Long-lived isotopes in nuclear waste can have the greatest impact on man and the environment because of the integrated dose over a long time period. Many long-lived radioactive isotopes are present in the waste at Savannah River Plant. Actinide elements make up a significant portion of these isotopes. But when the waste is incorporated into a glass waste form, the actinides are converted to chemically stable oxide species that are released at extremely low and controlled rates, even after the waste form has degraded. Because of their different chemistry, radioactive isotopes of carbon, technetium, and iodine could be released at a significantly higher rate. To establish the potential hazard from these isotopes, their concentration in waste forms for final disposal must be known. The concentrations of C-14 and T{sub c}-99 in SRP waste were previously estimated. Additional analytical data has now been obtained for I-129 in H-Area soluble waste to estimate its concentration in SRP waste. Because of the nature of processes at SRP, most of the I-129 in the waste is in the H-Area waste tanks.

Argonne National Laboratory is developing a fuel processor for converting liquid hydrocarbon fuels to a hydrogen-rich product suitable for a polymer electrolyte fuel cell stack. The processor uses an autothermal reformer to convert the feed to a mixture of hydrogen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and water with trace quantities of other components. The carbon monoxide in the product gas is then converted to carbon dioxide in water-gas shift and preferential oxidation reactors. Fuels that have been tested include standard and low-sulfur gasoline and diesel fuel, and Fischer-Tropsch fuels. Iso-octane and n-hexadecane were also examined as surrogates for gasoline and diesel, respectively. Complete conversion of gasoline was achieved at 750 C in a microreactor over a novel catalyst developed at Argonne. Diesel fuel was completely converted at 850 C over this same catalyst. Product streams contained greater than 60% hydrogen on a dry, nitrogen-free basis with iso-octane, gasoline, and n-hexadecane. For a diesel fuel, product streams contained >50% hydrogen on a dry, nitrogen-free basis. The catalyst activity did not significantly decrease over >16 hours operation with the diesel fuel feed. Coke formation was not observed. The carbon monoxide fraction of the product gas could be reduced to as low as 1% …

A project to develop non-intrusive active sensors that can be applied on existing aging aerospace structures for monitoring the onset and progress of structural damage (fatigue cracks and corrosion) is presented. The state of the art in active sensors structural health monitoring and damage detection is reviewed. Methods based on (a) elastic wave propagation and (b) electro-mechanical (E/M) impedance technique are cited and briefly discussed. The instrumentation of these specimens with piezoelectric active sensors is illustrated. The main detection strategies (E/M impedance for local area detection and wave propagation for wide area interrogation) are discussed. The signal processing and damage interpretation algorithms are tuned to the specific structural interrogation method used. In the high-frequency E/M impedance approach, pattern recognition methods are used to compare impedance signatures taken at various time intervals and to identify damage presence and progression from the change in these signatures. In the wave propagation approach, the acousto-ultrasonic methods identifying additional reflection generated from the damage site and changes in transmission velocity and phase are used. Both approaches benefit from the use of artificial intelligence neural networks algorithms that can extract damage features based on a learning process. Design and fabrication of a set of structural specimens …

The primary objective of the Advanced Emissions Control Development Program (AECDP) is to develop practical, cost-effective strategies for reducing the emissions of air toxics from coal-fired boilers. Ideally, the project aim is to effectively control air toxic emissions through the use of conventional flue gas cleanup equipment such as electrostatic precipitators (ESPs), fabric filters (baghouses), and wet flue gas desulfurization. B&W`s Clean Environment Development Facility (CEDF) and the AECDP equipment combined to form a state-of-the-art facility for integrated evaluation of combustion and post-combustion emissions control options. Phase I activities were primarily directed at providing a reliable, representative test facility for conducting air toxic emission control development work later in the project. This report summarizes the AECDP Phase I activities which consisted of the design, installation, shakedown, verification, and air toxics benchmarking of the AECDP facility. The AECDP facility consists of an ESP, pulse-jet baghouse, and wet scrubber. All verification and air toxic tests were conducted with a high sulfur, bituminous Ohio coal. In order to successfully apply the results of the program to utility systems, the relationship between the performance of the CEDF/AECDP test equipment and commercial units had to be established. The first step in the verification process was …

