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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Annotated Bibliography of Literature Addressing the Low-Income Energy Affordability in the United States

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), with support from the Georgia Institute of Technology, conducted a “meta review” of low-income energy affordability in the United States. The first step of that review involved the creation of an annotated bibliography of literature focused on low-income household energy affordability, needs, and gaps. This bibliography includes abstracts of the published literature discussed in the meta review. This annotated bibliography describes the relatively current literature (published from 2010 to 2019) that examines low-income energy affordability in the United States. As an initial search criterion, literature was compiled from journal publications archived in Web of Science and Scopus databases.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Advanced Gas Turbine and sCO 2 Combined Cycle Power System (Final Report)

The team of Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Hanwha Power Systems Americas (HPSA), and Solar Turbines Incorporated (Solar) has worked to develop a modular, highly efficient combined-cycle power system consisting of a supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO 2 )-based waste-heat recovery system (WHRS) coupled to a Solar Titan 130 gas turbine (GT). During Phase 1 of the project, the project team used advanced thermodynamic cycle and techno-economic modeling to find an optimal sCO 2 WHRS bottoming cycle and machinery configuration for a Solar Titan 130. In addition to this, a conceptual design of the machinery and overall system layout was created and technology gaps were identified.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Bat Impact Minimization Technology: An Improved Bat Deterrent for the Full Swept Rotor Area of Any Wind Turbine

The growth in the number of wind turbine generators has led to a significant number of fatal interactions with bat species. The need to reduce the number of bat fatalities while minimizing power losses is the greatest conservation challenge for wind energy development in parts of the country, according to the American Wind Wildlife Institute. Technological solutions that can also allow turbines to operate normally would generate the maximum electricity and avoid financial losses. Bats use echolocation to perceive their surroundings by listening to features of echoes from their high frequency vocal signals reflecting from targets. In this project, Frontier Wind built on previous research demonstrating that ultrasonic noise can mask echolocation and act as a repellent or deterrent to bat flight activity. Whereas the initial study only broadcast ultrasonic transmissions from the center of the turbine, the Strike Free™ system developed for this project extended the ultrasonic coverage to the entire area swept by the turbine blades. Frontier Wind designed the system components and their integration and then tested them in the lab and in the field at Pattern Energy’s Hatchet Ridge Wind Facility near Redding, California. The researchers used an acoustic model to determine the optimal configuration of transmitters along the blades to provide sound transmission coverage across the turbine rotor swept area volume. The custom ultrasonic transmitters were designed specifically for the echolocation frequencies of the four main bat species that have been shown to have died at Hatchet Ridge, although the transmitters can be customized for different frequencies as needed in other geographic locations. The Strike Free™ system shows promise for reducing bat fatalities, and the path to commercialization requires further testing to validate and optimize performance in the field.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

w19_OMEC Scientific Highlight [Slides]

Scientific Achievement: Revealed the effect of graphite substrate on H binding / hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activity of organic molecular electrocatalysts (OMECs); and demonstrated the effect of molecular modification on calculated HER activity descriptor. Significance and Impact: Understanding of HER processes is important for discovering low-cost OMECs for hydrogen production and energy application; design of OMEC structures remains challenging due to the unexplored redox properties of organic molecules; and density functional theory (DFT) has been proposed to provide needed insights into HER activity for improved materials design. Research Details: DFT calculations on the binding energy of HER intermediates are used for predicting reduction potentials and and calculated H adsorption energy as activity descriptor; and LANL Institutional Computing (IC) resources are essential for successful project execution given the size of structures involved in modeling molecule-support interaction.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

Improving the Success of Underrepresented Populations in Computer and Computational Science Research with the CRA-W Women and URMD Grad Cohort Workshops

The Computing Research Association’s Committee on Widening Participation (CRA-WP) aims to increase the number of individual researchers from underrepresented groups in computing (UGC) (including women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities) who participate and succeed in computer science research at every stage of the research pipeline. Achieving these objectives requires that an increasing number of individuals from UGC start and progress to the next stage. The CRA-WP Grad Cohort Workshops are focused at the graduate level to maximize the likelihood participants will successfully complete their graduate degrees. Factors such as role models, skills, competence, confidence, mentoring, social support, and development of identity as a researcher help students to persist in graduate school, while factors such as sexism, racism, and dissatisfaction with their graduate program may cause them to leave. We, therefore, help first, second, and third year students build their skills, research strategies, and confidence; meet potential mentors from outside their institutions; develop connections with each other and with their research communities; and inform them about strategies for successful publishing, speaking, and advisor management strategies. By targeting early graduate students, we seek to help them stay in graduate school and in research.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Involute Working Group – Validation of CFD Turbulence Models for Steady-State Safety Analysis

