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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 433 records · Page 24
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Non-Parametric Statistical Analysis of Current Waveforms through Power System Sensors

The protection, control, and monitoring of the power grid is not possible without accurate measurement devices. As the percentage of renewable energy sources penetrating the existing grid infrastructure increases, so do uncertainties surrounding their effects on the everyday operation of the power system. Many of these devices are sources of high-frequency transients. These transients may be useful for identifying certain events or behaviors otherwise not seen in traditional analysis techniques. Therefore, the ability of sensors to accurately capture these phenomena is paramount. In this work, two commercial-grade power system distribution sensors are investigated in terms of their ability to replicate high-frequency phenomena by studying their responses to three events: a current inrush, a microgrid “close-in”, and a fault on the terminals of a wind turbine. Kernel density estimation is used to derive the non-parametric probability density functions of these error distributions and their adequateness is quantified utilizing the commonly used root mean square error (RMSE) metric. It is demonstrated that both sensors exhibit characteristics in the high harmonic range that go against the assumption that measurement error is normally distributed.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
NASA NTRS1981

Scatter of X-rays on polished surfaces

In investigating the dispersion properties of telescope mirrors used in X-ray astronomy, the slight scattering characteristics of X-ray radiation by statistically rough surfaces were examined. The mathematics and geometry of scattering theory are described. The measurement test assembly is described and results of measurements on samples of plane mirrors are given. Measurement results are evaluated. The direct beam, the convolution of the direct beam and the scattering halo, curve fitting by the method of least squares, various autocorrelation functions, results of the fitting procedure for small scattering, and deviations in the kernel of the scattering distribution are presented. A procedure for quality testing of mirror systems through diagnosis of rough surfaces is described.

Hasinger, G.↗
NASA NTRS1980

Radiative transfer theory for passive microwave remote sensing of a two-layer random medium with cylindrical structures

A model of the vegetation layer as a two-layer random medium with a small correlation length l sub rho in the horizontal direction, and a large correlation length l sub z in the vertical direction, is presented for fields with cylindrical structures. As l sub z approaches infinity, closed form solutions are derived for the brightness temperatures; the kernels in the scattering terms of the radiative transfer equations result in delta functions showing that forward scattering is dominant over all other directions. The results are compared with the Gaussian quadrature method data for numerical solution of the radiative transfer equations.

Chuang, S. L.↗
DOE OSTI2025

QCD jets in a hot and dense medium: A study of shower formation time and collision kernels

With the use of , a model which considers evolving QCD jets against a fluid dynamical background, it is shown that the introduction of formation time to the parton shower after the initial hard scattering is essential for a simultaneous description of charged hadron and jet R A A . This inclusion also improves jet shape ratios at small angle and jet fragmentation function ratios of leading charged hadrons. The framework is then aimed at a study of the leading-order, next-to-leading-order, and nonperturbative collision kernels. Sizable differences in the modification of jet substructure observables, i.e., jet shape and fragmentation functions, are observed. Such differences are caused by the difference in the radiation rates of relatively soft gluons that survive in the evolution in medium. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

Modarresi-Yazdi, Rouzbeh (ORCID:0000000290377447)↗
DOE OSTI2023

Batched Sparse Linear Algebra (Final Report for Subcontract B648960)

This report finalizes design specifications for developing batched kernels for small tensor operations for unassembled matrix-free iterative solvers, batched solvers for partially assembled operators, and batched solvers with support for various sparse formats. The outcome of the project milestones is a set of interfaces to Batched Sparse LA solvers running on hardware accelerators for use in ECP Libraries and Applications. It is part of the development of sparse batched kernels, solvers/preconditioners as well as creating interoperability in xSDK libraries with sparse and dense batched functions to benefit ECP applications. The participants included representatives from ECP libraries (not limited to the xSDK project), applications, and vendors (AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA). Batched sparse linear algebra solvers form the new frontier for algorithmic development and performance engineering. Many applications (ECP and non-ECP alike) require simultaneous solutions of small linear systems of equations that are structurally sparse. To move towards high hardware utilization, it is important to provide these applications with appropriate interfaces to efficient batched sparse solvers running on modern hardware accelerators. We present interface designs in use by HPC software libraries supporting batched sparse linear algebra and the development of sparse batched kernel codes for solvers and preconditioners. We also address the potential interoperability opportunities to keep the software portable between the major hardware accelerators from AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA. The presented interface specifications includes batched band, sparse iterative, and sparse direct solvers. This report summarizes progress in Kokkos Kernels and the xSDK libraries MAGMA, Ginkgo, hypre, SUNDIALS, and SuperLU_dist.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2016

