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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
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

LaserNetUS. Final report

In this proposal we have formed a consortium in response to a request from the DoE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences to establish a national network of Petawatt-class laser systems to act as domestic user facilities that can enable a broad range of frontier scientific research. This new entity is called LaserNet US. The network formed here is directly responsive to recommendations made in a recently released National Academy of Sciences Report with regard to US strategy for high intensity laser research, “Opportunities in Intense Ultrafast Lasers: Reaching for the Brightest Light”. As detailed in this report, the research in this area has the potential to transform science in a number of research fields and to open up new areas of fundamental research. High field science was initiated in the US in the 1990’s, and subsequently Europe and Asia have embraced this research field, investing more than a billion dollars in this area over the past several years. Our network includes five academic and two national lab-based high intensity laser facilities. These facilities are distributed geographically throughout the US and the network provides access to complementary facilities which have unique world-class laser and experimental capabilities. LaserNet US will make these existing Petawatt-class laser facilities available to users from around the country who until now have not had regular access to such machines. Consequently, the network, which will develop over time, will also become a key element in driving forward national research in high field and high energy density plasma science. In particular, the University of Michigan provides access to the Hercules laser facility and the T-cubed laser facility for collaborative experiments as part of the first year operation. In the second year - to begin in summer 2019 - the experiments will be chosen via proposal submission and review by an outside panel formed by DOE.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

First degraded beams in the CEBAF injector

The electron beam degrader in the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) injector at Jefferson Lab serves to generate electron beams with transverse emittance over 10x the nominal values, with the ultimate goal of using degraded electron beams to measure machine acceptance. Electron beams are degraded through multiple scattering in thin carbon foils, and maximum transverse emittance is defined through two collimating apertures. The degrader device was installed in late 2024, with commissioning and first beams on degrader targets during the 2025 physics run. We report on first operation of the degrader device. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics under contract DE-AC05-06OR23177.

Sy, A. [Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Faci↗
NASA NTRS1995

Electronic Photography

The main objective was to assist in the production of electronic images in the Electronic Photography Lab (EPL). The EPL is a new facility serving the electronic photographic needs of the Langley community. The purpose of the Electronic Photography lab is to provide Langley with access to digital imaging technology. Although the EPL has been in operation for less than one year, almost 1,000 images have been produced. The decision to establish the lab was made after careful determination of the centers needs for electronic photography. The LaRC community requires electronic photography for the production of electronic printing, Web sites, desktop publications, and its increased enhancement capabilities. In addition to general use, other considerations went into the planning of the EPL. For example, electronic photography is much less of a burden on the environment compared to conventional photography. Also, the possibilities of an on-line database and retrieval system could make locating past work more efficient. Finally, information in an electronic image is quantified, making measurements and calculations easier for the researcher.

Payne, Meredith Lindsay↗
NASA NTRS2015

Development of the Science Data System for the International Space Station Cold Atom Lab

Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) is a facility that will enable scientists to study ultra-cold quantum gases in a microgravity environment on the International Space Station (ISS) beginning in 2016. The primary science data for each experiment consists of two images taken in quick succession. The first image is of the trapped cold atoms and the second image is of the background. The two images are subtracted to obtain optical density. These raw Level 0 atom and background images are processed into the Level 1 optical density data product, and then into the Level 2 data products: atom number, Magneto-Optical Trap (MOT) lifetime, magnetic chip-trap atom lifetime, and condensate fraction. These products can also be used as diagnostics of the instrument health. With experiments being conducted for 8 hours every day, the amount of data being generated poses many technical challenges, such as downlinking and managing the required data volume. A parallel processing design is described, implemented, and benchmarked. In addition to optimizing the data pipeline, accuracy and speed in producing the Level 1 and 2 data products is key. Algorithms for feature recognition are explored, facilitating image cropping and accurate atom number calculations.

bose einstein condensate↗
DOE OSTI2025

Virtual to Physical: Reinforcement Learning to Optimize SNS Particle Accelerator Controls