There are three research reactors in the world having fuel plates curved as circle-involute (a spiral generated around a circle): The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) located in Tennessee, U.S.A. [ORNL, 2018]; The Laue-Langevin Institute (ILL) High Flux Reactor (RHF) located in Grenoble, France [ILL, 2018]; and, The Technical University of Munich (TUM) Research Neutron Source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II) located in Garching, Germany [TUM, 2018]. All three reactors are currently using Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU, 235U/U ≥ 20 wt. %) as fuel and all three are actively engaged in activities to convert to Low Enriched Uranium (LEU, 235U/U < 20 wt. %) fuel. More information on these reactors can be found in Section two. For various reasons, these reactors have expressed interest in using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools to perform their Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic (SSTH) safety calculations. Using CFD tools for SSTH analysis represents generally a significant departure from traditional methods and requires thorough verification and validation (V&V) to be accepted by regulators. This is why Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and the involute reactors formed an informal group to help each other in this endeavor. This so-called Involute Working Group (IWG) aims at supporting the qualification of CFD tools for SSTH safety calculations. Activities include benchmarking, code-to-code comparison, Verification and Validation (V&V) as well as technical support. More information on the IWG and the reasons why involute-plate reactors are interested in CFD can be found in Section three. The present study aims at testing three turbulence models commonly implemented in commercial software (namely K-Epsilon, K-Omega and Reynolds-Stress) and assessing their relevance for involute-plate reactor application. An experiment performed by Gambill and Bundy in 1961 was performed to measure heat transfer coefficients in conditions prototypic of the HFIR reactor [Gambill, 1961]. More details on this experiment are provided in Section four. Based on the information available, CFD models of this experiment have been created and the experimental results have been compared to the ones obtained with these CFD models. CFD models and the results of this comparison are provided in Section five.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2020

U.S. Department of Energy Free-Air CO 2 Enrichment Experiments: FACE Results, Lessons, and Legacy

In the 1970s, growing concern about potential long-range consequences of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels prompted the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to begin developing a CO 2 research program. The goal was to obtain the scientific information needed to reduce uncertainty and develop a knowledgebase for decision-making. At its start in 1980, this program had three components: the global carbon cycle, climate effects, and vegetation effects. The vegetation effects component recognized that increased atmospheric CO 2 could be a potential benefit to vegetation and crops because CO 2 is an essential resource for plant growth. In addition to increasing crop yield, program developers and researchers recognized that this fertilizer effect could also result in greater storage of fossil fuel CO 2 by forests. Initial experiments were small in scale and scope and focused on the photosynthesis, physiology, and water use of crop plants, but the focus shifted toward responses of plants in natural systems, as needed for connections to the global carbon cycle. Program research investigated CO 2 interactions with other environmental variables, emphasizing field research whenever possible and recognizing that exposure to elevated CO 2 concentrations under realistic field conditions should lead to better predictions of plant response. Whole-ecosystem field experiments were instituted in low-stature ecosystems, but experiments to address forest responses necessarily relied on tree seedlings or saplings in open-top chambers (OTCs) and not within intact forest ecosystems. The need for larger-scale, longer-duration experiments in each of the world’s six major biomes (tundra, boreal forest, temperate forest, tropical forest, grassland, and desert) became clear, and for these experiments, free-air CO 2 exposure facilities were necessary. This report summarizes the objectives and main results of DOE-sponsored experiments employing such facilities, along with the outcomes from research on ecosystem responses using field chambers (see Fig. ES.1, p. x). Additionally, this report highlights the many successes of DOE CO 2 enrichment studies and considers the lessons learned that can be used to guide future initiatives.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Production of Biocrude in an Advanced Photobioreactor-Based Biorefinery

