VIM is a continuous energy Monte Carlo code first developed around 1970 for the analysis of plate-type, fast-neutron, zero-power critical assemblies. In most respects, VIM is functionally equivalent to the MCNP code but it has two features that make uniquely suited to the analysis of fast reactor critical experiments: (1) the plate lattice geometry option, which allows efficient description of and neutron tracking in the assembly geometry, and (2) a statistical treatment of neutron cross section data in the unresolved resonance range. Since its inception, VIM`s capabilities have expanded to include numerous features, such as thermal neutron cross sections, photon cross sections, and combinatorial and other geometry options, that have allowed its use in a wide range of neutral-particle transport problems. The earliest validation work at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) focused on the validation of VIM itself. This work showed that, in order for VIM to be a ``rigorous`` tool, extreme detail in the pointwise Monte Carlo libraries was needed, and the required detail was added. The emphasis soon shifted to validating models, methods, data and codes against VIM. Most of this work was done in the context of analyzing critical experiments in zero power reactor (ZPR) assemblies. The purpose …

This plan provides the requirements for conducting well remediation and decommissioning activities.

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider RHIC will collide polarized proton beams up to a maximum beam energy of 250 GeV [1]. The invariant spin field in a high energy ring can vary substantially across the beam. This decreases the amount of polarization provided to experiments and makes the polarization strongly dependent on the position in phase space. This paper describes a method to compute the invariant spin field by adiabatically blowing up the beam with an rf dipole. This method will also allow measuring the invariant spin field in RHIC.

Adsorption and film formation are key processes associated with the passivation and inhibition of metallic corrosion. New experimental approaches are needed to advance our knowledge in these areas. We have developed the technique of Synchrotron Far Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (SFIRS) for in situ investigations of the structure and composition of surface films and adsorbed layers on metals. We demonstrate its application to the determination of the nature of surface films on copper in aqueous solutions and the adsorption of anions on gold. The anodic corrosion films on copper in alkaline solution were found to consist of Cu{sub 2}O in the passive region at about {minus}0.05 V vs SCE and CUO, together with CU(OH){sub 2}, at 0.30 V. We have also observed for the first time the adsorption of anions at monolayer coverage on the surface of a gold electrode in perchloric acid solution. Halides (Cl-, Br-), nitrate, sulfate, and phosphate have been studied. When two different anions are present in solution, the more strongly adsorbed species determines the corrosion behavior of the metal. This is illustrated in the competitive adsorption of bromide and phosphate on gold.

This document is an end-of-contract report, prepared by Hydro Geo Chem for Los Alamos National Laboratory under contract number 9-XDD-6329F-1. The ultimate goal of this work is to characterize historical infiltration and unsaturated flow in the Yucca Mountain area of the Nevada Test Site. Work on this contract has focused on using chloride, bromide, stable chlorine isotopes, and chlorine-36 distributions to evaluate the depth of infiltration in the unsaturated zone. Effort in support of this work has included developing analytical procedures, exploring ways in which to separate the. meteoric component from the rock component, and meeting quality assurance requirements.

In order to collide polarized protons, the RHIC project will have two snakes in each ring and four rotators around each of two interaction regions. Two snakes on opposite sides of each ring can minimize depolarization during acceleration by keeping the spin tune at a half. Since the spin direction is normally along the vertical direction in a flat ring, spin rotators must be used around an interaction point to have longitudinal polarization in a collider experiment. Each snake or rotator will be composed of four helical dipoles to provide the required rotation of spin with minimal transverse orbit excursions in a compact length of 10m. The basic helical dipole is a superconducting magnet producing a transverse dipole field which is twisted about the magnet axis through 360{degree} in a length of 2.4 m. The design and construction of the magnets is described in this paper.

