During the Cold War the handling of Soviet military nuclear wastes was a classified topic--kept secret to hide the status and readiness of Soviet military forces. Following the end of the Cold War information about the handling of nuclear wastes by agencies of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) became available. The US Government response to the disclosure of disposal of radioactive wastes into the Arctic Ocean and into rivers that drain into the Arctic Ocean was the finding of the Arctic Nuclear Waste Assessment Program (ANWAP) in the Office of Naval Research (ONR). Projects were aided by ANWAP to study the behavior, transport, and fate of radionuclides in the Arctic Ocean. One of the research teams, the Risk Assessment Integration Group (RAIG) assessed the potential risks to humans and to the environment, particularly in the US Alaskan Arctic.
A robust bearing estimation process for 3-component stations has been developed and explored. The method, called SEEC for Search, Estimate, Evaluate and Correct, intelligently exploits the in- herent information in the arrival at every step of the process to achieve near-optimal results. In particular, the approach uses a consistent framework to define the optimal time-frequency windows on which to make estimates, to make the bearing estimates themselves, to construct metrics helpful in choosing the better estimates or admitting that the bearing is immeasurable, andjinally to apply bias corrections when calibration information is available to yield a single final estimate. The method was applied to a small but challenging set of events in a seismically active region. The method demonstrated remarkable utility by providing better estimates and insights than previously available. Various monitoring implications are noted fiom these findings.
Oriented bicrystals of pure C11b MoSi2 have been grown in a tri-arc furnace using the Czochralski technique. Two single crystal seeds were used to initiate the growth. Each seed had the orientation intended for one of the grains of the bicrystals, which resulted in a 60° twist boundary on the (110) plane. Seeds were attached to a water-cooled seed rod, which was pulled at 120 mm/h with the seed rod rotating at 45 rpm. The water- cooled copper hearth was counter-rotated at 160 rpm. Asymmetric growth ridges associated with each seed crystal were observed during growth and confirmed the existence of a bicrystal. It was also found that careful alignment of the seeds was needed to keep the grain boundary from growing out of the boule. The resulting boundary was characterized by imaging and crystallographic techniques in a scanning electron microscope. The boundary was found to be fairly sharp and the misorientation between the grains remained within 2° from the disorientation between the seeds.
This paper discusses a new technique for measuring the impedance response of thickness shear mode (TSM) resonators used as fluid monitors and chemical sensors. The technique simulates the swept frequency measurements performed by an automatic network analyzer (ANA), determining the complex reflection scattering parameter, S1l, from single port devices. Unlike oscillator circuits most often used with TSM resonators, narrowband spectral measurements are not limited by cable capacitance between resonator and oscillator allowing placement of the sensor in severe environments. Only noise produced by long cable lengths limits performance and sensor sensitivity. This new technique utilizes a simple swept frequency source operating near the crystal resonance, a unique directional coupler to provide the reference and reflected RF signals, an I & Q demodulation circuit that returns two dc voltages, and computational algorithms for determining sensor response parameters. Performance, has been evaluated by comparing TSM resonator responses using this new technique to those from a commercial ANA.
The Instrumentation and Telemetry Departments at Sandia National Laboratories have been instrumenting earth penetrators for over thirty years. Recorded acceleration data is used to quantify penetrator performance. Penetrator testing has become more difficult as desired impact velocities have increased. This results in the need for small-scale test vehicles and miniature instrumentation. A miniature recorder will allow penetrator diameters to significantly decrease, opening the window of testable parameters. Full-scale test vehicles will also benefit from miniature recorders by using a less intrusive system to instrument internal arming, fusing, and firing components. This single channel concept is the latest design in an ongoing effort to miniaturize the size and reduce the power requirement of acceleration instrumentation. A micro-controller/memory based system provides the data acquisition, signal conditioning, power regulation, and data storage. This architecture allows the recorder, including both sensor and electronics, to occupy a volume of less than 1.5 cubic inches, draw less than 200mW of power, and record 15kHz data up to 40,000 gs. This paper will describe the development and operation of this miniature acceleration recorder.
To meet challenging constraints on telemetry system weight and volume, a custom Light-Weight Instrumentation System was developed to collect vehicle environment and dynamics on a short-duration exo-atmospheric flight test vehicle. The total telemetry system, including electronics, sensors, batteries, and a 1 watt transmitter weighs about 1 kg. Over 80 channels of measurement, housekeeping, and telemetry system diagnostic data are transmitted at 128 kbps. The microcontroller-based design uses the automotive industry standard Controller Area Network to interface with and support in-flight control fimctions. Operational parameters are downloaded via a standard asynchronous serial communications intefiace. The basic design philosophy and functionality is described here.
Experimentation in transparent fractures where light transmission techniques are used to measure aperture, dye concentration, and phase distribution fields can enhance our understanding of single and multi-phase flow and transport. Here, we evaluate and improve the method for aperture field measurement in transparent analog fractures and replicas of natural fractures. The primary sources of error in the measurements are: signal noise (both temporal and spatial) from the charge-coupled-device (CCD) used to measure light intensities transmitted through the fracture; non-linearity of light absorbance of the dyed solution used to fill the fracture; and refraction of light passing through the fracture. We find that each of these error sources can be minimized to optimize precision and accuracy. Our measurements of the aperture field of a -150 x 300 mm analog test fracture at a spatial resolution of 0.159 x 0.159 mm ( 2x106 points) demonstrate a root-mean- square error over the field of O.9% (0.002 mm) of the mean aperture (0.222 mm). Though the results presented here are specific to our test fracture and measurement system, the general approach can be applied to other digital imaging techniques based on energy absorbance.
This report documents the assessment of performance and design of a 250-kW prototype battery energy storage system developed by Omnion Power Engineering Company and tested by Pacific Gas and Electric Company, both in collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories. The assess- ment included system performance, operator interface, and reliability. The report also discusses how to detect failed battery strings with strategically located voltage measurements.
Two major studies, one sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and the other by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, were conducted in the late 1970s and early 1980s to provide information and source terms for an optimally successful act of sabotage on spent fuel casks typical of those available for use. This report applies the results of those studies and additional analysis to derive potential source terms for certain classes of sabotage events on spent fuel casks and spent fuel typical of those which could be shipped in the early decades of the 21st century. In addition to updating the cask and spent fuel characteristics used in the analysis, two release mechanisms not included in the earlier works were identified and evaluated. As would be expected, inclusion of these additional release mechanisms resulted in a somewhat higher total release from the postulated sabotage events. Although health effects from estimated releases were addressed in the earlier study conducted for U.S. Department of Energy, they have not been addressed in this report. The results from this report maybe used to estimate health effects.
This document details the instructional design and delivery methods for a course on the NWC Technical Business Practices that are used to enact configuration management of Nuclear Weapons Product and Equipment.
Subsurface barriers are being constructed at both government and private sites to control hazardous material migration. The Department of Energy, in particular, is developing new barrier construction methods and materials for applications in saturated and unsaturated soils. These containment systems are meant to control high-risk contaminants that are too difficult to remove with current methods and/or pose a near-term, high risk to public health. Such systems are also implemented at sites where remediation techniques may have unintentionally mobilized contamination and threatened the water table. Since subsurface barriers are typically applied in high-risk circumstances, knowledge of their emplaced and long-term integrity is crucial. Current verification and monitoring practices (hydraulic testing, construction materials and methods QA) are limited in their ability to locate, discriminate, and resolve flaws in barrier construction. SEAtracem is a gaseous tracer verification and monitoring system developed to locate and estimate the size of flaws in subsurface barriers located above the water table. The system incorporates injection of a non-hazardous gaseous tracer in the barrier interior, multiple soil vapor sampling points located outside of the barrier, and an automated sampling and analysis system. SEAtraceTM is an autonomous, remotely accessible monitoring system intended for long duration, unattended operation. It not only collects and analyzes soil gas samples, but also applies real time data inversion to locate and size flaws in the barrier construction. The SEAtraceTM methodology was deployed at two test barrier installations sponsored by the Department of Energy Subsurface Contaminants Focus Area. The first was a small scale thinwall jet wouting barrier demonstration at the Groundwater Remediation Field Laboratory, Dover Air Force Base, and the second a large scale thickwall colloidal silica permeation grouted barrier at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. At the Dover site two test barriers and one buried known leak source were evaluated using the SEAtracem methodology. A prototype automated soil gas sampling and analysis system provided data that was analyzed on a desktop computer system. During these tests six non-engineered and one engineered flaw were detected in the barrier panels. These flaws indicated the presence of open areas in the barrier panels that allowed diffusion of tracer gas out into the soil surrounding the barriers. The buried leak source was located within 0.2m of its actual position. A fully integrated SEAtracem system was deployed to test a colloidal silica barrier at Brookhaven National Laboratory. This system incorporated 64 sampling locations, real-time data analysis, solar powered operation, and remote access via cellular phone communication. Eleven flaws were located by automated operation of the SEAtracem system. Other verification techniques such as geophysics, hydraulics, and peffluorocarbon gaseous tracers were used at both the Dover and Brookhaven test barriers. Results from these techniques were in good agreement when they could be compared. This report documents the design of the SEAtracem system, the numerical analysis that supports the evaluation of the inversion methodology, the design of the test installations, and the demonstrations at the Dover and Brookhaven sites.
Bond-counting arguments, supported by ab-initio calculations, predict a lower barrier for "leapfrog" diffusion of Pt addimers on Pt(llO)-lx2 than for adatom dif- fusion or addimer dissociation. This conflicts with experiment, possibly signaling contaminant influence.
We are pleased to submit our efforts in parallelizing the PRONTO application suite for con- sideration in the SuParCup 99 competition. PRONTO is a finite element transient dynamics simulator which includes a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) capability; it is similar in scope to the well-known DYNA, PamCrash, and ABAQUS codes. Our efforts over the last few years have produced a fully parallel version of the entire PRONTO code which (1) runs fast and scalably on thousands of processors, (2) has performed the largest finite-element transient dynamics simulations we are aware of, and (3) includes several new parallel algorithmic ideas that have solved some difficult problems associated with contact detection and SPH scalability. We motivate this work, describe the novel algorithmic advances, give performance numbers for PRONTO running on Sandia's Intel Teraflop machine, and highlight two prototypical large-scale computations we have performed with the parallel code. We have successfully parallelized a large-scale production transient dynamics code with a novel algorithmic approach that utilizes multiple decompositions for different key segments of the computations. To be able to simulate a more than ten million element model in a few tenths of second per timestep is unprecedented for solid dynamics simulations, especially when full global contact searches are required. The key reason is our new algorithmic ideas for efficiently parallelizing the contact detection stage. To our knowledge scalability of this computation had never before been demonstrated on more than 64 processors. This has enabled parallel PRONTO to become the only solid dynamics code we are aware of that can run effectively on 1000s of processors. More importantly, our parallel performance compares very favorably to the original serial PRONTO code which is optimized for vector supercomputers. On the container crush problem, a Teraflop node is as fast as a single processor of the Cray Jedi. This means that on the Teraflop machine we can now run simulations with tens of millions of elements thousands of times faster than we could on the Jedi! This is enabling transient dynamics simulations of unprecedented scale and fidelity. Not only can previous applications be run with vastly improved resolution and speed, but qualitatively new and different analyses have been made possible.
The objective of this work to develop the materials processing and design technologies required to reduce the die development time for metal mold processes from 12 months to 3 months, using die casting of Al and Mg as the example process. Sandia demonstrated that investment casting, using rapid prototype patterns produced from Stereo lithography or Selective laser Sintering, was a viable alternative/supplement to the current technology of machining form wrought stock. A demonstration die insert (ejector halt) was investment cast and subsequently tested in the die casting environment. The stationary half of the die insert was machined from wrought material to benchmark the cast half. The two inserts were run in a die casting machine for 3,100 shots of aluminum and at the end of the run no visible difference could be detected between the cast and machined inserts. Inspection concluded that the cast insert performed identically to the machined insert. Both inserts had no indications of heat checking or degradation.
This document highlights the DISCOM's Distance computing and communication team activities at the 1998 Supercomputing conference in Orlando, Florida. This conference is sponsored by the IEEE and ACM. Sandia National Laboratories, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory have participated in this conference for ten years. For the last three years, the three laboratories have a joint booth at the conference under the DOE's ASCI, Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiatives. The DISCOM communication team uses the forum to demonstrate and focus communications and networking developments. At SC '98, DISCOM demonstrated the capabilities of Dense Wave Division Multiplexing. We exhibited an OC48 ATM encryptor. We also coordinated the other networking activities within the booth. This paper documents those accomplishments, discusses the details of their implementation, and describes how these demonstrations support overall strategies in ATM networking.
A Fourier Transform hyperspectral imager uses optical intereferometry to obtain hyperspectral data. Taking a Fourier Transform of the interferogram yields the frequency spectrum of the incident light. An optical system using a standard frame rate camera can generate such interferograms at a rate of 30 frames per second. Rather than store all of the raw interferogram data and process it afterwards, it is useful to have the ability to process the raw data in real time, generating and storing the hyperspectral data itself rather than the original interferograms. This real-time processing would result in a significant reduction in the data bandwidth and storage requirements, which are of particular interest in typical airborne environments with limited computing resources on board. This report details the digital signal processing algorithm and code developed for a processing subsystem based on the Texas Instruments TMS320C6201 fixed point processor. The function of this subsystem is to compute the magnitude Fourier Transform of the interferogram data at a rate of 30 frames per second.
This report describes the results of a six-year, $6.3 million project to reduce operation and maintenance (O&M) costs at power plants employing concentrating solar power (CSP) technology. Sandia National Laboratories teamed with KJC Operating Company to implement the O&M Improvement Program. O&M technologies developed during the course of the program were demonstrated at the 150-MW Kramer Junction solar power park located in Boron, California. Improvements were made in the following areas: (a) efficiency of solar energy collection, (b) O&M information management, (c) reliability of solar field flow loop hardware, (d) plant operating strategy, and (e) cost reduction associated with environmental issues. A 37% reduction in annual O&M costs was achieved. Based on the lessons learned, an optimum solar- field O&M plan for future CSP plants is presented. Parabolic trough solar technology is employed at Kramer Junction. However, many of the O&M improvements described in the report are also applicable to CSP plants based on solar power tower or dish/engine concepts.
This report describes the results of a study that investigated the synergy between electrochemical capacitors (ECs) and flywheels, in combination with each other and with batteries, as energy storage subsystems in photovoltaic (PV) systems. EC and flywheel technologies are described and the potential advantages and disadvantages of each in PV energy storage subsystems are discussed. Seven applications for PV energy storage subsystems are described along with the potential market for each of these applications. A spreadsheet model, which used the net present value method, was used to analyze and compare the costs over time of various system configurations based on flywheel models. It appears that a synergistic relationship exists between ECS and flywheels. Further investigation is recommended to quantify the performance and economic tradeoffs of this synergy and its effect on overall system costs.
The Environmental Measurement-While-Drilling (EMWD) system and Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) were successfully demonstrated at the Mock Tank Leak Simulation Site and the Drilling Technology Test Site, Hanford, Washington. The use of directional drilling offers an alternative to vertical drilling site characterization. Directional drilling can develop a borehole under a structure, such as a waste tank, from an angled entry and leveling off to horizontal at the desired depth. The EMWD system represents an innovative blend of new and existing technology that provides the capability of producing real-time environmental and drill bit data during drilling operations. The technology demonstration consisted of the development of one borehole under a mock waste tank at a depth of {approximately} {minus}8 m ({minus}27 ft.), following a predetermined drill path, tracking the drill path to within a radius of {approximately}1.5 m (5 ft.), and monitoring for zones of radiological activity using the EMWD system. The purpose of the second borehole was to demonstrate the capability of drilling to a depth of {approximately} {minus}21 m ({minus}70 ft.), the depth needed to obtain access under the Hanford waste tanks, and continue drilling horizontally. This report presents information on the HDD and EMWD technologies, demonstration design, results of the demonstrations, and lessons learned.
The elevation change data measured at the Big Hill SPR site over the last 10 years has been studied and a model utilized to project elevation changes into the future. The subsidence rate at Big Hill is low in comparison with other Strategic Petroleum Reserve sites and has decreased with time due to the maintenance of higher operating pressures and the normal decrease in creep closure rate of caverns with time. However, the subsidence at the site is projected to continue. A model was developed to project subsidence values 20 years into the future; no subsidence related issues are apparent from these projections.
During July-September, 1998, a jointly funded drilling operation deepened the Long Valley Exploratory Well from 7178 feet to 9832 feet. This was the third major drilling phase of a project that began in 1989, but had sporadic progress because of discontinuities in tiding. Support for Phase III came from the California Energy Commission (CEC), the International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP), the US Geological Survey (USGS), and DOE. Each of these agencies had a somewhat different agenda: the CEC wants to evaluate the energy potential (specifically energy extraction from magma) of Long Valley Caldera; the ICDP is studying the evolution and other characteristics of young, silicic calderas; the USGS will use this hole as an observatory in their Volcano Hazards program; and the DOE, through Sandia, has an opportunity to test new geothermal tools and techniques in a realistic field environment. This report gives a description of the equipment used in drilling and testing; a narrative of the drilling operations; compiled daily drilling reports; cost information on the project; and a brief summary of engineering results related to equipment performance and energy potential. Detailed description of the scientific results will appear in publications by the USGS and other researchers.
This report includes the details of the model building procedure and prediction of seismic field data. Principal Components Regression, a multivariate analysis technique, was used to model seismic data collected as two pieces of equipment were cycled on and off. Models built that included only the two pieces of equipment of interest had trouble predicting data containing signals not included in the model. Evidence for poor predictions came from the prediction curves as well as spectral F-ratio plots. Once the extraneous signals were included in the model, predictions improved dramatically. While Principal Components Regression performed well for the present data sets, the present data analysis suggests further work will be needed to develop more robust modeling methods as the data become more complex.
Modern wind turbines are fatigue critical machines that are typically used to produce electrical power from the wind. Operational experiences with these large rotating machines indicated that their components (primarily blades and blade joints) were failing at unexpectedly high rates, which led the wind turbine community to develop fatigue analysis capabilities for wind turbines. Our ability to analyze the fatigue behavior of wind turbine components has matured to the point that the prediction of service lifetime is becoming an essential part of the design process. In this review paper, I summarize the technology and describe the ''best practices'' for the fatigue analysis of a wind turbine component. The paper focuses on U.S. technology, but cites European references that provide important insights into the fatigue analysis of wind turbines.
Studies have indicated that an adaptive wind turbine blade design can significantly enhance the performance of the wind turbine blade on energy capture and load mitigation. In order to realize the potential benefits of aeroelastic tailoring, a bend-twist D-spar, which is the backbone of a blade, was designed and fabricated to achieve the objectives of having maximum bend-twist coupling and fulfilling desirable structural properties (031 & GJ). Two bend-twist D-spars, a hybrid of glass and carbon fibers and an all-carbon D-spar, were fabricated using a bladder process. One of the D-spars, the hybrid D-spar, was subjected to a cantilever static test and modal testing. Various parameters such as materials, laminate schedule, thickness and internal rib were examined in designing a bend-twist D-spar. The fabrication tooling, the lay-up process and the joint design for two symmetric clamshells are described in this report. Finally, comparisons between the experimental test results and numerical results are presented. The comparisons indicate that the numerical analysis (static and modal analysis) agrees well with test results.
This report describes the characteristics of photovoltaic arrays that maybe suitable for use with nanosatellite electronic systems. It includes a thorough literature search on power management and distribution systems for satellites as small as microsatellites. The major conclusion to be drawn is that it is the total system, including satellite electronic system, photovoltaic systems, peak power tracker and the power management and distribution systems which need to be optimized. An example of a peak power tracker is given, and a novel series connected boost unit is described which might allow the system voltage to be increased if enough photovoltaic panels to operate the systems in real time is impractical. Finally, it is recommended that the development effort be oriented and expanded to include a peak power tracker and other power management and distribution systems.
