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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

Cold ion beam in a storage ring as a platform for large-scale quantum computers and simulators: Challenges and directions for research and development

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the possibility of constructing a large-scale storage-ring-type ion-trap system capable of storing, cooling, and controlling a large number of ions as a platform for scalable quantum computing (QC) and quantum simulations. In such a trap, the ions form a crystalline beam moving along a circular path with a constant velocity determined by the frequency and intensity of the cooling lasers. In this paper, we consider a large leap forward in terms of the number of ions that serve as qubits in QC, from fewer than 100 available in state of the art linear ion-trap devices today to an order of 10 5 crystallized ions in the storage-ring setup. This new trap design unifies two different concepts: the storage rings of charged particles and the linear ion traps used for QC and mass spectrometry. In this paper, we use the language of particle accelerators to discuss the ion state and dynamics. We outline the differences between the above concepts, analyze challenges of the large ring with a revolving chain of ions, and propose goals for the research and development required to enable future quantum computers with 1000 times more qubits than available today. The challenge of creating such a large-scale quantum system while maintaining the necessary coherence of the qubits and the high fidelity of quantum logic operations is significant. Performing analog quantum simulations may be an achievable initial goal for such a device. Quantum calculations and simulations of complex quantum systems will move forward both the fundamental science and the applied research. Nuclear and particle physics, many-body quantum systems, lattice gauge theories, and nuclear structure calculations are just a few examples in which a large-scale quantum simulation system will become a very powerful tool to move forward our understanding of nature.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

High-Throughput Data Processing at FRIB Using ESnet

Real-time or nearly real-time (nearline) data processing methods are critical tools as detector technologies and data acquisition (DAQ) systems allow for higher data rates and volumes. The introduction of the energy sciences network (ESnet), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) supported high-speed network for scientific research, creates opportunities to leverage the computing power of DOE facilities like the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC). As a first step toward realizing a DOE Office of Science Integrated Research Infrastructure (IRI) pattern, an automated workflow was developed to remotely process data obtained from a nuclear physics experiment at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at NERSC with data transferred between FRIB and NERSC over ESnet. The workflow demonstrated the ability to process one week’s worth of experimental data in approximately 90 min and was used successfully for nearline analysis during a recently completed FRIB experiment. Here, a summary of the workflow development and results of recent demonstrations will be presented.

Data processing↗

Role of Computational Parameters on Predicting Self-Consistent Residual Stress and Distortion during Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing

Production of three-dimensional metallic parts through integration of an articulated robot and gas metal arc welding, also known as wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), can produce large-scale components with moderate geometrical complexity. This technology is particularly appealing due to its high deposition rates, scalability, and cost-effective feedstock compared to other AM processes. Despite its advantages, WAAM adoption is hindered by challenges in ensuring geometric conformity without extensive distortion, defect-free structures, and consistent mechanical properties. Finite element analysis (FEA) is often used to address the challenge of geometrical conformity. As the size of parts increases, the best practices for mesh size and temporal resolution known in the literature become computationally unviable. This research examined the effects of mesh and time-step resolutions during transient FEA of a large-scale (248 layers) metallic part. The impact of computational parameters on the thermal history, displacement, and residual stress distributions were evaluated. The results showed that predicted distortion was consistent across resolutions, while time-step length significantly affected predicted thermal history, and mesh size influenced residual stress distributions. To investigate this relationship further, directionally biased meshes were considered and analyzed. The results indicated that increasing mesh resolution perpendicular to the welding path yielded stress predictions that aligned closely with higher-resolution models while offering substantial computational savings. In conclusion, the significances of this research are related to verification and validation of WAAM models for widespread industrial adoption and pragmatic guidelines for optimizing computation parameters for balancing computational efficiency and predictive accuracy of residual stress and distortion.

Solsbee, Brandon [Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, T↗

Quantitative Bioluminescence Tomography-Guided Conformal Irradiation for Preclinical Radiation Research

Widely used cone beam computed tomography (CBCT)-guided irradiators in preclinical radiation research are limited to localize soft tissue target because of low imaging contrast. Knowledge of target volume is a fundamental need for radiation therapy (RT). Without such information to guide radiation, normal tissue can be overirradiated, introducing experimental uncertainties. This led us to develop high-contrast quantitative bioluminescence tomography (QBLT) for guidance. The use of a 3-dimensional bioluminescence signal, related to cell viability, for preclinical radiation research is one step toward biology-guided RT.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

