Activities in research programs are summarized in the areas of power reactor fuel processing, fluoride volatility processing, molten salt reactor fuel processing, homogeneous reactor fuel processing, waste treatment and disposal pilot plant decontamination, GCR coolant purification studies, equipment decontamination, HRP thoria blanket development, fuel cycle development, transuranium element studies, production of U/sup 232/, uranium processing, fission product recovery, thorium recovery from granite, solvent extraction technology, mechanisms of separation processes, radiation effects on catalysts, ion exchange technology, chemical engineering research, chemical applications of nuclear explosions, reactor evaluation studies, and assistance programs. (J.R.D.)

Waste management has reached paramount importance in recent years. The successful management of radioactive waste is a key ingredient in the successful operation of any nuclear facility. This paper discusses the options available for on-site storage of low-level radioactive waste and those options that have been selected by the Department of Energy facilities operated by Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc. in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The focus of the paper is on quality assurance (QA) features of waste management activities such as accountability and retrievability of waste materials and waste packages, retrievability of data, waste containment, safety and environmental monitoring. Technical performance and careful documentation of that performance are goals which can be achieved only through the cooperation of numerous individuals from waste generating and waste managing organizations, engineering, QA, and environmental management.

A total of 25 sections is incorporated in the report. Separate abstracts were prepared for 22 of the sections. Those sections for which no abstracts were prepared are concerned with Th fuel cycle development, assistance programs, and publications. (J.R.D.)

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)

Plasma generated in low-density vapor by a negative ion beam has been studied experimentally and computationally. We show that space charge neutralization of the beam occurs at very low vapor density, and that correspondingly the electron density may be much less than the beam and plasma ion densities. When there is a large local gas density, as in a charge changing cell, the resulting high electron density is also localized to the same region. Therefore, very few electrons will reach a negative ion accelerator even if it is placed one or two beam diameters from such a cell.

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.

A D/sup -/ beam with current greater than 100 ma was accelerated to 60 kV. The beam, with pulse length 10 ms, was generated by charge-exchange in cesium vapor. The physics of generation, propagation at low energy, and acceleration is discussed.

This report contains the results of studies conducted at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) concerning the applicability of the Kalina technology to geothermal (hydrothermal) power production. This report represents a correction and addition to that report. The Heat Cycle Research Program (HCRP) has as its primary goal the cost-effective production of electric power from moderate temperature hydrothermal resources. Recent work has included the study of supercritical cycles with counterflow condensation which utilize mixtures as working fluids. These advanced concepts are projected to give a 20 to 30% improvement in power produced per unit geofluid flow rate (geofluid effectiveness, w hr/lb). The original Kalina cycle is a system which is similar to the cycles being studied in the Heat Cycle Research program and it was felt that this new cycle should be studied in the geothermal context. 15 refs., 9 figs., 2 tabs.

The Batavia, Illinois location has all the necessary requirements for a major high energy physics laboratory, i.e., near a major airport and road system, many good universities within driving distance, a large pool of technical people in the area, all types of industry nearby, and centrally located. Even with these characteristics usually associated with urban areas, there also exists nearby open land where perhaps a 20 TeV collider could be located. Preliminary studies are being made of potential sites in Illinois for a 20 TeV collider. The largest ring that has been looked at has a 25 kilometer radius (30 mile diameter). This was picked since the lowest magnetic field (3 Tesla) would give 20 TeV and smaller rings should be easier to accommodate. The motivation for the siting of this ring was to find a location near Fermilab so that the infrastructure could be used including the Energy Doubler as an injector. One ring considered went through Fermilab and out toward the west. The obvious advantage of this ring would be to have the experimental areas on the Fermilab site. The difficulty with this ring is that it must be quite deep to pass under the Fox river twice. …

Regional-scale climate change and associated societal impacts result from large-scale (e.g. well-mixed greenhouse gases) and more local (e.g. land-use change) 'forcing' (perturbing) agents. It is essential to understand these forcings and climate responses to them, in order to predict future climate and societal impacts. California is a fine example of the complex effects of multiple climate forcings. The State's natural climate is diverse, highly variable, and strongly influenced by ENSO. Humans are perturbing this complex system through urbanization, irrigation, and emission of multiple types of aerosols and greenhouse gases. Despite better-than-average observational coverage, we are only beginning to understand the manifestations of these forcings in California's temperature record.

