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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

Concentrations of Staphylococcus species in indoor air as associated with other bacteria, season, relative humidity, air change rate, and S. aureus-positive occupants

The aim of this study was to obtain knowledge about concentrations of Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA (methicillin-resistant S. aureus), and other Staphylococcus species in indoor air in Greater Copenhagen and about factors affecting the concentrations. The effects of season, temperature, relative humidity, air change rate (ACR), other bacterial genera, area per occupant, and presence of S. aureus-positive occupants were studied. In samples from 67 living rooms, S. hominis, S. warneri, S. epidermidis, and S. capitis were found in 13–25%; S. saprophyticus, S. cohnii, and S. pasteuri in 5–10%; and S. lugdunensis, S. haemolyticus, S. caprae, S. equorum, S. kloosii, S. pettenkoferi, S. simulans, and S. xylosus in less than 3%. Staphylococcus aureus were found in two of 67 living rooms: spa type t034 (an MRSA) was recovered from a farmhouse, while spa type t509 was found in an urban home. Two species, S. equorum and S. kloosii, were found only in the farmhouse. Staphylococcus was significantly associated with season with lowest concentration and richness in winter. Genera composition was associated with ACR with smaller fractions of Staphylococcus at higher ACR, while richness was significantly and negatively associated with area per occupant. Concentration of Staphylococcus correlated positively with the total concentration of bacteria, but negatively with the total concentration of other bacteria. The concentration of Staphylococcus was not significantly associated with concentrations of the other abundant genera Bacillus, Kocuria, and Micrococcus. In offices with S. aureus-positive occupants, airborne S. aureus was not found. In conclusion, Staphylococcus species constitute a considerable proportion of the airborne bacteria in the studied homes and offices. However, both S. aureus and MRSA had very low prevalence during all seasons. Thus, transmission of S. aureus and MRSA through the air in living rooms in Copenhagen is expected to be limited. The negative associations between ACR and the fraction Staphylococcus constituted out of total bacteria, and between area per occupant and Staphylococcus richness indicate that it might be possible to affect the presence of airborne Staphylococcus in homes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Spent fuel nondestructive assay integrated characterization from active neutron, passive neutron, and passive gamma

Spent nuclear fuel comprises a wide range of irradiated isotopic material compositions, and characterization through nondestructive measurements is beneficial in verifying declared parameters before the fuel is placed in storage, final disposal, and/or reprocessed. This paper discusses results from three nondestructive assay instruments, including passive gamma, passive neutron, and active neutron methods, that measured fifty spent fuel assemblies at the Clab interim storage facility in Sweden. Here, integrated analysis of the measurements from the three different instruments allowed parametric assessments of cooling time, burnup, neutron multiplication, fissile mass, initial enrichment, and decay heat of each individual fuel assembly. Passive gamma measurements were found to be the most beneficial in predicting cooling time, passive neutron for determining burnup, active neutron in estimating initial enrichment, and both passive and total neutron for multiplication correlations. Fissile mass was best estimated using any combination of any two of the instruments such that corrections for isotopic changes in the fuel could be accounted for with the first set of measurements and multiplication of the assembly in the second. In conclusion, the nondestructive assay technologies demonstrated through this effort enhance the characterization of spent nuclear fuel assemblies.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Influences from solvents on charge storage in titanium carbide MXenes

We report that pseudocapacitive energy storage in supercapacitor electrodes differs significantly from the electrical double-layer mechanism of porous carbon materials, which requires a change from conventional thinking when choosing appropriate electrolytes. Here we show how simply changing the solvent of an electrolyte system can drastically influence the pseudocapacitive charge storage of the two-dimensional titanium carbide, Ti 3 C 2 (a representative member of the MXene family). Measurements of the charge stored by Ti 3 C 2 in lithium-containing electrolytes with nitrile-, carbonate- and sulfoxide-based solvents show that the use of a carbonate solvent doubles the charge stored by Ti 3 C 2 when compared with the other solvent systems. We find that the chemical nature of the electrolyte solvent has a profound effect on the arrangement of molecules/ions in Ti 3 C 2 , which correlates directly to the total charge being stored. Finally, having nearly completely desolvated lithium ions in Ti 3 C 2 for the carbonate-based electrolyte leads to high volumetric capacitance at high charge–discharge rates, demonstrating the importance of considering all aspects of an electrochemical system during development.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Stochastic evaluation of fourth-order many-body perturbation energies