MaTableGPT: GPT‐Based Table Data Extractor from Materials Science Literature

Abstract Efficiently extracting data from tables in the scientific literature is pivotal for building large‐scale databases. However, the tables reported in materials science papers exist in highly diverse forms; thus, rule‐based extractions are an ineffective approach. To overcome this challenge, the study presents MaTableGPT, which is a GPT‐based table data extractor from the materials science literature. MaTableGPT features key strategies of table data representation and table splitting for better GPT comprehension and filtering hallucinated information through follow‐up questions. When applied to a vast volume of water splitting catalysis literature, MaTableGPT achieves an extraction accuracy (total F1 score) of up to 96.8%. Through comprehensive evaluations of the GPT usage cost, labeling cost, and extraction accuracy for the learning methods of zero‐shot, few‐shot, and fine‐tuning, the study presents a Pareto‐front mapping where the few‐shot learning method is found to be the most balanced solution owing to both its high extraction accuracy (total F1 score >95%) and low cost (GPT usage cost of 5.97 US dollars and labeling cost of 10 I/O paired examples). The statistical analyses conducted on the database generated by MaTableGPT revealed valuable insights into the distribution of the overpotential and elemental utilization across the reported catalysts in the water splitting literature.

Yi, Gyeong Hoon [Computational Science Research Ce↗

Secure API-Driven Research Automation to Accelerate Scientific Discovery

The Secure Scientific Service Mesh (S3M) provides API-driven infrastructure to accelerate scientific discovery through automated research workflows. By integrating near real-time streaming capabilities, intelligent workflow orchestration, and fine-grained authorization within a service mesh architecture, S3M enables secure and flexible programmatic access to high performance computing (HPC) resources. This framework allows intelligent agents and experimental facilities to dynamically provision resources and execute complex workflows, accelerating experimental lifecycles, and enabling AI-augmented autonomous science. S3M establishes a modern foundation for scientific computing infrastructure that significantly reduces traditional barriers between researchers, computational resources, and experimental facilities.

Skluzacek, Tyler [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000322424931)↗

Nuclear Science User Facilities High Performance Computing: Provide a Science Gateway for HPC Users

Idaho National Laboratory (INL), supported by the Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) through the Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF), provides direct access to the Barracuda Virtual Reactor and 18 Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) applications via a web-based science gateway developed using Open Ondemand on the INL high performance computing (HPC) systems. This gateway features the computational tools of the Nuclear Computational Resource Center (NCRC) and the computing resources of the INL high performance computing systems. These computational tools are a key foundation of collaboration and innovation in nuclear energy systems research. High performance computing resources and INL staff directly support the mission and objectives of DOE-NE. The Barracuda Virtual Reactor was the first science gateway deployed in Jan 2021 to support NSUF users. In July 2021, the science gateway was expanded to support access to NCRC codes for use across all supported INL HPC systems. The HPC science gateway currently supports 20 total applications. The gateway also includes access to training resources specific to NCRC tools.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Introduction: Neuromorphic Materials

The explosive growth in data collection and the need to process it efficiently, as well as the desire to automate increasingly complex tasks in transportation, medical care, manufacturing, security and many other fields have motivated a growing interest in neuromorphic computing. Unlike the binary, transistorbased ON/OFF logic gates and separate logic and memory functionalities employed in digital computing, neuromorphic computing is inspired by animal brains that use interconnected synapses and neurons to perform processing, storage and transmission of information at the same location, while only consuming ~20 W or less of power. Motivated by the brain’s efficiency, adaptability, self-learning and resiliency qualities, neuromorphic computing can be broadly defined as an approach to processing and storing information using hardware and algorithms inspired by models of biological neural systems. Present research in neuromorphic computing encompasses approaches that vary significantly in their degree of neuro-inspiration, from systems that only incorporate features such as asynchronous, event-driven operation or use crossbar arrays of non-volatile memory (NVM) elements to accelerate deep neural networks (DNNs), to designs that embrace the extreme parallelism, sparsity, reconfigurability, adaptability, complexity and stochasticity observed in nervous systems. The term ‘neuromorphic’ computing is often credited to Carver Mead, who in the 1980s investigated Si-based analog electronics to replicate functions of the animal retina. Earlier important advances in this field include the work of Frank Rosenblatt, who proposed the concept of the perceptron, Bernard Widrow, who used this concept to build one of the first analog neural networks, the Adaline and many other researchers (see ref. 6 for an historical perspective on neuromorphic computing). With the recent increase in the use of artificial intelligence and large language models, and rising concerns over the associated energy costs, interest in neuromorphic hardware has expanded rapidly. According to some estimates, driven largely by the drastic growth in the training use of artificial intelligence (AI) models using the current computing architectures, the energy cost of computing is projected to reach the energy supply worldwide by 2045. Furthermore, while this is not a realistic outcome, it means that, if more efficient computing technologies are not developed -- soon -- the world will soon become one where demand for energy and market constraints limit the continued increase of societal access to AI and cloud services from data centers. Data centers used for training and use of these models consume hundreds of terawatt hours of electricity, already past 4% of the US electricity demand.

