Publications

Thermomechanical models are being developed to support the design of an Exploratory Studies Facility (ESF) and a potential high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. These models are used for preclosure design of underground openings, such as access drifts, emplacement drifts, and waste emplacement boreholes; and in support of postclosure issue resolution relating to waste canister performance, disturbance of the hydrological properties of the host rock, and overall system performance assessment. For both design and performance assessment, the purpose of using models in analyses is to better understand and quantify some phenomenon or process. Therefore, validation is an important process that must be pursued in conjunction with the development and application of models. The Site Characterization Plan (SCP) addressed some general aspects of model validation, but no specific approach has, as yet, been developed for either design or performance assessment models. This paper will discuss a proposed process for thermomechanical model validation and will focus on the use of laboratory and in situ experiments as part of the validation process. The process may be generic enough in nature that it could be applied to the validation of other types of models, for example, models of unsaturated hydrologic flow.

Basaltic volcanism has been identified as a possible future event initiating a release of radionuclides from a potential repository at the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level waste repository site. The performance assessment method set forth in the Site Characterization Plan (DOE, 1988) requires that a set of scenarios encompassing all significant radionuclide release paths to the accessible environment be described. This report attempts to catalogue the details of the interactions between the features and processes produced by basaltic volcanism in the presence of the presumed groundwater flow system and a repository structure, the engineered barrier system (EBS), and waste. This catalogue is developed in the form of scenarios. We define a scenario as a well-posed problem, starting from an initiating event or process and proceeding through a logically connected and physically possible combination or sequence of features, events, and processes (FEPs) to the release of contaminants.

Sandia National Laboratories—a Department of Energy multiprogram national laboratory—has for over four decades applied its talents, tools, and techniques to solving technological problems of national scale. This publication provides information of interest about Sandia National Laboratories and the work being done there.

A radiological safety evaluation is performed to determine the impacts of Exploratory Studies Facility (ESF) design changes on the preclosure public radiological safety for a potential nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Although the ESF design has undergone significant modification, incorporation of the modified design requires only modest changes to the conceptual repository configuration. To the extent feasible, the results of earlier safety evaluations presented in SAND84-2641, SAND88-7061, and SAND89-7024, which were based on the original ESF configuration, are compared with the results for the modified configuration. This comparison provides an estimate of the range of analysis uncertainty. This preliminary analysis indicates that there are no Q-scenarios, which are defined as those scenarios with a net occurrence probability of greater than 10{sup {minus}6}/yr and produce a radiological dose at the 5-km controlled area boundary of greater than 0.5 rem. The analysis yielded estimates for an underground accident of a probability of 3.8 {times} 10{sup {minus}15}/yr and a dose of 1.5 rem. For a surface-initiated accident, a probability of 1.5 {times} 10{sup {minus}12}/yr and a dose of 0.6 rem was estimated.

Tunnels buried deep within the earth constitute an important class geomechanics problems. Two numerical techniques used for the analysis of geomechanics problems, the finite element method and the boundary element method, have complementary characteristics for applications to problems of this type. The usefulness of combining these two methods for use as a geomechanics analysis tool has been recognized for some time, and a number of coupling techniques have been proposed. However, not all of them lend themselves to efficient computational implementations for large-scale problems. This report examines a coupling technique that can form the basis for an efficient analysis tool for large scale geomechanics problems through the use of an iterative equation solver.

Human Instrusion into the potential repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, was modeled in the Total-System Performance Assessment (``TSPA-91``) recently completed for the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project Office of the DOE. The scenario model assumed that the repository would be penetrated at random locations by a number of boreholes drilled using twentieth-century rotary drilling techniques.

This report brings into focus the results of numerous studies that have addressed issues associated with the validity of assumptions which are used to justify reducing the dimensionality of numerical calculations of water flow through Yucca Mountain, NV. it is shown that, in many cases, one-dimensional modeling is more rigorous than previously assumed.

