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At least 145 records · Page 8
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Abstract for CRADA among National Energy Technology Laboratory, Research Triangle Institute, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory (AGMT-0921)

Through the Carbon Capture Simulation for Industry Impact (CCSI 2 ) project, the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) (herein collectively “the CCSI 2 team”) will collaborate through a CRADA with the Research Triangle Institute (RTI). This collaboration will develop a modeling framework of RTI’s Non-Aqueous Solvent (NAS) process using physical and thermodynamic data and models previously developed by RTI. RTI will provide existing models and data on its NAS system to inform the model construction effort by the CCSI 2 team.

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

Notification of Operational Scope Change for the FTWC Venting Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)

This letter is intended to provide you an update on the scope of work for the venting of the Flanged Tritium Waste Containers (FTWCs) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Technical Area (TA-) 54. This project was described in the Application for Pre-Construction Approval 1 ("the Application") that was approved by EPA Region 6 on May 22, 2019. As operational planning for this project has been finalized, the scope of work described in the Application has slightly changed. The project has now determined that each FTWC may be vented multiple times, and these venting activities may take place at more than one location. The original application only discussed a single venting operation for each FTWC at a single location, TA-54. However, the radionuclide inventory and expected air releases remain bounded by the values described in the Application.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2020

Los Alamos National Laboratory Meteorology Monitoring Program: 2019 Data Completeness (Quality Report)

This report summarizes data completeness by tower and by instrument for 2019 and compares that data with the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the ANSI/ANS-3.11-2015 standard. This report is designed to make data users aware of data completeness and any data quality issues. LANL meteorology monitoring goals include 95% completeness for all measurements. The ANS 2015 standard requires 90% completeness for all measurements. This report documents instrument/tower issues as they impact data completeness.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Long-Term Monitoring & Stewardship at Los Alamos National Laboratory [Slides]

Development and implementation of the Institutional Control Evaluation Project will include: Evaluate institutional surface water controls and infrastructure installed by LANL. Implement pilot project in the Los Alamos Canyon Watershed Spring, 2020. Initial evaluations will include canyon bottom controls with plan to expand program as funding allows. This will be a building block for successful Long-Term Monitoring and Stewardship (LTM&S) Program.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Small Mammal Prey Study for the Mexican Spotted Owl at Two Locations at Los Alamos National Laboratory

In New Mexico, Mexican spotted owls (Strix occidentalis lucida) are typically found in rocky canyons consisting of mixed-conifer forests that have experienced minimal human disturbance. At Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Mexican spotted owls have been found breeding and foraging in habitats consistent with their known biology, but face the impact of human encroachment in the surrounding upland habitat. Little is known about the prey base present within the Laboratory’s vast forests. In anticipation of expanding human development in proximity to known occupied owl habitat, the goal of our study was to evaluate the small mammal prey base available to Mexican spotted owls at the Laboratory and to assess prey availability, diversity and composition. We sampled two study plots within the Laboratory’s forests for small mammals in 2021. Study plots were situated in conifer, deciduous, mixed conifer-deciduous and mixed oak. Our small mammal trapping efforts and SCR modeling revealed site-specific differences in prey base diversity, abundance and density between the unoccupied Pajarito Canyon and nearby occupied Mortandad Canyon site. These results highlight how managing tracts of land for small mammal prey base may overlap with goals set forth by researchers for Mexican spotted owl habitat needs. We recommend further trapping efforts to better understand prey availability in occupied and unoccupied sites at LANL as well as further investigation of prey selection through the dissection of pellets found in the areas surrounding known nesting locations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Mean Time to Failure Analysis for the Los Alamos National Laboratory Weapons Engineering Tritium Facility Tritium Containment Vessels

The Weapons Engineering Tritium Facility (WETF) is a Hazard Category 2 nonreactor nuclear facility located in Technical Area 16 (TA-16) of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Tritium related research, development, and processing in support of stockpile stewardship program activities is conducted at WETF. Within WETF, various devices can be used to contain tritium and certain devices are designated as Tritium Containment Vessels (TCVs). Several different device types are identified as TCVs within WETF such as LP-50s and AL-M1s. Historically, a threshold tritium mass value has been used as the mechanism for designating a device as a TCV. When the tritium content of the device was below the tritium mass threshold it was not considered to be a TCV in the formal context. When the tritium content was above the administrative threshold, the device was considered to be a TCV. An upper tritium mass limit was also established for TCVs.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Alternate Analysis of an In Vitro Solubility Study on the Lung Dissolution Rate of 238PuO2 Material Involved in the 2020 Incident at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Here this work presents an alternate analysis of an in vitro solubility study on the lung dissolution rate of 238 PuO 2 material involved in a recent inhalation incident at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The original dataset used in this work was retrieved from a recently published report. The present work shows an analysis of the same dataset by modeling the dissolution in separate time intervals rather than modeling the cumulative dissolution.

