The scheduled 58-day refueling outage in preparation for the seventh operating cycle of the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) was successfully completed three days ahead of schedule. The planning and execution of the outage was greatly aided by Project/2 automated scheduling capabilities. For example, the use of ''maintenance windows'' and resource loading capabilities was particularly effective. The value of the planning process was demonstrated by the smooth transition into the outage phase after an early shutdown and set the stage for our best outage to date.

I discuss events in high energy hadron collisions that contain a hard scattering, in the sense that very heavy quarks or high P/sub T/ jets are produced, yet are diffractive, in the sense that one of the incident hadrons is scattered with only a small energy loss. 8 refs.

This report, prepared for the Chicago Operations Office and the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) of the US Department of Energy (DOE), identifies and analyzes legal, political, administrative, and operational issues that could affect an OCRWM decision to develop an overweight truck cask fleet for the commercial nuclear waste repository program. It also provides information required by DOE on vehicle size-and-weight administration and regulation, pertinent to nuclear waste shipments. Current legal-weight truck casks have a payload of one pressurized-water reactor spent fuel element or two boiling-water reactor spent fuel elements (1 PWR/2 BWR). For the requirements of the 1960s and 1970s, casks were designed with massive shielding to accommodate 6-month-old spent fuel; the gross vehicle weight was limited to 73,280 pounds. Spent fuel to be moved in the 1990s will have aged five years or more. Gross vehicle weight limitation for the Interstate highway system has been increased to 80,000 pounds. These changes allow the design of 25-ton legal-weight truck casks with payloads of 2 PWR/5 BWR. These changes may also allow the development of a 40-ton overweight truck cask with a payload of 4 PWR/10 BWR. Such overweight casks will result in significantly fewer highway shipments compared …

We are presently developing an ultrafast x-ray framing camera, to be used in laser fusion experiments on the NOVA facility at LLNL. The framing camera will provide high-fidelity images with frame durations of less than 100 ps. The first prototype camera will generate a single image approximately one square centimeter in area, with a spatial resolution of approx.30 microns at the image plane. Coupling the framing camera to a 22 x Wolter x-ray microscope will provide resolution at the target of approx.2 microns. The camera will be optically triggered using a laser pulse that is synchronous with the NOVA driver beams.

A brief description of the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) is given including the detector components and the data acquisition system. The first test run, the first events, and the performance of the detector are discussed. Finally the prospects for future running are reviewed.

Experiments that measure the strength of different transfer reactions in heavy reaction systems at energies in the vicinity of the Coulomb barrier are discussed. A short discussion is given of experimental techniques that are available in this field and their advantages and shortfalls. The main features of the transfer reactions are summarized. Questions concerning the system dependence and energy dependence of the strongest reaction channels are addressed. A systematic picture of the strength of the neutron transfer cross sections is presented. Some examples for correlations between fusion exchangement and transfer cross sections are given.

Experimental results on incomplete fusion for light systems are discussed by studying the velocity distribution of fusion-like residues in the energy range of 6 to 20 MeV/nucleon. Original experimental work and results from other groups including the Hahn-Meitner Institute and the Argonne National Laboratory are also cited. Reactions between /sup 14/N, /sup 16/O, /sup 19/F, and /sup 20,22/Ne projectiles and /sup 24,26/Mg, /sup 27/Al, /sup 28/Si, /sup 40/Ca and /sup 58,60/Ni targets have been studied. 19 refs., 15 figs., 1 tab.

This document reports all available dissolved gas concentration data for groundwaters from the Hanford Site as of June 1985. Details of the computational procedures required to reduce data obtained from the field measurements made by the Basalt Waste Isolation Project are provided in the appendix. Most measured values for methane concentration from reference repository boreholes are in the range of from 350 to 700 mg/L for the Cohassett flow top. Because of the uncertainties associated with these measurements, it is currently recommended that a conservative methane concentration of 1200 mg/L (methane saturated) in groundwater be considered the most reasonable upper-bounding value. 16 refs., 2 figs., 2 tabs.

An evaluation is given of DOE's recommendation of the Elk River complex in North Carolina for siting the second repository. Twelve recommendations are made including a strong suggestion that the Cherokee Tribe appeal both through political and legal avenues for inclusion as an affected area primarily due to projected impacts upon economy and public health as a consequence of the potential for reduced tourism.

