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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 451 records · Page 25
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

Planck intermediate results: XXXV. Probing the role of the magnetic field in the formation of structure in molecular clouds

Within ten nearby (d < 450 pc) Gould belt molecular clouds we evaluate in this paper statistically the relative orientation between the magnetic field projected on the plane of sky, inferred from the polarized thermal emission of Galactic dust observed by Planck at 353 GHz, and the gas column density structures, quantified by the gradient of the column density, N H . The selected regions, covering several degrees in size, are analysed at an effective angular resolution of 10' FWHM, thus sampling physical scales from 0.4 to 40 pc in the nearest cloud. The column densities in the selected regions range from N H ≈ 10 21 to10 23 cm -2 , and hence they correspond to the bulk of the molecular clouds. The relative orientation is evaluated pixel by pixel and analysed in bins of column density using the novel statistical tool called “histogram of relative orientations”. Throughout this study, we assume that the polarized emission observed by Planck at 353 GHz is representative of the projected morphology of the magnetic field in each region, i.e., we assume a constant dust grain alignment efficiency, independent of the local environment. Within most clouds we find that the relative orientation changes progressively with increasing N H , from mostly parallel or having no preferred orientation to mostly perpendicular. In simulations of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in molecular clouds this trend in relative orientation is a signature of Alfvénic or sub-Alfvénic turbulence, implying that the magnetic field is significant for the gas dynamics at the scales probed by Planck. Finally, we compare the deduced magnetic field strength with estimates we obtain from other methods and discuss the implications of the Planck observations for the general picture of molecular cloud formation and evolution.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Nitrogen-doped 9-cell cavity performance in a test cryomodule for LCLS-II

The superconducting RF linac for Linac Coherent Light Source-II calls for 1.3 GHz 9-cell cavities with an average intrinsic quality factor Q{sub 0} of 2.7 × 10{sup 10} at 2.0 K and 16 MV/m accelerating gradient. Two niobium 9 cell cavities, prepared with nitrogen-doping at Fermilab, were assembled into the Cornell Horizontal Test Cryomodule (HTC) to test cavity performance in a cryomodule that is very similar to a full LCLS-II cryomodule. The cavities met LCLS-II specifications with an average quench field of 17 MV/m and an average Q{sub 0} of 3 × 10{sup 10}. The sensitivity of the cavities' residual resistance to ambient magnetic field was determined to be 0.5 nΩ/mG during fast cool down. In two cool downs, a heater attached to one of the cavity beam tubes was used to induce large horizontal temperature gradients. Here, we report on the results of these first tests of nitrogen-doped cavities in a cryomodule, which provide critical information for the LCLS-II project.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2018

2nd Annual Report: Tropical Forest Response To A Drier Future: Turnover Times Of Soil Organic Matter, Roots, Respired CO 2 , And CH 4 Across Moisture Gradients In Time And Space

Moisture may be more important than temperature in driving soil carbon storage and emissions in the tropics, while the role of moisture on soil carbon dynamics is underrepresented in current land surface models. Data on belowground carbon cycling in the tropics is sparse, making extrapolation from field experiments to the tropics as a whole uncertain and limiting our ability to test and improve land model performance. The overall goal of my Early Career research is to constrain belowground carbon turnover times for tropical forests across a broad range in moisture regimes. Focusing on the Neo-tropics where climate projections indicate a drier future (Figure 1), my group is using 14 C analysis and modeling to address two major objectives: 1. Quantify age and belowground carbon turnover times across tropical forests spanning a moisture gradient from wetlands to dry forests and test the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 1: Moisture is the dominant regional-scale climate driver for belowground carbon turnover times across large precipitation gradients in tropical forests. Hypothesis 2: In seasonally dry forests, the age of respired CO 2 , emitted methane, and DOC shift to reflect new photosynthates during the wet season. Hypothesis 3: With decreasing precipitation, roots become distributed more deeply in the soil profile and their relative importance to deep soil carbon cycles increases. 2. Identify specific areas for focused model improvement and data needs through site-specific modeldata comparison and belowground carbon modeling for tropical forests. In addition, smaller collaborative focus studies will allow us to assess the role of other drivers for soil carbon storage and turnover in tropical forests, such as soil type, parent materials and mineralogy, landuse, and soil biology.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Density functional based methods for light harvesting molecules

