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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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816 records · Page 19
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Bridging Additive Manufacturing and Electronics Printing in the Age of AI

Printing techniques have been instrumental in developing flexible and stretchable electronics, including organic light-emitting diode displays, organic thin film transistor arrays, electronic skins, organic electrochemical transistors for biosensors and neuromorphic computing, as well as flexible solar cells with low-cost processes such as inkjet printing, ultrasonic nozzle, roll-to-roll coating. The rise of additive manufacturing provides even more opportunities to print electronics in automated and customizable ways. In this work, we will review the current technologies of printing electronics (including printed batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells, and sensors), especially with 3D printing. In this age of ongoing AI revolution, the application of AI algorithms is discussed in terms of combining them with 3D printing and electronics printing for a future with automated optimization, sustainable design, and customizable and scalable manufacturing.

Chemistry↗
NASA NTRS1991

Autonomous Power Expert System Advanced Development

The autonomous power expert (APEX) system is being developed at Lewis Research Center to function as a fault diagnosis advisor for a space power distribution test bed. APEX is a rule-based system capable of detecting faults and isolating the probable causes. APEX also has a justification facility to provide natural language explanations about conclusions reached during fault isolation. To help maintain the health of the power distribution system, additional capabilities were added to APEX. These capabilities allow detection and isolation of incipient faults and enable the expert system to recommend actions/procedure to correct the suspected fault conditions. New capabilities for incipient fault detection consist of storage and analysis of historical data and new user interface displays. After the cause of a fault is determined, appropriate recommended actions are selected by rule-based inferencing which provides corrective/extended test procedures. Color graphics displays and improved mouse-selectable menus were also added to provide a friendlier user interface. A discussion of APEX in general and a more detailed description of the incipient detection, recommended actions, and user interface developments during the last year are presented.

Todd M Quinn↗
NASA NTRS1963

Propulsion and Power Generation

This document comprises material presented during one session of the Manned Planetary Mission Technology Conference, Lewis Research Center, May 21, 22, and 23, 1963. In order to expedite release to the conferees, the papers are being published with minimum editing and retyping of the original manuscripts. Thus the usual NASA format and style have been compromised. The purpose of the conference was to explore the possibilities and problems of manned planetary space flight. The results and contemplations of the individual papers should in no sense be regarded as a part of NASA plans and programs.

F L Williams↗
DOE OSTI2026

Secondary-Side Active Rectifier Synchronization and Control in LCC-LC Compensated Inductive Power Transfer Systems

This paper proposes a communication-less synchronization and output power control strategy for LCC-LC compensated inductive power transfer systems with a secondaryside active rectifier. By replacing the passive rectifier with an active bridge, the proposed architecture eliminates the need for a separate secondary-side DC-DC converter and enables direct regulation of battery power. The key challenge in such a system is achieving robust synchronization of the secondary active bridge with the primary inverter without access to primary-side signals. To address this issue, the secondary-side variables are analyzed and the current through the secondary series inductor is identified as a load-independent synchronization variable with a fixed phase relationship to the primary excitation. A fixed-frequency second order generalized (SOGI)-based phase locked loop (PLL) is used to estimate the switching phase and frequency, and a phase-shift-based output power controller is developed using a phasor-transformer model of the active bridges. A modified control formulation is further introduced to remove phase-dependent loop-gain variation and simplify controller design. Simulation results validate the proposed method under both fixed and varying switching-frequency conditions, demonstrating successful frequency tracking from 82 kHz to 88 kHz and accurate output power regulation over a wide operating range. The proposed method offers a compact and effective solution for high-power IPT systems by enabling secondary-side synchronization and control without wireless communication or an additional DC-DC conversion stage.

Fernandes, Arnold Anthony [ORNL] (ORCID:0009000631↗
DOE OSTI2026

Integration of Online Cross-Section Generation Capability with Depletion and Transient Solvers in Griffin

