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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 361 records · Page 20

Demand Driven Cycamore Archetypes

Future nuclear fuel cycle options may present advantages over today’s once-through fuel cycle. Nuclear fuel cycle simulation tools assess the performance of those fuel cycles as well as the dynamics of long-term technology transitions. In many nuclear fuel cycle simulation tools, it has historically been the responsibility of the user to manually define facility deployment schemes and all facility parameters. While this is straightforward in simple fuel cycles, transitions from one fuel cycle to another can be more complex. In particular, deployment schemes for supportive fuel cycle facilities beyond the reactor become complex if the analyst desires to avoid gaps in the nuclear fuel and power supply chain during those transition scenarios. As nuclear fuel cycle analysis approaches questions regarding the feasibility and performance of the deployment schemes and technology choices during technology transition, automation of this historically manual process is necessary. The main objective of this work was to develop and demonstrate Cyclus automation capabilities toward key nuclear fuel cycle transition scenarios. While deploying reactors to meet power demand is trivial, and existed in the earliest versions of CYCLUS, automated, predictive deployment and decommissioning of other facilities is more complex. These include mining, milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication, reprocessing, and others. For example, a balanced closed fuel cycle may require ensuring that there is enough fast reactor fuel for their operation and may drive deployment of a fleet of light water reactors. This concern comprises the main challenge that drove the project effort. The Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetype project (NEUP-FY16-10512) aimed to develop CYCAMORE demand-driven deployment capabilities and thereby automate transition scenario definition. The developed software package, d3ploy, in the form of a CYCLUS Institution agent, deploys Facilities to meet the front-end and back-end demands of the fuel cycle. The University of South Carolina and the University of Illinois applied multiple algorithmic approaches to this challenge. This project developed an in situ demand-driven development schedule calculation through non-optimizing, deterministic-optimizing, and stochastic-optimizing algorithms as CYCLUS archetypes and demonstrated these new archetypes in program-supporting fuel cycle transition scenarios. Both objectives were achieved. This report documents the results and deliverables obtained toward these achievements in detail.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Big data health physics: a case study in operational health physics

This paper, written as a two part project as required by Illinois Institute of Technology’s Phys597 Reading & Special Problems class and health physics professional master’s program, focuses on the results of a prototype data collection process implemented at a Los Alamos National Laboratory facility. In particular, this paper examines the data in a statistical context in an effort to optimize operational health physics processes at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Big Data Health Physics

This project, in completion of the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Professional Masters of Health Physics program, represents a two part independent study wherein (1) a Statistical Analysis is performed on a new data process implemented at a Los Alamos National Laboratory facility and (2) a Project Management Plan is designed for the successful implementation of this new radiation protection management process.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Holistic Measurement Driven Resilience: Combining Operational Fault and Failure Measurements and Fault Injection for Quantifying Fault Detection, Propagation and Impact. Final report

For HPC systems to date, application resilience to faults and failures has been accomplished by the brute- force method of checkpoint/restart, which allows an application to make forward progress in the face of system and application faults, errors, and failures independent of root cause or end result. It has remained the primary resilience mechanism because we lack a way to identify faults and anticipate consequences early enough to take meaningful mitigating action. However, checkpoint/restart implementations put a tremendous burden on system resources and on the applications themselves and is becoming less feasible at scale. Because we have not yet operated at scales at which checkpoint/restart fails to provide forward progress, despite increasing costs, vendors have had little motivation to provide the instrumentation necessary for early identification of faults and failures. However, as we move from petascale to exascale, component mean time to failure (MTTF) will render the existing techniques ineffectual and/or too expensive. Furthermore, fault recovery mechanisms such as failover and/or error correction introduce performance inconsistency. Instrumentation allowing early indication of problems and tools to enable use of such information by systems, operating systems, and applications offer an alternative, more scalable and less costly solution. In the HMDR project, we built on our experience and expertise developed and accumulated over years of research on design, monitoring, measurement, and assessment of resilient computing systems. Analysis of field data on the current and past generations of extreme-scale systems revealed several challenges that, if not addressed in increasingly larger and more complex systems, may hinder the effectiveness of future exascale computing systems. Specifically, i) file systems and interconnects in current-generation large-scale systems already operate at the margins of resiliency, including consistent performance, and may not scale to larger deployments; ii) automated, software-based failover mechanisms are frequently inadequate and can introduce wider failures, such that failures during recovery may lead to system/application failures, including system-wide outages; and iii) silent data corruption represents a critical fault mode and will require efficient detection mechanisms if next-generation applications are to take full advantage of exascale hardware. To address the above challenges, we assembled a team of world-renowned experts in resilient extreme- scale computing from the University of Illinois (Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and NCSA), SNL, LANL, NERSC, and Cray. Our team includes representatives from centers that house many of the largest HPC resources in the world, both today and over the coming years. The team has a unique track record of research in i) system and application failure characterization based on the analysis of field data, ii) data-driven design of fault/error detection mechanisms, and iii) experimental characterization of system/application resiliency. The team includes system owners/operators who provide continuous data collection and access and ensure installation of appropriate analysis tools.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Characterization and Sampling of Ultralow Permeability Geomaterials using Electrokinetics (LDRD Final Report 209234)

