When developing new hardware for a computer system, bus monitors are invaluable for testing compliance and troubleshooting problems. Bus monitors can be purchased for other common system busses such as the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus and the Universal Serial Bus (USB). However, the project team did not find any commercial bus analyzers for the Low Pin Count (LPC) bus. This report will provide a short overview of the LPC interface. Page 3 of 11 This page intentionally left blank.Page 4 of 11
Basic research is needed to better understand the potential risk of dangerous biological agents that are unintentionally or intentionally introduced into a water distribution system. We report on our capabilities to conduct such studies and our preliminary investigations. In 2004, the Biofilms Laboratory was initiated for the purpose of conducting applied research related to biofilms with a focus on application, application testing and system-scale research. Capabilities within the laboratory are the ability to grow biofilms formed from known bacteria or biofilms from drinking water. Biofilms can be grown quickly in drip-flow reactors or under conditions more analogous to drinking-water distribution systems in annular reactors. Biofilms can be assessed through standard microbiological techniques (i .e, aerobic plate counts) or with various visualization techniques including epifluorescent and confocal laser scanning microscopy and confocal fluorescence hyperspectral imaging with multivariate analysis. We have demonstrated the ability to grow reproducible Pseudomonas fluorescens biofilms in the annular reactor with plate counts on the order of 10{sup 5} and 10{sup 6} CFU/cm{sup 2}. Stationary phase growth is typically reached 5 to 10 days after inoculation. We have also conducted a series of pathogen-introduction experiments, where we have observed that both polystyrene microspheres and Bacillus cereus (as a surrogate for B. anthracis) stay incorporated in the biofilms for the duration of our experiments, which lasted as long as 36 days. These results indicated that biofilms may act as a safe harbor for bio-pathogens in drinking water systems, making it difficult to decontaminate the systems.
In this paper, we describe what we believe to be the characteristics of the collaborations required in the domain of critical infrastructure modeling, based on our experiences to date. We adopt a knowledge management philosophy, which imposes two classes of requirements, contextual who, when, and why), and semantic what interactions are conducted around). We observe that infrastructure models can often engender more insight when used as the basis for a meaningful discussion between the disparate stakeholder groups (private industry, trade organizations, industry lobbying groups, etc.) than when exercised computationally.
The ''Advanced Proton-Exchange Materials for Energy Efficient Fuel Cells'' Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project began in October 2002 and ended in September 2005. This LDRD was funded by the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy strategic business unit. The purpose of this LDRD was to initiate the fundamental research necessary for the development of a novel proton-exchange membranes (PEM) to overcome the material and performance limitations of the ''state of the art'' Nafion that is used in both hydrogen and methanol fuel cells. An atomistic modeling effort was added to this LDRD in order to establish a frame work between predicted morphology and observed PEM morphology in order to relate it to fuel cell performance. Significant progress was made in the area of PEM material design, development, and demonstration during this LDRD. A fundamental understanding involving the role of the structure of the PEM material as a function of sulfonic acid content, polymer topology, chemical composition, molecular weight, and electrode electrolyte ink development was demonstrated during this LDRD. PEM materials based upon random and block polyimides, polybenzimidazoles, and polyphenylenes were created and evaluated for improvements in proton conductivity, reduced swelling, reduced O{sub 2} and H{sub 2} permeability, and increased thermal stability. Results from this work reveal that the family of polyphenylenes potentially solves several technical challenges associated with obtaining a high temperature PEM membrane. Fuel cell relevant properties such as high proton conductivity (>120 mS/cm), good thermal stability, and mechanical robustness were demonstrated during this LDRD. This report summarizes the technical accomplishments and results of this LDRD.
Cation binding by polysaccharides is observed in many environments and is important for predictive environmental modeling, and numerous industrial and food technology applications. The complexities of these organo-cation interactions are well suited to predictive molecular modeling studies for investigating the roles of conformation and configuration of polysaccharides on cation binding. In this study, alginic acid was chosen as a model polymer and representative disaccharide and polysaccharide subunits were modeled. The ability of disaccharide subunits to bind calcium and to associate with the surface of calcite was investigated. The findings were extended to modeling polymer interactions with calcium ions.
Our aim is to determine the network of events, or the regulatory network, that defines an immune response to a bio-toxin. As a model system, we are studying T cell regulatory network triggered through tyrosine kinase receptor activation using a combination of pathway stimulation and time-series microarray experiments. Our approach is composed of five steps (1) microarray experiments and data error analysis, (2) data clustering, (3) data smoothing and discretization, (4) network reverse engineering, and (5) network dynamics analysis and fingerprint identification. The technological outcome of this study is a suite of experimental protocols and computational tools that reverse engineer regulatory networks provided gene expression data. The practical biological outcome of this work is an immune response fingerprint in terms of gene expression levels. Inferring regulatory networks from microarray data is a new field of investigation that is no more than five years old. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first attempt that integrates experiments, error analyses, data clustering, inference, and network analysis to solve a practical problem. Our systematic approach of counting, enumeration, and sampling networks matching experimental data is new to the field of network reverse engineering. The resulting mathematical analyses and computational tools lead to new results on their own and should be useful to others who analyze and infer networks.
Field-structured magnetic particle composites are an important new class of materials that have great potential as both sensors and actuators. These materials are synthesized by suspending magnetic particles in a polymeric resin and subjecting these to magnetic fields while the resin polymerizes. If a simple uniaxial magnetic field is used, the particles will form chains, yielding composites whose magnetic susceptibility is enhanced along a single direction. A biaxial magnetic field, comprised of two orthogonal ac fields, forms particle sheets, yielding composites whose magnetic susceptibility is enhanced along two principal directions. A balanced triaxial magnetic field can be used to enhance the susceptibility in all directions, and biased heterodyned triaxial magnetic fields are especially effective for producing composites with a greatly enhanced susceptibility along a single axis. Magnetostriction is quadratic in the susceptibility, so increasing the composite susceptibility is important to developing actuators that function well at modest fields. To investigate magnetostriction in these field-structured composites we have constructed a sensitive, constant-stress apparatus capable of 1 ppm strain resolution. The sample geometry is designed to minimize demagnetizing field effects. With this apparatus we have demonstrated field-structured composites with nearly 10,000 ppm strain.
American Nuclear Society Embedded Topical Meeting - 2005 Space Nuclear Conference
Lenard, Roger X.; Youchison, Dennis L.; Williams, Brian E.; Anghaie, Samim
Under an NASA STTR project funded through Marshall Space Flight Center, a team from Ultramet Inc., Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Florida has been developing a new high temperature, tricarbide fuel matrix consisting of ZrC, NbC and UC using an open-cell reticulated foam skeleton. The new fuel is envisioned for use in nuclear thermal propulsion systems, bi-modal reactors and terrestrial high temperature gas reactors and builds on the tricarbide fuel research in the former Soviet Union. This paper deals with conceptual mechanical and neutronics design of a NTR reactor core and pressure vessel by the team. The details of fuel form fabrication and foam layout is the subject of a companion paper. It is highly desirable for a nuclear thermal rocket reactor to provide low ΔTs between the fuel and the hydrogen propellant; this bespeaks a minimal fuel-propellant temperature gap. However, NTRs, in order to exhibit a significant power density, possess high thermal gradients. Historically, this has resulted in NTR core designs that were neutronically acceptable but either heavy (due to prismatic element design) or insufficiently mechanically robust. The new fuel is both mechanically robust and thermally efficient given its extremely high surface area, higher melting point, minimal thermal stresses, and much reduced pressure drop compared to conventional fuel types. The matrix is anticipated to operate at temperatures as high as 3000K with minimal hydrogen erosion. The foam is an engineered material in which the porosity, size and thermal conductivity of the ligaments can be controlled independently to meet specific requirements. In this article we review the design process of the foam fuel based NTR, a procedure that has resulted in a quite compact, epi-thermal spectrum reactor core that can produce high power densities A credible reactor design is described herein that will allow us to couple these results with a new MP-CFD modeling capability using detailed simulation of the porous media. Our near-term plans for infiltration of the matrix with UC, integration of the test article and hydrogen testing at the University of Florida and Marshall Space Flight Center Future possibilities for continued development and testing are summarized.
