Results for “efficiency table” — Page 21

DOE OSTI2016

Bench testing of a heterodyne CO 2 laser dispersion interferometer for high temporal resolution plasma density measurements

Here, a heterodyne detection scheme is combined with a 10.59 μm CO 2 laser dispersion interferometer for the first time to allow large bandwidth measurements in the 10-100 MHz range. The approach employed utilizes a 40 MHz acousto-optic cell operating on the frequency doubled CO 2 beam which is obtained using a high 2nd harmonic conversion efficiency orientation patterned gallium arsenide crystal. The measured standard deviation of the line integrated electron density equivalent phase resolution obtained with digital phase demodulation technique, is 4 × 10 17 m –2 . Air flow was found to significantly affect the baseline of the phase signal, which an optical table cover was able to reduce considerably. The heterodyne dispersion interferometer (DI) approach is found to be robustly insensitive to motion, with measured phase shifts below baseline drifts even in the presence of several centimeters of retroreflector induced path length variations. Plasma induced dispersion was simulated with a wedged ZnSe plate and the measured DI phase shifts are consistent with expectations.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

DOE OSTI2021

The Modeling of Synfuel Production Process: ASPEN Model of FT production with electricity demand provided at LWR scale

Synfuels, or electro-fuels (e-fuels) have the unique potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the transportation sector. This is especially true for applications with substantial payloads and daily miles traveled, such as long-haul heavy-duty vehicles, rail locomotives, marine vessels and aviation aircrafts that are challenging to directly electrify via battery or fuel cell powertrain technologies. Synfuels, or electro-diesel/electro-jet fuels, have similar properties with the incumbent petroleum fuels, compatible with current infrastructure but have much lower GHG emissions relative to the petroleum counterpart, because they utilize waste carbon dioxide (CO2) streams and green hydrogen (H2) sourced from electrolysis. To achieve substantial reductions in GHG emissions, electricity sources must be zero carbon or near-zero carbon, which is the case with solar, wind, hydro and nuclear power. Compared to the intermittency of solar, wind and hydro, nuclear energy provides a steady energy source. In addition, it’s advantageous for nuclear power to produce synfuels because it provides not only near-zero carbon electricity to displace grid electricity, but also near-zero carbon steam to displace carbon-intensive natural gas combustion for steam generation. The availability of electricity and steam also enables more efficient green hydrogen production by using high-temperature electrolysis. In this work, Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) models a synfuel production process via the Fischer- Tropsch (FT) reaction by using nuclear power to provide electricity and steam. In 2021, using ASPEN Plus software, ANL established a detailed process model of a stand-alone FT production facility, assuming feedstocks of pure CO2 and H2. This stand-alone model can be expanded to integrate H2 production from nuclear power via low-temperature and high-temperature electrolysis at light-water reactor (LWR) scale. This report summarizes the stand-alone ASPEN Plus model results with a detailed mass and energy analysis. Our modeled facility produces 351 MT/day (130,000 gal/day) of FT fuel (a mixture of naphtha, jet fuel, and diesel) by converting 223 MT/day of H2 and 2,387 MT/day of CO2. The FT fuel production energy efficiency is 58% and the carbon conversion efficiency (from CO2 to FT fuel) is 46%. The production of green hydrogen requires 390–470 MWe of electricity, which is compared with the capacity of an LWR plant. For the stand-alone FT process, the detailed energy demand (electricity and heat) is summarized in the table below. Based on the energy supply source and the required temperature, potential insertion points of nuclear energy are identified. Based on the potential nuclear energy utilization, this report discusses potential modification options for expanding the system boundary to integrate nuclear power use, for example on-site hydrogen production via water electrolysis. Modeling of the integrated system is conducted by closely working with ANL and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) collaborators to harmonize design parameters of nuclear plants and the FT production process.

