The goal of this work was to obtain information useful in the improvement of life and performance of alkaline secondary cells utilizing porous zinc electrodes. Toward this end, experiments designed to test predictions of the most sophisticated mathematical models of the porous zinc electrode were performed. This approach is based on the conviction that the surest way to realize a significantly longer-lived zinc electrode is through better understanding of the electrode gained through the interaction between modeling and model revision based on feedback resulting from experimental testing of the models. Experiments performed have emphasized determination of the potential distribution over the surface of a flat rectangular porous zinc electrode operated under conditions of severly limited convective flow, the determination of potential distribution and concentration variations over the surface of similar electrodes when operated under normal flow conditions, and the evaluation of OH/sup -/ depletion as a failure mode in zinc electrodes operated under conditions of severely limited convective flow. Results of the experiments and interpretations of them in terms of the appropriate models are given. 17 figures, 5 tables.

During the contract period, a consistent formalism for the definition of the growth rates (and thus the doubling time) of breeder reactor fuel has been developed. This formalism was then extended to symbiotic operation of breeder and converter reactors. Further, an estimation prescription for the growth rate has been developed which is based upon the breeding worth factors. The characteristics of this definition have been investigated, which led to an additional integral concept, the breeding bonus.

A workshop was convened to assist DOE's Technology Assessment Division in evaluating the need to prepare additional environmental- and social-impact assessments of different energy-conservation measures. Attendees participated in a decision-making exercise designed to rank 19 different energy-conservation measures according to their overall potential for achieving important national goals and their ease of implementation. The participants felt that the most-important ranking criteria dealt with questions concerning feasibility (economic, political/institutional, social, and technical) and economic efficiency. Other criteria, such as environmental quality and occupational health and safety received lower weights; possibly because of the widespread belief that most of the conservation measures presented would be environmentally beneficial. In the participants' view, the most-promising and feasible conservation measures include new-building-performance standards, retrofit of existing housing stock, new-appliance-performance standards and increased use of smaller cars. In contrast, conservation options which ranked rather low, such as diesel engines, coal-fired aluminum remelt furnaces, and cupola furnace modifications were expected to have some harmful environmental and health impacts. Most of these impacts are expected to be highly localized and of lesser national concern. Disagreement exists as to the efficacy of funding those projects deemed highly desirable and feasible versus those which are expected to have the greater …

Three methods are described to fabricate by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) molybdenum films which rival conventional mirror materials in their infrared reflectance. With an absolute reflectance of 97.4% at 10 ..mu..m, these Super Molybdenum films reflect better than any other molybdenum film previously reported. When deposited in the presence of oxygen, films of a reduced reflectance over the solar emission range result. If passivated and antireflected by a Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/ layer, such Black Molybdenum films are characterized by a solar absorptance value in excess of 90% and a thermal emittance value of 11% at 500/sup 0/C. No deterioration of these values has yet been observed in ongoing tests after 1000 hours exposure to 500/sup 0/C in a 1 Torr vacuum. Stacks containing Super Molybdenum as the reflector and amorphous silicon as the absorber have thus far survived 1000 hours in open air at 500/sup 0/C.

The purpose of this manual is to serve as a guide for persons using these techniques in water quality studies and as a written record of the methods used in this laboratory at this time. It is anticipated that the manual will be updated frequently as new methods are added and the present ones are further refined. The present methods are all used routinely and have been in regular use for a year or longer. This manual is specifically written as a guide for the collection and analysis of lake water samples from the Laurentian Great Lakes. However, all of the analytical methods are easily adapted for laboratory culture or small lake studies. The descriptions contained in this manual are designed primarily as users guides oriented to the equipment available at the Great Lakes Research Division, and as most of the methods are taken from the literature, the reader is referred to the original articles for a more detailed discussion of the methods.

The data include dual induction-focused log, acoustilog, compensated neutron log, gamma log, compensated densilog, temperature log, and lithology.

The work done under this contract in the last quarter of 1978 was concerned with Phase I, which involved preliminary catalyst and process evaluation. The processes under study are hydrogen assisted steam reforming (HASR), catalytic partial oxidation (CPO), and autothermal steam reforming (ATR). Existing Engelhard test units were modified to carry out preliminary runs using the first two processes. Technical analysis to support work in this area consisted of heat and material balances constrained by equilibrium considerations. In a third task, the steam reforming of methanol to produce hydrogen was studied over two commercial low-temperature shift catalysts. Aging runs indicated good initial performance on both catalysts, but methanol conversion started to decline after a few hundred hours on stream.