In April they received a DOE Defense Programs award for significant contributions to the Nuclear Weapons Program in developing and applying z-pinch x-ray sources to stockpile stewardship. DOE also recognized pulsed power for outstanding performance at a world-class level as part of the FY98 performance appraisal review. There were 13 Z shots: 3 for LANL weapon physics, 2 to prepare to measure the D{sub 2} equation of state (EOS), 4 to assess energetics of single-sided drive with the z-pinch-driven hohlraum, and 4 to study the variation in x-ray power with the mass of a copper converter foil inside a nested wire array for the dynamic hohlraum.
Where there is a significant actuarial basis for decision making (e.g., the occurrence of fires in single-family dwellings), there is little incentive for formal risk management. Formal risk assessments are most useful in those cases where the value of the structure is high, many people may be affected, the societal perception of risk is high, consequences of a mishap would be severe, and the actuarial uncertainty is large. For these cases, there is little opportunity to obtain the necessary experiential data to make informed decisions, and the consequences in terms of money, lives, and societal confidence are severe enough to warrant a formal risk assessment. Other important factors include the symbolic value of the structure and vulnerability to single point failures. It is unlikely that formal risk management and assessment practices will or should replace the proven institutions of building codes and engineering practices. Nevertheless, formal risk assessment can provide valuable insights into the hazards threatening high-value and high-risk (perceived or actual) buildings and structures, which can in turn be translated into improved public health, safety, and security. The key is to choose and apply the right assessment tool to match the structure in question. Design-for-reliability concepts can be applied to buildings, bridges, transportation sys- tems, dams, and other structures. The use of these concepts could have the dual benefits of lowering life-cycle costs by reducing the necessity for maintenance and repair and of enhancing the saiiety and security of the structure's users.
How to ensure the appropriate performance of our built environment in the face of normal conditions, natural hazards, and malevolent threats is an issue of emerging national and international importance. As the world population increases, new construction must be increasingly cost effective and at the same time increasingly secure, safe, and durable. As the existing infrastructure ages, materials and techniques for retrofitting must be developed in parallel with improvements in design, engineering, and building codes for new construction. Both new and renovated structures are more often being subjected to the scrutiny of risk analysis. An international conference, "Assuring the Performance of Buildings and Infrastructures," was held in May 1997 to address some of these issues. The conference was co-sponsored by the Architectural Engineering Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the American Institute of Architects, and Sandia National Laboratories and convened in Albuquerque, NM. Many of the papers presented at the conference are found within this issue of Techno20~. This paper presents some of the major conference themes and summarizes discussions not found in the other papers.
In rough agreement with experimental values derived from Cu island shapes vs. temperature, ab-initio calculations yield formation energies of 0.27 and 0.26 eV/ step-edge-atom for (100)- and (111)-micro facet steps on Cu(lll), and 0.09 and 0.12 eV per kink in those steps. Comparison to ab-initio results for Al and Pt shows that as a rule, the average formation energy of straight steps on a close-packed metal surface equals -7% of the metal's cohesive energy.
The carrier lifetime in vertical cavity surface emitting lasers is determined for various oxide aperture sizes using turn-on delay measurements. The lifetime is relatively constant for large devices, but decreases for aperture sizes below 9 x 9 µm.
Chemical sensing with a magnetically excited flexural plate wave (mag- FPW) resonator has been demonstrated for the first time. One surface of the resonator was coated with ethyl cellulose to impart sensitivity to volatile solvents such as chloroform, tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethylene, and toluene. The absorbed mass of the analyte causes a shift in the membrane resonance frequency of the two-port mag-FPW resonator. An oscillator circuit is used to track the resonance frequency, providing a convenient means of monitoring analyte concentration levels. Analyte concentrations of 10 ppm were easily detected.
Coulomb driven, magneto-optically induced electron and hole bound states from a series of heavily doped GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As single heterojunctions (SHJ) are revealed in high magnetic fields. At low magnetic fields ({nu} >2), the photohuninescence spectra display Shubnikov de-Haas type oscillations associated with the empty second subband transition. In the regime of the Landau filling factor {nu} <1 and 1< {nu} <2, we found strong bound states due to Mott type Vocalizations. Since a SHJ has an open valence band structure, these bound states area unique property of the dynamic movement of the valence holes in strong magnetic fields.
The magnetophotoluminescence (MPL) behavior of a GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As single heterojunction has been investigated to 60T. We observed negatively charged singlet and triplet exciton states that are formed at high magnetic fields beyond the {nu}=l quantum Hall state. The variation of the charged exciton binding energies are in good agreement with theoretical predictions. The MPL transition intensities for these states showed intensity variations (maxima and minima) at the {nu}=l/3 and 1/5 fractional quantum Hall (FQH) state as a consequence of a large reduction of electron-hole screening at these filling factors.
The transport properties of a quasi-three-dimensional, 200 layer quantum well structure are investigated at integer filling in the quantum Hall state. We find that the transverse magnetoresistance Rxx, the Hall resistance Rxy, and the vertical resistance Rzz all follow a similar behavior with both temperature and in-plane magnetic field. A general feature of the influence of increasing in-plane field Bin is that the Hall conductance quantization first improves, but above a characteristic value BCin, the quantization is systematically removed. We consider the interplay of the chid edge state transport and the bulk (quantum Hall) transport properties. This mechanism may arise from the competition of the cyclotron energy with the superlattice band structure energies. A comparison of the resuIts with existing theories of the chiral edge state transport with in-plane field is also discussed.
We present here the results of polarized magneto-photoluminescence measurements on a high mobility single-heterojunction. The presence of a doublet structure over a large magnetic field range (2>v>l/6) is interpreted as possible evidence for the existence of a magneto-roton minima of the charged density waves. This is understood as an indication of strong electronic correlation even in the case of the IQHE limit.
Magnetic semiconductors offer a unique possibility for strongly tuning the intrinsic alloy disorder potential with applied magnetic field. We report the direct observation of a series of step-like reductions in the magnetic alloy disorder potential in single ZnSe/Zn(Cd,Mn)Se quantum wells between O and 60 Tesla. This disorder, measured through the linewidth of low temperature photoluminescence spectra drops abruptly at -19, 36, and 53 Tesla, in concert with observed magnetization steps. Conventional models of alloy disorder (developed for nonmagnetic semiconductors) reproduce the general shape of the data, but markedly underestimate the size of the linewidth reduction.
Single-level parallel optimization approaches, those in which either the simulation code executes in parallel or the optimiza- tion algorithm invokes multiple simultaneous single-processor analyses, have been investigated previously and been shown to be effective in reducing the time required to compute optimal solutions. However, these approaches have clear performance limita- tions that prevent effective scaling with the thousands of processors available in massively parallel supercomputers. In more recent work, a capability has been developed for multilevel parallelism in which multiple instances of multiprocessor simulations are coordinated simultaneously. This implementation employs a master-slave approach using the Message Passing Interface (MPI) within the DAKOTA software toolkit. Mathematical analysis on achieving peak efficiency in multilevel parallelism has shown that the most effective processor partitioning scheme is the one that limits the size of multiprocessor simulations in favor of concurrent execution of multiple simulations. That is, if both coarse-grained and fine-grained parallelism can be exploited, then preference should be given to the coarse-grained parallelism. This analysis was verified in multilevel paralIel computatiorud experiments on networks of workstations (NOWS) and on the Intel TeraFLOPS massively parallel supercomputer. In current work, methods for exploiting additional coarse-grained parallelism in optimization are being investigated so that fine-grained efficiency losses can be further minimized. These activities are focusing on both algorithmic coarse-grained parallel- ism (multiple independent function evaluations) through the development of speculative gradient methods and concurrent iterator strategies and on function evaluation coarse-grained parallelism (multiple separable simulations within a function evaluation) through the development of general partitioning and nested synchronization facilities. The net result is a total of four separate lev- els of parallelism which can minimize efficiency losses and achieve near linear scaling on massively parallel computers.
We have designed and tested a prototype dish/Stirling hybrid-receiver combustion system. The system consists of a pre-mixed natural-gas burner heating a pin-finned sodium heat pipe. The design emphasizes simplicity, low cost, and ruggedness. Our test was on a 1/6th -scale device, with a nominal firing rate of 18kWt, a power throughput of 13kWt, and a sodium vapor temperature of 750°C. The air/fuel mixture was electrically preheated to 640°C to simulate recuperation. The test rig was instrumented for temperatures, pressures, flow rates, overall leak rate, and exhaust emissions. The data verify our burner and heat-transfer models. Performance and post-test examinations validate our choice of materials and fabrication methods. Based on the 1/6th -scale results, we are designing a till-scale hybrid receiver. This is a fully-integrated system, including burner, pin-fin primary heat exchanger, recuperator (in place of the electrical pre-heater used in the prototype system), solar absorber, and sodium heat pipe. The major challenges of the design are to avoid pre-ignition, achieve robust heat-pipe performance, and attain long life of the burner matrix, recuperator, and flue-gas seals. We have used computational fluid dynamics extensively in designing to avoid pre-ignition and for designing the heat-pipe wick, and we have used individual component tests and results of the 1/6th -scale test to optimize for long life. In this paper, we present our design philosophy and basic details of our design. We describe the sub-scale test rig and compare test results with predictions. Finally, we outline the evolution of our full-scale design, and present its current status.
Successful techniques have been developed for simulating some experimental shipboard fires. The experimental fues were staged in Holds 4 and 5 of the Mayo Lykes, a test ship operated by the United States Coast Guard Fire and Safiety Test Detachment at Little Sand Island in Mobile Bay, Alabama. The tests simulated an engine-room or galley fire in the compartment adjacent to simulated hazardous cargo. The purpose of these tests was to determine the effect the fires in Hold 4 had on the cargo in Holds 4 and 5. The simulation is done with CFX, a commercial computational fluid dynamics code. Analyses show that simulations can accurately estimate a maritime fire environment for radioactive materials packaging. Radiative heat transfer dominates the hold-fue environment near the hot bulkhead. Flame temperatures between 800 and 1000°C give heat fluxes and temperatures typical of the measured fire environment for the simulated radioactive materials package. The simulation predicted the occurrence of flow patterns near the calorimeter (simulated radioactive materials package) similar to those observed during the experiment. The simulation was also accurate in predicting a heated fluid layer near the ceiling that increases in thickness as time passes.
We have constructed a humidity-controlled chamber in which deflections of polysilicon cantilever beams are observed by interferometry, resulting in in-situ adhesion measurements within a fracture mechanics framework. From adhesion energy measurements for uncoated hydrophilic beams, we demonstrate an exponential dependence of adhesion on relative humidity (RH). We can explain this trend with a single-asperity model for capillary condensation. For coated hydrophobic beams, adhesion is independent of RH up to a threshold value which depends on the coating used. However, we have found that exposure to very high RH ({ge}90%) ambients can cause a dramatic increase in adhesion, surprisingly with a stronger effect for perfluorodecyltrichlorosilane (FDTS, C{sub 10}H{sub 4}F{sub 17}SiCl{sub 3}) than octadecyltrichlorosilane (ODTS, C{sub 18}H{sub 37}SiCl{sub 3}). Newly developed computational mechanics to measure adhesion in the presence of an applied load allow us to explore how the adhesion increase develops. We believe that water adsorption at silanol sites at the FDTS/substrate interface, possibly exacerbated by coupling agent migration, leads to water islanding and the subsequent adhesion increase at very high RH levels.
We report the first experimental observation of non-classical morphological equilibration of a corrugated crystalline surface. Periodic rippled structures with wavelengths of 290-550 nm were made on Si(OO1) by sputter rippling and then annealed at 650 - 750 °C. In contrast to the classical exponential decay with time, the ripple amplitude, A{lambda}(t), followed an inverse linear decay, A{lambda}(t)= A{lambda}(0)/(1 +k{lambda}t), agreeing with a prediction of Ozdemir and Zangwill. We measure the activation energy for surface relaxation to be 1.6±0.2 eV, consistent with an interpretation that dimers mediate transport.
Shear bands and faults are ubiquitous features of brittle rock deformation at a variety of length scales. Despite the prevalence of these features, understandhg of their inception remains rudimentary. Laboratory experiments suggest a casual association of localization of deformation (faulting) with peak stress, but more detailed examination reveals that localization can precede or follow the peak. Rudnicki and Rice (1975, hereafter abbreviated as RR) have suggested a the- ory of the inception of localization as a bifurcation or nonuniqueness of the so- lution for homogeneous deformation. They predict a strong dependence of local- ization on deformation state. In particular, they predict that localization can occur prepeak for deformation states near deviatoric pure shear and does not occur until well after peak for axisymmetric compression. This prediction is roughly in ac- cord with the true triaxial experiments of Mogi (1967, 1971). More recently, Ord et al. (1991) and Wwersik et al. (1991) have reported observations of localization prior to peak stress in plane strain experiments. The predictions of RR depend strongly on the constitutive properties of the rock and detailed comparison has been impeded by inadequate knowledge of those properties. Even the idealized constitutive model used by RR requires knowledge of the evolution of the constitutive properties with inelastic deformation that is not readily obtainable from the typical axisymmetric compression test. Although it is conceptually advantageous to consider inelastic deformation at fixed mean stress, the mean stress changes throughout the axisymmetric compression test. In this paper, we present a synthesis of a number of axisymmetric compres- sion tests to extract a detailed implementation of the constitutive framework used by RR. The resulting constitutive relation is then used to -predict the response for plane strain. Conditions for localization of deformation derived by RR are evalu- ated for both plane strain and axisymmetric compression.
Structured conversation diagrams, or conversation specifications, allow agents to have predictable interactions and achieve predefined information-based goals, but they lack the flexibility needed to function robustly in an unpredictable environment. We propose a mechanism that combines a typical conversation structure with a separately established policy to generate an actual conversation. The word "policy" connotes a high-level direction external to a specific planned interaction with the environment. Policies, which describe acceptable procedures and influence decisions, can be applied to broad sets of activity. Based on their observation of issues related to a policy, agents may dynamically adjust their communication patterns. The policy object describes limitations, constraints, and requirements that may affect the conversation in certain circumstances. Using this new mechanism of interaction simplifies the description of individual conversations and allows domain-specific issues to be brought to bear more easily during agent communication. By following the behavior of the conversation specification when possible and deferring to the policy to derive behavior in exceptional circumstances, an agent is able to function predictably under normal situations and still act rationally in abnormal situations. Different conversation policies applied to a given conversation specification can change the nature of the interaction without changing the specification.
The Instrumentation and Telemetry Departments at Sandia National Laboratories have been exploring the instrumentation of sealed canisters where the flight application will not tolerate either the presence of a chemical power source or penetration by power supply wires. This paper will describe the application of a low power micro-controller based instrumentation system that uses magnetic coupling for both power and data to support a flight application.
Junction field effect transistors (JFET) are fabricated on a GaN epitaxial structure grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The DC and microwave characteristics of the device are presented. A junction breakdown voltage of 56 V is obtained corresponding to the theoretical limit of the breakdown field in GaN for the doping levels used. A maximum extrinsic transconductance (gm) of 48 mS/mm and a maximum source-drain current of 270 mA/mm are achieved on a 0.8 µ m gate JFET device at VGS= 1 V and VDS=15 V. The intrinsic transconductance, calculated from the measured gm and the source series resistance, is 81 mS/mm. The fT and fmax for these devices are 6 GHz and 12 GHz, respectively. These JFETs exhibit a significant current reduction after a high drain bias is applied, which is attributed to a partially depleted channel caused by trapped hot-electrons in the semi-insulating GaN buffer layer. A theoretical model describing the current collapse is described, and an estimate for the length of the trapped electron region is given.
Ferrochelatase (EC 4.99.1.1), the terminal enzyme of the heme biosynthetic pathway, catalyzes Fe2+ chelation into protoporphyrin IX. Resonance Raman and W-visible absorbance spectroscopes of wild type and engineered variants of murine ferrochelatase were used to examine the proposed structural mechanism for iron insertion into protoporphyrin by ferrochelatase. The recombinant variants (i.e., H207N and E287Q) are enzymes in which the conserved amino acids histidine-207 and glutamate-287 of murine ferrochelatase were substituted with asparagine and glutamine, respectively. Both of these residues are at the active site of the enzyme as deduced from the Bacillus subtilis ferrochelatase three-dimensional structure. Addition of free base or metalated porphyrins to wild type ferrochelatase and H207N variant yields a quasi 1:1 complex, possibly a monomeric protein-bound species. In contrast, the addition of porphyrin (either free base or metalated) to E287Q is sub-stoichiometric, as this variant retains bound porphyrin in the active site during isolation and purification. The specificity of porphyrin binding is confirmed by the narrowing of the structure-sensitive resonance Raman lines and the vinyl vibrational mode. Resonance Raman spectra of free base and metalated porphyrins bound to the wild type ferrochelatase indicate a nonplanar distortion of the porphyrin macrocycle, although the magnitude of the distortion cannot be determined without first defining the specific type of deformation. Significantly, the extent of the nonplanar distortion varies in the case of H207N- and E287Q-bound porphyrins. In fact, resonance Raman spectral decomposition indicates a homogeneous ruffled distortion for the nickel protoporphyrin bound to the wild type ferrochelatase, whereas both a planar and ruffled conformations are present for the H207N-bound porphyrin. Perhaps more revealing is the unusual resonance , 3 Raman spectrum of the endogenous E287Q-bound porphyrin, which has the structure-sensitive lines greatly upshifted relative to those of the free base protoporphyrin in solution. This could be interpreted as an equilibrium between protein conformers, one of which favors a highly distorted porphyrin macrocycle. Taken together these findings suggest that the mode of porphyrin distortion in murine ferrochelatase is different from that reported for yeast ferrochelatase, which requires metal binding for porphyrin distortion.
The first synthesis of an octahalotetraalkylporphyrin [2,3,7,8,12,13,17,18 -octabromo-5,10,15,20- tetrakis(trifluoromethyl)porphinato nickel(II)] is reported; this perhalogenated porphyrin has several novel properties including a very nonplanar ruffled structure with an unusually short Ni- N distance, an extremely red-shifted optical spectrum, and hindered rotation of the trifluoromethyl groups ({Delta}G278K =47 kJ mol-1).
Under existing methods of probabilistic risk assessment (PRA), the analysis of fire-induced circuit faults has typically been conducted on a simplistic basis. In particular, those hot-short methodologies that have been applied remain controversial in regards to the scope of the assessments, the underlying methods, and the assumptions employed. To address weaknesses in fire PRA methodologies, the USNRC has initiated a fire risk analysis research program that includes a task for improving the tools for performing circuit analysis. The objective of this task is to obtain a better understanding of the mechanisms linking fire-induced cable damage to potentially risk-significant failure modes of power, control, and instrumentation cables. This paper discusses the current status of the circuit analysis task.
Sandia National Laboratories has undertaken an ambitious, multiyear effort to greatly improve our parachute system modeling and analysis capabilities. The impetus for this effort is twofold. First, extending the stockpile lifetime raises serious questions regarding the ability of the parachutes to meet their requirements in the future due to material aging. These aging questions cannot currently be answered using available tools and techniques which are based upon the experience of expert staff and full-scale flight tests and are, therefore, not predictive. Second, the atrophy of our parachute technology base and the loss of our experienced staff has eroded our ability to respond to any future problems with stockpiled parachutes or to rapidly design a new parachute system on an experience base alone. To assure a future in-house capability for technical oversight of stockpile nuclear weapon parachutes, Sandia must move from our present empirically based approach to a computationally based, predictive methodology. This paper discusses the current status of the code development and experimental validation activities. Significant milestones that have been achieved and those that are coming up in the next year are discussed.
