AGING PERFORMANCE OF VITON GLT O-RINGS IN RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL PACKAGES (open access)

AGING PERFORMANCE OF VITON GLT O-RINGS IN RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL PACKAGES

Radioactive material packages used for transportation of plutonium-bearing materials often contain multiple O-ring seals for containment. Packages such as the Model 9975 are also being used for interim storage of Pu-bearing materials at the Savannah River Site (SRS). One of the seal materials used in such packages is Viton{reg_sign} GLT fluoroelastomer. The aging behavior of containment vessel O-rings based on Viton{reg_sign} GLT at long-term containment term storage conditions is being characterized to assess its performance in such applications. This paper summarizes the program and test results to date.
Date: May 7, 2007
Creator: Skidmore, E; Kerry Dunn, K; Elizabeth Hoffman, E; Elise Fox, E & Kathryn Counts, K
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Airbreathing Acceleration Toward Earth Orbit (open access)

Airbreathing Acceleration Toward Earth Orbit

As flight speed increases, aerodynamic drag rises more sharply than the availability of atmospheric oxygen. The ratio of oxygen mass flux to dynamic pressure cannot be improved by changing altitude. The maximum possible speed for airbreathing propulsion is limited by the ratio of air capture area to vehicle drag area, approximately Mach 6 at equal areas. Simulation of vehicle acceleration shows that the use of atmospheric oxygen offers a significant potential for minimizing onboard consumables at low speeds. These fundamental calculations indicate that a practical airbreathing launch vehicle would accelerate to near steady-state speed while consuming only onboard fuel, then transition to rocket propulsion. It is suggested that an aircraft carrying a rocket-propelled vehicle to approximately Mach 5 could be a realistic technical goal toward improving access to orbit.
Date: May 9, 2007
Creator: Whitehead, J C
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Amplitude Analysis of the B+ to phi K*+(892) Decay (open access)

Amplitude Analysis of the B+ to phi K*+(892) Decay

We perform an amplitude analysis of B{sup {+-}} {yields} {var_phi}(1020)K*(892){sup {+-}} decay with a sample of about 384 million B{bar B} pairs recorded with the BABAR detector. Overall, twelve parameters are measured, including the fractions of longitudinal f{sub L} and parity-odd transverse f{sub {perpendicular}} amplitudes, branching fraction, strong phases, and six parameters sensitive to CP-violation. We use the dependence on the K{pi} invariant mass of the interference between the J{sup P} = 1{sup -} and 0{sup +} K{pi} components to resolve the discrete ambiguity in the determination of the strong and weak phases. Our measurements of f{sub L} = 0.49 {+-} 0.05 {+-} 0.03, f{sub {perpendicular}} = 0.21 {+-} 0.05 {+-} 0.02, and the strong phases point to the presence of a substantial helicity-plus amplitude from a presently unknown source.
Date: May 16, 2007
Creator: Aubert, B.
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library

Analysis of Heat Dissipation in Li-Ion Cells & Modules for Modeling of Thermal Runaway

The objectives of this study are: (1) To develop 3D Li-Ion battery thermal abuse ''reaction'' models for cell and module analysis; (2) To understand the mechanisms and interactions between heat transfer and chemical reactions during thermal runaway for Li-Ion cells and modules; (3) To develop a tool and methodology to support the design of abuse-tolerant Li-Ion battery systems for PHEVs/HEVs; and (4) To help battery developers accelerate delivery of abuse-tolerant Li-Ion battery systems in support of the FreedomCAR's Energy Storage Program.
Date: May 15, 2007
Creator: Kim, G.-H. & Pesaran, A.
Object Type: Presentation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Analysis of pumping-induced unsaturated regions beneath aperennial river (open access)