An attempt was made to relate episodes of air pollution at Barrow, Alaska, containing vanadium, to the behavior of planetary waves in middle and high latitudes. A stationarity index for planetary waves is defined as the ratio between amplitudes computed from monthly mean maps and the mean amplitudes computed on a daily basis and averaged over the same month, irrespective of phase angle. Longitude-time sections of 500-mb height anomalies at various latitudes are related to vanadium pollution episodes at Barrow.

Studies in support of in-situ gasification involved bench-scale combustor experiments using forward combustion and coke as a fuel. Measurements of the thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity and reactivity were made on several cokes over a range of temperatures. (LTN)

Twenty-three papers were presented at the meeting. A separate abstract was prepared for each paper. (LCL)

The pyrolysis products of benzene and toluene were studied as functions of temperature (up to 2000/sup 0/C) and pressure. Above 1400/sup 0/C, most of the larger species are unstable; above 1700/sup 0/C, no species heavier than C/sub 6/H/sub 6/ are observed at any pressure. Above 1500/sup 0/C and at higher pressures, the products are dominated by species containing even numbers of carbon atoms (C/sub 2/ to C/sub 12/). While polyacetylenes up to C/sub 8/H/sub 2/ were observed, they are present in low abundances, with the max concentrations occurring at 1350/sup 0/C. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are formed readily. 6 figures. (DLC)

This workshop has succeeded in bringing up 11 different coupled equation codes on the NRCC computer, testing them against a set of 24 different test problems and making them available to the user community. These codes span a wide variety of methodologies, and factors of up to 300 were observed in the spread of computer times on specific problems. A very effective method was devised for examining the performance of the individual codes in the different regions of the integration range. Many of the strengths and weaknesses of the codes have been identified. Based on these observations, a hybrid code has been developed which is significantly superior to any single code tested. Thus, not only have the original goals been fully met, the workshop has resulted directly in an advancement of the field. All of the computer programs except VIVS are available upon request from the NRCC. Since an improved version of VIVS is contained in the hybrid program, VIVAS, it was not made available for distribution. The individual program LOGD is, however, available. In addition, programs which compute the potential energy matrices of the test problems are also available. The software library names for Tests 1, 2 and 4 …

So that energy policy by state government may be formulated within the constraints imposed by policy determined at the national level - yet reflect the diverse interests of its citizens - large quantities of data and sophisticated analytic capabilities are required. This report presents the design of an energy-information/analytic system for New York State, the data for a base year, 1976, and projections of these data. At the county level, 1976 energy-supply demand data and electric generating plant data are provided as well. Data-base management is based on System 2000. Three computerized models provide the system's basic analytic capacity. The Brookhaven Energy System Network Simulator provides an integrating framework while a price-response model and a weather sensitive energy demand model furnished a short-term energy response estimation capability. The operation of these computerized models is described. 62 references, 25 figures, 39 tables.

This report describes a three-dimensional nonlinear TRANAL finite element analysis of a nuclear reactor subjected to ground shaking from a buried 50 kg explosive source. The analysis is a pretest simulation of a test event which was scheduled to be conducted in West Germany on 3 November 1979.

On February 14 and 15, 1978, a workshop on solar power development and thermal and thermochemical energy storage technology was held at Golden, Colorado. These proceedings contain the record of this workshop. They are divided into two volumes. Volume I presents an analysis and condensation of information discussed in round-table plenary sessions.

Storage of Kr-85 will be required in support of nuclear power reactors beginning in 1983. Both approaches described here appear to meet the requirements for such a storage medium. Entrapment of the Kr during sputtering has several rather obvious safety advantages. The operation of the process at low rho and at or below room temperature should reduce markedly the potential for significant Kr-85 release to the environment during processing of the waste stream. It also appears that adaptation of this process for handling radioactive materials would also be simpler than the large high pressure, high temperature apparatus required for loading the glass sample. Furthermore, a significantly higher Kr loading is possible in the sputtered metals thus reducing the volume required for storage by as much as a factor of 50 to 100. On the other hand, the low density loaded glass process takes advantage of a very inexpensive starting material and existing commercial technology for high temperature, high pressure processes. The volume of the Kr-loaded glass matrix could be reduced by going to still higher pressures.

The stability of dee, inverse-dee and square cross section plasmas to axisymmetric modes has been investigated experimentally in Tokapole II, a tokamak with a four-null poloidal divertor. Experimental results are closely compared with predictions of two numerical stability codes - the PEST code (ideal MHD, linear stability) adapted to tokapole geometry and a code which follows the nonlinear evolution of shapes similar to tokapole equilibria.