238Pu↗
DOE OSTI2021

Wetland Delineation Report for Middle Mortandad Mesa Adjacent to Technical Area 55 at Los Alamos National Laboratory

This report provides the results of a wetland delineation conducted to support operational logistics for construction of a high-pressure water line that is planned to occur near a wetland at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The wetland reach is on the mesa edge in Technical Area (TA)-55 above the Mortandad Canyon watershed. This area has not been previously delineated; however, it drains to a canyon bottom where LANL updated a delineation in 2017 for the wetland adjacent to Technical Areas (TAs) 25, 48, and 55.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

An Expanded Set of Los Alamos OPLIB Tables in MESA: Type-1 Rosseland-mean Opacities and Solar Models

Abstract We present a set of 1194 Type-1 Rosseland-mean opacity tables for four different metallicity mixtures. These new Los Alamos OPLIB atomic radiative opacity tables are an order of magnitude larger in number than any previous opacity table release, and span regimes where previous opacity tables have not existed. For example, the new set of opacity tables expands the metallicity range to Z = 10 −6 to Z = 0.2, which allows improved accuracy of opacities at low and high metallicity, increases the table density in the metallicity range Z = 10 −4 to Z = 0.1 to enhance the accuracy of opacities drawn from interpolations across neighboring metallicities, and adds entries for hydrogen mass fractions between X = 0 and X = 0.1 including X = 10 −2 , 10 −3 , 10 −4 , 10 −5 , 10 −6 that can improve stellar models of hydrogen deficient stars. We implement these new OPLIB radiative opacity tables in MESA and find that calibrated solar models agree broadly with previously published helioseismic and solar neutrino results. We find differences between using the new 1194 OPLIB opacity tables and the 126 OPAL opacity tables range from ≈20% to 80% across individual chemical mixtures, up to ≈8% and ≈15% at the bottom and top of the solar convection zone respectively, and ≈7% in the solar core. We also find differences between standard solar models using different opacity table sources that are on par with altering the initial abundance mixture. We conclude that this new, open-access set of OPLIB opacity tables does not solve the solar modeling problem, and suggest the investigation of physical mechanisms other than the atomic radiative opacity.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Evaluation of Building 23-702, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory H-8 Foil Handling Building, Mercury, Area 23, Nevada National Security Site, Nye County, Nevada

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Field Office (NNSA/NFO) plans to demolish Building 23-702, the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) H-8 Foil Handling Building (Nevada State Historic Preservation Office [SHPO] Resource No. B15278) at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) in Nye County, Nevada. The NNSA/NFO is implementing a long-term project to modernize the town of Mercury for future mission needs. The project is considered an undertaking subject to review under Title 54 of United States Code (USC) § 306108, commonly known as Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, Title 54 USC § 300101, et seq., and its implementing regulations, Title 36 of the Code of Federal Regulations (36 CFR) Part 800. In 2018, Desert Research Institute (DRI) completed an architectural survey of the town of Mercury. This effort resulted in the identification, recordation, and evaluation of the Mercury Historic District (MHD, SHPO Resource No. D230), including the identification of its contributing elements (Reno et al. 2018). The MHD was recommended eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP, National Register) under the Secretary of the Interior’s (SOI) Significance Criteria A and C, as defined in 36 CFR Part 60.4, as a significant concentration of buildings and structures with a direct and important association with Cold War-era nuclear testing from 1951 through 1992. As part of the modernization program for Mercury, the NNSA/NFO and the SHPO executed the 2018 Programmatic Agreement Between the National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Field Office and the Nevada State Historic Preservation Officer Regarding Modernization and Operational Maintenance of the Nevada National Security Site, at Mercury in Nye County, Nevada (Mercury PA). The Mercury PA includes streamlined Section 106 procedures for undertakings in the MHD based on contributing element categories. Building 23-702 is identified in Appendix C of the Mercury PA as a Category I contributing element, indicating that it might be individually eligible for the NRHP. It is a historic property for the purposes of Section 106 compliance and subject to the stipulations of the Mercury PA. Per Stipulation VI of the Mercury PA, when the Area of Potential Effect (APE) for an undertaking includes Category I elements, the NNSA/NFO must evaluate the Category I elements for individual NRHP eligibility under all of the SOI Significance Criteria prior to initiating any activity that may affect the elements. The purpose of this report is to evaluate Building 23-702 as a potential individually eligible historic property in fulfillment of Stipulation VI of the Mercury PA. The evaluation detailed herein concludes that Building 23-702 is not individually eligible for listing in the NRHP. Although it retains aspects of integrity and continues to contribute to the MHD, it is not individually significant under any of the SOI Significance Criteria.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Competition for Management and Operation of Los Alamos National Laboratory