Zang, Guiyan↗

DOE OSTI2020

Efficient computational search for lanthanide-binding additive dopants for advanced U-Zr based fuels

A rational design strategy combining theory and experiment is highly desirable for the development of U-Zr based fuels that are resistant to lanthanide-induced fuel-cladding chemical interaction (FCCI). Here, we performed rapid computational screening of FCCI-mitigating (via strong lanthanide-binding) elements across the periodic table by utilizing three simple criteria and density functional theory (DFT) calculated total energies of relevant elements and compounds retrieved from high-throughput DFT databases. In addition to successfully identifying previously demonstrated additives, our search leads to the discovery of Bi as a highly effective element among all 68 elements screened, and its effectiveness was experimentally confirmed in this study.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2019

Component Testing Supporting SHINE Medical Technologies

SHINE is going to be implementing a tritium gas processing system to support their Mo-99 work. They have requested that the Hydrogen Process Group of SRNL does some required testing on the system components before startup. The lab plans on conducting both seismic and valve testing. Test Plan: - Testing 10 1C valves 750,000 cycles or until failure; - Testing intervals will be every couple thousand; - 1C valves will have metal stem tips instead of Polymer due to being in a tritium prone area; - Hope that the valves will still have enough force to create a sufficient seal with metal stem tips; - Goal is for a more cost and space efficient alternative to the 5C valves. Status: - Received half the parts, waiting on the other half due to long procurement times; - Waiting on the LabVIEW program which will perform the testing. Path Forward: - R and DE to change out the stem tips (July 2018); - Assemble Manifold (July 2018); - Perform Testing (August 2018); - Report (September 2018). Since SRNL does not own a shaker table, the test will be conducted at a facility like the NTS Facility in Huntsville, Alabama. Test Plans: - Leak Testing; - Use LabVIEW to monitor for leaks before, during and after seismic testing with an Electronic Pressure Transducer; - If leak is detected, sniff for location using Helium Leak Detector; - Connector Testing; - Use LabVIEW to test for electrical continuity before, during and after seismic testing; - If a connectors continuity is interrupted, further testing will be performed; - Each Pin in faulty connector will be testing to determine specific location of disruption. Path Forward: - Pick a Qualified Vender for testing (July 2018); - Procure the connector plugs (July 2018); - Send components and test plan to facility for testing (August 2018); - Perform Testing (August-September 2018); - Report Results (September 2018)

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

NASA NTRS1983

Automotive Stirling Engine Development Program Mod I Stirling engine development

The development of the Mod I 4-cylinder automotive Stirling engine is discussed and illustrated with drawings, block diagrams, photographs, and graphs and tables of preliminary test data. The engine and its drive, cold-engine, hot-engine, external-heat, air/fuel, power-control, electronic-control, and auxiliary systems are characterized. Performance results from a total of 1900 h of tests on 4 prototype engines include average maximum efficiency (at 2000 rpm) 34.5 percent and maximum output power 54.4 kW. The modifications introduced in an upgraded version of the Mod I are explained; this engine has maximum efficiency 40.4 percent and maximum power output 69.2 kW.

Simetkosky, M. A.↗

DOE OSTI2016

The Reducibility of Reactor Physics Depletion and Decay Calculation

Depletion and decay calculations are integral part of reactor physics calculations, necessary to estimate fuel characteristics following a given exposure to radiation. Given the complexity of reactor design and the unprecedented sophistication of the new high fidelity modeling and simulation tools, attempting to calculate a very accurate estimation of fuel characteristics on a pin-by-pin level, there is an ever-increasing need to perform these calculations in a computationally efficient manner. This summary presents a new enabling methodology to achieve higher computational gains while addressing one of the fundamental challenges of existing methods, that is how to preserve the accuracy of the original high fidelity models. This is difficult with current approaches relying on look-up tables or the elimination of non-influential isotopes. To achieve that we employ a reduced order modeling approach which reduces the effective dimensionality of the solution space, represented by the number of tracked nuclides. This approach allows the analyst to devise a user-defined level of reduction supported by rigorous error bounds that quantify the accuracy of the reduced model. This summary explores this new methodology by calculating the effective dimensionality for representative BWR depletion problems that are required to meet user-defined accuracy for the nuclides concentrations. (authors)

