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Results for “Modeling and Performance Analysis”

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 37 records · Page 2

A Thermal Model for the Performance Analysis of Large Scale Spent Fuel Cooling Pond - 19173

This paper presents a thermal model for the performance analysis of a large scale cooling pond for the long term storage of spent nuclear fuel. The model has been developed using the knowledge gained from fundamental investigation using CFD and has been validated by comparing against reliable experimental and/or numerical data. It was then applied in the context of operation of a large scale pond to ascertain the sensitivity of various operational and environmental conditions. To develop the model, the water body along with the heating elements was considered as one zone and humid air inside the building as another zone, both of which are considered as well-mixed zones. Various input conditions namely, total heat load from the heat source, environmental temperature and relative humidity, ventilation rate, efficiency of the cooling tower, recirculation and make-up water flow rates have been programmed in the model. The statistical method AVONA has been used to assess the influence of the above variables. The results reveal that the efficiency of the cooling tower is the most influential parameter on the cooling performance of cooling pond within the considered values of heat load. It has also been found that the majority of the heat is taken by the recirculating water for very high heat load while the other modes of heat transfer are small but not insignificant. The model is capable of simulating the scenario of loss of cooling water and suggests that it can be used for managing a large pond efficiently as well as recovery from an accident situation. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Risk-Based Dynamic Contingency Analysis Applied to Puerto Rico Electric Infrastructure

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity and Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy have funded DOE National Laboratories to perform modeling, analysis, and high-level design of resilience-enhancement options for the power grid of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is one of the national laboratories contributing to the DOE effort. Under this funding, PNNL completed Phase I of their analysis in 2018, which identified high-priority transmission enhancements derived from detailed dynamic cascading analysis of severe contingencies, including a hurricane scenario example. This report describes additional analysis completed under Phase II, which was performed over 2019. The PNNL team applied decades of experience making complex power systems more resilient, reliable, secure, flexible, affordable and sustainable, with partners in government and industry. In this report, PNNL presents the Phase II analysis, in which a risk-based dynamic contingency analysis approach to evaluate impact of several hurricane scenarios was developed. This approach was used to identify high-priority enhancements and test resilience mitigation actions, including the evaluation of high-solar scenarios developed as a result of the 2019 Puerto Rico Integrated Resource Plan (IRP).

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Statistical model to perform error analysis of curve fits of wind tunnel test data using the techniques of analysis of variance and regression analysis

The considered research had the objective to design a statistical model that could perform an error analysis of curve fits of wind tunnel test data using analysis of variance and regression analysis techniques. Four related subproblems were defined, and by solving each of these a solution to the general research problem was obtained. The capabilities of the evolved true statistical model are considered. The least squares fit is used to determine the nature of the force, moment, and pressure data. The order of the curve fit is increased in order to delete the quadratic effect in the residuals. The analysis of variance is used to determine the magnitude and effect of the error factor associated with the experimental data.

Alston, D. W.↗

Application of remote sensing for fishery resource assessment and monitoring

The author has identified the following significant results. A plot was drawn of the dolphin catch and the water discontinuities observed in the aerial photography. This plot was similar in format to the one made earlier on the white marlin catch relative to the water rips. Neither plot substantiates (as far as white marlin and dolphin are concerned) an opinion held by fishermen that better fishing may be found in the vicinity of the rips. Remotely inferred values for sea surface temperature, chlorophyll-a and turbidity were substituted for sea truth measurements in prediction models developed in previous analysis. Model performance, using the new values, was disappointing.

Savastano, K. J.↗

Cascade Optimization Strategy with Neural Network and Regression Approximations Demonstrated on a Preliminary Aircraft Engine Design

A preliminary aircraft engine design methodology is being developed that utilizes a cascade optimization strategy together with neural network and regression approximation methods. The cascade strategy employs different optimization algorithms in a specified sequence. The neural network and regression methods are used to approximate solutions obtained from the NASA Engine Performance Program (NEPP), which implements engine thermodynamic cycle and performance analysis models. The new methodology is proving to be more robust and computationally efficient than the conventional optimization approach of using a single optimization algorithm with direct reanalysis. The methodology has been demonstrated on a preliminary design problem for a novel subsonic turbofan engine concept that incorporates a wave rotor as a cycle-topping device. Computations of maximum thrust were obtained for a specific design point in the engine mission profile. The results (depicted in the figure) show a significant improvement in the maximum thrust obtained using the new methodology in comparison to benchmark solutions obtained using NEPP in a manual design mode.