The report contains three appendices from the Phase 1 final report. Appendix A contains wet scrubber sampling and analysis schedules, DBA/lime chemical analysis, and limestone forced oxidation chemical analysis. Appendix B consists of data on air toxic benchmarking baghouse conditions, ESP conditions, and wet scrubber conditions. Appendix C contains the quality assurance results. The primary objective of this project is to develop practical, cost-effective strategies for reducing the emissions of air toxics from coal-fired boilers. Phase 1 was aimed at providing a reliable test facility for conducting air toxic emissions control development work and is described more fully in the main report (OCDO--96013945).

The primary objective of the Advanced Emissions Control Development Program (AECDP) is to develop practical, cost-effective strategies for reducing the emissions of air toxics from coal-fired boilers. Ideally, the project aim is to effectively control air toxic emissions through the use of conventional flue gas cleanup equipment such as electrostatic precipitators (ESP`s), fabric filters (baghouse), and wet flue gas desulfurization. B&W`s Clean Environment Development Facility (CEDF) and the AECDP equipment combined to form a state-of-the-art facility for integrated evaluation of combustion and post-combustion emissions control options. Phase 1 activities were primarily aimed at providing a reliable, representative test facility for conducting air toxic emissions control development work later in the project. This report summarizes the AECDP Phase I activities which consisted of the design, installation, shakedown, verification, and air toxics benchmarking of the AECDP facility. All verification and air toxic tests were conducted with a high sulfur, bituminous Ohio coal.

At the Savannah River Site (SRS), oxalic acid is currently considered the preferred agent for chemically cleaning the large underground Liquid Radioactive Waste Tanks. It is applied only in the final stages of emptying a tank when generally less than 5,000 kg of waste solids remain, and slurrying based removal methods are no-longer effective. The use of oxalic acid is preferred because of its combined dissolution and chelating properties, as well as the fact that corrosion to the carbon steel tank walls can be controlled. Although oxalic acid is the preferred agent, there are significant potential downstream impacts. Impacts include: (1) Degraded evaporator operation; (2) Resultant oxalate precipitates taking away critically needed operating volume; and (3) Eventual creation of significant volumes of additional feed to salt processing. As an alternative to dealing with the downstream impacts, oxalate decomposition using variations of ozone based Advanced Oxidation Process (AOP) were investigated. In general AOPs use ozone or peroxide and a catalyst to create hydroxyl radicals. Hydroxyl radicals have among the highest oxidation potentials, and are commonly used to decompose organics. Although oxalate is considered among the most difficult organic to decompose, the ability of hydroxyl radicals to decompose oxalate is considered to …

In preparation for fulfilling our responsibilities under the Government Management Reform Act of 1994, we planned to conduct an audit of the Department of Energy`s FY 1995 Consolidated Statement of Financial Position. As discussed in the accompanying reports, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) could not express an opinion on the reasonableness of the value of assets and liabilities of the Department because of matters outside the control of the auditors that restricted the scope of their work. Although the OIG could not express an opinion, the audit disclosed reportable conditions in the Department`s internal control structure that adversely affected its ability to manage and account for its assets and liabilities. Corrective management actions on these reportable conditions should help the Department in preparing its Fiscal Year (FY) 1996 Statement of Financial Position.