The configuration interaction (CI) approach to solving the nuclear many-body problem, also known as the interacting shell model, has proven to be powerful tool in understanding the structure of nuclei. The principal criticism of past applications of the shell model is the reliance on empirical tuning to interaction matrix elements. If an accurate description of nuclei far from the valley of stability, where little or no data is available, a more fundamental approach is needed. This starts with recent ab initio approaches with effective interactions in the no-core shell model (NCSM). Using effective-field theory for guidance, fully ab initio descriptions of nuclei up to {sup 16}O with QCD based NN, NNN, and NNNN interactions will be possible within the next five years. An important task is then to determine how to use these NCSM results to develop effective interactions to describe heavier nuclei without the need to resort to an empirical retuning with every model space. Thus, it is likely that more traditional CI applications utilizing direct diagonalization and more fundamental interactions will be applicable to nuclei with perhaps up to one hundred constituents. But, these direct diagonalization CI applications will always be computationally limited due to the rapid increase …

Passing an electron beam through an aperture can serve to reduce the beam current or change the transverse beam profile. For a sufficiently intense beam, space charge will drive a radial expansion of the beam, which may cause the current passing through the aperture to increase even though the current arriving at the aperture is decreasing. When a gridded electron gun is used, this may be expressed by stating that the transconductance of the apertured gun is negative. Here we explain this effect, and explore some of the key factors governing when it can occur and influencing its strength.

The self-assembly of tetradecylamine (C14) and of mixtures of tetradecyl and octadecylamine (C18) molecules from chloroform solutions on mica has been studied using atomic force microscopy(AFM). For pure components self-assembly proceeds more slowly for C14 than for C18. In both cases after equilibrium is reached islands of tilted molecules cover a similar fraction of the surface. Images of films formed by mixtures of molecules acquired before equilibrium is reached (short ripening time at room temperature) show only islands with the height corresponding to C18 with many pores. After a long ripening time, when equilibrium is reached, islands of segregated pure components are formed.

The Delaware Basin Drilling Surveillance Program (DBDSP) is designed to monitor drilling activities in the vicinity of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). This program is based on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requirements. The EPA environmental standards for the management and disposal of transuranic (TRU) radioactive waste are codified in 40 CFR Part 191 (EPA 1993). Subparts B and C of the standard address the disposal of radioactive waste. The standard requires the Department of Energy (DOE) to demonstrate the expected performance of the disposal system using a probabilistic risk assessment or performance assessment (PA). This PA must show that the expected repository performance will not release radioactive material above limits set by the EPA's standard. This assessment must include the consideration of inadvertent drilling into the repository at some future time.

The combination of lithography and self-assembly provides apowerful means of organizing solution-synthesized nanostructures for awide variety of applications. We have developed a fluidic assembly methodthat relies on the local pinning of a moving liquid contact line bylithographically produced topographic features to concentratenanoparticles at those features. The final stages of the assembly processare controlled first by long-range immersion capillary forces and then bythe short-range electrostatic and Van der Waal's interactions. We havesuccessfully assembled nanoparticles from 50 nm to 2 nm in size usingthis technique and have also demonstrated the controlled positioning ofmore complex nanotetrapod structures. We have used this process toassemble Au nanoparticles into pre-patterned electrode structures andhave performed preliminary electrical characterization of the devices soformed. The fluidic assembly method is capable of very high yield, interms of positioning nanostructures at each lithographically-definedlocation, and of excellent specificity, with essentially no particledeposition between features.

In the proposed E-166 experiment at SLAC, 50 GeV electrons pass through a helical undulator, and produce circularly polarized photons, which interact with a tungsten target and generate longitudinally polarized positrons. The background is an important issue for an experiment under consideration. To address this issue, simulations were performed with the code GEANT3 to model the production of secondary particles from high-energy electrons hitting an undulator. The energy density of photons generated at the target has been analyzed. Results of the simulations are presented and discussed.

To study microwave instability the tracking code is developed. For bench marking, results are compared with Oide-Yokoya results [1] for broad-band Q = 1 impedance. Results hint to two possible mechanisms determining the threshold of instability.

