This document presents high-level architectural and system requirements for a next-generation system analysis code (NGSAC) to support reactor safety decision-making by plant operators and others, especially in the context of light water reactor plant life extension. The capabilities of NGSAC will be different from those of current-generation codes, not only because computers have evolved significantly in the generations since the current paradigm was first implemented, but because the decision-making processes that need the support of next-generation codes are very different from the decision-making processes that drove the licensing and design of the current fleet of commercial nuclear power reactors. The implications of these newer decision-making processes for NGSAC requirements are discussed, and resulting top-level goals for the NGSAC are formulated. From these goals, the general architectural and system requirements for the NGSAC are derived.

This report provides an assessment of the use of nitrogen trifluoride for removing oxide and water-caused contaminants in the fluoride salts that will be used as coolants in a molten salt cooled reactor.

In the event of a potential nuclear weapons test the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) is commissioned to conduct an on-site investigation (OSI) of the suspected test site in an effort to find confirmatory evidence of the nuclear test. The OSI activities include collecting air, surface soil, and underground samples to search for indications of a nuclear weapons test - these indicators include radionuclides and radioactive isotopes Ar and Xe. This report investigates the capability of the Visual Sample Plan (VSP) software to contribute to the sampling activities of the CTBTO during an OSI. VSP is a statistical sampling design software, constructed under data quality objectives, which has been adapted for environmental remediation and contamination detection problems for the EPA, US Army, DoD and DHS among others. This report provides discussion of a number of VSP sample designs, which may be pertinent to the work undertaken during an OSI. Examples and descriptions of such designs include hot spot sampling, combined random and judgment sampling, multiple increment sampling, radiological transect surveying, and a brief description of other potentially applicable sampling methods. Further, this work highlights a potential need for the use of statistically based sample designs in OSI activities. The use …

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Uncertainty quantificatio in climate models is challenged by the sparsity of the available climate data due to the high computational cost of the model runs. Another feature that prevents classical uncertainty analyses from being easily applicable is the bifurcative behavior in the climate data with respect to certain parameters. A typical example is the Meridional Overturning Circulation in the Atlantic Ocean. The maximum overturning stream function exhibits discontinuity across a curve in the space of two uncertain parameters, namely climate sensitivity and CO{sub 2} forcing. We develop a methodology that performs uncertainty quantificatio in the presence of limited data that have discontinuous character. Our approach is two-fold. First we detect the discontinuity location with a Bayesian inference, thus obtaining a probabilistic representation of the discontinuity curve location in presence of arbitrarily distributed input parameter values. Furthermore, we developed a spectral approach that relies on Polynomial Chaos (PC) expansions on each sides of the discontinuity curve leading to an averaged-PC representation of the forward model that allows efficient uncertainty quantification and propagation. The methodology is tested on synthetic examples of discontinuous data with adjustable sharpness and structure.

The purpose of an On-Site Inspection (OSI) is to determine whether a nuclear explosion has occurred in violation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and to gather information which might assist in identifying the violator (CTBT, Article IV, Paragraph 35) Multi-Spectral and Infra Red Imaging (MSIR) is allowed by the treaty to detect observables which might help reduce the search area and thus expedite an OSI and make it more effective. MSIR is permitted from airborne measurements, and at and below the surface to search for anomalies and artifacts (CTBT, Protocol, Part II, Paragraph 69b). The three broad types of anomalies and artifacts MSIR is expected to be capable of observing are surface disturbances (disturbed earth, plant stress or anomalous surface materials), human artifacts (man-made roads, buildings and features), and thermal anomalies. The purpose of this Primer is to provide technical information on MSIR relevant to its use for OSI. It is expected that this information may be used for general background information, to inform decisions about the selection and testing of MSIR equipment, to develop operational guidance for MSIR use during an OSI, and to support the development of a training program for OSI Inspectors. References are …

This report examines the role of rare earth metals and other materials in the clean energy economy. It was prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) based on data collected and research performed during 2010. Its main conclusions include: (a) Several clean energy technologies -- including wind turbines, electric vehicles, photovoltaic cells and fluorescent lighting -- use materials at risk of supply disruptions in the short term. Those risks will generally decrease in the medium and long term. (b) Clean energy technologies currently constitute about 20 percent of global consumption of critical materials. As clean energy technologies are deployed more widely in the decades ahead, their share of global consumption of critical materials will likely grow. (c) Of the materials analyzed, five rare earth metals (dysprosium, neodymium, terbium, europium and yttrium), as well as indium, are assessed as most critical in the short term. For this purpose, 'criticality' is a measure that combines importance to the clean energy economy and risk of supply disruption. (d) Sound policies and strategic investments can reduce the risk of supply disruptions, especially in the medium and long term. (e) Data with respect to many of the issues considered in this report are sparse. …

