N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

A variety of edge joints utilizing a continuous wave Nd:YAG laser have been produced and examined in a 304-L stainless steel to advance fundamental understanding of the linkage between processing and resultant microstructure in high-rate solidification events. Acquisition of three-dimensional reconstructions via micro-computed tomography combined with traditional metallography has allowed for qualitative and quantitative characterization of weld joints in a material system of wide use and broad applicability. The presence, variability and distribution of porosity, has been examined for average values, spatial distributions and morphology and then related back to fundamental processing parameters such as weld speed, weld power and laser focal length.

This report provides the data qualification status of AGR-2 fuel irradiation experimental data from Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) cycles 149B, 150A, 150B, 151A, and 151B), as recorded in the Nuclear Data Management and Analysis System (NDMAS). The AGR-2 data streams addressed include thermocouple temperatures, sweep gas data (flow rate, pressure, and moisture content), and fission product monitoring system (FPMS) data for each of the six capsules in the experiment. A total of 3,307,500 5-minute thermocouple and sweep gas data records were received and processed by NDMAS for this period. There are no AGR-2 data for cycle 150A because the experiment was removed from the reactor. Of these data, 82.2% were determined to be Qualified based on NDMAS accuracy testing and data validity assessment. There were 450,557 Failed temperature records due to thermocouple failures, and 138,528 Failed gas flow records due to gas flow cross-talk and leakage problems that occurred in the capsules after cycle 150A. For FPMS data, NDMAS received and processed preliminary release rate and release-to-birth rate ratio (R/B) data for the first three reactor cycles (cycles 149B, 150B, and 151B). This data consists of 45,983 release rate records and 45,235 R/B records for the 12 radionuclides reported. The …

None

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) study of 20% Wind Energy by 2030 was conducted to consider the benefits, challenges, and costs associated with sourcing 20% of U.S. energy consumption from wind power by 2030. This study found that with proactive measures, no insurmountable barriers were identified to meet the 20% goal. Following this study, DOE and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) conducted two more studies: the Eastern Wind Integration and Transmission Study (EWITS) covering the eastern portion of the U.S., and the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study (WWSIS) covering the western portion of the United States. The WWSIS was conducted by NREL and research partner General Electric (GE) in order to provide insight into the costs, technical or physical barriers, and operational impacts caused by the variability and uncertainty of wind, photovoltaic, and concentrated solar power when employed to serve up to 35% of the load energy in the WestConnect region (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming). WestConnect is composed of several utility companies working collaboratively to assess stakeholder and market needs to and develop cost-effective improvements to the western wholesale electricity market. Participants include the Arizona Public Service, El Paso Electric Company, NV Energy, Public …

On December 22, 2008, over 4 million cubic meters of fly ash slurry was released into the Emory River when a dike surrounding a solid waste containment area at the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Kingston Fossil Plant ruptured. One component of TVA's response to the spill is a biological monitoring program to assess short- and long-term ecological responses to the ash and associated chemicals, including studies on fish health and contaminant bioaccumulation. These studies were initiated in early Spring 2009 for the purposes of: (1) documenting the levels of fly ash-associated metals in various tissues of representative sentinel fish species in the area of the fly ash spill, (2) determining if exposure to fly ash-associated metals causes short, intermediate, or long-term health effects on these sentinel fish species, (3) assessing if there are causal relationships between exposure to metals and health effects on fish, (4) evaluating, along with information from other ecological and physicochemical studies, the nature and route of contaminant transfer though food chains into higher level consumers, (5) providing important information for the Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) for the Kingston fly ash project, and (6) serving as an important technology information transfer or model study focused on how …

In December 2008, an ash dike at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Kingston Fossil Plant ruptured, releasing over one billion gallons of coal fly ash into the Emory and Clinch Rivers. Coal fly ash may contain several contaminants of concern, but of these selenium (Se) and arsenic (As) have been highlighted because of their toxicity and tendency to bioaccumulate in aquatic food chains. To assess the potential impact of the spilled fly ash on humans and the environment, a comprehensive biological and environmental monitoring program was established, for which resident aquatic organisms (among other sample media) are collected to determine contaminant exposure and evaluate the risk to humans and wildlife. Studies on bioaccumulation and fish health are major components of the TVA Biological Monitoring Program for the Kingston fly ash project. These studies were initiated in early Spring 2009 for the purposes of: (1) documenting the levels of fly ash-associated metals in various tissues of representative sentinel fish species in the area of the fly ash spill, (2) determining if exposure to fly ash-associated metals causes short, intermediate, or long-term health effects on these sentinel fish species, (3) assessing if there are causal relationships between exposure (to metals) and effects …

