Search NASA⌕ Search

Engineering topics

Randall, G.

Publications and source records attributed to Randall, G..

Delta-Rice: A HDF5 Compression Plugin optimized for Digitized Detector Data

Delta-Rice is an HDF5 (The HDF Group et al., 2020) filter plugin that was developed to compress digitized detector signals recorded by the Nab experiment (Fry et al., 2019), a fundamental neutron physics experiment. This is a two-step process where incoming data is passed through a pre-processing filter and then compressed with Rice coding. A routine for determining the optimal pre-processing filter for a dataset is provided along with an example GPU deployment. When applied to data collected by the Nab data acquisition system, this method produced output files 29% their initial size, and was able to do so with an average read/write throughput in excess of 2 GB/s on a single CPU. Compared to the widely used Gzip compression routine, Delta-Rice reduces the file size by 33% more with over an order of magnitude increase in read/write throughput. Delta-Rice is available on CPU to users through the HDF5 library.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Industry overview of TRANSCEND - 20271

The United Kingdom has a legacy of nuclear facilities to decommission and radioactive waste to manage and dispose of. The TRANSCEND programme is an independent research programme with significant participation from industrial organizations that are involved in that decommissioning programme and radioactive waste management. The participation has led to a programme that is both academically robust enough to attract significant funding from the EPSRC, the universities themselves and relevant enough to be supported financially by the industrial partners who see the needs and drivers. The programme offers benefits in terms of the development of people and in enabling and promoting innovation in both hardware and software tools. Industrial engagement is fundamental to being able to capitalise on that innovation. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

In Situ Gas Generation and its Impact on Decommissioning Nuclear Legacy Waste Facilities - 19416

The purpose of this statement is to share the current status of the implications of hydrogen hold up in raw sludge waste packages in the context of ongoing and recently completed work, the likelihood of any potential issues, and discuss its potential impact on operating strategies. Full technical reports of the completed experimental work are available in the published literature as cited below and current work will be made available in the near future. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Design and operation of a windowless gas target internal to a solenoidal magnet for use with a megawatt electron beam

A windowless hydrogen gas target of nominal thickness 10 19 cm -2 is an essential component of the DarkLight experiment, which is designed to utilize the megawatt electron beam at an Energy Recovery Linac (ERL). The design of such a target is challenging because the pressure drops by many orders of magnitude between the central, high-density section of the target and the surrounding beamline, resulting in laminar, transitional, and finally molecular flow regimes. The target system was assembled and operated at Jefferson Lab’s Low Energy Recirculator Facility (LERF) in 2016, and subsequently underwent several revisions and calibration tests at MIT Bates in 2017. The system at dynamic equilibrium was simulated in COMSOL to provide a better understanding of its optimal operation at other working points. We have determined that a windowless gas target with sufficiently high density for DarkLight’s experimental needs is feasible in an ERL environment.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Inferring Strength of Tantalum from Hydrodynamic Instability Recovery Experiments

Hydrodynamic instability experiments allow access to material properties at extreme conditions, where strain rates exceed 105 s -1 and pressures reach 100 GPa. Current hydrodynamic instability experimental methods require in-flight radiography to image the instability growth at high pressure and high strain rate, limiting the facilities where these experiments can be performed. An alternate approach, recovering the sample after loading, allows measurement of the instability growth with profilometry. Tantalum samples were manufactured with different 2D and 3D initial perturbation patterns and dynamically compressed by a blast wave generated by laser ablation. The samples were recovered from peak pressures between 30 and 120 GPa and strain rates on the order of 107 s -1 , providing a record of the growth of the perturbations due to hydrodynamic instability. These records are useful validation points for hydrocode simulations using models of material strength at high strain rate. Recovered tantalum samples were analyzed, providing an estimate of the strength of the material at high pressure and strain rate.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

LERF - New Life for the Jefferson Laboratory FEL

In 2012 Jefferson Laboratory's energy recovery linac (ERL) driven Free Electron Laser successfully completed a transmission test in which high current CW beam (4.3 mA at 100 MeV) was transported through a 2 mm aperture for 7 hours with beam losses as low as 3 ppm. The purpose of the run was to mimic an internal gas target for DarkLight — an experiment designed to search for a dark matter particle. The ERL was not run again until late 2015 for a brief re-commissioning in preparation for the next phase of DarkLight. In the intervening years, the FEL was rebranded as the Low Energy Recirculator Facility. In 2016 several weeks of operation were allocated to configure the machine for DarkLight with the purpose of exercising – for the first time – an internal gas target in an ERL. Despite a number of challenges, including the inability to energy recover without losses (precluding CW operation), beam was delivered to a target of thickness 10 18 cm -2 which represents a three order of magnitude increase in thickness from previous internal target experiments. Details of the machine configuration and operational experience will be discussed.

Tennant, C.↗