Griffin is a Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE)-based reactor multiphysics analysis application jointly developed by Argonne and Idaho National Laboratories under the DOENE Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program. In FY25, an online crosssection generation capability based on the Self-Shielding Application Programming Interface (SSAPI) was demonstrated for TRISO-fueled reactor problems under steady-state conditions. This fiscal year, that capability was extended to support depletion and transient multiphysics calculations, enabling high-fidelity analyses that generate self-shielded cross sections on the fly from the actual evolving composition and temperature states rather than from pre-tabulated libraries. For depletion, a two-way coupling was established in which SSAPI computes compact-averaged self-shielded cross sections that the depletion solver then uses to advance the Bateman equations, with the updated compositions returned to SSAPI at each step; the depletion module was refactored to support both library-based and SSAPI-based cross sections, and additional logic was added to track daughter isotopes and to exclude minor isotopes for efficiency. For transient analysis, the SSAPI multigroup library was extended with the kinetics data required for time-dependent calculations, the Improved Quasi-Static (IQS) scheme was coupled with SSAPI, and several supporting capabilities were implemented, including a self-shielding treatment that lets control rods and drums move within a self-shielded model, which had previously been impossible and had ruled out rod- and drum-movement transients with on-the-fly cross sections altogether, a new mixing scheme for delayed-neutron precursor decay constants, a checkpoint-based restart workflow, and performance improvements such as pointwise cross-section interpolation and the bypassing of unnecessary Dancoff factor calculations. The implemented capabilities were verified against Serpent Monte Carlo solutions. For depletion, a prismatic pin-cell problem based on a Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) Very High Temperature Reactor benchmark showed excellent agreement, with eigenvalue differences within 200 pcm over the entire burnup range (up to 140 MWD/kgU) and fission-product and actinide inventories agreeing to within 0.8% and 2.5%, respectively; a heat-pipe microreactor assembly problem with a much higher fuel loading confirmed the same behavior and quantified the bias introduced when the multigroup equivalence effect is neglected. For transient analysis, a pin-cell problem with a step reactivity insertion and temperature feedback reproduced the analytically expected asymptotic power and showed close agreement between the direct and IQS solutions, and a two-dimensional microreactor core problem with control-drum rotation exercised the new moving-drum self-shielding treatment and demonstrated successful coupling of the online crosssection generation with both the direct and IQS transient methods. The capability was further exercised on a full-core pebble-bed problem, in which Griffin was coupled with the System Analysis Module (SAM) to simulate load-following operation of the gPBR with the Doppler feedback resolved at the TRISO fuel kernel temperature. These developments in Griffin provide a convenient, high-fidelity approach to cross-section generation for advanced thermal reactors with geometrically complex and highly heterogeneous configurations, including TRISO-fueled prismatic and pebble-bed systems, and support steady-state, depletion, and transient multiphysics calculations. They also enable self-shielded cross sections to be evaluated directly at the actual coupled state of the system, thereby establishing a foundation for high-fidelity, fully coupled multiphysics analysis of advanced reactors

Park, H.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Digital Twin Based Condition Monitoring of LCC-LCC Inductive Power Transfer Systems

Inductive power transfer (IPT) systems provide a flexible, hands-free charging opportunity to electric vehicles (EV). The resonant network components and the transmitter and receiver coils are often subjected to high voltages or currents. Component aging in the compensation network and coils of resonant IPT systems is detrimental to the reliability and power transfer efficiency of the IPT system. Monitoring the component health of such multi-element complex systems requires robust optimization algorithms. This paper discusses condition monitoring of a resonant IPT system for an EV charger using a digital twin model. A hybrid estimation algorithm based on genetic algorithms and adaptive particle swarm optimization is developed to estimate the parameters of the digital twin model. Simulation results are used to verify the monitoring capabilities of the developed algorithm under various operating conditions of the IPT system.

Weldehawaryat, Lidya Mussie [graduate research ass↗
DOE OSTI2025

Light-triggered electrochemical biosensor using singlet oxygen for self-powered operation and glucose detection

This study introduces a light-activated sensing strategy that integrates photosensitization with electrochemical detection. The sensor employs Eosin Y, a photosensitizer that generates singlet oxygen ( 1 O 2 ) via type II photosensitization. Immobilized within a thin polymer matrix on a carbon working electrode, Eosin Y produces 1 O 2 , under green light (520 nm) illumination, initiating a redox process that yields a measurable current. To incorporate biosensing capabilities and enable self-powered operation, this 1 O 2 – mediated process was coupled with glucose oxidase (GOx) to construct a fully operational glucose biosensor. The addition of glucose reverses the current flow by causing GOx to compete for electrons, with the resulting current magnitude correlating with glucose concentration providing a sensitive measure of glucose. The biosensor, as proof-of-principle, demonstrated excellent performance over a range of glucose concentrations (0–73 mM), achieving a detection limit (LOD) of 2.8 mM for steady state photocurrent under oxygen-saturated conditions. This platform leverages light and 1 O 2 as stimuli for tunable, on-demand signal control, offering a novel approach for adaptive, real-time biosensing technologies.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2026

