The Melt Attack and Coolability Experiments (MACE) program at Argonne National Laboratory addressed the issue of the ability of water to cool and thermally stabilize a molten core/concrete interaction (MCCI) when the reactants are flooded from above. These tests provided data regarding the nature of corium interactions with concrete, the heat transfer rates from the melt to the overlying water pool, and the role of noncondensable gases in the mixing processes that contribute to melt quenching. However, due to the integral nature of these tests, several questions regarding the crust freezing behavior could not be adequately resolved. These questions include: (1) To what extent does water ingression into the crust increase the melt quench rate above the conduction-limited rate and how is this affected by melt composition and system pressure and (2) What is the fracture strength of the corium crust when subjected to a thermal-mechanical load and how does it depend upon the melt composition? A series of separate-effects experiments are being conducted to address these issues. The first employs an apparatus designed to measure the quench rate of a pool of corium ({approx}{phi}30 cm; up to 20 cm deep). The main parameter to be varied in these quench …

MINERvA experiment has a highly segmented and high precision neutrino detector able to record events with high statistic (over 13 millions in a four year run). MINERvA uses FERMILAB NuMI beamline. The detector will allow a detailed study of neutrino-nucleon interactions. Moreover, the detector has a target with different materials allowing, for the first time, the study of nuclear effects in neutrino interactions. We present here the work done with the MINERvA reconstruction group that has resulted in: (a) development of new codes to be added to the RecPack package so it can be adapted to the MINERvA detector structure; (b) finding optimum values for two of the MegaTracker reconstruction package variables: PEcut = 4 (minimum number of photo electrons for a signal to be accepted) and Chi2Cut = 200 (maximum value of {chi}{sup 2} for a track to be accepted); (c) testing of the multi anode photomultiplier tubes used at MINERvA in order to determine the correlation between different channels and for checking the device's dark counts.

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This thesis is dedicated to the study of the first data taken by the D0 detector during the Run II of the Tevatron. Supersymmetric particles have been search for in proton-antiproton collisions, with a center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV. In the framework of supersymmetry with R-parity violation, I have studied the pair production of Gauginos, leading to a pair of LSP ({chi}{sub 1}{sup 0}), each one decaying into ee{nu}{sub {mu}} or e{mu}{nu}{sub e} with a {lambda}{sub 121} coupling. The final state contains at least two electrons: I have thus paid special attention in this work to the methods concerning identification and mis-identification of electromagnetic particles, as well as reconstruction, triggering, and correction (of the reconstructed energy). In a selection of trileptons, with at least two electrons, and some transverse missing energy, we observed 0 event in the 350 pb{sup -1} of analyzed data, for 0,4{sub -0,05}{sup +0,35}(stat) {+-} 0,16 (sys) expected from the Standard Model contributions. In the signal considered in this analysis, the selection efficiency is around 12%. Results have been studied in two models: mSUGRA and MSSM. In mSUGRA model, limits on m{sub 1/2} and lightest gauginos's masses have been obtained, with tan{beta} = 5, A{sub …

The investigation reported here was conducted by the Commodity Credit Corporation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (CCC/USDA) in 2006. The investigation addressed carbon tetrachloride contamination on the former CCC/USDA grain storage facility at Ramona, Kansas. The results clearly demonstrate that only minimal contamination is associated with the past use of carbon tetrachloride on the former CCC/USDA property. No soil contamination was detected at concentrations above Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) risk-based screening level (RBSL) Tier 2 standard of 200 {micro}g/kg for the soil-to-groundwater protection pathway. Carbon tetrachloride concentrations in groundwater above the RBSL and maximum contaminant level (MCL) value of 5.0 {micro}g/L were detected in only two samples, collected at adjacent locations on the southeast part of the property. The relatively low concentrations detected and the limited areal extent of the contamination demonstrate that no imminent threat exists on the former CCC/USDA property to warrant remediation. The soil and groundwater contamination detected on the former CCC/USDA property is clearly separate from contamination detected at off-site locations. The carbon tetrachloride and chloroform contamination in groundwater (at concentrations above the RBSL and MCL value) associated with past activities on the former CCC/USDA property is contained within the property boundaries. …

This report satisfies Milestone 4295 for Work Package A0403K11. The long-term behavior of TRISO nuclear reactor fuel in a geologic repository is examined in terms of its durability and thermal impact. The TRISO fuel concept, under development at General Atomics[1] involves embedding fissile uranium and/or actinides in a carbonaceous material as shown in Fig. 1. In the concept, fuel kernels containing fissile material are surrounded with a porous carbon buffer and coated with inner and outer pyrocarbon layers separated with a SiC layer. The fuel particles are then imbedded in a graphite compact and the compacts placed in fuel channels drilled in fuel assembly blocks as shown in the lower right-hand corner of the figure. Dimensions are listed in Table 1. Available data on the degradation of the carbonaceous materials in an aqueous environment is reviewed. A model accounting for waste package failure and the resulting degradation of the waste forms is used to evaluate the potential for the long-term sequestration of radionuclides from spent TRISO fuel in the Yucca Mountain Repository. Finally, thermal analyses of decay heat assess the potential benefits in repository space utilization from recycling actinides from PWR spent fuel as very high burnup TRISO fuel. Experimental …

