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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 235 records · Page 13

A Cultural Resource Survey of 110.55 Acres at the Coyote Test Field, Sandia National Laboratories, Kirtland Air Force Base, Bernalillo County, Albuquerque, New Mexico

This report presents the results of a Section 110 cultural resource survey of Sandia National Laboratories’ (Sandia) 9930 and 9939 Complexes, in the Coyote Test Field (CTF), located on lands permitted to the Department of Energy (DOE) by the Department of Defense (DOD), Kirtland Air Force Base (KAFB), Bernalillo County, Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Sandia Field Office (DOE/NNSA SFO) and National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, in accordance with Section 110 and Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and its implementing regulations 36 C.F.R. Part 800, states that every federal agency must establish their own historic preservation program for the identification, evaluation, and protection of historic properties and to ensure that historic preservation is fully integrated into the ongoing programs of federal agencies. Sandia’s Cultural Resources Program (CRP) establishes areas of potential effects based upon projected Sandia mission needs. Some of these areas have no immediate undertakings planned but are in areas where undertakings can happen at a future date.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

SAM Finite Volume Method Development Status Update: GCR Application, Restart, and MultiApp

The System Analysis Module (SAM) is being developed as a modern system analysis code for advanced non-light-water-reactor safety analysis under the U.S. DOE NEAMS program. Previous feasibility studies have demonstrated that a staggered-grid finite volume method (SG-FVM), implemented under the MOOSE framework, can deliver more than an order of magnitude speedup over the existing continuous Galerkin finite element method (CG-FEM) solver for liquid-cooled, incompressible but thermally expandable flow systems. This work extends the previous effort to compressible, gas-cooled reactor applications, where pressure couples directly into the mass equation adding additional nonlinearity into the equation system. New code capabilities are implemented for pebble bed high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (PB-HTGR) analysis, including a pebble bed CoreChannel component, built-in pebble bed effective thermal conductivity model and channel-to-channel crossflow model. The capabilities are tested, benchmarked, and demonstrated for problems with increased level of model and physical complexities, including the HTTU effective thermal conductivity test, the SANA passive cooling test, and a demonstration case using the GPBR200 reactor design covering steady-state operation, DLOFC and PLOFC transients. Across all cases, the SG-FVM solver demonstrated strong robustness and efficiency, and the solutions agree well with reference results and data. The finding of this work proves that SG-FVM is a viable and efficient solver pathway for compressible, gas-cooled reactor system analysis in SAM. In addition, work has been done to successfully support SAM-FVM recover/restart code feature that is essential to reactor safety analysis applications, and MultiApp code feature that is essential to multi-scale and multi-physics simulations. In summary, this work continued from previous feasibility studies, and further demonstrated that the SG-FVM will serve as a strong foundation for SAM’s advanced solver algorithm for future deployment.

Zou, Ling↗

Power Sharing-Based Framework for Allocating Automatic Generation Control in Distributed Energy Resources: Preprint

The recent proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs) in the power network along with the retirement of conventional generators has made it challenging to regulate system frequency. In this paper, we present a centralized control framework to leverage the potential of DERs in the distribution network in provisioning secondary frequency control services to the grid. The proposed framework is based on network volt-watt sensitivity analysis and takes into account DER operational and network-imposed constraints to allocate the automatic generation control (AGC) request among the aggregated units. The proposed framework was implemented on the IEEE 8500-node test feeder and results were validated against a standard linear programming-based scheme. Numerical results indicate that the proposed framework can successfully utilize the available power production headroom of the network to meet the AGC request while maintaining nodal voltages within acceptable limits.

distributed energy resources↗

Development of a Computational Framework for Multiphysics Multiphase Species Tracking using NEAMS Tools

This report implements a high-fidelity multiphysics modeling framework using the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program tools to track isotopic species in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs), with a specific focus on the 91-depletion chain within the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE). The model integrates neutronics, thermal-hydraulics, depletion, and thermochemistry to simulate the production, transport, and phase transitions of isotopes under steady-state and transient conditions. The main findings reveal that isotopes such as bromine-91 largely remain in the liquid phase, while others, including krypton-91and yttrium-91, transition to the gas phase, significantly influencing the reactor’s radiological source term. The study also shows that during transients, like a reactivity insertion transient, rapid void formation and the expansion of the liquid-gas interface led to substantial transfers of dissolved isotopes into the gas phase, altering isotope distribution and largely increasing the source term in the off-gas system. Additionally, the research highlights that short-lived isotopes dominate the initial off-gas response during transients, while longer-lived isotopes determine the equilibrium state, underscoring the necessity of dynamic simulations for accurate species tracking and reactor safety analysis. The developed methodology will be applied in the future to the tracking of a larger number of species and introduce other species tracking mechanisms, such as deposition and plating.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Initial Engineering Framework for Species Tracking in MSRs Involving Fuel Salt and Structures