This final report on Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project 209234 presents background material for electrokinetics at the pore and porous media scales. We present some theoretical developments related to uncoupling electrokinetic flow solutions, from a manuscript recently accepted into Mathematical Geosciences for publication. We present a summary of two pore-scale modeling efforts undertaken as part of the academic alliance with University of Illinois, resulting in one already submitted journal publication to Transport in Porous Media and another in preparation for submission to a journal. We finally show the laboratory apparatus built in Laboratory B59 in Building 823 and discuss some of the issues that occurred with it.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Collaborative Research: Understanding Nanoparticle-Plasma Interactions in Dusty Non-Thermal Plasmas by Nanoparticle Probes and Online Aerosol Characterization (Final Technical Report)

This report describes results from the University of Minnesota’s contribution to studies performed under the award DE-SC0018202 (principal Investigator: Christopher J. Hogan Jr.. This award is a collaborative research grant with support equally provided to Case Western Reserve University and to the University of Illinois (with principal investigator R. Mohan Sankaran). To date ten peer-reviewed published papers have resulted from the studies performed with University of Minnesota personnel contributing; this report describes the results of these studies as well as several unpublished studies, grouped into seven separate study types. The overarching goal of the carried out studies was to understand nanoparticle behavior and dynamics in non-thermal plasma synthesis reactors, specifically adapting aerosol measurement technology to provide online measurements of particle size, charge, and structure in plasma reactor systems.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Midwest EVOLVE (Midwest Electric Vehicle Opportunities: Learning, eVents, Experience)

The Midwest Electric Vehicle Opportunities: Learning, eVents, Experience (Midwest EVOLVE) project was a 45 month, seven-state effort to introduce electric vehicles to the public, workplaces, corporate fleets and auto dealership staff. Midwest EVOLVE projects were planned and completed in the following states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The project was coordinated by the American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest (ALAUM), dba Twin Cities Clean Cities Coalition (TC4).

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Energy Efficient Waste Heat Coupled Forward Osmosis for Effluent Water Management at Coal-Fired Power Plants

This project sought to evaluate the technical and economic viability of the Aquapod©, a transformational low energy (<200 kJ/kg water) waste heat coupled forward osmosis (FO) technology, to manage effluents, meet cooling water demands, and achieve water conservation in a coal-fired power plant environment. The Aquapod© process is innovative because it is heat-driven, avoids the evaporation of water, and uses no toxic chemicals such as ammonia or amines. The Aquapod© process accomplishes this using an aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) coupled FO process. The evaluation revealed that the Aquapod© process offers a pathway to exploit waste heat resources within a power plant to achieve flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) wastewater volume reduction and water recovery with minimal pretreatment. Water recovery of 80% from FGD wastewater was achieved with minimal pretreatment, exceeding the project target of 50%. The estimated electrical energy of 2.16 kWh/m 3 of water produced for the Aquapod© process met the project target of < 3.6 kWh/m 3 . The heat required for the process operation was approximately 186 kJ/kg of produced water, which was slightly lower than the project target of 200 kJ/kg. The estimated treatment cost for installing and operating the Aquapod© process in conjunction with a spray dryer evaporator to achieve zero-liquid discharge (ZLD) of the 100 gpm FGD wastewater was $13.24/m 3 over a 30-year lifetime. As a point of reference, this study’s host power plant currently incurs a cost of $3.70/m 3 – $8.87/m3 on a discharged volume basis to discharge its wastewater into the publicly owned treatment works (POTW) after physical-chemical treatment. Therefore, the Illinois power plant would incur an incremental cost increase of $4.37/m 3 – 9.54/m 3 to achieve ZLD using the Aquapod© and spray dryer combination. Ample opportunities exist to further lower the ZLD capital and operating costs in the next design iteration to attain pipe parity at the higher end of the site treatment costs.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

Comparing Retrofit Wall Performance Predicted from Hygrothermal Simulations to Measurements

Over the past few years ORNL has been showing that WUFI® can be used to predict the moisture performance of walls when exposed to diffusion of water vapor, convection of moist air through the wall, and solar driven moisture. This is accomplished by comparing the hygrothermal simulation results to carefully instruments walls exposed to these phenomena in a climate chamber. In FY 2018, three stick-built walls were succumbed to typical Chicago, Illinois weather conditions in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Heat, Air and Moisture chamber. The measured temperature, relative humidity, and moisture content within these walls were compared with WUFI hygrothermal simulation results. In FY 2019, similar experiments and comparisons with WUFI results were completed with two walls, a structural insulated panel-based wall and a concrete masonry unit-based wall. In FY 2020, experiments were completed for a probable exterior retrofit of a wall which included adding cavity and continuous insulation. Two pairs of walls were tested by exposing them to Chicago winter weather with a positive pressure pushing outside air into the wall. The results from the FY 2020 experiments are reported here.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