This brief report provides recommendations on handling of radioactive materials in the laboratory

An analytic result for the O({alpha}{sub s}) corrections to the triple differential B {r_arrow} X{sub u} {ell} {bar {nu}}{sub {ell}} decay rate is presented, to leading order in the heavy-quark expansion. This is relevant for computing partially integrated decay distributions with arbitrary cuts on kinematic variables. Several double and single differential distributions are derived, most of which generalize known results. In particular, an analytic result for the O({alpha}{sub s}) corrections to the hadronic invariant mass spectrum is presented. The effects of Fermi motion, which are important for the description of decay spectra close to infrared sensitive regions, are included. The behavior of perturbation theory in the region of time-like momenta is also investigated.

A two stage, low temperature, catalyzed fluidized bed incineration process is proving successful at incinerating hazardous wastes containing nuclear material. The process operates at 550{degrees}C and 650{degrees}C in its two stages. Acid gas neutralization takes place in situ using sodium carbonate as a sorbent in the first stage bed. The feed material to the incinerator is hazardous waste-as defined by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act-mixed with radioactive materials. The radioactive materials are plutonium, uranium, and americium that are byproducts of nuclear weapons production. Despite its low temperature operation, this system successfully destroyed poly-chlorinated biphenyls at a 99.99992% destruction and removal efficiency. Radionuclides and volatile heavy metals leave the fluidized beds and enter the air pollution control system in minimal amounts. Recently collected modeling and experimental data show the process minimizes dioxin and furan production. The report also discusses air pollution, ash solidification, and other data collected from pilot- and demonstration-scale testing. The testing took place at Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site, a US Department of Energy facility, in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

The objectives of this report are to provide the necessary administrative support to assure that the scientific and educational goals of the project are obtained and to assure that all Department of Energy reporting requirements and requests are fulfilled. The grant reporting is divided into three aspects: Collaborative Cluster projects, Initiation projects and Education projects. A cluster project is one or more closely related collaborative, multidisciplinary research projects in which a group of investigators employs a synergistic approach to the solution of problems in the same general area of research. The accomplishments this quarter of eleven cluster projects are presented. An initial project typically involves a single investigator. The purpose of the project is to undertake pilot work, lasting no more than one year, which will lead to the successful submission of an externally-funded proposal or the development of a collaborative cluster project. The accomplishments this quarter of eleven initiation projects are presented. The education projects are designed to develop courses with emphasis on environmental studies and/or to train students in areas of environmental research.

An analytical and experimental study is conducted to investigate the effect of isolator locations on the effectiveness of vibration isolation systems. The study uses isolators with fixed properties and evaluates potential improvements to the isolation system that can be achieved by optimizing isolator locations. Because the available locations for the isolators are discrete in this application, a Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used as the optimization method. The system is modeled in MATLAB{trademark} and coupled with the GA available in the DAKOTA optimization toolkit under development at Sandia National Laboratories. Design constraints dictated by hardware and experimental limitations are implemented through penalty function techniques. A series of GA runs reveal difficulties in the search on this heavily constrained, multimodal, discrete problem. However, the GA runs provide a variety of optimized designs with predicted performance from 30 to 70 times better than a baseline configuration. An alternate approach is also tested on this problem: it uses continuous optimization, followed by rounding of the solution to neighboring discrete configurations. Results show that this approach leads to either infeasible or poor designs. Finally, a number of optimized designs obtained from the GA searches are tested in the laboratory and compared to the baseline design. …

While Magnetic X-ray Circular Dichroism (MXCD) has been applied extensively to the extraction of elemental magnetic moments in various magnetic multilayers, the configuration of actual devices imposes certain constraints on the application of MXCD to devices. Using a set of real, thin-film spin valve devices with varying Cu spacer layer thicknesses, we demonstrate the correlation between MXCD and R-H measurements on those devices as well as the restrictions on the interpretation of MXCD data imposed by both the device topology and the formulation of realistic error estimates.

This document describes source/release control for EPICS add on tools. Tool Developer, Add On CONFIG Tools, and the EPICS System Manager are described in detail.

