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At least 253 records · Page 14

Prediction of moisture transfer in cement-based materials: Use of a porous network model to access transfer parameters

Knowing the water transport phenomena is fundamental for understanding the durability of cement-based materials. The moisture content within cementitious materials is of primary importance because it has a direct influence on mechanical (shrinkage, creep) and chemical (penetration of aggressive agents) degradation. Many models based on the determination of the transfer properties of the material under study already exist but require fitting of the parameters to find the experimental kinetics. Transfer parameters are generally estimated from the empirical approaches developed for soils by Van Genuchten and the water vapour diffusion reduction factor is often calculated via Millington's semi-empirical model. In this paper, we make a proposal to improve the prediction of moisture transfer, through mechanisms such as drying, capillary imbibition and water vapour permeability in cement-based materials, by using a porous network model to access the transfer parameters.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

15-minute Parker River gap-filled tide height and salinity data, PIE LTER, Plum Island Sound, MA (2014–2023), for ELM PFLOTRAN modeling

This dataset contains 15-minute tide height and salinity data from the Typha site along the Parker River, part of the Plum Island Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research (PIE LTER) site in Plum Island Sound, Massachusetts (MA) 2014-2023. Tide height (in NAVD88) was compiled from measurements conducted at the mouth of Plum Island Sound and corrected for time lags. Gap-filling of missing periods were done by fitting tidal constituents to the time series. Salinity was measured (and is stored on ESS DIVE ) in 2022 and 2023 using HOBO U24-002 conductivity loggers. River discharge is the most important control on tidal river water salinity at the location (Vallino & Hopkinson, 1998). An artificial neural network was trained to predict river water salinity at the location using Parker River discharge (USGS station 01101000, Parker River at Byfield, MA) and gap-filled salinity observations from a long-term monitoring station ca. 3km downstream from the Typha site (LTER station ‘Middle Road’) as input variables to create continuous time series information. The data set was used in the spin up and simulations of a land surface model coupled to a biogeochemical reaction network (ELM PFLOTRAN) assessing impacts of hydrology and salinity input on methane fluxes in 2022 and 2023 (Sulman et al., 2024). Metadata files ELMPFLOTRAN_tide_salinity_dd.csv and ELMPFLOTRAN_tide_salinity_flmd.csv provide details on site location, data variables, and QA/QC methods .

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA In Situ Data Needs to Support the Operational Calibration and Validation of Ocean Color Satellite Data Products

Calibrating ocean color satellite instruments and validating their data products requires temporal and spatial abundances of high quality in situ oceanographic data. The Consortium for Ocean Leadership Ocean Observing Initiative (OOl) is currently implementing a distributed array of in-water sensors that could provide a significant contribution to future ocean color activities. This workshop will scope the optimal way to use and possibly supplement the planned OOl infrastructure to maximize its utility and relevance for calibration and validation activities that support existing and planned NASA ocean color missions. Here, I present the current state of the art of NASA validation of ocean color data products, with attention to autonomous time-series (e.g., the AERONET -OC network of above-water radiometers), and outline NASA needs for data quality assurance metrics and adherence to community-vetted data collection protocols

Werdel, P. Jeremy↗

First-Principles Simulations of CuCl in High-Temperature Water Vapor

Experimental data suggest that the solubility of copper in high-temperature water vapor is controlled by the formation of hydrated clusters of the form CuCl(H 2 O) n , where the average number of water molecules in the cluster generally increases with increasing density [Migdisov, A. A.; et al. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta2014, 129, 33–53]. However, the precise nature of these clusters is difficult to probe experimentally. Moreover, there are some discrepancies between experimental estimates of average cluster size and prior simulation work [Mei, Y. Geofluids2018, 2018, 4279124]. Here, we have performed first-principles Monte Carlo (MC) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to explore these clusters in finer detail. We find that molecular dynamics is not the most appropriate technique for studying aggregation in vapor phases, even at relatively high temperatures. Specifically, our MD simulations exhibit substantial problems in adequately sampling the equilibrium cluster size distribution. In contrast, MC simulations with specialized cluster moves are able to accurately sample the phase space of hydrogen-bonding vapors. At all densities, we find a stable, slightly distorted linear H 2 O–Cu–Cl structure, which is in agreement with the earlier simulations, surrounded by a variable number of water molecules. The surrounding water molecules do not form a well-defined second solvation shell but rather a loose network of hydrogen-bonded water with molecular CuCl on the outside edge of the water cluster. We also find a broad distribution of hydration numbers, especially at higher densities. In contrast to previous simulation work but in agreement with experimental data, we find that the average hydration number substantially increases with increasing density. Moreover, the value of the hydration number depends on the choice of cluster definition.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Description and overview of an instrument designed to measure line-of-sight delay due to water vapor