Sandia National Laboratories was requested to establish the FAA Aging Aircraft Nondestructive Inspection (NDI) Development and Demonstration Center. The Center is housed in a hangar at the Albuquerque International Airport and owns its own aged transport airplane. The Center`s work encompasses research and development in enhanced structural inspection. The goals of the Center are to: promote NDI technology development and maturation; help transfer new nondevelopment item technology to the hangar floor; validate NDI techniques; assess reliability or probability of detection of NDI processes. An important part of this project will be to make sure that the cost of implementation and operation of any technique is seriously considered and that techniques are usable in the field. Among the initial techniques to be evaluated are: enhanced visual, magneto-optic eddy current; coherent optics; ultrasonics; thermographics; eddy current scanners; experimental modal analysis. This project is a perfect example of how Development Testing draws on its own resources and teams up with others, as necessary, to get the job done. In this case, New Mexico State University and a private company, Science Applications International Corporation, are assisting.

Reconsolidated salt is a fundamental component of the permanent seals for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. As regulations are currently understood and seal concepts envisioned, emplaced salt is the sole long-term seal component designed to prevent the shafts from becoming preferred pathways for rating gases or liquids. Studies under way in support of the sealing function of emplaced salt include laboratory testing of crushed salt small-scale in situ tests, constitutive modeling of crushed salt, calculations of the opening responses during operation and closure, and design practicalities including emplacement techniques. This paper briefly summarizes aspects of these efforts and key areas of future work.

In the verification technology arena, there is a pressing need for surveillance and monitoring equipment that produces authentic, verifiable records of observed activities. Such a record provides the inspecting party with confidence that observed activities occurred as recorded, without undetected tampering or spoofing having taken place. The secure authenticated video equipment (SAVE) system provides an authenticated series of video images of an observed activity. Being self-contained and portable, it can be installed as a stand-alone surveillance system or used in conjunction with existing monitoring equipment in a non-invasive manner. Security is provided by a tamper-proof camera enclosure containing a private, electronic authentication key. Video data is transferred communication link consisting of a coaxial cable, fiber-optic link or other similar media. A video review station, located remotely from the camera, receives, validates, displays and stores the incoming data. Video data is validated within the review station using a public key, a copy of which is held by authorized panics. This scheme allows the holder of the public key to verify the authenticity of the recorded video data but precludes undetectable modification of the data generated by the tamper-protected private authentication key.

A multiphase mixture model is presented to describe shock compression of highly porous, multi-component powders. Volume fractions are represented as independent kinematic variables and thermodynamically-admissible phase interaction constitutive models are formulated in the context of a three phase system. Numerical solutions of the multiphase flow equations simulated impact on a porous layer of mixed powders of Al and Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3}. The multiphase model predicts dispersive compaction waves which have features similar to observed time-resolved pressure measurements.

GENSHELL is a three-dimensional shell mesh generation program. The three-dimensional shell mesh is generated by mapping a two-dimensional quadrilateral mesh into three dimensions according to one of several types of transformations: translation, mapping onto a spherical, ellipsoidal, or cylindrical surface, and mapping onto a user-defined spline surface. The generated three-dimensional mesh can then be reoriented by offsetting, reflecting about an axis, revolving about an axis, and scaling the coordinates. GENSHELL can be used to mesh complex three-dimensional geometries composed of several sections when the sections can be defined in terms of transformations of two-dimensional geometries. The code GJOIN is then used to join the separate sections into a single body. GENSHELL updates the EXODUS quality assurance and information records to help track the codes and files used to generate the mesh. GENSHELL reads and writes two-dimensional and three-dimensional mesh databases in the GENESIS database format; therefore, it is compatible with the preprocessing, postprocessing, and analysis codes in the Sandia National Laboratories Engineering Analysis Code Access System (SEACAS).

1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act have created the need for instruments capable of monitoring volatile organic compounds (VOCS) in public air space in an unattended and low cost manner. The purpose of the study was to develop and demonstrate the capability to do long term automatic and unattended ambient air monitoring using an inexpensive portable analytic system at a commercial manufacturing plant site. A gas chromatograph system personal computer hardware, meteorology tower & instruments, and custom designed hardware and software were developed. Comparison with an EPA approved method was performed. The system was sited at an aircraft engines manufacturing site and operated in a completely unattended mode for 60 days. Two VOCs were monitored every 30 minutes during the 24hr day. Large variation in the concentration from 800ppb to the limits of detection of about 10ppb were observed. Work to increase the capabilities of the system is ongoing.