Circuits↗

Adaptive Computing and Multi-Fidelity Strategies for Control, Design and Scale-Up of Renewable Energy Applications

We describe our ongoing research in adaptive computing and multi-fidelity modeling strategies. Our goal is to use a combination of low- and high-fidelity simulation models to enable computationally efficient optimization and uncertainty quantification. We develop optimization formulations that take into account the compute resources currently available, which act as a constraint with regards to the fidelity level simulation we can run while maximizing information gain. These strategies are being implemented into a software framework with a generalized API allowing its application to a broad range of applications, from power grid stability and buildings control to material synthesis and biofuels processing. We will discuss a few examples from these applications that can benefit from this approach, especially when considering challenges arising in scaling up experiments and simulations.

adaptive computing↗

Better together: Elements of successful scientific software development in a distributed collaborative community

Many scientific disciplines rely on computational methods for data analysis, model generation, and prediction. Implementing these methods is often accomplished by researchers with domain expertise but without formal training in software engineering or computer science. This arrangement has led to underappreciation of sustainability and maintainability of scientific software tools developed in academic environments. Some software tools have avoided this fate, including the scientific library Rosetta. We use this software and its community as a case study to show how modern software development can be accomplished successfully, irrespective of subject area. Rosetta is one of the largest software suites for macromolecular modeling, with 3.1 million lines of code and many state-of-the-art applications. Since the mid 1990s, the software has been developed collaboratively by the RosettaCommons, a community of academics from over 60 institutions worldwide with diverse backgrounds including chemistry, biology, physiology, physics, engineering, mathematics, and computer science. Developing this software suite has provided us with more than two decades of experience in how to effectively develop advanced scientific software in a global community with hundreds of contributors. Here we illustrate the functioning of this development community by addressing technical aspects (like version control, testing, and maintenance), community-building strategies, diversity efforts, software dissemination, and user support. We demonstrate how modern computational research can thrive in a distributed collaborative community. The practices described here are independent of subject area and can be readily adopted by other software development communities

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

NeuroCoreX: Brain-Inspired Computing from Code to Circuit

NeuroCoreX is an open-source codebase that enables the implementation of brain-inspired, energy-efficient neuromorphic computing models on FPGA hardware. Designed to support real-time learning, all-to-all neural connectivity, and flexible network architectures, NeuroCoreX offers a hands-on, accessible platform for exploring biologically inspired models of neural computation. It empowers researchers, students, and developers to implement and experiment with adaptive systems—bringing the power of neuromorphic computing to a broader community through a low-cost, scalable, and reconfigurable framework.

Gautam, Ashish [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORN↗

SPARTAN (Scalable Probabilistic Application Reconfigurable Tensor Autonomous Network)

The technical founder of Ludwig Computing Inc has been competitively selected for support by Cyclotron Road, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program (LEEP) through an approved merit review process. Ludwig Computing Inc, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Manufacturing Office through the Cyclotron Road program, has investigated the advantages of probabilistic computing for real-world compute-intensive applications. This research adds to the understanding of alternative computing paradigms by exploring a unique hardware-software co-design that integrates quantum computing methods with nature-inspired problem-solving techniques. The project's focus on areas such as combinatorial optimization, graph analytics, and machine learning demonstrates the potential for significant advancements in computational efficiency and performance. By harnessing natural randomness to streamline large circuits into fewer devices, Ludwig's approach enables massive parallelism, potentially offering higher throughput, speed, and energy efficiency compared to conventional hardware solutions. This work benefits the public by paving the way for more efficient computing solutions that could address complex real-world problems while potentially reducing energy consumption in data-intensive industries.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Position Papers for the ASCR Workshop on the Science of Scientific-Software Development and Use

