The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) commitment to assuring the health and safety of its workers includes the conduct of epidemiologic surveillance activities that provide an early warning system for health problems among workers. The Illness and Injury Surveillance Program monitors illnesses and health conditions that result in an absence of workdays, occupational injuries and illnesses, and disabilities and deaths among current workers.

This year the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) delivered nearly 900 million core hours of science. The research conducted at their leadership class facility touched our lives in both minute and massive ways - whether it was studying the catalytic properties of gold nanoparticles, predicting protein structures, or unearthing the secrets of exploding stars. The authors remained true to their vision to act as the forefront computational center in extending science frontiers by solving pressing problems for our nation. Our success in this endeavor was due mainly to the Department of Energy's (DOE) INCITE (Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment) program. The program awards significant amounts of computing time to computationally intensive, unclassified research projects that can make high-impact scientific advances. This year, DOE allocated 400 million hours of time to 28 research projects at the ALCF. Scientists from around the world conducted the research, representing such esteemed institutions as the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and European Center for Research and Advanced Training in Scientific Computation. Argonne also provided Director's Discretionary allocations for research challenges, addressing such issues as reducing aerodynamic noise, critical for next-generation 'green' energy systems. Intrepid - the …

The Flooding Predictor™ is a patented advanced control technology proven in research at the Separations Research Program, University of Texas at Austin, to increase distillation column throughput by over 6%, while also increasing energy efficiency by 10%. The research was conducted under a U. S. Department of Energy Cooperative Agreement awarded to George Dzyacky of 2ndpoint, LLC. The Flooding Predictor™ works by detecting the incipient flood point and controlling the column closer to its actual hydraulic limit than historical practices have allowed. Further, the technology uses existing column instrumentation, meaning no additional refining infrastructure is required. Refiners often push distillation columns to maximize throughput, improve separation, or simply to achieve day-to-day optimization. Attempting to achieve such operating objectives is a tricky undertaking that can result in flooding. Operators and advanced control strategies alike rely on the conventional use of delta-pressure instrumentation to approximate the column’s approach to flood. But column delta-pressure is more an inference of the column’s approach to flood than it is an actual measurement of it. As a consequence, delta pressure limits are established conservatively in order to operate in a regime where the column is never expected to flood. As a result, there is much “left …

Four series of glass compositions were selected, fabricated, and characterized as part of a study to determine the impacts of the addition of Crystalline Silicotitanate (CST) and Monosodium Titanate (MST) from the Small Column Ion Exchange (SCIX) process on the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) glass waste form and the applicability of the DWPF process control models. All of the glasses studied were considerably more durable than the benchmark Environmental Assessment (EA) glass. The measured Product Consistency Test (PCT) responses were compared with the predicted values from the current DWPF durability model. One of the KT01-series and two of the KT03-series glasses had measured PCT responses that were outside the lower bound of the durability model. All of the KT04 glasses had durabilities that were predictable regardless of heat treatment or compositional view. In general, the measured viscosity values of the KT01, KT03, and KT04-series glasses are well predicted by the current DWPF viscosity model. The results of liquidus temperature (T{sub L}) measurements for the KT01-series glasses were mixed with regard to the predictability of the T{sub L} for each glass. All of the measured T{sub L} values were higher than the model predicted values, although most fell within the …

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As a part of the US Department of Energy's Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity (AVTA), a model year 2010 Ford Fusion was procured by eTec (Phoenix, AZ) and sent to ANL's Advanced Powertrain Research Facility for the purposes of vehicle-level testing in support of the Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity. Data was acquired during testing using non-intrusive sensors, vehicle network information, and facilities equipment (emissions and dynamometer). Standard drive cycles, performance cycles, steady-state cycles, and A/C usage cycles were conducted. Much of this data is openly available for download in ANL's Downloadable Dynamometer Database. The major results are shown in this report. Given the benchmark nature of this assessment, the majority of the testing was done over standard regulatory cycles and sought to obtain a general overview of how the vehicle performs. These cycles include the US FTP cycle (Urban) and Highway Fuel Economy Test cycle as well as the US06, a more aggressive supplemental regulatory cycle. Data collection for this testing was kept at a fairly high level and includes emissions and fuel measurements from an exhaust emissions bench, high-voltage and accessory current/voltage from a DC power analyzer, and CAN bus data such as engine speed, engine load, and electric machine …