Executive Summary This document presents the result of investigating a way to reliably determine cosmic induced backgrounds for ultra-low background materials. In particular, it focuses on those radioisotopes produced by the interactions with cosmic ray particles in the detector materials that act as a background for experiments looking for neutrinoless double beta decay. This investigation is motivated by the desire to determine background contributions from cosmic ray activation of the electroformed copper that is being used in the construction of the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR. The most important radioisotope produced in copper that contributes to the background budget is 60Co, which has the potential to deposit energy in the region of interest of this experiment. Cobalt-60 is produced via cosmic ray neutron collisions in the copper. This investigation aims to provide a method for determining whether or not the copper has been exposed to cosmic radiation beyond the threshold which the Majorana Project has established as the maximum exposure. This threshold is set by the Project as the expected contribution of this source of background to the overall background budget. One way to estimate cosmic ray neutron exposure of materials on the surface of the Earth is to relate it to the …

The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR is designed to probe for neutrinoless double-beta decay, an extremely rare process with a half-life in the order of 1026 years. The experiment uses an ultra-low background, high-purity germanium detector array. The germanium crystals are both the source and the detector in this experiment. Operating these crystals as ionizing radiation detectors requires having them under cryogenic conditions (below 90 K). A liquid nitrogen thermosyphon is used to extract the heat from the detectors. The detector channels are arranged in strings and thermally coupled to the thermosyphon through a cold plate. The cold plate is joined to the thermosyphon by a bolted joint. This circular plate is housed inside the cryostat can. This document provides a detailed study of the bolted joint that connects the cold plate and the thermosyphon. An analysis of the mechanical and thermal properties of this bolted joint is presented. The force applied to the joint is derived from the torque applied to each one of the six bolts that form the joint. The thermal conductivity of the joint is measured as a function of applied force. The required heat conductivity for a successful experiment is the combination of the thermal conductivity of the …

We report on the requirements workshop for a new project, the International Shock-Wave database (ISWdb), which was held October 31 - November 2, 2011, at GSI, Darmstadt, Germany. Participants considered the idea of this database, its structure, technical requirements, content, and principles of operation. This report presents the consensus conclusions from the workshop, key discussion points, and the goals and plan for near-term and intermediate-term development of the ISWdb. The main points of consensus from the workshop were: (1) This international database is of interest and of practical use for the shock-wave and high pressure physics communities; (2) Intermediate state information and off-Hugoniot information is important and should be included in ISWdb; (3) Other relevant high pressure and auxiliary data should be included to the database, in the future; (4) Information on the ISWdb needs to be communicated, broadly, to the research community; and (5) Operating structure will consist of an Advisory Board, subject-matter expert Moderators to vet submitted data, and the database Project Team. This brief report is intended to inform the shock-wave research community and interested funding agencies about the project, as its success, ultimately, depends on both of these groups finding sufficient value in the database to …

This document contains introductory material that discusses cyber security challenges in using cloud computing in the electric utility industry.

This report describes work conducted at the Wisdom Way Solar Village (WWSV), a community of 10 high performance duplexes (20 homes) in Greenfield, MA, constructed by Rural Development, Inc. (RDI). Building America's CARB team monitored temperatures and comfort in several homes during the winter of 2009-2010, and tracked utility bill information from 13 occupied homes. Because of efficient lights, appliances, and conscientious home occupants, the energy generated by the solar electric systems exceeded the electric energy used in most homes.

This guideline is intended to describe good practices for insulating basements in new and existing homes, and is intended to be a practical resources for building contractors, designers, and also to homeowners.

