Publications

Bis(cyclopentadienyl)magnesium (MgCp2) is used commonly as a source for doping nitride materials with magnesium. Increased oxygen incorporation known to accompany the use of MgCp2 makes the purity of this precursor an important consideration in nitride CVD. Gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GCMS) methods have now been developed for the identification of volatile impurities in MgCp2. Diethylether, an oxygen containing organic compound (CH 3CH2OCH2CH3), and additional organic impurities were found in the MgCp2 supplied by three manufacturers. Subsequent refinements in the synthetic processes by these companies have resulted in the availability of MgCp2 free of ether and other organic impurities as determined by GCMS.

Metal-reinforced Al2-O3-matrix composites were prepared using reactive hot pressing. The volume fraction of the reinforcing phase was controlled by the stoichiometry of the particular displacement reaction used. Dense Al2O3-Ni and Al2O3-Nb composites were fabricated using this technique. The best combination of strength, 610 MPa, and toughness, 12 MPam 1/2 , was found for the Al2O3-Ni composites. Indentation cracks and fracture surfaces showed evidence of ductile deformation of the Ni phase. The Al2O3-Nb composites had high strength, but the toughness was lower than expected due to the poor bonding between the Nb and Al2O3 phases.

Industrial, military, medical, and research and development applications of lasers frequently require a beam with a specified irradiance distribution in some plane. A common requirement is a laser profile that is uniform over some cross-section. Such applications include laser/material processing, laser material interaction studies, fiber injection systems, optical data/image processing, lithography, medical applications, and military applications. Laser beam shaping techniques can be divided in to three areas: apertured beams, field mappers, and multi-aperture beam integrators. An uncertainty relation exists for laser beam shaping that puts constraints on system design. In this paper we review the basics of laser beam shaping and present applications and limitations of various techniques.

Ongoing hydrothermal Cs-Ti-Si-O-H2O phase investigations has produced several new ternary phases including a novel microporous Cs-silicotitanate molecular sieve, SNL-B with the approximate formula of Cs3TiSi3O9.5 · 3H2O SNL-B is only the second molecular sieve, Cs-silicotitanate phase reported to have been synthesized by hydrothermal methods. Crystallites are very small (0.1 x 2 μm2) with a blade-like morphology. SNL-B is confirmed to be a three-dimensional molecular sieve by a variety of characterization techniques (N2 adsorption, ion exchange, water adsorption/desorption, solid state cross polarization-magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance). SNL-B is able to desorb and adsorb water from its pores while retaining its crystal structure and exchanges Cs cations readily. Additional techniques were used to describe fundamental properties (powder X-ray diffraction, FTIR, 29Si and 133Cs MAS NMR, DTA, SEM/EDS, ion selectivity, and radiation stability). The phase relationships of metastable SNL-B to other hydrothermally synthesized Cs-Ti-Si-O-H2O phases are discussed, particularly its relationship to a Cs-silicotitanate analogue of pharmacosiderite, and a novel condensed phase, a polymorph of Cs2TiSi6O15 (SNL-A). (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Ongoing hydrothermal Cs-Ti-Si-O-H2O phase investigations has produced several new ternary phases including a novel microporous Cs-silicotitanate molecular sieve, SNL-B with the approximate formula of Cs3TiSi3O9.5·3H2O. SNL-B is only the second molecular sieve, Cs-silicotitanate phase reported to have been synthesized by hydrothermal methods. Crystallites are very small (0.1×2 μm2) with a blade-like morphology. SNL-B is confirmed to be a three-dimensional molecular sieve by a variety of characterization techniques (N2 adsorption, ion exchange, water adsorption/desorption, solid state cross polarization-magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance). SNL-B is able to desorb and adsorb water from its pores while retaining its crystal structure and exchanges Cs cations readily. Additional techniques were used to describe fundamental properties (powder X-ray diffraction, FTIR, 29Si and 133Cs MAS NMR, DTA, SEM/EDS, ion selectivity, and radiation stability). The phase relationships of metastable SNL-B to other hydrothermally synthesized Cs-Ti-Si-O-H2O phases are discussed, particularly its relationship to a Cs-silicotitanate analogue of pharmacosiderite, and a novel condensed phase, a polymorph of Cs2TiSi6O15 (SNL-A).

In this article we concisely present several modern strategies that are applicable to drift-dominated carrier transport in higher-order deterministic models such as the drift-diffusion, hydrodynamic, and quantum hydrodynamic systems. The approaches include extensions of `upwind' and artificial dissipation schemes, generalization of the traditional Scharfetter-Gummel approach, Petrov-Galerkin and streamline-upwind Petrov Galerkin (SUPG), `entropy' variables, transformations, least-squares mixed methods and other stabilized Galerkin schemes such as Galerkin least squares and discontinuous Galerkin schemes. The treatment is representative rather than an exhaustive review and several schemes are mentioned only briefly with appropriate reference to the literature. Some of the methods have been applied to the semiconductor device problem while others are still in the early stages of development for this class of applications. We have included numerical examples from our recent research tests with some of the methods. A second aspect of the work deals with algorithms that employ unstructured grids in conjunction with adaptive refinement strategies. The full benefits of such approaches have not yet been developed in this application area and we emphasize the need for further work on analysis, data structures and software to support adaptivity. Finally, we briefly consider some aspects of software frameworks. These include dial-an-operator approaches such as that used in the industrial simulator PROPHET, and object-oriented software, support such as those in the SANDIA National Laboratory framework SIERRA.

The need to register data is abundant in applications such as: world modeling, part inspection and manufacturing, object recognition, pose estimation, robotic navigation, and reverse engineering. Registration occurs by aligning the regions that are common to multiple images. The largest difficulty in performing this registration is dealing with outliers and local minima while remaining efficient. A commonly used technique, iterative closest point, is efficient but is unable to deal with outliers or avoid local minima. Another commonly used optimization algorithm, simulated annealing, is effective at dealing with local minima but is very slow. Therefore, the algorithm developed in this paper is a hybrid algorithm that combines the speed of iterative closest point with the robustness of simulated annealing. Additionally, a robust error function is incorporated to deal with outliers. This algorithm is incorporated into a complete modeling system that inputs two sets of range data, registers the sets, and outputs a composite model.

Sandia National Laboratories has learned through their process of technology transfer that not all high tech transfers are alike. They are not alike by the nature of the customers involved, the process of becoming involved with these customers and finally and most importantly the very nature of the technology itself. Here, the authors focus on technology transfer in the microsystems arena and specifically the sacrificial surface version of microsystems. They have learned and helped others learn that many MEMS applications are best realized through the use of surface micromachining (SMM). This is because SMM builds on the substantial integrated circuit industry. In this paper, the authors review Sandia's process for transferring a disruptive MEMS technology in numerous cases.

Sandia National Laboratories has been studying Energy Storage Systems since the late 1970s. To identify applications of energy storage, a two-phase Opportunities Analysis was conceptualized in FY94. Phase I of the project was completed and published in 1995. Phase II of the project is an extension of Phase I to reexamine the identified applications in the dynamic environment of today.

Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) which operate in multiple transverse optical modes have been rapidly adopted into present data communication applications which rely on multi-mode optical fiber. However, operation only in the fundamental mode is required for free space interconnects and numerous other emerging VCSEL applications. Two device design strategies for obtaining single mode lasing in VCSELs based on mode selective loss or mode selective gain are reviewed and compared. Mode discrimination is attained with the use of a thick tapered oxide aperture positioned at a longitudinal field null. Mode selective gain is achieved by defining a gain aperture within the VCSEL active region to preferentially support the fundamental mode. VCSELs which exhibit greater than 3 mW of single mode output power at 850 nm with mode suppression ratio greater than 30 dB are reported.

Polysilsesquioxane foams and gels of the formula (RSiO1.5)n were produced via the catalytic an stoichiometric redistribution of organohydridosiloxanes. The extent of reaction was followed by both infrared (IR) and solid state NMR spectroscopy, following the disappearance of the SiH in the starting oligosiloxane.

An overview is given on the current status of three-dimensional (3D) photonic crystals. The realization of new 3d photonic crystal structures, the creation of high Q microcavities and the building of waveguide bends are presented. These devices form the basic building blocks for applications in signal processing and low threshold lasers.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant was licensed for disposal of transuranic wastes generated by the US Department of Energy. The facility consists of a repository mined in a bedded salt formation, approximately 650 m below the surface. Regulations promulgated by the US Environmental Protection Agency require that performance assessment calculations for the repository include the possibility that an exploratory drilling operation could penetrate the waste disposal areas at some time in the future. Release of contaminated solids could reach the surface during a drilling intrusion. One of the mechanisms for release, known as spallings, can occur if gas pressures in the repository exceed the hydrostatic pressure of a column of drilling mud. Calculation of solids releaes for spallings depends critically on the conceptual models for the waste, for the spallings process, and assumptions regarding driller parameters and practices. This paper presents a review of the evolution of these models during the regulatory review of the Compliance Certification Application for the repository. A summary and perspectives on the implementation of conservative assumptions in model development are also provided.

Laser deposits fabricated from two different compositions of 304L stainless steel powder were characterized to determine the nature of the solidification and solid state transformations. One of the goals of this work was to determine to what extent novel microstructures consisting of single-phase austenite could be achieved with the thermal conditions of the LENS process. Although ferrite-free deposits were not obtained, structures with very low ferrite content were achieved. It appeared that, with slight changes in alloy composition, this goal could be met via two different solidification and transformation mechanisms.

A measurement system's components: cabling, delay line, waveform recorder, etc., degrade acquired signals and their respective bandlimited frequency responses. Compensation software corrects for this frequency-dependent spectral degradation by deconvolving the transfer function of the entire measurement system out of the measured signal spectra. This report describes methods to transfer the characteristics of a wide bandwidth repetitive sampling oscilloscope to a single-shot transient digitizer, characterize the measurement system, develop a cascaded transition-band filter, and compensate data acquired with the filtered, characterized measurement system. These procedures are easily implemented, execute quickly, and successfully compensate waveforms possessing endpoint discontinuities. Waveforms possessing endpoint discontinuities are made to appear duration-limited and continuous. The spectra for these modified waveforms are correct, including at dc. The deconvolution process introduces unavoidable noise. Filtering is applied to reduce the deconvolution noise while minimally affecting compensated waveform risetime and amplitude. Resultant compensated data retains its initial dc baseline offset with improved waveform fidelity and low noise of deconvolution.

A literature survey and technical evaluation was carried out of past and present battery technologies with the goal of identifying appropriate candidates for use in geothermai borehole and, to a lesser extend, oil/gas boreholes. The various constraints that are posed by such an environment are discussed. The promise as well as the limitations of various candidate technologies are presented. Data for limited testing of a number of candidate systems are presented and the areas for additional future work are detailed. The use of low-temperature molten salts shows the most promise for such applications and includes those that are liquid at room temperature. The greatest challenges are to develop an appropriate electrochemical couple that is kinetically stable with the most promising electrolytes-both organic as well as inorganic- over the wide operating window that spans both borehole environments. © 2000 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.

Valve-Regulated Lead-Acid (VRLA) batteries continue to be employed in a wide variety of applications for telecommunications and Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). With the rapidly growing penetration of Internet services, the requirements for standby power systems appear to be changing. For example, at last year's INTELEC, high voltage standby power systems up to 300-vdc were discussed as alternatives to the traditional 48-volt power plant. At the same time, battery reliability and the sensitivity of VRLAs to charging conditions (e.g., in-rush current, float voltage and temperature), continue to be argued extensively. Charge regimes which provide 'off-line' charging or intermittent charge to the battery have been proposed. Some of these techniques go against the widely accepted rules of operation for batteries to achieve optimum lifetime. Experience in the telecom industry with high voltage systems and these charging scenarios is limited. However, GNB has several years of experience in the installation and operation of large VRLA battery systems that embody many of the power management philosophies being proposed. Early results show that positive grid corrosion is not accelerated and battery performance is mantained even when the battery is operated at a partial state-of-charge for long periods of time.

The Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) computational grid is being constructed to interconnect the high performance computing resources of the nuclear weapons complex. The grid will simplify access to the diverse computing, storage, network, and visualization resources, and will enable the coordinated use of shared resources regardless of location. To match existing hardware platforms, required security services, and current simulation practices, the Globus MetaComputing Toolkit was selected to provide core grid services. The ASCI grid extends Globus functionality by operating as an independent grid, incorporating Kerberos-based security, interfacing to Sandia's Cplant™, and extending job monitoring services. To fully meet ASCI's needs, the architecture layers distributed work management and criteria-driven resource selection services on top of Globus. These services simplify the grid interface by allowing users to simply request "run code X anywhere". This paper describes the initial design and prototype of the ASCI grid.

A collision model for the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method is presented. The collision model is based on the BGK equation and makes use of the Cercignani ellipsoidal distribution to incorporate the effects of heat conductivity. Results obtained by the DSMC method and its BGK and BGKC modifications for a 10° wedge and a flat plate are presented and discussed. © 2000 by Sandia Corporation.

We have developed a stochastic model for the power generated by a photovoltaic (PV) power supply system that includes a rechargeable energy storage device. The ultimate objective of this work is to integrate this photovoltaic generator along with other generation sources to perform power flow calculations to estimate the reliability of different electricity grid configurations. For this reason, the photovoltaic power supply model must provide robust, efficient realizations of the photovoltaic electricity output under a variety of conditions and at different geographical locations. This has been achieved by use of a Karhunen-Loeve framework to model the solar insolation data. The capacity of the energy storage device, in this case a lead-acid battery, is represented by a deterministic model that uses an artificial neural network to estimate the reduction in capacity that occurs over time. When combined with an appropriate stochastic load model, all three elements yield a stochastic model for the photovoltaic power system. This model has been operated on the Monte Carlo principle in stand-alone mode to infer the probabilistic behavior of the system. In particular, numerical examples are shown to illustrate the use of the model to estimate battery life. By the end of one year of operation, there is a 50% probability for the test case shown that the battery will be at or below 95% of initial capacity. © 2000 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.

This paper presents an investigation of a technique for using two-dimensional bodies composed of simple polygons with a body-decoupled uniform Cartesian grid in the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo method (DSMC). The method employs an automated grid preprocessing scheme beginning from a CAD geometry definition file, and is based on polygon triangulation using a trapezoid algorithm. A particle-body intersection time comparison is presented between the Icarus DSMC code using a body-fitted structured grid, and using a structured body-decoupled Cartesian grid with both linear and logarithmic search techniques. A comparison of neutral flow over a cylinder is presented using the structured body fitted grid, and the Cartesian body de-coupled grid.

In this paper we describe a high amplitude electrostatic drive for surface micromachined mechanical oscillators that may be suitable for vibratory gyroscopes. It is an advanced design of a previously reported dual mass oscillator (Dyck, et. al., 1999). The structure is a 2 degree-of-freedom, parallel-plate driven motion amplifier, termed the secondary mass drive oscillator (SMD oscillator). During each cycle the device contacts the drive plates, generating large electrostatic forces. Peak-to-peak amplitudes of 54 μm have been obtained by operating the structure in air with an applied voltage of 11 V. We describe the structure, present the analysis and design equations, and show recent results that have been obtained, including frequency response data, power dissipation, and out-of-plane motion.

The Transferable Potentials for Phase Equilibria-United Atom (TraPPE-UA) force field for hydrocarbons is extended to alkenes and alkylbenzenes by introducing the following pseudo-atoms: CH2(sp2), CH(sp2), C(sp2), CH(aro), R-C(aro) for the link to aliphatic side chains and C(aro) for the link of two benzene rings. In this united-atom force field, the nonbonded interactions of the hydrocarbon pseudo-atoms are solely governed by Lennard-Jones 12-6 potentials, and the Lennard-Jones well depth and size parameters for the new pseudo-atoms were determined by fitting to the single-component vapor-liquid-phase equilibria of a few selected model compounds. Configurational-bias Monte Carlo simulations in the NVT version of the Gibbs ensemble were carried out to calculate the single-component vapor-liquid coexistence curves for ethene, propene, 1-butene, trans- and cis-2-butene, 2-methylpropene, 1,5-hexadiene, 1-octene, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, propylbenzene, isopropylbenzene, o-, m-, and p-xylene, and naphthalene. The phase diagrams for the binary mixtures of (supercritical) ethene/n-heptane and benzene/n-pentane were determined from simulations in the NpT Gibbs ensemble. Although the TraPPE-UA force field is rather simple and makes use of relatively few different pseudo-atoms, its performance, as judged by comparisons to other popular force fields and available experimental data, is very satisfactory.

Verification and validation are the primary means to assess accuracy and reliability in computational simulations. This paper presents an extensive review of the literature in computational validation and develops a number of extensions to existing ideas. We discuss the early work in validation by the operations research, statistics, and CFD communities. The emphasis in our review is to bring together the diverse contributors to validation methodology and procedures. The disadvantages of standard practice of qualitative graphical validation are pointed out and the arguments for and the literature on validation quantification are presented. We discuss the attributes of a beneficial validation experiment hierarchy and then we give an example for a complex system; a hypersonic cruise missile. We present six recommended characteristics of how a validation experiment is designed, executed, and analyzed. Since one of the key features of a validation experiment is a careful experimental uncertainty estimation analysis, we discuss a statistical procedure that has been developed for improving the estimation of experimental uncertainty. One facet of code verification, the estimation of computational error and uncertainty, is discussed in some detail, but we do not address many other important issues in code verification. We argue for the separation of the concepts of error and uncertainty in computational simulations. Error estimation, primarily that due to numerical solution error, is discussed with regard to its importance in validation. In the same vein, we explain the need to move toward nondeterministic simulations in CFD validation, that is, the propagation of input quantity uncertainty in CFD simulations which yield probabilistic output quantities. We discuss the relatively new concept of validation quantification, also referred to as validation metrics. The inadequacy, in our view, of hypothesis testing in computational validation is discussed. We close the paper by presenting our ideas on validation metrics and we apply them to two conceptual examples. © 2000 The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc.

A number of one- and two-equation turbulence models are examined for hypersonic perfect- and real-gas flows with laminar, transitional, and turbulent flow regions. These models were generally developed for incompressible flows, and the extension to the hypersonic flow regime is discussed. In particular, inconsistencies in the formulation of diffusion terms for one-equation models are examined. For the Spalart-Allmaras model, the standard method for forcing transition at a specified location is found to be inadequate for hypersonic flows. An alternative transition method is proposed and evaluated for a Mach 8 flat plate test case. This test case is also used to evaluate three different two-equation turbulence models:.a low Reynolds number k - ε model, the Menter k-ω formulation, and the Wilcox (1998) k -ω model. These one- and two-equation models are then applied to the Mach 20 Reentry F flight vehicle. The Spalart-Allmaras model and both k-ω formulations are found to provide good agreement with the flight data for heat flux, while the Baldwin-Barth and low Reynolds number k - ε models overpredict the turbulent heating rates. Careful attention is given to solution verification in the areas of both iterative and grid convergence. © protection in the United States.

Preconcentration is a critical analytical procedure when designing a microsystem for trace chemical detection, because it can purify a sample mixture and boost the small analyte concentration to a much higher level allowing a better analysis. This paper describes the development of a micro-fabricated planar preconcentrator for the μChemLab™ at Sandia. To guide the design, an analytical model to predict the analyte transport, adsorption and desorption process in the preconcentrator has been developed. Experiments have also been conducted to analyze the adsorption and desorption process and to validate the model. This combined effort of modeling, simulation, and testing has led us to build a reliable, efficient preconcentrator with good performance.

A study of zeolite crystallization from sol-gel precursors using the vapor phase transport synthesis method has been performed. Zeolites (ZSM-5, ZSM-48, zeolite P, and sodalite) were crystallized by contacting vapor phase organic or organic-water mixtures with dried sodium silicate and dried sodium alumino-silicate gels. For each precursor gel, a ternary phase system of vapor phase organic reactant molecules was explored. The vapor phase reactant mixtures ranged from pure ethylene diamine, triethylamine, or water, to an equimolar mixture of each. In addition, a series of gels with varied physical and chemical properties were crystallized using the same vapor phase solvent mixture for each gel. The precursor gels and the crystalline products were analyzed via scanning electron microscopy, electron dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray mapping, powder X-ray diffraction, nitrogen surface area, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and thermal analyses. The product phase and purity as a function of the solvent mixture, precursor gel structure, and precursor gel chemistry is discussed.

