Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Legislative Branch Appropriations.

A geotechnical investigation program has been completed for the Circulating Light Water Reactor - Tritium Extraction Facility (CLWR-TEF) at the Savannah River Site (SRS). The program consisted of reviewing previous geotechnical and geologic data and reports, performing subsurface field exploration, field and laboratory testing and geologic and engineering analyses. The purpose of this investigation was to characterize the subsurface conditions for the CLWR-TEF in terms of subsurface stratigraphy and engineering properties for design and to perform selected engineering analyses. The objectives of the evaluation were to establish site-specific geologic conditions, obtain representative engineering properties of the subsurface and potential fill materials, evaluate the lateral and vertical extent of any soft zones encountered, and perform engineering analyses for slope stability, bearing capacity and settlement, and liquefaction potential. In addition, provide general recommendations for construction and earthwork.

The Engineered Barrier System (EBS) Testing Department is performing tests in the Department of Energy's Atlas Facility to evaluate the performance of various means for increasing the time for breakthrough of radionuclides from the waste package to the base of the invert. This includes testing various barriers in the invert as a means of increasing breakthrough time through the process of diffusion. A diffusion barrier may serve as an invert material for the emplacement drifts. The invert material may consist of crushed tuff from the repository excavation at Yucca Mountain or silica sand. The objective of this report is to determine the diffusion coefficient of the crushed tuff and silica sand invert materials specified by the EBS Testing Department. The laboratory derived information from the testing was used in the Nernst-Einstein equation (Jurinak et al. 1987, p. 626) to determine the diffusion coefficient of the invert material. This report transmits the results and describes the methodology and interpretation. The scope of this report is to determine the diffusion coefficients of the invert materials mentioned above using the centrifuge at UFA Ventures. Standard laboratory procedures, described in Section 2 of this report, were used. The diffusion coefficients are to be determined …

The cracking resistance of Alloy 600, Alloy 690 and their welds, EN82H and EN52, was characterized by conducting J{sub IC} rising load tests in air and hydrogenated water and cooldown testing in water under constant-displacement conditions. All test materials displayed excellent toughness in air and high temperature water, but Alloy 690 and the two welds were severely embrittled in low temperature water. In 54 C water with 150 cc H{sub 2}/kg H{sub 2}O, J{sub IC} values were reduced by 70% to 95%, relative to their air counterpart. The toughness degradation was associated with a fracture mechanism transition from microvoid coalescence to intergranular fracture. Comparison of the cracking response in water with that for hydrogen-precharged specimens tested in air demonstrated that susceptibility to low temperature crack propagation (LTCP) is due to hydrogen embrittlement of grain boundaries. The effects of water temperature, hydrogen content and loading rate on LTCP were studied. In addition, testing of specimens containing natural weld defects and as-machined notches was performed to determine if low temperature cracking can initiate at these features. Unlike the other materials, Alloy 600 is not susceptible to LTCP as the toughness in 54 C water remained high and a microvoid coalescence mechanism was …

Savannah River site (SRS) facilities that contain hazardous materials have completed the Emergency Preparedness Hazards Assessment (EPHA) process in accordance with Emergency Management Program Procedure (EMPP) 6Q-001. The EPHA determines the consequences of releases from these facilities and identifies events that exceed Protective Action Criteria (PAC) at defined receptor locations for areas of interest. One such area of interest is the Crackerneck wildlife Management Area (WMA). As such, facilities with releases that have the potential to exceed PAC at the Crackerneck WMA have been identified.

This report details solidification activities using selected Mixed Waste Focus Area technologies with the High and Low Solid waste streams. Ceramicrete and Super Cement technologies were chosen as the best possible replacement solidification candidates for the waste streams generated by the SRS incinerator from a list of several suggested Mixed Waste Focus Area technologies. These technologies were tested, evaluated, and compared to the current Portland cement technology being employed. Recommendation of a technology for replacement depends on waste form performance, process flexibility, process complexity, and cost of equipment and/or raw materials.

A cold pump test, training, and mock-up facility needs to be acquired and installed to support Tank Waste Retrieval and Disposal (TWR&D). Such a facility would serve useful purposes for the TWR&D, and would also have the capability to provide similar services for other Hanford Site activities.

This document defines the functions and requirements (F&R) for a test facility to provide for pre-deployment, checkout, testing, and training for the underground storage tank retrieval equipment, systems, and crews that will be developed or deployed as part of Waste Feed Delivery. The F&R for a River Protection Project retrieval test facility, one that supports a production mode tank farm system, are identified.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the progress towards achieving the goals of the Energy Policy Act's petroleum replacement programs, focusing on the: (1) progress made in acquiring alternative fuel vehicles and using alternative fuels to meet the act's fuel replacement goals; (2) impediments to using alternative fuel vehicles; and (3) measures that can be taken to address those impediments to using alternative fuel vehicles and alternative fuels to help reach the act's replacement goals."

