Electrometallurgical treatment is a compact, inexpensive method that is being developed at Argonne National Laboratory to deal with spent nuclear fuel, primarily metallic and oxide fuels. In this method, metallic nuclear fuel constituents are electrorefined in a molten salt to separate uranium from the rest of the spent fuel. Oxide and other fuels are subjected to appropriate head end steps to convert them to metallic form prior to electrorefining. The treatment process generates two kinds of high-level waste--a metallic and a ceramic waste. Isolation of these wastes has been developed as an integral part of the process. The wastes arise directly from the electrorefiner, and waste streams do not contain large quantities of solvent or other process fluids. Consequently, waste volumes are small and waste isolation processes can be compact and rapid. This paper briefly summarizes waste isolation processes then describes development and characterization of the two waste forms in more detail.

The scope of this plan includes the Tank Waste Information Network System II (TWINS2) that contains the following major components: Tank Characterization Database (TCD), Tank Vapor Database (TVD), Data Source Access (DSA), automated Tank Characterization Report, Best-Basis Inventory Model (BBIM), and Tracker (corrective action tracking) function. The automated Tank Characterization Report application currently in development also will reside on-the TWINS system as will the BBIM. Critical inputs to TWINS occur from the following databases: Labcore and SACS. Output does not occur from TWINS to these two databases.

The authors have performed the reaction {sup 248}Cm({sup 4}He, {sup 3}He) using 98.5-MeV alpha particles from the IUCF cyclotron to populate high-j states in {sup 249}Cm. A tentative assignment of the K{sub 17/2} component of the 1/2{sup +}[880] Nilsson state has been made.

Deep level defects in silicon are identified by measuring the recombination lifetime as a function of the injection level. The basic models for recombination at deep and shallow centers is developed. The defect used for the theoretical model is the well-known interstitial Fe ion in silicon. Data are presented on silicon samples ranging in defect content from intentionally Fe-doped samples to an ultra-pure float-zone grown sample. These data are analyzed in terms of the injection-level spectroscopy model.

CQ Inc. and its project team members--Howard University, PrepTech Inc., Fossil Fuel Sciences, the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and industry advisors--are applying mature coal cleaning and scientific principles to the new purpose of removing potentially hazardous air pollutants from coal. The team uniquely combines mineral processing, chemical engineering, and geochemical expertise. This project meets more than 11 goals of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the National Energy Strategy, and the 1993 Climate Change Action Plan. During this project: (1) Equations were developed to predict the concentration of trace elements in as-mined and cleaned coals. These equations, which address both conventional and advanced cleaning processes, can be used to increase the removal of hazardous air pollutant precursors (HAPs) by existing cleaning plants and to improve the design of new cleaning plants. (2) A promising chemical method of removing mercury and other HAPs was developed. At bench-scale, mercury reductions of over 50 percent were achieved on coal that had already been cleaned by froth flotation. The processing cost of this technology is projected to be less than $3.00 per ton ($3.30 per tonne). (3) Projections were made of the average trace element concentration in cleaning plant solid waste streams from …

Environmental surveillance of low-level radioactive particles in air requires a thorough understanding of low-level techniques and air sample collection media. High-volume air sampling for radioactive particles around Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) employs glass-fiber filters that are analyzed for gross alpha and gross beta activity and for specific isotopes. This study was conducted to determine the activities of radionuclides contained in blank glass-fiber filters. Data from this study provided a partial explanation of differences between current reported concentrations of radionuclides in air and those reported historically when cellulose filters were used in the LLNL monitoring effort.

