Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) conducts experimental work on the development of waste forms suitable for several types of spent fuel at its facility on the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) located 48 km West of Idaho Falls, ID. The objective of this paper is to compare the offsite radiological consequences of hypothetical accidents involving the various types of spent nuclear fuel handled in nonreactor nuclear facilities. The highest offsite total effective dose equivalents (TEDEs) are estimated at a receptor located about 5 km SSE of ANL facilities. Criticality safety considerations limit the amount of enriched uranium and plutonium that could be at risk in any given scenario. Heat generated by decay of fission products and actinides does not limit the masses of spent fuel within any given operation because the minimum time elapsed since fissions occurred in any form is at least five years. At cooling times of this magnitude, fewer than ten radionuclides account for 99% of the projected TEDE at offsite receptors for any credible accident. Elimination of all but the most important nuclides allows rapid assessments of offsite doses with little loss of accuracy. Since the ARF (airborne release fraction), RF (respirable fraction), LPF (leak …

A Shelton Precision Interferometer Base, which is used for calibration of coordinate standards, was improved through hardware replacement, software geometry error correction, and reduction of vibration effects. Substantial increases in resolution and reliability, as well as reduction in sampling time, were achieved through hardware replacement; vibration effects were reduced substantially through modification of the machine component dampening and software routines; and the majority of the machine's geometry error was corrected through software geometry error correction. Because of these modifications, the uncertainty of coordinate standards calibrated on this device has been reduced dramatically.

A SIP (Societe Genevoise d'Instruments de Physique) Trioptic coordinate measuring machine was modified for calibration of high quality single-axis glass standards to an uncertainty of {+-}0.000020 inch. The modification was accomplished through the addition of a frame grabber board, vision software, a high-resolution camera, stepper motors, a two-axis motor controller, and an HP-IB interface card. An existing temperature system (hygrometer, barometer, laser interferometer system, and optics) was retained as part of the system. An existing Hewlett Packard computer was replaced with a personal computer to accommodate the frame grabber board. Each component was integrated into the existing system using Visual Basic. The system was automated for unattended measurements by creating a machine programming language, which is recognized within the main program.

The project involves using advanced reservoir characterization and thermal production technologies to improve thermal recovery techniques and lower operating and capital costs in a slope and basin clastic (SBC) reservoir in the Wilmington field, Los Angeles Co., CA. Through March 1999, project work has been completed related to data preparation, basic reservoir engineering, developing a deterministic three dimensional (3-D) geologic model, a 3-D deterministic reservoir simulation model, and a rock-log model, well drilling and completions, and surface facilities. Work is continuing on the stochastic geologic model, developing a 3-D stochastic thermal reservoir simulation model of the Fault Block IIA Tar (Tar II-A) Zone, and operational work and research studies to prevent thermal-related formation compaction. Thermal-related formation compaction is a concern of the project team due to observed surface subsidence in the local area above the steamflood project. Last quarter on January 12, the steamflood project lost its inexpensive steam source from the Harbor Cogeneration Plant as a result of the recent deregulation of electrical power rates in California. An operational plan was developed and implemented to mitigate the effects of the two situations. Seven water injection wells were placed in service in November and December 1998 on the flanks of …

As a continuation of comparison experiments between EUV inspection and visible inspection of defects on EUVL mask blanks, we report on the result of an experiment where the EUV defect inspection tool is used to perform at-wavelength defect counting over 1 cm{sup 2} of EUVL mask blank. Initial EUV inspection found five defects over the scanned area and the subsequent optical scattering inspection was able to detect all of the five defects. Therefore, if there are any defects that are only detectable by EUV inspection, the density is lower than the order of unity per cm2. An upgrade path to substantially increase the overall throughput of the EUV inspection system is also identified in the manuscript.

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This is a summary of the work performed on the Wind-Fuel Cell Hybrid Project: (1) On October 5th, Tim Howell of the Golden Field Office and Tom Anderson of Battelle Labs arrived in Anchorage. They met with David Lockard, Project Manager, and Percy Frisby, Director of the Alaska Rural Energy Programs Group. (2) On October 6th, Tim, Tom and David flew to Nome to inspect the proposed wind turbine site and meet with John Handeland, Director of the Nome Joint Utility System. They visited the proposed site as well as several private, residential-sized wind turbines operating in the Nome area. (3)Tim and Tom flew to Unalaska on October 7th to meet with Mike Golat, City of Unalaska Public Utility Director, and to inspect the proposed wind turbine sites at Pyramid Creek and Pyramid Valley. (4)Tim sent a scoping letter on December 17th to a variety of local, state and federal agencies requesting comments on the proposed wind turbine project. (5) David discussed this project with Marc Schwartz and Gerry Nix at NREL. Marc provided David with a list of wind prospectors and meteorologists. (6) Tom raised the question of FAA permits for structures over 200 feet tall. Gerry provided information …

The Displacement Discontinuity method has been widely used in geomechanics because it accurately captures the behavior of fractures within a rock mass by explicitly accounting for discontinuities. Unfortunately, boundary element techniques require the interactions between all pairs of elements to be evaluated and traditional approaches to the Displacement Discontinuity method are computationally expensive for large problem sizes. Approximate summation techniques, such as the Fast Multipole Method (FMM), calculate the interactions between N entities in time proportional to N. We have implemented a modified Fast Multipole approach which performs the necessary calculations in optimal time and with reduced memory usage. Furthermore, the FMM introduces parameters which can be selected to give the desired trade-off between efficiency and accuracy. The FMM approach permits much larger problems to be solved using desktop computers, opening up a range of applications. We present results demonstrating the speed of the code and several test cases involving rock fracture in compression.

We consider a technique of determining the initial beam conditions of the DARHT II accelerator by measuring the beam size under three different magnetic transport settings. This may be time gated to resolve the parameters as a function of time within the 2000 nsec pulse. This technique leads to three equations in three unknowns with solution giving the accelerator exit beam radius, tilt, and emittance. We find that systematic errors cancel and so are not a problem in the initial beam condition unfolding. Random uncorrelated shot to shot errors can be managed by one of three strategies: (1) make the transport system optically de-magnifying; (2) average over many individual shots; or (3) make the random uncorrelated shot to shot errors sufficiently small. The high power of the DARHT II beam requires that the beam transport system leading to a radius measuring apparatus be optically magnifying. This means that the shot to shot random errors must either be made small (less than about 1%) or that we average each of the three beam radius determinations over many individual shots. We find that for the anticipated DARHT II beam parameters that 60 to 120 shots should be sufficient to determine the accelerator …

Infrared thermal imaging has become a common technique for nondestructive evaluation and measurement of thermal properties in ceramic specimens. Flash thermal imaging can be used to determine two-dimensional through-thickness thermal diffusivity in a planar specimen. In this study, the authors extended the method to determine lateral, or transverse, thermal diffusivity in the specimen. During the flash thermal imaging test, pulsed heat energy is applied to a specimen's back surface, which is partially shielded, and the change of temperature distribution on the front surface is monitored by an infrared thermal imaging system. The temperature distribution represents the effect of both the normal heat transfer through the specimen's thickness and the lateral heat transfer through the interface between the shielded and unshielded back-surface regions. Those temperature distributions are then fitted with a theoretical solution of the heat transfer process to determine the lateral thermal diffusivity at the interface. This technique has been applied to measure lateral thermal diffusivity in a steel plate and a continuous fiber ceramic composite specimen.