Hopkins, Dale A.↗

A Preliminary Model for Spacecraft Propulsion Performance Analysis Based on Nuclear Gain and Subsystem Mass-Power Balances

A preliminary model for spacecraft propulsion performance analysis based on nuclear gain and subsystem mass-power balances are presented in viewgraph form. For very fast missions with straight-line trajectories, it has been shown that mission trip time is proportional to the cube root of alpha. Analysis of spacecraft power systems via a power balance and examination of gain vs. mass-power ratio has shown: 1) A minimum gain is needed to have enough power for thruster and driver operation; and 2) Increases in gain result in decreases in overall mass-power ratio, which in turn leads to greater achievable accelerations. However, subsystem mass-power ratios and efficiencies are crucial: less efficient values for these can partially offset the effect of nuclear gain. Therefore, it is of interest to monitor the progress of gain-limited subsystem technologies and it is also possible that power-limited systems with sufficiently low alpha may be competitive for such ambitious missions. Topics include Space flight requirements; Spacecraft energy gain; Control theory for performance; Mission assumptions; Round trips: Time and distance; Trip times; Vehicle acceleration; and Minimizing trip times.

Chakrabarti, Suman↗

Parametric Modeling and Mission Performance Analysis of a True Parallel Hybrid Turboprop Aircraft for Freighter Operations

Hybrid-electric propulsion systems for short-haul, cargo carrying aircraft have emerged as promising solutions for an environmentally sustainable future for commercial aviation. The novel propulsion architecture presents significant complexity and requires the development of new methodologies to account for the unique coupling and integration between critical design variables. This paper presents a comprehensive study on the modeling, performance assessment, and design space exploration of a C-130H freighter aircraft retrofitted with a parallel hybrid electric powertrain. Details on the development of parametric models for both the baseline and true parallel hybrid (TPH) aircraft and the integrated electrified aircraft propulsion (EAP) system sizing approach are presented along with detailed performance analyses of payload/range capabilities for short-haul cargo missions. For 2030, 2040, and 2050 EAP technology levels, the TPH C-130H configuration with a ~2.12 MW class EAP system has a range capability of 485-1,028 nautical miles and block fuel savings of 27-44%.

efficiency↗

Structural-Thermal-Optical-Performance (STOP) Model Development and Analysis of a Field-widened Michelson Interferometer

An integrated Structural-Thermal-Optical-Performance (STOP) model was developed for a field-widened Michelson interferometer which is being built and tested for the High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) project at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC). The performance of the interferometer is highly sensitive to thermal expansion, changes in refractive index with temperature, temperature gradients, and deformation due to mounting stresses. Hand calculations can only predict system performance for uniform temperature changes, under the assumption that coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch effects are negligible. An integrated STOP model was developed to investigate the effects of design modifications on the performance of the interferometer in detail, including CTE mismatch, and other three- dimensional effects. The model will be used to improve the design for a future spaceflight version of the interferometer. The STOP model was developed using the Comet SimApp'TM' Authoring Workspace which performs automated integration between Pro-Engineer®, Thermal Desktop®, MSC Nastran'TM', SigFit'TM', Code V'TM', and MATLAB®. This is the first flight project for which LaRC has utilized Comet, and it allows a larger trade space to be studied in a shorter time than would be possible in a traditional STOP analysis. This paper describes the development of the STOP model, presents a comparison of STOP results for simple cases with hand calculations, and presents results of the correlation effort to bench-top testing of the interferometer. A trade study conducted with the STOP model which demonstrates a few simple design changes that can improve the performance seen in the lab is also presented.

Scola, Salvatore J.↗

Performance optimization, modeling and analysis of sparse matrix-matrix products on multi-core and many-core processors

Sparse matrix-matrix multiplication (SpGEMM) is a computational primitive that is widely used in areas ranging from traditional numerical applications to recent big data analysis and machine learning. Although many SpGEMM algorithms have been proposed, hardware specific optimizations for multi- and many-core processors are lacking and a detailed analysis of their performance under various use cases and matrices is not available. In this work, we firstly identify and mitigate multiple bottlenecks with memory management and thread scheduling on Intel Xeon Phi (Knights Landing or KNL). Specifically targeting many-core processors, we develop a hash-table-based algorithm and optimize a heap-based shared-memory SpGEMM algorithm. We examine their performance together with other publicly available codes. Different from the literature, our evaluation also includes use cases that are representative of real graph algorithms, such as multi-source breadth-first search or triangle counting. Our hash-table and heap-based algorithms are showing significant speedups from libraries in the majority of the cases while different algorithms dominate the other scenarios with different matrix size, sparsity, compression factor and operation type. We wrap up in-depth evaluation results and make a recipe to give the best SpGEMM algorithm for target scenario. We build the performance model for hash-table and heap-based algorithms, which supports the recipe. A critical finding is that hash-table-based SpGEMM gets a significant performance boost if the nonzeros are not required to be sorted within each row of the output matrix. Finally, we integrate our implementations into a large-scale protein clustering code named HipMCL, accelerating its SpGEMM kernel by up to 10X and achieving an overall performance boost for the whole HipMCL application by 2.6X.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Morphological Evolution of Directional Solidification Interfaces in Microgravity: An Analysis of Model Experiments Performed on the International Space Station