Analysis of pumping-induced unsaturated regions beneath aperennial river

The presence of an unsaturated region beneath a streambedduring groundwater pumping near streams reduces the pumping capacity whenit reaches the well screens, changes flow paths, and alters the types ofbiological transformations in the streambed sediments. Athree-dimensional, multi-phase flow model of two horizontal collectorwells along the Russian River near Forestville, California was developedto investigate the impact of varying the ratio of the aquifer tostreambed permeability on (1) the formation of an unsaturated regionbeneath the stream, (2) the pumping capacity, (3) stream-water fluxesthrough the streambed, and (4) stream-water travel times to the collectorwells. The aquifer to streambed permeability ratio at which theunsaturated region was initially observed ranged from 10 to 100. The sizeof the unsaturated region beneath the streambed increased as the aquiferto streambed permeability ratio increased. The simulations also indicatedthat for a particular aquifer permeability, decreasing the streambedpermeability by only a factor of 2-3 from the permeability wheredesaturation initially occurred resulted in reducing the pumpingcapacity. In some cases, the stream-water fluxes increased as thestreambed permeability decreased. However, the stream water residencetimes increased and the fraction of stream water that reached that thewells decreased as the streambed permeability decreased, indicating thata higher streambed flux does not necessarily correlate to greaterrecharge of stream …
Date: May 15, 2007
Creator: Su, G.W.; Jasperse, J.; Seymour, D.; Constantz, J. & Zhou, Q.
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
ANALYSIS OF SPECIAL WASTE CONFIGURATIONS AT THE SRS WASTE MANAGEMENT FACILITIES (open access)

ANALYSIS OF SPECIAL WASTE CONFIGURATIONS AT THE SRS WASTE MANAGEMENT FACILITIES

Job Control Waste (JCW) at the Savannah River Site (SRS) Solid Waste Management Facilities (SWMF) may be disposed of in special containers, and the analysis of these containers requires developing specific analysis methodologies. A method has been developed for the routine assay of prohibited items (liquids, etc.) contained in a 30-gallon drum that is then placed into a 55-gallon drum. Method development consisted of system calibration with a NIST standard at various drum-to-detector distances, method verification with a liquid sample containing a known amount of Pu-238, and modeling the inner container using Ortec Isotopic software. Using this method for measurement of the known standard in the drum-in-drum configuration produced excellent agreement (within 15%) with the known value. Savannah River Site Solid Waste Management also requested analysis of waste contained in large black boxes (commonly 18-feet x 12-feet x 7-feet) stored at the SWMF. These boxes are frequently stored in high background areas and background radiation must be considered for each analysis. A detection limit of less than 150 fissile-gram-equivalents (FGE) of TRU waste is required for the black-box analyses. There is usually excellent agreement for the measurements at different distances and measurement uncertainties of about 50% are obtained at distances …
Date: May 14, 2007
Creator: Casella, V & Raymond Dewberry, R
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Analytic Models of Plausible Gravitational Lens Potentials (open access)

Analytic Models of Plausible Gravitational Lens Potentials

Gravitational lenses on galaxy scales are plausibly modeled as having ellipsoidal symmetry and a universal dark matter density profile, with a Sersic profile to describe the distribution of baryonic matter. Predicting all lensing effects requires knowledge of the total lens potential: in this work we give analytic forms for that of the above hybrid model. Emphasizing that complex lens potentials can be constructed from simpler components in linear combination, we provide a recipe for attaining elliptical symmetry in either projected mass or lens potential.We also provide analytic formulae for the lens potentials of Sersic profiles for integer and half-integer index. We then present formulae describing the gravitational lensing effects due to smoothly-truncated universal density profiles in cold dark matter model. For our isolated haloes the density profile falls off as radius to the minus fifth or seventh power beyond the tidal radius, functional forms that allow all orders of lens potential derivatives to be calculated analytically, while ensuring a non-divergent total mass. We show how the observables predicted by this profile differ from that of the original infinite-mass NFW profile. Expressions for the gravitational flexion are highlighted. We show how decreasing the tidal radius allows stripped haloes to be modeled, …
Date: May 4, 2007
Creator: Baltz, Edward A.; Marshall, Phil & Oguri, Masamune
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
An analytical approach to understanding Tevatron integrated luminosity (open access)

