We describe a Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) effort to develop and apply laser-based thermometry diagnostics for obtaining spatially resolved temperature maps on working microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). The goal of the effort was to cultivate diagnostic approaches that could adequately resolve the extremely fine MEMS device features, required no modifications to MEMS device design, and which did not perturb the delicate operation of these extremely small devices. Two optical diagnostics were used in this study: microscale Raman spectroscopy and microscale thermoreflectance. Both methods use a low-energy, nonperturbing probe laser beam, whose arbitrary wavelength can be selected for a diffraction-limited focus that meets the need for micron-scale spatial resolution. Raman is exploited most frequently, as this technique provides a simple and unambiguous measure of the absolute device temperature for most any MEMS semiconductor or insulator material under steady state operation. Temperatures are obtained from the spectral position and width of readily isolated peaks in the measured Raman spectra with a maximum uncertainty near {+-}10 K and a spatial resolution of about 1 micron. Application of the Raman technique is demonstrated for V-shaped and flexure-style polycrystalline silicon electrothermal actuators, and for a GaN high-electron-mobility transistor. The potential of the Raman technique …

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has developed and patented methods to weigh slowly moving vehicles. We have used this technology to produce a portable weigh-in-motion system that is robust and accurate. This report documents the performance of the second-generation portable weigh-in-motion prototype (WIM Gen II). The results of three modes of weight determination are compared in this report: WIM Gen II dynamic mode, WIM Gen II stop-and-go mode, and static (parked) mode on in-ground, static scales. The WIM dynamic mode measures axle weights as the vehicle passes over the system at speeds of 3 to 7 miles per hour (1.3 to 3.1 meters/second). The WIM stop-and-go mode measures the weight of each axle of the vehicle as the axles are successively positioned on a side-by-side pair of WIM measurement pads. In both measurement modes the center of balance (CB) and the total weight are obtained by a straight-forward calculation from axle weights and axle spacings. The performance metric is measurement error (in percent), which is defined as 100 x (sample standard deviation)/(average); see Appendix A for details. We have insufficient data to show that this metric is predictive. This report details the results of weight measurements performed in May 2005 …

Results from a confirmatory survey of the upper structural surfaces of the Reactor Building Dome at the Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station (RSNGS) performed by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education for the NRC. Also includes results of interlaboratory comparison analyses on several archived soil samples that would be provided by RSNGS personnel. The confirmatory surveys were performed on June 7 and 8, 2006.

This research project has two primary objectives: (1) to further develop and refine the Multiscale Air Quality Simulation Platform-Variable Grid Resolution (MAQSIP-VGR) model, an advanced variable-grid-resolution air quality model, to provide detailed, accurate representation of the dynamical and chemical processes governing the fate of anthropogenic emissions in coastal environments; and (2) to improve current understanding of the potential impact of onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) emissions on O{sub 3} and particulate matter nonattainment in the Gulf of Mexico and surrounding states.

From introduction: This report describes a subset of the results from a 2003-2004 sociocultural study of fishermen in the Hawaii-based longline fleet. Explored here are the perspectives and experiences of Filipino fishermen working as crew in the Hawaii longline industry.

This report briefly discusses how the Congressional Record is created and distributed. The Congressional Record is the most widely recognized published account of the debates and activities in Congress and it often reflects the intent of Congress in enacting legislation.

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This report summarizes the work conducted for the Z-inertial fusion energy (Z-IFE) late start Laboratory Directed Research Project. A major area of focus was on creating a roadmap to a z-pinch driven fusion power plant. The roadmap ties ZIFE into the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) initiative through the use of high energy fusion neutrons to burn the actinides of spent fuel waste. Transmutation presents a near term use for Z-IFE technology and will aid in paving the path to fusion energy. The work this year continued to develop the science and engineering needed to support the Z-IFE roadmap. This included plant system and driver cost estimates, recyclable transmission line studies, flibe characterization, reaction chamber design, and shock mitigation techniques.

This report discusses the EU's enlargement process, which it views as a historic opportunity to promote stability and prosperity in Europe. On May 1, 2004, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined the European Union (EU), enlarging the Union to 25 members.

This paper presents the results of energy market analysis sponsored by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Weatherization and International Program (WIP) within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). The analysis was conducted by a team of DOE laboratory experts from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), with additional input from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). The analysis was structured to identify those markets and niches where government can create the biggest impact by informing management decisions in the private and public sectors. The analysis identifies those markets and niches where opportunities exist for increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy use.

