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Ohio Advanced Energy Manufacturing Center (OAEMC)

The program goal of the Ohio Advanced Energy Manufacturing Center (OAEMC) is to support advanced energy manufacturing and to create responsive manufacturing clusters that will support the production of advanced energy and energy-efficient products to help ensure the nation's energy and environmental security. This goal cuts across a number of existing industry segments critical to the nation's future. Many of the advanced energy businesses are starting to make the transition from technology development to commercial production. Historically, this transition from laboratory prototypes through initial production for early adopters to full production for mass markets has taken several years. Developing and implementing manufacturing technology to enable production at a price point the market will accept is a key step. Since these start-up operations are configured to advance the technology readiness of the core energy technology, they have neither the expertise nor the resources to address manufacturing readiness issues they encounter as the technology advances toward market entry. Given the economic realities of today's business environment, finding ways to accelerate this transition can make the difference between success and failure for a new product or business. The advanced energy industry touches a wide range of industry segments that are not accustomed to working together in complex supply chains to serve large markets such as automotive and construction. During its first three years, the Center has catalyzed the communication between companies and industry groups that serve the wide range of advanced energy markets. The Center has also found areas of common concern, and worked to help companies address these concerns on a segment or industry basis rather than having each company work to solve common problems individually. EWI worked with three industries through public-private partnerships to sew together disparate segments helping to promote overall industry health. To aid the overall advanced energy industry, EWI developed and launched an Ohio chapter of the non-profit Advanced Energy Economy. In this venture, Ohio joins with six other states including Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont to help promote technologies that deliver energy that is affordable, abundant and secure. In a more specific arena, EWI's advanced energy group collaborated with the EWI-run Nuclear Fabrication Consortium to promote the nuclear supply chain. Through this project EWI has helped bring the supply chain up to date for the upcoming period of construction, and assisted them in understanding the demands for the next generation of facilities now being designed. In a more targeted manner, EWI worked with 115 individual advanced energy companies that are attempting to bring new technology to market. First, these interactions helped EWI develop an awareness of issues common to companies in different advanced energy sectors. By identifying and addressing common issues, EWI helps companies bring technology to market sooner and at a lower cost. These visits also helped EWI develop a picture of industry capability. This helped EWI provide companies with contacts that can supply commercial solutions to their new product development challenges. By providing assistance in developing supply chain partnerships, EWI helped companies bring their technology to market faster and at a lower cost than they might have been able to do by themselves. Finally, at the most granular level EWI performed dedicated research and development on new manufacturing processes for advanced energy. During discussions with companies participating in advanced energy markets, several technology issues that cut across market segments were identified. To address some of these issues, three crosscutting technology development projects were initiated and completed with Center support. This included reversible welds for batteries and high temperature heat exchangers. It also included a novel advanced weld trainer that EWI has recently commercialized.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Model-Based Investigation of Multi-Fault Interactions and Performance Degradation in Residential Heat Pump Systems

Faults in heat pump systems can significantly degrade performance, reduce efficiency, and accelerate component wear, leading to higher operating costs and maintenance demands. While numerous studies have investigated the impact of individual faults, the interactions between multiple concurrent faults remain insufficiently understood, despite their common occurrence in real-world operation. This study conducts a comprehensive simulation analysis of multiple simultaneous faults in a vapor compression heat pump using a validated heat pump design model (HPDM) tool. Detailed component-level modeling methods are implemented to examine performance sensitivity under combinations of refrigerant flow and heat exchanger faults. The results reveal complex fault interactions that can mask or amplify system deviations, challenging conventional diagnostic approaches. Findings from this work provide meaningful insights for the development of more robust fault detection and diagnosis algorithms, supporting improved reliability and energy efficiency in next-generation heat pump technologies.

Hu, Yifeng [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000242875185)↗

High-Surface-Area Inorganic Membrane for Process Water Removal: Application to Ethanol Fuel Production

