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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 487 records · Page 27
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Sensing Electrical Networks Securely & Economically (SENSE)

The growing adoption of distributed energy resources (DERs) like battery energy storage systems and roof top solar/PV and the rapid penetration of electric vehicles (EVs), the electric grid is undergoing a major transformation with elevated stress on legacy grid assets. Despite a lot of expenditure to address these challenges, both in dollars and manpower, utilities have not been able to receive the value that was promised. The gains have been most visible at the transmission and substation level, especially where the main objective was improving operational and economic efficiency for the utility. Improving visibility and control at a few select points enhances the existing and established paradigm of centralized command and control. With changing load patterns, load types and the overall transition to an “active grid”, the centralized control and coordination paradigm gets challenged. To address the challenges, a new architecture and mechanism is needed, one that supports decentralized control and decision making, extracting value streams at the grid edge, particularly as the changes are fueled by transitions occurring in the distribution system. To address this, a communications and data processing platform, “GAMMA” was developed and demonstrated through the project. At the heart of the platform, are distributed, intelligent edge nodes with sensing and compute capabilities, that can record and analyze information locally. They are embedded in sensors and actuators specific to different distribution system applications. Phase 1 of the project focused on developing novel sensor technology that can be used for monitoring utility pole top distribution transformers. The sensors were designed with the objective of being low-cost, communicating with the GAMMA cloud using novel “delay-tolerant” networking using Bluetooth and a secure mobile application. They were non-intrusive in nature so that they can be installed quickly in the field, resulting in overall low cost of deployment and operations. Following the successful completion of Phase 1, the team manufactured 100 units for a field demonstration in Phase 2. The field demonstration was carried out on two real feeder systems with the local utility partner. In total, 100 sensors were installed and operated over a period of 6 months in the state of Georgia. The platform is operational end to end, with the cloud infrastructure deployed on a distributed, serverless environment that can serve multiple data streams, an analytics engine and a portal to securely view the data from multiple assets. The data collected through the GAMMA Mobile Phone app showcased the viability of the novel delay tolerant networking architecture, and the data processing algorithms developed through the course of the project, were successful in extracting important information about the overall network, improving the utility’s visibility and situational awareness in the distribution feeder.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2019

Scaling molecular dynamics beyond 100,000 processor cores for large-scale biophysical simulations

The growing interest in the complexity of biological interactions is continuously driving the need to increase system size in biophysical simulations, requiring not only powerful and advanced hardware but adaptable software that can accommodate a large number of atoms interacting through complex force fields. To address this, we developed and implemented strategies in the GENESIS molecular dynamics package designed for large numbers of processors. Long–range electrostatic interactions were parallelized by minimizing the number of processes involved in communication. Here, a novel algorithm was implemented for nonbonded interactions to increase single instruction multiple data (SIMD) performance, reducing memory usage for ultra large systems. Memory usage for neighbor searches in real–space nonbonded interactions was reduced by approximately 80%, leading to significant speedup. Using experimental data describing physical 3D chromatin interactions, we constructed the first atomistic model of an entire gene locus (GATA4). Taken together, these developments enabled the first billion–atom simulation of an intact biomolecular complex, achieving scaling to 65,000 processes (130,000 processor cores) with 1 ns/day performance.

3D modeling↗
NASA NTRS1983

Digital Instrumentation Analysis and Navigation System (DIANS) for system identification

Hardware, software, and performance features of the Digital Instrumentation and Navigation System (DIANS) designed for NASA research to collect flight data as a strap-down system are detailed. The support software for the system has a cross compiler, a linkage editor, and cross assembler, extended communication capabilities, postflight processing applications, and compilers for PASCAL, FORTRAN, CBASIC and MT. The DIANS microcomputer has a 1 Mbyte RAM module, a fast floating point processor board, a 68000 monoboard computer with 64 RAM, a 128 Kbyte bubble memory card, and a navigation radio. The system also carries a battery for full system operation for over an hour. The support software is also stored on a host mainframe computer, which has a CP/M operating system. Pitch, roll, and heading data are gathered from the on-board system, and communication is possible between the airborne and ground-based computer.