This project was awarded under U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) Program Solicitation DE-PS26-02NT41422 and specifically addresses Technical Topical Area 2 - Gasification Technologies. The project team includes Enertechnix, Inc. as the main contractor and ConocoPhillips Company as a technical partner, who also provides access to the SG Solutions Gasification Facility (formerly Wabash River Energy Limited), host for the field-testing portion of the research. The objective of this project was to adapt acoustic pyrometer technology to make it suitable for measuring gas temperature inside a coal gasifier, to develop a prototype sensor based on this technology, and to demonstrate its performance through testing on a commercial gasifier. The project was organized in three phases, each of approximately one year duration. The first phase consisted of researching a variety of sound generation and coupling approaches suitable for use with a high pressure process, evaluation of the impact of gas composition variability on the acoustic temperature measurement approach, evaluation of the impact of suspended particles and gas properties on sound attenuation, evaluation of slagging issues and development of concepts to deal with this issue, development and testing of key prototype components to allow selection of the best approaches, …

From February to July 2006, I have been doing research as a guest at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), in the Heavy Ion Fusion group. This internship, which counts as one semester in my master's program in France, I was very pleased to do it in a field that I consider has the beauty of fundamental physics, and at the same time the special appeal of a quest for a long-term and environmentally-respectful energy source. During my stay at LBNL, I have been involved in three projects, all of them related to Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment (NDCX). The first one, experimental and analytical, has consisted in measuring the effects of the eddy currents induced by the pulsed magnets in the conducting plates of the source and diagnostic chambers of the Solenoid Transport Experiment (STX, which is a subset of NDCX). We have modeled the effect and run finite-element simulations that have reproduced the perturbation to the field. Then, we have modified WARP, the Particle-In-Cell code used to model the whole experiment, in order to import realistic fields including the eddy current effects and some details of each magnet. The second project has been to take part in a campaign of …

We have built and tested a miniaturized, thermoelectric power source that can provide in excess of 450 {micro}W of power in a system size of 4.3cc, for a power density of 107 {micro}W/cc, which is denser than any system of this size previously reported. The system operates on 150mW of thermal input, which for this system was simulated with a resistive heater, but in application would be provided by a 0.4g source of {sup 238}Pu located at the center of the device. Output power from this device, while optimized for efficiency, was not optimized for form of the power output, and so the maximum power was delivered at only 41mV. An upconverter to 2.7V was developed concurrently with the power source to bring the voltage up to a usable level for microelectronics.

The preclosure safety analysis for the monitored geologic repository at Yucca Mountain must consider the hazard that aircraft may pose to surface structures. Relevant surface structures are located beneath the restricted airspace of the Nevada Test Site (NTS) on the eastern slope of Yucca Mountain, near the North Portal of the Exploratory Studies Facility Tunnel (Figure 1). The North Portal is located several miles from the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR), which is used extensively by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) for training and test flights (Figure 1). The NTS airspace, which is controlled by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for NTS activities, is not part of the NTTR. Agreements with the DOE allow USAF aircraft specific use of the airspace above the NTS (Reference 2.1.1 [DIRS 103472], Section 3.1.1 and Appendix A, Section 2.1; and Reference 2.1.2 [DIRS 157987], Sections 1.26 through 1.29). Commercial, military, and general aviation aircraft fly within several miles to the southwest of the repository site in the Beatty Corridor, which is a broad air corridor that runs approximately parallel to U.S. Highway 95 and the Nevada-California border (Figure 2). These aircraft and other aircraft operations are identified and described in ''Identification of …

Wire bonds of the Forward Pixel (FPix) tracking detectors are oriented in the direction that maximizes Lorentz Forces relative to the 4 Tesla field of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Detector's magnet. The CMS Experiment is under construction at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. We were concerned about Lorentz Force oscillating the wires at their fundamental frequencies and possibly fracturing or breaking them at their heels, as happened with the CDF wire bonds. This paper reports a study to understand what conditions break such bonds.

A laser hazard analysis is performed to evaluate if the use of fluorescent diffuse reflectors to view incident laser beams (Coherent Verdi 10W) present a hazard based on the ANSI Standard Z136.1-2000, American National Standard for the Safe Use of Lasers. The use of fluorescent diffuse reflectors in the alignment process does not pose an increased hazard because of the fluorescence at a different wavelength than that of the incident laser.

