Anomalous small angle x-ray scattering (ASAXS) was performed on an Fe-O.9 wt.% Cu-1.0 wt.% Mn alloy subjected to annealing or electron irradiation. ASAXS takes advantage of natural variations in the atomic scattering factor which exist at energies very near an element's x-ray absorption edge. By performing systematic SAXS experiments at energies near these absorption edges of the constituent alloy elements it is possible to vary the contrast of scattering centers containing the elements and in doing so quantify scatterer composition. The results of such an analysis for the samples in this work indicate the presence of Cu-rich, Cu{sub 85}Mn{sub 15} precipitates in the alloy. By applying the maximum entropy technique to the scattering data, it was possible to extract size distributions of scattering centers fog the different treatments. The results demonstrate the ability to detect and characterize small (11 {angstrom} radius) scatterers at quite low irradiation damage levels (5x10{sup {minus} 4} displacements per atom).

A model is developed herein for predicting the mechanical response of inelastic crystalline solids. Particular emphasis is given to the development of microstructural damage along grain boundaries, and the interaction of this damage with intragranular inelasticity caused by dislocation dissipation mechanisms. The model is developed within the concepts of continuum mechanics, with special emphasis on the development of internal boundaries in the continuum by utilizing a cohesive zone model based on fracture mechanics. In addition, the crystalline grains are assumed to be characterized by nonlinear viscoplastic mechanical material behavior in order to account for dislocation generation and migration. Due to the nonlinearities introduced by the crack growth and viscoplastic constitution, a numerical algorithm is utilized to solve representative problems. Implementation of the model to a finite element computational algorithm is therefore briefly described. Finally, sample calculations are presented for a polycrystalline titanium alloy with particular focus on effects of scale on the predicted response.

While many research and development activities take place at Sandia National Laboratories' Intelligent Systems and Robotics Center (ISRC), where the "rubber meets the road" is in the ISRC'S delivered systems. The ISRC has delivered several systems over the last few years that handle hazardous materials on a daily basis, and allow human workers to move to a safer, supervisory role than the "hands-on" operations that they used to perform. The ISRC at Sandia performs a large range of research and development activities, including development and delivery of one-of-a-kind robotic systems for use with hazardous materials. Our mission is to create systems for operations where people can't or don't want to perform the operations by hand, and the systems described in this article are several of our first-of-a-kind deliveries to achieve that mission.

We report on neutron diffraction studies of UCo{sub 1/3}T{sub 2/3}Al (T = Ru, Pt, Rh). All three solid solutions form in the hexagonal ZrNiAl structure. The Ru-containing compound is found to be chemically ordered, while the Pt-containing compound is nearly disordered and the Rh-containing compound is purely disordered. All three compounds exhibit long-range magnetic order with rather small U moments.

Many applications produce three-dimensional points that must be further processed to generate a surface. Surface reconstruction algorithms that start with a set of unorganized points are extremely time-consuming. Often, however, points are generated such that there is additional information available to the reconstruction algorithm. We present a specialized algorithm for surface reconstruction that is three orders of magnitude faster than algorithms for the general case. In addition to sample point locations, our algorithm starts with normal information and knowledge of each point's neighbors. Our algorithm produces a localized approximation to the surface by creating a star-shaped triangulation between a point and a subset of its nearest neighbors. This surface patch is extended by locally triangulating each of the points along the edge of the patch. As each edge point is triangulated, it is removed from the edge and new edge points along the patch's edge are inserted in its place. The updated edge spirals out over the surface until the edge encounters a surface boundary and stops growing in that direction, or until the edge reduces to a small hole that fills itself in.

Experimental data on directional and bulk solidification of hydrogen-charged samples of aluminum alloy A356 and nickel alloy Inconel 718 are discussed. The solidification structure of the porous zone is shown to be dependent on many process variables. Of these variables, hydrogen content in the melt prior to solidification, and furnace atmospheric pressure during solidification play the decisive role. Also important are the furnace atmosphere composition, the solidification velocity, and the temperature distribution of the liquid metal inside the mold.

GaN Schottky diodes were exposed to N₂ or H₂ Inductively Coupled Plasmas prior to deposition of the rectifying contact. Subsequent annealing, wet photochemical etching or (NH₄)₂S surface passivation treatments were examined for their effect on diode current- voltage characteristics. We found that either annealing at 750 °C under N₂, or removal of ~500-600 Å of the surface essentially restored the initial I-V characteristics. There was no measurable improvement in the plasma-exposed diode behavior with (NH₄)₂S treatments.

