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We describe the technical implementation of the Rubin Target-of-Opportunity system, the workflow during the early commissioning and science verification period, the responses to real and mock alerts, and lessons learned.
This paper describes the development of a platform to study astrophysically relevant nuclear reactions using inertial-confinement fusion implosions on the OMEGA and NIF laser facilities, with a particular focus on optimizing the implosions to study charged-particle-producing reactions. Primary requirements on the platform are high yield, for high statistics in the fusion product measurements, combined with low areal density, to allow the charged fusion products to escape. This is optimally achieved with direct-drive exploding pusher implosions using thin-glass-shell capsules. Mitigation strategies to eliminate a possible target sheath potential which would accelerate the emitted ions are discussed. The potential impact of kinetic effects on the implosions is also considered. The platform is initially employed to study the complementary T(t,2n)??, T(3He,np)?? and 3He(3He,2p)?? reactions. Proof-of-principle results from the first experiments demonstrating the ability to accurately measure the energy and yields of charged particles are presented. Lessons learned from these experiments will be used in studies of other reactions. The goals are to explore thermonuclear reaction rates and fundamental nuclear physics in stellar-like plasma environments, and to push this new frontier of nuclear astrophysics into unique regimes not reachable through existing platforms, with thermal ion velocity distributions, plasma screening and low reactant energies.
Nuclear Safety is a review journal that covers significant developments in the field of nuclear safety. Its scope includes the analysis and control of hazards associated with nuclear energy, operations involving fissionable materials, and the products of nuclear fission and their effects on the environment. Primary emphasis is on safety in reactor design, construction, and operation; however, the safety aspects of the entire fuel cycle, including fuel fabrication, spent-fuel processing, nuclear waste disposal, handling of radioisotopes, and environmental effects of these operations, are also treated. Table of Contents for this issue follows. GENERAL SAFETY CONSIDERATIONS: 1 Technical Note: A New Approach to Fission Reactor Safety, Yu. V. Petrov; 5 Erratum; ACCIDENT ANALYSIS: 6 Analysis and Modeling of Fission Product Release from Various Uranium-Aluminum Plate-Type Reactor Fuels, R. P. Taleyarkhan; CONTROL AND INSTRUMENTATION: 23 Applications of a Surveillance and Diagnostics Methodology Using Neutron Noise From a Pressurized-Water Reactor, R. T. Wood, L. F. Miller, and R. B. Perez; DESIGN FEATURES: 36 Westinghouse Advanced Passive 600 Plant, B. A. McIntyre and R. K. Beck; 47 System 80+™ PWR Safety Design, C. W. Bagnal, R. A. Matzie, and R. S. Turk; ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS: 58 The MATS Experiments—Mesoscale Atmospheric Transport Studies at the Savannah River Site, A. H. Weber, S. Berman, R. J. Kurzeja, and R. P. Addis; 75 Book Review: Environmental Radioactivity in the European Community 1984-1985-1986, C. A. Little; WASTE AND SPENT FUEL MANAGEMENT: 76 Activities Related to Waste and Spent Fuel Management, M. D. Muhlheim and E. G. Silver; OPERATING EXPERIENCES: 87 Aging Assessment of BWR Control Rod Drive Systems, R. H. Greene; 100 Reactor Shutdown Experience, Compiled by J. W. Cletcher; 103 Selected Safety-Related Events, Compiled by G. A. Murphy; 110 Operating U.S. Power Reactors, Compiled by M. D. Muhlheim and E. G. Silver; RECENT DEVELOPMENTS: 129 General Administrative Activities, Compiled by M. D. Muhlheim and E. G. Silver; 139 Reports, Standards, and Safety Guides, D. S. Queener; 143 Proposed Rule Changes as of Sept. 30 1991; ANNOUNCEMENTS: 128 Harvard School of Public Health Announces Short Courses; 128 16th Biennial ANS Topical Meeting on Reactor Operating Experience: Present and Future Technologies—Applying Lessons Learned (Call for Papers); 147 The Authors; 150 Indexes to Nuclear Safety, Volume 32; 154 Errata.
