The direct assay of filter media by gamma spectrometry following DEOX testing has distinct advantages over analytical chemistry. Prior to using gamma spectrometry for the quantification of cesium (Cs-137), a calibration must be established with known sources since gamma spectrometry yields relative results. Quantitative analytical chemistry, in particular ICP-MS, has been performed on the filter media for comparison to the gamma spectrometry data. The correlation of gamma spectrometry to ICP-MS data is presented to justify the continued use of gamma spectrometry for filter media.

This report presents results of system analyses that have been developed to assess the hydrogen production performance of commercial-scale high-temperature electrolysis (HTE) plants driven by three different advanced reactor – power-cycle combinations: a high-temperature helium cooled reactor coupled to a direct Brayton power cycle, a supercritical CO2-cooled reactor coupled to a direct recompression cycle, and a sodium-cooled fast reactor coupled to a Rankine cycle. The system analyses were performed using UniSim software. The work described in this report represents a refinement of previous analyses in that the process flow diagrams include realistic representations of the three advanced reactors directly coupled to the power cycles and integrated with the high-temperature electrolysis process loops. In addition, this report includes parametric studies in which the performance of each HTE concept is determined over a wide range of operating conditions. Results of the study indicate that overall thermal-to- hydrogen production efficiencies (based on the low heating value of the produced hydrogen) in the 45 - 50% range can be achieved at reasonable production rates with the high-temperature helium cooled reactor concept, 42 - 44% with the supercritical CO2-cooled reactor and about 33 - 34% with the sodium-cooled reactor.

Robust and reliable quantitative proliferation assessment tools have the potential to contribute significantly to a strengthened nonproliferation regime and to the future deployment of nuclear fuel cycle technologies. Efforts to quantify proliferation resistance have thus far met with limited success due to the inherent subjectivity of the problem and interdependencies between attributes that lead to proliferation resistance. We suggest that these limitations flow substantially from weaknesses in the foundations of existing methodologies--the initial data inputs. In most existing methodologies, little consideration has been given to the utilization of varying types of inputs--particularly the mixing of subjective and objective data--or to identifying, understanding, and untangling relationships and dependencies between inputs. To address these concerns, a model set of inputs is suggested that could potentially be employed in multiple approaches. We present an input classification scheme and the initial results of testing for relationships between these inputs. We will discuss how classifying and testing the relationship between these inputs can help strengthen tools to assess the proliferation risk of nuclear fuel cycle processes, systems, and facilities.

Metallic nuclear fuels are being looked at as part of the Global Nuclear Energy Program for transmuting longlive transuranic actinide isotopes contained in spent nuclear fuel into shorter-lived fission products. In order to optimize the performance of these fuels, the concept of using liners to eliminate the fuel/cladding chemical interactions that can occur during irradiation of a fuel element has been investigated. The potential liner materials Zr and V have been tested using solid-solid diffusion couples, consisting of liner materials butted against fuel alloys and against cladding materials. The couples were annealed at the relatively high temperature of 700°C. This temperature would be the absolute maximum temperature present at the fuel/cladding interface for a fuel element in-reactor. Analysis was performed using a scanning electron microscope equipped with energy-dispersive and wavelengthdispersive spectrometers (SEM/EDS/WDS) to evaluate any developed diffusion structures. At 700°C, minimal interaction was observed between the metallic fuels and either Zr or V. Similarly, limited interaction was observed between the Zr and V and the cladding materials. The best performing liner material appeared to be the V, based on amounts of interaction.

An unavoidable by-product of a metallic structure's use is the appearance of crack, corrosion, erosion and other flaws. Economic barriers to the replacement of these structures have created an aging civil and military infrastructure and placed even greater demands on efficient and safe repair and inspection methods. As a result of Homeland Security issues and these aging infrastructure concerns, increased attention has been focused on the rapid repair and preemptive reinforcement of structures such as buildings and bridges. This Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program established the viability of using bonded composite patches to repair metallic structures. High modulus fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) material may be used in lieu of mechanically fastened metallic patches or welds to reinforce or repair damaged structures. Their use produces a wide array of engineering and economic advantages. Current techniques for strengthening steel structures have several drawbacks including requiring heavy equipment for installation, poor fatigue performance, and the need for ongoing maintenance due to continued corrosion attack or crack growth. The use of bonded composite doublers has the potential to correct the difficulties associated with current repair techniques and the ability to be applied where there are currently no rehabilitation options. Applications include such diverse …

