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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 325 records · Page 18
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

Soil respiration and bacterial structure and function after 17 years of a reciprocal soil transplant experiment

The effects of climate change on soil organic matter—its structure, microbial community, carbon storage, and respiration response—remain uncertain and widely debated. In addition, the effects of climate changes on ecosystem structure and function are often modulated or delayed, meaning that short-term experiments are not sufficient to characterize ecosystem responses. This study capitalized on a long-term reciprocal soil transplant experiment to examine the response of dryland soils to climate change. The two transplant sites were separated by 500 m of elevation on the same mountain slope in eastern Washington state, USA, and had similar plant species and soil types. We resampled the original 1994 soil transplants and controls, measuring CO 2 production, temperature response, enzyme activity, and bacterial community structure after 17 years. Over a laboratory incubation of 100 days, reciprocally transplanted soils respired roughly equal cumulative amounts of carbon as non-transplanted controls from the same site. Soils transplanted from the hot, dry, lower site to the cooler and wetter (difference of -5 °C monthly maximum air temperature, +50 mm yr -1 precipitation) upper site exhibited almost no respiratory response to temperature (Q10 of 1.1), but soils originally from the upper, cooler site had generally higher respiration rates. The bacterial community structure of transplants did not differ significantly from that of untransplanted controls, however. Slight differences in local climate between the upper and lower Rattlesnake locations, simulated with environmental control chambers during the incubation, thus prompted significant differences in microbial activity, with no observed change to bacterial structure. Lastly, these results support the idea that environmental shifts can influence soil C through metabolic changes, and suggest that microbial populations responsible for soil heterotrophic respiration may be constrained in surprising ways, even as shorter- and longer-term soil microbial dynamics may be significantly different under changing climate.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Detailed Simulation Datasets Quantifying U.S. DOE VTO/HFTO R&D Benefits Across Light- to Heavy-Duty Vehicles

For more than 20 years, Argonne National Laboratory’s Vehicle & Mobility Systems Department has assessed how R&D investments by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Transportation Technologies Office and Alternative Fuels and Feedstocks Office affect vehicle energy use and cost. The analyses are performed using Autonomie, Argonne’s full-vehicle simulation tool for energy consumption, performance, and cost. The study covers five time frames ranging from present day through 2050, with more than 30 vehicle classes and applications (10 light duty and >20 medium and heavy duty), as well as six powertrain configurations (conventional, start-stop, hybrid electric vehicle, plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, battery-electric vehicle, and fuel cell electric vehicle) and five fuels (gasoline, diesel, natural gas, hydrogen, and electricity). Low and high technology uncertainty scenarios have been considered to capture a realistic range of outcomes. The resulting datasets include the assumptions used (i.e., efficiency, $/kWh), vehicle-level data (power, energy, weight, and cost), and outputs such as energy consumption, manufacturer’s suggested retail price, and total cost of ownership. These data are critical to stakeholders working in transportation, technology assessment, and long-term R&D planning.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2019

Building Benchmark Data Platform

This project is a three-year, four-laboratory collaboration to collect and curate a handful of high-resolution building systems datasets that have broad applicability to address highest-impact use cases. We will collect and curate high-resolution, well-calibrated time series of building operational and indoor/outdoor environmental data, which are crucial to understanding and optimizing building energy efficiency performance and demand flexibility capabilities as well as benchmarking energy algorithms.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2010