This document is a final report for DOE grant DE-FG02-00ER41147. The research described herein was funded in large part by this grant with additional support from the National Science Foundation. The primary focus of Averett's research effort is centered around the polarized {sup 3}He target in Hall A at Jefferson Lab. The close proximity of the College of William and Mary to Jefferson Lab has provided an outstanding opportunity to maintain a very active research program which still satisfying the demands of the college. Our research group includes four faculty, two post-doctoral fellows and eight graduate students. Averett also maintains a fully functional polarized {sup 3}e target lab at William and Mary which allows him to support the research program at Jefferson Lab while also doing research on polarized targets themselves. Since 1998, seven experiments using polarized {sup 3}He have been completed by the Jefferson Lab Hall A Polarized {sup 3}He Collaboration. Ten publications have been produced on this research and analysis of the two most recently completed experiments is underway. A description of the recent experiments and results is given below. In addition to target expertise, Averett has remained one of the most active collaborators in the data analysis …

This best practices guide is part of a series produced by Building America. The guide book is a resource to help builders large and small build high-quality, energy-efficient homes that achieve 30% energy savings in space conditioning and water heating in the Marine climate region. The savings are in comparison with the 1993 Model Energy Code. The guide contains chapters for every member of the builder's team--from the manager to the site planner to the designers, site supervisors, the trades, and marketers. There is also a chapter for homeowners on how to use the book to provide help in selecting a new home or builder.

The objectives of the overall collaborative EMSP effort (with which this project is associated) were to characterize sorption and desorption processes of U(VI) on pristine and contaminated Hanford sediments over a range of sediment facies and materials properties and to relate such characterization both to fundamental molecular-scale understanding and field-scale models of geochemistry and mass transfer. The research was intended to provide new insights on the mechanisms of U(VI) retardation at Hanford, and to allow the development of approaches by which laboratory-developed geochemical models could be upscaled for defensible field-scale predictions of uranium transport in the environment. Within this broader context, objectives of the JHU-based project were to test hypotheses regarding the coupled roles of adsorption and impermeable-zone diffusion in controlling the fate and transport of U(VI) species under conditions of comparatively short-term exposure. In particular, this work tested the following hypotheses: (1) the primary adsorption processes in the Hanford sediment over the pH range of 7 to 10 are surface complexation reactions of aqueous U(VI) hydroxycarbonate and carbonate complexes with amphoteric edge sites on detrital phyllosilicates in the silt/clay size fraction; (2) macroscopic adsorption intensity (at given aqueous conditions) is a function of mineral composition and aquatic chemistry; and …

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The Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) and the Generation IV Reactor Initiative have demonstrated a lack of detailed neutron cross-sections for certain "minor" actinides, those other than the most common (235U, 238U, and 239Pu). For some closed-fuel-cycle reactor designs more than 50% of reactivity will, at some point, be derived from "minor" actinides that currently have poorly known or in some cases not measured (n,?) and (n,f) cross sections. A program of measurements under AFCI has begun to correct this. One of the initial hurdles has been to produce well-characterized, highly isotopically enriched, and chemically pure actinide targets on thin backings. Using a combination of resurrected techniques and new developments, we have made a series of targets including highly enriched 239Pu, 240Pu, and 242Pu. Thus far, we have electrodeposited these actinide targets. In the future, we plan to study reductive distillation to achieve homogeneous, adherent targets on thin metal foils and polymer backings. As we move forward, separated isotopes become scarcer, and safety concerns become greater. The chemical purification and electodeposition techniques will be described.

High temperature hohlraums (HTH) are designed to reach high radiation temperatures by coupling a maximum amount of laser energy into a small target in a short time. These 400-800 {micro}m diameter gold cylinders rapidly fill with hot plasma during irradiation with multiple beams in 1ns laser pulses. The high-Z plasmas are dense, (electron density, n{sub e}/n{sub c} {approx} 0.1-0.4), hot (electron temperature, T{sub e} {approx} 10keV) and are bathed in a high-temperature radiation field (radiation temperature, T{sub rad} {approx} 300eV). Here n{sub c}, the critical density, equals 9 x 10{sup 21}/cm{sup 3}. The laser beams heating this plasma are intense ({approx} 10{sup 15} - 10{sup 17} W/cm{sup 2}). The coupling of the laser to the plasma is a rich regime for Laser-Plasma Interaction (LPI) physics. The LPI mechanisms in this study include beam deflection and forward scattering. In order to understand the LPI mechanisms, the plasma parameters must be known. An L-band spectrometer is used to measure the and electron temperature. A ride-along experiment is to develop the x-radiation emitted by the thin back wall of the half-hohlraum into a thermal radiation source.

We summarize progress in the DOE project, "A Combined Synthetic, Spectroscopic, and Theoretical Approach to the Rational Design of Photophysical and Photochemical Properties of Dendrimers."