The CEBAF recirculating CW electron linear accelerator at Jefferson Lab is presently undergoing a major upgrade to 12 GeV. This project includes the fabrication, preparation, and testing of 80 new 7-cell SRF cavities, followed by their incorporation into ten new cryomodules for subsequent testing and installation. In order to maximize the cavity Q over the full operable dynamic range in CEBAF (as high as 25 MV/m), the decision was taken to apply a streamlined preparation process that includes a final light temperature-controlled electropolish of the rf surface over the vendor-provided bulk BCP etch. Cavity processing work began at JLab in September 2010 and will continue through December 2011. The excellent performance results are exceeding project requirements and indicate a fabrication and preparation process that is stable and well controlled. The cavity production and performance experience to date will be summarized and lessons learned reported to the community.
A program to develop model magnets for a helical cooling channel is under way at Fermilab. In the first steps of a planned sequence of magnets, two four-coil helical solenoid models with 300 mm aperture have been fabricated and tested. These two models, HSM01 and HSM02, used insulated NbTi Rutherford cable wound onto stainless steel rings with spliceless transitions between coils. Strip heaters were included for quench protection of each coil, and the coils were epoxy-impregnated after winding inside the support structures. Based on the results of the first model the second model was made using a cable with optimized cross-section, improved winding and epoxy-impregnation procedures, enhanced ground insulation, and included heat exchange tubing for a test of conduction cooling. We report on the results and lessons learned from fabrication and tests of these two models.
Quantum control of light and matter is the quest to steer a physical process to a desirable outcome, employing constructive and destructive interference. Three basic questions address feasibility of quantum control: (1) The problem of controllability, does a control field exist for a preset initial and target state; (2) Synthesis, constructively finding the field that leads to the target; and (3) Optimal Control Theory - optimizing the field that carries out this task. These continue to be the fundamental theoretical questions to be addressed in the conference. How to realize control fields in the laboratory is an ongoing challenge. This task is very diverse viewing the emergence of control scenarios ranging from attoseconds to microseconds. How do the experimental observations reflect on the theoretical framework? The typical arena of quantum control is an open environment where much of the control is indirect. How are control scenarios realized in dissipative open systems? Can new control opportunities emerge? Can one null decoherence effects? An ideal setting for control is ultracold matter. The initial and final state can be defined more precisely. Coherent control unifies many fields of physical science. A lesson learned in one field can reflect on another. Currently quantum information processing has emerged as a primary target of control where the key issue is controlling quantum gate operation. Modern nonlinear spectroscopy has emerged as another primary field. The challenge is to unravel the dynamics of molecular systems undergoing strong interactions with the environment. Quantum optics where non-classical fields are to be generated and employed. Finally, coherent control is the basis for quantum engineering. These issues will be under the limelight of the Gordon conference on Quantum Control of Light and Matter.
Northern Power Systems, Inc. has developed advanced Permanent Magnet Direct Drive (PMDD) technology that when fully commercialized will be able to expand the market for both Distributed Scale and Utility Scale wind power across the U.S. However, if Northern Power is to successfully commercialize this technology it will need to develop advanced manufacturing processes that will enable a jump from batch production to continuous flow manufacturing and to ensure that it fields a quality and reliable product for end users that reflects a necessary maturation of wind industry manufacturing in the U.S. The objective of the proposed Advanced Manufacturing and Supply Chain Automation Project is to create and implement a continuous manufacturing, supply chain and field support automated system that will initially be centered on commercialization of the NPS™ 100 turbine for Distributed Wind applications. As a result of implementing this system, Northern Power will publicize its findings and lessons learned to the broader U.S. wind industry as well as apply the system and methodology as part of development and commercialization of the NPS 2.3 turbine for utility scale wind farms.