Improved material for use in organic photovoltaics (OPV) devices, also called polymer-solar cells (PSC), has been developed. Increased ordering of the active layer of bulk heterojunction (BHJ) cells has been achieved by the use of inert silica spheres in conjunction with suitable fullerene derivatives. Silica spheres with average diameters between 10 and 15 nm, consistent with the exciton diffusion length in the active layer, have been added. The potential for significantly improved device performance due to a higher degree of photon absorption, enabled by increased light scattering, and a maximized interface between electron donor and acceptor, ensuring efficient exciton dissociation, has been demonstrated. A method allowing for the covalent attachment of fullerene derivatives to the silica sphere surface has been developed.

We evaluated covariances in the neutron resonance region for capture and elastic scattering cross sections on minor structural materials, {sup 50,53}Cr, {sup 54,57}Fe and {sup 60}Ni. Use was made of the recently developed covariance formalism based on kernel approximation along with data in the Atlas of Neutron Resonances. Our results of most interest for advanced fuel cycle applications, elastic scattering cross section uncertainties at energies around 100 keV, are on the level of about 7-10%.

Deep C Wind, a consortium headed by the University of Maine will test the first U.S. offshore wind platforms in 2012. In advance of final siting and permitting of the test turbines off Monhegan Island, residents of the island off Maine require reassurance that the noise levels from the test turbines will not disturb them. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, at the request of the University of Maine, and with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy Wind Program, modeled the acoustic output of the planned test turbines.

Emittance growth seen during the last commissioning run in the bunch compressor optics section, BC1, was blamed on inadequate dipole field quality. The significant linear and nonlinear field non-uniformities generated large horizontal dispersion errors beyond BC1. The linear dispersion after BC1 was corrected using two small 'corrector' quadrupoles placed in BC1 for this purpose, but the remaining nonlinear field caused growth of the normalized horizontal emittance of 40% or more. At best {gamma}{epsilon}{sub x} went from 1.2 {micro}m before BC1 up to 1.7 {micro}m after BC1. The problem was magnified by the larger-than-design energy spread in BC1 due to a long initial bunch length. To improve the field quality we decided to modify the two 'inner dipoles', BX12 and BX13, of the four magnet chicane during the four month down time in the Fall of 2007. Only the two inner dipoles were chosen because of the limited time available and the fact that the beam is particularly sensitive to field quality of the inner dipoles due to its very large transverse size when going through them. The modifications were completed in November and included new poles and a new pinning scheme. The outer dipoles were left unchanged.

Silicon is a promising anode material for Li-ion batteries in regarding of high capacity, low cost and safety, but it suffers poor cycling stability due to the pulverization induced by severe volume expansion/shrinkage (297%) during lithium insertion/extraction. In our previous investigation on aluminum nanorods anodes, it is found the selection of substrates in which Al nanorods grown plays the role in prevention of pulverization resulting in the increase of cycling life. Adapting this knowledge, we investigated the Si based nanorods anodes by tuning its composition and element distribution. Our results show that although the Si nanorods demonstrated higher initial anodic capacity of 1500 mAh/g, it diminished after 50 cycles due to morphology change and pulverization. By codepositing Cu, the Si-Cu composite nanorods demonstrated sustainable capacity of 500 mAh/g in 100 cycles attributing to its flexible and less brittle nature.

The proposed stainless steel beampipe for the LCLS undulator has a measurable shielding effect on the magnetic field of the LCLS undulators. This note describes the tests used to determine the magnitude of the shielding effect, as well as deviations in the shielding effect caused by placing different phase shims in the undulator gap. The effect of the proposed Steel strongback which will be used to support the beam pipe, was also studied. A hall probe on a 3 axis movement system was set up to measure the main component of the magnetic field in the Prototype Undulator. To account for temperature variations of the magnetic field of the undulator for successive tests, a correction is applied which is described in this technical note. Using this method, we found the shielding effect, the amount which the field inside the gap was reduced due to the placement of the beampipe, to be {approx}10 Gauss. A series of tests was also performed to determine the effect of phase shims and X and Y correction shims on the shielding. The largest effect on shielding was found for the .3 mm phase shims. The effect of the .3 mm phase shims was to increase …