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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.

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At least 199 records · Page 11

Control Room of the Future Testbed Workshop – After-Action Report

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity is supporting a one-year, multi-laboratory effort to define the needs and requirements for a Control Room of the Future testbed, or CROFT. The effort responds to increasing grid complexity driven by large new loads, dynamic generation resources, and the growing adoption of advanced technologies and tools, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). To support safe, secure, and effective grid modernization, CROFT will focus on how emerging technologies and tools can be rigorously evaluated in realistic operational settings, with attention to human-machine interaction, cognitive load, and workforce readiness. The project team includes Argonne National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, National Laboratory of the Rockies, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. As part of the scoping effort, the team conducted two industry-focused workshops: one at DTECH on February 5, 2026, informed by prior industry interviews, and a second on May 4, 2026, adjacent to IEEE T&D. These engagements brought together utilities, vendors, consultants, national laboratories, academia, and government stakeholders to identify and prioritize use cases, barriers, validation needs, data-sharing constraints, and near- and longer-term requirements. This feedback will directly inform CROFT’s architecture and research focus areas, ensuring the testbed is grounded in real-world operational needs and designed to evaluate emerging technologies and tools in realistic control-room environments.

artificial intelligence↗

CGSim: A Simulation Framework for Large Scale Distributed Computing Environment

Large-scale distributed computing infrastructures such as the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) require comprehensive simulation tools for evaluating performance, testing new algorithms, and optimizing resource allocation strategies. However, existing simulators suffer from limited scalability, hardwired algorithms, lack of real-time monitoring, and inability to generate datasets suitable for modern machine learning approaches. We present CGSim, a simulation framework for large-scale distributed computing environments that addresses these limitations. Built upon the validated SimGrid simulation framework, CGSim provides high-level abstractions for modeling heterogeneous grid environments while maintaining accuracy and scalability. Key features include a modular plugin mechanism for testing custom workflow scheduling and data movement policies, interactive real-time visualization dashboards, and automatic generation of event-level datasets suitable for AI-assisted performance modeling. We demonstrate CGSim’s capabilities through a comprehensive evaluation using production ATLAS PanDA workloads, showing significant calibration accuracy improvements across WLCG computing sites. Scalability experiments show near-linear scaling for multi-site simulations, with distributed workloads achieving 6 × better performance compared to single-site execution. The framework enables researchers to simulate WLCG-scale infrastructures with hundreds of sites and thousands of concurrent jobs within practical time budget constraints on commodity hardware.

Vatsavai, Sairam Sri [Brookhaven National Laborato↗

Toward Accelerating Discovery via Physics-Driven and Interactive Multifidelity Bayesian Optimization

Both computational and experimental material discovery bring forth the challenge of exploring multidimensional and often nondifferentiable parameter spaces, such as phase diagrams of Hamiltonians with multiple interactions, composition spaces of combinatorial libraries, processing spaces, and molecular embedding spaces. Often these systems are expensive or time consuming to evaluate a single instance, and hence classical approaches based on exhaustive grid or random search are too data intensive. This resulted in strong interest toward active learning methods such as Bayesian optimization (BO) where the adaptive exploration occurs based on human learning (discovery) objective. However, classical BO is based on a predefined optimization target, and policies balancing exploration and exploitation are purely data driven. In practical settings, the domain expert can pose prior knowledge of the system in the form of partially known physics laws and exploration policies often vary during the experiment. Here, we propose an interactive workflow building on multifidelity BO (MFBO), starting with classical (data-driven) MFBO, then expand to a proposed structured (physics-driven) structured MFBO (sMFBO), and finally extend it to allow human-in-the-loop interactive interactive MFBO (iMFBO) workflows for adaptive and domain expert aligned exploration. These approaches are demonstrated over highly nonsmooth multifidelity simulation data generated from an Ising model, considering spin–spin interaction as parameter space, lattice sizes as fidelity spaces, and the objective as maximizing heat capacity. Detailed analysis and comparison show the impact of physics knowledge injection and real-time human decisions for improved exploration with increased alignment to ground truth. Here, the associated notebooks allow to reproduce the reported analyses and apply them to other systems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Electromagnetic Transient Simulation of Large-Scale Inverter-Based Resources With High-Granularity