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

DOE OSTI2013

Solid-Fueled Pressurized Chemical Looping with Flue-Gas Turbine Combined Cycle for Improved Plant Efficiency and CO 2 Capture

The purpose of this document is to report the final result of techno-economic analysis for the proposed 550MWe integrated pressurized chemical looping combustion combined cycle process. An Aspen Plus based model is delivered in this report along with the results from three sensitivity scenarios including the operating pressure, excess air ratio and oxygen carrier performance. A process flow diagram and detailed stream table for the base case are also provided with the overall plant energy balance, carbon balance, sulfur balance and water balance. The approach to the process and key component simulation are explained. The economic analysis (OPEX and CAPX) on four study cases via DOE NETL Reference Case 12 are presented and explained.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗

DOE OSTI2011

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A SUSTAINABLE AND ENERGY EFFICIENT RE-ROOFING TECHNOLOGY USING FIELD-TEST DATA

Three test attics were constructed to evaluate a new sustainable method of re-roofing utilizing photo-voltaic (PV) laminates, metal roofing panels, and PCM heat sink in the Envelope Systems Research Apparatus (ESRA) facility in the ORNL campus. Figure 1 is a picture of the three attic roofs located adjacent to each other. The leftmost roof is the conventional shingle roof, followed by the metal panel roof incorporating the cool-roof coating, and third from left is the roof with the PCM. On the PCM roof, the PV panels are seen as well; they're labelled from left-to-right as panels 5, 6 and 7. The metal panel roof consists of three metal panels with the cool-roof coating; in further discussion this is referred to as the infrared reflective (IRR) metal roof. The IRR metal panels reflect the incoming solar radiation and then quickly re-emit the remaining absorbed portion, thereby reducing the solar heat gain of the attic. Surface reflectance of the panels were measured using a Solar Spectrum Reflectometer. In the 0.35-2.0 {mu}m wavelength interval, which accounts for more than 94% of the solar energy, the IRR panels have an average reflectance of 0.303. In the infrared portion of the spectrum, the IRR panel reflectance is 0.633. The PCM roof consists of a layer of macro-encapsulated bio-based PCM at the bottom, followed by a 2-cm thick layer of dense fiberglass insulation with a reflective surface on top, and metal panels with pre-installed PV laminates on top. The PCM has a melting point of 29 C (84.2 F) and total enthalpy between 180 and 190 J/g. The PCM was macro-packaged in between two layers of heavy-duty plastic foil forming arrays of PCM cells. Two air cavities, between PCM cells and above the fiberglass insulation, helped the over-the-deck natural air ventilation. It is anticipated that during summer, this extra ventilation will help in reducing the attic-generated cooling loads. The extra ventilation, in conjunction with the PCM heat sink, are used to minimize thermal stresses due to the PV laminates on sunny days. In PV laminates sunlight is converted into electricity and heat simultaneous. In case of building integrated applications, a relatively high solar absorption of amorphous silicon laminates can be utilized during the winter for solar heating purposes with PCM providing necessary heat storage capacity. However, PV laminates may also generate increased building cooling loads during the summer months. Therefore, in this project, the PCM heat sink was to minimize summer heat gains as well. The PCM-fibreglass-PV assembly and the IRR metal panels are capable of being installed directly on top of existing shingle roofs during re-roofing, precluding the need for recycling or disposal of waste materials. The PV laminates installed on the PCM attic are PVL-144 models from Uni-Solar. Each laminate contains 22 triple junction amorphous silicon solar cells connected in series. The silicon cells are of dimensions 356 mm x 239 mm (14-in. x 9.4-in.). The PVL-144 laminate is encapsulated in durable ETFE (poly-ethylene-co-tetrafluoroethylene) high light-transmissive polymer. Table 1 lists the power, voltage and current ratings of the PVL-144 panel.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2018

