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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 271 records · Page 15
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Atomic Diffusion, Segregation, and Grain Boundary Migration in Nickel-Based Alloys from Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Grain boundary diffusion and metal mobility in alloys control material performance in many applications and yet remain poorly understood at a mechanistic level. With advances in accessible time and length scales for computational molecular simulations, and recent force field developments, we now possess tools to help unravel those mechanisms. Using large-scale molecular dynamics simulations, here we examined vacancy-mediated diffusion processes in Ni-5Cr alloy with low and high-energy grain boundaries. We show that atomic diffusion inside the grain boundary plane is about four times higher than bulk diffusion, at any temperature, and exhibits a typical Arrhenius behavior with a very small energy barrier (0~.8 eV for Cr and 0.7 eV for Ni within 1300-1600 K). Additionally, the fastest diffusing species inverts; Cr diffusion was faster than Ni in the bulk but slower in the grain boundaries. This is attributed to the creation of high cohesive energy clusters of Cr at the grain boundary. Grain boundary migration was also observed to be temperature dependent and appears to be two times higher in the 5% Cr alloy than in pure Ni, highlighting the important role of the alloying element on grain boundary motion.

Simonnin, Pauline GN↗
DOE OSTI2024

Lifetime Energy Savings Via Advanced Manufacturing of Low Density Steels for Transportation Applications

The purpose of this “Low Density Steels for Transportation Applications” project was to develop an alloy composition and processing parameters that would result in a material suitable for use in automotive structural components at a reduced density over the current advanced high strength steel (AHSS) materials used. The project work successfully developed a robust alloy capable of exceeding project mechanical property targets at each stage of development, with an 8% density reduction over benchmark AHSS materials (7.8 g/cm3). The developed alloy has the potential to offer significant vehicle lightweighting and improved fuel economy, without sacrificing the increased passenger safety of more traditional AHSS. Through the three tasks of the project, (1) Alloy design and small-scale laboratory evaluation, (2) Laboratory development of hot rolled material and (3) Laboratory development of a cold rolled material, the laboratory work utilized advanced characterization and analytical methods on novel alloy compositions subjected to both conventional and non-conventional processing operations.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Projecting the likely importance of weak-interaction-driven bulk viscosity in neutron star mergers

ABSTRACT In this work, we estimate how much bulk viscosity driven by Urca processes is likely to affect the gravitational wave signal of a neutron star coalescence. In the late inspiral, we show that bulk viscosity affects the binding energy at fourth post-Newtonian order. Even though this effect is enhanced by the square of the gravitational compactness, the coefficient of bulk viscosity is likely too small to lead to observable effects in the waveform during the late inspiral, when only considering the orbital motion itself. In the post-merger, however, the characteristic time-scales and spatial scales are different, potentially leading to the opposite conclusion. We post-process data from a state-of-the-art equal-mass binary neutron star merger simulation to estimate the effects of bulk viscosity (which was not included in the simulation itself). In that scenario, we find that bulk viscosity can reach high values in regions of the merger. We compute several estimates of how much it might directly affect the global dynamics of the considered merger scenario, and find that it could become significant. Even larger effects could arise in different merger scenarios or in simulations that include non-linear effects. This assessment is reinforced by a quantitative comparison with relativistic heavy-ion collisions where such effects have been explored extensively.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Ultimate brightness of a medium-energy synchrotron light source at operational beam intensity

