Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy project sheet summarizing general information about a new program for the development of efficient, high-energy permanent magnets (project title "High-Energy Permanent Magnets for Hybrid Vehicles and Alternative Energy") including critical needs, innovation and advantages, impacts, and contact information. This sheet is the first open solicitation, announcing funding opportunities for involvement in the project.

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A study was conducted to evaluate the capabilities of different numerical methods used to represent microstructure behavior at the mesoscale for irradiated material using an idealized benchmark problem. The purpose of the mesoscale benchmark problem was to provide a common basis to assess several mesoscale methods with the objective of identifying the strengths and areas of improvement in the predictive modeling of microstructure evolution. In this work, mesoscale models (phase-field, Potts, and kinetic Monte Carlo) developed by PNNL, INL, SNL, and ORNL were used to calculate the evolution kinetics of intra-granular fission gas bubbles in UO2 fuel under post-irradiation thermal annealing conditions. The benchmark problem was constructed to include important microstructural evolution mechanisms on the kinetics of intra-granular fission gas bubble behavior such as the atomic diffusion of Xe atoms, U vacancies, and O vacancies, the effect of vacancy capture and emission from defects, and the elastic interaction of non-equilibrium gas bubbles. An idealized set of assumptions was imposed on the benchmark problem to simplify the mechanisms considered. The capability and numerical efficiency of different models are compared against selected experimental and simulation results. These comparisons find that the phase-field methods, by the nature of the free energy formulation, are …

We report the most direct experimental verification of Mott-Hubbard and charge-transfer insulators through x-ray emission spectroscopy in transition-metal (TM) fluorides. The p-d hybridization features in the spectra allow a straightforward energy alignment of the anion-2p and metal-3d valence states, which visually shows the difference between the two types of insulators. Furthermore, in parallel with the theoretical Zaanen-Sawatzky-Allen diagram, a complete experimental systematics of the 3d Coulomb interaction and the 2p-3d charge-transfer energy is reported and could serve as a universal experimental trend for other TM systems including oxides.

Melter tests were conducted to determine the retention of technetium and other volatiles in glass while processing simulated Low Activity Waste (LAW) streams through a DM10 melter equipped with a prototypical off-gas system that concentrates and recycles fluid effiuents back to the melter feed. To support these tests, an existing DM10 system installed at Vitreous State Laboratory (VSL) was modified to add the required recycle loop. Based on the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) LAW off-gas system design, suitably scaled versions of the Submerged Bed Scrubber (SBS), Wet Electrostatic Precipitator (WESP), and TLP vacuum evaporator were designed, built, and installed into the DM10 system. Process modeling was used to support this design effort and to ensure that issues associated with the short half life of the {sup 99m}Tc radioisotope that was used in this work were properly addressed and that the system would be capable of meeting the test objectives. In particular, this required that the overall time constant for the system was sufficiently short that a reasonable approach to steady state could be achieved before the {sup 99m}Tc activity dropped below the analytical limits of detection. The conceptual design, detailed design, flow sheet development, process model …

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Individual datastreams from instrumentation at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility fixed and mobile research sites are collected and routed to the Data Management Facility (DMF) for processing in near-real-time. Instrument and processed data are then delivered approximately daily to the ARM Data Archive, where they are made freely available to the research community. For each instrument, we calculate the ratio of the actual number of processed data records received daily at the Data Archive to the expected number of data records. The results are tabulated by (1) individual datastream, site, and month for the current year and (2) site and fiscal year dating back to 1998.

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The central objective of our proposed research was twofold: 1) to investigate the structure-function relationship of Desulfovibrio desulfuricans (now Desulfovibrio alaskensis G20) cytochrome c3 with uranium and 2) to elucidate the mechanism for uranium reduction in vitro and in vivo. Physiological analysis of a mutant of D. desulfuricans with a mutation of the gene encoding the type 1 tetraheme cytochrome c3 had demonstrated that uranium reduction was negatively impacted while sulfate reduction was not if lactate were the electron donor. This was thought to be due to the presence of a branched pathway of electron flow from lactate leading to sulfate reduction. Our experimental plan was to elucidate the structural and mechanistic details of uranium reduction involving cytochrome c3.

This project is researching FAST, a methodology to build very fast, cycleaccurate full system computer simulators and building the first set of such simulators and the first set of tools to help construct those simulators. The methodology relies on a functional model that is a fast, full-system but not cycle-accurate simulator coupled with a timing model that is models the micro-architectural structure and arbitration of a computer system, but not its functionality. The way FAST simulators differ from other simulators partitioned in the same way is that the interface between the functional and timing model is optimized to minimize the need for round-trip communication. The optimized communication enables FAST timing models to be implemented in an FPGA and the functional model in software while still achieving extremely high performance. Our general strategy is to design a methodology and then prototype an example using that methodology to ensure the methodology is sound before committing to it. This strategy ensures that the selected methodology has been tested and provides an early example of the output of that methodology.

