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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 253 records · Page 14

Development of integrated neutronics and thermal analysis capabilities to support design and optimization of fusion engineering demonstration facility systems and blanket design (Final Scientific/Technical Report)

A fusion engineering demonstration facility would be the first step in the commercial fusion plant developmental pathway that aims to be an engineering demonstration of tritium self-sufficiency. One of the primary requirements for tritium self-sufficiency, as well as to ensure low plant tritium release to the external environment, is to minimize the tritium loss through the internal components, which requires accurate predictions of the tritium behavior for a wide range of materials and system conditions. This grant addressed the lack of a comprehensive model which accounts for particular conditions, such as the significance of temperature fields and neutronics information, and the systematic uncertainty quantification of associated material properties that impact tritium generation, utilization, and loss mechanisms in the blanket.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Development of integrated neutronics and thermal analysis capabilities to support design and optimization of fusion engineering demonstration facility systems and blanket design (Final Scientific/Technical Report)

A fusion engineering demonstration facility would be the first step in the commercial fusion plant developmental pathway that aims to be an engineering demonstration of tritium self- sufficiency. One of the primary requirements for tritium self-sufficiency, as well as to ensure low plant tritium release to the external environment, is to minimize the tritium loss through the internal components, which requires accurate predictions of the tritium behavior for a wide range of materials and system conditions. This grant addressed the lack of a comprehensive model which accounts for particular conditions, such as the significance of temperature fields and neutronics information, and the systematic uncertainty quantification of associated material properties that impact tritium generation, utilization, and loss mechanisms in the blanket.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Towards Resilient Design of Leader-following Consensus with Attack Identification and Privacy Preservation Capabilities

This paper considers a leader-following consensus in the presence of unknown but bounded cyber-attacks. Specifically, we consider the following cyber-attack scenarios: (i) an attacker aims to destabilize the consensus dynamics by injecting exogenous signals to both the actuators of the followers and/or the communication network, (ii) an eavesdropper adversary aims to obtain information on the physical state of the agents. To this end, a novel resilient leader-following consensus algorithm based on a competitive interaction method is proposed. In addition, it is demonstrated that by appropriately choosing the information exchanged between the agents, the proposed control framework also enables the cooperative system to either distributively identify the compromised communication links in real-time or to protect the privacy of the physical state of the agents from the eavesdropper. Here, a numerical example is provided to illustrate the proposed resilient control algorithms.

Gusrialdi, Azwirman↗

Safe Operations at Roadway Junctions - Design Principles from Automated Guideway Transit

Herein this paper describes a system-level view of a fully automated transit system comprising a fleet of automated vehicles (AVs) in driverless operation, each with an SAE level 4 Automated Driving System, along with its related safety infrastructure and other system equipment. This AV system-level control is compared to the automatic train control system used in automated guideway transit technology, particularly that of communications-based train control (CBTC). Drawing from the safety principles, analysis methods, and risk assessments of CBTC systems, comparable functional subsystem definitions are proposed for AV fleets in driverless operation. With the prospect of multiple AV fleets operating within a single automated mobility district, the criticality of protecting roadway junctions requires an approach like that of automated fixed-guideway transit systems, in which a guideway switch zone "interlocking" at each junction location deconflicts railway traffic, affirming safe passage. The analogous AV protection safety subsystem is defined as fail-safe equipment that monitors roadway intersections and junctions, communicates traffic signal status, perceives and communicates alerts and signals to AV connected vehicles concerning potential unsafe conditions, and performs related primary safety functions. Conclusions are drawn that the AV protection roadway intersection functions must be performed by local roadside equipment dedicated to protecting each roadway intersection and junction. Further, it is concluded that the communications technology connecting the infrastructure with the vehicle to perform this vital, fail-safe protection should meet specific functional and performance criteria.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Pathways to IEC Standards for Heliostat Design Qualification and Site Acceptance in Central Receiver CSP Applications