A scalable, stochastic algorithm evaluating the fourth-order many-body perturbation (MP4) correction to energy is proposed. Three hundred Goldstone diagrams representing the MP4 correction are computer generated and then converted into algebraic formulas expressed in terms of Green’s functions in real space and imaginary time. They are evaluated by the direct (i.e., non-Markov, non-Metropolis) Monte Carlo (MC) integration accelerated by the redundant-walker and control-variate algorithms. The resulting MC-MP4 method is efficiently parallelized and is shown to display O(n 5.3 ) size-dependence of cost, which is nearly two ranks lower than the O(n 7 ) dependence of the deterministic MP4 algorithm. Furthermore, it evaluates the MP4/aug-cc-pVDZ energy for benzene, naphthalene, phenanthrene, and corannulene with the statistical uncertainty of 10 mE h (1.1% of the total basis-set correlation energy), 38 mE h (2.6%), 110 mE h (5.5%), and 280 mE h (9.0%), respectively, after about 10 9 MC steps.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

A refined assessment of nuclear data target accuracy requirements for ALFRED

The interest in target accuracy assessment has been recently renewed within the OECD/NEA Working Party on International Nuclear Data Evaluation Cooperation with an update exercise, thanks to the invaluable initiative of Massimo Salvatores. This work, moving from evaluations on the main core integral parameters of the Advanced Lead-cooled Fast Reactor European Demonstrator (ALFRED), and the identification of the associated target accuracies needed for improving its design, approaches the retrieval of target accuracy requirements for nuclear data, as the inverse problem of uncertainty quantification. The preliminary results obtained in a previous work are here refined by explicitly taking into account the total contribution due to correlations among variables in the optimization constraint, while its various components are evaluated individually. Moreover, three different sets of cost parameters are considered to introduce a bias in the solution in order to take in due account the relative difficulties in the execution of new differential experiments as needed for achieving the proposed target accuracies. By this, the obtained results are deemed usefully informative, and proposed for the update of a High Priority List which identifies the isotopes-reaction couples of most interest for future refinement experiments, especially when integrated with further analogous information collected on other advanced nuclear systems. Among the cross-sections whose refinement contributes the most to the reduction of the multiplication factor, the fission of Pu{sup 239} was found, which needs to be fixed below 1% in the range of interest for ALFRED (2 keV-4 MeV). Another contribution for the amelioration of the multiplication factor calculation accuracy, is due to the capture channel of Pu{sup 239}, for which the initial high uncertainty (around 15%) can be significantly reduced resorting to easily practicable experiments. The same occurs for the inelastic of Pb{sup 207}, for which the initial uncertainty value of around 50% can be drastically reduced up to target values between 4% and 7%.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Multi-Trait Regressor Stacking Increased Genomic Prediction Accuracy of Sorghum Grain Composition

Genomic prediction has enabled plant breeders to estimate breeding values of unobserved genotypes and environments. The use of genomic prediction will be extremely valuable for compositional traits for which phenotyping is labor-intensive and destructive for most accurate results. We studied the potential of Bayesian multi-output regressor stacking (BMORS) model in improving prediction performance over single trait single environment (STSE) models using a grain sorghum diversity panel (GSDP) and a biparental recombinant inbred lines (RILs) population. A total of five highly correlated grain composition traits—amylose, fat, gross energy, protein and starch, with genomic heritability ranging from 0.24 to 0.59 in the GSDP and 0.69 to 0.83 in the RILs were studied. Average prediction accuracies from the STSE model were within a range of 0.4 to 0.6 for all traits across both populations except amylose (0.25) in the GSDP. Prediction accuracy for BMORS increased by 41% and 32% on average over STSE in the GSDP and RILs, respectively. Prediction of whole environments by training with remaining environments in BMORS resulted in moderate to high prediction accuracy. Our results show regression stacking methods such as BMORS have potential to accurately predict unobserved individuals and environments, and implementation of such models can accelerate genetic gain.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Ironsand (Titanomagnetite-Titanohematite): Chemistry, Magnetic Properties and Direct Applications for Wireless Power Transfer

Ironsand is an abundant and inexpensive magnetic mineral resource. However, the magnetic properties of unprocessed ironsand are often inadequate for any practical applications. In this work, the applicability of ironsand for use as a component in a soft magnetic composite for large-scale inductive power transfer applications was investigated. After magnetic separation, the chemical, structural and magnetic properties of ironsand sourced from different locations were compared. Differences observed in the DC magnetic properties were consistent with changes in the chemical compositions obtained from X-ray Absorption Near-Edge Spectroscopy (XANES), which suggests varying the titanohematite to titanomagnetite content. Increased content in titanomagnetite and magnetic permeability correlated well with the total Fe content in the materials. The best-performing ironsand with the highest permeability and lowest core losses was used alongside Mn,Zn-Ferrite particles (ranging from ~100 μm to 2 mm) to fabricate toroid cores with varying magnetic material loading. It was shown that ironsand can be used to replace up to 15 wt.% of the magnetic materials with minimal impact on the composite magnetic performance, thus reducing the cost. Ironsand was also used as a supporting material in a single-rail wireless power transfer system, effectively increasing the power transfer, demonstrating potential applications to reduce flux leakage.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Uranium and Nickel Partitioning in a Contaminated Riparian Wetland