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This report discusses radiation protection and dose reporting requirements, presents the 2010 occupational radiation dose data trended over the past 5 years, and includes instructions to submit successful ALARA projects.

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Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy project sheet summarizing general information about a new program to develop a cost-effective thermal storage system utilizing a supercritical fluid to replace molten salt systems (project title "Thermal Energy Storage With Supercritical Fluids") including critical needs, innovation and advantages, impact, and contact information. This sheet is the first open solicitation, announcing funding opportunities for involvement in the project.

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Ion exchange using spherical resorcinol-formaldehyde (SRF) resin has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (DOE-ORP) for use in the Pretreatment Facility (PTF) of the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) and for potential application in at-tank deployment. Numerous studies have shown SRF resin to be effective for removing 137Cs from a wide variety of actual and simulated tank waste supernatants (Adamson et al. 2006; Blanchard et al. 2008; Burgeson et al. 2004; Duignan and Nash 2009; Fiskum et al. 2006a; Fiskum et al. 2006b; Fiskum et al. 2006c; Fiskum et al. 2007; Hassan and Adu-Wusu 2003; King et al. 2004; Nash et al. 2006). Prior work at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has focused primarily on the loading behavior for 4 to 6 M Na solutions at 25 to 45°C. Recent proposed changes to the WTP ion exchange process baseline indicate that loading may include a broader range of sodium molarities (0.1 to 8 M) and higher temperatures (50°C) to alleviate post-filtration precipitation issues. This report discusses ion exchange loading kinetics testing activities performed in accordance with Test Plan TP-WTPSP-002, Rev. 3.0 , which was prepared and approved in response to …

To understand the origin of the spin-glass state in molybdate pyrochlores, the structure of Tb{sub 2}Mo{sub 2}O{sub 7} is investigated using two techniques: the long-range lattice structure was measured using neutron powder diffraction (NPD), and local structure information was obtained from the extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) technique. While the long-range structure appears generally well ordered, enhanced mean-squared site displacements on the O(1) site and the lack of temperature dependence of the strongly anisotropic displacement parameters for both the Mo and O(1) sites indicate some disorder exists. Likewise, the local structure measurements indicate some Mo-Mo and Tb-O(1) nearest-neighbor disorder exists, similar to that found in the related spin-glass pyrochlore, Y{sub 2}Mo{sub 2}O{sub 7}. Although the freezing temperature in Tb{sub 2}Mo{sub 2}O{sub 7}, 25 K, is slightly higher than in Y{sub 2}Mo{sub 2}O{sub 7}, 22 K, the degree of local pair distance disorder is actually less in Tb{sub 2}Mo{sub 2}O{sub 7}. This apparent contradiction is considered in light of the interactions involved in the freezing process.

Despite the closure of the HERA accelerator in the past few years, much physics still remains to be understood, from the quark and gluon content of the nucleon/nucleus across all x to the still unknown spin structure of the proton. The 'Future of DIS' working group was dedicated to discussions on these and many other subjects. This paper represents a brief overview of the discussions. For further details, please refer to individual contributions.

CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) designed, constructed, commissioned, and began operation of the largest groundwater pump and treatment facility in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) nationwide complex. This one-of-a-kind groundwater pump and treatment facility, located at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation Site (Hanford Site) in Washington State, was built to an accelerated schedule with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds. There were many contractual, technical, configuration management, quality, safety, and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) challenges associated with the design, procurement, construction, and commissioning of this $95 million, 52,000 ft groundwater pump and treatment facility to meet DOE’s mission objective of treating contaminated groundwater at the Hanford Site with a new facility by June 28, 2012. The project team’s successful integration of the project’s core values and green energy technology throughout design, procurement, construction, and start-up of this complex, first-of-its-kind Bio Process facility resulted in successful achievement of DOE’s mission objective, as well as attainment of LEED GOLD certification, which makes this Bio Process facility the first non-administrative building in the DOE Office of Environmental Management complex to earn such an award.

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Cores of magnetic vortices in micron-sized NiFe disk structures, with thicknesses between 150 and 50 nm, were imaged and analysed by high resolution magnetic soft X-ray microscopy. A decrease of the vortex core radius was observed, from #24; ~38 to 18 nm with decreasing disk thickness. By comparing with full 3D micromagnetic simulations showing the well-known barrel structure, we obtained excellent agreement taking into account instrumental broadening and a small perpendicular anisotropy. The proven magnetic spatial resolution of better than 25 nm was sufficient to identify a negative dip close to the vortex core, originating from stray fields of the core. Magnetic vortex structures can serve as test objects for evaluating sensitivity and spatial resolution of advanced magnetic microscopy techniques.

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