Review of Quantitative Software Reliability Methods

The current U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing process for digital systems rests on deterministic engineering criteria. In its 1995 probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) policy statement, the Commission encouraged the use of PRA technology in all regulatory matters to the extent supported by the state-of-the-art in PRA methods and data. Although many activities have been completed in the area of risk-informed regulation, the risk-informed analysis process for digital systems has not yet been satisfactorily developed. Since digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems are expected to play an increasingly important role in nuclear power plant (NPP) safety, the NRC established a digital system research plan that defines a coherent set of research programs to support its regulatory needs. One of the research programs included in the NRC's digital system research plan addresses risk assessment methods and data for digital systems. Digital I&C systems have some unique characteristics, such as using software, and may have different failure causes and/or modes than analog I&C systems; hence, their incorporation into NPP PRAs entails special challenges. The objective of the NRC's digital system risk research is to identify and develop methods, analytical tools, and regulatory guidance for (1) including models of digital systems into NPP PRAs, and (2) using information on the risks of digital systems to support the NRC's risk-informed licensing and oversight activities. For several years, Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) has worked on NRC projects to investigate methods and tools for the probabilistic modeling of digital systems, as documented mainly in NUREG/CR-6962 and NUREG/CR-6997. However, the scope of this research principally focused on hardware failures, with limited reviews of software failure experience and software reliability methods. NRC also sponsored research at the Ohio State University investigating the modeling of digital systems using dynamic PRA methods. These efforts, documented in NUREG/CR-6901, NUREG/CR-6942, and NUREG/CR-6985, included a functional representation of the system's software but did not explicitly address failure modes caused by software defects or by inadequate design requirements. An important identified research need is to establish a commonly accepted basis for incorporating the behavior of software into digital I&C system reliability models for use in PRAs. To address this need, BNL is exploring the inclusion of software failures into the reliability models of digital I&C systems, such that their contribution to the risk of the associated NPP can be assessed.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Water management practices used by Fayetteville shale gas producers.

Water issues continue to play an important role in producing natural gas from shale formations. This report examines water issues relating to shale gas production in the Fayetteville Shale. In particular, the report focuses on how gas producers obtain water supplies used for drilling and hydraulically fracturing wells, how that water is transported to the well sites and stored, and how the wastewater from the wells (flowback and produced water) is managed. Last year, Argonne National Laboratory made a similar evaluation of water issues in the Marcellus Shale (Veil 2010). Gas production in the Marcellus Shale involves at least three states, many oil and gas operators, and multiple wastewater management options. Consequently, Veil (2010) provided extensive information on water. This current study is less complicated for several reasons: (1) gas production in the Fayetteville Shale is somewhat more mature and stable than production in the Marcellus Shale; (2) the Fayetteville Shale underlies a single state (Arkansas); (3) there are only a few gas producers that operate the large majority of the wells in the Fayetteville Shale; (4) much of the water management information relating to the Marcellus Shale also applies to the Fayetteville Shale, therefore, it can be referenced from Veil (2010) rather than being recreated here; and (5) the author has previously published a report on the Fayetteville Shale (Veil 2007) and has helped to develop an informational website on the Fayetteville Shale (Argonne and University of Arkansas 2008), both of these sources, which are relevant to the subject of this report, are cited as references.

03 NATURAL GAS↗
DOE OSTI2011

2010 Idaho National Laboratory Water Use Report and Comprehensive Well Inventory (Revision 19)

This 2010 Idaho National Laboratory Water Use Report and Comprehensive Well Inventory (Revision 19) provides water use information (monthly annual average and total annual volume) for production and potable water wells at the Idaho National Laboratory for Calendar Year 2010. It also provides detailed information for new, modified, and abandoned (decommissioned) wells and holes. Five new wells were drilled and completed in the latter part of Calendar Years 2009 and 2010. Two wells were modified in Calendar Year 2010 and 66 wells and boreholes reported as abandoned (decommissioned). Detailed construction information for the new and modified wells, along with abandonment information for older wells, is provided. Location maps are provided if survey information was available. This report is being submitted in accordance with the Water Rights Agreement between the State of Idaho and the United States, for the United States Department of Energy (dated 1990) and the subsequent Partial Decree for Water Right 34-10901 issued June 20, 2003.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Proceedings of RIKEN BNL Research Center Workshop: Brookhaven Summer Program on Quarkonium Production in Elementary and Heavy Ion Collisions