The accuracy of solar cells calibrated as primary reference cells is directly dependent on the accuracy of the pyrheliometer used to measure the direct beam solar irradiance on the cell. Pyrheliometers are also used in measuring performance of concentrating photovoltaic modules. In order to reduce errors in photovoltaic performance measurements, we have investigated the calibration uncertainties for pyrheliometers from two manufacturers. Our calibration comparisons are relative to an absolute cavity radiometer traceable to the World Radiometric Reference. This paper quantifies the effects of aging, temperature, time-rate-of-change of temperature, wind, solar spectral shifts, linearity, window transmission, and solar tracking on pyrheliometer calibrations. Uncertainty remaining after accounting for these factors is 0.8% at the 2-sigma level.

The objective of this study was to investigate the technology used by Spectrolab Inc. to manufacture photovoltaic modules that have provided twenty years of reliable service at Natural Bridges National Monument in southeastern Utah. A field survey, system performance tests, and a series of module and materials tests have confirmed the durability of the modules in the array. The combination of manufacturing processes, materials, and quality controls used by Spectrolab resulted in modules that have maintained a performance level close to the original specifications for twenty years. Specific contributors to the durability of the modules included polyinyl-butyral (PVB) encapsulant, expanded metal interconnects, silicon oxide anti-reflective coating, and excellent solder/substrate solderability.

A new valve regulated lead-acid (VRLA) gel motive power battery and PV system power center have been tested in the laboratory and at a PV hybrid telecommunication site. The power center provides battery charge control, system remote communications, and data acquisition at the field test site. Extensive laboratory and field-test data were used to improve battery performance by optimizing regulation voltages, finish-charge, and system design. After 1.5-years of service, battery and charge controller performance have met all performance requirements for the remote communications site at Sandia National Laboratories.

The bulk electrical anisotropy of sedimentary formations is a macroscopic phenomenon whic h can result from the presence of sand/shale laminae and varations in grain size and pore space. Accounting for its effects on induction log response is an ongoing research problem for the w ell-logging communit y since these types of sedimentary stuctures have long been correlated with productive hydrocarbon reservoirs. Presented here is a finite difference method for sim ulatingEM induction in a fully 3D anisotropic medium. This w ork differs from previous modeling efforts in that the electrical conductivity of the formation is represented as a full 3×3 tensor whose elements can vary arbitrarily with position throughout the formation. As an example, we simulate borehole induction tool responses in a crossbedded eolian sandstone to demonstrate the challenge faced by interpreters when electrical anisotropy is neglected.

Photovoltaic (PV) power systems, like other electrical systems, may be subject to unexpected ground faults. Installed PV systems always have invisible elements other than those indicated by their electrical schematics. Stray inductance, capacitance and resistance are distributed throughout the system. Leakage currents associated with the PV modules, the interconnected array, wires, surge protection devices and conduit add up and can become large enough to look like a ground-fault. PV systems are frequently connected to other sources of power or energy storage such as batteries, standby generators, and the utility grid. This complex arrangement of distributed power and energy sources, distributed impedance and proximity to other sources of power requires sensing of ground faults and proper reaction by the ground-fault protection devices. The different dc grounding requirements (country to country) often add more confusion to the situation. This paper discusses the ground-fault issues associated with both the dc and ac side of PV systems and presents test results and operational impacts of backfeeding commercially available ac ground-fault protection devices under various modes of operation. Further, the measured effects of backfeeding the tripped ground-fault devices for periods of time comparable to anti-islanding allowances for utility interconnection of PV inverters in the United States are reported.

Triple junction InGaP/GaAs/Ge solar cells are highly current mismatched due to the excess current generating capability of the germanium subcell. This severe current mismatch invites new approaches for increasing performance beyond that of current triple junctions. Presented here are two approaches for improving the efficiency of III-V multi-junctions beyond that of current triple junction technology. Both of these approaches involve the use of thin epitaxial germanium and do not require the development of new ∼1eV photovoltaic materials. The theoretical AM0 efficiency is over 30%. Modeling suggests the potential for over 1.5% absolute efficiency gain with respect to current InGaP/GaAs/Ge triple junction solar cells.

Sub-wavelength periodic texturing (gratings) of crystalline-silicon (c-Si) surfaces for solar cell applications can be designed for maximizing optical absorption in thin c-Si films. We have investigated c-Si grating structures using rigorous modeling, hemispherical reflectance, and internal quantum efficiency measurements. Model calculations predict almost ∼ 100 % energy coupling into obliquely propagating diffraction orders. By fabrication and optical characterization of a wide range of ID & 2D c-Si grating structures, we have achieved broadband, low (∼ 5 %) reflectance without an anti-reflection film. By integrating grating structures into conventional solar cell designs, we have demonstrated short-circuit current density enhancements of 3.4 and 4.1 mA/cm2 for rectangular and triangular 1D grating structures compared to planar controls. The effective path length enhancements due to these gratings were 2.2 and 1.7, respectively. Optimized 2D gratings are expected to have even better performance.

A maskless plasma texturing technique using Reactive Ion Etching for silicon solar cells results in a very low reflectance of 5.4 % before, and 3.9 % after SiN deposition. A detailed study of surface recombination and emitter properties was made, then solar cells were fabricated using the DOSS solar cell process. Different plasma-damage removal treatments are tested to optimize low lifetime solar cell efficiencies. Highest efficiencies are observed for little or no plasma-damage removal etching on mc-Si. Increased Jsc due to the RIE texture proved superior to a single layer anti-reflection coating. This indicates that RIE texturing is a promising texturing technique, especially applicable on lower lifetime (multicrystalline) silicon. The use of non-toxic, non-corrosive SF6 makes this process attractive for mass production.

The contact adhesive forces between two surfaces, one being a soft hemisphere and the other being a hard plate, can readily be determined by applying an external compressive load to mate the two surfaces and subsequently applying a tensile load to peel the surfaces apart. The contact region is assumed the superposition of elastic Hertzian pressure and of the attractive surface forces that act only over the contact area. What are the effects of the degree of surface contamination on adhesive forces? Clean aluminum surfaces were coated with hexadecane as a controlled contaminant. The force required to pull an elastomeric hemisphere from a surface was determined by contact mechanics, via the JKR model, using a model siloxane network for the elastomeric contact sphere. Due to the dispersive nature of the elastomer surface, larger forces were required to pull the sphere from a contaminated surface than a clean aluminum oxide surface.

A new class of semiconductor laser is presented that does not require p-n junctions. Spectral narrowing, lasing thresholds, beam divergence, temporal narrowing, and energies are shown for these lasers based on current filaments in bulk GaAs.

Some materials may naturally form discontinuities such as cracks as a result of deformation. As an aid to the modeling of such materials, a new framework for the basic equations of continuum mechanics, called the 'peridynamic' formulation, is proposed. The propagation of linear stress waves in the new theory is discussed, and wave dispersion relations are derived. Material stability and its connection with wave propagation is investigated. It is demonstrated by an example that the reformulated approach permits the solution of fracture problems using the same equations either on or off the crack surface or crack tip. This is an advantage for modeling problems in which the location of a crack is not known in advance. © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Trapped protons and electrons in the Earth's radiation belts and cosmic rays present significant challenges for electronics that must operate reliably in the natural space environment. Single event effects (SEE) can lead to sudden device or system failure, and total dose effects ran reduce the lifetime of a space-based telecommunications system. One of the greatest sources of uncertainty in developing radiation requirements for a space system is accounting for the small but finite probability that the system will be exposed to a massive solar particle event. Once specifications are decided, standard laboratory tests are available to predict the total dose response of MOS and bipolar components in space, but SEE testing of components can be more challenging. Prospects are discussed for device modeling and for the use of standard commercial electronics in space. © 1999 IEEE.

A long-standing conjecture in combinatorial optimization says that the integrality gap of the famous Held-Karp relaxation of the symmetric TSP is precisely 4/3. In this paper, we show that a slight strengthening of this conjecture implies a tight 4/3 integrality gap for a linear programming relaxation of the asymmetric TSP. This is surprising since no constant-factor approximation is known for the latter problem. Our main tools are a new characterization of the integrality gap for linear objective functions over polyhedra, and the isolation of `hard-to-round' solutions of the relaxations.

A capacitated covering integer programs (IP) is an integer program of the form min{cx|Ux≥d, 0≤x≤b, x∈Z+}, where all entries of c, U and d are nonnegative. Given such a formulation, the ratio between the optimal integer solution and the optimal solution to the linear program relaxation can be as bad as ∥d∥, even when U consists of a single row. It is shown that by adding additional inequalities, this ratio can be improved significantly. In the general case, the improved ratio is shown to be bounded by the maximum number of non-zero coefficients in a row of U, and a polynomial-time approximation is proved to achieve this bound.

The decomposition of unconfined rigid polyurethane foam has been modeled by a kinetic bond-breaking scheme describing degradation of a primary polymer and formation of a thermally stable secondary polymer. The bond-breaking scheme is resolved using percolation theory to describe evolving polymer fragments. The polymer fragments vaporize according to individual vapor pressures. Kinetic parameters for the model were obtained from thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). The chemical structure of the foam was determined from the preparation techniques and ingredients used to synthesize the foam. Scale-up effects were investigated by simulating the response of an incident heat flux of 25 W/cm2 on a partially confined 8.8-cm diameter by 15-cm long right circular cylinder of foam that contained an encapsulated component. Predictions of internal foam and component temperatures, as well as regression of the foam surface, were in agreement with measurements using thermocouples and X-ray imaging.

An algorithm known as SMAC (Synthesize Modes And Correlate), based on principles of modal filtering, has been in development for a few years. The new capabilities of the automated version are demonstrated on test data from a complex shell/payload system. Examples of extractions from impact and shaker data are shown. The automated algorithm extracts 30 to 50 modes in the bandwidth from each column of the frequency response function matrix. Examples of the synthesized Mode Indicator Functions (MIFs) compared with the actual MIFs show the accuracy of the technique. A data set for one input and 170 accelerometer outputs can typically be reduced in an hour. Application to a test with some complex modes is also demonstrated.

The spectacular progress made during the last few years in reaching high energy densities in fast implosions of annular current sheaths (fast Z pinches) opens new possibilities for a broad spectrum of experiments, from x-ray generation to controlled thermonuclear fusion and astrophysics. At present Z pinches are the most intense laboratory x-ray sources (1.8 MJ in 5 ns from a volume 2 mm in diameter and 2 cm tall). Powers in excess of 200 TW have been obtained. This warrants summarizing the present knowledge of physics that governs the behavior of radiating, current-carrying plasma in fast Z pinches. This survey covers essentially all aspects of the physics of fast Z pinches: initiation, instabilities of the early stage, magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor instability in the implosion phase, formation of a transient quasiequilibrium near the stagnation point, and rebound. Considerable attention is paid to the analysis of hydrodynamic instabilities governing the implosion symmetry. Possible ways of mitigating these instabilities are discussed. Nonmagnetohydrodynamic effects (anomalous resistivity, generation of particle beams, etc.) are summarized. Various applications of fast Z pinches are briefly described. Scaling laws governing development of more powerful Z pinches are presented.

Important factors in the application of sensing technology to space applications are low mass, small size, and low power. All of these attributes are enabled by the application of MEMS and micro-fabrication technology to micro-sensors. Two types of sensors are utilized in space applications: remotes sensing from orbit around the earth or another planetary body, and point sensing in the spacecraft or external to it. Several Sandia projects that apply microfabrication technologies to the development of new sensing capabilities having the potential for space applications will be briefly described. The Micro-Navigator is a project to develop a MEMS-based device to measure acceleration and rotation in all three axes for local area navigation. The Polychromator project is a joint project with Honeywell and MIT to develop an electrically programmable diffraction grating that can be programmed to synthesize the spectra of molecules. This grating will be used as the reference cell in a gas correlation radiometer to enable remote chemical detection of most chemical species. Another area of research where micro-fabrication is having a large impact is the development of a "lab on a chip." Sandia's efforts to develop the μChemLab™ will be described including the development of microfabricated pre-concentrators, chromatographic columns, and detectors. Smart sensors that allow the spacecraft independent decision making capabilities depend on pattern recognition. Sandia's development of a new pattern recognition methodology that can be used to interpret sensor response as well as for target recognition applications will be described.

Microsystems involve several fabrication technologies, but share the common trait of dimensions and motions measured in microns. Small feature sizes and deflections make the detection of microdevice motion particularly difficult. The rapid operating frequencies of many microactuators compound the detection problem. Effective feedback, control, and performance measurement of microactuators thus become problematic. These measurements are particularly important, however, due to the developmental nature of many microsystem technologies. Wear, lifetime issues, and optimized drive signals, for example, are poorly understood for many actuation devices. As microactuators move out of the development stage and begin to perform work on external assemblies and environments, the various load conditions will also come into account. Since microactuators involve small masses and inertias, effective driving of external loads may require feedback-based control of the microdevice. Optical sensing technologies offer solutions to these problems of sensor motion, microactuator analysis during the development process, and integrated feedback for microactuators driving external loads. Optical methods also end themselves to the effectively 1D nature of many microsystem motions, limiting the required signal analysis to practical levels that support real-time measurement and control. This paper describes several optical techniques for sensing motion, performance, and feedback data, some of which can integrated with the microsystems themselves. For microactuators, experimental results indicate that real-time performance measurements are particularly revealing for understanding device motion and response. For microsensors, experimental result are also presented for interpreting motion using external and integrated optical techniques.

This paper describes mechanical designed concepts for a class of pivoting micromirrors that permit relatively large angles of orientation to be obtained when configured in large arrays. Micromirror arrays can be utilized in a variety of applications ranging from optical switching to beam-front correction in a variety of technologies. This particular work is concerned with silicon surface micromachining. The multi-layer polysilicon surface micromachined process developed at Sandia National Laboratories is used to fabricate micromirror arrays that consists of capacitive electrode pairs which are used to electrostatically actuator mirrors to their desired positions and suitable elastic suspensions which support the 2 micrometers thick mirror structures. The designs described have been fabricated and successfully operated.

The thermal conductivity of 304 stainless steel has been estimated from transient temperature measurements and knowing the volumetric heat capacity. Sensitivity coefficients were used to guide the design of this experiment as well as to estimate the confidence interval in the estimated thermal conductivity. The uncertainty on the temperature measurements was estimated by several means, and its impact on the estimated conductivity is discussed. The estimated thermal conductivity of 304 stainless steel is consistent with results from other sources.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plan requires a dependable shaft seal system to isolate the waste from the biosphere. This paper describes the shaft sealing system, which is designed to limit fluid transport through the four existing shafts. The design approach applies redundancy to functional elements and specifies multiple, common, low-permeability materials to ensure reliable performance. The system comprises 13 elements that completely fill the shafts with engineered materials possessing high density and low permeability. Laboratory and field measurements of component properties and performance provide the basis for the design and related evaluations. Hydrologic, mechanical, thermal, and physical features of the system are evaluated in a series of calculations. These calculations indicate that the design limits transport of fluids within the shafts, thereby limiting transport of hazardous material to regulatory boundaries. Additionally, the use or adaptation of existing technologies for seal construction combined with the use of available common materials assure that the design can be constructed.

Thermal oxide and PETEOS oxide surfaces, polished on an IPEC 472 with different combinations of polish pad, slurry, and polishing conditions, were studied with ex situ atomic force microscopy. The post polish surfaces were analyzed qualitatively by visual inspection and quantitatively by spectral and scaling analyses. Spectral and scaling analyses gave consistent interpretations of morphology evolution. Polishing with either a fixed abrasive pad or alumina-based slurry occurred via a mechanism for which asperities are removed and recesses are filled. A sputtering-type mechanism may contribute to material removal when polishing with silica- or ceria-based slurries.

Conventional electroactive stack components in thermal batteries are constructed from pressed-powder parts. These include the anode, separator, and cathode pellets (discs). Pressing parts that are less than 0.010 inch thick is difficult. The use of plasma spray to deposit thin CoS{sub 2} cathode films onto a stainless steel substrate was examined as an alternative to pressed-powder cathodes. The plasma-sprayed electrodes were tested in single cells under isothermal conditions and constant-current discharge over a temperature range of 400 C to 550 C using standard LiSi anodes and separators based on the LiCl-KCl eutectic. Similar tests were conducted with cells built with conventional pressed-powder cathodes, which were tested under the same conditions for comparative purposes. This paper presents the results of those tests.

A Total System Performance Assessment (TSPA) of Yucca Mountain consists of integrated sub-models and analyses of natural and engineered systems. Examples of subsystem models include unsaturated-zone flow and transport, seepage into drifts, coupled thermal hydrologic processes, transport through the engineered barrier system, and saturated-zone flow and transport. The TSPA evaluates the interaction of important processes among these subsystems, and it determines the impact of these processes on the overall performance measures (e.g., dose rate to humans). This paper summarizes the evaluation, abstraction, and combination of these subsystem models in a TSPA calculation, and it provides background on the individual TSPA subsystem components that are most directly impacted by geotechnical issues. The potential impact that geologic features, events, and processes have on the overall performance is presented, and an evaluation of the sensitivity of TSPA calculations to these issues is also provided.

Monte Carlo simulations of phosphate tetrahedron connectivity distributions in alkali and alkaline earth phosphate glasses are reported. By utilizing a discrete bond model, the distribution of next-nearest neighbor connectivities between phosphate polyhedron for random, alternating and clustering bonding scenarios was evaluated as a function of the relative bond energy difference. The simulated distributions are compared to experimentally observed connectivities reported for solid-state two-dimensional exchange and double-quantum NMR experiments of phosphate glasses. These Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that the polyhedron connectivity is best described by a random distribution in lithium phosphate and calcium phosphate glasses.

A substantial decrease in hydrostatic ferroelectric (FE) to antiferroelectric (AFE) transformation pressure was measured for Pb(Zr{sub 0.949}Ti{sub 0.051}){sub 0.989}Nb{sub 0.0182}O{sub 3} ceramics with decreasing grain size. The 150 MPa decrease in hydrostatic FE to AFE transformation pressure over the grain size range of 8.5 {micro}m to 0.7{micro}m was shown to be consistent with enhanced internal stress with decreasing grain size. Further, the Curie Point decreased and the dielectric constant measured at 25 C increased with decreasing grain size. All three properties: dielectric constant magnitude, Curie point shift and FE to AFE phase transformation pressure were shown to be semi-quantitatively consistent with internal stress differences on the order of 100 MPa. Calculations of Curie point shifts from the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, using internal stress levels derived from the hydrostatic depoling characteristics, were consistent with measured values.

Microstructural evolution due to aging of solder alloys determines their long-term reliability as electrical, mechanical and thermal interconnects in electronics packages. The ability to accurately determine the reliability of existing electronic components as well as to predict the performance of proposed designs depends upon the development of reliable material models. A kinetic Monte Carlo simulation was used to simulate microstructural evolution in solder-class materials. The grain growth model simulated many of the microstructural features observed experimentally in 63Sn-37Pb, a popular near-eutectic solder alloy. The model was validated by comparing simulation results to new experimental data on coarsening of Sn-Pb solder. The computational and experimental grain growth exponent for two-phase solder was found to be much lower than that for normal, single phase grain growth. The grain size distributions of solders obtained from simulations were narrower than that of normal grain growth. It was found that the phase composition of solder is important in determining grain growth behavior.

