Modeling of tritium transport in lithium aluminate fusion solid breeders

Lithium aluminate is a candidate tritium-breeding material for fusion reactor blankets. One of the concerns with using LiAlO/sub 2/ is tritium recovery from this material, particularly at low operating temperatures and high fluences. The data from various tritium release experiments with ..gamma..-LiAlO/sub 2/ and related materials are reviewed and analyzed to determine under what conditions bulk diffusion is the rate-limiting mechanism for tritium transport and what the effective bulk diffusion coefficient should be. Steady-state and transient models based on bulk diffusion are developed and used to interpret the data. Design calculations are then performed with the verified models to determine the steady-state inventory and time to reach equilibrium for a full-scale fusion blanket

TRIO-01 experiment: in-situ tritium recovery results

The TRIO-01 experiment was designed to test in-situ tritium recovery and heat transfer performance of a candidate solid breeder, ..gamma..-LiAlO/sub 2/. The results showed that nearly all the tritium generated was recovered. Only < 0.1 wppM tritium remained in the solid after irradiation testing. The heat transfer performance showed that temperature profiles can be effectively controlled

Characterization plan for Fort St. Vrain and Peach Bottom graphite fuels

Part of Fort St. Vrain (FSV) and most of the Peach Bottom (PB) reactor spent fuels are currently stored at INEL and may remain in storage for many years before disposal. Three disposal pathways have been proposed: intact disposal, fuels partially disassembled and the high-level waste fraction conditioned prior to disposal, and fuels completed disassembled and conditioned prior to disposal. Many options exist within each of these pathways. PNL evaluated the literature and other reference to develop a fuels characterization plan for these fuels. This plan provides guidance for the characteristics of the fuel which will be needed to pursue any of the storage or disposal pathways. It also provides a suggested fuels monitoring program for the current storage facilities. This report recommends a minimum of 7 fuel elements be characterized: PB Core 1 fuel: one Type II nonfailed element, one Type II failed element, and one Type III nonfailed element; PB Core 2 fuel: two Type II nonfailed fuel elements; and FSV fuel: at least two fuel blocks from regions of high temperature and fluence and long in-reactor performance (preferably at reactor end-of- life). Selection of PB fuel elements should focus on these between radial core position 8 and 14 and on compacts between compact numbers 10 and 20. Selection of FSV fuel elements should focus on these from Fuel Zones II and III, located in Core Layers 6, 7, and possibly 8

First-wall and blanket engineering development for magnetic-fusion reactors

A number of programs in the USA concerned with materials and engineering development of the first wall and breeder blanket systems for magnetic-fusion power reactors are described. Argonne National Laboratory has the lead or coordinating role, with many major elements of the research and engineering tests carried out by a number of organizations including industry and other national laboratories

Psychosocial correlates of attitudes towards male sexual violence in a sample of financial crime, property crime, general violent, and homicide offenders

Whilst those currently serving prison sentences for sexual violence can be identified and receive treatment, the number of prisoners with a history of sexual violence against female partners is unknown. Methods to identify prisoners with a proclivity for such violence and accurately assess the risk they pose before and after incarceration are therefore required. Here, we aimed to assess the level of sexually violent attitudes within dating relationships and to examine their associations with experiences of child abuse and neglect (CAN), psychopathic personality traits, prisonization, number of incarcerations, age, years of schooling, relationship status, and parenting among different types of offenders (financial crime, property crime, general violent, and homicide offenders). Data were collected among a large systematically selected sample of adult male inmates (N = 1,123). We demonstrated that sexual violence-supportive attitudes appear to be a function of child sexual abuse, psychopathic personality traits, and may be developed through early socialisation experiences as well as incarceration. Practical implications of current findings are discussed

Narratives of self and identity in women's prisons: stigma and the struggle for self-definition in penal regimes

A concern with questions of selfhood and identity has been central to penal practices in women's prisons, and to the sociology of women's imprisonment. Studies of women's prisons have remained preoccupied with women prisoners’ social identities, and their apparent tendency to adapt to imprisonment through relationships. This article explores the narratives of women in two English prisons to demonstrate the importance of the self as a site of meaning for prisoners and the central place of identity in micro-level power negotiations in prisons

Adsorption Isotherms of Hydrogen: The Role of Thermal Fluctuations

It is shown that experimentally obtained isotherms of adsorption on solid substrates may be completely reconciled with Lifshitz theory when thermal fluctuations are taken into account. This is achieved within the framework of a solid-on-solid model which is solved numerically. Analysis of the fluctuation contributions observed for hydrogen adsorption onto gold substrates allows to determine the surface tension of the free hydrogen film as a function of film thickness. It is found to decrease sharply for film thicknesses below seven atomic layers.Comment: RevTeX manuscript (3 pages output), 3 figure

Dynamic Interchanging Native States of Lymphotactin Examined by SNAPP-MS

The human chemokine lymphotactin (Ltn) is a remarkable protein that interconverts between two unrelated native state structures in the condensed phase. It is possible to shift the equilibrium toward either conformation with selected sequence substitutions. Previous results have shown that a disulfide-stabilized variant preferentially adopts the canonical chemokine fold (Ltn10), while a single amino acid change (W55D) favors the novel Ltn40 dimeric structure. Selective noncovalent adduct protein probing (SNAPP) is a recently developed method for examining solution phase protein structure. Herein, it is demonstrated that SNAPP can easily recognize and distinguish between the Ltn10 and Ltn40 states of lymphotactin in aqueous solution. The effects of organic denaturants, acid, and disulfide bond reduction and blocking were also examined using SNAPP for the CC3, W55D, and wild type proteins. Only disulfide reduction was shown to significantly perturb the protein, and resulted in considerably decreased adduct formation consistent with loss of tertiary/secondary structure. Cold denaturation experiments demonstrated that wild-type Ltn is the most temperature sensitive of the three proteins. Examination of the higher charge states in all experiments, which are presumed to represent transition state structures between Ltn-10 and Ltn-40, reveals increased 18C6 attachment relative to the more folded structures. This observation is consistent with increased competitive intramolecular hydrogen bonding, which may guide the transition. Experiments examining the gas phase structures revealed that all three proteins can be structurally distinguished in the gas phase. In addition, the gas phase experiments enabled identification of preferred adduct binding sites

Tritium permeation and related studies on barrier treated 316 stainless steel

To verify the performance of permeation-resistant cladding for tritium targets designed for a New Production Reactor Light Water Reactor, a tritium test facility was designed, developed, and certified. Testing is ongoing to verify the performance of reference designed targets. Accurate measurements were taken of tritium permeating from barrier-coated cladding specimens immersed in high-temperature autoclaves configured to simulate reactor coolant conditions. The tritium test pressure is controlled by heating a zirconium-alloy getter, previously charged with tritium, to a temperature that corresponds to a specified test pressure

Imaging Mass Spectrometry: Hype or Hope?

Imaging mass spectrometry is currently receiving a significant amount of attention in the mass spectrometric community. It offers the potential of direct examination of biomolecular patterns from cells and tissue. This makes it a seemingly ideal tool for biomedical diagnostics and molecular histology. It is able to generate beautiful molecular images from a large variety of surfaces, ranging from cancer tissue sections to polished cross sections from old-master paintings. What are the parameters that define and control the implications, challenges, opportunities, and (im)possibilities associated with the application of imaging MS to biomedical tissue studies. Is this just another technological hype or does it really offer the hope to gain new insights in molecular processes in living tissue? In this critical insight this question is addressed through the discussion of a number of aspects of MS imaging technology and sample preparation that strongly determine the outcome of imaging MS experiments