"Experimental Research at the Energy Frontier in High Energy Physics" (Final Technical Report)

Recent developments in particle physics and cosmology raise the exciting prospect that we are on the threshold of a major step forward in our understanding of the universe. This proposal describes a research program at the University of Illinois in experimental high-energy physics on the ATLAS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Our group actively collaborates with the Theory Group and other experimental efforts within the Office of Science frontiers (energy, intensity, and cosmic) to search broadly in the ATLAS data to maximize our potential for scientifc discovery. The thrust of this proposal is to search for new physics using ATLAS data. Emphasis is placed on novel use of the Higgs boson as a tool to search for new particles and interactions and development of fast particle tracking systems for use in triggering. We propose to continue our strong role in FTK commissioning and operations. To maximize the impact and vitality of the proposed physics program through the HL-LHC running, we will lead firmware efforts in the HWTT Phase-II TDAQ upgrade, leveraging our expertise acquired through development of fast tracking hardware and firmware for the FTK system.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Technoeconomic and Life Cycle Analysis for Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) Baseline

Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is an attractive option from an environmental standpoint, as biomass regrowth removes CO 2 from the atmosphere, which offsets the emissions produced by burning the biomass. When combined with carbon capture, this produces a system that is capable of zero or even negative greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This study examines the performance, environmental impact, and economics of co-firing biomass in pulverized coal (PC) power plants. The analysis is based on various plant configurations (with and without carbon dioxide [CO 2 ] capture) using hybrid poplar biomass at three levels of co-fire (20, 35, and 49 weight percent) with Illinois No. 6 coal. This study is an analysis of the overall performance and economics of the plant, which was used to determine the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and to perform a full environmental life cycle analysis (LCA) of greenfield PC plants co-firing biomass.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Microstructure in Irradiated Materials

Argonne National Laboratory is establishing additional capabilities for advanced techniques for accelerated experiment-based fuel material screening. A key supporting element is expanded capabilities for the characterization of irradiated samples, including establishment of the capability to measure irradiated fuel thermal conductivity at the micro-scale level. Argonne is collaborating with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to adopt the suspended bridge method to measure thermal conductivity of radiation-induced microstructures in nuclear materials directly. The initial phase of work to support thermal conductivity measurements of microstructure in irradiated materials at Argonne has been executed, and is summarized here. This report is intended to serve as a status update for this activity, summarizing work completed in FY20.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Cyber Attack Resilient HVDC System (CARDS) (Final Scientific/Technical Report)

This report summarizes the activities conducted under the DOE-OE funded project DE-OE0000824, where ABB Inc. (ABB), in collaboration with University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Argonne National Laboratories (ANL), and University of Idaho (UI) pursued the development of a system of defense for High Voltage Direct Current transmission systems against cyber-attacks (CARDS). An HVDC substation with CARDS features will be more capable of mitigating cyber-attacks especially those that seek to control or interrupt the power flow in the HVDC line. It empowers existing HVDC intelligent electronic devices to collaborate in identifying and blocking malicious intents to trip HVDC AC circuit breakers, block thyristor valves, misconfigure devices settings, even though the commands and the measurements comply with correct syntax. The CARDS functions utilize the physics of electromagnetic AC and DC systems, electric power engineering principles, and state estimation to bring more in-depth cyber defense closer to the protected HVDC substation devices. With the aim of advancing the state of the art, the team proceeded to develop a demonstrable system against cyber-attacks in an HVDC substation environment, via functional upgrades to existing firmware of commercial off-the-shelf HVDC station devices, and/or embedded hardware, without the need for additional instrumentation nor new instrumentation technologies. It is to ensure that the solutions resulting from the project will support the HVDC devices currently installed in the US electricity delivery infrastructure.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Intelligent Monitoring Systems and Advanced Well Integrity and Mitigation