This report summarizes the work accomplished during the Phase II development effort of the Advanced Process Engineering Co-Simulator (APECS). The objective of the project is to develop the tools to efficiently combine high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models with process modeling software. During the course of the project, a robust integration controller was developed that can be used in any CAPE-OPEN compliant process modeling environment. The controller mediates the exchange of information between the process modeling software and the CFD software. Several approaches to reducing the time disparity between CFD simulations and process modeling have been investigated and implemented. These include enabling the CFD models to be run on a remote cluster and enabling multiple CFD models to be run simultaneously. Furthermore, computationally fast reduced-order models (ROMs) have been developed that can be 'trained' using the results from CFD simulations and then used directly within flowsheets. Unit operation models (both CFD and ROMs) can be uploaded to a model database and shared between multiple users.

The Skystream 3.7 wind turbine is the result of a decade-long collaboration between the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Southwest Windpower, a commercially successful small wind turbine manufacturer. NREL drew heavily on its research experience to incorporate innovations into the Skystream 3.7, including a unique blade design that makes the wind turbine more efficient and quieter than most.

This report is the final summation of Sandia's Grand Challenge LDRD project No.119351, 'Network Discovery, Characterization and Prediction' (the 'NGC') which ran from FY08 to FY10. The aim of the NGC, in a nutshell, was to research, develop, and evaluate relevant analysis capabilities that address adversarial networks. Unlike some Grand Challenge efforts, that ambition created cultural subgoals, as well as technical and programmatic ones, as the insistence on 'relevancy' required that the Sandia informatics research communities and the analyst user communities come to appreciate each others needs and capabilities in a very deep and concrete way. The NGC generated a number of technical, programmatic, and cultural advances, detailed in this report. There were new algorithmic insights and research that resulted in fifty-three refereed publications and presentations; this report concludes with an abstract-annotated bibliography pointing to them all. The NGC generated three substantial prototypes that not only achieved their intended goals of testing our algorithmic integration, but which also served as vehicles for customer education and program development. The NGC, as intended, has catalyzed future work in this domain; by the end it had already brought in, in new funding, as much funding as had been invested in it. Finally, the …

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The overall goal of this Energy & Environmental Research Center project was to evaluate water capture technologies in a carbon capture and sequestration system and perform a complete systems analysis of the process to determine potential water minimization opportunities within the entire system. To achieve that goal, a pilot-scale liquid desiccant dehumidification system (LDDS) was fabricated and tested in conjunction with a coal-fired combustion test furnace outfitted with CO{sub 2} mitigation technologies, including the options of oxy-fired operation and postcombustion CO{sub 2} capture using an amine scrubber. The process gas stream for these tests was a coal-derived flue gas that had undergone conventional pollutant control (particulates, SO{sub 2}) and CO{sub 2} capture with an amine-based scrubber. The water balance data from the pilot-scale tests show that the packed-bed absorber design was very effective at capturing moisture down to levels that approach equilibrium conditions.

A modeling study was conducted to evaluate additional project design scenarios at the Union Slough restoration/mitigation site during low tide and to provide recommendations for finish-grade elevations to achieve desired drainage. This was accomplished using the Snohomish River hydrodynamic model developed previously by PNNL.

This report summarizes a 3-year LDRD program at Sandia National Laboratories exploring mutual injection locking of composite-cavity lasers for enhanced modulation responses. The program focused on developing a fundamental understanding of the frequency enhancement previously demonstrated for optically injection locked lasers. This was then applied to the development of a theoretical description of strongly coupled laser microsystems. This understanding was validated experimentally with a novel 'photonic lab bench on a chip'.