ARC algorithm: A novel approach to forecast and manage daily electrical maximum demand

This paper proposes an innovative algorithm for predicting short-term electrical maximum demand by using historical demand data. The ability to recognize in peak demand pattern for commercial or industrial customers would propose numerous direct and indirect benefits to the customers and utility providers in terms of demand reduction, cost control, and system stability. Prior works in electrical maximum demand forecasting have been mainly focused on seasonal effects, which is not a feasible approach for industrial manufacturing facilities in short-term load forecasting. The proposed algorithm, denoted as the Adaptive Rate of Change (ARC), determines the logarithmic rate-of-change in load profile prior to a peak by postulating the demand curve as a stochastic, mean-reverting process. The rationale behind this analysis, is that the energy efficient program requires not only demand estimation but also to warn the user of imminent maximum peak occurrence. This paper analyzes demand trend data and incorporates stochastic model and mean reverting half-life to develop an electrical maximum demand forecasting algorithm, which is statistically evaluated by cross-table and F-score for three different manufacturing facilities. Lastly, the aggregate results show an overall accuracy of 0.91 and a F-score of 0.43, which indicates that the algorithm is effective predicting peak demand in predicting peak demand.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2015

Bright high-repetition-rate source of narrowband extreme-ultraviolet harmonics beyond 22 eV

Novel table-top sources of extreme-ultraviolet light based on high-harmonic generation yield unique insight into the fundamental properties of molecules, nanomaterials or correlated solids, and enable advanced applications in imaging or metrology. Extending high-harmonic generation to high repetition rates portends great experimental benefits, yet efficient extreme-ultraviolet conversion of correspondingly weak driving pulses is challenging. In this article, we demonstrate a highly-efficient source of femtosecond extreme-ultraviolet pulses at 50-kHz repetition rate, utilizing the ultraviolet second-harmonic focused tightly into Kr gas. In this cascaded scheme, a photon flux beyond ≈3 × 10 13 s -1 is generated at 22.3 eV, with 5 × 10 -5 conversion efficiency that surpasses similar harmonics directly driven by the fundamental by two orders-of-magnitude. The enhancement arises from both wavelength scaling of the atomic dipole and improved spatio-temporal phase matching, confirmed by simulations. Finally, spectral isolation of a single 72-meV-wide harmonic renders this bright, 50-kHz extreme-ultraviolet source a powerful tool for ultrafast photoemission, nanoscale imaging and other applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

NASA NTRS2000

Far Ultraviolet Imaging from the Image Spacecraft: Wideband FUV Imaging - 2

The Far Ultraviolet Wideband Imaging Camera (WIC) complements the magnetospheric images taken by the IMAGE satellite instruments with simultaneous global maps of the terrestrial aurora. Thus, a primary requirement of WIC is to image the total intensity of the aurora in wavelength regions most representative of the aurora] source and least contaminated by dayglow, have sufficient field of view to cover the entire polar region from spacecraft apogee and have resolution that is Sufficient to resolve auroras on a scale of 1 to 2 latitude degrees, The instrument is sensitive in the spectral region from 140- 190 nm. The WIC is mounted on the rotating, IMAGE spacecraft viewing radially outward and has a field of view of 17 deg in the direction parallel to the spacecraft spin axis. Its field of view is 30 deg in the direction perpendicular to the spin axis, although only a 17 deg x 17 deg image of the Earth is recorded. The optics was an all-reflective, inverted Cassegrain Burch camera using concentric optics with a small convex primary and a large concave secondary mirror. The mirrors were coated by a special multi-layer coating, which has low reflectivity in the visible and near UV region, The detector consists of a MCP-Intensified CCD. The MCP is curved to accommodate the focal surface of the concentric optics. Tile phosphor of the image intensifier is deposited on a concave fiberoptic window, which is then Coupled to the CCD with a fiberoptic taper. The camera head operates in a fast frame transfer mode with the CCD being read approximately 30 full frames (512 by 256 pixel) per second with an exposure time of 0.033 s. The image motion (file to the satellite spin is minimal during such a short exposure. Each image is electronically distortion corrected using the look up table scheme. An offset is added to each memory address that is proportional to the image shift due to satellite rotation, and the charge signal is digitally summed in memory. On orbit, approximately 300 frames will be added to produce one WIC image in memory. The advantage of the electronic motion compensation and distortion correction is that it is extremely flexible, permitting several kinds of corrections including motions parallel and perpendicular to the predicted axis of rotation. File instrument was calibrated by applying ultraviolet light through a vacuum monochromator and measuring the absolute responsivity of the instrument. To obtain the data for the distortion look up table the camera was turned through various angles and the input angles corresponding to a pixel matrix were recorded. It was found that the spectral response peaked at 150 nm and fell off in either direction. The equivalent aperture of the camera, including mirror reflectivities and effective photocathode quantum efficiency, is about 0.04 sq cm. Thus, a 100 Rayleigh LBH aurora is expected to produce 23 equivalent counts per pixel per 10 s exposure at the peak of instrument response.

