A Mean Field Model for the Quadrupolar Phases of UPd3_3

UPd$_3$ is known to exhibit four antiferroquadrupolar ordered phases at low temperatures. We report measurements of the magnetisation and magnetostriction of single crystal UPd$_3$, along the principal symmetry directions, in fields up to 33 T. These results have been combined with recent inelastic neutron and x-ray resonant scattering measurements to construct a mean field model of UPd$_3$ including up to fourth nearest neighbour interactions. In particular we find that anisotropic quadrupolar interactions must be included in order to explain the low temperature structures derived from the scattering data.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 3 table

The Continued Need for Modeling and Scaled Testing to Advance the Hanford Tank Waste Mission

Hanford tank wastes are chemically complex slurries of liquids and solids that can exhibit changes in rheological behavior during retrieval and processing. The Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) recently abandoned its planned approach to use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) supported by testing at less than full scale to verify the design of vessels that process these wastes within the plant. The commercial CFD tool selected was deemed too difficult to validate to the degree necessary for use in the design of a nuclear facility. Alternative, but somewhat immature, CFD tools are available that can simulate multiphase flow of non-Newtonian fluids. Yet both CFD and scaled testing can play an important role in advancing the Hanford tank waste mission—in supporting the new verification approach, which is to conduct testing in actual plant vessels; in supporting waste feed delivery, where scaled testing is ongoing; as a fallback approach to design verification if the Full Scale Vessel Testing Program is deemed too costly and time-consuming; to troubleshoot problems during commissioning and operation of the plant; and to evaluate the effects of any proposed changes in operating conditions in the future to optimize plant performance

Initial Investigation of Waste Feed Delivery Tank Mixing and Sampling Issues

The Hanford tank farms contractor will deliver waste to the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) from a staging double-shell tank. The WTP broadly classifies waste it receives in terms of “Envelopes,” each with different limiting properties and composition ranges. Envelope A, B, and C wastes are liquids that can include up to 4% entrained solids that can be pumped directly from the staging DST without mixing. Envelope D waste contains insoluble solids and must be mixed before transfer. The mixing and sampling issues lie within Envelope D solid-liquid slurries. The question is how effectively these slurries are mixed and how representative the grab samples are that are taken immediately after mixing. This report summarizes the current state of knowledge concerning jet mixing of wastes in underground storage tanks. Waste feed sampling requirements are listed, and their apparent assumption of uniformity by lack of a requirement for sample representativeness is cited as a significant issue. The case is made that there is not an adequate technical basis to provide such a sampling regimen because not enough is known about what can be achieved in mixing and distribution of solids by use of the baseline submersible mixing pump system. A combined mixing-sampling test program is recommended to fill this gap. Historical Pacific Northwest National Laboratory project and tank farms contractor documents are used to make this case. A substantial investment and progress are being made to understand mixing issues at the WTP. A summary of the key WTP activities relevant to this project is presented in this report. The relevant aspects of the WTP mixing work, together with a previously developed scaled test strategy for determining solids suspension with submerged mixer pumps (discussed in Section 3) provide a solid foundation for developing a path forward

Thermal performance sensitivity studies in support of material modeling for extended storage of used nuclear fuel

The work reported here is an investigation of the sensitivity of component temperatures of a storage system, including fuel cladding temperatures, in response to age-related changes that could degrade the design-basis thermal behavior of the system. Three specific areas of interest were identified for this study. • degradation of the canister backfill gas from pure helium to a mixture of air and helium, resulting from postulated leakage due to stress corrosion cracking (SCC) of canister welds • changes in surface emissivity of system components, resulting from corrosion or other aging mechanisms, which could cause potentially significant changes in temperatures and temperature distributions, due to the effect on thermal radiation exchange between components • changes in fuel and basket temperatures due to changes in fuel assembly position within the basket cells in the canister The purpose of these sensitivity studies is to provide a realistic example of how changes in the physical properties or configuration of the storage system components can affect temperatures and temperature distributions. The magnitudes of these sensitivities can provide guidance for identifying appropriate modeling assumptions for thermal evaluations extending long term storage out beyond 50, 100, 200, and 300 years

