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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 289 records · Page 16
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Test Vector Development for Verification and Validation of Heavy-Duty Autonomous Vehicle Operations

The current focus in the ongoing development of autonomous driving systems (ADS) for heavy duty vehicles is that of vehicle operational safety. To this end, developers and researchers alike are working towards a complete understanding of the operating environments and conditions that autonomous vehicles are subject to during their mission. This understanding is critical to the testing and validation phases of the development of autonomous vehicles and allows for the identification of both the nominal and edge case scenarios encountered by these systems. Previous work by the authors saw the development of a comprehensive scenario generation framework to identify an operating domain specification (ODS), or external and internal conditions an autonomous driving system can expect to encounter on its mission to form critical scenario groups for autonomous vehicle testing and validating using statistical patterns, clustering, and correlation. Continuing this prior work, this paper focuses on the generation of test cases based on the critical scenarios identified that can be used to prioritize either the most common nominal driving scenarios or the least common severe driving scenarios. These test cases can then be used validate, through simulation or real-world testing, the operating design domain (ODD) for a generalized driving mission and built upon to identify spatial and temporal impacts on the driving mission of an autonomous vehicle.

Siekmann, Adam↗
DOE OSTI2025

Hydrogen Transportation and Distributed Energy Systems Risk Assessment for Airport Facilities (CRADA 555) (Final Report)

Portland International Airport (PDX), Oregon, operated by the Port of Portland (Port) is exploring the possibility of operating a fleet of 28 fuel cell electric buses and developing a distributed energy system to support airport operations during various operating modes including large-scale power outages. This study investigates the compatibility of these two missions, which will be key to resilience management at PDX. This study also investigated the risks associated with deploying a hydrogen system that could support bus operations and be utilized during an emergency to ensure continued operation of the airport. This will be a key innovation for the deployment of hydrogen systems at airports. Utilizing the unique benefits of hydrogen infrastructure for multiple roles will aid adopters in justifying new projects and serve to demonstrate the versatility of hydrogen as an energy-carrier to a wider market.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2023

HUMAN-ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TEAMING FOR THE U.S. NAVY: DEVELOPING A HOLISTIC RESEARCH ROADMAP

With the ever-increasing deluge of data and demand for warfighters to make decisions upon its analysis, U.S. defense strategy has prioritized the development of artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) systems that can analyze multi-source data streams and suggest courses of action. However, there is a history of systems that have failed to be adopted by the warfighter due not only to unsolved technical challenges, but also a lack of usability or contributions to mission effectiveness, perceived or otherwise. To avoid this, research into human-AI teaming shows promise for developing AI systems that work with frontline operators. A recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report (NASEM, 2022) presented 57 research objectives in this area; however, the U.S. Navy requires a more-focused set of priorities, as it is impossible to tackle every priority. A workshop involving 23 human factors scientists, computer scientists, and active-duty sailors was organized at the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, resulting in a set of five research priorities spanning near-, mid-, and far-term time frames. This panel will summarize the results of this workshop, with a focus on the big questions both going into this workshop and coming out of it. The panel participants come from government, academia, and industry, providing perspective from the different kinds of organizations required to accomplish these research goals.

Wong, Jason↗
DOE OSTI2023

Final Design of the Material Plasma Exposure eXperiment

The Material Plasma Exposure eXperiment (MPEX) has completed its design phase. MPEX will be a unique facility to investigate plasma material interactions (PMIs) under fusion prototypic divertor conditions in steady state. This includes plasma exposure conditions expected in a fusion reactor divertor. Materials to be investigated will include solids, liquids, and neutron pre-irradiated materials. Electron and ion heating will allow for a large operational domain ranging from erosion-dominated PMI conditions to deposition-dominated PMI conditions. An overview of the final design for all MPEX systems is given. Here, in particular, it is shown how mission-driven project requirements have led to detailed design choices with innovative solutions. Examples are the water-cooled helicon window, the electron cyclotron heating launcher, the target holder and manipulator, and the autonomous decouplers.