This paper surveys the existing landscape of standards relevant to heliostats, identifies their gaps, and proposes a path forward to a comprehensive set of heliostat guidelines, technical specifications, and standards under the framework of International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) TC 117. Gaps in existing guidelines and standards are surveyed using a three-tiered taxonomy: component-level, heliostat-level, and field-level. At each level, the gap analysis is followed by a proposal for a coordinated path forward on the development of standards. At the component level, advances in the understanding of wind loading should inform a technical specification for drives and structures. Reflectors require consolidation of measurement guidelines into existing standards documents. Communications & controls require technical standards to inform their selection and secure implementation. At the heliostat level, IEC 62817 (solar trackers) adequately characterizes drive systems, structures, and electronics, but requires adaptation to heliostats' use patterns, operating modes, and expected life cycles. IEC 62817 does not address heliostat beam quality and pointing accuracy, but the process for determining both is elaborated in the SolarPACES Guideline for Heliostat Performance Testing. This SolarPACES document requires two main modifications: adaptation to IEC language and inclusion of testing after heliostats which have undergone accelerated weathering and mechanical cycling (to understand performance degradation). At the field level, IEC 62862-4-2 addresses the function and control of heliostat fields but does not cover the statistically rigorous testing of heliostat groups, or field performance factors like security and soiling. The addition of documents under IEC-62862-4 is proposed to address this gap.

beam↗

A Conceptual Design of the Reactor Cavity Cooling System for the Horizontal Compact High Temperature Gas Reactor (HC-HTGR)

Horizontal Compact High Temperature Gas Reactor (HC-HTGR) is being designed by a multi-disciplinary team of nuclear, mechanical, and structural engineers under the support of a DOE-NE Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program’s Advanced Reactor Concepts-20 (ARC-20) award. The objective of this ARC-20 project is to deliver a conceptual design for the proposed HC-HTGR in 3 years and support its commercialization as a safe, low-cost HTGR. Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) is responsible for the design and analysis of the reactor cavity cooling system (RCCS) as a safety system for passive decay heat removal of the reactor concept. This report documents the design study to derive a conceptual design study of the RCCS for the HC-HTGR. It includes the identification of the functions and requirements of the HC-HTGR RCCS, design analyses including high-level design consideration and the calculations for optimizing design space of the system with supporting component-level analysis to inform the material selection and performance of the water panel, the description of the conceptual design of the HC-HTGR RCCS derived based on the analyses results, and performance evaluation of the conceptual RCCS for the HC-HTGR. A detailed concept of the RCCS has been identified and high-level system requirements has been developed for the HC-HTGR. Design space focusing on the natural circulation loop portion of the RCCS has been investigated to optimize the system performance. The initial baseline dimensions were firstly derived based on the scoping calculations. A component level design analysis was conducted for the water panel to inform the material selection and to assess its conduction performance. A preliminary system-level performance analysis was performed for the 1/8th of the compartment of the initial baseline design of the RCCS using RELAP5-3D. To improve the system thermal performance, the RCCS design has been updated by exploring various design options by design parametric analyses. Based on the results, the conceptual design of the RCCS for the HC-HTGR has been derived, which satisfies the target performance of ~1 MWt at the elevated vessel wall temperature conditions. Transient simulations were conducted for the conceptual RCCS design for the HC-HTGR under various operation modes and heat load conditions using RELAP5-3D. The system dynamics in different operating states was investigated and the system performance under transients of interest was evaluated. The results demonstrated the overall system feasibility that the RCCS design maintains structures temperatures lower than maximum allowable temperature with sufficient system inventory without any active heat removal in the design process with certain transients addressed. The HC-HTGR RCCS will have additional design updates of subsystems or optimization of the system components during the preliminary and final design phases. Since the entire plant has not been integrated yet, this delivered conceptual design is subject to changes for integration, that require additional conceptual design activities and Quality and Assurance implementation (Q&A). The performance assessment of the RCCS for the HC-HTGR will be then revisited and optimized to finalize the system design, and the RCCS integrated primary system analysis will be utilized to simulate selective accident scenarios of interest where efforts are currently undergoing in the project.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Surrogate-assisted optimization under uncertainty for design for remanufacturing considering material price volatility