The role of cesium seeding in increasing the negative ion current in volume sources is described. By a reduction in the local plasma potential the current of extracted electrons is vastly reduced. As a result, cesium increases the fraction of the transverse space charge limit available to the ions by as much as a factor of three. In addition, cesium can increase the total space charge limit by injection of Cs+ into the presheath-a newly recognized phenomenon consistent with experimental measurements and determined from application of a Double-Vlasov model for negative ion extraction.

It is well known that cesium seeding in volume hydrogen negative ion sources leads to a large reduction of the extracted electron current and in some cases to the enhancement of the negative ion current. The cooling of the electrons due to the addition of this heavy impurity was proposed as a possible cause of the mentioned observations. In order to verify this assumption, the authors seeded the hydrogen plasma with xenon, which has an atomic weight almost equal to that of cesium. The plasma properties were studied in the extraction region of the negative ion source Camembert III using a cylindrical electrostatic probe while the negative ion relative density was studied using laser photodetachment. It is shown that the xenon mixing does not enhance the negative ion density and leads to the increase of the electron density, while the cesium seeding reduces the electron density.

The US Department of Defense (DoD), in cooperation with other federal agencies, has taken many initiatives to improve its ability to support civilian response to a domestic biological terrorism incident. This paper discusses one initiative, the 911-Bio Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations (ACTDs), conducted by the Office of the Secretary of Defense during 1997 to better understand: (1) the capability of newly developed chemical and biological collection and identification technologies in a field environment; (2) the ability of specialized DoD response teams to use these new technologies within the structure of cooperating DoD and civilian consequence management organizations; and (3) the adequacy of current modeling tools for predicting the dispersal of biological hazards. This paper discusses the experience of the ACTDs from the civilian community support perspective. The 911-Bio ACTD project provided a valuable opportunity for DoD and civilian officials to learn how they should use their combined capabilities to manage the aftermath of a domestic biological terrorism incident.

Advanced, coal-fueled, power generation systems utilizing pressurized fluidized bed combustion (PFBC) and integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technologies are currently being developed for high-efficiency, low emissions, and low-cost power generation. In spite of the advantages of these promising technologies, the severe operating environment often leads to material degradation and loss of performance in the barrier filters used for particle entrapment. To address this problem, LoTEC Inc., and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are jointly designing and developing a monolithic cross-flow ceramic hot-gas filter. The filter concept involves a truly monolithic cross-flow design that is resistant to delamination, can be easily fabricated, and offers flexibility of geometry and material make-up. During Phase I of the program, a thermo-mechanical analysis was performed to determine how a cross-flow filter would respond both thermally and mechanically to a series of thermal and mechanical loads. The cross-flow filter mold was designed accordingly, and the materials selection was narrowed down to Ca{sub 0.5}Sr{sub 0.5}Zr{sub 4}P{sub 6}O{sub 24} (CS-50) and 2Al{sub 2}O{sub 3}-3SiO{sub 2} (mullite). A fabrication process was developed using gelcasting technology and monolithic cross-flow filters were fabricated. The program focuses on obtaining optimum filter permeability and testing the corrosion resistance of the candidate materials.

The United States and the Russian Federation entered into a cooperative agreement in 1994 that resulted in a nuclear weapons non-proliferation program within the United States (US) Department of Energy (DOE) currently known as the Russia/Newly Independent States (NIS) Nuclear Material Security Task Force. In 1996, a project was initiated with the Murmansk Shipping Company to enhance material protection, control, and accounting of highly enriched nuclear fuel assemblies used for the Icebreaker Fleet. The commissioning ceremony for this project is scheduled for August 1999. This paper describes the physical protection, material control, and accounting measures implemented for the Icebreaker Fleet.

