Characterization of N Reactor metal spent fuel and associated sludge stored in the two Hanford K Basins has entered a more mature stage. Previous campaigns had consisted of top-view visual surveys of-open fuel canisters, limited collection of gas and liquid from sealed canisters, detailed examinations of only a few-fuel elements and collection of sludge from the floor of only one basin. More recent work has included lifting fuel elements from both Basins to ascertain bottom end and circumferential cracks. Sludge collection has now been performed for material residing inside of spent fuel canisters in both Basins. Finally the number of gas and liquid samples from sealed canisters has been greatly expanded leading to a maximum observed cesium-137 content ten times higher than previous reports. Characterization has been a challenge because of the age of the fuel materials, the water environment, and the radiation field.

The Beamlet laser is a nearly full-scale, single-aperture prototype of the driver design for the National Ignition Facility (NIF). As part of a test and validation plan for the NIF design, Beamlet was recently equipped with final focusing optics and diagnostics for the purpose of evaluating integrated component performance and equivalent target-plane irradiance conditions at the 0.351-{mu}m output wavelength specified for NIF targets. A 37-cm aperture two-crystal converter scheme generates the third harmonic of the Nd:glass 1.053-{mu}m wavelength with high efficiency. The efficiency of the converter has been characterized and is reported, along with detailed measurements of the near-field and far-field UV irradiance distributions at operating conditions up to and exceeding red-line levels for the NIF. Dependences of observed beam quality on critical laser parameters including output power, B-integral, and spatial filtering are discussed and compared with numerical simulations.

When performing k-eigenvalue solutions with KENO-V.a, two different prompt neutron lifetimes are estimated - a system lifetime and a neutron generation time. The meaning of these two lifetimes has been ascertained by comparing values of various neutron lifespans/lifetimes predicted by MCNP and DANTSYS based on the neutron-balance theory. The system lifetime in KENO-Va corresponds to the unweighted removal lifetime calculated by both MCNP and DANTSYS. The unweighted removal lifetime is the average time between removal events resulting from a neutron absorption or a neutron leakage. The generation time in KENO-V.a corresponds to the fission lifespan calculated by MCNP, where the fission lifespan in MCNP represents the average time for a newly born neutron to cause another fission. As such, the generation time in KENO-Va does not represent the generation time that appears in the point kinetic model. The generation time in the point kinetic model is the adjoint-weighted removal lifetime divided by k{sub eff}, which is identically equal to the adjoint-weighted neutron production rate. In small bare systems operating in the vicinity of delayed critical, the difference between the adjoint-weighted neutron generation time and the fission lifespan can be as small as a few percent. However, in reflected systems, the …

Impacted material placement plans (IMPP) are documents identifying the essential elements in placing remediation wastes into disposal facilities. Remediation wastes or impacted material(s) are those components used in the construction of the disposal facility exclusive of the liners and caps. The components might include soils, concrete, rubble, debris, and other regulatory approved materials. The IMPP provides the details necessary for interested parties to understand the management and construction practices at the disposal facility. The IMPP should identify the regulatory requirements from applicable DOE Orders, the ROD(s) (where a part of a CERCLA remedy), closure plans, or any other relevant agreements or regulations. Also, how the impacted material will be tracked should be described. Finally, detailed descriptions of what will be placed and how it will be placed should be included. The placement of impacted material into approved on-site disposal facilities (OSDF) is an integral part of gaining regulatory approval. To obtain this approval, a detailed plan (Impacted Material Placement Plan [IMPP]) was developed for the Fernald OSDF. The IMPP provides detailed information for the DOE, site generators, the stakeholders, regulatory community, and the construction subcontractor placing various types of impacted material within the disposal facility.

Single-shell W C-106 is on an accelerated schedule for partial retrieval of its softer, high-he-at sludge. The sludge is being transferred to a double-shell tank because they have the capacity to handle more heat-bearing materials than do single-shell tanks. Also, unlike single-shell tanks, they have not shown any tendency to leak. This transfer will eliminate the need to add water to C-106, thus lowering the risk of waste leaching to the environment. The transfer also will allow obligations to the Washington State Department of Ecology regarding removal of drainable liquid from all single-shell tanks to be met. Current schedules show the soft-sludge retrieval starting in September 1997. To prepare for retrieval, issues related to the risk from potential propagating reactions caused by the organic chemistry of tank C-106 were evaluated.