Bigplate is an advanced explosive equation of state (EOS) test. It consists of a point detonator driving a large disc (100 mm radius) of explosive, which pushes a 0.5 mm thick copper or tantalum plate. The plate is observed by a five-beam Fabry-Perot interferometer, which has beams at 0, 10, 20,40 and 80 mm on the plate. A short Fabry gives the jump-off to high accuracy; a long Fabry runs out to I0-15 microsec. A detailed error analysis is given, with the final velocity measurements considered good to ±0.066 mm/microsec. Jump-offs are measured to 0.01-0.02 microsec. Spall is seen in all shots, which creates a time delay on both the first and second velocity plateaus. A 0.1 microsec delay in jump-off of unknown origin is also seen at 80 mm. In order of decreasing explosive ideality, the explosives tired have been LX-14, LX-04 and LX-17. To partially negate the time delays, the data and code runs are overlaid at each radial position between the first and second plateaus. Traditional JWL's model LX-14 and LX-04 within accuracy, but not so for LX-17. The spall may be partly modeled using the pmin model but high resolution zoning is required. At longer times, …

The voltage or electric potential difference across the terminals of a cell when no current is drawn from it. The emf of a cell is the sum of the electric potential differences (PDs) produced by a separation of charges (electrons or ions) that can occur at each phase boundary (or interface) in the cell. The magnitude of each PD depends on the chemical nature of the two contacting phases. Thus, at the interface between two different metals, some electrons will have moved from the metal with a higher free energy of electrons to the metal with a lower free energy of electrons. The resultant charge separation will produce a PD (just as charge separation produces a voltage across a capacitor) that, at equilibrium, exactly opposes further electron flow. Similarly, PDs can be produced when electrons partition across a metal/solution interface or metal/solid interface, and when ions partition across a solution/membrane/solution interface.

Enzymes have enormous potential for reducing energy requirements and environmental problems in the chemicals and pharmaceutical industries. The explosion of tools that has come out of molecular biology during the last 20 years has made it possible to evolve enzymes for features never required in nature. Scientists can speed up the rate and channel the direction of evolution by controlling mutagenesis and the accompanying selection pressures. Darwinian evolution carried out in the test tube offers a unique opportunity for biotechnology: the ability to tailor enzymes for optimal performance in a wide range of applications. Thus it is possible, for example, to evolve enzymes that carry out reactions on nonnatural substrates or even to carry out reactions for which there is no counterpart in nature. Due to the vast size of the potential sequence space, however, explorations by directed evolution must be guided by sound principles and workable strategies. During the course of this group, this laboratory has continued to make significant progress in the evolution of industrial enzymes as well as in developing general methods for in vitro evolution.

Preventing the theft of weapons-usable highly enriched uranium and plutonium in Russia is one of the central security concerns facing the US today. The dissolution of the highly centralized USSR and the resulting societal crisis has endangered Russia's ability to protect its more than 200 metric tons of plutonium and 1000 tons of highly enriched uranium (roughly 8 kg Pu or 25 kg HEU is sufficient to make a bomb). Producing this fissile material is the most difficult and expensive part of nuclear weapons production and the US must make every effort to ensure that fissile material (and nuclear-related technologies) does not reach the hands of terrorist groups, rogue states or other potential proliferators. In response to this concern, the US has undertaken a number of initiatives in partnership with Russia and other FSU states to prevent the theft of fissile material. The Material Protection, Control and Accounting Program (MPC&A) was begun in 1993 to prevent the theft of nuclear materials from Russian civilian complexes, that is facilities not under control of the Ministry of Defense, which is largely responsible for possession and oversight of nuclear weapons. The MPC&A program is considered the first line of defense against theft of …

Gassmann's relationship between the drained and undrained bulk modulus of a porous medium is often used to relate the dry bulk modulus to the saturated bulk modulus for elastic waves, because the compressibility of air is considered so high that the dry rock behaves in a drained fashion and the frequency of elastic waves is considered so high that the saturated rock behaves in an undrained fashion. The bulk modulus calculated from ultrasonic velocities, however, often does not match the Gassmann prediction. Mavko and Jizba examined how local flow effects and unequilibrated pore pressures can lead to greater stiffnesses. Their conceptual model consists of a distribution of porosities obtained from the strain-versus-confining-pressure behavior. Stiff pores that close at higher confining pressures are considered to remain undrained (unrelaxed) while soft pores drain even for high-frequency stress changes. If the pore shape distribution is bimodal, then the rock approximately satisfies the assumptions of a double-porosity, poroelastic material. Berryman and Wang [1995] established linear constitutive equations and identified four different time scales of ow behavior: (1) totally drained, (2) soft pores are drained but stiff pores are undrained, (3) soft and stiff pores are locally equilibrated, but undrained beyond the grain scale, and …