The sensitivity and selectivity of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) / carbon black composite films have been found to vary depending upon the hydroxylation percentage ("-OH") of the polymer. These chemiresistors made from PVA films whose polymer backbone is 88% hydroxylated (PVA88) have a high sensitivity to water, while chemiresistors made from PVA75 have a higher sensitivity to methanol. The minor differences in polymer composition result in films with different Hildebrand volubility parameters. The relative responses of several different PVA-based chemiresistors to solvents with different volubility parameters are presented. In addition, polyvinyl acetate (PVAC) films with PVA88 are used in an array to distinguish the responses to methanol-water mixtures.
A better understanding of the fraction of contaminants irreversibly sorbed by minerals is necessary to effectively quantify bioavailability. Ferrihydrite, a poorly crystalline iron oxide, is a natural sink for sorbed contaminants. Contaminants may be sorbed/occluded as ferrihydrite precipitates in natural waters or as it ages and transforms to more crystalline iron oxides such as goethite or hematite. Laboratory studies indicate that Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, Np, Pb, Sr, U, and Zn are irreversibly sorbed to some extent during the aging and transformation of synthetic ferrihydrite. Barium, Ra and Sr are known to sorb on ferrihydrite in the pH range of 6 to 10 and sorb more strongly at pH values above its zero point of charge (pH> 8). We will review recent literature on metal retardation, including our laboratory and modeling investigation of Ba (as an analogue for Ra) and Sr adsorption/resorption, during ferrihydrite transformation to more crystalline iron oxides. Four ferrihydrite suspensions were aged at pH 12 and 50 °C with or without Ba in 0.01 M KN03 for 68 h or in 0.17 M KN03 for 3424 h. Two ferrihydrite suspensions were aged with and without Sr at pH 8 in 0.1 M KN03 at 70°C. Barium or Sr sorption, or resorption, was measured by periodically centrifuging suspension subsamples, filtering, and analyzing the filtrate for Ba or Sr. Solid subsamples were extracted with 0.2 M ammonium oxalate (pH 3 in the dark) and with 6 M HCl to determine the Fe and Ba or Sr attributed to ferrihydrite (or adsorbed on the goethite/hematite stiace) and the total Fe and Ba or Sr content, respectively. Barium or Sr occluded in goethite/hematite was determined by the difference between the total Ba or Sr and the oxalate extractable Ba or Sr. The percent transformation of ferrihydrite to goethite/hematite was estimated from the ratio of oxalate and HC1 extractable Fe. All Ba was retained in the precipitates for at least 20 h. Resorption of Ba reached a maximum of 7 to 8% of the Ba2+ added for samples aged in 0.01 and 0.17 M KN03 after 68 and 90 h of aging, respectively. About 3% of the Ba2+ added was readsorbed from 90 to 3424 h of aging in 0.17 M KN03. The amount of Ba sorbed by ferrihydrite or adsorbed on goethite (oxalate-extractable) decreased from 70 to 40% of the Ba2+ added after 68 h in 0.01 M KNO3 and from 80 to 20% of the Ba2+ added after 400 h in 0.17 M KN03. The Ba occluded in goethite (HCl-extractable) in 0.01 M KN03 increased rapidly to 30% of the Ba2+ added in the first 0.4 h and then to 50% of the Ba2+ added after 68 h. In 0.17 M KN03, Ba occluded in goethite increased from 60% of the Ba2+ added by 68 h and to 75% of the Ba2+ added after 3424 h. After 68 h at 70°C, ferrihydrite transformation was 99% compIete and was slightly inhibited with Sr present during the first few hours. Occlusion of Sr in ferrihydrite or Sr reversibly adsorbed decreased from 96 to 4o/0 after 86 h. Occlusion of Sr in hematite/goethite increased from 4 to 40% after 68 h. Resorption of Sr increased from 0.2 to 50% after 68 h. At least 90% of the Ba and 25% of the Sr added to the ferrihydrite suspensions were retained by the iron oxides during the aging periods in this study. At least 75% of the Ba and 15% of the Sr were irreversibly sorbed during ferrihydrite transfomnation to goethite and/or hematite.
Microstructural-level residual stresses arise in ceramics due to thermal expansion anisotropy. The magnitude of these stresses can be very high and may cause spontaneous microcracking during the processing of these materials. The orientation data obtained by backscattered electron diffraction and grain boundary energies obtained by AFM were used in conjunction with an object oriented finite element analysis package (OOF) to predict the magnitude of residual stresses in alumina. Crack initiation and propagation were also simulated based on the Griffith fracture criterion.
Incomplete convergence in numerical simulation such as computational physics simulations and/or Monte Carlo simulations can enter into the calculation of the objective function in an optimization problem, producing noise, bias, and topo- graphical inaccuracy in the objective function. These affect accuracy and convergence rate in the optimization problem. This paper is concerned with global searching of a diverse parameter space, graduating to accelerated local convergence to a (hopefully) global optimum, in a framework that acknowledges convergence uncertainty and manages model resolu- tion to efficiently reduce uncertainty in the final optimum. In its own right, the global-to-local optimization engine employed here (devised for noise tolerance) performs better than other classical and contemporary optimization approaches tried individually and in combination on the "industrial" test problem to be presented.
This is a period of ever-tightening defense budgets and continuing pressure on the public sector to be more commercial-like, Property policies, practices, and regulations are increasingly being challenged and changed. In these times, we must be leaders in understanding and defining the value of our profession from a commercial standpoint so that we can provide the right services to our customers and explain and defend the value of those services. To do so, we must step outside current property management practices, regulations, and oversight. We must learn to think and speak in the language of those who fund us--a financial language of risk, cost, and benefit. Regardless of regulation and oversight, our bosses are demanding that we demonstrate (financially) the benefits of current practice, or else. This article is intended to be the beginning of an effort to understand and define our profession in terms of risk, cost, and benefit so that we can meet these new challenges. The first step in this effort must be defining and measuring risk, cost, and benefit. Our costs, although sometimes difficult to capture, are easy to understand: they are almost exclusively the effort, both within and without the property management organization, involved in managing property. Unfortunately, property risks and benefits are not so simple or so well understood. Generally, risks and benefits are identified and measured through physical inventory results: potential and actual shortages. This paper will explore the weaknesses in the current understanding and use of shortage information as the yardstick for property management risks and performance. It will define a new framework for understanding the purpose and value of property management. And finally, it will set a course for a new method of measuring and valuing physical inventoty shortages. This new method will yield accurate and useful measures of property management risk and benefit. Once risk and benefit are accurately understood and measured, it will be possible to evaluate, adjust, and explain property management practices and regulations from a commercial, financial perspective; it will be possible for us to be the leaders in redefining the purpose and value of the property management profession for today's environment.
Interest in the critical dynamics of superfluid 4 He in microgravity conditions has motivated the development of new high resolution thermometry technol- ogy for use in space experiments near 2K. The current material commonly used as the temperature sensing element for high resolution thermometers (HRTs) is copper ammonium bromide [Cu(NH4)2Br42H20) or "CAB", which undergoes a ferromagnetic phase transition at 1.8K1. HRTs made from CAB have demonstrated low drift (< 10fK/s) and a temperature resolu- tion of O.lnK. Unfortunately, paramagnetic salts such as CAB are difficult to prepare and handle, corrosive to most metals, and become dehydrated if kept, under vacuum conditions at room temperature. We have developed a magnetic thermometer using dilute magnetic alloys of Mn or Fe dissolved in a pure Pd matrix. These metallic thermometers are easy to fabricate, chemically inert, and mechanically robust. Unlike salts, they may be directly soldered to the stage to be measured. Also, the Curie temperature can be varied by changing the concentration of Fe or Mn, making them available for use in a wide temperature range. Susceptibility measurements, as well as preliminary noise and drifl measurements, show them, to have sub-nK resolution, with a drift of less than 10-13 K/s.
Commercial telemedicine systems are increasingly functional, incorporating video-conferencing capabilities, diagnostic peripherals, medication reminders, and patient education services. However, these systems (1) rarely utilize information architectures which allow them to be easily integrated with existing health information networks and (2) do not always protect patient confidentiality with adequate security mechanisms. Using object-oriented methods and software wrappers, we illustrate the transformation of an existing stand-alone telemedicine system into `plug-and-play' components that function in a distributed medical information environment. We show, through the use of open standards and published component interfaces, that commercial telemedicine offerings which were once incompatible with electronic patient record systems can now share relevant data with clinical information repositories while at the same time hiding the proprietary implementations of the respective systems. Additionally, we illustrate how leading-edge technology can secure this distributed telemedicine environment, maintaining patient confidentiality and the integrity of the associated electronic medical data. Information surety technology also encourages the development of telemedicine systems that have both read and write access to electronic medical records containing patient-identifiable information. The win-win approach to telemedicine information system development preserves investments in legacy software and hardware while promoting security and interoperability in a distributed environment.
The Sandia ACRR (a Hazard Category 2 Nuclear Reactor Facility) was defueled in June 1997 to modify the reactor core and control system to produce medical radioisotopes for the Department of Energy (DOE) Isotope Production Program. The DOE determined that an Operational Readiness Review (ORR) was required to confirm readiness to begin operations within the revised safety basis. This paper addresses the ORR Process, lessons learned from the Sandia and DOE ORRS of the ACRR, and the use of the ORR to confirm authorization basis implementation.
The Sandia National Laboratories/New Mexico (SNL/NM) Environmental Restoration Project is halfway through excavating the Classified Waste Landfill in Technical Area II, a disposal area for weapon components for approximately 40 years. While the planning phase of any project is important, it is only a means of getting to the field implementation phase where reality quickly sinks in. Documents outlining the general processes are developed, heavy equipment, supply needs, requisite skills, and staffing levels are anticipated, and contingencies for waste management are put in place. However, the nature of landfill excavation dictates that even the most detailed plans will probably change. This project is proving that trying to account for undefined variables and predicting the total cost of landfill remediation is very difficult if the contents are not well known. In landfill excavation, contingency cannot be minimized. During development of the waste management plan, it was recognized that even the best forecasting could not formulate the perfect cradle-to-grave processes because waste streams are rarely definable before excavation begins. Typically, as excavation progresses and waste streams are generated, new characterization information allows further definition of disposal options which, in turn, modify the generation/management process. A general plan combined with close involvement of waste management personnel to resolve characterization and packaging questions during generation has worked very well. And, as expected, each new pit excavated creates new waste management challenges. The material excavated consists primarily of classified weapon assemblies and related components, so disposition must include demilitarization and sanitization. The demilitarization task at the start of the project was provided by an SNL/NM group that has since lost their funding and operational capability. This project is having to take on the task of disassembly, destruction, and recycling of classified components, along with the associated costs and infrastmcture. Very stringent radiological controls were imposed on site operations during the planning phase. Radiological controls that are not justified significantly impact the efficiency and cost of operations. If the initial approach is too conservative, there should be well-defined provisions for scaling down the protective measures to reflect the actual risks. Once the effectiveness of early detection, monitoring, and surveys is proven, radiological controls and postings should be re-evaluated to verify that they are appropriate. High levels of heavy metals dust were not anticipated during the planning phase but were suspected, then confirmed, during material handling. Respiratory protection and monitoring were upgraded accordingly and the costs added to the baseline. In contrast to radiological constraints, industrial hygiene guidelines were worked into the process with a minimum of adverse impact. While a lot of unforeseen expenses occur, some expected costs can be reduced. During the planning phase, the anticipated need to adequately characterize a variety of radionuclides in soil led to using Large Area Gamma Spectroscopy (LAGS) to survey all the soil excavated. About a quarter of the way through the project, it was obvious that very little radioactive material was present in the excavated soils. Since all the soil is processed through a screen plant, producing a fairly homogeneous mix, a more common method of sampling soil piles was implemented to replace the LAGS unit, increase productivity, and reduce costs. In summary, the most important lesson is to expect and be ready to change. Excavating a landfill requires the flexibility to quickly adjust processes to handle the unknown variables, and close attention to detail so all the different facets of the project are kept under control.
Thermite mixtures, intermetallic reactants, and metal fuels have long been used in pyrotechnic applications. Advantages of these systems typically include high energy density, high combustion temperature, and a wide range of gas production. They generally exhibit high temperature stability and possess insensitive ignition properties. For the specific applications of humanitarian demining and disposal of unexploded ordnance, these pyrotechnic formulations offer additional benefits. The combination of high thermal input with low brisance can be used to neutralize the energetic materials in mines and other ordnance without the "explosive" high-blast-pressure events that can cause extensive collateral damage to personnel, facilities, and the environment. In this paper, we review the applications, benefits, and characteristics of thermite mixtures, intermetallic reactants, and metal fuels. Calculated values for reactant density, heat of reaction (per unit mass and per unit volume), and reaction temperature (without and with consideration of phase changes and the variation of specific heat values) are tabulated. These data are ranked in several ways, according to density, heat of reaction, reaction temperature, and gas production.
The effects on electrochemical performance of the nitrogen content of disordered carbons derived from polymethacryonitrile (PMAN)-divinylbenzene (DVB) copolymers were examined in galvanostatic cycling tests between 2 V and 0.01 V vs. Li/Li+ in lM LiPF6/ethylene carbonate (EC)-dimethyl carbonate (DMC). The first-cycle reversible capacities and coulombic efficiencies increased with increase in the level of nitrogen for samples prepared at 700°C. However, the degree of fade also increased. Similar tests were performed on materials that were additionally heated at 1,000° and 1,300°C for five hours. Loss of nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen occurred under these conditions, with none remaining at the highest temperature in all cases but one. The pyrolysis temperature dominated the electrochemical performance for these samples, with lower reversible and irreversible capacities for the first intercalation cycle as the pyrolysis temperature was increased. Fade was reduced and coulombic efficiencies also improved with increase in temperate. The large irreversible capacities and high fade of these materials makes them unsuitable for use in Li-ion cells.
Cooperative monitoring holds the promise of utilizing many technologies from conflicts of the past to implement agreements of peace in the future. Important approaches to accomplish this are to develop the framework for assessing monitoring opportunities and to provide education and training on the technologies and experience available for sharing with others. The Cooperative Monitoring Center (CMC) at Sandia National Laboratories is working closely with agencies throughout the federal government, academics at home and abroad, and regional organizations to provide the technical tools needed to assess, design, analyze, and implement these cooperative agreements. In doing so, the goals of building regional confidence and increasing trust and communication can be furthered.
Several techniques to predict pad failure during tungsten CMP were investigated for a specific consumable set. These techniques include blanket polish rate measurements and metrics derived from two endpoint detection schemes. Blanket polish rate decreased significantly near pad failure. Metrics from the thermal endpoint technique included change in peak temperature, change in the time to reach peak temperature, and the change in the slope of the temperature trace just prior to peak temperature all as a function of pad life. Average carrier motor current before endpoint was also investigated. Changes in these metrics were observed however these changes, excluding time to peak process temperature, were either not consistent between pads or too noisy to be reliable predictors of pad failure.
This paper details the analysis of vibration monitoring for end-point control in oxide CMP processes. Two piezoelectric accelerometers were integrated onto the backside of a stainless steel polishing head of an IPEC 472 polisher. One sensor was placed perpendicular to the carrier plate (vertical) and the other parallel to the plate (horizontal). Wafers patterned with metal and coated with oxide material were polished at different speeds and pressures. Our results show that it is possible to sense a change in the vibration signal over time during planarization of oxide material on patterned wafers. The horizontal accelerometer showed more sensitivity to change in vibration amplitude compared to the vertical accelerometer for a given polish condition. At low carrier and platen rotation rates, the change in vibration signal over time at fixed frequencies decreased approximately ½ - 1 order of magnitude (over the 2 to 10 psi polish pressure ranges). At high rotation speeds, the vibration signal remained essentially constant indicating that other factors dominated the vibration signaL These results show that while it is possible to sense changes in acceleration during polishing, more robust hardware and signal processing algorithms are required to ensure its use over a wide range of process conditions.
Casing deformation in wells is a common problem in many geothermal fields. Casing remediation is necessary to keep wells in production and occasionally, to even enter the well for an approved plug and abandonment procedure. The costly alternative to casing remediation is to incur the expense of drilling a new well to maintain production or drilling a well to intersect a badly damaged well below the deformation for abandonment purposes. The U.S. Department of Energy and the Geothermal Drilling Organization sponsor research and development work at Sandia National Laboratories in an effort to reduce these remediation expenditures. Sandia, in cooperation with Halliburton Energy Services, has developed a low cost, commercially available, bridge-plug-type packer for use in geothermal well environments. This report documents the development and testing of this tool for use in casing remediation work.
Silicon micromachine designs include engines that consist of orthog- onally oriented linear comb drive actuators mechanically connected to a rotating gear. These gears are as small as 50 {micro}m in diameter and can be driven at rotation rates exceeding 300,000 rpm. Generally, these en- gines will run with non-uniform rotation rates if the drive signals are not properly designed and maintained over a range of system parameters. We present a method for producing constant rotation rates in a micro-engine driven by an orthogonal linkage system. We show that provided the val- ues of certain masses, springs, damping factors, and lever arms are in the right proportions, the system behaves as though it were symmetrical. We will refer to systems built in this way as being quasi-symmetrical. We show that if a system is built quasi-symmetrically , then it is possible to achieve constant rotation rates even if one does not know the form of the friction function, or the value of the friction. We analyze this case in some detail.
In this paper we present an approach that facilitates the validation of high consequence system requirements. This approach consists of automatically generating a graphical representation from an informal document. Our choice of a graphical notation is statecharts. We proceed in two steps: we first extract a hierarchical decomposition tree from a textual description, then we draw a graph that models the statechart in a hierarchical fashion. The resulting drawing is an effective requirements assessment tool that allows the end user to easily pinpoint inconsistencies and incompleteness.
Carpinelli, Joseph M.; Stumpf, Roland R.; Weitering, Hanno H.
We investigate the apparent charge transfer between adatoms in the GeXPb[l.XjGe(lll) interface both experimentally and theoretically. Scanning tunneling microscopy and surface core level measurements suggest significant charge transfer from the Ge adatoms to the Pb adatoms. However, first-principles calculations unambiguously find that the total electronic displacement is negligibly small, and that the results of published experiments can be explained as a result of bond rearrangement.
Friction force microscopy measurements of a polydiacetylene monolayer film reveal a 300% friction anisotropy that is correlated with the film structure. The film consists of a monolayer of the red form of N-(2-ethanol)- 10,12 pentacosadiynamide, prepared on a Langmuir trough and deposited on a mica substrate. As confirmed by atomic force microscopy and fluorescence microscopy, the monolayer consists of domains of linearly oriented conjugated backbones with pendant hydrocarbon side chains above and below the backbones. Maximum friction occurs when the sliding direction is perpendicular to the backbone. We propose that the backbones impose anisotropic packing of the hydrocarbon side chains which leads to the observed friction anisotropy. Friction anisotropy is therefore a sensitive, optically-independent indicator of polymer backbone direction and monolayer structural properties.
We have synthesized the Z and E isomers of 1,4-bis(triethoxysilyl)-2- butene and polymerized them under acid and base catalyzed sol-gel conditions. As expected the E system formed crosslinked, insoluble gels. The Z isomer, by nature of its geometry, formed high molecular weight, soluble polymeric products under acidic conditions. We were able to prepare and isolate both the cyclic disilsesquioxane monomer, and its dimer. Comparison of their spectral characterization with that of the soluble polymers suggests that the cyclics are present within the polymers. lle synthesis of a dimer likely present at some early stage of the polymerization suggests that we may be able to control the reaction and form rigid polymers with controllable tacticity. In addition, most of the gels were found to be non-porous indicating that the gels were, in fact, more compliant than ethenylene-bridged polysilsesquioxanes leading to collapse of pores during drying.