We propose a new approach for deriving the string field equations from a general sigma model on the world-sheet. This approach leads to an equation which combines some of the attractive features of both the renormalization group method and the covariant beta function treatment of the massless excitations. It has the advantage of being covariant under a very general set of both local and non-local transformations in the field space. We apply it to the tachyon, massless and first massive level, and show that the resulting field equations reproduce the correct spectrum of a left-right symmetric closed bosonic string.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), located in a salt bed in southern New Mexico, is designed by US Department of Energy to demonstrate the safe and permanent disposal of design-basis transuranic waste. WIPP performance assessment requires consideration of radionuclide release in brines in the event of inadvertent human intrusion. The mobility of radionuclides depends on chemical factors such as brine pmH (-log molality of H{sup +}) and CO{sub 2} fugacity. According to current waste inventory estimates, a large quantity ({approximately} 10{sup 9} moles C) of organic materials will be emplaced in the WIPP. Those organic material will potentially be degraded by halophilic or halotolerant microorganisms in the presence of liquid water in the repository, especially if a large volume of brine is introduced into the repository by human intrusions. Organic material biodegradation will produce a large amount of CO{sub 2}, which will acidify the WIPP brine and thus significantly increase the mobility of actinides. This communication addresses (1) the rate of organic material biodegradation and the quantity of CO{sub 2} to be possibly generated, (2) the effect of microbial CO{sub 2} production on overall WIPP performance, and (3) the mechanism of using MgO to mitigate this effect.

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The concept to use a slab as active element, working in zig-zag geometry, and also as Fresnel rhomb, seems to be rather attractive. However, in this case different depolarization effects in active element arc of crucial importance. We have carried out the estimations of depolarization effects arising both due to mechanical loading of an active element at its fastening and due to thermooptical distortions. To check up these rigid requirements to depolarization (0.1 % - 0.01 %) careful measurements of depolarization effects and their sources are being carried out. Mechanical loading gives one of the main contributions in depolarization at fastening of active element. Using model experiments with glass Fresnel rhomb under mechanical loading we have measured depolarization effects. It is proposed to use additional glass plate to compensate beam depolarization in zig-zag slab. The received results allow to expect successful use of the slab amplifier as a Fresnel rhomb providing rather high quality of optical material of active clement.

We are engaged in a comprehensive effort to understand and model the initiation and growth of laser damage initiated by surface contaminants. This includes, for example, the initial absorption by the contaminant, heating and plasma generation, pressure and thermal loading of the transparent substrate, and subsequent shockwave propagation, ``splashing`` of molten material and possible spallation, optical propagation and scattering, and treatment of material fracture. The integration use of large radiation hydrodynamics codes, optical propagation codes and material strength codes enables a comprehensive view of the damage process The following picture of surface contaminant initiated laser damage is emerging from our simulations. On the entrance optical surface, small particles can ablate nearly completely. In this case, only relatively weak shockwaves are launched into the substrate, but some particulate material may be left on the surface to act as a diffraction mask and cause further absorption. Diffraction by wavelength scale scattering centers can lead to significant intensity modulation. Larger particles will not be completely vaporized. The shockwave generated in this case 1642is larger and can lead to spallation of contaminant material which then may be deposited in the substrate. A gaseous atmosphere can lead to radiation trapping with concomitant increases in temperature …

The prompt removal lifetime algorithm used in the latest version of MCNP was modified to conform with the neutron-balance definitions described by Spriggs et al. In accordance with the neutron-balance theory, the non-adjoint-weighted removal lifetime is given by where {Phi} is the angular neutron flux, v is the neutron velocity, {Sigma}{sub a} is the macroscopic absorption cross section, E is neutron energy, {Omega} is angle, and r is a spatial vector. The numerator in this expression represents the total neutron population in the system, N, and the denominator represents the total loss rate due to leakage and absorption.

The steady-state multiplication, M, of a subcritical system that is in equilibrium with an external/intrinsic source is defined as the total neutron-production rate divided by the external/ intrinsic neutron source rate, S. The total neutron-production rate, in this context, is the sum of the fission-production rate plus the source rate. Because the system is in equilibrium, the total neutron-production rate is identically equal to the loss rate from the system due to absorption plus leakage. If the source S is distributed identically to the fission source distribution (i.e., angle, energy, and space), then M will be related to the effective multiplication factor of the system, k{sub eff}, as M = 1/1-k{sub eff}.

The authors have demonstrated room-temperature CW operation of type-II quantum cascade (QC) light emitting diodes at 4.2 {micro}m using InAs/InGaSb/InAlSb type-II quantum wells. The type-II QC configuration utilizes sequential multiple photon emissions in a staircase of coupled type-II quantum wells. The device was grown by molecular beam epitaxy on a p-type GaSb substrate and was compared of 20 periods of active regions separated by digitally graded quantum well injection regions. The maximum average output power is about 250 {micro}W at 80 K, and 140 {micro}W at 300 K at a repetition rate of 1 kHz with a duty cycle of 50%.

Buried pipe may fail for innumerable reasons. Causes can be mechanical damage/breakage, chemically initiated corrosion, or a combination. Failures may originate either internally or externally on the pipe. They may be related to flaws in the design, to excessive or unanticipated internal pressure or ground level loading, and/or to poor or uncertain installation practice. Or the pipe may simply ``wear out`` in service. Steel is strong and very forgiving in underground applications, especially with regard to backfill. However, soil support developed through densification or compaction is critical for brittle concrete and vitrified clay tile pipe, and is very important for cast iron and plastic pipe. Chemistry of the soil determines whether or not it will enhance corrosion or other types of degradation. Various causes and mechanisms for deterioration of buried pipe are indicated. Some peculiarities of the different materials of construction are characterized. Repair methods and means to circumvent special problems are described.

