SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “hardware testing”

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.

SourceResearch connectionFrom yearThrough year

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 253 records · Page 14

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

DOE OSTI2024

Fabrication and Testing of DOE Standard Canister Closure Leak Test Assembly

DOE manages over 300 types of SNF, most of which are located at the INL site. “Road-ready dry storage” is a management concept where SNF is packaged into dry, sealed canisters, which are then placed in on-site storage in anticipation of later removal. The Idaho Cleanup Project and INL are collaborating on the Road-Ready Capability Demonstration Project, which will develop and demonstrate the designs, technology, processes, and regulatory framework for packaging DOE SNF for road-ready dry storage. In support of establishing a large-scale road-ready dry storage program at the INL site, the demonstration will package a select amount of DOE-managed SNF into DOE Standard Canisters. The closure process for the DOE Standard Canisters will include fuel and basket loading, welding, inspection, leak testing, and if needed, repair. As a follow-up to previous discussion on the design of the DOE Closure Leak Test Assembly, this report describes recent fabrication and testing efforts performed at INL. DOE Standard Canisters are sealed by two sequential gas tungsten arc welds. Both are performed by remotely operated and semi-autonomous welding systems. The first weld is a circumferential pipe weld that completes assembly of the canister body and lid assembly. The second and final closure weld connects the vent plug to the vent port with an identical butt joint to the circumferential pipe weld. After the second weld is performed on the vent port, these welds are helium leak tested using an inside-out technique. In addition to the commercially available vacuum and leak detector systems, the DOE Standard Canister Closure Leak Test Assembly was designed for both remote and manual operation. This report describes fabrication and performance testing associated with the inside-out technique. INL staff designed and tested systems to accomplish these tasks. Hardware fabrication occurred at INL facilities. Forthcoming work includes design optimization, integration to existing systems, and implementation to packaging demonstration operations.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

DOE OSTI2025

Warm Front End Upgrade for the PIP-II Linac

The warm front end for the PIP-II Linac consists of an Ion-source, an RFQ, and four buncher cavities. The LLRF systems for these were the first ones developed more than a decade ago for use at the test stands. Some were VXI crate based, and others used early generation FPGA boards that are light in resources. These LLRF systems and the one for the first superconducting cryomodule, the HWR will be upgraded with the ARRIA 10 SOC-FPGA chassis with EPICS interfaces like the rest of the PIP-II Linac. The RFQ and the HWR have unique resonance control systems which are integrated into the LLRF controller hardware. The results of the initial testing with a cavity emulator will be presented.

Reyes, Lennon [Fermilab] (ORCID:0009000891155652)↗

DOE OSTI2022

EUSO-SPB2 Fluorescence Telescope trigger test within the EUSO@TurLab Project

The second generation Extreme Universe Space Observatory on a Super-Pressure Balloon (EUSO-SPB2) mission is on track to be approved by NASA for a long duration flight (up to 100 days) in 2023 from Wanaka, New Zealand. EUSO-SPB2 will monitor the night atmosphere of the Southern hemisphere from 33 km altitude to detect Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs) and search for astrophysical and cosmogenic neutrinos. EUSO-SPB2 features two telescopes, a Cherenkov (CT) and a Fluorescence (FT) Telescope. The hardware implementation and performance of the FT trigger logic were tested at the TurLab facility, hosted at the University of Turin. In conclusion, the tests proved the correct hardware implementation of the trigger logic and its ability to detect μs timescale transient signals.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2021

Microgrid Fast Charging Station (MFCS) Design Platform Project (Summary Report)

