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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 OSTI2018

Development of a characterization methodology for post-irradiation examination of miniature fuel specimens

The miniature fuel (MiniFuel) irradiation experimental design at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) enables benchmark testing and separate effects testing of novel fuel types in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) in support of the Advanced Fuels Campaign (AFC). The first round of MiniFuel sub-capsules will be available for post-irradiation examination at the end of 2018. This report establishes the procedure for disassembly, fuel retrieval, post-irradiation analysis of the fission product behavior (fission gas release and fuel swelling), and microstructural characterization of the irradiated MiniFuel specimens. All methods were tested and validated out-of-cell and are ready to be implemented in-cell for use on the first set of irradiated MiniFuel specimens. The path forward regarding further characterization techniques is presented, which will involve analyzing other specimen geometries using the methods presented in this report and expanding the post-irradiation analysis of MiniFuel specimens to include additional properties.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2018

ATDM ASD report to ECP FY18Q4

Kokkos and DARMA teams worked together on several significant proposals for the C++ standards body, including the MDSpan and Exectutors proposals. This work has potential for long-term impact into the language standard reflecting core abstractions needed for our HPC programming and development efforts. Kokkos team collaborating with AMD via the Path Forward effort. This is advancing Kokkos support for [AMD] backends, necessary for future exascale/HPC architectures.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2018

Fracture Effects on Explosive Response (FEER); FY2018 Report

It is known that the violence of explosive response is affected by inertial and mechanical confinement. In a mechanical insult, the impact location creates a contact pressure that can act as confinement surrounding the ignition location, as has been observed in the Skid Test experiment. Under certain conditions — the details of which have not been well characterized — the ignition can produce cracking in the explosive, down which flames are observed to propagate. Cracks serve to simultaneously provide additional surface area for accelerating the reaction, as well as vent paths for quenching the reaction. These are competing behaviors, and the factors which govern the outcome are poorly described. A new experiment was devised to examine the effect of a controlled pre-load pressure on the explosive response. Sixteen experiments were performed on 1-inch thick discs of PBX 9501, with diameters of 1 in ch, 4.25 in ch, and 5 in ch. The explosive was compressed to a known pre-load between two clear windows and ignited at the center of the bottom surface with a focused laser impinging on a graphite inclusion. The ensuing reaction was imaged through the windows used to compress the sample, and from the side. A speckle pattern was applied to some samples for performing DIC (digital image correlation) for the purpose of quantifying the strain field and tracking crack growth. A threshold behavior was observed, in which higher-pressure pre-load resulted in cracks forming, while lower-pressure pre-load vented across the face of the explosive. This report presents the preliminary results, discusses the observations, enumerates hypotheses regarding the observed behavior, identifies lessons learned, and outlines a path forward for the next round of testing. Proof testing was only recently concluded and considerable additional analysis is required. These data will be valuable for the ongoing development of a constitutive mechanical and cracking failure model that will aid in predicting explosive response in mechanical impact scenarios.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2017

Maritime fuel cell generator project

A first-of-its kind hydrogen fuel cell power generator for marine applications was designed, built, and demonstrated to verify increased energy efficiency at part loads and reduced emissions. The project goals were to demonstrate the use of the generator in the maritime environment, identify areas requiring additional research and development, analyze the business case, and address regulatory and other market barriers. A 100 kW generator with 72 kg of hydrogen storage was designed and built by Hydrogenics with safety and regulatory reviews by the Hydrogen Safety Panel, US Coast Guard, and American Bureau of Shipping. Young Brothers operated the generator for 10 months powering refrigerated containers in Honolulu, HI. The project showed it is possible to increase energy efficiency by up to 30% at part load and reduce emissions to zero through the use of hydrogen fuel cells, and identified paths forward to wider adoption of the technology in this sector.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2018

Surface Temperature Mapping Models for STAR and CTF

This milestone presents a demonstration of a surface mapping model to map the surface temperature for single-phase STAR-CCM+ to Cobra-TF using average temperature data. This model can be used to generate high-resolution surface temperature data. This can be accomplished with linear equations or with an alternative non-linear model. Improvements and a path forward for the surface mapping model to be applied to two-phase temperature mappings is also laid out in this milestone report.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2018