This report summarizes process research results about concept development of thin flat sheet water-selective molecular sieve membrane – a breakthrough membrane product technology for separation of water from ethanol-enriched process streams. The studies include 1) membrane separation performance testing with real-world feeds sampled from Pacific Ethanol Inc’s ethanol plant at Boardman, Oregon and 2) process design and simulation of membrane separation implementation into a corn ethanol plant. The separation tests were conducted on a laboratory-bench testing apparatus in a batch operation mode with small membrane samples (about 1-inch diameter) but under practical conditions, while the process simulation was performed using ASPEN and USDA models. A two-stage membrane separation system is proposed to conduct ethanol enrichment and purification by replacing respective distillation and adsorption process. More than 90% energy saving can be obtained using the membrane separation. It is estimated that the membrane unit for a 40 million gal/year of ethanol plant can be fairly compact - about the sizes of a plate heat exchanger due to high flux of the new membrane. The cost and lifetime of this new membrane product are critical factors to lower the capital cost. This membrane technology is promising for upgrading of existing corn ethanol plants and for building of new cellulosic ethanol plants in the future as well. The results obtained in this work warrant further development of membrane module prototypes and demonstration of their long-term operation stability with slip streams at ethanol plants, which is necessary to move the technology toward commercialization.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Chapter 10 - Economic Considerations for Hydrogen Production with a Focus on Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Electrolysis

This Chapter provides an overview of key economic considerations for hydrogen produced from water electrolysis, with the analyses presented here ranging from high-level summaries to detailed considerations of key market and technological drivers. As the electric power sector evolves to account for increasing shares of renewable energy, opportunities are emerging for technologies capable of storing renewable energy in various forms, including as hydrogen. Opportunities for reducing the cost of hydrogen produced from electrolysis include ensuring access to low-cost wholesale electricity, reducing the capital cost of electrolyzers, and development of systems capable of being dispatchable loads without experiencing significant efficiency penalties throughout lifetime. Our analysis indicates that numerous pathways exist for making hydrogen from electrolysis cost-competitive with hydrogen produced from conventional technologies, and significant opportunities exist for research and development to address performance targets for the future electrolysis systems envisioned here.

cost reduction↗

Additive manufacturing of ceramic materials for energy applications: Road map and opportunities

Among engineering materials, ceramics are indispensable in energy applications such as batteries, capacitors, solar cells, smart glass, fuel cells and electrolyzers, nuclear power plants, thermoelectrics, thermoionics, carbon capture and storage, control of harmful emission from combustion engines, piezoelectrics, turbines and heat exchangers, among others. Advances in additive manufacturing (AM) offer new opportunities to fabricate these devices in geometries unachievable previously and may provide higher efficiencies and performance, all at lower costs. This article reviews the state of the art in ceramic materials for various energy applications. The focus of the review is on material selections, processing, and opportunities for AM technologies in energy related ceramic materials manufacturing. The aim of the article is to provide a roadmap for stakeholders such as industry, academia and funding agencies on research and development in additive manufacturing of ceramic materials toward more efficient, cost-effective, and reliable energy systems.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cells for Space Applications

This presentation will provide a summary of the PEM fuel cell development at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Johnson Space Center (NASA, JSC) in support of future space applications. Fuel cells have been used for space power generation due to their high energy storage density for multi-day missions. The Shuttle currently utilizes the alkaline fuel cell technology, which has highly safe and reliable performance. However, the alkaline technology has a limited life due to the corrosion inherent to the alkaline technology. PEM fuel cells are under development by industry for transportation, residential and commercial stationary power applications. NASA is trying to incorporate some of this stack technology development in the PEM fuel cells for space. NASA has some unique design and performance parameters which make developing a PEM fuel cell system more challenging. Space fuel cell applications utilize oxygen, rather than air, which yields better performance but increases the hazard level. To reduce the quantity of reactants that need to be flown in space, NASA also utilizes water separation and reactant recirculation. Due to the hazards of utilizing active components for recirculation and water separation, NASA is trying to develop passive recirculation and water separation methods. However, the ability to develop recirculation components and water separators that are gravity-independent and successfully operate over the full range of power levels is one of the greatest challenges to developing a safe and reliable PEM fuel cell system. PEM stack, accessory component, and system tests that have been performed for space power applications will be discussed.

