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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 469 records · Page 26

Panel reports session

This section brings together the reports of the 31 panel sessions listed below: - Avoiding the Human Capital Cliff in the DOE (PS22); - Implementing Technically-Based Cleanup; US DOE Balancing Regulatory and Fiscal Complexity (PS24); - United Kingdom - Remediation of Sellafield Legacy Ponds and Silos (PS25); - Aligning Decision-Making to Deliver Timely Results in Large Clean-up Programs (PS38); - Transition to Government Owned-Contractor Operated Site at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (PS39); - Emerging Middle East Nuclear States' Status and Plans (PS40); - NPP Panel on Waste Management (PS41); - Robotics - International Innovations in Robotic Decommissioning Technology (PS43); - Fukushima Panel (1/2): Japan Fukushima Daiichi Decommissioning Update (PS54); - Fukushima Panel (2/2): Update on the Revitalization of Fukushima and the Surrounding Area (PS55); - US DOE LLW On-Site Disposal: LLW Disposal Facility Federal Review Group Review Process (PS56); - Challenges in DOE HLW Tank Management: Facility Start-up and Waste Disposition (PS57); - Waste Management Planning for Utility Small Modular Reactors (PS58); - US Nuclear Power Plant Waste Management - LLW Disposal Issues (PS59); - DOE-EM Robotics and Emerging Technologies Road-map (4/8) (PS60); - Graduating Students and New Scientists and Engineers - Wants and Needs - Are Companies Even Listening? (PS63); - U.S. Nuclear Robotics: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (5/8) (PS74); - US DOE Mixed Waste: Proposals for Dealing with Problematic Waste Streams and Policy Changes (PS76); - Current and Emerging US NRC LLW Regulatory Topics (PS77); - Agency Perspectives (US and International) on the Use of Risk and Dose Assessment Tools (PS80); - Progress on Deep Repository Programs Around the World (PS81); - US DOE Procurement and Contracting Opportunities (PS82); - Collaboration across Borders to Deliver Cleanup and Decommissioning Challenges (PS93a); - DOE Mission Success through Application of Practices and Solutions (PS94); - Challenges in Cask Certification - International Perspectives (PS96); - Robotics: Leveraging Innovations in Science and Technology to Benefit Safety Performance (PS98); - DOE Panel: DOE EM Featured Office - Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PS109); - Robotics: Lessons Learned from Industrial Robotics Deployment that can be Applied to the Nuclear Field (PS110a); - Roundtable: DOE Radioactive Management - Energy Facility Contractors Group - Waste Management Working Group (EFCOG WMWG) (PS118); - Thursday Topical Session 'Management of Used Nuclear Fuel: Will the United States Reengage and Align with International Efforts' (PS124); - Remotely Operated Vehicles for Emergency, Disaster, and Operational Upset Response (PS125)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Exploring urban typologies using comprehensive analysis of transportation dynamics

Abstract As urban areas continue to expand and develop, categorizing cities into typologies offers a valuable framework for understanding metropolitan dynamics and fostering inter-city collaboration. However, existing typologies related to urban mobility have limitations, failing to consider cities within a single large urban region and often overlooking crucial dimensions such as trip demand and traffic flow. In this paper, we introduce a transportation-focused characterization for cities within a large urban region, specifically the San Francisco Bay Area, California. We incorporate over 40 metrics across five transportation dimensions: trip demand, road network, multi-modal network, traffic flow, and land use. Specifically, for the trip demand dimension, we include metrics capturing residents’ trip characteristics, such as mode share, intra-city trips, and inter-city trips. Additionally, we analyze the purpose of trips entering the city to gain a deeper understanding of incoming trip patterns. In the traffic flow dimension, we examine metrics like vehicle miles traveled, delay, and congestion to assess the traffic conditions on the street network. These, combined with other dimensions, provide a comprehensive view of a city’s transportation dynamics. Using unsupervised machine learning clustering methods, we identified eight distinct typologies for the Bay Area: Live Work Cities; Job and Activity Magnet Cities; Anchor Cities; Multi-modal Cities; Hyper-connected Cities; Low-density Residential Cities; Medium-density Residential Cities; and Mixed-use Residential Cities. Our findings show that many clusters are strongly influenced by trip demand and traffic flow metrics. Finally, we examine the practicality of this typology and its potential to guide collaborative transportation management strategies. The typologies provide a foundation for dialogue among Bay Area cities, focusing on evaluating shared characteristics and leveraging successes or challenges to develop unified strategies for transportation management.

