Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Pathways Program”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 199 records · Page 11
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1992

Exobiology: The NASA program

The goal of NASA's Exobiology Program is to understand the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe. To do this, the Exobiology Program seeks to provide a critical framework and some key research to allow NASA to bear the combined talents and capabilities of the agency and the scientific community, and the unique opportunities afforded by space exploration. To provide structure and direction to the quest for answers, the Exobiology Program has instituted a comprehensive research program divided into four elements which are being implemented at several of NASA's research centers and in the university community. These program elements correspond to the four major epochs in the evolution of living systems: (1) cosmic evolution of the biogenic compounds; (2) prebiotic evolution; (3) origin and early evolution of life; and (4) evolution of advanced life. The overall research program is designed to trace the pathways leading from the origin of the universe through the major epochs in the story of life.

Rummel, John D.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Quantitative Risk Analysis of High Safety Significant Safety-related Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems in Nuclear Power Plants using IRADIC Technology

This report documents the activities performed by Idaho National Laboratory (INL) during fiscal year (FY) 2021 for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program, Risk Informed Systems Analysis (RISA) Pathway, digital instrumentation and control (DI&C) Risk Assessment project. In FY-2019, the RISA Pathway initiated a project to develop a risk assessment strategy for delivering a strong technical basis to support effective, licensable, and secure DI&C technologies for digital upgrades/designs. An integrated risk assessment technology for the DI&C systems (IRADIC technology) was proposed for this strategy, which aims to (1) provide a best-estimate risk-informed capability to quantitatively and accurately estimate the safety margin obtained from plant modernization, especially for the High Safety Significant Safety-related (HSSSR) DI&C systems, (2) develop an advanced risk assessment technology to support transition from analog to DI&C technologies for nuclear industry, (3) assure the long-term safety and reliability of vital HSSSR DI&C systems, (4) reduce uncertainty in costs and support integration of DI&C systems in the plant. To achieve these technical goals and deal with the expensive licensing justifications from regulatory insights, the IRADIC technology is instructive for nuclear vendors and utilities to effectively lower the costs associated with digital compliance and speed industry advances by: (1) defining an integrated risk-informed analysis process for DI&C upgrade, including hazard analysis, reliability analysis, and consequence analysis, (2) applying systematic and risk-informed tools to address common cause failures (CCFs) and quantify responding failure probabilities for DI&C technologies, particularly software CCFs, (3) evaluating the impact of digital failures at the individual level, system level, and plant level, (4) providing insights and suggestions on designs to manage the risks; thus, to support the development, licensing, and deployment of advanced DI&C technologies on nuclear power plant (NPPs). In this report, an approach for performing software CCF analysis, given limited data, is developed and demonstrated using a case study of a highly redundant digital reactor trip system. Consequence analysis is also performed based on different accident scenarios. Results indicate that plant modernization including the improvement of HSSSR DI&C systems will make great benefits to plant safety by providing more safety margins to accident management. In addition, a novel approach is proposed in this report for the quantification of software hazards when sufficient operational and testing data available. The method incorporates software development quality as well as strong analysis techniques to identify and link software defects to potential failure modes. The approach includes both semantic and test-based analysis to detect failures that can exist in different stages of the software development life cycle. This method is applied to an advanced human system interface relevant to reactor trip safety developed from the APR 1400 design.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Risk Analysis of Various Design Architectures for High Safety-significant Safety-related Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems of Nuclear Power Plants during Accident Scenarios