Eight dual channel microwave radiometers were constructed as a research and development effort for the Crustal Dynamics Project and the Deep Space Network. These instruments, known as water vapor radiometers, are primarily intended to demonstrate that the variable path delay imposed by atmospheric water vapor can be calibrated in microwave tracking and distance measuring systems but could also be used in other applications involving moist air meteorology and propagation studies. They are being deployed to various stations and observatories that participate in Very Long Baseline Interferometry experiments. The development history of these instruments are reviewed, the theory of operation and overall design considerations are outlined, and the instrumental parameters and performance characteristics are described.

Resch, G. M.↗

Chemical Potential Driven Reorganization of Anions between Stern and Diffuse Layers at the Air/Water Interface

We report ion adsorption and transfer at charged interfaces play key roles in various industrial and environmental processes. Molecular scale details of ion-ion, ion-water, and ion-surface interactions are still debated. Complex ions, such as SCN - and SeCN - , are particularly interesting due to their unexpected adsorption trends. Here, we combine vibrational sum frequency generation (VSFG) spectroscopy and surface-sensitive synchrotron X-ray studies to provide a detailed description of SeCN - adsorption at a floating charged monolayer. Polarimetry studies show that the average orientation of SeCN - anions with respect to the surface normal decreases from 45° to 22° with the increasing KSeCN concentration. Interfacial SeCN - coverage saturates at very low bulk concentrations, but their orientational organization, distribution between Stern and diffuse layers, and effects on the hydrogen-bonding network of the interfacial water continue to change with increasing bulk KSeCN concentration. These results show that the increasing chemical potential may lead to further reorganization of the adsorbed ions, even though the total interfacial ion population does not change. The reorganization of the interfacial ions and the water may be very important in chemical separations of heavy metals, where metal-anion complexes drive the selective ion transfer at aqueous interfaces.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

PETSc DMNetwork: A Library for Scalable Network PDE-Based Multiphysics Simulations

We present DMNetwork, a high-level package included in the PETSc library for the simulation of multiphysics phenomena over large-scale networked systems. The library aims at applications that have networked structures such as those in electrical, gas, and water distribution systems. DMNetwork provides data and topology management, parallelization for multiphysics systems over a network, and hierarchical and composable solvers to exploit the problem structure. DMNetwork eases the simulation development cycle by providing the necessary infrastructure through simple abstractions to define and query the network components. This article presents the design of DMNetwork, illustrates its user interface, and demonstrates its ability to solve multiphysics systems, such as an electric circuit, a network of power grid and water subnetworks, and transient hydraulic systems over large networks with more than 2 billion variables on extreme-scale computers using up to 30,000 processors.

extreme-scale computing↗

Automated Cloud Based Long Short-Term Memory Neural Network Based SWE Prediction

Snow derived water is a critical component of the US water supply. Measurements of the Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) and associated predictions of peak SWE and snowmelt onset are essential inputs for water management efforts. This paper aims to develop an integrated framework for real-time data ingestion, estimation, prediction and visualization of SWE based on daily snow datasets. In particular, we develop a data-driven approach for estimating and predicting SWE dynamics using the Long Short-Term Memory neural network (LSTM) method. Our approach uses historical datasets (precipitation, air temperature, SWE, and snow thickness) collected at NRCS Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) stations to train the LSTM network and current year data to predict SWE behavior. The performance of our prediction was compared for different prediction dates and prediction training datasets. Our results suggest that the proposed LSTM network can be an efficient tool for forecasting the SWE timeseries, as well as Peak SWE and snowmelt timing. Results showed that the window size impacts the model performance (where the Nash Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) ranged from 0.96 to 0.85 and the Rooted Mean Square Error (RMSE) ranged from 0.038 to 0.07) with an optimum number that should be calibrated for different stations and climate conditions. In addition, by implementing the LSTM prediction capability in a cloud based site-monitoring platform, we automate model-data integration. By making the data accessible through a graphical web interface and an underlying API which exposes both training and prediction capabilities. The associated results can be made easily accessible to a broad range of stakeholders.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Attaining freshwater and estuarine-water soil saturation in an ecosystem-scale coastal flooding experiment

