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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Impact of intense sanitization procedures on bacterial communities recovered from floor drains in pork processing plants

Pork processing plants in the United States (US) cease operations for 24–48 h every six or twelve months to perform intense sanitization (IS) using fogging, foaming, and further antimicrobial treatments to disrupt natural biofilms that may harbor pathogens and spoilage organisms. The impact such treatments have on short-term changes in environmental microorganisms is not well understood, nor is the rate at which bacterial communities return. Swab samples were collected from floor drains to provide representative environmental microorganisms at two US pork processing plants before, during, and after an IS procedure. Samples were collected from four coolers where finished carcasses were chilled and from four locations near cutting tables. Each sample was characterized by total mesophile count (TMC), total psychrophile count (TPC), and other indicator bacteria; their biofilm-forming ability, tolerance of the formed biofilm to a quaternary ammonium compound (300 ppm, QAC), and ability to protect co-inoculated Salmonella enterica. In addition, bacterial community composition was determined using shotgun metagenomic sequencing. IS procedures disrupted bacteria present but to different extents depending on the plant and the area of the plant. IS reduced TPC and TMC, by up to 1.5 Log 10 CFU only to return to pre-IS levels within 2–3 days. The impact of IS on microorganisms in coolers was varied, with reductions of 2–4 Log 10 , and required 2 to 4 weeks to return to pre-IS levels. The results near fabrication lines were mixed, with little to no significant changes at one plant, while at the other, two processing lines showed 4 to 6 Log 10 reductions. Resistance to QAC and the protection of Salmonella by the biofilms varied between plants and between areas of the plants as well. Community profiling of bacteria at the genus level showed that IS reduced species diversity and the disruption led to new community compositions that in some cases did not return to the pre-IS state even after 15 to 16 weeks. The results found here reveal the impact of using IS to disrupt the presence of pathogen or spoilage microorganisms in US pork processing facilities may not have the intended effect.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Validation of the SCALE/Polaris-PARCS Code Procedure with the ENDF/B-VII.1 AMPX 56-Group Library: Pressurized Water Reactor

This study was conducted to validate the SCALE/Polaris v6.3.0–PARCS v3.4.2 code procedure with the Evaluated Nuclear Data File (ENDF)/B-VII.1 AMPX 56-group library for pressurized water reactor (PWR) analysis, by comparing simulated results with measured data for critical experiments and operating PWRs. Uncertainties of the SCALE/Polaris–PARCS code procedure for PWR analysis were evaluated in the validation for the PWR key nuclear parameters such as critical boron concentrations, reactivity, control bank work, temperature coefficients, and pin and assembly power peaking factors.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Validation of the SCALE/Polaris–PARCS Code Procedure With the ENDF/B-VII.1 AMPX 56-Group Library: Boiling Water Reactor

The SCALE/Polaris–PARCS code procedure has been used in the confirmatory analysis for boiling water reactors by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In this study, the SCALE/Polaris v6.3.0–PARCS v3.4.2 code procedure with the Evaluated Nuclear Data File (ENDF)/B-VII.1 AMPX 56-group library was validated by comparing the simulated results with the measured data for operating boiling water reactors, including Peach Bottom Unit 2 cycles 1–3, Hatch Unit 1 cycles 1–3, and Quad Cities Unit 1 cycles 1–3. The uncertainties and biases of the SCALE/Polaris–PARCS code package for boiling water reactor physics analysis were evaluated in the validation for key nuclear parameters such as reactivity and traversing in-core probe data.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

What to expect when you're expecting engagement: Delivering procedural justice in large-scale solar energy deployment