This report documents the plus-up activities performed by Idaho National Laboratory (INL) during Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program, Risk Informed Systems Analysis (RISA) Pathway, digital instrumentation and control (DI&C) risk assessment project. In FY 2019, the RISA Pathway initiated a project to develop a risk assessment strategy for delivering a strong technical basis to support effective, licensable, and secure DI&C technologies for digital upgrades/designs. An integrated risk assessment technology for the DI&C systems was proposed for this strategy, which aims to (1) provide a best-estimate, risk-informed capability to quantitatively and accurately estimate the safety margin obtained from plant modernization, especially for the high safety-significant safety-related (HSSSR) DI&C systems, (2) support and supplement existing advanced risk-informed DI&C design guides by providing quantitative risk information and evidence, (3) offer a capability of design architecture evaluation of various DI&C systems to support system design decisions and diversity and redundancy applications, (4) assure the long-term safety and reliability of HSSSR DI&C systems, and (5) reduce uncertainty in costs and support integration of DI&C systems in the plant. To achieve these technical goals and deal with the expensive licensing justifications from regulatory insights, the LWRS-developed framework instructs nuclear vendors and utilities on how to effectively lower the costs associated with digital compliance and speed industry advances by: (1) defining an integrated risk-informed analysis process for DI&C upgrade, including hazard analysis, reliability analysis, and consequence analysis, (2) applying systematic and risk-informed tools to address common cause failures (CCFs) and quantify corresponding failure probabilities for DI&C technologies, particularly software CCFs, (3) evaluating the impact of digital failures at the component level, system level, and plant level, and (4) providing insights and suggestions on designs to manage the risks, thus to support the development, licensing, and deployment of advanced DI&C technologies on nuclear power plant (NPPs). Adding diversity within system or components is the main means to eliminate and mitigate CCFs, but diversity also increases plant complexity and errors and may not address all sources of systematic failures. How to optimize the diversity and redundancy applications for the safety-critical DI&C systems remains a challenge. To deal with the technical issues in addressing potential software CCFs in HSSSR DI&C systems of NPPs and supporting relevant design optimization, the framework provides: ? An integrated best-estimate, risk-informed capability to address new technical digital issues quantitatively, accurately, and efficiently in plan modernization progress, such as software CCFs in HSSSR DI&C systems of NPPs ? A common and a modularized platform for DI&C designers, software developers, cybersecurity analysts, and plant engineers to efficiently predict and prevent risk in the early design stage of DI&C systems ? Technical bases and risk-informed insights to assist U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and industry to address and fulfill the risk-informed alternatives for evaluation of CCFs in HSSSR DI&C systems of NPPs ? An integrated risk-informed tool that offers a capability of design architecture evaluation of various DI&C systems to support system design decisions in diversity and redundancy applications. The plus-up research and development efforts of this project in FY 2022 are focused on methodology improvement of software CCF modeling and estimation, prevention analysis, importance analysis and risk analysis of various design architectures of HSSSR DI&C systems. This work greatly enhances the capability of the LWRS-developed framework for the risk assessment and design optimization of safety-critical DI&C systems. It should be noted that all the analyses are performed for the demonstration of the LWRS-developed framework, not for the evaluation of relevant systems. Results are obtained based on very limited design information and testing data.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Gains in operational flexibility, safety margins, and cost efficiencies via integrated Plant Reload Optimization platform

The U.S. Department of Energy Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program Risk-Informed Systems Analysis Pathway Plant Reload Optimization Project aims to develop an integrated, comprehensive framework offering an all-in-one solution for reload evaluations with a special focus on optimizing core design. Optimizing the fuel loading pattern is one of the most important considerations in reducing the amount of new fuel used in the core. Due to thousands of possible core configuration options, finding optimal solutions is an unachievable task for a human. The Plant ReLoad Optimization platform, which supports artificial-intelligence-based reactor core designing, is now fully capable of handling realistic problems. The Plant ReLoad Optimization platform development project aims to build a reactor core design tool that includes reactor safety and fuel performance analyses and uses artificial intelligence to support the optimization of core design solutions. The NSGA-II (Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II) optimizer was developed and tested within RAVEN (Risk Analysis and Virtual ENvironment) to handle many constraints by using an augmented objectives methodology. The demonstration was performed with constrained multiobjective optimization of a 17 × 17 pressurized-water reactor core loading patterns to minimize fuel cost and maximize fuel cycle length.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Modeling Radionuclide Vaporization from Sodium Pools for SFR Mechanistic Source Term Analysis

To assist both the advanced reactor industry and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in the pursuit of reactor design and licensing, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program has established a mechanistic source term (MST) research project under the Multiphysics Applications technical area. As part of this effort, an MST mod/sim development pathway was developed in FY21 under the NEAMS program, which outlines the high-level objectives and near-term tasks necessary to achieve the project objectives. One such recommended task was the assessment of a previously developed thermodynamic database to model radionuclide vaporization from liquid sodium pools (specifically in the context of MST analyses), which is the focus of this topic report. As such, a thermodynamic database was created in FactSage for liquid sodium pools containing oxygen and relevant elements which represent radionuclides pertinent to MST analyses. The database was demonstrated in calculating vapor fraction curves for each element in the system at concentrations relevant to SFR MST.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Design of an effective radiological effluent and environmental surveillance program - history of Savannah River site environmental monitoring program design - 15308