Mende, S. B.↗

NASA NTRS2009

Lossless Astronomical Image Compression and the Effects of Random Noise

In this paper we compare a variety of modern image compression methods on a large sample of astronomical images. We begin by demonstrating from first principles how the amount of noise in the image pixel values sets a theoretical upper limit on the lossless compression ratio of the image. We derive simple procedures for measuring the amount of noise in an image and for quantitatively predicting how much compression will be possible. We then compare the traditional technique of using the GZIP utility to externally compress the image, with a newer technique of dividing the image into tiles, and then compressing and storing each tile in a FITS binary table structure. This tiled-image compression technique offers a choice of other compression algorithms besides GZIP, some of which are much better suited to compressing astronomical images. Our tests on a large sample of images show that the Rice algorithm provides the best combination of speed and compression efficiency. In particular, Rice typically produces 1.5 times greater compression and provides much faster compression speed than GZIP. Floating point images generally contain too much noise to be effectively compressed with any lossless algorithm. We have developed a compression technique which discards some of the useless noise bits by quantizing the pixel values as scaled integers. The integer images can then be compressed by a factor of 4 or more. Our image compression and uncompression utilities (called fpack and funpack) that were used in this study are publicly available from the HEASARC web site.Users may run these stand-alone programs to compress and uncompress their own images.

Pence, William↗

NASA NTRS2021

An Efficient and Accurate Algorithm for Computing Grid-Averaged Solar Fluxes for Horizontally Inhomogeneous Clouds

A computationally efficient method is presented to account for the horizontal cloud inhomogeneity by using a radiatively equivalent plane parallel homogeneous (PPH) cloud. The algorithm can accurately match the calculations of the reference (rPPH) independent column approximation (ICA) results, but use only the same computational time required for a single plane parallel computation. The effective optical depth of this synthetic sPPH cloud is derived by exactly matching the direct transmission to that of the inhomogeneous ICA cloud. The ffective9 scattering asymmetry factor is found from a pre-calculated albedo inverse look-up-table that is allowed to vary over the range from -1.0 to 1.0. In the special cases of conservative scattering and total absorption, the synthetic method is exactly equivalent to the ICA, with only a small bias (about 0.2% in flux) relative to ICA due to imperfect interpolation in using the look-up tables. In principle, the ICA albedo can be approximated accurately regardless of cloud inhomogeneity. For a more complete comparison, the broadband shortwave albedo and transmission calculated from the synthetic sPPH cloud and averaged over all incident directions, have the RMS biases of 0.26% and 0.76%, respectively, for inhomogeneous clouds over a wide variation of particle size. The advantages of the synthetic PPH method are that (1) it is not required that all the cloud subcolumns have uniform microphysical characteristic, (2) it is applicable to any 1D radiative transfer scheme, and (3) it can handle arbitrary cloud optical depth distributions and an arbitrary number of cloud subcolumns with uniform computational efficiency.

