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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 307 records · Page 17

AmeriFlux FLUXNET-1F US-ALQ Allequash Creek Site

This is the AmeriFlux Management Project (AMP) created FLUXNET-1F version of the carbon flux data for the site US-ALQ Allequash Creek Site. This is the FLUXNET version of the carbon flux data for the site US-ALQ Allequash Creek Site produced by applying the standard ONEFlux (1F) software. Site Description - From Turner et al (2019): The 32 ha fen wetland is situated in Trout Lake Basin in northern WI (46.030759,−89.606730). It is part of the National Science Foundation’s North Temperate Lakes Long-Term Ecological Research (NTL-LTER) as formerly as part of the US Geological Survey’s Water, Energy and Biogeochemical Budgets Program (WEBB) Trout Lake site. The soil comprises outwash sand and gravel atop crystalline bedrock. Due to the glacial outwash, the soil is highly conductive and promotes groundwater discharge to the nearby creek. A headwater stream, Allequash Creek, flows from the southeast to the northwest through the fen. The eddy covariance flux tower is located along the stream which is surrounded by tree stands to the northeast and southwest that create a “valley” and cause channelized flow in the direction of the stream.

Desai, Ankur↗

2023 Radiation Detection for Nuclear Security Summer School (Summary Report)

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) hosted the 9th Radiation Detection for Nuclear Security Summer School 20-30 June 2023 in Richland, WA. The school provided students with an understanding of nuclear security challenges faced in the field and exposed them to the technical foundations and insight needed to contribute to this applied research and development area.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Mathematical methods for optimal polynomial recovery of high-dimensional systems from noisy data

The goal of our Early Career Research Project (ECRP) is to establish a modern mathematical foundation that will enable next-generation computational methods for polynomial approximation of high-dimensional systems, having a certain set of constraints, from a limited amount of noisy data. Such a foundation is critical to realizing the future potential of the DOE user facilities, and will ultimately empower scientists to address a fundamental question, namely, “how many realizations of a nonlinear manifold are required to recover the entire high-dimensional solution map, with optimal approximation guarantees and minimal computational cost?” The central theme of this effort aims to conquer this challenge by pioneering the development of extraordinarily innovative theoretical analysis and transformational non-intrusive computational methodologies. Such approaches will enable the reconstruction of the entire high-dimensional solution map, with accuracy comparable to the best approximation, while utilizing an optimal number of samples. During this reporting period we have made significant progress on four thrusts.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Singlet Fission

This report summarizes key findings from DOE Award DE‑SC0007004 – Singlet Fission, documenting more than a decade of research led by Professor Josef Michl. The project advanced foundational understanding of singlet fission (SF) through integrated synthetic, spectroscopic, crystallographic, and computational studies. Across a diverse set of chromophores—including tetracenes, cibalackrot derivatives, BODIPY dimers, TDPPs, and fluorinated isobenzofurans—the team identified structural and packing features that enable or inhibit SF, clarified the roles of charge‑transfer intermediates and excimer formation, and developed simplified theoretical models and computational screening tools for predicting optimal geometries and excited‑state-energetics. The work significantly broadened design principles for SF‑active materials and provided insights relevant to next‑generation solar energy conversion and molecular photophysics.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

BLADE: An Automated Framework for Classifying Light Curves from the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies Fireball Database

Fireballs (bolides) are high-energy luminous phenomena produced when meteoroids and small asteroids enter Earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic speeds, often resulting in fragmentation or complete disintegration accompanied by significant energy release. The resulting bolide light curves capture temporal brightness variations as these objects traverse increasingly dense atmospheric layers, providing essential information on meteoroid entry dynamics, fragmentation behavior, and atmospheric energy deposition processes. The Center for Near-Earth Object Studies’ (CNEOS) continuously expanding fireball database offers a globally comprehensive archive of bolide events, including light curves and associated metadata. Events associated with infrasound detections allow direct correlations between acoustic signatures and light curve features, therefore enabling detailed analyses of fragmentation dynamics and energy deposition. Here, we introduce Bolide Light-curve Analysis and Discrimination Explorer (BLADE), a robust and high-fidelity framework specifically designed to analyze bolide light curves for objects detected from space. BLADE incorporates a processing pipeline integrating Savitzky–Golay filtering, prominence-based peak detection, and gradient analysis, enabling systematic identification and classification of fragmentation events and their associated energy release characteristics. Preliminary results demonstrate that BLADE reliably distinguishes distinct bolide behaviors, providing an objective, scalable methodology for characterization and analysis of large bolide light curve data sets. This foundational work establishes a novel pathway for advanced bolide research, with promising applications in planetary defense and global atmospheric monitoring. Future research should adopt an integrative approach combining CNEOS optical data with complementary infrasound measurements, further clarifying relationships between bolide energy deposition and acoustic signatures, thus refining our understanding of meteoroid and asteroid atmospheric entry processes.

