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Target survival in the hostile, high temperature xenon environment of the proposed Laser Inertial Fusion Energy (LIFE) engine is critical. This work focuses on the flow properties and convective heat load imposed upon the surface of the indirect drive target while traveling through the xenon gas. While this rarefied flow is traditionally characterized as being within the continuum regime, it is approaching transition where conventional CFD codes reach their bounds of operation. Thus ANSYS, specifically the Navier-Stokes module CFX, will be used in parallel with direct simulation Monte Carlo code DS2V and analytically and empirically derived expressions for heat transfer to the hohlraum for validation. Comparison of the viscous and thermal boundary layers of ANSYS and DS2V were shown to be nearly identical, with the surface heat flux varying less than 8% on average. From the results herein, external baffles have been shown to reduce this heat transfer to the sensitive laser entrance hole (LEH) windows and optimize target survival independent of other reactor parameters.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "On April 20, 2010, an explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig leased by BP America Production Company (BP) resulted in a significant oil spill. GAO was requested to (1) identify the financial risks to the federal government resulting from oil spills, particularly Deepwater Horizon, (2) assess the Coast Guard's internal controls for ensuring that processes and payments for spill-related cost reimbursements and claims related to the spill are appropriate, and (3) describe the extent to which the federal government oversees the BP and Gulf Coast Claims Facility cost reimbursement and claims processes. We issued status reports in November 2010 and April 2011. This is the third and final report related to these objectives. We obtained and analyzed data on costs incurred from April 2010 through May 2011 and claims submitted and processed from September 2010 through May 2011. We reviewed relevant policies and procedures, interviewed officials and staff at key federal departments and agencies, and tested a sample of claims processed and cost reimbursements paid for compliance with internal controls.."

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The ability of water managers to maintain adequate supplies in the coming decades depends on future weather conditions, as climate change has the potential to reduce stream flows from their current values due to potentially less precipitation and higher temperatures, and possibly rendering them unable to meet demand. The upper Coosa River basin, located in northwest Georgia, plays an important role in supplying water for industry and domestic use in northern Georgia, and has been involved in water disputes in recent times. The seven-day ten-year low flow (7Q10 flow) is the lowest average flow for seven consecutive days that has an average recurrence interval of 10 years. The 7Q10 flow is statistically derived from the observed historical flow data, and represents the low flow (drought) condition for a basin. The upper Coosa River basin also supplies cooling water for the 935MW coal-fired Hammond plant, which draws about 65% of the 7Q10 flow of the upper Coosa River to dissipate waste heat. The water is drawn through once and returned to the river directly from the generator (i.e., no cooling tower is used). Record low flows in 2007 led to use of portable cooling towers to meet temperature limits. Disruption of …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In recent years, the United States experienced public health crises suspected to have been caused by the deliberate substitution or addition of harmful ingredients in food and drugs--specifically melamine in pet food and oversulfated chondroitin sulfate in the blood thinner heparin. These ingredients were evidently added to increase the apparent value of these products or reduce their production costs, an activity GAO refers to as economic adulteration. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has responsibility for protecting public health by ensuring the safety of a wide range of products that are vulnerable to economic adulteration. This report examines (1) the approaches that FDA uses to detect and prevent economic adulteration of food and medical products and (2) the challenges FDA faces in detecting and preventing economic adulteration and views of stakeholders on options for FDA to enhance its efforts to address economic adulteration. GAO reviewed FDA documents and interviewed FDA officials and stakeholders from academia and industry, among others.."

This letter report documents interim activities that have been completed at CAU 114 to support ongoing access and generate information necessary to plan future closure activities. General housekeeping and cleanup of debris was conducted in the EMAD yard, cold bays, support areas of Building 3900, and postmortem cell tunnel area of the hot bay. All non-asbestos ceiling tiles and loose and broken non-friable asbestos floor tiles were removed from support galleries and office areas. Non-radiologically contaminated piping and equipment in the cold areas of the building and in the two 120-ton locomotives in the yard were tapped, characterized, drained, and verified free of contents.

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A study has been carried out to understand how the NIST research reactor (NBSR) might be converted from using high-enriched uranium (HEU) to using low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. An LEU fuel design had previously been determined which provides an equilibrium core with the desirable fuel cycle length—a very important parameter for maintaining the experimental, scientific program supported by the NBSR. In the present study two options for getting to the equilibrium state are considered. One option starts with the loading of an entire core of fresh fuel. This was determined to be unacceptable. The other option makes use of the current fuel management scheme wherein four fresh fuel elements are loaded at the beginning of each cycle. However, it is shown that without some alterations to the fuel cycle, none of the transition cores containing both HEU and LEU fuel have sufficient excess reactivity to enable reactor operation for the required amount of time. It was determined that operating the first mixed cycle for a sufficiently reduced length of time provides the excess reactivity which enables subsequent transition cycles to be run for the desired number of days.

The ability to monitor the integrity of gas volumes is of interest to the stockpile surveillance community. Specifically, the leak detection of noble gases, at relevant concentration ranges and distinguished from other chemical species that may be simultaneously present, is particularly challenging. Aside from the laboratory-based method of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), where samples may be collected by solid-phase microextraction (SPME) or cryofocusing, the other major approaches for gas-phase detection employ lasers typically operating in the mid-infrared wavelength region. While mass spectrometry can readily detect noble gases - the helium leak detector is an obvious example - laser-based methods such as infrared (IR) or Raman spectroscopy are completely insensitive to them as their monatomic nature precludes a non-zero dipole moment or changes in polarizability upon excitation. Therefore, noble gases can only be detected by one of two methods: (1) atomic emission spectroscopies which require the generation of plasmas through laser-induced breakdown, electrical arcing, or similar means; (2) non-spectroscopic methods which measure one or more physical properties (e.g., mass, thermal conductivity, density). In this report, we present our progress during Fiscal Year 2011 (FY11) in the research and development of a non-spectroscopic method for noble gas detection. During Fiscal Year 2010 …