Bradley, Karla↗

REFRACTORY COMPACT HEAT EXCHANGERS WITH EMBEDDED SENSORS ENABLED BY HYBRID ADVANCED SINTERING AND ADDITIVE APPROACH

Structural health monitoring (SHM) of compact heat exchangers (CHXs) operating in extreme environments is essential for ensuring system reliability, safety, and longevity. This study presents the development of high-temperature sensors fabricated via aerosol jet printing (AJP) using platinum ink, selected for its exceptional thermal stability, oxidation resistance, and electrical conductivity. AJP enables precise deposition of fine-feature sensor patterns onto complex geometries, making it well-suited for integration within CHX architectures. To enhance sensor durability, an alumina-based ceramic protective layer was printed over the platinum sensing elements. The sensors demonstrated stable, repeatable performance up to 900?°C during extended thermal cycling. A custom test setup was developed to evaluate sensor accuracy and robustness under steady-state and transient conditions. Substrate screening identified HG-1 ceramic-coated stainless steel as the most effective platform, offering strong adhesion and low resistance. Furthermore, electric field-assisted sintering (EFAS) was employed to embed the sensors into stainless steel 316L matrices without degrading their functionality. Post-embedding electrical tests confirmed sensor integrity, and initial characterization suggests strong potential for in-situ monitoring. This work provides a scalable strategy for integrating high-performance temperature sensors directly into refractory components, advancing embedded SHM technologies for harsh operating environments.

36 - MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Charge-exchange recombination spectroscopy of the plasma ion temperature at the T-10 tokamak

Charge-exchange recombination spectroscopy (CXRS) based on a diagnostic neutral beam has been developed at the T-10 tokamak. The diagnostics allows one to measure the ion temperature profile in the cross section of the plasma column. In T-10 experiments, the measurement technique was adjusted and the elements of the CXRS diagnostics for ITER were tested. The used spectroscopic equipment makes it possible to reliably determine the ion temperature from the Doppler broadening of impurity lines (helium, carbon), as well as of the spectral lines of the working gas. The profiles of the plasma ion temperature in deuterium and helium discharges were measured at different plasma currents and densities, including with the use of active Doppler measurements of lines of different elements. The validity and reliability of ion temperature measurements performed by means of the developed CXRS diagnostics are analyzed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

The Impact of Trust on Organization Commitment

As the global economy continues to spawn competitive forces, organizations have sought to become more competitive by cutting costs, eliminating non-value added work, and using more automation. Jobs have become broader and more flexible leading to a leaner workforce with higher-level knowledge and skills and more responsibility for day-to-day decisions. More than ever, organizations depend on employees as the innovators and designers of products and processes and as a source of strategic advantage. Therefore employee commitment among knowledge workers is needed to maintain organizational viability. It would seem that stronger relationships due to greater dependency, involvement, and investment would develop between employers and high-technology workers resulting in more committed employees. However, the opposite has been evidenced as key knowledge workers are changing jobs frequently. This may be due to a perceived lack of commitment by management to its employees. The notion of exchange may dominate the development of organizational commitment whereby an individual decides what to give a firm (commitment, extra effort, better performance, etc.) based on what the firm gives them (e.g., trust and security). It is the relationship between an employee's organizational commitment and the responding level of trust in the organization that is examined in this paper. An experiment is described that will seek to identify this relationship. Preliminary results are expected to show a positive relationship whereby employee commitment is positively correlated with organizational trust.

Robinson, Kimberly↗

NASA Non-Flow-Through PEM Fuel Cell System for Aerospace Applications

NASA is researching passive NFT Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell technologies for primary fuel cell power plants in air-independent applications. NFT fuel cell power systems have a higher power density than flow through systems due to both reduced parasitic loads and lower system mass and volume. Reactant storage still dominates system mass/volume considerations. NFT fuel cell stack testing has demonstrated equivalent short term performance to flow through stacks. More testing is required to evaluate long-term performance.

Araghi, Koorosh R.↗

Improvements on Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) Codes and High-Performance Neuromorphic Engineering for Communication Systems

Belief propagation (BP) on LDPC codes is an iterative decoding algorithm that performs information transfer on the Tanner graph, which represents the code. In each iteration, the algorithm exchanges information (LLR) between variable nodes and check nodes through the edges of the graph. LLR values represent the probability that a given bit in a transmitted codeword equals 0 or 1, given a received word. In the hardware part, recent advancements in intelligent technologies, such as artificial intelligence, big data analytics, autonomous vehicles, and speech/image recognition, have heightened the demand for faster calculations and reduced energy consumption.

