Further investigations of the initiation of pyrolysis by a solid surface using a variety of catalysts with different surface areas and compositions were carried out during this reporting period. The effects of catalyst surface area, reaction temperature, and presence of ethane have been addressed. In general, catalysts such as {alpha}-A1{sub 2}O{sub 3},SiC, or hexaaluminates were found able to lower the reaction temperature but led to increased {open_quotes}tar{close_quotes} formation. The addition of ethane increased further the conversion at the higher temperatures and lowered the amount of {open_quotes}tar{close_quotes}. There appears to be no correlation between catalytic surface area and activity/selectivity for methane conversion.

An in situ heater test was performed at G-Tunnel, Nevada Nuclear Test Site, to investigate the thermal-hydrological response of unsaturated, fractured volcanic tuff under conditions similar to those at Yucca Mountain. The NUFT flow and transport code was used to model the test using discrete-fracture and equivalent-continuum approaches. Nonequilibrium fracture flow and thermal buoyant gas-phase convection were found to be the likely causes for observed lack of condensate imbibition into the matrix. The potential repository at Yucca Mountain was also modeled. Disequilibrium fracture flow is predicted to occur for less than a hundred years after emplacement followed by a period of fracture-matrix equilibrium, during which the equivalent-continuum and discrete-fracture models give almost identical results.

Perfluoropolyethers (PFPEs) are a commercial class of lubricants widely used in computer and aerospace industries. This is a study of the degradation of a perfluorinated ether in the presence of a metal fluoride. Perfluorodiethoxymethane (PFDEM) is a PFPE analog. Temperature programmed desorption shows no contribution of PFDEM toward nickel fluoride on an NiF{sub 2} surface obtained by CF{sub 3}I adsorption. Higher coverages of nickel fluoride do not show any evidence of NiF{sub 2} contribution from PFDEM. The results do not agree with the idea that a fluorinated surface might induce decomposition of PFPEs, leading to addition fluoride formation on the surface. The metal fluoride bond strength is not a legitimate concern for decomposition of PFE lubricants. Impurity in PFPEs might be the cause of initial surface fluoridation leading to breakdown of PFPEs which could cause additional metal fluoride formation. It is clear that the reaction of PFPEs with metals does not involve a direct formation of a simple M-F bond; results do not show any C-F bond cleavage of the fluorinated ether and do not support a proposed autocatalytic mechanism.

This annual report details activities for TRP Flip Chip Attached Project. The IBM/Universal Instruments team has completed the first year effort on the Electrically Conductive Adhesive Flip Chip Attach project. IBM-Yorktown has worked closely with IBM Endicott to develop a Polymer Metal Solvent Paste (PMSP) that can be processed to form a cylindrically shaped deposit. IBM Endicott has done extensive work on bonding. This work has identified the key parameters to bond a Polymer Metal Composite (PMC) bumped die to a substrate.

The application of glow discharges to the analysis of nonconducting materials such as glasses and ceramics is of great interest due to the number of advantages afforded by their direct solids capabilities. These types of samples, by their chemical nature, pose difficulties in dissolution for their subsequent analysis by common spectroscopic instrumental methods such as inductively coupled plasma atomic emission (ICP-AES). The ability of the glow discharge to sputter-atomize and excite solid nonconducting materials greatly reduces sample preparation time, cost, and complexity of an analysis. In comparison with x-ray spectroscopies, GD also provides the advantage of a relatively uniform sample atomization rate, resulting in a lowering of matrix effects. In a traditional direct current glow discharge (dc-GD), the material to be analyzed must first be ground and thoroughly mixed with a conductive host matrix and pressed into a solid pellet. Additionally, atmospheric gases which are often trapped in the sample upon pressing can degrade the quality of the plasma and obscure analytical results by reducing sputtering rates and affecting excitation conditions. Internal standardization has been carried out in both atomic absorption and emission dc-GD analyses in order to improve precision and accuracy which are affected by these problems.

Our lab has been working with plasma spraying of both high pressure gas atomized (HPGA) and cast and crushed quasicrystal powders. A major component of this research includes comparative studies of PAS coatings formed with starting powders prepared by both techniques. In addition, a thorough investigation of the effects of starting powder particle size on coating microstructure is included. During the course of the overall research, an interest developed in forming Al-Cu-Fe materials with finer grain sizes. Therefore, a brief study was performed to characterize the effect of adding boron to Al-Cu-Fe materials prepared by different techniques. In addition to characterizing the microstructural features of the above materials, oxidation and wear behavior was also examined.