The objective of this report is to promote increased understanding of decision making processes and hopefully to enable improved decision making regarding high-consequence, highly sophisticated technological systems. This report brings together insights regarding risk perception and decision making across domains ranging from nuclear power technology safety, cognitive psychology, economics, science education, public policy, and neural science (to name a few). It forms them into a unique, coherent, concise framework, and list of strategies to aid in decision making. It is suggested that all decision makers, whether ordinary citizens, academics, or political leaders, ought to cultivate their abilities to separate the wheat from the chaff in these types of decision making instances. The wheat includes proper data sources and helpful human decision making heuristics; these should be sought. The chaff includes ''unhelpful biases'' that hinder proper interpretation of available data and lead people unwittingly toward inappropriate decision making ''strategies''; obviously, these should be avoided. It is further proposed that successfully accomplishing the wheat vs. chaff separation is very difficult, yet tenable. This report hopes to expose and facilitate navigation away from decision-making traps which often ensnare the unwary. Furthermore, it is emphasized that one's personal decision making biases can be examined, and tools can be provided allowing better means to generate, evaluate, and select among decision options. Many examples in this report are tailored to the energy domain (esp. nuclear power for electricity generation). The decision making framework and approach presented here are applicable to any high-consequence, highly sophisticated technological system.
Anisotropic carbon/glass hybrid composite laminates have been fabricated, tested, and analyzed. The laminates have been fabricated using vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM). Five fiber complexes and a two-part epoxy resin system have been used in the study to fabricate panels of twenty different laminate constructions. These panels have been subjected to physical testing to measure density, fiber volume fraction, and void fraction. Coupons machined from these panels have also been subjected to mechanical testing to measure elastic properties and strength of the laminates using tensile, compressive, transverse tensile, and in-plane shear tests. Interlaminar shear strength has also been measured. Out-of-plane displacement, axial strain, transverse strain, and inplane shear strain have also been measured using photogrammetry data obtained during edgewise compression tests. The test data have been reduced to characterize the elastic properties and strength of the laminates. Constraints imposed by test fixtures might be expected to affect measurements of the moduli of anisotropic materials; classical lamination theory has been used to assess the magnitude of such effects and correct the experimental data for the same. The tensile moduli generally correlate well with experiment without correction and indicate that factors other than end constraints dominate. The results suggest that shear moduli of the anisotropic materials are affected by end constraints. Classical lamination theory has also been used to characterize the level of extension-shear coupling in the anisotropic laminates. Three factors affecting the coupling have been examined: the volume fraction of unbalanced off-axis layers, the angle of the off-axis layers, and the composition of the fibers (i.e., carbon or glass) used as the axial reinforcement. The results indicate that extension/shear coupling is maximized with the least loss in axial tensile stiffness by using carbon fibers oriented 15{sup o} from the long axis for approximately two-thirds of the laminate volume (discounting skin layers), with reinforcing carbon fibers oriented axially comprising the remaining one-third of the volume. Finite element analysis of each laminate has been performed to examine first ply failure. Three failure criteria--maximum stress, maximum strain, and Tsai-Wu--have been compared. Failure predicted by all three criteria proves generally conservative, with the stress-based criteria the most conservative. For laminates that respond nonlinearly to loading, large error is observed in the prediction of failure using maximum strain as the criterion. This report documents the methods and results in two volumes. Volume 1 contains descriptions of the laminates, their fabrication and testing, the methods of analysis, the results, and the conclusions and recommendations. Volume 2 contains a comprehensive summary of the individual test results for all laminates.
The thermal challenge problem has been developed at Sandia National Laboratories as a testbed for demonstrating various types of validation approaches and prediction methods. This report discusses one particular methodology to assess the validity of a computational model given experimental data. This methodology is based on Bayesian Belief Networks (BBNs) and can incorporate uncertainty in experimental measurements, in physical quantities, and model uncertainties. The approach uses the prior and posterior distributions of model output to compute a validation metric based on Bayesian hypothesis testing (a Bayes' factor). This report discusses various aspects of the BBN, specifically in the context of the thermal challenge problem. A BBN is developed for a given set of experimental data in a particular experimental configuration. The development of the BBN and the method for ''solving'' the BBN to develop the posterior distribution of model output through Monte Carlo Markov Chain sampling is discussed in detail. The use of the BBN to compute a Bayes' factor is demonstrated.
The oxidation of zirconium alloys is one of the most studied processes in the nuclear industry. The purpose of this report is to provide in a concise form a review of the oxidation process of zirconium alloys in the moderate temperature regime. In the initial ''pre-transition'' phase, the surface oxide is dense and protective. After the oxide layer has grown to a thickness of 2 to 3 {micro}m's, the oxidation process enters the ''post-transition'' phase where the density of the layer decreases and becomes less protective. A compilation of relevant data suggests a single expression can be used to describe the post-transition oxidation rate of most zirconium alloys during exposure to oxygen, air, or water vapor. That expression is: Oxidation Rate = 13.9 g/(cm{sup 2}-s-atm{sup -1/6}) exp(-1.47 eV/kT) x P{sup 1/6} (atm{sup 1/6}).
The film stress of Ni films deposited at near-ambient temperatures from sulfamate electrolytes was studied. The particulate filtering of the electrolyte, a routine industrial practice, becomes an important deposition parameter at lower bath temperatures. At 28 C, elevated tensile film stress develops at low current densities (<10 mA/cm{sup 2}) if the electrolyte is filtered. Filtering at higher current densities has a negligible effect on film stress. A similar though less pronounced trend is observed at 32 C. Sulfate-based Ni plating baths display similar film stress sensitivity to filtering, suggesting that this is a general effect for Ni electrodeposition. It is shown that filtering does not significantly change the current efficiency or the pH near the surface during deposition. The observed changes in film stress are thus attributed not to adsorbed hydrogen but instead to the effects of filtering on the formation and concentration of polyborate species due to the decreased solubility of boric acid at near-ambient temperatures.
A microflame-based detector suit has been developed for sensing of a broad range of chemical analytes. This detector combines calorimetry, flame ionization detection (FID), nitrogen-phosphorous detection (NPD) and flame photometric detection (FPD) modes into one convenient platform based on a microcombustor. The microcombustor consists in a micromachined microhotplate with a catalyst or low-work function material added to its surface. For the NPD mode a low work function material selectively ionizes chemical analytes; for all other modes a supported catalyst such as platinum/alumina is used. The microcombustor design permits rapid, efficient heating of the deposited film at low power. To perform calorimetric detection of analytes, the change in power required to maintain the resistive microhotplate heater at a constant temperature is measured. For FID and NPD modes, electrodes are placed around the microcombustor flame zone and an electrometer circuit measures the production of ions. For FPD, the flame zone is optically interrogated to search for light emission indicative of deexcitation of flame-produced analyte compounds. The calorimetric and FID modes respond generally to all hydrocarbons, while sulfur compounds only alarm in the calorimetric mode, providing speciation. The NPD mode provides 10,000:1 selectivity of nitrogen and phosphorous compounds over hydrocarbons. The FPD can distinguish between sulfur and phosphorous compounds. Importantly all detection modes can be established on one convenient microcombustor platform, in fact the calorimetric, FID and FPD modes can be achieved simultaneously on only one microcombustor. Therefore, it is possible to make a very universal chemical detector array with as little as two microcombustor elements. A demonstration of the performance of the microcombustor in each of the detection modes is provided herein.
