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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 217 records · Page 12

Smart Mobility in the Cloud: Enabling Real-Time Situational Awareness and Cyber-Physical Control Through a Digital Twin for Traffic

This article presents the design, implementation, and use cases of the Chattanooga Digital Twin (CTwin) towards the vision for next-generation smart city applications for urban mobility management. CTwin is an end-to-end web-based platform that incorporates various aspects of the decision-making process for optimizing urban transportation systems in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to reduce traffic congestion, incidents, and vehicle fuel consumption. The platform serves as a cyberinfrastructure to collect and integrate multi-domain urban mobility data from various online repositories and Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, covering multiple urban aspects (e.g., traffic, natural hazards, weather, and safety) that are relevant to urban mobility management. The platform enables advanced capabilities for: (a) real-time situational awareness on traffic and infrastructure conditions on highways and urban roads, (b) cyber-physical control for optimizing traffic signal timing, and (c) interactive visual analytics on big urban mobility data and various metrics for traffic prediction and transportation performance evaluation. The platform is designed using a multi-level componentization paradigm and is implemented using modular and adaptive architecture, rendering it as a generalizable and extendable prototype for other urban management applications. We present several use cases to demonstrate CTwin's core capabilities for supporting decision-making in smart urban mobility management.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Simulating the Impact of Dynamic Rerouting on Metropolitan-scale Traffic Systems

The rapid introduction of mobile navigation aides that use real-time road network information to suggest alternate routes to drivers is making it more difficult for researchers and government transportation agencies to understand and predict the dynamics of congested transportation systems. Computer simulation is a key capability for these organizations to analyze hypothetical scenarios; however, the complexity of transportation systems makes it challenging for them to simulate very large geographical regions, such as multi-city metropolitan areas. In this article, we describe enhancements to the Mobiliti parallel traffic simulator to model dynamic rerouting behavior with the addition of vehicle controller actors and vehicle-to-controller reroute requests. The simulator is designed to support distributed-memory parallel execution using discrete event simulation and be scalable on high-performance computing platforms. We demonstrate the potential of the simulator by analyzing the impact of varying the population penetration rate of dynamic rerouting on the San Francisco Bay Area road network. Using high-performance parallel computing, we can simulate a day in the San Francisco Bay Area with 19 million vehicle trips with 50 percent dynamic rerouting penetration over a road network with 0.5 million nodes and 1 million links in less than three minutes. We present a sensitivity study on the dynamic rerouting parameters, discuss the simulator’s parallel scalability, and analyze system-level impacts of changing the dynamic rerouting penetration. Furthermore, we examine the varying effects on different functional classes and geographical regions and present a validation of the simulation results compared to real-world data.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Band gap renormalization, carrier mobilities, and the electron-phonon self-energy in crystalline naphthalene

Organic molecular crystals are expected to feature appreciable electron-phonon interactions that influence their electronic properties at zero and finite temperature. Here, we report first-principles calculations and an analysis of the electron-phonon self-energy in naphthalene crystals. We compute the zero-point renormalization and temperature dependence of the fundamental band gap, and the resulting scattering lifetimes of electronic states near the valence- and conduction-band edges employing density functional theory. Further, our calculated phonon renormalization of the GW-corrected quasiparticle band structure predicts a fundamental band gap of 5 eV for naphthalene at room temperature, in good agreement with experiments. From our calculated phonon-induced electron lifetimes, we obtain the temperature-dependent mobilities of electrons and holes in good agreement with experimental measurements at room temperature. Finally, we show that an approximate energy self-consistent computational scheme for the electron-phonon self-energy leads to the prediction of strong satellite bands in the electronic band structure. We find that a single calculation of the self-energy can reproduce the self-consistent results of the band gap renormalization and electrical mobilities for naphthalene, provided that the on-the-mass-shell approximation is used, i.e., if the self-energy is evaluated at the bare eigenvalues.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

On-Demand Transit: Features, Benefits, Challenges, Costs, and Evaluation

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Laboratory of the Rockies works in partnership with communities and transit agencies across North America to support and evaluate customized on-demand transit (ODT) systems. ODT, also known as on-demand mobility or microtransit, is a flexible form of public mobility. Unlike traditional fixed-route transit, ODT adjusts where and when service is provided rather than following predetermined schedules and routes. Having evolved from commercial ride-hailing business models, ODT leverages smartphone connectivity and real-time route optimization to provide highly responsive and dynamic service. ODT trips, which are usually shared, can function as a standalone service or as a first-/last-mile service connecting riders to other types of transit.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Candidate Inorganic Photovoltaic Materials from Electronic Structure-Based Optical Absorption and Charge Transport Proxies