Abstract Coastal upland forests are facing widespread mortality as sea-level rise accelerates and precipitation and storm regimes change. The loss of coastal forests has significant implications for the coastal carbon cycle; yet, predicting mortality likelihood is difficult due to our limited understanding of disturbance impacts on coastal forests. The manipulative, ecosystem-scale Terrestrial Ecosystem Manipulation to Probe the Effects of Storm Treatments (TEMPEST) experiment addresses the potential for freshwater and estuarine-water disturbance events to alter tree function, species composition, and ecosystem processes in a deciduous coastal forest in MD, USA. The experiment uses a large-unit (2000 m 2 ), un-replicated experimental design, with three 50 m × 40 m plots serving as control, freshwater, and estuarine-water treatments. Transient saturation (5 h) of the entire soil rooting zone (0–30 cm) across a 2000 m 2 coastal forest was attained by delivering 300 m 3 of water through a spatially distributed irrigation network at a rate just above the soil infiltration rate. Our water delivery approach also elevated the water table (typically ~ 2 m belowground) and achieved extensive, low-level inundation (~ 8 cm standing water). A TEMPEST simulation approximated a 15-cm rainfall event and based on historic records, was of comparable intensity to a 10-year storm for the area. This characterization was supported by showing that Hurricane Ida’s (~ 5 cm rainfall) hydrologic impacts were shorter (40% lower duration) and less expansive (80% less coverage) than those generated through experimental manipulation. Future work will apply TEMPEST treatments to evaluate coastal forest resilience to changing hydrologic disturbance regimes and identify conditions that initiate ecosystem state transitions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

From Protein Design to the Energy Landscape of a Cold Unfolding Protein

Understanding protein folding is crucial for protein sciences. The conformational spaces and energy landscapes of cold (unfolded) protein states, as well as the associated transitions, are hardly explored. Furthermore, it is not known how structure relates to the cooperativity of cold transitions, if cold and heat unfolded states are thermodynamically similar, and if cold states play important roles for protein function. We created the cold unfolding 4-helix bundle DCUB1 with a de novo designed bipartite hydrophilic/hydrophobic core featuring a hydrogen bond network which extends across the bundle in order to study the relative importance of hydrophobic versus hydrophilic protein–water interactions for cold unfolding. Structural and thermodynamic characterization resulted in the discovery of a complex energy landscape for cold transitions, while the heat unfolded state is a random coil. Below ~0 °C, the core of DCUB1 disintegrates in a largely cooperative manner, while a near-native helical content is retained. The resulting cold core-unfolded state is compact and features extensive internal dynamics. Below -5 °C, two additional cold transitions are seen, that is, (i) the formation of a water-mediated, compact, and highly dynamic dimer, and (ii) the onset of cold helix unfolding decoupled from cold core unfolding. Our results suggest that cold unfolding is initiated by the intrusion of water into the hydrophilic core network and that cooperativity can be tuned by varying the number of core hydrogen bond networks. Protein design has proven to be invaluable to explore the energy landscapes of cold states and to robustly test related theories.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Hygroscopic Aging Effects in Epoxy Polymer