Terascale physics is driving the demand for innovative pulsed power modulators having greater compactness and better manufacturability with increasingly superior performance. A particularly promising route for such modulators is Marx-architecture based. Moreover, there is opportunity for improvement and gain of greater benefits through further development of topology and architecture, gate driver method, and control schemes. Prior work discussed a new concept of droop correction, which was the result of topology hybridisation using a nesting approach, and illustrated its great potential. This is further investigated here. This paper details various design aspects of a hybrid Marx cell Power Electronic Building Block (PEBB) and includes specifics about estimated losses and efficiency, thermal management issues, protection strategies, gate driver development, and control implementation. In addition, figures-of-merit of the cell design are given for comparison and evaluation purposes. Experimental results, based on both single-cell and three-cell hardware prototypes, are presented demonstrating the functionality and performance of the new topology. This is a significant milestone in the progression toward constructing a full 32-cell PEBB-based Marx klystron modulator with nested droop correction. Lessons learned during various stages of the prototype development and future directions are commented on.
Governance models for the International Linear Collider Project are examined in the light of experience from similar international projects around the world. Recommendations for one path which could be followed to realize the ILC successfully are outlined. The International Linear Collider (ILC) is a unique endeavour in particle physics; fully international from the outset, it has no 'host laboratory' to provide infrastructure and support. The realization of this project therefore presents unique challenges, in scientific, technical and political arenas. This document outlines the main questions that need to be answered if the ILC is to become a reality. It describes the methodology used to harness the wisdom displayed and lessons learned from current and previous large international projects. From this basis, it suggests both general principles and outlines a specific model to realize the ILC. It recognizes that there is no unique model for such a laboratory and that there are often several solutions to a particular problem. Nevertheless it proposes concrete solutions that the authors believe are currently the best choices in order to stimulate discussion and catalyze proposals as to how to bring the ILC project to fruition. The ILC Laboratory would be set up by international treaty and be governed by a strong Council to whom a Director General and an associated Directorate would report. Council would empower the Director General to give strong management to the project. It would take its decisions in a timely manner, giving appropriate weight to the financial contributions of the member states. The ILC Laboratory would be set up for a fixed term, capable of extension by agreement of all the partners. The construction of the machine would be based on a Work Breakdown Structure and value engineering and would have a common cash fund sufficiently large to allow the management flexibility to optimize the project's construction. Appropriate contingency, clearly apportioned at both a national and global level, is essential if the project is to be realised. Finally, models for running costs and decommissioning at the conclusion of the ILC project are proposed. This document represents an interim report of the bodies and individuals studying these questions inside the structure set up and supervised by the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA). It represents a request for comment to the international community in all relevant disciplines, scientific, technical and most importantly, political. Many areas require further study and some, in particular the site selection process, have not yet progressed sufficiently to be addressed in detail in this document. Discussion raised by this document will be vital in framing the final proposals due to be published in 2012 in the Technical Design Report being prepared by the Global Design Effort of the ILC.
Linac Energy Management (LEM) is a control system program that scales magnet field set-point settings following a change in beam energy. LEM is necessary because changes in the number, phase, and amplitude of the active klystrons change the beam's rigidity, and therefore, to maintain constant optics, one has to change focusing gradients and bend fields accordingly. This paper describes the basic process, the control system application programs we developed for LEM, and some of the implementation lessons learned at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS).