The overall objective of this program is to conduct research on metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) solar cells to improve understanding of the basic parameters which control photovoltaic processes in these cell structures. Current work includes fabrication, characterization, and theoretical studies of single crystal silicon-based cells, with Si0/sub x/ as the insulating film and Al or Au as the front metal contact. Studies of these two systems are intended to provide needed reference systems from which improved single crystal or polycrystalline devices can be systematically developed. The approach to cell fabrication involves growth of a Si0/sub x/ layer on a silicon substrate, and subsequent evaporation of a metal layer for the front contact by vacuum evaporation or electron beam deposition. Characterization of cells involves both physical and electro-optical measurements. Scanning Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) are utilized to determine depth concentration profiles and the nature of bonding in the interfacial region. Electron-optical measurements include current-voltage, capacitance-voltage, and spectral photoresponse measurements with the completed cell. In addition, ellipsometric measurements are utilized to determine oxide film thickness and the optical parameters for metal films on silicon. These results are compared to parameters determined from reflection and transmission measurements made on …

This experimental research has probed the nature of resonant absorption (RA) of laser light by laser-produced plasmas. The plasmas were created by optical breakdown of a shockfront produced in an electrothermal shock tube. This procedure allows the density structure of the plasma, and in particular, the orientation of the plasma critical-density surface, to be reproducibly formed from one shot to the next. Thus, for the first time, RA has been controllably and reproducibly studied in isolation from other plasma physics. The angular distribution of fast electrons emitted by RA and wavebreaking has been studied, and it is observed that the emission is directed in a narrow cone centered on the shockfront density-gradient vector, in agreement with the theory of wavebreaking.

During this reporting period, four more 100 kg continuous runs were completed to satisfy the six required by the project extension. One of the four (2*) was performed using a new standard CG2000 RC grower, using accessory equipment and process techniques developed under this project. The sixth and final 100 kg continuous run was performed with purified carbon parts and resulted in the best results to date. Run No. 62 resulted in 103.0 kg being pulled from 104.5 kg total charge weight (98.6% pulled yield). Of this 103 kg grown, 89.3 kg were monocrystalline. Moreover, 72.2 kg was OD material. Another encouraging result was that 85% of the eighth crystal was monocrystalline and 67% of the ninth and last crystal was monocrystaline after ninety seven hours of continuous growth. Impurity analysis data indicate that impurity build-up in grown crystals during 100 kg continuous runs is insignificant. However, the results indicate that impurities tend to accumulate in the crucible. Moreover, impurity analysis performed on new crucibles indicates that these new crucibles may not be as pure as the manufacturer's literature states. Solar cell efficiency data from two 100 kg continuous runs were received this quarter with very encouraging results. The average …

Several different methods have been developed for selecting sites for nuclear power plants. This report summarizes the basic assumptions and formal requirements of each method and evaluates conditions under which each is correctly applied to power plant siting problems. It also describes conditions under which different siting methods can produce different results. Included are criteria for evaluating the skill with which site-selection methods have been applied.

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Research is presented concerning iodide stress corrosion cracking of zircaloy, self-diffusion of oxygen in hypostoichiometric urania, surface chemistry of epitaxial silicon deposition by thermal cracking of silane, kinetics of laser pulse vaporization of UO/sub 2/, gas laser model for laser induced evaporation, solubility of hydrogen in uranium dioxide, thermal gradient migration of metallic inclusions in UO/sub 2/, molecular beam studies of atomic hydrogen reduction of oxides, and thermal gradient brine-inclusion migration in salt. (FS)

This report presents results of tests of different final site selection methods used for siting large-scale facilities such as nuclear power plants. Test data are adapted from a nuclear power plant siting study conducted on Long Island, New York. The purpose of the tests is to determine whether or not different final site selection methods produce different results, and to obtain some understanding of the nature of any differences found. Decision rules and weighting methods are included. Decision rules tested are Weighting Summation, Power Law, Decision Analysis, Goal Programming, and Goal Attainment; weighting methods tested are Categorization, Ranking, Rating Ratio Estimation, Metfessel Allocation, Indifferent Tradeoff, Decision Analysis lottery, and Global Evaluation. Results show that different methods can, indeed, produce different results, but that the probability that they will do so is controlled by the structure of differences among the sites being evaluated. Differences in weights and suitability scores attributable to methods have reduced significance if the alternatives include one or two sites that are superior to all others in many attributes. The more tradeoffs there are among good and bad levels of different attributes at different sites, the more important are the specifics of methods to the final decision. 5 …