The segmented gamma-ray scatter (SGS) designated as Win{_}SGS at the Los Alamos Plutonium Facility has been installed and is intended for use in quantifying the radioisotope content of DOE-STD-3013-96 equivalent containers. The SGS features new software written in C and a new user interface that runs under Microsoft Windows{trademark}. The operation of the ARIES Segmented Gamma-ray Scanner is documented in this manual. It covers user instructions as well as hardware and software details. Additional information is found in the documentation for the commercially available components and modules that compose the SGS. The objective of the ARIES project is to demonstrate technology to dismantle plutonium pits from excess nuclear weapons, convert the plutonium to a metal ingot or an oxide powder, package the metal or oxide, and verify the contents of the package by nondestructive assay.

A study is currently underway to determine if the Effluent Treatment Facility can be downgraded from a Hazard Category 3 facility to a Radiological Facility per DOE STD-1027-92. This technical report provides a methodology to determine and monitor increases in the radionuclide inventories of the ETF process columns. It also provides guidelines to ensure that other potential increases to the ETF radionuclide inventory are evaluated as required to ensure that the ETF remains a Radiological Facility.

The Self-Describing Data Sets (SDDS) toolkit comprises about 70 generally-applicable programs sharing a common data protocol. At the Advanced Photon Source (APS), SDDS performs the vast majority of operational data collection and processing, most data display functions, and many control functions. In addition, a number of accelerator simulation codes use SDDS for all post-processing and data display. This has three principle advantages: first, simulation codes need not provide customized post-processing tools, thus simplifying development and maintenance. Second, users can enhance code capabilities without changing the code itself, by adding SDDS-based pre- and post-processing. Third, multiple codes can be used together more easily, by employing SDDS for data transfer and adaptation. Given its broad applicability, the SDDS file protocol is surprisingly simple, making it quite easy for simulations to generate SDDS-compliant data. This paper discusses the philosophy behind SDDS, contrasting it with some recent trends, and outlines the capabilities of the toolkit. The paper also gives examples of using SDDS for accelerator simulation.

Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 173-303-640 specifies that corrosion protection must be designed into tank systems that treat or store dangerous wastes. Project W-320, Waste Retrieval Sluicing System (WRSS), utilizes underground encased waste transfer piping between tanks 241-C-106 and 241-AY-102. Corrosion protection is afforded to the encasements of the WRSS waste transfer piping through the application of earthen ionic currents onto the surface of the piping encasements. Cathodic protection is used in conjunction with the protective coatings that are applied upon the WRSS encasement piping. WRSS installed two new two rectifier systems (46 and 47) and modified one rectifier system (31). WAC 173-303-640 specifies that the proper operation of cathodic protection systems must be confirmed within six months after initial installation. The WRSS cathodic protection systems were energized to begin continuous operation on 5/5/98. Sixteen days after the initial steady-state start-up of the WRSS rectifier systems, the operational testing was accomplished with procedure OTP-320-006 Rev/Mod A-0. This operational test report documents the OTP-320-006 results and documents the results of configuration testing of integrated piping and rectifier systems associated with the W-320 cathodic protection systems.