The stress-relief cracking susceptibility of single-pass welds in a new ferritic steel, HCM2S, has been evaluated and compared to 2.25Cr-1Mo steel using Gleeble techniques. Simulated coarse-grained heat-affected zones (CGHAZ) were produced under a range of energy inputs and tested at various post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) temperatures. Both alloys were tested at a stress of 325 MPa. The 2.25 Cr-1Mo steel was also tested at 270 MPa to normalize for the difference in yield strength between the two materials. Light optical and scanning electron microscopy were used to characterize the CGHAZ microstructure. The ''as-welded'' CGHAZ of each alloy consisted of lath martensite or bainite and had approximately equal prior austenite grain sizes. The as-welded hardness of the 2.25Cr-1Mo steel CGHAZ was significantly higher than that of the HCM2S alloy. Over the range studied energy input had no effect on the as-welded microstructure or hardness of either alloy. The energy input also had no effect on the stress-relief cracking susceptibility of either material. Both alloys failed intergranularly along prior austenite grain boundaries under all test conditions. The 2.25Cr-1Mo steel samples experienced significant macroductility and some microductility when tested at 325 MPa. The ductility decreased significantly when tested at 270 MPa but was still higher that than of HCM2S at each test condition. The time to failure decreased with increasing PWHT Temperature for each material. There was no significant difference in the times to failure between the two materials. Varying energy input and stress had no effect on the time-to failure. The ductility, as measured by reduction in are% increased with increasing PWHT temperature for 2.25 Cr-1Mo steel tested at both stresses. However, PWHT temperature had no effect on the ductility of HCM2S. The hardness of the CGHAZ for 2.25Cr-1Mo steel decreased significantly after PWHT, but remained constant for HCM2S. The differences in stress-relief cracking response are discussed in terms of the differences in composition and expected carbide precipitation sequence for each alloy during PWHT.

A new two-dimensional photonic crystal (2D PC) slab structure was created with a full three-dimensional light confinement. Guided modes with broad bandwidth and high transmission within the band gap are also observed. As an optical analog to electronic crystals, PC promises a revolution in the photonic world similar to the electronic revolution created by the electronic band gap engineering in semiconductor. 2D PC has an advantage of being easier to fabricate at optical wavelength ({lambda}) comparing with 3D PC. However, the light leakage in the vertical direction has been the main problem for using 2D PC in opto-electronic application. In this study, the authors solve this problem by combining traditional 2D PC with strong vertical index guiding between the waveguide layer (GaAs) and the cladding layer (Al{sub x}O{sub y}). A set of triangular lattice holes 2D PC's were fabricated with lattice constant a=460nm, hole diameter (d=0.6a) and waveguide layer thickness (t = 0.5a). Those parameters were chosen to maximize the TE photonic band gap (PBG) around {lambda} = 1.55{micro}m. The depth of etched holes is {approximately}0.6{micro}m and the 2{micro}m thick Al{sub x}O{sub y} cladding layer is obtained by thermal oxidation of Al{sub 0.9}Ga{sub 0.1}As. PC waveguides were also created by introducing line defects along {Gamma}K direction. The authors perform transmission measurement by coupling light to PC with 3{micro}m wide waveguides which extends {approximately}0.6mm on both sides of PC. An aspheric lens with NA = 0.4 is used to focus the collimated light from tunable diode laser into the input waveguide. Another identical lens is used to collect the transmitted light and focus to an infrared (IR) camera and a calibrated photo-detector with a beamsplitter. The Gaussian waveguide mode indicates that the signal detected by the photodetector comes only from the light interacting with PC and propagating along the waveguide. The absolute transmittance is obtained by normalizing the transmission with a reference measured with a nominally identical waveguide without PC.

Solute redistribution and microstructural evolution have been modeled for gas tungsten arc fusion welds in experimental Ni base superalloys. The multi-component alloys were modeled as a pseudo-ternary {gamma}-Nb-C system. The variation in fraction liquid and liquid composition during the primary L {r{underscore}arrow} {gamma} and eutectic type L {r{underscore}arrow} ({gamma} + NbC) stages of solidification were calculated for conditions of negligible Nb diffusion and infinitely rapid C diffusion in the solid phase. Input parameters were estimated by using the Thermo-Calc NiFe Alloy data base and compared to experimentally determined solidification parameters. The solidification model results provide useful information for qualitatively interpreting the influence of alloy composition on weld microstructure. The quantitative comparisons indicate that, for the alloy system evaluated, the thermodynamic database provides sufficiently accurate values for the distribution coefficients of Nb and C. The calculated position of the {gamma}-NbC two-fold saturation line produces inaccurate results when used as inputs for the model, indicating further refinement to the database is needed for quantitative estimates.

Recent improvements in z-pinch wire array load design at Sandia National Laboratories have led to a substantial increase in pinch performance as measured by radiated powers of up to 280 TW in 4 ns and 1.8 MJ of total radiated energy. Next generation, higher current machines will allow for larger mass arrays and comparable or higher velocity implosions to be reached, possibly extending these result.dis the current is pushed above 20 MA, conventional machine design based on a 100 ns implosion time results in higher voltages, hence higher cost and power flow risk. Another approach, which shifts the risk to the load configuration, is to increase the implosion time to minimize the voltage. This approach is being investigated in a series of experimental campaigns on the Saturn and Z machines. In this paper, both experimental and two dimensional computational modeling of the fist long implosion Z experiments will be presented. The experimental data shows broader pulses, lower powers, and larger pinch diameters compared to the corresponding short pulse data. By employing a nested array configuration, the pinch diameter was reduced by 50% with a corresponding increase in power of > 30%. Numerical simulations suggest load velocity is the dominating mechanism behind these results.

Microstructure-level residual stresses arise in polycrystalline ceramics during processing as a result of thermal expansion anisotropy and crystallographic disorientation across the grain boundaries. Depending upon the grain size, the magnitude of these stresses can be sufficiently high to cause spontaneous microcracking during the processing of these materials. They are also likely to affect where cracks initiate and propagate under macroscopic loading. The magnitudes of residual stresses in untextured and textured alumina samples were predicted using object oriented finite (OOF) element analysis and experimentally determined grain orientations. The crystallographic orientations were obtained by electron-backscattered diffraction (EBSD). The residual stresses were lower and the stress distributions were narrower in the textured samples compared to those in the untextured samples. Crack initiation and propagation were also simulated using the Griffith fracture criterion. The grain boundary to surface energy ratios required for computations were estimated using AFM groove measurements.

Selectively oxidized vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELS) have been studied by spectrally resolved near field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM). We have obtained spatially and spectrally resolved images of both subthreshold emission and lasing emission from a selectively oxidized VCSEL operating at a wavelength of 850 nm. Below threshold, highly local high gain regions, emitting local intensity maxima within the active area, were observed; these were found to serve as lasing centers just above threshold. Above threshold, the near field spatial modal distributions of low order transverse modes were identified by spectrally analyzing the emission; these were found to be complex and significantly different from those measured in the far field.

Finite difference methods for solving the wave equation more accurately capture the physics of waves propagating through the earth than asymptotic solution methods. Unfortunately. finite difference simulations for 3D elastic wave propagation are expensive. We model waves in a 3D isotropic elastic earth. The wave equation solution consists of three velocity components and six stresses. The partial derivatives are discretized using 2nd-order in time and 4th-order in space staggered finite difference operators. Staggered schemes allow one to obtain additional accuracy (via centered finite differences) without requiring additional storage. The serial code is most unique in its ability to model a number of different types of seismic sources. The parallel implementation uses the MP1 library, thus allowing for portability between platforms. Spatial parallelism provides a highly efficient strategy for parallelizing finite difference simulations. In this implementation, one can decompose the global problem domain into one-, two-, and three-dimensional processor decompositions with 3D decompositions generally producing the best parallel speed up. Because i/o is handled largely outside of the time-step loop (the most expensive part of the simulation) we have opted for straight-forward broadcast and reduce operations to handle i/o. The majority of the communication in the code consists of passing subdomain face information to neighboring processors for use as ''ghost cells''. When this communication is balanced against computation by allocating subdomains of reasonable size, we observe excellent scaled speed up. Allocating subdomains of size 25 x 25 x 25 on each node, we achieve efficiencies of 94% on 128 processors. Numerical examples for both a layered earth model and a homogeneous medium with a high-velocity blocky inclusion illustrate the accuracy of the parallel code.

Evaporation is a classical physics problem which, because of its significant importance for many engineering applications, has drawn considerable attention by previous researchers. Classical theoretical models [Ta. I. Frenkel, Kinetic Theory of Liquids, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1946] represent evaporation in a simplistic way as the escape of atoms with highest velocities from a potential well with the depth determined by the atomic binding energy. The processes taking place in the gas phase above the rapidly evaporating surface have also been studied in great detail [S.I.Anisimov and V. A. Khokhlov, Instabilities in Lasser-Matter Interaction, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1995]. The description of evaporation utilizing these models is known to adequately characterize drilling with high beam intensity, e.g., >10{sup 7} W/cm{sup 2}. However, the interaction regimes when beam intensity is relatively low, such as during welding or cutting, lack both theoretical and experimental consideration of the evaporation. It was shown recently that if the evaporation is treated in accordance with Anisimov et.al.'s approach, then predicted evaporation recoil should be a substantial factor influencing melt flow and related heat transfer during laser beam welding and cutting. To verify the applicability of this model for low beam intensity interaction, the authors compared the results of measurements and calculations of recoil pressure generated during laser beam irradiation of a target. The target material used was water ice at {minus}10 C. The displacement of a target supported in a nearly frictionless air bearing under irradiation by a defocused laser beam from a 14 kW CO{sub 2} laser was recorded and Newton's laws of motion used to derive the recoil pressure.

Silicon (Si) has a strength to density ratio of 3.0({sigma}{sub y}/{delta}=(6.8GPa/2.3g/cc)), an order-of-magnitude higher than titanium, aluminum, or stainless steel. Silicon also demonstrates favorable thermal, optical, and electrical properties making it ideal for use as a structural foundation for autonomous, mesoscopic systems such as nanosatellites. Using Si substrates, a structure that can simultaneously act as a thermal management system, a radiation shield, an optical material, a package, and a semiconductor substrate can be realized.

Abstract not provided.

To date most validation techniques are highly biased towards calculations involving symbolic representations of problems. These calculations are either formal (in the case of consistency and completeness checks), or informal in the case of code inspections. The authors believe that an essential type of evidence of the correctness of the formalization process must be provided by (i.e., must originate from) human-based calculation. They further believe that human calculation can by significantly amplified by shifting from symbolic representations to graphical representations. This paper describes their preliminary efforts in realizing such a representational shift.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how transformation can be used to derive a high integrity implementation of a train controller from an algorithmic specification. The paper begins with a general discussion of high consequence systems (e.g., software systems) and describes how rewrite-based transformation systems can be used in the development of such systems. The authors then discuss how such transformations can be used to derive a high assurance controller for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system from an algorithmic specification.

A key step in the construction of high consequence software is its specification in a formal framework. In order to minimize the difficulty and potential for error, a specification should be expressed in a domain language supporting operators and structures that are intrinsic to the class of algorithms one wishes to specify. In this paper the authors describe a language that is suitable for the algorithmic specification of software controllers for a class of reactive systems of which the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system is an instance. The authors then specify an abstract controller for a subset of BART using this language.

The authors have investigated LiNi{sub 0.8}Co{sub 0.2}O{sub 2} (Sumitomo) and LiNi{sub 5/8}Co{sub 1/4}Mn{sub 1/16}Al{sub 1/16}O{sub 2} (Sandia chemical preparation method) cathode powders via in-situ X-ray Diffraction and Cyclic Voltammetry using a coffee-bag type electrochemical cell. Both cathode materials did not show a monoclinic distortion during de-intercalation but sustained the hexagonal structure up to 4.3 V. The doping of Co into the LiNiO{sub 2} structure appears to stabilize this lattice as the hexagonal structure over the full range of charging (up to 4.3 V). The LiNi{sub 5/8}Co{sub 1/4}Mn{sub 1/16}Al{sub 1/16}O{sub 2} cathode material exhibited a 160 mAh/g capacity (to 4.1 V) on its 1{sup st} cycle, while displaying a much smaller volume change (as compared to LiNi{sub 0.8}Co{sub 0.2}O{sub 2}) during de-intercalation. This reduced overall volume change (2.5 vol%) may have important implications for cycle life of this material.

Filamentation, and consequently output beam quality in InGaN quantum-well lasers are found to be strong functions of quantum-well width because of the interplay of quantum-confined Stark effect and many-body interactions. For an In{sub 0.2}Ga{sub 0.8}N/GaN gain medium the antiguiding factor in a thick 4nm quantum well is considerably smaller than that for a narrow 2nm one. As a result, lasers with the thicker quantum well maintain fundamental-mode operation with wider stripe widths and at significantly higher excitation levels.

High resolution measurements of spectrally resolved cathodoluminescence (CL) decay have been made in several commercial and experimental phosphors doped with Eu and Tb at beam energies ranging from 0.8 to 4 keV. CL emission from the lowest two excited states of both rare earth activators was compared to the decay of photoluminescence (PL) after pulsed laser excitation. We find that, at long times after the cessation of electron excitation, the CL decay rates are comparable to those measured in PL, at short times, the decay process is considerably faster and has a noticeable dependence on the energy of the electron beam. These beam energy effects are largest for the higher excited states and for phosphors with larger activator concentrations. Measurements of the experimental phosphors over a range of activator fractions from 0.1 to 0.002 show that the beam energy dependence of the steady-state CL efficiency is larger for higher excited states and weakens as the activator concentration is reduced. The latter effect is strongest for Y{sub 2}SiO{sub 5}:Tb, but also quite evident in Y{sub 2}O{sub 3}:Eu. We suggest that the electron beam dependence of both the decay lifetimes and the steady state CL efficiency may be due to interaction of nearby excited states which occurs as a result of the large energy deposition rate for low energy electrons. This picture-for non-radiative quenching of rare earth emission is an excited state analog of the well-known (ground state-excited state) concentration quenching mechanism.

Hydrolysis and condensation of organically bridged bis-triethoxysilanes, (EtO){sub 3}Si-R-Si(OEt){sub 3}, results in the formation of three dimensional organic/inorganic hybrid networks (Equation 1). Properties of these materials, including porosity, are dependent on the nature of the bridging group, R. Flexible groups (akylene-spacers longer than five carbons in length) polymerize under acidic conditions to give non-porous materials. Rigid groups (such as arylene-, alkynylene-, or alkenylene) form non-porous, microporous, and macroporous gels. In many cases the pore size distributions are quite narrow. One of the motivations for preparing hybrid organic-inorganic materials is to extend the range of properties available with sol-gel systems by incorporating organic groups into the inorganic network. For example, organically modified silica gels arc either prepared by co-polymerizing an organoalkoxysilane with a silica precursor or surface silylating the inorganic gel. This can serve to increase hydrophobicity or to introduce some reactive organic functionality. However, the type and orientation of these organic functionalities is difficult to control. Furthermore, many organoalkoxysilanes can act to inhibitor even prevent gelation, limiting the final density of organic functionalities. We have devised a new route for preparing highly functionalized pores in hybrid materials using bridging groups that are thermally converted into the desired functionalities after the gel has been obtained. In this paper, we present the preparation and characterization of bridged polysilsesquioxanes with Diels-Alder adducts as the bridging groups from the sol-gel polymerization of monomers 2 and 4. The bridging groups are constructed such that the retro Diela-Alder reaction releases the dienes and leaves the dienophiles as integral parts of the network polymers. In the rigid architecture of a xerogel, this loss of organic functionality should liberate sufficient space to modify the overall porosity. Furthermore, the new porosity will be functionalized with the dienophilic olefin bridging group. We also demonstrate that by changing the type of Diels-Alder adduct used as the bridging group, we can change the temperature at which the retro-Diels-Alder reaction will occur.

This paper describes the model and method used to obtain the periodically estimated uncertainties for measurement of the scattering parameters S{sub 11} and S{sub 22} on a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA). A thru-reflect-line (TRL) method is employed as a second tier calibration to obtain uncertainty estimates using an NIST-calibrated standard. An example of tabulated listings of these uncertainty estimates is presented and the uncertainties obtained for a VNA with 7 mm, 3.5 mm, and type N coaxial interfaces used in the laboratory over several years are summarized.

The study of ecology is taking on increasing global importance as the value of well-functioning ecosystems to human well-being becomes better understood. However, the use of technological systems for the study of ecology lags behind the use of technologies in the study of other disciplines important to human well-being, such as medicine, chemistry and physics. The authors outline four different kinds of large-scale data needs required by land managers for the development of sustainable land use strategies, and which can be obtained with current or future technological systems. They then outline a hypothetical resource management scenario in which data on all those needs are collected using remote and in situ technologies, transmitted to a central location, analyzed, and then disseminated for regional use in maintaining sustainable grazing systems. They conclude by highlighting various data-collection systems and data-sharing networks already in operation.

Laser induced fluorescence has been used to measure the spatial distribution of the two lowest energy argon excited states, 1s{sub 5} and 1s{sub 4}, in inductively driven plasmas containing argon, chlorine and boron trichloride. The behavior of the two energy levels with plasma conditions was significantly different, probably because the 1s{sub 5} level is metastable and the 1s{sub 4} level is radiatively coupled to the ground state but is radiation trapped. The argon data is compared with a global model to identify the relative importance of processes such as electron collisional mixing and radiation trapping. The trends in the data suggest that both processes play a major role in determining the excited state density. At lower rfpower and pressure, excited state spatial distributions in pure argon were peaked in the center of the discharge, with an approximately Gaussian profile. However, for the highest rfpowers and pressures investigated, the spatial distributions tended to flatten in the center of the discharge while the density at the edge of the discharge was unaffected. The spatially resolved excited state density measurements were combined with previous line integrated measurements in the same discharge geometry to derive spatially resolved, absolute densities of the 1s{sub 5} and 1s{sub 4} argon excited states and gas temperature spatial distributions. Fluorescence lifetime was a strong fi.mction of the rf power, pressure, argon fraction and spatial location. Increasing the power or pressure resulted in a factor of two decrease in the fluorescence lifetime while adding Cl{sub 2} or BCl{sub 3} increased the fluorescence lifetime. Excited state quenching rates are derived from the data. When Cl{sub 2} or BCl{sub 3} was added to the plasma, the maximum argon metastable density depended on the gas and ratio. When chlorine was added to the argon plasma, the spatial density profiles were independent of chlorine fraction. While it is energetically possible for argon excited states to dissociate some of the molecular species present in this discharge, it does not appear to be a significant source of dissociation. The major source of interaction between the argon and the molecular species BCl{sub 3} and Cl{sub 2} appears to be through modification of the electron density.

Electron and negative ion densities have been measured in inductively coupled discharges containing C{sub 2}F{sub 6} and CHF{sub 3}. Line integrated electron density was determined using a microwave interferometer, negative ion densities were inferred using laser photodetachment spectroscopy, and electron temperature was determined using a Langmuir probe. For the range of induction powers, pressures and bias power investigated, the electron density peaked at 9 x 10{sup 12} cm{sup -2} (line-integrated) or approximately 9 x 10{sup 11} cm{sup -3}. The negative ion density peaked at approximately 1.3 x 10{sup 11} cm{sup -3}. A maximum in the negative ion density as a function of induction coil power was observed. The maximum is attributed to a power dependent change in the density of one or more of the potential negative ion precursor species since the electron temperature did not depend strongly on power. The variation of photodetachment with laser wavelength indicated that the dominant negative ion was F{sup -}. Measurement of the decay of the negative ion density in the afterglow of a pulse modulated discharge was used to determine the ion-ion recombination rate for CF{sub 4}, C{sub 2}F{sub 6} and CHF{sub 3} discharges.

The load mitigation and energy capture characteristics of twist-coupled HAWT blades that are mounted on a variable speed rotor are investigated in this paper. These blades are designed to twist toward feather as they bend with pretwist set to achieve a desirable twist distribution at rated power. For this investigation, the ADAMS-WT software has been modified to include blade models with bending-twist coupling. Using twist-coupled and uncoupled models, the ADAMS software is exercised for steady wind environments to generate C{sub p} curves at a number of operating speeds to compare the efficiencies of the two models. The ADAMS software is also used to generate the response of a twist-coupled variable speed rotor to a spectrum of stochastic wind time series. This spectrum contains time series with two mean wind speeds at two turbulence levels. Power control is achieved by imposing a reactive torque on the low speed shaft proportional to the RPM squared with the coefficient specified so that the rotor operates at peak efficiency in the linear aerodynamic range, and by limiting the maximum RPM to take advantage of the stall controlled nature of the rotor. Fatigue calculations are done for the generated load histories using a range of material exponents that represent materials from welded steel to aluminum to composites, and results are compared with the damage computed for the rotor without twist-coupling. Results indicate that significant reductions in damage are achieved across the spectrum of applied wind loading without any degradation in power production.