An analytical approach to understanding Tevatron integrated luminosity

The recent record-setting performance of the Fermilab Tevatron is the culmination of a long series of efforts to optimize the many parameters that go into generating integrated luminosity for the colliding beams experiments. The instantaneous luminosity is a function of the number of particles of each particle species, the physical extent at the collision point of the transverse and longitudinal particle distributions, and the bunch collision frequency. Meanwhile, the integrated luminosity also depends upon the rate at which particles are lost due to collisions or other means, as well as the rate at which the initial store luminosity can be restored after the end - intentional or otherwise - of the previous store. While many numerical computer models already exist that are used to help optimize the performance of the Tevatron complex, here we take an analytical approach in an attempt to illustrate the most fundamental aspects of integrating luminosity in the Tevatron. We find that the essential features, including recent values of the weekly integrated luminosity, can be understood in a transparent way from basic operational parameters such as antiproton stacking rate and beam emittance growth rate in the Tevatron.
Date: May 1, 2007
Creator: Syphers, M.J.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Analyzing and Visualizing Whole Program Architectures (open access)

Analyzing and Visualizing Whole Program Architectures

This paper describes our work to develop new tool support for analyzing and visualizing the architecture of complete large-scale (millions or more lines of code) programs. Our approach consists of (i) creating a compact, accurate representation of a whole C or C++ program, (ii) analyzing the program in this representation, and (iii) visualizing the analysis results with respect to the program's architecture. We have implemented our approach by extending and combining a compiler infrastructure and a program visualization tool, and we believe our work will be of broad interest to those engaged in a variety of program understanding and transformation tasks. We have added new whole-program analysis support to ROSE [15, 14], a source-to-source C/C++ compiler infrastructure for creating customized analysis and transformation tools. Our whole-program work does not rely on procedure summaries; rather, we preserve all of the information present in the source while keeping our representation compact. In our representation, a million-line application fits in well less than 1 GB of memory. Because whole-program analyses can generate large amounts of data, we believe that abstracting and visualizing analysis results at the architecture level is critical to reducing the cognitive burden on the consumer of the analysis results. Therefore, …
Date: May 10, 2007
Creator: Panas, T; Quinlan, D & Vuduc, R
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Annual Report on U.S. Wind Power Installation, Cost, and Performance Trends: 2006 (open access)

Annual Report on U.S. Wind Power Installation, Cost, and Performance Trends: 2006

This report--the first in what is envisioned to be an ongoing annual series--attempts to fill this need by providing a detailed overview of developments and trends in the U.S. wind power market, with a particular focus on 2006.
Date: May 1, 2007
Creator: Wiser, R. & Bolinger, M.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Annual Report on U.S. Wind Power Installation, Cost, andPerformance Trends: 2006 (open access)

Annual Report on U.S. Wind Power Installation, Cost, andPerformance Trends: 2006

This Report contains the U.S. Wind Power Installation, Cost, performance trends in 2006.
Date: May 24, 2007
Creator: Wiser, Ryan; Bollinger, Mark; Barbose, Galen; Belyeu, Kathy; Hand, Maureen; Heimiller, Donna et al.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
APPLICATION OF POLYURETHANE FOAM FOR IMPACT ABSORPTION AND THERMAL INSULATION FOR RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS PACKAGINGS. (open access)

APPLICATION OF POLYURETHANE FOAM FOR IMPACT ABSORPTION AND THERMAL INSULATION FOR RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS PACKAGINGS.

Polyurethane foam has been widely used as an impact absorbing and thermal insulating material for large radioactive materials packages, since the 1980's. With the adoption of the regulatory crush test requirement, for smaller packages, polyurethane foam has been adopted as a replacement for cane fiberboard, because of its ability to withstand the crush test. Polyurethane foam is an engineered material whose composition is much more closely controlled than that of cane fiberboard. In addition, the properties of the foam can be controlled by controlling the density of the foam. The conditions under which the foam is formed, whether confined or unconfined have an affect on foam properties. The study reported here reviewed the application of polyurethane foam in RAM packagings and compared property values reported in the literature with published property values and test results for foam specimens taken from a prototype 9977 packaging. The study confirmed that, polyurethane foam behaves in a predictable and consistent manner and fully satisfies the functional requirements for impact absorption and thermal insulation.
Date: May 15, 2007
Creator: Smith, A; Glenn Abramczyk, G; Paul Blanton, P; Steve Bellamy, S; William Daugherty, W & Sharon Williamson, S
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Applying Agile Methods to Weapon/Weapon-Related Software (open access)