Asteroids↗

Zero-Export Feeder Through Transactive Markets

This presentation summarizes how HELICS was used during a collaborative project with Energy Web Foundation and Exelon Corporation. The primary focus of the research was on designing a transactive energy market to accomplish zero export at the feeder head. The market was tested in a HELICS co-simulation framework and showed significant promise for eliminating back feed at the substation even under high renewable energy penetration levels.

blockchain↗

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↗

Involving the new generations in Fermilab endeavors

Since 1984 the Italian groups of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) and Italian Universities, collaborating with the DOE laboratory of Fermilab (US) have been running a two-month summer training program for Italian university students. While in the first year the program involved only four physics students of the University of Pisa, in the following years it was extended to engineering students. This extension was very successful and the engineering students have been since then extremely well accepted by the Fermilab Technical, Accelerator, and Scientific Computing Division groups. Over the many years of its existence, this program has proven to be the most effective way to engage new students in Fermilab endeavors. Many students have extended their collaboration with Fermilab with their Master’s Thesis and PhD. Since 2004 the program has been supported in part by DOE in the frame of an exchange agreement with INFN. Over its almost 40 years of history, the program has grown in scope and size and has involved more than 550 Italian students from more than 20 Italian Universities, Several Institutes of Research, including ASI and INAF in Italy, and the ISSNAF Foundation in the US, have provided additional financial support. Since the program does not exclude appropriately selected non-Italian students, a handful of students from European and non-European Universities were also accepted over the years. Each intern is supervised by a Fermilab Mentor responsible for performing the training program. Training programs spanned from Tevatron, CMS, Muon (g-2), Mu2e, and Short Baseline Neutrino Experiments and DUNE design and experimental data analysis, development of particle detectors (silicon trackers, calorimeters, drift chambers, neutrino and dark matter detectors), design of electronic and accelerator components, development of infrastructures and software for exascale data handling, research on superconductive elements and on accelerating cavities, and theory of particle accelerators. Since 2010, within an extended program supported by the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, a total of 30 students in physics, astrophysics, and engineering have been hosted for two months in the summer at US space science Research Institutes and laboratories. In 2015 the University of Pisa included these programs within its educational programs. Accordingly, Summer School students are enrolled at the University of Pisa for the duration of the internship and are identified and ensured as such. At the end of the internship, the students are required to write summary reports on their achievements. After positive evaluation by a University Examining Board, interns are acknowledged credits for their Diploma Supplement. The program was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic but restarted successfully in 2022. We believe this program can be taken as a model and easily adopted by interested institutions.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Tokenized Data for FORGE Foundation Models

This dataset comprises a vast corpus of 257 billion tokens, accompanied by the corresponding vocabulary file employed in the pre-training of FORGE foundation models. The primary data source for this corpus is scientific documents derived from diverse origins, and they have been tokenized using the Hugging Face BPE tokenizer. Further details about this research can be found in the publication titled FORGE: Pre-Training Open Foundation Models for Science authored by Junqi Yin, Sajal Dash, Feiyi Wang, and Mallikarjun (Arjun) Shankar, presented at SC'23. The data tokenization pipeline and resulting artifacts use CORE data [Ref: Knoth, P., and Zdrahal, Z. (2012). CORE: three access levels to underpin open access. D-Lib Magazine, 18(11/12)]. For use of these data sets for any purpose, please follow the guidelines provided in https://core.ac.uk/terms .