The goal of the proposal was to computationally study the photoinduced charge transfer excited states of organic molecules. The systems of interest are the large organic supramolecules that have potential for photovoltaic applications. The simulation of the charge transfer excited states in large supramolecular assemblies require quantum mechanical methods that can be applied to systems with hundreds of atoms. Through this project we have implemented a perturbative delta-self-consistent field method that can easily describe the charge transfer excited states with regular density functionals without range separation. The cost of the calculations of an excited state is similar to that of the ground state. The method also allows for calculation of the energy gradients of the excited state. The developed method was applied to study a number of different supramolecular systems containing hundreds of atoms with excellent agreement with experiment. The absorption characteristics and the influence of density functional approximations were also examined. These led to several studies on the variety of organic electron donor and acceptor molecules. Apart from these developments through this project we also improved the code capabilities by implementing new meta-GGA functionals. This was a major step since the code is purely density functional and earlier the functional capabilities were limited only to generalized gradient approximations. A total of 23 peer-reviewed publications in top chemical physics journals resulted from this grant.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

Model reduction for hypersonic aerodynamics via conservative LSPG projection and hyper-reduction

High-speed aerospace engineering applications rely heavily on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models for design and analysis due to the expense and difficulty of flight tests and experiments. This reliance on CFD models necessitates performing accurate and reliable uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the CFD models. However, it is very computationally expensive to run CFD for hypersonic flows due to the fine grid resolution required to capture the strong shocks and large gradients that are typically present. Furthermore, UQ approaches are “many-query” problems requiring many runs with a wide range of input parameters. One way to enable computationally expensive models to be used in such many-query problems is to employ projection-based reduced-order models (ROMs) in lieu of the (high-fidelity) full-order model. In particular, the least-squares Petrov–Galerkin (LSPG) ROM (equipped with hyper-reduction) has demonstrated the ability to significantly reduce simulation costs while retaining high levels of accuracy on a range of problems including subsonic CFD applications. This allows computationally inexpensive LSPG ROM simulations to replace the full-order model simulations in UQ studies, which makes this many-query task tractable, even for large-scale CFD models. This work presents the first application of LSPG to a hypersonic CFD application. In particular, we present results for LSPG ROMs of the HIFiRE-1 in a three-dimensional, turbulent Mach 7.1 flow, showcasing the ability of the ROM to significantly reduce computational costs while maintaining high levels of accuracy in computed quantities of interest.

Fluid Dynamics↗
DOE OSTI2015

POD/DEIM reduced-order strategies for efficient four dimensional variational data assimilation

This work studies reduced order modeling (ROM) approaches to speed up the solution of variational data assimilation problems with large scale nonlinear dynamical models. It is shown that a key requirement for a successful reduced order solution is that reduced order Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions accurately represent their full order counterparts. In particular, accurate reduced order approximations are needed for the forward and adjoint dynamical models, as well as for the reduced gradient. New strategies to construct reduced order based are developed for proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) ROM data assimilation using both Galerkin and Petrov–Galerkin projections. For the first time POD, tensorial POD, and discrete empirical interpolation method (DEIM) are employed to develop reduced data assimilation systems for a geophysical flow model, namely, the two dimensional shallow water equations. Numerical experiments confirm the theoretical framework for Galerkin projection. In the case of Petrov–Galerkin projection, stabilization strategies must be considered for the reduced order models. The new reduced order shallow water data assimilation system provides analyses similar to those produced by the full resolution data assimilation system in one tenth of the computational time.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2021

Alignment of the magnetic field in star-forming regions and why it might be difficult to observe

