Research
Highlights...
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Clean
room essential to Ossie
Millican.
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| Number 58 |
June 26, 2000 |
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Berkeley
Lab does its part for SNS:
A major
milestone in the development of the Spallation
Neutron Source -the accelerator-based facility at Oak Ridge
that will provide the most intense pulsed-beams of neutrons
ever available for scientific research-has been achieved at
DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory. A startup negative hydrogen ion source and low-energy
beam transport (LEBT) system, the first two components of the
SNS "front-end system," have been built and are now undergoing
commissioning tests. Results so far could not have been better.
In its maiden run, the ion source/LEBT successfully produced
an intense beam of negative hydrogen ions (peak current of 46-milliamperes)
at pulse lengths of 200 microseconds.
[Lynn Yarris,
510/486-5375,
lcyarris@lbl.gov]
Drying lumber in a flash
Lumberyards everywhere
could revolutionize their businesses with a microwave pretreatment
system that reduces from about two months to 10 days the amount
of time needed to dry hardwoods. The system could save the lumber
industry a significant amount in energy costs and reduce inventory
requirements and expense. It can also reduce yield losses caused
by long periods during which wood is exposed to insects, weather
and fungus. The technology, developed by ORNL
and partners, selectively opens cellular membranes, increasing
fluid flow through the wood. This improves the drying rate and
decreases the time required to kiln dry. The treatment also
permits the production of a broad new range of low-pressure
impregnated wood products for a variety of applications.
[Ron Walli,
865/576-0226,
wallira@ornl.gov]
Pure titanium medical implants
Researchers at DOE's
Los Alamos National Laboratory and Ufa
State Aviation Technical University in Russia have developed
a process for making strong, lightweight and corrosion-resistant
medical implant material from pure titanium. The novel process
nearly triples the strength of the titanium, and could have
worldwide impact on the use of titanium medical implants in
health care. The process creates medical implants that are strong
enough to bear heavy loads without failure. The implant material
is corrosion resistant and chemically compatible with body organs
and fluids so it can remain in the body for years.
[Kay L. Roybal,
505/665-0582,
k_roybal@lanl.gov]
Radioisotopes
unravel groundwater mysteries
Researchers mapped the movement of naturally-occurring radioactive
elements within Idaho's Snake River Plain aquifer and documented
distinct transport paths-some areas essentially trap elements
for decades while other areas are speedy corridors where water
quickly passes through. This research challenges the traditionally
held model that aquifers are uniform in flow and depth. Now
scientists can make more accurate predictions about how and
where contaminants move through the aquifer-a critical component
of addressing the Department of Energy's environmental cleanup
mission. The collaboration includes researchers from the Idaho
National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Los
Alamos National Laboratory and the University
of Southern California.
[Deborah
Hill, 208/526-4723,
dahill@inel.gov]
Russian
technology helps research to immobilize plutonium
Researchers at DOE's
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are using Russian
technology in developing methods to make the spread of nuclear
weapons less likely. A "plutonium-oxide saltwasher" acquired
by Livermore from the Russian Scientific Research Institute
of Atomic Reactors will help remove unwanted chemicals from
excess plutonium that authorities don't want falling into the
wrong hands. Once treated, the plutonium can be immobilized
in a ceramic matrix roughly the size and shape of a hockey puck,
then further isolated for storage. The automated washer technology
offers improvements in speed, efficiency and cost over existing
methods, said Livermore researcher Mark Bronson.
[Jeff
Garberson, 925-423-3125,
jbg@llnl.gov]
Study
will illuminate productivity, lighting link
A consortium of lighting, building
and energy organizations has launched a study to examine in greater
detail a suspected link between workplace
lighting and employee performance and well-being. The goal of
the four-year analysis,
which is managed by DOE's Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory, is to move beyond previous studies
and quantify the relationship between good lighting and productivity,
then work to translate the results into changes in the workplace.
Consortium members believe that office lighting may be as important
as an ergonomic chair or keyboard in the way it affects people both
physically and psychologically. Businesses also may benefit from
better workplace lighting with improved recruitment, staff retention,
worker output and increased ability to rent office and work space.
[Staci
Maloof, 509/372-6313,
staci.maloof@pnl.gov]
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A
clean room indeed
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| Ossie
Millican |
"We've
had clean rooms here at SLAC before,
but this clean room has a few interesting features which make
it different," said Ossie Millican, a 15-year veteran at DOE's
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. He's referring to a
clean room being built for SLAC's venture into space-based experiments,
the GLAST project.
The acronym
stands for Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, and it's a partnership
among DOE, NASA, and collaborators in France, Germany, Italy,
Japan, and Sweden. Scientists expect GLAST to make cutting edge
discoveries in particle astrophysics after its launch in late
2005.
Millican's
work at SLAC over the years includes a lot of tinkering, which
is what he likes to do, but he agrees that this is a somewhat
larger scale with more complexity. A clean room is a controlled
environment in which loose particles are kept out by using air
pressure to pump in filtered air.
Workers
in clean rooms generally wear outfits affectionately called "bunny
suits," which prevent particles from clothing and shoes from entering
the system. "Think of your typical office building," says Millican.
"That type of building would have maybe two to three changes of
air per hour. This clean room will have 60-65 changes per hour."
"The
GLAST telescope needs a clean room because of the wire bonding
of the silicon wafers that are used in the space telescope and
to prevent stray particles from being released in weightless conditions,"
says Millican. There are over 4.5 million of those wires, which
means a very clean room indeed.
"Working
on a clean room for GLAST that will be used for future space based
experiments is a tremendous challenge. SLAC is a great place for
always providing opportunities to build things, and this clean
room is no exception."
Submitted
by DOE's Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center
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