Smyth, R. K.↗
DOE OSTI2016

Development of a Stiffness-Based Chemistry Load Balancing Scheme, and Optimization of Input/Output and Communication, to Enable Massively Parallel High-Fidelity Internal Combustion Engine Simulations

A closed-cycle gasoline compression ignition engine simulation near top dead center (TDC) was used to profile the performance of a parallel commercial engine computational fluid dynamics code, as it was scaled on up to 4096 cores of an IBM Blue Gene/Q supercomputer. The test case has 9 million cells near TDC, with a fixed mesh size of 0.15 mm, and was run on configurations ranging from 128 to 4096 cores. Profiling was done for a small duration of 0.11 crank angle degrees near TDC during ignition. Optimization of input/output performance resulted in a significant speedup in reading restart files, and in an over 100-times speedup in writing restart files and files for post-processing. Improvements to communication resulted in a 1400-times speedup in the mesh load balancing operation during initialization, on 4096 cores. An improved, “stiffness-based” algorithm for load balancing chemical kinetics calculations was developed, which results in an over 3-times faster run-time near ignition on 4096 cores relative to the original load balancing scheme. With this improvement to load balancing, the code achieves over 78% scaling efficiency on 2048 cores, and over 65% scaling efficiency on 4096 cores, relative to 256 cores.

CFD, Mira, Supercomputing, High Performance Comput↗
DOE OSTI2018

Policy, Regulatory, Legal, and Permitting Case Study Subtask 3.2 – Topical Report

This report summarizes the policy, regulatory, legal, and permitting requirements to-date for the siting of a CO 2 injection and storage project in the CarbonSAFE Illinois East Sub-Basin pre-feasibility study area. Where applicable, the East Sub-Basin case study focuses on a proposed carbon capture and storage (CCS) site location in West Terre Haute, Indiana. Indiana has established the legal mechanisms to obtain rights to the subsurface mineral estate with the expectation to apply to reservoir pore space for CO 2 storage in an analogous manner to storage of natural gas, which is a common practice in Indiana. There is, however, no precedent in Indiana to take liability for stored CO 2 . There are currently no Indiana State incentives for CCS, but at the Federal level, tax credits for carbon capture and storage under 26. U.S. Code § 45Q constitute the greatest incentive targeted at CCS projects. The amendment to these credits put forth in the Bipartisan Budget Act (the FUTURE Act) of 2018 substantially increases the per-ton incentive for CCS—from $22.66 per ton in tax year 2017 up to $50 per ton in tax year 2027, for CO 2 not used as an injectant (i.e. saline storage). Additional economic opportunities may exist for the provision of CO 2 for potential EOR in the Illinois Basin. Policies that may support the development of CO 2 pipelines and/or CCS projects in Indiana include: 1) Title 41 of the FAST Act (2015), which created a new governance structure, procedures, and funding authorities in order to improve and expedite Federal review and authorization of covered infrastructure projects, including pipelines, and 2) the Eminent Domain for Transportation of Carbon Dioxide by Pipeline (IC 14-39, Indiana State, 2011), which declares pipeline transportation of CO 2 exclusively to a carbon management application, including sequestration, enhanced oil recovery, and deep saline injection as a benefit to the welfare of Indiana and the people. The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Underground Injection Control (UIC) Program Class VI rule and permit requirements address all components pertaining to CO 2 injection and monitoring for long-term storage, and outline the minimum technical criteria to protect underground sources of drinking water at, and surrounding, injection well sites. The Class VI requirements also address financial responsibility for corrective action, post-injection site care, and site closure. In addition, UIC Program public notice requirements include that the EPA issue notice of the draft permit preparation to key stakeholders, and open a public comment period of not less than 30 days. A public hearing about the permit would also be held, if specifically requested by the public. A potential Class VI CO 2 injection well permit for the East Sub-Basin case study site would be obtained through the US EPA Region 5, because the State of Indiana does not have UIC Class VI primacy. Although no CO 2 injection wells have been permitted in Indiana, the US EPA Region 5 (which covers Illinois and Indiana) and the East Sub-Basin CarbonSAFE team (via the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium [MGSC]) have Class VI permitting experience from several projects located in Illinois. Based on our experience, applying for a Class VI permit can be an intensive and iterative process requiring clear communication and numerous interactions with EPA staff. In addition to gathering and preparing the data/models and documentation necessary for a permit application’s initial submittal, the subsequent public comments, EPA response and review, and answering of any follow-up questions/requests by the EPA could significantly increase the timeframe of draft permit issuance. The US EPA offers guidance documents regarding the specific Class VI permit requirements, and shows a general permitting timeline example from the FutureGen Alliance 2.0 covering one-and-a-half years from permit submittal to issuance. However, the overall permitting process to-date has a high degree of variability, and in MGSC’s project experience we observed a more extended timeline to receive Class VI permits for each of two CO 2 injection wells.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2017

Summary Report for the Evaluation of Current QA Processes Within the FRMAC FAL and EPA MERL.

The Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center (FRMAC) relies on accurate and defensible analytical laboratory data to support its mission. Therefore, FRMAC must ensure that the environmental analytical laboratories providing analytical services maintain an ongoing capability to provide accurate analytical results to DOE. It is undeniable that the more Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) measures required of the laboratory, the less resources that are available for analysis of response samples. Being that QA and QC measures in general are understood to comprise a major effort related to a laboratory’s operations, requirements should only be considered if they are deemed “value-added” for the FRMAC mission. This report provides observations of areas for improvement and potential interoperability opportunities in the areas of Batch Quality Control Requirements, Written Communications, Data Review Processes, Data Reporting Processes, along with the lessons learned as they apply to items in the early phase of a response that will be critical for developing a more efficient, integrated response for future interactions between the FRMAC and EPA assets.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Resilient Distributed Parameter Estimation With Heterogeneous Data

This paper studies resilient distributed estimation under measurement attacks. A set of agents each makes successive local, linear, noisy measurements of an unknown vector field collected in a vector parameter. The local measurement models are heterogeneous across agents and may be locally unobservable for the unknown parameter. An adversary compromises some of the measurement streams and changes their values arbitrarily. The agents' goal is to cooperate over a peer-to-peer communication network to process their (possibly compromised) local measurements and estimate the value of the unknown vector parameter. We present SAGE, the Saturating Adaptive Gain Estimator, a distributed, recursive, consensus + innovations estimator that is resilient to measurement attacks. We demonstrate that, as long as the number of compromised measurement streams is below a particular bound, then, SAGE guarantees that all of the agents' local estimates converge almost surely to the value of the parameter. The resilience of the estimator - i.e., the number of compromised measurement streams it can tolerate - does not depend on the topology of the inter-agent communication network. Finally, we illustrate the performance of SAGE through numerical examples.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS2009

Lunar Module Communications

This slide presentation reviews the Apollo lunar module communications. It describes several changes in terminology from the Apollo era to more recent terms. It reviews: (1) Lunar Module Antennas and Functions (2). Earth Line of Sight Communications Links (3) No Earth Line of Sight Communications Links (4) Lunar Surface Communications Links (5) Signal-Processing Assembly (6) Instrumentation System (7) Some Communications Problems Encountered

Interbartolo, Michael A.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Spectrally reconfigurable quantum emitters enabled by optimized fast modulation

The ability to shape photon emission facilitates strong photon-mediated interactions between disparate physical systems, thereby enabling applications in quantum information processing, simulation and communication. Spectral control in solid state platforms such as color centers, rare earth ions, and quantum dots is particularly attractive for realizing such applications on-chip. Here we propose the use of frequency-modulated optical transitions for spectral engineering of single photon emission. Using a scattering-matrix formalism, we find that a two-level system, when modulated faster than its optical lifetime, can be treated as a single-photon source with a widely reconfigurable photon spectrum that is amenable to standard numerical optimization techniques. To enable the experimental demonstration of this spectral control scheme, we investigate the Stark tuning properties of the silicon vacancy in silicon carbide, a color center with promise for optical quantum information processing technologies. We find that the silicon vacancy possesses excellent spectral stability and tuning characteristics, allowing us to probe its fast modulation regime, observe the theoretically-predicted two-photon correlations, and demonstrate spectral engineering. Our results suggest that frequency modulation is a powerful technique for the generation of new light states with unprecedented control over the spectral and temporal properties of single photons.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2017

The important role of water in growth of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides

We report that 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are commonly grown by chemical vapor deposition using transition metal oxides as solid precursors. Despite the widespread use of this technique, challenges in reproducibility, coverage, and material quality are pervasive, suggestive of unknown and uncontrolled process parameters. In this communication, we demonstrate the impact of water vapor on this growth process. Our results show a direct correlation between gas phase water content and the morphology of TMD films. In particular, we show that the presence of water enhances volatilization, and therefore the vapor transport of tungsten and molybdenum oxide. Surprisingly, we find that water not only plays an important role in volatilization but is also compatible with TMD growth. In fact, carefully controlled humidity can consistently produce high quality, luminescent materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS1990

GaAs VLSI for aerospace electronics

Advanced aerospace electronics systems require high-speed, low-power, radiation-hard, digital components for signal processing, control, and communication applications. GaAs VLSI devices provide a number of advantages over silicon devices including higher carrier velocities, ability to integrate with high performance optical devices, and high-resistivity substrates that provide very short gate delays, good isolation, and tolerance to many forms of radiation. However, III-V technologies also have disadvantages, such as lower yield compared to silicon MOS technology. Achieving very large scale integration (VLSI) is particularly important for fast complex systems. At very short gate delays (less than 100 ps), chip-to-chip interconnects severely degrade circuit clock rates. Complex systems, therefore, benefit greatly when as many gates as possible are placed on a single chip. To fully exploit the advantages of GaAs circuits, attention must be focused on achieving high integration levels by reducing power dissipation, reducing the number of devices per logic function, and providing circuit designs that are more tolerant to process and environmental variations. In addition, adequate noise margin must be maintained to ensure a practical yield.

