The operating limits for radionuclides in sanitary and industrial wastes were determined for a proposed landfill at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP), Kentucky. These limits, which may be very small but nonzero, are not mandated by law or regulation but are needed for rational operation. The approach was based on analyses of the potential contamination of groundwater at the plant boundary and the potential exposure to radioactivity of an intruder at the landfill after closure. The groundwater analysis includes (1) a source model describing the disposal of waste and the release of radionuclides from waste to the groundwater, (2) site-specific groundwater flow and contaminant transport calculations, and (3) calculations of operating limits from the dose limit and conversion factors. The intruder analysis includes pathways through ingestion of contaminated vegetables and soil, external exposure to contaminated soil, and inhalation of suspended activity from contaminated soil particles. In both analyses, a limit on annual effective dose equivalent of 4 mrem (0.04 mSv) was adopted. The intended application of the results is to refine the radiological monitoring standards employed by the PGDP Health Physics personnel to determine what constitutes radioactive wastes, with concurrence of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

The phase-out of chlorofluorocarbons has necessitated the introduction of alternate refrigerants. R22 (CF{sub 2}ClH), R134a (CF{sub 3}CH{sub 2}F), and R507 (50/50 CHF{sub 2}CF{sub 3}/CF{sub 3}CH{sub 3}) are newer fluids which are used in cooling systems. Recently, concern over the possible formation of toxic compounds during electrical arcing through these fluids has prompted us to identify their electrical breakdown products by electron ionization GC/MS. For example, it is known that perfluoroisobutylene (PFIB), which have an threshold limit value of 10 ppb (set by the American Conference of Government Industrial Hygienists), is produced from the thermal and electrical breakdown of some refrigerants. We have used specially designed test cells, equipped with electrodes, to simulate the electrical breakdown of R22, R134a, and R507 in refrigeration systems.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is a US Department of Energy (DOE) facility for the permanent disposal of defense-related transuranic (TRU) waste. US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations specify that the DOE must demonstrate on a sound basis that the WIPP disposal system will effectively contain long-lived alpha-emitting radionuclides within its boundaries for 10,000 years following closure. In 1996, the DOE submitted the ''40 CFR Part 191 Compliance Certification Application for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant'' (CCA) to the EPA. The CCA proposed that the WIPP site complies with EPA's regulatory requirements. Contained within the CCA are descriptions of the scientific research conducted to characterize the properties of the WIPP site and the probabilistic performance assessment (PA) conducted to predict the containment properties of the WIPP disposal system. In May 1998, the EPA certified that the TRU waste disposal at the WIPP complies with its regulations. Waste disposal operations at WIPP commenced on March 28, 1999. The 1996 WIPP PA model of the disposal system included conceptual and mathematical representations of key hydrologic and geochemical processes. These key processes were identified over a 22-year period involving data collection, data interpretation, computer models, and sensitivity studies to evaluate the importance …

Using infrared, H evolution and x-ray diffraction (XRD), the structure of high H dilution, glow discharge deposited a-Si:H films ''on the edge of crystallinity'' is examined. From the Si-H wag mode peak frequency and the XRD results, we postulate the existence of very small Si crystallites contained within the amorphous matrix, with the vast majority of the bonded H located on these crystalline surfaces. Upon annealing at ramp rates of 8-15(degree)C/min, a H evolution both of which are far below those observed for a Si:H films grown without H dilution using similar ramp rates. While the crystallite volume fraction is too small to be detected by XRD in the as-grown films, these crystallites catalyze the crystallization of the remainder of the amorphous matrix upon moderate annealing, thus explaining the existence of the low temperature H evolution peak.

The Central Solenoid (CS) designed for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is a 13 T, 42 kA coil with a winding pack mass of 863 t, cooled by supercritical helium. To demonstrate the feasibility of the design and performance of the CS a CS Model Coil project was carried out during the ITER Engineering Design Activity in 1994- 1999. This paper describes the R&D and fabrication effort during this project with a focus on the construction of the Inner Module of the CS Model Coil by the US Home Team.