Applying Agile Methods to Weapon/Weapon-Related Software

This white paper provides information and guidance to the Department of Energy (DOE) sites on Agile software development methods and the impact of their application on weapon/weapon-related software development. The purpose of this white paper is to provide an overview of Agile methods, examine the accepted interpretations/uses/practices of these methodologies, and discuss the applicability of Agile methods with respect to Nuclear Weapons Complex (NWC) Technical Business Practices (TBPs). It also provides recommendations on the application of Agile methods to the development of weapon/weapon-related software.
Date: May 2, 2007
Creator: Adams, Dennis; Armendariz, Maria; Blackledge, Mike; Campbell, Frank; Cloninger, Mack; Cox, Larry et al.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
APS Science 2006. (open access)

APS Science 2006.

In my five years as the Director of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), I have been fortunate to see major growth in the scientific impact from the APS. This year I am particularly enthusiastic about prospects for our longer-term future. Every scientific instrument must remain at the cutting edge to flourish. Our plans for the next generation of APS--an APS upgrade--got seriously in gear this year with strong encouragement from our users and sponsors. The most promising avenue that has emerged is the energy-recovery linac (ERL) (see article on page xx), for which we are beginning serious R&D. The ERL{at}APS would offer revolutionary performance, especially for x-ray imaging and ultrafast science, while not seriously disrupting the existing user base. I am very proud of our accelerator physics and engineering staff, who not only keep the current APS at the forefront, but were able to greatly impress our international Machine Advisory Committee with the quality of their work on the possible upgrade option (see page xx). As we prepare for long-term major upgrades, our plans to develop and optimize all the sectors at APS in the near future are advancing. Several new beamlines saw first light this year, including a dedicated …
Date: May 24, 2007
Creator: Gibson, J. M.; Fenner, R. B.; Long, G.; Borland, M. & Decker, G.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Argonne National Laboratory Summary Site Environmental Report for Calendar Year 2005. (open access)

Argonne National Laboratory Summary Site Environmental Report for Calendar Year 2005.

None
Date: May 29, 2007
Creator: Golchert, N. W.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Argonne's Laboratory Computing Resource Center : 2006 Annual Report. (open access)

Argonne's Laboratory Computing Resource Center : 2006 Annual Report.

Argonne National Laboratory founded the Laboratory Computing Resource Center (LCRC) in the spring of 2002 to help meet pressing program needs for computational modeling, simulation, and analysis. The guiding mission is to provide critical computing resources that accelerate the development of high-performance computing expertise, applications, and computations to meet the Laboratory's challenging science and engineering missions. In September 2002 the LCRC deployed a 350-node computing cluster from Linux NetworX to address Laboratory needs for mid-range supercomputing. This cluster, named 'Jazz', achieved over a teraflop of computing power (10{sup 12} floating-point calculations per second) on standard tests, making it the Laboratory's first terascale computing system and one of the 50 fastest computers in the world at the time. Jazz was made available to early users in November 2002 while the system was undergoing development and configuration. In April 2003, Jazz was officially made available for production operation. Since then, the Jazz user community has grown steadily. By the end of fiscal year 2006, there were 76 active projects on Jazz involving over 380 scientists and engineers. These projects represent a wide cross-section of Laboratory expertise, including work in biosciences, chemistry, climate, computer science, engineering applications, environmental science, geoscience, information science, materials …
Date: May 31, 2007
Creator: Bair, R. B.; Kaushik, D. K.; Riley, K. R.; Valdes, J. V.; Drugan, C. D. & Pieper, G. P.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Arsenic pilot plant operation and results - Socorro Springs, New Mexico - phase 1. (open access)

Arsenic pilot plant operation and results - Socorro Springs, New Mexico - phase 1.