Functional organic nanostructures such as well-formed tubes or fibers that can easily be fabricated into electronic and photonic devices are needed in many applications. Especially desirable from a national security standpoint are nanostructures that have enhanced sensitivity for the detection of chemicals and biological (CB) agents and other environmental stimuli. We recently discovered the first class of highly responsive and adaptive porphyrin-based nanostructures that may satisfy these requirements. These novel porphyrin nanostructures, which are formed by ionic self-assembly of two oppositely charged porphyrins, may function as conductors, semiconductors, or photoconductors, and they have additional properties that make them suitable for device fabrication (e.g., as ultrasensitive colorimetric CB microsensors). Preliminary studies with porphyrin nanotubes have shown that these nanostructures have novel optical and electronic properties, including strong resonant light scattering, quenched fluorescence, and electrical conductivity. In addition, they are photochemically active and capable of light-harvesting and photosynthesis; they may also have nonlinear optical properties. Remarkably, the nanotubes and potentially other porphyrin nanostructure are mechanically responsive and adaptive (e.g., the rigidity of the micrometers-long nanotubes is altered by light, ultrasound, or chemicals) and they self-heal upon removal the environmental stimulus. Given the tremendous degree of structural variation possible in the porphyrin subunits, additional types of nanostructures and greater control over their morphology can be anticipated. Molecular modification also provides a means of controlling their electronic, photonic, and other functional properties. In this work, we have greatly broadened the range of ionic porphyrin nanostructures that can be made, and determined the optical and responsivity properties of the nanotubes and other porphyrin nanostructures. We have also explored means for controlling their morphology, size, and placement on surfaces. The research proposed will lay the groundwork for the use of these remarkable porphyrin nanostructures in micro- and nanoscale devices, by providing a more detailed understanding of their molecular structure and the factors that control their structural, photophysical, and chemical properties.
In this investigation, we conduct a literature study of the best experimental and theoretical data available for thin and thick atmospheres on THz radiation propagation from 0.1 to 10 THz. We determined that for thick atmospheres no data exists beyond 450 GHz. For thin atmospheres data exists from 0.35 to 1.2 THz. We were successful in using FASE code with the HITRAN database to simulate the THz transmission spectrum for Mauna Kea from 0.1 to 2 THz. Lastly, we successfully measured the THz transmission spectra of laboratory atmospheres at relative humidities of 18 and 27%. In general, we found that an increase in the water content of the atmosphere led to a decrease in the THz transmission. We identified two potential windows in an Albuquerque atmosphere for THz propagation which were the regions from 1.2 to 1.4 THz and 1.4 to 1.6 THz.
The formation and functions of living materials and organisms are fundamentally different from those of synthetic materials and devices. Synthetic materials tend to have static structures, and are not capable of adapting to the functional needs of changing environments. In contrast, living systems utilize energy to create, heal, reconfigure, and dismantle materials in a dynamic, non-equilibrium fashion. The overall goal of the project was to organize and reconfigure functional assemblies of nanoparticles using strategies that mimic those found in living systems. Active assembly of nanostructures was studied using active biomolecules to drive the organization and assembly of nanocomposite materials. In this system, kinesin motor proteins and microtubules were used to direct the transport and interactions of nanoparticles at synthetic interfaces. In addition, the kinesin/microtubule transport system was used to actively assemble nanocomposite materials capable of storing significant elastic energy. Novel biophysical measurement tools were also developed for measuring the collective force generated by kinesin motor proteins, which will provide insight on the mechanical constraints of active assembly processes. Responsive reconfiguration of nanostructures was studied in terms of using active biomolecules to mediate the optical properties of quantum dot (QD) arrays through modulation of inter-particle spacing and associated energy transfer interaction. Design rules for kinesin-based transport of a wide range of nanoscale cargo (e.g., nanocrystal quantum dots, micron-sized polymer spheres) were developed. Three-dimensional microtubule organizing centers were assembled in which the polar orientation of the microtubules was controlled by a multi-staged assembly process. Overall, a number of enabling technologies were developed over the course of this project, and will drive the exploitation of energy-driven processes to regulate the assembly, disassembly, and dynamic reorganization of nanomaterials.
Polymers and fiber-reinforced polymer matrix composites play an important role in many Defense Program applications. Recently an advanced nonlinear viscoelastic model for polymers has been developed and incorporated into ADAGIO, Sandia's SIERRA-based quasi-static analysis code. Standard linear elastic shell and continuum models for fiber-reinforced polymer-matrix composites have also been added to ADAGIO. This report details the use of these models for advanced adhesive joint and composites simulations carried out as part of an Advanced Simulation and Computing Advanced Deployment (ASC AD) project. More specifically, the thermo-mechanical response of an adhesive joint when loaded during repeated thermal cycling is simulated, the response of some composite rings under internal pressurization is calculated, and the performance of a composite container subjected to internal pressurization, thermal loading, and distributed mechanical loading is determined. Finally, general comparisons between the continuum and shell element approaches for modeling composites using ADAGIO are given.
Understanding the properties and behavior of biomembranes is fundamental to many biological processes and technologies. Microdomains in biomembranes or ''lipid rafts'' are now known to be an integral part of cell signaling, vesicle formation, fusion processes, protein trafficking, and viral and toxin infection processes. Understanding how microdomains form, how they depend on membrane constituents, and how they act not only has biological implications, but also will impact Sandia's effort in development of membranes that structurally adapt to their environment in a controlled manner. To provide such understanding, we created physically-based models of biomembranes. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and classical density functional theory (DFT) calculations using these models were applied to phenomena such as microdomain formation, membrane fusion, pattern formation, and protein insertion. Because lipid dynamics and self-organization in membranes occur on length and time scales beyond atomistic MD, we used coarse-grained models of double tail lipid molecules that spontaneously self-assemble into bilayers. DFT provided equilibrium information on membrane structure. Experimental work was performed to further help elucidate the fundamental membrane organization principles.
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecules represent Nature's genetic database, encoding the information necessary for all cellular processes. From a materials engineering perspective, DNA represents a nanoscale scaffold with highly refined structure, stability across a wide range of environmental conditions, and the ability to interact with a range of biomolecules. The ability to mass-manufacture functionalized DNA strands with Angstrom-level resolution through DNA replication technology, however, has not been explored. The long-term goal of the work presented in this report is focused on exploiting DNA and in vitro DNA replication processes to mass-manufacture nanocomposite materials. The specific objectives of this project were to: (1) develop methods for replicating DNA strands that incorporate nucleotides with ''chemical handles'', and (2) demonstrate attachment of nanocrystal quantum dots (nQDs) to functionalized DNA strands. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and primer extension methodologies were used to successfully synthesize amine-, thiol-, and biotin-functionalized DNA molecules. Significant variability in the efficiency of modified nucleotide incorporation was observed, and attributed to the intrinsic properties of the modified nucleotides. Noncovalent attachment of streptavidin-coated nQDs to biotin-modified DNA synthesized using the primer extension method was observed by epifluorescence microscopy. Data regarding covalent attachment of nQDs to amine- and thiol-functionalized DNA was generally inconclusive; alternative characterization tools are necessary to fully evaluate these attachment methods. Full realization of this technology may facilitate new approaches to manufacturing materials at the nanoscale. In addition, composite nQD-DNA materials may serve as novel recognition elements in sensor devices, or be used as diagnostic tools for forensic analyses. This report summarizes the results obtained over the course of this 1-year project.
Nearly every manufacturing and many technologies central to Sandia's business involve physical processes controlled by interfacial wetting. Interfacial forces, e.g. conjoining/disjoining pressure, electrostatics, and capillary condensation, are ubiquitous and can surpass and even dominate bulk inertial or viscous effects on a continuum level. Moreover, the statics and dynamics of three-phase contact lines exhibit a wide range of complex behavior, such as contact angle hysteresis due to surface roughness, surface reaction, or compositional heterogeneities. These thermodynamically and kinetically driven interactions are essential to the development of new materials and processes. A detailed understanding was developed for the factors controlling wettability in multicomponent systems from computational modeling tools, and experimental diagnostics for systems, and processes dominated by interfacial effects. Wettability probed by dynamic advancing and receding contact angle measurements, ellipsometry, and direct determination of the capillary and disjoining forces. Molecular scale experiments determined the relationships between the fundamental interactions between molecular species and with the substrate. Atomistic simulations studied the equilibrium concentration profiles near the solid and vapor interfaces and tested the basic assumptions used in the continuum approaches. These simulations provide guidance in developing constitutive equations, which more accurately take into account the effects of surface induced phase separation and concentration gradients near the three-phase contact line. The development of these accurate models for dynamic multicomponent wetting allows improvement in science based engineering of manufacturing processes previously developed through costly trial and error by varying material formulation and geometry modification.