Fusion reactor↗
DOE OSTI2021

Deployable Wind-Hybrid Power Systems for Defense and Disaster Response Applications

This report presents an analysis of the performance of deployable energy systems comprised of wind energy systems integrated with diesel generators, photovoltaic systems, and battery storage to meet the load requirements of a representative U.S. Army forward operating base. The analysis is conducted using HOMER, a microgrid analysis software that can search through a wide range of parameters to design and optimize microgrid power systems. The search parameters include the system architecture, the wind and solar resources, and the availability of diesel fuel. The results of the analysis measure the relative performance of the different systems and environments in terms of the overall transportation cost to deploy the system and the ability to provide resilience in terms of meeting mission critical loads.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2022

Berkeley Lab 2021 Annual Financial Report

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) continued to successfully operate during the ongoing COVID pandemic, providing world-class science facilities to both researchers and scientific users in its five national user facilities. The dedication and commitment of the Lab community to continuing the Lab’s mission has been unparalleled during this difficult time. Due to the diligence of the Lab’s Operations teams and each person who came on site, the Lab was able to safely operate these facilities. In December, the Lab received its annual appraisal from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The Lab received “A” grades for each of the performance goals which include mission accomplishment, leadership, health and safety, security and emergency management, business systems, and facilities. The University of California manages the Lab on behalf of the DOE.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Magnetostrictive materials for enhanced sensors and electronic components

Magnetostriction is a property of magnetic materials that causes them to change their shape or dimensions when their magnetization changes. Low-cost, mechanically robust magnetostrictive sensors would be valuable for a wide range of applications addressing DOE's energy, environmental, and national security missions. Several examples include monitoring internal conditions of pipelines, enhancing implantable systems for the human body, and improving the electrical grid by providing real time sensors for detecting high impedance faults that may act as ignition sources for forest fires. Historically, magnetostrictive materials tended to be expensive and mechanically brittle, but recent developments in iron-based alloys, especially those that include dilute solutions of rare earth elements, have demonstrated useful magnetostriction values, mechanical robustness, and low costs. This project investigated addition of dilute cerium doping on the magnetostrictive properties of Fe-Ga and Fe-Al alloys. Advanced manufacturing techniques were applied to these materials to take advantage of rapid cooling of the alloy to stabilize desired phases and to make near net shape coupons. These coupons develop significant texturing, offering a route to target microstructures with exceptional performance.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Streaming Analytics for Anomaly Detection in Large-Scale Data

Anomalous behavior poses serious risks to assured performance and reliability of complex, high-consequence systems. For spaceborne assets and their state-of-health (SOH) telemetry, the challenges of high-dimensional data of varying data types are compounded by computational limitations from size, weight, and power (SWaP) constraints as well as data availability. Automated anomaly detection methods tend to perform poorly under these constraints, while current operational approaches can introduce delays in response time due to the manual, retrospective processes for understanding system failures. As a result, presently deployed space systems, and those deployed in the near future, face situations where mission operations might be delayed or only be able to operate under degraded capabilities. Here, we examine a near-term lightweight solution that provides real-time detection capabilities for rare events and assess state-of-the-art anomaly detection techniques against real SOH telemetry from space platforms. This report describes our methodology and research, which could support more automated capabilities for comprehensive space operations as well as for other resource-constrained edge applications.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Two Planets Straddling the Habitable Zone of the Nearby K Dwarf Gl 414A

We present the discovery of two planets orbiting the nearby (D = 11.9 pc) K7 dwarf Gl 414A. Gl 414A b is a sub-Neptune mass planet with M{sub b}sini{sub b}=7.60{sub −2.19}{sup +2.44} M {sub ⊕} and a semimajor axis of 0.23 ± 0.01 au. Gl 414A c is a sub-Saturn mass planet with M{sub c}sini{sub c}=53.83{sub −8.58}{sup +9.18} M {sub ⊕} and a semimajor axis of 1.43 ± 0.06 au. We jointly analyzed radial velocity data from Keck/HIRES and the Automated Planet Finder at Lick Observatory, as well as photometric data from KELT, to detect the two planets and two additional signals related to the rotationally modulated activity and the long-term magnetic activity cycle of the star. The outer planet in this system may be a potential candidate for future direct-imaging missions.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2020

On the Road to Achieving Safety Excellence at the Idaho Cleanup Project: The Initial Challenges, Solutions, and Positive Results of Striving to be the Best and Safest in the DOE Complex - 20518

