The FY 2003 risk assessment (RA) of bulk vitrification (BV) waste packages used 0.3 wt% of the technetium (Tc) inventory as a leachable salt and found it sufficient to create a significant peak in the groundwater concentration in a 100-meter down-gradient well. Although this peak met regulatory limits, considering uncertainty in the actual Tc salt fraction, peak concentrations could exceed the maximum concentration limit (MCL) under some scenarios so reducing the leachable salt inventory is desirable. The main objective of this study was to reduce the mobile Tc species available within a BV disposal package by reducing the oxidation state of the Tc in the waste feed and/or during melting because Tc in its reduced form of Tc(IV) has a much lower volatility than Tc(VII). Reduced Tc volatility has a secondary benefit of increasing the Tc retention in glass.

The overall objective of this study is to provide a demonstration of capability for importing both high altitude meteorological forecast and climatological datasets from NRL into the NARAC modeling system to simulate high altitude atmospheric droplet release and dispersion. The altitude of release for the proposed study is between 60 and 100km altitude. As either standard climatological data (over a period of 40 years) or daily meteorological forecasts can drive the particle dispersion model, we did a limited comparison of simulations with meteorological data and simulations with climatological data. The modeling tools used to address this problem are the National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center (NARAC) modeling system at LLNL which are operationally employed to assist DOE/DHS/DOD emergency response to an atmospheric release of chemical, biological, and radiological contaminants. The interrelation of the various data feeds and codes at NARAC are illustrated in Figure 1. The NARAC scientific models are all verified to both analytic solutions and other codes; the models are validated to field data such as the Prairie Grass study (Barad, 1958). NARAC has multiple real-time meteorological data feeds from the National Weather Service, from the European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasting, from the US Navy, and from …

Visual graph representations are increasingly used to represent, display, and explore scenarios and the structure of organizations. The graph representations of scenarios are readily understood, and commercial software is available to create and manage these representations. The purpose of the research presented in this paper is to explore whether these graph representations support quantitative assessments of the underlying scenarios. The underlying structure of the scenarios is the information that is being targeted in the experiment and the extent to which the scenarios are similar in content. An experiment was designed that incorporated both the contents of the scenarios and analysts’ graph representations of the scenarios. The scenarios’ content was represented graphically by analysts, and both the structure and the semantics of the graph representation were attempted to be used to understand the content. The structure information was not found to be discriminating for the content of the scenarios in this experiment; but, the semantic information was discriminating.

The extent to which finite element models of partially buried nuclear power plant structures may be used to compute seismic induced wall pressures is investigated in this paper. Stresses in three dimensional finite elements modeling the soil adjacent to the structure are used and stresses in these elements are used to evaluate wall pressures. Depths of burial of the structure varying from 1/4 to 1 times the height of the structure are considered. The SASSI computer code is used to perform the analyses. The wall pressures for the shallower depths of burial are found to depend on the inertial interaction loads, while the pressures for the deeper embedded structures are found to depend on kinematic interaction loads. The input ground motion for the study has a ZPA equal to 0.3 g. The maximum wall pressures are examined to determine whether non linear effects (separation of the wall and soil or slippage of the soil relative to the wall) are important. Non-linear effects are found to occur for depths of burial less than one half of the height and are found to occur over one half of the buried depth.

Visual Sample Plan (VSP) is an easy-to-use visual and graphic statistically-based software tool being developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to help determine the appropriate number and location of environmental samples so that environmental decisions can be made with the required confidence. The VSP software, which is available free at http://dqo.pnl.gov/vsp, is a significant aid in developing probability-based sampling designs (number and location of samples and measurements) using the Data Quality Objectives (DQO) planning process developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). VSP also has the capability of conducted statistical analyses to provide descriptive statistical summaries of data sets, to test whether data are normally distributed, and to compute upper confidence limits on means. This report is the latest in a series of reports that document the statistical methods used in VSP [Davidson (2001), Gilbert et al. (2001), Gilbert et a l. (2002), and Gilbert et al. (2003)] and the quality assurance (QA) activities conducted by PNNL to verify that VSP computations are correct and accurate. This report focuses on the VSP buildings module that was developed with support from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Combating Terrorism Technology Support Office (CTTSO), Technical Support Working Group (TSWG). …

This memo presents a design of a 3 x 3 quadrupole array for HIF. It contains 3 D magnetic field computations of the array build with racetrack coils with and without different shields. It is shown that it is possible to have a low error magnetic field in the cells and shield the stray fields to acceptable levels. The array design seems to be a practical solution to any size array for future multi-beam heavy ion fusion drivers.