Community engagement in the planning process to build large-scale solar (LSS) projects can win local support and advance procedural justice. However, an understanding of community engagement in current LSS development is lacking. Using responses from a U.S. nationwide survey (n = 979) of residential neighbors living within 3 miles (4.8 km) of completed LSS projects (i.e. “solar neighbors”) and project details from the U.S. Large-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Database (USPVDB), this study seeks to answer the following questions: How are solar neighbors' perceptions of community engagement associated with their attitudes toward their LSS projects? How do solar neighbors' perceptions of community engagement compare to their expectations? And, how do neighbors explain what they perceived about the planning process? We answer these questions using mixed methods, including regression modeling, a new gap analysis technique, and qualitative coding. We find that higher perceived engagement is associated with more positive attitudes toward the project, even when controlling for respondents who acted in opposition. Supporters and opponents alike expect more engagement than they perceived and information about projects both before construction and after operation is lacking. Awareness and engagement expectations increase at certain project size and proximity thresholds. However, most neighbors expect the public to offer input during engagement, but not make decisions. We contextualize these findings with explanatory comments from respondents.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

CyberMESA: Evaluation Procedures and Metrics for Charging Infrastructure Cybersecurity

A report detailing the cybersecurity evaluation and assessment procedures for EV charging infrastructure. This report is authored by three national lab contributors. INL, PNNL, NRL. The grid integration of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure (EVCI) is a large and complex system of systems (SoS) made up of components from many manufacturers and integrated by various companies responsible for their operation and maintenance. This complexity makes it challenging to implement security standards like IEC 62443 across the entire infrastructure. This document aims to aid in the vulnerability assessments of individual devices, such as Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE), to support vendors in adopting and implementing security standards such as UL 2900, NIST SP 800-53 and Common Criteria (CC) (ISO/IEC 15408). This document serves as a guide to help evaluate the cybersecurity posture of EVCI assets. It aims to provide a consistent method for evaluating EVCI, enabling cybersecurity research teams to systematically test a wide range of electric vehicle (EV) assets. The target audiences include cybersecurity research teams, vendor development teams, automotive OEMs, and third-party evaluators.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Enhancing the cooling performance of thermocouples: a power-constrained topology optimization procedure

Abstract Heat pumping through thermoelectric devices has many advantages over traditional cooling. However, their current efficiency is a limiting factor in their implementation. In this paper, we approach the non-convex topology optimization of thermoelectrical elements for cooling applications through the method of moving asymptotes (MMA) to improve their cooling capabilities per watt usage. The optimization problem is defined for a given power budget, aiming for the minimum temperature with a known heat pumping need. The introduction of power as a constraint justifies the introduction of the voltage gradient across the thermocouple as a design variable to maintain the thermoelectrical device in its optimum power-to-heat extraction ratio. To better understand the convergence of this non-convex problem, we present a two-variable analytical thermoelectric optimization model. This example provides information on how to select the penalty parameters used to scale the three material coefficients involved in the problem to obtain lower objective values and better convergence using MMA. The analytical model shows the non-convexity of the problem and provides the recommendation to use penalization coefficients of the form $$p_k=p_{\sigma }>p_{\alpha }=1$$ p k = p σ > p α = 1 for the thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, and Seebeck coefficients. We tested these penalization coefficients through optimizations of a model based on the 1MC10-031 commercial thermoelectric-cooler (TEC) using the finite element method (FEM). These penalization coefficients provided local minima without the need for volume constraints. With this procedure, we found designs that provided temperatures close to 10 degrees lower using 60% less semiconductor material volume compared to the initial design.

Gutiérrez, G. Reales↗
DOE OSTI2025

Greenhouse Gas Accounting Procedures in Low Carbon Fuel Policies Overlook the Spatial Variability of Miscanthus-Derived Sustainable Aviation Fuel

