Individual raw datastreams from instrumentation at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility fixed and mobile sites are collected and sent to the Data Management Facility (DMF) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for processing in near real-time. Raw and processed data are then sent approximately daily to the ARM Archive, where they are made available to users. For each instrument, we calculate the ratio of the actual number of processed data records received daily at the Archive to the expected number of data records. The results are tabulated by (1) individual datastream, site, and month for the current year and (2) site and fiscal year (FY) dating back to 1998.

SRS recently completed an approximately three year effort to decommission two SRS reactors: P-Reactor (Building 105-P) and R-Reactor (Building 105-R). Completed in December 2011, the concurrent decommissionings marked the completion of two relatively complex and difficult facility disposition projects at the SRS. Buildings 105-P and 105-R began operating as production reactors in the early 1950s with the mission of producing weapons material (e.g., tritium and plutonium-239). The 'P' Reactor and was shutdown in 1991 while the 'R' Reactor and was shutdown in 1964. In the intervening period between shutdown and deactivation & decommissioning (D&D), Buildings 105-P and 105-R saw limited use (e.g., storage of excess heavy water and depleted uranium oxide). For Building 105-P, deactivation was initiated in April 2007 and was essentially complete by June 2010. For Building 105-R, deactivation was initiated in August 2008 and was essentially complete by September 2010. For both buildings, the primary objective of deactivation was to remove/mitigate hazards associated with the remaining hazardous materials, and thus prepare the buildings for in-situ decommissioning. Deactivation removed the following hazardous materials to the extent practical: combustibles/flammables, residual heavy water, acids, friable asbestos (as needed to protect workers performing deactivation and decommissioning), miscellaneous chemicals, lead/brass components, Freon(reg …

This report documents the results of work done over a 6 year period under the FAST-OS programs. The first effort was called Right-Weight Kernels, (RWK) and was concerned with improving measurements of OS noise so it could be treated quantitatively; and evaluating the use of two operating systems, Linux and Plan 9, on HPC systems and determining how these operating systems needed to be extended or changed for HPC, while still retaining their general-purpose nature. The second program, HARE, explored the creation of alternative runtime models, building on RWK. All of the HARE work was done on Plan 9. The HARE researchers were mindful of the very good Linux and LWK work being done at other labs and saw no need to recreate it. Even given this limited funding, the two efforts had outsized impact: _ Helped Cray decide to use Linux, instead of a custom kernel, and provided the tools needed to make Linux perform well _ Created a successor operating system to Plan 9, NIX, which has been taken in by Bell Labs for further development _ Created a standard system measurement tool, Fixed Time Quantum or FTQ, which is widely used for measuring operating systems impact on …

The purpose of this study was to develop the laboratory-scale melter (LSM) as a quick and inexpensive method to determine the processing rate of various waste glass slurry feeds. The LSM uses a 3 or 4 in. diameter-fused quartz crucible with feed and off-gas ports on top. This LSM setup allows cold-cap formation above the molten glass to be directly monitored to obtain a steady-state melting rate of the waste glass feeds. The melting rate data from extensive scaled-melter tests with Hanford Site high-level wastes performed for the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant have been compiled. Preliminary empirical model that expresses the melting rate as a function of bubbling rate and glass yield were developed from the compiled database. The two waste glass feeds with most melter run data were selected for detailed evaluation and model development and for the LSM tests so the melting rates obtained from LSM tests can be compared with those from scaled-melter tests. The present LSM results suggest the LSM setup can be used to determine the glass production rates for the development of new glass compositions or feed makeups that are designed to increase the processing rate of the slurry feeds.