Uranium (U) and nickel (Ni) released 50 years ago have been immobilized in the Tims Branch wetlands located on the Savannah River Site in the United States. Sediments were collected from seven locations to identify the factors responsible for this attenuation. Ni and U contents in the solids were significantly correlated, suggesting that depositional as opposed to chemical processes contributed to their spatial distribution. Based on sequential extractions, 63 ± 16% of the U was partitioned into the organic fraction, whereas Ni was distributed between several sediment fractions. An inverse pH-organic matter (OM) correlation and positive correlations of OM with total U and organic-bound U/Ni suggest that increased OM preservation and binding to the mineral surfaces were likely responsible for Ni- and especially U-sediment retention (Tims Branch pH = 4.84 ± 0.68). EXAFS analysis indicated the predominance of U(VI) coordinated with clay minerals (~65%), together with ~35% coordinated to either OM (in areas with elevated OM levels) or iron oxides. The desorption-Kd coefficients of U (3972 ± 1370 L/kg) and Ni (30 ± 8 L/kg) indicate that dissolved Ni poses a greater long-term risk than dissolved U for migrating downstream. This study suggests that a delicate balance of geochemical properties controls whether wetlands behave as sinks or sources of contaminants.

63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTAN↗

A theoretical and experimental investigation of the hypersonic turbulent boundary layer subject to normal and longitudinal pressure gradients and cross flow along a windward plane of symmetry.

A theoretical and experimental investigation for the hypersonic turbulent boundary layer undergoing both normal and longitudinal pressure gradients and cross flow along the plane of symmetry on the windward side of a body of revolution is presented. The purpose of this investigation is to provide a method for calculating boundary layers that occur on the centerline of symmetry of an inlet. The three-dimensional compressible integral equations are written along the symmetry plane and integrated numerically, and the effect of the cross flow on the behavior of the boundary layer is also studied. The experiments were performed at Mach number 6 and Reynolds number of 44,000,000/ft for the axisymmetric case and for the case with cross flow. The velocity profiles and the boundary layer parameters agree relatively well with theoretical values with and without cross flow effects. The presence of the cross flow alters significantly the value of the profiles. Total temperature-velocity correlations deviate from the linear Crocco distribution. Heat transfer rates agree with theoretical values and values obtained by the flat plate reference enthalpy method. Cross flow influence on the heat transfer rates is of minor relevance.

Zakkay, V.↗

Agricultural resources investigations in northern Italy and southern France (Agreste Project)

The author has identified the following significant results. The vegetation structure of rice was investigated and interpreted in dynamic terms as a significant factor governing the distribution of solar energy thoughout the canopy and therefore conditions the final yield. Radiometric characteristics of rice culture were described for various stages of development in relation to the vegetation structure in an attempt to establish correlations between data of total biomass and of grain yield. Qualitative classification results were encouraging although the discrimination achieved was far from complete.

Source record↗

High-energy heavy-ion scattering and the optical phase shift function

Within the framework of the Glauber approximation, an exact expression for the optical phase shift function is derived which takes into account the center-of-mass correlation function. We calculate total and differential cross sections using the first-order term for the shift function and compare them with the usual (first-order) optical limit results and, for the lighter nuclei, with the exact Glauber results. The nucleus-nucleus elastic scattering amplitude does not exhibit the large-q divergence which characterizes the usual optical limit. The obtained results improve the calculated total and differential cross sections dramatically for light nuclei, and significantly for medium and heavy nuclei.

Franco, V.↗

Long period time variations of ozone in the lower stratosphere

Observations of total ozone at a number of stations in the Northern Hemisphere show an increase during the period 1961-1970 followed by a decrease of ozone during the 1970's, at least at many stations in Central Europe. It is well known that total ozone is highly correlated with ozone in the lower stratosphere. Analysis of the trends of ozone based on data derived from balloon-borne ozonesondes during the period 1967-75 at four stations in Central Europe shows that most of the ozone variations occurred in the lower stratosphere with relatively little contribution from tropospheric changes or those above the ozone peak. Possible meteorological origins of these decade type variations will be discussed.