Kuncheria, Anu↗

Development of a half-meter scale Traveling-Wave (TW) SRF cavity

Traveling-wave technology can push the accelerator field gradient of niobium SRF cavity to 70MV/m or higher beyond the fundamental limit of 50~60MV/m in Standing-Wave regime. The 1st demonstration of TW resonance excitation in a proof-of-principle 3-cell SRF cavity in 2K liquid helium was successfully carried out at Fermilab in collaboration with Euclid Techlabs. In parallel with that, the RF design process of 0.5~1 meter scale TW cavity was begun at Fermilab for advancing TW technologies necessary more for future accelerator-scale one. Considering the physical dimensions of existing SRF facilities (for fabrication, processing, and cryogenic testing) and the lessons learned from the 3-cell, Fermilab has proposed a preliminary RF design of a half-meter scale TW SRF cavity. It consists of a 7-cell structure and a power feedback waveguide (WG) loop with new RF configurations to control TW resonance. Here we report a preliminary RF design, development plans, and activities.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Building and Executing Aggressive Research Plans in a Large National Laboratory Consortium: Insights from the Co-Optimization of Fuels and Engines Initiative

This report describes lessons learned in the establishment, execution and termination of a large, multi-institutional consortium, derived from the Co-Optimization of Fuels and Engines experience. The decision to form a consortium comes with benefits (in advancing challenging multidisciplinary research) and costs (in time and additional management funds). Once the decision is made, key elements to a strong start include establishing a shared vision and goals; engaging an experienced project manager early; instituting feedback and oversight mechanisms to ensure relevance, strong performance, and situational awareness. Once a consortium is up and running, DOE and leadership should strike the right balance between competition and collaboration; foster an environment that builds trust; and adjust the organizational structure as needed to maintain collaboration. Finally, DOE and the labs can plan effectively for a smooth transition as a consortium winds down. This report provides some additional lessons and details on these lessons that we hope future DOE and lab leaders will find useful as they contemplate standing up new consortia.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Open Science principles for accelerating trait-based science across the Tree of Life

Synthesizing trait observations and knowledge across the Tree of Life remains a grand challenge for biodiversity science. Species traits are widely used in ecological and evolutionary science, and new data and methods have proliferated rapidly. Yet accessing and integrating disparate data sources remains a considerable challenge, slowing progress toward a global synthesis to integrate trait data across organisms. Trait science needs a vision for achieving global integration across all organisms. In this perspective, we outline how the adoption of key Open Science principles—open data, open source and open methods—is transforming trait science, increasing transparency, democratizing access and accelerating global synthesis. To enhance widespread adoption of these principles, we introduce the Open Traits Network (OTN), a global, decentralized community welcoming all researchers and institutions pursuing the collaborative goal of standardizing and integrating trait data across organisms. We demonstrate how adherence to Open Science principles is key to the OTN community and outline five activities that can accelerate the synthesis of trait data across the Tree of Life, thereby facilitating rapid advances to address scientific inquiries and environmental issues. Lessons learned along the path to a global synthesis of trait data will provide a framework for addressing similarly complex data science and informatics challenges.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

R&D and Implementation Outcomes from the U.S.-India Bilateral Center for Building Energy Research and Development Program

