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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
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2013

K-Basins Sludge Treatment and Packaging at the Hanford Site - 13585

Highly radioactive sludge resulting from the storage of degraded spent nuclear fuel has been consolidated in Engineered Containers (ECs) in the 105-K West Storage Basin located on the Hanford site near the Columbia River in Washington State. CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) is proceeding with a project to retrieve the sludge, place it in Sludge Transport and Storage Containers (STSCs) and store those filled containers within the T Plant Canyon facility on the Hanford Site Central Plateau (Phase 1). Retrieval and transfer of the sludge material will enable removal of the 105-K West Basin and allow remediation of the subsurface contamination plumes under the basin. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) plans to treat and dispose of this K Basins sludge (Phase 2) as Remote Handled Transuranic Waste (RH TRU) at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) located in New Mexico. The K Basin sludge currently contains uranium metal which reacts with water present in the stored slurry, generating hydrogen and other byproducts. The established transportation and disposal requirements require the transformation of the K Basins sludge to a chemically stable, liquid-free, packaged waste form. The Treatment and Packaging Project includes removal of the containerised sludge from T Plant, the treatment of the sludge as required, and packaging of all the sludge into a form that is certifiable for transportation to and disposal at WIPP. Completion of this scope will require construction and operation of a Sludge Treatment and Packaging Facility (STPF), which could be either a completely new facility or a modification of an existing Hanford Site facility. A Technology Evaluation and Alternatives Analysis (TEAA) for the STP Phase 2 was completed in 2011. A Request for Technology Information (RFI) had been issued in October 2009 to solicit candidate technologies for use in Phase 2. The RFI also included a preliminary definition of Phase 2 functions and requirements. Potentially applicable technologies were identified through a commercial procurement process, technical workshops, and review of the numerous previous sludge treatment technology studies. The identified technology approaches were screened using the criteria established in the Decision Plan, and focused bench top feasibility testing was conducted. Engineering evaluations of the costs, schedules, and technical maturity were developed and evaluated. Recommendations were developed based on technical evaluations. The criteria used in the evaluation process were as follows: (1) Safety, (2) Regulatory/stakeholder acceptance, (3) Technical maturity, (4) Operability and maintainability, (5) Life cycle cost and schedule, (6) Potential for beneficial integration with ongoing STP-Phase 1 activities, and (7) Integration with Site-wide RH-TRU processing/packaging, planning, schedule, and approach. The TEAA recommended Warm Water Oxidation (WWO) as the baseline treatment technology and two risk reduction enhancement options for further consideration during development of the process - size reduction and chemical oxidation (Fenton's reagent). The enhancement options would potentially allow a useful reduction in the total operating time required to process the K Basins sludge. The U.S. Department of Energy's Richland Field Office (DOE-RL) has approved this recommended technical approach. The baseline process can be broken down into the following main process steps: (1) STSC transfer from T Plant to the Sludge Treatment and Packaging Facility (STPF). (2) Retrieval of sludge from the STSCs and transfer to the Receipt and Reaction Tank (RRT). (3) Preparation for immobilization by oxidation using heated water (i.e., WWO) for those batches that require it and concentration by evaporating water at about atmospheric pressure in the RRT. (4) Immobilization by using additives to eliminate free liquids and packaging of the treated sludge into drums. (5) Inspection and handling of the filled drums prior to transfer to a separate storage and shipping facility. (6) Handling of vapor, condensate, and other waste streams generated by the process. Each of these steps is discussed in the paper, together with the current state of progress in developing the technology and requirements for continued development. A schematic of the recommended baseline WWO treatment process is given below. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2017

U.S. Department of Energy/Argonne National Laboratory Training Courses for Packaging, Transportation, and Storage of Radioactive Material - 17269