This report implements a high-fidelity multiphysics modeling framework using the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program tools to track leaching and plating of materials between the fuel salt and structures in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Specifically, this framework is demonstrated in modeling various processes within MSRs including hot and cold leg corrosion, redox potential driven corrosion, colloid precipitation and deposition, and noble metal plating and decay heat modeling. The model integrates neutronics, thermal-hydraulics, depletion, and thermochemistry to simulate the evolving chemical behavior of the fuel salt in interactions with structural materials. Initial findings suggest that hot-cold leg corrosion in MSR systems may become significant if the redox potential of the fuel salt is not sufficiently controlled. Additionally, the impact of noble metal decay heat deposition in large power reactors is explored. The resulting engineering framework for species tracking will be applied in the future toward specific validation work with ongoing experimental efforts focusing on both chloride and fluoride salt loop experiments with in-situ corrosion and redox control instrumentation.

11 - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Evaluating the 238 U PFNS Including Chi-Nu Experimental Data

This report documents an evaluation of 238 U prompt fission neutron spectra (PFNS) which is a deliverable for a FY2024 Q4 NCSP (Nuclear Criticality Safety Program) milestone. This evaluation is new; its prior input is based on extended Los Alamos and exciton models implemented in the code CoH. Experimental covariances were estimated for five experimental data sets. One of these data sets that was measured by the Chi-Nu team of LANL and LLNL. It covers the 238 U PFNS for continuous incident-neutron energies of 1–20 MeV and outgoing-neutron energies from 10 keV– 10 MeV with high precision. Contrary to Chi-Nu data, previous data sets were measured in a limited energy range. The resulting evaluated data correspond well to the experimental PFNS taken into account for the evaluation. The evaluated PFNS also produce average mean energies in agreement with associated Chi-Nu data. If one uses the new evaluated data to predict the neutron multiplication factor, k eff , of the Flattop, Flattop-Pu and BigTen ICSBEP critical assemblies (which all have thick reflectors with high percentages of 238 U), the differences of simulated values compared to those using ENDF/B-VIII.1β3 is modest (less than 25 pcm). In addition to that, the new PFNS predict on average 238 U LLNL pulsed-sphere neutron-leakage spectra slightly better than ENDF/BVIIII.0 and ENDF/B-VIII.1β3 PFNS. The differences are, however, well within the experimental uncertainties.

238U↗

The DUNE Science Program

The international collaboration designing and constructing the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) at the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) has developed a two-phase strategy for the implementation of this leading-edge, large-scale science project. The 2023 report of the US Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) reaffirmed this vision and strongly endorsed DUNE Phase I and Phase II, as did the previous European Strategy for Particle Physics. The construction of DUNE Phase I is well underway. DUNE Phase II consists of a third and fourth far detector module, an upgraded near detector complex, and an enhanced > 2 MW beam. The fourth FD module is conceived as a 'Module of Opportunity', aimed at supporting the core DUNE science program while also expanding the physics opportunities with more advanced technologies. The DUNE collaboration is submitting four main contributions to the 2026 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics process. This submission to the 'Neutrinos and cosmic messengers', 'BSM physics' and 'Dark matter and dark sector' streams focuses on the physics program of DUNE. Additional inputs related to DUNE detector technologies and R&D, DUNE software and computing, and European contributions to Fermilab accelerator upgrades and facilities for the DUNE experiment, are also being submitted to other streams.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Illinois Storage Corridor - CarbonSAFE Phase III: Policy, Regulatory, Legal and Permitting Characteristics; Subtask 5.5

The Illinois Storage Corridor (ISC) project aims to advance the commercial development and implementation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies within a region in Illinois of suitable geology for carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) storage in deep saline aquifers. The project partners have annual emissions greater than 6.5 million tonnes per year; storage hubs are being explored at two sites—one near the One Earth Energy facility in east-central Illinois, and one near the Prairie State Generating Company campus in southwest Illinois. To implement the technology, legal, policy, and economic considerations must be explored. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) administers the Underground Injection Control (UIC) program and is responsible for issuing Class VI permits to construct and operate CO 2 injection wells, i.e., a UIC Class VI well permit is required to inject CO 2 into the subsurface for geologic sequestration. The largest consideration of the Class VI well requirements is to protect underground sources of drinking water (USDWs). Additionally discussed are considerations for Class VI permits relating to public engagement. Besides permitting, property rights to storage sites, subsurface pore spaces, and areas for pipeline transportation must be secured. Pore space rights is still a novel concept being explored and not yet addressed by the Illinois legislature. It is believed that surface property rights are required for the subsurface pore space below, so long as there is not a separated mineral estate in the subsurface. Illinois legislature has addressed securing rights-of-way for CO 2 transportation, allowing for easements and the exercise of eminent domain to secure such rights. Economically, the incentives for CCS are ever-expanding. Recently, the federal government broadened the availability and increased the dollar-amounts for the § 45Q tax credits for geological storage of carbon oxides. Congress has also authorized the Advanced Industrial Facilities Development Program which allocates billions of dollars in funds to installing technology at industrial facilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. On the state level, Illinois has had its own incentives for CCS projects since 2009 and expanded its emission-related goals again in 2021. The law enacted in 2021 specifically creates a commission to explore implementing CCS at Prairie State Generating Company, a partner on the Illinois Storage Corridor project.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Management and Operation of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory

ThermaMatrix, Inc provides novel vision inspection solutions for a wide range of manufacturers and industries, providing and implementing the leading technologies for nondestructive inspection (NDI) and material characterization. Many other inspection solutions are either not adequate or are not approachable due to implementation barriers needing expert level operators, excessive inspection time, and high cost. ThermaMatrix’sadvanced vision inspection technology addresses all of these limitations. The Lab Embedded Entrepreneurial Program (LEEP) opportunity by the Department of Energy (DOE) allows small-business start-ups to leverage national laboratory capabilities and skilled scientists to rapidly develop their technology that aligns with DOE goals. ThermaMatrix, Inc.was positioned in the Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to further develop thenovel Watson Vision Inspection System to support manufacturing quality control efforts. Theresearch goals were (1) explore fundamental parameters that would improve preexisting capabilities, (2) full-scale industrial setup for demonstration, and (3) capability testing and verification. Manufacturing is demanding more NDI implementation to support their quality control needs, which this technology development would support. Figure 1: Ryan Spencer of ThermaMatrix with Watson Vision Inspection System.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Development and Implementation of a Nuclear and Criticality Safety Engineering Pipeline Course at North Carolina State University

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, owner of both the criticality safety program and accident analysis qualification at Savannah River Site, experienced increasing difficulty in recruiting, training, and retaining key talent areas. In an effort to curb attrition, provide a talent base to recruit from, and introduce potential new hires to niche subject areas, a pipeline college course was developed for a regional university. The course introduces a variety of topic areas particular to criticality safety and nuclear safety at Department of Energy nonreactor nuclear facilities. Several administrative and developmental hurdles were encountered before the course was successfully initiated at North Carolina State University in fall 2024.

criticality↗

Safeguards Technology Program FY2026 Mid-Year Report for Project WBS# 24.1.3.3: Development of Procedures for Th-U Radiochronometry of Uranium Particles by LG-SIMS

Implementing 230 Th- 234 U radiochronometry of environmental uranium particles by large geometry secondary ion mass spectrometry (LG-SIMS) requires assessment, validation, and technical support before safeguards conclusions can be drawn from the information. This project investigates the most challenging aspects of LG-SIMS particle radiochronometry 230 Th- 234 U measurements through a collaboration between LANL and NIST, to provide best practices and procedures for determining high quality ages with optimized uncertainties. This includes exploration of reducing detector backgrounds, investigating the best ways to report uncertainties, and establishing recommended instrument setups.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗

Control And Optimization Modular Modeling Application For Nuclear Deployment

The purpose of the COMMAND code is to provide a flexible, scalable tool for use in developing, integrating, and testing the technologies necessary for achieving autonomous operations of advanced nuclear reactors. The code enables users to efficiently implement custom simulations and experiments by combining key methods from different software modules. These modules are focused on: modeling and simulation tools, such as nuclear simulation tools used for high-fidelity modeling (e.g., Reactor Excursion and Leak Analysis Program [RELAP5-3D] and Monte Carlo N-Particle [MCNP]); machine learning and optimization tools (e.g., anomaly detection and data-driven modeling techniques); advanced control in its digital, high-performance, and supervisory control forms (e.g., proportional integral derivative (PID) control and model predictive control (MPC); and integration with hardware through industrial communication protocols. To ensure flexibility and scalability, COMMAND was designed to be both modular—the software “pieces” all inherit from generic building blocks and can be combined and connected to create complicated simulations—and high performing—designed for parallel processing, enabling simulations and experiments to take advantage of multi-core computers, servers, and nodes. The code is written in the Python programming language due to the language's popularity, active community, and open-source and cross-platform nature. Maintaining consistency with other simulation tools used within the nuclear energy community, users implement simulations and experiments through text input files, which define components, parameters, connections, etc., through lines of text. Given that COMMAND is written in Python, these input files are native Python scripts, and so use the standard Python structure and formatting. This also enables users to take advantage of Python's extensive package library to develop custom capabilities for their specific use cases.