Synchrotron light sources are key instruments of modern science, providing unique opportunities for groundbreaking studies in diverse scientific disciplines and driving innovation in numerous scientific and technological fields. Fourth-generation light sources provide unprecedented capabilities in imaging, spectroscopy and diffraction techniques. Ultimate brightness is the key to advancing to a smaller scale, faster response, and higher data measurement and processing rate. The brightness is primarily determined by the electron beam emittance and energy spread at operational intensity. A common feature of fourth-generation synchrotrons is the short length of the electron bunches combined with a very small transverse beam size. Consequently, the high particle density leads to strong collective effects that significantly increase the emittance and limit the achievable brightness at operational beam intensity. In this article, we summarize our studies of the emittance and brightness scaled with the beam energy and intensity, taking into account the effects of intrabeam scattering, beam-impedance interaction and bunch lengthening provided by higher-harmonic RF systems to identify optimal combinations of machine and beam parameters.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Bubble Mass Transport Measurement in the Large-Scale Test Loops at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Molten salts are complex fluids that incorporate multi-phase behavior depending on the chemistry and the physical properties of the entrained components. These components include the carrier salt, the actinide fuel, and fission, activation, and corrosion products, the concentrations of which depends on the burnup history of the salt. Radionuclide transport from the salt into the cover gas / off-gas system depends on volatility as predicted by thermochemistry, but data from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) conducted in the late 1960s suggest that bubble formation and transport are also important. Anomalously high fractions of noble metals were found in the off-gas system and were attributed to transportation with parent salt aerosols and their association with rising noble gas bubbles. The prediction of such phenomena requires coupled neutronic, thermal hydraulic, and chemical equilibrium calculations, the framework of which is being developed within the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (NE). However, separate effects tests and models of experiments using tools such as SAM and Thermochimica can guide model developers through important processes. Conversely, model development guides the choice of experiments and systems to provide data that are relevant for validation. This report describes several experiments that tracked gas transport in molten salts, ranging from small-scale systems to large-scale loops. Gas transportation in a molten salt, LiCl-KCl, has been studied using the shadowgraph technique. Sensors such as residual gas analysis, Raman spectroscopy, and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy have been tested for off-gas measurements. These data were used to interpret how the gases move through the upstream salt / cover gas and the interface between them. Differential pressure measurements were able to detect individual gas bubbles as they popped at the liquid–gas interface. Salt aerosols were collected on a cascade impactor. Their formation was also observed directly via the shadowgraph method, and most of these aerosols were launched ballistically into the cover gas. Fine mists could also be observed. Convection currents through the salt were visualized and can be used to calculate the thermophysical properties of the salt itself. The apparatuses described in this report and in a previous work (McFarlane et al. 2023) have been commissioned and are available for use in making further measurements of salt/surrogate fission product behavior. Novel approaches using neutron imaging are planned for the study of fluoride salts, which cannot be contained in quartz, so shadowgraph visualization is not available. Bubble transport in convective flow and in a slow-moving salt column are planned. The mobile laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) system is available for several applications, including iodine capture in a molten hydroxide scrubber, H2 transport though molten salts to complement Raman analysis, and online tracking of salt aerosol generation, transport, and deposition. This report summarizes the findings from FY24 and the plans for FY25. The work completes milestone M2AT-24OR0702013 of the DOE-NE Advanced Reactor Technology, Molten Salt Reactor Campaign, DOE-NE-5.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

High-Throughput Computing: Case Study of Medical Image Processing Applications

HPC is designed for large-scale simulations using monolithic codes of tightly coupled processes highly optimized to deliver decreased time to solution. Medical image processing is not a traditional field of HPC. Similar to AI applications, medical image processing parses large datasets, typically multiple times, to support a variety of studies for classification, diagnosis or monitoring purposes. The convergence of AI, HPC and Big Data encouraged more fields using image processing to transition to HPC. However, not all applications benefit from the same optimizations. In this paper we focus on high throughput medical image processing applications that analyze a huge dataset of small MRI images and that require HPC systems to decrease the time of parsing the entire dataset and not individual MRIs. We show in this research the performance of running SLANT, an image processing application for a whole brain segmentation, on large-scale systems and highlight performance limitations. We present optimizations prioritizing throughput that exhibit a 3.5x speed-up on the Summit Supercomputer that can be used as a baseline for building a high-throughput execution framework for other HPC systems.

Predescu, Maria↗
DOE OSTI2026

Elucidating microstructural evolution and hardness variation across friction self-piercing riveted Al-7055 using synchrotron X-ray scattering and advanced microscopy techniques

