[en] An individual nuclear fuel rod weighing system for rods carried on a tray which moves along a materials handling conveyor. At a first tray position on the conveyor, a lifting device raises the rods off the tray and places them on an overhead ramp. A loading mechanism conveys the rods singly from the overhead ramp onto an overhead scale for individual weighing. When the tray is at a second position on the conveyor, a transfer apparatus transports each weighed rod from the scale back onto the tray

[en] Sustainable treatment of intergenerational chemical manufacturing impacts on the environment forms the basis of a multidisciplinary ITRC remediation process optimisation (RPO) approach to achieve a balanced environmental outcome for the community. The commercial reality of clean-up can often become lost in the perception of risk and the emotional outrage for clean-up at all costs. Whilst we all agree, pollution caused by past practices should not have happened or been allowed to happen, our view can often be clouded by our emotional outrage over what happened, and whether there is any real or imminent risk to beneficial uses. Rest assured that despite any evil perception, no-one wants to cause environmental pollution and any “evil” past practices no longer exist. These challenges formed the basis of environmental clean-up works undertaken at a complex and diverse chemical manufacturing facility, Australia. (author)

[en] A broad spectrum of environmental and reclamation issues associated with mine development were discussed at this conference along with rehabilitation of lands disturbed by resource exploration; metal, placer and coal mining; and, sand and gravel quarries. Research has shown that it is possible to minimize or eliminate environmental damage, even in challenging terrain, by using appropriate remedial methods such as revegetation, reforestation, soil conservation, resloping, and recontouring of the soil to return the ecosystem to a natural self-sustaining state. It was noted that revegetation and reforestation efforts typically involves the selection of appropriate species that will adapt to climatic and local soil conditions. The conference featured 21 presentations, of which 4 have been indexed separately for inclusion in this database. refs., tabs., figs

[en] This annual conference fostered the exchange of information on mine reclamation and related issues affecting coal mining in British Columbia and oil sand mining in Alberta. The Technical and Research Committee on Reclamation (TRCR) was launched in the early 1970 to address the need for greater communication between industry and government regarding environmental protection and mine reclamation in order to minimize the environmental damages and impacts to wildlife posed by resource development. The Acid Mine Drainage Task Force was recently amalgamated with the TRCR to ensure that acid rock drainage issues are fully addressed. The conference was attended by members of the mining industry, consultants, students, all levels of government, non government organizations, and other interested parties from within British Columbia and around the world. The environmental impacts of mine development and land rehabilitation were discussed along with new remedial methods for soil conservation, water protection and carbon sequestration. The conference featured 22 presentations, of which 12 have been catalogued separately for inclusion in this database. refs., tabs., figs.

[en] Experiments are being developed at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory to offer advanced undergraduate physics students laboratory experiences in the atmosphere of a frontier accelerator facility. These experiments differ from projects done by Undergraduate Research Assistants in that they are designed specifically for integration into the undergraduate curriculum as part of a structured laboratory course. The immediate goal of the program is to develop four accelerator-based experiments for use in the undergraduate Advanced Laboratory course at Duke University. Two newly developed experiments, Carbon-Carbon Mott Scattering and Lifetime Measurements of an Auger Emitter, will be described. In addition, the logistics of conducting undergraduate laboratory course work in an active research facility will be discussed

[en] Mining operators in Canada are now aiming to minimize the environmental damages and impacts to wildlife posed by resource development. Attempts to reduce impacts are now focusing on the use of appropriate soil and reforestation practices. This annual symposium provided a forum for the discussion of a wide variety of issues related to mine reclamation and land use in British Columbia (BC). The environmental impacts of mine development and land rehabilitation were discussed, and new remedial methods for soil conservation and reforestation were presented. Safety and sustainable habitat considerations were discussed. Land reclamation practices and new technologies developed in Western Australia and the Amazon were presented. The results of several bio- and geochemical studies conducted in BC were also presented. The conference featured 18 presentations, of which 7 have been catalogued separately for inclusion in this database. refs., tabs., figs

