Three-dimensional finite element analyses were performed for the two gas-filled storage caverns at the Egan field, Jennings dome, Louisiana. The effects of cavern enlargement on surface subsidence, storage loss, and cavern stability were investigated. The finite element model simulated the leaching of caverns to 6 and 8 billion cubic feet (BCF) and examined their performance at various operating conditions. Operating pressures varied from 0.15 psi/ft to 0.9 psi/ft at the bottom of the lowest cemented casing. The analysis also examined the stability of the web or pillar of salt between the caverns under differential pressure loadings. The 50-year simulations were performed using JAC3D, a three dimensional finite element analysis code for nonlinear quasistatic solids. A damage criterion based on onset of dilatancy was used to evaluate cavern instability. Dilation results from the development of microfractures in salt and, hence, potential increases in permeability onset occurs well before large scale failure. The analyses predicted stable caverns throughout the 50-year period for the range of pressures investigated. Some localized salt damage was predicted near the bottom walls of the caverns if the caverns are operated at minimum pressure for long periods of time. Volumetric cavern closures over time due to creep were …

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Advanced reservoir characterization techniques are being used at the Nash Draw Brushy Canyon Pool project to develop reservoir management strategies for optimizing oil recovery from this Delaware reservoir. The reservoir characterization, geologic modeling, 3-D seismic interpretation, and simulation studies have provided a detailed model of the Brushy Canyon zones. This model was used to predict the success of different reservoir management scenarios and to aid in determining the most favorable combination of targeted drilling, pressure maintenance, well stimulation, and well spacing to improve recovery from this reservoir.

We performed an analysis of error densities for the Special Perturbations orbit propagator using data for 29 satellites in orbits of interest to Space Shuttle and International Space Station collision avoidance. We find that the along-track errors predominate. These errors increase monotonically over each 36-hour prediction interval. The predicted positions in the along-track direction progressively either leap ahead of or lag behind the actual positions. Unlike the along-track errors the radial and cross-track errors oscillate about their nearly zero mean values. As the number of observations per fit interval decline the along-track prediction errors, and amplitudes of the radial and cross-track errors, increase.

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This report summarizes waste shipments to the Nevada Test Site Radioactive Waste Management Sites at Area 3 and Area 5 during fiscal year 1998. In addition this report provides a summary evaluation of each shipping campaign by source (waste generator) which identifies observable incidents, if any, associated with the actual waste shipments.

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This is the ninth Annual Report to the Congress describing Department of Energy (Department) activities in response to formal recommendations and other interactions with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (Board). The Board, an independent executive-branch agency established in 1988, provides advice and recommendations to the Secretary of energy regarding public health and safety issues at the Department`s defense nuclear facilities. The Board also reviews and evaluates the content and implementation of health and safety standards, as well as other requirements, relating to the design, construction, operation, and decommissioning of the Department`s defense nuclear facilities. The locations of the major Department facilities are provided. During 1998, Departmental activities resulted in the proposed closure of one Board recommendation. In addition, the Department has completed all implementation plan milestones associated with four other Board recommendations. Two new Board recommendations were received and accepted by the Department in 1998, and two new implementation plans are being developed to address these recommendations. The Department has also made significant progress with a number of broad-based initiatives to improve safety. These include expanded implementation of integrated safety management at field sites, a renewed effort to increase the technical capabilities of the federal workforce, and a revised …

The assessment of smolt condition for travel time analysis (ASCTTA) project provided information on the level of smoltification in Columbia River hatchery and wild salmonid stocks to the Fish Passage Center (FPC), for the primary purpose of in-river management of flows.

Alkanolamines are commonly used by the natural gas industry to remove hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, and other acid gases from the natural gas in which they occur (''sour'' gas if hydrogen sulfide is present). At sour gas-processing plants, as at all plants that use alkanolamines for acid gas removal (AGR), spills and on-site management of wastes containing alkanolamines and associated reaction products have occasionally resulted in subsurface contamination that is presently the focus of some environmental concern. In 1994, the Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) initiated a three-phase program to investigate the natural attenuation processes that control the subsurface transport and fate of the most commonly used alkanolamine in Canada, monoethanolamine (MEA). Funding for the MEA research program was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), Canadian Occidental Petroleum Ltd. (CanOxy), Gas Research Institute (GRI), Environment Canada, and the National Energy Board of Canada. The MEA research program focused primarily on examining the biodegradability of MEA and MEA-related waste materials in soils and soil-slurries under a variety of environmentally relevant conditions, evaluating the mobility of MEA in soil and groundwater and the effectiveness of bioremediation techniques for removing contaminants and toxicity from …

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to reviewing agency use of long-term contract and temporary workers and determining the agencies' reasons for using a contract workforce, decision-making processes used when hiring contract versus state workers, and levels of management exercised with contract workforce; to determining how to improve collection and reporting of contract workforce information to the Legislature; and to providing agencies with information on what considerations they should take into account when creating a contract workforce.