Preliminary Scaling Estimate for Select Small Scale Mixing Demonstration Tests

The Hanford Site double-shell tank (DST) system provides the staging location for waste that will be transferred to the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). Specific WTP acceptance criteria for waste feed delivery describe the physical and chemical characteristics of the waste that must be met before the waste is transferred from the DSTs to the WTP. One of the more challenging requirements relates to the sampling and characterization of the undissolved solids (UDS) in a waste feed DST because the waste contains solid particles that settle and their concentration and relative proportion can change during the transfer of the waste in individual batches. A key uncertainty in the waste feed delivery system is the potential variation in UDS transferred in individual batches in comparison to an initial sample used for evaluating the acceptance criteria. To address this uncertainty, a number of small-scale mixing tests have been conducted as part of Washington River Protection Solutions’ Small Scale Mixing Demonstration (SSMD) project to determine the performance of the DST mixing and sampling systems

Development of Millimeter-Wave Velocimetry and Acoustic Time-of-Flight Tomography for Measurements in Densely Loaded Gas-Solid Riser Flow

The MFDRC was formed in 1998 to advance the state-of-the-art in simulating multiphase turbulent flows by developing advanced computational models for gas-solid flows that are experimentally validated over a wide range of industrially relevant conditions. The goal was to transfer the resulting validated models to interested US commercial CFD software vendors, who would then propagate the models as part of new code versions to their customers in the US chemical industry. Since the lack of detailed data sets at industrially relevant conditions is the major roadblock to developing and validating multiphase turbulence models, a significant component of the work involved flow measurements on an industrial-scale riser contributed by Westinghouse, which was subsequently installed at SNL. Model comparisons were performed against these datasets by LANL. A parallel Office of Industrial Technology (OIT) project within the consortium made similar comparisons between riser measurements and models at NETL. Measured flow quantities of interest included volume fraction, velocity, and velocity-fluctuation profiles for both gas and solid phases at various locations in the riser. Some additional techniques were required for these measurements beyond what was currently available. PNNL’s role on the project was to work with the SNL experimental team to develop and test two new measurement techniques, acoustic tomography and millimeter-wave velocimetry. Acoustic tomography is a promising technique for gas-solid flow measurements in risers and PNNL has substantial related experience in this area. PNNL is also active in developing millimeter wave imaging techniques, and this technology presents an additional approach to make desired measurements. PNNL supported the advanced diagnostics development part of this project by evaluating these techniques and then by adapting and developing the selected technology to bulk gas-solids flows and by implementing them for testing in the SNL riser testbed

Loss of N-WASP drives early progression in an Apc model of intestinal tumourigenesis

N‐WASP (WASL) is a widely expressed cytoskeletal signalling and scaffold protein also implicated in regulation of Wnt signalling and homeostatic maintenance of skin epithelial architecture. N‐WASP mediates invasion of cancer cells in vitro and its depletion reduces invasion and metastatic dissemination of breast cancer. Given this role in cancer invasion and universal expression in the gastrointestinal tract, we explored a role for N‐WASP in the initiation and progression of colorectal cancer. While deletion of N‐wasp is not detectably harmful in the murine intestinal tract, numbers of Paneth cells increased, indicating potential changes in the stem cell niche and migration up the crypt‐villus axis was enhanced. Loss of N‐wasp promoted adenoma formation in an adenomatous polyposis coli (Apc) deletion model of intestinal tumourigenesis. Thus, we establish a tumour suppressive role of N‐WASP in early intestinal carcinogenesis despite its later pro‐invasive role in other cancers. Our study highlights that while the actin cytoskeletal machinery promotes invasion of cancer cells, it also maintains normal epithelial tissue function and thus may have tumour suppressive roles in pre‐neoplastic tissues

Thermal Modeling of NUHOMS HSM-15 and HSM-1 Storage Modules at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Station ISFSI

As part of the Used Fuel Disposition Campaign of the Department of Energy (DOE), visual inspections and temperature measurements were performed on two storage modules in the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Station’s Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI). Detailed thermal models models were developed to obtain realistic temperature predictions for actual storage systems, in contrast to conservative and bounding design basis calculations