cloud inhomogeneity↗

NASA NTRS2022

Automating Surface Attitude Positioning and Pointing Operations for Mars 2020

The Surface Attitude Positioning and Pointing (SAPP) subsystem of the Mars Perseverance rover keeps track of the rover’s position and attitude on the surface of Mars. The SAPP Downlink Engineering Operations team members receive data from the rover on a daily basis. They must interpret the data to make sure the rover is staying safe and to support uplink planning. The SAPP team keeps track of the error growth in the rover’s attitude estimate due to noise in the Rover Inertial Measurement Unit’s (RIMU) gyroscopes used to propagate that attitude estimate whenever the rover is moving. Whenever this error grows to a particular threshold, SAPP is responsible for updating the onboard attitude knowledge using the RIMU’s accelerometers to estimate rover roll and pitch and sun imaging to estimate rover yaw, thereby reducing this attitude estimation error. Accurate attitude estimation is required so that the rover can successfully point its High Gain Antenna (HGA) to receive information from Earth and as a backup to the Mars orbiters used for sending data from the rover to Earth, point instruments on its Remote Sensing Mast (RSM), and support safe movement and placement of instruments by the rover’s ARM relative to the Martian surface. The Mars 2020 Engineering Operations team has been working to increase the operational efficiency of the mission and eventually move to a five-hour timeline for daily operations. In pursuit of this goal, the SAPP Engineering Operations team has automated their downlink process by developing a centralized Jupyter notebook to analyze the data received daily from the rover. The SAPP downlink Jupyter notebook automatically collects the data relevant to the SAPP subsystem and visualizes this information in plots and tables that can be easily read by downlink operators to aid them in assessing the status of the subsystem. Various Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have been incorporated into the downlink daily notebook to automate the collection and posting of data, such as gathering and posting data products to the cloud. The SAPP team has also developed a SAPP downlink software library that includes functions to aid the notebook in processing data. In addition to assessing the SAPP subsystem on a daily basis, operators need to assess the long-term trending behavior of the subsystem over time. An automated trending process has been developed to collect information from the daily notebooks in order to plot and analyze that data in a centralized place. These daily and trending processes have expedited the SAPP downlink assessment and laid the groundwork to completely automate the SAPP downlink process so that SAPP operators are unnecessary unless something unexpected occurs. This paper will provide an overview of the functions that the SAPP subsystem carries out on a daily basis, and will then dive into the automations that have been developed for daily and trending downlink assessment. An assessment of the downlink efficiency will be provided, along with a summary of lessons learned and work to go. Finally, the authors will discuss how these types of automated spacecraft health assessments could be more broadly used within mission operations.

Zarifian, Anais↗

DOE OSTI2013

Critical Configuration and Physics Measurements for Beryllium Reflected Assemblies of U(93.15)O 2 Fuel Rods (1.506-cm Pitch)