The behavior of H in p-GaN(Mg) at temperatures >400 C is modeled by using energies and vibrational frequencies from density-functional theory to parameterize transport and reaction equations. Predictions agree semiquantitatively with experiment for the solubility, uptake, and release of the H when account is taken of a surface barrier. Hydrogen is introduced into GaN during growth by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and subsequent device processing. This impurity affects electrical properties substantially, notably in p-type GaN doped with Mg where it reduces the effective acceptor concentration. Application of density-functional theory to the zincblende and wurtzite forms of GaN has indicated that dissociated H in interstitial solution assumes positive, neutral, and negative charge states. The neutral species is found to be less stable than one or the other of the charged states for all Fermi energies. Hydrogen is predicted to form a bound neutral complex with Mg, and a local vibrational mode ascribed to this complex has been observed. The authors are developing a unified mathematical description of the diffusion, reactions, uptake, and release of H in GaN at the elevated temperatures of growth and processing. Their treatment is based on zero-temperature energies from density functional theory. One objective is to assess the consistency of theory with experiment at a more quantitative level than previously. A further goal is prediction of H behavior pertinent to device processing. Herein is discussed aspects relating to p-type GaN(Mg).

We present a microscopic theory of the excitonic Stokes and anti-Stokes energy transfer mechanisms between two widely separated unequal quantum wells with a large energy mismatch ({Delta}) at low temperatures (T). Exciton transfer through dipolar coupling, photon-exchange coupling and over-barrier ionization of the excitons through exciton-exciton Auger processes are examined. The energy transfer rate is calculated as a function of T and the center-to-center distance d between the two wells. The rates depend sensitively on T for plane-wave excitons. For located excitons, the rates depend on T only through the T-dependence of the localization radius.

The presence of damage in the form of microcracks can increase the permeability of salt. In this paper, an analytical formulation of the permeability of damaged rock salt is presented for both initially intact and porous conditions. The analysis shows that permeability is related to the connected (i.e., gas accessible) volumetric strain and porosity according to two different power-laws, which may be summed to give the overall behavior of a porous salt with damage. This relationship was incorporated into a constitutive model, known as the Multimechanism Deformation Coupled Fracture (MDCF) model, which has been formulated to describe the inelastic flow behavior of rock salt due to coupled creep, damage, and healing. The extended model was used to calculate the permeability of rock salt from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) site under conditions where damage evolved with stress over a time period. Permeability changes resulting from both damage development under deviatoric stresses and damage healing under hydrostatic pressures were considered. The calculated results were compared against experimental data from the literature, which indicated that permeability in damaged intact WIPP salt depends on the magnitude of the gas accessible volumetric strain and not on the total volumetric strain. Consequently, the permeability of WIPP salt is significantly affected by the kinetics of crack closure, but shows little dependence on the kinetics of crack removal by sintering.

The strength and modulus of amorphous diamond, a new material for surface micromachined MEMS and sensors, was tested in uniaxial tension by pulling laterally with a flat tipped diamond in a nanoindenter. Several sample designs were attempted. Of those, only the single layer specimen with a 1 by 2 {micro}m gage cross section and a fixed end rigidly attached to the substrate was successful. Tensile load was calculated by resolving the measured lateral and normal forces into the applied tensile force and frictional losses. Displacement was corrected for machine compliance using the differential stiffness method. Post-mortem examination of the samples was performed to document the failure mode. The load-displacement data from those samples that failed in the gage section was converted to stress-strain curves using carefully measured gage cross section dimensions. Mean fracture strength was found to be 8.5 {+-} 1.4 GPa and the modulus was 831 {+-} 94 GPa. Tensile results are compared to hardness and modulus measurements made using a nanoindenter.

The authors have used ion channeling to examine the lattice configuration of deuterium in Mg doped GaN grown by MOCVD. The deuterium is introduced both by exposure to deuterium gas and to ECR plasmas. A density functional approach including lattice relaxation, was used to calculate total energies for various locations and charge states of hydrogen in the wurtzite Mg doped GaN lattice. Computer simulations of channeling yields were used to compare results of channeling measurements with calculated yields for various predicted deuterium lattice configurations.

The behavior of MEMS devices is limited by the strength of critical features such as thin ligaments, oxide cuts joining layers, pin joints and hinges. Devices fabricated at Sandia's Microelectronic Development Laboratory have been successfully tested to investigate these features. A series of measurements were performed on samples with gage lengths of 15 to 1000 microns, using conventional and tungsten coated samples as well as samples that include the critical features of standard components in the test section. Specimens have a freely moving pin joint on one end that anchors the sample to the silicon die to allow rotation to reduce effects of bending. Each sample is loaded in uniaxial tension by pulling laterally with a flat tipped diamond in a computer-controlled Nanoindenter. Load is calculated by resolving the measured lateral and normal forces into the applied tensile force and frictional losses. The specimen cross section and gage length dimensions were verified by measuring against a standard in the SEM. Multiple tests can be programmed at one time and performed without operator assistance allowing the collection of significant populations of data.

This work combines focused ion beam sputtering and ultra-precision machining for microfabrication of metal alloys and polymers. Specifically, micro-end mills are made by Ga ion beam sputtering of a cylindrical tool shank. Using an ion energy of 20 keV, the focused beam defines the tool cutting edges that have submicrometer radii of curvature. We demonstrate 25 μm diameter micromilling tools having 2, 4 and 5 cutting edges. These tools fabricate fine channels, 26-28 microns wide, in 6061 aluminum, brass, and polymethyl methacrylate. Micro-tools are structurally robust and operate for more than 5 hours without fracture.

We present advances in the application of laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM) to image, reconstruct, and characterize statistically the microgeometry of porous geologic and engineering materials. We discuss technical and practical aspects of this imaging technique, including both its advantages and limitations. Confocal imaging can be used to optically section a material, with sub-micron resolution possible in the lateral and axial planes. The resultant volumetric image data, consisting of fluorescence intensities for typically ~50 million voxels in XYZ space, can be used to reconstruct the three-dimensional structure of the two-phase medium. We present several examples of this application, including studying pore geometry in sandstone, characterizing brittle failure processes in low-porosity rock deformed under triaxial loading conditions in the laboratory, and analyzing the microstructure of porous ceramic insulations. We then describe approaches to extract statistical microgeometric descriptions from volumetric image data, and present results derived from confocal volumetric data sets. Finally, we develop the use of confocal image data to automatically generate a three-dimensional mesh for numerical pore-scale flow simulations.

Inertial MEMS sensors such as accelerometers and angular rotation sensing devices continue to improve in performance as advances in design and processing are made. Present state-of-the-art accelerometers have achieved performance levels in the laboratory that are consistent with requirements for successful application in tactical weapon navigation systems. However, sensor performance parameters that are of interest to the designer of inertial navigation systems are frequently not adequately addressed by the MEMS manufacturer. This paper addresses the testing and characterization of a MEMS accelerometer from an inertial navigation perspective. The paper discusses test objectives, data reduction techniques and presents results from the test of a three-axis MEMS accelerometer conducted at Sandia National Laboratories during 1997. The test was structured to achieve visibility and characterization of the accelerometer bias and scale factor stability over time and temperature. Sandia is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the United States Department of Energy under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.

The solidification behavior and resultant solidification cracking susceptibility of autogenous gas tungsten arc fusion welds in Alloy HR-160 was investigated by Varestraint testing, differential thermal analysis and various microstructural characterization techniques. The alloy exhibited a liquidus temperature of 1387 °C and initiated solidification by a primary L→γ reaction in which Ni, Si and Ti segregated to the interdendritic liquid and cosegregated to the γ dendrite cores. Chromium exhibited no preference for segregation to the solid or liquid phase during solidification. Solidification terminated at ≈1162 °C by a eutectic-type L→[γ+ (Ni,Co)16(Ti,Cr)6Si7] reaction. The (Ni,Co)16(Ti,Cr)6Si7] phase is found to be analogous to the G phase that forms in the Ni-Ti-Si and Co-Ti-Si ternary systems, and similarities are found between the solidification behavior of this commercial multicomponent alloy and the simple Ni-Si and Ni-Ti binary systems. Reasonable agreement is obtained between the calculated and measured volume percent of the [γ+(Ni,Co)16(Ti,Cr)6Si7] eutectic-type constituent with the Scheil equation using experimentally determined k values for Si and Ti from electron microprobe data. The alloy exhibited a very high susceptibility to solidification cracking in the Varestraint test. This is attributed to a large solidification temperature range of 225 °C and the presence of 2-5 vol-% solute-rich interdendritic liquid that preferentially wets the grain boundaries and interdendritic regions.

Wet oxidation of high-Al-content AlGaAs semiconductor layers in vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) has produced devices with record low threshold currents and voltages and with wall-plug efficiencies greater than 50%. Wet oxidation of buried AlGaAs layers has been employed to reduce the problems associated with substrate current leakage in GaAs-oninsulator (GOI) MESFETs. Wet oxidation has also been considered as a route to the long-sought goal of a III-V MIS technology. To continue improving device designs for even higher performance and to establish a truly manufacturable technology based on wet oxidation, the effect of oxidation of a given layer on the properties of the entire device structure must be understood. The oxidation of a given layer can strongly affect the electrical and chemical properties of adjacent layers. Many of these effects are derived from the production of large amounts of elemental As during the oxidation reaction, the resultant generation of point defects, and the diffusion of these defects into adjacent regions. This can modify the chemical and electrical properties of these regions in ways that can impact device design, fabrication, and performance. Current understanding of the problem is discussed here ©1999 Materials Research Society.

The diffuse behavior of penetrants in simple polymer melts was investigated by molecular dynamics simulation. For the case where the polymer melt consisted of pearl-necklace chains, the diffusive behavior of the loose pearl penetrants was seen to be qualitatively different than would be expected in realistic models of polymer melts. In particular, there was little or no "non-Fickian" region; the variation of the diffusion coefficient with the penetrant diameter was what one would expect for diffusion through small molecular liquids; and, finally, the long time tail of the velocity autocorrelation displayed a "-3/2" power law form, also as in the small molecular liquid case. When the chains' backbone motion was further constrained by the introduction of a bond angle potential, the qualitative nature of the penetrant diffusion became more "polymer-like." A non-Fickian region developed; the diffusion coefficient varied more rapidly with penetrant diameter; and the velocity autocorrelation function developed a "-5/2" power law tail. © 1999 American Institute of Physics.

Three-dimensional photonic lattices are engineered 'materials' which are the photonic analogues of semiconductors. These structures were first proposed and demonstrated in the mid-to-late 1980's. However, due to fabrication difficulties, lattices active in the infrared are only just emerging. Wide ranges of structures and fabrication approaches have been investigated. The most promising approach for many potential applications is a diamond-like structure fabricated using silicon microprocessing techniques. This approach has enabled the fabrication of 3-D silicon photonic lattices active in the infrared. The structures display band gaps centered from 12μ down to 1.55μ.

Failure analysis (FA) tools have been applied to analyze failing polysilicon microengines. These devices were stressed to failure under accelerated conditions in both oxidizing and non-oxidizing environments. The dominant failure mechanism of these microengines was identified as wear of rubbing surfaces. This often results in either seized microengines or microengines with broken pin joints. Analysis of these failed polysilicon devices found that wear debris was produced in both oxidizing and non-oxidizing environments. By varying the relative percent humidity (%RH), we observed an increase in the amount of wear debris with decreasing humidity. Plan view imaging using scanning electron microscopy revealed build-up of wear debris on the surface of microengines. Focused ion beam (FIB) cross sections revealed the location and build-up of wear debris within the microengine. Seized regions were also observed in the pin joint area using FIB processing. By using transmission electron microscopy in conjunction with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), we were able to identify wear debris produced in low (1.8% RH), medium and high (39% RH) humidities.

We have been studying the use of spectral imagery to locate targets in spectrally interfering backgrounds. In making performance estimates for various sensors it has become evident that some calculations are unreliable because of overfitting. Hence, we began a thorough study of the problem of overfitting in multivariate classification. In this paper we present some model based results describing the problem. From the model we know the ideal covariance matrix, the ideal discriminant vector, and the ideal classification performance. We then investigate how experimental conditions such as noise, number of bands, and number of samples cause discrepancies from the ideal results. We also suggest ways to discover and alleviate overfitting.

We discuss an electrostatics problem whose solution must lie in the set script capital L sign of all real n-by-n symmetric matrices with all row sums equal to zero. With respect to the Frobenius norm, we provide an algorithm that finds the member of script capital L sign which is closest to any given n-by-n matrix, and determines the distance between the two. This algorithm makes it practical to find the distances to script capital L sign of finite element approximate solutions of the electrostatics problem, and to reject those which are not sufficiently close. © 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

A design of experiments (DoE) was performed at Ceramtec to improve the yield of a cermet part known as the feedthru insulator. The factors chosen to be varied in this DoE were syringe orifice size, fill condition, solvent, and surfactant. These factors were chosen because of their anticipated effect on the cermet slurry and its consequences to the feedthru insulator in succeeding fabrication operations. Response variables to the DoE were chosen to be indirect indicators of production yield for the feedthru insulator. The solvent amount used to mix the cermet slurry had the greatest overall effect on the response variables. Based upon this DoE, there is the potential to improve the yield not only for the feedthru insulator but for other cermet parts as well. This report thoroughly documents the DoE and contains additional information regarding the feedthru insulator.

For a wide variety of scientific and engineering problems the desired solution corresponds to an optimal set of objective function parameters, where the objective function measures a solution's quality. The main goal of the LDRD ''Global Optimization for Engineering Science Problems'' was the development of new robust and efficient optimization algorithms that can be used to find globally optimal solutions to complex optimization problems. This SAND report summarizes the technical accomplishments of this LDRD, discusses lessons learned and describes open research issues.

This report presents a specification for the Portals 3.0 message passing interface. Portals 3.0 is intended to allow scalable, high-performance network communication between nodes of a parallel computing system. Specifically, it is designed to support a parallel computing platform composed of clusters of commodity workstations connected by a commodity system area network fabric. In addition, Portals 3.0 is well suited to massively parallel processing and embedded systems. Portals 3.0 represents an adoption of the data movement layer developed for massively parallel processing platforms, such as the 4500-node Intel TeraFLOPS machine.

An algorithm is developed to control a pulsed {Delta}V thruster on a small satellite to allow it to fly in formation with a host satellite undergoing time dependent atmospheric drag deceleration. The algorithm uses four short thrusts per orbit to correct for differences in the average radii of the satellites due to differences in drag and one thrust to symmetrize the orbits. The radial difference between the orbits is the only input to the algorithm. The algorithm automatically stabilizes the orbits after ejection and includes provisions to allow azimuthal positional changes by modifying the drag compensation pulses. The algorithm gives radial and azimuthal deadbands of 50 cm and 3 m for a radial measurement accuracy of {+-} 5 cm and {+-} 60% period variation in the drag coefficient of the host. Approaches to further reduce the deadbands are described. The methodology of establishing a stable orbit after ejection is illustrated in an appendix. The results show the optimum ejection angle to minimize stabilization thrust is upward at 86{sup o} from the orbital velocity. At this angle the stabilization velocity that must be supplied by the thruster is half the ejection velocity. An ejection velocity of 0.02 m/sat 86{sup o} gives an azimuthal separation after ejection and orbit stabilization of 187 m. A description of liquid based gas thrusters suitable for the satellite control is included in an appendix.

This report is a summary of the work completed for an LDRD project. The objective of the project was to develop a solid freeform fabrication technique for ceramics and composites from fine particle slurries. The work was successful and resulted in the demonstration of a manufacturing technique called robocasting. Some ceramic components may pow be fabricated without the use of molds or tooling by dispensing colloidal suspensions through an orifice and stacking two-dimensional layers into three-dimensional shapes. Any conceivable two-dimensional pattern may be ''written'' layer by layer into a three-dimensional shape. Development of the robocasting technique required the materials expertise for fabrication and theological control of very highly concentrated fine particle slurries, and development of robotics for process control and optimization. Several ceramic materials have been manufactured and characterized. Development of techniques for robocasting multiple materials simultaneously have also been developed to build parts with unique structures or graded compositions.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has been cooperating with the Republic of Kazakhstanin Combined Threat Reduction (CTR) activities at the BN350 reactor located at the Mangyshlak Atomic Energy Complex (MAEC) in the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan since 1994. DOE contract personnel have been stationed at this facility for the last two years and DOE representatives regularly visit this location to oversee the continuing cooperative activities. Continued future cooperation is planned. A Russian news report in September 1999 indicated that 75 metric tons of organic peroxides stored at the Plastics Plant near Aktau were in danger of exploding and killing or injuring nearby residents. To ensure the health and safety of the personnel at the BN350 site, the DOE conducted a study to investigate the potential danger to the BN350 site posed by these materials at the Plastics Plant. The study conclusion was that while the organic peroxides do have hazards associated with them, the BN350 site is a safe distance from the Plastics Plant. Further, because the Plastics Plant and MAEC have cooperative fire-fighting agreements,and the Plastics Plant had exhausted its reserve of fire-fighting foam, there was the possibility of the Plastics Plant depleting the store of fire-fighting foam at the BN350 site. Subsequently, the DOE decided to purchase fire-fighting foam for the Plastics Plant to ensure the availability of free-fighting foam at the BN350 site.

In this paper a hybrid, finite element - boundary element method which can be used to solve for particle advection-diffusion in infinite domains with variable advective fields is presented. In previous work either boundary element, finite element, or difference methods have been used to solve for particle motion in advective-diffusive domains. These methods have a number of limitations. Due to the complexity of computing spatially dependent Green's functions, the boundary element method is limited to domains containing only constant advective fields, and due to their inherent formulation, finite element and finite difference methods are limited to only domains of finite spatial extent. Thus, finite element and finite difference methods are limited to finite space problems for which the boundary element method is not, and the boundary element method is limited to constant advection field problems for which finite element and finite difference methods are not. In this paper it is proposed to split a domain into two subdomains, and for each of these sub domains, apply the appropriate solution method; thereby, producing a method for the total infinite space, variable advective field domain.

Analysis programs have been having to deal with more and more complex objects as the capability to model fine detail increases. This can make them unacceptably slow. This project attempts to find heuristics for removing features from models in an automatic fashion in order to reduce polygon count. The approach is not one of theoretical completeness but rather one of trying to achieve useful results with scattered practical ideas. By removing a few simple things such as screw holes, slots, chambers, and fillets, large gains can be realized. Results varied but a reduction in the number of polygons by a factor of 10 is not unusual.

Abstract not provided.

Currently the most common method to determine the contents of a package suspected of containing an explosive device is to use transmission radiography. This technique requires that an x-ray source and film be placed on opposite sides of the package. This poses a problem if the package is placed so that only one side is accessible, such as against a wall. There is also a threat to personnel and property since explosive devices may be booby trapped. The authors have developed a method to x-ray a package using backscattered x-rays based on similar work for landmine detection. This procedure eliminates the use of film behind the target. All of the detection is done from the same side as the source. Backscatter experiments at Sandia National Laboratories have been conducted on mock bombs in packages. They are able to readily identify the bomb components. The images that are obtained in this procedure are done in real time and the image is displayed on a computer screen. Preliminary experiments have also imaged objects within or behind a wall. They are currently using a scanning x-ray source and scintillating plastic detectors. It can take several hours to image a briefcase size object. This time could be reduced if better x-ray detection methods could be used. They have looked at using pinhole photography and CCD cameras to reduce this time.

This report summarizes general guidelines for the development of Verification and Validation (V and V) plans for ASCI code projects at Sandia National Laboratories. The main content categories recommended by these guidelines for explicit treatment in Sandia V and V plans are (1) stockpile drivers influencing the code development project (2) the key phenomena to be modeled by the individual code; (3) software verification strategy and test plan; and (4) code validation strategy and test plans. The authors of this document anticipate that the needed content of the V and V plans for the Sandia ASCI codes will evolve as time passes. These needs will be reflected by future versions of this document.