Larue, G.↗
DOE OSTI2019

CSK hopping pattern model for visible light communication networks

This paper proposes a new channel access method for visible light communications. The transmitter uses the CSK hopping pattern mode to load data to the R, G, and B light-emitting diodes of LEDs and establishes the network access point (AP) of the LEDs for the illumination coverage area. The coordinator controls the work of each AP to ensure that it simultaneously uses different color patterns to distinguish its respective networks. When the receiver (mobile terminal) detects a particular color pattern in the illumination coverage area, it establishes a communication access network process with the AP that is transmitting the particular color pattern. The advantage of this method is that interference between adjacent APs can be avoided. In addition, due to the simplification of the access network, the proposed CSK hopping model can shorten delays in the terminal’s access network. Through modeling and simulation, it is found that this method can effectively support network power and reduce network delay. Moreover, the fairness and stability of terminals that access the network are improved to a certain extent.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS2005

Science Communication versus Science Education: The Graduate Student Scientist as a K-12 Classroom Resource

Science literacy is a major goal of science educational reform (NRC, 1996; AAAS, 1998; NCLB Act, 2001). Some believe that teaching science only requires pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Others believe doing science requires knowledge of the methodologies of scientific inquiry (NRC, 1996). With these two mindsets, the challenge for science educators is to create models that bring the two together. The common ground between those who teach science and those who do science is science communication, an interactive process that galvanizes dialogue among scientists, teachers, and learners in a rich ambience of mutual respect and a common, inclusive language of discourse . The dialogue between science and non-science is reflected in the polarization that separates those who do science and those who teach science, especially as it plays out everyday in the science classroom. You may be thinking, why is this important? It is vital because, although not all science learners become scientists, all K-12 students are expected to acquire science literacy, especially with the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Students are expected to acquire the ability to follow the discourse of science as well as connect the world of science to the context of their everyday life if they plan on moving to the next grade level, and in some states, to graduate from high school. This paper posits that science communication is highly effective in providing the missing link for K-12 students cognition in science and their attainment of science literacy. This paper will focus on the "Science For Our Schools" (SFOS) model implemented at California State Univetsity, Los Angeles (CSULA) as a project of the National Science Foundation s GK-12 program, (NSF 2001) which has been a huge success in bridging the gap between those who "know" science and those who "teach" science. The SFOS model makes clear the distinctions that identify science, science communication, science education, and science literacy in the midst of science learning by bringing together graduate student scientists and science teachers to engage students in the two world s dialogue in the midst of the school science classroom. The graduate student scientists and the science teachers worked as a team throughout the school year and became effective science Communicators as they narrowed the gulf between the two worlds. 1

communications↗
DOE OSTI2024

Research Reactors Division Infrastructure Investment Plan for the High Flux Isotope Reactor

The High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) is a unique national asset. Operational for nearly 60 years, continued investment into the aging infrastructure is necessary to ensure operation for another 6 decades. Additionally, growing missions require HFIR as well as important upgrades. Consequently, carefully integrated planning is required to ensure that infrastructure investments are timely executed to ensure long-term, reliable operation of HFIR. Concerns about challenges to the operational reliability of HFIR resulted in a recommendation from the 2023 Operations Review by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Basic Energy Sciences that a HFIR management strategy be developed to address the infrastructure needs. This report defines the investment needs, which are evolving as new upgrade efforts are better defined. HFIR is part of the three-source strategy within the Neutron Sciences Directorate (NScD) and contributes to the five strategic science areas outlined in the NScD 10 Year Strategic Science Plan: quantum materials, soft matter, materials and engineering, chemistry, and biosciences. Fundamental to this strategy are three core values: operational excellence, responsible stewardship, and servant leadership. These values guide our mission of safe and reliable operation of the reactor and require a strong and just nuclear safety culture, a solemn respect for responsible care of the facility, good workforce development, robust procedures and processes, an effective communication strategy, world-class asset management, a determined customer focus, and a commitment to protecting the environment, the safety and health of the public and our people, and the quality of work performed within our facility. These principles are all essential to operate HFIR at a world-class level. The Research Reactors Division (RRD) will lead a new era of neutron science and isotope production at HFIR through responsible and purposeful leadership and unwavering support of the science community. The approach outlined in this plan highlights the direction leadership is taking to ensure that HFIR is ready to support the science challenges and national needs of the future and that the United States maintains world leadership in neutron sciences. The plan is in alignment with the DOE’s desire to continue operating HFIR and with the NScD strategic science goals for the future. HFIR is an aging facility with numerous infrastructure challenges and needs. It has an aging workforce in relation to the general population of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), with many expected retirements over the next 5–10 years. With an increase in work scope caused by changing national priorities and science goals, several critical hires have been identified. To manage HFIR’s infrastructure needs, a prioritized list of equipment upgrades has been identified along with an analysis of future staffing requirements. A desire to operate HFIR at eight cycles per year will necessarily require some significant changes to procedures and processes currently in place as well as targeted staffing additions. Many of the equipment upgrades identified in this plan will significantly increase the reliability of the plant, thus contributing to the effort to reach the goal of safely operating eight cycles per year. A plan to attain eight-cycle operation is being prepared in parallel with the activities identified in this plan, although the actions identified to satisfy both plans will overlap. This plan identifies new infrastructure needs—for both plant equipment and staffing—thus necessitating formulation of future budget requests to fund the increased work scope and improvement activities. Some activities are currently being scheduled with the expectation that funding will be received. Any delays to funding or reductions of funding from the identified cost estimations will directly and negatively affect the plan’s implementation.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Designing a parallel Feel-the-Way clustering algorithm on HPC systems