Relationships for estimating effectiveness factors for porous-solid-catalyzed fluid reactions can result from assuming approximations to temperature and concentration profiles. Approximations designed to simplify the outcome result in simple, explicit, analytic relationships for both isothermal and nonisothermal nth-order reaction systems. For isothermal systems, formulas developed predict effectiveness within 25% of the true isothermal effectiveness factors ({eta}`s) over the range 0.1 > {eta} > 0.99. For isothermal or endothermic reaction systems with {eta} > 0.65, errors are less than 10%. Even in the maximum-error region, estimates for endothermic systems are within a factor of two of those obtained by solution of the rigorous heat and mass transfer equations. For isothermal or endothermic systems with {eta} > 0.95, errors are less than 1%. Thus the formulas can also serve diagnostic uses that confirm presence or absence of significant internal heat or mass transport effects in porous reacting systems. Extension of the approach to non-nth-order reactions is possible; formulas are derived for simple isothermal and nonisothermal Langmuir-Hinshelwood reaction systems. Application of the work to exothermic reactions was not tested, but steeper gradients in such systems would tend to degrade accuracy of the relationships. The equations derived in this work are simpler and easier of …

High energy electron cooling with a circulated electron bunch could significantly increase the luminosity of hadron colliders. One of the significant obstacles is high horizontal temperature of electron bunches, suppressing dramatically calculated cooling rates. Recently, a transformation of betatron coordinates and angles for elimination of the radial temperature was found. In our paper, we present a simple scheme to make up this transformation by thin quadruples, drifts and a solenoid.

The Visible-Infrared SASE Amplifier (VISA) FEL is an experimental device designed to show Self Amplified Spontaneous Emission (SASE) to saturation in the visible light energy range. It will generate a resonant wavelength output from 800--600 nm, so that silicon detectors may be used to characterize the optical properties of the FEL radiation. VISA is the first SASE FEL designed to reach saturation, and its diagnostics will provide important checks of theory. This paper includes a description of the VISA undulator, the magnet measuring and shimming system, and the alignment strategy. VISA will have a 4 m pure permanent magnet undulator comprising four 99 cm segments, each with 55 periods of 18 mm length. The undulator has distributed focusing built into it, to reduce the average beta function of the 70--85 MeV electron beam to about 30 cm. There are four FODO cells per segment. The permanent magnet focusing lattice consists of blocks mounted on either side of the electron beam, in the undulator gap. The most important undulator error parameter for a free electron laser is the trajectory walkoff or lack of overlap of the photon and electron beams. Using pulsed wire magnet measurements and magnet shimming, the authors expect …

We have developed a kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC) simulator that links atomic migration and binding energies determined primarily from first principles calculations to macroscopic phenomena and laboratory time scales. Input for the kMC simulation is obtained from a combination of ab initio planewave pseudopotential calculations, molecular dynamics simulations, and experimental data. The simulator is validated against an extensive series of experimental studies of the diffusion of B spikes in self-implanted Si. The implant energy, dose, and dose rate, as well as the detailed thermal history of the sample, are included. Good agreement is obtained with the experimental data for temperatures between 750 and 950 C and times from 15 to 255 s. At 1050o C we predict too little diffusion after 105 s compared to experiment: apparently, some mechanism which is not adequately represented by our model becomes important at this temperature. Below 1050o C, the kMC simulation produces a complete description over macroscopic time scales of the atomic level diffusion and defect reaction phenomena that operate during the anneals. This simulator provides a practical method for predicting technologically interesting phenomena, such as transient enhanced diffusion of B, over a wide range of conditions, using energetics determined from first-principles approaches.

A series of studies is presented in which an electrical-impedance tomography (EXT) system is validated for two-phase flow measurements. The EIT system, developed at Sandia National Laboratories, is described along with the computer algorithm used for reconstructing phase volume fraction profiles. The algorithm is first tested using numerical data and experimental phantom measurements, with good results. The EIT system is then applied to solid-liquid and gas-liquid flows, and results are compared to an established gamma-densitometry tomography (GDT) system. In the solid-liquid flows, the average solid volume fractions measured by EIT are in good agreement with nominal values; in the gas-liquid flows, average gas volume fractions and radial gas volume fraction profiles from GDT and EIT are also in good agreement.