Friction self-piercing riveting (FSPR) is a unique hybrid joining technique that combines the advantages of mechanical interlocking, frictional heat, and solid-state joining (if metallurgically compatible) to produce crack free joints in high strength and/or low-ductility alloys at room temperature. Here, in the current study, Al-7055 sheets were joined using FSPR for lightweight automotive applications and significant microhardness variations were observed across the joint cross-section. A detailed microstructural characterization at multiple length scales was carried out using advanced electron microscopy and X-ray scattering techniques to provide a fundamental understanding of the process-structure-property relationships. The relative contributions of microstructural characteristics at various length scales (i.e., grain size, dislocation density, solute concentration, precipitate nature) to strengthening were estimated using existent formulations (i.e., Hall-Petch, Taylor, precipitate bypass/shear equations) and correlated to the observed microhardness values across different regions. Small-angle X-ray scattering and scanning transmission electron microscopy revealed significant changes in the size and volume fraction of precipitate species, i.e., GP-I Zones, η′, and Mg/Zn solute co-clusters, depending on the process region. It was observed that the dissolution of the small η′/GP-I zones (T ∼ 150–200 °C) in the heat-affected zone were the key reason for the hardness drop. Further, it was shown that solid-solution, dislocation, grain size and solute co-cluster strengthening played a key role in the thermo-mechanically affected zone and grain-refined zone (GRZ). Finally, these observations were leveraged along with the Zener-Holloman relationship and grain size in the GRZ to estimate the peak joining temperature of the GRZ (∼ 350 °C) near the steel rivet.

aluminum 7xxx alloy↗
DOE OSTI2021

Phase‐Change‐Memory Process at the Limit: A Proposal for Utilizing Monolayer Sb 2 Te 3

Abstract One central task of developing nonvolatile phase change memory (PCM) is to improve its scalability for high‐density data integration. In this work, by first‐principles molecular dynamics, to date the thinnest PCM material possible (0.8 nm), namely, a monolayer Sb 2 Te 3 , is proposed. Importantly, its SET (crystallization) process is a fast one‐step transition from amorphous to hexagonal phase without the usual intermediate cubic phase. An increased spatial localization of electrons due to geometrical confinement is found to be beneficial for keeping the data nonvolatile in the amorphous phase at the 2D limit. The substrate and superstrate can be utilized to control the phase change behavior: e.g., with passivated SiO 2 (001) surfaces or hexagonal Boron Nitride, the monolayer Sb 2 Te 3 can reach SET recrystallization in 0.54 ns or even as fast as 0.12 ns, but with unpassivated SiO 2 (001), this would not be possible. Besides, working with small volume PCM materials is also a natural way to lower power consumption. Therefore, the proposed PCM working process at the 2D limit will be an important potential strategy of scaling the current PCM materials for ultrahigh‐density data storage.

2D limit↗
DOE OSTI2025

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: DR6 power spectrum foreground model and validation

We discuss the model of astrophysical emission at millimeter wavelengths used to characterize foregrounds in the multi-frequency power spectra of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Data Release 6 (DR6), expanding on Louis et al. (2025) (2503.14452). We detail several tests to validate the capability of the DR6 parametric foreground model to describe current observations and complex simulations, and show that cosmological parameter constraints are robust against model extensions and variations. We demonstrate consistency of the model with pre-DR6 ACT data and observations from Planck and the South Pole Telescope. We evaluate the implications of using different foreground templates and extending the model with new components and/or free parameters. In all scenarios, the DR6 ΛCDM and ΛCDM+N eff cosmological parameters shift by less than 0.5σ relative to the baseline constraints. Some foreground parameters shift more; we estimate their systematic uncertainties associated with modeling choices. From our constraint on the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich power, we obtain a conservative limit on the duration of reionization of Δz rei < 4.4, assuming a reionization midpoint consistent with optical depth measurements and a minimal low-redshift contribution, with varying assumptions for this component leading to tighter limits. Finally, we analyze realistic non-Gaussian, correlated microwave sky simulations containing Galactic and extragalactic foreground fields, built independently of the DR6 parametric foreground model. Processing these simulations through the DR6 power spectrum and likelihood pipeline, we recover the input cosmological parameters of the underlying cosmic microwave background field, a new demonstration for small-scale CMB analysis. These tests validate the robustness of the ACT DR6 foreground model and cosmological parameter constraints.