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is conducting pilot scale evaluations of the performance and cost of innovative water treatment technologies aimed at meeting the recently revised arsenic maximum contaminant level (MCL) for drinking water. The standard of 10 {micro}g/L (10 ppb) is effective as of January 2006. The first pilot tests have been conducted in New Mexico where over 90 sites that exceed the new MCL have been identified by the New Mexico Environment Department. The pilot test described in this report was conducted in Socorro New Mexico between January 2005 and July 2005. The pilot demonstration is a project of the Arsenic Water Technology Partnership program, a partnership between the American Water Works Association Research Foundation (AwwaRF), SNL and WERC (A Consortium for Environmental Education and Technology Development). The Sandia National Laboratories pilot demonstration at the Socorro Springs site obtained arsenic removal performance data for five different adsorptive media under constant ambient flow conditions. Well water at Socorro Springs has approximately 42 ppb arsenic in the oxidized (arsenate-As(V)) redox state with moderate amounts of silica, low concentrations of iron and manganese and a slightly alkaline pH (8). The study provides estimates of the capacity (bed volumes until breakthrough at 10 …
Date: May 1, 2007
Creator: Aragon, Malynda Jo; Everett, Randy L.; Siegel, Malcolm Dean; Kottenstette, Richard Joseph; Holub, William E. Jr; Wright, Jeremy B. et al.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Arsenic pilot plant operation and results:Weatherford, Oklahoma. (open access)

Arsenic pilot plant operation and results:Weatherford, Oklahoma.

Narasimhan Consulting Services, Inc. (NCS), under a contract with the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), designed and operated pilot scale evaluations of the adsorption and coagulation/filtration treatment technologies aimed at meeting the recently revised arsenic maximum contaminant level (MCL) for drinking water. The standard of 10 {micro}g/L (10 ppb) is effective as of January 2006. The pilot demonstration is a project of the Arsenic Water Technology Partnership program, a partnership between the American Water Works Association Research Foundation (AwwaRF), SNL and WERC (A Consortium for Environmental Education and Technology Development). The pilot evaluation was conducted at Well 30 of the City of Weatherford, OK, which supplies drinking water to a population of more than 10,400. Well water contained arsenic in the range of 16 to 29 ppb during the study. Four commercially available adsorption media were evaluated side by side for a period of three months. Both adsorption and coagulation/filtration effectively reduced arsenic from Well No.30. A preliminary economic analysis indicated that adsorption using an iron oxide media was more cost effective than the coagulation/ filtration technology.
Date: May 1, 2007
Creator: Aragon, Malynda Jo; Arora, H. (Narasimhan Consulting Services Inc., Phoenix, Arizona); Karori, Saqib (Narasimhan Consulting Services Inc., Phoenix, Arizona) & Pathan, Sakib (Narasimhan Consulting Services Inc., Phoenix, Arizona)
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Assessing the Performance of 5mm White LED Light Sources forDeveloping-Country Applications (open access)

Assessing the Performance of 5mm White LED Light Sources forDeveloping-Country Applications

Some white light-emitting diode (LED) light sources haverecently attained levels of efficiency and cost that allow them tocompete with fluorescent lighting for off-grid applications in thedeveloping world. Additional attributes (optics, size, ruggedness, andservice life) make them potentially superior products. Enormousreductions in energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions are thus possible,and system costs can be much lower given the ability to downsize thecharging and energy storage components compared to a fluorescentstrategy. However, there is a high risk of "market-spoiling" if inferiorproducts are introduced and result in user dissatisfaction. Completesystems involve the integration of light sources and optics, energysupply, and energy storage. A natural starting point for evaluatingproduct quality is to focus on the individual light sources. This reportdescribes testing results for batches of 10 5mm white LEDs from 26manufacturers. Efficacies and color properties are presented.
Date: May 3, 2007
Creator: Mills, Evan
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Atomic-scale investigations of the struct. and dynamics of complex catalytic materials (open access)

Atomic-scale investigations of the struct. and dynamics of complex catalytic materials

By some accounts, catalysis impacts ≥ 30% of GDP in developed countries [Maxwell, I. E. Nature 394, 325-326 (1998)]. Catalysis is the enabling technology for petroleum production, for control of gaseous emissions from petroleum combustion, and for the production of industrial and consumer chemicals. Future applications of catalysis are potentially even more far reaching. There is an ever-growing need to move the economy from a fossil-fuel energy base to cleaner alternatives. Hydrogen-based combustion systems and fuel cells could play a dominant role, given a plentiful and inexpensive source of hydrogen. Photocatalysis is the most promising clean technology for hydrogen production, relying solely on water and sunlight, but performance enhancements in photocatalysis are needed to make this technology economically competitive. Given the enormously wide spread utilization of catalysts, even incremental performance enhancements would have far-reaching benefits for multiple end-use sectors. In the area of fuel and chemical production, such improvements would translate into vast reductions in energy consumption. At the consumption end, improvements in the catalysts involved would yield tremendous reductions in pollution. In the area of photocatalysis, such efficiency improvements could finally render hydrogen an economically viable fuel. Prerequisite to the non-empirical design and refinement of improved catalysts is the …
Date: May 16, 2007
Creator: Karl Sohlberg, Drexel University
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Autocatalytic water dissociation on Cu(110) at near ambient conditions (open access)

