Residual free water expected to remain in a Multi-Canister Overpack (MCO) after processing in the Cold Vacuum Drying (CVD) Facility is investigated based on three alternative models of fuel crevices. Tests and operating conditions for the CVD process are defined based on the analysis of these models. The models consider water pockets constrained by cladding defects, water constrained in a pore or crack by flow through a porous bed, and water constrained in pores by diffusion. An analysis of comparative reaction rate constraints is also presented indicating that a pressure rise test can be used to show MCO`s will be thermally stable at operating temperatures up to 75 C.

The engineering process of integrating the Petawatt (10{sup 15} watts) laser system into the existing 30 kJ (UV) Nova laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is described in detail. The nanosecond-long, chirped Petawatt laser pulse is initially generated in a separate master oscillator room and then injected into one of Nova`s 10 beamlines. There, the pulse is further amplified and enlarged to {approximately}{phi}60 cm, temporally compressed under vacuum to <500 fs using large diameter diffraction gratings, and then finally focused onto targets using a parabolic mirror. The major Petawatt components are physically large which created many significant engineering challenges in design, installation and implementation. These include the diffraction gratings and mirrors, vacuum compressor chamber, target chamber, and parabolic focusing mirror. Other Petawatt system components were also technically challenging and include: an injection beamline, transport spatial filters, laser diagnostics, alignment components, motor controls, interlocks, timing and synchronization systems, support structures, and vacuum systems. The entire Petawatt laser system was designed, fabricated, installed, and activated while the Nova laser continued its normal two-shift operation. This process required careful engineering and detailed planning to prevent experimental downtime and to complete the project on schedule.

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) will use about 8,000 large optics to carry a high-power laser through a stadium-size building, and will do so on a very tight schedule and budget. The collocated Optics Assembly Building (OAB) will assemble and align, in a clean-room environment, the NIF`s large optics, which are the biggest optics ever assembled in such an environment. In addition, the OAB must allow for just-in-time processing and clean transfer to the areas where the optics will be used. By using a mixture of off-the-shelf and newly designed equipment and by working with industry, we have developed innovative handling systems to perform the clean assembly and precise alignment required for the full variety of optics, as well as for postassembly inspection. We have also developed a set of loading mechanisms that safely get the clean optics to their places in the main NIF building.

We discuss how solid-state laser technology can serve in the interests of fusion energy beyond the goals of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), which is now being constructed to ignite a deuterium-tritium target to fusion conditions in the laboratory for the first time. We think that advanced solid-state laser technology can offer the repetition-rate and efficiency needed to drive a fusion power plant, in contrast to the single-shot character of NIF. As discuss below, we propose that a gas-cooled, diode-pumped Yb:S-FAP laser can provide a new paradigm for fusion laser technology leading into the next century.

A damage morphology study was performed with a 355 nm Nd:YAG laser on synthetic UV-grade fused silica to determine the effects of post- polish chemical etching on laser-induced damage, compare damage morphologies of cleaved and polished surfaces, and understand the effects of the hydrolyzed surface layer and waste-crack interactions. The samples were polished , then chemically etched in buffered HF solution to remove 45,90,135, and 180 nm of surface material. Another set of samples was cleaved and soaked in boiling distilled water for 1 second and 1 hour. All the samples were irradiated at damaging fluencies and characterized by Normarski optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Damage was initiated as micro-pits on both input and output surfaces of the polished fused silica sample. At higher fluencies, the micro-pits generated cracks on the surface. Laser damage of the polished surface showed significant trace contamination levels within a 50 nm surface layer. Micro-pit formation also appeared after irradiating cleaved fused silica surfaces at damaging fluences. Linear damage tracks corresponding cleaving tracks were often observed on cleaved surfaces. Soaking cleaved samples in water produced wide laser damage tracks.

This document is a summary of the history of Tank 241-Z-361 through December 1997. Documents reviewed include engineering files, laboratory notebooks from characterization efforts, waste facility process procedures, supporting documents and interviews of people`s recollections of 20 plus years ago. Records of transfers into the tank, past characterization efforts, and speculation will be used to estimate the current condition of Tank 241-Z-361 and its contents.

This report documents the results of a technical evaluation of the merits of ceramic and glass immobilization forms for the disposition of surplus weapons-useable plutonium. The evaluation was conducted by a Technical Evaluation Panel (TEP), whose members were selected to cover a relevant range of scientific and technical expertise and represented each of the technical organizations involved in the Plutonium Immobilization Program. The TEP held a formal review at Lawrence Liver-more National Laboratory (LLNL) from July 2%August 1, 1997. Following this review, the TEP documented the review and its evaluation of the two immobilization technologies in this report to provide a technical basis for a recommendation by LLNL to the Department of Energy (DOE) for the preferred immobilization form. The comparison of the glass and ceramic forms and manufacturing processes was a tremendous challenge to the TEP. The two forms and their processes are similar in many ways. The TEP went to great effort to accurately assess what were, in many cases, fine details of the processes, unit operations, and the glass and ceramic forms themselves. The set of criteria used by the Fissile Materials Disposition Program (FMDP) in past screenings and down-selections was used to measure-the two options. One …

Installing the thousands of optics that make up the laser for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a complex operation. This paper introduces the Optical Transport and Material Handling designs that will be used to deliver the optics. The transport and handling hardware is being designed to allow autonomous, semiautonomous, and manual operations.