This dissertation describes studies of the rare decays B{sub d} {yields} K{ell}{sup +}{ell}{sup -} and B{sub d} {yields} K*{ell}{sup +}{ell}{sup -}, where {ell}{sup +}{ell}{sup -} is either an e{sup +}e{sup -} or a {mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -} pair. These decays are highly suppressed in the Standard Model, and could be strongly affected by physics beyond the Standard Model. The authors measure the total branching fractions {Beta}(B{sub d} {yields} K{ell}{sup +}{ell}{sup -}) = (0.34 {+-} 0.07 {+-} 0.03) x 10{sup -6}, {Beta}(B{sub d} {yields} K*{ell}{sup +}{ell}{sup -}) = (0.78{sub -0.17}{sup +0.19} {+-} 0.12) x 10{sup -6}. In addition, they measure the partial branching fractions, relative abundance of muons to electrons, direct CP asymmetry, dilepton forward-backward asymmetry, and longitudinal polarization of the K* in these modes. They also search for the lepton flavor-violating decays B{sub d} {yields} Ke{sup {+-}}{mu}{sup {-+}} and B{sub d} {yields} K*e{sup {+-}}{mu}{sup {-+}}. The measurements were performed at the SLAC PEP II storage ring running at the {Upsilon}(4S) resonance.

Annual Site Environmental Report for the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) for Calendar Year 2005. The report summarizes calendar year (CY) 2005 environmental monitoring data so as to describe the performance of the WVDP's environmental management system (EMS), confirm compliance with standards and regulations, and highlight important programs.

We show that the solid lower bound of about 10{sup -44} cm{sup 2} is obtained for the cross section between the supersymmetric dark matter and nucleon in a theory in which the supersymmetric fine-tuning problem is solved without extending the Higgs sector at the weak scale. This bound arises because of relatively small superparticle masses and a fortunate correlation that the two dominant diagrams for the dark matter detection always interfere constructively if the constraint from the b {yields} s{gamma} measurements is obeyed. It is, therefore, quite promising in the present scenario that the supersymmetric dark matter is discovered before the LHC, assuming that the dark matter is the lightest supersymmetric particle.

The Hanford Reach National Monument (HRNM) was created by presidential proclamation in 2000. It is located along the Columbia River in south central Washington and consists of five distinct units. The McGee Ranch-Riverlands and the North Slope units are addressed in this report. North Slope refers to two of the HRNM units: the Saddle Mountain Unit and the Wahluke Slope Unit. The Saddle Mountain and Wahluke Slope Units are located north of the Columbia River, while the McGee Ranch-Riverlands Unit is located south of the Columbia River and north and west of Washington State Highway 24. To fulfill internal U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) requirements prior to any radiological clearance of land, the DOE must evaluate the potential for residual radioactive contamination on this land and determine compliance with the requirements of DOE Order 5400.5. Authorized limits for residual radioactive contamination were developed based on the DOE annual exposure limit to the public (100 mrem) using future potential land-use scenarios. The DOE Office of Environmental Management approved these authorized limits on March 1, 2004. Historical soil monitoring conducted on and around the HRNM indicated soil concentrations of radionuclides were well below the authorized limits (Fritz et al. 2003). However, the …

KASP (Kansas Advanced Semiconductor Project) completed the new Layer 0 upgrade for D0, assumed key electronics projects for the US CMS project, finished important new physics measurements with the D0 experiment at Fermilab, made substantial contributions to detector studies for the proposed e+e- international linear collider (ILC), and advanced key initiatives in non-accelerator-based neutrino physics.

The overall goal is to develop high-performance corrosion-resistant iron-based amorphous-metal coatings for prolonged trouble-free use in very aggressive environments: seawater & hot geothermal brines. The specific technical objectives are: (1) Synthesize Fe-based amorphous-metal coating with corrosion resistance comparable/superior to Ni-based Alloy C-22; (2) Establish processing parameter windows for applying and controlling coating attributes (porosity, density, bonding); (3) Assess possible cost savings through substitution of Fe-based material for more expensive Ni-based Alloy C-22; (4) Demonstrate practical fabrication processes; (5) Produce quality materials and data with complete traceability for nuclear applications; and (6) Develop, validate and calibrate computational models to enable life prediction and process design.

This part of the completion report pertaining to the NERVA graphite fuel element program covers data collected during the extrusion studies. The physical properties of the fuel element reached the following values: coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) - 7.0 x 10-6/o C (25 - l,OOOo C); modulus of elasticity - 1.5 x lo6 psi; flexural strength - - 8,000 psi; ultimate strain to failure - 5,500 pidin; good thermal stress resistance. Matrices were produced which could be vapor coated with crack-free films of zirconium carbide. The CTE of the matrix was almost equal to the CTE of the zirconium carbide coating.