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Packaging Certification Program (PCP), Office of Packaging and Transportation, Office of Environmental Management, has sponsored a suite of training courses that have been conducted since the early 1990s. Of these training courses, Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) conducts three courses: (1) Quality Assurance (QA) for Radioactive Material Packaging, (2) American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Pressure Vessel Code for Nuclear Transport and Storage, and (3) Nuclear and Other Radioactive Materials Transport Security. Argonne has been working with the University of Nevada, Reno, to develop an accredited graduate-level program in nuclear packaging. The Graduate Certificate in Nuclear Packaging (GCNP) program provides an applied knowledge-based curriculum in packaging for nuclear and radioactive materials that complements other graduate programs at the University (for additional information, see https://www.unr.edu/degrees/nuclear-packaging/certificate). (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2015

An integrated equipment for massive segmentation and packaging of control Rod Guide Tubes - 15161

Over time, some utilities have decided to undergo safety upgrades that include replacement of some ageing components like control rod guide tubes (GT's). GT's are safety related components because they control the path of the control rods into and out of the core. These components are usually stored underwater in interim storage pools to decay their radioactivity. When the interim storage facility reaches saturation, treatment and final disposal of the retired Guide Tubes needs to be performed. Based on more than 30 years of experience and lessons learned in the development of segmentation and packaging technologies for nuclear components, Westinghouse has designed, commissioned and will operate a dedicated system for cutting and packaging retired GT's from 900 MW plants, currently stored in a EDF maintenance facility located in the south of France. The first main technical challenge was the waste volume optimization. Two separate waste streams had to be considered for coping with the highly irradiated portion of the GT's (lower part) and the very low level waste sections (upper part). The segmentation plan has been designed to minimize the waste volume of the highly irradiated waste and therefore develop a process which could be adapted to the container size specified by EDF. Metallic baskets have been designed to optimize the packaging and storage density in the containers. All cutting techniques previously used by Westinghouse in similar applications were assessed and underwater mechanical cutting with a band saw was selected as the preferred method. A turning stand positions the GT in front of the band saw. When the cut is completed, the remnant GT is inserted into the next turning stand for the next cut. Each cell of the turning stand positions the GT at the pre-defined cutting height. An integrated water filtration system is used to ensure good visibility during the cutting operations and to minimize water volume and limit the final liquid effluents. The whole process of GT insertion, cutting, packaging and waste conditioning is carried out in a hot cell and controlled remotely. The operator can therefore follow the packaging plan accurately and safely by using a four axis pick and place unit, while keeping personal radiation exposure low. This innovative process allows cutting and packaging large quantities of GT's in a safe and efficient manner. The pilot project covers the segmentation of 93 GT's but it can be further used for cutting larger quantities of retired GT's resulting from the upcoming GT replacement campaigns. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2016

IP-2 Steam Generator Lower Assembly Packaging, Transport and Disposal - 16510

WMG, Inc. led a team of industry experts in the first of its kind packaging, transportation and disposal of four (4) Steam Generator Lower Assemblies (SGLAs). The project had a number of significant challenges including qualifying the SGLAs as IP-2 packages, implementing roadway improvements and orchestrating the use of three different modes of transportation. In the end, these SGLAs would be the first large components disposed at the WCS Disposal facility in Andrews Texas. The client was re-purposing the SGLA storage mausoleum for 'Fukushima equipment' preparedness so it became necessary to dispose of the assemblies. The WMG team needed to: - Dismantle the mausoleum to allow removal of the SGLAs, - Design, fabricate, deliver and install IP-2 SGLA packaging, and - Transport the packaged SGLAs from the client to the WCS facility for disposal. After qualifying the packaging as IP-2 containers, the SGLAs were loaded onto special equipment for over-the-road transport to the harbor in Kewaunee, WI. Following trans-load, the SGLAs were barged down Lake Michigan through the Mississippi River to the Port of Houston for another trans-load. The SGLAs arrived by rail at WCS' Andrews TX facility. Each transport segment required coordination for transport clearances, proper marking, labeling and placarding for that particular mode of transport as well as coordination with the team involved in moving the large packages from one conveyance to another. The project was completed with zero safety issues, significantly below dose goals, ahead of schedule, and within budget. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2016