The detection of mines, both during and after hostilities, is a growing international problem. It limits military operations during wartime and unrecovered mines create tragic consequences for civilians. From a purely humanitarian standpoint an estimated 100 million or more unrecovered mines are located in over 60 countries worldwide. This paper presents an overview of some of the technologies currently being investigated by Sandia National Laboratories for the detection and monitoring of minefields in land and water environments. The three technical areas described in this paper are: 1) the development of new mathematical techniques for combining or fusing the data from multiple sources for enhanced decision-making; 2) an environmental fate and transport (EF&T) analysis approach that is central to improving trace chemical sensing technique; and 3) the investigation of an underwater range imaging device to aid in locating and characterizing mines and other obstacles in coastal waters.
In the scanning electron microscope (SEM), using electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD), it is possible to measure the spacing of the layers in the reciprocal lattice. These values are of great use in confirming the identification of phases. The technique derives the layer spacing from the HOLZ rings which appear in patterns from many materials. The method adapts results from convergent-beam electron diffraction (CBED) in the transmission electron microscope (TEM). For many materials the measured layer spacing compares well with the calculated layer spacing. A noted exception is for higher atomic number materials. In these cases an extrapolation procedure is described that requires layer spacing measurements at a range of accelerating voltages. This procedure is shown to improves the accuracy of the technique significantly. The application of layer spacing measurements in EBSD is shown to be of use for the analysis of two polytypes of SiC.
Our vision of the future of information systems is one that includes engineered collectives of software agents which are situated in an environment over years and which increasingly improve the performance of the overall system of which they are a part. At a minimum, the movement of agent and multi-agent technology into National Security applications, including their use in information assurance, is apparent today. The use of deliberative, autonomous agents in high-consequence/high-security applications will require a commensurate level of protection and confidence in the predictability of system-level behavior. At Sandia National Laboratories, we have defined and are addressing a research agenda that integrates the surety (safety, security, and reliability) into agent-based systems at a deep level. Surety is addressed at multiple levels: The integrity of individual agents must be protected by addressing potential failure modes and vulnerabilities to malevolent threats. Providing for the surety of the collective requires attention to communications surety issues and mechanisms for identifying and working with trusted collaborators. At the highest level, using agent-based collectives within a large-scale distributed system requires the development of principled design methods to deliver the desired emergent performance or surety characteristics. This position paper will outline the research directions underway at Sandia, will discuss relevant work being performed elsewhere, and will report progress to date toward assurance in agent-based systems.
The solution-mediated syntheses and single crystal structures of (CH3NH3)3·Zn40(AsO4)3 and (CH3NH3)3·Zn4O(P04)3 are reported. These compounds are built up from vertex-sharing three-dimensional Zn04 + AsO4/P04 tetrahedral frameworks encapsulating methylammonium cations in three-dimensional channel systems. These phases are closely related to the zeolite- like M3Zn4O(XO4)3·nH2O family of phases. Crystal data for (CH3NH3)3·Zn40(AsO4)3, M, = 790.47, monoclinic, space group P21 (No. 4), a = 7.814 (3)Å, b = 15.498 (6)Å, c = 7.815 (3) Å, {beta} = 92.91 (2)0, V = 945.1 (9) Å3, Z = 2, R(F) = 3.01%, RW(F) = 3.98% (2301 reflections, 236 parameters). Crystal data for (CH3NH3)3·Zn40(P04)3: M, = 658.63, monoclinic, space group P21 (No. 4), a = 7.6569 (5) Å, b = 15.241 (1)Å, c= 7.6589 (5) Å, {beta} = 92.740 (1)0, V= 892.7 (5) Å3, Z = 2, R(F)= 8.07%, RW(F)= 9.60% (2694 reflections, 106 parameters).
Zeolite W has been synthesized using organometallic silicon and aluminum precursors in two hydrothermal systems: organocation containing and organocation-free. The reaction using the organocation yielded a fully crystalline, relatively uniform crystal size product, with no organic molecules occluded in the pores. In contrast, the product obtained from an identical reaction, except for the absence of the organocation, contained amorphous as well as crystalline material and the crystalline phase showed a large diversity of both crystal size and morphology. The use of organometallic precursors, either with or without an organocation, allows for the crystallization of the MER framework at much lower 0H/Si02 and (K+ Na - Al)/Si ratios than is typical of inorganic systems. The reaction products were characterized by XRD, SEM, EDS, and thermal analyses.
The solution-mediated syntheses and single crystal structures of (N2C6H14)·Zn(HPO4)2·H2O (I), H3N(CH2)3NH3·Zn2(HPO4)3 (II), and (N2C6H14)·Zn3(HPO4)4 (III) are described. These phases contain vertex-sharing Zn04 and HP04 tetrahedra, accompanied by doubly- protonated organic cations. Despite their formal chemical relationship, as members of the series of t·Znn(HP04)n+1 (t= template, n = 1-3), these phases adopt fimdamentally different crystal structures, as one-dimensional, two-dimensional, and three-dimensional Zn04/HP04 networks, for I, II, and III respectively. Similarities and differences to some other zinc phosphates are briefly discussed. Crystal data: (N2C6H14)·Zn(HP04)2·H20, Mr = 389.54, monoclinic, space group P21/n (No. 14), a = 9.864 (4) Å, b = 8.679 (4) Å, c = 15.780 (3) Å, β = 106.86 (2)°, V= 1294.2 (8) Å3, Z = 4, R(F) = 4.58%, RW(F) = 5.28% [1055 reflections with I >3σ(I)]. H3N(CH2)3NH3·Zn2(HP04)3, Mr = 494.84, monoclinic, space group P21/c (No. 14), a= 8.593 (2)Å, b= 9.602 (2)Å, c= 17.001 (3)Å, β= 93.571 (8)°, V = 1400.0 (5) Å3, Z = 4, R(F) = 4.09%, RW(F) = 4.81% [2794 reflections with I > 3σ (I)]. (N2C6H14)·Zn3(HP04)4, Mr= 694.25, monoclinic, space group P21/n (No. 14), a = 9.535 (2) Å, b = 23.246 (4)Å, c= 9.587 (2)Å, β= 117.74 (2)°, V= 1880.8 (8) Å3, Z = 4, R(F) = 3.23%, RW(F) = 3.89% [4255 reflections with 1> 3σ(I)].
Due to the vast diversity of chemical media in which metal separations are executed, a wide range of ion separation materials are employed. This results in an ongoing effort to discover new phases with novel ion exchange properties. We present here the synthesis of a novel class of thermally and chemically stable microporous, niobate-based materials. Ion exchange studies show these new phases are highly selective for Sr2+ and other bivalent metals.
Silica nanoparticles exhibiting hexagonal, cubic, and vesicular mesostructures have been prepared using aerosol assisted, self-assembled process. This process begins with homogennous aerosol droplets containing silica source, water, ethanol, and surfactant, in which surfactant concentration is far below the critical micelle concentration (cmc). Solvent evaporation enriches silica and surfactant inducing interfacial self-assembly confined to a spherical aerosol droplet and results in formation of completely solid, ordered spherical particles with stable hexagonal, cubic, or vesicular mesostructures.
Understanding of single and multi-phase flow and transport in fractures can be greatly enhanced through experimentation in transparent systems (analogs or replicas) where light transmission techniques yield quantitative measurements of aperture, solute concentration, and phase saturation fields. Here we quanti@ aperture field measurement error and demonstrate the influence of this error on the results of flow and transport simulations (hypothesized experimental results) through saturated and partially saturated fractures. find that precision and accuracy can be balanced to greatly improve the technique and We present a measurement protocol to obtain a minimum error field. Simulation results show an increased sensitivity to error as we move from flow to transport and from saturated to partially saturated conditions. Significant sensitivity under partially saturated conditions results in differences in channeling and multiple-peaked breakthrough curves. These results emphasize the critical importance of defining and minimizing error for studies of flow and transpoti in single fractures.
An investigation of the synthesis of novel dodecaarylporphyrins using the Suzuki coupling reaction of arylboronic acids with octabromotetraarylporphyrins is reported. Studies of the dynamic properties of these new porphyrins using variable temperature (VT) 1H NMR spectroscopy and molecular mechanics provide interesting insights into their dynamic properties, including the first determination of {beta} aryl rotation in a porphyrin system.
The time evolution of the amplitude of periodic nanoscale ripple patterns formed on Ar+ sputtered Si(OOl ) surfaces was examined using a recently developed in situ spectroscopic technique. At sufficiently long times, we find that the amplitude does not continue to grow exponentially as predicted by the standard Bradley-Harper sputter rippling model. In accounting for this discrepancy, we rule out effects related to the concentration of mobile species, high surface curvature, surface energy anisotropy, and ion-surface interactions. We observe that for all wavelengths the amplitude ceases to grow when the width of the topmost terrace of the ripples is reduced to approximately 25 nm. This observation suggests that a short circuit relaxation mechanism limits amplitude . growth. A strategy for influencing the ultimate ripple amplitude is discussed.
Optimal selection of array sensors for a chemical sensing application is a nontrivial task. It is commonly believed that "more is better" when choosing the number of sensors required to achieve good chemical selectivity. However, cost and system complexity issues point towards the choice of small arrays. A quantitative array optimization is carried out to explore the selectivity of arrays of partially-selective chemical sensors as a function of array size. It is shown that modest numbers (dozens) of target analytes are completely distinguished with a range of arrays sizes. However, the array selectivity and the robustness against sensor sensitivity variability are significantly degraded if the array size is increased above a certain number of sensors, so that relatively small arrays provide the best performance. The results also suggest that data analyses for very large arrays of partially-selective sensors will be optimized by separately anal yzing small sensor subsets.
Controlled impact experiments have been performed to determine the spall strength of four different concrete compositions. The four concrete compositions are identified as, `SAC-5, CSPC', ("3/4") large, and ("3/8") small, Aggregate. They differ primarily in aggregate size but with average densities varying by less than five percent. Wave profiles from sixteen experiments, with shock amplitudes of 0.07 to 0.55 GPa, concentrate primarily within the elastic regime. Free-surface particle velocity measurements indicate consistent pullback signals in the release profiles, denoting average span strength of approximately 40 MPa. It is the purpose of this paper to present spall measurements under uniaxial strain loading. Notwithstanding considerable wave structure that is a unique characteristic to the heterogeneous nature of the scaled concrete, the spall amplitudes appear reproducible and consistent over the pressure range reported in this study.
This paper summarizes the current status of the treatment of human reliability in fire risk analyses for nuclear power plants and identifies areas that need to be addressed. A new approach is suggested to improve the modeling.
Many hazardous material handling needs exist in remote unstructured environments. Currently these operations are accomplished using personnel in direct contact with the hazards. A safe and cost effective alternative to this approach is the use of intelligent robotic systems for safe handling, packaging, transport, and even excavation of hazardous materials. The Intelligent Systems and Robotics Center of Sandia National Laboratories has developed and deployed robotic technologies for use in hazardous environments, three of which have been deployed in DOE production facilities for handling of special nuclear materials. Other systems are currently under development for packaging special nuclear materials. This paper presents an overview of the research activities, including five delivered systems, at %ndia National Laboratories on the use of robotics in hazardous environments.
Thermal instabilities were identified in SONY-type lithium-ion cells and correlated with interactions of cell constituents and reaction products. Three temperature regions of interaction were identified and associated with the state of charge (degree of Li intercalation) of the cell. Anodes were shown to undergo exothermic reactions as low as 100°C involving the solid electrolyte interface (SEI) layer and the LiPF6 salt in the electrolyte (EC: PC: DEC/LiPF6). These reactions could account for the thermal runaway observed in these cells beginning at 100°C. Exothermic reactions were also observed in the 200°C-300°C region between the intercalated lithium anodes, the LiPF6 salt and the PVDF. These reactions were followed by a high- temperature reaction region, 300°C-400°C, also involving the PVDF binder and the intercalated lithium anodes. The solvent was not directly involved in these reactions but served as a moderator and transport medhun. Cathode exotherrnic reactions with the PVDF binder were observed above 200oC and increased with the state of charge (decreasing Li content). This offers an explanation for the observed lower thermal runaway temperatures for charged cells.
This paper reports progress on implementing a new capability of adaptive mesh refinement into the Eulerian multimaterial shock- physics code CTH. The adaptivity is block-based with refinement and unrefinement occurring in an isotropic 2:1 manner. The code is designed to run on serial, multiprocessor and massive parallel platforms. An approximate factor of three in memory and performance improvements over comparable resolution non-adaptive calculations has-been demonstrated for a number of problems.
The nucleation of GaN thin films on GaAs is investigated for growth at 620 "C. An rf plasma cell is used to generate chemically active nitrogen from N2. An arsenic flux is used in the first eight monolayer of nitride growth to enhance nucleation of the cubic phase. Subsequent growth does not require an As flux to preserve the cubic phase. The nucleation of smooth interfaces and GaN films with low stacking fault densities is dependent upon relative concentrations of active nitrogen species in the plasma and on the nitrogen to gallium flux ratio.
A management system approach for evaluating environment, safety, health, and quality is in use at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the United States Department of Energy under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000. As a multi-program national laboratory, SNL has many diverse operations including research, engineering development and applications, production, and central services supporting all activities and operations. Basic research examples include fusion power generation, nuclear reactor experiments, and investigation of combustion processes. Engineering development examples are design, testing, and prototype developments of micro-mechanical systems for safe'~arding computer systems, air bags for automobiles, satellite systems, design of transportation systems for nuclear materials, and systems for use in medical applications such as diagnostics and surgery. Production operations include manufacture of instrumented detection devices, radioisotopes, and replacement parts for previously produced engineered systems. Support services include facilities engineering, construction, and site management, site security, packaging and transportation of hazardous materials wastes, ES&H functional programs to establish requirements and guidance to comply with federal, state, local, and contractual requirements and work safety. In this diverse environment, unlike more traditional single function business units, an integrated consistent management system is not typical. Instead, each type of diverse activity has its own management system designed and distributed around the operations, personnel, customers, and facilities (e.g., hazards involved, security, regulatory requirements, and locations). Laboratory managers are not likely to have experience in the more traditional hierarchical or command and control structures and thus do not share oversight expectations found in centralized management systems. The resulting corporate management system gives the appearance of an assembly of multiple, nearly independent operating units. The executive management system maintains these separate units, encouraging autonomy and creativity by establishing a minimum of requirements and procedures. In any organization, senior management has a responsibility to ensure that all operating units are meeting requirements. Part of this responsibility is fulfilled by conducting oversight or assurance activities, to determine the effectiveness of established systems in meeting requirements and performance expectations. Internal independent assessment is one of these assurance activities. Independent appraisals are combined with external audits and appraisals, self-assessments, peer reviews, project reviews, and other internal and external audits (e.g., financial, contractual) for a more complete assurance view. At SNL, internal independent appraisals are performed by the Audit Center, which reports directly to the Executive Vice President. ES&H independent appraisals are the responsibility of the ES&H and Quality Assessments Department, with a staff complement of eight. With our organization's charter to perform internal, independent appraisals, we set out to develop an approach and associated tools, which would be useful in the overall SNL environment and within our resource limitations.
Solid Polymer Electrolytes (SPE) are widely used in batteries and fuel cells because of the high ionic conductivity that can be achieved at room temperature. The ions are usually Li or protons, although other ions can be shown to conduct in these polymer films. There has been very little work on using these films as chemical sensors. We have found that thin films of polymers like polyethyleneoxide (PEO) are very sensitive to low concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCS) like common solvents. We will present impedance spectroscopy of PEO films in the frequency range 0.01 Hz to 1 MHz for different concentrations of VOCS. We find that the measurement frequency is important for distinguishing ionic conductivity from the double layer capacitance and parasitic capacitances.
A procedure has been developed to represent the loading on a penetrator and its motion during oblique penetration into geologic media. The penetrator is modeled with the explicit dynamics, finite element computer program PRONTO 3D and the coupled pressure on the penetrator is given in a new loading option based on a separate cavity expansion (CE) solution that accounts for the pressure-reduction from a nearby target free surface. The free-surface influ- ence distance is selected in a predictive manner by considering the pressure to expand a spherical cavity in a finite radius sphere of the target material. The CE/PRONTO 3D procedure allows a detailed description of the penetrator for predicting shock environments or structural failure dur- ing the entire penetration event and is sufficiently rapid to be used in design optimization. It has been evaluated by comparing its results with data from two field tests of a full-scale penetrator into frozen soil at an impact angles of 49.6 and 52.5 degrees from the horizontal. The measured penetrator rotations were 24 and 22 degrees, respectively. In the simulation, the rotation was21 degrees and predominately resulted from the pressure reduction of the free surface. Good agree- ment was also found for the penetration depth and axial and lateral acceleration at two locations in the penetrator.
Chemical Equilibrium calculations are presented that are relevant to the purification of molten silicon by gas-blowing. The equilibrium distributions of silicon, boron, phosphorus carbon and iron among the solid, liquid and gas phases are reported for a variety of added chemicals, temperatures and total pressures. The identities of the dominant chemical species for each element in each phase are also provided for these conditions. The added gases examined are O(2), air, water, wet air, HCl, Cl(2), Cl(2)/O(2), SiCl(4), NH(3), NH(4)OH, and NH(4)Cl. These calculations suggest possible purification schemes, although kinetic or transport limitations may prove to be significant
Results from a Fire Test with a three-by-three stack of standard 6 m long International Standards Organization shipping containers containing combustible fuels and empty radioactive materials packages are reported and discussed. The stack is intended to simulate fire conditions that could occur during on-deck stowage on container cargo ships. The fire is initated by locating the container stack adjacent to a 9.8 x 6 m pool fire. Temperatures of both cargoes (empty and simulated radioactive materials packages) and containers are recorded and reported. Observations on the duration, intensity and spread of the fire are discussed. Based on the results, models for simulation of fire exposure of radioactive materials packages in such fires are suggested.
As a way to bootstrap the DISCOM(2) Distance Computing Program the SP2 Pilot Project was launched in March 1998. The Pilot was directed towards creating an environment to allow Sandia users to run their applications on the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative's (ASCI) Blue Pacific computation platform, the unclassified IBM SP2 platform at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The DISCOM(2) Pilot leverages the ASCI PSE (Problem solving Environment) efforts in networking and services to baseline the performance of the current system. Efforts in the following areas of the pilot are documented: applications, services, networking, visualization, and the system model. It details not only the running of two Sandia codes CTH and COYOTE on the Blue Pacific platform, but also the buildong of the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) proxy environment of the RS6000 platforms to support the Sandia users.
Eigenanalysis is a critical component of structural dynamics which is essential for determinating the vibrational response of systems. This effort addresses the development of numerical algorithms associated with scalable eigensolver techniques suitable for use on massively parallel, distributed memory computers that are capable of solving large scale structural dynamics problems. An iterative Lanczos method was determined to be the best choice for the application. Scalability of the eigenproblem depends on scalability of the underlying linear solver. A multi-level solver (FETI) was selected as most promising for this component. Issues relating to heterogeneous materials, mechanisms and multipoint constraints have been examined, and the linear solver algorithm has been developed to incorporate features that result in a scalable, robust algorithm for practical structural dynamics applications. The resulting tools have been demonstrated on large problems representative of a weapon's system.
Garcia, M.; Nagasubramanian, G.; Tallant, D.R.; Roth, E.P.