This paper describes formulations of the Evaluation Planning Module that have been developed since its inception. This module is one of the core algorithms in the Pantex Process Model, a computerized model to support production planning in a complex manufacturing system at the Pantex Plant, a US Department of Energy facility. Pantex is responsible for three major DOE programs -- nuclear weapons disposal, stockpile evaluation, and stockpile maintenance -- using shared facilities, technicians, and equipment. The model reflects the interactions of scheduling constraints, material flow constraints, and the availability of required technicians and facilities.

The Auxiliary Hot Cell Facility (AHCF) at Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico (SNL/NM) will be a Hazard Category 3 nuclear facility used to characterize, treat, and repackage radioactive and mixed material and waste for reuse, recycling, or ultimate disposal. A significant upgrade to a previous facility, the Temporary Hot Cell, will be implemented to perform this mission. The following major features will be added: a permanent shield wall; eight floor silos; new roof portals in the hot-cell roof; an upgraded ventilation system; and upgraded hot-cell jib crane; and video cameras to record operations and facilitate remote-handled operations. No safety-class systems, structures, and components will be present in the AHCF. There will be five safety-significant SSCs: hot cell structure, permanent shield wall, shield plugs, ventilation system, and HEPA filters. The type and quantity of radionuclides that could be located in the AHCF are defined primarily by SNL/NM's legacy materials, which include radioactive, transuranic, and mixed waste. The risk to the public or the environment presented by the AHCF is minor due to the inventory limitations of the Hazard Category 3 classification. Potential doses at the exclusion boundary are well below the evaluation guidelines of 25 rem. Potential for worker exposure is limited by the passive design features incorporated in the AHCF and by SNL's radiation protection program. There is no potential for exposure of the public to chemical hazards above the Emergency Response Protection Guidelines Level 2.

The importance of turbulent fluctuations in temperature and species concentration in thermal radiation transport modeling for combustion applications is well accepted by the radiation transport and combustion communities. A number of experimental and theoretical studies over the last twenty years have shown that fluctuations in the temperature and species concentrations may increase the effective emittance of a turbulent flame by as much as 50% to 300% over the value that would be expected from the mean temperatures and concentrations. With the possibility of such a large effect on the principal mode of heat transfer from a fire, it is extremely important for fire modeling efforts that turbulence radiation interaction be well characterized and possible modeling approaches understood. Toward this end, this report seeks to accomplish three goals. First, the principal turbulence radiation interaction closure terms are defined. Second, an order of magnitude analysis is performed to understand the relative importance of the various closure terms. Finally, the state of the art in turbulence radiation interaction closure modeling is reviewed. Hydrocarbon pool fire applications are of particular interest in this report and this is the perspective from which this review proceeds. Experimental and theoretical analysis suggests that, for this type of heavily sooting flame, the turbulent radiation interaction effect is dominated by the nonlinear dependence of the Planck function on the temperature. Additional effects due to the correlation between turbulent fluctuations in the absorptivity and temperature may be small relative to the Planck function effect for heavily sooting flames. This observation is drawn from a number of experimental and theoretical discussions. Nevertheless, additional analysis and data is needed to validate this observation for heavily sooting buoyancy dominated plumes.

Abstract not provided.

Abstract not provided.

Designing and developing the 1.7 to 2.1-MJ Power Conditioning System (PCS), that will power the flashlamps of the main and power amplifiers for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) lasers, is one of several responsibilities assumed by Sandia National Labs (SNL) in support of the NIF Project. Maxwell Physics International has been a partner in this process. The NIF is currently being constructed at Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL). The test facility that has evolved over the last three years to satisfy the project requirements is called FANTM, for the First Article NIF Test Module. It was built at SNL and operated for about 17,000 shots to demonstrate component performance expectations over the lifetime of NIF. A few modules similar to the one shown in Fig. 1 will be used initially in the amplifier test phase of the project. The final full NIF system will require at least 192 of them in four capacitor bays. This paper briefly summarizes the final design of the FANTM facility and compares its performance with the predictions of circuit simulations for both normal operation and fault-mode response. Applying both the measured and modeled power pulse waveforms as input to a physics-based, semi-empirical amplifier gain code indicates that the 20-capacitor PCS can satisfy the NIF requirement for an average gain coefficient of 5.00 %/cm and can exceed 5.20 %/cm with 24 capacitors.

Embedded resistor circuits have been generated with the use of a Micropen system Ag conductor paste (DuPont 6142D), a new experimental resistor ink from DuPont (E84005-140), and Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) green tape (DuPont A951). Sample circuits were processed under varying peak temperature ranges (835 C-875 C) and peak soak times (10 min-720 min). Resistors were characterized by SEM, TEM, EDS, and high-temperature XRD. Results indicate that devitrification of resistor glass phase to Celcian, Hexacelcian, and a Zinc-silicate phase occurred in the firing ranges used (835-875 C) but kinetics of divitrification vary substantially over this temperature range. The resistor material appears structurally and chemically compatible with the LTCC. RuO{sub 2} grains do not significantly react with the devitrifying matrix material during processing. RuO{sub 2} grains coarsen significantly with extended time and temperature and the electrical properties appear to be strongly affected by the change in RuO{sub 2} grain size.

Design Tools use a Web-based Java interface to guide a product designer through the design-to-analysis cycle for a specific, well-constrained design problem. When these Design Tools are mapped onto a Web-based distributed architecture for high-performance computing, the result is a family of Distributed Design Tools (DDTs). The software components that enable this mapping consist of a Task Sequencer, a generic Script Execution Service, and the storage of both data and metadata in an active, object-oriented database called the Product Database Operator (PDO). The benefits of DDTs include improved security, reliability, scalability (in both problem size and computing hardware), robustness, and reusability. In addition, access to the PDO unlocks its wide range of services for distributed components, such as lookup and launch capability, persistent shared memory for communication between cooperating services, state management, event notification, and archival of design-to-analysis session data.

The addition of up to approximately 16 mole% Cs{sub 2}O to vitreous P{sub 2}O{sub 5} reduces the glass transition temperature (T{sub g}) by 150 K, whereas further additions up to 50 mole% produce little additional change in T{sub g}. {sup 31}P magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance spectra indicate that the phosphate network is progressively dipolymerized over the entire range of compositions. The property trend is explained by a transition in the Cs{sup +} coordination environment, from isolated Cs-polyhedra below {approximately}16 mole% Cs{sub 2}O to a corner-sharing Cs-polyhedral sub-structure in the glasses with greater Cs{sub 2}O contents. This modifier transition does not occur in Al-phosphate glasses. {sup 27}Al MAS NMR spectra indicate that the average Al coordination number decreases with increasing Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} content to avoid the formation of Al-O-Al bonds in these binary phosphate glasses.

The Sandia National Laboratories/New Mexico (SNL/NM)Environmental Restoration Project is currently excavating the Classified Waste Landfill in Technical Area II, a disposal area for weapon components for approximately 40 years until it closed in 1987. Many different types of classified parts were disposed in unlined trenches and pits throughout the course of the landfill's history. A percentage of the parts contain explosives and/or radioactive components or contamination. The excavation has progressed backward chronologically from the last trenches filled through to the earlier pits. Excavation commenced in March 1998, and approximately 75 percent of the site (as defined by geophysical anomalies) has been completed as of November 1999. The material excavated consists primarily of classified weapon assemblies and related components, so disposition must include demilitarization and sanitization. This has resulted in substantial waste minimization and cost avoidance for the project as upwards of 90 percent of the classified materials are being demilitarized and recycled. The project is using field screening and lab analysis in conjunction with preliminary and in-process risk assessments to characterize soil and make waste determinations in a timely a fashion as possible. Challenges in waste management have prompted the adoption of innovative solutions. The hand-picked crew (both management and field staff) and the ability to quickly adapt to changing conditions has ensured the success of the project. The current schedule is to complete excavation in July 2000, with follow-on verification sampling, demilitarization, and waste management activities following.

AR coating design for multi-junction solar cells can be more challenging than in the single junction case. Reasons for this are discussed. Analytical expressions used to optimize AR coatings for single junction solar cells are extended for use in monolithic, series interconnected multi-junction solar cell AR coating design. The result is an analytical expression which relates the solar cell performance (through J{sub SC}) directly to the AR coating design through the device reflectance. It is also illustrated how AR coating design can be used to provide an additional degree of freedom for current matching multi-junction devices.

Hydrogen atom-hydrogen atom scattering is a prototype for many of the fundamental principles of atomic collisions. In this paper we present an approximation to the H + H system for scattering in the intermediate energy regime of 1-100 keV. The approximation ignores electron exchange and two-electron excitation by assuming that one of the atoms is frozen in the 1s state. We allow for the evolution of the active electron by numerically solving the 3D Schrodinger equation. This approximation is by nature most appropriate for higher-energy collisions. The results capture many features of the problem and are in harmony with recent theoretical studies. Excitation and ionization cross sections are computed and compared with other theory and experiment. New insight into the mechanism of excitation and ionization is inferred from the solutions.

We report on a new method to make nanostructures, in this case selenium nanowires, in aqueous solution at room temperature. We used the protein cytochrome c{sub 3} to reduce selenate (SeO{sub 4}{sup 2{minus}}) to selenium (Se{sup 0}). Cytochrome c{sub 3} is known for its ability to catalyze reduction of metals including U{sup VI} {yields} U{sup IV}, Cr{sup VI} {yields} Cr{sup III}, Mo{sup VI} {yields} Mo{sup IV}, Cu{sup II} {yields} Cu{sup 0}, Pb{sup II} {yields} Pb{sup 0}, Hg{sup II} {yields} Hg{sup 0}. Nanoparticles of Se{sup 0} precipitated from an aqueous solution at room temperature, followed by spontaneous self-assembling into nanowires. Cytochrome c{sub 3} was extracted from the sulfate-reducing bacteria Desulfovibrio vulgaris (strain Holdenborough) and isolated by the procedure of DerVartanian and Legall.

Ceramics represent a unique class of materials that are distinguished from common metals and plastics by their: (1) high hardness, stiffness, and good wear properties (i.e., abrasion resistance); (2) ability to withstand high temperatures (i.e., refractoriness); (3) chemical durability; and (4) electrical properties that allow them to be electrical insulators, semiconductors, or ionic conductors. Ceramics can be broken down into two general categories, traditional and advanced ceramics. Traditional ceramics include common household products such as clay pots, tiles, pipe, and bricks, porcelain china, sinks, and electrical insulators, and thermally insulating refractory bricks for ovens and fireplaces. Advanced ceramics, also referred to as ''high-tech'' ceramics, include products such as spark plug bodies, piston rings, catalyst supports, and water pump seals for automobiles, thermally insulating tiles for the space shuttle, sodium vapor lamp tubes in streetlights, and the capacitors, resistors, transducers, and varistors in the solid-state electronics we use daily. The major differences between traditional and advanced ceramics are in the processing tolerances and cost. Traditional ceramics are manufactured with inexpensive raw materials, are relatively tolerant of minor process deviations, and are relatively inexpensive. Advanced ceramics are typically made with more refined raw materials and processing to optimize a given property or combination of properties (e.g., mechanical, electrical, dielectric, optical, thermal, physical, and/or magnetic) for a given application. Advanced ceramics generally have improved performance and reliability over traditional ceramics, but are typically more expensive. Additionally, advanced ceramics are typically more sensitive to the chemical and physical defects present in the starting raw materials, or those that are introduced during manufacturing.

A technique has been developed to selectively induce metastable pitting while preventing the transition to stable pit growth. The current-limited imposed-potential (CLIP) technique limits available cathodic current to an initiated site using a resistor in series with the working electrode to form a voltage divider. Potentiodynamic CLIP testing yields a distribution of breakdown potentials from a single experiment. Potentiostatic CLIP testing yields induction time data, which can be used as input to a calculation of germination rate. Initial data indicate that a one-to-one correlation exists between electrochemical transients and observed pitting sites. The CLIP technique provides a consistent means of gathering quantitative potential and current transients associated with localized oxide breakdown.

The Chemical Waste Landfill (CWL) at Sandia National Laboratories/New Mexico (SNL/NM) is a 1.9-acre disposal site that was used for the disposal of chemical wastes generated by many of SNL/NM research laboratories from 1962 until 1985. These laboratories were primarily involved in the design, research and development of non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons and the waste generated by these labs included small quantities of a wide assortment of chemical products. A Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Closure Plan for the Chemical Waste Landfill was approved by the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) in 1992. Subsequent site characterization activities identified the presence of significant amounts of chromium in the soil as far as 80 feet below ground surface (fbgs) and the delineation of a solvent plume in the vadose zone that extends to groundwater approximately 500 fbgs. Trichloroethylene (TCE) was detected in some groundwater samples at concentrations slightly above the drinking water limit of 5 parts per billion. In 1997 an active vapor extraction system reduced the size of the TCE vapor plume and for the last six quarterly sampling events groundwater samples have not detected TCE above the drinking water standard. A source term removal, being conducted as a Voluntary Corrective Measure (VCM), began in September 1998 and is expected to take up to two years. Four distinct disposal areas were identified from historical data and the contents of disposal pits and trenches in these areas, in addition to much of the highly contaminated soil surrounding the disposal cells, are currently being excavated. Buried waste and debris are expected to extend to a depth of 12 to 15 fbgs. Excavation will focus on the removal of buried debris and contaminated soil in a sequential, area by area manner and will proceed to whatever depth is required in order to remove all pit contents. Up to 50,000 cubic yards of soil and debris will be removed and managed during the excavation of the CWL. As part of the excavation process, soil is being separated from the buried debris using a 2-inch mechanical screen. After separation from the soil, debris items are further-segregated by matrix into the following categories: wood, scrap metal, concrete/aggregates, resins, compatible debris, intact chemical containers, radioactive and mixed waste, and high hazard items. One of the greatest sources of hazards throughout the excavation process is the removal of numerous intact chemical containers with unknown contents. A large portion of the excavated soil is contaminated with metals and/or solvents, Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are also known to be present. Most of the contaminated soils being excavated will be taken to the nearby Corrective Action Management Unit (CAMU) for treatment and management while a majority of the containers will be taken to the Hazardous Waste Management Facility or the Radioactive and Mixed Waste Management Facility for proper treatment and/or disposal at permitted offsite facilities.

A cryogenic, {beta}-layered NIF ignition capsule with a beryllium ablator that employs a BeO dopant (2% O) for opacity control is described. The design has an optimized yield of 12 MJ and uses a ''reduced drive'' hohlraum temperature pulse shape that peaks at {approx}250 eV. Shock timing sensitivity calculations have been performed for this capsule design. Individual uncertainties of (1) {approx}200 ps in the timing of the ''footpulse; (2) {approx}5% in the x-ray flux of the foot pulse and first step; (3) {approx}10% in the ablator EOS; or (4) {approx} 5 {micro}m in the DT ice layer thickness each have a significant impact on thermonuclear yield. Combined uncertainties have greater impact than isolated, individual issues. For example, a combination of uncertainties of: 200 ps in the foot + 2 eV in the foot + 5 pm in the DT thickness results in a calculation that produces only {approx}1% of the original design yield. A second, more speculative, capsule concept utilizing a liquid DT ablator is also discussed. This design produces a 5 MJ yield in a 250 eV peak drive calculation.

Pulsed power is a robust and inexpensive technology for obtaining high powers. Considerable progress has been made on developing light ion beams as a means of transporting this power to inertial fusion capsules. However, further progress is hampered by the lack of an adequate ion source. Alternatively, z-pinches can efficiently convert pulsed power into thermal radiation, which can be used to drive an inertial fusion capsule. However, a z-pinch driven fusion explosion will destroy a portion of the transmission line that delivers the electrical power to the z-pinch. They investigate several options for providing standoff for z-pinch driven fusion. Recyclable Transmission Lines (RTLs) appear to be the most promising approach.

This paper reports on significant advances in electrothermal bent beam actuators. Designs for long throw linear and rotary actuators are described. Silicon p++ devices showed 20--30 {mu}m displacements with 150 {micro}N loads at actuation levels of 6--8 V, and 250--300 mW. An electroplated version provided 15 {mu}m displacements at 0.8 V and 450 mW. Inchworm type devices are reported that had linear displacements of 100 {micro}m with 200 {micro}N loads. Refinements in the modeling to account for non-linear thermal expansion coefficients and buckling are also reported.

Controlled impact methodology has been used on a powdergun to obtain dynamic behavior properties of Tributyl Phosphate (TBP). A novel test methodology is used to provide extremely accurate equation of state data of the liquid. A thin aluminum plate used for confining the liquid also serves as a diagnostic to provide reshock states and subsequent release adiabats from the reshocked state. Polar polymer, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) gauges and velocity interferometer system for any reflector (VISAR) provided redundant and precise data of temporal resolution to five nanoseconds and shock velocity measurements of better than 1%. The design and test methodologies are presented in this paper.

We report a novel sol-gel dip-coating process to form dual-layer microporous silica membranes with improved membrane performance and reproducibility. First, we deposit a surfactant-templated silica (STS) intermediate layer on top of a commercial {gamma}-alumina support both to improve its ''surface finish'' and to prevent a subsequently deposited microporous overlayer from penetrating into the support. Second, membranes are processed under clean room conditions to avoid dust contamination and, third, membranes are vacuum-calcined to promote further pore shrinkage and impart surface hydrophobicity. The resulting asymmetric membrane exhibits a gradual change in pore diameter from 50{angstrom} ({gamma}-alumina support layer) to 10-12{angstrom} (STS intermediate layer), and then to 3-4{angstrom} (30nm thick, ultramicroporous silica top-layer). Compared to a single-layer process using only the microporous overlayer, the dual-layer process improves both flux and selectivity. For the industrially important problem of natural gas purification, the combined CO{sub 2} flux [(3{approx} 0.5) x 10{sup {minus}4} cm{sup 3}(STP)/(s{center_dot}cm{sup 2}{center_dot}cm-Hg)] and CO{sub 2}/CH{sub 4} separation factors [200{approx}600] are superior to all previously reported values for separation of a 50/50 (v/v) CO{sub 2}/CH{sub 4} gas mixture. In addition, the membrane selectively separated hydrogen from a simulated reformate from partial oxidation of methanol as evidenced by a high concentration of hydrogen recovery.

{sup 13}C-enriched polyethylene was subjected to {gamma}-irradiation in the presence of air at 25 and 80 C for total doses ranging from 71 to 355 kGy. Significant quantities of hydroperoxides were detected in the 25 C irradiated sample by {sup 13}C magic angle spinning NMR spectroscopy. This method of detection was performed on the solid polymer and required no chemical derivatization or addition of solvent. The chemical stability and subsequent products of the hydroperoxide species were studied by annealing the irradiated samples in air at temperatures ranging from 22 to 110 C. A time-temperature superposition analysis provided an activation energy of 108 kJ/mol for the hydroperoxide decomposition process. The primary products of hydroperoxide decomposition were ketones and secondary alcohols with lesser amounts of acids and esters. EPR measurements suggest that the reactive hydroperoxide species reside in the amorphous phase of polyethylene, consistent with degradation occurring in the amorphous phase.

Structure within thin epoxy films is investigated by neutron reflectivity (NR) as a function of resin/cross-linker composition and cure temperature. Variation in the cross-link density normal to the substrate surface is examined by swelling the films with the good solvent d-nitrobenzene (d-NB). The principal observation is a large excess of d-NB near the air surface. This is not a wetting layer, but rather indicates a lower cross-link density in the near-surface region. This effect is due to preferential segregation of the cross-linker to the air surface, driven by the lower surface tension of the cross-linker relative to the epoxide oligomers. The magnitude of the effect is a function of composition and cure temperature. Exclusion of d-NB from the region immediately adjacent to the substrate surface is also observed, possibly indicating a tightly bound layer of epoxy. Regarding swelling in the bulk of the films, the behavior is nonsymmetric with departure from the stoichiometric ratio. The films deficient in curing agent show greater equilibrium swelling and faster swelling kinetics than the films with an excess of curing agent.