Interest in launching payloads through the atmosphere to ever higher velocity is robust. For hundreds of years, guns and rockets have been improved for this purpose until they are now considered to be near to their performance limits. While the potential of electromagnetic technology to increase launch velocity has been known since late in the nineteenth century, it was not until about 1980 that a sustained and large-scale effort was started to exploit it. Electromagnetic launcher technology is restricted here to mean only that technology which establishes both a current density, J, and a magnetic field, B, within a part of the launch package, called the armature, so that J {times} B integrated over the volume of the armature is the launching force. Research and development activity was triggered by the discovery that high velocity can be produced with a simple railgun which uses an arc for its armature. This so called ``plasma-armature railgun`` has been the launcher technology upon which nearly all of the work has focused. Still, a relatively small parallel effort has also been made to explore the potential of electromagnetic launchers which do not use sliding contacts on stationary rails to establish current in the armature. One electromagnetic launcher of this type is called an induction coilgun because armature current is established by electromagnetic induction. In this paper, we first establish terminology which we will use not only to specify requirements for successful endoatmospheric launch but also to compare different launcher types. Then, we summarize the statuses of the railgun and induction coilgun technologies and discuss the issues which must be resolved before either of these launchers can offer substantial advantage for endoatomospheric launch.

To analyze the vulnerability of nuclear materials to theft or sabotage, Department of Energy facilities have been using, since 1989, a computer program called ASSESS, Analytic System and Software for Evaluation of Safeguards and Security. During the past year Sandia National Laboratories has began using an additional program, SEES, Security Exercise Evaluation Simulation, enhancing the picture of vulnerability beyond what either program achieves alone. ASSESS analyzes all possible paths of attack on a target and, assuming that an attack occurs, ranks them by the probability that a response force of adequate size can interrupt the attack before theft or sabotage is accomplished. A Neutralization module pits, collectively, a security force against the interrupted adversary force in a fire fight and calculates the probability that the adversaries are defeated. SEES examines a single scenario and simulates in detail the interactions among all combatants. Its output includes shots fired between shooter and target, and the hits and kills. Whereas ASSESS gives breadth of analysis, expressed statistically and performed relatively quickly, SEES adds depth of detail, modeling tactical behavior. ASSESS finds scenarios that exploit the greatest weaknesses of a facility. SEES explores these scenarios to demonstrate in detail how various tactics to nullify the attack might work out. Without ASSESS to find the facility weaknesses, it is difficult to focus SEES objectively on scenarios worth analyzing. Without SEES to simulate the details of response vs. adversary interaction, it is not possible to test tactical assumptions and hypotheses. Using both programs together, vulnerability analyses achieve both breadth and depth.

To analyze the vulnerability of nuclear materials to theft or sabotage, Department of Energy facilities have been using, since 1989, a computer program called ASSESS, Analytic System and Software for Evaluation of Safeguards and Security. During the past year Sandia National Laboratories has begun using an additional program, SEES, Security Exercise Evaluation Simulation, enhancing the picture of vulnerability beyond what either program achieves alone. Assess analyzes all possible paths of attack on a target and, assuming that an attack occurs, ranks them by the probability that a response force of adequate size can interrupt the attack before theft or sabotage is accomplished. A Neutralization module pits, collectively, a security force against the interrupted adversary force in a fire fight and calculates the probability that the adversaries are defeated. SEES examines a single scenario and simulates in detail the interactions among all combatants. its output includes shots fired between shooter and target, and the hits and kills. Whereas ASSESS gives breadth of analysis, expressed statistically and performed relatively quickly, SEES adds depth of detail, modeling tactical behavior. ASSESS finds scenarios that exploit the greatest weakness of a facility. SEES explores these scenarios to demonstrate in detail how various tactics to nullify the attack might work out. Without ASSESS to find the facility weakness, it is difficult to focus SEES objectively on scenarios worth analyzing. Without SEES to simulate the details of response vs. adversary interaction, it is not possible to test tactical assumptions and hypotheses. Using both programs together, vulnerability analyses achieve both breadth and depth.

