Advancements in discrete mechanics and their application to near-wellbore modeling
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Geostatistical and non-geostatistical noise filtering methodologies, factorial kriging and a low-pass filter, and a region growing method are applied to analytic signal magnetometer images at two UXO contaminated sites to delineate UXO target areas. Overall delineation performance is improved by removing background noise. Factorial kriging slightly outperforms the low-pass filter but there is no distinct difference between them in terms of finding anomalies of interest.
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Two 100 kW min{sup -1} (1.67 kW h{sup -1}) Li-ion battery energy storage systems (BESS) are described. The systems include a high-power Li-ion battery and a 100 kW power conditioning system (PCS). The battery consists of 12 modules of 12 series-connected Saft Li-ion VL30P cells. The stored energy of the battery ranges from 1.67 to 14 kW h{sup -1} and has an operating voltage window of 515-405 V (dc). Two complete systems were designed, built and successfully passed factory acceptance testing after which each was deployed in a field demonstration. The first demonstration used the system to supplement distributed microturbine generation and to provide load following capability. The system was run at its rated power level for 3 min, which exceeded the battery design goal by a factor of 3. The second demonstration used another system as a stand-alone uninterrupted power supply (UPS). The system was available (online) for 1146 h and ran for over 2 min.
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We give processor-allocation algorithms for grid architectures, where the objective is to select processors from a set of available processors to minimize the average number of communication hops. The associated clustering problem is as follows: Given n points in R{sup d}, find a size-k subset with minimum average pairwise L{sub 1} distance.We present a natural approximation algorithm and show that it is a 7/4-approximation for 2D grids. In d dimensions, the approximation guarantee is 2 - 1/2d, which is tight. We also give a polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) for constant dimension d and report on experimental results.
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One critical aspect of any denuclearization of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) involves dismantlement of its nuclear facilities and management of their associated radioactive wastes. The decommissioning problem for its two principal operational plutonium facilities at Yongbyun, the 5MWe nuclear reactor and the Radiochemical Laboratory reprocessing facility, alone present a formidable challenge. Dismantling those facilities will create radioactive waste in addition to existing inventories of spent fuel and reprocessing wastes. Negotiations with the DPRK, such as the Six Party Talks, need to appreciate the enormous scale of the radioactive waste management problem resulting from dismantlement. The two operating plutonium facilities, along with their legacy wastes, will result in anywhere from 50 to 100 metric tons of uranium spent fuel, as much as 500,000 liters of liquid high-level waste, as well as miscellaneous high-level waste sources from the Radiochemical Laboratory. A substantial quantity of intermediate-level waste will result from disposing 600 metric tons of graphite from the reactor, an undetermined quantity of chemical decladding liquid waste from reprocessing, and hundreds of tons of contaminated concrete and metal from facility dismantlement. Various facilities for dismantlement, decontamination, waste treatment and packaging, and storage will be needed. The shipment of spent fuel and liquid high level waste out of the DPRK is also likely to be required. Nuclear facility dismantlement and radioactive waste management in the DPRK are all the more difficult because of nuclear nonproliferation constraints, including the call by the United States for 'complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement', or 'CVID'. It is desirable to accomplish dismantlement quickly, but many aspects of the radioactive waste management cannot be achieved without careful assessment, planning and preparation, sustained commitment, and long completion times. The radioactive waste management problem in fact offers a prospect for international participation to engage the DPRK constructively. DPRK nuclear dismantlement, when accompanied with a concerted effort for effective radioactive waste management, can be a mutually beneficial goal.
Proposed for publication in Surface Science.
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Proposed for publication in Science.
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Proposed for publication in X-Ray Spectrometry.
Sandia and Rontec have developed an annular, 12-element, 60 mm{sup 2}, Peltier-cooled, translatable, silicon drift detector called the SDD-12. The body of the SDD-12 is only 22.8 mm in total thickness and easily fits between the sample and the upstream wall of the Sandia microbeam chamber. At a working distance of 1 mm, the solid angle is 1.09 sr. The energy resolution is 170 eV at count rates <40 kcps and 200 eV for rates of 1 Mcps. X-ray count rates must be maintained below 50 kcps when protons are allowed to strike the full area of the SDD. Another innovation with this new {mu}PIXE system is that the data are analyzed using Sandia's Automated eXpert Spectral Image Analysis (AXSIA).
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This project will attempt to develop a new family of inorganic crystalline porous materials under IMF that will lead to improvement of energy efficiency and productivity via improved separations. Initially this project will be focused on materials for the separation of linear from branched hydrocarbons. However, it is anticipated that the results will provide the basis of knowledge to enable this technology to be applied toward additional hydrocarbon and chemical separations. Industrial involvement from Goodyear and Burns & McDonnell provides needed direction for solving real industrial problems, which will find application throughout the US chemical and petroleum industries.
A microswitch utilizing thermoelectric MEMS actuators is being designed, fabricated, and characterized. The switch is intended to switch >1000 VDC with over 100 gigaohms off-state resistance. The main challenge in designing these switches is determining a contact electrode configuration with the ability to stand off high voltages, while still being able to bridge the contact gap using MEMS actuators. Extensive high voltage breakdown testing has confirmed that the breakdown response for planar MEMS polysilicon devices is similar to the published response of larger metal electrodes across single small air gaps (0.5 to 10 um). Investigations of breakdown response in planar electrode configurations with multiple gaps show promising results for high voltage switching.