Using Hybrid Model OpenSHMEM + CUDA to Implement the SHOC Benchmark Suite

This work describes the process of porting the Scalable HeterOgeneous Computing (SHOC) benchmark suite from the hybrid MPI + CUDA implementation to OpenSHMEM + CUDA. SHOC includes a wide variety of benchmark kernels used to measure accelerator performance in both single node and cluster configurations. The hybrid model implementation attempts to place all major computation on accelerator devices, and uses MPI to synchronize and aggregate results. In some cases, MPI Groups are used to gradually reduce the number of accelerators used for computation as the problem size drops. Porting this behavior to OpenSHMEM required implementing several synchronizing collective operations, and using SHMEM teams to replace MPI Group functionality. Benchmark results on a Cray XK7 system with one GPU per compute node show that SHMEM performance is equal to MPI performance in these hybrid tasks. These results and porting experience show that using OpenSHMEM for accelerator devices benefits from adding functionality for synchronization and teams, and would further benefit from adding support for communication within accelerator kernels.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS2002

Locally-Based Kernal PLS Smoothing to Non-Parametric Regression Curve Fitting

We present a novel smoothing approach to non-parametric regression curve fitting. This is based on kernel partial least squares (PLS) regression in reproducing kernel Hilbert space. It is our concern to apply the methodology for smoothing experimental data where some level of knowledge about the approximate shape, local inhomogeneities or points where the desired function changes its curvature is known a priori or can be derived based on the observed noisy data. We propose locally-based kernel PLS regression that extends the previous kernel PLS methodology by incorporating this knowledge. We compare our approach with existing smoothing splines, hybrid adaptive splines and wavelet shrinkage techniques on two generated data sets.

Rosipal, Roman↗
NASA NTRS1991

Small convolution kernels for high-fidelity image restoration

An algorithm is developed for computing the mean-square-optimal values for small, image-restoration kernels. The algorithm is based on a comprehensive, end-to-end imaging system model that accounts for the important components of the imaging process: the statistics of the scene, the point-spread function of the image-gathering device, sampling effects, noise, and display reconstruction. Subject to constraints on the spatial support of the kernel, the algorithm generates the kernel values that restore the image with maximum fidelity, that is, the kernel minimizes the expected mean-square restoration error. The algorithm is consistent with the derivation of the spatially unconstrained Wiener filter, but leads to a small, spatially constrained kernel that, unlike the unconstrained filter, can be efficiently implemented by convolution. Simulation experiments demonstrate that for a wide range of imaging systems these small kernels can restore images with fidelity comparable to images restored with the unconstrained Wiener filter.

Reichenbach, Stephen E.↗
DOE OSTI2016

Towards TDDFT for Strongly Correlated Materials

We present some details of our recently-proposed Time-Dependent Density-Functional Theory (TDDFT) for strongly-correlated materials in which the exchange-correlation (XC) kernel is derived from the charge susceptibility obtained using Dynamical Mean-Field Theory (the TDDFT + DMFT approach). We proceed with deriving the expression for the XC kernel for the one-band Hubbard model by solving DMFT equations via two approaches, the Hirsch–Fye Quantum Monte Carlo (HF-QMC) and an approximate low-cost perturbation theory approach, and demonstrate that the latter gives results that are comparable to the exact HF-QMC solution. Furthermore, through a variety of applications, we propose a simple analytical formula for the XC kernel. Additionally, we use the exact and approximate kernels to examine the nonhomogeneous ultrafast response of two systems: a one-band Hubbard model and a Mott insulator YTiO3. We show that the frequency dependence of the kernel, i.e., memory effects, is important for dynamics at the femtosecond timescale. We also conclude that strong correlations lead to the presence of beats in the time-dependent electric conductivity in YTiO3, a feature that could be tested experimentally and that could help validate the few approximations used in our formulation. We conclude by proposing an algorithm for the generalization of the theory to non-linear response.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2025

The total neutron cross section of liquid and solid ammonia

Ammonia is a material of interest for future neutron moderators at high-power sources due to its high hydrogen density, low melting point, and resistance to polymerization in an intense radiation field. Its performance in such applications cannot currently be calculated due to the absence of suitable computer models for the interaction of neutrons with ammonia under relevant conditions. In an effort to develop suitable scattering kernels for computer simulations of moderator performance, we have conducted a series of Density Functional Theory and Molecular Dynamics calculations of the molecular-level thermal properties of ammonia at various temperatures within both the solid and liquid phases. In this paper, we compare computer calculations for the energy-dependent total neutron cross section of ammonia, based on these models, to experimental measurements of those cross sections at temperatures of 221 K, 180 K, and 35 K. The experimental data were collected over an energy range from 0.1 meV to 10 eV using time-of-flight techniques at the Low Energy Neutron Source (LENS) facility at Indiana University. This comparison provides a first validation in the development of thermal scattering libraries for Monte Carlo source design simulations based on liquid and solid ammonia. In conclusion, we also provide some insights into where additional development of tools for creating such models may be needed.