Understanding the structure of the hadron is of fundamental importance in subatomic physics. Production of heavy quarkonia is arguably one of the most fascinating subjects in strong interaction physics. It offers unique perspectives into the formation of QCD bound states. Heavy quarkonia are among the most studied particles both theoretically and experimentally. They have been, and continue to be, the focus of measurements in all high energy colliders around the world. Because of their distinct multiple mass scales, heavy quarkonia were suggested as a probe of the hot quark-gluon matter produced in heavy-ion collisions; and their production has been one of the main subjects of the experimental heavy-ion programs at the SPS and RHIC. However, since the discovery of J/psi at Brookhaven National Laboratory and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory over 36 years ago, theorists still have not been able to fully understand the production mechanism of heavy quarkonia, although major progresses have been made in recent years. With this in mind, a two-week program on quarkonium production was organized at BNL on June 6-17, 2011. Many new experimental data from LHC and from RHIC were presented during the program, including results from the LHC heavy ion run. To analyze and correctly interpret these measurements, and in order to quantify properties of the hot matter produced in heavy-ion collisions, it is necessary to improve our theoretical understanding of quarkonium production. Therefore, a wide range of theoretical aspects on the production mechanism in the vacuum as well as in cold nuclear and hot quark-gluon medium were discussed during the program from the controlled calculations in QCD and its effective theories such as NRQCD to various models, and to the first principle lattice calculation. The scientific program was divided into three major scientific parts: basic production mechanism for heavy quarkonium in vacuum or in high energy elementary collisions; the formation of quarkonium in nuclear medium as well as the strong interacting quark-gluon matter produced in heavy ion collisions; and heavy quarkonium properties from the first principle lattice calculations. The heavy quarkonium production at a future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) was also discussed at the meeting. The highlight of the meeting was the apparent success of the NRQCD approach at next-to-leading order in the description of the quarkonium production in proton-proton, electron-proton and electron positron collisions. Still many questions remain open in lattice calculations of in-medium quarkonium properties and in the area of cold nuclear matter effects.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2012

Evaluation of the Tellabs 1150 GPON Multiservice Access Platform

Over the last two years, Sandia National Laboratories made a significant investment in its network infrastructure with the Network Revitalization Project. There were two main components to this project: a Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) enabled backbone network and a Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) access layer. The GPON equipment used in the Network Revitalization Project is from Tellabs. This equipment includes the Tellabs 1150 Multiservice Access Platform (MSAP) Optical Line Terminal (OLT), the Tellabs ONT709 Optical Network Terminal (ONT), and the Panorama Integrated Network Manager (INM). In order to fully utilize this equipment to its greatest capacity, it needed to be thoroughly tested. This report documents that testing.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2013

FLC Nomination: Carole Rutten

STEM Mentorship Award: Given to an individual who may or may not be a direct employee of a government laboratory or facility in the Mid Continent Region, but has demonstrated exceptional character, mentorship, and creativity in the areas of science and math or by promoting the development of young people in grades K-12 or higher in technical career fields. Contributions must be unique and show measurable benefit to the laboratory, school system/students and must have occurred within the past three calendar years. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) would like to nominate Carole Rutten for the FLC STEM Mentorship Award. Carole has been responsible for the Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS) Institutional Education Investments since 2007. In 2012, Carole initiated and led the review of the education programs and investments’ impact in Northern New Mexico. An Education Impact Study conducted in 2010 indicated that there was an abundance of STEM Programs for kindergarten through sixth grade (K-6) students, but relatively few STEM Programs existed for students in middle school and beyond. To address this gap, Carole worked with LANS to focus its education investments on programs for middle and high school students to better prepare them for collegiate studies leading to STEM careers.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2013

2012 Idaho National Laboratory Water Use Report and Comprehensive Well Inventory (Revision 21)

This 2012 Idaho National Laboratory Water Use Report and Comprehensive Well Inventory (Revision 21) provides water use information (monthly annual average and total annual volume) for production and potable water wells at the Idaho National Laboratory for Calendar Year 2012. It also provides detailed information for new, modified, and abandoned (decommissioned) wells and holes. Three new wells were drilled and completed in Calendar Year 2012. Two wells, RWMC-GAS-V-078 and USGS-092 were modified. No wells or holes were decommissioned. Detailed construction information for the new and modified wells is provided. Location maps are included, provided survey information was available.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Full-Scale Testing of the Ambient Pressure, Acid-Dissolution Front-End Process for the Current Mo-99 Recovery Processes

The Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) Conversion Program is actively developing technologies for the conversion of civilian facilities using high enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU) fuels and targets. The conversion of conventional HEU targets to LEU for 99 Mo production requires approximately five times the uranium in a target to maintain the 99 Mo yield on a per target basis. Under GTRI, Argonne is developing two front-end options for current 99 Mo production processes to allow the use of LEU-foil targets. In both processes, the aim is to produce a front-end product that is compatible with current 99 Mo purification operations and will provide the same or higher yield of 99 Mo for the same number of irradiated targets. The two front-end processes under development as part of this project are (1) the dissolution of irradiated LEU foil (up to 250 g in a single batch) and nickel fission recoil barrier in nitric acid at ambient pressure and (2) the electrochemical dissolution of LEU foil in a series of steps that produces an alkaline (basic) solution feed for 99 Mo purification. This report describes the results of performance tests and design optimization of the ambient pressure, nitric acid dissolver system. The design, fabrication, and performance test planning for this system are described in more detail in previous reports (Jerden et al. 2011a,b, 2012). Full-scale demonstrations of both of the front-end processes using irradiated uranium foils are planned to be performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory this fiscal year.

Jerden, James↗
DOE OSTI2013

Full-Scale Testing of the Ambient Pressure, Acid-Dissolution Front-End Process for the Current 99 Mo Recovery Processes

The Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) Conversion Program is actively developing technologies for converting civilian facilities that use high enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU) fuels and targets. The conversion of conventional HEU targets to LEU for the production of 99 Mo production requires approximately five times the uranium in a target to maintain the 99 Mo yield on a per-target basis. Under GTRI, Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) is developing two frontend options for current 99 Mo production processes to allow the use of LEU-foil targets. In both processes, the aim is to produce a frontend product that is compatible with current 99 Mo purification operations and will provide the same or a higher yield of 99 Mo for the same number of irradiated targets. The two frontend processes under development as part of this project are (1) the dissolution of irradiated LEU foil (up to 250 g in a single batch) and nickel fission recoil barrier in nitric acid at ambient pressure; and (2) the electrochemical dissolution of LEU foil in series of steps that produces an alkaline (basic) solution feed for 99 Mo purification. This report describes results from performance tests and design optimization of the ambient pressure, nitric-acid-dissolver system. The design, fabrication, and performance test planning for this system are described in more detail in previous reports (Jerden et al. 2011a,b, 2012). Full-scale demonstrations of both of the frontend processes using irradiated uranium foils are planned to be performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory this fiscal year.

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEA↗
DOE OSTI2014

Evaluation of the Tellabs 1150 GPON multiservice access platform

For over two years, Sandia National Laboratories has been using a Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) access layer for selected networks. The GPON equipment includes the Tellabs 1150 Multiservice Access Platform (MSAP) Optical Line Terminal (OLT), the Tellabs ONT709 and ONT709GP Optical Network Terminals (ONTs), and the Panorama PON Network Manager. In late 2013, the Tellabs equipment was updated to Software Release FP27.1_015130. Because a new software release has the potential to affect performance and functionality, it needed to be thoroughly tested. This report documents that testing. It also provides a comparison between the current release and the previous Software Release FP25.5.1_013274 that was being used.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2015

GaN Initiative for Grid Applications (GIGA)