This work addresses specification and design of reliable safety-critical systems, such as nuclear reactor control systems. Reliability concerns are addressed in complimentary fashion by different fields. Reliability engineers build software reliability models, etc. Safety engineers focus on prevention of potential harmful effects of systems on environment. Software/hardware correctness engineers focus on production of reliable systems on the basis of mathematical proofs. The authors think that correctness may be a crucial guiding issue in the development of reliable safety-critical systems. However, purely formal approaches are not adequate for the task, because they neglect the connection with the informal customer requirements. They alleviate that as follows. First, on the basis of the requirements, they build a model of the system interactions with the environment, where the system is viewed as a black box. They will provide foundations for automated tools which will (a) demonstrate to the customer that all of the scenarios of system behavior are presented in the model, (b) uncover scenarios not present in the requirements, and (c) uncover inconsistent scenarios. The developers will work with the customer until the black box model will not possess scenarios (b) and (c) above. Second, the authors will build a chain of several …

Sodium tetraphenylborate is used to coprecipitate cesium with potassium in the precipitation process that has been developed to decontaminate waste salt solutions. This report summarizes the results that have been obtained.

An n-ary Steiner law f(x{sub 1},x{sub 2},{hor_ellipsis},x{sub n}) on a projective curve {Gamma} over an algebraically closed field k is a totally symmetric n-ary morphism f from {Gamma}{sup n} to {Gamma} satisfying the universal identity f(x{sub 1},x{sub 2},{hor_ellipsis},x{sub n-1}, f(x{sub 1},x{sub 2},{hor_ellipsis},x{sub n})) = x{sub n}. An element e in {Gamma} is called an idempotent for f if f(e,e,{hor_ellipsis},e) = e. The binary morphism x * y of the classical chord-tangent construction on a nonsingular cubic curve is an example of a binary Steiner law on the curve, and the idempotents of * are precisely the inflection points of the curve. In this paper, the authors prove that if f and g are two 5-ary Steiner laws on an elliptic curve {Gamma} sharing a common idempotent, then f = g. They use a new rule of inference rule =(gL){implies}, extracted from a powerful local-to-global principal in algebraic geometry. This rule is implemented in the theorem-proving program OTTER. Then they use OTTER to automatically prove the uniqueness of the 5-ary Steiner law on an elliptic curve. Very much like the binary case, this theorem provides an algebraic characterization of a geometric construction process involving conics and cubics. The well-known theorem of …

Heavy ion beam transport through the containment chamber plays a crucial role in all heavy ion fusion (HIF) scenarios. Here, several parameters are used to characterize the operating space for HIF beams; transport modes are assessed in relation to evolving target/accelerator requirements; results of recent relevant experiments and simulations of HIF transport are summarized; and relevant instabilities are reviewed. All transport options still exist, including (1) vacuum ballistic transport, (2) neutralized ballistic transport, and (3) channel-like transport. Presently, the European HIF program favors vacuum ballistic transport, while the US HIF program favors neutralized ballistic transport with channel-like transport as an alternate approach. Further transport research is needed to clearly guide selection of the most attractive, integrated HIF system.

The structural properties, energetics, and dynamics of Ca{sup 2+} and Mn{sup 2+} substituents in KTaO{sub 3} are investigated from first principles. It is found that Ca substitutes for both K and Ta ions. Oxygen vacancies bind to isolated Ca ions residing at Ta-sites, causing off-center Ca displacement and forming large dipoles. There is also evidence that oppositely charged defects may cluster together. The calculations predict that the activation energy for dipole reorientation via oxygen vacancy hopping within the first neighbor shell of Ta-substituting Ca or Mn exceeds 2 eV. On the other hand, Mn{sup 2+} substituting at the K-site displaces off center along the (100) direction, also forming a dipole. This dipole can reorient via Mn hopping motion with an activation energy of {approximately} 0.18 eV, in reasonable agreement with experiments. The authors argue that, in general, metal ion hopping at the A-site, not oxygen vacancy hopping, is responsible for the small activation energies found in experiments.