ABSTRACT Magnetic fields are an important component of the interstellar medium (ISM) and exhibit strongly varying field strengths and a non-trivial correlation with the gas density. Its dynamical impact varies between individual regions of the ISM and correlates with the orientation of the field with respect to the gas structures. Using high-resolution magneto-hydrodynamical simulations of the ISM, we explore the connection between the orientation of the field and the dynamical state of the gas. We find that the onset of gravitational instability in molecular gas above a density of $\rho \sim 10^{-21}\, \mathrm{g\, cm}^{-3}$$(n\sim 400\, \mathrm{cm}^{-3})$ coincides with an alignment of the magnetic field lines and the gas flow. At this transition, the gradient of the density changes from mainly perpendicular to preferentially parallel to the field lines. A connection between the three-dimensional alignment and projected two-dimensional observables is non-trivial, because of a large dispersion of the magnetic field orientation along the line of sight. The turbulent correlation lengths can be small compared to the typical integration lengths. As a consequence, the small-scale signal of the orientation can sensitively depend on the line of sight or the dynamical state of the cloud can fluctuate stochastically or be completely averaged out. With higher spatial resolution more small-scale structures are resolved, which aggravates the link between magneto-hydrodynamical quantities and projected observables.

Girichidis, Philipp (ORCID:0000000293009914)↗
DOE OSTI2024

Measuring axion gradients with photon interferometry

We propose a novel search technique for axions with a C P -violating monopole coupling g ˜ Q to bulk Standard Model charges Q ∈ { B , L , B − L } . Gradients in the static axion field configurations sourced by matter induce achromatic circular photon birefringence via the axion-photon coupling g ϕ γ . Circularly polarized light fed into an optical or (open) radio-frequency (RF) Fabry-Pérot (FP) cavity develops a phase shift that accumulates up to the cavity finesse: the fixed axion spatial gradient prevents a cancellation known to occur for an axion dark-matter search. The relative phase shift between two FP cavities fed with opposite circular polarizations can be detected interferometrically. This time-independent signal can be modulated up to nonzero frequency by altering the cavity orientations with respect to the field gradient. Multiwavelength co-metrology techniques can be used to address chromatic measurement systematics and noise sources. With Earth as the axion source, we project reach beyond current constraints on the product of couplings g ˜ Q g ϕ γ for axion masses m ϕ ≲ 10 − 5 eV . If shot-noise-limited sensitivity can be achieved, an experiment using high-finesse RF FP cavities could reach a factor of ∼ 10 5 into new parameter space for g ˜ Q g ϕ γ for masses m ϕ ≲ 4 × 10 − 11 eV . Published by the American Physical Society 2024

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Intra-canopy leaf trait variation facilitates high LAI and compensatory growth in a clonal woody encroaching shrub in the tallgrass prairie

This data package contains the data for Tooley et al. (2022) Intra-canopy leaf trait variation facilitates high leaf area index and compensatory growth in a clonal woody encroaching shrub. The purpose of this project was to evaluate the leaf ecophysiological traits of Cornus drummondii C.A. Mey to better understand how C. drummondii maximizes photosynthetic rates across large gradients of light availability in its short, dense canopies. We also evaluate how C. drummondii modifies its allocation of leaf traits in response to grassland disturbance. High LAI canopies and a compensatory growth response to disturbance are two key factors contributing to the success of C. drummondii and other woody species responsible for the encroachment of grasslands.The data package contains ecophysiological measurements, including leaf morphological, physiological, and chemical traits; photosynthetic measurements, leaf carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes, leaf area index, and photosynthetically active radiation. All measurements were taken vertically across canopies of the clonal woody-encroaching shrub Cornus drummondii under browsed, grazed, and control (unbrowsed and ungrazed) conditions.Files:SeasonalMeasurements_Archive.csv - Data for all seasonal measurements used in the study.LeafPhotoSeasonalRaw_Archive.zip - zip file containing raw data from an li-6400 for each sampling period in the study.LAI_Archive.xlsx - Data for LAI Measurements.ACiandLightCurveResults_Archive.xlsx - Contains parameters extracted from A-ci and Light Response curves along with the morphological and chemical traits for each leaf.ACiRaw Archive.xlsx - Raw data from Li-6400 for A-ci response curvesLightCurves_Raw.zip - zip file containing raw data for Li-6400 light response curves. Excel file format: "IslandID"-"Depth"-lc.xlsx (or .csv)DataCollectionMethods.docx - file containing the methods of data collection, processing, and QA/QC for all data files. File also contains a list of excel file headers, abbreviations, and their units.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2013