Ammonia↗
DOE OSTI2021

Evaluating the Performance of Integer Sum Reduction on an Intel GPU

Sum reduction is a primitive operation in parallel computing while SYCL is a promising heterogeneous programming language. In this paper, we describe the SYCL implementations of integer sum reduction using atomic functions, shared local memory, vectorized memory accesses, and parameterized workload sizes. Evaluating the reduction kernels shows that we can achieve 1.4X speedup over the open-source implementations of sum reduction for a sufficiently large number of integers on an Intel integrated GPU.

Jin, Zheming↗
DOE OSTI2017

Uncertainty analysis of wavelet-based feature extraction for isotope identification on NaI gamma-ray spectra

Low-resolution isotope identifiers are widely deployed for nuclear security purposes, but these detectors currently demonstrate problems in making correct identifications in many typical usage scenarios. While there are many hardware alternatives and improvements that can be made, performance on existing low resolution isotope identifiers should be able to be improved by developing new identification algorithms. We have developed a wavelet-based peak extraction algorithm and an implementation of a Bayesian classifier for automated peak-based identification. The peak extraction algorithm has been extended to compute uncertainties in the peak area calculations. To build empirical joint probability distributions of the peak areas and uncertainties, a large set of spectra were simulated in MCNP6 and processed with the wavelet-based feature extraction algorithm. Kernel density estimation was then used to create a new component of the likelihood function in the Bayesian classifier. Furthermore, identification performance is demonstrated on a variety of real low-resolution spectra, including Category I quantities of special nuclear material.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Intelligent Experiments through Real-Time AI: Fast Data Processing and Autonomous Detector Control for High-Energy Nuclear Experiments

The aim of this project is to develop software and hardware for fast real-time data processing and autonomous detector control and calibration for the sPHENIX and the future EIC experiments. Below summarizes Georgia Tech team efforts in the past year: 1. We developed a real-time clustering algorithm and FPGA-based pipeline architecture for processing fired pixel data from ALPIDE sensors in sPHENIX experiments. Our Columnar Clustering Co-Design introduces a hardware-aware, stream-friendly approach that segments pixel data by column pairs using a Column Pair Clustering (CPC) strategy, followed by Cluster Stitching to merge adjacent subclusters. Implemented in Vitis HLS, the pipeline comprises five stages—read-in, subclustering, stitching, analysis, and write-out—connected by tagged HLS streams with custom end-of-event signaling for robust synchronization. We designed a pipelined dataflow model optimized for throughput, low latency, and minimal buffering, enabling scalable clustering across events of arbitrary size. Our system maintains spatial precision via center-of-mass and shape key extraction and efficiently handles edge cases such as fragmented or nested clusters. Compared against DBSCAN in both software and hardware, our approach demonstrates competitive performance under FPGA constraints. 2. We also conducted a comprehensive algorithm-to-hardware co-design of connected component analysis tailored for sPHENIX experiments, focusing on real-time, low-latency processing using FPGAs and High-Level Synthesis (HLS). Starting from a Python-based particle tracking pipeline, the team translated the core logic—graph traversal via DFS and Union-Find—into an HLS-compatible C++ model, replacing dynamic memory and recursion with static arrays and pipelined control flow. The final design includes a fully streamed and dataflow-compatible Union-Find kernel optimized across five iterations, incorporating loop pipelining, array partitioning, AXI/FIFO interface tuning, and function flattening. Experimental results show up to 14.8× speedup over the CPU baseline, reducing per-graph latency to 1.58 μs and demonstrating strong resource efficiency with only ~7k LUTs and zero BRAM usage. The design maintains functional correctness against the Python reference using a Python-based C-simulation framework and Mean Squared Error metrics. This work validates the potential of HLS-driven FPGA designs for edge-level HEP data acquisition, laying a scalable foundation for future integration with real-time detector pipelines and multi-graph processing systems.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Global weak solutions for a nonlocal multispecies Fokker–Planck–Landau system

The global-in-time existence of weak solutions to a spatially homogeneous multispecies Fokker–Planck–Landau system for plasmas in the three-dimensional whole space is shown. The Fokker–Planck–Landau system is a simplification of the Landau equations assuming a linearized, velocity-independent, and isotropic kernel. The resulting equations depend nonlocally and nonlinearly on the moments of the distribution functions via the multispecies local Maxwellians. Furthermore, the existence proof is based on a three-level approximation scheme, energy and entropy estimates, as well as compactness results, and it holds for both soft and hard potentials.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS1987

On the solution of integral equations with a generalized Cauchy kernel

A numerical technique is developed analytically to solve a class of singular integral equations occurring in mixed boundary-value problems for nonhomogeneous elastic media with discontinuities. The approach of Kaya and Erdogan (1987) is extended to treat equations with generalized Cauchy kernels, reformulating the boundary-value problems in terms of potentials as the unknown functions. The numerical implementation of the solution is discussed, and results for an epoxy-Al plate with a crack terminating at the interface and loading normal to the crack are presented in tables.