Advancing Building Performance: Field Results of Thin-Glass Triple-Pane Window Demonstrations

To meet California and the nation's ambitious energy targets, energy use in the building sector must drop dramatically. Windows continue to be the lowest thermally performing envelope system in the nation's buildings, resulting in poor overall envelope performance and potential impacts to human health and comfort. Current best practice new window performance is typically met by double-pane low-solar-gain glazing. Thin-glass triple-pane windows are a highly promising next step forward in performance and have been deployed in two California multi-family sites to quantify field performance and building energy savings. The technology assessed offers the performance benefits of traditional triple-pane but with little increase in weight or cost, enabling incremental costs competitive with alternative energy reduction solutions for the building envelope. This paper covers a detailed investigation into the demonstration project and measured performance benefits of the windows after a full year of data collection.

Hart, Robert↗
DOE OSTI2026

PowerModelsGAT-AI: Physics-Informed Graph Attention for Multi-System Power Flow With Continual Learning

Solving the alternating current power flow equations in real time is essential for secure grid operation, yet classical Newton–Raphson solvers can be slow under stressed conditions. Existing graph neural networks for power flow are typically trained on a single system and often degrade on different systems. We present PowerModelsGAT-AI, a physics-informed graph attention network that predicts bus voltages and generator injections. The model uses bus-type-aware masking to handle different bus types and balances multiple loss terms, including a power-mismatch penalty, using learned weights. We evaluate the model on 14 benchmark systems (4 to 6,470 buses) and train a unified model on 13 of these under contingency conditions with up to two branch outages, achieving an average normalized mean absolute error of 0.89% for voltage magnitudes and R 2 >0.99 for voltage angles. We also show continual learning: when adapting a base model to a new 1,354-bus system, standard fine-tuning causes severe forgetting with error increases exceeding 1000% on base systems, while our experience replay and elastic weight consolidation strategy keeps error increases below 2% and in some cases improves base-system performance. Interpretability analysis shows that learned attention weights correlate with physical branch parameters (susceptance: r=0.38 ; thermal limits: r=0.22 ), and feature importance analysis supports that the model captures established power flow relationships.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2026

Modeling the Potential Impact of Storage on the US Power Sector in a Multisector Dynamic Context

The electric power sector is expected to grow in size, importance, and complexity around the world as economies expand and electric supply technologies and demand patterns evolve in significant ways. At the same time the electric power sector may see substantial increases in VRE generating technologies which can add variability and uncertainty to the diurnal and seasonal profile of electric supply. With these forces in play, the emergence of modular, flexible electricity storage technologies may have profound impacts on the operation of electric power systems. Here we reduce a storage modeling gap in MSD models by incorporating grid-based electricity storage into the electric sector dynamics of the Global Change Analysis Model-USA (GCAM-USA) with improved power sector representation. We find a potentially significant role for storage technologies in the future of the U.S. power system, with storage capacity ranging from 7.7 to 14.7 GW in 2050 and 13.9 to 31.6 GW in 2100 across several techno-economic scenarios. We also find that storage can help to smooth variability in residual load arising from evolving electricity demands and the introduction of high shares of VRE to the electric grid. This reduces reliance on high-cost peaking generators, improves system-wide capacity factors, and limits curtailment of VRE.

Patel, Pralit L.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Enhanced matter power spectrum from axion kination after Big Bang nucleosynthesis

Despite stringent constraints from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) and cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations, it is still possible for well-motivated particle physics models to substantially alter the cosmic expansion history between BBN and recombination. In this work we consider two different axion models that can realize a period of first matter domination, then kination, in this epoch. We perform fits to both primordial element abundances as well as CMB data and determine that up to a decade of late axion domination is allowed by these probes of the early universe. We establish the implications of late axion domination for the matter power spectrum on the scales 1/Mpc ≲ k ≲ 10 3 /Mpc. Our 'log' model predicts a relatively modest bump-like feature together with a small suppression relative to the standard ΛCDM predictions on either side of the enhancement. Our 'two-field' model predicts a larger, plateau-like feature that realizes enhancements to the matter power spectrum of up to two orders of magnitude. These features have interesting implications for structure formation at the forefront of current detection capabilities.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Fine-Grained Power and Energy Attribution on AMD GPU/APU-Based Exascale Nodes