As part of a new, compact heavy ion injector for AGS/RHIC complex at Brookhaven National Laboratory we are developing an Electron Beam Ion Source (EBIS) that would satisfy present and future requirements. Such a source should be capable of producing intensities of e.g. Al{sup 35+} ions of about 3 x 10{sup 9} particles/pulse or U{sup 45+} of about 2 x 10{sup 9} particles/pulse. To achieve this, the required e-beam intensity is 10A, at a pulse length of 100ms. An EBIS test stand has been constructed, designed for the full electron beam power and having close to 1/2 of the trap length of an EBIS for RHIC. Initial electron beam tests have resulted in a 50{micro}s, 13A electron beam. Ion production and extraction has been shown with a 3.1 A, 50 ms electron beam, achieving an ion yield of 19 nC/pulse (neutralization degree of 61%); fast extraction trials have yielded extracted ion pulses of 1mA peak current and 18{micro}s at FWHM. Details of the test stand construction, results of the electron beam studies, and properties of the extracted ion pulse are presented.

This article discusses a computational study of the reaction kinetics of methyl radicals with trifluorohalomethanes.

Sputtering of Au thin films has been determined for Xe ions with energies between 50 and 600 keV. In-situ transmission electron microscopy was used to observe sputtered Au during deposition on a carbon foil near the specimen. Total reflection and transmission sputtering yields for a 62 nm thick Au thin film were determined by ex-situ measurement of the total amount of Au on the carbon foils. In situ observations show that individual Xe ions eject Au nanoparticles as large as 7 nm in diameter with an average diameter of approximately 3 nm. Particle emission correlates with crater formation due to single ion impacts. Nanoparticle emission contributes significantly to the total sputtering yield for Xe ions in this energy range in either reflection or transmission geometry.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed an initiative for a National Wildfire Prediction Program. The program provides guidance for fire managers throughout the country, assisting them to efficiently use limited fire-fighting resources. To achieve maximum cost leveraging, the program builds upon existing physics-based atmospheric and wildfire modeling efforts, a proven emergency response infrastructure, state-of-the-art computer science, and the world's most advanced supercomputers to create a comprehensive wildfire prediction system.

In-situ measurements using the non-destructive penetration of neutrons are commonplace at neutron sources and permit investigations within environmental chambers at stress, pressure, or temperature. Many of these studies explore the microstructural performance of engineering materials under service conditions. For example, by measuring phase strains during the application of static loads, neutron diffraction provides insight into failure, relaxation and load transfer mechanisms. Mechanical loading of a sample on a neutron spectrometer is usually performed with a customized load frame (small enough to fit into the typically limited available space) with the load axis horizontal. Diffraction data are recorded using detectors that surround the sample and strains are determined from changes in the measured interplanar lattice spacings in directions determined by the scattering geometry. These elastic strains indicate how the applied stress is shared throughout the microstructure. During a test, conventional strain gauges also record the macroscopic strain; that is the sum of the plastic and elastic contributions. Beyond yield the plastic contribution usually dominates the total strain but the elastic phase strains respond to the applied stress at any given load and provide clues about which phase (in a multiphase system) or which crystal orientation (in a single phase polycrystal) dictates …

Site Treatment Plans (STPs) developed through the Federal Facilities Compliance Act pose many technical and administrative challenges. Legacy wastes managed under these plans require Land Disposal Restriction (LDR) compliance through treatment and ultimate disposal. Although capacity has been defined for most of the Department of Energy wastes, many waste streams require further characterization and many need additional treatment and handling beyond LDR criteria to be able to dispose of the waste. At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the Hazardous Waste Management Division has developed a comprehensive Legacy Waste Program. The program directs work to manage low level and mixed wastes to ensure compliance with nuclear facility rules and its STP. This paper provides a survey of work conducted on these wastes at LLNL. They include commercial waste treatment and disposal, diverse forms of characterization, inventory maintenance and reporting, on-site treatment, and treatability studies. These activities are conducted in an integrated fashion to meet schedules defined in the STP. The processes managing wastes are dynamic due to required integration of administrative, regulatory, and technical concerns spanning the gamut to insure safe proper disposal.

This paper is a follow-up to an earlier paper, Field Balancing in the Real World, which was presented at CSI Reliability Week 1997 in Nashville. Case studies of excessive vibrations on fans at ORNL will be discussed. Except for a few small sections from the earlier paper, this paper is entirely new. The case studies are new. As in the first paper, all fans are rigid-rotor type fans. Normal operation, therefore, is at less than the shaft's first critical speed. The presentation of case studies with root cause problems other than unbalance is a major departure from the first paper. We believe they belong here, since unbalance is suspected most of the time when a fan is vibrating excessively, even when it is not the root cause. In reality, unbalance is the underlying cause of the excess vibration on fans we have fixed at ORNL only about half the time. Furthermore, the analyst's credibility could be called into question upon an unsuccessful attempt at field balancing when underlying causes are later discovered and fixed. A demonstration will follow the case study presentation. The additional tests described in this paper to confirm centrifugal force (probable unbalance) will be performed.