This paper examines the equipment and software from which the controls system interface for the Energy Recovery Linac (ERL) will be implemented at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

The 100-HR-3 Groundwater Operable Unit (OU) second Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) 5-year review (DOEIRL-2006-20, The Second CERCLA Five-Year Review Report for the Hanford Site) set a milestone to conduct an investigation of deep hexavalent chromium contamination in the sediments of the Ringold upper mud (RUM) unit, which underlies the unconfined aquifer in the 100-H Area. The 5-year review noted that groundwater samples from one deep well extending below the aquitard (i.e., RUM) exceeded both the groundwater standard of 48 parts per billion (ppb) (Ecology Publication 94-06, Model Toxics Control Act Cleanup Statute and Regulation) and the federal drinking water standard of 100 {mu}g/L for hexavalent chromium. The extent of hexavalent chromium contamination in this zone is not well understood. Action 12-1 from the 5-year review is to perform additional characterization of the aquifer below the initial aquitard. Field characterization and aquifer testing were performed in the Hanford Site's 100-H Area to address this milestone. The aquifer tests were conducted to gather data to answer several fundamental questions regarding the presence of the hexavalent chromium in the deep sediments of the RUM and to determine the extent and magnitude of deeper contamination. The pumping tests …

A future requirement of Hanford Tank Farm operations will involve transfer of wastes from double shell tanks to the Waste Treatment Plant. As the U.S. Department of Energy contractor for Tank Farm Operations, Washington River Protection Solutions anticipates the need to certify that waste transfers comply with contractual requirements. This test plan describes the approach for evaluating several instruments that have potential to detect the onset of flow stratification and critical suspension velocity. The testing will be conducted in an existing pipe loop in Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s facility that is being modified to accommodate the testing of instruments over a range of simulated waste properties and flow conditions. The testing phases, test matrix and types of simulants needed and the range of testing conditions required to evaluate the instruments are described

This month's issue has the following articles: (1) More Insight to Better Understand Climate Change - Commentary by Tomas Diaz de la Rubia; (2) Strengthening Our Understanding of Climate Change - Researchers at the Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry are working to better understand climate variation and sharpen the accuracy of predictive models; (3) Precision Diagnostics Tell All - The National Ignition Facility relies on sophisticated diagnostic instruments for measuring the key physical processes that occur in high-energy-density experiments; (4) Quick Detection of Pathogens by the Thousands - Livermore scientists have developed a device that can simultaneously identify thousands of viruses and bacteria within 24 hours; and (5) Carbon Dioxide into the Briny Deep - A proposed technique for burying carbon dioxide underground could help mitigate the effects of this greenhouse gas while producing freshwater.

A search for Standard Model Higgs boson production in the H {yields} WW {yields} {ell}{nu}jj channel using 5.7 fb{sup -1} of CDF II data is presented. The search is performed using a matrix element technique in which event probability densities for the signal and background hypotheses are calculated and used to create a powerful disciminator (called the event probability discriminant, EPD). The EPD distributions for signal and background are fit to the data using a binned likelihood approach to search for the Higgs boson signal. To improve the limits on the H production cross section, a new muon category, CMP, is added. No evidence for a Higgs boson signal is observed, and 95% confidence level upper limits on the H cross section times the branching ratio of the Higgs boson to decay to two W of {sigma}(p{bar p} {yields} H) x BR(H {yields} WW)/SM < 7.7 to 62.1 for Higgs boson masses of between m{sub H} = 150 GeV/c{sup 2} and m{sub H} = 200 GeV/c{sup 2} are found. The expected (median) limit estimated in pseudo-experiments is {sigma}(p{bar p} {yields} H) x BR(H {yields} WW)/SM < 12.5 to 41.0 at 95% C.L. The inclusion of the phi gap trigger lead …

The project team consisting of Southwest Research Institute{reg_sign} (SwRI{reg_sign}), Georgia Institute of Technology (GT), the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), TDA Research, and IdaTech LLC was focused on developing a robust, poison-tolerant, hydrogen selective free standing membrane to produce clean hydrogen. The project completed on schedule and on budget with SwRI, GT, CSM, TDA and IdaTech all operating independently and concurrently. GT has developed a robust platform for performing extensive DFT calculations for H in bulk palladium (Pd), binary alloys, and ternary alloys of Pd. Binary alloys investigated included Pd96M4 where M = Li, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ga, Y, Zr, Nb, Mo, Tc, Ru, Rh, Ag, Cd, In, Sn, Sb, Te, Hf, Ta, W, Re, Os, Ir, Pt, Au, Tl, Pb, Bi, Ce, Sm, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, Lu. They have also performed a series of calculations on Pd{sub 70}Cu{sub 26}Ag{sub 4}, Pd{sub 70}Cu{sub 26}Au{sub 4}, Pd{sub 70}Cu{sub 26}Ni{sub 4}, Pd{sub 70}Cu{sub 26}Pt{sub 4}, and Pd{sub 70}Cu{sub 26}Y{sub 4}. SwRI deposited and released over 160 foils of binary and ternary Pd alloys. There was considerable work on characterizing and improving the durability of the deposited foils …