This report documents the important steps and outcomes of the Microgrid Fast Charging Station (MFCS) Design Platform project, executed by XENDEE Corporation and its testing and validation by Idaho National Laboratory (INL). This final summary report builds on the first summary released on April 30th, 2021 and adds the final results from the Hardware in the Loop (HIL) simulations and tests, which have been completed July 14th 2021. With this report XENDEE Corporation and Idaho National Laboratory conclude the first version of the Microgrid Fast Charging Station (MFCS) Design Platform as well as all related tests and validations for two in-depth case studies for islanded and non-islanded operation. The platform itself utilizes XENDEE’s advanced modeling systems and INL’s HIL system to ensure project viability and technical feasibility. It also intelligently maps all cables, transformers, and distributed technology interactions to anticipate and mitigate problems during peak usage or adverse conditions. Finally, the system is designed to optimize dispatch and generation at each time step of the day allowing the Microgrid to take advantage of energy sales to the utility and best manage the charging of an electrical fleet. This allows operators to reliably build bankable Microgrid systems and to operate them to reach the maximum efficiency even under the dynamic needs of electric vehicle fast charging

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2021

Quantum Computer-Aided Design: Digital Quantum Simulation of Quantum Processors

With the increasing size of quantum processors, submodules that constitute the processor hardware will become too large to accurately simulate on a classical computer. Therefore, one would soon have to fabricate and test each new design primitive and parameter choice in time-consuming coordination between design, fabrication, and experimental validation. Here we show how one can design and test the performance of next-generation quantum hardware—by using existing quantum computers. Focusing on superconducting transmon processors as a prominent hardware platform, we compute the static and dynamic properties of individual and coupled transmons. We show how the energy spectra of transmons can be obtained by variational hybrid quantum-classical algorithms that are well suited for near-term noisy quantum computers. In addition, single- and two-qubit gate simulations are demonstrated via Suzuki-Trotter decomposition. Our methods pave a promising way towards designing candidate quantum processors when the demands of calculating submodule properties exceed the capabilities of classical computing resources.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2024

Resilient Control of Networked Microgrids Using Vertical Federated Reinforcement Learning: Designs and Real-Time Test-Bed Validations

Improving system-level resiliency of networked microgrids against adversarial cyber-attacks is an important aspect in the current regime of increased inverter-based resources (IBRs). To achieve that, this paper contributes in designing a hierarchical control layer, in conjunction with the existing control layers, resilient to adversarial attack signals. Considering model complexities, unknown dynamical behaviors of IBRs, and privacy issues regarding data sharing in multi-party-owned microgrids, designing such a control layer is non-trivial. Here, to tackle these issues, a novel federated reinforcement learning (Fed-RL) method is proposed. To grasp the interconnected dynamics of networked microgrids, the paper develops Federated Soft Actor-Critic (FedSAC) algorithm following the vertical structure of implementing Fed-RL. Next, utilizing the OpenAI Gym interface, we built a custom set-up in GridLAB-D/HELICS co-simulation platform, named Resilient RL Co-simulation (ResRLCoSIM), to train the RL agents with IEEE 123-bus benchmark comprising 3 interconnected microgrids. Finally, the learned policies in the simulation are transferred to the real-time hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test-bed developed using the high-fidelity Hypersim platform. Finally, experiments show that the simulator-trained RL controllers achieve desirable performance with the test-bed platform, validating the minimization of the sim-to-real gap.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2024

Modernizing the Legacy Fission Wire Measurement System for the Advanced Test Reactor-Critical Facility

