The photovoltaic industry has been growing exponentially at an average rate of about 35%/year since 1979. Recently, multijunction concentrator cell efficiencies have surpassed 40%. Combined with concentrating optics, these can be used for electricity generation.

The amount of each size particle in a given soil is called the particle-size distribution (PSD), and the way it feels to the touch is called the soil texture. Sand, silt, and clay are the three particle sizes of mineral material found in soils. Sand is the largest sized particle and it feels gritty; silt is medium sized and it feels floury; and clay is the smallest and if feels sticky. Knowing the particle-size distribution of a soil sample helps to understand many soil properties such as how much water, heat, and nutrients the soil will hold, how fast water and heat will move through the soil, and what kind of structure, bulk density and consistence the soil will have. Furthermore, the native particle-size distribution of the soil in the vicinity of ground zero of a nuclear detonation plays a major role in nuclear fallout. For soils that have a high-sand content, the near-range fallout will be relatively high and the far-range fallout will be relatively light. Whereas, for soils that have a high-silt and high-clay content, the near-range fallout will be significantly lower and the far-range fallout will be significantly higher. As part of a program funded by the …

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As part of the radioactive sludge batch qualification, Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) performs a verification of the digestion methods to be used by the Defense Waste Processing Facility Lab for elemental analysis of Sludge Receipt and Adjustment Tank (SRAT) receipt process control samples and SRAT product process control samples.

This Strategic Plan provides a brief historical overview of ICP long-term stewardship at the INL Site and the major goals and strategies that will drive the continued implementation of long-term stewardship in the future. The specific activities and processes that will be required to implement these goals should be outlined within an implementation plan and within implementing procedures and work plans.

A detailed chemical kinetic mechanism has been developed and used to study the oxidation of methyl decanoate, a surrogate for biodiesel fuels. This model has been built by following the rules established by Curran et al. for the oxidation of n-heptane and it includes all the reactions known to be pertinent to both low and high temperatures. Computed results have been compared with methyl decanoate experiments in an engine and oxidation of rapeseed oil methyl esters in a jet stirred reactor. An important feature of this mechanism is its ability to reproduce the early formation of carbon dioxide that is unique to biofuels and due to the presence of the ester group in the reactant. The model also predicts ignition delay times and OH profiles very close to observed values in shock tube experiments fueled by n-decane. These model capabilities indicate that large n-alkanes can be good surrogates for large methyl esters and biodiesel fuels to predict overall reactivity, but some kinetic details, including early CO2 production from biodiesel fuels, can be predicted only by a detailed kinetic mechanism for a true methyl ester fuel. The present methyl decanoate mechanism provides a realistic kinetic tool for simulation of biodiesel fuels.

A single parameter, the gravitational growth index gamma, succeeds in characterizing the growth of density perturbations in the linear regime separately from the effects of the cosmic expansion. The parameter is restricted to a very narrow range for models of dark energy obeying the laws of general relativity but can take on distinctly different values in models of beyond-Einstein gravity. Motivated by the parameterized post-Newtonian (PPN) formalism for testing gravity, we analytically derive and extend the gravitational growth index, or Minimal Modified Gravity, approach to parameterizing beyond-Einstein cosmology. The analytic formalism demonstrates how to apply the growth index parameter to early dark energy, time-varying gravity, DGP braneworld gravity, and some scalar-tensor gravity.

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Free sintering of SiC with Al, B, and C additions in two successive stages, first under nitrogen and then under argon, produced a near full-density ceramic with equiaxed grain structure. The beta to alpha transformation proceeded to completion; however, the grain shape remained equiaxed due to the action of nitrogen present during the first stage of sintering. It is found that the beta to alpha transformation is necessary but not sufficient for producing the microstructure of interlocking plates found in high-toughness SiC.

Vitrification is currently the most widely used technology for the treatment of high level radioactive wastes (HLW) throughout the world. At the Savannah River Site (SRS) actual HLW tank waste has successfully been processed to stringent product and process constraints without any rework into a stable borosilicate glass waste since 1996. A unique 'feed forward' statistical process control (SPC) has been used rather than statistical quality control (SQC). In SPC, the feed composition to the melter is controlled prior to vitrification. In SQC, the glass product is sampled after it is vitrified. Individual glass property models form the basis for the 'feed forward' SPC. The property models transform constraints on the melt and glass properties into constraints on the feed composition. The property models are mechanistic and depend on glass bonding/structure, thermodynamics, quasicrystalline melt species, and/or electron transfers. The mechanistic models have been validated over composition regions well outside of the regions for which they were developed because they are mechanistic. Mechanistic models allow accurate extension to radioactive and hazardous waste melts well outside the composition boundaries for which they were developed.

From the mid-1950's through the 1980's, the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site produced nuclear materials for the weapons stockpile, for medical and industrial applications, and for space exploration. Although SRS has a continuing defense-related mission, the overall site mission is now oriented toward environmental restoration and management of legacy chemical and nuclear waste. With the change in mission, SRS no longer has a need for much of the infrastructure developed to support the weapons program. This excess infrastructure, which includes over 1000 facilities, will be decommissioned and demolished over the forthcoming years. Dispositioning facilities for decommissioning and deactivation requires significant resources to determine hazards, structure type, and a rough-order-of-magnitude estimate for the decommissioning and demolition cost. Geographic information systems (GIS) technology was used to help manage the process of dispositioning infrastructure and for reporting the future status of impacted facilities.

Over the past century basic nuclear science research has led to the use of radioactive isotopes into a wide variety of applications that touch our lives everyday. Some are obvious, such as isotopes for medical diagnostics and treatment. Others are less so, such as National/Global security issues. And some we take for granted, like the small amount of 241Am that is in every smoke detector. At the beginning of this century, we are in a position where the prevalence and importance of some applications of nuclear science are pushing the basic nuclear science community for improved models and nuclear data. Yet, at the same time, the push by the basic nuclear science community to study nuclei that are farther and farther away from stability also offer new opportunities for many applications. This talk will look at several global security applications of nuclear science, summarizing current R&D and need for improved nuclear data It will also look at how applications of nuclear science, such as to medicine, will benefit from the push for more and more powerful radioactive ion beam facilities.

The F-Area Tank Farm (FTF) is located within F-Area in the General Separations Area (GSA) of the Savannah River Site (SRS) as seen in Figure 1. The GSA contains the F and H Area Separations Facilities, the S-Area Defense Waste Processing Facility, the Z-Area Saltstone Facility, and the E-Area Low-Level Waste Disposal Facilities. The FTF is a nearly rectangular shaped area and comprises approximately 20 acres, which is bounded by SRS coordinates N 76,604.5 to N 77,560.0 and E 52,435.0 to E 53,369.0. SRS is in the process of preparing a Performance Assessment (PA) to support FTF closure. As part of the PA process, an analysis was conducted to evaluate the potential magnitude of gaseous release of radionuclides from the FTF over the 100-year institutional control period and 10,000-year post-closure compliance period. Specifically, an air and radon pathways analysis has been conducted to estimate the flux of volatile radionuclides and radon at the ground surface due to residual waste remaining in the tanks following closure. This analysis was used as the basis to estimate the dose to the maximally exposed individual (MEI) for the air pathway per Curie (Ci) of each radionuclide remaining in the combined FTF waste tanks. For …