The power grid is undergoing a significant transformation with the rapid increase in inverter-based resources (IBRs), including large-scale photovoltaic (PV) plants. Ensuring reliable and resilient grid operation in this new paradigm necessitates high-granularity electromagnetic transient (EMT) modeling that accurately captures the behavior of individual inverters and their interactions within IBR plants. Central to this approach is the detailed representation of both the IBR plant’s collector system and the dynamics of individual inverters. To achieve this, a high-granularity EMT model of a large-scale PV plant has been developed using advanced simulation algorithms, including matrix splitting and the Schur complement. These proposed techniques significantly enhance simulation speed, numerical stability, and accuracy while improving the modularity and efficiency of the collector system’s representation. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is validated through simulations of a representative large-scale PV plant consisting of 125 individual PV inverters, 25 IBR unit transformers, and a 52-bus collector system.

Choi, Jongchan [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORN↗

NOODLES Grid [SWR-25-93]

NOODLES Grid is a real-time visualization server for power system simulation data. It loads precomputed datasets, builds optimized instance renderings, and streams live interactive scenes to connected clients. It is built for high scalability, flexible visualization, and fast interaction. NOODLES is a cross-platform/device/tool protocol for collaborative visualization. NOODLES was Developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) as a capability of the Insight Center https://www.nrel.gov/computational-science/insight-center.html

Brunhart-Lupo, Nicholas [National Renewable Energy↗

Natural Hazard Forecast Alert Grid Risk System

Weather events cause most power outages. Often, we even get notifications on our phones to take cover or be prepared for an imminent event. If electric grid utilities had a similar warning that also included probable scenarios and the equipment involved, they could prepare and minimize the effects. Idaho National Laboratory had a project with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response program to develop a grid alert application that receives messages from the existing emergency alert system, filters and determines components possibly affected by the emergency event, calculates probable scenarios using MASTERRI (Modeling And Simulation for Targeted Reliability and Resilience Improvement). For high-risk events, the application can then send alert links to subscribed electric distribution utility operations staff to allow them to see and evaluate the scenarios and the impact in a web based interactive map tool. This proof of concept application used data from utilities and organizations, such as the international regulatory body North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which have complied historical failure data of elements that comprise the U.S. electric grid. Nominal failure rates are obtained from this data. To make this tool possible, estimated failure rates were calculated for different component types given the alert type, severity, and location. Historic weather-related grid element failures were correlated with historic weather events from the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System. These correlated events and failures are used along with Bayesian updates from the historical norms to provide a modified failure rate for grid elements in the alert areas and calculate probable scenarios. Working with an industry collaborator, actual grid models and data were used for demonstration cases. This report outlines the work performed for this project.

24 - POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Editorial: Resolving atmospheric flow in complex environments: recent experiments in terrain and forest canopies

The characterization of atmospheric flows in complex environments, which may include steep terrain slopes and heterogeneous vegetation and/or forest cover, is a long-standing challenge in boundary-layer meteorology. Atmospheric observations are complicated by the presence of transient, terrain-induced flow features, forest-canopy-atmosphere interactions, and atmospheric stability effects, not to mention the logistical hurdles involved with instrument deployment, data analysis, and quality control. Furthermore, challenges in atmospheric modeling arise due to numerical errors associated with complex terrain flows, as well as reliance on simplified parameterizations for unresolved processes such as turbulent mixing and land-surface or forest-canopy-atmosphere interactions. These modeling challenges are exacerbated in the so-called “gray zone,” wherein features of interest have length scales that are similar to the model grid spacing, or when the principal flow layer is smaller than the grid spacing (e.g., slope flows).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Techno-Economic Evaluation of a 600MW Pumped Storage Hydropower Plant using the Pumped Storage Hydropower Valuation Tool

This paper presents a techno-economic evaluation of the proposed 600 MW, 8-hour Craig – Hayden pumped storage hydropower project using the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pumped Storage Hydropower Valuation Tool. The analysis integrates plant technical characteristics, regional grid conditions, and market-based operating assumptions to quantify stacked value streams from energy arbitrage, capacity, ancillary services, transmission congestion relief, and reliability. Both price taker and price influencer frameworks are applied to examine the impact of market participation and system interactions on lifecycle economic performance using Benefit - Cost Analysis and Multi - Criteria Decision Analysis. The results show that the price taker approach provides higher revenue estimates based on exogenous price signals, while the price influencer approach captures production cost savings, renewable curtailment reduction, and market price formation, yielding more conservative but system-representative outcomes. The study demonstrates the strategic value of long-duration PSH for enhancing operational flexibility, resource adequacy, and grid reliability in a high-renewable Western Interconnection.