Operational lifetime extensions of existing research reactors have emphasized the need for refurbishment, replacements, and upgrades to supporting equipment and instrumentation. The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL), which entered service in 1967, has recently completed the sixth core internals change-out and has scheduled operations until at least 2040. Reactor maintenance and operational risk management is critically important in the research reactor community, however supporting measurement systems sometimes get overlooked when maintenance is planned. The Fission Wire Measurement System (FWMS) is a custom measurement system designed in the 1960s to measure the beta-particle activity of irradiated uranium-aluminum fission wires. This measurement is conducted to determine the fission rate profile of the Advanced Reactor Test Critical (ATR-C) facility. The ATR-C is an open-pool, low-power test reactor that was purpose driven to resemble ATR and is used to qualify experiment configurations and verify core models prior to full-power experiment irradiations in ATR. A power distribution measurement in ATR-C uses uranium-aluminum wires that are distributed throughout the ATR-C core to validate simulation and modeling results. These measurements require 340 to 1500 wires to be irradiated and measured within a 12-hour window. The activity of the wires is measured in the required time with the FWMS, which was put into service in 1965 at the Radiation Measurements Laboratory (RML). The system consists of 4 measurement channels and one reference channel, each with a 2-pi proportional gas flow detector and the measurement channels each have an automated sample changer. This legacy system is crucial to the continued operations of ATR and has undergone some minor hardware upgrades since 1965, however the system presently relies on custom control boards, custom gas ion chambers, analog amplifiers/discriminators, and a user interface (UI) for the system written in outdated code. Much of the equipment and software is custom with no commercial replacements or support and limited documentation. The existing control software requires an operating system that is no longer supported, creating more vulnerabilities to continued operations. A project is underway with a third-party vendor to design, build, and document a new control and data acquisition system (CDAS) for the FWMS. The new upgrade will replace the control system, computer, UI, sample changer motors, and main power supply while maintaining the interface with existing detector hardware. The upgraded system will be operated in parallel with the current hardware and software to conduct validation testing. This equipment upgrade demonstrates the commitment at ATR to ensuring successful operations and potential future research reactors at INL.

46 - INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AN↗

DOE OSTI2025

Operating Wind Turbine as Synchronous Generator: Modeling and Power-Hardware-in-the-Loop Demonstration

Grid-forming (GFM) control of Type 3 and Type 4 wind turbine generators (WTGs) has attracted substantial attention in power systems research; however, the limited overcurrent capability of power electronics converters continues to deteriorate the grid strength of the evolving power systems. Synchronous wind, also referred to as a Type 5 WTG, offers a unique GFM solution to address grid integration and grid strength issues by keeping the grid largely synchronous at very high integration levels of renewable generation. A Type 5 WTG interfaces with the electric grid via a synchronous generator driven by a variable speed hydraulic torque converter; hence, the wind rotor operates in variable-speed mode for maximum power generation, and the generator shaft remains synchronous to the grid. This paper develops and tests a high-fidelity model of a Type 5 WTG in a power-hardware-in-the-loop testing environment, and it presents its operation characteristics under different grid contingencies. The power-hardware-in-the-loop demonstration shows that a Type 5 WTG inherently behaves as a GFM unit and can obtain similar performance in terms of power response, wind rotor dynamics, and stability enhancement compared to a Type 3 WTG in GFM control mode. Furthermore, the paper provides further insight into how Type 5 WTGs can support the smooth transition to power systems with high integration levels of inverter-based resources.

17 - WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2024

Remote operation of the DIII-D National Fusion Facility

Abstract Full remote scientific operation of the DIII-D National Fusion Facility is now possible through significant advances in the computer science hardware and software infrastructure made over the last decade. Capabilities around information visualization, data movement, and communication have all been enhanced. The level of capability deployed to remotely operate DIII-D required an infrastructure advancement over what had previously been achieved in the fusion community. The large quantity of real-time data that is automatically displayed on DIII-D’s control room screens can now be visualized by remote participants via web-based applications. New audio/video solutions using the VoIP and instant messaging application Discord have been implemented to mimic the dynamic and ad-hoc scientific conversations that are critical in successfully operating an experimental campaign. Discord’s ability for a user to rapidly move between audio channels, text with images, and share screens is a significant enhancement over traditional videoconferencing tools. In addition, multiple combinations of broadcast audio are made available via a web-based application to allow remote participants to simultaneously listen to general announcements/sounds while conducting their own specific conversations. Secure methodologies have been put into place to allow remote control of hardware including DIII-D’s plasma control system application. Secure methods also included the ability of the on-site team to closely coordinate their work with remote team members which has been enhanced through extensions to the wireless network and the use of tablet computers for audio/video/screen sharing. However, no amount of software can fully replace the need for ‘hands on hardware.’ This infrastructure was severely stress tested during the COVID-19 pandemic where occupancy of the DIII-D control room was restricted. Operational efficiency during the pandemic, measured in discharges per hour, remained high (3.8 ± 0.8) compared to values obtained pre-pandemic (3.7 ± 0.8).