As the power requirements for modern electronics continue to decrease, many devices which were once dependent on wired power are now being implemented as portable devices operating from self-contained power sources. The most prominent source of portable power is the electrochemical battery, which converts chemical energy into electricity. However, long lasting batteries require large amounts of space for chemical storage, and inevitably require replacement when the chemical reaction no longer takes place. There are many transducers and scavenging energy sources (SES) that are able to exploit their environment to generate low levels of electrical power over a long-term time period, including photovoltaic cells, thermoelectric generators, thermionic generators, and kinetic/piezoelectric power generators. This generated power is sustainable as long as specific environmental conditions exist and also does not require the large volume of a long lifetime battery. In addition to the required voltage generation, stable power conversion requires excess energy to be efficiently stored in an ultracapacitor or similar device and monitoring control algorithms to be implemented, while computer modeling and simulation can be used to complement experimental testing. However, building an efficient and stable power source scavenged from a varying input source is challenging.

DOP-26 iridium alloy cups are used for fuel cladding for radioisotope power systems. The cups are deep drawn and recrystallized prior to final fabrication operations. This study characterizes the plastic deformation of cups during a sizing operation following the recrystallization heat treatment. The purpose of the sizing operation is to achieve the specified roundness, diameter, and radius dimensions of the cup. The operation introduces various levels of plastic strain in the cup. Plastic strain can be a cause of inhomogeneous or abnormal grain growth during subsequent exposure to elevated temperature during the service life of the fueled clad. This is particularly true in the case of cups which have irregularities in the cup walls from the deep drawing operations. Diameter and roundness measurements were made on two cups both before and after sizing. Plastic strain levels were calculated using the ABAQUSTM finite element software. The calculated plastic strain levels in both cups were below 0.025, a value shown to be below the critical strain for abnormal grain growth during a simulated service exposure. The calculated maximum plastic strain was found to increase with increased applied sizing load and was not sensitive to the input value for the clearance between the …

Downhole sonar surveys from the four active U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve sites have been modeled and used to generate a four-volume sonar atlas, showing the three-dimensional geometry of each cavern. This volume 3 focuses on the Bryan Mound SPR site, located in southeastern Texas. Volumes 1, 2, and 4, respectively, present images for the Bayou Choctaw SPR site, Louisiana, the Big Hill SPR site, Texas, and the West Hackberry SPR site, Louisiana. The atlas uses a consistent presentation format throughout. The basic geometric measurements provided by the down-cavern surveys have also been used to generate a number of geometric attributes, the values of which have been mapped onto the geometric form of each cavern using a color-shading scheme. The intent of the various geometrical attributes is to highlight deviations of the cavern shape from the idealized cylindrical form of a carefully leached underground storage cavern in salt. The atlas format does not allow interpretation of such geometric deviations and anomalies. However, significant geometric anomalies, not directly related to the leaching history of the cavern, may provide insight into the internal structure of the relevant salt dome.

This report details the development of a microfabricated preconcentrator that functions as a fully integrated chemical extractor-injector for a microscale gas chromatograph (GC). The device enables parts-per-billion detection and quantitative analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in indoor air with size and power advantages over macro-scale systems. The 44 mm{sup 3} preconcentrator extracts VOCs using highly adsorptive, granular forms of graphitized carbon black and carbon molecular sieves. The micron-sized silicon cavities have integrated heating and temperature sensing allowing low power, yet rapid heating to thermally desorb the collected VOCs (GC injection). The keys to device construction are a new adsorbent-solvent filling technique and solvent-tolerant wafer-level silicon-gold eutectic bonding technology. The product is the first granular adsorbent preconcentrator integrated at the wafer level. Other advantages include exhaustive VOC extraction and injection peak widths an order of magnitude narrower than predecessor prototypes. A mass transfer model, the first for any microscale preconcentrator, is developed to describe both adsorption and desorption behaviors. The physically intuitive model uses implicit and explicit finite differences to numerically solve the required partial differential equations. The model is applied to the adsorption and desorption of decane at various concentrations to extract Langmuir adsorption isotherm parameters from effluent curve …

The Grid resources are distributed among hundreds of independent Grid sites, requiring a higher level Workload Management System (WMS) to be used efficiently. Pilot jobs have been used for this purpose by many communities, bringing increased reliability, global fair share and just in time resource matching. GlideinWMS is a WMS based on the Condor glidein concept, i.e. a regular Condor pool, with the Condor daemons (startds) being started by pilot jobs, and real jobs being vanilla, standard or MPI universe jobs. The glideinWMS is composed of a set of Glidein Factories, handling the submission of pilot jobs to a set of Grid sites, and a set of VO Frontends, requesting pilot submission based on the status of user jobs. This paper contains the structural overview of glideinWMS as well as a detailed description of the current implementation and the current scalability limits.