CMBR experiments↗
DOE OSTI2021

High-Performance/-Precision/-Z(HPPZ) Scintillator Grids via Advanced Electrochemistry. Phase I – Project # 20210572MFR- Mid year review [Slides]

Scintillation grids with improved imaging resolution in time and space, are required for future mission needs at various facilities (pRad user station, LANSCE, DARHT, Scorpius etc). Current technologies use inorganic crystal scintillators, which are positioned within a high-Z scintillator septa. Dense and high-Z materials are optimal for gamma-ray detection making them promising candidates for development of high -performance/-precision/-Z (HPPZ) scintillator grids. The current resolution of standard chemical etching and fabrication processes of high-Z materials is very low, leading to undesired undercutting and ultimately reducing crystal performance efficiency. Goals are to: Perform initial feasibility studies with the aim of producing complex parts for applications with difficult-to-process high-Z material; Use of pulse and pulse-reverse electrochemical methods on additive approaches to produce high-precision Au and Re scintillator grids at a small scale; and, Follow up in Phase II with the delivery of a large-scale scintillator grid of the best material candidate with unprecedented properties for LANL needs determined in Phase I.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Modeling the Impact of Riparian Hollows on River Corridor Nitrogen Exports

Recent studies in snowmelt-dominated catchments have documented changes in nitrogen (N) retention over time, such as declines in watershed exports of N, though there is a limited understanding of the controlling processes driving these trends. Working in the mountainous headwater East River Colorado watershed, we explored the effects of riparian hollows as N-cycling hotspots and as important small-scale controls on observed watershed trends. Using a modeling-based approach informed by remote sensing and in situ observations, we simulated the N-retention capacity of riparian hollows with seasonal and yearly hydrobiogeochemical perturbations imposed as drivers. We then implemented a scaling approach to quantify the relative contribution of riparian hollows to the total river corridor N budget. We found that riparian hollows primarily serve as N sinks, with N-transformation rates significantly limited by periods of enhanced groundwater upwelling and promoted at the onset of rainfall events. Given these observed hydrologic controls, we expect that the nitrate ( NO 3 - ) sink capacity of riparian hollows will increase in magnitude with future climatic perturbations, specifically the shift to more frequent rainfall events and fewer snowmelt events, as projected for many mountainous headwater catchments. Our current estimates suggest that while riparian hollows provision ~5–20% of NO 3 - to the river network, they functionally act as inhibitors to upland NO 3 - reaching the stream. Our work linking transient hydrological conditions to numerical biogeochemical simulations is an important step in assessing N-retaining features relative to the watershed N budget and better understanding the role of small-scale features within watersheds.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

New constraints on warm dark matter from the Lyman- α forest power spectrum

The forest of Lyman-α absorption lines detected in the spectra of distant quasars encodes information on the nature and properties of dark matter and the thermodynamics of diffuse baryonic material. Its main observable—the 1D flux power spectrum (FPS)—should exhibit a suppression on small scales and an enhancement on large scales in warm dark matter (WDM) cosmologies compared to standard Λ⁢CDM. Here, we present an unprecedented suite of 1080 high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamical simulations run with the graphics processing unit-accelerated code cholla to study the evolution of the Lyman-α forest under a wide range of physically motivated gas thermal histories along with different free-streaming lengths of WDM thermal relics in the early Universe. A statistical comparison of synthetic data with the forest FPS measured down to the smallest velocity scales ever probed at redshifts 4.0≲z≲5.2 [E. Boera et al., Revealing reionization with the thermal history of the intergalactic medium: New constraints from the Ly⁢α flux power spectrum, Astrophys. J. 872, 101 (2019)] yields a lower-limit m WDM >3.1 keV (95% C.L.) for the WDM particle mass and constrains the amplitude and spectrum of the photoheating and photoionizing background produced by star-forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei at these redshifts. Interestingly, our Bayesian inference analysis appears to weakly favor WDM models with a peak likelihood value at the thermal relic mass of m WDM =4.5 keV. In conclusion, we find that the suppression of the FPS from free-streaming saturates at k≳0.1 s km -1 because of peculiar velocity smearing, and this saturated suppression combined with a slightly lower gas temperature provides a moderately better fit to the observed small-scale FPS for WDM cosmologies.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