For nearly 4 ½ years, MIT Lincoln Laboratory (MIT/LL) led a very successful, DoE-funded team effort to develop GaN-on-Si materials and devices, targeting high-voltage (>1 kV), high-power, cost-effective electronics for grid applications. This effort, called the GaN Initiative for Grid Applications (GIGA) program, was initially made up of MIT/LL, the MIT campus group of Prof. Tomas Palacios (MIT), and the industrial partner M/A Com Technology Solutions (MTS). Later in the program a 4th team member was added (IQE MA) to provide commercial-scale GaN-on-Si epitaxial materials. A basic premise of the GIGA program was that power electronics, for ubiquitous utilization -even for grid applications - should be closer in cost structure to more conventional Si-based power electronics. For a number of reasons, more established GaN-on-SiC or even SiC-based power electronics are not likely to reach theses cost structures, even in higher manufacturing volumes. An additional premise of the GIGA program was that the technical focus would be on materials and devices suitable for operating at voltages > 1 kV, even though there is also significant commercial interest in developing lower voltage (< 1 kV), cost effective GaN-on-Si devices for higher volume applications, like consumer products. Remarkable technical progress was made during the course of this program. Advances in materials included the growth of high-quality, crack-free epitaxial GaN layers on large-diameter Si substrates with thicknesses up to ~5 μm, overcoming significant challenges in lattice mismatch and thermal expansion differences between Si and GaN in the actual epitaxial growth process. Such thick epilayers are crucial for high voltage operation of lateral geometry devices such as Schottky barrier (SB) diodes and high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). New “Normally-Off” device architectures were demonstrated – for safe operation of power electronics circuits. The trade-offs between lateral and vertical devices were explored, with the conclusion that lateral devices are superior for fundamental thermal reasons, as well as for the demonstration of future generations of monolithic power circuits. As part of the materials and device investigations breakdown mechanisms in GaN-on-Si structures were fully characterized and effective electric field engineering was recognized as critical for achieving even higher voltage operation. Improved device contact technology was demonstrated, including the first gold-free metallizations (to enable processing in CMOS foundries) while maintaining low specific contact resistance needed for high-power operation and 5-order-of magnitude improvement in device leakage currents (essential for high power operation). In addition, initial GaN-on-Si epitaxial growth was performed on 8”/200 mm Si starting substrates.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2014

Evaluation of the Tellabs 1150 GPON multiservice access platform

For over two years, Sandia National Laboratories has been using a Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) access layer for selected networks. The GPON equipment includes the Tellabs 1150 Multiservice Access Platform (MSAP) Optical Line Terminal (OLT), the Tellabs ONT709 and ONT709GP Optical Network Terminals (ONTs), and the Panorama PON Network Manager. In late 2013, the Tellabs equipment was updated to Software Release FP27.1_015130. Because a new software release has the potential to affect performance and functionality, it needed to be thoroughly tested. This report documents that testing. It also provides a comparison between the current release and the previous Software Release FP25.5.1_013274 that was being used.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2017

Design and Evaluation of a Secure Virtual Power Plant.

For three years, Sandia National Laboratories, Georgia Institute of Technology, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign investigated a smart grid vision in which renewable-centric Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) provided ancillary services with interoperable distributed energy resources (DER). This team researched, designed, built, and evaluated real-time VPP designs incorporating DER forecasting, stochastic optimization, controls, and cyber security to construct a system capable of delivering reliable ancillary services, which have been traditionally provided by large power plants or other dedicated equipment. VPPs have become possible through an evolving landscape of state and national interconnection standards, which now require DER to include grid-support functionality and communications capabilities. This makes it possible for third party aggregators to provide a range of critical grid services such as voltage regulation, frequency regulation, and contingency reserves to grid operators. This paradigm (a) enables renewable energy, demand response, and energy storage to participate in grid operations and provide grid services, (b) improves grid reliability by providing additional operating reserves for utilities, independent system operators (ISOs), and regional transmission organization (RTOs), and (c) removes renewable energy high-penetration barriers by providing services with photovoltaics and wind resources that traditionally were the jobs of thermal generators. Therefore, it is believed VPP deployment will have far-reaching positive consequences for grid operations and may provide a robust pathway to high penetrations of renewables on US power systems. In this report, we design VPPs to provide a range of grid-support services and demonstrate one VPP which simultaneously provides bulk-system energy and ancillary reserves.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2018

Zero-Power Radio Device.

This report describes an unpowered radio receiver capable of detecting and responding to weak signals transmit ted from comparatively long distances . This radio receiver offers key advantages over a short range zero - power radio receiver previously described in SAND2004 - 4610, A Zero - Power Radio Receiver . The device described here can be fabricated as an integrated circuit for use in portable wireless devices, as a wake - up circuit, or a s a stand - alone receiver operating in conjunction with identification decoders or other electroni cs. It builds on key sub - components developed at Sandia National Laboratories over many years. It uses surface acoustic wave (SAW) filter technology. It uses custom component design to enable the efficient use of small aperture antennas. This device uses a key component, the pyroelectric demodulator , covered by Sandia owned U.S. Patent 7397301, Pyroelectric Demodulating Detector [1] . This device is also described in Sandia owned U.S. Patent 97266446, Zero Power Receiver [2].

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