An effective radiological effluent and surveillance program is critical for a nuclear facility to (1) comply with applicable regulations, (2) assess the potential impacts of operations to the environment and public, and (3) inform stakeholders and members of the public of any impacts. Radiological environmental monitoring includes three program elements - effluent monitoring, environmental surveillance, and dose assessments. The key to an effective program is defining the baseline and objectives based on regulatory requirements, identification of the critical exposure pathways, determining the spatial and temporal boundaries for the monitoring, and defining the reporting and action levels. Another key to an effective program is through continuous improvement by transforming the program based on operational facility changes and responding to technology advancements in the field of environmental monitoring. The history of the Savannah River Site's (SRS) environmental monitoring program is an example of an effective program that has transitioned, changed, and improved over the years based on the site missions and operations. From the beginning of five production reactors and two chemical separations facilities to the current Site missions of Environmental Stewardship, National Security, and Clean Energy, the SRS environmental monitoring program has evolved. SRS has a unique ecological environment with the Site area covering 80,300 hectares, five major streams that lead to the Savannah River, various water bodies, and varied meteorological conditions. Airborne and liquid pathways to human exposure are complex and it is necessary to use a graded approach when monitoring these pathways. The SRS environmental monitoring program is designed and effective in ensuring and verifying that there is a minimal exposure impact on the public and the environment from Site operations. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2011

Discovery of Novel Complex Metal Hydrides for Hydrogen Storage through Molecular Modeling and Combinatorial Methods

UOP LLC, a Honeywell Company, Ford Motor Company, and Striatus, Inc., collaborated with Professor Craig Jensen of the University of Hawaii and Professor Vidvuds Ozolins of University of California, Los Angeles on a multi-year cost-shared program to discover novel complex metal hydrides for hydrogen storage. This innovative program combined sophisticated molecular modeling with high throughput combinatorial experiments to maximize the probability of identifying commercially relevant, economical hydrogen storage materials with broad application. A set of tools was developed to pursue the medium throughput (MT) and high throughput (HT) combinatorial exploratory investigation of novel complex metal hydrides for hydrogen storage. The assay programs consisted of monitoring hydrogen evolution as a function of temperature. This project also incorporated theoretical methods to help select candidate materials families for testing. The Virtual High Throughput Screening served as a virtual laboratory, calculating structures and their properties. First Principles calculations were applied to various systems to examine hydrogen storage reaction pathways and the associated thermodynamics. The experimental program began with the validation of the MT assay tool with NaAlH4/0.02 mole Ti, the state of the art hydrogen storage system given by decomposition of sodium alanate to sodium hydride, aluminum metal, and hydrogen. Once certified, a combinatorial 21-point study of the NaAlH4 LiAlH4Mg(AlH4)2 phase diagram was investigated with the MT assay. Stability proved to be a problem as many of the materials decomposed during synthesis, altering the expected assay results. This resulted in repeating the entire experiment with a mild milling approach, which only temporarily increased capacity. NaAlH4 was the best performer in both studies and no new mixed alanates were observed, a result consistent with the VHTS. Powder XRD suggested that the reverse reaction, the regeneration of the alanate from alkali hydride, Al and hydrogen, was hampering reversibility. The reverse reaction was then studied for the same phase diagram, starting with LiH, NaH, and MgH2, and Al. The study was extended to phase diagrams including KH and CaH2 as well. The observed hydrogen storage capacity in the Al hexahydrides was less than 4 wt. %, well short of DOE targets. The HT assay came on line and after certification with studies on NaAlH4, was first applied to the LiNH2 - LiBH4 - MgH2 phase diagram. The 60-point study elucidated trends within the system locating an optimum material of 0.6 LiNH2 0.3 MgH2 0.1 LiBH4 that stored about 4 wt. % H2 reversibly and operated below 220 °C. Also present was the phase Li4(NH2)3BH4, which had been discovered in the LiNH2 -LiBH4 system. This new ternary formulation performed much better than the well-known 2 LiNH2MgH2 system by 50 °C in the HT assay. The Li4(NH2)3BH4 is a low melting ionic liquid under our test conditions and facilitates the phase transformations required in the hydrogen storage reaction, which no longer relies on a higher energy solid state reaction pathway. Further study showed that the 0.6 LiNH2 0.3 MgH2 0.1 LiBH4 formulation was very stable with respect to ammonia and diborane desorption, the observed desorption was from hydrogen. This result could not have been anticipated and was made possible by the efficiency of HT combinatorial methods. Investigation of the analogous LiNH2 LiBH4 CaH2 phase diagram revealed new reversible hydrogen storage materials 0.625 LiBH4 + 0.375 CaH2 and 0.375 LiNH2 + 0.25 LiBH4 + 0.375 CaH2 operating at 1 wt. % reversible hydrogen below 175 °C. Powder x-ray diffraction revealed a new structure for the spent materials which had not been previously observed. While the storage capacity was not impressive, an important aspect is that it boron appears to participate in a low temperature reversible reaction. The last major area of study also focused on activating boron-based materials in order to exploit the tremendous gravimetric capacity of LiBH4. A number of LiNH2 LiBH4 transition metal (TM) systems were investigated for the following reasons. No additional leads were discovered in this system. Another major project activity was the assembly of a high throughput synthesis system. The automated synthesizer was set up in a glovebox and was capable of handling liquids and powders and carrying out sealed block syntheses up to 250 °C. Unfortunately, the synthesizer could not handle the delivery of the fine powders required fro hydrogen storage applications. Although the powder delivery system was overhauled and redesigned several times, this problem was never remedied.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2017

Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program Advanced Instrumentation, Information, and Control Systems Technologies Technical Program Plan for FY 2018

This report presents the Technical Program Plan for FY 2018 for the Department of Energy Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program – Advanced Instrumentation, Information, and Control (II&C) Systems Technologies research pathway. A summary of the vision and strategy is provided to explain how this program addresses key issues and barriers for implementing digital instrumentation and control technologies in domestic nuclear power plants. The report describes 20 pilot projects that have been formulated to develop and validate enabling technologies over a 16 year period that will result in digital alternatives to the legacy analog II&C systems in place today. This will allow much needed modernization of these systems to address reliability and obsolescence problems, as well as serve as a platform for substantial operational improvement. The report further describes key project resources and cooperative relationships, including the Electric Power Research Institute, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO)the Nuclear Energy Institute )NEI), the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), the IFE Halden Reactor Project, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and industry suppliers, that are instrumental to the success of the program. The report also lists the schedule for all program products, including the titles and report numbers for all published reports under this program.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Identification of the key pathway of oxazolinoanthracyclines mechanism of action in cells derived from human solid tumors

Oxazolinodoxorubicin (O-DOX) and oxazolinodaunorubicin (O-DAU) are novel anthracycline derivatives with a modified daunosamine moiety. In the present study, we evaluated the cytotoxicities, genotoxicities and abilities of O-DOX and O-DAU to induce apoptosis in cancer cell lines (SKOV-3; A549; HepG2), and compared the results with their parent drugs. We assessed antiproliferative activity by MTT assay. We evaluated apoptosis-inducing ability by double-staining with fluorescent probes (Hoechst 33258/propidium iodide), and by determining expression levels of genes involved in programmed cell death by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Genotoxicities of the compounds were tested by comet assays. Oxazolinoanthracyclines demonstrated high anti-tumor activity. O-DOX had significantly higher cytotoxicity, apoptosis-inducing ability, and genotoxicity compared with parental doxorubicin (DOX) in all tested conditions, while O-DAU activity differed among cell lines. The mechanism of oxazoline analog action appeared to involve the mitochondrial pathway of programmed cell death. These results provide further information about oxazoline derivatives of commonly used anthracycline chemotherapy agents. O-DOX and O-DAU have the ability to induce apoptosis in tumor cells. - Highlights: • Substituted amino group increased the anticancer activity of anthracyclines. • Mitochondrial apoptotic pathway seems to be involved in the mechanism of action. • Favorable biological properties of oxazoline derivatives were confirmed.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program: Upgrade of EMRALD to a Modern JavaScript-based Framework