Thermal instabilities were identified in SONY-type lithium-ion cells and correlated with interactions of cell constituents and reaction products. Three temperature regions of interaction were identified and associated with the state of charge (degree of Li intercalation) of the cell. Anodes were shown to undergo exothermic reactions as low as 100 degree C involving the solid electrolyte interface (SEI) layer and the LiPF(6) salt in the electrolyte (EC-PC:DEC/IM LiPF(6)). These reactions could account for the thermal runaway observed in these cells beginning at 100 degree C. Exothermic reactions were also observed in the 200 degree C to 300 degree C region between the intercalated lithium anodes, the LiPF(6) salt, and the PVDF. These reactions were followed by a high-temperature reaction region, 300 degree C to 400 degree C, also involving the PVDF binder and the intercalated lithium anodes. The solvent was not directly involved in these reactions but served as a moderator and transport medium. Cathode exothermic reactions with the PVDF binder were observed above 200 degree C and increased with the state of charge (decreasing Li content). The stability of the PVDF binder as a function of electrochemical cycling was studied using FTIR. The infrared spectra from the extracts of both electrodes indicate that PVDF is chemically modified by exposure to the lithium cell electrolyte (as well as electrochemical cycling) in conjunction with NMP extraction. Preconditioning of PVDF to dehydrohalogenation, which may be occurring by reaction with LiPf(6), makes the PVDF susceptible to attack by a range of nucleophiles.
The steady state and transient thermal behavior of an electromigration test structure was analyzed. The test structure was a Sandia SHIELD (Self-stressing HIgh fregquency rELiability Device) electromigration test device manufactured by an outside vendor. This device has a high frequency oscillator circuit, a buffer circuit to isolate and drive the metal line to the tested (DUT), the DUT to be electromigrated itself, a metal resistance thermometry monitor, and a heater elment to temperature accelerate the electromigration effect.
A furnace has been built for the purpose of producing anisotropic porous metals through solid-gas eutectic solidification. This process allows control of continuously formed anisotropic pores in metals and was discovered at the State Metallurgical Academic' University in Dnepropetrovsk Ukraine. The process incorporates hydrogen gas within the metal as it solidifies from the molten state. Metals which do not form hydrides, including iron, nickel, aluminum, copper and others can be formed in this manner. The furnace is housed within a ~.64 meter³ (30 ft³) ASME code stamped cylindrical stainless steel vacuum/pressure vessel. The vessel is a water chilled vertical cylinder with removable covers at the top and bottom. It can be evacuated to 20 mTorr or pressurized to 5.5 MPa (800 psi). A charge of 2700 cc (167 in³) of molten metal can be melted in a crucible in the upper portion within a watercooled 30 cm (12 in.) ID induction coil. A 175 kW Inductotherm power source energizes the coil. Vertical actuation of a ceramic stopper rod allows the molten metal to be tapped into a solidification mold beneath the melting crucible. The cylindrical mold rests on a water cooled copper base inducing directional solidification from the bottom. Mixtures of hydrogen and argon gases are introduced during the process. The system is remotely controlled and located in a structure with frangible walls specially designed for possible ambient pressure excursions as a result of equipment failure. This paper includes a general description of the furnace and operating procedure and a detailed description of the control, monitoring and interlock systems.
We have developed a new multilayer a-tC material that is thick stress-free, adherent, low friction, and with hardness and stiffness near that of diamond. The new a-tC material is deposited by J pulsed-laser deposition (PLD) at room temperature, and fully stress-relieved by a short thermal anneal at 600°C. A thick multilayer is built up by repeated deposition and annealing steps. We measured 88 GPa hardness, 1100 GPa Young's modulus, and 0.1 friction coefficient (under high load). Significantly, these results are all well within the range reported for crystalline diamond. In fact, this material, if considered separate from crystalline diamond, is the 2nd hardest material known to man. Stress-free a-tC also has important advantages over thin film diamond; namely, it is smooth, processed at lower temperature, and can be grown on a much broader range of substrates. This breakthrough will enable a host of applications that we are actively pursuing in MEMs, sensors, LIGA, etc.
The Integrated Fuel-Coolant Interaction Code (IFCI) is a best-estimate computer program for analysis of phenomena related to mixing of molten nuclear reactor core material with reactor coolant (water). The stand-alone version of the code, IFCI 7.0, has been designed for analysis of small- and intermediate-scale experiments in order to gain insight into the physics (including scaling effects) of molten fuel-coolant interactions. The code's methods, models, and correlations are being assessed. This report describes the flow regime, friction factor, and heat-transfer models used in the current version of IFCI (IFCI 7.0).
Object-oriented analysis methods have been used in the computer science arena for a number of years to model the behavior of computer-based systems. This report documents how such methods can be applied to surety analysis. By embodying the causality and behavior of a system in a common object-oriented analysis model, surety analysts can make the assumptions that underlie their models explicit and thus better communicate with system designers. Furthermore, given minor extensions to traditional object-oriented analysis methods, it is possible to automatically derive a wide variety of traditional risk and reliability analysis methods from a single common object model. Automatic model extraction helps ensure consistency among analyses and enables the surety analyst to examine a system from a wider variety of viewpoints in a shorter period of time. Thus it provides a deeper understanding of a system's behaviors and surety requirements. This report documents the underlying philosophy behind the common object model representation, the methods by which such common object models can be constructed, and the rules required to interrogate the common object model for derivation of traditional risk and reliability analysis models. The methodology is demonstrated in an extensive example problem.
The integrated fuel-coolant interaction (IFCI) computer code is being developed at Sandia National Laboratories to investigate the fuel-coolant interaction (FCI) problem at large scale using a two-dimensional, three-field hydrodynamic framework and physically based models. IFCI will be capable of treating all major FCI processes in an integrated manner. This document is a description of IFCI 7.0. The user's manual describes the hydrodynamic method and physical models used in IFCI 7.0. Appendix A is an input manual provided for the creation of working decks.
We have developed a wafer fusion technology to achieve integration of semiconductor materials and heterostructures with widely disparate lattice parameters, electronic properties, and/or optical properties for novel devices not now possible on any one substrate. Using our simple fusion process which uses low temperature (400-600 C) anneals in inert N{sub 2} gas, we have extended the scope of this technology to examine hybrid integration of dissimilar device technologies. As a specific example, we demonstrate wafer bonding vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) to transparent AlGaAs and GaP substrates to fabricate bottom-emitting short wavelength VCSELs. As a baseline fabrication technology applicable to many semiconductor systems, wafer fusion will revolutionize the way we think about possible semiconductor devices, and enable novel device configurations not possible by epitaxial growth.
In this combination background and position paper, the authors argue that careful work is needed to develop accurate methods for relating the results of fine-scale numerical simulations of material processes to meaningful values of macroscopic properties for use in constitutive models suitable for finite element solid mechanics simulations. To provide a definite context for this discussion, the problem is couched in terms of the lack of general objective criteria for identifying the size of the representative volume (RV) of a material. The objective of this report is to lay out at least the beginnings of an approach for applying results and methods from statistical physics to develop concepts and tools necessary for determining the RV size, as well as alternatives to RV volume-averaging for situations in which the RV is unmanageably large. The background necessary to understand the pertinent issues and statistical physics concepts is presented.
This report is a cradle-to-grave fabrication and postmortem analysis of a sodium-filled heat pipe solar receiver. The Stirling Thermal Motors Gen. H engine was tested with the Thermacore, Inc. heat pipe receiver on Sandia's Test Bed Concentrator II in the fall of 1996. Although engine performance was significantly increased relative to a direct insolation version of the receiver, hot spots did develop on the heat pipe receiver dome. Over the course of a couple of weeks, after tests were completed, the sodium was distilled out of this receiver, and the front dome was removed. Several failure spots and/or cracks (dubbed volcanoes ) were present on the surface of the wick. Postmortem analysis indicates that the cracks in the wick of the heat pipe are not a product of corrosive oxide action. Voids formed within the wick (created either by mechanical or thermal means) serve to concentrate phosphorous from the electroless plating into the liquid sodium. The presence of phosphorous has an apparently harmful effect on the wick. Examination of a virgin piece of the nickel wick material treated in the same manner as the bulk, prior to the introduction of sodium, would be the best baseline sample for comparison. This sample could be analyzed for phosphorous migration into the wick and determine if there is any initial crack formation from the sintering process. Utiortunately a sample of this material was not available during the preparation of this report. Continued work to determine the mechanism of crack formation could significantly increase the hours of available lifetime testing for future solar thermal heat pipe receivers
A tutorial is presented discussing the basic issues associated with propagation of uncertainty analysis and statistical validation of engineering and scientific models. The propagation of uncertainty tutorial illustrates the use of the sensitivity method and the Monte Carlo method to evaluate the uncertainty in predictions for linear and nonlinear models. Four example applications are presented; a linear model, a model for the behavior of a damped spring-mass system, a transient thermal conduction model, and a nonlinear transient convective-diffusive model based on Burger's equation. Correlated and uncorrelated model input parameters are considered. The model validation tutorial builds on the material presented in the propagation of uncertainty tutoriaI and uses the damp spring-mass system as the example application. The validation tutorial illustrates several concepts associated with the application of statistical inference to test model predictions against experimental observations. Several validation methods are presented including error band based, multivariate, sum of squares of residuals, and optimization methods. After completion of the tutorial, a survey of statistical model validation literature is presented and recommendations for future work are made.
In this paper, we report details of our computational study of two shock wave physics experiments performed on the Sandia Z machine in 1998. The novelty of these particular experiments is that they represent the first successful appli- cation of VISAR interferometry to diagnose shock waves generated in experi- mental payloads by the primary X-ray pulse of the machine. We use the Sandia shock-wave physics code ALEGRA to perform the simulations reported in this study. Our simulations are found to be in fair agreement with the time-resolved VISAR experimental data. However, there are also interesting and important discrepancies. We speculate as to future use of time-resolved shock wave data to diagnose details of the Z machine X-ray pulse in the future.
Optical Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (Optical MEMS) Technology holds the promise of one-day producing highly integrated optical systems on a common, monolithic substrate. The choice of fabrication technology used to manufacture Optical MEMS will play a pivotal role in the size, functionality and ultimately the cost of optical Microsystems. By leveraging the technology base developed for silicon integrated circuits, large batches of routers, emitters, detectors and amplifiers will soon be fabricated for literally pennies per part. In this article we review the current status of technologies used for Optical MEMS, as well as fabrication technologies of the future, emphasizing manufacturable surface micromachining approaches to producing reliable, low-cost devices for optical communications applications.
The Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) Data Encryption Standard (DES) Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) is the fastest known implementation of the DES algorithm as defined in the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) Publication 46-2. DES is used for protecting data by cryptographic means. The SNL DES ASIC, over 10 times faster than other currently available DES chips, is a high-speed, filly pipelined implementation offering encryption, decryption, unique key input, or algorithm bypassing on each clock cycle. Operating beyond 105 MHz on 64 bit words, this device is capable of data throughputs greater than 6.7 Billion bits per second (tester limited). Simulations predict proper operation up to 9.28 Billion bits per second. In low frequency, low data rate applications, the ASIC consumes less that one milliwatt of power. The device has features for passing control signals synchronized to throughput data. Three SNL DES ASICS may be easily cascaded to provide the much greater security of triple-key, triple-DES.
We have observed low threshold operation of a broadly tunable (2.18-3.4 µm) pump-resonant cw periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) optical parametric oscillator (OPO). When pumped at 806 nm with 410 mW from a custom-built diode laser the OPO generated 20 mW of idler output at 3.3 µm.
Anisotropic, smooth etching of the group-III nitrides has been reported at relatively high rates in high-density plasma etch systems. However, such etch results are often obtained under high de-bias andlor high plasma flux conditions where plasma induced damage can be significant. Despite the fact that the group-III nitrides have higher bonding energies than more conventional III-V compounds, plasma-induced etch damage is still a concern. Attempts to minimize such damage by reducing the ion energy or increasing the chemical activity in the plasma often result in a loss of etch rate or anisotropy which significantly limits critical dimensions and reduces the utility of the process for device applications requiring vertical etch profiles. It is therefore necessary to develop plasma etch processes which couple anisotropy for critical dimension and sidewall profile control and high etch rates with low-damage for optimum device performance. In this study we report changes in sheet resistance and contact resistance for n- and p-type GaN samples exposed to an Ar inductively coupled plasma (ICP). In general, plasma-induced damage was more sensitive to ion bombardment energies as compared to plasma flux. In addition, p-GaN was typically more sensitive to plasma-induced damage as compared to n-GaN.
We are developing a method for the real-time analysis of airborne microparticles based on laser ablation mass spectroscopy. Airborne particles enter an ion trap mass spectrometer through a differentially-pumped inlet, are detected by light scattered from two CW laser beams, and sampled by a 10 ns excimer laser pulse at 308 nm as they pass through the center of the ion trap electrodes. After the laser pulse, the stored ions are separated by conventional ion trap methods. In this work thousands of positive and negative ion spectra were collected for eighteen different species: six bacteria, six pollen, and six particulate samples. The data were then averaged and analyzed using the Multivariate Patch Algorithm (MPA), a variant of traditional multivariate anal ysis. The MPA correctly identified all of the positive ion spectra and 17 of the 18 negative ion spectra. In addition, when the average positive and negative spectra were combined the MPA correctly identified all 18 species. Finally, the MPA is also able to identify the components of computer synthesized mixtures of the samples studied
We study the low-temperature in-plane magnetoresistance of tunnel-coupled quasi-one-dimensional quantum wires. The wires are defined by two pairs of mutually aligned split gates on opposite sides of a < 1 micron thick AlGaAs/GaAs double quantum well heterostructure, allowing independent control of their widths. In the ballistic regime, when both wires are defined and the field is perpendicular to the current, a large resistance peak at ~6 Tesla is observed with a strong gate voltage dependence. The data is consistent with a counting model whereby the number of subbands crossing the Fermi level changes with field due to the formation of an anticrossing in each pair of 1D subbands.
On November 23, 1998, an 18,000-foot-deep wild-cat natural gas well being drilled near Bakersfield, CA blew out and caught fire. All attempts to kill this well failed, and the well continues to flow under limited control, producing large volumes of natural gas, salt water, and some oil. The oil and some of the water is being separated and trucked off site, and the remaining gas and water is being burned at the well head. A relief well is being drilled approximately one-quarter mile away in an attempt to intercept the first well. If the relief well is successful, it will be used to cement in and kill the first well. Epoch Wellsite Services, Inc., the mud-logging company for the initial well and the relief well, requested Sandia's rolling float meter (RFM) for these critical drilling operations. The RFM is being used to measure the mud outflow rate and detect kicks while drilling the relief well, which will undoubtedly encounter reservoir conditions similar to those responsible for the blow out. Based on its prior experience with the RFM, Epoch believes that it is the only instrument capable of providing the level of accuracy and response to mudflow needed to quickly detect kicks and minimize the risk of a blowout on this second critical well. In response to the urgent request from industry, Sandia and Epoch technicians installed the RFM on the relief well return line, and completed its initial calibration. The data from the RFM is displayed in real-time for the driller, the companyman, and the toolpusher via Epochs RIGWATCH Drilling Instmmentation System. The RFM has already detected several small kicks while drilling toward the annulus of the blown out well. A conventional paddle meter is located downstream of the RFM to provide redundancy and the opportunity to compare the two meters in an actual drilling operation, The relief well is nearing 14,000 feet deep, targeting an intercept of the first well near 17,600 feet. The relief well is expected to be completed in about 30 days. Several other Sandia instruments being developed for geothermal drilling are also being evaluated during this operation, Successful performance of these instruments on this important drilling job will reinforce our efforts to commercialize this technology for the geothermal and oil and gas drilling industries. Sandia's Rolling Float Meter was developed through the Lost Circulation Technology Program sponsored by the U. S. Department of Energy, Office of Geothermal Technologies. It monitors drilling fluid returns to rapidly detect loss of circulation during geothermal drilling. Lost circulation is particularly prevalent in geothermal wells, and can add as much as 10% to the total cost of drilling the well. Consequently, rapid detection and treatment of lost circulation is necessary for cost- effective geothermal drilling. Sandia has been evaluating and demonstrating the capabilities of the RFM to the geothermal industry for several years. In addition to lost circulation, the RFM is also useful for accurately detecting well kicks. Contacts have been made with mud logging companies that are involved with both geothermal and oil and gas drilling operations.
Microstructure in the reaction interface between molten Al and dense mullite have been studied by transmission electron microscopy to provide insight into mechanisms for forming ceramic-metal composites by reactive metal penetration. The reactions, which have the overall stoichiometry, 3Al#iz01~ + (8+ x)A1 + 13 AlzO~ + xA1 + 6Si, were carried out at temperatures of 900, 1100, and 1200oC for 5 minutes and 60 minutes, and 1400oC for 15 minutes. Observed phases generally were those given in the above reaction, although their proportions and interracial rnicrostructures differed strongly with reaction temperature. After reaction at 900oC, a thin Al layer separated unreacted mullite from the cx-AlzO~ and Al reaction products. No Si phase was found near the reaction front. After 5 minutes at 1100"C, the nxtction front contained Si, ct-A120~, and an aluminum oxide phase with a high concentration of Si. After 60 minutes at 11O(YC many of the cx-A120g particles were needle-shaped with a preferred orientation. After reaction at 1200oC, the reaction front contained a high density of Si particles that formed a continuous layer over many of the mullite grains. The sample reacted at 140VC for 15 minutes had a dense ct-A120J reaction layer less than 2~m thick. Some isolated Si particles were present between the a-AlzO~ layer and the unreacted mullite. Using previously measured reaction kinetics data, the observed temperature dependence of the interracial microstructure have been modeled as three sequential steps, each one of which is rate-limiting in a different temperature range.
Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) computational techniques allow treatment of gases, liq- uids, and solids in the same simulation. ALE methods include the ability to treat shockwaves in gases, liquids, and solids and the interaction of shockwaves with each other and with media from one of the other categories. ALE codes can also treat explosive detonation and the expansion of the explosive gases and their interaction with air and solids. ALEGRA is a 3-DALE code that has been developed at Sandia National Laboratories over the past few years. ALEGRA has been applied to a 2-D simulation of presplitting using decoupled explosives in rock blasting with very interesting results. The detonation of the explosive at the bottom of the hole sends a shock wave up the borehole driven by the explosive gas expanding into air. The explosive gas compresses the air against the stemming column where it rebounds and recompresses at the bottom of the borehole. This type of ringing takes several cycles to damp out. The explosively induced expansion of the borehole is also treated by ALEGRA as well as the shock wave imparted to the rock. The presentation of this paper will include sev- eral computer animations to aid in understanding this complex phenomenon.
Romero, Daniel J.; Parma, Edward J.; Busch, Robert D.
This criticality safety analysis is performed to determine the effective multiplication factor (keff) for a storage cabinet filled with unirradiated Cintichem-type targets. These targets will be used to produce 99Mo at Sandia National Laboratories and will be stored on-site prior to irradiation in the Annular Core Research Reactor. The analysis consisted of using the Monte Carlo code MCNP (Version 4A) to model and predict the keff for the proposed dry storage configuration under credible loss of geometry and moderator control. Effects of target pitch, non-uniform loading, and target internal/external flooding are evaluated. Further studies were done with deterministic methods to verify the results obtained from MCNP and to obtain a clearer understanding of the parameters affecting system criticality. The diffusion accelerated neutral particle transport code ONEDANT was used to model the target in a one-dimensional, infinite half-slab geometry and determine the critical slab thickness. Hand calculations were also completed to determine the critical slab thickness with modified one-group, and one-group, two region approximations. Results obtained from ONEDANT and the hand calculations were compared to applicable cases in a commonly used criticality safety analysis handbook. Overall, the critical slab thicknesses obtained in the deterministic analysis were much larger than the dimensions of the cabinet and further support the predictions by MCNP that a critical system cannot be attained for the base case or in conditions where loss of geometry and moderation control occur.
