Activities performed in the Near Term Hybrid Vehicle (NTHV) program which studied the technical, economic, and fuel conservation aspects of replacing new 1985 full sized passenger cars in the US with automobiles having combination heat engines and electric motor power are summarized. These studies included NTHV design for the body power units, transmission system, and controls; evaluation of alternative strategies; the fuel conservation expected; goals for vehicle performance, safety and reliability; economic analysis, and mathematical models for use in the computer-aided design of the optimum performance NTHV. (LCL)

Complete results, from raw data to interpretation to recommendations, of a program to investigate the use of multiblade slurry sawing to produce silicon wafers from ingots are presented. During the course of this program, the commercially available state of the art process was improved by 20% in terms of area of silicon wafers produced from an ingot. The process was improved 34% on an experimental basis. Production of 20 wafers per centimeter length of 100 mm diameter ingot is now possible on a production basis. Economic analyses presented show that further improvements are necessary to approach the desired wafer costs, mostly reduction in expendable materials costs. Tests which indicate that such reduction is possble are included, although demonstration of such reduction was not completed. A new, large capacity saw was designed and tested. Performance comparable with current equipment (in terms of number of wafers/cm) was demonstrated. Improved performance was partially demonstrated, but problems (both mechanical and of unknown origin) precluded full demonstration of improved performance.

An environmental test chamber providing acceleration of uv radiation and precise temperature control (+- 1/sup 0/C) has been designed, constructed and tested. This chamber allows acceleration of solar ultraviolet up to 30 suns while maintaining temperature of the absorbing surface at 30/sup 0/C to 60/sup 0/C). This test chamber utilizes a filtered medium pressure mercury arc as the source of radiation, and a combination of selenium radiometer and silicon radiometer to monitor solar ultraviolet (295 to 340 nm) and total radiant power output, respectively. Details of design and construction and operational procedures are presented along with typical test data. The test chamber was designed for accelerated testing of solar cell modules.

A Mach-Zehnder interference microscope was automated which quickly characterizes and sorts transparent microspheres. It takes only 12 seconds to measure a 3 micron thick glass microsphere.

Laser-driven shockwave experiments have been proposed for accurate determination of equation of state data in the multimegabar pressure range. This paper gives a quantitative analysis of the prospects for such experiments. In order to unambiguously interpret shockwave data, one requires a clean shock -- that is, a planar, steady shock wave entering cold material (without significant preheat perturbation). The problems of attaining sufficiently clean shocks at high pressure are examined and scaling relations which relate the pressure achieved to laser intensity, pulse energy, etc, are developed. It is shown that significantly higher pressures can be achieved when structured (layered) targets are used.

Three preprints are presented. The first, entitled ''Glow Discharge Optical Spectroscopy Measurement of Dopant Concentrations in a-Si:H,'' reports significant differences between the ratio of boron to silicon of the films and that of their deposition plasmas. The second, entitled ''Growth Morphology and Defects in Plasma-Deposited a-Si:H Films,'' presents structural studies that show that a major class of defect is an anisotropic density fluctuation. Studies of the hydrogen environment suggest that an inhomogeneous hydrogen distribution is associated with these fluctuations. From considerations of the deposition chemistry and nucleation theory, a model is proposed to describe the film growth process and its relationship to defects. The third, entitled ''Luminescence and ESR Studies of Defects in Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon,'' demonstrates that the two experiments involve identical recombination transitions, and identify two separate processes. One process involves defect states, and from the doping dependence of light induced ESR, it is deduced that the electronically active defects are dangling bonds with positive electronic correlation energy. (LEW)

We have developed processes for mass producing the quality glass microspheres required for current laser fusion experiments. We describe the advances in the methods and materials used in our liquid droplet and dried gel systems.

The High Field Test Facility (HFTF) to be built at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories (LLL) consists of a magnet which will be wound with Nb/sub 3/Sn superconductor. Embossed and electroplated copper strip will be soldered to the two broad sides of a rectangular Nb/sub 3/Sn superconductor 5.4 mm x 11.0 mm x approximately 100 m long. It is the purpose of this project to upgrade existing facilities to emboss the copper stabilizer strip, electroplate the strip with 50 Pb-50 Sn solder, and to solder two such strips to the superconductor. This program has been approached in seven separate tasks which are described in this report.

In comparing the results of extrusions of Nb, it was found that the non-uniformity of the Nb extruded at Teledyne Wah Chang Albany (TWCA) is more severe than the other. This correlates with results of the mechanical properties of Nb. Both specimens were given identical extrusion, cold work, and heat treatments. (FS)

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