Advanced technology applications for second and third general coal gasification systems

The historical background of coal conversion is reviewed and the programmatic status (operational, construction, design, proposed) of coal gasification processes is tabulated for both commercial and demonstration projects as well as for large and small pilot plants. Both second and third generation processes typically operate at higher temperatures and pressures than first generation methods. Much of the equipment that has been tested has failed. The most difficult problems are in process control. The mechanics of three-phase flow are not fully understood. Companies participating in coal conversion projects are ordering duplicates of failure prone units. No real solutions to any of the significant problems in technology development have been developed in recent years

Improvements in estimating proportions of objects from multispectral data

Methods for estimating proportions of objects and materials imaged within the instantaneous field of view of a multispectral sensor were developed further. Improvements in the basic proportion estimation algorithm were devised as well as improved alien object detection procedures. Also, a simplified signature set analysis scheme was introduced for determining the adequacy of signature set geometry for satisfactory proportion estimation. Averaging procedures used in conjunction with the mixtures algorithm were examined theoretically and applied to artificially generated multispectral data. A computationally simpler estimator was considered and found unsatisfactory. Experiments conducted to find a suitable procedure for setting the alien object threshold yielded little definitive result. Mixtures procedures were used on a limited amount of ERTS data to estimate wheat proportion in selected areas. Results were unsatisfactory, partly because of the ill-conditioned nature of the pure signature set

Modeling Agglomeration of Dust Particles in Plasma

The charge on an aggregate immersed in a plasma environment distributes itself over the aggregate's surface; this can be approximated theoretically by assuming a multipole distribution. The dipole-dipole (or higher order) charge interactions between fractal aggregates lead to rotations of the grains as they interact. Other properties of the dust grains also influence the agglomeration process, such as the monomer shape (spherical or ellipsoidal) or the presence of magnetic material. Finally, the plasma and grain properties also determine the morphology of the resultant aggregates. Porous and fluffy aggregates are more strongly coupled to the gas, leading to reduced collisional velocities, and greater collisional cross sections. These factors in turn can determine the growth rate of the aggregates and evolution of the dust cloud. This paper gives an overview of the numerical and experimental methods used to study dust agglomeration at CASPER and highlights some recent results

Neutron spin structure with polarized deuterons and spectator proton tagging at EIC

The neutron's deep-inelastic structure functions provide essential information for the flavor separation of the nucleon parton densities, the nucleon spin decomposition, and precision studies of QCD phenomena in the flavor-singlet and nonsinglet sectors. Traditional inclusive measurements on nuclear targets are limited by dilution from scattering on protons, Fermi motion and binding effects, final-state interactions, and nuclear shadowing at x << 0.1. An Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) would enable next-generation measurements of neutron structure with polarized deuteron beams and detection of forward-moving spectator protons over a wide range of recoil momenta (0 < p_R < several 100 MeV in the nucleus rest frame). The free neutron structure functions could be obtained by extrapolating the measured recoil momentum distributions to the on-shell point. The method eliminates nuclear modifications and can be applied to polarized scattering, as well as to semi-inclusive and exclusive final states. We review the prospects for neutron structure measurements with spectator tagging at EIC, the status of R&D efforts, and the accelerator and detector requirements.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures. To appear in proceedings of Tensor Polarized Solid Target Workshop, Jefferson Lab, March 10-12, 201

Dispersion Relations for Thermally Excited Waves in Plasma Crystals

Thermally excited waves in a Plasma crystal were numerically simulated using a Box_Tree code. The code is a Barnes_Hut tree code proven effective in modeling systems composed of large numbers of particles. Interaction between individual particles was assumed to conform to a Yukawa potential. Particle charge, mass, density, Debye length and output data intervals are all adjustable parameters in the code. Employing a Fourier transform on the output data, dispersion relations for both longitudinal and transverse wave modes were determined. These were compared with the dispersion relations obtained from experiment as well as a theory based on a harmonic approximation to the potential. They were found to agree over a range of 0.9<k<5, where k is the shielding parameter, defined by the ratio between interparticle distance a and dust Debye length lD. This is an improvement over experimental data as current experiments can only verify the theory up to k = 1.5.Comment: 8 pages, Presented at COSPAR '0

DUS II SOIL GAS SAMPLING AND AIR INJECTION TEST RESULTS

Soil vapor extraction (SVE) and air injection well testing was performed at the Dynamic Underground Stripping (DUS) site located near the M-Area Settling Basin (referred to as DUS II in this report). The objective of this testing was to determine the effectiveness of continued operation of these systems. Steam injection ended on September 19, 2009 and since this time the extraction operations have utilized residual heat that is present in the subsurface. The well testing campaign began on June 5, 2012 and was completed on June 25, 2012. Thirty-two (32) SVE wells were purged for 24 hours or longer using the active soil vapor extraction (ASVE) system at the DUS II site. During each test five or more soil gas samples were collected from each well and analyzed for target volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The DUS II site is divided into four parcels (see Figure 1) and soil gas sample results show the majority of residual VOC contamination remains in Parcel 1 with lesser amounts in the other three parcels. Several VOCs, including tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE), were detected. PCE was the major VOC with lesser amounts of TCE. Most soil gas concentrations of PCE ranged from 0 to 60 ppmv with one well (VEW-22A) as high as 200 ppmv. Air sparging (AS) generally involves the injection of air into the aquifer through either vertical or horizontal wells. AS is coupled with SVE systems when contaminant recovery is necessary. While traditional air sparging (AS) is not a primary component of the DUS process, following the cessation of steam injection, eight (8) of the sixty-three (63) steam injection wells were used to inject air. These wells were previously used for hydrous pyrolysis oxidation (HPO) as part of the DUS process. Air sparging is different from the HPO operations in that the air was injected at a higher rate (20 to 50 scfm) versus HPO (1 to 2 scfm). . At the DUS II site the air injection wells were tested to determine if air sparging affected VOC soil gas concentrations during ASVE. Five (5) SVE wells that were located closest to the air injection wells were used as monitoring points during the air sparging tests. The air sparging tests lasted 48 hours. Soil gas sample results indicate that sparging did not affect VOC concentrations in four of the five sparging wells, while results from one test did show an increase in soil gas concentrations