The purpose of this work was to investigate the utility of electronic aroma detection technologies for the detection and identification of accelerant residues in suspected arson debris. Through the analysis of known accelerant residues, a trained neural network was developed for classifying suspected arson samples. Three unknown fire debris samples were classified using this neural network. The item corresponding to diesel fuel was correctly identified every time. For the other two items, wide variations in sample concentration and excessive water content, producing high sample humidities, were shown to influence the sensor response. Sorbent sampling prior to aroma detection was demonstrated to reduce these problems and to allow proper neural network classification of the remaining items corresponding to kerosene and gasoline.

Electron beam curing of composites is a nonthermal, nonautoclave curing process offering the following advantages compared to conventional thermal curing: substantially reduced manufacturing costs and curing times; improvements in part quality and performance; reduced environmental and health concerns; and improvements in material handling. In 1994 a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), sponsored by the Department of Energy Defense Programs and 10 industrial partners, was established to advance electron beam curing of composites. The CRADA has successfully developed hundreds of new toughened and untoughened resins, offering unlimited formulation and processing flexibility. Several patent applications have been filed for this work. Composites made from these easily processable, low shrinkage material match the performance of thermal cured composites and exhibit: low void contents comparable to autoclave cured composites (less than 1%); superb low water absorption values in the same range as cyanate esters (less than 1%); glass transition temperatures rivaling those of polyimides (greater than 390 C); mechanical properties comparable to high performance, autoclave cured composites; and excellent property retention after cryogenic and thermal cycling. These materials have been used to manufacture many composite parts using various fabrication processes including hand lay-up, tow placement, filament winding, resin transfer molding and vacuum assisted …

We study budget constrained optimal network upgrading problems. Such problems aim at finding optimal strategies for improving a network under some cost measure subject to certain budget constraints. A general problem in this setting is the following. We are given an edge weighted graph G = (V, E) where nodes represent processors and edges represent bidirectional communication links. The processor at a node v {element_of} V can be upgraded at a cost of c(v). Such an upgrade reduces the delay of each link emanating from v. The goal is to find a minimum cost set of nodes to be upgraded so that the resulting network has the best performance with respect to some measure. We consider the problem under two measures, namely, the weight of a minimum spanning tree and the bottleneck weight of a minimum bottleneck spanning tree. We present approximation and hardness results for the problem. Our results are tight to within constant factors. We also show that these approximation algorithms can be used to construct good approximation algorithms for the dual versions of the problems where there is a budget constraint on the upgrading cost and the objectives are minimum weight spanning tree and minimum bottleneck weight …

MCNP4B was released in early 1997. In this new version, several major changes were made to the underlying theory used to estimate the non-adjoint-weighted removal, fission, capture, and escape prompt-neutron lifetimes. These four lifetimes are now being calculated in accordance to the neutron-balance theory described by Spriggs et al. in which the non-adjoint-weighted lifetime for a particular type of reaction (i.e., fission, capture, escape, removal, etc.) is defined as the total neutron population in the system divided by that reaction rate.

Article by Pettinger, Wesley E. about 1/2 HP Maytag Engine Restoration.

The measurement of anomalous gauge boson self couplings is reviewed for a variety of present and planned accelerators. Sensitivities are compared for these accelerators using models based on the effective Lagrangian approach. The sensitivities described here are for measurement of {open_quotes}generic{close_quotes} parameters {kappa}{sub V}, {lambda}{sub V}, etc., defined in the text. Pre-LHC measurements will not probe these coupling parameters to precision better than O(10{sup -1}). The LHC should be sensitive to better than O(10{sup -2}), while a future NLC should achieve sensitivity of O(10{sup -3}) to O(10{sup -4}) for center of mass energies ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 TeV.

The status of the Standard model and role of symmetry in its development are reviewed. Some outstanding problems are surveyed and possible solutions in the form of additional {open_quotes}Hidden Symmetries {close_quotes} are discussed. Experimental approaches to uncover {open_quotes}New Physics{close_quotes} associated with those symmetries are described with emphasis on high energy colliders. An outlook for the future is given.

Despite many experimental verifications of the correctness of our basic understanding of QCD, there remain numerous open questions in strong interaction physics and we focus on the role of future colliders in addressing these questions. We discuss possible advances in the measurement of {alpha}{sub s}, in the study of parton distribution functions, and in the understanding of low x physics at present colliders and potential new facilities. We also touch briefly on the role of spin physics in advancing our understanding of QCD.

Article on the solubility of anthracene in binary alcohol + 3-methoxy-1-butanol solvent mixtures.

In these lectures, the author discusses the theoretical motivation for supersymmetric theories and introduce the minimal low energy effective supersymmetric theory, (MSSM). I consider only the MSSM and its simplest grand unified extension here. Some of the other possible low-energy SUSY models are summarized. The particles and their interactions are examined in detail in the next sections and a grand unified SUSY model presented which gives additional motivation for pursuing supersymmetric theories.