Waveguiding by total internal reflection is demonstrated within AlxGa1-xAs semiconductor heterostructures which have been fully oxidized in water vapor at ∼490°C. Refractive index, mode propagation constant, propagation loss (≤ 3 cm-1) at λ0 = 1.3 and 1.55 μm, secondary ion mass spectrometry depth profile, and Fourier transform infrared transmission spectra measurements are presented to characterize a multimode single-heterostructure oxide waveguide. An index contrast of Δn = 0.06 is observed between oxidized x = 0.4 and x = 0.8 AlxGa1-xAs oxide layers. Absorption loss at 1.55 μm is observed due to OH groups. Near-field images are presented showing waveguiding in a single-mode oxide double heterostructure. © 1999 American Institute of Physics.

The concept of building extremely small satellites which, either independently or as a collective, can perform missions which are comparable to their much larger cousins, has fascinated scientists and engineers for several years now. In addition to the now commonplace microelectronic integrated circuits, the more recent advent of technologies such as photonic integrated circuits (PIC's) and micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) have placed such a goal within their grasp. Key to the acceptance of this technology will be the ability to manufacture these very small satellites in quantity without sacrificing their performance or versatility. In support of its nuclear treaty verification, proliferation monitoring and other remote sensing missions, Sandia National laboratories has had a 35-year history of providing highly capable systems, densely packaged for unintrusive piggyback missions on government satellites. As monitoring requirements have become more challenging and remote sensing technologies become more sophisticated, packaging greater capability into these systems has become a requirement. Likewise, dwindling budgets are pushing satellite programs toward smaller and smaller platforms, reinforcing the need for smaller, cheaper satellite systems. In the next step of its miniaturization plan, Sandia has begun development of technologies for a highly integrated miniature satellite. The focus of this development is to achieve nanosat or smaller dimensions while maintaining significant capability utilizing semiconductor wafer-level integration and, at the same time promoting affordability through modular generic construction.

A technique has been developed for producing calibrated metal hydride films for use in the measurement of high-energy (5--15 MeV) particle reaction cross sections for hydrogen and helium isotopes on hydrogen isotopes. Absolute concentrations of various hydrogen isotopes in the film is expected to be determined to better than {+-}2% leading to the capacity of accurately measuring various reaction cross sections. Hydrogen isotope concentrations from near 100% to 5% can be made accurately and reproducibly. This is accomplished with the use of high accuracy pressure measurements coupled with high accuracy mass spectrometric measurements of each constituent partial pressure of the gas mixture during loading of the metal occluder films. Various techniques are used to verify the amount of metal present as well as the amount of hydrogen isotopes; high energy ion scattering analysis, PV measurements before, during and after loading, and thermal desorption/mass spectrometry measurements. The most appropriate metal to use for the occluder film appears to be titanium but other occluder metals are also being considered. Calibrated gas ratio samples, previously prepared, are used for the loading gas. Deviations from this calibrated gas ratio are measured using mass spectrometry during and after the loading process thereby determining the loading of the various hydrogen isotopes. These techniques are discussed and pertinent issues presented.

This study examines adhesion between silane-coated micromachined surfaces that are exposed to humid conditions. Our quantitative values for interfacial adhesion energies are determined from an in-situ optical measurement of deformations in partly-adhered cantilever beams. We coated micromachined cantilevers with either ODTS (C{sub 18}H{sub 37}SiCl{sub 3}) or FDTS (C{sub 8}F{sub 17}C{sub 2}H{sub 4}SiCl{sub 3}) with the objective of creating hydrophobic surfaces whose adhesion would be independent of humidity. In both cases, the adhesion energy is significantly lower than for uncoated, hydrophilic surfaces. For relative humidities (RH) less than 95% (ODTS) and 80% (FDTS) the adhesion energy was extremely low and constant. In fact, ODTS-coated beams exposed to saturated humidity conditions and long (48 hour) exposures showed only a factor of two increase in adhesion energy. Surprisingly, FDTS coated beams, which initially have a higher contact angle (115{degree}) with water than do ODTS coated beams (112{degree}), proved to be much more sensitive to humidity. The FDTS coated surfaces showed a factor of one hundred increase in adhesion energy after a seven hour exposure to 90% RH. Atomic force microscopy revealed agglomerated coating material after exposed to high RH, suggesting a redistribution of the monolayer film. This agglomeration was more prominent for FDTS than ODTS. These findings suggest a new mechanism for uptake of moisture under high humidity conditions. At high humidities, the silane coatings can reconfigure from a surface to a bulk phase leaving behind locally hydrophilic sites which increase the average measured adhesion energy. In order for the adhesion increase to be observed, a significant fraction of the monolayer must be converted from the surface to the bulk phase.

The connection is made between the normal-coordinate structural decomposition (NSD) and the vibronic molecular states and spectra of porphyrins. NSD is a procedure that provides a description of the distortion of a porphyrin from a D{sub 4h} symmetric reference structure in terms of equivalent displacements along the normal coordinates. Expressions for the optical absorption spectra with vibrational structure are developed with these NSD-determined deformations as parameters, and the expressions are applied to the UV-visible absorption spectra porphyrins.

We show that for general input sets linear feedback shift registers (LFSRS) do not provide compression comparable to current, standard algorithms, at least not on the current, standard input files. Rather, LFSRS provide performance on a par with simple, run-length encoding schemes. We exercised three different ways of using LFSRS on the Canterbury, Canterbury Oarge set, the Calgory Corpora, and on three, large graphics files of our own.

Wind-energy researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed a new, light-weight, modular data acquisition system capable of acquiring long-term, continuous, multi-channel time-series data from operating wind-turbines. New hardware features have been added to this system to make it more flexible and permit programming via telemetry. User-friendly Windows-based software has been developed for programming the hardware and acquiring, storing, analyzing, and archiving the data. This paper briefly reviews the major components of the system, summarizes the recent hardware enhancements and operating experiences, and discusses the features and capabilities of the software programs that have been developed.

Typical laboratory testing of Polycrystalline Diamond Compact (PDC) bits is performed on relatively rigid setups. Even in hard rock, PDC bits exhibit reasonable life using such testing schemes. Unfortunately, field experience indicates otherwise. In this paper, the authors show that introducing compliance in testing setups provides better simulation of actual field conditions. Using such a scheme, they show that chatter can be severe even in softer rock, such as sandstone, and very destructive to the cutters in hard rock, such as sierra white granite.

Al{sub 2}Cu thin films ({approximately}382 nm) are fabricated by melting and resolidifying Al/Cu bilayers in the presence of a {approximately}3 nm Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} passivating layer. X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) measures a 1.0 eV shift of the Cu2p{sub 3/2} peak and a 1.6 eV shift of the valence band relative to metallic Cu upon Al{sub 2}Cu formation. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Electron Back-Scattered Diffraction (EBSD) show that the Al{sub 2}Cu film is composed of 30--70 {mu}m wide and 10--25 mm long cellular grains with (110) orientation. The atomic composition of the film as estimated by Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) is 67{+-}2% Al and 33{+-}2% Cu. XPS scans of Al{sub 2}O{sub 3}/Al{sub 2}Cu taken before and after air exposure indicate that the upper Al{sub 2}Cu layers undergo further oxidation to Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} even in the presence of {approximately}5 nm Al{sub 2}O{sub 3}. The majority of Cu produced from oxidation is believed to migrate below the Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} layers, based upon the lack of evidence for metallic Cu in the XPS scans. In contrast to Al/Cu passivated with Al{sub 2}O{sub 3}, melting/resolidifying the Al/Cu bilayer without Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} results in phase-segregated dendritic film growth.

On rare occasions, the coining of a new term brings new ideas to a field by virtue of a shift in viewpoint. A recent example is complexity, which collected together, from a core of deep results in mathematics and hydrodynamics, a clan of fields whose kinship had been revealed by the new term itself. More often such appellations merely follow fashionable trends. So it took courage on the part of the founders of SUPERMAT to promote their vision. Marcel Ausloos (Universite de Liege, Belgium) and Gilbert Vacquier (Universite de Marseille, France) have shown us a way to resonate as a new chord in materials science. As the first conference on supermaterials, SUPERMAT and its companion SMART 99 have begun to reveal new branches of research from the established pathways explored in superconductivity. At the conclusion of SUPERMAT in Giens, France, the participants were as energized by the exciting science that had been covered during the week as they were impressed by the French food, wine, scenery and hospitality. If the definition of a supermaterial is not obvious now-after the conference-it was certainly not obvious before it. Nevertheless, the conferees were drawn inexorably together by the conference theme. Perhaps it is not appropriate to try to understand this self organization, which surely is even more complex than the self organization of electrons in a high temperature superconductor, the theory for which still eludes us after 13 years! A clue to the working definition of a supermaterial can be derived empirically from the topics that were discussed at SUPERMAT and SMART 99. In addition to superconductors, they heard about magnetic effects of many kinds, including giant and even colossal ones that presumably trump super ones, organic conductors, photoconductors, and even four-hundred-year-old Japanese ceramics. Topics discussed were synthesis, processing, characterization and theory, and applications.

Typical Laboratory testing of Polycrystalline Diamond Compact (PDC) bits is performed on relatively rigid setups. Even in hard rock, PDC bits exhibit reasonable life using such testing schemes. Unfortunately, field experience indicates otherwise. In this paper, they show that introducing compliance in testing setups, provides better simulation of actual field conditions. Using such a scheme, they show that chatter can be severe even in softer rock, such as sandstone, and very destructive to the cutters in hard rock, such as sierra white granite.

The optical gain spectra for compressive-strained and lattice-matched GaInNAs/GaAs quantum wells are computed using a microscopic laser theory. From these spectra, the peak gain and carrier radiative decay rate as functions of carrier density are determined. These dependences allow the study of lasing threshold current density for different GaInNAs/GaAs laser structures. © 1999 American Institute of Physics.

This work combines focused ion beam sputtering and ultra-precision machining as a first step in fabricating microstructure in metals and alloys. Specifically, {approx}25{micro}m diameter micro-end mills are made from cobalt M42 high-speed steel and C2 micrograin tungsten carbide tool blanks by ion beam sputtering. A 20 keV focused gallium beam defines tool cutting edges having radii of curvature < 0.1{micro}m. Micro-end mills having 2, 4 and 5 cutting edges successfully machine small trenches in 6061-T4 aluminum, brass, 4340 steel and polymethyl methacrylate. Machined trench widths are approximately equal to the tool diameters and surface roughnesses (rms) are {approx}150 nm or less. Microtools are robust and operate for more than 6 hours without fracture. Results from ultra-precision machining aluminum at feed rates as high as 50 mm/minute are included.

This paper presents techniques for fabricating microscopic, nonplanar features in a variety of materials. Micro-grooving and micro-threading tools having cutting dimensions of 10-30{micro}m are made by focused ion beam sputtering and used in ultra-precision machining. Tool fabrication involves directing a 20 keV gallium beam at polished cylindrical punches made of cobalt M42 high-speed steel or C2 tungsten carbide. This creates cutting edges having radii of curvature less than 0.4 {micro}m, and rake features similar to conventional lathe tools. Clearance for minimizing frictional drag of a tool results from the sputter yield dependence on ion herd target incidence angle. Numerically controlled, ultra-precision machining with micro-grooving tools results in a close matching between tool width and feature size. Microtools controllably machine 13 {micro}m wide, 4 {micro}m deep, helical grooves in polymethyl methacrylate and 6061-T6 Al cylindrical substrates. Micro-grooving tools also fabricate sinusoidal waveform features in polished metal substrates.

Recent success on the Saturn and Z accelerators at Sandia National Laboratories have demonstrated the ability to scale z-pinch parameters to increasingly larger current pulsed power facilities. Next generation machines will require even larger currents (>20 MA), placing further demands on pulsed power technology. To this end, experiments have been carried out on Saturn operating in a long pulse mode, investigating the potential of lower voltages and longer implosion times while still maintaining pinch fidelity. High wire number, 25 mm diameter tungsten arrays were imploded with implosion times ranging from 130 to 240 ns. The results were comparable to those observed in the Saturn short pulse mode, with risetimes on the order of 4.5 to 6.5 ns. Experimental data will be presented, along with two dimensional radiation magnetohydrodynamic simulations used to explain and reproduce the experiment.

Motivated by the problem of determining stress distributions in granular materials, we study the effect of finite transport correlation times on the propagation of nonlinear wavefronts in reaction diffusion systems. We obtain new results such as the possibility of spatial oscillations in the wavefront shape for certain values of the system parameters and high enough wavefront speeds. We also generalize earlier known results concerning the minimum wavefront speed and shape-speed relationships stemming from the finiteness of the correlation times. Analytic investigations are made possible by a piece-wise linear representation of the nonlinearity.

On Nov. 1, 1999, Sandia National Laboratories celebrates its 50th birthday. Although Sandia has its roots in the World War II-era Manhattan Project, Sandia began operating as a separate nuclear weapons engineering laboratory under the management of AT&T on Nov. 1, 1949. Today the lab employs more than 7,000 people at its two sites in Albuquerque and Livermore, California, and has research and development missions in national security, energy and environmental technologies, and U.S. economic competitiveness. Lockheed Martin Corporation operates Sandia for the US. Department of Energy.

The authors have demonstrated a functional Pnp heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) using InGaAsN. The metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOCVD) grown Al{sub 0.3}Ga{sub 0.7}As/In{sub 0.03}Ga{sub 0.97}As{sub 0.99}N{sub 0.01} HBT takes advantage of the narrower bandgap energy (E{sub g} = 1.25eV) of In{sub 0.03}Ga{sub 0.97}As{sub 0.99}N{sub 0.01}, which is lattice matched to GaAs. Compared with the Al{sub 0.3}Ga{sub 0.7}As/GaAs material system, the Al{sub 0.3}Ga{sub 0.7}As/In{sub 0.03}Ga{sub 0.97}As{sub 0.99}N{sub 0.01} material system has a larger conduction band offset, while the valence band offset remains comparable. This characteristic band alignment is very suitable for Pnp HBT applications. The device's peak current gain is 23 and it has a turn on voltage of 0.77V, which is 0.25V lower than in a comparable Pnp Al{sub 0.3}Ga{sub 0.7}As/GaAs HBT.

Plasma-induced etch damage can degrade the electrical and optical performance of III-V nitride electronic and photonic devices. We have investigated the etch-induced damage of an Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) etch system on the electrical performance of mesa-isolated GaN pn-junction diodes. GaN p-i-n mesa diodes were formed by Cl{sub 2}/BCl{sub 3}/Ar ICP etching under different plasma conditions. The reverse leakage current in the mesa diodes showed a strong relationship to chamber pressure, ion energy, and plasma flux. Plasma induced damage was minimized at moderate flux conditions ({le} 500 W), pressures {ge}2 mTorr, and at ion energies below approximately -275 V.

Numerous sites in the United States and around the world are contaminated with depleted uranium (DU) in various forms. A prevalent form is fragmented DU originating from various scientific tests involving high explosives and DU during weapon-development programs, at firing practice ranges, or in war theaters where DU was used in armor-piercing projectiles. The contamination at these sites is typically very heterogeneous, with discrete, visually identifiable DU fragments mixed with native soil. The bulk-averaged DU activity is quite low, whereas DU fragments, which are distinct from the soil matrix, have much higher specific activity. DU is best known as a dark metal that is nearly twice as dense as lead, but DU in the environment readily weathers (oxidizes) to a distinctive bright yellow color that is quite visible. While the specific activity (amount of radioactivity per mass of soil) of DU is relatively low and presents only a minor radiological hazard, the fact that DU is radioactive and visually identifiable makes it desirable to remove the DU ''contamination'' from the environment. The typical approach to conducting this DU remediation is to use radiation-detection instruments to identify the contaminant and then to separate it from the adjacent soil, packaging it for disposal as radioactive waste. This process can be performed manually or by specialized, automated equipment. Alternatively, a more cost-effective approach might be simple mechanical or gravimetric separation of the DU fragments from the host soil matrix. At SNL/NM, both the automated and simple mechanical approaches have recently been employed. This paper discusses the pros/cons of the two approaches.

This paper discusses the development and application of process knowledge (PK) to the characterization of radioactive wastes generated during the excavation of buried materials at the Sandia National Laboratories/New Mexico (SNL/NM) Classified Waste Landfill (CWLF). The CWLF, located in SNL/NM Technical Area II, is a 1.5-acre site that received nuclear weapon components and related materials from about 1950 through 1987. These materials were used in the development and testing of nuclear weapon designs. The CWLF is being remediated by the SNL/NM Environmental Restoration (ER) Project pursuant to regulations of the New Mexico Environment Department. A goal of the CWLF project is to maximize the amount of excavated materials that can be demilitarized and recycled. However, some of these materials are radioactively contaminated and, if they cannot be decontaminated, are destined to require disposal as radioactive waste. Five major radioactive waste streams have been designated on the CWLF project, including: unclassified soft radioactive waste--consists of soft, compatible trash such as paper, plastic, and plywood; unclassified solid radioactive waste--includes scrap metal, other unclassified hardware items, and soil; unclassified mixed waste--contains the same materials as unclassified soft or solid radioactive waste, but also contains one or more Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) constituents; classified radioactive waste--consists of classified artifacts, usually weapons components, that contain only radioactive contaminants; and classified mixed waste--comprises radioactive classified material that also contains RCRA constituents. These waste streams contain a variety of radionuclides that exist both as surface contamination and as sealed sources. To characterize these wastes, the CWLF project's waste management team is relying on data obtained from direct measurement of radionuclide activity content to the maximum extent possible and, in cases where direct measurement is not technically feasible, from accumulated PK of the excavated materials.

Since the mid-1980's, there have been a number of commercially available parallel computers with hundreds or thousands of processors. These machines have provided a new capability to the scientific community, and they been used successfully by scientists and engineers although with varying degrees of success. One of the reasons for the limited success is the difficulty, or perceived difficulty, in developing code for these machines. In this paper we discuss many of the issues and challenges in developing scalable hardware, system software and algorithms for machines comprising hundreds or thousands of processors.

The history of high consequence accidents is rich with events wherein the actions, or inaction, of humans was critical to the sequence of events preceding the accident. Moreover, it has been reported that human error may contribute to 80% of accidents, if not more (dougherty and Fragola, 1988). Within the safety community, this reality is widely recognized and there is a substantially greater awareness of the human contribution to system safety today than has ever existed in the past. Despite these facts, and some measurable reduction in accident rates, when accidents do occur, there is a common lament. No matter how hard we try, we continue to have accidents. Accompanying this lament, there is often bewilderment expressed in statements such as, ''There's no explanation for why he/she did what they did''. It is believed that these statements are a symptom of inadequacies in how they think about humans and their role within technological systems. In particular, while there has never been a greater awareness of human factors, conceptual models of human involvement in engineered systems are often incomplete and in some cases, inaccurate.

We estimate the total in-vessel deuterium retention in Alcator C-Mod from a run campaign of about 1090 plasmas. The estimate is based on measurements of deuterium retained on 22 molybdenum tiles from the inner wall and divertor. The areal density of deuterium on the tiles was measured by nuclear reaction analysis. From these data, the in-vessel deuterium inventory is estimated to be about 0.1 gram, assuming the deuterium coverage is toroidally symmetric. Most of the retained deuterium is on the walls of the main plasma chamber, only about 2.5% of the deuterium is in the divertor. The D coverage is consistent with a layer saturated by implantation with ions and charge-exchange neutrals from the plasma. This contrasts with tokamaks with carbon plasma-facing components (PFC's) where long-term retention of tritium and deuterium is large and mainly in the divertor due to codeposition with carbon eroded by the plasma. The low deuterium retention in the C-Mod divertor is mainly due to the absence of carbon PFC's in C-Mod and the low erosion rate of Mo.

This paper reviews the technology options for a fission-based electric propulsion system for interstellar precursor missions. To achieve a total {Delta}V of more than 100 km/s in less than a decade of thrusting with an electric propulsion system of 10,000s Isp requires a specific mass for the power system of less than 35 kg/kWe. Three possible configurations are described: (1) a UZrH-fueled,NaK-cooled reactor with a steam Rankine conversion system,(2) a UN-fueled gas-cooled reactor with a recuperated Brayton conversion system, and (3) a UN-fueled heat pipe-cooled reactor with a recuperated Brayton conversion system. All three of these systems have the potential to meet the specific mass requirements for interstellar precursor missions in the near term. Advanced versions of a fission-based electric propulsion system might travel as much as several light years in 200 years.

Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) are a recently-discovered set of solar system bodies which lie at about the orbit of Pluto (40 AU) out to about 100 astronomical units (AU). There are estimated to be about 100,000 KBOS with a diameter greater than 100 km. KBOS are postulated to be composed of the pristine material which formed our solar system and may even have organic materials in them. A detailed study of KBO size, orbit distribution, structure, and surface composition could shed light on the origins of the solar system and perhaps even on the origin of life in our solar system. A rendezvous mission including a lander would be needed to perform chemical analysis of the surface and sub-surface composition of KBOS. These requirements set the size of the science probe at around a ton. Mission analyses show that a fission-powered system with an electric thruster could rendezvous at 40 AU in about 13.0 years with a total {Delta}V of 46 krnk. It would deliver a 1000-kg science payload while providing ample onboard power for relaying data back to earth. The launch mass of the entire system (power, thrusters, propellant, navigation, communication, structure, science payload, etc.) would be 7984 kg if it were placed into an earth-escape trajectory (C=O). Alternatively, the system could be placed into a 700-km earth orbit with more propellant,yielding a total mass in LEO of 8618 kg, and then spiral out of earth orbit to arrive at the KBO in 14.3 years. To achieve this performance, a fission power system with 100 kW of electrical power and a total mass (reactor, shield, conversion, and radiator) of about 2350 kg. Three possible configurations are proposed: (1) a UZrH-fueled, NaK-cooled reactor with a steam Rankine conversion system, (2) a UN-fueled gas-cooled reactor with a recuperated Brayton conversion system, and (3) a UN-fueled heatpipe-cooled reactor with a recuperated Brayton conversion system. (Boiling and condensation in the Rankine system is a technical risk at present.) All three of these systems have the potential to meet the weight requirement for the trip and to be built in the near term.

The paper describes a methodology for designing a web site for human factor engineers that is applicable for designing a web site for a group of people. Many web pages on the World Wide Web are not organized in a format that allows a user to efficiently find information. Often the information and hypertext links on web pages are not organized into intuitive groups. Intuition implies that a person is able to use their knowledge of a paradigm to solve a problem. Intuitive groups are categories that allow web page users to find information by using their intuition or mental models of categories. In order to improve the human factors engineers efficiency for finding information on the World Wide Web, research was performed to develop a web site that serves as a tool for finding information effectively. The paper describes a methodology for designing a web site for a group of people who perform similar task in an organization.

Over the last decade, multi-axis machine tools and robots based on parallel kinematic mechanisms (PKMs) have been developed and marketed worldwide. Positional accuracy in these machines is controlled by accurate knowledge of the kinematic parameters which consists of the joint center locations and distances between joint pairs. Since these machines tend to be rather large in size, the kinematic parameters (joint center locations, and initial strut lengths) are difficult to determine when these machines are in their fully assembled state. Work recently completed by the University of Florida and Sandia National Laboratories has yielded a method for determining all of the kinematic parameters of an assembled parallel kinematic device. This paper contains a brief synopsis of the calibration method created, an error budget, an uncertainty analysis for the recovered kinematic parameters and the propagation of these uncertainties to the tool tip.

We report spurious-free dynamic-range measurements of 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers in short multimode links for radio frequency communication. For a 27-m fiber link, the dynamic range at optimal bias was greater than 95 dB·Hz2/3 for modulation frequencies between 1 and 5.5 GHz, which exceeds the requirements for antenna remoting in microcellular networks. In a free-space link, we have measured the highest dynamic range in an 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser of 113 dB·Hz2/3 at 900 MHz. We have also investigated the effects of modal noise and differential mode delay on the dynamic range for longer lengths of fiber.

Defects in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) buried oxides are normally considered deleterious to device operation. Similarly, exposing devices to hydrogen at elevated temperatures often can lead to radiation-induced charge buildup. However, in this work, we take advantage of as-processed defects in SOI buried oxides and moderate temperature hydrogen anneals to generate mobile protons in the buried oxide to form the basis of a ''protonic'' nonvolatile memory. Capacitors and fully-processed transistors were fabricated. SOI buried oxides are exposed to hydrogen at moderate temperatures using a variety of anneal conditions to optimize the density of mobile protons. A fast ramp cool down anneal was found to yield the maximum number of mobile protons. Unfortunately, we were unable to obtain uniform mobile proton concentrations across a wafer. Capacitors were irradiated to investigate the potential use of protonic memories for space and weapon applications. Irradiating under a negative top-gate bias or with no applied bias was observed to cause little degradation in the number of mobile protons. However, irradiating to a total dose of 100 krad(SiO{sub 2}) under a positive top-gate bias caused approximately a 100% reduction in the number of mobile protons. Cycling capacitors up to 10{sup 4} cycles had little effect on the switching characteristics. No change in the retention characteristics were observed for times up to 3 x 10{sup 4} s for capacitors stored unbiased at 200 C. These results show the proof-of-concept for a protonic nonvolatile memory. Two memory architectures are proposed for a protonic non-destructive, nonvolatile memory.

Salinas provides a massively parallel implementation of structural dynamics finite element analysis, required for high fidelity, validated models used in modal, vibration, static and shock analysis of weapons systems. This document provides a users guide to the input for Salinas. Details of input specifications for the different solution types, output options, element types and parameters are included. The appendices contain detailed examples, and instructions for running the software on parallel platforms.

The desire to provide a measure of computer network availability at Sandia National Laboratories has existed for along time. Several attempts were made to build this measure by accurately recording network failures, identifying the type of network element involved, the root cause of the problem, and the time to repair the fault. Recognizing the limitations of available methods, it became obvious that another approach of determining network availability had to be defined. The chosen concept involved the periodic sampling of network services and applications from various network locations. A measure of ''network'' availability was then calculated based on the ratio of polling success to failure. The effort required to gather the information and produce a useful metric is not prohibitive and the information gained has verified long held feelings regarding network performance with real data.

This document describes the implementation of periodic boundary conditions in the ALEGRA finite element code. ALEGRA is an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian multi-physics code with both explicit and implicit numerical algorithms. The periodic boundary implementation requires a consistent set of boundary input sets which are used to describe virtual periodic regions. The implementation is noninvasive to the majority of the ALEGRA coding and is based on the distributed memory parallel framework in ALEGRA. The technique involves extending the ghost element concept for interprocessor boundary communications in ALEGRA to additionally support on- and off-processor periodic boundary communications. The user interface, algorithmic details and sample computations are given.

The end of the Cold War finds the international community no longer divided into two opposing blocks. The concerns that the community now faces are becoming more fluid, less focused, and, in many ways, much less predictable. Issues of religion, ethnicity, and nationalism; the possible proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction; and the diffusion of technology and information processing throughout the world community have greatly changed the international security landscape in the last decade. Although our challenges appear formidable, the United Nations, State Parties, nongovernmental organizations, and the arms control community are moving to address and lessen these concerns through both formal and informal efforts. Many of the multilateral agreements (e.g., NPT, BWC, CWC, CTBT, MTCR), as well as the bilateral efforts that are taking place between Washington and Moscow employ confidence-building and transparency measures. These measures along with on-site inspection and other verification procedures lessen suspicion and distrust and reduce uncertainty, thus enhancing stability, confidence, and cooperation.

In October 1996, an interdisciplinary team began a three-year LDRD project to study the plasma processes of reactive ion etching and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition on large-area silicon devices. The goal was to develop numerical models that could be used in a variety of applications for surface cleaning, selective etching, and thin-film deposition. Silicon solar cells were chosen as the experimental vehicle for this project because an innovative device design was identified that would benefit from immediate performance improvement using a combination of plasma etching and deposition processes. This report presents a summary of the technical accomplishments and conclusions of the team.

The System of Labs Direct Fabrication Technology program was intended to foster cooperation and development in a cooperative effort between Sandia National Labs, Idaho National Energy and Environment Lab and Oak Ridge National Lab. The goal of this program was to bring together LENS (Laser Engineered Net Shaping) from Sandia, INEEL's spray forming process and the alloy development expertise of ORNL. This program investigated the feasibility of combining the LENS and spray forming processes to exploit the best features of both approaches. Further, since both processes were thought to result in a rapidly solidified structure, the alloy design expertise of ORNL offered the opportunity for alloy design or processing options which could more fully utilize the unique capabilities of the processes.

In an attempt to automatically produce high-quality all-hex meshes, we investigated a mesh improvement strategy: given an initial poor-quality all-hex mesh, we iteratively changed the element connectivity, adding and deleting elements and nodes, and optimized the node positions. We found a set of hex reconnection primitives. We improved the optimization algorithms so they can untangle a negative-Jacobian mesh, even considering Jacobians on the boundary, and subsequently optimize the condition number of elements in an untangled mesh. However, even after applying both the primitives and optimization we were unable to produce high-quality meshes in certain regions. Our experiences suggest that many boundary configurations of quadrilaterals admit no hexahedral mesh with positive Jacobians, although we have no proof of this.

Predicting the behavior of ion channel proteins is important for understanding biological effects of drugs and toxins. These problems involve steady state transport of ions through very small (1-2 atoms wide) pores. FY99 LDRD funding was used to begin investigations of ion channel proteins using a molecular theory approach. Much of our efforts involved establishing the soundness of the approach by direct comparison with grand canonical molecular dynamics simulations of simple model systems. In addition, several dimensional ion channel models have been implemented to demonstrate the viability of the approach, The seed funding provided by this LDRD grant resulted in 50K of DOWOBER funds for FY99, an invitation to submit a full length 0(500K) proposal for consideration to DOWOBER, and start a larger LDRD effort in computational biophysics beginning in FY00.

Estimation of the potential radiological risks associated with highway transport of radioactive materials (RAM) requires input data describing population densities adjacent to all portions of the route to be traveled. Previously, aggregated risks for entire multi-state routes were adequately estimated from population data with low geographic resolution. Current demands for geographically-specific risk estimates require similar increases in resolution of population density adjacent to route segments. With the advent of commercial geographic information systems (GISs) and databases describing highways, U.S. Census Blocks, and other information that is geographically distributed, it became feasible to determine and tabulate population characteristics along transportation routes with 1-kilometer resolution. This report describes an automated method of collecting population data adjacent to route segments (for calculation of incident-free doses) based on a commercial GIS. It also describes a statistical method of resolving remaining resolution issues, and an adaptation of the automation method to collection of data on population under a hypothetical plume of contamination resulting from a potential transportation accident.

Polarimetry is the method of recording the state of polarization of light. Imaging polarimetry extends this method to recording the spatially resolved state of polarization within a scene. Imaging-polarimetry data have the potential to improve the detection of manmade objects in natural backgrounds. We have constructed a midwave infrared complete imaging polarimeter consisting of a fixed wire-grid polarizer and rotating form-birefringent retarder. The retardance and the orientation angles of the retarder were optimized to minimize the sensitivity of the instrument to noise in the measurements. The optimal retardance was found to be 132{degree} rather than the typical 90{degree}. The complete imaging polarimeter utilized a liquid-nitrogen cooled PtSi camera. The fixed wire-grid polarizer was located at the cold stop inside the camera dewar. The complete imaging polarimeter was operated in the 4.42-5 {micro}m spectral range. A series of imaging experiments was performed using as targets a surface of water, an automobile, and an aircraft. Further analysis of the polarization measurements revealed that in all three cases the magnitude of circular polarization was comparable to the noise in the calculated Stokes-vector components.

The decomposition of unconfined rigid polyurethane foam has been modeled by a kinetic bond-breaking scheme describing degradation of a primary polymer and formation of a thermally stable secondary polymer. The bond-breaking scheme is resolved using percolation theory to describe evolving polymer fragments. The polymer fragments vaporize according to individual vapor pressures. Kinetic parameters for the model were obtained from Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA). The chemical structure of the foam was determined from the preparation techniques and ingredients used to synthesize the foam. Scale-up effects were investigated by simulating the response of an incident heat flux of 25 W/cm{sup 2} on a partially confined 8.8-cm diameter by 15-cm long right circular cylinder of foam which contained an encapsulated component. Predictions of center, midradial, and component temperatures, as well as regression of the foam surface, were in agreement with measurements using thermocouples and X-ray imaging.

Experience has shown that the analyses of marine transport of spent fuel in the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) were conservative. It is anticipated that for most shipments. The external dose rate for the loaded transportation cask will be more in line with recent shipments. At the radiation levels associated with these shipments, we would not expect any personnel to exceed radiation exposure limits for the public. Package dose rates usually well below the regulatory limits and personnel work practices following ALARA principles are keeping human exposures to minimal levels. However, the potential for Mure shipments with external dose rates closer to the exclusive-use regulatory limit suggests that DOE should continue to provide a means to assure that individual crew members do not receive doses in excess of the public dose limits. As a minimum, the program will monitor cask dose rates and continue to implement administrative procedures that will maintain records of the dose rates associated with each shipment, the vessel used, and the crew list for the vessel. DOE will continue to include a clause in the contract for shipment of the foreign research reactor spent nuclear fuel requiring that the Mitigation Action Plan be followed.

As model validation techniques gain more acceptance and increase in power, the demands on the modal parameter extractions increase. The estimation accuracy, the number of modes desired, and the data reduction efficiency are required features. An algorithm known as SMAC (Synthesize Modes And Correlate), based on principles of modal filtering, has been in development for a few years. SMAC has now been extended in two main areas. First, it has now been automated. Second, it has been extended to fit complex modes as well as real modes. These extensions have enhanced the power of modal extraction so that, typically, the analyst needs to manually fit only 10 percent of the modes in the desired bandwidth, whereas the automated routines will fit 90 percent of the modes. SMAC could be successfully automated because it generally does not produce computational roots.

Direct metal deposition technologies produce complex, near net shape components from Computer Aided Design (CAD) solid models. Most of these techniques fabricate a component by melting powder in a laser weld pool, rastering the weld bead to form a layer, and additively constructing subsequent layers. This report will describe anew direct metal deposition process, known as WireFeed, whereby a small diameter wire is used instead of powder as the feed material to fabricate components. Currently, parts are being fabricated from stainless steel alloys. Microscopy studies show the WireFeed parts to be filly dense with fine microstructural features. Mechanical tests show stainless steel parts to have high strength values with retained ductility. A model was developed to simulate the microstructural evolution and coarsening during the WireFeed process. Simulations demonstrate the importance of knowing the temperature distribution during fabrication of a WireFeed part. The temperature distribution influences microstructural evolution and, therefore, must be controlled to tailor the microstructure for optimal performance.

Development of bug-free, high-surety, complex software is quite difficult using current tools. The brittle nature of the programming constructs in popular languages such as C/C++ is one root cause. Brittle commands force the designer to rigidly specify the minutiae of tasks, e.g. using ''for(index=0;index>total;index++)'', rather than specifying the goals or intent of the tasks, e.g. ''ensure that all relevant data elements have been examined''. Specification of task minutiae makes code hard to comprehend, which in turn encourages design errors/limitations and makes future modifications quite difficult. This report describes an LDRD project to seed the development of a surety computer language, for stand-alone computing environments, to be implemented using the swarm intelligence of autonomous agents. The long term vision of this project was to develop a language with the following surety capabilities: (1) Reliability -- Autonomous agents can appropriate y decide when to act and when a task is complete, provide a natural means for avoiding brittle task specifications, and can overcome many hardware glitches. (2) Safety, security -- Watchdog safety and security agents can monitor other agents to prevent unauthorized or dangerous actions. (3) An immune system -- The small chunks of agent code can have an encryption scheme to enable detection and elimination of unauthorized and corrupted agents. This report describes the progress achieved during this small 9 month project and describes lessons learned.

Current supercomputers use large parallel arrays of tightly coupled processors to achieve levels of performance far surpassing conventional vector supercomputers. Shock-wave physics codes have been developed for these new supercomputers at Sandia National Laboratories and elsewhere. These parallel codes run fast enough on many simulations to consider using them to study the effects of varying design parameters on the performance of models of conventional munitions and other complex systems. Such studies maybe directed by optimization software to improve the performance of the modeled system. Using a shaped-charge jet design as an archetypal test case and the CTH parallel shock-wave physics code controlled by the Dakota optimization software, we explored the use of automatic optimization tools to optimize the design for conventional munitions. We used a scheme in which a lower resolution computational mesh was used to identify candidate optimal solutions and then these were verified using a higher resolution mesh. We identified three optimal solutions for the model and a region of the design domain where the jet tip speed is nearly optimal, indicating the possibility of a robust design. Based on this study we identified some of the difficulties in using high-fidelity models with optimization software to develop improved designs. These include developing robust algorithms for the objective function and constraints and mitigating the effects of numerical noise in them. We conclude that optimization software running high-fidelity models of physical systems using parallel shock wave physics codes to find improved designs can be a valuable tool for designers. While current state of algorithm and software development does not permit routine, ''black box'' optimization of designs, the effort involved in using the existing tools may well be worth the improvement achieved in designs.

This report documents the use of the FITS routine, which provides automated fits of various analytical, commonly used probability models from input data. It is intended to complement the previously distributed FITTING routine documented in RMS Report 14 (Winterstein et al., 1994), which implements relatively complex four-moment distribution models whose parameters are fit with numerical optimization routines. Although these four-moment fits can be quite useful and faithful to the observed data, their complexity can make them difficult to automate within standard fitting algorithms. In contrast, FITS provides more robust (lower moment) fits of simpler, more conventional distribution forms. For each database of interest, the routine estimates the distribution of annual maximum response based on the data values and the duration, T, over which they were recorded. To focus on the upper tails of interest, the user can also supply an arbitrary lower-bound threshold, {chi}{sub low}, above which a shifted distribution model--exponential or Weibull--is fit.

Path integral Monte Carlo simulations and calculations were performed on molecular hydrogen liquids. The equation-of-state, internal energies, and vapor liquid phase diagrams from simulation were found to be in quantitative agreement with experiments. Analytical calculations were performed on,H2 liquids using integral equation methods to study the degree of localization of the hydrogen molecules. Very little self-trapping or localization was found as a function of temperature and density. Good qualitative agreement was found between the integral equation calculations and the quantum Monte Carlo simulations for the radius of gyration of the hydrogen molecules. Path integral simulations were also performed on molecular hydrogen on graphite surfaces, slit pores, and in carbon nanotubes. Significant quantum effects on the adsorption of hydrogen were observed.

Thermionic energy conversion in a microminiature format shows potential as a viable, high efficiency, on-chip power source. Microminiature thermionic converters (MTC) with inter-electrode spacings on the order of microns are currently being prototyped and evaluated at Sandia. The remaining enabling technology is the development of low work function materials and processes than can be integrated into these converters. In this report, the authors demonstrate a method of incorporating thin film emitters into converters using rf sputtering. They find that the resultant films possess a minimum work function of 1.2 eV. Practical energy conversion is hindered by surface work function non-uniformity. They postulate the source of this heterogeneity to be a result of limited bulk and surface transport of barium. Several methods are proposed for maximizing transport, including increased film porosity and the use of metal terminating layers. They demonstrate a novel method for incorporating film porosity based on metal interlayer coalescence.

Abstract not provided.

Monolithic, integrated acoustic wave chemical microsensors are being developed on gallium arsenide (GaAs) substrates. With this approach, arrays of microsensors and the high frequency electronic components needed to operate them reside on a single substrate, increasing the range of detectable analytes, reducing overall system size, minimizing systematic errors, and simplifying assembly and packaging. GaAs is employed because it is both piezoelectric, a property required to produce the acoustic wave devices, and a semiconductor with a mature microelectronics fabrication technology. Many aspects of integrated GaAs chemical sensors have been investigated, including: surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors; monolithic SAW delay line oscillators; GaAs application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) for sensor operation; a hybrid sensor array utilizing these ASICS; and the fully monolithic, integrated SAW array. Details of the design, fabrication, and performance of these devices are discussed. In addition, the ability to produce heteroepitaxial layers of GaAs and aluminum gallium arsenide (AlGaAs) makes possible micromachined membrane sensors with improved sensitivity compared to conventional SAW sensors. Micromachining techniques for fabricating flexural plate wave (FPW) and thickness shear mode (TSM) microsensors on thin GaAs membranes are presented and GaAs FPW delay line and TSM resonator performance is described.