Event Modeling Risk Assessment using Linked Diagrams (EMRALD) is a software tool developed at Idaho National Laboratory for researching the capabilities of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment. It provides a simple interface to represent complex interactions often seen when developing dynamic models. EMRALD can also interface with other applications by modifying inputs, running, and using their results within EMRALD for dynamic and integrated assessment. This report goes over the work performed as part of the Risk-Informed Systems Analysis Pathway under the Light Water Reactor Sustainability program to upgrade the EMRALD software.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2026

Development of high throughput light-sheet fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy for 3D functional imaging of metabolic pathways in plant and microorganisms (Final Technical Report)

This research program will enable new biochemical contrast in the nanosecond lifetime domain through use of the recently demonstrated electro-optic fluorescence lifetime imaging technique (EO-FLIM) for wide-field lifetime imaging. The Stanford/Stanford Linear Accelerator Center multidisciplinary collaboration -- physics, applied physics, and structural biology -- will develop a light-sheet fluorescence lifetime imaging microscope for functional studies of microbial and plant metabolic pathways and dynamic interactions between plants and microorganisms in the rhizosphere. The proposed approach overcomes the imaging time bottleneck associated with existing fluorescence lifetime imaging methods. Initial demonstrations have shown a factor of 100,000 improvement in photon throughput compared to existing methods. High photon efficiency allowed the first wide-field fluorescence lifetime imaging of single molecules. Recent work has improved the technique’s repetition rate to enable compatibility with mode-locked lasers and demonstrated the combination of wide-field fluorescence lifetime imaging with super-resolution localization microscopy, observations of single molecule dynamics, and observation of donor lifetime quenching in single-molecule imaging. These results were achieved on standard camera sensors and would not have been possible with other wide-field approaches. The throughput and photon economy of the EO-FLIM method enables new BER-relevant imaging opportunities. In particular, scanned single- and two-photon light-sheet excitation will be used to achieve volumetric imaging with time-domain contrast.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2012

Long-Term Instrumentation, Information, and Control Systems (II&C) Modernization Future Vision and Strategy (Revision 1)

Life extension beyond 60 years for the U.S operating nuclear fleet requires that instrumentation and control (I&C) systems be upgraded to address aging and reliability concerns. It is impractical for the legacy systems based on 1970's vintage technology operate over this extended time period. Indeed, utilities have successfully engaged in such replacements when dictated by these operational concerns. However, the replacements have been approached in a like-for-like manner, meaning that they do not take advantage of the inherent capabilities of digital technology to improve business functions. And so, the improvement in I&C system performance has not translated to bottom-line performance improvement for the fleet. Therefore, wide-scale modernization of the legacy I&C systems could prove to be cost-prohibitive unless the technology is implemented in a manner to enable significant business innovation as a means of off-setting the cost of upgrades. A Future Vision of a transformed nuclear plant operating model based on an integrated digital environment has been developed as part of the Advanced Instrumentation, Information, and Control (II&C) research pathway, under the Light Water Reactor (LWR) Sustainability Program. This is a research and development program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), performed in close collaboration with the nuclear utility industry, to provide the technical foundations for licensing and managing the long-term, safe and economical operation of current nuclear power plants. DOE's program focus is on longer-term and higher-risk/reward research that contributes to the national policy objectives of energy security and environmental security. The Advanced II&C research pathway is being conducted by the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The Future Vision is based on a digital architecture that encompasses all aspects of plant operations and support, integrating plant systems, plant work processes, and plant workers in a seamless digital environment to enhance nuclear safety, increase productivity, and improve overall plant performance. The long-term goal is to transform the operating model of the nuclear power plants (NPP)s from one that is highly reliant on a large staff performing mostly manual activities to an operating model based on highly integrated technology with a smaller staff. This digital transformation is critical to addressing an array of issues facing the plants, including aging of legacy analog systems, potential shortage of technical workers, ever-increasing expectations for nuclear safety improvement, and relentless pressure to reduce cost. The Future Vision is based on research is being conducted in the following major areas of plant function: (1) Highly integrated control rooms; (2) Highly automated plant; (3) Integrated operations; (4) Human performance improvement for field workers; and (5) Outage safety and efficiency. Pilot projects will be conducted in each of these areas as the means for industry to collectively integrate these new technologies into nuclear plant work activities. The pilot projects introduce new digital technologies into the nuclear plant operating environment at host operating plants to demonstrate and validate them for production usage. In turn, the pilot project technologies serve as the stepping stones to the eventual seamless digital environment as described in the Future Vision.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Long-Term Instrumentation, Information, and Control Systems (II&C) Modernization Future Vision and Strategy

