This report summarizes beryllium properties included in producer, Department of Energy, and government specifications. The specifications are divided into two major categories: current and historical. Within each category the data are arranged primarily according to increasing purity and secondarily by increasing tensile properties. Qualitative comments on formability and weldability are included. Also, short summaries of powder production and consolidation techniques are provided.

The invention consists of an improved method for the preparation of single phase, fine grained ceramic materials from precursor powder mixtures where at least one of the components of the mixture is an alkali earth carbonate. The process consists of heating the precursor powders in a partial vacuum under flowing oxygen and under conditions where the partial pressure of CO{sub 2} evolved during the calcination is kept to a very low level relative to the oxygen. The process has been found particularly suitable for the preparation of high temperature copper oxide superconducting materials such as YBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub x} ``123`` and YBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 4}O{sub 8} ``124``.

Four fault tolerant architectures were evaluated for their potential reliability in service as control systems of nuclear power plants. The reliability analyses showed that human- and software-related common cause failures and single points of failure in the output modules are dominant contributors to system unreliability. The four architectures are triple-modular-redundant (TMR), both synchronous and asynchronous, and also dual synchronous and asynchronous. The evaluation includes a review of design features, an analysis of the importance of coverage, and reliability analyses of fault tolerant systems. An advantage of fault-tolerant controllers over those not fault tolerant, is that fault-tolerant controllers continue to function after the occurrence of most single hardware faults. However, most fault-tolerant controllers have single hardware components that will cause system failure, almost all controllers have single points of failure in software, and all are subject to common cause failures. Reliability analyses based on data from several industries that have fault-tolerant controllers were used to estimate the mean-time-between-failures of fault-tolerant controllers and to predict those failures modes that may be important in nuclear power plants. 7 refs., 4 tabs.

None

Three main issues giving purpose to our visit to CERN, ESRF and DESY were to: assess the current thinking at CERN on whether Eta, the gas desorption coefficient, would continue to decrease with continued with continued beam cleaning, determine if the time between NEG reconditioning could be expanded, and acquire a knowledge of the basic fabrication processes and techniques for producing beam vacuum chambers of copper.

This work encompasses a broad attack on high speed parallel processing. Hardware, software, applications development, and performance evaluation and visualization as well as research topics are proposed. Our goal is to develop practical parallel processing for the 1990's.

This report discusses: Cryogenic technology; polymer shell fabrication; glass shell fabrication and characterization; coating technology; development of characterization techniques; laser technology; and plasma research and instrumentation.

This letter documents objections of a group of US Geological Survey Scientists to an article appearing November 18, 1990 in New York Times Magazine. The article was written by William J. Broad and dealt with a hypothesis of Jerry S. Szymanski. The letter addressed areas of concern; including hydrology, geology, tectonics, and the integrity of the scientists and their conclusions. (SM)

This document reports the progress made during the first six months of the current three-year DOE grant on Artificially Structured Magnetic Materials.'' However, because some of the results of our previous three-year DOE grant on Artificially Structured Superconductors'' continue to emerge, both topics are addressed in this Progress Report. This report describes progress with DOE funding during the current calendar year; description of the research to be conducted during the remaining six months of the current grant year; a description of the status of the graduate students working on this research; lists of the invited talks, seminars and colloquia, of other recognition of our research, and of the publications crediting DOE sponsorship; and a summary of current and pending federal support. Since the research proposed to be conducted during the next 2 1/2 years is described in detail in our DOE proposal, it is only briefly reviewed here.

Based on results of testing eight solids removal technologies and one pretreatment option, it is recommended that a centrifugal ultrafilter and polymeric ultrafilter undergo further testing as possible alternatives to the Norton Ceramic filters. Deep bed filtration should be considered as a third alternative, if a backwashable cartridge filter is shown to be inefficient in separate testing.

Based on results of testing eight solids removal technologies and one pretreatment option, it is recommended that a centrifugal ultrafilter and polymeric ultrafilter undergo further testing as possible alternatives to the Norton Ceramic filters. Deep bed filtration should be considered as a third alternative, if a backwashable cartridge filter is shown to be inefficient in separate testing.

The purpose of this study was to identify the general principles governing the choice of hybrid separation systems over straight membrane or straight nonmembrane systems and to do so by examining practical applications (process design and economics). Our focus was to examine the energy consumption characteristics and overall cost factors of the membrane and nonmembrane technologies that cause hybrid systems to be preferred over nonhybrid systems. We evaluated four cases studies, chosen on the basis of likelihood of commercial viability of a hybrid system and magnitude of energy savings: (1) propane/propylene separation; (2) removal of nitrogen from natural gas; (3) concentration of Kraft black liquor; and (4)solvent deasphalting. For propane/propylene splitting, the membrane proved to be superior to distillation in both thermodynamic efficiency and processing cost (PC) when the product was 95% pure propylene. However, to produce higher purity products, the membrane alone could not perform the separation, and a membrane/distillation hybrid was required. In these cases, there is an optimum amount of separation to be accomplished by the membrane (expressed as the fraction of the total availability change of the membrane/distillation hybrid that takes place in the membrane and defined as {phi}{sub m}, the thermodynamic extent of separation). Qualitative …