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A deterministic algorithm for enumeration of transmembrane protein folds is presented. Using a set of sparse pairwise atomic distance constraints (such as those obtained from chemical cross-linking, FRET, or dipolar EPR experiments), the algorithm performs an exhaustive search of secondary structure element packing conformations distributed throughout the entire conformational space. The end result is a set of distinct protein conformations, which can be scored and refined as part of a process designed for computational elucidation of transmembrane protein structures.
Autonomous bio-chemical agent detectors require sample preparation involving multiplex fluid control. We have developed a portable microfluidic pump array for metering sub-microliter volumes at flowrates of 1-100 {micro}L/min. Each pump is composed of an electrokinetic (EK) pump and high-voltage power supply with 15-Hz feedback from flow sensors. The combination of high pump fluid impedance and active control results in precise fluid metering with nanoliter accuracy. Automated sample preparation will be demonstrated by labeling proteins with fluorescamine and subsequent injection to a capillary gel electrophoresis (CGE) chip.
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Natural fractures in Jurassic through Tertiary rock units of the Raton Basin locally contain conjugate shear fractures that are mechanically compatible with associated extension fractures, i.e., they have a bisector to the acute angle that is parallel to the strike of associated extension fractures, normal to the thrust front at the western margin of the basin. Both sets of fractures are therefore interpreted to have formed during Laramide-age thrusting from west to east that formed the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and subsequently the foreland Raton Basin, and that imposed strong east-west compressive stresses onto the strata filling the basin. This pattern is not universal, however. Anomalous NNE-SSW striking fractures locally dominate strata close to the thrust front, and fracture patterns are irregular in strata associated with anticlinal structures within the basin. Of special interest are strike-slip style conjugate shear fractures within Dakota Sandstone outcrops 60 miles to the east of the thrust front. Mohr-Coulomb failure diagrams are utilized to describe how these formed as well as how two distinctly different types of fractures can be formed in the same basin under the same regional tectonic setting and at the same time. The primary controls in this interpretation are simply the mechanical properties of the specific rock units and the depth of burial rather than significant changes in the applied stress.
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Wireless networking can provide a cost effective and convenient method for installing and operating an unattended or remote monitoring system in an established facility. There is concern, however, that wireless devices can interfere with each other and with other radio systems within the facility. Additionally, there is concern that these devices add a potential risk to the security of the network. Since all data is transmitted in the air, it is possible for an unauthorized user to intercept the data transmissions and/or insert data onto the network if proper security is not in place. This paper describes a study being undertaken to highlight the benefits of wireless networking, evaluate interference and methods for mitigation, recommend security architectures, and present the results of a wireless network demonstration between Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC).
Proposed for publication in IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Special Issue on Images in Plasma Science.
The magnitude and structure of the ion wakefield potential below a single negatively-charged dust particle levitated in the plasma sheath region was calculated and measured. Attractive and repulsive components of the interaction force were extracted from a trajectory analysis of low-energy collisions between different mass particles in a well-defined electrostatic potential.
The Trilinos{trademark} Project is an effort to facilitate the design, development, integration and ongoing support of mathematical software libraries. AztecOO{trademark} is a package within Trilinos that enables the use of the Aztec solver library [19] with Epetra{trademark} [13] objects. AztecOO provides access to Aztec preconditioners and solvers by implementing the Aztec 'matrix-free' interface using Epetra. While Aztec is written in C and procedure-oriented, AztecOO is written in C++ and is object-oriented. In addition to providing access to Aztec capabilities, AztecOO also provides some signficant new functionality. In particular it provides an extensible status testing capability that allows expression of sophisticated stopping criteria as is needed in production use of iterative solvers. AztecOO also provides mechanisms for using Ifpack [2], ML [20] and AztecOO itself as preconditioners.
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Over the last few years, a variety of experiments studying higher photon energy (>4 keV) radiators have been performed, primarily at the Z accelerator. In this paper, the results of experiments designed to study the effects of initial load diameter on the radiated output of stainless steel wire arrays are presented. Stainless steel is primarily iron, which radiates in the K-shell at 6.7 keV. Nested wire arrays from 45 mm initial outer diameter to 80 mm outer diameter were fielded at the Z accelerator. A nested array consists of two wire arrays, with the inner concentric to an outer. All of the arrays fielded for this work had a 2:1 mass and diameter ratio (outer:inner), and the arrays were designed to have the same implosion time. A degradation of K-shell output was observed (pulse shape and power) for the smallest and largest diameter arrays, suggesting a region in which optimal conditions exist for K-shell output. The degradation at small diameters results from the reduced eta value, due to low implosion velocity. Eta is defined as the kinetic energy per ion divided by the energy required to get to the K-shell. At large diameters, a dramatic degradation of output is observed not just for the K-shell, but also for the lower energy X-rays. This may be the result of the low mass required to maintain an appropriate implosion time - there simply aren't many radiators available to participate. One other possibility is that the higher acceleration necessary at large diameters to achieve the same implosion time results in additional instability growth. Also necessary to consider are the effects of interwire gap: due to the limited wire sizes available, the interwire gap on the large diameter loads is large, in one case more than 3 mm. Comparisons of the trends observed in the experiments (radiated yield, pulse shape, and spectra) will be made to calculations previously benchmarked to K-shell data obtained at Z. The reproducibility of the arrays, advanced imaging diagnostics fielded, current diagnostics, and sensitivities of the calculations are also discussed.
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