Approximately 33,000 valence-precise, ordered inorganic compounds tabulated in the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database have been screened for their potential as photovoltaic (PV) absorbers. This has been accomplished through the use of proxies for charge carrier mobilities and optical absorption properties from electronic structure calculations, in addition to constraints on thermodynamic stability. Preliminary screening of computed properties tabulated in the Materials Project Database, with subsequent high(er)-fidelity electronic structure calculations of optical properties and band gap corrections, indicates ≈200 known compounds on or near the convex hull which exhibit spectroscopic limited maximum efficiency (SLME) in excess of 25% for a 500 nm thin film, in addition to possessing low effective masses for both electrons and holes. Among the predicted high performers are nearly all the typical commercial inorganic thin-film PV materials and several previously unexplored candidates. The new candidates are drawn from a diverse set of chemical and structural families, including many chalcogenides and pnictides as well as antiperovskites, skutterudites, and semiconducting intermetallics. Here, carrier effective masses, SLME, corrected band gaps, and other relevant information for ≈800 compounds are made available for further analyses via the Materials Project MPContribs Framework.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Atomic Diffusion, Segregation, and Grain Boundary Migration in Nickel-Based Alloys from Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Grain boundary diffusion and metal mobility in alloys control material performance in many applications and yet remain poorly understood at a mechanistic level. With advances in accessible time and length scales for computational molecular simulations, and recent force field developments, we now possess tools to help unravel those mechanisms. Using large-scale molecular dynamics simulations, here we examined vacancy-mediated diffusion processes in Ni-5Cr alloy with low and high-energy grain boundaries. We show that atomic diffusion inside the grain boundary plane is about four times higher than bulk diffusion, at any temperature, and exhibits a typical Arrhenius behavior with a very small energy barrier (0~.8 eV for Cr and 0.7 eV for Ni within 1300-1600 K). Additionally, the fastest diffusing species inverts; Cr diffusion was faster than Ni in the bulk but slower in the grain boundaries. This is attributed to the creation of high cohesive energy clusters of Cr at the grain boundary. Grain boundary migration was also observed to be temperature dependent and appears to be two times higher in the 5% Cr alloy than in pure Ni, highlighting the important role of the alloying element on grain boundary motion.

Simonnin, Pauline GN↗

SU-F-J-188: Clinical Implementation of in Room Mobile CT for Image Guided Proton Therapy

Purpose: To implement soft-tissue image-guided proton therapy using inroom mobile CT. Methods: Anthropomorphic phantom was first used to determine the setup accuracy using in- room mobile CT. Laser and bbs were used for the initial setup (marked isocenter). CT data was then acquired with in-room mobile CT (daily CT). The shift between the marked isocenter and the planned isocenter (final isocenter) was determined from the daily CT using in-house Computer Assisted Targeting (CAT) software. Orthogonal DRRs of the day was also generated from the daily CT. The phantom was then transferred on the treatment couch top to the treatment machine using a transportation system, and again aligned to the marked isocenter. Couch shifts were made to align the phantom to the final isocenter using the shifts as determined using the CAT software, and verified using orthogonal X-ray images with the daily DRRs. Results: Phantom data suggests that following the setup procedure as described above, targeting accuracy could be within 1 mm. Patient data are being acquired and analyzed. Conclusion: In-room mobile CT is capable of providing soft-tissue image-guided proton therapy.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Evaluating Material Design Principles for Calcium-Ion Mobility in Intercalation Cathodes

Multivalent-ion batteries offer an alternative to Li-based technologies, with the potential for greater sustainability, improved safety, and higher energy density, primarily due to their rechargeable system featuring a passivating metal anode. Although a system based on the Ca 2+ /Ca couple is particularly attractive given the low electrochemical plating potential of Ca 2+ , the remaining challenge for a viable rechargeable Ca battery is to identify Ca cathodes with fast ion transport. In this work, a high-throughput computational pipeline is adapted to (1) discover novel Ca cathodes in a largely unexplored space of empty intercalation hosts and (2) develop material design rules for Ca-ion mobility. One candidate from the screening, W 2 O 3 (PO 4 ) 2 , is confirmed to have a low Nudged Elastic Band (NEB) barrier of 168 meV within a one-dimensional (1D) ion percolation topology. This candidate is subsequently synthesized and electrochemically tested, achieving reversible Ca cycling with a capacity of 25 mA h/g. To further accelerate the screening for promising Ca intercalation electrodes, machine learning (ML) Random Forest (RF) and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGB) classification models are created with local environment descriptors based on a large, structurally and chemically diverse dataset of minimum energy pathways, spanning over 5,000 density functional theory (DFT) site energy calculations. Accuracies of 92% are achieved, material design metrics are quantified, ML force-fields are leveraged in an accelerated iteration of the screening, and a total of 27 novel Ca cathode materials are highlighted for further investigation.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Numerical Investigation of a Small Low-Flow Marine Hydrokinetic (MHK) Turbine for Small Autonomous Unmanned Mobile Recharge Stations (CRADA Final Report)