The upcoming satellite missions MAP and Planck will measure the spectrum of fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background with unprecedented accuracy. I discuss the prospect of using these observations to distinguish among proposed models of inflationary cosmology.

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Westinghouse Savannah River Company (Westinghouse) is responsible for managing the Department of Energy`s (Department) surplus facilities at the Savannah River Site (Site). In Fiscal Year (FY) 1996, the Site had 162 surplus facilities and anticipated that 118 more would become surplus within the next 5 years. The objective of this audit was to determine whether the Savannah River Operations Office (Operations Office) and Westinghouse had economically and promptly deactivated, decontaminated, and disposed of surplus facilities at the Site. Departmental regulations require that surplus facilities be deactivated, decontaminated, and disposed of economically and promptly. However, Westinghouse only disposed of one facility and did not completely deactivate or decontaminate any of the 162 facilities identified as surplus at the Site in FY 1996. This occurred because the Operations Office did not compile a Site-wide list, establish priorities, or provide sufficient funding for the deactivation, decontamination, and disposal of surplus facilities. As a result, the Department incurred unnecessary costs for the surveillance and maintenance of surplus facilities. For example, the Department could have avoided annual costs of about $1.3 million in surveillance and maintenance costs by spending $1.2 million to perform a deactivation project on the P-Reactor process-water storage tanks. The Operations Office …

For a part of the Foster and South Cowden (Grayburg-San Andres) oil fields, improvement in oil production has been accomplished, in part, by using �pipeline fracturing� technology in the most recent completion to improve fluid flow rates, and filtration of waterflood injection water to preserve reservoir permeability. The 3D seismic survey acquired in conjunction with this DOE project has been used to calculate a 3D seismic inversion model, which has been analyzed to provide detailed maps of porosity within the productive upper 250 feet of the Grayburg Formation. Geologic data, particularly from logs and cores, have been combined with the geophysical interpretation and production history information to develop a model of the reservoir that defines estimations of remaining producible oil. The integrated result is greater than the sum of its parts, since no single data form adequately describes the reservoir. Each discipline relies upon computer software that runs on PC-type computers, allowing virtually any size company to affordably access the technology required to achieve similar results.

Authorizing legislation for federal surface transportation programs highway, highway safety, and transit expired at the end of FY1997. The federal framework for these programs was created by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (P.L. 102-240), better known as ISTEA. ISTEA was the first major highway act of the post interstate highway construction era. As such, it is regarded as landmark legislation.

The world`s population, energy demand, and rate of carbon emissions are increasing, but the rates of increase are uncertain. Even modest growth rates present significant challenges to existing and developing technologies for reducing carbon and greenhouse gas emissions while meeting growing energy demands. Nuclear power is currently the most developed alternative to fossil fuel combustion and is one of the options for meeting these challenges. However, there remain significant technical, economic and institutional barriers inhibiting growth of nuclear capacity in the U.S. and slowing implementation worldwide. In the near-term, the major barriers to nuclear power, especially in the U.S., appear to be economic and institutional, with the risks such as safety, waste management and proliferation having reasonably acceptable limits considering the current installed capacity. Future growth of nuclear power, however, may well hinge on continuous evolutionary and perhaps revolutionary reduction of these risks such that the overall risk of nuclear power, aggregated over the entire installed capacity, remains at or below today`s risks.

The Custom J2/J3 Backplane is a full length (21 slot) user specified custom 3U backplane to be used in both the J2 and J3 positions. Slot spacing is identical to that used for VME (0.8-inch), and each backplane shall fit into a standard Eurocard VME style crate. The purpose of the Custom J2/J3 Backplane is to send and receive control and clock signals from the SVX chips via 3M pleated foil cables (Slots 2-21), and in slot 1, accept a cable connector and route its signal through to a signal distribution board.

'Objectives of this project are to: (1) investigate the glass composition and processing conditions that yield optimum properties for iron phosphate glasses for vitrifying radioactive waste, (2) determine the atomic structure of iron phosphate glasses and the structure-property relationships, (3) determine how the physical and structural properties of iron phosphate glasses are affected by the addition of simulated high level nuclear waste components, and (4) investigate the process and products of devitrification of iron phosphate waste forms. The glass forming ability of about 125 iron phosphate melts has been investigated in different oxidizing to reducing atmospheres using various iron oxide raw materials such as Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3}, FeO, Fe{sub 3}O{sub 4}, and FeC{sub 2}O{sub 4} 2H{sub 2}O. The chemical durability, redox equilibria between Fe(II) and Fe(III), crystallization behavior and structural features for these glasses and their crystalline forms have been investigated using a variety of techniques including Mossbauer spectroscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) and X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) analysis, differential thermal and thermogravimetric analysis (DTA/TGA), and X-ray and neutron diffraction.'