What's in WIPP? Packaging TRU Waste to Enhance WIPP's Capacity - 16515

Beginning in 1999, and continuing for 15 years, the US DOE Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) repository successfully disposed of defense Transuranic (TRU) waste. Six of the originally planned ten disposal panels were filled before two unrelated accidents temporarily halted disposal operations in February 2014. Based on counting the gross volume of all containers emplaced in WIPP to date, a little more than half of the legislated volume capacity has been subscribed (91,000 cubic meters). This paper describes the many different packaging configurations that have been used to ship TRU waste to WIPP, and makes observations that may enhance the repository capacity when shipments resume. The contents of shipments to WIPP are limited by many requirements of the repository waste acceptance criteria. These criteria derive from three primary sources; 1) the Certificate of Compliance (CoC), issued by the NRC for Type B shipping packaging used by WIPP; 2) The Hazardous Waste Facility Permit, issued by the New Mexico Environment Department; and 3) the WIPP facility's own Documented Safety Analysis (DSA), developed under DOE's regulation 10CFR830. To meet these criteria, various TRU waste forms have been packaged in different ways, with varying packaging efficiency. Of course, there is an overall upper limit on WIPP's volume capacity that was legislated as part of the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act. The volume counted against this limit has been calculated by simply summing the volumes of individual payload containers shipped to and emplaced at WIPP. This method counts significant non-waste volumes inside the containers due to over-packing inner containers and partially filled containers. Without some change to how disposal volumes are calculated, or how waste is packaged, the amount of TRU waste yet to be shipped to WIPP could exceed the legislated capacity. Concepts to enhance the packaging efficiency of future waste shipments to WIPP are presented. Approximate estimates of the waste versus non-waste volumes that have been emplaced to date are discussed. This paper only considers contact handled TRU waste (i.e., contact dose rates < 2 mSv/hr). (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2018

Design and Licensing of Irradiated Uranyl Nitrate Liquid Containers and Applicable Loading and Packaging System - 18481

Irradiated highly enriched uranyl nitrate liquid (HEUNL) solutions are typically residual materials resulting from the processing of uranium target materials in the production of radioisotopes. Traditionally, these residual materials have been processed and stored at the site of origin, due to the lack of an option for packaging, transportation and disposition. Modern alternatives to process, stabilize, package and dispose of these materials have been developed, but until recently there has not been a viable Type B package solution that could be used to ship these materials in sufficient quantities to justify the cost of an off-site disposition strategy. For this reason, most facilities that generate irradiated HEUNL materials have implemented on-site storage tanks or containers, resulting in the significant accumulation of HEUNL inventories worldwide. This paper provides an overview of the design and licensing activities for the development of sealed irradiated HEUNL transport containers to permit safe transportation of this material in the NAC Legal Weight Truck (NAC-LWT) cask. A description of the robust HEUNL container, licensing and fabrication is also presented. In addition, NAC has developed a specialized loading system to optimize the process to load, package and un-package HEUNL materials to minimize worker exposure during loading, and execute the packaging process efficiently for safe transport and retrieval. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2024

An Organic, Direct Bonded Copper, Multi-Layered, Ultra-Low Inductance Package for High-Power UWBG MOSFETs

The most common metalized substrates used in high-power switching packages consist of a ceramic layer such as Aluminum Nitride (AlN) sandwiched between two copper layers. Ceramic substrates are used because it has the key characteristic of having high dielectric strength while being thermally conductive. A large drawback to ceramic substrates is that they do not allow for a multi-layered circuit design. By replacing the traditional ceramic substrate with organic direct bonded copper (ODBC) we can open a wide range of possibilities when it comes to power module layout such as multi-layered circuits and double-sided cooling. Both benefits are critical while packaging high-performance Gallium Oxide (Ga2O3) MOSFETs. Because of Ga2O3's relatively poor thermal conductivity, a double-sided cooled package becomes necessary. Therefore, the use of ODBC provides the flexibility to fabricate copper traces carrying much higher currents, and by creating a multi-layered package, we can drastically reduce the parasitic inductance inside the power module. Achieving lower parasitic inductance is critical for an ultra-fast Ga2O3 package to avoid excessive voltage overshoot and ringing. Using ODBC, we have designed novel packages capable of handling the challenges presented by fast Ga2O3 switching. Using multi-physics modeling software, we can validate our design before building the prototype. Due to the simple process parameters needed to work with ODBC, we can rapidly create prototypes without using external vendors. This flexibility allows us to quickly design, build, and validate highly complex switching power modules to accommodate next generation, Ga2O3 switching devices.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Real time side-by-side experimental validation of energy and comfort performance of a zero net energy retrofit package for small commercial buildings