Schlieren imaging techniques were used to study the density depressions created by the ATA electron beam 37 cm after the entrance foil. Typical channel depressions were 5--10% of ambient density per pulse. Under IFR guiding channel depths as deep as 30% were seen on single pulse operation. Pulse 5 of the 5 pulse burst has passed through a channel reduced to 30% of ambient density. To lowest order, one would expect channel density depressions to scale as ({Delta}n/n) {proportional to} ({number sign} of pulses * I{sub beam}/channel area). Channel depth observations scaled roughly with beam current, {number sign} of pulses, and inversely with channel area. Pressure scaling was anomalous in that {Delta}n appeared to be less sensitive to pressure than the linear dependence expected. This would require that the energy deposition (stopping power) is independent of pressure and is a surprising result which can only be explained with collective effects. Scaling of channel expansion rates with pressure suggest classical diffusion (D {proportional to} 1/n) for times up to 200 mS. During these early times, the diffusion constant was, however, 3--5 times larger than the classical value. At later times, large scale turbulence was observed and the effective diffusion constant increased …

Tritium was released to the atmosphere from the Savannah River Plant during an incident on September 2 and 3, 1984 between 10 PM and 3 AM. During this five hour period, 43,800 Ci of tritium, principally in the form of the oxide (HTO), was released. An additional 14,000, Ci was released during subsequent cleanup operations between September 3 and 7. The total amount released from the incident was 57,800 Ci. The HTO cloud initially moved northward and passed near the towns of New Ellenton and Aiken, SC. Two hours after the release began, the wind shifted and carried the cloud toward Columbia, SC. The cloud moved northeast during the daytime on September 3 over the east-central portion of North Carolina. Environmental sampling teams were dispatched by SRL, SRP, and SCDHEC (South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control). SRL collected air and vegetation samples and SRP collected vegetation, water, milk and bioassay samples. SCDHEC collected vegetation, milk, and water samples. The highest activity of HTO measured in vegetation was 501 pCi/mL onsite, 2522 pCi/mL at the plant boundary, and 9859 pCi/mL offsite. These concentrations were approximately 100 times larger than normal values. 13 refs., 7 figs., 10 tabs.

As a consequence of the Chernobyl accident, data have been obtained throughout the Northern Hemisphere on the concentrations of radionuclides in air, vegetation, soil, water, and foodstuffs that could be important means of human exposure. At the IAEA's invitation, the traveler reviewed recently published data and handbook summaries. The traveler evaluated the need for revising the default values recommended in Chapter 5, Terrestrial and Aquatic Food Chain Transport,'' of IAEA Safety Series No. 57. All attempts at revision were made to keep the mathematical complexity of the models to a minimum without substantial underestimation of dose to critical population subgroups. The traveler also served as chairman of the Multiple Pathways Working Group of the Coordinated Research Program on VAMP. This group has been established to test predictions of models assessing multiple exposure pathways potentially leading to human exposure to {sup 137}Cs. Testing is carried out for major components of assessment models that predict deposition, environmental transport, food chain bioaccumulation, and subsequent uptake and retention in the human body and dose due to exposure to external gamma radiation.

We have developed an assay for detecting variant erythrocytes that occur as a result of in vivo allele loss at the glycophorin A (GPA) locus on chromosome 4 in humans. This gene codes for an erythroid- specific cell surface glycoprotein, and with our assay we are able to detect rare variant erythrocytes that have lost expression of one of the two GPA alleles. Two distinctly different variant cell types are detected with this assay. One variant cell type (called N{O}) is hemizygous. Our assay also detects homozygous variant erythrocytes that have lost expression of the GPA(M) allele and express the GPA(N) allele at twice the heterozygous level. The results of this assay are an enumeration of the frequency of N{O} and NN variant cell types for each individual analyzed. These variant cell frequencies provide a measure of the amount of somatic cell genotoxicity that has occurred at the GPA locus. Such genotoxicity could be the result of (1) reactions of toxic chemicals to which the individual has been exposed, or (2) high energy radiation effects on erythroid precursor cells, or (3) errors in DNA replication or repair in these cells of the bone marrow. Thus, the GPA-based variant cell frequency …

This report contains highlights on activities conducted at Y-12 Development Division for the period ending January 1, 1990. Ozone treatment removes trace amounts of organics and chloride ions from recycled acid. Heating significantly reduces this reaction time for removing these impurities. A new heater design was reinstalled on the recycle system, reducing the ozonation time from 70 to 100 hours to 30 to 40 hours. This reduction in ozonation time resulted in increased acid recovery and reduced acid wastes that had to be discarded. Shallow land burial in Bear Creek Burial Ground (BCBG) of depleted uranium and uranium alloy chips has been discontinued, and these materials will now be processed at the Uranium Chip Oxidation Facility (UCOF). A series of chip burns was made to reduce the overall flameout frequency to 1% to comply with UCOF safety documentation. This testing phase reduced the flameout frequency to 2 per 2,959 burns (<0.1%), which is a 92% decrease of flameouts over last quarter. This work successfully demonstrated that all of the uranium and uranium alloy chips (except sawfines) can be safely oxidized at UCOF with a flameout frequency of 1% or less. 2 refs., 3 figs., 1 tab.