This analysis is prepared by the Mined Geologic Disposal System (MGDS) Waste Package Development Department (WPDD) as specified in the Waste Package Implementation Plan and Waste Package Plan. The design data request addressed herein is: (1) Characterize the conceptual 40 BWR Multi-Purpose Canister (MPC) Waste Package (WP) design to show that the design is feasible for use in the MGDS environment. The purpose of this analysis is to respond to a concern that the long-term disposal thermal issues for the Multi-Purpose Canister (MPC) Subsystem Design do not preclude MPC compatibility with the MGDS. The objective of this analysis is to provide thermal parameter information for the conceptual MPC design with disposal container under nominal MGDS repository conditions. The results are intended to show that the design has a reasonable chance to meet the MGDS design requirements for normal MGDS operation and to provide the required guidance to determining the major design issues for future design efforts. Future design efforts focus on specific MPC vendor design when they become available.

Heavy duty truck engines must meet stringent life cycle cost and regulatory requirements. Meeting these requirements has resulted in convergence on 4-stroke 6-in-line, turbocharged, and after-cooled engines with direct-injection combustion systems. These engines provide much higher efficiencies (42%, fuel consumption 200 g/kW-hr) than automotive engines (31%, fuel consumption 270 g/kW-hr), but at higher initial cost. Significant near-term diesel engine improvements are necessary and are spurred by continuing competitive, Middle - East oil problems and Congressional legislation. As a result of these trends and pressures, Caterpillar has been actively pursuing a low-fuel consumption engine research program with emphasis on product quality through process control and product inspection. The goal of this project is to combine the nondestructive evaluation and computational resources and expertise available at LLNL with the diesel engine and manufacturing expertise of the Caterpillar Corporation to develop in-process monitoring and inspection techniques for diesel engine combustion chamber components and materials. Early development of these techniques will assure the optimization of the manufacturing process by design/inspection interface. The transition from the development stage to the manufacturing stage requires a both a thorough understanding of the processes and a way of verifying conformance to process standards. NDE is one of the …

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Operational experience of the emittance compensated photoinjector at the Brookhaven Accelerator Test Facility (ATF) is presented in this paper. The photoinjector has demonstrated the stability and reliability required for UV and X-ray FEL applications. The RF gun has been routinely running at more than 100 MV/m peak acceleration field; the laser system of the photoinjector has achieved 2% peak to peak energy stability, 0.5% point stability and better than 2 ps timing jitter. The highest measured quantum efficiency of the Cu cathode is 0.05%. The electron beam bunch length was measured to be 10 ps using a linac RF phase scan. The normalized rms emittance for a 0.5 nC charge was measured, to be from 1 to 2 mm-mrad, which agrees with PARMELA simulations.

I attended the Power Electronic Building Block (PEBB) workshop at DOE HQ on June 21,1995. Accompanying me was Doug Hopkins, who is contracting with the Lab through Mark Newton on power electronics. The PEBB concept, and the workshop in particular, are sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and DOE. The general concept behind PEBB is a ``second electronics revolution`` facilitated by a single-package, smart, multi-function power control block. The PEBB will potentially replace all conventional power electronic elements at scales from watts to megawatts, thus shifting power engineering from circuit design to system design. ONR is interested because power distribution aboard ships is expensive, complex, and bulky, and getting worse. The same applies to aircraft and many other military systems. DOE`s interest is in electric vehicles, utility power systems, and various end-use applications such as adjustable speed drives. There was obvious enthusiasm from industry, academia, and Government at this workshop. The PEBB concept is in its infancy. Exactly what a PEBB will encompass is still up for discussion. What is certain is that everything is up to industry: standards, innovations, marketing strategies, etc. ONR and DOE are only acting as facilitators and coordinators, and perhaps offering a little …

The study of biocorrosion of aluminum and its alloy was performed under conditions of continuous fermentation of thermophilic anaerobic microorganisms of different groups. This allowed us to examine the effect of various types of metabolic reactions of reduction-oxidation proceeding at different pH and temperatures under highly reduced conditions on aluminum corrosion. Besides, the experiments were performed where the part of the standard sample was exposed under strictly anaerobic conditions with an active microbiological process, and the second half was exposed under aerobic conditions. Thus the sample was exposed in gradient of oxidized-reduced conditions.

This document reports the sampling event for tank 241-BX-110.

This document serves as the User`s Manual for the TMAD code system, which includes the TMAD code and the LIBMAKR code. The TMAD code was commissioned to make it easier to interpret moisture probe measurements in the Hanford Site waste tanks. In principle, the code is an interpolation routine that acts over a library of benchmark data based on two independent variables, typically anomaly size and moisture content. Two additional variables, anomaly type and detector type, also can be considered independent variables, but no interpolation is done over them. The dependent variable is detector response. The intent is to provide the code with measured detector responses from two or more detectors. The code then will interrogate (and interpolate upon) the benchmark data library and find the anomaly-type/anomaly-size/moisture-content combination that provides the closest match to the measured data.