When Fluor Idaho, LLC (Fluor Idaho) assumed the Idaho Cleanup Project Core contract (ICP Core) in mid-2016, it inherited the successful multi-faceted, employee-owned safety programs of two prior contractors supporting cleanup operations at the Idaho National Laboratory Site. Fluor Idaho incorporated the best of both safety programs along with Fluor Corporate's 106-year legacy of safety initiatives and successes. Fluor Idaho integrated the separate programs and cultures under a One Fluor approach - one project, one mission, One Fluor. Job changes, management changes, and procedures, processes, and system changes presented multiple challenges. Those challenges combined with the severe Winter of 2016/2017 resulted in numerous slips, trips, and falls first aids and reportable injuries. The road to safety excellence started off bumpy and stayed that way for some time. Since then, Fluor Idaho has successfully implemented several key initiatives including employee engagement; management engagement and time in the field; communications improvements; safety culture sustainment; injury/illness prevention; organizational learning; and DOE Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) readiness and preparation. Management became more engaged by making more workplace visits and increasing their supervision of 'life critical work' or complex activities. Additional training became mandatory for first-line supervisors and front-line workers. Most recently, Fluor Idaho increased its injury and illness prevention initiatives extensively. In the last year, things have turned around in a dramatic way. This shift is directly attributable to the significant number of initiatives launched in late 2017 and 2018. These initiatives addressed safety performance in the five key areas of the DOE VPP and promoted sustainability of the company's safety culture. The five key areas are: management leadership, employee involvement, work-site analysis, hazard prevention and control, and safety and health training. Employees and managers alike recommitted to making safety the highest value. The result of this laser-like focus on safety and accident and injury prevention is that injuries and first aids are a fraction of what they were. During FY 2019, employees worked more than 4.2 million hours without a serious injury or lost work-day and 1 million hours without a recordable injury. Fluor Idaho is proud of its safety trend. The company invested significant resources in improving its safety record, and that investment is paying off. Other contractors in the DOE Complex can learn and benefit from this discussion of the challenges Fluor Idaho faced, as well as its innovative safety initiatives that are producing results that are being recognized by our U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) customer. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2026

FY27 Annual LDRD Call for Proposals - external release

Proposals are now being accepted for the fiscal year 2027 (FY-27) Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) call, the FY-27 Annual LDRD Call for Proposals. Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has renewed its research and development (R&D) portfolio to align with its strategy, and this call seeks high-quality proposals that address these renewed research priorities. The LDRD Office encourages proposals that offer the potential to achieve breakthroughs in the three science and technology (S&T) strategic initiatives: • Unleashing America’s Energy Abundance: Enabling the Quadrupling of Nuclear Power by 2050; • Securing America’s Future by Developing Domestic Supply Chains for Critical and Strategic Minerals and Materials (CSMM); and • Delivering Critical National Security Technology. Proposals that support INL’s four strategic thrust areas are also encouraged: • Enabling Future Fusion Energy Systems; • Delivering Small Nuclear Reactor Technology for Space Exploration and Defense Missions; • Accelerating Technologies for Hybrid Energy and Nuclear Applications; and • Securing America’s Energy Future Through Artificial Intelligence (AI).

99 - GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2022

SMART Subsea Cables for Observing the Earth and Ocean, Mitigating Environmental Hazards, and Supporting the Blue Economy

The Joint Task Force, Science Monitoring And Reliable Telecommunications (JTF SMART) Subsea Cables, is working to integrate environmental sensors for ocean bottom temperature, pressure, and seismic acceleration into submarine telecommunications cables. The purpose of SMART Cables is to support climate and ocean observation, sea level monitoring, observations of Earth structure, and tsunami and earthquake early warning and disaster risk reduction, including hazard quantification. Recent advances include regional SMART pilot systems that are the first steps to trans-ocean and global implementation. Examples of pilots include: InSEA wet demonstration project off Sicily at the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory Western Ionian Facility; New Caledonia and Vanuatu; French Polynesia Natitua South system connecting Tahiti to Tubaui to the south; Indonesia starting with short pilot systems working toward systems for the Sumatra-Java megathrust zone; and the CAM-2 ring system connecting Lisbon, Azores, and Madeira. This paper describes observing system simulations for these and other regions. Funding reflects a blend of government, development bank, philanthropic foundation, and commercial contributions. In addition to notable scientific and societal benefits, the telecommunications enterprise’s mission of global connectivity will benefit directly, as environmental awareness improves both the integrity of individual cable systems as well as the resilience of the overall global communications network. SMART cables support the outcomes of a predicted, safe, and transparent ocean as envisioned by the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and the Blue Economy. As a continuation of the OceanObs’19 conference and community white paper (Howe et al., 2019, 10.3389/fmars.2019.00424), an overview of the SMART programme and a description of the status of ongoing projects are given.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Position Papers for Inverse Methods for Complex Systems under Uncertainty Workshop