Making buildings zero-net energy (ZNE) is one of the major strategies for achieving carbon emission reduction goals. For this strategy to be successful, it entails a very significant reduction in energy use – 50% or more. In small commercial buildings, however, owners and building management teams usually have limited resources for identifying, analyzing, and procuring appropriate retrofit measures for reducing such use. An approach to overcome this limitation is the development of bundles of energy efficiency measures that can be presented to building owners/operators as a comprehensive package. The research presented in this paper focuses on an experimental evaluation of the impacts of a retrofit package developed for small office buildings in California. Performing this evaluation in a full-scale whole-building integrated systems test facility allowed a side-by-side evaluation in real time, against a reference case, of the impact of the retrofit package not only on energy use but also on visual and thermal comfort. Here, the retrofit package evaluated is comprised of a combination of HVAC, lighting (including daylighting), and plug load measures. The evaluation occurred at different times of the year in order to account for seasonal variations in environmental conditions, including solar angles and weather. The experimental facility allowed testing for two different façade orientations: south and west. Results show that the proposed ZNE retrofit package can save significant amounts of energy for small commercial buildings. During cooling-prevalent periods, total energy savings were 65% for south orientation and 68% for west orientation; during heating-prevalent periods total energy savings were 22% for south orientation and 25% for west orientation. Measurements indicate that the ZNE retrofit package resulted in small but not very significant changes in comfort levels for building occupants.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2019

Spack-Based Packaging and Development for HEP

The art event-based analysis framework is used by multiple Intensity Frontier and other experiments and projects in High Energy Physics (HEP). A system of tools and scripts based around a Fermilab-originated package management system called UNIX Product Support (UPS) has evolved to provide development, packaging, release management, and distribution of the art suite, related experimental software and external dependencies in relocatable binary form. The existing system has limitations in environments such as macOS with System Integrity Protection (SIP) enabled and the various High Performance Computing (HPC) systems that the field of HEP is increasingly looking to leverage. This has led to a search for other ways of providing experiments with a packaging and build system that meets their needs. We describe our efforts to develop a packaging and release management system based on the Spack HPC package management tool to replace the existing UPS-based system. We additionally describe a companion system: SpackDev and cetmodules, allowing simultaneous development of multiple HEP software packages in a consistent environment. A successful implementation of the intended system would have applicability across HEP rather than merely to the users of the art framework.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Demonstration of object location, classification, and characterization by developed deep learning dust ablation trail analysis code package using plasma jets

Based on deep learning, a Dust Ablation Trail Analysis (DATA) code package is developed to detect dust ablation trails in tokamaks, which is intended to analyze a large amount data of tokamak dusts. To validate and benchmark the DATA code package, 2440 plasma jet images are exploited for the training and test of the deep learning DATA code package, since plasma jets resemble the shape and size of dust ablation clouds in tokamaks. After being trained by 1920 plasma jet images, the DATA code package is able to locate 100% plasma jets, classify plasma jets with the accuracy of >99.9%, and output image skeleton information for classified plasma jets. The DATA code package trained by the plasma jet images is also used to analyze the dust ablation trails captured in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting (EAST) tokamak with the satisfactory performance, further verifying its applicability in the fusion dust ablation investigation. Based on its excellent performance presented here, it is demonstrated that our DATA code package is able to automatically identify and analyze dust ablation trails in tokamaks, which can be used for further detailed investigations, such as the three-dimensional reconstruction of dusts and their ablation trails.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