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2022

Inrush Current Mitigation for Grid-Forming Inverters in Islanded Microgrids

Virtual-inertia and droop control methods are commonly used for grid-forming inverters. While the virtual inertia is used to emulate the equation of motion/frequency, if the inverter output voltage is emulated as in synchronous generators, then the method is known as the virtual synchronous generator. An inductive pulse-load, e.g., a relatively large induction motor, connection to a microgrid fed only by grid-forming inverters may lead to blackout due to high inrush currents. This article presents virtual reactance techniques to mitigate the inrush current effects and enhance the inverter’s robustness for the safe connection of inductive and dynamic loads. This article also compares the virtual inertia and droop control methods under switching inductive-dynamic loads while the proposed techniques are implemented. Experimental tests are performed considering the linear and nonlinear virtual reactance techniques, and the findings are discussed. The mitigation significantly suppresses the inrush currents while the inverters can perform a normal operation. Furthermore, the frequency and power response of the virtual inertia control with different inertia settings to a sudden change in the load is analyzed. The virtual reactance technique is tested in a laboratory-scale hardware setup of a 208V microgrid fed by 5kVA and 10kVA inverters, and the results are presented in this article.

Gursoy, Mehmetcan↗

DOE OSTI2026

From Cell to System: Accelerated hpc Simulations of BESS Aging under Frequency Regulation and Arbitrage use cases

Lithium-ion battery energy storage systems (BESS) packs have emerged as a leading solution for grid-scale energy storage, enhancing resiliency and balancing load fluctuations. Yet, experimental characterization of large-format LIB packs-particularly to assess performance and degradation over hundreds of cycles - demands substantial hardware investment and multi-year testing campaigns. In this work, we couple a hierarchical, physics-based modeling framework agnostic to electrode chemistries with high-performance computing to accelerate systems level evaluation by upto two orders of magnitude. Building on the open-source liionpack platform, we implement cell, module, and pack-scale electrochemical models enriched with mechanistic aging mechanisms and deploy them on an HPC cluster to simulate 150−200kWh systems over 500 - 1,000 cycles with in days. We subject these virtual B ESS to both constant-current cycling and realistic grid service profiles spanning frequency regulation, ramp-rate support, and energy arbitrage-and quantify the resulting degradation patterns. Our results reveal that localized cell aging can induce substantial nonuniformity at module and pack levels, with service-specific cycling protocols driving distinct aging modes. This rapid, multiscale modeling approach provides a powerful design-space exploration tool for optimizing electrical architecture, control strategies, and operational schedules to prolong pack lifetime and lower total cost of ownership.

Ayalasomayajula, Surya [ORNL] (ORCID:0009000860788↗

DOE OSTI2022

Dynamic Load Inrush Current Mitigation in Islanded Microgrids Powered by Grid-Forming Inverters

Grid-forming inverters in a microgrid may trip due to high inrush current caused by a switched connection of an inductive load, e.g., a relatively large induction motor. The control scheme presented in this article includes virtual inertia control method superimposed on the cascaded controller. This article studies the impact of cascaded control scheme used for grid-forming inverter to mitigate the inrush current effects and enhance the inverter’s robustness for the safe connection of inductive and dynamic loads. Experimental tests are performed using the virtual inertia method for generating the reference angle for synchronous frame conversion. The experimental performance and sensitivity of the controller to different controller gain settings for a switched connection of an induction motor are discussed. The cascaded operation significantly mitigates the inrush currents while the inverters can perform a normal operation. The performance of the control method is tested in a laboratory-scale hardware setup of a 208V microgrid fed by 5kVA and 10kVA inverters, and the results are presented.

Gursoy, Mehmetcan↗

DOE OSTI2019

Development of a Host-Based Intrusion Detection and Control Device for Industrial Field Control Devices

Industrial control systems contain a multitude of devices deployed into the field to observe and control a physical process. Currently, most of these devices lack common host-based cybersecurity features, which can lead them to be seen as vulnerable targets. The Cymbiote device was developed to address this problem by examining multiple streams of data to determine what might indicate a potential threat, and to evaluate and execute appropriate response actions. This paper discusses the evolution of the Cymbiote device in response to evaluation and testing done on real-world hardware. Experimental results are discussed, as are the new developments that have been made to the device in response to the findings. In addition, we describe future research directions for this approach along with the experimental setup changes in response to the requirements for statistical rigor.