The ability to solve inverse problems – inferring unknown parameters, structures, or states of a system from observed data – is essential for advancing scientific discovery and innovation capabilities for the DOE mission. Basic research needs and challenges are particularly acute in emerging areas such as the interactive, data-driven, modeling and simulation of digital twins; decision support for experiments at DOE scientific user facilities; and for other complex systems and workflows. Inverse problems are at the heart of understanding and controlling complex systems due to factors such as observational data with varying modalities and fidelities, inherent uncertainties in physical measurements and numerical models, and the computational demands of rapid and high-fidelity simulations. The convergence of recent scientific computing trends – scientific machine learning, artificial intelligence, and computing advances such as exascale computing – is creating unprecedented opportunities. These advancements offer the potential to revolutionize how we approach inverse problems to extract actionable insights with the required level of accuracy and computational efficiency. This workshop and the Call for Position Papers are vital steps in bringing together experts to collectively explore and identify the new computational and mathematical directions needed in inverse methods for complex systems under uncertainty.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Kilopower - Powering the Future of Space Exploration [Poster]

The Kilopower Project was initiated by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate to demonstrate subsystem-level technology readiness of small space fission power in a relevant environment (TRL 5) for space science and human exploration power needs. The Kilopower Project centerpiece is the Kilowatt Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY) test, which consists of the development and testing of a ground technology demonstrator of a 1 kWe class fission power system. The technologies to be developed and validated by KRUSTY are extensible to space fission power systems from 1 to 10 kWe, which can enable modular surface fission power systems for human exploration, as well as higher power future potential deep space science missions.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2026

NASA’s Pandora SmallSat Mission: Simulated Modeling and Retrieval of Near-infrared Exoplanet Transmission Spectra

Pandora is a SmallSat mission dedicated to understanding exoplanets and their host stars by disentangling the impact of stellar heterogeneity on exoplanet transmission spectra. Selected as a NASA Astrophysics Pioneers mission in 2021, Pandora will provide simultaneous long-term visible photometric monitoring (0.4–0.7 μm) and low-resolution near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy (0.9–1.6 μm) of transiting systems for the purposes of monitoring host star variability and characterizing exoplanetary atmospheres. Pandora’s year-long prime mission from 2026 to 2027 coincides with the middle of a decade defined by targeted efforts for atmospheric characterization of exoplanets, offering a key opportunity to leverage this new resource to maximize science with JWST and other observatories. Here we investigate Pandora’s anticipated performance for the general exoplanet population accessible to transit spectroscopy, from hot Jupiters to temperate sub-Neptunes. By modeling the atmospheres of five test cases broadly consistent with the bulk properties of HD 209458b, HD 189733b, WASP-80 b, HAT-P-18 b, and K2-18 b, we find that Pandora may provide abundance constraints as precise as ∼1.0 dex for main atmospheric absorbers such as H 2 O and CH 4 . Then, we explore the synergies between Pandora and JWST. Our results suggest that targets with JWST data in the NIR can benefit from the addition of Pandora observations and result in more reliable abundance estimates than with JWST data alone. Moreover, Pandora can serve the community by providing precursory observations of targets of interest for JWST atmospheric characterization. We conclude by outlining strategies for the use of Pandora as a standalone observatory and in synergy with JWST.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Validating a Dynamic PWR Safety and Security Model?