Bhattacharyya, Arjun [ORNL] (ORCID:000900060976046↗

High-Fidelity Simulations of a Mach 9 Shock-Turbulent Boundary Layer Interaction

High-fidelity large-eddy simulations (LES) and wall-modeled large-eddy simulations (WMLES) are performed on the interaction of a Mach 9 turbulent boundary layer with a 34-degree compression ramp. Our primary interest is the sensitivity of mean and unsteady wall quantities to grid density. Additionally within the context of WMLES, we seek to explore solution sensitivity to the wall-model exchange location.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Explainable AI for Multivariate Time Series Pattern Exploration: Latent Space Visual Analytics With Temporal Fusion Transformer and Variational Autoencoders in Power Grid Event Diagnosis

Detecting and analyzing complex patterns in multivariate time-series data is crucial for decision-making in urban and environmental system operations. However, challenges arise from the high dimensionality, intricate complexity, and interconnected nature of complex patterns, which hinder the understanding of their underlying physical processes. Existing AI methods often face limitations in interpretability, computational efficiency, and scalability, reducing their applicability in real-world scenarios. This paper proposes a novel visual analytics framework that integrates two generative AI models, Temporal Fusion Transformer (TFT) and Variational Autoencoders (VAEs), to reduce complex patterns into lower-dimensional latent spaces and visualize them in 2D using dimensionality reduction techniques such as PCA, t-SNE, and UMAP with DBSCAN. These visualizations, presented through coordinated and interactive views and tailored glyphs, enable intuitive exploration of complex multivariate temporal patterns, identifying patterns’ similarities and uncover their potential correlations for a better interpretability of the AI outputs. The framework is demonstrated through a case study on power grid signal data, where it identifies multi-label grid event signatures, including faults and anomalies with diverse root causes. Additionally, novel metrics and visualizations are introduced to validate the models and assess the performance, efficiency, and consistency of latent maps generated by VAE, which have been utilized in prior studies for latent space cartography and used as a benchmark in this study, and the emerging TFT architecture under various configurations. These analyses provide actionable insights for model parameter tuning and reliability improvements. Comparative results highlight that TFT achieves shorter run times and superior scalability to diverse time-series data shapes compared to VAE. This work advances fault diagnosis in multivariate time series, fostering explainable AI to support critical system operations.

Explainable AI↗

ThinCurr: An open-source 3D thin-wall eddy current modeling code for the analysis of large-scale systems of conducting structures

In this paper we present a new thin-wall eddy current modeling code, ThinCurr, for studying inductively-coupled currents in 3D conducting structures -- with primary application focused on the interaction between currents flowing in coils, plasma, and conducting structures of magnetically-confined plasma devices. The code utilizes a boundary finite element method on an unstructured, triangular grid to accurately capture device structures. The new code, part of the broader Open FUSION Toolkit, is open-source and designed for ease of use without sacrificing capability and speed through a combination of Python, Fortran, and C/C++ components. Scalability to large models is enabled through use of hierarchical off-diagonal low-rank compression of the inductance matrix, which is otherwise dense. Ease of handling large models of complicated geometry is further supported by automatic determination of supplemental elements through a greedy homology approach. Here, a detailed description of the numerical methods of the code and verification of the implementation of those methods using cross-code comparisons against the VALEN code and Ansys commercial analysis software is shown.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Single-shot in-line x-ray phase-contrast imaging of void-shockwave interactions in fusion energy materials