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The Office of Waste Processing, within the Office of Technology Innovation and Development, is funding the development of an enhanced solvent - also known as the next generation solvent (NGS) - for deployment at the Savannah River Site to remove cesium from High Level Waste. The technical effort is a collaborative effort between Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL). As part of the program, the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) has performed a number of Extraction-Scrub-Strip (ESS) tests. These batch contact tests serve as first indicators of the cesium mass transfer solvent performance with actual or simulated waste. The test detailed in this report used simulated Tank 49H material, with the addition of extra potassium. The potassium was added at 1677 mg/L, the maximum projected (i.e., a worst case feed scenario) value for the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF). The results of the test gave favorable results given that the potassium concentration was elevated (1677 mg/L compared to the current 513 mg/L). The cesium distribution value, DCs, for extraction was 57.1. As a comparison, a typical D{sub Cs} in an ESS test, using the baseline solvent formulation and the typical waste feed, is {approx}15. The …

HEATS Project: MIT is developing a thermal energy storage device that captures energy from the sun; this energy can be stored and released at a later time when it is needed most. Within the device, the absorption of sunlight causes the solar thermal fuel’s photoactive molecules to change shape, which allows energy to be stored within their chemical bonds. A trigger is applied to release the stored energy as heat, where it can be converted into electricity or used directly as heat. The molecules would then revert to their original shape, and can be recharged using sunlight to begin the process anew. MIT’s technology would be 100% renewable, rechargeable like a battery, and emissions-free. Devices using these solar thermal fuels—called Hybrisol—can also be used without a grid infrastructure for applications such as de-icing, heating, cooking, and water purification.

The Sonde Adjust (SONDEADJUST) value-added product (VAP) creates a file that includes all fields from original Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility (ARM Facility) radiosonde files and contains several value-added fields that provide adjustments related to well-known humidity issues. SONDEADJUST produces data that correct documented biases in radiosonde humidity measurements. Previous efforts towards applying some of these corrections are available via the discontinued PI product sgpsondecorr1miloC1. Unique fields contained within this datastream include smoothed original relative humidity, dry bias corrected relative humidity, and final corrected relative humidity. The smoothed RH field refines the relative humidity from integers-the resolution of the instrument-to fractions of a percent. This profile is then used to calculate the dry bias corrected field. The final correction fixes the time-lag problem and uses the dry-bias field as input into the algorithm. In addition to dry bias, solar heating is another correction that is encompassed in the final corrected RH field. Output from SONDEADJUST differs from the previous RH-corrected datastreams in important ways. First, all three types of ARM radiosondes-Vaisala RS-80, RS-90, and RS-92-are corrected using dedicated procedures and/or parameters. Second, the output variables include all of those found in the original radiosonde file: dry bulb temperature, dewpoint …

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The 2011 Gordon Research Conference on Radiation and Climate will present cutting-edge research on outstanding issues in climate change, particularly those in which the interactions between clouds, aerosols, and precipitation play a major role. The Conference will feature a broad range of topics, including grand challenges in atmospheric radiation and climate, cloud and water vapor feedbacks, aerosol-cloud-precipitation-climate interactions across scales, new approaches for remote sensing and in-situ observations of clouds, aerosols and precipitation, and multi-scale modeling challenges. The invited speakers will present the most important recent advances and future challenges in these areas. The Conference will bring together a collection of leading investigators who are at the forefront of their field, and will provide opportunities for scientists, especially junior scientists and graduate students, to present their work in poster format and exchange ideas with leaders in the field. The collegial atmosphere of this Conference, with programmed discussion sessions as well as opportunities for informal gatherings in the afternoons and evenings, provides an avenue for scientists from different disciplines to brainstorm and promotes cross-disciplinary collaborations in the various research areas represented.

Electricity generation relies heavily on water resources and their availability. To examine the interdependence of energy and water in the electricity context, the impacts of a severe drought to assess the risk posed by drought to electricity generation within the western and Texas interconnections has been examined. The historical drought patterns in the western United States were analyzed, and the risk posed by drought to electricity generation within the region was evaluated. The results of this effort will be used to develop scenarios for medium- and long-term transmission modeling and planning efforts by the Western Electricity Coordination Council (WECC) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). The study was performed in response to a request developed by the Western Governors Association in conjunction with the transmission modeling teams at the participating interconnections. It is part of a U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored, national laboratory-led research effort to develop tools related to the interdependency of energy and water as part of a larger interconnection-wide transmission planning project funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This study accomplished three main objectives. It provided a thorough literature review of recent studies of drought and the potential implications for electricity generation. It analyzed …

The Gordon Research Conference on BATTERIES was held at Four Points Sheraton / Holiday Inn Express, Ventura, California, March 4-9, 2012. The Conference was well-attended with 176 participants. Gordon Research Conferences does not permit publication of meeting proceedings.