Remanufacturing is a well-established end-of-life (EOL) strategy that promises significant savings in energy and carbon emissions. However, the current design practices are not remanufacturing-inclusive, i.e., the majority of products are designed for a single life cycle. As a result, potential products that can sustain multiple life cycles are deprived of additional benefits of being designed for remanufacturing, such as reduced material usage, lower cost, and improved environmental impact. Moreover, the uncertainty in design, material selection, and economics are not considered to produce remanufacturable designs. Accordingly, this research proposes a design for remanufacturing (DfRem) framework that accounts for design uncertainty and material price volatility. The framework systematically explores the design space, performs design optimization under uncertainty, followed by topology optimization to provide additional mass savings, and finally, a price volatility analysis for plausible design material choices. The candidate designs are evaluated based on their design mass, material price volatility, failure mode characteristics, carbon footprint, and embodied energy impacts. The proposed framework's utility is demonstrated via the use of an engine cylinder head case study subjected to thermo-mechanical loads along with fatigue and wear failure. Considering grey cast iron and aluminum alloy as the design material choices, it was found that the cast iron design reduced the initial design mass by 6% as opposed to a 5% decrease for aluminum. On the other hand, about 8% area of the cast iron design failed due to fatigue, compared to 3% for aluminum. Here, we further observed that although the aluminum design provided better mechanical performance than the cast iron design, this material was more expensive and volatile in price.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Resilience Design Patterns: A Structured Approach to Resilience at Extreme Scale (V.2.0)

Reliability is a serious concern for future extreme-scale high-performance computing (HPC) systems. Projections based on the current generation of HPC systems and technology roadmaps suggest the prevalence of very high fault rates in future systems. The errors resulting from these faults will propagate and generate various kinds of failures, which may result in outcomes ranging from result corruptions to catastrophic application crashes. Therefore, the resilience challenge for extreme-scale HPC systems requires coordination between various hardware and software technologies that are capable of handling a broad set of fault models at accelerated fault rates. Also, due to practical limits on power consumption in future HPC systems, they are likely to embrace innovative architectures, increasing the levels of hardware and software complexities. Therefore, the techniques that seek to improve resilience must navigate the complex trade-off space between resilience and the overheads to power consumption and performance. While the HPC community has developed various resilience solutions, application-level techniques as well as system-based solutions, the solution space of HPC resilience techniques remains fragmented. There are no formal methods to integrate the various HPC resilience techniques into composite solutions, nor are there methods to holistically evaluate the adequacy and efficacy of such solutions in terms of their protection coverage, and their performance & power efficiency characteristics. Additionally, few implementations of current resilience solutions are portable to newer architectures and software environments that will be deployed on future systems. We developed a new structured approach to the management of HPC resilience using the concept of resilience-based design patterns. In general, a design pattern is a repeatable solution to a commonly occurring problem. We identified the well-known solutions that are commonly used to deal with faults, errors and failures in HPC systems. In the initial design patterns specification (version 1.0), we described the various solutions, which address specific problems in the design of resilient HPC environments, in the form of patterns. Each pattern describes a problem caused by a fault, error or failure event in an HPC environment, and then describes the core of the solution of the problem in such a way that this solution may be adapted to different systems and implemented at different layers of the system stack. The catalog of these resilience design patterns provides designers with a collection of design elements. To construct complete resilience solutions using combinations of various patterns, we defined a framework that enhances HPC designers' understanding of the important constraints and the opportunities for the design patterns to be implemented and deployed at various layers of the system stack. The design framework is also useful for establishing interfaces and mechanisms to coordinate flexible fault management across hardware and software components, as well as to consider the trade-off between performance, resilience, and power consumption when constructing a solution. The resilience design patterns specification version 1.1 included more detailed explanations of the pattern solutions, the context in which the patterns are applicable, and the implications for hardware or software design. It also provided several additional examples and detailed case studies to demonstrate the use of patterns to build realistic solutions. In version 1.2 of the specification document, we have improved the pattern descriptions, including graphical representations of the pattern components. These improvements are largely based on critical comments, feedback and suggestions received from pattern experts and readers of the previous versions of the specification. The pattern classification has been modified to further clarify the relationships between pattern categories. This version of the specification also introduces a pattern language for resilience design patterns. The pattern language presents the patterns in the catalog as a network, revealing the relations among the resilience patterns. The language provides designers with the means to explore alternative techniques for handling a specific fault model that may have different efficiency and complexity characteristics. Using the pattern language also enables the design and implementation of comprehensive resilience solutions as a set of interconnected resilience patterns that can be instantiated across layers of the system stack. The overall goal of this work is to provide hardware and software designers, as well as the users and operators of HPC systems, a systematic methodology for the design and evaluation of resilience technologies in HPC systems that keep scientific applications running to a correct solution in a timely and cost-efficient manner despite frequent faults, errors, and failures of various types. Version 2.0 expands the resilience design pattern classification and catalog to include self-stabilization patterns and reliability, availability and performance models for each structural pattern.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