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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

Simultaneous contrast improvement and temporal compression using divided-pulse nonlinear compression

We experimentally demonstrate how divided-pulse nonlinear compression can be used to improve the temporal contrast of a laser pulse train while simultaneously temporally compressing the pulses. We measure a contrast improvement of almost four orders of magnitude on a nanosecond time scale and temporally compress the pulses from 1.2 ps to 187 fs. The efficiency of our method is also competitive with other contrast improvement methods, with 72% efficiency measured for the main pulse. We expect the method will be useful in the continuing development of high-power, Yb regenerative amplifiers, which suffer from both significant prepulses and relatively long pulse durations.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Chapter 2: Thermal Energy Storage for Energy Decarbonization

Thermal energy storage (TES) deployed with concentrating solar power (CSP) has shown value and capabilities in generating dispatchable power. It has attracted significant interest for potential roles in energy storage for various capacities and applications. Energy storage plays an important role in expanding renewable generation and is becoming indispensable in future carbon-free electric power. TES development and deployment provide various possibilities for electric storage and have shown advantages in capacity and flexibility to support renewable integration. In addition, renewable energy integrated with a low-cost TES system can potentially provide a reliable thermal energy supply to displace fossil fuels for broad decarbonization. Varieties of TES technologies and developments breed new areas of growth in TES materials, designs, components, and system configurations, which provide opportunities for substantial cost reduction and performance improvements to meet the technoeconomic challenges in practical applications. This chapter will describe recent progress in thermal energy storage research and development and primarily focus on sensible heat storage and its applications in supplying reliable electricity and industry process heat by integrating with variable renewable energy.

concentrating solar thermal power↗
DOE OSTI2023

Advanced Photon Acceleration Schemes for Tunable XUV/Soft X-Ray Sources

We report on the advances made under the purview of DOE award number DE-SC0019135 that was active during the period: 09/01/2018–08/31/2021. The grant investigated the application of a “flying focus” to the problem of photon acceleration—in which a dynamic refractive index gradient is used to continuously upshift a probe beam’s frequency. Codes were written to describe the creation of ionization waves of arbitrary velocity (IWAVs) for use as a photon-accelerating medium, as well as the behavior of a witness pulse residing in said medium. Experiments first verified the spatiotemporal control over laser intensity provided by a chromatic flying focus, then used that ability to produce small-diameter IWAVs in the far-field with the expected dynamics, and finally demonstrated even further flexibility by producing large-diameter IWAVs in the laser quasi-far-field that maintained the beneficial dynamics. Multiple innovative diagnostics—spectrally resolved Schlieren and spectrally resolved interferometry—were pioneered in order to diagnose the IWAVs. For IWAV production in the laboratory, however, beam quality was identified as a key limitation in the quasi-far-field. Since the original chromatic flying focus was found to result in relatively long (ps duration) intensity peaks, which could limit some applications including photon acceleration, additional techniques were invented to provide similar spatiotemporal control while also retaining ultrashort intensity peaks. While simulations have identified several interesting regimes for photon acceleration—first predicting the upshift of a counterpropagating witness pulse from the optical to the extreme ultraviolet in less than 1 cm, and later obtaining similar shifts in less than 100 μm in a simpler self-seeded configuration—experimental demonstration is left for future work.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

DOE-NOAA Marine Cloud Brightening (Workshop Report 2022)

Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) refers to the deliberate injection of aerosol particles into marine clouds to increase their reflection of solar radiation to temporarily cool the planet while decarbonization efforts are pursued. A workshop was conducted to assess the state of knowledge in the field of MCB, and to provide a possible research path toward reducing unknowns in key components of the underlying physical science. This three-day workshop took place in April 2022 and was jointly sponsored by Department of Energy (DOE)’s Atmospheric System Research (ASR) program and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The workshop focused on identifying key physical science knowledge gaps necessary to answer the following driving questions: 1) Is MCB feasible over sufficiently large regions and is implementation practicable for long-enough durations to avert the worst impacts of global warming? 2) If practicable, what will be the regional impacts of such MCB interventions? 3) Do we have adequate systems in place to detect and quantify the effects of such interventions? 4) What physical and engineering science challenges must be resolved satisfactorily before we can consider embarking on MCB?