Kaya, A. C.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Time delay and distance measurement

A method for measuring time delay and distance may include providing an electromagnetic radiation carrier frequency and modulating one or more of amplitude, phase, frequency, polarization, and pointing angle of the carrier frequency with a return to zero (RZ) pseudo random noise (PN) code. The RZ PN code may have a constant bit period and a pulse duration that is less than the bit period. A receiver may detect the electromagnetic radiation and calculate the scattering profile versus time (or range) by computing a cross correlation function between the recorded received signal and a three-state RZ PN code kernel in the receiver. The method also may be used for pulse delay time (i.e., PPM) communications.

Abshire, James B.↗
DOE OSTI2025

MOOSE ProbML: Parallelizable Probabilistic Machine Learning and Uncertainty Quantification Capabilities

The Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) is a widely used open- source finite element software for performing multiphysics multiscale simulations in a massively parallel fashion. Recently, the computational team at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has implemented Probabilistic Machine Learning (ProbML) capabilities in MOOSE—in a parallelized fashion—and enable active learning with large-scale computational models for tasks such as surrogate model development, scale bridging, forward/inverse uncertainty quantification (UQ), Bayesian optimization, etc. This presentation summarizes these developments in MOOSE along with demonstrations on several real applications relevant to nuclear energy. At the fundamental level, samplers like Monte Carlo/Latin Hypercube, variance reduction, parallelized Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) support uncertainty propagation in both forward and inverse settings. These samplers can be integrated with the Gaussian processes (GP) suite in MOOSE, which offer several variants like scalar GPs, multi-output GPs, and deep GPs, to enable active learning. These GPs can be tuned using gradient-based optimization methods like Adam and its variants or gradient-free methods like the elliptical slice sampler (a variant of MCMC adept under Gaussian settings) for more complex covariance kernels or likelihoods whose gradient computations can be cumbersome. A variety of batch acquisition functions permit parallelized evaluation of the computational model and support different learning objectives with high efficiency like Bayesian inference, global surrogate development, optimization, etc. Furthermore, libtorch integration supports training, evaluation, and re-training of neural networks and other complex machine learning models in active learning settings. The impacts of these developments are shown on several real applications: (1) nuclear fuel inverse UQ and model inadequacy assessment using the Kennedy O’Hagan framework; (2) uncertainty aware surrogate modeling for additive manufacturing to predict field quantities; (3) nuclear reactor rare events analysis; and (4) complex fluid flow prediction using a global surrogate with quantified prediction uncertainty. Finally, the outlook of MOOSE ProbML is discussed for both outer-loop and inner-loop computations in the broad view to accelerate fuels and materials qualification, address gaps in knowledge and data, and assess new reactor/fuel systems.

11 - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Nonlocal Kernel Network (NKN): a Stable and Resolution-Independent Deep Neural Network.

Neural operators have recently become popular tools for designing solution maps between function spaces in the form of neural networks. Differently from classical scientific machine learning approaches that learn parameters of a known partial differential equation (PDE) for a single instance of the input parameters at a fixed resolution, neural operators approximate the solution map of a family of PDEs [6, 7]. Despite their success, the uses of neural operators are so far restricted to relatively shallow neural networks and confined to learning hidden governing laws. In this work, we propose a novel nonlocal neural operator, which we refer to as nonlocal kernel network (NKN), that is resolution independent, characterized by deep neural networks, and capable of handling a variety of tasks such as learning governing equations and classifying images. Our NKN stems from the interpretation of the neural network as a discrete nonlocal diffusion reaction equation that, in the limit of infinite layers, is equivalent to a parabolic nonlocal equation, whose stability is analyzed via nonlocal vector calculus. The resemblance with integral forms of neural operators allows NKNs to capture long-range dependencies in the feature space, while the continuous treatment of node-to-node interactions makes NKNs resolution independent. The resemblance with neural ODEs, reinterpreted in a nonlocal sense, and the stable network dynamics between layers allow for generalization of NKN’s optimal parameters from shallow to deep networks. This fact enables the use of shallow-to-deep initialization techniques [8]. Our tests show that NKNs outperform baseline methods in both learning governing equations and image classification tasks and generalize well to different resolutions and depths.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