Algenol Biotech, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Georgia Institute of Technology, Arizona State University, and Reliance Industries formed a team to advance the state of the art in algal biomass production and downstream processing technologies, with the end goal of a sustainable, economically viable biofuel intermediate (BFI, biocrude) product. The project included examination of high value co-product production as a market entry strategy and for enhancing the economics of a biorefinery for BFI production. The project targeted innovations in biology, operations, and engineering. The goals of the project were: BFI productivity greater than 4,000 gal-BFI/acre-yr on an annualized basis; energy efficient innovations in downstream operations resulting in an energy expenditure less than 10% of the BFI energy content and a carbon footprint reduction of more than 60% compared to fossil alternatives; and a comprehensive Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) that identifies limiting factors for commercial viability of a photobioreactor (PBR)-based biofuel product. The project achieved the overall objectives. Strain development efforts led to the identification of a strain (Cyanobacterium sp. AB1166) that, relative to the previous best strain (Cyanobacterium sp. AB1), exhibited a ~10% increase in productivity under commercially-relevant cultivation conditions and also resulted in cultures with a >50% reduction in viscosity such that harvesting efficiency was improved; these results represent achievement of key project milestones. Progress was also made at NREL in altering the biochemical composition of algal biomass to improve the yield of BFI produced via HTL. These strain enhancements coupled with improved outdoor cultivation practices, including semi-continuous operation, increased areal biomass productivity by nearly 80% over the established baseline productivity. The annualized productivity achieved (26.8 g/m2-d), paired with HTL conversion yields realized at NREL and RIL (38% ± 2% BFI), translates to 4,100 gal-BFI/acre-yr, exceeding the FY20 BETO goal of 3,700 gal-BFI/acre-yr. Significant progress was also demonstrated in large scale PBR-based production system design, operability, and cost reduction. A 24,000-L production module comprised of 240 interlinked PBRs was constructed and successfully operated outdoors for over one year in Fort Myers, Florida. Aided by a state-of-the-art productivity model, the productivities achieved convincingly demonstrated scalability of laboratory results determined at the mL to L scale to large-scale outdoor operations exceeding 20,000 L. The system was used to cultivate Arthrospira platensis (Spirulina), an industrially-relevant cyanobacterium and source for phycocyanin, an approved blue food colorant that Algenol is developing as a risk reduction strategy for future biofuel projects and as a potential business opportunity. A key project milestone to develop phycocyanin extraction and purification technologies was achieved ahead of schedule, and product samples received positive feedback from potential customers. The production and downstream operations data generated in this project were used to conduct and refine Techno-Economic and Life Cycle Assessments to provide research guidance for reducing the costs and environmental footprint of algal biofuel and co-product manufacturing plants. Several CO 2 supply scenarios for an algal biorefinery were identified as being capable of providing a large (>60%) reduction in carbon footprint in comparison to gasoline. The TEA assessments incorporated detailed comparisons of PBR versus open pond production systems, yielding a 3-fold higher areal productivity for PBRs and suggesting overall production cost parity for the two systems. The progress in this ABY2 project addressed many of the the barriers identified for the Advanced Algal Systems R&D Program and are directly relevant to achieving the established BETO goals associated with large scale biofuel production and cost reduction.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Advanced Simulation and Experiments of Strongly Coupled Geomechanics and Flow for Gas Hydrate Deposits: Validation and Field Application. Final Report

The objectives of the proposed research are (1) to investigate geomechanical responses induced by depressurization experimentally and numerically; (2) to enhance the current numerical simulation technology in order to simulate complex physically coupled processes by depressurization and (3) to perform in-depth numerical analyses of two selected potential production test sites: one based on the deposits observed at the Ulleung basin UBGH2-6 site; and the other based on well-characterized accumulations from the westend Prudhoe Bay. To these ends, the recipient will have the following specific objectives: 1). Information obtained from multi-scale experiments previously conducted at the recipient’s research partner (the Korean Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM)) that were designed to represent the most promising known Ulleung Basin gas hydrate deposit as drilled at site UBGH2-6 will be evaluated (Task 2). These findings will be further tested by new experimental studies at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and Texas A&M (TAMU) (Task 3) that are designed capture complex coupled physical processes between flow and geomechanics, such as sand production, capillarity, and formation of secondary hydrates. The findings of Tasks 2 and 3 will be used to further improve numerical codes. 2) Develop (in Tasks 4 through 6) an advanced coupled geomechanics and non-isothermal flow simulator (T+MAM) to account for large deformation and strong capillarity. This new code will be validated using data from the literature, from previous work by the project team, and with the results of the proposed experimental studies. The developed simulator will be applied to both Ulleung Basin and Prudhoe Bay sites, effectively addressing complex geomechanical and petrophysical changes induced by depressurization (e.g., frost-heave, strong capillarity, cryo-suction, induced fracturing, and dynamic permeability).