This project will improve the hydrodynamic performance of the undershot waterwheel turbine with a flow concentrator designed by the Participant, using a computational fluid dynamics study. The influence of different result parameters including the number of blades, turbine profile, submerged depth, tip speed ratio, concentrator geometry and wave + current conditions will be assessed to maximize power performance and minimize structural loads.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

Architecture-Aware Models of AI Engines for High-Performance Matrix Matrix Multiplication

The AI Engine (AIE) architecture, available in systems from mobile SoCs to server-class FPGAs, aims to efficiently execute AI/ML tasks through a two-dimensional array of compute tiles. Previous work on AIEs has explored different approaches to mapping computation across spatial arrays, but the compute kernel running on each tile has not been the focus. Additionally, the AIE-ML architecture introduces memory tiles and omits programmable logic, requiring new approaches to staging and moving data throughout the array. In this work we update analytical models developed for CPUs to produce the design of high performance kernels while introducing new model considerations such as memory structure, throughput, and latency as required by the AIE hardware. We evaluate our models by developing AIE-ML kernels for matrix multiplication in low-precision data types showing performance up to 95% of compute peak for the kernel when data resides in local memory and above 90% of compute peak when data resides in main memory.

Binder, Elliott D. [Carnegie Mellon University, Pi↗

Effect of Framework Composition and NH 3 on the Diffusion of Cu + in Cu-CHA Catalysts Predicted by Machine-Learning Accelerated Molecular Dynamics

Cu-exchanged zeolites rely on mobile solvated Cu + cations for their catalytic activity, but the role of the framework composition in transport is not fully understood. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations can provide quantitative atomistic insight but are too computationally expensive to explore large length and time scales or diverse compositions. We report a machine-learning interatomic potential that accurately reproduces ab initio results and effectively generalizes to allow multinanosecond simulations of large supercells and diverse chemical compositions. Biased and unbiased simulations of [Cu(NH 3 ) 2 ] + mobility show that aluminum pairing in eight-membered rings accelerates local hopping and demonstrate that increased NH 3 concentration enhances long-range diffusion. The probability of finding two [Cu(NH 3 ) 2 ] + complexes in the same cage, which is key for SCR-NOx reaction, increases with Cu content and Al content but does not correlate with the long-range mobility of Cu + . Supporting experimental evidence was obtained from reactivity tests of Cu-CHA catalysts with a controlled chemical composition.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

First-principles study of electron transport in ScN

We investigate the conduction-band structure and electron mobility in rocksalt ScN based on density functional theory. The first-principles band structure allows us to obtain band velocities and effective masses as a function of energy. Electron-phonon scattering is assessed by explicitly computing the q-dependent electron-phonon matrix elements, with the inclusion of the long-range electrostatic interaction. The influence of free-carrier screening on the electron transport is assessed using the random phase approximation. We find a notable enhancement of electron mobility when the carrier concentration exceeds 10 20 cm -3 . We calculate the room-temperature electron mobility in ScN to be 587 cm2 /Vs at low carrier concentrations. When the carrier concentration is increased, the electron mobility starts to decrease significantly around n = 10 19 cm -3 , and drops to 240 cm 2 /Vs at n = 10 21 cm -3 . We also explore the influence of strain in (111)- and (100)-oriented ScN films. For (111) films, we find that a 1.0% compressive epitaxial strain increases the in-plane mobility by 72 cm 2 /Vs and the out-of-plane mobility by 50 cm 2 /Vs. For (100) films, a 1.0% compressive epitaxial strain increases the out-of-plane mobility by as much as 172 cm2 /Vs, but has a weak impact on the in-plane mobility. Our study sheds light on electron transport in ScN at different electron concentrations and shows how strain engineering could increase the electron mobility.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Interlayer-Decoupled Sc-Based Mxene with High Carrier Mobility and Strong Light-Harvesting Ability

