SNL CAS Program Update
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A variety of performance tests are described relating to: Material Transfers; Emergency Evacuation; Alarm Response Assessment; and an Enhanced Limited Scope Performance Test (ELSPT). Procedures are given for: nuclear material physical inventory and discrepancy; material transfers; and emergency evacuation.
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A laboratory system was constructed that allows the super-micron particles to be aged for long periods of time under conditions that can simulate a range of natural environments and conditions, including relative humidity, oxidizing chemicals, organics and simulated solar radiation. Two proof-of-concept experiments using a non-biological simulant for biological particles and a biological simulant demonstrate the utility of these types of aging experiments. Green Visolite®, which is often used as a tracer material for model validation experiments, does not degrade with exposure to simulated solar radiation, the actual biological material does. This would indicate that Visolite® should be a good tracer compound for mapping the extent of a biological release using fluorescence as an indicator, but that it should not be used to simulate the decay of a biological particle when exposed to sunlight. The decay in the fluorescence measured for B. thurengiensis is similar to what has been previously observed in outdoor environments.
This report describes the condition of the research environment at Sandia National Laboratories and outlines key environment improvement activities undertaken by the Office of the Chief Technology Officer and the Sandia Research Leadership Team during fiscal year 2013. The report also outlines Lab-level objectives related to the research environment for fiscal year 2014.
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When multiple channels are employed in a pulse-Doppler radar, achieving and maintaining balance between the channels is problematic. In some circumstances the channels may be commutated to achieve adequate balance. Commutation is the switching, trading, toggling, or multiplexing of the channels between signal paths. Commutation allows modulating the imbalance energy away from the balanced energy in Doppler, where it can be mitigated with filtering.
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This report summarizes the work performed under the project (3z(BStatitically significant relational data mining.(3y (BThe goal of the project was to add more statistical rigor to the fairly ad hoc area of data mining on graphs. Our goal was to develop better algorithms and better ways to evaluate algorithm quality. We concetrated on algorithms for community detection, approximate pattern matching, and graph similarity measures. Approximate pattern matching involves finding an instance of a relatively small pattern, expressed with tolerance, in a large graph of data observed with uncertainty. This report gathers the abstracts and references for the eight refereed publications that have appeared as part of this work. We then archive three pieces of research that have not yet been published. The first is theoretical and experimental evidence that a popular statistical measure for comparison of community assignments favors over-resolved communities over approximations to a ground truth. The second are statistically motivated methods for measuring the quality of an approximate match of a small pattern in a large graph. The third is a new probabilistic random graph model. Statisticians favor these models for graph analysis. The new local structure graph model overcomes some of the issues with popular models such as exponential random graph models and latent variable models.
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Here we discuss an improved Corcos (Corcos (1963), (1963)) style cross spectral density utilizing zero pressure gradient, supersonic (Beresh et. al. (2013)) data sets. Using the connection between narrow band measurements with broadband cross-spectral density, i.e. Γ(ξ ,η ,ω )= Φ (ω) A(ωη/U )exp (-i ωξ/U) we focus on estimating coherence expressions of the form: A (ξω nb/U) and B (ηω nb/ U) where ωnb denotes the narrow band frequency, i.e. the band center frequency value and ξ and η are sensors spacing in streamwise/longitudinal and cross-stream/lateral directions, respectively. A methodology to estimate the parameters which retains the Corcos exponential functional form, A(ξω/U)=exp(-klat ηω/U) but identifies new parameters (constants) consistent with the Beresh et. al. data sets is discussed. The Corcos result requires that the data be properly explained by self-similar variable: ξω/U and ηω/U. The longitudinal (streamwise) variable ξω/U tends to provide a better data collapse, while, consistent with the literature the lateral ηω/U is only successful for higher band center frequencies. Assuming the similarity variables provide a useful description of the data, the longitudinal coherence decay constant result using the Beresh et. al. data sets yields a value for the longitudinal constant klong≈0.36-0.28 that is approximately 3x larger than the “traditional” (low speed, large Reynolds number and zero pressure gradient) of klong≈0.11. We suggest that the most likely reason that the Beresh et. al. data sets incur increased longitudinal decay which results in reduced coherence lengths is due to wall shear induced compression causing an adverse pressure gradient. Focusing on the higher band center frequency measurements where the frequency dependent similarity variables are applicable, the lateral or transverse coherence decay constant klat≈0.7 is consistent with the “traditional” (low speed, large Reynolds number and zero pressure gradient). It should be noted, that the longitudinal/streamwise coherence decay deviates from the value observed by other researchers while the lateral/ cross-stream value is consistent has been observed by other researchers. We believe that while the measurements used to obtain new decay constant estimates are from internal wind tunnel tests, they likely provide a useful estimate expected reentry flow behavior and are therefore recommended for use. These data could also be useful in determining the uncertainty of correlation length for a uncertainty quantification (UQ) analysis.
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This report reviews the method recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for calculating Derived Intervention Levels (DILs) and identifies potential improvements to the DIL calculation method to support more accurate ingestion pathway analyses and protective action decisions. Further, this report proposes an alternate method for use by the Federal Emergency Radiological Assessment Center (FRMAC) to calculate FRMAC Intervention Levels (FILs). The default approach of the FRMAC during an emergency response is to use the FDA recommended methods. However, FRMAC recommends implementing the FIL method because we believe it to be more technically accurate. FRMAC will only implement the FIL method when approved by the FDA representative on the Federal Advisory Team for Environment, Food, and Health.