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ABSTRACT Facility decontamination activities at the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP), the site of a former commercial nuclear spent fuel reprocessing facility near Buffalo, New York, have resulted in the removal of radioactive waste. Due to high dose and/or high contamination levels of this waste, it needs to be handled remotely for processing and repackaging into transport/disposal-ready containers. An initial conceptual design for a Remote-Handled Waste Facility (RHWF), completed in June 1998, was estimated to cost $55 million and take 11 years to process the waste. Benchmarking the RHWF with other facilities around the world, completed in November 1998, identified unique facility design features and innovative waste pro-cessing methods. Incorporation of the benchmarking effort has led to a smaller yet fully functional, $31 million facility. To distinguish it from the June 1998 version, the revised design is called the Rescoped Remote-Handled Waste Facility (RRHWF) in this topical report. The conceptual design for the RRHWF was completed in June 1999. A design-build contract was approved by the Department of Energy in September 1999.

Rice University's achievements as part of the Center for Programming Models for Scalable Parallel Computing include: (1) design and implemention of cafc, the first multi-platform CAF compiler for distributed and shared-memory machines, (2) performance studies of the efficiency of programs written using the CAF and UPC programming models, (3) a novel technique to analyze explicitly-parallel SPMD programs that facilitates optimization, (4) design, implementation, and evaluation of new language features for CAF, including communication topologies, multi-version variables, and distributed multithreading to simplify development of high-performance codes in CAF, and (5) a synchronization strength reduction transformation for automatically replacing barrier-based synchronization with more efficient point-to-point synchronization. The prototype Co-array Fortran compiler cafc developed in this project is available as open source software from http://www.hipersoft.rice.edu/caf.

A 3-liter sludge slurry sample was sent to SRNL for demonstration of a low temperature aluminum dissolution process. The sludge was characterized before and after the aluminum dissolution. Post aluminum dissolution sludge settling and the stability of the decanted supernate were also observed. The characterization of the as-received 3-liter sample of Tank 51H sludge slurry shows a typical high aluminum HM sludge. The XRD analysis of the dried solids indicates Boehmite is the predominant crystalline form of aluminum in the sludge solids. However, amorphous phases of aluminum present in the sludge would not be identified using this analytical technique. The low temperature (55 C) aluminum dissolution process was effective at dissolving aluminum from the sludge. Over the three week test, {approx}42% of the aluminum was dissolved out of the sludge solids. The process appears to be selective for aluminum with no other metals dissolving to any appreciable extent. At the termination of the three week test, the aluminum concentration in the supernate had not leveled off indicating more aluminum could be dissolved from the sludge with longer contact times or higher temperatures. The slow aluminum dissolution rate in the test may indicate the dissolution of the Boehmite form of aluminum …

This paper describes the fabrication and measurement of the linewidths of the reference segments of cross-bridge resistors patterned in (100) Bonded and Etched Back Silicon-on-Insulator (BESOI) material. The critical dimensions (CD) of the reference segments of a selection of the cross-bridge resistor test structures were measured both electrically and by Scanning-Electron Microscopy (SEM) cross-section imaging. The reference-segment features were aligned with <110> directions in the BESOI surface material and had drawn linewidths ranging from 0.35 to 3.0 {micro}m. They were defined by a silicon micro-machining process which results in their sidewalls being atomically-planar and smooth and inclined at 54.737{degree} to the surface (100) plane of the substrate. This (100) implementation may usefully complement the attributes of the previously-reported vertical-sidewall one for selected reference-material applications. For example, the non-orthogonal intersection of the sidewalls and top-surface planes of the reference-segment features may alleviate difficulties encountered with atomic-force microscope measurements. In such applications it has been reported that it may be difficult to maintain probe-tip control at the sharp 90{degree} outside corner of the sidewalls and the upper surface. A second application is refining to-down image-processing algorithms and checking instrument performance. Novel aspects of the (100) SOI implementation that are reported here include …