One of the options to mitigate the effects of irradiation on reactor pressure vessels (RPVs) is to thermally anneal them to restore the toughness properties that have been degraded by neutron irradiation. Even though a postirradiation anneal may be deemed successful, a critical aspect of continued RPV operation is the rate of embrittlement upon reirradiation. There are insufficient data available to allow for verification of available models of reirradiation embrittlement or for the development of a reliable predictive methodology. This is especially true in the case of fracture toughness data. Under the U.S.-Russia Joint Coordinating Committee for Civilian Nuclear Reactor Safety (JCCCNRS), Working Group 3 on Radiation Embrittlement, Structural Integrity, and Life Extension of Reactor Vessels and Supports agreed to conduct a comparative study of annealing and reirradiation effects on RPV steels. The Working Group agreed that each side would irradiate, anneal, reirradiate (if feasible ), and test two materials of the other. Charpy V-notch (CVN) and tensile specimens were included. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) conducted such a program (irradiation and annealing, including static fracture toughness) with two weld metals representative of VVER-440 and VVER-1000 RPVs, while the Russian Research Center-Kurchatov Institute (RRC-KI) conducted a program (irradiation, annealing, reirradiation, …

In this study, the authors are providing an experimental test bed for validating features of the ALEGRA code over a broad range of strain rates with overlapping diagnostics that encompass the multiple responses. A unique feature of the Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian Grid for Research Applications (ALEGRA) code is that it allows simultaneous computational treatment, within one code, of a wide range of strain-rates varying from hydrodynamic to structural conditions. This range encompasses strain rates characteristic of shock-wave propagation (10{sup 7}/s) and those characteristic of structural response (10{sup 2}/s). Most previous code validation experimental studies, however, have been restricted to simulating or investigating a single strain-rate regime. What is new and different in this investigation is that the authors have performed well-instrumented experiments which capture features relevant to both hydrodynamic and structural response in a single experiment. Aluminum was chosen for use in this study because it is a well characterized material--its EOS and constitutive material properties are well defined over a wide range of loading rates. The current experiments span strain rate regimes of over 10{sup 7}/s to less than 10{sup 2}/s in a single experiment. The input conditions are extremely well defined. Velocity interferometers are used to record the …

The primary purpose of this manual is to provide instructions on how to install and use the ORAMUS (Ozone Risk AssessMent UtilitieS) software. ORAMUS is a DOS-based software system that allows you to calculate and view risk estimates for health effects attributable to short- and long-term exposure to tropospheric ozone. The system combines exposure estimates with exposure-response relationships and then calculates and displays estimates of the overall risk in the form of probability distributions. ORAMUS allows you to select from three basic models: headcount risk, benchmark risk, and hospital admissions. It calculates a wide range of risk results for 27 air quality scenarios, 9 urban areas, 33 acute health endpoints, 4 chronic health endpoints, and 3 populations of interest. This manual is a tutorial designed to guide you through a series of steps that will familiarize you with the features of the system. The manual consists of two volumes. Volume 1 addresses acute health endpoints, and Volume 2 covers chronic health endpoints. Acute results were used during the National Ambient Air Quality Standards review process for ozone. Chronic results were not used.

The primary purpose of this manual is to provide instructions on how to install and use the ORAMUS (Ozone Risk AssessMent UtilitieS) software. ORAMUS is a DOS-based software system that allows you to calculate and view risk estimates for health effects attributable to short- and long-term exposure to tropospheric ozone. The system combines exposure estimates with exposure-response relationships and then calculates and displays estimates of the overall risk in the form of probability distributions. ORAMUS allows you to select from three basic models: headcount risk, benchmark risk, and hospital admissions. It calculates a wide range of risk results for 27 air quality scenarios, 9 urban areas, 33 acute health endpoints, 4 chronic health endpoints, and 3 populations of interest. This manual is a tutorial designed to guide you through a series of steps that will familiarize you with the features of the system. The manual consists of two volumes. Volume 1 addresses acute health endpoints, and Volume 2 covers chronic health endpoints. Acute results were used during the National Ambient Air Quality Standards review process for ozone. Chronic results were not used.