Complex accelerators must have control systems that can handle dynamic nonlinear environments. This makes traditional control methods unsuitable as they can struggle to adapt to these uncertainties. This provides an ideal environment for reinforcement learning algorithms as they are adaptable and generalizable. We present a reinforcement learning pipeline that can effectively handle the dynamics of a complex accelerator. We test and prove our pipelines capabilities on multiple environments including the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) and the Beam Test Facility (BTF) at Oakridge National Lab (ORNL). Due to the limited time available to train an online algorithm like reinforcement learning on a real accelerator, we utilize a virtual twin accelerator (VIRAC) developed by ORNL to pretrain the policy and show its ability to converge in the virtual environment. We then test the adaptability of the pretrained RL model by applying it on the real accelerator and comparing the results. Utilizing our Scientific Optimization and Controls Toolkit (SOCT) and open-source standards such as Gymnasium we create and solve for a MEBT orbit correction problem in the SNS and an emittance maximization problem in the BTF. We show how Twin Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (TD3) can solve this optimization environment in the virtual accelerator and transfer this policy onto the real accelerator for inference and model retraining. We show how reinforcement learning can be utilized as a control system for complex accelerators and provide a model pipeline for how an implementation performs and can be adapted to new accelerator control problems.

Kasparian, Armen [Thomas Jefferson National Accele↗
DOE OSTI2022

Future Trends in Nuclear Physics Computing

In nuclear physics (NP) today the study of quarks, gluons and their strong interactions extends across a broad research program at a varied range of collaborative scales, from a few collaborators up to large experiments at scales comparable to those typical of high energy physics (HEP). Overall, the software and computing efforts vary accordingly, from pragmatic do-it-yourself approaches among a few, to substantial organized software and computing activities within large experiments. With new experiments starting up and on the horizon [1], and rapidly increasing data volumes [2, 3] and processing demands even at small experiments, the NP community has in recent years been thinking about the next generation of data processing and analysis workflows that will maximize the science output. One context for this discussion has been a series of workshops, “Future Trends in Nuclear Physics Computing” [4]. The most recent in this series took place in Fall 2020, organized by the authors together with colleagues. The workshop focused on identifying the unique aspects of software and computing in NP, and discussing how the NP community could strengthen common efforts and chart a path forward for the next decade, sure to be an exciting one with rich ongoing scientific programs at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Jefferson Lab (JLab), and other NP facilities, and culminating in datataking at the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) [5,6,7] in the early 2030s. Without claiming to present a collective view from the workshop and discussions since—fortunately this is not expected of us in this opinion editorial—we offer here our reflections on the topic, informed by the workshop and the summary we authored with our colleagues [8], as well as discussions and developments in the eventful time since.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

A smart alarm for particle accelerator beamline operations

We present the initial results of a proof-of-concept 'smart alarm' for the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility injector beamline at Jefferson Lab. To minimize machine downtime and improve operational efficiency, an autonomous alarm system able to identify and diagnose unusual machine states is needed. Our approach leverages a trained neural network capable of alerting operators (a) when an anomalous condition exists in the beamline and (b) identifying the element setting that is the root cause. The tool is based on an inverse model that maps beamline readings (diagnostic readbacks) to settings (beamline attributes operators can modify). The model takes as input readings from the machine and computes machine settings which are compared to control setpoints. Instances where predictions differ from setpoints by a user-defined threshold are flagged as anomalous. Given data corresponding to 354 anomalous injector configurations, the model can narrow the root cause of an anomalous condition to three potential candidates with 94.6% accuracy. Furthermore, compared to the current method of identifying anomalous conditions which raises an alarm when machine parameters drift outside their normal tolerances, the data-driven model can identify 83% more anomalous conditions.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Preparation of 1,3-Dihydroxyphenazine

The ability to effectively store energy produced by intermittent renewable sources is a critical challenge for chemists and materials scientists. Redox flow batteries (RFB), which generate current by the flow of electrons between dissolved redox active compounds in separate solutions, are envisioned as a method to store renewable energy at the electrical grid scale. The best known examples of RFBs are driven by redox active metal or main group complexes. Within the past decade, redox active organic molecules have begun to be used in the construction of RFBs with high cell potential and cycle stability, at economical price points. Of particular interest are substituted dihydroxy phenazines, a class of heterocycles, that have recently been used as an anolyte for aqueous organic RFBs. Recent work indicates that different regioisomers of dihydroxyphenazine show dramatically different solubility and stability under electrochemical cycling conditions. Of particular interest was 1,3-dihydroxyphenazine (1,3-DHP), which showed greater than 1.5 M solubility in 2M KOH and excellent electrochemical stability. Current methods of producing 1,3-DHP, however, are low yielding and cumbersome. In the article proposal that follows, we offer an improved method of producing 1,3-DHP at high purity and moderate yield. The method detailed below was used by the Materials Engineering Research Facility (MERF) at Argonne National Lab to deliver more than 1.5 kg of this compound for use in the construction of aqueous organic RFBs.