DER-CAM Developed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), is an optimization tool for DER technology selection. However it can not be simply applied to the Japanese case because of the different climate and the utility tariff. This research aims to develop an optimization tool for distributed energy for Japanese buildings using GAMS, a high-level modeling system for mathematical programming and optimization. This paper describes how we apply and demonstrate the tool to the energy center at Kitakyushu Research city, where has installed a fuel cell and a gas engine. An analysis has also been conducted to see how the utility tarriff and the equipment efficiency can affect the operation of the DER system.

Recent studies on TRU disposition in fast reactors indicated viable reactor performance for a sodium cooled low conversion ratio reactor design. Additional studies have been initiated to refine the earlier work and consider the feasibility of alternate fuel forms such as nitride and oxide fuel (rather than metal fuel). These alternate fuel forms may have significant impacts upon the burner design and the safety behavior. The work performed thus far has focused on compiling the necessary fuel form property information and refinement of the physics models. For this limited project, the burner design and performance using nitride fuel will be assessed.

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This report concerns the generation of support vector machine classifiers for solving the pattern recognition problem in machine learning. Several methods are proposed based on interior point methods for convex quadratic programming. Software implementations are developed by adapting the object-oriented packaging OOQP to the problem structure and by using the software package PETSc to perform time-intensive computations in a distributed setting. Linear systems arising from classification problems with moderately large numbers of features are solved by using two techniques--one a parallel direct solver, the other a Krylov-subspace method incorporating novel preconditioning strategies. Numerical results are provided, and computational experience is discussed.

The largest volume waste stream associated with oil and gas production is produced water. A survey conducted by the American Petroleum Institute estimated that 20.9 billion barrels of produced water were disposed of in 1985 (Wakim 1987). Of this total, 91% was disposed of through disposal wells or was injected for enhanced oil recovery projects. Treatment and disposal of produced water represents a significant cost for operators. A relatively new technology, downhole oil/water separators (DOWS), has been developed to reduce the cost of handling produced water. DOWS separate oil and gas from produced water at the bottom of the well and reinject some of the produced water into another formation or another horizon within the same formation, while the oil and gas are pumped to the surface. Since much of the produced water is not pumped to the surface, treated, and pumped from the surface back into a deep formation, the cost of handling produced water is greatly reduced. When DOWS are used, additional oil may be recovered as well. In cases where surface processing or disposal capacity is a limiting factor for further production within a field, the use of DOWS to dispose of some of the produced water …

This Streamlined Approach for Environmental Restoration (SAFER) Plan addresses closure for Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 124, Areas 8, 15, and 16 Storage Tanks, identified in the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order. Corrective Action Unit 124 consists of five Corrective Action Sites (CASs) located in Areas 8, 15, and 16 of the Nevada Test Site as follows: • 08-02-01, Underground Storage Tank • 15-02-01, Irrigation Piping • 16-02-03, Underground Storage Tank • 16-02-04, Fuel Oil Piping • 16-99-04, Fuel Line (Buried) and UST This plan provides the methodology of field activities necessary to gather information to close each CAS. There is sufficient information and process knowledge from historical documentation and investigations of similar sites regarding the expected nature and extent of potential contaminants to recommend closure of CAU 124 using the SAFER process.

This report highlights the research performed in 2004 in the Physics Division of Argonne National Laboratory. The Division's programs include operation of ATLAS as a national user facility, nuclear structure and reaction research, nuclear theory, medium energy nuclear research and accelerator research and development. The intellectual challenges of this research represent some of the most fundamental challenges in modern science, shaping our understanding of both tiny objects at the center of the atom and some of the largest structures in the universe. A great strength of these efforts is the critical interplay of theory and experiment. Notable results in research at ATLAS include a measurement of the charge radius of He-6 in an atom trap and its explanation in ab-initio calculations of nuclear structure. Precise mass measurements on critical waiting point nuclei in the rapid-proton-capture process set the time scale for this important path in nucleosynthesis. An abrupt fall-off was identified in the subbarrier fusion of several heavy-ion systems. ATLAS operated for 5559 hours of research in FY2004 while achieving 96% efficiency of beam delivery for experiments. In Medium Energy Physics, substantial progress was made on a long-term experiment to search for the violation of time-reversal invariance using trapped Ra …