Report on a flood protection plan for the Cottonwood Creek and Fish Creek Watersheds in the City of Arlington, Texas.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Legacy Management conducted annual sampling at the Rulison, Colorado, Site for the Long-Term Hydrologic Monitoring Program (LTHMP) on May 18, 2011. The samples were shipped to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Radiation and Indoor Environments National Laboratory in Las Vegas, Nevada, for analysis. All requested analyses were successfully completed, with the exception of the determination of tritium concentration by the enrichment method. The laboratory no longer provides that service. Samples were analyzed for gamma-emitting radionuclides by high-resolution gamma spectrometry and for tritium using the conventional method. Starting in 2012, DOE will retain a different laboratory that provides the enriched tritium analysis service.

This goal of this project was to develop cyber security audit and attack detection tools for industrial control systems (ICS). Digital Bond developed and released a tool named Bandolier that audits ICS components commonly used in the energy sector against an optimal security configuration. The Portaledge Project developed a capability for the PI Historian, the most widely used Historian in the energy sector, to aggregate security events and detect cyber attacks.

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Project Objective: The overarching objective of the Montana Palladium Research Initiative is to perform scientific research on the properties and uses of palladium in the context of the U.S. Department of Energy'™s Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and Infrastructure Technologies Program. The purpose of the research will be to explore possible palladium as an alternative to platinum in hydrogen-economy applications. To achieve this objective, the Initiatives activities will focus on several cutting-edge research approaches across a range of disciplines, including metallurgy, biomimetics, instrumentation development, and systems analysis. Background: Platinum-group elements (PGEs) play significant roles in processing hydrogen, an element that shows high potential to address this need in the U.S. and the world for inexpensive, reliable, clean energy. Platinum, however, is a very expensive component of current and planned systems, so less-expensive alternatives that have similar physical properties are being sought. To this end, several tasks have been defined under the rubric of the Montana Palladium Research Iniative. This broad swath of activities will allow progress on several fronts. The membrane-related activities of Task 1 employs state-of-the-art and leading-edge technologies to develop new, ceramic-substrate metallic membranes for the production of high-purity hydrogen, and develop techniques for the production of thin, defect-free platinum …

The recent measurements of the {theta}{sub 13} mixing angle, which controls the observable size of any CP violation effects, open a window of opportunity to take advantage of the world's most powerful existing neutrino beam together with recent successes in development of the ultimate detector technology for the detection of electron neutrinos : a liquid argon (LAr) time projection chamber. During this proposed project a 5kt LAr detector (GLADE) will be developed by European groups to be put in a cryostat in the NuMI neutrino beam at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in the US and will start taking data in 3-5 years time to address the neutrino mass ordering. The successful fruition of this project, along with nominal exposure at NO{nu}A and T2K, together with information from double beta decay experiments could ascertain that neutrinos are Dirac particles in the next decade.

This report documents an effort to analyze measured and simulated data obtained in the Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) fuel irradiation test program conducted in the INL's Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) to support the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) R&D program. The work follows up on a previous study (Pham and Einerson, 2010), in which statistical analysis methods were applied for AGR-1 thermocouple data qualification. The present work exercises the idea that, while recognizing uncertainties inherent in physics and thermal simulations of the AGR-1 test, results of the numerical simulations can be used in combination with the statistical analysis methods to further improve qualification of measured data. Additionally, the combined analysis of measured and simulation data can generate insights about simulation model uncertainty that can be useful for model improvement. This report also describes an experimental control procedure to maintain fuel target temperature in the future AGR tests using regression relationships that include simulation results. The report is organized into four chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the AGR Fuel Development and Qualification program, AGR-1 test configuration and test procedure, overview of AGR-1 measured data, and overview of physics and thermal simulation, including modeling assumptions and uncertainties. A brief summary of statistical analysis …

Reillex{trademark} HPQ ion exchange resin is used by HB Line to remove plutonium from aqueous streams. Reillex{trademark} HPQ resin currently available from Vertellus Specialties LLC is a chloride ionic form, which can cause stress corrosion cracking in stainless steels. Therefore, HB Line Engineering requested that Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) convert resin from chloride form to nitrate form in the Engineering Development Laboratory (EDL). To perform this task, SRNL treated two batches of resin in 2012. The first batch of resin from Reilly Industries Batch 80302MA was initially treated at SRNL in 2001 to remove chloride. This batch of resin, nominally 30 liters, has been stored wet in carboys since that time until being retreated in 2012. The second batch of resin from Batch 23408 consisted of 50 kg of new resin purchased from Vertellus Specialties in 2012. Both batches were treated in a column designed to convert resin using downflow of 1.0 M sodium nitrate solution through the resin bed followed by rinsing with deionized water. Both batches were analyzed for chloride concentration, before and after treatment, using Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA). The resin specification [Werling, 2003] states the total chlorine and chloride concentration shall be less than 250 …