Localization of light to less than a cubic wavelength, {lambda}{sup 3}, has important quantum consequences. The creation of single mode cavities and the modification of spontaneous emission are two important examples. A defect formed inside a three-dimensional (3D) photonic crystal provides an unique optical environment for light localization. Single mode defect cavities were built, for the first time, from an infrared 3D photonic crystal. A cavity state with modal volume of less than one {lambda}{sup 3} was observed.
Two main assumptions which underlie the Stoney formula relating substrate curvature to mis-match strain in a bonded thin film are that the film is very thin compared to the substrate, and the deformations are infinitesimally small. Expressions for the curvature-strain relastionship are derived for cases in which thses assumptions are relaxed, thereby providing a biasis for interpretation of experimental observations for a broader class of film-substrate configurations.
The formation of quantum wires has much interest due to their novel electronic properties which may lead to enhanced optoelectronic device performance and greater photovoltaic efficiencies. One method of forming these structures is through spontaneous lateral modulation found during the epitaxial growth of III/V alloys. In this paper, we report and summarize our investigations on the formation of lateral moduation in the MBE grown InAlAs/InP(001) system. This system was grown as a short-period superlattice where n-monolayers of InAs are deposited followed by m-Monolayers of AlAs (with n and m~2) and this sequence is repeated to grown a low strain InAlAs ternary alloy on InP(001) that exhibits lateral modulation. Films were grown under a variety of condition (growth temperature, effective alloy composition, superlattice period, and growth rate). These films have been extensively analyzed using X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and microcharacterization, in addition to photon-based spectroscopes. Here we present results of several microstructural characterizations using a wide range of TEM-based techniques, and compare them to results from the other methods to obtain a unified understanding of composition modulation. Two strong points consistently emerge: 1) The lateral modulation wavelength is insensitive to growth temperature and effective alloy composition, but the strength of the lateral modulation is greatest near an effective alloy composition of In(0.46)Al(0.54)As, which corresponds to a slightly tensile global strain with respect to InP. 2) The composition variation for the strongly modulated films is as much as 0.38 InAs mole fraction. In addition, for these strongly modulated films, the modulation wave is asymmetric showing strongly peaked, narrower InAs-rich regions separated by flat AlAs-rich regions. We discuss these results and their possible implications in addition to detailing the techniques used to obtain them.
Pattern formation on surfaces undergoing low-energy ion bombardment is a common phenomenon. Here, a recently developed in situ spectroscopic light scattering technique was used to monitor periodic ripple evolution on Si(001) during Ar(+) sputtering. Analysis of the rippling kinetics indicated that under high flux sputtering at low temperatures the concentration of mobile species on the surface is saturated, and, surprisingly, is both temperature and ion flux independent. This is due to an effect of ion collision cascades on the concentration of mobile species. This new understanding of surface dynamics during sputtering allowed us to measure straighforwardly the activation energy for atomic migration on the surface to be 1.2+0.1 eV. The technique is generalizable to any material, including high temperature and insulating materials for which surface migration energies are notoriously difficult to measure.
The suitability of the wavelength range provided by silicon photodiode detector arrays for monitoring the spectral reflectance during epitaxial growth of GaSb, AlGaAsSb, and GaInAsSb, which have cutoff wavelengths at 25 degree C of 1.7, 1.2, and 2.3 um, respectively, is demonstrated. These alloys were grown lattice matched to GaSb in a vertical rotating-disk reactor, which was modified to accommodate near normal reflectance without affecting epilayer uniformity, By using a virtual interface model, the growth rate and complex refractive index at the growth temperature are extracted for these alloys over the 600 to 1000 nm spectral range. Excellent agreement is obtained between the extracted growth rate and that determined by ex-situ measurement.
The porosities of three mesoporous silica materials were characterized with {sup 129}Xe NMR spectroscopy. The materials were synthesized by a sol-gel process with r = 0, 25, and 70% methanol by weight in an aqueous cetyltrimethylammonium bromide solution. Temperature dependent chemical shifts and spin lattice relaxation times reveal that xenon does not penetrate the pores of the largely disordered (r= 70%) silica. For both r = 0 and 25%, temperature dependent resonances corresponding to physisorbed xenon were observed. An additional resonance for the r = 25% sample was attributed to xenon between the disordered cylindrical pores. 2D NMR exchange experiments corroborate the spin lattice relaxation data which show that xenon is in rapid exchange between the adsorbed and the gas phase.
The authors present a compact, robust, solid-state blue light (490 nm) source capable of greater than 5 mW of output in a TEM{sub 00} mode. This device is an optically pumped, vertical external-cavity surface-emitting laser (VECSEL) with an intracavity frequency doubling crystal.
Deposition parameters were found to have a marked effect on piezoelectric response of reactive radio frequency (RF) sputtered AlN thin films. The authors observed peizoelectric response values ranging from {minus}3.5 to +4.2 pm/V for 1 {micro}m thick AlN films deposited onto Ti/Ru electrode stacks. An investigation of the effects of deposition parameters, in particular the nature of the Ru/AlN interface, was conducted. The lag time between deposition of adjacent thin film layers appeared to have the greatest affect on the value of the piezoelectric response. This suggests that chemical reaction occurring on the Ru thin film surface is responsible for changing an important thin film property such as dipole orientation within the overlying AlN thin film.
In this paper, we introduce a new approach for altering the properties of bridged polysilsesquioxane xerogels using post-processing modification of the polymeric network. The bridging organic group contains latent functionalities that can be liberated thermally, photochemically, or by chemical means after the gel has been processed to a xerogel. These modifications can produce changes in density, volubility, porosity, and or chemical properties of the material. Since every monomer possesses two latent functional groups, the technique allows for the introduction of high levels of functionality in hybrid organic-inorganic materials. Dialkylenecarbonate-bridged polysilsesquioxane gels were prepared by the sol-gel polymerization of bis(triethoxysilylpropyl)carbonate (1) and bis(triethoxysilylisobutyl)-carbonate (2). Thermal treatment of the resulting non-porous xerogels and aerogels at 300-350 C resulted in quantitative decarboxylation of the dialkylenecarbonate bridging groups to give new hydroxyalkyl and olefinic substituted polysilsesquioxane monolithic xerogels and aerogels that can not be directly prepared through direct sol-gel polymerization of organotrialkoxysilanes.
JavaScript allows the definition and use of large, complex objects. Unlike some other object-oriented languages, it also allows run-time modifications not only of the values of object components, but also of the very structure of the object itself. This feature is powerful and sometimes very convenient, but it can be difficult to keep track of the object's structure and values throughout program execution. What's needed is a simple way to view the current state of an object at any point during execution. There is a debug function that is included in the Netscape server-side JavaScript environment. The function outputs the value(s) of the expression given as the argument to the function in the JavaScript Application Manager's debug window [SSJS].
Traditional safety and reliability analysis methods are applicable to many standard problems, including those examples illustrated in most formal courses. However, there are many real-world situations for which non-traditional methods appear to be more appropriate, mainly because most practical problems involve substantial subjectivity about the inputs and models used. This paper surveys some of the most applicable approaches found in a recent research study. Each approach is developed individually and is illuminated by selecting example situations of apparent applicability. Then, the combinational blending of the approaches with each other and with traditional methodology is discussed.
Work of adhesion (Wa) measurements are being studied for several types of polymer/metal combinations in order to obtain a better understanding of the adhesive failure mechanisms for systems containing encapsulated and bonded components. A primary concern is whether studies of model systems can be extended to systems of technological interest. One study performed in our laboratory involved the determination of Wa between silicone (PDMS) and Al surfaces in order to establish potential adhesive failure mechanisms. Our initial work with PDMS was based on Dow Corning 170 Sylgard. PDMS hemispheres were synthesized following the procedure outlined by Chaudhury and Whitesides where the filler was stripped from the commercial silicone by centrifuging. Wa between PDMS surfaces was determined using the JKR method. Our results for the Wa of PDMS were in agreement with those reported by Chaudhury and Whitesides. However, further JKR studies using these PDMS hemispheres on flat Al surfaces were fraught with difficulty. We could not discriminate hydrogen-bonding effects between Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} and hydroxyl groups in the PDMS and other possible bonding mechanisms. It was suggested that commercial systems contain inhibitors and additives that interfere with understanding the PMDS/Al interface. Therefore, the current study uses pure PDMS networks synthesized in our lab. Also, two contact mechanics methods were deployed to measure the Wa--JKR method using two hemispheres and a LEFM method using a cylinder containing a circumferential crack. This paper contains a description of the synthesis of the PDMS used for these studies and the determination of Wa between PDMS surfaces using the JKR method, contact angle measurements, and a LEFM method that consists of a cylinder containing a circumferential crack.
This editorial paper presents a vision for intelligent health care in the home of the future, focusing on technologies with the highest potential payoff given targeted government funding over the next ten years. A secure, plug-and-play information framework provides the starting point for identifying technologies that must be developed before home-based devices can know their context and assimilate information to support care decisions.
We propose an object-oriented information architecture for telemedicine systems that promotes secure `plug-and-play' interaction between system components through standardized interfaces, communication protocols, messaging formats, and data definitions. In this architecture, each component functions as a black box, and components plug together in a ''lego-like'' fashion to achieve the desired device or system functionality. Introduction Telemedicine systems today rely increasingly on distributed, collaborative information technology during the care delivery process. While these leading-edge systems are bellwethers for highly advanced telemedicine, most are custom-designed and do not interoperate with other commercial offerings. Users are limited to a set of functionality that a single vendor provides and must often pay high prices to obtain this functionality, since vendors in this marketplace must deliver en- tire systems in order to compete. Besides increasing corporate research and development costs, this inhibits the ability of the user to make intelligent purchasing decisions regarding best-of-breed technologies. This paper proposes a reference architecture for plug-and-play telemedicine systems that addresses these issues.
Global Nuclear Materials Management (GNMM) anticipates and supports a growing international recognition of the importance of uniform, effective management of civilian, excess defense, and nuclear weapons materials. We expect thereto be a continuing increase in both the number of international agreements and conventions on safety, security, and transparency of nuclear materials, and the number of U.S.-Russian agreements for the safety, protection, and transparency of weapons and excess defense materials. This inventory of agreements and conventions may soon expand into broad, mandatory, international programs that will include provisions for inspection, verification, and transparency, To meet such demand the community must build on the resources we have, including State agencies, the IAEA and regional organizations. By these measures we will meet the future expectations for monitoring and inspection of materials, maintenance of safety and security, and implementation of transparency measures.
Sandia has implemented a formal process to verify that new or modified facilities and operations are ready to safely operate. The readiness review process focuses on the status of management systems, personnel, and systems, structures, and components to do work safely. The scope and depth of the review are tailored to match the potential consequences and the likelihood that the consequences could occur. The precepts and methodology of the process are applicable to verifying the readiness of enterprise systems, and should comprise the final element in developing and implementing an enterprise system. This paper describes the readiness review process, the key elements for success, lessons learned from Sandia's readiness assessment process, and outlines how the process can be applied to enterprise systems. Specific topics addressed include selecting the criteria, approach, and lines of inquiry to be used for the review; selecting members for the review team; team leader responsibilities; reporting and closing deficiencies; and, responsibilities of the facility/project owner and management.
Irradiation of red meat and poultry has been approved by the U.S. FDA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's rule for processing red meat is out for comment. Looking beyond the current issues of packaging materials, labeling, and consumer acceptance, this paper reviews the next step of implementation and how to remove, or at least reduce, the barriers to utilization. Polls of the user community identified their requirements for electron beam or x-ray processing of meat or poultry and their concerns about implementation for on-line processing. These needs and issues are compared to the capabilities of the accelerator industry. The critical issues of beam utilization and dose uniformity, factors affecting floor space requirements, and treatment costs are examined.
Boolean logic expressions are often derived in safety and reliability analysis. Since the values of the operands are rarely exact, accounting for uncertainty with the tightest justifiable bounds is important. Accurate determination of result bounds is difficult when the inputs have constraints. One example of a constraint is that an uncertain variable that appears multiple times in a Boolean expression must always have the same value, although the value cannot be exactly specified. A solution for this repeated variable problem is demonstrated for two Boolean classes. The classes, termed functions with unate variables (including, but not limited to unate functions), and exclusive-or functions, frequently appear in Boolean equations for uncertain outcomes portrayed by logic trees (event trees and fault trees).
This paper presents results from a series of preliminary tests to evaluate a scannerless range-imaging device as a potential sensory enhancement tool for divers and as a potential identification sensor for deployment on small unmanned underwater vehicles. The device, developed by Sandia National Laboratories, forms an image on the basis of point-to-point range to the target rather than an intensity map. The range image is constructed through a classical continuous wave phase detection technique in which the light source is amplitude modulated at radio frequencies. The receiver incorporates a gain-modulated image intensifier, and range information is calculated on the basis of the phase difference between the transmitted and reflected signal. The initial feasibility test at the Coastal Systems Station showed the device to be effective at imaging low-contrast underwater targets such as concertina wire. It also demonstrated success at imaging a 21-inch sphere at a depth of 10 feet in the water column through a wavy air-water interface.
In 1991, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) established an Airworthiness Assurance NDI Validation Center (AANC) at Sandia National Laboratories. Its primary mission is to support technology development, validation, and transfer to industry in order to enhance the airworthiness and improve the aircraft maintenance practices of the U.S. commercial aviation industry. The Center conducts projects in a myriad of engineering disciplines. The results are placed in the public domain so that the industry at-large can reap the benefits of FAA-funded Research and Development efforts. To support the Center's goals, the FAA/AANC has set up a hangar facility at the Albuquerque International Airport which contains a collection of transport and commuter aircraft as well as other test specimens. The facility replicates a working maintenance environment by incorporating both the physical inspection difficulties as well as the environmental factors which influence maintenance reliability.
International Journal of Fracture: Letters in Fracture & Micromechanics
Guess, T.R.; Reedy, E.D.
Over a period of 15 months, five sets of adhesively-bonded butt joints were fabricated and tested. This previously unreported data is used to assess the variability of measured interface corner toughness values, K{sub ac}, as well as the dependence of K{sub ac} on surface preparation. A correlation between K{sub ac} and the size of the adhesive failure zone is also noted.
The authors consider a chain of elastic (Hertzian) grains that repel upon contact according to the potential V = a{delta}{sup u}, u > 2, where {delta} is the overlap between the grains. They present numerical and analytical results to show that an impulse initiated at an end of a chain of Hertzian grains in contact eventually propagates as a soliton for all n > 2 and that no solitons are possible for n {le} 2. Unlike continuous, they find that colliding solitons in discrete media initiative multiple weak solitons at the point of crossing.
This paper outlines general physical and computational issues associated with performing numerical simulation of fire suppression. Fire suppression encompasses a broad range of chemistry and physics over a large range of time and length scales. The authors discuss the dominant physical/chemical processes important to fire suppression that must be captured by a fire suppression model to be of engineering usefulness. First-principles solutions are not possible due to computational limitations, even with the new generation of tera-flop computers. A basic strategy combining computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation techniques with sub-grid model approximations for processes that have length scales unresolvable by gridding is presented.
As we enter the new millennium, let us recognize that the losses resulting from natural or malevolent events that cause major property damage, severe injuries, and unnecessary death are not always due to forces beyond our control. We can prevent these losses by changing the way we think and act about design and construction projects. New tools, technologies, and techniques can improve structural safety, security, and reliability and protect owners, occupants, and users against loss and casualties. Hurricane Mitch, the African embassy bombings, the ice storms in Canada and the northeastern US last winter, the Oklahoma City bombing, flooding and earthquakes in California, tornadoes and flooding in Florida, and wildfires in the Southwest are threats to the safety and security of the public and the reliability of our constructed environment. Today's engineering design community must recognize these threats and address them in our standards, building codes, and designs. We know that disasters will continue to strike and we must reduce their impact on the public. We must demand and create innovative solutions that assure a higher level of structural performance when disasters strike.
Z-pinches created using the Z accelerator generate {approximately}220 TW, 1.7 MJ radiation pulses that heat large ({approximately}10 cm{sup 3}) hohlraums to 100-150 eV temperatures for times of order 10 nsec. We are performing experiments exploiting this intense radiation to drive shock waves for equation of state studies. The shock pressures are typically 1-10 Mbar with 10 nsec duration in 6-mm-diameter samples. In this paper we demonstrate the ability to perform optical spectroscopy measurements on shocked samples located in close proximity to the z-pinch. These experiments are particularly well suited to optical spectroscopy measurements because of the relatively large sample size and long duration. The optical emission is collected using fiber optics and recorded with a streaked spectrograph. Other diagnostics include VISAR and active shock breakout measurements of the shocked sample and a suite of diagnostics that characterize the radiation drive. Our near term goal is to use the spectral emission to obtain the temperature of the shocked material. Longer term objectives include the examination of deviations of the spectrum from blackbody, line emission from lower density regions, determination of kinetic processes in molecular systems, evaluation of phase transitions such as the onset of metalization in transparent materials, and characterization of the plasma formed when the shock exits the rear surface. An initial set of data illustrating both the potential and the challenge of these measurements is described.
Sandia Laboratories' computational scientists are addressing a very important question: How do we get insight from the human combined with the computer-generated information? The answer inevitably leads to using scientific visualization. Going one technology leap further is teraflop visualization, where the computing model and interactive graphics are an integral whole to provide computing for insight. In order to implement our teraflop visualization architecture, all hardware installed or software coded will be based on open modules and dynamic extensibility principles. We will illustrate these concepts with examples in our three main research areas: (1) authoring content (the computer), (2) enhancing precision and resolution (the human), and (3) adding behaviors (the physics).
Over the past two years, New Mexico has been engaged in a significant new approach to implement large purchases of solar power. This effort followed a regulatory process that treated solar power generation similar to conventional generation obtained by an investor-owned utility under the regulation of a public utility commission. In 1997, Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) gained approval to purchase power from a 100-MW combustion turbine facility that would be owned and operated by a wholesale generator. At the same time it issued the approval, and following discussions with the utility, the New Mexico Public Utility Commission (NMPUC) also required PNM to issue a request for proposal for a 5-MW central station solar facility, a major step for solar technologies in the state, in what would be the world's largest of its technology type. In cooperation with the staff of the NMPUC, PNM reviewed the proposals received, and Applied Power Corporation was selected for the photovoltaic portion of the proposed plan; retaining ownership of the plant, assuming the risks connected with the technology, and operating the plant in exchange for a power purchase agreement in a first-of-its-kind contract for photovoltaics. During the NMPUC hearings, various parties raised significant opposition to the cost-recovery mechanism that was proposed and voiced issues about the type of solar plant, its size, cost and the tiding approaches to building it. Because of these issues, alternative proposals were put forth that reduced the size and costs of the plant and had implied changes in ownership and risks. The order issued by the NMPUC on October 21, 1998, requires PNM to impose a charge of 0.5% on its retail electric customers' monthly bills to be used to acquire the solar facilities, but also to obtain other renewable electric power resources, both on a pay-as-you-go basis. This paper identifies the issues and their resolution that similar projects are expected to encounter.
We conducted three sets of depth-of-penetration experiments with limestone targets and 3.0 caliber-radius-head (CRH), ogive-nose steel rod projectiles. The limestone targets had a nominal unconfined compressive strength of 60 MPa, a density of 2.31 kg/m{sup 3}, a porosity of 15%, and a water content less than 0.4%. The ogive-nose rod projectiles with length-to-diameter ratios often were machined from 4340 R{sub c} 45 and Aer Met 100 R{sub c} 53 steel, round stock and had diameters and masses of 7.1 mm, 0.020 kg; 12.7 mm, 0.117 kg; and 25.4 mm, 0.931 kg. Powder guns or a two-stage, light-gas gun launched the projectiles at normal impacts to striking velocities between 0.4 and 1.9 km/s. For the 4340 R{sub c} 45 and Aer Met 100 R{sub c} 53 steel projectiles, penetration depth increased as striking velocity increased to a striking velocity of 1.5 and 1.7 km/s, respectively. For larger striking velocities, the projectiles deformed during penetration without nose erosion, deviated from the shot line, and exited the sides of the target. We also developed an analytical penetration equation that described the target resistance by its density and a strength parameter determined from depth of penetration versus striking velocity data.