2004-2011 Final Report for AFCI University Fellowship Program. The goal of this effort was to be supportive of university students and university programs - particularly those students and programs that will help to strengthen the development of nuclear-related fields. The program also supported the stability of the nuclear infrastructure and developed research partnerships that are helping to enlarge the national nuclear science technology base. In this fellowship program, the U.S. Department of Energy sought master's degree students in nuclear, mechanical, or chemical engineering, engineering/applied physics, physics, chemistry, radiochemistry, or fields of science and engineering applicable to the AFCI/Gen IV/GNEP missions in order to meet future U.S. nuclear program needs. The fellowship program identified candidates and selected full time students of high-caliber who were taking nuclear courses as part of their degree programs. The DOE Academic Program Managers encouraged fellows to pursue summer internships at national laboratories and supported the students with appropriate information so that both the fellows and the nation's nuclear energy objectives were successful.

I discuss several novel and unexpected aspects of quantum chromodynamics. These include: (a) the nonperturbative origin of intrinsic strange, charm and bottom quarks in the nucleon at large x; the breakdown of pQCD factorization theorems due to the lensing effects of initial- and final-state interactions; (b) important corrections to pQCD scaling for inclusive reactions due to processes in which hadrons are created at high transverse momentum directly in the hard processes and their relation to the baryon anomaly in high-centrality heavy-ion collisions; and (c) the nonuniversality of quark distributions in nuclei. I also discuss some novel theoretical perspectives in QCD: (a) light-front holography - a relativistic color-confining first approximation to QCD based on the AdS/CFT correspondence principle; (b) the principle of maximum conformality - a method which determines the renormalization scale at finite order in perturbation theory yielding scheme independent results; (c) the replacement of quark and gluon vacuum condensates by 'in-hadron condensates' and how this helps to resolve the conflict between QCD vacuum and the cosmological constant.

Akin to other mineralized tissues, human cortical bone can resist deformation and fracture due to the nature of its hierarchical structure, which spans the molecular to macroscopic length-scales. Deformation at the smallest scales, mainly through the composite action of the mineral and collagen, contributes to bone?s strength or intrinsic fracture resistance, while crack-tip shielding mechanisms active on the microstructural scale contribute to the extrinsic fracture resistance once cracking begins. The efficiency with which these structural features can resist fracture at both small and large length-scales becomes severely degraded with such factors as aging, irradiation and disease. Indeed aging and irradiation can cause changes to the cross-link profile at fibrillar length-scales as well as changes at the three orders of magnitude larger scale of the osteonal structures, both of which combine to inhibit the bone's overall resistance to the initiation and growth of cracks.

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This slide-show discusses weapons dismantlement and disposal, issues related to classified waste and their solutions.

This project had two primary goals: (1) development of stochastic radiative transfer as a parameterization that could be employed in an AGCM environment, and (2) exploration of the stochastic approach as a means for representing shortwave radiative transfer through mixed-phase layer clouds. To achieve these goals, climatology of cloud properties was developed at the ARM CART sites, an analysis of the performance of the stochastic approach was performed, a simple stochastic cloud-radiation parameterization for an AGCM was developed and tested, a statistical description of Arctic mixed phase clouds was developed and the appropriateness of stochastic approach for representing radiative transfer through mixed-phase clouds was assessed. Significant progress has been made in all of these areas and is detailed in the final report.

The Belle and Babar experiments have measured the branching fractions for B{sup +} {yields} {tau}{sup +}{nu} and D{sub s}{sup +} {yields} {mu}{sup +}{nu} decays. From these measurements one can extract the B{sup +} and D{sub s}{sup +} decay constants, which can be compared to lattice QCD calculations. For the D{sub s}{sup +} decay constant, there is currently a 2.1 {sigma} difference between the calculated value and the measured value.

