4

all of the items in the Major Materials Facilities Report simultaneously. Implementation of the Report requires an investment strategy that meets realistic needs on a reasonable timetable and resolves uncertainties without undue exposure to cost escalation and with attention to possible cost savings.

1.

ii.

The first three items in the Major Materials Facilities Report having to do with new capabilities at existing facilities should be implemented as quickly as possible. The incremental research value gained for the nation from these additions of moderate expense to the neutron facilities at Los Alamos, Brookhaven, and the National Bureau of Standards and of advanced insertion devices to the photon facilities at Brookhaven, Stanford, and Wisconsin will be extremely cost effective.

O The provision of guide hall facilities and associated instruments
for cold neutron research is vital for strengthening neutron beam
research in the United States. A start has been made by the
President's FY 1986 budget request for such an upgrade at the
National Bureau of Standards. The proposed facilities at
Brookhaven, which serve research purposes distinct from the up-
grade at the Bureau, should be implemented as quickly as
possible.

о

Adding new insertion devices to existing synchrotron sources at
Stanford, Brookhaven and Wisconsin is of major importance to
increased capability for national research at these facilities.
The research and design of these additional insertion devices
should begin now so that construction can follow the new
capabilities at synchrotron radiation facilities already
included in the FY 1985 and FY 1986 budgets. It is also vital
for gaining experience with undulators, a key element in the next
generation of synchrotron radiation sources.

An immediate commitment to construction of the experimental hall and key instrumentation at the Los Alamos facility for spallation neutron research is needed. Until this is accomplished, this important facility cannot function as an effective user-oriented activity. When supported by concurrent developments in target and moderator design and in usable instruments matched to this high flux facility, this relatively modest addition should enable the United States to maintain its leadership in this field.

Both the 6 GeV synchrotron and advanced steady state neutron facilities have the potential to provide order-of-magnitude, or greater, improvements in scientific capability. These two projects have the first and second scientific priorities for new construction in the Major Materials Facilities Report. These are large investments and would provide significant facilities which will operate well into the next century. A program of non-site-specific

111.

iv.

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research and development and engineering design should be

immediately initiated. Construction commitments should not be made
but funding for the pre-construction research and development should
be explicitly provided. This should lead to proposals in two to five
years for facilities that can be built with confidence for
successful and timely operations at design goals and well identified
costs.

There is a recognized need for additional photon facilities in the
vacuum ultraviolet both for the overall scientific community and for
the research needs of the Department's defense programs. The Major
Materials Facilities Report assumed that part of the near term need
would be met by the Wisconsin Synchrotron Radiation Center's Aladdin
ring, presently under construction. The decision on when the
Department should proceed with a 1-2 GeV high brightness synchrotron
radiation facility, for which designs exist, must take into account
the resolution of difficulties that have arisen with Aladdin
subsequent to the Major Materials Facilities Report. If the
National Science Foundation decides not to complete and operate
Aladdin, the 1-2 GeV synchrotron will be more urgently needed.

The work on enriched pulsed neutron target and moderator assemblies
already under development at Argonne should be vigorously pursued
and plans should be developed and evaluated to integrate such low-
cost enhancements into spallation neutron facilities at Argonne and
Los Alamos. These efforts should be followed by research and design

studies of a future s
7 spallation neutron source capable of peak fluxes

in the range of 10* neutrons/cm-sec. Decisions on construction of
future higher intensity neutron facilities should be based on these
studies, the work on the new reactor recommended above, and
accumulated international experience obtained with the spallation
sources presently going into operation and existing steady state

sources.

The National Science Foundation has accepted responsibility for upgrading the National Magnet Laboratory. This is important to the Department because of the need for superconductor research and development associated with accelerator and fusion magnets. As previously noted, the Department of Commerce is seeking funding to provide cold neutron capability at the National Bureau of Standards' reactor. These two steps, if successful, are complementary to the Department's actions recommended above and provide important contributions to the overall scientific capability of the nation. They underscore, however, the multiplicity of Federal efforts in materials research and the need for effective coordination in the

advisory and decision-making process. As the principal sponsor of research facilities in this area the Department should take the initiative in establishing such a process. The Major Materials Facilities Report also refers to a need for further panels to address important aspects of materials research other than major materials facilities. statement.

We support this

A budget scenario is developed. It calls for a gradual increase in the construction budget by about $6-7 million per annum for each of 8 years and an increase in the operating budget, for operations, maintenance, and DOE research, of $7-8 million per annum for each of the first 3 years.

In

Materials are of primary importance in protecting the economic competitiveness of our nation, in efficient and reliable production and use of energy and also in any forseeable new energy and defense technologies. acknowledgement of this vital role, the Department of Energy and its antecedent organizations, the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), have consistently supported substantial materials research and development programs. The Department currently provides about $350 million annually for materials research and development--making it the largest reported single source of such support in the United States. Materials sciences and the associated development efforts are a major area of focus for the Department because the limitations of materials properties constrain extant energy production and conversion systems as well as the development of new alternative energy technologies and defense systems. Because of the vital importance of materials to the nation's long-range economic development, security, energy usage and energy conservation, the Department provides approximately one-third of the funding for research and development in the materials sciences.