The objective of this project is the investigation of compliant membranes for the development of a MicroElectrical Mechanical Systems (MEMS) microphone using the Sandia Ultraplanar, Multilevel MEMS Technology (SUMMiT V) fabrication process. The microphone is a dual-backplate capacitive microphone utilizing electrostatic force feedback. The microphone consists of a diaphragm and two porous backplates, one on either side of the diaphragm. This forms a capacitor between the diaphragm and each backplate. As the incident pressure deflects the diaphragm, the value of each capacitor will change, thus resulting in an electrical output. Feedback may be used in this device by applying a voltage between the diaphragm and the backplates to balance the incident pressure keeping the diaphragm stationary. The SUMMiT V fabrication process is unique in that it can meet the fabrication requirements of this project. All five layers of polysilicon are used in the fabrication of this device. The SUMMiT V process has been optimized to provide low-stress mechanical layers that are ideal for the construction of the microphone's diaphragm. The use of chemical mechanical polishing in the SUMMiT V process results in extremely flat structural layers and uniform spacing between the layers, both of which are critical to the successful fabrication of the MEMS microphone. The MEMS capacitive microphone was fabricated at Sandia National Laboratories and post-processed, packaged, and tested at the University of Florida. The microphone demonstrates a flat frequency response, a linear response up to the designed limit, and a sensitivity that is close to the designed value. Future work will focus on characterization of additional devices, extending the frequency response measurements, and investigating the use of other types of interface circuitry.
The natural gas industry seeks inexpensive sensors and instrumentation to rapidly measure gas heating value in widely distributed locations. For gas pipelines, this will improve gas quality during transfer and blending, and will expedite accurate financial accounting. Industrial endusers will benefit through continuous feedback of physical gas properties to improve combustion efficiency during use. To meet this need, Sandia has developed a natural gas heating value monitoring instrument using existing and modified microfabricated components. The instrument consists of a silicon micro-fabricated gas chromatography column in conjunction with a catalytic micro-calorimeter sensor. A reference thermal conductivity sensor provides diagnostics and surety. This combination allows for continuous calorimetric determination with a 1 minute analysis time and 1.5 minute cycle time using air as a carrier gas. This system will find application at remote natural gas mining stations, pipeline switching and metering stations, turbine generators, and other industrial user sites. Microfabrication techniques will allow the analytical components to be manufactured in production quantities at a low per-unit cost.
Sodium aluminum hydride, NaAlH{sub 4}, has been studied for use as a hydrogen storage material. The effect of Ti, as a few mol. % dopant in the system to increase kinetics of hydrogen sorption, is studied with respect to changes in lattice structure of the crystal. No Ti substitution is found in the crystal lattice. Electronic structure calculations indicate that the NaAlH{sub 4} and Na{sub 3}AlH{sub 6} structures are complex-ionic hydrides with Na{sup +} cations and AlH{sub 4}{sup -} and AlH{sub 6}{sup 3-} anions, respectively. Compound formation studies indicate the primary Ti-compound formed when doping the material at 33 at. % is TiAl{sub 3} , and likely Ti-Al compounds at lower doping rates. A general study of sorption kinetics of NaAlH{sub 4}, when doped with a variety of Ti-halide compounds, indicates a uniform response with the kinetics similar for all dopants. NMR multiple quantum studies of solution-doped samples indicate solvent interaction with the doped alanate. Raman spectroscopy was used to study the lattice dynamics of NaAlH{sub 4}, and illustrated the molecular ionic nature of the lattice as a separation of vibrational modes between the AlH{sub 4}{sup -} anion-modes and lattice-modes. In-situ Raman measurements indicate a stable AlH{sub 4}{sup -} anion that is stable at the melting temperature of NaAlH{sub 4}, indicating that Ti-dopants must affect the Al-H bond strength.
The design, simulation, fabrication, packaging, electrical characterization and testing analysis of a microfabricated a cylindrical ion trap ({mu}CIT) array is presented. Several versions of microfabricated cylindrical ion traps were designed and fabricated. The final design of the individual trap array element consisted of two end cap electrodes, one ring electrode, and a detector plate, fabricated in seven tungsten metal layers by molding tungsten around silicon dioxide (SiO{sub 2}) features. Each layer of tungsten is then polished back in damascene fashion. The SiO{sub 2} was removed using a standard release processes to realize a free-hung structure. Five different sized traps were fabricated with inner radii of 1, 1.5, 2, 5 and 10 {micro}m and heights ranging from 3-24 {micro}m. Simulations examined the effects of ion and neutral temperature, the pressure and nature of cooling gas, ion mass, trap voltage and frequency, space-charge, fabrication defects, and other parameters on the ability of micrometer-sized traps to store ions. The electrical characteristics of the ion trap arrays were determined. The capacitance was 2-500 pF for the various sized traps and arrays. The resistance was in the order of 1-2 {Omega}. The inductance of the arrays was calculated to be 10-1500 pH, depending on the trap and array sizes. The ion traps' field emission characteristics were assessed. It was determined that the traps could be operated up to 125 V while maintaining field emission currents below 1 x 10{sup -15} A. The testing focused on using the 5-{micro}m CITs to trap toluene (C{sub 7}H{sub 8}). Ion ejection from the traps was induced by termination of the RF voltage applied to the ring electrode and current measured on the collector electrode suggested trapping of ions in 1-10% of the traps. Improvements to the to the design of the traps were defined to minimize voltage drop to the substrate, thereby increasing trapping voltage applied to the ring electrode, and to allow for electron injection into, ion ejection from, and optical access to the trapping region.
Piezoelectric polymers based on polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) are of interest for large aperture space-based telescopes as adaptive or smart materials. Dimensional adjustments of adaptive polymer films depend on controlled charge deposition. Predicting their long-term performance requires a detailed understanding of the piezoelectric material features, expected to suffer due to space environmental degradation. Hence, the degradation and performance of PVDF and its copolymers under various stress environments expected in low Earth orbit has been reviewed and investigated. Various experiments were conducted to expose these polymers to elevated temperature, vacuum UV, {gamma}-radiation and atomic oxygen. The resulting degradative processes were evaluated. The overall materials performance is governed by a combination of chemical and physical degradation processes. Molecular changes are primarily induced via radiative damage, and physical damage from temperature and atomic oxygen exposure is evident as depoling, loss of orientation and surface erosion. The effects of combined vacuum UV radiation and atomic oxygen resulted in expected surface erosion and pitting rates that determine the lifetime of thin films. Interestingly, the piezo responsiveness in the underlying bulk material remained largely unchanged. This study has delivered a comprehensive framework for material properties and degradation sensitivities with variations in individual polymer performances clearly apparent. The results provide guidance for material selection, qualification, optimization strategies, feedback for manufacturing and processing, or alternative materials. Further material qualification should be conducted via experiments under actual space conditions.
This report documents research to develop robust and efficient solution techniques for solving large-scale systems of nonlinear equations. The most widely used method for solving systems of nonlinear equations is Newton's method. While much research has been devoted to augmenting Newton-based solvers (usually with globalization techniques), little has been devoted to exploring the application of different models. Our research has been directed at evaluating techniques using different models than Newton's method: a lower order model, Broyden's method, and a higher order model, the tensor method. We have developed large-scale versions of each of these models and have demonstrated their use in important applications at Sandia. Broyden's method replaces the Jacobian with an approximation, allowing codes that cannot evaluate a Jacobian or have an inaccurate Jacobian to converge to a solution. Limited-memory methods, which have been successful in optimization, allow us to extend this approach to large-scale problems. We compare the robustness and efficiency of Newton's method, modified Newton's method, Jacobian-free Newton-Krylov method, and our limited-memory Broyden method. Comparisons are carried out for large-scale applications of fluid flow simulations and electronic circuit simulations. Results show that, in cases where the Jacobian was inaccurate or could not be computed, Broyden's method converged in some cases where Newton's method failed to converge. We identify conditions where Broyden's method can be more efficient than Newton's method. We also present modifications to a large-scale tensor method, originally proposed by Bouaricha, for greater efficiency, better robustness, and wider applicability. Tensor methods are an alternative to Newton-based methods and are based on computing a step based on a local quadratic model rather than a linear model. The advantage of Bouaricha's method is that it can use any existing linear solver, which makes it simple to write and easily portable. However, the method usually takes twice as long to solve as Newton-GMRES on general problems because it solves two linear systems at each iteration. In this paper, we discuss modifications to Bouaricha's method for a practical implementation, including a special globalization technique and other modifications for greater efficiency. We present numerical results showing computational advantages over Newton-GMRES on some realistic problems. We further discuss a new approach for dealing with singular (or ill-conditioned) matrices. In particular, we modify an algorithm for identifying a turning point so that an increasingly ill-conditioned Jacobian does not prevent convergence.