The sectional high-frequency (100--170 GHz) distributed cooled window has been investigated both electromagnetically and thermally previously using computational electromagnetics (EM) and thermal codes. Recent data describes the relationship to some experimental data for the window. Results are presented for time domain CW EM analyses and CW thermal and stress calculations.

We present fully continuous phase screens for producing super-Gaussian focal-plane irradiance profiles. Such phase screens are constructed with the assumption of either circular symmetric near-field and far-field profiles or a separable phase screen in Cartesian co-ordinates. In each case, the phase screen is only a few waves deep. Under illumination by coherent light, such phase screens produce high order super-Gaussian profiles in the focal plane with high energy content effects of beam aberrations on the focal profiles and their energy content are also discussed.

Meteorite impacts produce enormous pressure and strain in rocks. While the role of pressure on the formation of shock metamorphic features has been well studied, the role of strain and strain rate has not been fully appreciated. We shock loaded single-crystal quartz in Al capsules up to 56 GPa using a novel capsule design that allows for significant strain of the sample but 100% recovery of material. We have made features analogous to type A pseudotachylites at pressures of 42--56 GPa. These pseudotachylites contain Al, Si and minor Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} in a matrix of SiO{sub 2} class and cut the sample along radial and concentric fractures. Our results suggest that strain heating is an important energy sink in the formation of large impact craters.

The baseline design of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) calls for sampling gratings to provide third-harmonic energy diagnostics in the highly constrained area of the target chamber. These 40 {times} 4O cm transmission gratings are to diffract at (order +1) nominally 0.3% of the incident 351 run light at a small angle on to a focusing mirror and into a calorimeter. The design calls for a plane grating of 500 lines/mm, and approximately 30 run deep, etched into a fused silica focusing lens and subsequently overcoated with a solgel anti reflective coating. Gratings of similar aperture and feature size have been produced for other applications by ion etching processes, but, in an effort to reduce substantially the cost of such optics, we are studying the feasibility of making these gratings by wet chemical etching techniques. Experimentation with high-quality fused silica substrates on 5 and 15 cm. scale has led to a wet etching process which can meet the design goals and which offers no significant scaleup barriers to full sized optics. The grating is produced by holographic exposure and a series of processing steps using only a photoresist mask and a final hydrofluoric acid etch. Gratings on 15 cm diameter …

We present initial results from the sodium-layer laser guide star adaptive optics system developed for the 3-m Shane telescope at Lick Observatory.

A model-based approach is proposed to solve the oceanic internal wave signal processing problem that is based on state-space representations of the normal-mode vertical velocity and plane wave horizontal velocity propagation models. It is shown that these representations can be utilized to spatially propagate the modal (dept) vertical velocity functions given the basic parameters (wave numbers, Brunt-Vaisala frequency profile etc.) developed from the solution of the associated boundary value problem as well as the horizontal velocity components. Based on this framework, investigations are made of model-based solutions to the signal enhancement problem for internal waves.

Additional double-shell tank storage capacity is not needed until FY 2004 or later. The waste volume in the current baseline program can be managed within the existing tank capacity. However, this requires implementation of some risk management actions and significant investment in software and hardware to accomplish the actions necessary to maximize use of existing storage tank space.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the live loads applied to the underground storage tanks of the Multi Function Waste Tank Facility, and to provide the basis for Project W-236A live load criteria. Project 236A provides encompasses building a Weather Enclosure over the two underground storage tanks at the 200-West area. According to the Material Handling Study, the Groves AT 1100 crane used within the Weather Enclosure will have a gross vehicle weight of 66.5 tons. Therefore, a 100-ton concentrated live load is being used for the planning of the construction of the Weather Enclosure.

This document is a rewrite of the draft ``C`` that was agreed to ``in principle`` by SNF Project level 2 managers on EDT 609835, dated March 1995 (not released). The implementation process philosphy was changed in keeping with the ongoing reengineering of the WHC Controlled Manuals to achieve configuration management within the SNF Project.

This tank characterization report presents an overview of Double-Shell Tank 241-SY-102 (hereafter, Tank 241-SY-102) and its waste contents. It provides estimated concentrations and inventories for the waste components based on the latest sampling and analysis activities and background tank information. This report describes the results of three sampling events. The first core sample was taken in October 1988. The tank supernate and sludge were next core sampled in February and March of 1990 (Tingey and Sasaki 1995). A grab sample of the supernate was taken in March of 1994. Tank 241-SY-102 is in active service and can be expected to have additional transfers to and from the tank that will alter the composition of the waste. The concentration and inventory estimates reported in this document no longer reflect the exact composition of the waste but represent the best estimates based on the most recent and available data. This report supports the requirements of the Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order Milestone M-44-08 (Ecology, EPA, DOE 1994).