The impact of climate change on the U.S. wind energy resource

The growing need for low-carbon emitting electricity sources has resulted in rapid growth in the wind power industry. The size and steadiness of the offshore wind resource has attracted growing investment in the planning of offshore wind turbine installations. Decisions about the location and character of wind farms should be made with an eye not only to present but also future wind resource, which may change as increasing carbon dioxide forces reductions in the poleward temperature gradient, and thus potentially in the mean tropospheric westerly winds. I propose to use the new North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program climate projections to estimate the change of the wind power resource under various carbon dioxide loading scenarios and for a range of climate models. We will compare our assessment with both our assessment based on the IPCC AR4 model runs, to explore the extent to which improved model resolution changes the prediction for the wind power resource, and with present day estimates from reanalysis and scatterometer winds.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Preliminary Theoretical Analysis of Mixed Precision Krylov Subspace Methods (Q3 Report)

The third quarter of the project was spent performing theoretical finite precision analysis of Krylov subspace method variants that use mixed precision. Our focus here is on the Conjugate Gradient (CG) method and the Lanczos method. We have performed an analysis of maximum attainable accuracy for the classical CG method in which 3 precisions are used: a working precision ε, a precision ε IP for the inner product computations, and a precision ε MV for the matrix-vector products. Our results show that performing inner product computations in lower precision does not affect the attainable accuracy. Further, we have performed a complete error analysis of the s-step Lanczos algorithm. In this case, we show that the numerical behavior of the algorithm can be significantly improved by using extra precision in a small part of the computation. We summarize the main theorems in the remainder of the document. Other activities include attending biweekly xSDK meetings. The subsequent quarter will be spent finalizing these results into technical reports and/or manuscripts for submission to journals, as well as identifying opportunities for future work.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS1979

Design of robust state feedback controllers via eigenvalue/eigenvector assignment

A new method of selecting a multivariable state feedback controller is presented. The resulting controller simultaneously realizes arbitrary closed-loop eigenvalues, approximates specified modal behavior and achieves low eigensystem sensitivity with respect to plant parameter variations. The method characterizes a vector space slightly larger than the null space of the closed-loop system matrix and projects a desired modal matrix onto this space. Sensitivity of eigenvalues and eigenvectors is then minimized local to the desired modal matrix using a gradient search technique. A tutorial example to illustrate the design procedure is given.

Mielke, R. R.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Cloud albedo control by cloud-top entrainment

Marine stratus and stratocumulus clouds exert a considerable influence on the earth's heat budget, mainly due to their high albedos relative to the ocean surface. It is therefore important to understand the processes that control the radiative properties of these extensive cloud systems, particularly during daylight hours. Aircraft measurements of a stratocumulus cloud deck taken around local noon during the 1987 field phase of the First International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project Regional Experiment are the topic of this paper. A mixing line analysis of data from a series of flight tracks across a strong gradient in cloud albedo provides evidence that variations in the water vapor content of the air above the marine inversion can be responsible for the albedo change. The implications of this unexpected result for climate modeling are discussed.

Hanson, Howard P.↗
DOE OSTI2012

STANDARDIZATION OF CEBAF 12 GEV UPGRADE CAVITY TESTING

CEBAF 12GeV upgrade project includes 80 new 7-cell cavities to form 10 cryomodules. Each cavity underwent RF qualification at 2.07K using a high power accelerating gradient test and an HOM survey in Jefferson Lab's Vertical Testing Area (VTA) before cavity string assembly. In order to ensure consistently high quality data, updated cavity testing procedures and analysis were implemented and used by a group of VTA operators. For high power tests, a cavity testing procedure was developed and used in conjunction with a LabVIEW program to collect the test data. Additionally while the cavity was at 2.07K, an HOM survey was performed using a network analyzer and a combination of Excel and Mathematica programs. Data analysis was standardized and an online logbook, Pansophy, was used for data storage and mining. The Pansophy system allowed test results to be easily summarized and searchable across all cavity tests. In this presentation, the CEBAF 12GeV upgrade cavity testing procedure, method for data analysis, and results reporting results will be discussed.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Permafrost microbial communities and functional genes are structured by latitudinal and soil geochemical gradients