This work covers three distinct aspects of deformation and fracture during indentations. In particular, we develop an approach to verification of nanoindentation induced film fracture in hard film/soft substrate systems; we examine the ability to perform these experiments in harsh environments; we investigate the methods by which the resulting deformation from indentation can be quantified and correlated to computational simulations, and we examine the onset of plasticity during indentation testing. First, nanoindentation was utilized to induce fracture of brittle thin oxide films on compliant substrates. During the indentation, a load is applied and the penetration depth is continuously measured. A sudden discontinuity, indicative of film fracture, was observed upon the loading portion of the load-depth curve. The mechanical properties of thermally grown oxide films on various substrates were calculated using two different numerical methods. The first method utilized a plate bending approach by modeling the thin film as an axisymmetric circular plate on a compliant foundation. The second method measured the applied energy for fracture. The crack extension force and applied stress intensity at fracture was then determined from the energy measurements. Secondly, slip steps form on the free surface around indentations in most crystalline materials when dislocations reach the free surface. Analysis of these slip steps provides information about the deformation taking place in the material. Techniques have now been developed to allow for accurate and consistent measurement of slip steps and the effects of crystal orientation and tip geometry are characterized. These techniques will be described and compared to results from dislocation dynamics simulations.
A probabilistic performance assessment has been conducted to evaluate the fate and transport of radionuclides (americium-241, cesium-137, cobalt-60, plutonium-238, plutonium-239, radium-226, radon-222, strontium-90, thorium-232, tritium, uranium-238), heavy metals (lead and cadmium), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at the Mixed Waste Landfill (MWL). Probabilistic analyses were performed to quantify uncertainties inherent in the system and models for a 1,000-year period, and sensitivity analyses were performed to identify parameters and processes that were most important to the simulated performance metrics. Comparisons between simulated results and measured values at the MWL were made to gain confidence in the models and perform calibrations when data were available. In addition, long-term monitoring requirements and triggers were recommended based on the results of the quantified uncertainty and sensitivity analyses. At least one-hundred realizations were simulated for each scenario defined in the performance assessment. Conservative values and assumptions were used to define values and distributions of uncertain input parameters when site data were not available. Results showed that exposure to tritium via the air pathway exceeded the regulatory metric of 10 mrem/year in about 2% of the simulated realizations when the receptor was located at the MWL (continuously exposed to the air directly above the MWL). Simulations showed that peak radon gas fluxes exceeded the design standard of 20 pCi/m{sup 2}/s in about 3% of the realizations if up to 1% of the containers of sealed radium-226 sources were assumed to completely degrade in the future. If up to 100% of the containers of radium-226 sources were assumed to completely degrade, 30% of the realizations yielded radon surface fluxes that exceeded the design standard. For the groundwater pathway, simulations showed that none of the radionuclides or heavy metals (lead and cadmium) reached the groundwater during the 1,000-year evaluation period. Tetrachloroethylene (PCE) was used as a proxy for other VOCs because of its mobility and potential to exceed maximum contaminant levels in the groundwater relative to other VOCs. Simulations showed that PCE reached the groundwater, but only 1% of the realizations yielded aquifer concentrations that exceeded the regulatory metric of 5 {micro}g/L. Based on these results, monitoring triggers have been proposed for the air, surface soil, vadose zone, and groundwater at the MWL. Specific triggers include numerical thresholds for radon concentrations in the air, tritium concentrations in surface soil, infiltration through the vadose zone, and uranium and select VOC concentrations in groundwater. The proposed triggers are based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy regulatory standards. If a trigger is exceeded, then a trigger evaluation process will be initiated which will allow sufficient data to be collected to assess trends and recommend corrective actions, if necessary.
LDRD Project 86361 provided support to upgrade the chemical and material spectral signature measurement and detection capabilities of Sandia National Laboratories using the terahertz (THz) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes frequencies between 0.1 to 10 THz. Under this project, a THz time-domain spectrometer was completed. This instrument measures sample absorption spectra coherently, obtaining both magnitude and phase of the absorption signal, and has shown an operating signal-to-noise ratio of 10{sub 4}. Additionally, various gas cells and a reflectometer were added to an existing high-resolution THz Fourier transform spectrometer, which greatly extend the functionality of this spectrometer. Finally, preliminary efforts to design an integrated THz transceiver based on a quantum cascade laser were begun.
This report contains an algorithm for decomposing higher-order finite elementsinto regions appropriate for isosurfacing and proves the conditions under which thealgorithm will terminate. Finite elements are used to create piecewise polynomialapproximants to the solution of partial differential equations for which no analyticalsolution exists. These polynomials represent fields such as pressure, stress, and mo-mentim. In the past, these polynomials have been linear in each parametric coordinate.Each polynomial coefficient must be uniquely determined by a simulation, and thesecoefficients are called degrees of freedom. When there are not enough degrees of free-dom, simulations will typically fail to produce a valid approximation to the solution.Recent work has shown that increasing the number of degrees of freedom by increas-ing the order of the polynomial approximation (instead of increasing the number offinite elements, each of which has its own set of coefficients) can allow some typesof simulations to produce a valid approximation with many fewer degrees of freedomthan increasing the number of finite elements alone. However, once the simulation hasdetermined the values of all the coefficients in a higher-order approximant, tools donot exist for visual inspection of the solution.This report focuses on a technique for the visual inspection of higher-order finiteelement simulation results based on decomposing each finite element into simplicialregions where existing visualization algorithms such as isosurfacing will work. Therequirements of the isosurfacing algorithm are enumerated and related to the placeswhere the partial derivatives of the polynomial become zero. The original isosurfacingalgorithm is then applied to each of these regions in turn.3 AcknowledgementThe authors would like to thank David Day and Louis Romero for their insight into poly-nomial system solvers and the LDRD Senior Council for the opportunity to pursue thisresearch. The authors were supported by the United States Department of Energy, Officeof Defense Programs by the Labratory Directed Research and Development Senior Coun-cil, project 90499. Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation,a Lockheed-Martin Company, for the United States Department of Energy under contractDE-AC04-94-AL85000.4
We have developed a new nanotagging technology for detecting and imaging the self-organization of proteins and other components of membranes at nanometer resolution for the purpose of investigating cell signaling and other membrane-mediated biological processes. We used protein-, lipid-, or drug-bound porphyrin photocatalysts to grow in-situ nanometer-sized metal particles, which reveal the location of the porphyrin-labeled molecules by electron microscopy. We initially used photocatalytic nanotagging to image assembled multi-component proteins and to monitor the distribution of lipids and porphyrin labels in liposomes. For example, by exchanging the heme molecules in hemoproteins with a photocatalytic tin porphyrin, a nanoparticle was grown at each heme site of the protein. The result obtained from electron microscopy for a tagged multi-subunit protein such as hemoglobin is a symmetric constellation of a specific number of nanoparticle tags, four in the case of the hemoglobin tetramer. Methods for covalently linking photocatalytic porphyrin labels to lipids and proteins were also developed to detect and image the self-organization of lipids, protein-protein supercomplexes, and membrane-protein complexes. Procedures for making photocatalytic porphyrin-drug, porphyrin-lipid, and porphyrin-protein hybrids for non-porphyrin-binding proteins and membrane components were pursued and the first porphyrin-labeled lipids was investigated in liposomal membrane models. Our photocatalytic nanotagging technique may ultimately allow membrane self-organization and cell signaling processes to be imaged in living cells. Fluorescence and plasmonic spectra of the tagged proteins might also provide additional information about protein association and membrane organization. In addition, a porphyrin-aspirin or other NSAID hybrid may be used to grow metal nanotags for the pharmacologically important COX enzymes in membranes so that the distribution of the protein can be imaged at the nanometer scale.