Low carbon fuel policies such as the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), Canada Clean Fuel Regulations (CFR), and California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) as well as the 45Z tax credit are intended to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation. Cellulosic feedstocks, optimized biorefineries, and favorable farming locations can significantly reduce biofuel carbon intensity (CI). Despite advances in field-to-fuel GHG monitoring and flexibility in resource allocation within biorefineries (e.g., governing net electricity production), rigid CI accounting procedures in current policies may limit CI responsiveness across candidate sites and processing facilities. Here, this work examines a hypothetical biomass-to-sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) pathway using miscanthus and alcohol-to-jet (i) to demonstrate how GHG accounting requirements drive estimates of biofuel CIs and (ii) to explore potential CI and financial implications of scenario-specific life cycle assessment (LCA). Results demonstrate that GHG accounting using the CFR/LCFS can reasonably account for distinct levels of net electricity production by a biorefinery, but only the CFR yields similar CI sensitivity to spatially explicit factors (feedstock CI, grid electricity CI) as scenario-specific LCA: most GHG accounting frameworks do not capture CI variation across candidate sites in the United States. Ultimately, this work demonstrates the importance of LCA methodological specifications in low carbon fuel policies and tax credits.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Two-Step Procedure to Detect Cosmological Gravitational Wave Backgrounds with Next-Generation Terrestrial Gravitational-Wave Detectors

Cosmological gravitational-wave backgrounds are an exciting science target for next-generation ground-based detectors, as they encode invaluable information about the primordial Universe. However, any such background is expected to be obscured by the astrophysical foreground from compact-binary coalescences. We propose a novel framework to detect a cosmological gravitational-wave background in the presence of binary black holes and binary neutron star signals with next-generation ground-based detectors, including Cosmic Explorer and the Einstein Telescope. Our procedure involves first removing all the individually resolved binary black hole signals by notching them out in the time-frequency domain. Then, we perform joint Bayesian inference on the individually resolved binary neutron star signals, the unresolved binary neutron star foreground, and the cosmological background. For a flat cosmological background, we find that we can claim detection at 5⁢𝜎 level when Ω ref ≥ 2.7 × 10 −12 /$\sqrt{𝑇_{obs}/yr}$, where 𝑇 obs is the observation time (in years), which is within a factor of ≲ 2 from the sensitivity reached in the absence of these astrophysical foregrounds.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2024

Optimization of a Welding Procedure for Making Critical Aluminum Welds on the LBNF Absorber Core Block

The LBNF Absorber consists of thirteen 6061-T6 aluminum core blocks. The core blocks are water cooled with de-ionized (DI) water which becomes radioactive during beam operations. The cooling water flows through gun-drilled channels in the core blocks. A weld quality optimization was performed to produce National Aeronautical Standard 1514 Class I quality welds on the aluminum core blocks. This was not successful in all cases. An existing Gas Tungsten Arc Welding Procedure Specification was fine tuned to minimize, in most cases, and eliminate detect-able tungsten inclusions in the welds. All the weld coupons, however passed welding inspection as per the piping code: ASME B31.3 Normal Fluid Service. Tungsten electrode diameter, type, and manufacturer were varied. Some of the samples were pre-heated and others were not. It was observed that larger diameter electrodes, 5/32 in., with pre-heated joints resulted in welds with the least number of tungsten inclusions. It is hypothesized that thinner electrodes breakdown easily and get lodged into the weld pool during the welding process. This breakdown is further enhanced by the large temperature differential between the un-preheated sample and the hot electrode.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Practical procedures for sensor quality assessment

Sensors are increasingly deployed for process monitoring and control. These produce on-line measurements at a high frequency, in parallel with low-frequency laboratory measurements. Compared to laboratory practices, sensor data quality assessment and control practices are far less structured at most utilities. This leads to inaccurate sensor data with unknown uncertainty factors.This chapter shows how to establish standard operating procedures (SOPs) to support sensor data quality assessment and control and subsequent maintenance actions by producing relevant sensor metadata. Furthermore, SOPs are provided for the most commonly used wastewater quality sensors, inspired by utility and academic best practices. This chapter builds on definitions provided in Chapter 3 and provides additional definitions specifically related to sensors maintenance. Chapter 6 complements the methods in this chapter, which are based on reference measurements, with data-analytical techniques.