Dzwiniel, Trevor [Argonne National Laboratory (ANL↗
DOE OSTI2021

HIGH VOLTAGE DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF WIEN FILTERS FOR THE CEBAF 200 keV INJECTOR UPGRADE

High-energy nuclear physics experiments at the Jefferson Lab Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) require highly spin-polarization electron beams, produced from strained super-lattice GaAs photocathodes, activated to negative electron affinity in a photogun operating at 130 kV dc. A pair of Wien filter spin rotators in the injector defines the orientation of the electron beam polarization at the end station target. An upgrade of the CEBAF injector to better support the upcoming MOLLER experiment requires increasing the electron beam energy to 200 keV, to reduce unwanted helicity correlated intensity and position systematics and provide precise control of the polarization orientation. Our contribution describes design, fabrication and testing of the high voltage system to upgrade the Wien spin rotator to be compatible with the 200 keV beam. This required Solidworks modeling, CST and Opera electro- and magnetostatic simulations, upgrading HV vacuum feedthroughs, and assembly techniques for improving electrode alignment. The electric and magnetic fields required by the Wien condition and the successful HV characterization under vacuum conditions are also presented.

Palacios-Serrano, G.↗
DOE OSTI2021

NNSA Light Source Enhancements: Coupling a High Energy Laser Driver to an XFEL

NNSA has an unmet capability gap to predict how changes in material microstructure, due to aging and new manufacturing practices, can affect performance at extremes. This capability gap is the basis for the Dynamic Mesoscale Material Science Capability (DMMSC) CD-0 that was signed in 2015 [1]. Because of the delay to the MaRIE facility approach, the Tri-Lab in March 2020 proposed separate complementary investments at the APS and LCLS to address portions of the DMMSC mission need [2].

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2022

Neutron spectral measurements at the BNL NSLS-II synchrotron facility

During the first week of August 2022, Tim Gildea of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) RP-SVS group performed a series of neutron spectral measurements at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) 3GeV facility located at Brookhaven National Lab (BNL)1 . These measurements were conducted under Memorandum Purchase Order (MPO) 413911 with the objective of gaining an accurate understanding of the photoneutron fields generated under normal and selected fault conditions. The spectral data collected during the course of the study was analyzed at LANL and the results form the basis of this report.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗
DOE OSTI2023

First Results from Nanoindentation of Vapor Diffused Nb3Sn Films on Nb

The mechanical vulnerability of the Nb3Sn-coated cavities is identified as one of the significant technical hurdles toward deploying them in practical accelerator applications in the not-so-distant future. It is crucial to characterize the material's mechanical properties in ways to address such vulnerability. Nanoindentation is a widely used technique for measuring the mechanical properties of thin films that involves indenting the film with a small diamond tip and measuring the force-displacement response to calculate the film's elastic modulus, hardness, and other mechanical properties. For the first time, the nanoindentation analysis was performed on multiple vapor-diffused Nb3Sn samples coated at Jefferson Lab and Fermilab Nb3Sn coating facilities. This contribution will discuss the first results obtained from the nanoindentation of Nb3Sn-coated Nb samples prepared via the Sn vapor diffusion technique.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