The Okanogan Basin Monitoring and Evaluation Program collected data related to spring spawning anadromous salmonid stocks across the entire Okanogan River basin. Data were collected using redd surveys, traps, underwater video, and PIT-tag technology then summarized and analyzed using simple estimate models. From these efforts we estimated that 1,266 summer steelhead spawned in the Okanogan River basin and constructed 552 redds;152 of these fish where of natural origin. Of these, 121 summer steelhead, including 29 of natural origin, created an estimated 70 redds in the Canadian portion of the Okanagan basin. We estimated summer steelhead spawner escapement into each sub-watershed along with the number from natural origin and the number and density of redds. We documented redd desiccation in Loup Loup Creek, habitat utilization in Salmon Creek as a result of a new water lease program, and 10 spring Chinook returning to Omak Creek. High water through most of the redd survey period resulted in development of new modeling techniques and allowed us to survey additional tributaries including the observation of summer steelhead spawning in Wanacut Creek. These 2007 data provide additional support that redd surveys conducted within the United States are well founded and provide essential information for tracking …

This report documents the key safety and operational aspects of a Z-pinch Externally Driven Nuclear Assembly (ZEDNA) reactor concept which is envisioned to be built and operated at the Z-machine facility in Technical Area IV. Operating parameters and reactor neutronic conditions are established that would meet the design requirements of the system. Accident and off-normal conditions are analyzed using a point-kinetics, one-dimensional thermo-mechanical code developed specifically for ZEDNA applications. Downwind dose calculations are presented to determine the potential dose to the collocated worker and public in the event of a hypothetical catastrophic accident. Current and magnetic impulse modeling and the debris shield design are examined for the interface between the Z machine and the ZEDNA. This work was performed as part of the Advanced Fusion Grand Challenge Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program. The conclusion of this work is that the ZEDNA concept is feasible and could be operated at the Z-machine facility without undue risk to collocated workers and the public.

This paper is concerned with the implementation of a computational model of turbulent flow in a section of the lower plenum of Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR). The proposed model has been encoded in a state-of-the-art CFD code, NPHASE. The results of NPHASE predictions have been compared against the experimental data collected using a scaled model of a sub-region in the lower plenum of a modular prismatic gas-cooled reactor. It has been shown that the NPHASE-based model is capable of predicting a three-dimensional velocity field in a complex geometrical configuration of VHTR lower plenum. The current and future validations of computational predictions are necessary for design and analysis of new reactor concepts, as well as for safety analysis and licensing calculations.

Large areas across the United States are potentially contaminated with UXO, with some ranges encompassing tens to hundreds of thousands of acres. Technologies are needed which will allow for cost effective wide area scanning with 1) near 100 % coverage and 2) near 100 % detection of subsurface ordnance or features indicative of subsurface ordnance. The current approach to wide area scanning is a multi-level one, in which medium altitude fixed wing optical imaging is used for an initial site assessment. This assessment is followed with low altitude manned helicopter based magnetometry followed by surface investigations using either towed geophysical sensor arrays or man portable sensors. In order to be effective for small UXO detection, the sensing altitude for magnetic site investigations needs to be on the order of 1 – 3 meters. These altitude requirements means that manned helicopter surveys will generally only be feasible in large, open and relatively flat terrains. While such surveys are effective in mapping large areas relatively fast there are substantial mobilization/demobilization, staffing and equipment costs associated with these surveys (resulting in costs of approximately $100-$150/acre). Surface towed arrays provide high resolution maps but have other limitations, e.g. in their ability to navigate rough …

The reconstruction of extensive air showers (arrival direction, core position and energy estimation) by the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory is discussed together with the corresponding accuracy. We determine the angular reconstruction accuracy as a function of the station multiplicity by using two different approaches. We discuss statistical and systematic uncertainties in the determination of the signal at 1000 m from the core, S(1000), which is used to estimate the primary energy.