This paper explores the role of international partnerships to facilitate low-energy building design, construction, and operations. We present the strategic approach, joint research and development outcomes, and implementation activities of a unique U.S.-India program on buildings energy efficiency, the Center for Building Energy Research and Development. We discuss the collaboration successes in both countries despite their dissimilar building contexts, implementation challenges and opportunities. We highlight a range of R&D outcomes, such as novel tools and technologies developed and tested by the joint teams, with their technical energy savings potential, as well as results of capacity building and technology demonstrations. A deep-dive into key new scientific methods around building energy monitoring and benchmarking that could have a significant impact on high-performance of buildings in both countries is also provided. Finally, in addition to joint R&D successes, pathways to deployment, and lessons learned are discussed as key takeaways.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Detecting Process Equipment Failures Using Acoustic Data and Machine Learning

Nuclear power plant (NPP) process equipment such as fans, motors, valves, and pumps generate frequent or continuous noise, and deviations from the normal operational sounds made by this equipment can indicate potential issues. These deviations can be identified via automated acoustic anomaly detection, which involves using acoustic sensors (i.e., microphones) alongside detection algorithms to continuously monitor for changes in acoustic signatures. This task is made challenging by the substantial background noise that exists, such as operators opening and closing doors, manipulating valves, and conversing—in addition to typical plant noises. In collaboration with a nuclear power utility partner, this effort assessed the efficacy of acoustic anomaly detection when using a specific acoustic sensor that compresses data into a fixed set of features that are transferable over a standard Internet of Things communication protocol, thereby improving usability but potentially degrading detection performance. Two methods of performing automated acoustic anomaly detection were evaluated: one-class support vector machine (OC-SVM) and isolation forest (iForest). To enable the use of high-quality acoustic data encompassing both normal and anomalous conditions, the study utilized the publicly available Malfunctioning Industrial Machine Investigation and Inspection dataset, which includes real measured acoustic sensor data for a range of equipment types, model numbers, and signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), along with a benchmark set of detection results. Using this dataset, the methods were tested and then compared against the benchmark results. The results indicated that although the specific acoustic sensor did not enable as rich a feature set extraction, the proposed methods with the limited feature set performed just as well. This provides solid justification for both the methods and the use of the proposed acoustic sensor.

46 - INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AN↗

A Proposed Common Model of Multi-phase Strength and Equation of State for a Tri-laboratory Collaboration (Working Draft 1.1)

The proposed simple common model for multiphase strength and EoS (CMMP) is meant to be sufficiently simple that each of the collaborating labs can share in a common starting point. Another objective is to start with relatively simple assumptions, which will not necessarily capture details of the physical processes, and incrementally add complexity in order to identify the minimal-needed technical detail. Through this co-evolution of model and experiment, we will better learn the importance of various theoretical approximations and where to invest future resources in experiment and model development. This simple framework is based on pressure and temperature equilibrium of all co-existing phases combined with deviatoric stress averaging through a volume fraction weighted ow stress and a volume fraction weighted shear modulus. Implementations of the framework based on equilibrium phase fractions (i.e. instantaneous kinetic rate) and for finite rate transition kinetics are proposed.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

LA100 Equity Strategies. Chapter 5: Low-Income Energy Bill Equity and Affordability