Calibration of MAMBA and CRUD Sources Using Full-Core CTF+MAMBA

This report outlines a process for the deterministic calibration of MAMBA using the computational toolkit Dakota. The tools and processes for deterministic calibration have been built and are laid out in this report. While completing this milestone, issues emerged with MAMBA that resulted in delays. The consequences for these difficulties to the calibration process are briefly discussed. The report concludes with an outline of a path forward for Bayesian calibration. The Bayesian calibration will be performed next year. This process was laid out by Benjamin Collins, Robert Salko, and Adam Hetzler.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2016

Engineering a Novel High Temperature Metal Hydride Thermochemical Storage

The goal of this project is to engineer novel metal hydride-based thermochemical energy storage (TCES) that exceeds the DOE’s performance and cost targets. During this three-year project, we aimed to design, fabricate and validate the TCES system with a bed sized to store 240 kWh of heat during 8 hours. Large-scale testing will demonstrate the metal hydride TCES capacity of 240 kWh with a 30 kW heat rate, with an efficiency projected to be >95% to validate a commercial path forward.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

PV Systems Reliability and Outreach

The project purpose was to collaborate with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to reach out to the photovoltaic (PV) industry to cooperate, collaborate and facilitate establishment and access to PV plant data for use in the Photovoltaic Reliability Operations and Maintenance (PVROM) database. Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and EPRI conducted this outreach to expand and accelerate the implementation of PVROM by gathering more data for analyzing trends, with a goal of accelerating the adoption of PV systems as a primary power generation source in the United States. SNL and EPRI analyzed the data from the PVROM database to assess industry trends in operations and maintenance (O&M) and develop guidelines for the industry. More specifically, this project was intended to leverage SNL’s expertise in PV plant reliability data collection and analysis, with data sharing partners that own or operate PV systems who wanted to learn about rigorous reliabilitybased data collection to track issues over time and improve O&M activities. The partnership also worked to host multiple workshops as part of the SNL/EPRI PV Systems Symposium to gather industry feedback on O&M process improvement and data standards, and share insights learned from the collaboration between SNL and EPRI in the area of PV system reliability. Additional outreach included multiple ‘expert elicitation’ interviews led by EPRI to gather best practices and paths forward for improving/standardizing PV plant O&M and asset management practices. Technical accomplishments included further development of the PVROM database process, sharing best practices for reliability data collection and improving industry understanding of existing O&M practices, important knowledge, and new and novel techniques for benefitting EPRI utility partners and the broader PV industry. Improved reliability at a PV power plant leads to a lower levelized cost of energy (LCOE), which is reflected most directly in its operating expenses. Electric utilities that utilize PV as a larger share of plants they own and operate are interested in having a high degree of availability or ‘uptime’, similar to other power generation sources in their service area. Having low cost, reliable PV generation can lead to fewer costs that need to be recovered by the utility over the lifetime of the power plant, and less regulatory uncertainty when considering bulk transmission and distribution system reliability. The public and taxpayers benefit by the electric utility passing through lower electricity costs.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Fuel Cell Buses in U.S. Transit Fleets: Current Status 2018

This report, published annually, summarizes the progress of fuel cell electric bus (FCEB) development in the United States and discusses the achievements and challenges of introducing fuel cell propulsion in transit. The report provides a summary of results from evaluations performed by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Renewable Energy Laboratory. This annual status report combines results from all FCEB demonstrations, tracks the progress of the FCEB industry toward meeting technical targets, documents the lessons learned, and discusses the path forward for commercial viability of fuel cell technology for transit buses. The data from these early FCEB deployments funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation, state agencies, and the private sector help to guide future early-stage research and development supported by DOE's Fuel Cell Technologies Office. The 2018 summary results primarily focus on the most recent year for each demonstration, from August 2017 through July 2018. NREL has included an up-to-date analysis of operational costs including scheduled and unscheduled cost and cost per mile by system. The primary results presented in the report are from five demonstrations of two different fuel-cell-dominant bus designs.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗
DOE OSTI2015

Advanced Diagnostic and Sample Preparation Platform for Early Threat Surveillance