[en] This annual symposium fosters the exchange of information on mine reclamation, including metal mines, coal mines, placer operations, sand and gravel operations and quarry operations. The presentations addressed a wide variety of environmental and reclamation issues associated with mine development as well as the rehabilitation of lands disturbed by resource exploration. Studies have shown that it is possible to minimize or eliminate environmental damage in all types of terrain by using appropriate remedial methods such as revegetation, reforestation, soil conservation, resloping, and recontouring of the soil to return the ecosystem to a natural self-sustaining state. Revegetation and reforestation efforts usually involve the selection of appropriate species that will adapt to climatic and local soil conditions. The conference featured 23 presentations, of which 3 have been catalogued separately for inclusion in this database. refs., tabs., figs

[en] In order to confirm or refute the present discrepancy between data and calculation for the neutron–neutron quasi-free scattering cross section in the neutron–deuteron breakup reaction, we describe a new experimental approach currently being pursued at TUNL. (author)

[en] Homeland Security programs are developing systems that use nuclear resonance fluorescence (NRF) to isotopically map a container. One such system being developed at LLNL is FINDER (Fluorescence Imaging in the Nuclear Domain with Extreme Radiation). The proposed FINDER system works by impinging a tunable monoenergetic gamma ray beam onto a container under investigation. The photons pass through the container and a fraction of them scatter off of the interior components through various electromagnetic processes. One of these processes is NRF. At specific resonance energies, incident photons interact directly with the nuclei of special nuclear material (SNM) or other materials in the container. The incident beam is absorbed and scattered into all directions, depleting the spectrum at the resonant energy. The transmitted gamma ray beam accrues a notch a few eV in width after passing through the material of interest. This notched spectrum will impinge on a witness foil placed on the opposite side of the container relative to the gamma ray source. The witness foil will be made of material identical to the one being sought after. If there is a notch in the spectrum then there will be no NRF photons scattered from the witness foil. The corollary is that if there is no notch in the transmitted spectrum then there will be NRF photons scattered from the witness foil. A simple arrangement of gamma-ray detectors focused on the witness foil, are used to measure the NRF photons. If the detectors see NRF scatter then there was no NRF scatter within the container; therefore, no material of the nature being sought after was in that container. Conversely, if there was no NRF scatter from the witness foil, then the NRF scatter took place from within the container; therefore, the material of interest is inside of the container. Recently, initial feasibility tests of FINDER was performed at the HIgS (High-Intensity Gamma Source) located at Duke University (1]. The preliminary results of these tests are discussed in this report. Our goals for these measurements were to demonstrate the concept of transmission detection and perform some initial validation of models of the FINDER concept. In particular, our models (2] indicated that backgrounds and nuisances are too small to obscure the high signal to noise of the FINDER technique. Therefore, FINDER offers extremely clear positive and negative signals for detecting SNM when measuring the high contrast attenuation of on-resonance gamma rays in transmission. Our initial demonstration of transmission detection provides a first check on our models--e.g. is there a physical process that we have forgotten to include? Also, previous work indicated that the notch could be obscured by small-angle scattering refilling the notch if the interrogating photon source is too broad in energy. While we did not expect notch refilling to be significant at HIgS which provides beam of gamma rays with ΔE/E ∼ 3%, we were able to set an experimental upper limit on the amount of notch refilling in our experimental set up. This report first describes the experimental setup for these measurements, gives a summary of the important results, and then concludes by discussing the extent to which we were able to validate our models (2] of the FINDER technique

[en] The ¹S₀ neutron-neutron (nn) scattering length's currently accepted value (a_nn=-18.6±0.3 fm) is derived exclusively from two π^--d capture-reaction experiments, in disagreement with the average -16.7±0.5 fm extracted from kinematically-complete nd breakup experiments. This discrepancy may be due to deficiencies in the analyses of n-d breakup data and/or three-nucleon force (3NF) effects. A kinematically-complete n+d→n₁+n₂+p breakup experiment at an incident neutron energy of 13.0 MeV was performed recently at TUNL. The value of a_nn was extracted from the direct comparison of experimental and rigorously-calculated theoretical nd breakup differential cross sections at four production angles of the nn pair. Using modern nucleon-nucleon potential models in the three-nucleon cross-section calculations we obtained a_nn=-18.7±0.6 fm, in agreement with the π^--d result. We found no significant effect due to 3NFs on our a_nn value