The research conducted in this work package is aimed at taking advantage of the long term thermodynamic stability of crystalline ceramics to create more durable waste forms (as compared to high level waste glass) in order to reduce the reliance on engineered and natural barrier systems. Durable ceramic waste forms that incorporate a wide range of radionuclides have the potential to broaden the available disposal options and to lower the storage and disposal costs associated with advanced fuel cycles. Assemblages of several titanate phases have been successfully demonstrated to incorporate radioactive waste elements, and the multiphase nature of these materials allows them to accommodate variation in the waste composition. Recent work has shown that they can be successfully produced from a melting and crystallization process. The objective of this report is to explain the design of ceramic host systems culminating in a reference ceramic formulation for use in subsequent studies on process optimization and melt property data assessment in support of FY13 melter demonstration testing. The waste stream used as the basis for the development and testing is a combination of the projected Cs/Sr separated stream, the Trivalent Actinide - Lanthanide Separation by Phosphorous reagent Extraction from Aqueous Komplexes (TALSPEAK) …

The Salt Disposition Integration (SDI) portfolio of projects provides the infrastructure within existing Liquid Waste facilities to support the startup and long term operation of the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF). Within SDI, the Blend and Feed Project will equip existing waste tanks in the Tank Farms to serve as Blend Tanks where salt solutions of up to 1.2 million gallons will be blended in 1.3 million gallon tanks and qualified for use as feedstock for SWPF. In particular, Tanks 21 and 24 are planned to be used for blending and transferring to the SDI feed tank. These tanks were evaluated here to determine blending times, to determine a range of settling times for disturbed sludge, and to determine that the SWPF Waste Acceptance Criteria that less than 1200 mg/liter of solids will be entrained in salt solutions during transfers from the Tank 21 and Tank 24 will be met. Overall conclusions for Tank 21 and Tank 24 operations include: (1) Experimental correction factors were applied to CFD (computational fluid dynamics) models to establish blending times between approximately two and five hours. As shown in Phase 2 research, blending times may be as much as ten times greater, or more, …

The Texas Panhandle is regarded as the 'Cattle Feeding Capital of the World', producing 42% of the fed beef cattle in the United States within a 200-mile radius of Amarillo generating more than 5 million tons of feedlot manure/year. Apart from feedlots, the Bosque River Region in Erath County, just north of Waco, Texas with about 110,000 dairy cattle in over 250 dairies, produces 1.8 million tons of manure biomass (excreted plus bedding) per year. While the feedlot manure has been used extensively for irrigated and dry land crop production, most dairies, as well as other concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO's), the dairy farms utilize large lagoon areas to store wet animal biomass. Water runoff from these lagoons has been held responsible for the increased concentration of phosphorus and other contaminates in the Bosque River which drains into Lake Waco - the primary source of potable water for Waco's 108,500 people. The concentrated animal feeding operations may lead to land, water, and air pollution if waste handling systems and storage and treatment structures are not properly managed. Manure-based biomass (MBB) has the potential to be a source of green energy at large coal-fired power plants and on smaller-scale combustion systems …

An efficient, cost-effective hydrogen storage system is a key enabling technology for the widespread introduction of hydrogen fuel cells to the domestic marketplace. Air Products, an industry leader in hydrogen energy products and systems, recognized this need and responded to the DOE 'Grand Challenge' solicitation (DOE Solicitation DE-PS36-03GO93013) under Category 1 as an industry partner and steering committee member with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in their proposal for a center-of-excellence on Carbon-Based Hydrogen Storage Materials. This center was later renamed the Hydrogen Sorption Center of Excellence (HSCoE). Our proposal, entitled 'Designing Microporous Carbons for Hydrogen Storage Systems,' envisioned a highly synergistic 5-year program with NREL and other national laboratory and university partners.