Recent breakthroughs in nuclear fusion, specifically the report of reactions exceeding scientific breakeven at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), highlight the potential of inertial fusion energy (IFE) as a sustainable and virtually limitless energy source. However, further progress in IFE requires characterization of defects in ablator materials and how they affect fuel capsule compression. Voids within the ablator can degrade energy yield, but their impact on the density distribution has primarily been studied through simulations, with limited high-resolution experimental validation. To address this, we used the x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) at the matter in extreme conditions (MECs) instrument at the Linac coherent light source (LCLS) to capture 2D x-ray phase-contrast (XPC) images of a void-bearing sample with a composition similar to inertial confinement fusion (ICF) ablators. By driving a compressive shockwave through the sample using MEC's long-pulse laser system, we analyzed how voids influence shockwave propagation and density distribution during compression. To quantify this impact, we extracted phase information using two phase retrieval algorithms. First, we applied the contrast transfer function (CTF) method, paired with Tikhonov regularization and a fast optimization approach to generate an initial phase estimate. We then refined the result using a projected gradient descent (PGD) method that works directly with the sample's refractive index. Comparing these results with radiation adaptive grid Eulerian (xRAGE) radiation hydrodynamic simulations enables identification of model validation needs or improvements. By calculating phase maps in situ, it becomes possible to reconstruct areal density maps, improving understanding of laser-capsule interactions and advancing IFE research.

Hodge, D. S. [Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, ↗

Advanced Transmission Technologies – GETs and HPCs Session 2: Advanced Power Flow Control and Transmission Topology Optimization

The INL TADA GETs Cohort Session 2, held on November 7, 2025, conducted in collaboration with ScottMadden, focused on two core Advanced Transmission Technologies (ATTs): Advanced Power Flow Control (APFC) and Transmission Topology Optimization (TTO). These technologies are pivotal in enhancing grid flexibility, reliability, and cybersecurity resilience. APFC, particularly through modular FACTS devices like Modular Static Synchronous Series Compensators (M-SSSCs), enables dynamic voltage injection to reroute power flows. The session highlighted the deployment benefits of APFC, such as rapid installation, minimal civil works, and re-deployability. Regulatory drivers like FERC Order 2023 mandate the inclusion of Grid-Enhancing Technologies (GETs) in interconnection studies. Case studies from Central Hudson, CAISO, and National Grid (UK) demonstrated APFC’s effectiveness in congestion relief and cost savings. The session also addressed cybersecurity concerns, including firmware vulnerabilities, SCADA integration risks, and supply chain dependencies. Participants engaged in interactive exercises to rank cybersecurity and supply chain risks, emphasizing the need for robust digital assurance strategies. TTO involves software-based reconfiguration of transmission networks to optimize power flow without new infrastructure. The session showcased its operational value, with examples from SPP, PJM, and MISO showing significant congestion cost reductions. Cybersecurity vulnerabilities were discussed, particularly in API security and software supply chains, referencing incidents like SolarWinds and attacks on Danish utilities. Digital assurance exercises explored worst-case scenarios, attack paths, and mitigation responsibilities between vendors and utilities. Reliability challenges such as algorithm stability, vendor dependency, and operator trust were also examined. Cross-cutting themes emphasized the importance of digital assurance tools, including Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs) and hardware-in-loop testing. Human performance, training, and operational confidence were identified as critical enablers of technology adoption. The session concluded with a preview of Session 3, which will focus on High Performance Conductors (HPCs) and risk-based cybersecurity tools. Session 2 of 3.

24 - POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

A fully-integrated lattice Boltzmann method for fluid–structure interaction

Here we present a fully-integrated lattice Boltzmann (LB) method for fluid–structure interaction (FSI) simulations that efficiently models deformable solids in complex suspensions and active systems. Our Eulerian method (LBRMT) couples finite-strain solids to the LB fluid on the same fixed computational grid with the reference map technique (RMT). An integral part of the LBRMT is a new LB boundary condition for moving deformable interfaces across different densities. With this fully Eulerian solid–fluid coupling, the LBRMT is well-suited for parallelization and simulating multi-body contact without remeshing or extra meshes. We validate its accuracy via a benchmark of a deformable solid in a lid-driven cavity, then showcase its versatility through examples of soft solids rotating and settling. The LBRMT achieves a spatial convergence rate between first-order and second-order for FSI simulations and is designed for low to intermediate Reynolds number flows with finite inertia at small Mach numbers. With simulations of complex suspensions mixing, we highlight the potential of the LBRMT for studying collective behavior in soft matter and biofluid dynamics.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Electric Grid and Markets 101 [Slides]