A model is presented for recombination of charge carriers at displacement damage in gallium arsenide, which includes clustering of the defects in atomic displacement cascades produced by neutron or ion irradiation. The carrier recombination model is based on an atomistic description of capture and emission of carriers by the defects with time evolution resulting from the migration and reaction of the defects. The physics and equations on which the model is based are presented, along with details of the numerical methods used for their solution. The model uses a continuum description of diffusion, field-drift and reaction of carriers and defects within a representative spherically symmetric cluster. The initial radial defect profiles within the cluster were chosen through pair-correlation-function analysis of the spatial distribution of defects obtained from the binary-collision code MARLOWE, using recoil energies for fission neutrons. Charging of the defects can produce high electric fields within the cluster which may influence transport and reaction of carriers and defects, and which may enhance carrier recombination through band-to-trap tunneling. Properties of the defects are discussed and values for their parameters are given, many of which were obtained from density functional theory. The model provides a basis for predicting the transient response of III-V heterojunction bipolar transistors to pulsed neutron irradiation.
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Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) plans to conduct uncertainty analyses (UA) on the Fukushima Daiichi unit (1F1) plant with the MELCOR code. The model to be used was developed for a previous accident reconstruction investigation jointly sponsored by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). However, that study only examined a handful of various model inputs and boundary conditions, and the predictions yielded only fair agreement with plant data and current release estimates. The goal of this uncertainty study is to perform a focused evaluation of uncertainty in core melt progression behavior and its effect on key figures-of-merit (e.g., hydrogen production, vessel lower head failure, etc.). In preparation for the SNL Fukushima UA work, a scoping study has been completed to identify important core melt progression parameters for the uncertainty analysis. The study also lays out a preliminary UA methodology.
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Mechanical testing of porous materials generates physical data that contain contributions from more than one underlying physical phenomenon. All that is measurable is the "ensemble" hardening modulus. This thesis is concerned with the phenomenon of dilatation in triaxial compression of porous media, which has been modeled very accurately in the literature for monotonic loading using models that predict dilatation under triaxial compression (TXC) by presuming that dilatation causes the cap to move outwards. These existing models, however, predict a counter-intuitive (and never validated) increase in hydrostatic compression strength. This work explores an alternative approach for modeling TXC dilatation based on allowing induced elastic anisotropy (which makes the material both less stiff and less strong in the lateral direction) with no increase in hydrostatic strength. Induced elastic anisotropy is introduced through the use of a distortion operator. This operator is a fourth-order tensor consisting of a combination of the undeformed stiffness and deformed compliance and has the same eigenprojectors as the elastic compliance. In the undeformed state, the distortion operator is equal to the fourth-order identity. Through the use of the distortion operator, an evolved stress tensor is introduced. When the evolved stress tensor is substituted into an isotropic yield function, a new anisotropic yield function results. In the case of the von Mises isotropic yield function (which contains only deviatoric components), it is shown that the distortion operator introduces a dilatational contribution without requiring an increase in hydrostatic strength. In the thesis, an introduction and literature review of the cap function is given. A transversely isotropic compliance is presented, based on a linear combination of natural bases constructed about a transverse-symmetry axis. Using a probabilistic distribution of cracks constructed for the case of transverse isotropy, a compliance expression is presented that demonstrated a decrease in lateral stiffness, but leaves axial stiffness unchanged. A demonstration of how the distortion operator could be used in the elastic/plastic analysis of a von Mises surface loaded in TXC is also presented.
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Science
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DYNAMO is a computer program for building and running 'continuous' simulation models. It was developed by the Industrial Dynamics Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for simulating dynamic feedback models of business, economic, and social systems. The history of the system dynamics method since 1957 includes many classic models built in DYANMO. It was not until the late 1980s that software was built to take advantage of the rise of personal computers and graphical user interfaces that DYNAMO was supplanted. There is much learning and insight to be gained from examining the DYANMO models and their accompanying research papers. We believe that it is a worthwhile exercise to convert DYNAMO models to more recent software packages. We have made an attempt to make it easier to turn these models into a more current system dynamics software language, Powersim © Studio produced by Powersim AS2 of Bergen, Norway. This guide shows how to convert DYNAMO syntax into Studio syntax.
This paper describes the knowledge advancements from the uncertainty analysis for the State-of- the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses (SOARCA) unmitigated long-term station blackout accident scenario at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station. This work assessed key MELCOR and MELCOR Accident Consequence Code System, Version 2 (MACCS2) modeling uncertainties in an integrated fashion to quantify the relative importance of each uncertain input on potential accident progression, radiological releases, and off-site consequences. This quantitative uncertainty analysis provides measures of the effects on consequences, of each of the selected uncertain parameters both individually and in interaction with other parameters. The results measure the model response (e.g., variance in the output) to uncertainty in the selected input. Investigation into the important uncertain parameters in turn yields insights into important phenomena for accident progression and off-site consequences. This uncertainty analysis confirmed the known importance of some parameters, such as failure rate of the Safety Relief Valve in accident progression modeling and the dry deposition velocity in off-site consequence modeling. The analysis also revealed some new insights, such as dependent effect of cesium chemical form for different accident progressions. (auth)
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