

This is a final deliverable report for the Advanced Spectral Analysis for Radioxenon project with a focus on radioxenon event categorization.

This is the manual for the Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative (CCSI) Technology Readiness Level Likelihood model based on PNNL velo.

This report summarizes the energy efficiency measures identified and implemented, and an analysis of the energy savings realized using low-cost/no-cost control system measures identified.

The objective of the ARM Science Board is to promote the Nation’s scientific enterprise by ensuring that the best quality science is conducted at the DOE’s User Facility known as the ARM Climate Research Facility. The goal of the User Facility is to serve scientific researchers by providing unique data and tools to facilitate scientific applications for improving understanding and prediction of climate science.

Feasibility tests were conducted using photogrammetry and laser technologies to estimate the volume of waste in a tank. These technologies were compared with video Camera/CAD Modeling System (CCMS) estimates; the current method used for post-retrieval waste volume estimates. This report summarizes test results and presents recommendations for further development and deployment of technologies to provide more accurate and faster waste volume estimates in support of tank retrieval and closure.

Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) contracted with HiLine Engineering & Fabrication, Inc. to assess the accuracy of photogrammetry tools as compared to video Camera/CAD Modeling System (CCMS) estimates. This test report documents the results of using photogrammetry to estimate the volume of waste in tank 241-C-I04 from post-retrieval videos and results using photogrammetry to estimate the volume of waste piles in the CCMS test video.

The Integrated Recycling Test is a collaborative irradiation test that will electrochemically recycle used light water reactor fuel into metallic fuel feedstock. The feedstock will be fabricated into a metallic fast reactor type fuel that will be irradiation tested in a drop in capsule test in the Advanced Test Reactor on the Idaho National Laboratory site. This paper will summarize the fuel fabrication activities and design efforts. Casting development will include developing a casting process and system. The closure welding system will be based on the gas tungsten arc burst welding process. The settler/bonder system has been designed to be a simple system which provides heating and controllable impact energy to ensure wetting between the fuel and cladding. The final major pieces of equipment to be designed are the weld and sodium bond inspection system. Both x-radiography and ultrasonic inspection techniques have been examine experimentally and found to be feasible, however the final remote system has not been designed. Conceptual designs for radiography and an ultrasonic system have been made.

One of the advantages of metallic fuel is the abilility to cast the fuel slugs to near net shape with little additional processing. However, the high aspect ratio of the fuel is not ideal for casting. EBR-II fuel was cast using counter gravity injection casting (CGIC) but, concerns have been raised concerning the feasibility of this process for americium bearing alloys. The Fuel Cycle Research and Development program has begun developing gravity casting techniques suitable for fuel production. Compared to CGIC gravity casting does not require a large heel that then is recycled, does not require application of a vacuum during melting, and is conducive to re-usable molds. Development has included fabrication of two separate benchscale, approximately 300 grams, systems. To shorten development time computer simulations have been used to ensure mold and crucible designs are feasible and to identify which fluid properties most affect casting behavior and therefore require more characterization.

N/A

None

The Saltstone facilities at the DOE Savannah River Site (SRS) stabilize and dispose of low-level radioactive salt solution originating from liquid waste storage tanks at the site. The Saltstone Production Facility (SPF) receives treated salt solution and mixes the aqueous waste with dry cement, blast furnace slag, and fly ash to form a grout slurry which is mechanically pumped into concrete disposal cells that compose the Saltstone Disposal Facility (SDF). The solidified grout is termed “saltstone”. Cementitious materials play a prominent role in the design and long-term performance of the SDF. The saltstone grout exhibits low permeability and diffusivity, and thus represents a physical barrier to waste release. The waste form is also reducing, which creates a chemical barrier to waste release for certain key radionuclides, notably Tc-99. Similarly, the concrete shell of an SDF disposal unit (SDU) represents an additional physical and chemical barrier to radionuclide release to the environment. Together the waste form and the SDU compose a robust containment structure at the time of facility closure. However, the physical and chemical state of cementitious materials will evolve over time through a variety of phenomena, leading to degraded barrier performance over Performance Assessment (PA) timescales of thousands to …

Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) analyzed solvent samples from Modular Caustic-Side Solvent Extraction Unit (MCU) in support of continuing operations. A quarterly analysis of the solvent is required to maintain solvent composition within specifications. Analytical results of the analyses of Solvent Hold Tank (SHT) samples MCU-13-143, MCU-13-144, MCU-13-145, MCU-13-146, MCU-13-147 and MCU-13-148 received 29 January 2012 are reported. The results show that the solvent at MCU does not require an Isopar® L addition, but it will require addition of trioctylamine. SRNL also analyzed the SHT sample for {sup 137}Cs content and determined the measured value is within tolerance and the value has returned to levels observed in 2012.

Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) software for producing linked virtual tours based on 360 degree panoramas are becoming more and more available. However, the best current products for taking the images, stitching them into 360 degree panoramas, and then linking them together into complex virtual tours require different and incompatible input and output formats. This program is designed to bridge the gap between the iPix Interactive Studio export format, which consists of a single JPEG with the six faces of a cube connected horizontally, with the six individual JPEGs needed to be imported into Panotour Pro software. This report describes how to use the software program Strip2CubeFace, which takes the cube-strip JPEG exported from iPix Studio and coverts it into six JPEGs representing the six cube faces that Panotour Pro imports. As such, it represents a necessary link between the two COTS software programs key to making virtual tours quickly and easily. It becomes one member of the suite of software programs known as %E2%80%9CRaPP-TOURS%E2%80%9D or Rapid Processing of PanoTours Software necessary to simulate managed access and other permission requesting arms control-type training exercises.

A greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory is a systematic approach to account for the production and release of certain gases generated by an institution from various emission sources. The gases of interest are those that climate science has identified as related to anthropogenic global climate change. This document presents an inventory of GHGs generated during Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 by Idaho National Laboratory (INL), a Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored entity, located in southeastern Idaho.

None

The state of the art in failure modeling enables assessment of crack nucleation, propagation, and progression to fragmentation due to high velocity impact. Vulnerability assessments suggest a need to track material behavior through failure, to the point of fragmentation and beyond. This eld of research is particularly challenging for structures made of porous quasi-brittle materials, such as ceramics used in modern armor systems, due to the complex material response when loading exceeds the quasi-brittle material's elastic limit. Further complications arise when incorporating the quasi-brittle material response in multi-material Eulerian hydrocode simulations. In this report, recent e orts in coupling a ceramic materials response in the post-failure regime with an Eulerian hydro code are described. Material behavior is modeled by the Kayenta material model [2]and Alegra as the host nite element code [14]. Kayenta, a three invariant phenomenological plasticity model originally developed for modeling the stress response of geologic materials, has in recent years been used with some success in the modeling of ceramic and other quasi-brittle materials to high velocity impact. Due to the granular nature of ceramic materials, Kayenta allows for signi cant pressures to develop due to dilatant plastic ow, even in shear dominated loading where traditional equations …

A binder system containing polyurethane precursors was used to in situ foam (direct foam) a (La{sub 0.6}Sr{sub 0.4}){sub 0.98} (Co{sub 0.2} Fe{sub 0.8})O{sub 3-{delta}} (LSCF) cathode composition upon a yttrium-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte coated with a porous #3;10 mm thick cathode active layer. The YSZ electrolyte was #3;110 mm in thickness, and a full cell was created by application of a Ni/(Ce{sub 0.9}Gd{sub 0.1})O{sub 2} cermet as the baseline anode. Cells possessing the foamed LSCF cathode were compared to cells constructed via standard methods in terms of resultant microstructure, electrochemical performance, and introceptive character. The foamed cathode tended to possess a high level of tortuous porosity which was ellipsoidal and interconnected in character. Both the standard and foamed cathode structures were subjected to an infiltration process, and the resultant microstructure was examined. The impregnation efficiency of the foamed cathode was at least #3;10% greater per deposition than that of an unfoamed porous LSCF cathode. The SOFC with the Pt nano-catalyst impregnated foamed cathode demonstrated a maximum power density of 593 mW/cm{sup 2} utilizing wet H{sub 2} fuel, which is 52% higher than a SOFC with the baseline Pt-impregnated LSCF cathode (#3;390 mW/cm{sup 2}) at 800 {degrees}C. The cathode compositional and …