This presentation covers aspects of operating the bulk power system with a focus on the regulatory levels of the US grid at a pretty introductory level. It was meant ot help inform a request from USDA for a "101" presentation that spoke to how electricity markets, contracting and regulation interact with the engineering and physics of operating the bulk power system. They are presently moving to being able to more directly fund PPAs or other non-co-op owned assets for member co-ops, is my understanding.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Future Spatially Explicit Patterns of Land Transitions in the United States With Multiple Stressors

Climate change, income and population growth, and changing diets are major drivers of the global food system with implications for land use change. Land use in the U.S. will be affected directly by local and regional forces and indirectly through international trade. In order to investigate the effects of several potential forces on land use changes in the U.S., we advanced capabilities in representing the interactions between natural and human systems by linking a multisectoral and multiregional socio-economic model of the world economy to a model that downscales land use to a 0.5°grid scale. This enables us to translate regional projections of future land use into higher-resolution representations of time-evolving land cover (effectively spatially explicit land use transitions). We applied the framework over the U.S., with a particular interest in the Mississippi River Basin and its four sub-basins, to consider how a range of global drivers affect land use and cover in the target regions. Our results show that under scenarios of high pressure on the world food system a comparative advantage in livestock production amplifies the recent trend toward less cropland and more pastures in the U.S. Under low pressures on the world food system agricultural land is used less intensively. However, there can be key differences among the various land-use transitions at the sub- basin scale. Overall, these results highlighted the need for high resolution details to explicitly understand the implications of land use change on environmental impacts such as carbon storage, soil erosion, chemical use, hydrology, and water quality.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Pixel-Resolved Long-Context Learning for Turbulence at Exascale: Resolving Small-scale Eddies Toward the Viscous Limit

Turbulence plays a crucial role in multiphysics applications, including aerodynamics, fusion, and combustion. Accurately capturing turbulence's multiscale characteristics is essential for reliable predictions of multiphysics interactions, but remains a grand challenge even for exascale supercomputers and advanced deep learning models. The extreme-resolution data required to represent turbulence, ranging from billions to trillions of grid points, pose prohibitive computational costs for models based on architectures like vision transformers. To address this challenge, we introduce a multiscale hierarchical Turbulence Transformer that reduces sequence length from billions to a few millions and a novel RingX sequence parallelism approach that enables scalable long-context learning. We perform scaling and science runs on the Frontier supercomputer. Our approach demonstrates excellent performance up to 1.1 EFLOPS on 32,768 AMD GPUs, with a scaling efficiency of 94\%. To our knowledge, this is the first AI model for turbulence that can capture small-scale eddies down to the dissipative range in three-dimensional turbulence at high Reynolds numbers.

Yin, Junqi [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000338435520)↗

Deep Reinforcement Learning Based Control of Wind Turbines for Fast Frequency Response

In order to fulfill vital auxiliary grid services, such as load regulation, spin and non-spin reserve provision, and frequency support during emergencies, there is often a requirement for certain wind farms to operate in de-loaded modes. Leveraging the swift response capabilities of wind farms, this study demonstrates that reserving power in de-loaded modes can significantly enhance power grid stability and reliability during system contingencies. Controlling wind farms optimally for frequency support is intricate due to the nonlinearity of models and controllers and the complexity of wind farm interactions with power systems. Here, to address this challenge, this paper introduces a novel approach that integrates wind turbines into reinforcement learning-based solutions for frequency response. This innovative methodology utilizes the state-of-the-art reinforcement learning algorithm known as the surrogate-gradient-based evolutionary strategy. The proposed learning-based algorithm provides continuous control of wind farm output to rapidly stabilize system frequency and prevent unnecessary trips of under-frequency load shedding relays. To facilitate efficient training, parallel computing techniques are employed. The proposed methodology is evaluated on a modified IEEE-39 bus system, and simulation results reveal its efficacy in reliably supporting power system frequency and preventing the need for unnecessary load shedding.

Gao, Wei [Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argon↗