CMaize: Simplifying inter-package modularity from the build up

There is a growing desire for inter-package modularity within the chemistry software community to reuse encapsulated code units across a variety of software packages. Most comprehensive efforts at achieving inter-package modularity will quickly run afoul of a very practical problem, being able to cohesively build the modules. Writing and maintaining build systems has long been an issue for many scientific software packages that rely on compiled languages such as C/C++. The push for inter-package modularity compounds this issue by additionally requiring binary artifacts from disparate developers to interoperate at a binary level. Thankfully, the de facto build tool for C/C++, CMake, is more than capable of supporting the myriad of edge cases that complicate writing robust build systems. Unfortunately, writing and maintaining a robust CMake build system can be a laborious endeavor because CMake provides few abstractions to aid the developer. Further, the need to significantly simplify the process of writing robust CMake-based build systems, especially in inter-package builds, motivated us to write CMaize. In addition to describing the architecture and design of CMaize, the article also demonstrates how CMaize is used in production-level software.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2018

Preserving Command Line Workflow for a Package Management System using ASCII DAG Visualization

Package managers provide ease of access to applications by removing the time-consuming and sometimes completely prohibitive barrier of successfully building, installing, and maintaining the software for a system. A package dependency contains dependencies between all packages required to build and run the target software. Package management system developers, package maintainers, and users may consult the dependency graph when a simple listing is insufficient for their analyses. However, users working in a remote command line environment must disrupt their workflow to visualize dependency graphs in graphical programs, possibly needing to move files between devices or incur forwarding lag. Such is the case for users of Spack, an open source package management system originally developed to ease the complex builds required by supercomputing environments. To preserve the command line workflow of Spack, we develop an interactive ASCII visualization for its dependency graphs. Through interviews with Spack maintainers, we identify user goals and corresponding visual tasks for dependency graphs. We evaluate the use of our visualization through a command line-centered study, comparing it to the system's two existing approaches. We observe that despite the limitations of the ASCII representation, our visualization is preferred by participants when approached from a command line interface workflow.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2013

PACKAGE IMPACT MODELS AS A PRECURSOR TO CLADDING ANALYSIS

The evaluation of spent nuclear fuel storage casks and transportation packages under impact loading is an important safety topic that is reviewed as part of cask and package certification by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Explicit dynamic finite element models of full systems are increasingly common in industry for determining structural integrity during hypothetical drop accidents. Full cask and package model results are also used as the loading basis for single fuel pin impact models, which evaluate the response of fuel cladding under drop conditions. In this paper, a simplified package system is evaluated to illustrate several important structural dynamic phenomena, including the effect of gaps between components, the difference in local response at various points on a package during impact, and the effect of modeling various simplified representations of the basket and fuel assemblies. This paper focuses on the package impact analysis, and how loading conditions for a subsequent fuel assembly or fuel cladding analysis can be extracted.

Klymyshyn, Nicholas A.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Structural dynamics modeling of spent nuclear fuel during hypothetical package drop events

The response of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) to hypothetical package drop events is of particular interest in the scope of spent fuel storage and transportation because of the mechanical shock encountered in such scenarios. Previous testing and modeling by the U.S. Department of Energy has demonstrated that the shock and vibration environment of normal shipping and handling conditions (excluding package drop events) is relatively benign and does not challenge the integrity of spent nuclear fuel. Cask drop events are worth considering because SNF packages are required to withstand free drops onto unyielding surfaces as part of their licensing basis. The acceleration experienced during drop events can be orders of magnitude higher, and thus more advanced models are needed to encompass potential nonlinear behavior of the fuel, such as spacer grid buckling and rod-to-rod impact. This work describes a number of finite element models developed to calculate the response of spent nuclear fuel to various hypothetical drop events that have been validated by package and fuel assembly drop tests conducted in the last decade. Sensitivity of the model response to factors such as package drop orientation, secondary impacts, and irradiated material properties as well as their potential impacts to fuel cladding integrity, was also investigated. Cask drops are not expected as a regular occurrence during SNF transportation, but this work helps raise the understanding of SNF mechanical loads to the point of consistency with the package design requirements.