Long-term seismic monitoring of carbon capture and storage projects is needed to verify that the injected gas is safely stored in the subsurface until permanence can be assured. Conventional surface seismic monitoring techniques are usually expensive, require highly invasive surface operations, and need significant time investments on the part of personnel for both the field effort and processing the acquired data. For these reasons, permanent reservoir monitoring technologies are preferred, as they can offer a cost-effective solution for long-term monitoring. As part of the monitoring program of the Archer Daniels Midland’s large-scale injection of CO 2 in Decatur, Illinois, USA, a continuous seismic monitoring array was installed using a combination of surface orbital vibrator (SOV) sources and fiber-optic cables for distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) acquisition with the objective to build a continuous monitoring array. The aim of the presented project was to build a monitoring array and platform that integrates real-time seismic data with conventional data streams and provides continuous data analysis using dynamic computational models to deliver a comprehensive real-time assessment of subsurface conditions. It is in this context that the Intelligent Monitoring Systems and Advanced Well Integrity and Mitigation project was proposed with the objective to develop an integrated architecture that utilizes a permanent seismic monitoring network, combines the real-time geophysical and process data with reservoir flow and geomechanical models to create a comprehensive monitoring, visualization, and control system that delivers critical information for process surveillance and optimization.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Sandia Academic Alliance Program Collaboration Report: 2020-2021 Accomplishments

University partnerships play an essential role in sustaining Sandia’s vitality as a national laboratory. The SAA is an element of Sandia’s broader University Partnerships program, which facilitates recruiting and research collaborations with dozens of universities annually. The SAA program has two three-year goals. SAA aims to realize a step increase in hiring results, by growing the total annual inexperienced hires from each out-of-state SAA university. SAA also strives to establish and sustain strategic research partnerships by establishing several federally sponsored collaborations and multi-institutional consortiums in science & technology (S&T) priorities such as autonomy, advanced computing, hypersonics, quantum information science, and data science. The SAA program facilitates access to talent, ideas, and Research & Development facilities through strong university partnerships. Earlier this year, the SAA program and campus executives hosted John Myers, Sandia’s former Senior Director of Human Resources (HR) and Communications, and senior-level staff at Georgia Tech, U of Illinois, Purdue, UNM, and UT Austin. These campus visits provided an opportunity to share the history of the partnerships from the university leadership, tours of research facilities, and discussions of ongoing technical work and potential recruiting opportunities. These visits also provided valuable feedback to HR management that will help Sandia realize a step increase in hiring from SAA schools. The 2020-2021 Collaboration Report is a compilation of accomplishments in 2020 and 2021 from SAA and Sandia’s valued SAA university partners.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

APS Science 2020 (Vol. 2)

The U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Photn Source (APS) is one of the world’s most productive x-ray light source facilities. Each year, the APS provides high-brightness x-ray beams to a diverse community of more than 5,000 researchers in materials science, chemistry, condensed matter physics, the life and environmental sciences, and applied research. Researchers using the APS produce over 2,000 publications each year detailing impactful discoveries, and solve more vital biological protein structures than users of any other x-ray light source research facility. APS x-rays are ideally suited for explorations of materials and biological structures; elemental distribution; chemical, magnetic, electronic states; and a wide range of technologically important engineering systems from batteries to fuel injector sprays, all of which are the foundations of our nation’s economic, technological, and physical well-being. The APS occupies an 80-acre site on the Argonne campus, about 25 miles from downtown Chicago, Illinois. It shares a site with the Center for Nanoscale Materials and the Advanced Protein Characterization Facility.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

APS Science 2020 (Vol. 1)

The U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Photon Source (APS) is one of the world’s most productive x-ray light source facilities. Each year, the APS provides high-brightness x-ray beams to a diverse community of more than 5,000 researchers in materials science, chemistry, condensed matter physics, the life and environmental sciences, and applied research. Researchers using the APS produce over 2,000 publications each year detailing impactful discoveries, and solve more vital biological protein structures than users of any other x-ray light source research facility. APS x-rays are ideally suited for explorations of materials and biological structures; elemental distribution; chemical, magnetic, electronic states; and a wide range of technologically important engineering systems from batteries to fuel injector sprays, all of which are the foundations of our nation’s economic, technological, and physical well-being. The APS occupies an 80-acre site on the Argonne campus, about 25 miles from downtown Chicago, Illinois. It shares a site with the Center for Nanoscale Materials and the Advanced Protein Characterization Facility.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Wabash CarbonSAFE (Subtask 3.1 - Application of the NRAP Tools to the Wabash CarbonSAFE Site for Risk Assessment Associated with Geologic Carbon Storage Activities)

This report documents a risk assessment of CO 2 containment loss and induced shear failure due to geologic carbon storage at the Wabash CarbonSAFE site. The operator, Wabash Valley Resources, has proposed adapting the onsite integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) facilities to produce hydrogen and injecting the byproduct CO 2 stream into the subsurface Potosi dolomite formation. The purpose of this study is to assess (1) CO 2 sequestration performance relative to the CarbonSAFE goals of storing 50 Mt over 30 years, (2) the risk of containment loss due to leakage along a wellbore and into an overlying aquifer, and (3) the state of stress and risk of reactivating existing fractures. This study relied upon the initial site characterization work performed by the Illinois State Geologic Survey (ISGS) along with analogue data collected from other carbon sequestration projects in the region.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