Two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) layered materials offer a unique combination of electronic and structural properties attractive for technological applications. Most of them show strong vdW interactions, which lead to interlayer-coupled optoelectronic properties due to quantum confinement. Here we present a systematic computational study of one Mxene, 2D double-metal-layered scandium chloride carbides (Sc 2 CCl 2 ). Unlike conventional quantum-confined nanosystems, 2D Sc 2 CCl 2 exhibits weak vdW interactions with robust interlayer-decoupled optoelectronic properties and extremely high and anisotropic carrier mobilities of about 1–4.5 × 10 4 cm 2 V –1 s –1 that consequently produce comparatively large drain currents. Specifically, the 2D Sc 2 CCl 2 family has strong light-harvesting ability and could be utilized as efficient donor materials in excitonic solar cells. Overall, in combination with high structural stability against ambient conditions, interlayer-decoupled robust optoelectronic properties potentially relax the requirements for the fabrication of high-quality monolayers and for selection of suitable substrates and suggest promising next-generation optoelectronic applications.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Communication: Polymer entanglement dynamics: Role of attractive interactions

The coupled dynamics of entangled polymers, which span broad time and length scales, govern their unique viscoelastic properties. To follow chain mobility by numerical simulations from the intermediate Rouse and reptation regimes to the late time diffusive regime, highly coarse grained models with purely repulsive interactions between monomers are widely used since they are computationally the most efficient. In this paper, using large scale molecular dynamics simulations, the effect of including the attractive interaction between monomers on the dynamics of entangled polymer melts is explored for the first time over a wide temperature range. Attractive interactions have little effect on the local packing for all temperatures T and on the chain mobility for T higher than about twice the glass transition T g . Finally, these results, across a broad range of molecular weight, show that to study the dynamics of entangled polymer melts, the interactions can be treated as pure repulsive, confirming a posteriori the validity of previous studies and opening the way to new large scale numerical simulations.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Estimating traffic volumes for signalized intersections using connected vehicle data

Recently connected vehicle (CV) technology has received significant attention thanks to active pilot deployments supported by the US Department of Transportation (USDOT). At signalized intersections, CVs may serve as mobile sensors, providing opportunities of reducing dependencies on conventional vehicle detectors for signal operation. However, most of the existing studies mainly focus on scenarios that penetration rates of CVs reach certain level, e.g., 25%, which may not be feasible in the near future. How to utilize data from a small number of CVs to improve traffic signal operation remains an open question. In this work, we develop an approach to estimate traffic volume, a key input to many signal optimization algorithms, using GPS trajectory data from CV or navigation devices under low market penetration rates. To estimate traffic volumes, we model in this paper vehicle arrivals at signalized intersections as a time-dependent Poisson process, which can account for signal coordination. The estimation problem is formulated as a maximum likelihood problem given multiple observed trajectories from CVs approaching to the intersection. An expectation maximization (EM) procedure is derived to solve the estimation problem. Two case studies were conducted to validate our estimation algorithm. One uses the CV data from the Safety Pilot Model Deployment (SPMD) project, in which around 2800 CVs were deployed in the City of Ann Arbor, MI. The other uses vehicle trajectory data from users of a commercial navigation service in China. Mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of the estimation is found to be 9–12%, based on benchmark data manually collected and data from loop detectors. Finally, considering the existing scale of CV deployments, the proposed approach could be of significant help to traffic management agencies for evaluating and operating traffic signals, paving the way of using CVs for detector-free signal operation in the future.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

First-principles design of nanostructured hybrid photovoltaics based on layered transition metal phosphates

The performance of bulk organic and hybrid organic-inorganic heterojunction photovoltaics is often limited by high carrier recombination arising from strongly bound excitons and low carrier mobility. Structuring materials to minimize the length scales required for exciton separation and carrier collection is therefore a promising approach for improving efficiency. In this work, first-principles computations are employed to design and characterize a new class of photovoltaic materials composed of layered transition metal phosphates (TMPs) covalently bound to organic absorber molecules to form nanostructured superlattices. Using a combination of transition metal substitution and organic functionalization, the electronic structure of these materials is systematically tuned to design a new hybrid photovoltaic material predicted to exhibit very low recombination due to the presence of a local electric field and spatially isolated, high mobility, two-dimensional electron and hole conducting channels. Furthermore, this material is predicted to have a large open-circuit voltage of 1.7 V. Here, this work suggests that hybrid TMPs constitute an interesting class of materials for further investigation in the search for achieving high efficiency, high power, and low cost photo Zirconium phosphate was chosen, in part, due to previous experiment voltaics.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Infrastructure Perception and Control Laboratory [ITS Research Lab]

U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories host world-class advanced computing and modeling capabilities. The National Renewable Energy Labowratory (NREL) inaugurated the Infrastructure Perception and Control Laboratory (IPC Lab) to advance mobility reach into real-world applications.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