Emerging infectious diseases present a profound threat to global health, economic development, and political stability, and therefore represent a significant national security concern for the United States. The increased prevalence of international travel and globalized trade further amplify the threat of infectious disease outbreaks of catastrophic effect. The key to containing and eradicating an outbreak before it goes global is rapid identification of index cases and initial clusters of affected individuals. This depends upon establishment of a biosurveillance network that effectively reaches infectious disease hotspots in even the most remote regions of the world and provides a network-integrated, location-appropriate diagnostic capability. At present, there are two critical needs which must be addressed in order to extend biosurveillance activities beyond centralized laboratory facilities: 1) A simple, reliable, and safe method for immediate stabilization of clinical specimens in the field; and 2) A flexible sample processing platform that enables in-field preparation of clinical specimens for rapid, on-site analysis using a variety of diagnostic assay platforms. These needs are not necessarily mutually exclusive; in fact, we propose that they are most efficiently addressed by a deployable sample processing platform that immediately stabilizes the information content of clinical specimens through transformation of the inherently unstable analytes of interest into stable equivalents that are appropriately formatted for downstream analysis. In order to address this problem, we have developed a sample processing pipeline and microfluidics-based platform modules enabling: 1) Extraction of total RNA from finger-stick quantities of human whole blood; and 2) Microscale synthesis of appropriately-formatted cDNA products that capture the information content of blood RNA in a stable form that supports pathogen detection and/or characterization via PCR and/or Second Generation Sequencing (SGS). Through this research we have discovered new, effective solutions for problems that thus far have hindered use of digital microfluidics (DMF) in biomedical applications. Our work reveals a clear path forward to fieldable, automated sample processing systems that will enable rapid, on-site identification of usual-suspect and novel pathogens in clinical specimens for improved biosurveillance.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

Blade-Resolved, Single-Turbine Simulations Under Atmospheric Flow

The ultimate goal of the ExaWind project is to enable scientific discovery through predictive simulations of wind farms comprised of many megawatt-scale turbines situated in complex terrain. Predictive simulations will require computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations for which the mesh resolves the geometry of the turbines and captures the rotation and large deflections of blades. Whereas such simulations for a single turbine are arguably petascale class, multi-turbine wind farm simulations will require exascale-class resources. The objective of this milestone is to demonstrate a 'production run' of a megawatt-scale turbine to exercise and demonstrate the turbine simulation capabilities that have been developed during the previous two years of the ExaWind project. Demonstrating this simulation capability is the critical first step in enabling Nalu-Wind to be used as a predictive modeling tool that can advance the scientific understanding of wind turbine performance. In Section 2, the milestone description is provided. Next, in Section 3, we present the NREL 5-megawatt (MW) reference turbine that was used to demonstrate Nalu-Wind's capabilities and describe the four computational meshes that were generated. In Section 4, we present results from simulations of the turbine operating under uniform inflow and homogeneous isotropic turbulence (HIT) conditions. Finally, in Section 5, notable achievements, conclusions, and a path forward are described.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Investigating the Dynamic Compaction Behavior of Brittle Powders

The compression of porous materials to full density is a complex physical and mechanical process. Modeling efforts to capture the compaction behavior of distended solids (e.g., porous materials or powders) have produced a variety of compaction models, each functionalized to address specific compaction mechanisms. Of the available models, those suited for high-strain-rate deformation associated with shock loading have generally been developed for ductile materials. Compaction models for brittle materials have only been developed for quasistatic loading conditions. No predictive models currently exist that successfully capture the physical processes and mechanics for shock compaction of brittle distended materials, such as sand and oxide powders. The primary hindrance in producing a dynamic compaction model for brittle distended materials is the lack of availability of high-fidelity, high-precision shock compaction data for validation. The proposed work is aimed at alleviating this issue by developing a high-precision testing method in combination with high-fidelity analysis methods to accurately and precisely determine the shocked state of an ideal test material, ceria powder, under uniaxial strain dynamic compaction. The measured shock compaction data from these brittle powder experiments is then used in initial computations to design a cylindrically converging shock compaction experiment within situ time-resolved shocked density measurements, employing proton radiography. The preliminary experimental and computational results obtained from these uniaxial strain dynamic compaction and cylindrically converging shock compaction experiments are presented. An experimental and computational path forwards to predictive model development is then proposed.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2019