Life extension beyond 60 years for the U.S operating nuclear fleet requires that instrumentation and control (I&C) systems be upgraded to address aging and reliability concerns. It is impractical for the legacy systems based on 1970’s vintage technology operate over this extended time period. Indeed, utilities have successfully engaged in such replacements when dictated by these operational concerns. However, the replacements have been approached in a like-for-like manner, meaning that they do not take advantage of the inherent capabilities of digital technology to improve business functions. And so, the improvement in I&C system performance has not translated to bottom-line performance improvement for the fleet. Therefore, wide-scale modernization of the legacy I&C systems could prove to be cost-prohibitive unless the technology is implemented in a manner to enable significant business innovation as a means of off-setting the cost of upgrades. A Future Vision of a transformed nuclear plant operating model based on an integrated digital environment has been developed as part of the Advanced Instrumentation, Information, and Control (II&C) research pathway, under the Light Water Reactor (LWR) Sustainability Program. This is a research and development program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), performed in close collaboration with the nuclear utility industry, to provide the technical foundations for licensing and managing the long-term, safe and economical operation of current nuclear power plants. DOE’s program focus is on longer-term and higher-risk/reward research that contributes to the national policy objectives of energy security and environmental security . The Advanced II&C research pathway is being conducted by the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The Future Vision is based on a digital architecture that encompasses all aspects of plant operations and support, integrating plant systems, plant work processes, and plant workers in a seamless digital environment to enhance nuclear safety, increase productivity, and improve overall plant performance. The long-term goal is to transform the operating model of the nuclear power plants (NPP)s from one that is highly reliant on a large staff performing mostly manual activities to an operating model based on highly integrated technology with a smaller staff. This digital transformation is critical to addressing an array of issues facing the plants, including aging of legacy analog systems, potential shortage of technical workers, ever-increasing expectations for nuclear safety improvement, and relentless pressure to reduce cost. The Future Vision is based on research is being conducted in the following major areas of plant function: 1. Highly integrated control rooms 2. Highly automated plant 3. Integrated operations 4. Human performance improvement for field workers 5. Outage safety and efficiency. Pilot projects will be conducted in each of these areas as the means for industry to collectively integrate these new technologies into nuclear plant work activities. The pilot projects introduce new digital technologies into the nuclear plant operating environment at host operating plants to demonstrate and validate them for production usage. In turn, the pilot project technologies serve as the stepping stones to the eventual seamless digital environment as described in the Future Vision.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Final Technical Report for DOE Grant, number DE-FG02-05ER15701; Probing Surface Chemistry Under Catalytic Conditions: Olefin Hydrogenation,Cyclization and Functionalization.

The specific goal of this work was to understanding the catalytic reactions pathways for the synthesis of vinyl acetate over Pd, Au and PdAu alloys. A combination of both experimental methods (X-ray and Auger spectroscopies, low-energy ion scattering (LEIS), low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) and theory (Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations and Monte Carlo methods under various different reactions) were used to track the surface chemistry and the influence of alloying. The surface intermediates involved in the various reactions were characterized using reflection-absorption infrared spectroscopy and LEED to identify the nature of the surface species and temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) to follow the decomposition pathways and measure heats of adsorption. These results along with those from density functional theoretical calculations were used determine the kinetics for elementary steps. The results from this work showed that the reaction proceeds via the Samanos mechanism over Pd surfaces whereby the ethylene directly couples with acetate to form an acetoxyethyl intermediate that subsequently undergoes a beta-hydride elimination to form the vinyl acetate monomer. The presence of Au was found to modify the adsorption energies and surface coverages of important surface intermediates including acetate, ethylidyne and ethylene which ultimately influences the critical C-H activation and coupling steps. By controlling the surface alloy composition or structure one can begin to control the steps that control the rate and even the mechanism.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2011