This publication disseminates information on progress in various DOE research areas. This issues contains information on Longwall mining; electric fleet utility survey; electronic publishing system; other publications of the EIA; and places from which to purchase publications.

Disruptive technologies are scientific discoveries that break through the usual product technology capabilities and provide a basis for a new competitive paradigm as described by Anderson and Tushman [1990], Tushman and Rosenkopf [1992], and Bower and Christensen [1995]. Discontinuous innovations are products/processes/services that provide exponential improvements in the value received by the customer much in the same vein as Walsh [1996], Lynn, Morone and Paulson [1996], and Veryzer [1998]. For more on definitions of disruptive technologies and discontinuous innovations, see Walsh and Linton [1999] who provide a number of definitions for disruptive technologies and discontinuous innovations. Disruptive technologies and discontinuous innovations present a unique challenge and opportunity for R and D organizations seeking to build their commercialization efforts and to reinvent the corporation. These technologies do not have a proven path from scientific discovery to mass production and therefore require novel approaches. These critically important technologies are the wellspring of wealth creation and new competency generation but are not readily accepted by the corporate community. They are alternatively embraced and eschewed by the commercial community. They are finally accepted when the technology has already affected the industry or when the technological horse has already flown out of the hanger. Many …

Some recent theoretical work on inclusive B decays relevant for the model independent determination of {vert_bar}V{sub ub}{vert_bar} and {vert_bar}V{sub cb}{vert_bar} is summarized. The theoretical predictions and their reliability for several differential decay distributions in {anti B}{yields}X{sub c,u}e{anti {nu}} and {anti B}{yields}X{sub s}{gamma} are reviewed. These can be used to determine certain important HQET matrix elements. The upsilon expansion and ways of testing it are discussed.

This project fact sheet describes a new refractory material, G-5, being developed by Trilliam Thermo Technologies with the help of a grant funded by the Inventions and Innovation Program through the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Industrial Technologies. This material can be used by an industry using rotary kilns, including the forest products industry, and in varying applications in the steel, aluminum, and glass industries.

The FRESA computer program, Version 2.1 provides an easy way to collect and process building and facility data to indicate opportunities for renewable energy applications in federal facilities and buildings. The purpose of this analytic tool is to focus feasibility study efforts on those applications most likely to prove cost-effective. The program is a supplement to energy and water conservation audits, which must be completed for all federal buildings and will flag renewable energy opportunities by facilitating the evaluation and ranking process. FRESA results alone are generally not sufficient to establish project feasibility. Software location: http://www.eren.doe.gov/femp/techassist/softwaretools/softwaretools.html. The FRESA User's Manual provides instruction on getting started; an overview of the FRESA program structure; an explanation of the screening process; detailed information on using the functions of Facility/Building Info, Building/Facility Analysis, Input/Output, and We ather Data or Adding a Zip Code; troubleshooting, and archiving data. Appendices include Algorithms Used in FRESA Prescreening, Excel Spread sheets for FRESA Inputs, Other Useful Information, and Acronyms and Abbreviations.

This is a period of ever-tightening defense budgets and continuing pressure on the public sector to be more commercial-like, Property policies, practices, and regulations are increasingly being challenged and changed. In these times, we must be leaders in understanding and defining the value of our profession from a commercial standpoint so that we can provide the right services to our customers and explain and defend the value of those services. To do so, we must step outside current property management practices, regulations, and oversight. We must learn to think and speak in the language of those who fund us--a financial language of risk, cost, and benefit. Regardless of regulation and oversight, our bosses are demanding that we demonstrate (financially) the benefits of current practice, or else. This article is intended to be the beginning of an effort to understand and define our profession in terms of risk, cost, and benefit so that we can meet these new challenges. The first step in this effort must be defining and measuring risk, cost, and benefit. Our costs, although sometimes difficult to capture, are easy to understand: they are almost exclusively the effort, both within and without the property management organization, involved in …