The viewgraphs describe the status of PMOD477 for LANL. The meeting will occur at DOE-HQ with NA-11 and Military Applications personnel in attendance. Serves to repatriate material with a balance to zero by December 2012. Phase 1 -- Establish formality of operations for War Reserve (WR): Complete surrogate taskings to A90 through a Materials Channel and perform US/UK lessons learned; Complete the US/UK agreed Quality Acceptance Plan, Materials Plan, Shipping procedure, and establish the formal UK/US point of contacts. Phase 2 -- Metal Manufacture (WR): Process material and store material as electrorefined metal (ER) rings, with initial assay and isotopic analysis, prior to manufacturing. Material is cast into accepted configuration and appropriate acceptance document for each aliquot will be generated. Phase 3 -- Intermediate Material Manufacture, Packaging and Shipping (WR): Continue processing of the material in accepted configuration with appropriate acceptance documentation for each aliquot. Provide an initial tasking of the material owed to UK including appropriate quality acceptance documentation. Phase 4 -- Complete Tasking (WR). Phase 5 -- Residue Processing (Non-WR): Complete processing of residue material and waste into accepted configuration with appropriate acceptance document for disposal.
Objectives are: (1) Present the DOE Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) Project Commercial Grade Item (CGI) Dedication Process; and (2) Present CMRR Project CGI Lessons-Learned.
SRF photoelectron guns offer the promise of high brightness, high average current beam production for the next generation of accelerator driven light sources such as free electron lasers, THz radiation sources or energy-recovery linac driven synchrotron radiation sources. In a first step a fully superconducting RF (SRF) photoelectron gun is under development by a collaboration between HZB, DESY, JLAB, BNL and NCBJ. The aim of the experiment is to understand and improve the performance of a Nb SRF gun cavity coated with a small metallic Pb cathode film on the cavity backplane. This paper describes the highlights from the commissioning and beam parameter measurements. The main focus is on lessons learned from operation of the SRF gun.
In a little more than a decade two large wild fires threatened Los Alamos and impacted accelerator operations at LANL. In 2000 the Cerro Grande Fire destroyed hundreds of homes, as well as structures and equipment at the DARHT facility. The DARHT accelerators were safe in a fire-proof building. In 2011 the Las Conchas Fire burned about 630 square kilometers (250 square miles) and came dangerously close to Los Alamos/LANL. LANSCE accelerator operations Lessons Learned during Las Conchas fire: (1) Develop a plan to efficiently shut down the accelerator on short notice; (2) Establish clear lines of communication in emergency situations; and (3) Plan recovery and keep squirrels out.
In 2008 the US Department of Energy (DOE) launched the Commercial Buildings Partnership (CBP) project to accelerate market adoption of commercially available energy saving technologies into the design process for new and upgraded commercial buildings. The CBP represents a unique collaboration between industry leaders and DOE to develop high performance buildings as a model for future construction and renovation. CBP was implemented in two stages. This paper focuses on lessons learned at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in the first stage and discusses some partner insights from the second stage. In the first stage, PNNL and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory recruited CBP partners that own large portfolios of buildings. The labs provide assistance to the partners' design teams and make a business case for energy investments.
Parallelizing dense matrix computations to distributed memory architectures is a well-studied subject and generally considered to be among the best understood domains of parallel computing. Two packages, developed in the mid 1990s, still enjoy regular use: ScaLAPACK and PLAPACK. With the advent of many-core architectures, which may very well take the shape of distributed memory architectures within a single processor, these packages must be revisited since the traditional MPI-based approaches will likely need to be extended. Thus, this is a good time to review lessons learned since the introduction of these two packages and to propose a simple yet effective alternative. Preliminary performance results show the new solution achieves competitive, if not superior, performance on large clusters.