The automobile industry is incorporating more lightweight content in car designs to boost fuel-economy. New structural adhesives are needed to mitigate the corrosion and thermal expansion issues associated with joining dissimilar lightweight materials, but adhesive developers lack a fundamental understanding of the chemistry that occurs in the adhesive as the joint ages. In this study, we developed structural adhesive molecular models and applied classical molecular dynamics simulations and density functional theory calculations to gain molecular insights into the influence of water molecules on the properties of epoxy-based adhesives (DGEBA + Jeffamine (JD230)). The simulations were complemented by experimental synthesis and characterization. Our work underscores the impact of water molecules on the local structure of the epoxy network as well as resulting mechanical properties. Water molecules were mainly coordinated with hydroxyls, primary amines and secondary amines, but also weakly coordinated with ether linkages, which were found most probable to be labile. Simulated stress–strain data indicates that increasing the water content deteriorates the mechanical properties. The Young’s modulus decreased by ~ 30% when the water content increased to 3 wt%. We conclude, this integration of molecular-level chemical insights with mechanical property simulations of the hydrated epoxy system and experimental validation holds the promise to advance lightweight joint technologies.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Determining flow directions in river channel networks using planform morphology and topology

Abstract. The abundance of global, remotely sensed surface water observations has accelerated efforts toward characterizing and modeling how water moves across the Earth's surface through complex channel networks. In particular, deltas and braided river channel networks may contain thousands of links that route water, sediment, and nutrients across landscapes. In order to model flows through channel networks and characterize network structure, the direction of flow for each link within the network must be known. In this work, we propose a rapid, automatic, and objective method to identify flow directions for all links of a channel network using only remotely sensed imagery and knowledge of the network's inlet and outlet locations. We designed a suite of direction-predicting algorithms (DPAs), each of which exploits a particular morphologic characteristic of the channel network to provide a prediction of a link's flow direction. DPAs were chained together to create “recipes”, or algorithms that set all the flow directions of a channel network. Separate recipes were built for deltas and braided rivers and applied to seven delta and two braided river channel networks. Across all nine channel networks, the recipe-predicted flow directions agreed with expert judgement for 97 % of all tested links, and most disagreements were attributed to unusual channel network topologies that can easily be accounted for by pre-seeding critical links with known flow directions. Our results highlight the (non)universality of process–form relationships across deltas and braided rivers.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Microporous water with high gas solubilities

Liquids with permanent microporosity can absorb larger quantities of gas molecules than conventional solvents , providing new opportunities for liquid-phase gas storage, transport, and reactivity. Current approaches to designing porous liquids rely on sterically bulky solvent molecules or surface ligands and thus are not amenable to many important solvents, including water. Here, we report a generalizable thermodynamic strategy to preserve permanent microporosity and impart high gas solubilities to liquid water. Specifically, we show how the external and internal surface chemistry of microporous zeolite and metal–organic framework nanocrystals can be tailored to promote the formation of stable dispersions in water while maintaining dry networks of micropores that are accessible to gas molecules. As a result of their permanent microporosity, these aqueous fluids can concentrate gases, including oxygen (O 2 ) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), to much higher densities than are found in typical aqueous environments. Furthermore, when these fluids are oxygenated, record-high capacities of O 2 can be delivered to hypoxic red blood cells, highlighting one potential application of this new class of microporous liquids for physiological gas transport.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

(NH 4 ) 2 [UO 2 Cl 4 ]·2H 2 O, a new uranyl tetrachloride with ammonium charge-balancing cations

A new uranyl tetrachloride salt with chemical formula, (NH 4 ) 2 [UO 2 Cl 4 ]·2H 2 O, namely, diammonium uranyl tetrachloride dihydrate, 1 , was prepared and crystallized via slow evaporation from a solution of 2 M hydrochloric acid. As confirmed by powder X-ray diffraction, the title compound crystallizes with an ammonium chloride impurity that formed as a result of the breakdown of a triazine precursor. The (UO 2 Cl 4 ) 2− dianion is charge balanced by ammonium cations, while an extensive hydrogen-bond network donated from structural water molecules stabilize the overall assembly. Compound 1 adds to the extensive collection of actinyl tetrachloride salts, but it represents the first without an alkali cation for purely inorganic compounds. Diffuse reflectance and luminescence spectra show typical absorption and emission behavior, respectively, of uranyl materials.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Land Classification of South-central Iowa from Computer Enhanced Images

The author has identified the following significant results. Two enhanced false color negatives from multispectral scanner scenes, dated 15 April 1974 and 29 August 1972, were printed at a scale of 1:125,000 to form the basis for land use interpretations in the Wapello County, Iowa test site. The use of geomorphic principles proved valuable in the interpretation of the April scene to form valuable generalizations for planning purposes on soil associations, topography, alluvial valleys, and agricultural land use. The August scene was superior in providing information on urban extent, transportation networks, forest cover, and water bodies.