The LA100 Equity Strategies project synthesizes community guidance with robust research, modeling, and analysis to identify strategy options that can increase equitable outcomes in Los Angeles' clean energy transition. Grounded in the analysis of past and ongoing energy inequities and engagement with underserved communities, the project presents community-guided strategies that aim to operationalize recognition and procedural justice. Building on the community-identified problems and solutions, and the analysis of the 11 strategies described in Chapter 3, this chapter continues to focus on the solution space through the lens of recognition and procedural justice. It centers the role of community engagement in energy utility planning and project development with a specific focus on how the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) can engage and work equitably with Los Angeles communities to cocreate a clean and just energy future for LA. LA100 Equity Strategies is rooted in the crucial role community engagement plays in restructuring the energy systems of cities, states, and nations. Scholarship on wind, solar, and other transitional energy technologies and projects has documented that such engagement is commonly used as a top-down mechanism for adapting social practices to fit new technological innovations. Yet, understanding how the clean energy transition - with related changes in technologies, infrastructures, practices, and costs - will fit equitably into the existing socio-political context is a challenge that requires substantive collaboration with local communities. Any form of community engagement opens up government officials and utilities to opposition from their public. Meaningful engagement methods turn such dissent into a strength, embracing critical feedback - particularly from communities historically excluded from decision-making - as contributing to more grounded design and effective implementation. Leveraging this collaborative model to further rectify past and ongoing inequities in the social, cultural, and institutional scaffolding of LA, this chapter presents options and methods to support LADWP in launching a just and equitable clean energy transition. We approach community engagement as a critical process linking recognition, procedural, and distributional justice, outlining how LADWP could learn from past engagement, coordinate such knowledge organization-wide, and use engagement as a key tool for achieving energy justice and equity.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Unraveling fundamental mechanisms of silicon nitride crystallization in microelectronics manufacturing

This research project investigates the fundamental mechanisms of silicon nitride (SiN) crystallization, aiming to enhance the understanding of this critical material in microelectronics manufacturing. Through a collaborative effort between Sandia National Laboratories, the University of Tennessee, and the University of Florida, we developed a comprehensive framework that integrates experimental techniques, atomistic modeling, meso-scale simulations, and an integrated multi-scale model to capture this physical phenomenon on multiple time and length scales . The project developed a new machine learning based atomistic potential and utilized advanced phase field modeling to capture the complexities of polycrystalline growth and the influence of mechanical stresses on crystallization dynamics. By employing a grain tracker algorithm, the meso-scale model effectively identified and tracked individual crystal grains, enabling the simulation of anisotropic growth behaviors reflective of SiN’s physical properties. The integration of atomistic simulations with meso-scale modeling created a powerful multi-scale framework that validated atomistic inputs and enhanced predictive accuracy for crystallization dynamics at larger scales, validated experimentally. This adaptable modeling capability not only accelerates development times by informing manufacturing processes but also serves as a valuable starting point for understanding crystallization physics in similar materials. The insights gained from this research unlock new opportunities for the development of advanced materials tailored for future microelectronics and photonics applications. Overall, this project represents a significant advancement in understanding of fundamental physics of SiN and establishes a foundation for future research in material science, bridging the gap between atomic-level phenomena and macroscopic material behaviors for practical applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Employing MACS/ViBRANT as a Surrogate MARVEL Reactor for Startup Reactivity Tuning and Supervisory Control Processes

Advanced nuclear reactors are a key part of the future of nuclear energy both in the United States and globally. They offer unique benefits for various energy-demanding applications, including use in remote locations, compact size, modular manufacturing, remote monitoring, low and/or variable power rating operation, and reliance on novel technologies to enhance operational safety. To achieve economic feasibility, advanced reactors must significantly reduce their workforces in comparison with the current fleet. Achieving this reduction will occur through reducing staff workloads using technology to achieve autonomous or semi-autonomous operations, demonstrated by comprehensive testing and validation activities. These operations will require both software and hardware platforms during the design and testing phases. While simulations are useful during the design phase, their performance can significantly deviate during actual deployment on hardware. This report presents the outcomes of a collaborative technical initiative between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Microreactor Program (MRP) and Advanced Sensors and Instrumentation (ASI) Program. The collaboration utilized the Microreactor Automated Control System (MACS) hardware platform to bridge the gap between theoretical reactor design and actual startup and control operations. Two key use cases were investigated: facilitating the startup testing period and demonstrating supervisory control. The first use case details the key Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation (MARVEL) reactor startup physics testing activities conducted using the MACS platform. These activities included drum worth measurements, shutdown margin assessment, temperature feedback analysis, and scram time evaluation, as well as unique testing that would apply to the MARVEL reactor to demonstrate the testing methodologies in a low-risk environment. The MACS platform, serving as a surrogate representation of the MARVEL reactor, proved instrumental in performing these tests. The exercise revealed aspects that led to optimized processes, refined hardware design, and enhanced base software capabilities. By maturing methods and technologies in this manner, the initiative promises to reduce wasted time in the actual on-site reactor deployment effort, thereby saving significant time and resources. The second use case focuses on the development and implementation of supervisory control methods aimed at managing core tilt, which can result from asymmetrical operations or manufacturing imperfections in fuel rods or reactivity control devices. A key objective was to assess and compare the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for supervisory control. The effort aimed to define the role of supervisory control to enhance performance without risking control instability. This effort explored three distinct approaches: rules-based (RB) methods, optimization techniques, and reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms. Each approach was evaluated for its ease of implementation, its usability, and its effectiveness in responding to asymmetries in neutron flux. Comparative analysis of these approaches provided valuable insights into their applicability and effectiveness, offering a robust framework for advanced reactor operations. Together, these two use cases highlight the potential of hardware test beds to help streamline the design, operation, and control of advanced nuclear reactors. This collaborative effort underscores the importance of continued innovation and experimentation in achieving the next generation of safe, reliable, and economically viable nuclear energy solutions.