The Schwarz alternating method for transient solid dynamics

Abstract In our earlier work, we formulated the Schwarz alternating method as a means for concurrent multiscale coupling in finite deformation solid mechanics for quasi‐static problems. Herein, we advance this method for the study of transient dynamic multiscale solid mechanics problems where information is exchanged back and forth between small and large scales. The extension to dynamics relies on the notion of a global time stepper. Within each global time step, the subdomains are coupled by the standard Schwarz iterative process. Remarkably, each subdomain can use its own time step or even its own time integrator to advance its solution in time, provided that they synchronize at each global time step. We study the performance of the Schwarz method on several examples designed for this purpose. Our numerical experiments demonstrate that the method is capable of coupling regions with different mesh resolutions, different element types, and different time integration schemes (e.g., implicit and explicit), all without introducing any artifacts that afflict other coupling methods for transient dynamics. Finally, we apply the dynamic Schwarz alternating method to the simulation of a bolted joint subjected to dynamic loading, as a demonstration of the performance of the method in a realistic scenario.

Mota, Alejandro↗
DOE OSTI2024

Electricity use in big area additive manufacturing of fiber-reinforced polymer composites

In recent years, additive manufacturing (AM), especially large-format additive manufacturing (LFAM), has gained momentum in the manufacturing industry. While LFAM offers benefits over conventional manufacturing processes, such as minimizing material waste and providing vast geometric freedom, assessing its sustainability remains challenging due to limited data, particularly on energy consumption. Most existing data pertain to small-scale or desktop AM and are not directly applicable to LFAM. In this study, we conducted real-time measurements of electricity usage for a type of LFAM known as big area additive manufacturing (BAAM), which typically uses fiber-reinforced polymer pellets as feedstock. We collected electricity usage data from fifteen printing jobs over two months in an industrial production setting. These data fill the existing gap and can be reused to enhance the community’s understanding of LFAM electricity usage, support further research, and promote sustainable development in advanced manufacturing technologies.

ecology↗
DOE OSTI2023

Synchrotron Firehose Instability

We demonstrate using linear theory and particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations that a synchrotron-cooling collisionless plasma acquires pressure anisotropy and, if the plasma beta is sufficiently high, becomes unstable to the firehose instability, in a process that we dub the synchrotron firehose instability (SFHI). The SFHI channels free energy from the pressure anisotropy of the radiating, relativistic electrons (and/or positrons) into small-amplitude, kinetic-scale, magnetic-field fluctuations, which pitch-angle scatter the particles and bring the plasma to a near-thermal state of marginal instability. The PIC simulations reveal a nonlinear cyclic evolution of firehose bursts interspersed by periods of stable cooling. We compare the SFHI for electron–positron and electron–ion plasmas. As a byproduct of the growing electron-firehose magnetic-field fluctuations, magnetized ions gain a pressure anisotropy opposite to that of the electrons. If these ions are relativistically hot, we find that they also experience cooling due to collisionless thermal coupling with the electrons, which we argue is mediated by a secondary ion-cyclotron instability. We suggest that the SFHI may be activated in a number of astrophysical scenarios, such as within ejecta from black hole accretion flows and relativistic jets, where the redistribution of energetic electrons from low to high pitch angles may cause transient bursts of radiation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Supernova-driven Turbulent Metal Mixing in High-redshift Galactic Disks: Metallicity Fluctuations in the Interstellar Medium and its Imprints on Metal-poor Stars in the Milky Way

The extent to which turbulence mixes gas in the face of recurrent infusions of fresh metals by supernovae (SN) could help provide important constraints on the local star formation conditions. This includes predictions of the metallicity dispersion among metal-poor stars, which suggests that the interstellar medium was not very well mixed at these early times. The purpose of this Letter is to help isolate, via a series of numerical experiments, some of the key processes that regulate turbulent mixing of SN elements in galactic disks. We study the gas interactions in small simulated patches of a galaxy disk with the goal of resolving the small-scale mixing effects of metals at parsec scales, which enables us to measure the turbulent diffusion coefficient in various galaxy environments. By investigating the statistics of variations of α elements in these simulations, we are able to derive constraints not only on the allowed range of intrinsic yield variations in SN explosions but also on the star formation history of the Milky Way. We argue that the observed dispersion of [Mg/Fe] in metal-poor halo stars is compatible with the star-forming conditions expected in dwarf satellites or in an early low-star-forming Milky Way progenitor. In particular, metal variations in stars that have not been phase-mixed can be used to infer the star-forming conditions of disrupted dwarf satellites.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulations to Support Efficiency Improvements in Aluminum Smelting Process