The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) is supporting the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the development of advanced air traffic management (ATM) systems as part of the Advanced Air Transportation Technologies program. As part of this program INEEL conducted a survey of human-system safety methods that have been applied to complex technical systems, to identify lessons learned from these applications and provide recommendations for the development of advanced ATM systems. The domains that were surveyed included offshore oil and gas, commercial nuclear power, commercial aviation, and military. The survey showed that widely different approaches are used in these industries, and that the methods used range from very high-level, qualitative approaches to very detailed quantitative methods such as human reliability analysis (HRA) and probabilistic safety assessment (PSA). In addition, the industries varied widely in how effectively they incorporate human-system safety assessment in the design, development, and testing of complex technical systems. In spite of the lack of uniformity in the approaches and methods used, it was found that methods are available that can be combined and adapted to support the development of advanced air traffic management systems.

The heating and current drive (H and CD) system proposed for the TPX tokamak will consist of ion cyclotron, neutral beam, and lower hybrid systems. It will have 17.5 MW of installed H and CD power initially, and can be upgraded to 45 MW. It will be used to explore advanced confinement and fully current-driven plasma regimes with pulse lengths of up to 1,000 s.

We have characterized the response of the negative resist SAL605 in the extreme ultraviolet ({lambda}=13 nm). The sensitivity was found to be {approx}1 mJ/cm{sup 3} for all conditions studied. We have identified processing conditions leading to high ({gamma}{gt}4) contrast. The resist response was modeled using Prolith/2 and the development parameters were obtained from the exposure curves.

The distribution of scattered light at the image plane of an extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) system was measured, in situ. These measurements revealed a significant degradation of the modulation transfer function of the imaging optic, relative to its value in the absence of scattering.

Performance of an Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUVL) imaging optic was characterized by printing resolution test images in resist. While features as small as 0.137 {mu}m were successfully printed, a resolution of 0.175 {mu}m better represents the performance of the system over the full 0.9 mm{sup 2} image field. The contrast of the aerial image was estimated to be about 40% or less for the fine features printed. This low contrast value is attributed to a degradation of the modulation transfer function due to presence of scattered light in the image.

We report progress in the aspherization of precision optical substrates via deposition of graded period Mo/Si multilayer coatings using a masking technique. These preliminary results show good agreement between the measured and desired thickness profiles over 85% of the sample, however, thickness deviations of up to 7 % are observed in the central area. The errors are attributed to misalignments of the mask relative to the substrate during deposition.

Final microstructures can often be the end result of a complex sequence of phase transformations. Fundamental analyses may be used to model various stages of the overall behavior but they are often impractical or cumbersome when considering multicomponent systems covering a wide range of compositions. Neural network analysis may be a useful alternative method of identifying and describing phase transformation beavior. A neural network model for ferrite prediction in stainless steel welds is described. It is shown that the neural network analysis provides valuable information that accounts for alloying element interactions. It is suggested that neural network analysis may be extremely useful for analysis when more fundamental approaches are unavailable or overly burdensome.

Earth-impacting comets and asteroids with diameters {approx}0.03 - 10 km pose the greatest threats to the terrestrial biosphere in terms of impact frequency-weighted impact consequences, and thus are of most concern to designers of active planetary defenses. Specific gravitational binding energies of such objects range from 10{sup -7} to 10{sup -2} J/gm, and are small compared with the specific energies of 1x10{sup 3} to 3x10{sup 3} J/gm required to vaporize objects of typical composition or the specific energies required to pulverize them, which are 10{sup -1} to 10 J/gm. All of these are small compared to the specific kinetic energy of these objects in the Earth- centered frame, which is 2x10{sup 5} to 2x10{sup 6} J/gm. The prospect naturally arises of negating all such threats by deflecting, pulverizing or vaporizing the objects. Pulverization-with-dispersal is an attractive option of reasonable defensive robustness. Examples of such equipments - which employ no explosives of any type - are given. Vaporization is the maximally robust defensive option, and may be invoked to negate threat objects not observed until little time is left until Earth-strike, and pulverization-with-dispersal has proven inadequate. Physically larger threats may be vaporized with nuclear explosives. No contemporary technical means of any …

We present here recent searches at the Tevatron for new phenomena. The superlight gravitino, scalar top and scalar bottom quarks searches are described in the framework of the supersymmetric models. We also discuss the new Tevatron limits on the second and third generations leptoquark masses.