London, J.↗

Laboratory studies of in vivo fluorescence of phytoplankton

A lidar system is developed that uses four selected excitation wavelengths to induce chlorophyll 'a' fluorescence which is indicative of both the concentration and diversity of phytoplankton. The operating principles of the system and the results of measurements of phytoplankton fluorescence in a controlled laboratory environment are presented. A comparative study of results from lidar fluorosensor laboratory tank tests using representative species of phytoplankton in single and multispecies cultures from each of four color groups reveals that (1) there is good correlation between the fluorescence of chlorophyll 'a' remotely simulated and detected by the lidar system and in-situ measurements using four similar excitation wavelengths in a flow-through fluorometer; (2) good correlation exists between the total chlorophyll 'a' calculated from lidar-fluorosensor data and measurements obtained by the Strickland-Parsons method; and (3) the lidar fluorosensor can provide an index of population diversity.

Brown, C. A., Jr.↗

Emittance and absorptance of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ceramic thermal barrier coating

The spectral emittance of a NASA developed zirconia ceramic thermal barrier coating system, consisting of a metal substrate, a layer of Ni-Cr-Al-Y bond material and a layer of yttria-stabilized zirconia ceramic material, is analyzed. The emittance, needed for evaluation of radiant heat loads on cooled coated gas turbine components, was measured over a range of temperatures that would be typical of its use on such components. Emittance data were obtained with a spectrometer, a reflectometer and a radiation pyrometer at a single bond coating thickness of 0.010 cm and at a ceramic coating thickness of 0-0.076 cm. The data were transformed into the hemispherical total emittance and were correlated to the ceramic coating thickness and temperature using multiple-regression curve-fitting techniques. The system was found to be highly reflective, and, consequently, capable of significantly reducing radiation heat loads on cooled gas turbine engine components.

Liebert, C. H.↗

Energy coupling between the solar wind and the magnetosphere

A description is given of the path leading to the first approximation expression for the solar wind-magnetosphere energy coupling function (epsilon), which correlates well with the total energy consumption rate (U sub T) of the magnetosphere. It is shown that epsilon is the primary factor controlling the time development of magnetospheric substorms and storms. The finding of this particular expression epsilon indicates how the solar wind couples its energy to the magnetosphere; the solar wind and the magnetosphere make up a dynamo. In fact, the power generated by the dynamo can be identified as epsilon through the use of a dimensional analysis. In addition, the finding of epsilon suggests that the magnetosphere is closer to a directly driven system than to an unloading system which stores the generated energy before converting it to substorm and storm energies. The finding of epsilon and its implications is considered to have significantly advanced and improved the understanding of magnetospheric processes.

Akasofu, S.-I.↗

CO observations of infrared bright galaxies - The efficiency of star formation

CO emission has been detected in each of 14 of the IR-bright galaxies listed in IRAS Circular 15; for the nine galaxies of the largest angular size, the CO emission distributions along the major axis have been mapped. A strong correlation is noted between total CO luminosities and IR ones for galaxies in each of three ranges of dust temperature. The ratio of IR/CO luminosities increases with the ratio of 60/100-micron flux densities, consistent with emission of thermal origin at the characteristic temperature given by the dust temperature. If this luminosity ratio is a measure of the emergent stellar luminosity/unit molecular mass, or the efficiency of star formation, this efficiency varies over almost two orders of magnitude from one galaxy to another.

Young, J. S.↗

Space Shuttle Main Engine structural analysis and data reduction/evaluation. Volume 1: Aft Skirt analysis

Using the ANSYS finite element program, a global model of the aft skirt and a detailed nonlinear model of the failure region was made. The analysis confirmed the area of failure in both STA-2B and STA-3 tests as the forging heat affected zone (HAZ) at the aft ring centerline. The highest hoop strain in the HAZ occurs in this area. However, the analysis does not predict failure as defined by ultimate elongation of the material equal to 3.5 percent total strain. The analysis correlates well with the strain gage data from both the Wyle influence test of the original design aft sjirt and the STA-3 test of the redesigned aft skirt. it is suggested that the sensitivity of the failure area material strength and stress/strain state to material properties and therefore to small manufacturing or processing variables is the most likely cause of failure below the expected material ultimate properties.

Berry, David M.↗

Hazard assessment and cockpit presentation issues for microburst alerting systems

Issues pertaining to the development of an alerting system for microbursts in the terminal area are studied. A methodology for evaluating microburst hazard criteria is developed on the basis of batch aircraft flight simulations. A preliminary evaluation of a selected set of hazard criteria is performed. The results indicate that the total headwind change along the aircraft flight path ('total divergence') does not correlate well with the approach degradation caused by microbursts. A preliminary piloted simulator study on cockpit presentation of wind shear alerts in verbal, alphanumeric, and graphical formats is performed. Graphical alerts were found to produce better decision-making and lower crew workload, and to be greatly preferred by pilots. Alphanumeric alerts were not well liked and exhibited no advantages over standard verbal radio communications.

Wanke, Craig↗