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

DOE-NOAA Marine Cloud Brightening Workshop

Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) refers to the deliberate injection of aerosol particles into marine clouds to increase their reflection of solar radiation to temporarily cool the planet while decarbonization efforts are pursued. A workshop was conducted to assess the state of knowledge in the field of MCB, and to provide a possible research path toward reducing unknowns in key components of the underlying physical science. This three-day workshop took place in April 2022 and was jointly sponsored by Department of Energy (DOE)’s Atmospheric System Research (ASR) program and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The workshop focused on identifying key physical science knowledge gaps necessary to answer the following driving questions: 1. Is MCB feasible over sufficiently large regions and is implementation practicable for long-enough durations to avert the worst impacts of global warming? 2. If practicable, what will be the regional impacts of such MCB interventions? 3. Do we have adequate systems in place to detect and quantify the effects of such interventions? 4. What physical and engineering science challenges must be resolved satisfactorily before we can consider embarking on MCB?

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Grid-Scale Electricity Storage at Lowest Possible Cost Enabled by Pumped Heat Electricity Storage (Final Report)

Grid-scale energy storage technologies that can provide greater than 10 hours of electricity at full power address a critical need for full penetration of renewables on electricity grids worldwide, minimize renewable curtailment, and maximize grid security and reliability. Pumped Heat Energy Storage (PHES) systems can store energy thermally in any location at the low costs necessary for displacing fossil fuels, reducing foreign fuel imports, and reducing emissions to maintain the energy security of the United States. The award allowed Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®) and Malta, Inc. (Malta) to advance the PHES concept to a proof-of-concept demonstration for a kW-scale system. The project focused on system operation and integration. The main project objectives were: 1. Address first implementation challenges 2. Explore system control strategies and operation 3. Translate lessons learned to the full-scale system Through these objectives the project completes a first demonstration of this technology and reduces the technical risk associated with a full-scale system.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Commercial Off-the-Shelf Flexible Contact Stress Sensor System: Design Thinking and Systems Engineering Assignment

NNSA has a need to measure the contact stress over long-term durations with minimal impact on the element of interest. The sensor and package should have a small footprint, thin, flexible, modular, and preferably commercially available. There exists an opportunity to leverage expertise within LLNL in sensor development to provide a minimally invasive contact stress sensing solution for NNSA and potentially external customers.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Compare low-gain 1D and 3D models toward a storage ring-based X-ray free-electron-laser oscillator

Fourth-generation diffraction-limited synchrotron light sources (DL-SLS) present a compelling platform for advanced light source applications due to their ultra-low emittance (around tens of picometers), sub-micrometer beam stability, and high repetition rates (greater than 1 MHz). Despite these advantages, fundamental limitations, such as long bunch durations (tens of picoseconds), large relative energy spread (~10⁻³), and low peak current (<300 A), have hindered their effectiveness in free-electron laser (FEL) applications. Using a low-gain three-dimensional (3D) model based on NSLS-II upgrade lattice parameters, we demonstrate that a 6% single-pass gain is achievable with an optimized transverse gradient undulator (TGU). Concurrently, recent advances in X-ray optics—specifically, a four-mirror bow-tie resonator utilizing diamond mirrors and beryllium compound refractive lenses (CRLs)—enable total round-trip losses below 4% and an output coupling efficiency near 1%, rendering a Storage Ring based X-ray FEL oscillator (XFELO) a realistic possibility. In the 3D framework, the TGU effectively mitigates the detrimental effects of large energy spread by spatially dispersing the beam, leading to enhanced gain relative to conventional one-dimensional (1D) models. We establish both analytical and numerical connections between the 1D and 3D descriptions, leveraging GENESIS simulations to map equivalent gain conditions. While 1D resonance is defined in the energy domain, the 3D TGU system shifts the resonance dependence to transverse gradient and dispersion parameters. Once optimized, this framework allows predictive modeling using 1D formulas, which can then be validated through full 3D simulations.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Advancing Additive Manufacturing Through Artificial Intelligence–Powered, High-Throughput, Nondestructive Characterization and Process Optimization

This Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and ZEISS Industrial Metrology has demonstrated the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled x-ray computed tomography (XCT) to accelerate the qualification and certification of additively manufactured (AM) parts. At the core of this effort is Simurgh, an AI-powered XCT reconstruction framework jointly advanced by ORNL and ZEISS that integrates computer-aided design (CAD) models, physics-based simulations, and deep learning to overcome the long-standing challenges of metal artifact correction, long scan durations, and limited flaw detectability in dense and geometrically complex components. Simurgh enables high-throughput, high-quality 3D reconstruction from sparse and fast scans, which reduces XCT acquisition times by more than an order of magnitude and simultaneously improves defect detection limits by up to fourfold compared with industry-standard approaches. This capability reduces scan costs by more than 50%, lowers labor overhead, and makes XCT characterization economically viable for routine industrial use. By enabling reliable flaw detection in minutes rather than hours, Simurgh facilitates real-time feedback loops for process parameter optimization, which was highlighted in a recent npj Computational Materials (a Nature journal) issue. In the published study, more than 100 alloy coupons were characterized within a single day. This work represents a tenfold acceleration in the development of novel AM alloys and processes compared with conventional workflows. The ZEISS collaboration has also demonstrated the scalability of Simurgh to diverse application domains, including aerospace, nuclear, automotive, and biomedical components; in these applications, ensuring structural integrity is paramount. By drastically reducing barriers to XCT adoption, this partnership has laid the foundation for digital twins and data-driven certification pipelines and directly addressed bottlenecks in qualifying new materials and designs. Together, ORNL and ZEISS have shown that Simurgh advances the state of the art in nondestructive evaluation and aligns with the broader mission of enabling Industry 4.0 manufacturing ecosystems, in which intelligent, cost-effective, rapid quality assurance is integral to accelerating innovation and ensuring safety in critical applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Advancing Additive Manufacturing Through Artificial Intelligence–Powered, High-Throughput, Nondestructive Characterization and Process Optimization

This Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and ZEISS Industrial Metrology has demonstrated the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled x-ray computed tomography (XCT) to accelerate the qualification and certification of additively manufactured (AM) parts. At the core of this effort is Simurgh, an AI-powered XCT reconstruction framework jointly advanced by ORNL and ZEISS that integrates computer-aided design (CAD) models, physics-based simulations, and deep learning to overcome the long-standing challenges of metal artifact correction, long scan durations, and limited flaw detectability in dense and geometrically complex components. Simurgh enables high-throughput, high-quality 3D reconstruction from sparse and fast scans, which reduces XCT acquisition times by more than an order of magnitude and simultaneously improves defect detection limits by up to fourfold compared with industry-standard approaches. This capability reduces scan costs by more than 50%, lowers labor overhead, and makes XCT characterization economically viable for routine industrial use. By enabling reliable flaw detection in minutes rather than hours, Simurgh facilitates real-time feedback loops for process parameter optimization, which was highlighted in a recent npj Computational Materials (a Nature journal) issue. In the published study, more than 100 alloy coupons were characterized within a single day. This work represents a tenfold acceleration in the development of novel AM alloys and processes compared with conventional workflows. The ZEISS collaboration has also demonstrated the scalability of Simurgh to diverse application domains, including aerospace, nuclear, automotive, and biomedical components; in these applications, ensuring structural integrity is paramount. By drastically reducing barriers to XCT adoption, this partnership has laid the foundation for digital twins and data-driven certification pipelines and directly addressed bottlenecks in qualifying new materials and designs. Together, ORNL and ZEISS have shown that Simurgh advances the state of the art in nondestructive evaluation and aligns with the broader mission of enabling Industry 4.0 manufacturing ecosystems, in which intelligent, cost-effective, rapid quality assurance is integral to accelerating innovation and ensuring safety in critical applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Commercialization of Pumped Storage Hydropower Technologies

Argonne National Laboratory and the National Laboratory of the Rockies were tasked by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technology Office (WPTO) to conduct the Commercialization of Pumped Storage Hydropower Technologies study to investigate commercialization challenges faced by developers of pumped storage hydropower (PSH) projects and technologies by going beyond literature review to gather direct industry insights, lessons learned and best practices from interviews and webinars with industry specialists to create this report for PSH stakeholders and the general public. Researchers explored key challenges faced by PSH developers and innovators seeking to commercialize new technologies to improve PSH design, siting, construction, and operations. Along with highlighting challenges, the study sought to identify the best practices in developing and deploying new PSH projects and innovations. This report is designed to present insights, lessons learned, and best practices relevant to those with an interest in highlighting, informing, or advancing these PSH commercialization efforts. Along with highlighting challenges and best practices, the study sought to identify avenues by which DOE and national laboratories can help support and streamline PSH commercialization and project development processes.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Planning for Seattle at the Convergence of Resilience and Energy