22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Scalable and Energy-Efficient Methods for Interactive Exploration of Scientific Data

The main scientific contributions of this project are the following novel concepts for multidimensional arrays: shape-based similarity join (SIGMOD 2016), incremental view maintenance (SIGMOD 2017), user-defined stencil functions (HPDC 2017), and distributed caching for in-situ processing (SSDBM 2018). Building on our collaboration with the astrophysics group at LBNL, we applied these techniques to the data generated in the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) astronomical survey. They played a pivotal role in the first-ever observation of a neutron star merger, which produces gravitational waves and turns out to be the origin of heavy elements, including gold. This has lead to a Science magazine article that has received extensive media coverage on ACM TechNews, Slashdot, FiveThirtyEight, and Quanta Magazine, among others. Additionally, two other articles detailing related aspects of the same discovery have been published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters journal. These publications have more than 3,000 citations according to Google Scholar (as of February 2022). This cross-disciplinary collaboration provided very good opportunities to apply database techniques to real-life scientific problems. The fact that they facilitated major discoveries in astrophysics proves the importance of our research. In addition to the work on multidimensional array databases, this project has also developed stochastic gradient descent (SGD) optimization algorithms for training large scale machine learning models, methods for querying in-situ data, and a database query optimizer based on sketch synopses.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Experimental High Energy Physics at the University of Illinois

This research effort funded by the Office of High Energy Physics in the U.S. Department of Energy is aimed at exploring our universe at its most basic level. The goal of our effort is to learn more about how and why nature behaves the way it does. Within this effort, we are studying the smallest particles and the largest distances we can possibly observe. Our work in particular focuses on the search for new interactions that will help us understand how the universe came into being. Through this work, we collaborate with other scientists and engineers to develop new technologies that can be utilized throughout society. Benefits from our research include advances in medical technology, electronics, transportation, sustainability, information and computing as well as the advanced training of undergraduate and graduate students in science and engineering.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Modernizing Accelerator Responsiveness and Controls in Operations

Accelerators increasingly use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) software and workflows for a variety of tasks, from optimization to fault detection and recovery. Efficient and sustainable application of these technologies necessitates specialized and facility-specific infrastructure commitments. Accelerator facilities also introduce unique radiation and security hazards, placing additional demands on operational infrastructure. These needs further escalate the prioritization of effective collaboration models and associated funding mechanisms and legal frameworks.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Cybersecurity Education, Training, and WFD