Danilo Barrionuevo↗

Automated Work Package: Initial Wireless Communication Platform Design, Development, and Evaluation

The Department of Energy’s Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program is developing the scientific basis to ensure long-term reliability, productivity, safety, and security of the nuclear power industry in the United States. The Instrumentation, Information, and Control (II&C) pathway of the program aims to increase the role of advanced II&C technologies to achieve this objective. One of the pathway efforts at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is to improve the work packages execution process by replacing the expensive, inefficient, bulky, complex, and error-prone paper-based work orders with automated work packages (AWPs). An AWP is an automated and dynamic presentation of the work package designed to guide the user through the work process. It is loaded on a mobile device, such as a tablet, and is capable of communicating with plant equipment and systems to acquire plant and procedure states. The AWP replaces those functions where a computer is more efficient and reliable than a human. To enable the automatic acquisition of plant data, it is necessary to design and develop a prototype platform for data exchange between the field instruments and the AWP mobile devices. The development of the platform aims to reveal issues and solutions generalizable to large-scale implementation of a similar system. Topics such as bandwidth, robustness, response time, interference, and security are usually associated with wireless communication. These concerns, along with other requirements, are listed in an earlier INL report. Specifically, the targeted issues and performance aspects in this work are relevant to the communication infrastructure from the perspective of promptness, robustness, expandability, and interoperability with different technologies.

Automated Work Packages↗

Improving Energy Efficiency of Air Separation via Hollow Fiber Sorbents

This report summarizes the work performed under the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE-NETL) Advanced Energy Systems Program award number DE-FE0026163 Improving Energy Efficiency of Air Separation via Hollow Fiber Sorbents. The overall objective of the project was to develop technology to produce oxygen for use in coal gasification processes at a significantly lower cost than that of the commercial state-of-the-art technology. The focus of the project was development and optimization of hollow fiber sorbents for use in a pressure swing adsorption (PSA) process for producing oxygen from air. The key technical advancement under this program was the development of a hollow fiber sorbent capable of producing oxygen in a PSA process. PSAs produce oxygen by using a beaded zeolite material (typically lithium exchanged zeolites or LiX) that selectively adsorb nitrogen over oxygen. For a fiber to adsorb nitrogen, LiX needed to be integrated into a polymer fiber and then activated at over 350C to remove residual moisture. After screening multiple materials and process techniques, Matrimid/LiX hollow fibers were produced that were able to withstand the activation and had crystalline nitrogen capacity close to pure LiX crystals. The fibers were dual layer fibers with a barrier layer isolating the hollow bore from the LiX embedded layer. The barrier layer was formed from an Ultem® based solution. The hollow bore was intended for encapsulating phase change materials to ensure isothermal PSA operation. Modeling work from the project suggested that the benefits of this additional complexity were marginal, thus the team fabricated non-hollow fibers comprised of Matrimid and LiX. The Matrimid/LiX fibers were loaded into a module and tested on a bench scale PSA unit. The fibers were able to separate oxygen from air, but the purity and recovery were lower than expected and lower than traditional beaded LiX zeolites, although modeling results suggested that the bed sizes for fiber sorbents could be half the size of a beaded LiX bed. Additional work will be needed to understand the shortfall and to produce fiber sorbent modules with performance equal to the targets set for this program. In addition to producing fibers, modeling work was carried out at both the fiber level and process level to guide both fiber sorbent development and to determine the optimal process conditions for a PSA using fiber sorbents. A 2D hollow fiber model was developed in gPROMS Model Builder. This model was based on literature data for mass transfer and other parameters. This model used a basic single bed PSA process to determine important fiber properties and process conditions for achieving high oxygen recovery. The preliminary 2D fiber model was a valuable tool, however, for step-out technologies, such as a PSA process with fiber sorbents, intelligent optimization and plant control was needed to effectively determine minimum power designs. Therefore, a gPROMS Process Builder-based optimization tool was developed with an “Automated Cycle Optimizer” model that was able to determine optimal cycle conditions for a fiber sorbent PSA. The results from the optimizer were used in the final power analysis. Flow sheet analysis and techno-economic analysis (TEA) was carried out to determine a lower power solution versus the baseline case. The original project scope suggested that the fiber sorbent PSA could be used to debottleneck a cryogenic air separation plant (cryo-ASU) with the combined plant having lower power than a standalone cryo-ASU. However, early flowsheet analysis showed that the PSA/cryo-ASU concept would not lead to a lower power solution. However, further flowsheet analysis suggested that an oxygen PSA combined with a nitrogen PSA could have lower power versus state-of-the-art air separation technology. Work concluded with the TEA showing a fiber sorbent oxygen PSA combined with an advanced nitrogen PSA could be up to 8% lower power versus the base case cryo-ASU. Overall, there is significant potential remaining for the zeolite hollow fiber sorbent concept, and this project successfully identified -- and ultimately remedied -- many technical challenges associated with scale-up.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

Three-Electrode Study of Electrochemical Ionomer Degradation Relevant to Anion-Exchange-Membrane Water Electrolyzers