The delivery of the first one tera-operations/sec computer has significantly impacted production data visualization, affecting data transfer, post processing, and rendering. Terascale computing has motivated a need to consider the entire data visualization system; improving a single algorithm is not sufficient. This paper presents a systems approach to decrease by a factor of four the time required to prepare large data sets for visualization.For daily production use, all stages in the processing pipeline from physics simulation code to pixels on a screen, must be balanced to yield good overall performance. Also, to complete the data path from screen to the analyst's eye, user display systems for individuals and teams are examined. Performance of the initial visualization system is compared with recent improvements. Lessons learned from the coordinated deployment of improved algorithms are also discussed, including the need for 64 bit addressing and a fully parallel data visualization pipeline.
An evaluation of biotic and abiotic attenuation processes potentially important to chlorinated and non-chlorinated volatile organic compound (VOC) fate and transport in the 148 meter thick vadose zone beneath the Chemical Waste Landfill (CWL) was conducted. A unique feature of this evaluation is the comparison of two estimates of VOC mass present in the soil gas, pore-water, and solid phases (but not including mass as non-aqueous phase liquid [NAPL]) of the vadose zone in 1993. One estimate, 1,800 kg, was obtained from vadose zone transport modeling that incorporated molecular diffusion and volatilization to the atmosphere, but not biotic or chemical processes. The other estimate, 2,120 kg, was obtained from the sum of VOC mass physically removed during soil vapor extraction and an estimate of VOC mass remaining in the vadose zone in 1998, both adjusted to exclude NAPL mass. This comparison indicates that biogeochemical processes were at best slightly important to historical VOC plume development. Some evidence of aerobic degradation of non-chlorinated VOCs and abiotic transformation of 1,1,1-Trichloroethane was identified. Despite potentially amenable site conditions, no evidence was found of cometabolic and anaerobic transformation pathways. Relying principally on soil-gas analytical results, an upper-bound estimate of 21% mass reduction due to natural biogeochemical processes was developed. Although available information for the CWL indicates that natural attenuation processes other than volatilization to the atmosphere did not effective y enhance groundwater protection, these processes could be important in significantly reducing groundwater contamination and exposure risks at other sites. More laboratory and field research is required to improve our collective ability to characterize and exploit natural VOC attenuation processes, especially with respect to the combination of relatively thick and dry vadose zones and chlorinated VOCs.
Telemedicine technology is rapidly evolving. Whereas early telemedicine consultations relied primarily on video conferencing, consultations today may utilize video conferencing, medical peripherals, store-and-forward capabilities, electronic patient record management software, and/or a host of other emerging technologies. These remote care systems rely increasingly on distributed, collaborative information technology during the care delivery process, in its many forms. While these leading-edge systems are bellwethers for highly advanced telemedicine, the remote care market today is still immature. Most telemedicine systems are custom-designed and do not interoperate with other commercial offerings. Users are limited to a set of functionality that a single vendor provides and must often pay high prices to obtain this functionality, since vendors in this marketplace must deliver entire systems in order to compete. Besides increasing corporate research and development costs, this inhibits the ability of the user to make intelligent purchasing decisions regarding best-of-breed technologies. We propose a secure, object-oriented information architecture for telemedicine systems that promotes plug-and-play interaction between system components through standardized interfaces, communication protocols, messaging formats, and data definitions. In this architecture, each component functions as a black box, and components plug together in a lego-like fashion to achieve the desired device or system functionality. The architecture will support various ongoing standards work in the medical device arena.
The US health care industry is experiencing a substantial paradigm shift with regard to home care due to the convergence of several technology areas. Increasingly-capable telehealth systems and the internet are not only moving the point of care closer to the patient, but the patient can now assume a more active role in his or her own care. These technologies, coupled with (1) the migration of the health care industry to electronic patient records and (2) the emergence of a growing number of enabling health care technologies (e.g., novel biosensors, wearable devices, and intelligent software agents), demonstrate unprecedented potential for delivering highly automated, intelligent health care in the home. This editorial paper presents a vision for the implementation of intelligent health care technology in the home of the future, focusing on areas of research that have the highest potential payoff given targeted government funding over the next ten years. Here, intelligent health care technology means smart devices and systems that are aware of their context and can therefore assimilate information to support care decisions. A systems perspective is used to describe a framework under which devices can interact with one another in a plug-and-play manner. Within this infrastructure, traditionally passive sensors and devices will have read/write access to appropriate portions of an individual's electronic medical record. Through intelligent software agents, plug-and-play mechanisms, messaging standards, and user authentication tools, these smart home-based medical devices will be aware of their own capabilities, their relationship to the other devices in the home system, and the identity of the individual(s) from whom they acquire data. Information surety technology will be essential to maintain the confidentiality of patient-identifiable medical information and to protect the integrity of geographically dispersed electronic medical records with which each home-based system will interact.
A model is developed herein for predicting the mechanical response of inelastic crystalline solids. Particular emphasis is given to the development of microstructural damage along grain boundaries, and the interaction of this damage with intragranular inelasticity caused by dislocation dissipation mechanisms. The model is developed within the concepts of continuum mechanics, with special emphasis on the development of internal boundaries in the continuum by utilizing a cohesive zone model based on fracture mechanics. In addition, the crystalline grains are assumed to be characterized by nonlinear viscoplastic mechanical material behavior in order to account for dislocation generation and migration. Due to the nonlinearities introduced by the crack growth and viscoplastic constitution, a numerical algorithm is utilized to solve representative problems. Implementation of the model to a finite element computational algorithm is therefore briefly described. Finally, sample calculations are presented for a polycrystalline titanium alloy with particular focus on effects of scale on the predicted response.
Application of Executive Order 12898 to risk assessment of highway or rail transport of hazardous materials has proven difficult; the location and conditions affecting the propagation of a plume of hazardous material released in a potential accident are unknown, in general. Therefore, analyses have only been possible in geographically broad or approximate manner. The advent of geographic information systems and development of software enhancements at Sandia National Laboratories have made kilometer-by-kilometer analysis of populations tallied by U.S. Census Blocks along entire routes practicable. Tabulations of total, or racially/ethnically distinct, populations close to a route, its alternatives, or the broader surrounding area, can then be compared and differences evaluated statistically. This paper presents methods of comparing populations and their racial/ethnic compositions using simple tabulations, histograms and Chi Squared tests for statistical significance of differences found. Two examples of these methods are presented: comparison of two routes and comparison of a route with its surroundings.
Epitaxial thin films of the Tl cuprate superconductors Tl{sub 2}Ba{sub 2}CaCu{sub 2}O{sub 8}, Tl{sub 2}Ba{sub 2}Ca{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 10}, and TL{sub 0.78}Bi{sub 0.22}Ba{sub 0.4}Sr{sub 1.6}Ca{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 9{minus}{delta}} are studied with x-ray photoemission spectroscopy. These data, together with previous measurements in this lab of Tl{sub 2}Ba{sub 2}CuO{sub 6+{delta}} and TlBa{sub 2}CaCu{sub 2}O{sub 7{minus}{delta}}, comprise a comprehensive data set for a comparative study of Tl cuprates with a range of chemical and electronic properties. In the Cu 2p spectra, a larger energy separation between the satellite and main peaks (E{sub s}-E{sub m}) and a lower intensity ratio (I{sub s}/I{sub m}) are found to correlate with higher values of T{sub c}. Analysis of these spectra within a simple configuration interaction model suggests that higher values of T{sub c} are related to low values of the O 2p {r_arrow} Cu 3d charge transfer energy. In the O 1s region, a smaller bond length between Ba and Cu-O planar oxygen is found to correlate with a lower binding energy for the signal associated with Cu-O bonding, most likely resulting from the increased polarization screening by Ba{sup 2+} ions. For samples near optimum doping, maximum T{sub c} is observed to occur when the Tl 4f{sub 7/2} binding energy is near 117.9 eV, which is near the middle of the range of values observed for Tl cuprates. Higher Tl 4f{sub 7/2} binding energies, corresponding to formal oxidation states nearer Tl{sup 1+}, are also found to correlate with longer bond lengths between Ba and Tl-O planar oxygen, and with higher binding energies of the O 1s signal associated with Tl-O bonding.
First-principles total energies of periodic vicinals are used to estimate barriers for Pt-adatom diffusion along straight and kinked steps on Pt(111), and around a corner where straight steps intersect. In all cases studied, hopping diffusion has a lower barrier than concerted substitution. In conflict with simulations of dendritic Pt island formation on Pt(111), hopping from a corner site to a step whose riser is a (111)-micro facet is predicted to be more facile than to one whose riser is a (100).
Scenario development has two primary purposes in the design and documentation of post-closure performance assessments in a regulatory setting. First, scenario development ensures a sufficiently comprehensive consideration of the possible future states of the system. Second, scenario development identifies the important scenarios that must be considered in quantitative analyses of the total system performance assessment (TSPA). Section 2.0 of this report describes the scenario development process. Steps in the process are described in Section 2.1, and terms introduced in this section are defined in Section 2.2. The electronic database used to document the process is described in Section 3, and Section 4 provides a summary of the current status of the YMP scenario development work. Section 5 contains acknowledgments, and Section 6 contains a list of the references cited.
We have discussed two aspects of creating high integrity software that greatly benefit from the availability of transformation technology, which in this case is manifest by the requirement for a sophisticated backtracking parser. First, because of the potential for correctly manipulating programs via small changes, an automated non-procedural transformation system can be a valuable tool for constructing high assurance software. Second, modeling the processing of translating data into information as a, perhaps, context-dependent grammar leads to an efficient, compact implementation. From a practical perspective, the transformation process should begin in the domain language in which a problem is initially expressed. Thus in order for a transformation system to be practical it must be flexible with respect to domain-specific languages. We have argued that transformation applied to specification results in a highly reliable system. We also attempted to briefly demonstrate that transformation technology applied to the runtime environment will result in a safe and secure system. We thus believe that the sophisticated multi-lookahead backtracking parsing technology is central to the task of being in a position to demonstrate the existence of HIS.
We have designed a new class of cyclic siloxane compounds that behave as sol-gel systems when ring open polymerized using a hydroxide base. These monomers polymerize through chain growth polymerization. unlike conventional alkoxysilane sol-gel precursors, to form sol-gel polymers. They do not require solvent or water for polymerization, show no visible shrinkage or cracking during polymerization and are thermally stable. We have successfully utilized these materials in encapsulation of microelectronics. Current efforts are focused toward expanding this family of ROP monomers and optimization of their mechanical properties.
Mission critical applications of MEMS devices require knowledge of the distribution in their material properties and long-term reliability of the small-scale structures. This project reports on a new testing program at Sandia to quantify the strength distribution using samples that reflect the dimensions of critical MEMS components. The strength of polysilicon fabricated with Sandia's SUMMiT 4-layer process was successfully measured using samples with gage sections 2.5 {micro}m thick by 1.7 {micro}m wide and lengths of 15 and 25 {micro}m. These tensile specimens have a freely moving pivot on one end that anchors the sample to the silicon die and prevents off axis loading during testing. Each sample is loaded in uniaxial tension by pulling laterally with a flat tipped diamond in a computer-controlled Nanoindenter. The stress-strain curve is calculated using the specimen cross section and gage length dimensions verified by measuring against a standard in the SEM. The first 48 samples had a means strength of 2.24 {+-} 0.35 GPa. Fracture strength measurements grouped into three strength levels, which matched three failure modes observed in post mortem examinations. The seven samples in the highest strength group failed in the gage section (strength of 2.77 {+-} 0.04 GPa), the moderate strength group failed at the gage section fillet and the lowest strength group failed at a dimple in the hub. With this technique, multiple tests can be programmed at one time and performed without operator assistance at a rate of 20-30 per day allowing the collection of significant populations of data. Since the new test geometry has been proven, the project is moving to test the distributions seen from real geometric features typical to MEMS such as the effect of gage length, fracture toughness, bonding between layers, etch holes, dimples and shear of gear teeth.
The paper provides a concise overview of a coordinated experimental/theoretical/numerical program at Sandia National Laboratories to develop an experimentally validated model of fire-induced response of foam-filled engineered systems for nuclear and transportation safety applications. Integral experiments are performed to investigate the thermal response of polyurethane foam-filled systems exposed to fire-like heat fluxes. A suite of laboratory experiments is performed to characterize the decomposition chemistry of polyurethane. Mass loss and energy associated with foam decomposition and chemical structures of the virgin and decomposed foam are determined. Decomposition chemistry is modeled as the degradation of macromolecular structures by bond breaking followed by vaporization of small fragments of the macromolecule with high vapor pressures. The chemical decomposition model is validated against the laboratory data. Data from integral experiments is used to assess and validate a FEM foam thermal response model with the chemistry model developed from the decomposition experiments. Good agreement was achieved both in the progression of the decomposition front and the in-depth thermal response.
The primary purpose of this LDRD project was to characterize the laser deposition process and determine the feasibility of fabricating complex near-net shapes directly from a CAD solid model. Process characterization provided direction in developing a system to fabricate complex shapes directly from a CAD solid model. Our goal for this LDRD was to develop a system that is robust and provides a significant advancement to existing technologies (e.g., polymeric-based rapid prototyping, laser welding). Development of the process will allow design engineers to produce functional models of their designs directly from CAD files. The turnaround time for complex geometrical shaped parts will be hours instead of days and days instead of months. With reduced turnaround time, more time can be spent on the product-design phase to ensure that the best component design is achieved. Maturation of this technology will revolutionize the way the world produces structural components.
Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) is investigated as a technique for joining the cermet WC-15% Co to itself. Encapsulation of the specimens prior to HIPing was carried out using steel encapsulation, glass encapsulation and self encapsulation. The bonds were evaluated using a four point bend method. It is shown that the glass and steel encapsulation methods have a number of inherent problems which make them inappropriate for near net shape processing. In contrast the novel self encapsulation method, described for the first time in this communication, is both simple and effective, producing joined material with bulk strength. The concept of self encapsulation is potentially widely applicable for joining composite materials.
We report on the application of the one-level FETI method to the solution of a class of structural problems associated with the Department of Energy's Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI). We focus on numerical and parallel scalability issues,and discuss the treatment by FETI of severe structural heterogeneities. We also report on preliminary performance results obtained on the ASCI Option Red supercomputer configured with as many as one thousand processors, for problems with as many as 5 million degrees of freedom.
This paper focuses on our recent work at Sandia National Laboratories toward engineering a physics-based swarm of mobile vehicles for distributed sensing applications. Our goal is to coordinate a sensor array that optimizes sensor coverage and multivariate signal analysis by implementing artificial intelligence and evolutionary computational techniques. These intelligent control systems integrate both globally operating decision-making systems and locally cooperative information-sharing modes using genetically-trained neural networks. Once trained, neural networks have the ability to enhance real-time operational responses to dynamical environments, such as obstacle avoidance, responding to prevailing wind patterns, and overcoming other natural obscurants or interferences (jammers). The swarm realizes a collective set of sensor neurons with simple properties incorporating interactions based on basic community rules (potential fields) and complex interconnecting functions based on various neural network architectures, Therefore, the swarm is capable of redundant heterogeneous measurements which furnishes an additional degree of robustness and fault tolerance not afforded by conventional systems, while accomplishing such cognitive tasks as generalization, error correction, pattern recognition, and sensor fission. The robotic platforms could be equipped with specialized sensor devices including transmit/receive dipole antennas, chemical or biological sniffers in combination with recognition analysis tools, communication modulators, and laser diodes. Our group has been studying the collective behavior of an autonomous, multi-agent system applied to emerging threat applications. To accomplish such tasks, research in the fields of robotics, sensor technology, and swarms are being conducted within an integrated program. Mission scenarios under consideration include ground penetrating impulse radar (GPR) for detection of under-ground structures, airborne systems, and plume detection/remediation. We will describe our research in these areas and give a status report on our progress, including simulations and laboratory-based sensor experiments.
Polyorganosiloxanes are a commercially important class of compounds. They exhibit many important properties, including very low glass transition temperatures, making them useful over a wide temperature range. In practice, the polysiloxane polymer is often mixed with a filler material to help improve its mechanical properties. An alternative method for increasing polymer mechanical strength is through the incorporation of certain substituents on the polymer backbone. Hard substituents such as carbonates and imides generally result in improved mechanical properties of polysiloxanes. In this paper, we present the preparation of novel polysiloxane resins modified with hard maleimide substituents. Protected ethoxysilyl-substituted propyl-maleimides were prepared. The maleimide substituent was protected with a furanyl group and the monomer polymerized under aqueous acidic conditions. At elevated temperatures (>120 C), the polymer undergoes retro Diels-Alder reaction with release of foran (Equation 1). The deprotected polymer can then be selectively crosslinked by a forward Diels-Alder reaction (in the presence of a co-reactant having two or more dime functionalities).
As part of a project for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Sandia National Laboratories is developing and testing the feasibility of using of a cooperative team of robotic sentry vehicles to guard a perimeter and to perform surround and diversion tasks. This paper describes on-going activities in the development of these robotic sentry vehicles. To date, we have developed a robotic perimeter detection system which consists of eight ''Roving All Terrain Lunar Explorer Rover'' (RATLER{trademark}) vehicles, a laptop-based base-station, and several Miniature Intrusion Detection Sensors (MIDS). A radio frequency receiver on each of the RATLER vehicles alerts the sentry vehicles of alarms from the hidden MIDS. When an alarm is received, each vehicle decides whether it should investigate the alarm based on the proximity of itself and the other vehicles to the alarm. As one vehicle attends an alarm, the other vehicles adjust their position around the perimeter to better prepare for another alarm. We have also demonstrated the ability to drive multiple vehicles in formation via tele-operation or by waypoint GPS navigation. This is currently being extended to include mission planning capabilities. At the base-station, the operator can draw on an aerial map the goal regions to be surrounded and the repulsive regions to be avoided. A potential field path planner automatically generates a path from the vehicles' current position to the goal regions while avoiding the repulsive regions and the other vehicles. This path is previewed to the operator before the regions are downloaded to the vehicles. The same potential field path planner resides on the vehicle, except additional repulsive forces from on-board proximity sensors guide the vehicle away from unplanned obstacles.
This report summarizes a three year effort to develop an automated microassembly workcell for the assembly of LIGA (Lithography Galvonoforming Abforming) parts. Over the last several years, Sandia has developed processes for producing surface machined silicon and LIGA parts for use in weapons surety devices. Some of these parts have outside dimensions as small as 100 micron, and most all have submicron tolerances. Parts this small and precise are extremely difficult to assembly by hand. Therefore, in this project, we investigated the technologies required to develop a robotic workcell to assembly these parts. In particular, we concentrated on micro-grippers, visual servoing, micro-assembly planning, and parallel assembly. Three different micro-grippers were tested: a pneumatic probe, a thermally actuated polysilicon tweezer, and a LIGA fabricated tweezer. Visual servoing was used to accuracy position two parts relative to one another. Fourier optics methods were used to generate synthetic microscope images from CAD drawings. These synthetic images are used off-line to test image processing routines under varying magnifications and depths of field. They also provide reference image features which are used to visually servo the part to the desired position. We also investigated a new aspect of fine motion planning for the micro-domain. As parts approach 1-10 {micro}m or less in outside dimensions, interactive forces such as van der Waals and electrostatic forces become major factors which greatly change the assembly sequence and path plans. We developed the mathematics required to determine the goal regions for pick up, holding, and release of a micro-sphere being handled by a rectangular tool. Finally, we implemented and tested the ability to assemble an array of LIGA parts attached to two 3 inch diameter wafers. In this way, hundreds of parts can be assembled in parallel rather than assembling each part individually.