Alferes, Janelcy↗
DOE OSTI2024

Optimization of a Welding Procedure for Making Critical Aluminum Welds on the LBNF Absorber Core Block

he LBNF Absorber consists of thirteen 6061-T6 aluminum core blocks. The core blocks are water cooled with de-ionized (DI) water which becomes radioactive during beam operations. The cooling water flows through gun-drilled channels in the core blocks. A weld quality optimization was performed to produce National Aeronautical Standard (NAS) 1514 Class I quality welds on the aluminum core blocks. This was not successful in all cases. An existing Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) Welding Procedure Specification (WPS) was fine tuned to minimize, in most cases, and eliminate detectable tungsten inclusions in the welds. All the weld coupons however, passed welding inspection as per the piping code: ASME B31.3 Normal Fluid Service. Tungsten electrode diameter, type, and manufacturer were varied. Some of the samples were pre-heated and others were not. It was observed that larger diameter electrodes, 5/32 in., with pre-heated joints resulted in welds with the least number of tungsten inclusions. It is hypothesized that thinner electrodes breakdown easily and get lodged into the weld pool during the welding process. This breakdown is further enhanced by the large temperature differential between the un-preheated sample and the hot electrode.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

IROS 2023 Workshop Report: Draft Guidelines on Manufacturing Procedures, Test Methods and Reporting for Soft Robotics

Soft roboticists are facing challenges with reproducibility, which prevents researchers from making holistic comparisons to prior work, impedes full understanding of results, and forces the need to “reinvent the wheel,” delaying fundamental advances. Reproducibility of results is key to advancing science as well as achieving technology transfer from research laboratories to industrial applications. Recently, a discussion-based workshop dedicated to the topic, “Developing Standard Testing and Reporting Guidelines for Soft Robotics,” was held at IROS 2023 in Detroit, MI. The purpose of this document is to record a set of recommendations and voluntary draft guidelines for soft roboticists concerning fabrication/manufacturing, test procedures, and reporting, which were collectively developed at the workshop. Together as a community, we hope to improve the reporting standards of soft robotics and drive the field as a whole toward more rigorous research practices.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Digitize O&M Procedure Guidelines for Illu Workflows (CRADA Final Report)

NREL will provide technical assistance to help digitize best practice operations and maintenance (“O&M”) procedure guidelines utilizing the Illu platform for specific distributed solar-storage system configurations. NREL shall test Illu workflows in a real inspection environment for clarity of instruction and ease of documentation.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

H420 Imager Calibration Procedure: Field of View Scan

Gamma-ray imagers with coded apertures have a finite field of view (FOV) within which an image of a source can be generated. A “FOV scan” is a facet of imager calibration procedure that involves collecting specialized data for a range of source locations filling the FOV in order to understand and correct for differences in imager performance. Systematic distortions reveal relative displacements between internal imager components, which can be accounted for in data analysis. The success of this scan requires a stable imager position during the full measurement duration (~hours). This document summarizes the hardware and software tools required to conduct a FOV calibration scan of an H3D H420 Coded Aperture Gamma-Ray Imager.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2026

Safeguards Technology Program FY2026 Mid-Year Report for Project WBS# 24.1.3.3: Development of Procedures for Th-U Radiochronometry of Uranium Particles by LG-SIMS

Implementing 230 Th- 234 U radiochronometry of environmental uranium particles by large geometry secondary ion mass spectrometry (LG-SIMS) requires assessment, validation, and technical support before safeguards conclusions can be drawn from the information. This project investigates the most challenging aspects of LG-SIMS particle radiochronometry 230 Th- 234 U measurements through a collaboration between LANL and NIST, to provide best practices and procedures for determining high quality ages with optimized uncertainties. This includes exploration of reducing detector backgrounds, investigating the best ways to report uncertainties, and establishing recommended instrument setups.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