Among existing water electrolysis (WE) technologies, anion-exchange-membrane water electrolyzers (AEMWEs) show promise for low-cost operation enabled by the basic solid-polymer electrolyte used to conduct hydroxide ions. The basic environment within the electrolyzer, in principle, allows the use of non-platinum-group metal catalysts and less-expensive cell components compared to acidic-membrane systems. Nevertheless, AEMWEs are still underdeveloped, and the degradation and failure modes are not well understood. To improve performance and durability, supporting electrolytes such as KOH and K 2 CO 3 are often added to the water feed. The effect of the anion interactions with the ionomer membrane (particularly other than OH – ), however, remains poorly understood. We studied three commercial anion-exchange ionomers (Aemion, Sustainion, and PiperION) during oxygen evolution (OER) at oxidizing potentials in several supporting electrolytes and characterized their chemical stability with surface-sensitive techniques. We analyzed factors including the ionomer conductivity, redox potential, and pH tolerance to determine what governs ionomer stability during OER. Specifically, we discovered that the oxidation of Aemion at the electrode surface is favored in the presence of CO 3 2– /HCO 3 – anions perhaps due to the poor conductivity of that ionomer in the carbonate/bicarbonate form. Sustainion tends to lose its charge-carrying groups as a result of electrochemical degradation favored in basic electrolytes. PiperION seems to be similarly negatively affected by a pH drop and low carbonate/bicarbonate conductivity under the applied oxidizing potential. Furthermore, the insight into the interactions of the supporting electrolyte anions with the ionomer/membrane helps shed light on some of the degradation pathways possible inside of the AEMWE and enables the informed design of materials for water electrolysis.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Overcoming Barriers in Electrochemical Toluene Hydrogenation for Efficient Hydrogen Storage by Pt 3 Au Alloy Catalysts

Hydrogen storage and transportation are essential for the hydrogen economy, and liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs), such as a toluene/methylcyclohexane (TOL/MCH) system, offer significant advantages in terms of safety and efficiency. However, the electrochemical reduction of TOL to MCH (TER) faces challenges from competing with the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and catalyst instability. Here, in this study, Pt 3 Au is introduced as a highly effective catalyst for TER. Through density functional theory screening, we identified distinctive properties of Pt 3 Au, including enhanced binding to the TER intermediates and effective HER suppression. Experimental validation confirmed these computational predictions, with Pt 3 Au achieving the highest reported Faradaic efficiency (98%) in proton exchange membrane systems. Moreover, long-term testing demonstrated that Pt 3 Au maintained Faradaic efficiencies of >90% over 9 h, highlighting its robustness and operational stability. By integrating computational modeling and experimental evaluation, this work addresses key limitations in LOHC catalysis. Pt 3 Au establishes a benchmark for selective and stable TER performance, paving the way for advanced hydrogen storage technologies. These findings emphasize the critical role of rational catalyst design in overcoming the challenges associated with scalable and efficient hydrogen storage solutions.

LOHC↗

Dependence of intrinsic torque and momentum confinement on normalized gyroradius and collisionality in the DIII-D tokamak

We measured the dependence of intrinsic torque and momentum confinement time on normalized gyroradius (ρ * ) and collisionality (v * ) in the DIII-D tokamak. The intrinsic torque normalized to temperature is found to have ρ * and v * dependencies of ρ * -1.5 ± 0.8 and v * -0.26 ± 0.04 . This dependence on ρ * is unexpectedly favorable (increasing as ρ * decreases). The choice of normalization is important, and the implications are discussed. The unexpected dependence on ρ * is found to be robust, despite some uncertainty in the choice of normalization. Furthermore, the dependence of momentum confinement on ρ * does not clearly demonstrate Bohm or gyro-Bohm like scaling, and a weaker dependence on v * is found. The calculations required to use these dependencies to determine the intrinsic torque in future tokamaks such as ITER are presented, and the importance of the normalization is explained. Based on the currently available information, the intrinsic torque predicted for ITER is 33 N m, comparable to the expected torque available from neutral beam injection. The expected average intrinsic rotation associated with this intrinsic torque is small compared to current tokamaks, but it may still aid stability and performance in ITER. Published by AIP Publishing.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