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2020

Event Definition for the Automated Detection of Nuclear Proliferation Activities

In FY2020, Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) in collaboration with the Discovery Analytics Center (DAC) at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VT) began developing a demonstration prototype system that uses multiple machine learning and data analytic methods on largescale open data sources to identify new, developing, or undeclared nuclear programs. One of the most challenging aspects of applying machine learning techniques to such a problem is the high likelihood of extremely sparse data from disparate sources. To overcome this challenge, the current work will use a strategic combination of supervised, semi-supervised, and unsupervised learning techniques to ingest and fuse data streams to make a forecast of nuclear activities in a targeted geospatial location. Identifying potential data sources and training supervised learning algorithms is dependent upon the development of a robust foundation of targeted event domains that fundamentally define the nuclear activities of interest. This report documents the definition of a hierarchical structure for both nuclear activity and event domains that will be used to guide the research team in development or use of existing semantic dictionaries that are instrumental to searching, parsing, and categorizing events for the forecasting system’s use.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Sequim Campus Master Plan

Based in Richland, Washington, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is one of ten U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) national laboratories. PNNL is DOE’s premier chemistry, earth sciences, and data analytics laboratory, delivering vital mission impacts in energy resiliency and national security. PNNL has 19 core capabilities, each a powerful combination of world-class staff, state-of-the- art equipment, and mission-ready facilities. These capabilities represent a collective set of skills and a body of world-leading scientific and engineering work that provides exceptional value and mission delivery to DOE, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and other federal agencies and industry through strategic partnership projects on a not-to-interfere basis. Currently operated by Battelle Memorial Institute, PNNL occupies more than 2.3 million gross square feet (GSF) of buildings and employs approximately 4,700 staff members. PNNL has implemented a rolling 10-year campus strategy, initiated in fiscal year 2013, designed to deliver the foundation for the multidisciplinary science and engineering expertise, equipment, instrumentation, facilities, and infrastructure required to continue providing exceptional value and mission delivery. This strategy is incorporated into PNNL’s annual Laboratory Plan, which serves as DOE-SC’s equivalent of the Five- Year Site Plan required by DOE Order 430.1C Chg. 1, Real Property Asset Management. The PNNL Sequim Campus is located in Clallam County, just outside of Sequim, Washington. PNNL Sequim builds upon a rich history of research related to marine and coastal resources, environmental chemistry, water resources modeling, ecotoxicology, biotechnology, and national security. Facilities at the PNNL Sequim Campus were designed to take advantage of two unique locational assets: the pristine coastal ocean water in Sequim Bay and the region’s exceptionally clean air. Research facilities on the waterfront are supplied with up to 200 gallons per minute (gpm) of seawater and/or groundwater that enables research on aquatic systems ranging from fully seawater to fresh water, with an onsite water treatment system that removes all biological and hazardous chemical residues prior to discharge. Multiple large seawater tanks outside the waterfront laboratories, along with a boat ramp, pier, and floating dock, enable lab-to-field research. The uplands facility takes advantage of the amazing air quality and is built and operated to enable ultratrace chemical/radiological analytical chemistry. This combination of capabilities is not available at any other marine laboratory in the nation.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

SCALE Code System

The SCALE Code System is a widely used modeling and simulation suite for nuclear safety analysis and design that is developed, maintained, tested, and managed by the Reactor and Nuclear Systems Division (RNSD) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). SCALE provides a comprehensive, verified and validated, user-friendly tool set for criticality safety, reactor and lattice physics, radiation shielding, spent fuel and radioactive source term characterization, and sensitivity and uncertainty analysis. Since 1980, regulators, licensees, and research institutions around the world have used SCALE for safety analysis and design. SCALE provides an integrated framework with dozens of computational modules, including three deterministic and three Monte Carlo radiation transport solvers that are selected based on the desired solution strategy. SCALE includes current nuclear data libraries and problem-dependent processing tools for continuous-energy (CE) and multigroup (MG) neutronics and coupled neutron-gamma calculations, as well as activation, depletion, and decay calculations. SCALE includes unique capabilities for automated variance reduction for shielding calculations, as well as sensitivity and uncertainty analysis. SCALE’s graphical user interfaces assist with accurate system modeling, visualization of nuclear data, and convenient access to desired results.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Filtration Performance Results: Sierra Peaks Material No. 4