Faber, Jacob [Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Ida↗

CRADA Final Report: CRADA Number NFE-24-10036 with ThermaMatrix, Inc.

ThermaMatrix, Inc provides novel vision inspection solutions for a wide range of manufacturers and industries, providing and implementing the leading technologies for nondestructive inspection (NDI) and material characterization. Many other inspection solutions are either not adequate or are not approachable due to implementation barriers needing expert level operators, excessive inspection time, and high cost. ThermaMatrix’s advanced vision inspection technology addresses all of these limitations. The Lab Embedded Entrepreneurial Program (LEEP) opportunity by the Department of Energy (DOE) allows small-business start-ups to leverage national laboratory capabilities and skilled scientists to rapidly develop their technology that aligns with DOE goals. ThermaMatrix, Inc. was positioned in the Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to further develop the novel Watson Vision Inspection System to support manufacturing quality control efforts. The research goals were (1) explore fundamental parameters that would improve preexisting capabilities, (2) full-scale industrial setup for demonstration, and (3) capability testing and verification. Manufacturing is demanding more NDI implementation to support their quality control needs, which this technology development would support.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Guide for Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings for Federal Agencies

This guide provides an overview of GEB characteristics and benefits and how to analyze, identify, and implement GEB retrofit opportunities. It is important to understand the building’s systems as well as what utility program offerings are available at the site (e.g., time-of-use, electricity rates, demand charges, demand response programs, etc.). It is also important to understand the key goals for the site (e.g., environmental, cost savings, energy savings) and the current energy usage breakdown by equipment and load profile variability by day, month, and season.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Cross Section Evaluation for Exclusive Channels of K+Λ and K+Σ0 Electroproduction off Protons Using CLAS Detector Data

In this work, a method for evaluating the cross sections of electroproduction of K+Λ0 and K+Σ0 off protons in the region of invariant masses of final hadrons MK + MY <W < 2.65 GeV (MK and MY being the masses of the kaon and hyperon, respectively) and squares of four-momentum transfers of virtual photons, i.e., photon virtualities 0 < Q2 < 5 GeV2, is developed based on experimental data of these exclusive channels’ cross sections measured by the CLAS detector in Hall B at Jefferson Lab. A set of algorithms has been implemented to evaluate the differential cross sections of these channels, along with their statistical and systematic uncertainties. A program was developed for the evaluation of differential cross sections and structure functions using C++ and Python libraries. An interactive website was created for working with the program, enabling the analysis of one-dimensional and two-dimensional dependences of structure functions and differential cross sections. The evaluation of differential cross sections for the K+Λ and K+Σ0 electroproduction channels is necessary for extracting the structure function σLT from the data on the polarization asymmetry of electroproduction reactions of these final states with longitudinally polarized electrons. The obtained results are also important for the development of realistic Monte Carlo event generators in planning future experiments and for evaluating the efficiency of detecting final particles when extracting reaction cross sections from experimental data.

Golda, A. V.↗

Eight Ways Agrivoltaics Installations Can Impact Communities: Insights from the Energy to Communities Peer-Learning Cohort

From July to December of 2024, the National Laboratory of the Rockies partnered with World Resources Institute to run a peer-learning cohort for local governments and community-based organizations on "Implementing an Agrivoltaics Project." This cohort effort, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy to Communities program, provided 15 organizations with expert presentations, peer-learning opportunities, and technical assistance related to agrivoltaics project development. Pulling from cohort discussions, this document shares a summary of the benefits that agrivoltaics projects can provide to surrounding communities.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

CommBench: Micro-Benchmarking Hierarchical Networks with Multi-GPU, Multi-NIC Nodes

Modern high-performance computing systems have multiple GPUs and network interface cards (NICs) per node. The resulting network architectures have multilevel hierarchies of subnetworks with different interconnect and software technologies. These systems offer multiple vendor-provided communication capabilities and library implementations (IPC, MPI, NCCL, RCCL, OneCCL) with APIs providing varying levels of performance across the different levels. Understanding this performance is currently difficult because of the wide range of architectures and programming models (CUDA, HIP, OneAPI). We present CommBench, a library with cross-system portability and a high-level API that enables developers to easily build microbenchmarks relevant to their use cases and gain insight into the performance (bandwidth & latency) of multiple implementation libraries on different networks. We demonstrate CommBench with three sets of microbenchmarks that profile the performance of six systems. Our experimental results reveal the effect of multiple NICs on optimizing the bandwidth across nodes and also present the performance characteristics of four available communication libraries within and across nodes of NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel GPU networks.

Hidayetoglu, Mert↗