At our Nova laser facility, the temporal history of incident and reflected laser energy is recorded on LLNL optical streak cameras. Currently, six cameras are used to record the incident 1.06-{mu}m, incident 0.35{mu}m power of each of the ten Nova beams. Each camera records seven multiplexed signals: typically one signal from each of five beam lines, a fiducial pulse, and time mark generator signal. The optical signals are transported to the camera through optical fibers. The output end of each fiber is placed in the slit plane of the camera. The light exiting the fiber is focused to the streak camera photocathode by the streak camera relay lens. One camera can record a signal from each of the ten Nova beams plus a fiducial and time mark generator signal if the number of multiplexed channels can be increased from seven to twelve. This would allow one camera to record the same data that currently requires two cameras. At a savings of $150 per camera/CCD system, this represents a savings of $450K. Additionally, camera/CCD maintenance and operation complexity would be cut in half and three streak cameras would be freed for use in other experiments. Recent laboratory measurements suggest that the …

This report is a complete user's manual for KDYNA, the Earth Sciences version of DYNA2D. Because most features of DYNA2D have been retained in KDYNA much of this manual is identical to the DYNA2D user's manual.

The frequency of stress corrosion cracking in the near weld regions of the SRS reactor tank walls is apparently lower than the cracking frequency near the pipe-to-pipe welds in the primary cooling water system. The difference in cracking tendency can be attributed to differences in the welding processes, fabrication schedules, near weld residual stresses, exposure conditions and other system variables. This memorandum discusses the technical issues that may account the differences in cracking tendencies based on a review of the fabrication and operating histories of the reactor systems and the accepted understanding of factors that control stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless steels.

The frequency of stress corrosion cracking in the near weld regions of the SRS reactor tank walls is apparently lower than the cracking frequency near the pipe-to-pipe welds in the primary cooling water system. The difference in cracking tendency can be attributed to differences in the welding processes, fabrication schedules, near weld residual stresses, exposure conditions and other system variables. This memorandum discusses the technical issues that may account the differences in cracking tendencies based on a review of the fabrication and operating histories of the reactor systems and the accepted understanding of factors that control stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless steels.

The Pennsylvania State University is conducting a superclean coal-water slurry (SCCWS) program with the objective of demonstrating the capability of effectively firing SCCWS in industrial boilers designed for oil. Penn State has entered into a cooperative agreement with DOE to determine if SCCWS (a fuel containing coal with less than 3.0% ash and 0.9% sulfur) can effectively be burned in oil-designed industrial boilers without adverse impact on boiler rating, maintainability, reliability and availability. The project will provide information on the design of new systems specifically configured to fire these clean coal-based fuels. The project consists of three phases: (1) design, permitting, and test planning, (2) construction and start up, and (3) demonstration and evaluation. The boiler testing will determine if the SCCWS combustion characteristics, heat release rate, fouling and slagging behavior, corrosion and erosion limits, and fuel transport, storage, and handling characteristics can be accommodated in an oil-designed boiler system. In addition, the proof-of-concept demonstration will generate data to determine how the properties of SCCWS and its parent coal affect boiler performance. Economic factors associated with retrofitting and operating boilers will be identified to assess the viability of future oil-to-coal retrofits. Progress is reported. 7 refs., 7 figs., 1 tab.

The general objective of this project is the investigation of phase equilibria for complex fluids using a novel methodology, Monte Carlo simulation in the Gibbs ensemble. The methodology enables the direct determination of the properties of two coexisting fluid phases (e.g. a liquid at equilibrium with its vapor) from a single computer experiment, and is applicable to multicomponent systems with arbitrary equilibrium constraints imposed. The specific goals of this work are to adapt the Gibbs technique to (a) highly asymmetric mixtures with large differences in size and potential energies of interaction (b) chain molecules and (c) ionic systems. Significant progress has been made in all three areas. In this paper, we will briefly describe the progress made in each area, using the same numbering scheme for the tasks as in the original proposal.

This invention is comprised of a transmission cable for carrying high current pulses in which an even numbered plurality of electrical conductors surrounds a central ground conductor. Each electrical conductor is connected so that it at any instant in time it will carry current of opposite polarity to the polarity carried by adjacent conductors. This arrangement cancels practically all of the external fields generated by current in the conductors.