Anomalous features in Gulf Coast Salt domes exhibit deviations from normally pure salt and vary widely in form from one dome to the next, ranging considerably in length and width. They have affected both conventional and solution mining in several ways. Gas outbursts, insolubles, and potash (especially carnallite) have led to the breakage of tubing in a number of caverns, and caused irregular shapes of many caverns through preferential leaching. Such anomalous features essentially have limited the lateral extent of conventional mining at several salt mines, and led to accidents and even the closing of several other mines. Such anomalous features, are often aligned in anomalous zones, and appear to be related to diapiric processes of salt dome development. Evidence indicates that anomalous zones are found between salt spines, where the differential salt intrusion accumulates other materials: Anhydrite bands which are relatively strong, and other, weaker impurities. Shear zones and fault displacement detected at Big Hill and Weeks Island domes have not yet had any known adverse impacts on SPR oil storage, but new caverns at these sites conceivably may encounter some potentially adverse conditions. Seismic reflection profiles at Big Hill dome have shown numerous fractures and faults in the caprock, and verified the earlier recognition of a major shear zone transecting the entire salt stock and forming a graben in the overlying caprock. Casing that is placed in such zones can be at risk. Knowledge of these zones should create awareness of possible effects rather than preclude the future emplacement of caverns. To the extent possible, major anomalous zones and salt stock boundaries should be avoided. Shear zones along overhangs may be particularly hazardous, and otherwise unknown valleys in the top of salt may occur along shear zones. These zones often can be mapped geophysically, especially with high-resolution seismic techniques.

Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory have been designated as the technical lead for Security, Safeguards and Computer/Information Security systems for all the DOE Complex 21/Weapons Complex Reconfiguration (WCR) facilities. The physical protection systems in these facilities will be required to meet the most current DOE orders and incorporate the latest physical protection technologies, proven state-of-the-art systems and strategies. The planned approach requires that security assistance and information be provided to the designers (e.g. the Complex 21 Architect & Engineer and the Weapons Complex Lead Laboratories) as early as possible and throughout all design phases. The outcome should avoid the costly retrofits to existing facilities that have occurred in the past and result in effective and comprehensive protection against current and projected threats with minimal impact on operations, safety and costs. This paper discusses the physical protection considerations being promoted for the integrated design effort for the Complex 21/Reconfiguration facilities, such as the tritium, uranium/lithium, plutonium processing and storage, high explosive and assembly and disassembly facilities.

The purpose of this report is to summarize the status of computational analysis of hypervelocity impact lethality in relatively nontechnical terms from the perspective of the author. It is not intended to be a review of the technical literature on the problems of concern. The discussion is focused by concentrating on two phenomenology areas which are of particular concern in computational impact studies. First, the material`s equation of state, specifically the treatment of expanded states of metals undergoing shock vaporization, is discussed. Second, the process of dynamic fragmentation is addressed. In both cases, the context of the discussion deals with inaccuracies and difficulties associated with numerical hypervelocity impact simulations. Laboratory experimental capabilities in hypervelocity impact for impact velocities greater than 10.0 km/s are becoming increasingly viable. This paper also gives recommendations for experimental thrusts which utilize these capabilities that will help to resolve the uncertainties in the numerical lethality studies that are pointed out in the present report.

Current classified document management systems require a tremendous amount of space and extensive manpower to account for, inventory, and protect the documents. Comprehensive analysis of current control and accountability procedures reveal the main problem is the actual handling of the paper itself. The purpose of the Networked Microsoft Windows 3.1 based Classified Document Control System (CDOCS) is to eliminate the paper by scanning and storing images of pages on a personal computer using {open_quotes}write once read mostly{close_quotes} (WORM) high density optical media. By saving images on the computer, not only can manpower and space requirements be reduced, but the chance of compromise is diminished. As an added benefit, the information is now more readily available to the authorized user and is provided to the user at the user`s PC. The network target for CDOCS is Microsoft Windows for Workgroups. Thus, the system is also readily applicable to unclassified document imaging uses.