Sodium tetraphenylborate and sodium titanate are used to assist in the concentration of soluble radionuclide in the Savannah River Plant's high-level waste. In the Defense Waste Processing Facility, concentrated tetraphenylborate/sodium titanate slurry containing cesium-137, strontium-90 and traces of plutonium from the waste tank farm is hydrolyzed in the Salt Processing Cell forming organic and aqueous phases. The two phases are then separated and the organic phase is decontaminated for incineration outside the DWPF building. The aqueous phase, containing the radionuclides and less than 10% of the original organic, is blended with the insoluble radionuclides in the high-level waste sludge and is fed to the glass melter for vitrification into borosilicate glass. During the Savannah River Laboratory's development of this process, copper (II) was found to act as a catalyst during the hydrolysis reactions, which improved the organic removal and simplified the design of the reactor.

We show that under very general conditions any inhomogeneous cosmological model with a positive cosmological constant, that can be described in a synchronous reference system will tend asymptotically in time towards the de Sitter solution. This is shown to be relevant in the context of inflationary models as it makes inflation very weakly dependent on initial conditions. 8 refs.

Wet storage has been the only licensed option for spent fuel management for US commercial power reactor operators, except for a period of commercial reprocessing at the Nuclear Fuel Services facility, 1965-71. Developments are underway to bring dry storage to licensed status on the US by mid-1986. However, wet storage will remain the predominant storage method, at least beyond the turn of the century. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 establishes current US policy regarding responsibilities for spent fuel management. The Nuclear Waste Confidence Rulemaking proceedings address the viability of extended wet storage for US reactors. US utilities have moved aggressively to implement optimized utilization of wet storage technology, assisted in some areas by federal programs. This paper summarizes US policy and regulatory aspects of wet storage and the status of several wet storage technology developments, including: dense racking, double tiering, credit for burnup in rack designs, transshipment, impacts of extended burnup, rod consolidation, and pool decommissioning.

An OZI suppressed channel with variable mass, namely the reaction ..pi../sup -/p ..-->.. phi phi n, has been used as a filter which allows resonating gluons or glueballs to pass, while strongly rejecting conventional quark-built hadronic states. The breakdown of the OZI suppression signals a glueball. Glueball mass and particle width estimates are discussed. Reasons why g/sub T/'s have not been seen in other channels, particularly the decay of J/psi, are considered. 34 refs., 9 figs. (LEW)

Muon fluence (muons cm/sup -2/) was measured downstream of the experimental area beamlines, just beyond the Fermilab site boundary at Route 38. The purpose of these measurements was to obtain an estimate of the yearly off-site radiation exposure to the general population due to accelerator-produced muons during the 1985 800 GeV run.

Ten 1-m long dipole magnets of the SSC design ''D'' cross section have been constructed and tested. In each model a collar type structure was used to contain and support the coil assembly at assembly and during operation at 4K. The collar structure must provide enough coil compression to minimize training and guarantee the coil cross section dimensions. Three types of collar designs were used. The behavior, measured and predicted, of two types of 15 mm stainless steel collars used on eight of the ten models is examined. The mechanical measurement of the 15 mm stainless steel collars used on eight 1-m dipole models are given. Observed behavior and preliminary design criteria are discussed. In order to better understand observed collar behavior and to evaluate new designs, finite element analysis of the collar designs was undertaken, and results are correlated with measured behavior. The behavior of alternate collar designs is predicted. 3 refs., 19 figs. (LEW)

The electrical characteristics of large lead-acid cells from nuclear power plants were studied. The overall goal was to develop nondestructive tests to predict cell failure using this easily obtained information. Cell capacitance, internal resistance, reaction resistance for hydrogen evolution and cell capacity were measured on a lead-calcium cell in good condition. A high float voltage and low internal resistance were found to correlate with good cell capacity in cells selected from a set of six lead-antimony cells in poor condition.

In measurements of fully-damped yields for the /sup 16/O + /sup 40,44Ca and /sup 32/S + /sup 24/Mg reactions, evidence for a fusion-fission reaction mechanism were found. The experiments were performed at the Argonne tandem-linac booster facility. Reaction products with masses 22 < A < 36 for the /sup 16/O + /sup 40,44Ca reactions and 10 < A < 28 for the /sup 32/S + /sup 24/Mg reaction were detected and identified using the time-of-flight technique. The /sup 16/O + /sup 40,44Ca reactions were measured at several center-of-mass energies from 49.5 to 62.5 MeV, while the /sup 32/S + /sup 24/Mg data were obtained at a single energy of E/sub cm/ = 60 MeV. The resulting total kinetic energies (calculated assuming two-body kinematics), angular distributions, and mass distributions of the fragments are found to be consistent with a fusion-fission reaction mechanism. An alternative explanation of the yields in terms of a deep-inelastic scattering mechanism is ruled out by the asymmetric nature of the mass distributions: the maximum cross section for the /sup 32/S + /sup 224/Mg reaction is detected in the mass 12 channel whereas the maximum cross sections for deep-inelastic scattering would be expected to occur near the target-projectile …