Cadmium ratios were measured with enriched uranium metal foils at various locations in the assembly with the fuel tube at the 1.506-cm spacing. They are described in the following subsections. The experiment configuration was the same as the first critical configuration described in HEU-COMP-FAST-004 (Case 1). The experimenter placed 0.75-cm-diameter × 0.010-cm-thick 93.15%-235U-enriched uranium metal foils with and without 0.051-cm-thick cadmium covers at various locations in the core and top reflector. One part of the cadmium cover was cupshape and contained the uranium foil. The other part was a lid that fit over the exposed side of the foil when it was in the cup shaped section of the cover. As can be seen in the logbook, two runs were required to obtain all the measurements necessary for the cadmium ratio. The bare foil measurements within the top reflector were run first as part of the axial foil activation measurements. The results of this run are used for both the axial activation results and the cadmium ratios. Cadmium covered foils were then placed at the same location through the top reflector in a different run. Three pairs of bare and cadmium covered foils were also placed through the core tank. One pair was placed at the axial center of a fuel tube 11.35 cm from the center of the core. Two pairs of foils were placed on top of fuel tubes 3.02 and 12.06 cm from the center of the core. The activation of the uranium metal foils was measured after removal from the assembly using two lead shielded NaI scintillation detectors as follows. The NaI scintillators were carefully matched and had detection efficiencies for counting delayed-fission-product gamma rays with energies above 250 KeV within 5%. In all foil activation measurements, one foil at a specific location was used as a normalizing foil to remove the effects of the decay of fission products during the counting measurements with the NaI detectors. The normalization foil was placed on one NaI scintillator and the other foil on the other NaI detector and the activities measured simultaneously. The activation of a particular foil was compared to that of the normalization foil by dividing the count rate for each foil by that of the normalization foil. To correct for the differing efficiencies of the two NaI detectors, the normalization foil was counted in Detector 1 simultaneously with the foil at position x in Detector 2, and then the normalization foil was counted simultaneously in Detector 2 with the foil from position x in Counter 1. The activity of the foil from position x was divided by the activity of the normalization foil counted simultaneously. This resulted in obtaining two values of the ratio that were then averaged. This procedure essentially removed the effect of the differing efficiencies of the two NaI detectors. Differing efficiencies of 10% resulted in errors in the ratios measured to less than 1%. The background counting rates obatined with the foils used for the measurements on the NaI detectors before their irradiation measurement were subtracted from all count rates. The results of the cadmium ratio measurements are given in Table 1.3-1 and Figure 1.3-1. “No correction has been made for self shielding in the foils” (Reference 3).

1.506-cm pitch↗

DOE OSTI2014

Critical Configuration and Physics Measurements for Beryllium Reflected Assemblies of U(93.15)O 2 Fuel Rods (1.506-cm Pitch and 7-Tube Clusters)

Cadmium ratios were measured with enriched uranium metal foils at various locations in the assembly with the fuel tube at the 1.506-cm spacing. They are described in the following subsections. The experiment configuration was the same as the first critical configuration described in HEU-COMP-FAST-004 (Case 1). The experimenter placed 0.75-cm-diameter × 0.010-cm-thick 93.15%-235U-enriched uranium metal foils with and without 0.051-cm-thick cadmium covers at various locations in the core and top reflector. One part of the cadmium cover was cupshape and contained the uranium foil. The other part was a lid that fit over the exposed side of the foil when it was in the cup shaped section of the cover. As can be seen in the logbook, two runs were required to obtain all the measurements necessary for the cadmium ratio. The bare foil measurements within the top reflector were run first as part of the axial foil activation measurements. The results of this run are used for both the axial activation results and the cadmium ratios. Cadmium covered foils were then placed at the same location through the top reflector in a different run. Three pairs of bare and cadmium covered foils were also placed through the core tank. One pair was placed at the axial center of a fuel tube 11.35 cm from the center of the core. Two pairs of foils were placed on top of fuel tubes 3.02 and 12.06 cm from the center of the core. The activation of the uranium metal foils was measured after removal from the assembly using two lead shielded NaI scintillation detectors as follows. The NaI scintillators were carefully matched and had detection efficiencies for counting delayed-fission-product gamma rays with energies above 250 KeV within 5%. In all foil activation measurements, one foil at a specific location was used as a normalizing foil to remove the effects of the decay of fission products during the counting measurements with the NaI detectors. The normalization foil was placed on one NaI scintillator and the other foil on the other NaI detector and the activities measured simultaneously. The activation of a particular foil was compared to that of the normalization foil by dividing the count rate for each foil by that of the normalization foil. To correct for the differing efficiencies of the two NaI detectors, the normalization foil was counted in Detector 1 simultaneously with the foil at position x in Detector 2, and then the normalization foil was counted simultaneously in Detector 2 with the foil from position x in Counter 1. The activity of the foil from position x was divided by the activity of the normalization foil counted simultaneously. This resulted in obtaining two values of the ratio that were then averaged. This procedure essentially removed the effect of the differing efficiencies of the two NaI detectors. Differing efficiencies of 10% resulted in errors in the ratios measured to less than 1%. The background counting rates obatined with the foils used for the measurements on the NaI detectors before their irradiation measurement were subtracted from all count rates. The results of the cadmium ratio measurements are given in Table 1.3-1 and Figure 1.3-1. “No correction has been made for self shielding in the foils” (Reference 3).