Rice, Theora R.↗

DOE OSTI2021

HIL Testbed and Motion Control Strategy for the Hybrid Hydraulic-Electric Architecture (HHEA)

The Hybrid Hydraulic-Electric Architecture (HHEA) was proposed in recent years to increase system efficiency of high power mobile machines and to reap the benefits of electrification without the need for large electric machines. It uses a set of common pressure rails to provide the majority of power hydraulically and small electric motors to modulate that power for precise control. This paper presents the development of a Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test-bed for testing motion control strategies for the HHEA. Precise motion control is important for off-road vehicles whose utility requires the machine being dexterous and performing tasks exactly as commanded. Motion control for the HHEA is challenging due to its intrinsic use of discrete pressure rail switches to minimize system efficiency or to keep the system within the torque capabilities of the electric motor. The motion control strategy utilizes two different controllers: a nominal passivity based back-stepping controller used in between pressure rail switches and a transition controller used to handle the event of a pressure rail switch. In this paper, the performance of the nominal control under various nominal and rail switching scenarios is experimentally evaluated on the HIL testbed.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2021

TEAMER - AquaHarmonics High Fidelity WEC Sim PTO and Control Model Validation, Test Logs and Results

Collaborative effort between AquaHarmonics, Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to revise and validate Aquaharmonics' full wave to wire model, allowing for reduced uncertainty and increased understanding of design requirements of a utility scale wave energy converter (WEC). SNL and NREL in collaboration with AquaHarmonics, will set up and run WEC Simulator (WEC-Sim) models of the AquaHarmonics WEC, building off past model developments for inclusion of custom PTO (power take-off) dynamics. The intent is to review, update, and verify or validate a new WEC-Sim model against wave tank experimental data. Furthermore, the WEC-Sim model will be coupled to an energy storage system model to better understand the wave-to-wire functionality. This data set is described in the "Test Log" excel file. Please refer to that document for details on each specific test date/time, constraint parameters and model hardware setup details. Sim model can be found in the associated MHKDR link below.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

DOE OSTI2022

Facility to Alleviate Salt Technology Risks (FASTR): Design Report

The Facility to Alleviate Salt Technology Risks (FASTR) is a versatile, high-temperature (>600°C) molten chloride salt test facility designed to enable a variety of testing to advance the Generation 3 (Gen 3) Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) molten salt technology. FASTR includes a salt preparation system and a forced flow test loop with a suite of instrumentation. The FASTR loop is capable of 725°C operation and flow rates of 3–7 kg/s, and it includes heated and cooled sections and swappable components to enable testing of future vendor-supplied hardware. The salt preparation system supplies large batches (e.g., 200 kg) of clean salt for use in the FASTR forced convection loop. This report summarizes the design and capabilities of FASTR in its as-built form as of December 2022.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2024

Synchrophasor-Based Zonal Current Differential Protection for Secondary Low Voltage Networks

This report describes an approach to utilizing phasor measurement unit (PMU) data from multiple Intelligent Electronics Devices (IEDs) in a low-voltage network to produce a differential scheme for protecting the medium-voltage feeder and low-voltage network transformers. The proposed protection scheme is designed and prototyped on a real-time automation controller. Its performance is evaluated using real-time controller hardware-in-the-loop simulation. Lab testing results indicate that the proposed protection scheme allows significant distributed energy resources (DER) backfeed and enables selective and fast protection of medium voltage feeders.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2025

One-Turn Delay Feedback (OTFB) Implementation for the EIC

This paper discusses the implementation of the One-Turn Delay Feedback (OTFB) for the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). The theory of the OTFB is well documented, therefore, this paper will mainly discuss the details of the implementation. After a short introduction, the paper will discuss the building-blocks of the OTFB, simulation testing of the OTFB, and finally hardware validation of the OTFB.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