This report documents a data collection where we recorded redundant range image data from multiple views of a simple scene, and recorded accurate survey measurements of the same scene. Collecting these data was a focus of the research project Automated Geometric Model Builder Using Range Image Sensor Data (96-0384), supported by Sandia's Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program during fiscal years 1996, 1997, and 1998. The data described here are available from the authors on CDROM, or electronically over the Internet. Included in this data distribution are Computer-Aided Design (CAD) models we constructed from the survey measurements. The CAD models are compatible with the SolidWorks 98 Plus system, the modern Computer-Aided Design software system that is central to Sandia's DeskTop Engineering Project (DTEP). Integration of our measurements (as built) with the constructive geometry process of the CAD system (as designed) delivers on a vision of the research project. This report on our final data collection will also serve as a final report on the project.

This report documents the results of a laboratory-directed research and development (LDRD) project on control and agile manufacturing in the critical metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) materials growth processes essential to high-speed microelectronics and optoelectronic components. This effort is founded on a modular and configurable process automation system that serves as a backbone allowing integration of process-specific models and sensors. We have developed and integrated MOCVD- and MBE-specific models in this system, and demonstrated the effectiveness of sensor-based feedback control in improving the accuracy and reproducibility of semiconductor heterostructures. In addition, within this framework we have constructed ''virtual reactor'' models for growth processes, with the goal of greatly shortening the epitaxial growth process development cycle.

BalTrim is an Excel(R) spreadsheet designed to calculate the inertial mass properties and ballast trim weight for either an assembled reentry vehicle (RV) or reentry body (RB). With this application, the user enters known mass properties and global coordinates for each subcomponent of the assembly, and BalTrim calculates the mass properties of the total assembly. Then, using the assembly mass properties, BalTrim calculates the necessary amount of ballast trim weight required to dynamically and statically balance the assembly mass properties. The final mass properties and trim ballast weight calculated with BalTrim agree with physicaly measured values.

The Department of Energy (DOE) is required by law to treat and safely dispose of the radioactive wastes from its nuclear weapon production activities. The primary radionuclide in the DOE liquid wastes or supernatants is {sup 137}Cs. At the Savannah River Site (SRS), the In-Tank Precipitation (ITP) process was selected as the baseline technology to remove {sup 137}Cs from the supernatants, which are stored in underground storage tanks. In the ITP process, tetraphenylborate reacts with the water-soluble cesium to form a precipitant. The treated supernatant can then be immobilized in grout or saltstone and stored in vaults at the SRS. However, problems were encountered during the full-scale ITP processing. These difficulties have led to the evaluation of alternative technologies and/or concepts to the currently configured ITP process. The High-Level Waste Salt Disposition Team at the SRS is currently performing this assessment. After an initial screening of all potential alternatives, the Salt Disposition Team selected four primary options to evaluate further before the final down-selection. Crystalline silicotitanate (CST), an inorganic ion exchanger, was chosen as one of the leading alternatives. Since nearly all of the CST tests have been performed on supernatants from Hanford and Oak Ridge, the Salt Disposition Team …

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Information and education activities for this quarter include both the monthly progress activities with some copies of materials developed and a copy of the annual report prepared for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. The Leopold Center is a project partner and the primary sponsor of the information and education activities. The Leopold annual report references many prepared documents and assorted presentation materials. The Energy and Geological Resources Division of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources sponsors a meeting four times a year in order to bring members of the Iowa biomass energy community together to share information. In this quarter the Stakeholders meeting was held on October 21, 1998, in Des Moines Iowa. The first phase of the Geographic Information System (GIS) efforts have been completed and a final report with a map presentation of materials will be included in the next Quarterly Report. A meeting with Ed Gray of The Antares Group and project staff/cooperators was held October 23, 1998. The authors discussed the Niagara Project and the efforts to value the biomass material and partner contributions. Niagara has identified a value to the grid support capabilities of the dispersed generation.