Information system requirements that are expressed as simple English sentences provide a clear understanding of what is needed between system specifiers, administrators, users, and developers of information systems. The approach used to develop the requirements is the Natural-language Information Analysis Methodology (NIAM). NIAM allows the processes, events, and business rules to be modeled using natural language. The natural language presentation enables the people who deal with the business issues that are to be supported by the information system to describe exactly the system requirements that designers and developers will implement. Computer prattle is completely eliminated from the requirements discussion. An example is presented that is based upon a section of a DOE Order involving nuclear materials management. Where possible, the section is analyzed to specify the process(es) to be done, the event(s) that start the process, and the business rules that are to be followed during the process. Examples, including constraints, are developed. The presentation steps through the modeling process and shows where the section of the DOE Order needs clarification, extensions or interpretations that could provide a more complete and accurate specification.

Transparent and secure process monitoring systems may become an important tool in the dismantlement schemes in support of bilateral and multi-lateral treaties. A prototype system, using public key cryptography to authenticate compliance data, has been developed by Sandia National Laboratories. The Authenticated In-plant Process Monitor (AIPM) is an embedded process monitoring system capable of accepting up to sixteen industry standard process variables, at sample rates of up to two samples per second. Each AIPM will synchronously sample the process, authenticate, and transmit the data in real-time to the host receiving station. The receiving station will validate the compliance data and then display in real-time while updating a relational database. This new generation of monitoring systems must include protection from a host of possible threat scenarios while providing the user authentic clear text data. Data threats are controlled by the use of a public key Treaty Data Authentication Module (TDAM) utilizing the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Digital Signature Standard. System threats are minimized by the use of a tamper indicating enclosure that monitors unauthorized entry and environmental attacks. Insider threats will be controlled by the use of an authenticated bi-directional communication link between each remote AIPM and the host receiving station. This security envelope will be monitored on a real-time basis with appropriate action taken if an attack occurs. The employment of these security features allows the inspectorate to distribute unprocessed clear text data and an attached digital signature with confidence that the data cannot be forged.

Information Surety is the enhancement of the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information and software systems. It is attained through sequential steps: identification of software reliability requirements and information protection needs, designing for a balanced level of risk throughout the system, and application of appropriate software and hardware technologies and procedures. The ability to apply these steps when developing systems is impaired by a general lack of understanding of surety issues by system developers, and by the fact that there are many separate areas of knowledge involved that are not currently integrated into a disciplined approach (e.g., risk assessment, information access control in computers and networks, secure messaging, trusted software development). Our best systems today are achieved by clever designers who use ad-hoc methods. In the absence of good development tools, technologies may be applied haphazardly and/or retrofitted, without yielding balanced protection. This paper will take the audience through an exploration of the elements of information surety, some common misconceptions about information surety today, and the even greater challenges on the horizon. It will end with some suggestions for research areas which will help evolve the discipline of information surety.

Sandia National Laboratories has considerable experience with monochrome video monitors used in alarm assessment video systems. Most of these systems, used for perimeter protection, were designed to classify rather than to identify intruders. There is a growing interest in the identification function of security video systems for both access control and insider protection. Because color video technology is rapidly changing and because color information is useful for identification purposes, Sandia National Laboratories established a program to evaluate the newest relevant color video equipment. This report documents the evaluation of an integral component, color monitors. It briefly discusses a critical parameter, dynamic range, details test procedures, and evaluates the results.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors must maintain continuity of knowledge on all safeguard samples and, in particular, on those samples drawn from plutonium product and spent fuel input tanks at a nuclear reprocessing plant`s blister sampling station. Integrity of safeguard samples must be guaranteed from the sampling point to the moment of sample analysis at an accepted local laboratory or at the IAEA`s Safeguards Analytical Laboratory (SAL) in Seibersdorf, Austria. The safeguard samples are drawn at a blister sampling station with inspector participation and then transferred via a pneumatic post system to the facility`s analytical laboratory. Transfer of the sample by the pneumatic post system, arrival of the sample in the operator`s analytical laboratory, and storage of the sample awaiting analysis are very time consuming activities for an inspector, particularly if continuous human surveillance is required for all these activities. These activities could be observed by ordinary surveillance methods, such as a video monitoring system, but this would be cumbersome and time consuming for both the inspector and the operator. This paper describes a secure container designed to assure sample vial integrity from the point the sample is drawn to treatment of the sample at a facility`s analytical laboratory.