Ultra-thin oxynitride films were grown on Si by direct rapid thermal processing (RTP) oxynitridation in NO/O{sub 2} ambients with NO concentrations from 5% to 50%. During oxynitridation, nitrogen accumulated at the Si/dielectric interface and the average concentration of in N through the resulting films ranged from 0.3 to 3.0 atomic percent. The average concentration of N in the films increased with increasing NO in the ambient gas, but decreased with longer RTP times. The maximum N concentration remained relatively constant for all RTP times and a given NO/O{sub 2} ambient. Re-oxidation following oxynitridation altered L the N profile and improved the electrical characteristics, with an optimal NO/O{sub 2} mixture in the range of 10% to 25% NO. Re-oxidation by RTP improves the electrical characteristics with respect to the films that were not re-oxidized and produces only slight changes in the N distribution or maximum concentration. The electrical results also indicate that oxynitride films are superior to comparably grown oxide films.

A task was undertaken to compare various properties of different glovebox gloves, having various compositions, for use in gloveboxes at the Savannah River Site (SRS). One aspect of this project was to determine the tensile strength (TS) of the gloves. Longitudinal tensile samples were cut from 15 different gloves and tensile tested. The stress, load, and elongation at failure were determined. All of the gloves that are approved for glovebox use and listed in the glovebox procurement specification met the tensile and elongation requirements. The Viton{reg_sign} compound gloves are not listed in the specification, but exhibited lower tensile strengths than permissible based on the Butyl rubber requirements. Piercan Polyurethane gloves were the thinnest samples and exhibited the highest tensile strength of the materials tested.

The objectives for this quarter of study on the co-firing of high sulfur coals with refuse derived fuels were two-fold. First, the effects of different experimental parameters such as temperature, flow rates and reaction times on the formation of chlorinated organic compounds were studied using the tubular furnace as a reactor followed by GC/MS analysis. Secondly, the effect of fuel/air ratio on the flue gas composition and combustion efficiency were studied with the AFBC system.

There is growing interest regarding the potential size of a future U.S. dedicated CO2 pipeline infrastructure if carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies are commercially deployed on a large scale. In trying to understand the potential scale of a future national CO2 pipeline network, comparisons are often made to the existing pipeline networks used to deliver natural gas and liquid hydrocarbons to markets within the U.S. This paper assesses the potential scale of the CO2 pipeline system needed under two hypothetical climate policies and compares this to the extant U.S. pipeline infrastructures used to deliver CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), and to move natural gas and liquid hydrocarbons from areas of production and importation to markets. The data presented here suggest that the need to increase the size of the existing dedicated CO2 pipeline system should not be seen as a significant obstacle for the commercial deployment of CCS technologies.

Electrical test structures of the type known as cross-bridge resistors have been patterned in (100) epitaxial silicon material that was grown on Bonded and Etched-Back Silicon-on-Insulator (BESOI) substrates. The CDs (Critical Dimensions) of a selection of their reference segments have been measured electrically, by SEM (Scanning-Electron Microscopy) cross-section imaging, and by lattice-plane counting. The lattice-plane counting is performed on phase-contrast images made by High-Resolution Transmission-Electron Microscopy (HRTEM). The reference-segment features were aligned with <110> directions in the BESOI surface material. They were defined by a silicon micromachining process which results in their sidewalls being atomically-planar and smooth and inclined at 54.737{degree} to the surface (100) plane of the substrate. This (100) implementation may usefully complement the attributes of the previously-reported vertical-sidewall one for selected reference-material applications. The SEM, HRTEM, and electrical CD (ECD) linewidth measurements that are made on BESOI features of various drawn dimensions on the same substrate is being investigated to determine the feasibility of a CD traceability path that combines the low cost, robustness, and repeatability of the ECD technique and the absolute measurement of the HRTEM lattice-plane counting technique. Other novel aspects of the (100) SOI implementation that are reported here are the ECD test-structure architecture …

This report includes the results of the plant-wide assessment of AMCOR PET plants in Fairfield, City of Commerce, and Lathrop California. The project (except the assessment of Lathrop plant) was a cost shared effort between US Department of Energy through Golden Field Office, Golden CO and AMCOR PET Packaging Co. The DOE share of the plant-wide assessment cost was awarded to AMCOR PET in response to the RFP DE-PS36-05GO95009, the 2005 round of funding for “Plant-Wide Energy Efficiency Opportunity Assessments.” The plant-wide assessment included the processes, electrical and gas equipment. Current production practices have been evaluated against best practice standards, as well as utilization of modern technology to improve energy efficiency, reduce the wastes, and improve productivity.