Kadooka, Kevin↗
DOE OSTI2015

Experimental investigation on hydrogen cryogenic distillation equipped with package made by ICIT

ICIT (Institute for Cryogenics and Isotopic Technologies) has used its experience in cryogenic water distillation process to propose a similar process for hydrogen distillation that can be used in detritiation technologies. This process relies on the same packages but a stainless filling is tested instead of the phosphorous bronze filling used for water distillation. This paper presents two types of packages developed for hydrogen distillation, both have a stainless filling but it differs in terms of density, exchange surface and specific volume. Performance data have been obtained on laboratory scale. In order to determine the characteristics of the package, the installation was operated in the total reflux mode, for different flow rate for the liquid. There were made several experiments considering different operating conditions. Samples extracted at the top and bottom of cryogenic distillation column allowed mathematical processing to determine the separation performance. The experiments show a better efficiency for the package whose exchange surface was higher and there were no relevant differences between both packages as the operating pressure of the cryogenic column was increasing. For a complete characterization of the packages, future experiments will be considered to determine performance at various velocities in the column and their correlation with the pressure in the column. We plan further experiments to separate tritium from the mixture of isotopes DT, having in view that our goal is to apply this results to a detritiation plant.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Packages of Distributed Energy Technologies Demonstrating Demand Flexibility at Community Scale

The combination of increased electric load growth across all sectors, deferred electrical infrastructure investment, and other factors resulting in variable electric power supply, has created technical challenges to maintaining a resilient and reliable grid. Many federal, regional, and local efforts are in play to modernize the electric grid, including advancing building technologies and distributed energy resources (DERs) that are utilizing smarter controls to become responsive to both occupant and grid needs. This report reviews ten pilot projects demonstrating how groups of buildings combined with behind-the-meter (BTM) DERs such as electric vehicle (EV) charging, battery storage, flexible HVAC and domestic hot water systems, and photovoltaic systems can reliably and cost effectively provide grid services. Each of the ten pilot projects aim to deliver both energy efficiency and demand flexibility (DF) while supporting load growth. The ten demonstration teams are piloting flexible DER packages across diverse communities of residential and commercial buildings to address a variety of regional grid needs. The outcomes of these pilot projects will be used to inform future scaling through utility program development. This paper characterizes the ten teams, showcasing the decision-making process used by each group to develop their packages (Section 2), the grid services they plan to deliver (Section 3), the types of DER packages selected for deployment within building sectors (Section 4) and trends between building sector, DER types, and grid services In order to achieve community scale benefits, the pilot projects must utilize aggregated control mechanisms for coordinating buildings and DERs together. Several types of coordinated control architectures have evolved amongst the teams, influenced by use type, existing market conditions, and integration type. Three coordinated controls architectures have been characterized, highlighting their use cases, benefits, challenges, and tradeoffs in their design. These insights can aid utilities, control vendors, and developers in scaling community-level energy systems (Paul, 2024). Ultimately, the technology packages selected by the ten teams will be coordinated to provide power system services, also known as grid services. Insights from these demonstrations will be useful for grid operators, regulators, aggregators and other stakeholders as they look to deploy demand flexible resources as grid services in the future. The grid services that each team is targeting for demonstration are described in Section 3 and Section 4. Methods for evaluating the grid services have been described in the paper Metrics for Evaluating Grid Service Provision from Communities of Grid-interactive and Efficient Buildings and other DER (MacDonald, 2023). To identify technology packages for demonstration, Section 2 shows that project teams used a range of analysis approaches, including building energy modeling, AMI data analysis, cost-benefit frameworks, and utility pilot data. Some teams emphasized technical modeling to quantify grid impacts and demand reduction potential, while others prioritized economic evaluations, stakeholder input, or exploratory pilots to inform deployment decisions. This diversity reflects the need to tailor selection methods to project goals, available data, and organizational context. Section 5 discusses trends between the DER technologies deployed and the grid service provisions from each team. Residential buildings (multifamily and single family) lean towards technologies that enhance energy efficiency (e.g. weatherization upgrades, smart thermostats) and onsite power generation integration (e.g. solar PV). Commercial building demonstrations prioritize technologies that ensure operational reliability (e.g. battery storage) and centralized energy management systems and optimization solutions. Teams that are deploying controllable storage-based technologies are more likely to provide grid services that require a near real-time response. Teams incorporating load shifting technologies like smart thermostats with HEMs are likely to include energy markets participation and customer bill management offerings. Campus demonstrations are adopting diverse sets of DERs to emphasize renewable generation, paired with centralized control. This section also describes technologies that were considered during project planning but ultimately excluded from final deployment. These demonstrations reveal that effective DER package design should be tailored to building type, customer segment, and construction vintage. Multifamily buildings benefit from centralized HVAC upgrades and supervisory controls, while single-family homes are well-suited for individualized technologies like solar, storage, and smart home energy monitors. Commercial and campus settings prioritize EMIS integration and load optimization. New construction enables cost-effective integration of DER-ready infrastructure, whereas retrofits require deployments aligned with owner and tenant value streams. For utility program planners, early coordination with developers and building owners, paired with segmented and modular program offerings, can improve adoption, scalability, and grid impact.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Modeled Retrofit Package Performance for Schools