This document presents and discusses results from Cooperative Agreement DE-FC26-06NT42778, 'Full-scale Testing of a Mercury Oxidation Catalyst Upstream of a Wet FGD System,' which was conducted over the time-period July 24, 2006 through June 30, 2010. The objective of the project was to demonstrate at full scale the use of solid honeycomb catalysts to promote the oxidation of elemental mercury in pulverized-coal-fired flue gas. Oxidized mercury is removed downstream in wet flue gas desulfurization (FGD) absorbers and collected with the byproducts from the FGD system. The project was co-funded by EPRI, the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), who also provided the host site, Great River Energy, Johnson Matthey, Southern Company, Salt River Project (SRP), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), NRG Energy, Ontario Power and Westar. URS Group was the prime contractor and also provided cofunding. The scope of this project included installing and testing a gold-based catalyst upstream of one full-scale wet FGD absorber module (about 200-MW scale) at LCRA's Fayette Power Project (FPP) Unit 3, which fires Powder River Basin coal. Installation of the catalyst involved modifying the ductwork upstream of one of three wet FGD absorbers on Unit 3, Absorber C. The FGD system uses limestone reagent, operates …

The R&D ERL facility at BNL aims to demonstrate CW operation of ERL with average beam current in the range of 0.1-1 ampere, combined with very high efficiency of energy recovery. The ERL is being installed in one of the spacious bays in Bldg. 912 of the RHIC/AGS complex (Fig. 1). The bay is equipped with an overhead crane. The facility has a control room, two service rooms and a shielded ERL cave. The control room is located outside of the bay in a separate building. The single story house is used for a high voltage power supply for 1 MW klystron. The two-story unit houses a laser room, the CW 1 MW klystron with its accessories, most of the power supplies and electronics. The ERL R&D program has been started by the Collider Accelerator Department (C-AD) at BNL as an important stepping-stone for 10-fold increase of the luminosity of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) using relativistic electron cooling of gold ion beams with energy of 100 GeV per nucleon. Furthermore, the ERL R&D program extends toward a possibility of using 10-20 GeV ERL for future electron-hadron/heavy ion collider, MeRHIC/eRHIC. These projects are the driving force behind the development …

The Hanford Site has 149 underground single-shell tanks that store hazardous radioactive waste. Many of these tanks and their associated infrastructure (e.g., pipelines, diversion boxes) have leaked. Some of the leaked waste has entered the groundwater. The largest known leak occurred from the T-106 Tank of the 241-T Tank Farm in 1973. Five tanks are assumed to have leaked in the TY Farm. Many of the contaminants from those leaks still reside within the vadose zone within the T and TY Tank Farms. The Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection seeks to minimize the movement of these contaminant plumes by placing interim barriers on the ground surface. Such barriers are expected to prevent infiltrating water from reaching the plumes and moving them further. The soil water regime is monitored to determine the effectiveness of the interim surface barriers. Soil-water content and water pressure are monitored using off-the-shelf equipment that can be installed by the hydraulic hammer technique. Four instrument nests were installed in the T Farm in fiscal year (FY) 2006 and FY2007; two nests were installed in the TY Farm in FY2010. Each instrument nest contains a neutron probe access tube, a capacitance probe, and four heat-dissipation units. …

Multiscale modeling of stochastic systems, or uncertainty quantization of multiscale modeling is becoming an emerging research frontier, with rapidly growing engineering applications in nanotechnology, biotechnology, advanced materials, and geo-systems, etc. While tremendous efforts have been devoted to either stochastic methods or multiscale methods, little combined work had been done on integration of multiscale and stochastic methods, and there was no method formally available to tackle multiscale problems involving uncertainties. By developing an innovative Multiscale Stochastic Finite Element Method (MSFEM), this research has made a ground-breaking contribution to the emerging field of Multiscale Stochastic Modeling (MSM) (Fig 1). The theory of MSFEM basically decomposes a boundary value problem of random microstructure into a slow scale deterministic problem and a fast scale stochastic one. The slow scale problem corresponds to common engineering modeling practices where fine-scale microstructure is approximated by certain effective constitutive constants, which can be solved by using standard numerical solvers. The fast scale problem evaluates fluctuations of local quantities due to random microstructure, which is important for scale-coupling systems and particularly those involving failure mechanisms. The Green-function-based fast-scale solver developed in this research overcomes the curse-of-dimensionality commonly met in conventional approaches, by proposing a random field-based orthogonal expansion approach. …