Evaluation of direct buried piping currently in use or designated for future Saltwell pumping in S and SX Farms. Documented evaluation of failed S-103 saltwell pumping transfer line 3 inch SN-219. This evaluation is intended to reflect current status of Saltwell piping, when taken in context with referenced documents.

A series of tests were conducted to provide site-specific Kd values for constituents of concern at the TNX Outfall Delta Operable Unit. These Kd values can be used to calculate contaminant migration within the operable unit and are, at this time considered to be the most defensible values.

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A non-invasive microwave device for the detection of epi/subdural hemorrhaging (hematoma) is under current development. The final device will be highly portable and allow real time assessment of head injuries, thereby satisfying early detection needs of the field technician as well as providing a tool for repetitious monitoring of high-risk individuals. The device will adopt the advanced technology of micropower impulse radar (MIR) which is a state of the art low cost ultra wide band (UWB) microwave radar developed here at LLNL. It will consist of a MIR transmitting and receiving module, a computer based signal processing module, and a device-to-patient signal coupling module--the UWB antenna. The prototype design is being guided by the needs of the patient and the practitioner along with the prerequisites of the technology including issues such as the specificity of the device, efficacy of diagnosis, accuracy, robustness, and patient comfort. The prototype development follows a concurrent approach which .includes experiments designed to evaluate requirements of the radar and antenna design, phantom development to facilitate laboratory investigations, and investigation into the limits of adapting pre-existing non-medical MIR devices to medical applications. This report will present the accomplishments and project highlights to date in the fiscal year …

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During the period from late June to early September of this year, approximately 1,600 gallons of precipitate feed stored in the Precipitate Hold Tank (PHT) at PHEF decomposed. This decomposition took place during a two month storage period of the Tetraphenyl borate (TPB) precipitate under a CO{sub 2} blanket. The visual inspection of the tank revealed that a very small amount of TPB solids were left and that there were approximately 100 to 110 gals of benzene/high boilers present in the tank. The resultant decomposition products in the PHT consist of an organic and aqueous phase containing a small quantity of unreacted solids. A path forward was developed to understand TPB decomposition and to determine if the material remaining in the PHT could be processed without adverse effects to the process or equipment. A small scale hydrolysis run with the remaining PHT material was made by Process Technology Development Group of DWPT at TNX. It was determined from small scale runs and an extensive analysis of the PHT material that the decomposed material was safe to run at PHEF without adversely affecting the process or equipment. The PHT volume was 1,592 gallons at the time of decomposition. Two runs (66 …

A regional groundwater flow model encompassing approximately 100 mi2 surrounding the C, K, L, and P reactor areas has been developed. The reactor flow model is designed to meet the planning objectives outlined in the General Groundwater Strategy for Reactor Area Projects by providing a common framework for analyzing groundwater flow, contaminant migration and remedial alternatives within the Reactor Projects team of the Environmental Restoration Department. The model provides a quantitative understanding of groundwater flow on a regional scale within the near surface aquifers and deeper semi-confined to confined aquifers. The model incorporates historical and current field characterization data up through Spring 1999. Model preprocessing is automated so that future updates and modifications can be performed quickly and efficiently. The CKLP regional reactor model can be used to guide characterization, perform scoping analyses of contaminant transport, and serve as a common base for subsequent finer-scale transport and remedial/feasibility models for each reactor area.

In order to provide unit specific toxicity data that will be used to address critical uncertainty in the ecological risk assessment (ERA) for the TNX Outfall Delta Operable Unit (TNXOD OU), sediments were collected from eight locations in the Inner Swamp portion of the operable unit and two unit specific background locations. These samples were analyzed for total mercury, total uranium, and sediment toxicity.

Some aspects of low-frequency, long-wavelength fluctuations are considered. A stochastic model is used to show that power-law time correlations need not arise from self-organized criticality. A formula for the frequency spectrum of uncorrelated, overlapping avalanches is shown to be a special case of the spectral balance equation of renormalized statistical turbulence theory. It is argued that there need be no contradiction between the presence of long-time correlations and the existence of local transport coefficients.

This paper evaluates portable software packages for the iterative solution of very large sparse linear systems on parallel architectures. While we cannot hope to tell individual users which package will best suit their needs, we do hope that our systematic evaluation provides essential unbiased information about the packages and the evaluation process may serve as an example on how to evaluate these packages. The information contained here include feature comparisons, usability evaluations and performance characterizations. This review is primarily focused on self-contained packages that can be easily integrated into an existing program and are capable of computing solutions to very large sparse linear systems of equations. More specifically, it concentrates on portable parallel linear system solution packages that provide iterative solution schemes and related preconditioning schemes because iterative methods are more frequently used than competing schemes such as direct methods. The eight packages evaluated are: Aztec, BlockSolve,ISIS++, LINSOL, P-SPARSLIB, PARASOL, PETSc, and PINEAPL. Among the eight portable parallel iterative linear system solvers reviewed, we recommend PETSc and Aztec for most application programmers because they have well designed user interface, extensive documentation and very responsive user support. Both PETSc and Aztec are written in the C language and are callable from …