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) assessed the filtration performance of materials from Sierra Peaks to identify alternatives which may perform similarly to materials used in FDA-approved N95 respirators. This work is meant to characterize the aerosol performance of materials to give Sierra Peaks information for them to determine if they elect to submit masks made using these materials for follow-on N95 certification testing at an accredited facility. The R&D testbed used is a large-scale filtration system designed to test commercial filter boxes. System modifications were performed to simulate, where possible, parameters defined by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for certification of filter materials for N95 respirators (NIOSH 2019). The system is a pull-through design. Air enters through a Laminar Flow Element (LFE) and the volumetric flow is measured based on the pressure drop across the LFE. Pressure is measured via a Pressure Transducer (PT). The air then passes through a High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter to purge the air of ambient airborne particulates. Test aerosol is injected into the flow shortly after and mixing is induced via a coarse mesh. The airflow is allowed to fully develop prior to arriving at the test section. The aerosol then passes through the test material mounted in a box in the test section. Pressure drop across the test article is measured and aerosol sampling probes measure the aerosol concentrations upstream and downstream of the sample. The air passes through a second HEPA filter prior to being exhausted to ambient by a blower. A Topas aerosol generator is used to produce the test aerosol from Sodium Chloride (NaC1) dissolved in deionized (DI) water. Generated aerosol passes through a heated mixing chamber and a desiccant dryer to produce nanosized solid-state particulates. A dilution loop allows for the aerosol concentration to be regulated. The aerosol sampling probes upstream and downstream of the test section are aligned with the flow path. These are ducted directly to the aerosol sizing and counting instruments. A Laser Aerosol Spectrometer (LAS) was used for data collection in the original configuration of the system and was also used for initial testing in this project. Because the lower measurement range for the LAS is 90 nanometers (nm), the LAS was switched out for a more complicated Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS) spectrometer system. The SMPS is comprised of an Electrostatic Classifier (EC), Differential Mobility Analyzer (DMA), and a Condensation Particle Counter (CPC). This enabled data collection at 75 nm, the particle size called out in the NIOSH guidelines.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

LANL Critical Benchmark Comparison Study and Subsequent Revision

As part of an international collaboration within the DOE Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP), LANL is involved in a comparison study to quantify differences in k-effective results from neutron transport simulations of critical benchmark experiments. The DOE NCSP Mission and Vision details the activity in which the French Institut De Radioprotection et De Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN) leads the study with LANL and in conjunction with ORNL and LLNL to compare results of various neutron transport codes and nuclear data libraries to compute k-effective for ICSBEP benchmarks held in common by the entities. This report documents results obtained through partial completion of the overall effort with a focus on the changes made to LANL benchmarks modeled with MCNP6 using ENDF/B-VII.1 nuclear data that appeared to have discrepant results when compared with results of other codes. The feedback received through participation in the comparison collaboration has prompted an effort to review particular input files for benchmarks and revise when necessary. This report documents the results of review and revision of specific benchmarks highlighted as possibly discrepant in the comparison study. In addition, this effort prompted a new collaboration between LANL XCP and NCS Divisions in the development of a shared review/revision procedure and use of a new benchmark repository.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

TURBO: Terabits/s Using Reconfigurable Bandwidth Optics (Final Report)

Large scale, big science applications are generating petabytes of data that need to be shared among multiple locations. Moving a petabyte of data at 100 Gb/s takes 22 hours. Reducing this to single digit hours or below is clearly attractive and with future applications anticipating exabyte scale transfers, multi-terabit per second capacities are needed. This scale of capacity is available using optical systems. Core optical systems have aggregate per fiber capacities on the order of 10 Tb/s and more than 100 Tb/s system experiments have been realized in the lab. But large optical capacities are not just reserved for the core as similar system capacities are available in metro networks right up to the enterprise, campus, or data center. In general, the same technology is used today in the metro area as in the long-haul networks—reconfigurable optical add drop multiplexing (ROADM) node-based wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems. Data centers already support massive internal capacities on the scale of 100’s of Tb/s. As new photonic integrated technologies mature, for example through initiatives such as the Integrated Photonics Innovative Manufacturing Institute (IP-IMI), the cost of optical interfaces is expected to decrease, and higher capacity and higher performance interfaces will become more affordable. This set of circumstances creates the potential that Tb/s capacities will be available at the enterprise and campus level to support large scale science network applications.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Fundamental Physics of Ferroelectrics 2019

