The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) will use colemanite bearing concrete neutron absorber panels credited with attenuating neutron flux in the criticality design analyses and shielding operators from radiation. The Savannah River National Laboratory is tasked with measuring the total density, partial hydrogen density, and partial boron density of the colemanite concrete. Samples poured 8/29/12 were received on 9/20/2012 and analyzed. The average total density of each of the samples measured by the ASTM method C 642 was within the lower bound of 1.88 g/cm{sup 3}. The average partial hydrogen density of samples 8.6.1, 8.7.1, and 8.5.3 as measured using method ASTM E 1311 met the lower bound of 6.04E-02 g/cm{sup 3}. The average measured partial boron density of each sample met the lower bound of 1.65E-01 g/cm{sup 3} measured by the ASTM C 1301 method. The average partial hydrogen density of samples 8.5.1, 8.6.3, and 8.7.3 did not meet the lower bound. The samples, as received, were not wrapped in a moist towel as previous samples and appeared to be somewhat drier. This may explain the lower hydrogen partial density with respect to previous samples.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) federal assistance for the management of a project to develop and test a prototype flywheel-­‐based energy recovery and storage system in partnership with Test Devices, Inc. (TDI). TDI specializes in the testing of jet engine and power generation turbines, which uses a great deal of electrical power for long periods of time. In fact, in 2007, the company consumed 3,498,500 kW-­‐hr of electricity in their operations, which is equivalent to the electricity of 328 households. For this project, CTE and TDI developed and tested a prototype flywheel-­‐based energy recovery and storage system. This technology is being developed at TDI’s facilities to capture and reuse the energy necessary for the company’s core process. The new technology and equipment is expected to save approximately 80% of the energy used in the TDI process, reducing total annual consumption of power by approximately 60%, saving approximately two million kilowatt-­‐hours annually. Additionally, the energy recycling system will allow TDI and other end users to lower their peak power demand and reduce associated utility demand charges. The use of flywheels in this application is novel and requires significant development work from …

Flexible Thin-film photovoltaic (TFPV) is a low cost alternative to incumbent c-Si PV products as it requires less volume of costly semiconductor materials and it can potentially reduce installation cost. Among the TFPV options, copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) has the highest efficiency and is believed to be one of the most attractive candidates to achieve PV cost reduction. However, CIGS cells are very moisture sensitive and require module water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of less than 1x10-4 gram of water per square meter per day (g-H2O/m2/day). Successful development and commercialization of flexible transparent ultra moisture barrier film is the key to enable flexible CIGS TFPV products, and thus enable ultimate PV cost reduction. At DuPont, we have demonstrated at lab scale that we can successfully make polymer-based flexible transparent ultra moisture barrier film by depositing alumina on polymer films using atomic layer deposition (ALD) technology. The layer by layer ALD approach results in uniform and amorphous structure which effectively reduces pinhole density of the inorganic coating on the polymer, and thus allow the fabrication of flexible barrier film with WVTR of 10-5 g-H2O/m2/day. Currently ALD is a time-consuming process suitable only for high-value, relatively small substrates. To successfully commercialize …

This report includes the literature review, hydrogen off-gas calculations, and hydrogen generation tests to determine that H-Canyon can safely dissolve the Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE; thorium fuel), Ford Nuclear Reactor (FNR; aluminum alloy fuel), and Denmark Reactor (DR-3; silicide fuel, aluminum alloy fuel, and aluminum oxide fuel) assemblies in the L-Bundles with respect to the hydrogen levels in the projected peak off-gas rates. This is provided that the number of L-Bundles charged to the dissolver is controlled. Examination of SRE dissolution for potential issues has aided in predicting the optimal batching scenario. The calculations detailed in this report demonstrate that the FNR, SRE, and DR-3 used nuclear fuel (UNF) are bounded by MURR UNF and may be charged using the controls outlined for MURR dissolution in a prior report.

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This report discloses the design and development of an innovative wind tower system having an axisymmetric wind deflecting structure with a plurality of symmetrically mounted rooftop size wind turbines near the axisymmetric structure. The purpose of the wind deflecting structure is to increase the ambient wind speed that in turn results in an overall increase in the power capacity of the wind turbines. Two working prototypes were constructed and installed in the summer of 2009 and 2012 respectively. The system installed in the Summer of 2009 has a cylindrical wind deflecting structure, while the tower installed in 2012 has a spiral-shape wind deflecting structure. Each tower has 4 turbines, each rated at 1.65 KW Name-Plate-Rating. Before fabricating the full-size prototypes, computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analyses and scaled-down table-top models were used to predict the performance of the full-scale models. The performance results obtained from the full-size prototypes validated the results obtained from the computational models and those of the scaled-down models. The second prototype (spiral configuration) showed at a wind speed of 11 miles per hour (4.9 m/s) the power output of the system could reach 1,288 watt, when a typical turbine installation, with no wind deflecting structure, could produce …

During the two-year project period, the project team has engaged in the development of WINS and applied it to several congestion and wind integration studies. In summary, researches in this project on wind integration include (1) Development of WINS; (2) Transmission Congestion Analysis in the Eastern Interconnection; (3) Analysis of 2030 Large-Scale Wind Energy Integration in the Eastern Interconnection; (4) Large-scale Analysis of 2018 Wind Energy Integration in the Eastern U.S. Interconnection. The education activities in this project on wind energy include (1) Wind Energy Training Facility Development; (2) Wind Energy Course Development. The research resulted in 33 papers, 9 presentations, 9 PhD degrees, 4 MS degrees, and 7 awards.

During the two-year project period, the consortium members have developed control algorithms for enhancing the reliability of wind turbine components. The consortium members have developed advanced operation and planning tools for accommodating the high penetration of variable wind energy. The consortium members have developed extensive education and research programs for educating the stakeholders on critical issues related to the wind energy research and development. In summary, The Consortium procured one utility-grade wind unit and two small wind units. Specifically, the Consortium procured a 1.5MW GE wind unit by working with the world leading wind energy developer, Invenergy, which is headquartered in Chicago, in September 2010. The Consortium also installed advanced instrumentation on the turbine and performed relevant turbine reliability studies. The site for the wind unit is Invenergy’s Grand Ridge wind farmin Illinois. The Consortium, by working with Viryd Technologies, installed an 8kW Viryd wind unit (the Lab Unit) at an engineering lab at IIT in September 2010 and an 8kW Viryd wind unit (the Field Unit) at the Stuart Field on IIT’s main campus in July 2011, and performed relevant turbine reliability studies. The operation of the Field Unit is also monitored by the Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) in …