Two alternate Thermal Cycling Absorption Process (TCAP) designs have been developed for the Tritium Facility Modernization and Consolidation (TFM and C) Project. The alternate designs were developed to improve upon the existing Replacement Tritium Facility (RTF) TCAP design and to eliminate the use of building distributed hot and cold nitrogen system.A brief description of TCAP theory and modeling is presented, followed by an overview of the design criteria for the Isotope Separation System (ISS). Both designs are described in detail, along with a generic description of the complete TCAP system. A design is recommend for the Consolidation Project, and a development plan for both designs is proposed.

A criticality safety evaluation report was prepared for the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) laboratory denigrating calciner, located in Glovebox 188-1, that converts Pu(NO{sub 3}){sub 4} solutions to the high fired stable oxide PuO{sub 2}. Fissile mass limits and volume limits are set for the glovebox for testing operations and training operators using only nitric acid feed to a plutonium oxide bed in the calciner.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) use Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76 as a means of realizing an estimated $6 billion savings in support costs between fiscal years (FY) 1997 and 2003, focusing on: (1) identifying the competition and savings goals; (2) assessing the accuracy of the savings estimates provided to Congress; and (3) evaluating the adequacy of planning to support the overall program."

We collaborated with Environmental Programs to develop and apply advanced computational methodologies for simulating multiphase flow through heterogeneous porous media. The primary focus was on developing a fast accurate advection scheme using a new temporal subcycling technique and on the scalable and efficient solution of the nonlinear Richards' equation used to model two-phase (variably saturated) flow. The resulting algorithms can be orders-of-magnitude faster than existing methods. Our computational technologies were applied to the simulation of subsurface fluid flow and chemical transport in the context of two important applications: water resource management and groundwater remediation.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) to provide the DOE and other public agency decision makers with the environmental documentation required to take informed discretionary action on the proposed Kalina Geothermal Demonstration project. The EA assesses the potential environmental impacts and cumulative impacts, possible ways to minimize effects associated with partial funding of the proposed project, and discusses alternatives to DOE actions. The DOE will use this EA as a basis for their decision to provide financial assistance to Exergy, Inc. (Exergy), the project applicant. Based on the analysis in the EA, DOE has determined that the proposed action is not a major Federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human or physical environment, within the meaning of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. Therefore, the preparation of an environmental impact statement is not required and DOE is issuing this Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI).

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO assessed the adequacy and status of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) planned actions to correct internal control weaknesses related to property and equipment identified in prior financial statement audit reports, focusing on FDA's: (1) inadequate controls over the physical quantities of property and equipment and their locations; (2) improper reconciliations between its general ledger and property subsidiary ledger systems; and (3) internal controls related to the safeguarding and reporting of automated data processing (ADP) equipment that is lost, stolen, destroyed, or surplussed."

None

This report identifies and summarizes these and other rules and directives affecting committee powers, authority, activities, and operations.

House Rules, especially Rules X-XIII, govern the authority and operations of its committees and subcommittees. This report identifies and summarizes these and other rules and directives affecting committee powers, authority, activities, and operations.

From Summary: "This report traces the changes and derivation of the major amendments to the provisions of federal law authorizing the appointment of what is now called an "independent counsel."

This Operability Test Procedure (OTP) provides instructions for testing operability of the Inert Atmosphere Confinement (IAC). The Inert Atmosphere Confinement was designed and built for opening cans of metal items that might have hydrided surfaces. Unreviewed Safety Question (USQ) PFP-97-005 addresses the discovery of suspected plutonium hydride forming on plutonium metal currently stored in the Plutonium Finishing Plant vaults. Plutonium hydride reacts quickly with air, liberating energy. The Inert Atmosphere Confinement was designed to prevent this sudden liberation of energy by opening the material in an inert argon atmosphere instead of the normal glovebox atmosphere. The IAC is located in glovebox HC-21A, room 230B of the 234-5Z Building at the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) in the 200-West Area of the Hanford Site.

A national security need as well as environmental monitoring need exists for networks of sensors. The advantages of a network of sensors over a single sensor are improved range, sensitivity, directionality, and data readability. Depending upon the particular application, sensors can be acoustic, chemical, biological, thermal or inertial. A major desire in these sensor networks is to have the individual sensor and associated electronics small and low enough in power that the battery can also be small and of long life. Smaller, low power sensor nodes can allow more nodes per network. A typical network for security applications is depicted in Figure 1. Here a number of sensor nodes are deployed around a central hub node in a star configuration. In this scenario the hubs communicate with each other and ultimately relay information to a satellite. Future networks might follow this scenario or some other network architecture such as a hopping network where individual nodes communicate directly with each other. The focus of our research has been on development of the small low power nodes and less on the overall network topology. However, some consideration of the network must be given when designing the nodes and some consideration of the …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed how effectively the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) selects individual income tax returns for audit, focusing on: (1) the extent to which IRS district offices have used various sources to select these individual returns for audit; and (2) comparing the results of audits selected using these sources in terms of the rate at which audits recommended no-change to the tax reported, amount of additional taxes recommended per return audited, and rates at which IRS assessed and collected such recommended taxes after the audit."

Thermal analysis of the 9975 package with three configurations of the BNFL 3013 outer container (with Rocky Flats, SRS, and BNFL inner containers) have been performed for Normal Conditions of Transport (NCT) of plutonium oxide and metal. The NCT is defined in 10 CFR 71.71(c)(1) s an ambient of 100 F (38 C) in still air with 800 W/m{sup 2} and 400 W/m{sup 2} of solar heating on the drum top and sides, respectively. The 9975 drum package is considered to be in an upright position, and the drum bottom is adiabatic. The Rocky and SRS 3013 configurations with Pu metal contents (19 watts) result in acceptable (similar) packaging temperatures, however the plutonium metal temperatures are lower for the SRS design (SRS has helium fill gas whereas Rocky is essentially air filled). The BNFL configuration for Pu oxide contents (19 watts) result in acceptable temperatures and pressures based on limits in the 9975 Safety Analysis Report (SARP). However, for 30 watts of Pu oxide, the fiberboard peak temperatures are very near the SARP allowable. The pressure in the 3013 container is 688.4 psig for the 30 watt Pu oxide content and 569.5 psig for the 19 watt Pu oxide content. …