High Energy Density Physics of Inertial Confinement Fusion Ablator Materials

The historic December 5, 2022 experiment at Lawrence Livermore National Lab’s (LLNL) National Ignition Facility (NIF) reached fusion energy ignition for the first time. This is the most important scientific breakthrough of the 21st century paves the way to future clean inertial fusion energy (IFE). The diamond (high density carbon (HDC)) ablator material used in this experiment displays detrimental effects due to the development of hydrodynamic instabilities at the diamond/fuel interface under shock compression. New alternatives to diamond ablators are required to step up the energy yield in ICF experiments. The unique combination of mechanical strength (approaching that of diamond), the ability to accommodate high-Z dopants (in contrast to diamond), and the tunability of the properties (through synthesis material with varying sp 3 content) make amorphous carbon (a-C) a promising material for next-generation IFE ablative capsules. However, despite its critical importance to the IFE program, the behavior of a-C carbon at extreme temperatures and pressures remains largely unexplored. The primary goals of this project were to perform groundbreaking dynamic compression experiments and predictive simulations to uncover the fundamental high-energy-density physics of amorphous carbon. Our goals were (1) to uncover the metastability range of amorphous carbon and probe phase transitions to diamond or metastable supercooled liquid carbon; (2) to acquire high-quality equation of state (EOS) data and develop an experimentally validated EOS from machine-learning MD simulations of the complex states of carbon; and (3) to uncover the complex behavior of carbon liquid in both thermodynamically stable and metastable supercooled states by accessing large areas of carbon phase diagram with amorphous samples with variable sp 3 content. Our proposed experimental program included measurements of equation of state and diffraction measurements using the Omega EP laser at the Laboratory of Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester. The theoretical/simulation program involved the development of machine-learning models of the complex response of amorphous carbon under dynamic compression by performing molecular dynamics simulations at experimental time and length scales using leadership class DOE supercomputers. Simulations guided experiments to observe predicted phenomena and acquire critical experimental data in specific pressure-temperature domains to validate theoretical models. This research delivered fundamental properties of novel amorphous carbon IFE ablator material, including phase diagram and EOS. These results will aid in IFE target design and implosion experiments. A unique combination of predictive simulations and dynamic and static experiments provided a highly inspirational intellectual environment for graduate students and postdocs involved in this project.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Electrostatic Design and Characterization of a 200 keV Photogun and Wien Spin Rotator

High-energy nuclear physics experiments at the Jefferson Lab Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) require high spin-polarization electron beams produced from strained super-lattice GaAs photocathodes activated to negative electron affinity in a high voltage photogun operating at 130 kV dc. A pair of Wien filter spin rotators in the injector provides precise control of the electron beam polarization at the end station target. An upgrade of the CEBAF injector to better support the upcoming Moller experiment requires increasing the electron beam energy to 200 keV, resulting in better transmission through injector apertures and improved photocathode lifetime. In addition, the energy increase is expected to reduce unwanted helicity correlated intensity and position systematics. These requirements led to the design of a shielding electrode described in this work, which minimizes the electric field at the triple-point junction and linearizes the potential along the insulator, thus reducing the risk of field emission induced insulator arcing. The Wien spin rotator design was modified for increasing the electric field from 1.6 to 2.7 MV/m and the magnetic field from 9.1 to 13 mT. The upgrades required detailed modeling in Solidworks, electrostatic simulations using CST, beam dynamics using GPT, device implementation, and in situ high voltage characterization of the world?s first 200 keV polarized photoelectron gun and compatible Wien filter spin rotator.

Palacios-Serrano, Gabriel↗
NASA NTRS1983

The utilization of Spacelab

This paper describes the general characteristics of Spacelab and discusses its past, current, and planned utilization. To date, the major emphasis has focused on the development of the Spacelab hardware and on the first two flights. The experience gained from planning these early flights has shown that mixing disciplines with conflicting requirements on the same flight significantly compounds the complexity of the mission and leads to an inefficient use of the Spacelab and Shuttle resources. To minimize the complexity and to better utilize the Spacelab and Shuttle capabilities, a new utilization concept is being developed. This new concept, called 'Dedicated Discipline Labs', involves the grouping of scientifically compatible instruments into an appropriate carrier regularly flown at intervals on the order of six months to two years. The long term goal is to evolve many of these labs into low earth orbiting facilities for space stations.

Lester, R. C.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Lewis Research Center space station electric power system test facilities

NASA Lewis Research Center facilities were developed to support testing of the Space Station Electric Power System. The capabilities and plans for these facilities are described. The three facilities which are required in the Phase C/D testing, the Power Systems Facility, the Space Power Facility, and the EPS Simulation Lab, are described in detail. The responsibilities of NASA Lewis and outside groups in conducting tests are also discussed.

Birchenough, Arthur G.↗