Permafrost underlies approximately one quarter of Northern Hemisphere terrestrial surfaces and contains 25–50% of the global soil carbon (C) pool. Permafrost soils and the C stocks within are vulnerable to ongoing and future projected climate warming. The biogeography of microbial communities inhabiting permafrost has not been examined beyond a small number of sites focused on local-scale variation. Permafrost is different from other soils. Perennially frozen conditions in permafrost dictate that microbial communities do not turn over quickly, thus possibly providing strong linkages to past environments. Thus, the factors structuring the composition and function of microbial communities may differ from patterns observed in other terrestrial environments. Here, we analyzed 133 permafrost metagenomes from North America, Europe, and Asia. Permafrost biodiversity and taxonomic distribution varied in relation to pH, latitude and soil depth. The distribution of genes differed by latitude, soil depth, age, and pH. Genes that were the most highly variable across all sites were associated with energy metabolism and C-assimilation. Specifically, methanogenesis, fermentation, nitrate reduction, and replenishment of citric acid cycle intermediates. This suggests that adaptations to energy acquisition and substrate availability are among some of the strongest selective pressures shaping permafrost microbial communities. The spatial variation in metabolic potential has primed communities for specific biogeochemical processes as soils thaw due to climate change, which could cause regional- to global- scale variation in C and nitrogen processing and greenhouse gas emissions.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

Comparative Performance Analysis of Coarse Solvers for Algebraic Multigrid on Multicore and Manycore Architectures

In this paper, we study the performance of a two-level algebraic-multigrid algorithm, with a focus on the impact of the coarse-grid solver on performance. We consider two algorithms for solving the coarse-space systems: the preconditioned conjugate gradient method and a new robust HSS-embedded low-rank sparse-factorization algorithm. Our test data comes from the SPE Comparative Solution Project for oil-reservoir simulations. We contrast the performance of our code on one 12-core socket of a Cray XC30 machine with performance on a 60-core Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor. To obtain top performance, we optimized the code to take full advantage of fine-grained parallelism and made it thread-friendly for high thread count. We also developed a bounds-and-bottlenecks performance model of the solver which we used to guide us through the optimization effort, and also carried out performance tuning in the solver’s large parameter space. Finally, as a result, significant speedups were obtained on both machines.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Advancement of LANSCE accelerator facility as a 1-MW Fusion Prototypic Neutron Source

The Fusion Prototypic Neutron Source (FPNS) is considered to be a testbed for scientific understanding of material degradation in future nuclear fusion reactors (Zinkle and Moeslang, 2013; Summary Report on the FPNS Workshop, 2018; Pitcher et al., 2019). The primary mission of FPNS is to provide a damage rate in iron samples of 8-11 dpa/calendar year with He/dpa ratio of 10 appm in irradiation volume of 50 cm 3 or larger with irradiation temperature 300–1000 °C and flux gradient less than 20%/cm in the plane of the sample. The Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) is an attractive candidate for the FPNS project. The Accelerator Facility was designed and operated for an extended period as a 0.8-MW Meson Factory. The existing setup of the LANSCE accelerator complex can nearly fulfill requirements of the fusion neutron source station. The primary function of the upgraded accelerator systems is the safe and reliable delivery of a 1.25-mA continuous proton beam current at 800-MeV beam energy from the switchyard to the target assembly to create 1 MW power of proton beam interacting with a solid tungsten target. The present study describes existing accelerator setup and further development required to meet the needs of FPNS project.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2020

Weakening of the Extratropical Storm Tracks in Solar Geoengineering Scenarios

Solar geoengineering that aims to offset global warming could nonetheless alter atmospheric temperature gradients and humidity and thus affect the extratropical storm tracks. Here, we first analyze climate model simulations from experiment G1 of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project, in which a reduction in incoming solar radiation balances a quadrupling of CO 2 . The Northern Hemisphere extratropical storm track weakens by a comparable amount in G1 as it does for increased CO2 only. The Southern Hemisphere storm track also weakens in G1, in contrast to a strengthening and poleward shift for increased CO 2 . Using mean available potential energy, we show that the changes in zonal-mean temperature and humidity are sufficient to explain the different responses of storm-track intensity. We also demonstrate similar weakening in a more complex geoengineering scenario. Here, our results offer insight into how geoengineering affects storm tracks, highlighting the potential for geoengineering to induce novel climate changes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