TPI Composites, Inc. (TPI), Global Energy Concepts, LLC (GEC), and MDZ Consulting (MDZ) have collaborated on a project to design, manufacture, and test prototype carbon-fiberglass hybrid wind turbine blades of 9-m length. The project, funded by Sandia National Laboratories, involves prototype blades in both conventional (unidirectional spar fibers running along the blade span) and ''adaptive'' (carbon fibers in off-axis orientation to achieve bend-twist-coupling) configurations. After manufacture, laboratory testing is being conducted to determine the static and fatigue strength of the prototypes, in conjunction with field testing to evaluate the performance under operational conditions.

The need to anticipate the consequences of policy decisions becomes ever more important as the magnitude of the potential consequences grows. The multiplicity of connections between the components of society and the economy makes intuitive assessments extremely unreliable. Agent-based modeling has the potential to be a powerful tool in modeling policy impacts. The direct mapping between agents and elements of society and the economy simplify the mapping of real world functions into the world of computation assessment. Our modeling initiative is motivated by the desire to facilitate informed public debate on alternative policies for how we, as a nation, provide healthcare to our population. We explore the implications of this motivation on the design and implementation of a model. We discuss the choice of an agent-based modeling approach and contrast it to micro-simulation and systems dynamics approaches.

The U.S. Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) seeks to develop and demonstrate the technologies needed to transmute the long-lived transuranic actinide isotopes contained in spent nuclear fuel into shorter-lived fission products, thereby dramatically decreasing the volume of material requiring disposal and the long-term radio-toxicity and heat load of high-level waste sent to a geologic repository. One important component of the technology development is actinide-bearing transmutation fuel forms containing plutonium, neptunium, americium (and possibly curium) isotopes. Metallic alloy and oxide fuel forms are being developed as the near term options for fast reactor implementation.

File Part 2 of 10 (Comprises Appendices C through O, Library Distribution List, and Geophysics Data Images

File Part 3 of 10 (Comprises Geophysics Data Images)

The Department of Energy Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management has specified borated stainless steel manufactured to the requirements of ASTM A 887-89, Grade A, UNS S30464, to be the material used for the fabrication of the fuel basket internals of the preliminary transportation, aging, and disposal canister system preliminary design. The long-term corrosion resistance performance of this class of borated materials must be verified when exposed to expected YMP repository conditions after a waste package breach. Electrochemical corrosion tests were performed on crevice corrosion coupons of Type 304 B4 and Type 304 B5 borated stainless steels exposed to single postulated in-package chemistry at 60°C. The results show low corrosion rates for the test period

We report on a search for narrow-width particles decaying to a top and antitop quark pair. The data set used in the analysis corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 680 pb{sup -1} collected with the Collider Detector at Fermilab in Run II. We present 95% confidence level upper limits on the cross section times branching ratio. Assuming a specific top color-assisted technicolor production model, the leptophobic Z{prime} with width {Gamma}{sub Z{prime}} = 0.012M{sub Z{prime}}, we exclude the mass range M{sub Z{prime}} < 725 GeV/c{sup 2} at the 95% confidence level.

This guide describes the R&A process, Common Look and Feel requirements, and preparation and publishing procedures for communication products at Sandia National Laboratories. Samples of forms and examples of published communications products are provided. This guide takes advantage of the wealth of material now available on the Web as a resource. Therefore, it is best viewed as an electronic document. If some of the illustrations are too small to view comfortably, you can enlarge them on the screen as needed. The most significant changes since Version 1 involve the introduction of the electronic Review and Approval application at the Sandia/California (CA) and Sandia/New Mexico (NM) sites. Authors are advised to check the most current material on the application Web site before initiating the R&A process. The format of this document is considerably different than that expected of a SAND Report. It was selected to permit the large number of illustrations and examples to be placed closer to the text that references them. In the case of forms, covers, and other items that are included as examples, a link to the Web is provided so that you can access the items and download them for use.

Increased use of nuclear power will require new facilities. The U.S. has not built a new spent nuclear fuel reprocessing facility for decades. Reprocessing facilities must maintain accountability of their nuclear fuel. This survey report on the techniques used in current aqueous reprocessing facilities, and provides references to source materials to assist facility design efforts.