The purpose of this report is to document the results from laboratory testing of the bulk vitri-fied (BV) waste form that was conducted in support of the 2005 integrated disposal facility (IDF) performance assessment (PA). Laboratory testing provides a majority of the key input data re-quired to assess the long-term performance of the BV waste package with the STORM code. Test data from three principal methods, as described by McGrail et al. (2000a; 2003a), are dis-cussed in this testing report including the single-pass flow-through test (SPFT) and product con-sistency test (PCT). Each of these test methods focuses on different aspects of the glass corrosion process. See McGrail et al. (2000a; 2003a) for additional details regarding these test methods and their use in evaluating long-term glass performance. In addition to evaluating the long-term glass performance, this report discusses the results and methods used to provided a recommended best estimate of the soluble fraction of 99Tc that can be leached from the engineer-ing-scale BV waste package. These laboratory tests are part of a continuum of testing that is aimed at improving the performance of the BV waste package.

A Compact Torus Accelerator (CTA) is used to accelerate a Compact Torus (CT) to 35 MJ kinetic energy which is focused to a 20 mm diameter where its kinetic energy is converted to a shaped x-ray pulse of 30 MJ. The capsule yield with a prescribed radiation profile is calculated to be (gain 60 times 30 MJ) 1.8 GJ. Schemes for achieving this profile are described. The CT is accelerated in a length of 30 m within an annulus of 150 mm ID and 300 mm OD where the maximum magnetic field is 28 T. A 2.5 m conical taper reduces the mean diameter of the CT from 225 mm to 20 mm. The conical section is made out of solid Li{sub 2}BeF{sub 4}. The target with its frozen conical guide section is accurately placed at the end of the accelerator about once per second. The reactor called HYLIFE uses liquid jets to attenuate blast effects including shrapnel from the shattered conical guide section and radiation so that the vessel is expected to last 30 years. The calculated cost of electricity is estimated (in constant 1988 dollars) to be about 4.8 cents/kW {center_dot} h compared to the future cost of …

None

Nesbo, Boucher and Doolittle (2001) used phylogenetic trees of four taxa to assess whether euryarchaeal genes share a common history. They have suggested that of the 521 genes examined, each of the three possible tree topologies relating the four taxa was supported essentially equal numbers of times. They suggest that this might be the result of numerous horizontal gene transfer events, essentially randomizing the relationships between gene histories (as inferred in the 521 gene trees) and organismal relationships (which would be a single underlying tree). Motivated by the fact that the order in which sequences are added to a multiple sequence alignment influences the alignment, and ultimately inferred tree, they were interested in the extent to which the variations among inferred trees might be due to variations in the alignment order. This bears directly on their efforts to evaluate and improve upon methods of multiple sequence alignment. They set out to analyze the influence of alignment order on the tree inferred for 43 genes shared among these same 4 taxa. Because alignments produced by CLUSTALW are directed by a rooted guide tree (the denderogram), there are 15 possible alignment orders of 4 taxa. For each gene they tested all 15 …

Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group (B&W) and Fuel Tech, Inc. (Fuel Tech) teamed to evaluate an integrated solution for NO{sub x} control comprised of B&W's DRB-4Z{reg_sign} low-NO{sub x} pulverized coal (PC) burner technology and Fuel Tech's NO{sub x}OUT{reg_sign}, a selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR) technology, capable of meeting a target emission limit of 0.15 lb NO{sub x}/10{sup 6} Btu. In a previous project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), promising results were obtained with this technology from large-scale testing in B&W's 100-million Btu/hr Clean Environment Development Facility (CEDF) which simulates the conditions of large coal-fired utility boilers. Under the most challenging boiler temperatures at full load conditions, NO{sub x} emissions of 0.19 lb/10{sup 6} Btu were achieved firing Powder River Basin coal while controlling ammonia slip to less than 5 ppm. At a 40 million Btu/hr firing rate, NO{sub x} emissions were as low as 0.09 lb/10{sup 6} Btu. Improved performance with this system was proposed for this new program with injection at full load via a convective pass multiple nozzle lance (MNL) in front of the superheater tubes or in the convective tube bank. Convective pass lances represent the current state-of-the-art in SNCR and needed to be …

The research conducted in this program significantly increased the knowledge and understanding in the fields of plasma physics and chemistry in diesel exhaust, the performance and characteristics of multifunctional catalysts in diesel exhaust, and the complexities of controlling a combination of such systems to remove NOx. Initially this program was designed to use an in-line plasma system (know as a plasma assisted catalyst system or PAC) to convert NO {yields} NO{sub 2}, a more catalytically active form of nitrogen oxides, and to crack hydrocarbons (diesel fuel in particular) into active species. The NO{sub 2} and the cracked hydrocarbons were then flowed over an in-line ceramic NOx catalyst that removed NO{sub 2} from the diesel exhaust. Even though the PAC system performed well technically and was able to remove over 95% of NOx from diesel exhaust the plasma component proved not to be practical or commercially feasible. The lack of practical and commercial viability was due to high unit costs and lack of robustness. The plasma system and its function was replaced in the NOx removal process by a cracking reforming catalyst that converted diesel fuel to a highly active reductant for NOx over a downstream ceramic NOx catalyst. This system …

Beginning the fall semester of 1999, The University of Maryland, Departments of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research served as a U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) Graduate Automotive Technology Education (GATE) Center for Hybrid Electric Drivetrains and Control Strategies. A key goal was to produce a graduate level education program that educated and prepared students to address the technical challenges of designing and developing hybrid electric vehicles, as they progressed into the workforce. A second goal was to produce research that fostered the advancement of hybrid electric vehicles, their controls, and other related automotive technologies. Participation ended at the University of Maryland after the 2004 fall semester. Four graduate courses were developed and taught during the course of this time, two of which evolved into annually-taught undergraduate courses, namely Vehicle Dynamics and Control Systems Laboratory. Five faculty members from Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and the Institute for Systems Research participated. Four Ph.D. degrees (two directly supported and two indirectly supported) and seven Master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering resulted from the research conducted. Research topics included thermoelectric waste heat recovery, fuel cell modeling, pre- and post-transmission hybrid powertrain control and integration, hybrid transmission design, H{sub 2}-doped combustion, …

This report describes the Mixing Cell Model code, a one-dimensional model for water flow and solute transport in the unsaturated zone under steady-state or transient flow conditions. The model is based on the principles and assumptions underlying mixing cell model formulations. The unsaturated zone is discretized into a series of independent mixing cells. Each cell may have unique hydrologic, lithologic, and sorptive properties. Ordinary differential equations describe the material (water and solute) balance within each cell. Water flow equations are derived from the continuity equation assuming that unit-gradient conditions exist at all times in each cell. Pressure gradients are considered implicitly through model discretization. Unsaturated hydraulic conductivity and moisture contents are determined by the material-specific moisture characteristic curves. Solute transport processes include explicit treatment of advective processes, first-order chain decay, and linear sorption reactions. Dispersion is addressed through implicit and explicit dispersion. Implicit dispersion is an inherent feature of all mixing cell models and originates from the formulation of the problem in terms of mass balance around fully mixed volume elements. Expressions are provided that relate implicit dispersion to the physical dispersion of the system. Two FORTRAN codes were developed to solve the water flow and solute transport equations: (1) …