There are several engineering obstacles that need to be solved before key management and encryption under the bounded storage model can be realized. One of the critical obstacles hindering its adoption is the construction of a scheme that achieves reliable communication in the event that timing synchronization errors occur. One of the main accomplishments of this project was the development of a new scheme that solves this problem. We show in general that there exist message encoding techniques under the bounded storage model that provide an arbitrarily small probability of transmission error. We compute the maximum capacity of this channel using the unsynchronized key-expansion as side-channel information at the decoder and provide tight lower bounds for a particular class of key-expansion functions that are pseudo-invariant to timing errors. Using our results in combination with Dziembowski et al. [11] encryption scheme we can construct a scheme that solves the timing synchronization error problem. In addition to this work we conducted a detailed case study of current and future storage technologies. We analyzed the cost, capacity, and storage data rate of various technologies, so that precise security parameters can be developed for bounded storage encryption schemes. This will provide an invaluable tool for developing these schemes in practice.
The original LDRD proposal was to use a nonlinear diffusion solver to compute estimates for the material temperature that could then be used in a Implicit Monte Carlo (IMC) calculation. At the end of the first year of the project, it was determined that this was not going to be effective, partially due to the concept, and partially due to the fact that the radiation diffusion package was not as efficient as it could be. The second, and final year, of the project focused on improving the robustness and computational efficiency of the radiation diffusion package in ALEGRA. To this end, several new multigroup diffusion methods have been developed and implemented in ALEGRA. While these methods have been implemented, their effectiveness of reducing overall simulation run time has not been fully tested. Additionally a comprehensive suite of verification problems has been developed for the diffusion package to ensure that it has been implemented correctly. This process took considerable time, but exposed significant bugs in both the previous and new diffusion packages, the linear solve packages, and even the NEVADA Framework's parser. In order to manage this large suite of problem, a new tool called Tampa has been developed. It is a general tool for automating the process of running and analyzing many simulations. Ryan McClarren, at the University of Michigan has been developing a Spherical Harmonics capability for unstructured meshes. While still in the early phases of development, this promises to bridge the gap in accuracy between a full transport solution using IMC and the diffusion approximation.
The later time phase of electrical breakdown in water is investigated for the purpose of improving understanding of the discharge characteristics. One dimensional simulations in addition to a zero dimensional lumped model are used to study the spark discharge. The goal is to provide better electrical models for water switches used in the pulse compression section of pulsed power systems. It is found that temperatures in the discharge channel under representative drive conditions, and assuming small initial radii from earlier phases of development, reach levels that are as much as an order of magnitude larger than those used to model discharges in atmospheric gases. This increased temperature coupled with a more rapidly rising conductivity with temperature than in air result in a decreased resistance characteristic compared to preceding models. A simple modification is proposed for the existing model to enable the approximate calculation of channel temperature and incorporate the resulting conductivity increase into the electrical circuit for the discharge channel. Comparisons are made between the theoretical predictions and recent experiments at Sandia. Although present and past experiments indicated that preceding late time channel models overestimated channel resistance, the calculations in this report seem to underestimate the resistance relative to recent experiments. Some possible reasons for this discrepancy are discussed.
This report contains an algorithm for decomposing higher-order finite elements into regions appropriate for isosurfacing and proves the conditions under which the algorithm will terminate. Finite elements are used to create piecewise polynomial approximants to the solution of partial differential equations for which no analytical solution exists. These polynomials represent fields such as pressure, stress, and momentum. In the past, these polynomials have been linear in each parametric coordinate. Each polynomial coefficient must be uniquely determined by a simulation, and these coefficients are called degrees of freedom. When there are not enough degrees of freedom, simulations will typically fail to produce a valid approximation to the solution. Recent work has shown that increasing the number of degrees of freedom by increasing the order of the polynomial approximation (instead of increasing the number of finite elements, each of which has its own set of coefficients) can allow some types of simulations to produce a valid approximation with many fewer degrees of freedom than increasing the number of finite elements alone. However, once the simulation has determined the values of all the coefficients in a higher-order approximant, tools do not exist for visual inspection of the solution. This report focuses on a technique for the visual inspection of higher-order finite element simulation results based on decomposing each finite element into simplicial regions where existing visualization algorithms such as isosurfacing will work. The requirements of the isosurfacing algorithm are enumerated and related to the places where the partial derivatives of the polynomial become zero. The original isosurfacing algorithm is then applied to each of these regions in turn.
We present an active method for mixing fluid streams in microchannels at low Reynolds number with no dead volume. To overcome diffusion limited mixing in microchannels, surface acoustic wave streaming offers an extremely effective approach to rapidly homogenize fluids. This is a pivotal improvement over mixers based on complex 3D microchannels which have significant dead volume resulting in trapping or loss of sample. Our micromixer is integrable and highly adaptable for use within existing microfluidic devices. Surface acoustic wave devices fabricated on 128° YX LiNbO3 permitted rapid mixing of flow streams as evidenced by fluorescence microscopy. Longitudinal waves created at the solid-liquid interface were capable of inducing strong nonlinear gradients within the bulk fluid. In the highly laminar regime (Re = 2), devices achieved over 93% mixing efficacy in less than a second. Micro-particle imaging velicometry was used to determine the mixing behavior in the microchannels and indicated that the liquid velocity can be controlled by varying the input power. Fluid velocities in excess of 3 cm•s-1 were measured in the main excitation region at low power levels (2.8mW). We believe that this technology will be pivotal in the development and advancement of microfluidic devices and applications.
This report describes a methodology for estimating the power and energy capacities for electricity energy storage systems that can be used to defer costly upgrades to fully overloaded, or nearly overloaded, transmission and distribution (T&D) nodes. This ''sizing'' methodology may be used to estimate the amount of storage needed so that T&D upgrades may be deferred for one year. The same methodology can also be used to estimate the characteristics of storage needed for subsequent years of deferral.
The MATLAB language has become a standard for rapid prototyping throughout all disciplines of engineering because the environment is easy to understand and use. Many of the basic functions included in MATLAB are those operations that are necessary to carry out larger algorithms such as the chirp z-transform spectral zoom. These functions include, but are not limited to mathematical operators, logical operators, array indexing, and the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). However, despite its ease of use, MATLAB's technical computing language is interpreted and thus is not always capable of the memory management and performance of a compiled language. There are however, several optimizations that can be made within the chirp z-transform spectral zoom algorithm itself, and also to the MATLAB implementation in order to take full advantage of the computing environment and lower processing time and improve memory usage. To that end, this document's purpose is two-fold. The first demonstrates how to perform a chirp z-transform spectral zoom as well as an optimization within the algorithm that improves performance and memory usage. The second demonstrates a minor MATLAB language usage technique that can reduce overhead memory costs and improve performance.
This report describes the research accomplishments achieved under the LDRD Project ''Leaky-mode VCSELs for photonic logic circuits''. Leaky-mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) offer new possibilities for integration of microcavity lasers to create optical microsystems. A leaky-mode VCSEL output-couples light laterally, in the plane of the semiconductor wafer, which allows the light to interact with adjacent lasers, modulators, and detectors on the same wafer. The fabrication of leaky-mode VCSELs based on effective index modification was proposed and demonstrated at Sandia in 1999 but was not adequately developed for use in applications. The aim of this LDRD has been to advance the design and fabrication of leaky-mode VCSELs to the point where initial applications can be attempted. In the first and second years of this LDRD we concentrated on overcoming previous difficulties in the epitaxial growth and fabrication of these advanced VCSELs. In the third year, we focused on applications of leaky-mode VCSELs, such as all-optical processing circuits based on gain quenching.