Materials research is a broad and diverse group of activities, ranging from concerns with improved alloys and welding processes to fundamental studies of structure and properties of materials on the atomic scale. As materials research and development have become more advanced, the associated scientific equipment has become more sophisticated and expensive. Within the last few years, increasing numbers of scientists and engineers involved in materials research and related disciplines have begun to need advanced research facilities such as sources of high intensity neutron beams, high magnetic field facilities, very interse sources of synchrotron radiation, and special electron microscopes. The DOE laboratories are natural sites for Major Materials Facilities. Indeed, the majority of the existing Major Materials Facilities in the U.S. are located at DOE laboratories: these extant facilities and facilities under construction command an increasing share of the DOE funding for materials research and development.

Recently new major materials facilities as well as several upgrades of existing facilities have been proposed. Operational costs, development schedules and construction periods have increased with the sophistication of these new facilities. To expect all of the proposed construction to be initiated over the next few years is unreasonable. Due to the diverse capabilities of Major Materials Facilities and the increasingly larger costs of construction and operations, the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in November 1983 asked the National Research Council (NRC) to assist in establishing national priorities for future Major Materials Facilities ((MMF)--defined to be those facilities whose initial costs were over $5 million).

A committee of 22 members was formed within the NRC Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Resources, representing the diverse disciplines that use facilities for major materials. The Committee's membership was also intended to mirror the differing research styles and the wide spectrum of organizations where the research is done. Scientific work

8

with materials varies from that principally requiring laboratory-scale instrumentation to that dependent on the availability of major facilities. The research is done by governmental, academic, and industrial scientists and engineers.

The Major Materials Facilities Committee, co-chaired by Dean Eastman and Frederick Seitz, first met late in January 1984 and three times thereafter. The task of studying the diverse MMF proposals was difficult. However, the status of neutron scattering and of synchrotron radiation sources had been reviewed recently by panels of experts for the NRC. A 1979 NRC study on HighMagnetic-Field Research and Facilities and a 1984 DOE planning study for advanced synchrotron radiation facilities were also available. The Report

of the MMF Committee and its recommendations were forwarded to Dr. Keyworth late in July 1984 and published by the NRC as "Major Facilities for Materials Research and Related Disciplines" (Ref. 1). Appendix A contains the Executive Summary of this report.

In July 1984, the Secretary of Energy requested that the Energy Research Advisory Board (ERAB) undertake ad hoc Reviews of four NRC reports including the one described above (See Appendix B). He recognized that the recommendations and information in the reports could have a major effect on the Department's science efforts in programs of the Office of Energy Research and also on those of other components of the Department. He requested that

the Reviews:

Examine the substantive recommendations of the reports

Assess the significance in terms of the Department's programs and
responsibilities

Recommend appropriate action and

Complete the assessment in six months

Subsequently, Kalph Gens, Chairman of ERAB, asked Arthur Hansen to form a group to review the MMF report (See Appendix C). He requested that the Review:

Consider the appropriateness and urgency of DOE implementation of
the recommendations

Set priorities by considering, from the DOE point-of-view, the
needs of present and potential users and the overall importance to
the nation

Account for timing, costs and urgency of the various choices in a
plan for implementing the Reviews recommendations

Consider any further needs or requirements which were not fully
addressed by the MMF Committee

Obtain the views of DOE program personnel and of others having
interest in such facilities including potential university, industry
and national laboratory project personnel and facility users

A Review consisting of four ERAB members and four external members was assembled. A list of the members follows the transmittal letters. The Review began its deliberations with its first meeting, October 30, 1984.

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III. REVIEW PROCEDURES AND CONSIDERATIONS

The external members of the ad hoc Review were selected to provide broad expertise in the materials sciences and related disciplines but also to represent national laboratories, industrial and academic institutions as well as many regions of the USA. The Review held three publically announced and geographically distributed meetings: the first was held in Washington, D.C. on October 30, 1984, the second in Berkeley, CA, on December 12, 1984, and the last in Chicago, Illinois, on January 25-26, 1985. This provided the opportunity for participation by the public across the nation. Appendix D. contains the agenda of these meetings. An informal final meeting was held in Washington on April 30, 1985, for the purpose of clearing up some remaining questions and finishing the draft report to be presented to the Energy Research Advisory Board on May 2, 1985.

NRC panels and surveys, DOE topical workshops and planning studies and other sources have produced more than a dozen reports which concern the MMF in the last few years. Consequently, much of the information pertinent to the Review was read by the members. See Section VI for the bibliography of reports used in this review. The first meeting was devoted to determining the response other Federal agencies expected to make to the MMF Report. Briefings on the applications of neutron research and synchrotron radiation research were given in the first and the second meetings. Speakers on neutron research and synchrotron radiation research were carefully chosen to be experts but with minimal institutional stock in the MMF Report recommendations. Before the second meeting, all of the DOE Laboratories were polled for their thoughts on the MMF Report recommendations in regard to their mission, their use of the MMF, and on the statistics of operation and use of any MMF located at their laboratory. (These statistics are presented in summary form in Appendix E.) The second, third, and the informal final meetings contained briefings from the DOE laboratories on these questions and their plans involving new MMF.