Lucas, J. R.↗

Multi-hydrophilic functional network enables porous membranes excellent anti-fouling performance for highly efficient water remediation

Membrane technology is believed as a cost-effective approach for solving the water issues, where as it suffers from serious membrane fouling. Surface grafting and surface coating have been proved to be effective in abating the membrane fouling; however, these processes always need additional procedures and compromise the initial permeance of the membranes. Herein, we developed a kind of highly permeable polyacrylonitrile (PAN) membranes with excellent anti-fouling performance through one-step phase inversion of the PAN casting solution containing water-soluble active additives. During the process, the water-soluble active additives could segregate towards the membrane surface and pore walls; thereby finely tailoring the pore structures of the PAN-based membranes. Moreover, the active additives could react with each other to form crosslinked networks containing multi-hydrophilic functional groups including CH2-O-CH2, -OH or-Si-OH. Consequently, the PAN-based membranes exhibited surprising superhydrophilicity with water contact angle below 10. even after soaking in water for one week and the anti-fouling permeance of the membranes increased significantly with permeance recovery rate above 93%. Interestingly, the modified membranes also demonstrated both high permeances and high separation efficiency, thereby showing strong promise in water environmental remediation including wastewater treatment and oil/water emulsion separation.

Anti-fouling↗

Water transport in reverse osmosis membranes is governed by pore flow, not a solution-diffusion mechanism

We performed nonequilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulations and solvent permeation experiments to unravel the mechanism of water transport in reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. The NEMD simulations reveal that water transport is driven by a pressure gradient within the membranes, not by a water concentration gradient, in marked contrast to the classic solution-diffusion model. We further show that water molecules travel as clusters through a network of pores that are transiently connected. Permeation experiments with water and organic solvents using polyamide and cellulose triacetate RO membranes showed that solvent permeance depends on the membrane pore size, kinetic diameter of solvent molecules, and solvent viscosity. This observation is not consistent with the solution-diffusion model, where permeance depends on the solvent solubility. Motivated by these observations, we demonstrate that the solution-friction model, in which transport is driven by a pressure gradient, can describe water and solvent transport in RO membranes.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Model Data Archive for Manuscript Titled "Evaluation of a Coupled Surface–Subsurface Hydrologic Model Using Dense Water‑Level Sensors in a Mixed Urban–Rural Watershed"

This archive provides scripts, input files, and datasets used for the implementation and evaluation of a fully coupled surface–subsurface hydrologic model in the Neches River Basin, southeast Texas. The study uses the Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS) to simulate coupled surface–subsurface hydrologic processes over a mixed urban–rural watershed and evaluates model performance using a dense network of 136 in situ water-level sensors, nine U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) stream gauges, and SSEBop-derived evapotranspiration estimates during the period October 2014–June 2024. The workflow is implemented primarily in Python 3 using the Watershed Workflow package. The Jupyter notebooks can be executed using open-source software such as Anaconda JupyterLab or Visual Studio Code. Other data files include TXT, CSV, XML, SHP, TIF, NetCDF, HDF5, and ExodusII files, which can be processed using the provided Python scripts. ATS input files are provided in XML format and can be edited using any commonly used text editor. This archive contains: *Scripts and input files used to generate the ATS model setup, including watershed discretization, mesh generation, parameter mapping, and model configuration. *Jupyter notebooks used for preprocessing observational data, evaluating streamflow, water levels, and evapotranspiration, computing performance metrics, and generating the figures presented in the manuscript. *ATS simulation outputs and processed observational datasets, including OneRain and DD6 water-level sensors, USGS streamflow observations, GIS data, and supporting spatial datasets used throughout the study.

Dense water-level sensor network↗