The Defense Waste Processing Facility has experienced significant issues with the stripping and recovery of mercury in the Chemical Processing Cell (CPC). The stripping rate has been inconsistent, often resulting in extended processing times to remove mercury to the required endpoint concentration. The recovery of mercury in the Mercury Water Wash Tank has never been high, and has decreased significantly since the Mercury Water Wash Tank was replaced after the seventh batch of Sludge Batch 5. Since this time, essentially no recovery of mercury has been seen. Pertinent literature was reviewed, previous lab-scale data on mercury stripping and recovery was examined, and new lab-scale CPC Sludge Receipt and Adjustment Tank (SRAT) runs were conducted. For previous lab-scale data, many of the runs with sufficient mercury recovery data were examined to determine what factors affect the stripping and recovery of mercury and to improve closure of the mercury material balance. Ten new lab-scale SRAT runs (HG runs) were performed to examine the effects of acid stoichiometry, sludge solids concentration, antifoam concentration, form of mercury added to simulant, presence of a SRAT heel, operation of the SRAT condenser at higher than prototypic temperature, varying noble metals from none to very high concentrations, …

The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structural mechanics (CSM) focus areas at Argonne's Transportation Research and Analysis Computing Center (TRACC) initiated a project to support and compliment the experimental programs at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center (TFHRC) with high performance computing based analysis capabilities in August 2010. The project was established with a new interagency agreement between the Department of Energy and the Department of Transportation to provide collaborative research, development, and benchmarking of advanced three-dimensional computational mechanics analysis methods to the aerodynamics and hydraulics laboratories at TFHRC for a period of five years, beginning in October 2010. The analysis methods employ well-benchmarked and supported commercial computational mechanics software. Computational mechanics encompasses the areas of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Computational Wind Engineering (CWE), Computational Structural Mechanics (CSM), and Computational Multiphysics Mechanics (CMM) applied in Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) problems. The major areas of focus of the project are wind and water effects on bridges - superstructure, deck, cables, and substructure (including soil), primarily during storms and flood events - and the risks that these loads pose to structural failure. For flood events at bridges, another major focus of the work is assessment of the risk to bridges caused by scour …

During the period of February 14 to 15, 2012, ORISE performed radiological confirmatory survey activities for the former Fuel Oil Tank Area (FOTA) and additional radiological surveys of portions of the Humboldt Bay Power Plant site in Eureka, California. The radiological survey results demonstrate that residual surface soil contamination was not present significantly above background levels within the FOTA. Therefore, it is ORISE’s opinion that the radiological conditions for the FOTA surveyed by ORISE are commensurate with the site release criteria for final status surveys as specified in PG&E’s Characterization Survey Planning Worksheet. In addition, the confirmatory results indicated that the ORISE FOTA survey unit Cs-137 mean concentrations results compared favorably with the PG&E FOTA Cs-137 mean concentration results, as determined by ORISE from the PG&E characterization data. The interlaboratory comparison analyses of the three soil samples analyzed by PG&E’s onsite laboratory and the ORISE laboratory indicated good agreement for the sample results and provided confidence in the PG&E analytical procedures and final status survey soil sample data reporting.

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The main purpose of this talk is to describe how far one might push the state of the art in storage ring design. The talk will start with an overview of the latest developments and advances in the design of synchrotron light sources based on the concept of an 'ultimate' storage ring. The review will establish how bright a ring based light source might be, where the frontier of technological challenges are, and what the limits of accelerator physics are. Emphasis will be given to possible improvements in accelerator design and developments in technology toward the goal of achieving an ultimate storage ring. An ultimate storage ring (USR), defined as an electron ring-based light source having an emittance in both transverse planes at the diffraction limit for the range of X-ray wavelengths of interest for a scientific community, would provide very high brightness photons having high transverse coherence that would extend the capabilities of X-ray imaging and probe techniques beyond today's performance. It would be a cost-effective, high-coherence 4th generation light source, competitive with one based on energy recovery linac (ERL) technology, serving a large number of users studying material, chemical, and biological sciences. Furthermore, because of the experience accumulated …