The robustness of procedures for identifying patterns in scatterplots generated in Monte Carlo sensitivity analyses is investigated. These procedures are based on attempts to detect increasingly complex patterns in the scatterplots under consideration and involve the identification of (1) linear relationships with correlation coefficients, (2) monotonic relationships with rank correlation coefficients, (3) trends in central tendency as defined by means, medians and the Kruskal-Wallis statistic, (4) trends in variability as defined by variances and interquartile ranges, and (5) deviations from randomness as defined by the chi-square statistic. The following two topics related to the robustness of these procedures are considered for a sequence of example analyses with a large model for two-phase fluid flow: the presence of Type I and Type II errors, and the stability of results obtained with independent Latin hypercube samples. Observations from analysis include: (1) Type I errors are unavoidable, (2) Type II errors can occur when inappropriate analysis procedures are used, (3) physical explanations should always be sought for why statistical procedures identify variables as being important, and (4) the identification of important variables tends to be stable for independent Latin hypercube samples.
The ALEGRA radiation transport package implements diffusion, flux-limited diffusion, and SPn radiation transport for both gray and multigroup photon spectra. Comparisons of ALEGRA calculations with known solutions for a selection of benchmark problems for these transport theories are presented. ALEGRA returns accurate solutions in each case. This verifies that each transport theory has been implemented correctly, though it does not prove that the transport theories are valid for problems of interest at Sandia. A validation study will be presented in a future report.
This report represents the completion of a three-year Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program that focused on research and development of GaN-based wide bandgap semiconductor materials (referred to as III-N materials). Our theoretical investigations include the determination of fundamental materials parameters from first-principles calculations, the study of gain properties of III-N heterostructures using a microscopic laser theory and density-functional-theory, charge-state calculations to determine the core structure and energy levels of dislocations in III-N materials. Our experimental investigations include time-resolved photoluminescence and magneto-luminescence studies of GaN epilayers and multiquantum well samples as well as x-ray diffraction studies of AlGaN ternary alloys. In addition, we performed a number of experiments to determine how various materials processing steps affect both the optical and electrical properties of GaN-based materials. These studies include photoluminescence studies of GaN epilayers after post-growth rapid thermal annealing, ion implantation to produce n- and p-type material and electrical and optical studies of plasma-etched structures.
The performance of a solar cell is critically dependent on absorption of incident photons and their conversion into electrical current. This report describes research efforts that have been directed toward the use of nanoscale surface texturing techniques to enhance light absorption in Si. This effort has been divided into two approaches. The first is to use plasma-etching to produce random texturization on multicrystalline Si cells for terrestrial use, since multicrystalline Si cannot be economically textured in any other way. The second approach is to use interference lithography and plasma-etching to produce gettering structures on Si cells for use in space, so that long-wavelength light can be absorbed close to the junction and make the cells more resistant to cosmic radiation damage.
This report reviews a number of issues specific to stand-alone AC lighting systems. A review of AC lighting technology is presented, which discusses the advantages and disadvantages of various lamps. The best lamps for small lighting systems are compact fluorescent. The best lamps for intermediate-size systems are high- or low-pressure sodium. Specifications for battery charging and load control are provided with the goal of achieving lamp lifetimes on the order of 16,000 to 24,000 hours and battery lifetimes of 4 to 5 years. A rough estimate of the potential domestic and global markets for stand-alone AC lighting systems is presented. DC current injection tests were performed on high-pressure sodium lamps and the test results are presented. Finally, a prototype system was designed and a prototype system controller (with battery charger and DC/AC inverter) was developed and built.
Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico, conducts the Energy Storage Systems Program, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Power Technologies. The goal of this program is to collaborate with industry in developing cost-effective electric energy storage systems for many high-value stationary applications. Sandia National Laboratories is responsible for the engineering analyses, contracted development and testing of energy storage components and systems. This report details the technical achievements realized during fiscal year 1998.
Bhardwaj, M.; Day, D.; Farhat, C.; Lesoinne, M.; Pierson, K.; Rixen, D.
We report on the application of the one-level FETI method to the solution of a class of substructural problems associated with the Department of Energy's Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI). We focus on numerical and parallel scalability issues, and on preliminary performance results obtained on the ASCI Option Red supercomputer configured with as many as one thousand processors, for problems with as many as 5 million degrees of freedom.
Optical spectroscopic techniques were evaluated as nondestructive monitors of the aging of parachutes in nuclear weapons. We analyzed thermally aged samples of nylon and Kevlar webbing by photoluminescence spectroscopy and reflection spectroscopy. Infrared analysis was also performed to help understand the degradation mechanisms of the polymer materials in the webbing. The photoluminescence and reflection spectra were analyzed by chemometric data treatment techniques to see if aged-induced changes in the spectra correlated to changes in measured tensile strength. A correlation was found between the shapes of the photoluminescent bands and the measured tensile strengths. Photoluminescent spectra can be used to predict the tensile strengths of nylon and Kevlar webbing with sufficient accuracy to categorize the webbing sample as above rated tensile strength, marginal or below rated tensile strength. The instrumentation required to perform the optical spectroscopic measurement can be made rugged, compact and portable. Thus, optical spectroscopic techniques offer a means for nondestructive field monitoring of parachutes in the enduring stockpile/
Lost Circulation is a widespread problem encountered when drilling geothermal wells, and often represents a substantial portion of the cost of drilling a well. The U.S. Department of Energy sponsors research and development work at Sandia National Laboratories in an effort to reduce these lost circulation expenditures. Sandia has developed a down hole tool that improves the effectiveness and reduces th cost of lost circulation cement treatment while drilling geothermal wells. This tool, the Drillable Straddle Packer, is a low-cost disposable device that is used to isolate the loss zone and emplace the cement treatment directly into the region of concern. This report documents the design and development of the Drillabe Straddle Packer, the laboratory and field test results, and the design package that is available to transfer this technology to industry users.
Brinker, C.J.; Frye-Mason, Gregory C.; Kottenstette, Richard J.; Lewis, Patrick R.; Sasaki, Darryl Y.; Sellinger, Alan
This reports summarizes the results from a Laboratory Directed Research and Development effort to develop selective coastings for detecting high priority analytes (HPAs), such as chemical warfare (CW) agents and their precursors, in the presence of common interferents. Accomplishments during this project included synthesis and testing of new derivatized sol-gel coatings for surface acoustic wave sensors (SAWs). Surfactant modified and fluoroalcohol derivatized sol-gel oxides were coated onto SAW devices and tested with volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Theses modified sol-gel coatings improved SAW sensitivity to DMMP by over three orders of magnitude when compared to standard polymeric oatings such as polyisobutylene and by over two orders of magnitude compared with polymers tailor made for enhanced sensitivity to phosphonates. SAW sensors coated with these materials exhibit highly sensitive reversible behavior at elevated temperatures (>90 degree C), possibly leading to low detection levels for semivolatile analytes while remaining insensitive to volatile organic interferants. Additionally, we have investigated the use of reactive polymers for detection of volatile and reactive CW agent precursors (Chemical Weapons Convention Schedule 3 Agents) such as phosphouous oxychloride (POCl(3)). The results obtained in this study find that sensitive and selective responses can be obtained for Schedule 3 agents using commercially available polymers and chemical guidelines from solution phase chemistry.
The objective of this reseach is the investigation of alternative methods for characterizing the reliability of systems with time dependent failure modes associated with stockpile aging. Reference to 'reliability degradation' has, unfortunately, come to be associated with all types of aging analyes: both deterministic and stochastic. In this research, in keeping with the true theoretical definition, reliability is defined as a probabilistic description of system performance as a funtion of time. Traditional reliability methods used to characterize stockpile reliability depend on the collection of a large number of samples or observations. Clearly, after the experiments have been performed and the data has been collected, critical performance problems can be identified. A Major goal of this research is to identify existing methods and/or develop new mathematical techniques and computer analysis tools to anticipate stockpile problems before they become critical issues. One of the most popular methods for characterizing the reliability of components, particularly electronic components, assumes that failures occur in a completely random fashion, i.e. uniformly across time. This method is based primarily on the use of constant failure rates for the various elements that constitute the weapon system, i.e. the systems do not degrade while in storage. Experience has shown that predictions based upon this approach should be regarded with great skepticism since the relationship between the life predicted and the observed life has been difficult to validate. In addition to this fundamental problem, the approach does not recognize that there are time dependent material properties and variations associated with the manufacturing process and the operational environment. To appreciate the uncertainties in predicting system reliability a number of alternative methods are explored in this report. All of the methods are very different from those currently used to assess stockpile reliability, but have been used extensively in various forms outside Sandia National Laboratories. It is hoped that this report will encourage the use of 'nontraditional' reliabilty and uncertainty techniques in gaining insight into stockpile reliability issues.
In February 1997, under the auspices of the Product Realization Program, an initiative to develop performance models for lithium/manganese dioxide-based batteries began. As a part of this initiative, the performance characteristics of the cells under a variety of conditions were determined, both for model development and for model validation. As a direct result of this work, it became apparent that possible Defense Program (DP) uses for batteries based on this cell chemistry existed. A larger effort aimed at mapping the performance envelope of this chemistry was initiated in order to assess the practicality of this cell chemistry, not only for DP applications, but also for other uses. The work performed included an evaluation of the cell performance as a function of a number of variables, including cell size, manufacturer, current, pulse loads, constant current loads, safety, etc. In addition, the development of new evaluation techniques that would apply to any battery system, such as those related to reliability assessments began. This report describes the results of these evaluations.
Macroscopic particles or solid surfaces in contact with a typical low-temperature plasma immediately charge negatively and surround themselves with an electron-depleted region of positive charge. This Debye shielding effect is involved in the Debye-Huckel theory in liquids and plasma sheath formation in the gas phase. In this report, the interaction between such screened particles is found by using the same basic approximation that is used in constructing the Debye shielding potential itself. The results demonstrate that a significant attraction exists between the particles, and, if conditions are right, this attractive force can contribute to the generation of particulate plasma crystals.
We describe the development of a new technology for cooling microelectronics. This report documents the design, fabrication, and prototype testing of micro scale heat pipes embedded in a flat plate substrate or heat spreader. A thermal model tuned to the test results enables us to describe heat transfer in the prototype, as well as evaluate the use of this technology in other applications. The substrate walls are Kovar alloy, which has a coefficient of thermal expansion close to that of microelectronic die. The prototype designs integrating micro heat pipes with Kovar enhance thermal conductivity by more than a factor of two over that of Kovar alone, thus improving the cooling of micro-electronic die.
We have developed high power vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELS) for multimode or single mode operation. We have characterized new cavity designs for individual lasers and 2-dimensional VCSEL arrays to maximize output power. Using broad area high power VCSELS under pulsed excitation, we have demonstrated the triggering of a photoconductive semiconductor switch (PCSS) with a VCSEL. We also have developed designs for high output power in a single mode. The first approach is to engineer the oxide aperture profile to influence the optical confinement and thus modal properties. A second approach focuses on "leaky-mode" concepts using lateral modification of the cavity resonance to provide the lateral refractive index difference. To this end, we have developed a regrowth process to fabricate single-mode VCSELS. The overall objective of this work was to develop high-power single-mode or multimode sources appropriate for many applications leveraging the many inherent advantages of VCSELS.
The PLD11 board is a 9U VME board containing 11 Altera 10K100 Programmable Logic Devices, controlled impedance clock tree, VME interface, programming inteface, 0C3 (155 Mbps) interface and serial port. The 11 Altera 10K100 Programmable Logic Devices arranged to provide four 96 bit wide buses for a total of 384 parallel digital data lines in and out of the board that can operate up to 100 Mhz for a aggrigate throughput of 38.4 Gpbs. The 14.44 X 15.75 board has over 1.1 million programmable gates that can be programmed through a serial interace. The board contains a clock reference and 50 ohm clock distribution tree that can drive each of the eleven 10K100 devices with two critically timed clock references. Five external clock references can be used to drive five additional PLD 11 boards for a total of six boards operating all from the same synchronous clock reference. A system of six boards provides just under 7 million programmable gates.
The Board-to-Board Optical Interconnect LDRD has successfully developed multiple free space optical interconnect technology based on Sandia developed low threshold VCSEL technology. During the past three years, Sandia has successfully demonstrated low power free space optical links operating at over 100 Mbps for several applications including a prototype weapon interface and a 4.8 Gbps VME board interconnect. A prototype weapon interface using low power VCSELs, InP receivers, and multiple element solar cells was successfully demonstrated. A low power, CMOS compatible 8x8 receiver array having integrated MIM detectors at 830 nm was developed Sandia has successfully demonstrated a low power, light weight pointing mechanism using Rainbow piezoelectric actuators. Robust, low-power, free-space optical interconnects can provide a viable solution to the problem of high bandwidth interconnects between printed circuit boards in a system.
Inversion of head wave arrival times for three-dimensional (3D) planar structure is formulated as a constrained parameter optimization problem, and solved via linear programming techniques. The earth model is characterized by a set of homogeneous and isotropic layers bounded by plane, dipping interfaces. Each interface may possess arbitrary strike and dip. Predicted data consists of traveltimes of critically refracted waves formed on the plane interfaces of the model. The nonlinear inversion procedure is iterative; an initial estimate of the earth model is refined until an acceptable match is obtained between observed and predicted data. Inclusion of a priori constraint information, in the form of inequality relations satisfied by the model parameters, assists the algorithm in converging toward a realistic solution. Although the 3D earth model adopted for the inversion procedure is simple, the algorithm is quite useful in two particular contexts: (i) it can provide an initial model estimate suitable for subsequent improvement by more general techniques (i.e., traveltime tomography), and (ii) it is an effective analysis tool for investigating the power of areal recording geometries for detecting and resolving 3D dipping planar structure.
Lueders' bands are shear deformation features commonly observed in rock specimens that have been deformed experimentally in the brittle-ductile transition regime. For specimens that contain both faults (shear fractures that separate the specimen) and bands, the bands form earlier in the deformation history and their orientations are often different from the fault These differences pose the question of the relationship between these two structures. Understanding the origin of these features may shed light on the genesis of apparent natural analogues, and on the general process of rock deformation and fracture in the laboratory. This paper presents a hypothesis for the formation of Lueders' bands in laboratory specimens based on deformation localization theory considered in the context of the nonuniform stress distribution of the conventional triaxial experiment Lueders' bands and faults appear to be equivalent reflections of the localization process as it is controlled by nonuniform distributions of stress and evolution of incremental constitutive parameters resulting from increasing damage. To relate conditions for localization in laboratory specimens to natural settings, it will be necessary to design new experiments that create uniform stress and deformation fields, or to extract constitutive data indirectly from standard experiments using computational means.
Four different F{sub 2}-based gases (SF{sub 6}, NF{sub 3}, PF{sub 5}, and BF{sub 3}) were examined for high rate Inductively Coupled Plasma etching of Si. Etch rates up to {approximately}8 {micro}m/min were achieved with pure SF{sub 6} discharges at high source power (1500W) and pressure (35mTorr). A direct comparison of the four feedstock gases under the same plasma conditions showed the Si etch rate to increase in the order BF{sub 3} < NF{sub 3} < PF{sub 5} < SF{sub 6}. This is in good correlation with the average bond energies of the gases, except for NF{sub 3}, which is the least strongly bound. Optical emission spectroscopy showed that the ICP source efficiently dissociated NF{sub 3}, but the etched Si surface morphologies were significantly worse with this gas than with the other 3 gases.
Acoustic data are often required for the determination of launch and powered flight loads for rocket systems and payloads. Such data are usually acquired during test firings of the solid rocket motors. In the current work, these data were obtained for two tests at a remote test facility where we were visitors. This paper describes the data acquisition and the requirements for working at a remote site, interfacing with the test hosts.
Application of nanotechnology and advanced optical structures offer new possibilities for improved radiation tolerance in silicon solar cells. We describe the application of subwavelength diffractive structures to enhance optical absorption near the surface, and thereby improve the radiation tolerance.
In this paper, we have presented the relative advantages and complementary aspects of acoustic and seismic ground sensors. A detailed description of both acoustic and seismic ground sensing methods has been provided. Acoustic and seismic phenomenology including source mechanisms, propagation paths, attenuation, and sensing have been discussed in detail. The effects of seismo-acoustic and acousto-seismic interactions as well as recommendations for minimizing seismic/acoustic cross talk have been highlighted. We have shown representative acoustic and seismic ground sensor data to illustrate the advantages and complementary aspects of the two modalities. The data illustrate that seismic transducers often respond to acoustic excitation through acousto-seismic coupling. Based on these results, we discussed the implications of this phenomenology on the detection, identification, and localization objectives of unattended ground sensors. We have concluded with a methodology for selecting the preferred modality (acoustic and/or seismic) for a particular application.
Surface micromachining generally offers more design freedom than related technologies, and it is the technology of choice for most microelectromechanical applications that require multi-level structures. However, the design flexibility that surface micromachining offers is not without limitations. In addition to determining how to fabricate devices in a planar world, the designer also needs to consider issues such as film quality, thickness, residual stress, topography propagation, stringers, processing limitations, and concerns about surface adhesion [1]. Only a few years ago, these were the types of issues that limited design complexity. As the technology improved, the number of mechanical layers available to the designer became the dominant constraint on system functionality. In response, we developed a 5-level polysilicon fabrication technology [2] that offers an unprecedented level of microelectromechanical complexity with simultaneous increases in system yield and robustness. This paper outlines the application that was the driving force behind this work and describes the first devices specifically designed for and fabricated in this technology. The 5-level fabrication technology developed to support this program is known as SUMMiT-V. Four mechanical layers of polysilicon referred to as polyl, poly2, poly3, and poly4 are fabricated above a polyO electrical interconnect and ground plane layer [2,4]. PolyO is 0.3 pm thick, polyl is 1.0 pm, poly 2 is 1.5 pm, and both poly3 and poly4 are 2.25 pm. All films except polyl and poly2 are separated by 2-pm thick depositions of sacrificial oxide. A 0.5-m sacrificial oxide between polyl and poly2 typically defines the clearance between close mating parts such as hubs and hinges. This entire stack is built on a single crystal substrate with a dielectric foundation of 0.8 pm of nitride over 0.63 m of oxide. Seventeen drawing layer are combined to generate the 14 photolithographic masks used to pattern these films during a 240-step fabrication sequence. Mirror Operation To become operational, both mirrors must be driven up to a 45 degree angle. In this position, optical energy entering through an opening in the substrate beneath one mirror [5] is redirected to the second mirror, then down through another substrate opening and onto the target receiver. Each mirror is actuated through a chain of gears driven by a mirror control engine. This chain incorporates a series of gear reduction units that significantly increase drive torque and positional resolution. Also included in this chain are two gears that are not coupled to each other (see figure 3). This prevents the mirror control engine from driving the rack that actuates the mirror. To complete the drive train, two additional gears must be inserted between the interrupted gear pair [4]. The coupling gears that perform this function are shown in figure 4. Both of these gears are fabricated on a plate that moves towards the interrupted pair of gears as the discrimination sequence The plate onto which the coupling gears are fabricated is attached to the left end of the maze rack, so it moves as the rack moves. If the wrong path is taken at any of the 24 decision points in the maze, the coupling gears will not move far enough to complete the mirror gear chain, and the mirror can never be operated. Thus, this is a single attempt device with more than 16 million possible code sequences.