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Results for “Percolation”

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 OSTI2018

Percolated microstructures for multi-modal transport enhancement in porous active materials

A method of forming a composite material for use in multi-modal transport includes providing three-dimensional graphene having hollow channels, enabling a polymer to wick into the hollow channels of the three-dimensional graphene, curing the polymer to form a cured three-dimensional graphene, adding an active material to the cured three-dimensional graphene to form a composite material, and removing the polymer from within the hollow channels. A composite material formed according to the method is also provided.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2019

Photodetectors exploiting electrostatic trapping and percolation transport

This disclosure provides systems, methods, and apparatus related to photodetectors. In one aspect, a photodetector device comprises a substrate, a polycrystalline layer disposed on the substrate, and a first electrode and a second electrode disposed on the polycrystalline layer. The polycrystalline layer comprises nanograins with grain boundaries between the nanograins. The nanograins comprise a semiconductor material. A doping element comprising a halogen is segregated at the grain boundaries. A length of the polycrystalline layer is between and separating the first electrode and the second electrode.

Alivisatos, A. Paul↗
DOE OSTI2012

Two-year performance by evapotranspiration covers for municipal solid waste landfills in northwest Ohio

Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer All ET covers produced rates of percolation less than 32 cm yr{sup -1}, the maximum allowable rate by the Ohio EPA. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Dredged sediment provided sufficient water storage and promoted growth by native plant species. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Native plant mixtures attained acceptable rates of evapotranspiration throughout the growing season. - Abstract: Evapotranspiration (ET) covers have gained interest as an alternative to conventional covers for the closure of municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills because they are less costly to construct and are expected to have a longer service life. Whereas ET covers have gained acceptance in arid and semi-arid regions (defined by a precipitation (P) to potential evapotranspiration (PET) ratio less than 0.75) by meeting performance standards (e.g. rate of percolation), it remains unclear whether they are suitable for humid regions (P:PET greater than 0.75). The goal of this project is to extend their application to northwest Ohio (P:PET equals 1.29) by designing covers that produce a rate of percolation less than 32 cm yr{sup -1}, the maximum acceptable rate by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA). Test ET covers were constructed in drainage lysimeters (1.52 m diameter, 1.52 m depth) using dredged sediment amended with organic material and consisted of immature (I, plants seeded onto soil) or mature (M, plants transferred from a restored tall-grass prairie) plant mixtures. The water balance for the ET covers was monitored from June 2009 to June 2011, which included measured precipitation and percolation, and estimated soil water storage and evapotranspiration. Precipitation was applied at a rate of 94 cm yr{sup -1} in the first year and at rate of 69 cm yr{sup -1} in the second year. During the first year, covers with the M plant mixture produced noticeably less percolation (4 cm) than covers with the I plant mixture (17 cm). However, during the second year, covers with the M plant mixture produced considerably more percolation (10 cm) than covers with the I plant mixture (3 cm). This is likely due to a decrease in the aboveground biomass for the M plant mixture from year 1 (1008 g m{sup -2}) to year 2 (794 g m{sup -2}) and an increase for the I plant mixture from year 1 (644 g m{sup -2}) to year 2 (1314 g m{sup -2}). Over the 2-year period, the mean annual rates of percolation for the covers with the M and I plant mixtures were 7 and 8 cm yr{sup -1}, which are below the OEPA standard. The results suggest the application of ET covers be extended to northwest Ohio and other humid regions.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2025

Role of Intersections in Fracture Connectivity

Networks of intersecting fractures often provide the flow paths through subsurface reservoirs. Assessing network connectivity is challenging because fracture intersections compose a vanishingly small fraction of the network void volume. In this paper, motivated by 3D X-ray imaging of the simplest element of fracture network, that is, two orthogonal fractures, we perform a percolation and finite-size scaling analysis to study the connectivity provided by fracture intersections. The conditions when an intersection enhances connectivity across a sample depend on spatial correlations in the fracture aperture distributions, on the stress state, and on the direction of flow. Here we consider three flow directions: (a) across intersections, (b) parallel to intersections and (c) around corners. For (a), intersections provide minimal enhancement of connectivity because they contribute little additional void area. For (b), intersections increase the probability of a connected path near threshold by enabling 3D connected pathways that are not possible in parallel fractures. Flow around corners, (c), is fundamentally the result of the intersection connecting two fractures in series and spatial correlations are broken around corners, suppressing the connectivity relative to (a). When the connected fractures are stressed equally, a joint percolation threshold emerges that continues to have scale invariance. However, when the fractures are stressed unequally, the system has mixed percolation without clearly defined percolation thresholds. In all cases, percolation probabilities are found to be scale dependent which has important consequences for the connectivity of larger fracture networks composed of the fundamental element studied here.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2024

Soft interface instability and gas flow channeling in low-permeability deformable media

Understanding gas percolation through a clay layer or a shale formation is of great importance for the development of a geologic repository for nuclear waste disposal, a subsurface system for gas storage, and an engineering approach for hydrocarbon extraction from unconventional reservoirs. Gas injection experiments have revealed complex dynamic behaviours of gas percolation through water saturated compacted bentonite, characterized by a high breakthrough pressure, rapid breakthrough, a pressure/stress decay after the breakthrough, a relatively high migration rate, high-frequency periodic/nonperiodic variations in flow rate, stepwise rate reductions during relaxation, and low gas saturation over the whole process, all indicating channelling nature of the processes. Using linear stability analyses, we show that this channelling can autonomously emerge from the instability of the deformable interface between the injected gas and the compacted bentonite matrix driven by local stress concentration, pore dilation, and hydrologic gradient. Channel patterns formed would possess a fractal geometry. We further show that, once a percolating channel is established, the gas injected would percolate through the channel in a chain of gas bubbles, also due to the interface instability, resulting in periodic/chaotic variations in gas flow rate. Our work provides a unified explanation for key features observed for gas percolation in low-permeability deformable media. The work also suggests a possibility of designing an engineered barrier system for a nuclear waste repository that can have controllable gas release while limit water transport.

Bentonite↗
DOE OSTI2016

Photoluminescence and Confinement of Excitons in Disordered Porous Films

The exciton confinement effect in quantum dots at the surface of SiO{sub 2} spheres and the percolation phase transition in films based on a mixture of pure SiO{sub 2} spheres and spheres covered by CdS quantum dots (SiO{sub 2}/CdS nanoparticles) are studied. It is found that, due to the high surface energy of spheres, the quantum dots deposited onto their surface are distorted, which modifies the exciton confinement effect: the effect is retained only in one direction, the direction normal to the surface of the spheres. As a result, the energy of the exciton ground state exhibits a complex dependence on both the quantum-dot radius and sphere size. In the optical spectra of films based on this mixture, the clustering of small-sized nanoparticles and then, at a critical concentration of nanoparticles of ~60%, the formation of a percolation cluster are detected for the first time. The critical concentration is twice higher than the corresponding quantity given by the model of geometrical “colored percolation”, which is a consequence of interaction between submicrometer nanoparticles. The relation between the basic parameters of the percolation transition, such as the film porosity, coordination number, and the quantity defining the number of particles in the percolation cluster, is obtained and analyzed.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