A preliminary analysis of the availability and cost of corn stover and wheat straw for the area surrounding a demonstration biorefinery in the Henan Province of China was performed as a case study of potential cooperative analyses of bioenergy feedstocks between researchers and industry in the US and China. Though limited in scope, the purpose of this analysis is to provide insight into some of the issues and challenges of estimating feedstock availability in China and how this relates to analyses of feedstocks in the U.S. Completing this analysis also highlighted the importance of improving communication between U.S. researchers and Chinese collaborators. Understanding the units and terms used in the data provided by Tianguan proved to be a significant challenge. This was further complicated by language barriers between collaborators in the U.S. and China. The Tianguan demonstration biorefinery has a current capacity of 3k tons (1 million gallons) of cellulosic ethanol per year with plans to scale up to 10k tons (3.34 million gallons) per year. Using data provided by Tianguan staff in summer of 2011, the costs and availability of corn stover and wheat straw were estimated. Currently, there are sufficient volumes of wheat straw and corn stover that …

This report describes the results of studies related to the incorporation of sulfate in high level waste (HLW) borosilicate glass produced at the Savannah River Site (SRS) Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF). A group of simulated HLW glasses produced for earlier sulfate retention studies was selected for full chemical composition measurements to determine whether there is any clear link between composition and sulfate retention over the compositional region evaluated. In addition, the viscosity of several glasses was measured to support future efforts in modeling sulfate solubility as a function of predicted viscosity. The intent of these studies was to develop a better understanding of sulfate retention in borosilicate HLW glass to allow for higher loadings of sulfate containing waste. Based on the results of these and other studies, the ability to improve sulfate solubility in DWPF borosilicate glasses lies in reducing the connectivity of the glass network structure. This can be achieved, as an example, by increasing the concentration of alkali species in the glass. However, this must be balanced with other effects of reduced network connectivity, such as reduced viscosity, potentially lower chemical durability, and in the case of higher sodium and aluminum concentrations, the propensity for nepheline crystallization. …

A recommendation to eliminate all characterization of pour stream glass samples and the glass fabrication and Product Consistency Test (PCT) of the sludge batch qualification sample was made by a Six-Sigma team chartered to eliminate non-value-added activities for the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) sludge batch qualification program and is documented in the report SS-PIP-2006-00030. That recommendation was supported through a technical data review by the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and is documented in the memorandums SRNL-PSE-2007-00079 and SRNL-PSE-2007-00080. At the time of writing those memorandums, the DWPF was processing sludge-only waste but, has since transitioned to a coupled operation (sludge and salt). The SRNL was recently tasked to perform a similar data review relevant to coupled operations and re-evaluate the previous recommendations. This report evaluates the validity of eliminating the characterization of pour stream glass samples and the glass fabrication and Product Consistency Test (PCT) of the sludge batch qualification samples based on sludge-only and coupled operations. The pour stream sample has confirmed the DWPF's ability to produce an acceptable waste form from Slurry Mix Evaporator (SME) blending and product composition/durability predictions for the previous sixteen years but, ultimately the pour stream analysis has added minimal value to …

The Junior Investigator grant 'Structure of Rare Isotopes' (DE-FG02-07ER41529) supported research in low-energy nuclear theory from September 1, 2007 to August 31, 2010. It was the main goal of the proposed research to develop and optimize an occupation-number-based energy functional for the computation of nuclear masses, and this aim has been reached. Furthermore, progress was made in linking two and three-body forces from low-momentum interactions to pairing properties in nuclear density functionals, and in the description of deformed nuclei within an effective theory.

The Texas Panhandle is regarded as the 'Cattle Feeding Capital of the World', producing 42% of the fed beef cattle in the United States within a 200-mile radius of Amarillo generating more than 5 million tons of feedlot manure/year. Apart from feedlots, the Bosque River Region in Erath County, just north of Waco, Texas with about 110,000 dairy cattle in over 250 dairies, produces 1.8 million tons of manure biomass (excreted plus bedding) per year. While the feedlot manure has been used extensively for irrigated and dry land crop production, most dairies, as well as other concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO's), the dairy farms utilize large lagoon areas to store wet animal biomass. Water runoff from these lagoons has been held responsible for the increased concentration of phosphorus and other contaminates in the Bosque River which drains into Lake Waco - the primary source of potable water for Waco's 108,500 people. The concentrated animal feeding operations may lead to land, water, and air pollution if waste handling systems and storage and treatment structures are not properly managed. Manure-based biomass (MBB) has the potential to be a source of green energy at large coal-fired power plants and on smaller-scale combustion systems …

