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A Collection of Presentations on new techniques for developing climatological estimates of the solar resource at all locations on earth at a resolution of 100km, and of developing estimates at half-hour intervals at resolutions of 10 km or less in specific locations.

A procedure was developed to assign energy ratings to a photovoltaic (PV) module for five reference days that represent different climates.

The United States Department of Energy’s Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) Fuel Development and Qualification Program will be irradiating eight separate tri-isotopic (TRISO) particle fuel (in compact form) experiments in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) located at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). These irradiations and fuel development are being accomplished to support development of the next generation reactors in the United States. The ATR has a long history of irradiation testing in support of reactor development and the INL has been designated as the United States Department of Energy’s lead laboratory for nuclear energy development. These AGR fuel experiments will be irradiated over the next ten years to demonstrate and qualify new particle fuel for use in high temperature gas reactors. The experiments, which will each consist of six separate capsules, will be irradiated in an inert sweep gas atmosphere with individual on-line temperature monitoring and control for each capsule. The swept gas will also have on-line fission product monitoring to track performance of the fuel in each individual capsule during irradiation. The design of the first experiment (designated AGR-1) was completed in 2005, and the fabrication and assembly of the test train as well as the support systems and fission product monitoring system that monitor and control the experiment during irradiation were completed in September 2006. The experiment was inserted in the ATR in December 2006, and is serving as a shakedown test of the multi-capsule experiment design that will be used in the subsequent irradiations as well as a test of the early variants of the fuel produced under this program. The experiment test train as well as the monitoring, control, and data collection systems are discussed and the status of the experiment is provided.

In this paper, implications of the quasi-steady approach to numerical solutions of two-phase flow problems are addressed by the application of basic principles. First, a simple criterion to determine the limitations of the quasi-steady approach is discussed. This criterion is used to determine the minimum time-step size required during the quasi-steady solution. Using this same concept, a method for making truly transient problems artifically quasi-steady is developed. Finally, these concepts are applied to a simple interfacial heat-transfer problem. The numerical instability that results from the quasi-steady approach during the explicit solution of this problem is investigated.

The main emphasis of the INTOR first wall/blanket/shield (FWBS) during this period has been upon the tritium breeding issues. The objective is to develop a FWBS concept which produces the tritium requirement for INTOR operation and uses a small fraction of the first wall surface area. The FWBS is constrained by the dimensions of the reference design and the protection criteria required for different reactor components. The blanket extrapolation to commercial power reactor conditions and the proper temperature for power extraction have been sacrificed to achieve the highest possible local tritium breeding ratio (TBR). In addition, several other factors that have been considered in the blanket survey study include safety, reliability, lifetime fluence, number of burn cycles, simplicity, cost, and development issues. The implications of different tritium supply scenarios were discussed from the cost and availability for INTOR conditions. A wide variety of blanket options was explored in a preliminary way to determine feasibility and to see if they can satisfy the INTOR conditions. This survey and related issues are summarized in this report. Also discussed are material design requirements, thermal hydraulic considerations, structure analyses, tritium permeation through the first wall into the coolant, and tritium inventory.

Research in our laboratory focuses on developing supramolecular arrays that produce long-lived charge separation by limiting the electronic coupling between the separated charges, and on the role of solvation in determining the rates and energetics of photoinitiated electron transfer reactions. Arrays have been developed that closely mimic the electronic coupling that was observed only for long-lived radical pairs produced in photosynthetic glassy solids. A series of 36 fixed-distance donor-acceptor molecules using porphyrin donors, triptycene spacers, and 9 different acceptors has been prepared; these are used to probe the dependence of photoinduced charge separation rates on free energy of reaction as a function of solvent both in liquid and solid solution. Data were obtained on rates of charge separation in dioxane, MTHF, butyronitrile, toluene, chlorobenzene, and benzonitrile.

The GEWEX Continental International Project (GCIP), which started in 1995 and completed in 2001, held its grand finale conference in New Orleans, LA in May 2002. Participants at this conference along with the scientists funded through the GCIP program are invited to contribute a paper to a special issue of Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR). This special JGR issue (called GCIP3) will serve as the final report on scientific research conducted by GCIP investigators. Papers are solicited on the following topical areas, but are not limited to, (1) water energy budget studies; (2) warm season precipitation; (3) predictability and prediction system; (4) coupled land-atmosphere models; (5) climate and water resources applications. The research areas cover observations, modeling, process studies and water resources applications.

A single dose of additive contributes to three consecutive fine coal unit operations, i.e., flotation, dewatering and reconstitution, whereby the fine coal is first combined with water in a predetermined proportion so as to formulate a slurry. The slurry is then mixed with a heavy hydrocarbon-based emulsion in a second predetermined proportion and at a first predetermined mixing speed and for a predetermined period of time. The conditioned slurry is then cleaned by a froth flotation method to form a clean coal froth and then the froth is dewatered by vacuum filtration or a centrifugation process to form reconstituted products that are dried to dust-less clumps prior to combustion.

Analyzed wind resource characteristics at elevated heights (50 m-200+m) incuding shear and turbulence profiles for some areas of the Great Lakes and M idwest sites.

In the analysis of unprotected loss-of-flow and overpower transients of liquid metal fast breeder reactors, the modeling of heat transfer from molten fuel, ejected into the coolant channel after cladding rupture, to liquid sodium is an important part of fuel-coolant interaction (FCI). Some of the ejected molten fuel fragments into small particles and gets dispersed in the coolant. In the PLUT02 code model and other modeling efforts of FCI it is assumed that the fuel particle to liquid sodium heat transfer is limited only by the thermal conduction resistance of the fuel because the thermal conductivity of liquid sodium is about 30 times higher than that of mixed oxide. The fuel particle (assumed to be a sphere) surface temperature, under this assumption, equals the coolant temperature. The purpose of the present analysis is to obtain the value of meter C/sub 1/ (for V/sub l/ = 1) by solving the linear transient heat conduction equation a constant parameter in the equation for evaluating the fuel-coolant heat transfer coefficient.