Yin, Junqi↗

Montana Community-Scale Solar Strategy Project (Final Technical Report)

Grid-tied solar photovoltaic (PV) development began gradually in Montana, initially taking root in the early 2000s, largely in the form of small residential systems, rarely larger than two kilowatts. Utility support for solar technology through public benefit funding triggered the installation of the state’s first solar PV installations on community-owned facilities including schools, libraries, fire stations and local government buildings in the mid-2000s. By 2016, solar PV installations totaled approximately 28 megawatts of installed capacity, generating less than 0.05% of electricity sold in Montana. Montana’s solar fleet in 2016 included 17 megawatts of utility-scale solar farms, and three shared solar projects developed by rural electric cooperatives that ranged from 25 to 50 kilowatts in size. However, with only 3,000 households utilizing solar PV, either through an on-site installation or participation in a shared solar project, the potential benefits and reach of solar technology was limited. The Montana Solar Community Project (MSCP) was developed by the Montana Energy Office (MEO) at the Department of Environmental Quality in order to implement a “community-scale” solar energy strategy for the state that would cost-effectively expand Montanans’ access to solar PV. This project defines three types of community-scale solar projects: shared solar, community-sited solar, and group purchasing programs. The MSCP project conducted research and stakeholder engagement that helped to inform and develop model community-scale initiatives and an overarching community-scale solar strategy for Montana. Specifically, the project included a solar market assessment, stakeholder meetings across Montana, development of a menu of community-scale solar options, a study of solar potential on schools, community solar market research, and community-scale project implementation support. MSCP activities were successful in implementing solar projects and supporting solar development in communities across Montana. Project activities realized 280 kW of newly installed solar from two solarize programs, a shared solar array at a rural electric cooperative, and a solar array atop a Bozeman high school. The community-scale project implementation support and Solar on Schools components of the project resulted directly in the analysis and design of nearly 2 MW of distributed solar systems across the state. The Solar on Schools analysis alone produced solar designs for 25 schools, representing 920.8 kW of solar potential. Many of the deliverables from this project provide guidance on future development of community-scale solar in Montana, and resulted in a number of important conclusions about community-scale solar in Montana. There is strong interest in community-scale solar in Montana, as noted during stakeholder meetings, in response to solar market research surveys, and as seen by applications for implementation support grants provided by MEO. Project activities also suggest that Montanans demonstrated a desire and need for more information about solar energy technology, solar financing options, and the state’s policy and regulatory framework. Additionally, the project found that schools will be key partners for future community-scale solar programs. In addition to being excellent hosts for solar arrays, schools have the opportunity to use the installation of a solar array to develop educational materials and curricula to educate Montana’s future leaders about these technologies, which can be shared and replicated across the state. Project activities laid a clear path forward for solar energy in Montana. Certain activities have concrete next steps. For example, numerous solar arrays were designed for schools and other public buildings around the state. Many of those designs will be used as soon as funding becomes available. Other activities have less developed next steps, though lay the foundation for future work. The solar market assessment, solar market research, and community stakeholder meetings are good examples. These documents can be used as stepping stones to increase renewable energy education, increase stakeholder outreach, and support communities as they seek to develop community-scale solar projects.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

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)↗

Observational Data for Next-Generation Climate Model Evaluation: Requirements, Considerations, and Best Practices

Climate model simulations are an important source of information about our planet’s climate system and also enable informed decision-making under different future scenarios. As a new archive of results from the next generation of climate models is anticipated to become available with the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 7 (CMIP7), the need to develop efficient and robust methods to evaluate models is paramount. Observations are an integral part of model evaluation, providing a means to quantify and understand the degree to which climate models can faithfully reproduce Earth system processes. Such analysis is critical for constraining climate projections, identifying areas of focus for model development, and assisting analysts in deciphering the utility of models for specific applications. Observations of Earth system come from a diversity of sources, span different space–time domains, and are produced by different communities, and each dataset features different data structures and formats, metadata standards, and its own unique uncertainties. Uncertainties in an observational dataset may stem from gaps in temporal and spatial coverage, instrumentation errors, or assumptions in retrieval and processing methods. How then does one ensure that observational data are ready for use and utilized in the most appropriate way for robust, rapid, and routine climate model evaluation? The CMIP7 Model Benchmarking Task Team with input from the broader climate modeling, model evaluation, and observational data communities present a vision and considerations for best practices toward the optimal and appropriate use of observational data to support next-generation climate model evaluation.