The ultimate objective of this work was to eliminate approximately 30% of the machining performed in typical automotive engine and transmission plants by using thread forming fasteners in as-cast holes of aluminum and magnesium cast components. The primary issues at the source of engineers’ reluctance to implementing thread forming fasteners in lightweight castings are: * Little proof of consistency of clamp load vs. input torque in either aluminum or magnesium castings. * No known data to understand the effect on consistency of clamp load as casting dies wear. The clamp load consistency concern is founded in the fact that a portion of the input torque used to create clamp load is also used to create threads. The torque used for thread forming may not be consistent due to variations in casting material, hole size and shape due to tooling wear and process variation (thermal and mechanical). There is little data available to understand the magnitude of this concern or to form the basis of potential solutions if the range of clamp load variation is very high (> +/- 30%). The range of variation that can be expected in as-cast hole size and shape over the full life cycle of a …

We have an ongoing research program for characterization of superconductor composite strands, the principal output of which is sensitive measurements of critical current Ic over a broad range of the essential parameters: longitudinal strain ε, temperature T, and magnetic field B. This features a new apparatus for integrated measurement of Ic(ε,T,B) on the same, long-conductor sample without remounting.

Savannah River Remediation (SRR) is evaluating changes to its current DWPF flowsheet to improve processing cycle times. This will enable the facility to support higher canister production while maximizing waste loading. Higher throughput is needed in the CPC since the installation of the bubblers into the melter has increased melt rate. Due to the significant maintenance required for the DWPF gas chromatographs (GC) and the potential for production of flammable quantities of hydrogen, reducing or eliminating the amount of formic acid used in the CPC is being developed. Earlier work at Savannah River National Laboratory has shown that replacing formic acid with an 80:20 molar blend of glycolic and formic acids has the potential to remove mercury in the SRAT without any significant catalytic hydrogen generation. This report summarizes the research completed to determine the feasibility of processing without formic acid. In earlier development of the glycolic-formic acid flowsheet, one run (GF8) was completed without formic acid. It is of particular interest that mercury was successfully removed in GF8, no formic acid at 125% stoichiometry. Glycolic acid did not show the ability to reduce mercury to elemental mercury in initial screening studies, which is why previous testing focused on using …

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From the 1950s through 1989, the F Area Seepage Basins at the Savannah River Site (SRS) received low level radioactive wastes resulting from processing nuclear materials. Discharges of process wastes to the F Area Seepage Basins followed by subsequent mixing processes within the basins and eventual infiltration into the subsurface resulted in contamination of the underlying vadose zone and downgradient groundwater. For simulating contaminant behavior and subsurface transport, a quantitative understanding of the interrelated discharge-mixing-infiltration system along with the resulting chemistry of fluids entering the subsurface is needed. An example of this need emerged as the F Area Seepage Basins was selected as a key case study demonstration site for the Advanced Simulation Capability for Environmental Management (ASCEM) Program. This modeling evaluation explored the importance of the wide variability in bulk wastewater chemistry as it propagated through the basins. The results are intended to generally improve and refine the conceptualization of infiltration of chemical wastes from seepage basins receiving variable waste streams and to specifically support the ASCEM case study model for the F Area Seepage Basins. Specific goals of this work included: (1) develop a technically-based 'charge-balanced' nominal source term chemistry for water infiltrating into the subsurface during basin …

In this paper, a linac simulation code written in Fortran90 is presented and several simulation examples are given. This code is optimized to implement linac alignment and steering algorithms, and evaluate the accelerator errors such as RF phase and acceleration gradient, quadrupole and BPM misalignment. It can track a single particle or a bunch of particles through normal linear accelerator elements such as quadrupole, RF cavity, dipole corrector and drift space. One-to-one steering algorithm and a global alignment (steering) algorithm are implemented in this code.

Original research was carried out at the CSM and the 3M Company from March 2007 through September 2011. The research was aimed at developing new to the world proton electrolyte materials for use in hydrogen fuel cells, in particular with high proton conductivity under hot and dry conditions (>100mS/cm at 120°C and 50%RH). Broadly stated, the research at 3M and between 3M and CSM that led to new materials took place in two phases: In the first phase, hydrocarbon membranes that could be formed by photopolymerization of monomer mixtures were developed for the purpose of determining the technical feasibility of achieving the program's Go/No-Go decision conductivity target of >100mS/cm at 120°C and 50%RH. In the second phase, attempts were made to extend the achieved conductivity level to fluorinated material systems with the expectation that durability and stability would be improved (over the hydrocarbon material). Highlights included: Multiple lots of an HPA-immobilized photocurable terpolymer derived from di-vinyl-silicotungstic acid (85%), n-butyl acrylate, and hexanediol diacrylate were prepared at 3M and characterized at 3M to exhibit an initial conductivity of 107mS/cm at 120°C and 47%RH (PolyPOM85v) using a Bekktech LLC sample fixture and TestEquity oven. Later independent testing by Bekktech LLC, using a …