With the increasing reliance on cyber technology to operate and control physical security system components, there is a need for methods to assess and model the interactions between the cyber system and the physical security system to understand the effects of cyber technology on overall security system effectiveness. This paper evaluates two methodologies for their applicability to the combined cyber and physical security problem. The comparison metrics include probabilities of detection (P{sub D}), interruption (P{sub I}), and neutralization (P{sub N}), which contribute to calculating the probability of system effectiveness (P{sub E}), the probability that the system can thwart an adversary attack. P{sub E} is well understood in practical applications of physical security but when the cyber security component is added, system behavior becomes more complex and difficult to model. This paper examines two approaches (Bounding Analysis Approach (BAA) and Expected Value Approach (EVA)) to determine their applicability to the combined physical and cyber security issue. These methods were assessed for a variety of security system characteristics to determine whether reasonable security decisions could be made based on their results. The assessments provided insight on an adversary's behavior depending on what part of the physical security system is cyber-controlled. Analysis showed that the BAA is more suited to facility analyses than the EVA because it has the ability to identify and model an adversary's most desirable attack path.
In order to optically vary the magnification of an imaging system, continuous mechanical zoom lenses require multiple optical elements and use fine mechanical motion to precisely adjust the separations between individual or groups of lenses. By incorporating active elements into the optical design, we have designed and demonstrated imaging systems that are capable of variable optical magnification with no macroscopic moving parts. Changing the effective focal length and magnification of an imaging system can be accomplished by adeptly positioning two or more active optics in the optical design and appropriately adjusting the optical power of those elements. In this application, the active optics (e.g. liquid crystal spatial light modulators or deformable mirrors) serve as variable focal-length lenses. Unfortunately, the range over which currently available devices can operate (i.e. their dynamic range) is relatively small. Therefore, the key to this concept is to create large changes in the effective focal length of the system with very small changes in the focal lengths of individual elements by leveraging the optical power of conventional optical elements surrounding the active optics. By appropriately designing the optical system, these variable focal-length lenses can provide the flexibility necessary to change the overall system focal length, and therefore magnification, that is normally accomplished with mechanical motion in conventional zoom lenses.
The SNL/CA Cultural Resources Management Plan satisfies the site's Environmental Management System requirement to promote long-term stewardship of cultural resources. The plan summarizes the cultural and historical setting of the site, identifies existing procedures and processes that support protection and preservation of resources, and outlines actions that would be initiated if cultural resources were discovered onsite in the future.3
We present the results of a one year LDRD program that has focused on evaluating the use of newly developed deep ultraviolet LEDs in water purification. We describe our development efforts that have produced an LED-based water exposure set-up and enumerate the advances that have been made in deep UV LED performance throughout the project. The results of E. coli inactivation with 270-295 nm LEDs are presented along with an assessment of the potential for applying deep ultraviolet LED-based water purification to mobile point-of-use applications as well as to rural and international environments where the benefits of photovoltaic-powered systems can be realized.
This report describes an investigation of the piezoelectric field in strained bulk GaAs. The bound charge distribution is calculated and suitable electrode configurations are proposed for (1) uniaxial and (2) biaxial strain. The screening of the piezoelectric field is studied for different impurity concentrations and sample lengths. Electric current due to the piezoelectric field is calculated for the cases of (1) fixed strain and (2) strain varying in time at a constant rate.
High-purity AlPt thin films prepared by self-propagating, high temperature combustion synthesis show evidence for a new rhombohedral phase. Sputter deposited Al/Pt multilayers of various designs are reacted at different rates in air and in vacuum, and each form a new trigonal/hexagonal aluminide phase with unit cell parameters a = 15.571(8) {angstrom}, c = 5.304(1) {angstrom}, space group R-3 (148), and Z, the number of formula units within a unit cell, = 39. The lattice is isostructural to that of the AlPd R-3 lattice as reported by Matkovic and Schubert (Matkovic, 1977). Reacted films have a random in-plane crystallographic texture, a modest out-of-plane (001) texture, and equiaxed grains with dimensions on the order of film thickness.
As information systems become increasingly complex and pervasive, they become inextricably intertwined with the critical infrastructure of national, public, and private organizations. The problem of recognizing and evaluating threats against these complex, heterogeneous networks of cyber and physical components is a difficult one, yet a solution is vital to ensuring security. In this paper we investigate profile-based anomaly detection techniques that can be used to address this problem. We focus primarily on the area of network anomaly detection, but the approach could be extended to other problem domains. We investigate using several data analysis techniques to create profiles of network hosts and perform anomaly detection using those profiles. The ''profiles'' reduce multi-dimensional vectors representing ''normal behavior'' into fewer dimensions, thus allowing pattern and cluster discovery. New events are compared against the profiles, producing a quantitative measure of how ''anomalous'' the event is. Most network intrusion detection systems (IDSs) detect malicious behavior by searching for known patterns in the network traffic. This approach suffers from several weaknesses, including a lack of generalizability, an inability to detect stealthy or novel attacks, and lack of flexibility regarding alarm thresholds. Our research focuses on enhancing current IDS capabilities by addressing some of these shortcomings. We identify and evaluate promising techniques for data mining and machine-learning. The algorithms are ''trained'' by providing them with a series of data-points from ''normal'' network traffic. A successful algorithm can be trained automatically and efficiently, will have a low error rate (low false alarm and miss rates), and will be able to identify anomalies in ''pseudo real-time'' (i.e., while the intrusion is still in progress, rather than after the fact). We also build a prototype anomaly detection tool that demonstrates how the techniques might be integrated into an operational intrusion detection framework.
Over the last decade, dairy farms in New Mexico have become an important component to the economy of many rural ranching and farming communities. Dairy operations are water intensive and use groundwater that otherwise would be used for irrigation purposes. Most dairies reuse their process/green water three times and utilize lined lagoons for temporary storage of green water. Leakage of water from lagoons can pose a risk to groundwater quality. Groundwater resource protection infrastructures at dairies are regulated by the New Mexico Environment Department which currently relies on monitoring wells installed in the saturated zone for detecting leakage of waste water lagoon liners. Here we present a proposal to monitor the unsaturated zone beneath the lagoons with soil water solution samplers to provide early detection of leaking liners. Early detection of leaking liners along with rapid repair can minimize contamination of aquifers and reduce dairy liability for aquifer remediation. Additionally, acceptance of vadose zone monitoring as a NMED requirement over saturated zone monitoring would very likely significantly reduce dairy startup and expansion costs. Acknowledgment Funding for this project was provided by the Sandia National Laboratories Small Business Assistance Program
This report summarizes results generated on a 5-year cable-aging program that constituted part of the Nuclear Energy Plant Optimization (NEPO) program, an effort cosponsored by the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). The NEPO cable-aging effort concentrated on two important issues involving the development of better lifetime prediction methods as well as the development and testing of novel cable condition-monitoring (CM) techniques. To address improved life prediction methods, we first describe the use of time-temperature superposition principles, indicating how this approach improves the testing of the Arrhenius model by utilizing all of the experimentally generated data instead of a few selected and processed data points. Although reasonable superposition is often found, we show several cases where non-superposition is evident, a situation that violates the constant acceleration assumption normally used in accelerated aging studies. Long-term aging results over extended temperature ranges allow us to show that curvature in Arrhenius plots for elongation is a common occurrence. In all cases the curvature results in a lowering of the Arrhenius activation energy at lower temperatures implying that typical extrapolation of high temperature results over-estimates material lifetimes. The long-term results also allow us to test the significance of extrapolating through the crystalline melting point of semi-crystalline materials. By utilizing ultrasensitive oxygen consumption (UOC) measurements, we show that it is possible to probe the low temperature extrapolation region normally inaccessible to conventional accelerated aging studies. This allows the quantitative testing of the often-used Arrhenius extrapolation assumption. Such testing indicates that many materials again show evidence of ''downward'' curvature (E{sub a} values drop as the aging temperature is lowered) consistent with the limited elongation results and many literature results. It is also shown how the UOC approach allows the probing of temperatures that cross through the crystalline melting point region of semi-crystalline materials such as XLPO and EPR cable insulations. New results on combined environment aging of neoprene and hypalon cable jacketing materials are presented and offer additional evidence in support of our time-temperature-dose rate (t-T-DR) superposition approach that had been used successfully in the past for such situations.