Advancement of U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program requires high performance propulsion systems to support a variety of robotic and crewed missions beyond low Earth orbit. Past studies, in particular those in support of both the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and Space Exploration Initiative (SEI), have shown nuclear thermal propulsion systems provide superior performance for high mass high propulsive delta-V missions. The recent NASA Design Reference Architecture (DRA) 5.0 Study re-examined mission, payload, and transportation system requirements for a human Mars landing mission in the post-2030 timeframe. Nuclear thermal propulsion was again identified as the preferred in-space transportation system. A common nuclear thermal propulsion stage with three 25,000-lbf thrust engines was used for all primary mission maneuvers. Moderately lower thrust engines may also have important roles. In particular, lower thrust engine designs demonstrating the critical technologies that are directly extensible to other thrust levels are attractive from a ground testing perspective. An extensive nuclear thermal rocket technology development effort was conducted from 1955-1973 under the Rover/NERVA Program. Both graphite and refractory metal alloy fuel types were pursued. Reactors and engines employing graphite based fuels were designed, built and ground tested. A number of fast spectrum reactor and engine designs employing refractory metal alloy fuel types were proposed and designed, but none were built. The Small Nuclear Rocket Engine (SNRE) was the last engine design studied by the Los Alamos National Laboratory during the program. At the time, this engine was a state-of-the-art graphite based fuel design incorporating lessons learned from the very successful technology development program. The SNRE was a nominal 16,000-lbf thrust engine originally intended for unmanned applications with relatively short engine operations and the engine and stage design were constrained to fit within the payload volume of the then planned space shuttle. The SNRE core design utilized hexagonal fuel elements and hexagonal structural support elements. The total number of elements can be varied to achieve engine designs of higher or lower thrust levels. Some variation in the ratio of fuel elements to structural elements is also possible. Options for SNRE-based engine designs in the 25,000-lbf thrust range were described in a recent (2010) Joint Propulsion Conference paper. The reported designs met or exceeded the performance characteristics baselined in the DRA 5.0 Study. Lower thrust SNRE-based designs were also described in a recent (2011) Joint Propulsion Conference paper. Recent activities have included parallel evaluation and design efforts on fast spectrum engines employing refractory metal alloy fuels. These efforts include evaluation of both heritage designs from the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and General Electric Company GE-710 Programs as well as more recent designs. Results are presented for a number of not-yet optimized fast spectrum engine options.
The nuclear industry is constantly trying to find ways to decrease the human error rate, especially the human errors associated with procedure use. As a step toward the goal of improving procedure use performance, researchers, together with the nuclear industry, have been looking at replacing the current paper-based procedures with computer-based procedure systems. The concept of computer-based procedures is not new by any means; however most research has focused on procedures used in the main control room. Procedures reviewed in these efforts are mainly emergency operating procedures and normal operating procedures. Based on lessons learned for these previous efforts we are now exploring a more unknown application for computer based procedures - field procedures, i.e. procedures used by nuclear equipment operators and maintenance technicians. The Idaho National Laboratory, the Institute for Energy Technology, and participants from the U.S. commercial nuclear industry are collaborating in an applied research effort with the objective of developing requirements and specifications for a computer-based procedure system to be used by field operators. The goal is to identify the types of human errors that can be mitigated by using computer-based procedures and how to best design the computer-based procedures to do this. The underlying philosophy in the research effort is “Stop – Start – Continue”, i.e. what features from the use of paper-based procedures should we not incorporate (Stop), what should we keep (Continue), and what new features or work processes should be added (Start). One step in identifying the Stop – Start – Continue was to conduct a baseline study where affordances related to the current usage of paper-based procedures were identified. The purpose of the study was to develop a model of paper based procedure use which will help to identify desirable features for computer based procedure prototypes. Affordances such as note taking, markups, sharing procedures between fellow coworkers, the use of multiple procedures at once, etc. were considered. The model describes which affordances associated with paper based procedures should be transferred to computer-based procedures as well as what features should not be incorporated. The model also provides a means to identify what new features not present in paper based procedures need to be added to the computer-based procedures to further enhance performance. The next step is to use the requirements and specifications to develop concepts and prototypes of computer-based procedures. User tests and other data collection efforts will be conducted to ensure that the real issues with field procedures and their usage are being addressed and solved in the best manner possible. This paper describes the baseline study, the construction of the model of procedure use, and the requirements and specifications for computer-based procedures that were developed based on the model. It also addresses how the model and the insights gained from it were used to develop concepts and prototypes for computer based procedures.