Reconnection is one of the key nonlinear processes in a plasma, in which great amounts of magnetic energy can be rapidly transformed and released via a change in magnetic topology. Field lines of opposite polarity flow together, annihilate, and release pent-up magnetic stress. Snapshots from one of our 2D test simulations (Fig 1) demonstrate key stages in magnetic reconnection. First, antiparallel magnetic field lines are brought together by an inflow in the z direction (the “upstream”). Second, the field lines begin reconnecting and an outflow forms in the x direction (the “downstream”). Finally, in the fully nonlinear stage, structures known as plasmoids are formed.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

SESAME: The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Tabulated Equation of State Database Description with Extensions for Multi-phase Representations

Modeling of the thermodynamic equation of state (EOS) of various materials has had a long storied tradition at LANL. As early as 1949 Feynman, Metropolis, and Teller published a paper presenting EOS values for some elements and a methodology for calculating the EOS at high compression [1]. Cowan and Ashkin made notable methodology improvements for compressed materials throughout the 1950’s and beyond [2]. In 1971 Jack Barnes and Jerry Rood created the SESAME database and by 1972 the database became publicly available.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Los Alamos Recapitalization Project Prioritization—Summary Using Generic Project Names

The purpose of this document is to provide a standard method of prioritizing proposals for NNSA’s NA-50 Office of Safety, Infrastructure, and Operations recapitalization projects under the auspices of the Los Alamos Weapons Infrastructure Program Office (WI-PO). The framework described here has the goal of providing a consistent method by which all proposals are ranked from a pre-determined set of criteria. The results of this study are not expected to be definitive but rather provide input for management decisions. The top-ranked projects can be pursued further to become the focus for an appropriate fiscal year NA-50 funding cycle. A recapitalization team of subject matter experts (SMEs) and managers used multi-attribute decision analysis to determine the top priority NA-50 projects for FY2022. Ratings of seven criteria against twelve projects were combined with four weighting perspectives to provide the final results.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2024

Development and Implementation of a Bag Degradation Predictive Tool at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Nuclear material packaging involves many complex variables derived from the stored material's properties, the storage environment, and the synergistic interaction of said material and its environment on the containment boundary. In the Plutonium Facility (PF-4) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) the typical containment boundary found, starting from the stored material itself to the outermost containment layer, consists of the material contained within a stainless steel (typically 304) slip-lid (or other equivalent stainless steel packaging layer) wrapped in an sPVC bag-out bag contained within a facility approved outer container stored within the boundaries of an approved facility (i.e., a building designed and approved to store nuclear material). This packaging configuration, though occasionally deviated from in the past, represents the current procedurally enforced, expected containment structure for all interim nuclear material containment outside of an engineered control barrier (e.g., a glovebox). Over the life of containerization research at LANL, packaging engineers have become increasingly concerned with the degradation of the sPVC bag-out bag, which can cause corrosion to the outermost packaging layer as well as possible exposure to alpha contamination if the bag-out bag layer is degraded to the point of containment failure. A bag-out bag degradation predictive tool (BDT) is therefore needed to assess the current and future nuclear material inventory for possible bag degradation in order to continue to ensure safe operations for the facility and its workers to deliver on the vital national security mission of 30 PPY.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Los Alamos National Laboratory Campus Master Plan Communication Strategy

The purpose of this Campus Master Plan (CMP) Communication Strategy is to establish an appropriate approach to communication that ensures the comprehensive site planning (henceforth campus master planning) process and associated products for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) site are effective and sustainable.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Chicago Pile-1 paved the way for nuclear science and a lab in Los Alamos First self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was nearly 80 years ago

On a bitter-cold winter day, 43 scientists gathered at an abandoned squash court at the University of Chicago where they would ultimately enable a secret lab in Los Alamos to change the world just years later. It was December 2, 1942. The group, led by Italian physicist and Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi, stacked graphite bricks, piling 57 layers that totaled more than 770,000 pounds. Later named Chicago Pile-1, their goal was to create the world’s first self-sustaining, controlled nuclear chain reaction. Inside the approximately 20-feet-tall pile were smaller blocks of uranium and control rods that, when removed, would cause the reaction to go critical – meaning create a nuclear chain reaction. It was roughly $1 million worth of materials, equivalent to nearly $16 million today, and a concept that a nuclear chain reaction would allow the weaponization of the atom. “Its success would be the crucial proof needed to know it would be possible to create an atomic bomb,” said LANL Historian Roger Meade (C-NR). “This was the precursor to the Lab we have today, nearly 80 years later.”

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Los Alamos National Laboratory Floodplain Assessment for the High Explosive Transfer Facility Blast Radius Fence Project at Technical Area 08

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is proposing to take action at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) within the upper Pajarito Canyon 100-year (yr.) floodplain at Technical Area (TA) 08. This action consists of installation of a 3-strand smooth wire fence to create an operational boundary in a radius of 1250 feet (ft.) from the TA-08 High Explosive (HE) Transfer Facility (Figure 1). The proposed fence is intended to provide a barrier between the public and direct access to the HE Transfer Facility.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