OAK B139 The postgenomic era is arriving faster than anyone had imagined--sometime during 2000 we'll have a large fraction of the human genome sequence. Heretofore, our understanding of function has come from non-industrial experiments whose conclusions were largely framed in human language. The advent of large amounts of sequence data, and of ''functional genomic'' data types such as mRNA expression data, have changed this picture. These data share the feature that individual observations and measurements are typically relatively low value adding. Such data is now being generated so rapidly that the amount of information contained in it will surpass the amount of biological information collected by traditional means. It is tantalizing to envision using genomic information to create a quantitative biology with a very strong data component. Unfortunately, we are very early in our understanding of how to ''compute on'' genomic information so as to extract biological knowledge from i t. In fact, some current efforts to come to grips with genomic information often resemble a computer savvy library science, where the most important issues concern categories, classification schemes, and information retrieval. When exploring new libraries, a measure of cataloging and inventory is surely inevitable. However, at some point we …

The postgenomic era is arriving faster than anyone had imagined-- sometime during 2000 we'll have a large fraction of the human genome sequence. Heretofore, our understanding of function has come from non-industrial experiments whose conclusions were largely framed in human language. The advent of large amounts of sequence data, and of "functional genomic" data types such as mRNA expression data, have changed this picture. These data share the feature that individual observations and measurements are typically relatively low value adding. Such data is now being generated so rapidly that the amount of information contained in it will surpass the amount of biological information collected by traditional means. It is tantalizing to envision using genomic information to create a quantitative biology with a very strong data component. Unfortunately, we are very early in our understanding of how to "compute on" genomic information so as to extract biological knowledge from it. In fact, some current efforts to come to grips with genomic information often resemble a computer savvy library science, where the most important issues concern categories, classification schemes, and information retrieval. When exploring new libraries, a measure of cataloging and inventory is surely inevitable. However, at some point we will need …

Hydroelectric power contributes about 10 percent of the electrical energy generated in the United States, and nearly 20 percent of the world�s electrical energy. The contribution of hydroelectric generation has declined in recent years, often as a consequence of environmental concerns centering around (1) restriction of upstream and downstream fish passage by the dam, and (2) alteration of water quality and river flows by the impoundment. The Advanced Hydropower Turbine System (AHTS) Program of the U.S. Department of Energy is developing turbine technology which would help to maximize global hydropower resources while minimizing adverse environmental effects. Major technical goals for the Program are (1) the reduction of mortality among turbine-passed fish to 2 percent or less, compared to current levels ranging up to 30 percent or greater; and (2) development of aerating turbines that would ensure that water discharged from reservoirs has a dissolved oxygen concentration of at least 6 mg/L. These advanced, �environmentally friendly� turbines would be suitable both for new hydropower installations and for retrofitting at existing dams. Several new turbine designs that have been he AHTS program are described.

Modeling of radiation-diffusion processes has traditionally been accomplished through simulations based on decoupling and linearizing the basic physics equations. By applying these techniques, physicists have simplified their model enough that problems of moderate sizes could be solved. However, new applications demand the simulation of larger problems for which the inaccuracies and nonscalability of current algorithms prevent solution. Recent work in iterative methods has provided computational scientists with new tools for solving these problems. In this paper, we present an algorithm for the implicit solution of the multi- group diffusion approximation coupled to an electron temperature equation. This algorithm uses a stiff ODE solver coupled with Newton's method for solving the implicit equations arising at each time step. The Jacobian systems are solved by applying GMRES preconditioned with a semicoarsening multigrid algorithm. By combining the nonlinear Newton iteration with a multigrid preconditioner, we take advantage of the fast, robust nonlinear convergence of Newton's method and the scalability of the linear multigrid method. Numerical results show that the method is accurate and scalable.

The performance objectives of the Department of Energy's Low-level radioactive waste disposal facilities at the Nevada Test Site transcend those of any other radioactive waste disposal site in the United States. The expanded paper will describe the technical attributes of the facilities, the present and the future disposal capacities and capabilities, and includes a description of the process from waste approval to final disposition. The paper also summarizes the current status of the waste disposal operations.