BEVALAC PHYSICS RESEARCH In addition to basic physics studies by academic and national laboratory researchers, studies are occasionally conducted at the Bevalac by private firms. During the past year, Boeing Aerospace Company used the Bevalac beam to investigate the effects of cosmic rays on space vehicle computer chips. For their purposes, the Bevalac is an effective simulator of cosmic radiation. Also, Science Applications International Corporation used deuteron beams at the Bevalac to confirm the accuracy of a computer code designed to predict neutron-production cross sections at low energies. DOE - Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory ETHERNET COMMUNICATIONS INTERFACE The Bevalac Software Support Group of the LBL Nuclear Science Division provides data acquisition facilities for Bevalac experimental groups. Development of a new, VME-based data acquisition system over the past two years required a fast and flexible Ethernet communications interface for data transfer and recording. A leading communications manufacturer, Communications Machinery Corporation (Santa Barbara, CA.), provided an interface that came closest to meeting LBL's requirements. However, detailed tests showed serious performance problems. At LBL's request, a series of specific product changes were made by the manufacturer. From timing tests performed at LBL, several of these changes were shown to increase communications throughput by up to 60%. These enhancements have been incorporated into the released product and are being used in several commercial distributed control and data acquisition applications. DOE - Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory ION IMPLANTATION STUDIES AT THE SUPERHILAC The production of new semiconductors by deep implementation of heavy ions in substrates was studied during 1987 by several students of Professor Nathan Cheung of the University of California at Berkeley. As part of a collaborative program, the implanted material was then shared with the research departments of several semiconductor manufacturers. In addition, surface modification implantation experiments were carried out using heavy-ion beams from both the Abel and the Adam injectors at the SuperHILAC, LBL's 8McV heavy ion linear accelerator. This work, conducted by Peggy Hou of the Materials and Chemical Sciences Division, was funded by a grant from the Electric Power Research Institute. RCA RADIOFREQUENCY POWER AMPLIFIER During 1986 and 1987, Accelerator & Fusion Research Division physicists at the SuperHILAC collaborated with RCA in the testing of an RCA vacuum tube for use as an rf amplifier. The SuperHILAC accelerator power supply system served as a unique testbed for a tube intended for wide industrial application. Installation, conditioning and operational data were shared. DOE - Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory TRANSURANIC AEROSOL MEASUREMENT SYSTEM OFFERS CLEARCUT ADVANTAGES THE TECHNOLOGY LLNL researchers have developed a computer-controlled system for measuring airborne transuranic elements. The system offers more features than anything now on the market. It is very efficient for measuring particles as large as 10 micrometers in diameter and can handle a wide range of flow rates. A detector mounted in the instrument's air sampling pipe sounds an alarm immediately if there is a release of radioactivity. After the sampling time, the filter is moved to a vacuum chamber for more sensitive off-line analysis. A microcomputer drives the filter transport mechanism, operates a 256-channel pulse height analyzer, performs calculations, checks calibration and drives a matrix display. Its operation can be changed or enhanced by simply changing software, written in modular fashion. also communicate trend, alarm and other data to a central computer. TECHNOLOGY RECIPIENTS It can About 60 units are planned for production at DOE's Rocky Flats, CO plant for use there. At least four companies have already expressed interest in the machine, and have examined LLNL's prototypes. It is expected that the device, called WOTAMS (Workplace Transuranic Aerosol Measurement System) will evolve into a commercial product to replace those less sensitive instruments now widely used in both research and production environments. WOTAMS is the public domain. USES AND BENEFITS Compact, extremely sensitive detectors are an absolute requirement in facilities processing elements like uranium, plutonium and americium. WOTAMS is much more sensitive than current units in detecting and measuring alpha particles. It is a high reliability system with operational self-checking and periodic source-calibration checks. Since WOTAMS produces very accurate data, it minimizes the need and additional expense for a counting laboratory to analyze air samples. |