Some states have hired private attorneys to file complaints against the tobacco companies in court to recover Medicaid costs towards treating citizens for tobacco related illnesses. This report mentions the fee agreements between the states and private counsel.

In the past few years, many states have filed complaints against the tobacco industry in state court to recover Medicaid costs paid by the states to treat their citizens for tobacco related illnesses. The states are also attempting to recover other damages, such as punitive damages, against the tobacco industry. For various reasons, the states have hired private attorneys to assist the state Attorneys General in prosecuting these cases. In most cases, the retention of private counsel has included a fee agreement specifying the amount of compensation that these attorneys will receive for their services. These agreements are not uniform among the states, but most tend to provide some form of contingency fee arrangement. Some of these states have developed a sliding scale contingency fee schedule which varies with the amount of time spent on the litigation and whether a trial has begun. This report briefly summarizes the different fee agreements that the states have with private counsel.

The intended objective of this project was to show the benefits of using a fluidized bed furnace for austenitizing and austempering of steel castings in a continuous manner. The division of responsibilities was as follows: (1) design of the fluidized bed furnace--Kemp Development Corporation; (2) fabrication of the fluidized bed furnace--Quality Electric Steel, Inc.; (3) procedure for austempering of steel castings, analysis of the results after austempering--Texas A and M University (Texas Engineering Experiment Station). The Department of Energy provided funding to Texas A and M University and Kemp Development Corporation. The responsibility of Quality Electric Steel was to fabricate the fluidized bed, make test castings and perform austempering of the steel castings in the fluidized bed, at their own expense. The project goals had to be reviewed several times due to financial constraints and technical difficulties encountered during the course of the project. The modifications made and the associated events are listed in chronological order.

This quarter started out with fresh ability to perform sustained engine operation on gas because of the successful operation of the gas compressor last quarter. The authors have completed baseline tests recording emissions and efficiency numbers. This gives the authors data that they have never before been able to acquire in the facility. In addition to the baseline data they have recorded data with a host of additional engine variables. These variables include the adjustments of ignition timing, air fuel ratio, air inlet temperatures and some propane seeding of the injected gas. With the background data on record they will be able to properly measure the level of positive impact that the port gas injection system provides. The remaining time in this quarter has been focused on completing the application of the port style gas injection system. The next steps in this project all pivot on the application of this port injection system. They have also progressed in the evaluation of the cylinder/engine monitoring system.

At large industrial sites like the A/M Area of the Savannah River Site (SRS), undissolved dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) in soil and groundwater is the most significant barrier to successful clean up. DNAPL acts as a reservoir that will continue to generate contaminant levels far above remediation concentration goals well into the future.

Several compounds were evaluated in a number of optical configurations in order to test the optical response of these compounds to changes in humidity. Reichardt`s betaine (Reichardt`s dye, ET-30 dye, 2,6-diphenyl-4-(2,4,6-triphenyl-N-pyridinio)phenolate), a solvatochromic molecule, and several vapochromic compounds were tested, and each responded to a wide range of humidity by exhibiting shifts in visible absorption. All compounds in the study suffered from some degree of hysteresis upon humidity cycling. It is unclear as to the mechanism for this hysteresis, but future work will attempt to either model or remove the hysteresis effects. In the case of the vapochromic compounds, the hysteresis may be due to structural changes in the crystal lattice of the solid state compound. A prototype sensor configuration was also developed involving an attenuated total reflectance probe. The future of the project will deal with elucidating the hysteresis mechanisms for each compound, evaluating several other vapochromic compounds, and testing different immobilization schemes for the compounds under study. In addition, several other optical technologies will be investigated for application in optical humidity sensing.

Congress, federal agencies, and affected mid-Atlantic states are seeking to better understand Pftesteria piscicida, a recently identified species of dinoflagellate algae that appears to have harmful effects on both fish and human health, and to determine how best to mitigate its impacts. While individual states seek to address concerns, Congress and federal agencies are considering how best to assist state efforts. Issues of likely interest to Congress include water quality management, agriculture and its possible role in the problem, human health effects, and impacts on fisheries.

A preliminary set of Rossi-alpha measurements were performed on the IPEN MB-01 research reactor. The intent of the measurements was to determine if the efficiency of the BF{sub 3} detectors placed in the central region of the core was sufficiently high enough to allow an accurate measurement of the effective delayed neutron fraction, {beta}{sub eff}, and the alpha at delayed critical. In addition, a preliminary measurement of the intrinsic source strength was performed to determine the optimum external/intrinsic source strength that would allow the obtainment of sufficient counting statistics in a reasonable length of time without degrading the signal-to-noise ratio.