Autocatalytic water dissociation on Cu(110) at near ambient conditions

Autocatalytic dissociation of water on the Cu(110) metal surface is demonstrated based on X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies carried out in-situ under near ambient conditions of water vapor pressure (1 Torr) and temperature (275-520 K). The autocatalytic reaction is explained as the result of the strong hydrogen-bond in the H{sub 2}O-OH complex of the dissociated final state, which lowers the water dissociation barrier according to the Broensted-Evans-Polanyi relations. A simple chemical bonding picture is presented which predicts autocatalytic water dissociation to be a general phenomenon on metal surfaces.
Date: May 16, 2007
Creator: Mulleregan, Alice; Andersson, Klas; Ketteler, Guido; Bluhm, Hendrik; Yamamoto, Susumu; Ogasawara, Hirohito et al.
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Automated Inadvertent Intruder Application (open access)

Automated Inadvertent Intruder Application

The Environmental Analysis and Performance Modeling group of Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) conducts performance assessments of the Savannah River Site (SRS) low-level waste facilities to meet the requirements of DOE Order 435.1. These performance assessments, which result in limits on the amounts of radiological substances that can be placed in the waste disposal facilities, consider numerous potential exposure pathways that could occur in the future. One set of exposure scenarios, known as inadvertent intruder analysis, considers the impact on hypothetical individuals who are assumed to inadvertently intrude onto the waste disposal site. Inadvertent intruder analysis considers three distinct scenarios for exposure referred to as the agriculture scenario, the resident scenario, and the post-drilling scenario. Each of these scenarios has specific exposure pathways that contribute to the overall dose for the scenario. For the inadvertent intruder analysis, the calculation of dose for the exposure pathways is a relatively straightforward algebraic calculation that utilizes dose conversion factors. Prior to 2004, these calculations were performed using an Excel spreadsheet. However, design checks of the spreadsheet calculations revealed that errors could be introduced inadvertently when copying spreadsheet formulas cell by cell and finding these errors was tedious and time consuming. This weakness led …
Date: May 29, 2007
Creator: Koffman, L.; Patricia Lee, P.; Jim Cook, J. & Elmer Wilhite, E.
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
B(s) physics at CDF and D0 (open access)

B(s) physics at CDF and D0

Run II at the Tevatron has seen an explosion of results related to the B{sub s} meson, ranging from tests of QCD models, to probes of electro-weak symmetry breaking, to direct searches for new physics effects. I will briefly summarize the CDF and D0 B{sub s}-physics programs, describing the suitability of the detectors for doing this kind of physics, and pointing out how our knowledge of important quantities has improved through Run II measurements.
Date: May 1, 2007
Creator: Evans, Harold G.
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Bayesian methods for estimating the reliability in complex hierarchical networks (interim report). (open access)

Bayesian methods for estimating the reliability in complex hierarchical networks (interim report).

Current work on the Integrated Stockpile Evaluation (ISE) project is evidence of Sandia's commitment to maintaining the integrity of the nuclear weapons stockpile. In this report, we undertake a key element in that process: development of an analytical framework for determining the reliability of the stockpile in a realistic environment of time-variance, inherent uncertainty, and sparse available information. This framework is probabilistic in nature and is founded on a novel combination of classical and computational Bayesian analysis, Bayesian networks, and polynomial chaos expansions. We note that, while the focus of the effort is stockpile-related, it is applicable to any reasonably-structured hierarchical system, including systems with feedback.
Date: May 1, 2007
Creator: Marzouk, Youssef M.; Zurn, Rena M.; Boggs, Paul T.; Diegert, Kathleen V. (Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM); Red-Horse, John Robert (Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM) & Pebay, Philippe Pierre
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library