Availability of skilled workforce in sufficient number is one of the most often cited barriers to improving cybersecurity. INL's research has determined that this is not a cybersecurity problem but rather a strategic business imperative; in response INL created the Cyber Competency Health and Maturity Progression Model (Cyber-CHAMP) to help organizations learn the realities of their cyber workforce and their development needs. The presentation starts with an overview of Cyber-CHAMP as a unifying theme for workforce development and then provides brief introductions to selected DHS (ICS cybersecurity hands-on training), DOE (CyberStrike, OT Defender Fellowship, Liberty Eclipse), and INL (Cybercore Summer Camp, University Collaboration Laboratory) programs. Cyber-Informed Engineering discussion concludes the presentation, with an update on activities conducted by the CIE Education Working Group to further the second pillar of the National CIE Strategy, Education.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Fundamental aspects of Spacetime and Quantum Fields

The proposal contained two goals: firstly, placing fundamental bound on thermalization in Quantum Field Theories (QFTs) and, secondly, developing our understanding of emergent spacetime from matrices through concrete models. Since the previous reporting period, in collaboration with Sean Hartnoll we have continued our study of entanglement edge modes in matrix quantum mechanics (MQM). This has resulted in two papers. The first applies our construction for the Matrix Quantum Hall system first to fuzzy sphere states known to correspond to stringy M2-branes in MQM. Entanglement in these states using machine learning methods have also been studied by Sean Hartnoll and Xizhi Han in previous work done under this grant. Our construction builds on this work, and further demonstrates how area laws on fuzzy geometries emerge from strongly coupled systems. The second paper generalizes this construction to all noncommutative geometries with curvature much larger than the noncommutativity parameter. We demonstrate that despite UV/IR mixing effects, the structure of entanglement edge mode irreducible representations is determined by the boundary area of subsystems. On manifolds without global symmetries, we have demonstrated that nonlocal effects inherent to noncommutative geometries resum into a change of frame of the metric structure, similar to the change from string frame to Einstein frame for entanglement entropies calculated in string theory. These advancements lay the groundwork for future progress in the understanding of emergent geometry from large-N theories. Using these techniques, we are currently working on applying our methods to noncom mutative geometries whose construction is not so well understood, such as the fuzzy 5-sphere. Despite their opacity these objects are quite important, as string physics in the bulk of holographic systems bears many features of noncommutative geometry. We have also laid the groundwork of applying our methods to tensor networks, one of the most powerful models for understanding how geometry emerges from entanglement.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Understanding and Leveraging the I/O Patterns of Emerging Machine Learning Analytics

The scientific community is currently experiencing unprecedented amounts of data generated by cutting-edge science facilities. Soon facilities will be producing up to 1 PB/s which will force scientist to use more autonomous techniques to learn from the data. The adoption of machine learning methods, like deep learning techniques, in large-scale workflows comes with a shift in the workflow’s computational and I/O patterns. These changes often include iterative processes and model architecture searches, in which datasets are analyzed multiple times in different formats with different model configurations in order to find accurate, reliable and efficient learning models. This shift in behavior brings changes in I/O patterns at the application level as well at the system level. These changes also bring new challenges for the HPC I/O teams, since these patterns contain more complex I/O workloads. In this paper we discuss the I/O patterns experienced by emerging analytical codes that rely on machine learning algorithms and highlight the challenges in designing efficient I/O transfers for such workflows. We comment on how to leverage the data access patterns in order to fetch in a more efficient way the required input data in the format and order given by the needs of the application and how to optimize the data path between collaborative processes. We will motivate our work and show performance gains with a study case of medical applications.

Gainaru, Ana↗

What we know and what we don’t know about the proton spin after 30 years

More than three decades ago, the European Muon Collaboration published a surprising result on the spin structure of the proton: the spins of its three quark components account for only a small part of the spin of the proton. Furthermore, ever since, theoretical and experimental progress has been made in understanding the origins of the proton spin. In this review, we discuss what has been learned so far, what is still missing and what could be learned from the upcoming experiments, including the Jefferson Lab 12GeV upgrade and the proposed Electron-Ion Collider. In particular, we focus on first-principles calculations and experimental measurements of the total gluon helicity ΔG, and the quark and gluon orbital angular momenta.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