Nuclear power plants (NPPs) are assessed for safety and security using separate models that cannot capture how an attacker's decisions and a plant's response unfold together in real time, leaving regulators and operators without a complete picture of true plant vulnerability. Traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) methods treat adversarial events as fixed initiators with predetermined outcomes, and are structurally incapable of representing the time-dependent interplay between physical security events, safety system response, and operator mitigative actions. At Idaho National Laboratory (INL), I contributed to the development and validation of Modeling and Analysis for Safety and Security using the Dynamic EMRALD Framework (MASS-DEF). Where static PRA relies on event-tree logic that cannot evolve mid-scenario, MASS-DEF couples a time-dependent dynamic PRA tool EMRALD (Event Modeling Risk Assessment using Linked Diagrams) with attack simulation software, allowing attacker behavior, plant system states, and operator actions to interact across time. My work focused on validating a general Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) model. I traced model logic against PWR plant to identified errors in logic and confirm accuracy. I then built and tested attack scenarios against a general PWR model to verify that the model produced expected outcomes across all logical pathways. I also contributed a section to a related technical paper applying the same EMRALD platform to radiation dose modeling. Results show that MASS-DEF can quantitatively demonstrate that many plants exceed their regulatory security thresholds. This demonstrated margin provides a technically defensible basis for reducing the number of guards without compromising regulatory compliance. Physical security costs represent roughly 10% of annual operating budgets, making such reductions directly meaningful to INL's mission of sustaining existing commercial NPPs. This internship strengthened my understanding of nuclear systems, probabilistic modeling, and technical writing, and has solidified my pursuit of a career at a national laboratory.

98 - NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL↗
DOE OSTI2025

2025 Workshop on Envisioning Frontiers in AI and Computing for Biological Research: Position Papers

This workshop aims to identify key research directions for transforming biology using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and computational methods to facilitate the discovery of new behaviors, mechanisms, and designs of biological processes relevant to DOE missions, underpinning a broader U.S. bioeconomy. By developing novel AI/ML technologies to analyze and interpret complex biological data, researchers can organize and simulate biological processes at various scales as well as advance predictive understanding and manipulation of biological systems. This integration of computation, experimentation, and next-generation experimental technologies can lead to discoveries in new biological behaviors and mechanisms relevant to DOE missions. The focus is on how advanced computational and mathematical methods can impact this mission by exploring digital twins, foundation models, automated laboratory experiments, modeling of complex living systems, and data-driven approaches for the biodesign of plants and microbial systems. While data management is important, it is not the primary focus of this workshop, which will assess the current state, trends, and AI/ML challenges at the interface between biology and computational science to identify opportunities for high-impact research at their intersection. The goal is to define research needs and opportunities that align with biological sciences, computational sciences, and applied mathematics research.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Machine Learning Modeling Pipeline for Extracting Nuclear Proliferation Events of Interest from Open Data Sources (U)

In FY2020, the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and the Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University entered a collaboration funded by Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development. The project’s mission was to take the first steps toward developing a demonstration prototype system that uses multiple machine learning and data analytics methods on largescale open data sources to identify new, developing, and/or undeclared nuclear programs. Given the SRNL team’s on-site perspective of events culminating in the DOE’s decision to pursue the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF), the team targeted the identification of events and indicators in retrospective datasets that pointed to the activity of “fissile core fabrication at the Savannah River Site” prior to the official announcement in May of 2018. A preliminary modeling pipeline was developed in FY20 that showed the datasets contained adequate signal for continuation of efforts. In FY21, a modular demonstration prototype modeling pipeline has continued in development for two text-based data sources: a broad internet archive (Webhose Ltd.) and a decahose Twitter database (i.e., a global sampling of one in every ten Tweets). The techniques that have been developed rely on graph theory and anomaly detection to identify contextual shifts in key words and phrases at various points in time such that indicators of events of interest could be identified and subsequently, events could be extracted from the corpuses. The foundational concept behind the approaches is that contextual shifts in key words and phrases can act as indicators of events of interest. Both datasets have proven successful in extracting events of interest related to pit production at the Savannah River Site prior to the official announcement. In addition, the pipelines have generated a wide range of events broadly summarized as: the awarding of DOE contracts at major sites, DOE investments in various programs, accidents at DOE national laboratories, speculations about the fate of pit production in the DOE complex, domestic and international shipments and receipts of nuclear materials at DOE sites, termination of non-proliferation agreements with Russia, termination of MOX, new weapons development approvals/testing, nuclear posture reviews, major DOE cleanup/production milestones, political opinions, and nuclear watch groups’ opinions, among many others.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