Smelting is broadly described as the extraction of a metal from its ore. In the United States, aluminum is commonly produced by smelting alumina in bauxite using the Hall-Héroult process. Optimization of equipment and processes in conventional smelting is crucial to enhancing process efficiency and productivity, is necessary for improving the techno-economic feasibility, which directly manifests as the growth of the American economy. To achieve optima, insightful data on the multiphysics phenomena that are inherent to the process must be obtained through physical investigation or high-fidelity numerical simulations. The resolution of relevant scales in time and space for smelting operations requires intensive, high-performance computing (HPC) simulations. Hostile operating conditions limit physical data acquisition to specific techniques; therefore, these data do not describe the multiscale interaction of simultaneous effects. Fortunately, in recent decades, significant advancements in computing hardware and computational methods have made the numerical resolution of such a complex process possible. In this study, a high-fidelity simulation of aluminum smelting was performed using an open-source tool, OpenFOAM, which analyzed many parameters characteristic to underlying phenomena. A multiphysics model based on the Eulerian-Eulerian multifluid approach was adopted. This model can resolve critical issues in the electrolytic smelting of aluminum, such as bubbling of carbon dioxide from the anode(s), magnetohydrodynamics from electromagnetic effects, ionic dissolution of the alumina in the electrolyte, and the evolution of thermal profiles. This study provides valuable connectivity for characteristic data that can direct the future designs of efficient smelters. A basic framework to model and simulate the smelting process using OpenFOAM is presented for user modification in keeping with process development. Of relevance to the flow field, a detailed investigation of vortices produced by bubble motion and electromagnetics is discussed, along with their impact on the evolution of thermal profiles. The predictions show small-scale vortices in the clearance between the anode and cathode caused by magnetic forces. Predictions also indicate relatively large-scale vortices in the inter-anode space resulting from carbon dioxide rising through the electrolytic flow field. The formation of vortices at the edges of anodes was shown to direct alumina charged by the feeder to the bottom of the anodes, thus preventing the entrapment of gas bubbles in the periphery of the bottom of the anode. Symmetry was observed in the location of cold spots in the electrolytic mixture in the vicinity of the feeder. Cold spots were also observed in the clearance between the anode and cathode due to the flow’s transmission of unconverted alumina to this region.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

The FEWSION for Community Resilience (F4R) Process: Building Local Technical and Social Capacity for Critical Supply Chain Resilience

Local business leaders, policy makers, elected officials, city planners, emergency managers, and private citizens are responsible for, and deeply affected by, the performance of critical supply chains and related infrastructures. At the center of critical supply chains is the food-energy-water nexus (FEW); a nexus that is key to a community’s wellbeing, resilience, and sustainability. In the 21st century, managing a local FEW nexus requires accurate data describing the function and structure of a community’s supply chains. However, data is not enough; we need data-informed conversation and technical and social capacity building among local stakeholders to utilize the data effectively. There are some resources available at the mesoscale and for food, energy, or water, but many communities lack the data and tools needed to understand connections and bridge the gaps between these scales and systems. As a result, we currently lack the capacity to manage these systems in small and medium sized communities where the vast majority of people, decisions, and problems reside. This study develops and validates a participatory citizen science process for FEW nexus capacity building and data-driven problem solving in small communities at the grassroots level. The FEWSION for Community Resilience (F4R) process applies a Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) framework to map supply chain data for a community’s FEW nexus, to identify the social network that manages the nexus, and then to generate a data-informed conversation among stakeholders. F4R was piloted and co-developed with participants over a 2-year study, using a design-based research process to make evidence-based adjustments as needed. Results show that the F4R model was successful at improving volunteers’ awareness about nexus and supply chain issues, at creating a network of connections and communication with stakeholders across state, regional, and local organizations, and in facilitating data-informed discussion about improvements to the system. In this paper we describe the design and implementation of F4R and discuss four recommendations for the successful application of the F4R model in other communities: 1) embed opportunities for co-created PPSR, 2) build social capital, 3) integrate active learning strategies with user-friendly digital tools, and 4) adopt existing materials and structure.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