This device is a combined pressure relief valve and check valve providing overpressure protection and preventing back flow into an inert atmosphere enclosure. The pressure relief is embodied by a submerged vent line in a mercury reservior, the releif pressure being a function of the submerged depth. The pressure relief can be vented into an exhaust system and the relieving pressure is only slightly influenced by the varying pressure in the exhaust system. The check valve is embodied by a ball which floats on the mercury column and contacts a seat whenever vacuum exists within the glovebox enclosure. Alternatively, the check valve is embodied by a vertical column of mercury, the maximum back pressure being a function of the height of the column of mercury.

An overview is given of research programs at a two-stage light-gas gun facility. Representative gas-gun experiments are described, and the impact of this research on other LLNL programs and on high-pressure physics work in general are discussed. Particular applications reported include: measurement of equations of state for various materials, synthesis and study of novel materials, and studies of high explosives. Specialized diagnostic techniques for gas-gun experiments are reviewed. (LEW)

This report documents the seismic analyses performed by SMA for the MFTF-B Axicell vacuum vessel. In the course of this study we performed response spectrum analyses, CLASSI fixed-base analyses, and SSI analyses that included interaction effects between the vessel and vault. The response spectrum analysis served to benchmark certain modeling differences between the LLNL and SMA versions of the vessel model. The fixed-base analysis benchmarked the differences between analysis techniques. The SSI analyses provided our best estimate of vessel response to the postulated seismic excitation for the MFTF-B facility, and included consideration of uncertainties in soil properties by calculating response for a range of soil shear moduli. Our results are presented in this report as tables of comparisons of specific member forces from our analyses and the analyses performed by LLNL. Also presented are tables of maximum accelerations and relative displacements and plots of response spectra at various selected locations.

We review progress in the modeling of Ne-like-Se XRLs. Dielectronic recombination plays an important role in the level kinetics as well as in ionization balance. Refraction becomes important at target lengths greater than 2 cm by reducing signal at 0/sup 0/ view, and by having much larger signals emitted at a 10 to 20 mrad view. We predict success in scaling these systems to lower lambda with higher Z targets, but at great cost in required driver power.

Density functional theory is a form of many-body theory which maps the problem onto an equivalent single particle-like system by limiting to the ground state (or some limited ensemble). So it should be surprising that this ground state theory could have any relevance whatsoever to the excitation properties of a material - and yet it does when used carefully. However, the most interesting materials involve active orbitals which are at least partially localized in space and this has profound effects both on the ground state and the excitation spectrum. My long term interest is in Ce and actinide compounds such that the popular concerns are mixed valence, heavy fermions, and the various forms of magnetic transitions. Band structure calculations can give a great deal of information concerning the mechanisms and degree of the localization as shown by examples using the Ce and U Ll/sub 2/ structured materials and the Ce cubic Laves phase materials. There are some difficulties due to an incomplete knowledge of the functionals involved which causes an underestimate of the local character. This is illustrated and discussed.

Three laboratory-scale devices were utilized to investigate the mechanisms of the initiation, growth and sintering process involved in the formation of boiler deposits. Sticking apparatus investigations were conducted to study deposit initiation by comparing the adhesion behavior of the ash drops on four types of steel-based heat exchanger materials under the conditions found in a utility boiler and an entrained slagging gasifier. In addition, the adhesion behavior of the ash drops on a reduced steel surface were investigated. All the ash drops studied in this investigation were produced from bituminous coals.

Tests were conducted by Pacific Northwest Laboratory in FY 1984 to examine the influence of heat and radiation on the chemical environment of a high-level nuclear waste package in a repository in salt and to determine the solubility of key radionuclides in site-specific brines. These tests are part of an ongoing effort by the Waste Package Program, whose objective is to help develop a data base on package components and system interactions necessary to qualify a nuclear waste package for geologic disposal. Specifically, tests performed in FY 1984 involved alpha and gamma radiolysis of brines, americium solubility in brines, the influence of heat and radiation on rock salt, and the influence of temperature on brine chemistry.