Crossing the Digital Divide

Nuclear utilities continue to upgrade aging instrumentation and control (I&C) systems with modern digital-based systems to address reliability and obsolescence concerns. In addition, the industry has demonstrated that these systems can be successfully developed and deployed even for highly safety-significant applications, such as reactor protection. However, three factors have retarded wide-scale implementation of digital technology for plant modernization and business innovation: *Large-scale digital upgrades entail considerable risk; *The upgrades are very costly and have not led to bottom-line business improvement, financial or otherwise; *Cyber Security concerns discourage wide-scale digital integration. A new national research program is under way that has been designed to address these industry concerns about expanding the use of digital technology. The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has lead responsibility for the Advanced Instrumentation, Information, and Control Systems Technologies research pathway within the Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program. The LWRS Program is a research and development (R&D) program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and performed in close collaboration with industry R&D and improvement programs (as defined in INL’s FY2009–2013 Light Water Reactor Sustainability Research and Development Program Plan, INL/MIS08-14918). Its purpose is to provide the technical foundations for licensing and managing the long-term, safe, and economical operation of existing nuclear power plants. The DOE’s program focus is on longer-term and higher-risk/reward research that contributes to the national policy objectives of energy security and environmental security. The specific concern addressed by this program is that large-scale I&C obsolescence could become a life-limiting issue for the current nuclear operating fleet.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2023

Fiscal Year 2023 Software Quality Assurance Activities for the ARC Software

The Argonne Reactor Code (ARC) software suite [1-17] has been developed by Argonne researchers for fast reactor design and analysis since the 1970s. With the ARC software suite, a user can quickly build a model of a proposed or existing fast spectrum reactor and carry out fuel cycle, nominal thermal analysis and flow requirements, and assess, as is appropriate, whether the core design and constraint system yield an acceptable mechanical behavior. For transient reactor analysis with SAS4A [18], the ARC software suite can be used to generate reactivity coefficients and kinetics parameters at any modeled fuel cycle time point which forms part of the input to SAS4A. The ARC suite was consistently being developed until the 1990s and followed a software QA program which was an appropriate standard for the time. In the 1990s, the DOE funding to fast reactor research and development was all but eliminated and the ARC software was put into maintenance mode. In the early 2000s, the software quality assurance (SQA) program for ARC was still in place to define an official version, but by 2005 it all but was abandoned as there were insufficient staff to fill the work roles. Since 2005, there has been a considerable increase in research and design work on fast spectrum reactors. The ARC software as a whole has since been exported to many universities and commercial companies and ANL support has been given to the various projects over the years [19-23]. Further, MC 2 -3, PERSENT, and DASSH were all developed after 2005 without any adherence to a software standard. In recent time, the DOE VTR project [22] paid for verification work to be done on the ARC software as part of the goal of making it NQA-1 complaint. The VTR project was not considered the appropriate pathway to fund and maintain a SQA program for the ARC software and while software developments (DASSH) were made and several manuals were updated and software verification work was carried out, the ARC software is not NQA-1 compliant. More recently the Advanced Reactor Development Program (ARDP [23]) has funded the creation of manuals for some ARC utility programs and funded additional software verification work on DIF3D [6, 7] and MC 2 -3 [2-5] for the purpose of commercial grade dedication. Because of the VTR and ARDP projects, software verification work was completed on MC 2 -3 and DIF3D, and detailed reports were created for each piece of software, which discuss the inputs and outputs from the codes that are covered by the verification work and link various analytic, code-to-code, and hand calculation based verification work presented in the report with verification test problems provided with the software. This is a key part of the commercial grade dedication work and constitutes the bulk of the cost to get the ARC software to commercial grade. The ARC software suite is a valuable asset as a fast reactor design and analysis tool set that has been reasonably well verified and validated with various fast reactor benchmark problems and experiments over decades. Some or all of the ARC software suite has been utilized for designing the IFR [20], PGSFR [21], VTR [22], and Natrium [23] reactors and we can expect it to continue to be used for advanced fast reactor design and/or confirmatory calculation purposes in the future. Due to increased interest by commercial companies and regulatory bodies, it is becoming more important to make the ARC software suite complete and ready-to-use in terms of its SQA pedigree and commercial grade dedication needs. This report discusses the achievements made towards building a new SQA program for the ARC software and dealing with outstanding identified QA gaps.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