A computational model for the ablation of tooth enamel by ultra-short laser pulses is presented. The role of simulations using this model in designing and understanding laser drilling systems is discussed. Pulses of duration 300 sec and intensity greater than 10{sup 12} W/cm{sup 2} are considered. Laser absorption proceeds via multi-photon initiated plasma mechanism. The hydrodynamic response is calculated with a finite difference method, using an equation of state constructed from thermodynamic functions including electronic, ion motion, and chemical binding terms. Results for the ablation efficiency are presented. An analytic model describing the ablation threshold and ablation depth is presented. Thermal coupling to the remaining tissue and long-time thermal conduction are calculated. Simulation results are compared to experimental measurements of the ablation efficiency. Desired improvements in the model are presented.

This volume presents the results of the first phase of the Station Keeping Subsystem (SKSS) design study for 40 MW/sub e/ capacity Modular Experiment OTEC Platforms. The objectives of the study were: (1) establishment of basic design requirements; (2) verification of technical feasibility of SKSS designs; (3) identification of merits and demerits; (4) estimates of sizes for major components; (5) estimates of life cycle costs; (6) deployment scenarios and time/cost/risk assessments; (7) maintenance/repair and replacement scenarios; (8) identifications of interface with other OTEC subsystems; (9) recommendations for and major problems in preliminary design; and (10) applicability of concepts to commercial plant SKSS designs. A brief site suitability study was performed with the objective of determining the best possible location at the Punta Tuna (Puerto Rico) site from the standpoint of anchoring. This involved studying the vicinity of the initial location in relation to the prevailing bottom slopes and distances from shore. All subsequent studies were performed for the final selected site. The two baseline OTEC platforms were the APL BARGE and the G and C SPAR. The results of the study are presented in detail. The overall objective of developing two conceptual designs for each of the two baseline OTEC …

Electroactive polymers (EAPs) that bend, swell, ripple (first generation materials), and now contract with low electric input (new development) have been produced. The mechanism of contraction is not well understood. Radionuclide-labeled experiments, molecular modeling, electrolyte experiments, pH experiments, and an ionic concentration experiment were used to determine the chain of events that occur during contraction and, reciprocally, expansion when the polarity is reversed, in these ionic EAPs. Plasma treatment of the electrodes, along with other strategies, allows for the embedded electrodes and the EAP material of the actuator to work and move as a unit, with no detachment, by significantly improving the metal-polymer interface, analogous to nerves and tendons moving with muscles during movement. Challenges involved with prototyping actuation using contractile EAPs are also discussed.

The papers included in this progress report summarize some significant developments in understanding the South Atlantic Bight. Some of the results are summarized as follows: Onslow Bay flushing rates can be determined using a model based on an exponential dilution model; eddy induced nitrate flux accounts for most input of new nitrogen into shelf waters; and tarballs in the Gulf Stream are not transported to the nearshore because of an apparent inner shelf density front.

Progress is reported on research conducted from June, 1979 to May, 1980 on various oceanographic aspects of the South Atlantic Bight. Research topics included: (1) A flashing model of Onslow Bay, North Carolina based on intrusion volumes; (2) A description of a bottom intrusion in Onslow Bay, North Carolina; (3) Detailed observations of a Gulf Stream spin-off eddy on the Georgia continental shelf; (4) Pelagic tar of Georgia and Florida; (5) A surface diaton bloom in response to eddy-forced upwelling; and (6) Hydrographic observations off Savannah and Brunswick, Georgia.