Software is an increasingly important component in the pursuit of scientific discovery. Both its development and use are essential activities for many scientific teams. At the same time, very little scientific study has been conducted to understand, characterize, and improve the development and use of software for science. Computational science teams have diversified over time to include contributions from domain scientists who provide expertise in scientific and engineering disciplines, applied mathematicians and computer scientists who provide optimal algorithms and data structures, and software and data engineers who provide methodologies and tools adapted and adopted from other software domains. These diverse contributions have enabled tremendous advances in the pursuit of scientific discovery, even as models, computer architectures, and software environments have become more complicated. With this increasing diversity, we believe the next opportunity for qualitative improvement comes from applying the scientific method to understanding, characterizing, and improving how scientific software is developed and used. We believe that this pursuit requires expertise from computational scientists themselves, and from the cognitive and social sciences as well as the software engineering research community. As we look to increase the productivity and sustainability of the scientific-software-development-and-use cycle, a more systematic application of the scientific method to understand processes for software development and use will be a valuable tool to guide future work and result in more usable and sustainable software. This workshop will bring together computer scientists, software engineering researchers, computational scientists, applied mathematicians, social scientists, cognitive scientists, and others, to explore how we can conduct such systematic investigations, what can be learned, and how doing so will benefit the scientific enterprise. The workshop will be structured around a set of breakout sessions, with every attendee expected to participate actively in the discussions. Afterward, workshop attendees — from DOE, industry, and academia — will produce a report for ASCR that summarizes the findings of the workshop.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Rancor Integrated Procedure System (RIPS): A Computer-Based Procedure Platform for Advanced Reactor Research

The Rancor Microworld Simulator is a simplified, pressurized water, small modular reactor simulator that includes a multi-unit plant model server, an advanced digital human-machine control interface, and the Rancor Integrated Procedure System (RIPS). Rancor provides a research and development tool that can be used for collecting operator performance data and for prototyping concepts of operations (ConOps) for advanced reactor development. RIPS is meant as a research tool and includes many unique features: (1) RIPS has a robust procedure authoring system. (2) RIPS has the capability to run any of the three IEEE-Std-1786 computer-based procedure types. (3) RIPS can be configured to take on the look and feel of different vendors’ computer-based procedure systems for the purpose of developing and evaluating different ConOps for plant upgrades or new builds. (4) RIPS includes the capability for logging operator procedure use, including integrating procedure logs with Rancor simulator logs, thereby allowing automated data collection of operator scenario runs. (5) RIPS integrates with the Human Unimodel for Nuclear Technology to Enhance Reliability (HUNTER), a dynamic human reliability analysis environment that creates a digital human twin or virtual operator to mimic reactor operator performance. (6) RIPS includes support for automation of plant monitoring and control functions. While RIPS is explicitly built into Rancor, it may also be used with full-scope training simulators. This functionality allows RIPS to be used for existing plants and advanced reactors under development.

99 - GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Green Computing Catalyzer Kickoff: Green Artificial Intelligence (AI) Directions

For the 2022 JISEA annual meeting, JISEA introduces in this presentation the new Green Computing Catalyzer. The new catalyzer looks to establish green computing as a salient research domain at NREL, and crucially, to begin to address the looming computing energy crisis. The presentation provides some basic numbers, establishing energy use and source or carbon emissions for computing. The presentation also includes a brief history of green computing at NREL, empirical deep learning efficiency study, and research directions.

AI efficiency↗

Usable Data Abstractions for Next-Generation Scientific Workflows

Data- and computationally-intensive scientific research, such as numerical simulations and inversions or the training of large neural networks in machine learning applications, that are well suited for HPC environments also often require expert insight and evaluation throughout the computation which can be greatly facilitated with the use of interactive computing tools, such as those in the Jupyter ecosystem. HPC workflows and interactive workflows are typically treated as orthogonal, however, the next generation of research will require both. The first challenge we face in this project is thus designing the right level of abstractions to allow interactive capabilities in the JupyterLab environment to allow the working scientist to flexibly explore and query their data at multiple levels, with a minimal amount of customization required of the underlying optimized codes. In addition to these questions regarding the high-level representation of data for interactive use in HPC, we tackled two additional issues that are part of the entire lifecycle of research and that become particularly acute in HPC contexts: how to improve the experience of interfacing with the HPC system's scheduling environment for a scientist focused on exploratory questions, and how can that scientist then best share the results of their work with others in a self-contained, reproducible manner.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Thermodynamics of grain-boundary phases

The past decade has seen a significant increase in research efforts aimed at understanding the thermodynamics of low-dimensional phases existing in many materials systems, ranging from two-dimensional materials to core regions of extended defects in crystalline solids. We review the current status of theoretical, computational, and experimental research on the “defect phases,” focusing on grain boundaries (GBs) in elemental and multicomponent polycrystalline materials. After reviewing the generalized concept of a phase of any dimensionality, we discuss recent progress in atomistic computer simulations of GB phase transformations and phase coexistences, including the observation of one-dimensional defects separating GB phases (defects in defects). Computational predictions compare well with experimental observations of multiple GB phases and segregation-induced phase transformations. An intriguing open question of GB thermodynamics is whether the GB free energy can be driven to a zero value by increasing solute segregation. We review recent efforts to understand this ultimate thermodynamic stabilization of GB phases and the possible polycrystalline microstructures that may arise. An outlook for future research in the field is discussed.

Materials science↗