Climate models↗

Multi-Task with Procter and Gamble (CRADA No. NFE-10-02672)

The purpose of this Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between UT-Battelle, LLC (the “Contractor) and Procter & Gamble Company (the “Participant”) is the development of a research partnership to create new tools, tests and analytical methods to improve the performance, safety and/or environmental quality of chemicals, advanced materials, food products and manufacturing processes. The Participant operates in three global business units: Beauty, Health and Well-Being and Household Care. Some of its worldwide products include Head and Shoulders®, Pantene®, Gillette® razors and personal care products, Crest®, Dawn®, Tide®, Bounty®, Duracell® batteries; and Iams® pet food among others. At its core, however, the Participant is a science driven company. It supports one of the most robust industrial research and development (R&D) programs in the world. The Participant uses this rich foundation of science to drive innovation across all of its product lines. But the innovation process is not confined in-house The Participant pursues an “open innovation” policy, seeking partnerships with scientists and researchers in universities and national laboratories where it can contribute its extensive knowledge assets and collaborate to advance scientific understanding. The research under this multi-task CRADA was directed under the following general task areas and, throughout the duration of this CRADA the work statement was modified to match the needs of the Parties and the direction of the research. (1) Software modeling, simulation and development; (2) Manufacturing Technologies; (3) Supply Chain Optimization, (4) Advanced Materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Computational studies of impurity migration during induction stirring of molten uranium

Understanding and controlling impurity behavior in actinide metal casting processes are foundational for efficient part production yet remain major challenges for researchers and industry. To help provide insight regarding impurity distribution during actinide metal casting, we have developed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models for a laboratory-scale system using commercial and open-source code. Multiple simulation frameworks allow for improved confidence in the resulting outputs, while taking advantage of the maturity and convenience offered by commercial platforms and simultaneously maintaining the transparency and flexibility often provided by open-source software. Here, we describe multiple experiment-informed models designed to simulate a specific laboratory system in which uranium melt, containing a known starting concentration of carbon impurity, is electromagnetically stirred in an induction furnace. Here, the goal of the simulations is to predict the motion of uranium carbide microparticles in the velocity field of the melt. Prior to simulating the uranium-carbon system, numerical models were validated using a previously published nonradioactive experimental system. Effects of the size and shape of impurity particles in the models were investigated and agree with experimental findings. Simulation of smaller particles (< 50 µm) shows more homogenous distribution throughout the stirred melt. With increased particle size (100 µm), the body forces, which include the buoyancy force, dominate over the drag force, causing larger particles to move toward the crucible walls and upward in the system.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Multi‐Model Ensembles in Ecosystem Modeling: Challenges and Best Practices for Decision‐Making

Ecosystem models are increasingly central to the decision-making for environmental policy, conservation planning, and climate-related investments. Yet, the growing reliance on Multi-Model Ensembles (MMEs) of ecosystem models by practitioners and policymakers, sometimes under tight timelines and imperfect information, has frequently outpaced the scientific rigor required to ensure ensemble reliability. Here, MMEs refer to approaches that combine targeted predictions from multiple models with the expectation of improving robustness and quantifying predictive uncertainty. Poorly designed MMEs may create a false sense of confidence and lead to suboptimal policy and market decisions. This perspective argues that robust decision-making-relevant MMEs must be grounded on two pillars: (1) rigorous Model Intercomparison Projects (MIPs), which identify inter-model agreement and disagreement, characterize model uncertainties, and evaluate robustness with observationally based benchmarks—MIPs' diagnostic evaluation is so critical that it must be needed to drive MME's decision in model selection and weighting, especially when only a limited number of models available; and (2) co-design by both stakeholders and scientists to ensure that scenarios, metrics and uncertainty requirements provide decision-relevant information. Building upon the past success and lessons from the existing MIPs-MMEs efforts (e.g., climate/Earth system/crop), we derived the theoretical basis for MMEs, addressed their specific challenges in ecosystem modeling, and highlighted proper consideration of model numbers and diversity, risk of model inter-dependence, effective calibration of model parameters, possible overdue of some ecosystem model development, critical roles of open benchmark data across a wide range of conditions, and suggested use of Artificial Intelligence to support MIPs-MMEs. We highlighted the under-recognized opportunity for MIPs and MMEs to drive scientific progress and innovation through identifying better performing models, systematic benchmarking, feedback loops, and targeted model improvement. By following actionable best practice guidelines, MMEs can evolve from ad hoc aggregation of models into a trusted backbone of environmental policy and decision-making.