Modern exascale GPU- and APU-based systems provide multiple power and energy sensors, but differences in scope, update rate, timing, and filtering complicate the attribution of short-lived accelerator activity. This paper presents a methodology to characterize and correct these effects on Cray EX systems with AMD Instinct MI250X GPUs (Frontier) and MI300A APUs (Portage). Using controlled square-wave workloads, we quantify update intervals, delay, aliasing, and variability across up to 512 GPUs and 480 APUs with on-chip (rocm-smi/amd-smi) and off-chip Cray Power Management sensors. We reconstruct power from cumulative energy counters to achieve faster response times, validate it against on-chip, off-chip, and node-level sensors, and integrate the resulting streams into a Score-P/PAPI-based tool for time-aligned, phase-level attribution. Applied to rocHPL, rocHPL-MxP, and HPG-MxP, the method separates energy savings due to reduced runtime from changes in power. Mixed precision reduces node energy on Frontier by 79% for rocHPL-MxP and 31% for HPG-MxP, with similar trends on Portage. These results provide portable guidance for sensor validation and power-aware optimization on current and future exascale systems.

Mcdaniel, Adam [ORNL] (ORCID:000000016926028X)↗
DOE OSTI2026

Integrating AI Data Centers with the Power Grid

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) has triggered an unprecedented surge in electricity demand, with US data center energy use projected to double or triple 2023 levels by 2028. This exponential growth places strain on grid infrastructure, which can hinder timely construction of desired computing capacity. To bridge this supply-demand gap, utilities and AI developers are increasingly turning to demand flexibility, a strategy that incentivizes shifting or reducing power use during peak periods of grid stress. Data centers are uniquely equipped for flexible operations due to their digital workloads, built-in redundancy, and onsite energy assets. This article outlines four primary mechanisms to enable data center flexibility: computational load flexibility (shifting tasks temporally or geographically), flexible use of core facility infrastructure adjustments, energy storage utilization, and onsite electricity generation. To encourage adoption, utilities are deploying new tariff designs, including voluntary interruptible service riders, mandated flexibility requirements, and streamlined interconnection processes for flexible loads. For the highly capitalized and rapidly growing AI industry, the primary motivators for embracing these strategies are expediting facility interconnection, satisfying emerging regulatory mandates, and mitigating community resistance. While demand flexibility cannot substitute the long-term need for new bulk power generation, it serves as an essential, immediate solution for enabling near-term deployment. By transforming data centers from grid stressors into stabilizing assets, flexible operations can ensure reliable grid integration, ease market pressures, and support a resilient power system.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2026

Adaptation of virtual synchronous generators to dynamic conditions in power grids

Virtual synchronous generators (VSGs) are widely adopted as grid-forming controls for inverter-based resources. However, when grid conditions vary significantly as characterized by changes in short-circuit ratio (SCR) and the reactance-to-resistance (X/R) ratio, fixed-gain designs and the commonly used P–Q decoupling assumption can become inaccurate. Such conditions can degrade transient power performance, leading to oscillations, prolonged settling, and overshoot, particularly in stiff-grid operating points. This paper quantifies how grid strength and impedance-dependent coupling affect the active–reactive power dynamics of a conventional VSG over a broad range of SCR and X/R values. An adaptive VSG tuning framework is then developed by combining (i) a coupling-explicit, impedance-parameterized state-space model to enable systematic controller synthesis, (ii) a full-state-feedback law designed via pole placement to meet prescribed damping and settling-time specifications, and (iii) a physics-informed neural network (PINN)–based online grid-impedance estimator that updates controller gains in real time as grid conditions vary. Offline simulations in MATLAB/Simulink and real-time validation on an OPAL-RT platform show that the proposed method preserves consistent damping and settling behavior with reduced overshoot across wide SCR and X/R ranges, compared with fixed-gain VSG baselines.

Adaptive control↗
NASA NTRS1996

Single battery power subsystems: On-line reconditioning

The effect of on-line reconditioning (deep discharge) on a single, Nickel-Hydrogen spacecraft battery in GEO and LEO is considered. A life cycle test was performed in both GEO and LEO to study the effect of reconditioning on the battery's end of discharge voltage (EODV). The results of these tests show that: LEO on-line reconditioning increased the EODV (by approximately 15 cycles to maximum EODV) and the EODV lasted for approximately 300 cycles, but GEO on-line reconditioning decreased the EODV slightly during the first six days and increases significantly after the seventh day. Based on the available data from the life cycle test, it has been concluded that a long life and stable voltage is realizable with the baseline architecture (single battery, single bus) without the need for reconditioning.

Tobias, R. F.↗