The objective of the United States (U.S.) Department of Energy�s (DOEs) Advanced Vehicle Testing and Evaluation (AVTE) project was to provide test and evaluation services for advanced technology vehicles, to establish a performance baseline, to determine vehicle reliability, and to evaluate vehicle operating costs in fleet operations. Vehicles tested include light and medium-duty vehicles in conventional, hybrid, and all-electric configurations using conventional and alternative fuels, including hydrogen in internal combustion engines. Vehicles were tested on closed tracks and chassis dynamometers, as well as operated on public roads, in fleet operations, and over prescribed routes. All testing was controlled by procedures developed specifically to support such testing. Testing and evaluations were conducted in the following phases: � Development of test procedures, which established testing procedures; � Baseline performance testing, which established a performance baseline; � Accelerated reliability testing, which determined vehicle reliability; � Fleet testing, used to evaluate vehicle economics in fleet operation, and � End of test performance evaluation. Test results are reported by two means and posted by Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to their website: quarterly progress reports, used to document work in progress; and final test reports. This final report documents work conducted for the entirety of the …

In Hanford underground waste storage tanks, a typical waste configuration is settled beds of waste particles beneath liquid layers. The settled beds are typically composed of layers, and these layers can have different physical and chemical properties. One postulated configuration within the settled bed is a less-dense layer beneath a more-dense layer. The different densities can be a result of different gas retention in the layers or different degrees of settling and compaction in the layers. This configuration can experience a Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability where the less dense lower layer rises into the upper layer. Previous studies of gas retention and release have not considered potential buoyant motion within a settle bed of solids. The purpose of this report is to provide a review of RT instabilities, discuss predictions of RT behavior for sediment layers, and summarize preliminary experimental observations of RT instabilities in simulant experiments.

Uranium can be recovered from uranium oxide (UO2) spent fuel through the combination of the oxide reduction and electrorefining processes. During oxide reduction, the spent fuel is introduced to molten LiCl-Li2O salt at 650 degrees C and the UO2 is reduced to uranium metal via two routes: (1) electrochemically, and (2) chemically by lithium metal (Li0) that is produced electrochemically. However, the hygroscopic nature of both LiCl and Li2O leads to the formation of LiOH, contributing hydroxyl anions (OH-), the reduction of which interferes with the Li0 generation required for the chemical reduction of UO2. In order for the oxide reduction process to be an effective method for the treatment of uranium oxide fuel, the role of moisture in the LiCl-Li2O system must be understood. The behavior of moisture in the LiCl-Li2O molten salt system was studied using cyclic voltammetry, chronopotentiometry and chronoamperometry, while reduction to hydrogen was confirmed with gas chromatography.

Methods and algorithms are developed to enable the accurate analysis of problems that exhibit interacting physical processes with uncertainties. These uncertainties can pertain either to each of the physical processes or to the manner in which they depend on each others. These problems are cast within a polynomial chaos framework and their solution then involves either solving a large system of algebraic equations or a high dimensional numerical quadrature. In both cases, the curse of dimensionality is manifested. Procedures are developed for the efficient evaluation of the resulting linear equations that advantage of the block sparse structure of these equations, resulting in a block recursive Schur complement construction. In addition, embedded quadratures are constructed that permit the evaluation of very high-dimensional integrals using low-dimensional quadratures adapted to particular quantities of interest. The low-dimensional integration is carried out in a transformed measure space in which the quantity of interest is low-dimensional. Finally, a procedure is also developed to discover a low-dimensional manifold, embedded in the initial high-dimensional one, in which scalar quantities of interest exist. This approach permits the functional expression of the reduced space in terms of the original space, thus permitting cross-scale sensitivity analysis.