The Pipeline Characterization Using Tracers (PCUT) technique uses conservative and partitioning, reactive or other interactive tracers to remotely determine the amount of contaminant within a run of piping or ductwork. The PCUT system was motivated by a method that has been successfully used to characterize subsurface soil contaminants and is similar in operation to that of a gas chromatography column. By injecting a ?slug? of both conservative and partitioning tracers at one end (or section) of the piping and measuring the time history of the concentration of the tracers at the other end (or another section) of the pipe, the presence, location, and amount of contaminant within the pipe or duct can be determined. The tracers are transported along the pipe or duct by a gas flow field, typically air or nitrogen, which has a velocity that is slow enough so that the partitioning tracer has time to interact with the contaminant before the tracer slug completely passes over the contaminate region. PCUT not only identifies the presence of contamination, it also can locate the contamination along the pipeline and quantify the amount of residual. PCUT can be used in support of deactivation and decommissioning (D&D) of piping and ducts …

Ohio State University (OSU) is uniquely poised to establish such a center, with interdisciplinary emphasis on modeling, simulation, design and control of hybrid-electric drives for a number of reasons, some of which are: (1) The OSU Center for Automotive Research (CAR) already provides an infrastructure for interdisciplinary automotive research and graduate education; the facilities available at OSU-CAR in the area of vehicle and powertrain research are among the best in the country. CAR facilities include 31,000 sq. feet of space, multiple chassis and engine dynamometers, an anechoic chamber, and a high bay area. (2) OSU has in excess of 10 graduate level courses related to automotive systems. A graduate level sequence has already been initiated with GM. In addition, an Automotive Systems Engineering (ASE) program cosponsored by the mechanical and electrical engineering programs, had been formulated earlier at OSU, independent of the GATE program proposal. The main objective of the ASE is to provide multidisciplinary graduate education and training in the field of automotive systems to Masters level students. This graduate program can be easily adapted to fulfill the spirit of the GATE Center of Excellence. (3) A program in Mechatronic Systems Engineering has been in place at OSU since …

The collaborative research program between the Department of energy and Electro-Motive Diesels, Inc. on the development of common rail fuel injection system for locomotive diesel engines that can meet US EPA Tier 2 exhaust emissions has been completed. This final report summarizes the objectives of the program, work scope, key accomplishments and research findings. The major objectives of this project encompassed identification of appropriate injection strategies by using advanced analytical tools, development of required prototype hardware/controls, investigations of fuel spray characteristics including cavitation phenomena, and validation of hareware using a single-cylinder research locomotive diesel engine. Major milestones included: (1) a detailed modeling study using advanced mathematical models - several various injection profiles that show simultaneous reduction of NOx and particulates on a four stroke-cycle locomotive diesel engine were identified; (2) development of new common rail fuel injection hardware capable of providing these injection profiles while meeting EMD engine and injection performance specifications. This hardware was developed together with EMD's current fuel injection component supplier. (3) Analysis of fuel spray characteristics. Fuel spray numerical studies and high speed photographic imaging analyses were performed. (4) Validation of new hardware and fuel injection profiles. EMD's single-cylinder research diesel engine located at Argonne National …

This report outlines main accomplishments on the development of Emission inventories and Scenarios for Key Indirect Greenhouse Gases (CO, VOCs, NOx) and methane supported by Office of Science (BER), US Department of Energy. This research produced 3 journal articles, 1 book chapter, and 4 research articles/abstracts in conference proceedings. In addition, this grant supported two PhD students and one undergraduate student at UIUC.

Direct injection diesel engines power most of the heavy-duty vehicles. Due to their superior fuel economy, high power density and low carbon dioxide emissions, turbocharged, small bore, high speed, direct injection diesel engines are being considered to power light duty vehicles. Such vehicles have to meet stringent emission standards. However, it is difficult to meet these standards by modifying the in-cylinder thermodynamic and combustion processes to reduce engine-out emissions. After-treatment devices will be needed to achieve even lower emission targets required in the production engines to account for the anticipated deterioration after long periods of operation in the field. To reduce the size, mass and cost of the after-treatment devices, there is a need to reduce engine-out emissions and optimize both the engine and the aftertreatment devices as one integrated system. For example, the trade-off between engine-out NOx and PM, suggests that one of these species can be minimized in the engine, with a penalty in the other, which can be addressed efficiently in the after-treatment devices. Controlling engine-out emissions can be achieved by optimizing many engine design and operating parameters. The design parameters include, but are not limited to, the type of injection system: (CRS) Common Rail System, (HEUI …