A common problem in signal processing is to estimate the structure of an object from noisy measurements linearly related to the desired image. These problems are broadly known as inverse problems. A key feature which complicates the solution to such problems is their ill-posedness. That is, small perturbations in the data arising e.g. from noise can and do lead to severe, non-physical artifacts in the recovered image. The process of stabilizing these problems is known as regularization of which Tikhonov regularization is one of the most common. While this approach leads to a simple linear least squares problem to solve for generating the reconstruction, it has the unfortunate side effect of producing smooth images thereby obscuring important features such as edges. Therefore, over the past decade there has been much work in the development of edge-preserving regularizers. This technique leads to image estimates in which the important features are retained, but computationally the y require the solution of a nonlinear least squares problem, a daunting task in many practical multi-dimensional applications. In this thesis we explore low-order models for reducing the complexity of the re-construction process. Specifically, B-Splines are used to approximate the object. If a ''proper'' collection B-Splines are …

The overall goal of this project was to assess the economic feasibility of CO{sub 2} flooding the naturally fractured Spraberry Trend Area in West Texas. This objective was accomplished by conducting research in four areas: (1) extensive characterization of the reservoirs, (2) experimental studies of crude oil/brine/rock (COBR) interaction in the reservoirs, (3) analytical and numerical simulation of Spraberry reservoirs, and, (4) experimental investigations on CO{sub 2} gravity drainage in Spraberry whole cores. This report provides results of the fourth year of the five-year project for each of the four areas including a status report of field activities leading up to injection of CO{sub 2}.

The purpose of this task is to update the existing bottom/side lift gantry analysis so that the design is consistent with Enhanced Design Alternative II (EDA II) design constraints listed in the Monitored Geologic Repository Project Description Document (CRWMS M and O 1999a, Section 2.2.1.1, p. 9a). This update is consistent with the requirements of the Technical Guidance Document for License Application Preparation (YMP 1999, Section 6.2.5.1). This update will also take into account the latest available equipment classification and Waste Emplacement/Retrieval System Description Document (SDD) (CRWMS M and O 2000c) requirements. The principal objective of this analysis is to verify that the newly developed bottom/side lift gantry concept continues to be a suitable design concept for the current Monitored Geologic Repository (MGR) design. This analysis includes an examination of the waste package (WP) transfer operation at the emplacement drift transfer dock. In addition, this analysis verifies that the gantry is compatible with the WP transporter, which has been redesigned to handle WPs sitting on pallets (CRWMS M and O 2000a). The scope of this work is to examine the existing analysis and to determine what, if any, modifications to the analysis may be required as a result of additional …

Accurate and efficient simulation of chemical transport processes in the unsaturated zone of Yucca Mountain is important to evaluate the performance of the potential repository. The scale of the unsaturated zone model domain for Yucca Mountain (50 km{sup 2} area with a 600 meter depth to the water table) requires a large gridblock approach to efficiently analyze complex flow & transport processes. The conventional schemes based on finite element or finite difference methods perform well for dispersion-dominated transport, but are subject to considerable numerical dilution/dispersion for advection-dominated transport, especially when a large gridblock size is used. Numerical dispersion is an artificial, grid-dependent chemical spreading, especially for otherwise steep concentration fronts. One effective scheme to deal with numerical dispersion is the random walk particle method (RWPM). While significant progress has been made in developing RWPM algorithms and codes for single continuum systems, a random walk particle tracker, which can handle chemical transport in dual-continua (fractured porous media) associated with irregular grid systems, is still absent (to our knowledge) in the public domain. This is largely due to the lacking of rigorous schemes to deal with particle transfer between the continua, and efficient schemes to track particles in irregular grid systems. The …

In 1999, Engineering at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory faced competing priorities to meet critical project milestones, insistent pressures to restructure internally to promote long-term technological growth, and immediate demands to reassign employees as major projects terminated and new ones emerged. This drive for change occurred among an unprecedented level of turmoil within the nuclear weapons design and manufacturing community. I believe the technical problems were more demanding this year and the environment within which they were accomplished more challenging, pushing us to accomplish more during greater turbulence than any other time in my tenure here. I am pleased to report that we met many key milestones and achieved numerous technological breakthroughs. In the project support areas, demands presented by our customers shifted significantly over the year. In the lasers area, we continued the detailed designs for the over $1 billion National Ignition Facility (NIF) super laser, paving the way for the procurement of components and structures for what is probably the largest high-tech construction project in the world. This work was undertaken in an environment of significant management and structural changes, with increased reporting requirements from the Department of Energy, starting in the middle of 1999. Despite these changes, our …