Generative process planning describes methods process engineers use to modify manufacturing/process plans after designs are complete. A completed design may be the result from the introduction of a new product based on an old design, an assembly upgrade, or modified product designs used for a family of similar products. An engineer designs an assembly and then creates plans capturing manufacturing processes, including assembly sequences, component joining methods, part costs, labor costs, etc. When new products originate as a result of an upgrade, component geometry may change, and/or additional components and subassemblies may be added to or are omitted from the original design. As a result process engineers are forced to create new plans. This is further complicated by the fact that the process engineer is forced to manually generate these plans for each product upgrade. To generate new assembly plans for product upgrades, engineers must manually re-specify the manufacturing plan selection criteria and re-run the planners. To remedy this problem, special-purpose assembly planning algorithms have been developed to automatically recognize design modifications and automatically apply previously defined manufacturing plan selection criteria and constraints.

The authors report the first quantitative phase-sensitive measurement of ultrafast ionization rates in gases using Multi-phase Interferometric Frequency-Resolved Optical Gating. Ultrafast probe depletion via frequency mixing in the ionization front is observed.

A multi-attribute utility analysis is applied to a decision process to select a treatment method for the management of aluminum-based spent nuclear fuel (Al-SNF) owned by the US Department of Energy (DOE). DOE will receive, treat, and temporarily store Al-SNF, most of which is composed of highly enriched uranium, at its Savannah River Site in South Carolina. DOE intends ultimately to send the treated Al-SNF to a geologic repository for permanent disposal. DOE initially considered ten treatment alternatives for the management of Al-SNF, and has narrowed the choice to two of these: the direct disposal and melt and dilute alternatives. The decision analysis presented in this document focuses on a formal decision process used to evaluate these two remaining alternatives.

The Ion Beam Surface Treatment (lBESTrM) process utilizes high energy pulsed ion beams to deposit energy onto the surface of a material allowing near instantaneous melting of the surface layer. The melted layer typically re-solidifies at a very rapid rate which forms a homogeneous, fine- grained structure on the surface of the material resulting in significantly improved surface characteristics. In order to commercialize the IBESTTM process, a reliable and easy-to-operate modulator system has been developed. The QM-I modulator is a thyratron-switched five-stage magnetic pulse compression network which drives a two-stage linear induction adder. The adder provides 400 kV, 150 ns FWHM pulses at a maximum repetition rate of 10 pps for the acceleration of the ion beam. Special emphasis has been placed upon developing the modulator system to be consistent with long-life commercial service.

Magnetic semiconductors offer a unique possibility for strongly tuning the intrinsic alloy disorder potential with applied magnetic field. We report the direct observation of a series of step-like reductions in the magnetic alloy disorder potential in single ZnSe/Zn(Cd,Mn)Se quantum wells between O and 60 Tesla. This disorder, measured through the linewidth of low temperature photoluminescence spectra drops abruptly at -19, 36, and 53 Tesla, in concert with observed magnetization steps. Conventional models of alloy disorder (developed for nonmagnetic semiconductors) reproduce the general shape of the data, but markedly underestimate the size of the linewidth reduction.

Effect of aluminum on the decomposition of 5 ferrite to austenite was investigated in a low-alloy steel weld. In addition, the effect of inclusion composition on the transition from bainite to acicular ferrite during austenite decomposition was analyzed. Stress relaxation during decomposition of austenite to allotriomorphic and acicular ferrite was also characterized. Results from the above experiments illustrate the importance of thermomechanical effects on weld microstructure evolution.

A Discontinuous Galerkin method is applied to hyperbolic systems that contain stiff relaxation terms. We demonstrate that when the relaxation time is unresolved, the method is accurate in the sense that it accurately represents the system's Chapman-Enskog approximation. Results are presented for the hyperbolic heat equation and coupled radiation-hydrodynamics.

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Over 130 participants from more than 27 countries shared experiences of developing and transition countries in preparation and development of their climate change national action plans. International experts guided countries in preparation of their climate change national action plans.

A means for use of existing processing facilities and reactors for plutonium disposition is described which requires a minimum capital investment and allows rapid implementation. The scenario includes interim storage and processing under IAEA control, and fabrication into MOX fuel in existing or planned facilities in Europe for use in operating reactors in the two home countries. Conceptual studies indicate that existing Westinghouse four-loop designs can safety dispose of 0.94 MT of plutonium per calendar year. Thus, it would be possible to consume the expected US excess stockpile of about 50 MT in two to three units of this type, and it is highly likely that a comparable amount of the FSU excess plutonium could be deposed of in a few VVER-1000`s. The only major capital project for this mode of plutonium disposition would be the weapons-grade plutonium processing which could be done in a dedicated international facility or using existing facilities in the US and FSU under IAEA control. This option offers the potential for quick implementation at a very low cost to the governments of the two countries.