A series of experiments performed using the Pore Formation and Mobility Investigation (PFMI) apparatus within the glovebox facility (GBX) on board the International Space Station (ISS) has provided video images of the morphological evolution of a three-dimensional interface in a diffusion controlled regime. The experimental samples were prepared on ground by filling glass tubes, 1 cm ID and approximately 30 cm in length, with "alloys" of succinonitrile (SCN) and water in an atmosphere of nitrogen at 450 millibar pressure. The compositions of the samples processed and analyzed are 0.25,0.5 and 1.0 wt% water. Experimental processing parameters of temperature gradient and translation speed, as well as camera settings, were remotely monitored and manipulated from the ground Telescience Center (TSC) at the Marshall !3pace Flight Center. During the experiments, the sample was first subjected to a unidirectional melt back, generally at 10 microns per second, with a constant temperature gradient ahead of the melting interface. Following the melt back, the interface was allowed to stabilize before translation is initiated. The temperatures in the sample were monitored by six in situ thermocouples and the position is monitored by an optical linear encoder. For the experiments performed and analyzed, the gradients ranged from 2.5 - 3.3 K/mm and the initial pulling velocities ranged from 0.7 micron per second to 1 micron per second with subsequent transition velocities of up to 100 microns per second. The data provided by the PFMI for analysis includes near-real-time (NRT) video captured on the ground during the experiment runs, ISS Video Tape Recorder (VTR) data dumped from the VTR at the end of the experiment run and recorded on the ground, telemetry data including temperature and position measurements, and limited flight HI-8 tapes in 2 camera views of experiment runs for which tapes have been returned to the investigators from ISS. Because of limited down mass from the ISS, the majority of the initial analysis has been performed using the NRT and VTR video data but will be supplemented with the HI-8 video as it becomes available. hardware and procedures required to prepare samples for correlation to flight samples is described. Using this ground-based system, a series of experiments have been performed for direct comparison with the flight data. The results of these comparisons as well as implications to future microgravity experiments are presented and discussed. A ground-based thin-sample directional solidification system as well as all associated

Strutzenberg, Louise L.↗

Design and analysis of CXL performance models for tightly-coupled heterogeneous computing

Truly heterogeneous systems enable partitioned workloads to be mapped to the hardware that nets the best performance. However, current practice requires that inter-device communication between different vendors' hardware use host memory as an intermediary step. To date, there are no widely adopted solutions that allow accelerators to directly transfer data. A new cache-coherent protocol, CXL, aims to facilitate easier, fine-grained sharing between accelerators. In this work we analyze existing methods for designing heterogeneous applications that target GPUs and FPGAs working collaboratively, followed by an exploration to show the benefits of a CXL-enabled system. Specifically, we develop a test application that utilizes both an NVIDIA P100 GPU and a Xilinx U250 FPGA to show current communication limitations. From this application, we capture overall execution time and throughput measurements on the FPGA and GPU. We use these measurements as inputs to novel CXL performance models to show that using CXL caching instead of host memory results in a 1.31X speedup, while a more tightly-coupled pipelined implementation using CXL-enabled hardware would result in a speedup of 1.45X.

Cabrera, Anthony↗

Dynamic performance modeling and stability analysis of a segmented reflector telescope

The problem of vibration suppression in segmented reflector telescopes is considered. The decomposition of the structure into smaller components is discussed, and control laws for vibration suppression and conditions for stability at the local and global levels are presented. The states of the reflector segments are mapped into ray displacements on the detector plane.

Ryaciotaki-Boussalis, Helen A.↗

Uncertainty Quantification of Bifacial Performance Modeling: Preprint

Analysis on uncertainty in the annual energy of PV systems that can be attributed to parameters of particular importance to bifacial PV modules is presented. Monte Carlo simulations are used to evaluate the effect of uncertain module bifaciality factors, module transmission fractions, albedo values, and ground clearance. The analyses cover a wide spectrum of potential PV array archetypes through variation of installation parameters. The results of the Monte Carlo analysis reveal that the uncertainty is largely dependent on albedo uncertainty, but more simulations are needed to identify trends across system archetypes. The simulations are aimed at attributing an annual energy uncertainty factor for bifacial considerations that can be applied in post-processing of project probability of exceedance analysis.

energy modeling↗

Modeling, Performance Assessment, and Nodal Data Analysis of TRISO-Fueled Systems with Shift

This technical report documents several enhancements to the Shift Monte Carlo (MC) code under the US Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program in fiscal year (FY) 2022. Performance enhancements were added to Shift specifically for tristructural isotropic (TRISO)–fueled reactor systems and guided based on performance analysis in FY 2021. For the pebble performance model developed in previous studies, the runtime improved by ~ 91× compared to the original model and ~ 2× compared to the user-optimized model. Compared to Serpent, Shift is ~ 3× slower if Serpent delta-tracking is enabled but ~ 2× faster when delta-tracking is disabled. The multigroup cross section generation was improved through simplifying tally input definitions, porting several post-processing tally operations from Python scripts into the Shift code base, and accounting for production reactions in the scattering multiplicity. Progress was also made on two emerging capabilities: (1) the development of Titan (a Shift reactor physics user interface) and (2) initial investigation into path-length tallies for computing multigroup scattering matrices.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