Inductive energy storage systems can have high energy density, lending to smaller, less expensive systems. The crucial element of an inductive energy storage system is the opening switch. This switch must conduct current while energy is stored in an inductor, then open quickly to transfer this energy to a load. Plasma can perform this function. The Plasma Opening Switch (POS) has been studied for more than two decades. Success with the conventional plasma opening switch has been limited. A system designed to significantly improve the performance of vacuum opening switches is described in this paper. The gap cleared of plasma is a rough figure-of-merit for vacuum opening switches. Typical opened gaps of 3 mm are reported for conventional switches. The goal for the system described in this paper is more than 3 cm. To achieve this, the command-triggered POS adds an active opening mechanism, which allows complete separation of conduction and opening. This separation is advantageous because of the widely different time scales of conduction and opening. The detrimental process of magnetic field penetration into the plasma during conduction is less important in this switch. The opening mechanism duration is much shorter than the conduction time, so penetration during opening is insignificant. Opening is accomplished with a fast magnetic field that pushes plasma out of the switch region. Plasma must be removed from the switch region to allow high voltage. This paper describes some processes important during conduction and opening, and show calculations on the trigger requirements. The design of the switch is shown. This system is designed to demonstrate both improved performance and nanosecond output jitter at levels greater than one terawatt. An amplification mechanism is described which reduces the trigger energy. Particle-in-cell simulations of the system are also shown.

Simple tangent, hard site chains near a hard wall are modeled with a Density Functional (DF) theory that uses the direct correlation function, c(r), as its ''input''. Two aspects of this DF theory are focused upon: (1) the consequences of variations in c(r)'s detailed form; and (2) the correct way to introduce c(r) into the DF formalism. The most important aspect of c(r) is found to be its integrated value, {cflx c}(0). Indeed, it appears that, for fixed {cflx c}(0), all reasonable guesses of the detailed shape of c(r) result in surprisingly similar density distributions, {rho}(r). Of course, the more accurate the c(r), the better the {rho}(r). As long as the length scale introduced by c(r) is roughly the hard site diameter and as long as the solution remains liquid-like, the {rho}(r) is found to be in good agreement with simulation results. The c(r) is used in DF theory to calculate the medium-induced-potential, U{sub M}(r) from the density distribution, {rho}(r). The form of U{sub M}(r) can be chosen to be one of a number of different forms. It is found that the forms for U{sub M}(r), which yield the most accurate results for the wall problem, are also those which were suggested as accurate in previous, related studies.

Solid freeform fabrication is the near-net-shape manufacturing of components by sequentially stacking thin layers of material until complicated three dimensional shapes are produced. The operation is computer controlled and requires no molds. This exciting new field of technology provides engineers with the ability to rapidly produce prototype parts directly from CAD drawings and oftentimes little or no machining is necessary after fabrication. Techniques for freeform fabrication with several types of plastics and metals are already quite advanced and maybe reviewed in references 1 and 2. Very complicated plastic models can be fabricated by stereolithography, selective laser sintering, fused deposition modeling, or three-dimensional ink jet printing. Metals may be freeformed by the LENS{trademark} technique and porous ceramic bodies by three dimensional printing into a porous powder bed. However, methods for freeform fabrication that utilize particulate slurries to build dense ceramics and composites are not as well developed. The techniques that are being developed for the freeform fabrication of dense structural ceramics primarily revolve around the sequential layering of ceramic loaded polymers or waxes. Laminated Object Manufacturing and CAM-LEM processing use controlled stacking and laser cutting of ceramic tapes [2,3]. Similar to fused deposition modeling, ceramic loaded polymer/wax filaments are being used for the fused deposition of ceramics [2,4]. Extrusion freeform fabrication uses high pressure extrusion to deposit layers of ceramic loaded polymer/wax systems[1]. Modified stereolithographic techniques are also being developed using ceramic loaded ultraviolet curable resins [2]. Pre-sintered parts made with any of these techniques typically have 40-55 vol.% polymeric binder. In this regard, these techniques are analogous to powder injection molding of ceramics. Very long and complicated burnout heat treatments are necessary to produce a dense ceramic, free of organics. Heating rates of 0.2 degrees Celsius per minute are common. [5] Thus, while a part maybe rapidly prototype within a few hours, it takes several days to densify. In contrast, robocasting is a freeform fabrication technique developed at Sandia National Labs that utilizes particulate slurries but does not require organic binders. Since binder burnout is not an issue, a dense ceramic part maybe freeformed, dried, and sintered in less than 24 hours. In some regards, robocasting is analogous to the ceramic near-net-shape processing techniques, slip casting and gel casting [6]; however, robocasting is moldless and fabrication times can be quicker.

Device penetration into media such as metal and soil is an application of some engineering interest. Often, these devices contain internal components and it is of paramount importance that all significant components survive the severe environment that accompanies the penetration event. In addition, the system must be robust to perturbations in its operating environment, some of which exhibit behavior which can only be quantified to within some level of uncertainty. In the analysis discussed herein, methods to address the reliability of internal components for a specific application system are discussed. The shock response spectrum (SRS) is utilized in conjunction with the Advanced Mean Value (AMV) and Response Surface methods to make probabilistic statements regarding the predicted reliability of internal components. Monte Carlo simulation methods are also explored.

Previous applications of DF theory required a single chain Monte Carlo simulation to be performed within a self-consistent loop. In the current work, a methodology is developed which permits the simulation to be taken out of the iterative loop. Consequently, the calculation of the self-consistent, medium-induced-potential, or field, is decoupled from the simulation. This approach permits different densities, different forms of U{sub M}(r), and different wall-polymer interactions to be investigated from a single Monte Carlo simulation. The increase in computational efficiency is immense.

In the world of computers a trusted object is a collection of possibly-sensitive data and programs that can be allowed to reside and execute on a computer, even on an adversary's machine. Beyond the scope of one computer we believe that network-based agents in high-consequence and highly reliable applications will depend on this approach, and that the basis for such objects is what we call ''faithful execution.''

Minimum-time trajectory tracking of an under-actuated mechanical system called the Acrobot is presented. The success of the controller is demonstrated by the fact that the tracking error is reduced by more than an order of magnitude when compared to the open-loop system response. The control law is obtained by linearizing the system about the nominal trajectory and applying differential dynamic programming to the resulting linear time-varying system, while using a weighted sum of the state-deviation and input-deviation as the cost function.

A study to characterize the low-temperature reactive processes for o-AP and an AP/HTPB-based propellant (class 1.3) is being conducted in the laboratory using the techniques of simultaneous thermogravimetric modulated beam mass spectrometry (STMBMS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results presented in this paper are a follow up of the previous work that showed the overall decomposition to be complex and controlled by both physical and chemical processes. The decomposition is characterized by the occurrence of one major event that consumes up to {approx}35% of the AP, depending upon particle size, and leaves behind a porous agglomerate of AP. The major gaseous products released during this event include H{sub 2}O, O{sub 2}, Cl{sub 2}, N{sub 2}O and HCl. The recent efforts provide further insight into the decomposition processes for o-AP. The temporal behaviors of the gas formation rates (GFRs) for the products indicate that the major decomposition event consists of three chemical channels. The first and third channels are affected by the pressure in the reaction cell and occur at the surface or in the gas phase above the surface of the AP particles. The second channel is not affected by pressure and accounts for the solid-phase reactions characteristic of o-AP. The third channel involves the interactions of the decomposition products with the surface of the AP. SEM images of partially decomposed o-AP provide insight to how the morphology changes as the decomposition progresses. A conceptual model has been developed, based upon the STMBMS and SEM results, that provides a basic description of the processes. The thermal decomposition characteristics of the propellant are evaluated from the identities of the products and the temporal behaviors of their GFRs. First, the volatile components in the propellant evolve from the propellant as it is heated. Second, the hot AP (and HClO{sub 4}) at the AP-binder interface oxidize the binder through reactions that preferentially strip the hydrogen from the binder and yield HCl and H{sub 2}O with some oxidation of the carbon from the binder. Third, the o-AP in the propellant decomposes in the same manner as in neat o-AP. Finally, AP-derived gaseous products interact with other ingredients in the propellant.

A set of linear and nonlinear stability analysis tools have been developed to analyze steady state incompressible flows in 3D geometries. The algorithms have been implemented to be scalable to hundreds of parallel processors. The linear stability of steady state flows are determined by calculating the rightmost eigenvalues of the associated generalize eigenvalue problem. Nonlinear stability is studied by bifurcation analysis techniques. The boundaries between desirable and undesirable operating conditions are determined for buoyant flow in the rotating disk CVD reactor.

Mesa and planar GaN Schottky diode rectifiers with reverse breakdown voltages (V{sub RB}) up to 550V and >2000V, respectively, have been fabricated. The on-state resistance, R{sub ON}, was 6m{Omega}{center_dot} cm{sup 2} and 0.8{Omega}cm{sup 2}, respectively, producing figure-of-merit values for (V{sub RB}){sup 2}/R{sub ON} in the range 5-48 MW{center_dot}cm{sup -2}. At low biases the reverse leakage current was proportional to the size of the rectifying contact perimeter, while at high biases the current was proportional to the area of this contact. These results suggest that at low reverse biases, the leakage is dominated by the surface component, while at higher biases the bulk component dominates. On-state voltages were 3.5V for the 550V diodes and {ge}15 for the 2kV diodes. Reverse recovery times were <0.2{micro}sec for devices switched from a forward current density of {approx}500A{center_dot}cm{sup -2} to a reverse bias of 100V.

The topic of Privacy is complex, multi-faceted, and often emotionally laden. This paper will cover the following topics, in an effort to further understanding of federal regulations and activities, the balancing act that necessarily occurs in business, and what role a records manager can play. The topics are: Definitions; The Privacy Act; ''Private'' companies; Potential areas of concern; Expectations; Corporate responsibilities; Case studies; and Records Manager's role.

The non-linear stress-strain relation for crosslinked polymer networks is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. Previously we demonstrated the importance of trapped entanglements in determining the elastic and relaxational properties of networks. Here we present new results for the stress versus strain for both dry and swollen networks. Models which limit the fluctuations of the network strands like the tube model are shown to describe the stress for both elongation and compression. For swollen networks, the total modulus is found to decrease like (V{sub o}/V){sup 2/3} and goes to the phantom model result only for short strand networks.

Predicting the properties of nonequilibrium systems from molecular simulations is a growing area of interest. One important class of problems involves steady state diffusion. To study these cases, a grand canonical molecular dynamics approach has been developed by Heffelfinger and van Swol [J. Chem. Phys., 101, 5274 (1994)]. With this method, the flux of particles, the chemical potential gradients, and density gradients can all be measured in the simulation. In this paper, we present a complementary approach that couples a nonlocal density functional theory (DFT) with a transport equation describing steady-state flux of the particles. We compare transport-DFT predictions to GCMD results for a variety of ideal (color diffusion), and nonideal (uphill diffusion and convective transport) systems. In all cases excellent agreement between transport-DFT and GCMD calculations is obtained with diffusion coefficients that are invariant with respect to density and external fields.

Magnesium vanadates are potentially important catalytic materials for the conversion of alkanes to alkenes via oxidative dehydrogenation. However, little is known about the active sites at which the catalytic reactions take place. It may be possible to obtain a significant increase in the catalytic efficiency if the effects of certain material properties on the surface reactions could be quantified and optimized through the use of appropriate preparation techniques. Given that surface reactivity is often dependent upon surface structure and that the atomic level structure of the active sites in these catalysts is virtually unknown, we desire thin film samples consisting of a single magnesium vanadate phase and a well defined crystallographic orientation in order to reduce complexity and simplify the study of active sites. We report on the use of reactive RF sputter deposition to fabricate very highly oriented, stoichiometric Mg{sub 3}(VO{sub 4}){sub 2} thin films for use in these surface analysis studies. Deposition of samples onto amorphous substrates resulted in very poor crystallinity. However, deposition of Mg{sub 3}(VO{sub 4}){sub 2} onto well-oriented, lattice-matched thin film ''seed'' layers such as Ti(0001), Au(111), or Pt(111) resulted in very strong preferential (042) crystallographic orientation (pseudo-hexagonal oxygen planes parallel to the substrate). This strong preferential growth of the Mg{sub 3}VO{sub 4}{sub 2} suggests epitaxial (single-crystal) growth of this mixed metal oxide on the underlying metal seed layer. The effects of the seed layer material, deposition temperature, and post-deposition reactive treatments on thin film properties such as stoichiometry, crystallographic orientation, and chemical interactions will be discussed.

A range of pore diffusivities, D{sub p}, is implied by the high degree of pore-scale heterogeneity observed in core samples of the Culebra (dolomite) Member of the Rustler formation, NM. Earlier tracer tests in the culebra at the field-scale have confirmed significant heterogeneity in diffusion rate coefficients (the combination of D{sub p} and matrix block size). In this study, expressions for solute diffusion in the presence of multiple simultaneous matrix diffusivities are presented and used to model data from eight laboratory-scale diffusion experiments performed on five Culebra samples. A lognormal distribution of D{sub p} is assumed within each of the lab samples. The estimated standard deviation ({sigma}{sub d}) of In(D{sub p}) within each sample ranges from 0 to 1, with most values lying between 0.5 and 1. The variability over all samples leads to a combined {sigma}{sub d} in the range of 1.0 to 1.2, which appears to be consistent with a best-fit statistical distribution of formation factor measurements for similar Culebra samples. A comparison of the estimation results to other rock properties suggests that, at the lab-scale, the geometric mean of D{sub p} increases with bulk porosity and the quantity of macroscopic features such as vugs and fractures. However, {sigma}{sub d} appears to be determined by variability within such macroscopic features and/or by micropore-scale heterogeneity. In addition, comparison of these experiments to those at larger spatial scales suggests that increasing sample volume results in an increase in {sigma}{sub d}.

The processes of defining managerial roles and providing for delegation of authority are essential to any enterprise. At most large organizations, these processes are defined in policy manuals and through sets of standard operating procedures for many, if not all, business and administrative functions. Many of these staff-initiated, administrative functions require the routing of documents for approval to one or more levels of management. These employee-oriented, back office types of workflows tend to require more flexibility in determining to whom these documents should go to, while, at the same time, providing the responsible parties with the flexibility to delegate their approval authority or allow others to review their work. Although this practice is commonplace in manual, paper-based processes that exist in many organizations, it is difficult to provide the same flexibility in the more structured, electronic-based, workflow systems.

In 1979, six years after selecting the Delaware Basin as a potential disposal area, Congress authorized the U.S. Department of Energy to build the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico, as a Research and development facility for the safe management storage, and disposal of waste contaminated with transuranic radioisotopes. In 1998, 19 years after authorization and after site selection, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certified that the WIPP disposal system complied with its regulations. The EPA's decision was primarily based on the results from a performance. assessment conducted in 1996, which is summarized in this special issue of Reliability Engineering and System Safety. This performance assessment was the culmination of four preliminary performance assessments conducted between 1989 and 1992. This paper provides a historical setting and context for how the performance of the deep geologic repository at the WIPP was analyzed. Also included is background on political forces acting on the project.

Paul McWhorter, Deputy Director for of the Microsystems Center at Sandia National Laboratories, discusses the potential of surface micromachining. A vision of the possibilities of intelligent Microsystems for the future is presented along with descriptions of several possible applications. Applications that are just around the corner and some that maybe quite a ways down the road but have a clear development path to their realization. Microsystems will drive the next silicon revolution.

We are continuing to study the suitability of modified thermal-battery technology as a potential power source for geothermal borehole applications. Previous work focused on the LiSi/FeS{sub 2} couple over a temperature range of 350 C to 400 C with the LiBr-KBr-LiF eutectic, which melts at 324.5 C. In this work, the discharge processes that take place in LiSi/CsBr-LiBr-KBr eutectic/FeS{sub 2} thermal cells were studied at temperatures between 250 C and 400 C using pelletized cells with immobilized electrolyte. The CsBr-LiBr-KBr eutectic was selected because of its lower melting point (228.5 C). Incorporation of a quasi-reference electrode allowed the determination of the relative contribution of each electrode to the overall cell polarization. The results of single-cell tests and limited battery tests are presented, along with preliminary data for battery stacks tested in a simulated geothermal borehole environment.

The performance of Li-alloy/CsBr-LiBr-KBr/Ag{sub 2}CrO{sub 4} systems was studied over a temperature range of 250 C to 300 C, for possible use as a power source for geothermal borehole applications. Single cells were discharged at current densities of 15.8 and 32.6 mA/cm{sup 2} using Li-Si and Li-Al anodes. When tested in 5-cell batteries, the Li-Si/CsBr-LiBr-KBr/Ag{sub 2}CrO{sub 4} system exhibited thermal runaway. Thermal analytical tests showed that the Ag{sub 2}CrO{sub 4} cathode reacted exothermically with the electrolyte on activation. Consequently, this system would not be practical for the envisioned geothermal borehole applications.

The electronic transport properties of Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) determine the charge collection efficiency (i.e. the signal quality) of CZT detectors. These properties vary on both macroscopic and microscopic scale and depend on the presence of impurities and defects introduced during the crystal growth. Ion Beam Induced Charge Collection (IBICC) is a proven method to measure the charge collection efficiency. Using an ion microbeam, the charge collection efficiency can be mapped with submicron resolution, and the map of electronic properties (such as drift length) can be calculated from the measurement. A more sophisticated version of IBICC, the Time Resolved IBICC (TRIBICC) allows them to determine the mobility and the life time of the charge carriers by recording and analyzing the transient waveform of the detector signal. Furthermore, lateral IBICC and TRIBICC can provide information how the charge collection efficiency depends on the depth where the charge carriers are generated. This allows one to deduce information on the distribution of the electric field and transport properties of the charge carriers along the detector axis. IBICC and TRIBICC were used at the Sandia microbeam facility to image electronic properties of several CZT detectors. From the lateral TRIBICC measurement the electron and hole drift length profiles were calculated.

A motion planning strategy was developed and implemented to generate motion control instructions from solid model data for controlling a robotically driven solid free-form fabrication process. The planning strategy was tested using a PUMA type robot arm integrated into a LENS{trademark} (Laser Engineered Net Shape) system. Previous systems relied on a series of x, y, and z stages, to provide a minimal coordinated motion control capability. This limited the complexity of geometries that could be constructed. With the coordinated motion provided by a robotic arm, the system can produce three dimensional parts by ''writing'' material onto any face of existing material. The motion planning strategy relied on solid model geometry evaluation and exploited robotic positioning flexibility to allow the construction of geometrically complex parts. The integration of the robotic manipulator into the LENS{trademark} system was tested by producing metal parts directly from CAD models.

The emerging field of haptics represents a fundamental change in human-computer interaction (HCI), and presents solutions to problems that are difficult or impossible to solve with a two-dimensional, mouse-based interface. To take advantage of the potential of haptics, however, innovative interaction techniques and programming environments are needed. This paper describes FGB (FLIGHT GHUI Builder), a programming tool that can be used to create an application specific graphical and haptic user interface (GHUI). FGB is itself a graphical and haptic user interface with which a programmer can intuitively create and manipulate components of a GHUI in real time in a graphical environment through the use of a haptic device. The programmer can create a GHUI without writing any programming code. After a user interface is created, FGB writes the appropriate programming code to a file, using the FLIGHT API, to recreate what the programmer created in the FGB interface. FGB saves programming time and increases productivity, because a programmer can see the end result as it is created, and FGB does much of the programming itself. Interestingly, as FGB was created, it was used to help build itself. The further FGB was in its development, the more easily and quickly it could be used to create additional functionality and improve its own design. As a finished product, FGB can be used to recreate itself in much less time than it originally required, and with much less programming. This paper describes FGB's GHUI components, the techniques used in the interface, how the output code is created, where programming additions and modifications should be placed, and how it can be compared to and integrated with existing API's such as MFC and Visual C++, OpenGL, and GHOST.