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Preliminary designs are described for models of hydrogen and oxygen uptake in fuel rod cladding during severe accidents. Calculation of the uptake involves the modeling of seven processes: (1) diffusion of oxygen from the bulk gas into the boundary layer at the external cladding surface, (2) diffusion from the boundary layer into the oxide layer, (3) diffusion from the inner surface of the oxide layer into the metallic part of the cladding, (4) uptake of hydrogen in the event that the cladding oxide layer is dissolved in a steam-starved region, (5) embrittlement of cladding due to hydrogen uptake, (6) cracking of cladding during quenching due to its embrittlement and (7) release of hydrogen from the cladding after cracking of the cladding. An integral diffusion method is described for calculating the diffusion processes in the cladding. Experimental results are presented that show a rapid uptake of hydrogen in the event of dissolution of the oxide layer and a rapid release of hydrogen in the event of cracking of the oxide layer. These experimental results are used as a basis for calculating the rate of hydrogen uptake and the rate of hydrogen release. The uptake of hydrogen is limited to the equilibrium …

This is the Technical Progress Report for the sixteenth quarter of activities under DOE Contract No. DE-AC22-94PC93054. It covers the period April 1 through June 30, 1998. Described in this report are the following activities: (1) CONSOL characterized nine process stream samples received from Exxon Recycle Coal Liquefaction Unit (RCLU) operations conducted in 1994 with Rawhide Mine Wyoming subbituminous coal and all-dispersed Fe and Mo catalysts. (2) The University of Delaware subcontract related to resid reactivity was completed with issuance of the Topical Report covering work performed by Delaware. (3) Computational studies of the coal liquefaction resid models developed at the University of Delaware were continued at CONSOL R and D. The two reaction models, consisting of the reaction optimization and reaction once-through programs, were the focus of these studies. The updated resid structure data and results were used in the reaction models to predict percent conversion values that were compared with the experimentally-measured values from the University of Delaware. (4) Small samples of high-sulfur Hondo resid and anthracene oil were shipped to John Verkade of Iowa State University at his request. Verkade is testing a desulfurization method.

The objective of this investigation is to determine the suitability of cofiring as a recycle / reuse option to landfill disposal for solid rocket motor washout residue. Solid rocket motor washout residue (roughly 55% aluminum powder, 40% polybutadiene rubber binder, 5% residual ammonium perchlorate, and 0.2-1% asbestos) has been fired in Sandia's MultiFuel Combustor (MFC). The MFC is a down-fired combustor with electrically heated walls, capable of simulating a wide range of fuel residence times and stoichiometries. This study reports on the fate of AP-based chlorine and asbestos from the residue following combustion.

This report summarizes our work on high-voltage switches during the past few years. With joint funding from the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Defense (DOD), we tested a wide variety of switches to a common standard. This approach permitted meaningful comparisons between disparate switches. Most switches were purchased from commercial sources, though some were experimental devices. For the purposes of this report, we divided the switches into three generic types (gas, vacuum, and semiconductor) and selected data that best illustrates important strengths and weaknesses of each switch type. Test techniques that indicate the state of health of the switches are emphasized. For example, a good indicator of residual gas in a vacuum switch is the systematic variation of the switching delay in response to changes in temperature and/or operating conditions. We believe that the presentation of this kind of information will help engineers to select and to test switches for their particular applications. Our work was limited to switches capable of driving slappers. Also known as exploding-foil initiators, slappers are detonators that initiate a secondary explosive by direct impact with a small piece of matter moving at the detonation velocity (several thousands of meters per second). A …

This report summarizes the progress made during this period. A series of experiments on levels in {sup 144}Nd have led to the identification of quadrupole-octupole coupled states in the nucleus. These experiments included the measurement of excited level lifetimes using the GRID technique, the measurement of transition conversion coefficients and the measurement of weak transition intensities. A fast electronic timing system has been set-up at Tennessee Tech. This system can be used to measure nuclear excited state lifetimes in the range from 5 ps upward. A new variation of the centroid shift method has been developed which eliminates the need to determine a prompt position. This centroid difference method employs both forward and reverse gating of gamma cascades to generate two timing spectra.

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