The progressive identification of new high-technology applications and requirements for MgO single crystals in the commercial realm, as well as in DOE and other government-agency project areas, has resulted in an increased demand and international market for this material. Specifically, the demand for MgO crystals in large sizes and quantities is presently increasing due to existing and developing applications that include: (a) MgO substrates for the formation of electro-optic thin films and devices, (b) epitaxial substrates for high-temperature thin-film superconducting devices MgO optical components - including high-temperature windows, lenses, and prisms, and (d) specialty MgO crucibles and evaporation sources for thin-film production. In the course of CRADA ORNL92-0091, carried out with Commercial Crystal Laboratories of Naples, Florida as the commercial participant, we have made major progress in increasing the size of single crystals of MgO produced by means of the submerged-arc-fusion technique-thereby increasing the commercial utility of this material. Prior to the accomplishments realized in the course of this CRADA, the only commercially available single crystals of MgO were produced in Japan, Israel, and Russia. The results achieved in the course of CRADA ORNL92-0091 have now led to the establishment of a domestic commercial source of MgO single-crystal substrates and …

We review experiments and calculations of the compressible Richtmyer-Meshkov instability from a single-mode, nonlinear initial perturbation. These experiments were performed using the Nova laser. Measurements of the time-evolution of the mixing region were reported previously. We compared the experimental measurements with numerical simulations [1,2]. We found both experiment and simulation to be in good agreement with recent theories for the nonlinear evolution of the instability [3,4]. Experimental results beyond those previously presented provide additional support for the use of two phase flow models to describe the flow in the nonlinear regime. These experiments include measurement of the mixing region at additional times, including times earlier in the evolution of the instability than previously reported. We have also carried out experiments to examine the difference in the evolution of the instability from initial perturbations consisting of circular sawtooth grooves as well as rectilinear sawteeth. Our previous two-dimensional numerical simulations approximated the experimental linear grooves as circular grooves. We reasoned that the difference between the two cases would be small, based on scaling arguments, and limited to a very small region near the centerline. New experimental and numerical results confirm this. Finally, we discuss some additional issues in the derivation of the …

This document describes the SSF PLC Ladder Logic, Cross references, and the software that was used to control the amount of power applied to the SSF Trace Heated components.

The Spent Nuclear Fuels Program is in the process of planning activities to remove spent nuclear fuel and other materials from the 100-K Basins as a remediation effort for clean closure. The 105 K- East and K-West Basins store spent fuel, sludge, and debris. Sludge has accumulated in the 1 00 K Basins as a result of fuel oxidation and a slight amount of general debris being deposited, by settling, in the basin water. The ultimate intent in removing the sludge and fuel is to eliminate the environmental risk posed by storing fuel at the K Basins. The task for this project is to disposition specific constituents of sludge (metallic fuel) to produce a product stream through a pretreatment process that will meet the requirements, including a final particle size acceptable to the Tank Waste Remediation System (TWRS). The purpose of this task is to develop a preconceptual design package for the K Basin sludge pretreatment system. The process equipment/system is at a preconceptual stage, as shown in sketch ES-SNF-01 , while a more refined process system and material/energy balances are ongoing (all sketches are shown in Appendix C). Thus, the overall process and 0535 associated equipment have been conservatively …

The electron beams produced by two different welders were examined using computer assisted tomographic (CT) analysis. The machines used are Hamilton Standard welders with 150 kV/50mA maximum. One machine uses a ribbon filament while the other uses a hairpin filament. The objective of this study was to characterize the beam power distribution on each machine to see if weld parameters could easily be transferred between machines. Beam focus, voltage, and current settings were pre-selected to duplicate the welding conditions used in LLNL program applications. The results show that the actual beam currents measured by Faraday cup are 5 to 10% higher for the first machine and 30% lower for the second. The CT analysis of the beam shapes shows that the hairpin filament welder produces an elliptical beam shape in the sharp focus condition that defocuses to a diamond shape. The ribbon filament welder produced less of an elliptical beam shape in the sharp focus condition, but when defocused, acquires an elliptical shape. CT analysis of the effects of defocus on the peak power density shows that the hairpin filament drops in peak power density much more quickly than the ribbon filament for a given amount of defocus. Furthermore, it …

Microautoclave tests confirmed that first-stage subbituminous coal conversions were greater in a more aromatic first-stage solvent. First-stage liquefaction tests with hydride ion `E` showed that high coal conversions can be obtained with a number of different first-stage water-gas-shift catalysts. Eight one-liter autoclave tests were completed. All tests used Black Thunder Mine subbituminous coal and Reilly Industries anthracene oil. Differences among the tests were the hydride ion reagent used, the post-run flash of water, and the shift catalyst. Filtration tests were conducted with five one-liter autoclave products of subbituminous coal. The filtration rates were slower than those that had been obtained with North Dakota lignite products, but were still within a commercially acceptable range. The influence of the first-stage shift catalyst on filtration rates is being investigated. Second-stage hydrotreating of products of tests made to simulate the British coal LSE process and the Wilsonville pilot plant preheaters had lower resid conversion and higher hydrogen uptake than the products of the hydride ion liquefaction reaction. The 300 mL second-stage reactor system went on line this quarter. Refinements in the experimental procedures are under way. A conceptual commercial plant design for the hydride ion reagent `A` case was completed. Evaluations of hydride ion …

The Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) is a general-purposed scientific data format developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. It supports metadata, compression, and a variety of data structures multidimensional arrays, raster images, tables. FORTRAN 77 and ANSI C programming interfaces are available for it and a wide variety of visualization tools read HDF files. The author discusses the features of this file format and its possible uses in TRANSIMS.

We discuss the motivation for resummation of the effects of initial-state soft gluon radiation, to all orders in the strong coupling strength, for processes in which the near-threshold region in the partonic subenergy is important. We summarize our calculation of the total cross section for top quark production at hadron colliders. Comments are included on the differences between our treatment of subleading logarithmic terms and other methods.

Preliminary results of three-dimensional simulations of compressible Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities and turbulent mixing in an ideal gas using the piecewise-parabolic method (PPM) with and without molecular dissipation terms are presented. Simulations with spatial resolutions up to 512 were performed. Two types of convergence studies are presented. The first investigates the Reynolds numbers for which the simulations with molecular dissipation are converged with respect to spatial resolution, and the second investigates whether PPM simulations at different spatial resolutions reproduce fully-resolved PPM simulations with molecular dissipation. Finally, statistical analyses of the data are discussed, including spectra and horizontally-averaged terms in the kinetic energy and enstrophy density evolution equations. The application of this statistical data to the development and testing of subgrid-scale models appropriate for compressible Rayleigh-Taylor instability-induced turbulent mixing is discussed.

We study the two-dimensional global scale magnetic field structure for a system of two merging cylindrical plasmas in a steady state. In the limit of very large magnetic Reynolds numbers the reconnection process is slow, and the plasma almost everywhere finds itself in magnetostatic equilibrium. We show that under certain conditions the classical Syrovatskii-type Y-point configuration, with surface current concentrated only in the reconnection layer, is not possible. Instead, a cusp configuration is formed, with finite surface current in the separatrix. The equilibrium condition, together with constraints on the volume per flux, enables us to determine the shape of the separatrix and the magnetic field in the vicinity of the cusp point. Our solution is characterized by a singular power law dependence of current density on the flux coordinate ({psi}) near the separatrix: j({Psi}) {approx} |{Psi}|{sup -1/2}. This solution gives us the boundary conditions that are needed to find the flow in the reconnection and the separatrix regions.

We report on results of an experimental study of the Richtmyer- Meshkov instability. The growth of the mixing region in the nonlinear regime is measured for a set of cases in which the amplitude and wavelength of the initial perturbation are varied systematically. The experiments are conducted on the Nova laser facility, and use a Nova hohlraum as a driver source to launch a high-Mach number shock into a miniature shock tube attached to the hohlraum. The shock tube contains brominated plastic and low density carbon foam as the two working fluids, with a micro-machined, triangular sawtooth interface between them serving as the initial perturbation. The sawtooth perturbation waveform is dominated by a single mode, and the perturbation amplitudes are chosen to expedite transition into the nonlinear phase of the instability. The shock, upon crossing the perturbation at the interface, instigates the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability. The resulting growth of the mixing region is diagnosed radiographically. Quantitative measurements of the temporal growth of the width of the mixing region are made for six different combinations of amplitude and wavelength, building upon previous results which employed a single amplitude/wavelength combination. Data from both experimental and supporting simulations suggest that the nonlinear growth of …

Shipment of sludge from the K Basins to a disposal site is now targeted for August 2000. The current path forward for sludge disposal is shipment to Tank AW-105 in the Tank Waste Remediation System (TWRS). Significant issues of the feasibility of this path exist primarily due to criticality concerns and the presence of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBS) in the sludge at levels that trigger regulation under the Toxic Substance Control Act. Introduction of PCBs into the TWRS processes could potentially involve significant design and operational impacts to both the Spent Nuclear Fuel and TWRS projects if technical and regulatory issues related to PCB treatment cannot be satisfactorily resolved. Concerns of meeting the TWRS acceptance criteria have evolved such that new storage tanks for the K Basins sludge may be the best option for storage prior to vitrification of the sludge. A reconunendation for the final disposition of the sludge is scheduled for June 30, 1997. To support this decision process, this project was developed. This project provides a preconceptual design package including preconceptual designs and cost estimates for the temporary sludge storage tanks. Development of cost estimates for the design and construction of sludge storage systems is required to help …