Grid reliability metrics obscure important temporal, spatial, and categorical considerations for increasing energy resilience. Systemwide or feeder-level outage metrics do not identify which kinds of services are affected by outages, where, and for how long. These outage metrics indicate the impacts of outages but cannot measure the consequences to customers that could result from those outages. The consequences of power outages for surrounding community members are caused by disruptions to electricity-dependent critical services, rather than to electricity itself. Power outages can decrease a community's access to healthcare, fuel, safe indoor temperatures, and provisions like food and water. This project developed critical service access, a new consequence-focused resilience metric that quantifies the relative access to critical services provided to households by distribution infrastructure during normal conditions and major disruptions. We use a spatially granular grid analysis that facilitates targeted resilience interventions; dividing feeders into isolatable sections and combining those sections with the critical service access metric allows us to identify where energy improvements like solar-plus-storage microgrids could create the most benefits for community members by protecting access to food, fuel, health, shelter, and public safety services. We identify locations in a South Seattle study area that could be high priorities for resilience investment and summarize their potential neighborhood-scale resilience benefits. This analysis was complemented by direct feedback from study area residents collect through a survey and focus groups. Results can help utilities understand how and where long power outages can create real consequences for customers, set strategic targets based on that understanding, and measure the potential benefits of energy resilience upgrades for more informed decisions.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Advanced Technology and a Resilient Electric Grid

Making the electric grid cleaner and more resilient will require investing in a variety of new and emerging technologies. Advanced technologies including hydrogen, small modular nuclear reactors, and energy storage will all have a role to play in modernizing the electric grid. A diverse energy supply helps to keep the lights on and protects critical infrastructure, however it will also be important to assess the potential vulnerabilities and risks that come with unfamiliar and new technologies. This webinar will feature experts on resilience planning around advanced technologies from multiple sectors and share resources for states as they seek to modernize and decarbonize their electric grid.

advanced technology↗
DOE OSTI2022

A Real-Time Data Dashboard for Monitoring Travel Behavior

When running a smartphone app-based travel behavior study, it is important to keep participants engaged in contributing data. Long study durations and/or large samples make it difficult to engage participants in reporting their travel behavior. We developed a dashboard web application called 'emdash' to facilitate and ease the data collection maintenance task. It allows deployers to view trip trajectories, track which participants are uploading data, and generate report ready plots. Emdash can also be useful for deployers to identify ways to best encourage a particular transportation mode shift and to provide feedback and reporting to participants. Using the dashboard, a single admin was able to support a classic travel study with 80 participants. The dashboard is currently deployed in a two-year electric bike (e-bike) pilot study called CanBikeCO, conducted in six locations across Colorado, USA. CanBikeCO targets carbon emissions reduction and equity improvement by evaluating changes to participants' travel behavior when they are offered free e-bikes. Each CanBikeCO location has access to their own version of emdash to help them monitor and support participants. After testing and gathering feedback, we made improvements to the dashboard's usability and scalability, and proposed a method to make detecting data issues easier. Improvements include configurable options and limiting the volume of data sent to the dashboard as study size and duration increase.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,MATHEMATICS AND COMPUT↗
DOE OSTI2023

Is Clean Hydrogen Production a Good Fit for Questa? Intermediate Feasibility Study Results

NREL conducted a feasibility study for a clean hydrogen production facility that would be located in Questa, New Mexico. This slide deck presents the history of the coalition of stakeholders that received NREL technical assistance through the Department of Energy's Communities Leading Energy Action Program. It describes how hydrogen is generated and its end uses. It describes two conceptual applications explored in the feasibility analysis, a grid-tied power generation and long-term storage application and a heavy-duty vehicle fueling application. The presentation details the configuration of these to applications in the Questa pilot facility, including system components, required inputs (water, electricity, and land for pv generation), and outputs in kilograms of hydrogen, megawatt hours of power delivered, and hours of vehicle hours of operation. The presentation addresses key concerns raised by groups engaged through a public outreach process, including safety, health, and environmental issues; water use; visual impacts; and costs and alternatives.

heavy-duty vehicle fueling↗
DOE OSTI2024

Status of Power System Transformation: Leading Topics of 2024

This presentation provides an overview of key power sector transformation topics that are relevant for global power system decarbonization and net zero goals. It includes examples of strategies to achieve rapid power system decarbonization and enable clean energy deployment.

21st Century Power Partnership↗