This report details modeled energy performance and savings from retrofit packages in prototypical school buildings in climate zones throughout the U.S. The information herein serves as a reference for elementary and secondary schools interested in implementing retrofit packages in their facilities for energy savings as well as health and safety benefits. School models developed for simulating package performance differentiated between rural and urban environments. Simulations were run for 10 distinct climate zones covering a range of climate conditions throughout the U.S. Results include savings estimates for electricity, natural gas, CO 2 emissions, and annual utility costs for nine different retrofit packages that combine energy conservation measures, including HVAC controls and equipment upgrades, lighting efficiency upgrades, and electrification technologies such as heat pumps for space conditioning and domestic hot water. Nine additional retrofit packages were also developed for elementary schools and modeled in two climate zones. Appendix B describes the additional retrofit packages and presents savings estimates.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2013

Potential vertical movement of large heat-generating waste packages in salt.

With renewed interest in disposal of heat-generating waste in bedded or domal salt formations, scoping analyses were conducted to estimate rates of waste package vertical movement. Vertical movement is found to result from thermal expansion, from upward creep or heave of the near-field salt, and from downward buoyant forces on the waste package. A two-pronged analysis approach was used, with thermal-mechanical creep modeling, and coupled thermal-viscous flow modeling. The thermal-mechanical approach used well-studied salt constitutive models, while the thermal-viscous approach represented the salt as a highly viscous fluid. The Sierra suite of coupled simulation codes was used for both approaches. The waste package in all simulations was a right-circular cylinder with the density of steel, in horizontal orientation. A time-decaying heat generation function was used to represent commercial spent fuel with typical burnup and 50-year age. Results from the thermal-mechanical base case showed approximately 27 cm initial uplift of the package, followed by gradual relaxation closely following the calculated temperature history. A similar displacement history was obtained with the package density set equal to that of salt. The slight difference in these runs is attributable to buoyant displacement (sinking) and is on the order of 1 mm in 2,000 years. Without heat generation the displacement stabilizes at a fraction of millimeter after a few hundred years. Results from thermal-viscous model were similar, except that the rate of sinking was constant after cooldown, at approximately 0.15 mm per 1,000 yr. In summary, all calculations showed vertical movement on the order of 1 mm or less in 2,000 yr, including calculations using well-established constitutive models for temperature-dependent salt deformation. Based on this finding, displacement of waste packages in a salt repository is not a significant repository performance issue.

Clayton, Daniel James↗