This paper introduces a new parallel clustering algorithm, named Feel-the-Way clustering algorithm, that provides better or equivalent convergence rate than the traditional clustering methods by optimizing the synchronization and communication costs. Our algorithm design centers on how to optimize three factors simultaneously: reduced synchronizations, improved convergence rate, and retained same or comparable optimization cost. To compare the optimization cost, we use the Sum of Square Error (SSE) cost as the metric, which is the sum of the square distance between each data point and its assigned clusters. Compared with the traditional MPI k-means algorithm, the new Feel-the-Way algorithm requires less communications among participating processes. As for the convergence rate, the new algorithm requires fewer number of iterations to converge. As for the optimization cost, it obtains the SSE costs that are close to the k-means algorithm. In the paper, we first design the full-step Feel-the-Way k-means clustering algorithm that can significantly reduce the number of iterations that are required by the original k-means clustering method. Next, we improve the performance of the full-step algorithm by adopting an optimized sampling-based approach, named reassignment-history-aware sampling. Our experimental results show that the optimized sampling-based Feel-the-Way method is significantly faster than the widely used k-means clustering method, and can provide comparable optimization costs. More extensive experiments with several synthetic datasets and real-world datasets (e.g., MNIST, CIFAR-10, ENRON, and PLACES-2) show that the new parallel algorithm can outperform the open source MPI k-means library by up to 110% on a high-performance computing system using 4,096 CPU cores. In addition, the new algorithm can take up to 51% fewer iterations to converge than the k-means clustering algorithm.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS1993

Operations automation using the Link Monitor and Control Operator Assistant

The Link Monitor and Control Operator Assistant (LMC OA) is a knowledge-based prototype system which uses AI techniques to provide semiautomated monitor and control functions to support operations of the Deep Space Network (DSN) 70-m antenna at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex (DSCC). The manual and time-consuming process of configuring the 70-m antenna and its associated communications and processing equipment, known as precalibration, is an overhead activity; the time spent in precalibration is time which cannot be spent supporting actual mission operations. Therefore, the major goal of the LMC OA task is to demonstrate techniques that reduce precalibration time, decrease operations overhead, and increase the availability of this valuable and oversubscribed NASA resource. The LMC OA prototype was tested in a parallel, experimental mode at the Goldstone DSCC performing semiautomated precalibration using the actual operational equipment. This test demonstrated that a reduction of 40 percent in precalibration time can be achieved with the LMC OA prototype.

Lee, Lorrine F.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Developing Tools and Techniques to Increase Communication Effectiveness

The Public Affairs Office (PAO) of the Johnson Space Center (JSC) is responsible for communicating current JSC Space Program activities as well as goals and objectives to the American Public. As part of the 1996 Strategic Communications Plan, a review of PAO' s current communication procedures was conducted. The 1996 Summer Faculty Fellow performed research activities to support this effort by reviewing current research concerning NASA/JSC's customers' perceptions and interests, developing communications tools which enable PAO to more effectively inform JSC customers about the Space Program, and proposing a process for developing and using consistent messages throughout PAO. Note that this research does not attempt to change or influence customer perceptions or interests but, instead, incorporates current customer interests into PAO's communication process.

Hayes, Linda A.↗