This document is a user manual for the Dairy Analytics and Nutrient Analysis (DANA) model. DANA provides an analysis of dairy anaerobic digestion technology and allows users to calculate biogas production, co-product valuation, capital costs, expenses, revenue and financial metrics, for user customizable scenarios, dairy and digester types. The model provides results for three anaerobic digester types; Covered Lagoons, Modified Plug Flow, and Complete Mix, and three main energy production technologies; electricity generation, renewable natural gas generation, and compressed natural gas generation. Additional options include different dairy types, bedding types, backend treatment type as well as numerous production, and economic parameters. DANA’s goal is to extend the National Market Value of Anaerobic Digester Products analysis (informa economics, 2012; Innovation Center, 2011) to include a greater and more flexible set of regional digester scenarios and to provide a modular framework for creation of a tool to support farmer and investor needs. Users can set up scenarios from combinations of existing parameters or add new parameters, run the model and view a variety of reports, charts and tables that are automatically produced and delivered over the web interface. DANA is based in the INL’s analysis architecture entitled Generalized Environment for Modeling Systems …

Thorium has been considered as an option to uranium-based fuel, based on considerations of resource utilization (thorium is approximately three times more plentiful than uranium) and as a result of concerns about proliferation and waste management (e.g. reduced production of plutonium, etc.). Since the average composition of natural Thorium is dominated (100%) by the fertile isotope Th-232, Thorium is only useful as a resource for breeding new fissile materials, in this case U-233. Consequently a certain amount of fissile material must be present at the start-up of the reactor in order to guarantee its operation. The thorium fuel can be used in both once-through and recycle options, and in both fast and thermal spectrum systems. The present study has been aimed by the necessity of investigating the option of using reprocessed plutonium/TRU, from a once-through reference LEU scenario (50 GWd/ tIHM), mixed with natural thorium and the need of collect data (mass fractions, cross-sections etc.) for this particular fuel cycle scenario. As previously pointed out, the fissile plutonium is needed to guarantee the operation of the reactor. Four different scenarios have been considered: • Thorium – recycled Plutonium; • Thorium – recycled Plutonium/Neptunium; • Thorium – recycled Plutonium/Neptunium/Americium; • Thorium …

None

This report documents the objectives, technical approach, and progress made through FY 2012 on a project initiated in FY 2006 to help address uncertainties related to the rates of hydrolysis in groundwater for carbon tetrachloride (CT) and chloroform (CF). The project also sought to explore the possible effects of contact with minerals and sediment (i.e., heterogeneous hydrolysis) on these rates. We conducted 114 hydrolysis rate experiments in sealed vessels across a temperature range of 20-93 °C for periods as long as 6 years, and used the Arrhenius equation to estimate activation energies and calculate half-lives for typical Hanford groundwater conditions (temperature of 16 °C and pH of 7.75). We calculated a half-life of 630 years for hydrolysis for CT under these conditions and found that CT hydrolysis was unaffected by contact with sterilized, oxidized minerals or Hanford sediment within the sensitivity of our experiments. In contrast to CT, hydrolysis of CF was generally slower and very sensitive to pH due to the presence of both neutral and base-catalyzed hydrolysis pathways. We calculated a half-life of 3400 years for hydrolysis of CF in homogeneous solution at 16 °C and pH 7.75. Experiments in suspensions of Hanford sediment or smectite, the dominant …

Detailed hydrographic feature extraction from high-resolution light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data is investigated. Methods for quantitatively evaluating and comparing such extractions are presented, including the use of sinuosity and longitudinal root-mean-square-error (LRMSE). These metrics are then used to quantitatively compare stream networks in two studies. The first study examines the effect of raster cell size on watershed boundaries and stream networks delineated from LiDAR-derived digital elevation models (DEMs). The study confirmed that, with the greatly increased resolution of LiDAR data, smaller cell sizes generally yielded better stream network delineations, based on sinuosity and LRMSE. The second study demonstrates a new method of delineating a stream directly from LiDAR point clouds, without the intermediate step of deriving a DEM. Direct use of LiDAR point clouds could improve efficiency and accuracy of hydrographic feature extractions. The direct delineation method developed herein and termed “mDn”, is an extension of the D8 method that has been used for several decades with gridded raster data. The method divides the region around a starting point into sectors, using the LiDAR data points within each sector to determine an average slope, and selecting the sector with the greatest downward slope to determine the direction of flow. …

This CRADA explores the opportunities and challenges of funding federal hydro dam refurbishment projects through ESPCs. It assesses legal authorities for rehabilitating dams through ESPCs; roles and responsibilities of each party including the dam owner, Power Marketing Administration (PMA), ESCO, and preference customers; potential contract structure and flow of money; measurement and verification processes; risk and responsibility allocation; and financial viability of projects.