The workshop “Fundamental Physics of Ferroelectrics 2019” took place in January 2019 at USF and hosted around 80 participants (from both US and overseas) 32 of whom were early career professionals (PostDocs and graduate students). This was a 2.5 day workshop with 8 invited presentations, 39 oral presentations, and 27 posters. It brought together experts in the area of ferroelectrics and related materials and allowed for interactions, collaborations and exchange of ideas and progress. The invited speakers were Jorge Iniguez (University of Luxembourg), Manila Songvilay (University of Edinburgh), James Scott (St. Andrews), David Singh (University of Missouri), Philippe Ghosez (Université de Liège), Marin Alexe (University of Warwick), Takeshi Egami (University of Tennessee), Sergey Vakhrushev (Ioffe Physical Technical Institute), and Karin Rabe (Rutgers University). The DOE funding was used (i) to provide awards for junior participants (graduate students and PostDocs): best oral presentations (1st, 2nd and 3rd places) and best poster presentations (1st, 2nd and 3rd places). First places in both categories $\$ $300, second places in both categories $\$ $250 and third places in both categories $\$ $200. Information about the awardees available at the conference website.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Monitoring Potential Transport of Radioactive Contaminants in Shallow Ephemeral Channels: FY2019

Desert Research Institute (DRI) conducted a field assessment of the potential for contaminated soil to be transported from the Smoky Site Contamination Area (CA) because of storm runoff. This activity supported U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Management Nevada Program (EM NV) efforts to establish post-closure monitoring plans for the Smoky Site Soils Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 550. The work was intended to confirm the likely mechanism of transport and determine the meteorological conditions that might cause the movement of contaminated soils, as well as determine the particle size fraction most closely associated with transported radionuclide-contaminated soils. These data will facilitate the design of the appropriate post-closure monitoring program. In 2011, DRI installed a meteorological monitoring station on the west side of the Smoky Site CA and a hydrologic (runoff) monitoring station within the CA, near the east side. The meteorological station collected air temperature, wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, precipitation, solar radiation, barometric pressure, soil temperature, and soil water content data. The maximum, minimum, and average or total values (as appropriate) for each of these parameters were recorded for each 10-minute interval. The maximum, minimum, and average water depth in the flume installed at the hydrologic station were also recorded for each 10-minute interval. This report presents the data collected from these stations during fiscal year (FY) 2019. During the FY2019 reporting period, the warmest months were June, July, and August and the coldest were December and February. The highest monthly solar radiation (i.e., sunshine) values were recorded in June, July, and August, whereas December through February had the lowest solar radiation values. Monthly mean wind speeds were highest in the spring (April) and early summer (June). Winds were predominantly from the north, except in February, July, August, and September when winds were mostly from the west. The monthly average relative humidity ranged from 17 percent to approximately 60 percent. Humidity was lowest in the summer and highest in the winter. Monthly total precipitation ranged from 0.0 during August and September to 2.22 inches (in) (56.39 millimeters [mm]) in February. Total precipitation for FY2019 was 7.83 in (198.88 mm). During the reporting period, a single, nonzero, flow event was recorded at the flume. This occurred over two days between March 6 and 7, 2019, in response to 1.16 in (29.46 mm) of precipitation falling within 9.3 hours on March 6, 2019. This event produced a peak water depth of 0.39 in (0.99 centimeters [cm]) in the flume, and runoff was measured for approximately 23.5 hours. However, the maximum recorded flow depth was less than the limit for flow discharge and velocity that can be calculated for the six-inch (15 cm) throat of a Parshall flume. The runoff event produced insufficient flow velocities through the natural channel to cause local erosion and transport of bedload materials. No bedload samples were collected for radiological analysis. Observing meteorological and environmental conditions that lead to storm runoff will help identify the parameters and threshold conditions that should be incorporated into post-closure monitoring plans for this and similar Soils CAU sites. Routine monitoring of meteorological and hydrologic parameters at the Smoky Site CA has been discontinued at the request of EM NV, effective at the conclusion of FY2019. Environmental data acquisition was completed and the meteorological and runoff monitoring stations were removed from the Smoky Site on October 15, 2019.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