2020 Exascale Computing Project Annual Meeting (Executive Summary Report)

The Exascale Computing Project (ECP) delivers specific applications, software products, and outcomes on DOE computing facilities. Integration across these elements for specific hardware technologies for exascale system instantiations is fundamental to ECP success. The outcome of the ECP is the delivery of a capable exascale computing ecosystem to provide breakthrough solutions addressing our most critical challenges in scientific discovery, energy assurance, economic competitiveness, and national security. This outcome is not a matter of ensuring more powerful computing systems. The ECP is designed to create more valuable and rapid insights from a wide variety of applications (“capable”), which requires a much higher level of inherent efficacy in all methods, software tools, and ECP-enabled computing technologies to be acquired by DOE laboratories (“ecosystem”). The ECP annual meeting provides a unique opportunity for the core technical expertise in the United States focused on achieving this next plateau of computational science and computing performance to engage in direct discussions on project execution. Face-to-face gatherings in technical communities like this are common and needed for the exchange of scientific ideas and technical performance. The ECP annual meeting stands apart from other technical conferences and meetings in the computing community as it is uniquely and solely focused on the execution of the ECP and the integration of technical activities leading to the creation of the exascale computing ecosystem for the future. The direct interaction of key critical technical staff, who are leaders in their respective fields, and the resulting give-and-take between software, applications, and hardware and the technical co-design therein, is unique and essential to the effective execution of the ECP. The first annual meeting was held in Knoxville, Tennessee, January 31 – February 2, 2017 and brought together, for the first time, a diverse collection of researchers from 16 DOE national laboratories as well as university computer and computational science researchers to discuss shared problems and joint solutions for the development of a capable exascale computing ecosystem. These interactions resulted in focused technical plans and an energized community centered on advances for ECP. The second annual meeting was held in Knoxville, Tennessee, February 5–9, 2018. It included 643 individual thought leaders and performers in application development, software research and deployment, and hardware research and integrators, all of whom are part of the multifaceted, billion dollar HPC community. This meeting provided a platform to discuss and disseminate numerous examples where researchers with common goals and synergistic solutions came together for the first time to deliver tangible results. Additionally, at the 2018 meeting, ECP researchers had the opportunity to digest all US HPC vendor R&D product roadmaps pointing to exascale – not only to learn how their research can play a role, but, more importantly, to influence those roadmaps to ensure successful delivery on DOE applications that will contribute to (if not solve) problems of national interest in national security, science, energy, and health, as well as growing security threats. The third annual meeting was held in Houston, Texas, January 14–17, 2019. With a 19% increase in the number of registrations (768 people), and the change in location, the third annual meeting was considered the most impactful of the three at the time. The new website provided a better platform for the dissemination of the content, the new venue as a meeting hotel instead of a conference center facilitated interactions and discussions after event hours, and the addition of an award-winning mobile event conference app (Whova) transformed dramatically the attendee experience at the event. This fourth annual meeting was held in Houston, Texas, February 3-7, 2020. This meeting had an increase in the number of attendees for a total of 824 people registered (782 attendees) and included numerous enhancements based on feedback and lessons learned from previous meetings, some of which are listed here: Improved quality of the sessions, their material and the whole program.; Had more industry participation and addition of external collaborators from overseas.; Published the full agenda earlier to better accommodate attendance and travel plans based on schedule.; Centralized all sessions in one venue.; Provided additional hotels and room blocks for the attendees.; Improved communication with the audience (links, material, directions, notifications, etc.) to go paperless.; Enhanced side meeting scheduling, management and user experience.; Made available additional space and tables for impromptu meetings and side discussions.; Improved IT and A/V solutions for speakers. In addition, our final survey captured the following points as opportunities for improvement in future meetings: consider a different meeting location that is more pedestrian friendly, reduce talks during working meals to allow more collaboration and informal time, adapt the agenda to acknowledge attendees from different timezones, consider recording some of the tutorials and/or sessions to share broadly with the HPC community, have a larger poster room, provide additional power strips, and improve the WiFi.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Test results of a Stirling engine utilizing heat exchanger modules with an integral heat pipe

The Heat Pipe Stirling Engine (HP-1000), a free-piston Stirling engine incorporating three heat exchanger modules, each having a sodium filled heat pipe, has been tested at the NASA-Lewis Research Center as part of the Civil Space Technology Initiative (CSTI). The heat exchanger modules were designed to reduce the number of potential flow leak paths in the heat exchanger assembly and incorporate a heat pipe as the link between the heat source and the engine. An existing RE-1000 free-piston Stirling engine was modified to operate using the heat exchanger modules. This paper describes heat exchanger module and engine performance during baseline testing. Condenser temperature profiles, brake power, and efficiency are presented and discussed.

Skupinski, Robert C.↗