The United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility (ACRF) operates millimeter wavelength cloud radars (MMCRs) in several climatological regimes. The MMCRs, are the primary observing tool for quantifying the properties of nearly all radiatively important clouds over the ACRF sites. The first MMCR was installed at the ACRF Southern Great Plains (SGP) site nine years ago and its original design can be traced to the early 90s. Since then, several MMCRs have been deployed at the ACRF sites, while no significant hardware upgrades have been performed. Recently, a two-stage upgrade (first C-40 Digital Signal Processors [DSP]-based, and later the PC-Integrated Radar AcQuisition System [PIRAQ-III] digital receiver) of the MMCR signal-processing units was completed. Our future MMCR related goals are: 1) to have a cloud radar system that continues to have high reliability and uptime and 2) to suggest potential improvements that will address increased sensitivity needs, superior sampling and low cost maintenance of the MMCRs. The Traveling Wave Tube (TWT) technology, the frequency (35-GHz), the radio frequency (RF) layout, antenna, the calibration and radar control procedure and the environmental enclosure of the MMCR remain assets for our ability to detect the profile of …

The full-text file for this record consists of the second part of record OSTI ID 944623.

Description. Individual raw data streams from instrumentation at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program Climate Research Facility (ACRF) fixed and mobile sites are collected and sent to the Data Management Facility (DMF) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for processing in near real time. Raw and processed data are then sent daily to the ACRF Archive, where they are made available to users. For each instrument, we calculate the ratio of the actual number of data records received daily at the Archive to the expected number of data records. The results are tabulated by (1) individual data stream, site, and month for the current year and (2) site and fiscal year dating back to 1998. The United States Department of Energy requires national user facilities to report time-based operating data. The requirements concern the actual hours of operation (ACTUAL); the estimated maximum operation or uptime goal (OPSMAX), which accounts for planned downtime; and the VARIANCE [1 – (ACTUAL/OPSMAX)], which accounts for unplanned downtime. The OPSMAX time for the third quarter for the Southern Great Plains (SGP) site is 2,074.8 hours (0.95 × 2,184 hours this quarter). The annual OPSMAX for the North Slope Alaska (NSA) site is 1,965.6 hours (0.90 × …

This annual report describes the purpose and structure of the ARM Climate Research Facility and ARM Science programs and presents key accomplishments in 2006. Noteworthy scientific and infrastructure accomplishments in 2006 include: • Collaborating with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to lead the Tropical Warm Pool-International Cloud Experiment, a major international field campaign held in Darwin, Australia • Successfully deploying the ARM Mobile Facility in Niger, Africa • Developing the new ARM Aerial Vehicles Program (AVP) to provide airborne measurements • Publishing a new finding on the impacts of aerosols on surface energy budget in polar latitudes • Mitigating a long-standing double-Intertropical Convergence Zone problem in climate models using ARM data and a new cumulus parameterization scheme.

This research investigates a method of choosing economicallyoptimal DER, expanding on prior studies at the Berkeley Lab using the DERdesign optimization program, the Distributed Energy Resources CustomerAdoption Model (DER-CAM). DER-CAM finds the optimal combination ofinstalled equipment from available DER technologies, given prevailingutility tariffs, site electrical and thermal loads, and a menu ofavailable equipment. It provides a global optimization, albeit idealized,that shows how the site energy load scan be served at minimum cost byselection and operation of on-site generation, heat recovery, andcooling. Five prototype Japanese commercial buildings are examined andDER-CAM applied to select thee conomically optimal DER system for each.The five building types are office, hospital, hotel, retail, and sportsfacility. Based on the optimization results, energy and emissionreductions are evaluated. Furthermore, a Japan-U.S. comparison study ofpolicy, technology, and utility tariffs relevant to DER installation ispresented. Significant decreases in fuel consumption, carbon emissions,and energy costs were seen in the DER-CAM results. Savings were mostnoticeable in the sports facility, followed by the hospital, hotel, andoffice building.