In May 1994, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) issued DNFSB Recommendation 94-1 (Conway 1994), which identified concerns related to US Department of Energy (DOE) management of legacy fissile materials remaining from past defense production activities. The DNFSB expressed concern about the existing storage conditions for these materials and the slow pace at which the conditions were being remediated. The DNFSB also expressed its belief that additional delays in stabilizing these fissile materials would be accompanied by further deterioration of safety and unnecessary increased risks to workers and the public. In February 1995, DOE issued the DNFSB Recommendation 94-1 Implementation Plan (O`Leary 1995) to address the concerns identified in DNFSB Recommendation 94-1. The Implementation Plan (IP) identifies several DOE commitments to achieve safe interim storage for the legacy fissile materials, and constitutes DOE`s baseline DNFSB Recommendation 94-1 Integrated Program Plan (IPP). The IPP describes the actions DOE plans to implement within the DOE complex to convert its excess fissile materials to forms or conditions suitable for safe interim storage. The IPP was subsequently supplemented with an Integrated Facilities Plan and a Research and Development Plan, which further develop complex-wide research and development and long-range facility requirements and plans. The …

Silicon carbide is being evaluated as an armor material because of its lightweight, high-hardness, and excellent armor efficiency. However, one of the problems associated with silicon carbide is the high cost associated with achieving fully dense tiles. Full density requires either hot pressing and sintering or reaction bonding. Past efforts have shown that hot pressed tiles have a higher armor efficiency than those produced by reaction bonded sintering. An earlier stuy showed that the acoustic properties of fully-dense silicon carbide tiles were enhanced through the use of post-sintered microwave heat treatments. One of the least expensive forming techniques is to isostatically press-and-sinter. In this study, the authors have used microwave energy to densify silicon carbide green bodies. Microwave sintering has been demonstrated to be a very quick way to sinter ceramics such as alumina to exceptionally high densities. Previous work has shown that microwave post treatment of fully-dense reaction bonded silicon carbide tiles significantly improves the acoustic properties of the tiles. These properties include Poisson`s ratio, Young`s modulus, shear modulus, and bulk modulus.

Laboratory centrifugal dewatering tests were conducted to study the effects of anionic and cationic flocculants on filtration of PMCC compliance (low sulfur) and non-compliance (high sulfur) ultrafine coal slurry. The results obtained with compliance coal indicated that use of 30 g/t anionic flocculant reduced filter cake moisture from 32. 3 to 29.0 percent and increased solids recovery by two absolute percentage points. Use of cationic flocculant had no effects on solids recovery but lowered cake moisture to 27 percent at a dosage of 15 g/t. With the non-compliance coal slurry addition of 15 g/t anionic flocculant lowered cake moisture from 30 to 28.5 percent with marginal effects on solids recovery; addition of cationic flocculant reduced cake moisture by one absolute percentage point. Both flocculants showed marginal effects on solids recovery. Laboratory vacuum filter leaf filtration studies showed that use of flocculants considerably increased filtration kinetics. For example, addition of 15 g/t anionic flocculant to the compliance coal slurry increased filtration kinetics by 10 times and addition of 15 g/t.

The Department and its contractors are responsible for ensuring that a safe and healthy work environment is provided to Department and contractor employees at its operating facilities. Contractors are responsible for establishing a comprehensive occupational safety and health program, which includes reporting of significant work-related employee injuries. The Department is responsible for monitoring the implementation of the contractor`s programs. Two performance indicators used by the Department to measure a contractor`s safety performance are the number and severity of work-related employee injuries and of lost workdays rates. The objective of the audit was to determine whether Department of Energy contractors accurately reported occupational injuries and illnesses in accordance with Departmental requirements.

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Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a juvenile court's authority under Family Code section 51.12(b) to "control the conditions and terms of a county contract with a private corporation regarding the operation of the county juvenile detention facility (RQ-921)

The Tower Shielding Facility (TSF) is the only reactor facility in the US that was designed and built for radiation-shielding studies in which both the reactor source and shield samples could be raised into the air to allow measurements to be made without interference from ground scattering or other spurious effects. The TSF proved its usefulness as many different programs were successfully completed. It became active in work for the Defense Atomic Support Agency (DASA) Space Nuclear Auxiliary Power, Defense Nuclear Agency, Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor Program, the Gas-Cooled and High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor programs, and the Japanese-American Shielding Program of Experimental Research, just to mention a few of the more extensive ones. The history of the TSF as presented in this report describes the various experiments that were performed using the different reactors. The experiments are categorized as to the programs which they supported and placed in corresponding chapters. The experiments are described in modest detail, along with their purpose when appropriate. Discussion of the results is minimal, but references are given to more extensive topical reports.

This document presents the radiological dose and toxicological exposure calculations for an accident scenario involved with the ventilation system used to support salt well pumping single-shell tank 241-A-101. This tank has been listed on the Hydrogen Watch List.