ecosystem modeling↗

COVID-19 Evidence Accelerator: A parallel analysis to describe the use of Hydroxychloroquine with or without Azithromycin among hospitalized COVID-19 patients

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic remains a significant global threat. However, despite urgent need, there remains uncertainty surrounding best practices for pharmaceutical interventions to treat COVID-19. In particular, conflicting evidence has emerged surrounding the use of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, alone or in combination, for COVID-19. The COVID-19 Evidence Accelerator convened by the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA, in collaboration with Friends of Cancer Research, assembled experts from the health systems research, regulatory science, data science, and epidemiology to participate in a large parallel analysis of different data sets to further explore the effectiveness of these treatments. Methods: Electronic health record (EHR) and claims data were extracted from seven separate databases. Parallel analyses were undertaken on data extracted from each source. Each analysis examined time to mortality in hospitalized patients treated with hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and the two in combination as compared to patients not treated with either drug. Cox proportional hazards models were used, and propensity score methods were undertaken to adjust for confounding. Frequencies of adverse events in each treatment group were also examined. Results: Neither hydroxychloroquine nor azithromycin, alone or in combination, were significantly associated with time to mortality among hospitalized COVID-19 patients. No treatment groups appeared to have an elevated risk of adverse events. Conclusion: Administration of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and their combination appeared to have no effect on time to mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Continued research is needed to clarify best practices surrounding treatment of COVID-19.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Residential Solar-Adopter Income and Demographic Trends: 2022 Update

The report describes income, demographic, and other socio-economic trends among U.S. residential rooftop solar adopters. The report is based on data for roughly 1.9 million residential rooftop solar systems installed through 2019, representing 82% of all U.S. systems. With its unique size, geographic scope, and level of detail, this report is intended to serve as a foundational reference document for policy-makers, industry stakeholders, and researchers. Key findings include the following: -Solar adopters generally skew towards higher incomes, though that trend continues to diminish over time. -Solar adopter incomes vary considerably and encompass many low-to-moderate income (LMI) households. -Solar-adopter incomes are consistently higher for systems paired with battery storage, for host-owned systems, and for systems installed on single-family homes. -Solar adopters differ from the broader U.S. population in terms of a variety of other demographic and socioeconomic measures. -State-level comparisons indicate that solar-adopters tend to live in neighborhoods with relatively high non-Hispanic White and Asian populations, and with relatively low Hispanic and Black populations.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Residential Solar-Adopter Income and Demographic Trends: 2021 Update [Slides]

The report describes income, demographic, and other socio-economic trends among U.S. residential rooftop solar adopters. The report is based on data for roughly 1.9 million residential rooftop solar systems installed through 2019, representing 82% of all U.S. systems. With its unique size, geographic scope, and level of detail, this report is intended to serve as a foundational reference document for policy-makers, industry stakeholders, and researchers. Key findings include the following: Solar adopters generally skew towards higher incomes, though that trend continues to diminish over time. Solar adopter incomes vary considerably and encompass many low-to-moderate income (LMI) households. Solar-adopter incomes are consistently higher for systems paired with battery storage, for host-owned systems, and for systems installed on single-family homes. Solar adopters differ from the broader U.S. population in terms of a variety of other demographic and socioeconomic measures. State-level comparisons indicate that solar-adopters tend to live in neighborhoods with relatively high non-Hispanic White and Asian populations, and with relatively low Hispanic and Black populations. In conjunction with the report, Berkeley Lab has published an updated accompanying set of online data visualizations that allow users to further explore the underlying data. Berkeley Lab is also offering related analytical support to states, local agencies, and other organizations on issues related to solar adoption among low-to-moderate income households.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