Powering the Blue Economy: Exploring Opportunities for Marine Renewable Energy in Various Maritime

The blue economy is an emerging sector that will require energy to allow many scientific and commercial endeavors to reach their potential. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office seeks to understand marine and coastal opportunities for which marine energy could fulfill those energy needs. This report documents the material gathered during a year-long fact-finding effort engaging users and developers, through literature review, workshops, interviews, and national lab analyses, as well as a Request for Information process. Each market was assessed by a set of common analyses: opportunity summary; application description and power requirements; market description, power options, and geographic relevance; marine energy potential value proposition; and path forward including research and development needs and potential partners. The major finding is that there are more markets with potential than anticipated, both for Power at Sea (including ocean observation and navigation, underwater vehicle charging, marine aquaculture, marine algae, and seawater mining), and Resilient Coastal Communities (including desalination, coastal resiliency and disaster recovery, and community-scale isolated power systems). The enabling attributes of marine energy resources include that they are abundant, geographically diverse, energy dense, predictable, and complementary to other energy sources. This report can help direct analysis and research and development efforts by government, scientists, developers, and other stakeholders to more deeply understand and meet specific technical and economic requirements to power emerging opportunities in the blue economy.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Development and Evaluation of a Drone-Deployed Wind Turbine Blade Nondestructive Inspection System

Wind energy is quickly becoming a significant contributor to the United States' overall energy portfolio. Wind turbine blades pose a unique set of inspection challenges that span from very thick and attenuative spar cap structures to porous bond lines, varying core material and a multitude of manufacturing defects of interest. The need for viable, accurate nondestructive inspection (NDI) technology becomes more important as the cost per blade, and lost revenue from downtime, grows. To address this growing need, Sandia and SkySpecs collaborated to evaluate NDI methods that are suitable for integration on an autonomous drone inspection platform. A trade study of these NDI methods was performed, and thermography was selected as the primary technique for further evaluation. Based on the capabilities of SkySpecs' custom inspection drone, a miniature microbolometer IR camera was successfully selected and tested in a benchtop setting. After identifying key operating parameters for inspecting wind blade materials, hardware and software integration of the IR camera was performed, and Sandia and SkySpecs conducted initial field testing. Finally, recommendations for a path forward for drone-deployed thermography inspections were provided.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

M4SF-19LL010301042: Code Development in Support of the SFWST Thermodynamic Database

This progress report (Level 4 Milestone Number M4SF-19LL010301042) summarizes research conducted at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) within the Argillite Activity Number SF-19LL010301041. LLNL is leading efforts in the development of thermodynamic databases in support of the Spent Fuel and Waste and Science Technology (SFWST) program. Thermodynamic models provide the basis for understanding the stability of solid phases and speciation of aqueous species and modeling the evolution of repository conditions. The LLNL effort is being performed in coordination with other US database development efforts. The effort includes a review of available thermochemical databases and a path forward for database integration. International coordination with the NEA-TDB is supported through crystalline international work package

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEA↗
DOE OSTI2019

Conceptual Design for a Mobile Adaptive Additive Manufacturing In-situ Diagnostic End-Station (MAdAM)

With the importance of additive manufacturing (AM) growing, researchers are interested in characterizing the dynamics of metal solidification in AM processes and its impact on part structure and performance. In-situ AM experiments at Xray facilities allow for the temporal study of these systems but require many different connections, interfaces, and equipment which can take a considerable amount of time and effort to set up, reducing the user’s useful beamtime. It is essential to provide the means for an experiment to achieve the relevant thermal boundary conditions and control the cooling rates to replicate the conditions of the manufacturing process. A team effort defined the overall capabilities and requirements for a mobile adaptive additive manufacturing (MAdAM) in-situ diagnostic end-station that can be used at X-ray facilities. Further, specific details of the key elements of the system are developed. Further iteration and development of details will be needed; the path forward and next steps for such a project is described.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