This research continues previous efforts to re-focus the question of penetrability away from the behavior of the penetrator itself and toward understanding the dynamic, possibly strain-rate dependent, behavior of the affected materials. A modified split Hopkinson pressure bar technique is prototyped to determine the value of reproducing the stress states, and mechanical responses, of geomaterials observed in actual penetrator tests within a laboratory setting. Conceptually, this technique simulates the passage of the penetrator surface past any fixed point in the penetrator trajectory by allowing for a controlled stress-time function to be transmitted into a sample, thereby mimicking the 1D radial projection inherent to analyses of the cavity expansion problem. Test results from a suite of weak (unconfined compressive strength, or UCS, of 22 MPa) concrete samples, with incident strain rates of 100-250 s{sup -1}, show that the complex mechanical response includes both plastic and anelastic wave propagation, and is critically dependent on incident particle velocity and saturation state. For instance, examination of the transmitted stress-time data, and post-test volumetric measurements of pulverized material, provide independent estimates of the plasticized zone length (1-2 cm) formed for incident particle velocity of {approx}16.7 m/s. The results also shed light on the elastic or energy propagation property changes that occur in the concrete. For example, the pre- and post-test zero-stress elastic wave propagation velocities show that the Young's modulus drops from {approx}19 GPa to <8 GPa for material within the first centimeter from the plastic transition front, while the Young's modulus of the dynamically confined, axially-stressed (in 6-18 MPa range) plasticized material drops to 0.5-0.6 GPa. The data also suggest that the critical particle velocity for formation of a plastic zone in the weak concrete is 13-15 m/s, with increased saturation tending to increase the critical particle velocity limit. Overall, the data produced from these experiments suggests that further pursuit of this approach is warranted for penetration research but also as a potential new method for dynamic testing of materials.
Wireless computer networks are increasing exponentially around the world. They are being implemented in both the unlicensed radio frequency (RF) spectrum (IEEE 802.11a/b/g) and the licensed spectrum (e.g., Firetide [1] and Motorola Canopy [2]). Wireless networks operating in the unlicensed spectrum are by far the most popular wireless computer networks in existence. The open (i.e., proprietary) nature of the IEEE 802.11 protocols and the availability of ''free'' RF spectrum have encouraged many producers of enterprise and common off-the-shelf (COTS) computer networking equipment to jump into the wireless arena. Competition between these companies has driven down the price of 802.11 wireless networking equipment and has improved user experiences with such equipment. The end result has been an increased adoption of the equipment by businesses and consumers, the establishment of the Wi-Fi Alliance [3], and widespread use of the Alliance's ''Wi-Fi'' moniker to describe these networks. Consumers use 802.11 equipment at home to reduce the burden of running wires in existing construction, facilitate the sharing of broadband Internet services with roommates or neighbors, and increase their range of ''connectedness''. Private businesses and government entities (at all levels) are deploying wireless networks to reduce wiring costs, increase employee mobility, enable non-employees to access the Internet, and create an added revenue stream to their existing business models (coffee houses, airports, hotels, etc.). Municipalities (Philadelphia; San Francisco; Grand Haven, MI) are deploying wireless networks so they can bring broadband Internet access to places lacking such access; offer limited-speed broadband access to impoverished communities; offer broadband in places, such as marinas and state parks, that are passed over by traditional broadband providers; and provide themselves with higher quality, more complete network coverage for use by emergency responders and other municipal agencies. In short, these Wi-Fi networks are being deployed everywhere. Much thought has been and is being put into evaluating cost-benefit analyses of wired vs. wireless networks and issues such as how to effectively cover an office building or municipality, how to efficiently manage a large network of wireless access points (APs), and how to save money by replacing an Internet service provider (ISP) with 802.11 technology. In comparison, very little thought and money are being focused on wireless security and monitoring for security purposes.
Traditional polar format image formation for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) requires a large amount of processing power and memory in order to accomplish in real-time. These requirements can thus eliminate the possible usage of interpreted language environments such as MATLAB. However, with trapezoidal aperture phase history collection and changes to the traditional polar format algorithm, certain optimizations make MATLAB a possible tool for image formation. Thus, this document's purpose is two-fold. The first outlines a change to the existing Polar Format MATLAB implementation utilizing the Chirp Z-Transform that improves performance and memory usage achieving near realtime results for smaller apertures. The second is the addition of two new possible image formation options that perform a more traditional interpolation style image formation. These options allow the continued exploration of possible interpolation methods for image formation and some preliminary results comparing image quality are given.
This SAND report provides the technical progress through April 2005 of the Sandia-led project, ''Carbon Sequestration in Synechococcus Sp.: From Molecular Machines to Hierarchical Modeling'', funded by the DOE Office of Science GenomicsGTL Program. Understanding, predicting, and perhaps manipulating carbon fixation in the oceans has long been a major focus of biological oceanography and has more recently been of interest to a broader audience of scientists and policy makers. It is clear that the oceanic sinks and sources of CO{sub 2} are important terms in the global environmental response to anthropogenic atmospheric inputs of CO{sub 2} and that oceanic microorganisms play a key role in this response. However, the relationship between this global phenomenon and the biochemical mechanisms of carbon fixation in these microorganisms is poorly understood. In this project, we will investigate the carbon sequestration behavior of Synechococcus Sp., an abundant marine cyanobacteria known to be important to environmental responses to carbon dioxide levels, through experimental and computational methods. This project is a combined experimental and computational effort with emphasis on developing and applying new computational tools and methods. Our experimental effort will provide the biology and data to drive the computational efforts and include significant investment in developing new experimental methods for uncovering protein partners, characterizing protein complexes, identifying new binding domains. We will also develop and apply new data measurement and statistical methods for analyzing microamy experiments. Computational tools will be essential to our efforts to discover and characterize the function of the molecular machines of Synechococcus. To this end, molecular simulation methods will be coupled with knowledge discovery from diverse biological data sets for high-throughput discovery and characterization of protein-protein complexes. In addition, we will develop a set of novel capabilities for inference of regulatory pathways in microbial genomes across multiple sources of information through the integration of computational and experimental technologies. These capabilities will be applied to Synechococcus regulatory pathways to characterize their interaction map and identify component proteins in these pathways. We will also investigate methods for combining experimental and computational results with visualization and natural language tools to accelerate discovery of regulatory pathways. The ultimate goal of this effort is develop and apply new experimental and computational methods needed to generate a new level of understanding of how the Synechococcus genome affects carbon fixation at the global scale. Anticipated experimental and computational methods will provide ever-increasing insight about the individual elements and steps in the carbon fixation process, however relating an organism's genome to its cellular response in the presence of varying environments will require systems biology approaches. Thus a primary goal for this effort is to integrate the genomic data generated from experiments and lower level simulations with data from the existing body of literature into a whole cell model. We plan to accomplish this by developing and applying a set of tools for capturing the carbon fixation behavior of complex of Synechococcus at different levels of resolution. Finally, the explosion of data being produced by high-throughput experiments requires data analysis and models which are more computationally complex, more heterogeneous, and require coupling to ever increasing amounts of experimentally obtained data in varying formats. These challenges are unprecedented in high performance scientific computing and necessitate the development of a companion computational infrastructure to support this effort.
We report on the successful attempts to trigger high voltage pressurized gas switches by utilizing beam transport through 1 MO-cm deionized water. The wavelength of the laser radiation was 532 nm. We have investigated Nd: YAG laser triggering of a 6 MV, SF6 insulated gas switch for a range of laser and switch parameters. Laser wavelength of 532 nm with nominal pulse lengths of 10 ns full width half maximum (FWHM) were used to trigger the switch. The laser beam was transported through 67 cm-long cell of 1 MO-cm deionized water constructed with anti reflection UV grade fused silica windows. The laser beam was then focused to form a breakdown arc in the gas between switch electrodes. Less than 10 ns jitter in the operation of the switch was obtained for laser pulse energies of between 80-110 mJ. Breakdown arcs more than 35 mm-long were produced by using a 70 cm focusing optic.