reactivity worth measurements↗

DOE OSTI2015

Critical Configuration and Physics Measurements for Beryllium Reflected Assemblies of U(93.15) O₂ Fuel Rods (1.506-cm Pitch and 7-Tube Clusters) (Rev. 2)

Cadmium ratios were measured with enriched uranium metal foils at various locations in the assembly with the fuel tube at the 1.506-cm spacing. They are described in the following subsections. The experiment configuration was the same as the first critical configuration described in HEU-COMP-FAST-004 (Case 1). The experimenter placed 0.75-cm-diameter × 0.010-cm-thick 93.15%-235U-enriched uranium metal foils with and without 0.051-cm-thick cadmium covers at various locations in the core and top reflector. One part of the cadmium cover was cupshape and contained the uranium foil. The other part was a lid that fit over the exposed side of the foil when it was in the cup shaped section of the cover. As can be seen in the logbook, two runs were required to obtain all the measurements necessary for the cadmium ratio. The bare foil measurements within the top reflector were run first as part of the axial foil activation measurements. The results of this run are used for both the axial activation results and the cadmium ratios. Cadmium covered foils were then placed at the same location through the top reflector in a different run. Three pairs of bare and cadmium covered foils were also placed through the core tank. One pair was placed at the axial center of a fuel tube 11.35 cm from the center of the core. Two pairs of foils were placed on top of fuel tubes 3.02 and 12.06 cm from the center of the core. The activation of the uranium metal foils was measured after removal from the assembly using two lead shielded NaI scintillation detectors as follows. The NaI scintillators were carefully matched and had detection efficiencies for counting delayed-fission-product gamma rays with energies above 250 KeV within 5%. In all foil activation measurements, one foil at a specific location was used as a normalizing foil to remove the effects of the decay of fission products during the counting measurements with the NaI detectors. The normalization foil was placed on one NaI scintillator and the other foil on the other NaI detector and the activities measured simultaneously. The activation of a particular foil was compared to that of the normalization foil by dividing the count rate for each foil by that of the normalization foil. To correct for the differing efficiencies of the two NaI detectors, the normalization foil was counted in Detector 1 simultaneously with the foil at position x in Detector 2, and then the normalization foil was counted simultaneously in Detector 2 with the foil from position x in Counter 1. The activity of the foil from position x was divided by the activity of the normalization foil counted simultaneously. This resulted in obtaining two values of the ratio that were then averaged. This procedure essentially removed the effect of the differing efficiencies of the two NaI detectors. Differing efficiencies of 10% resulted in errors in the ratios measured to less than 1%. The background counting rates obatined with the foils used for the measurements on the NaI detectors before their irradiation measurement were subtracted from all count rates. The results of the cadmium ratio measurements are given in Table 1.3-1 and Figure 1.3-1. “No correction has been made for self shielding in the foils” (Reference 3).

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

NASA NTRS1983

An iterative approach to region growing using associative memories

Region growing, often given as a classical example of the recursive control structures used in image processing which are often awkward to implement in hardware where the intent is the segmentation of an image at raster scan rates, is addressed in light of the postulate that any computation which can be performed recursively can be performed easily and efficiently by iteration coupled with association. Attention is given to an algorithm and hardware structure able to perform region labeling iteratively at scan rates. Every pixel is individually labeled with an identifier which signifies the region to which it belongs. Difficulties otherwise requiring recursion are handled by maintaining an equivalence table in hardware transparent to the computer, which reads the labeled pixels. A simulation of the associative memory has demonstrated its effectiveness.

Snyder, W. E.↗