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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 523 records · Page 29
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2017

Stability Assessment of a System Comprising a Single Machine and Inverter with Scalable Ratings

Synchronous machines have traditionally acted as the foundation of large-scale electrical infrastructures and their physical properties have formed the cornerstone of system operations. However, with the increased integration of distributed renewable resources and energy-storage technologies, there is a need to systematically acknowledge the dynamics of power-electronics inverters - the primary energy-conversion interface in such systems - in all aspects of modeling, analysis, and control of the bulk power network. In this paper, we assess the properties of coupled machine-inverter systems by studying an elementary system comprised of a synchronous generator, three-phase inverter, and a load. The inverter model is formulated such that its power rating can be scaled continuously across power levels while preserving its closed-loop response. Accordingly, the properties of the machine-inverter system can be assessed for varying ratios of machine-to-inverter power ratings. After linearizing the model and assessing its eigenvalues, we show that system stability is highly dependent on the inverter current controller and machine exciter, thus uncovering a key concern with mixed machine-inverter systems and motivating the need for next-generation grid-stabilizing inverter controls.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2019

Effect of Plastic Deformation on Passivation Characteristics of Type 304 Stainless Steel

Electrochemical response of Type 304 stainless steel, with different levels of plastic deformation, was investigated in solutions containing different amounts of H{sub 2}SO{sub 4} and KSCN at room temperature. Potentiodynamic polarization and double-loop electrochemical potentiokinetic reactivation (DL-EPR) techniques were used to characterize different levels of plastic deformation. The results have indicated that DL-EPR values and passivation current density increased with increase in plastic deformation. The DL-EPR values were correlated well with hardness and fraction of strain-induced martensite. Attack during DL-EPR tests occurred on strain regions within the matrix such as dislocations in austenite and martensite and/or interface between austenite and martensite. No well-defined correlation was observed between the levels of plastic deformation and potentiodynamic polarization behavior.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Correcting Diamagnetic-Loop Measurements for Beam Corkscrew Motion

Diamagnetic loops (DML) are used as a non-invasive method for measurements of beam size in electron beam accelerators that use solenoidal magnetic transport. The loop fundamentally measures the magnetic flux excluded by a diamagnetic object. One of the sources of background in these measurements is the flux produced by a straight filamentary current that is offset from the axis and tilted in the plane orthogonal to the offset. This was only a small effect in our experiments, because the beam was steered to be centered on average at the DML. However, we devoted some time to understanding and quantifying the effect, and we recount that effort in this report.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Autonomous Monitoring of Nuclear Repositories: Current State of the Art and Future Directions

Geological repositories for nuclear waste, including spent nuclear fuel, present a significant challenge for traditional International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards tools due to their inaccessibility and demanding operational conditions. The IAEA has been working closely with Member State organizations currently involved in repository construction and planning, including Euratom, the Finnish and Swedish regulatory authorities, and relevant facility operators. However, the verification challenge remains unsolved, and there persists an out- standing need for tools and approaches that will help the IAEA verify that no nuclear material is diverted from a repository environment. The challenge is also not static. Activities must encompass verification of the design, prior to and during the construction/operation phase, and post backfill. Throughout these various phases, it is imperative that the IAEA maintains a continuity of knowledge (CoK) of all material including information on material inventory and flow. This paper highlights these challenges and outlines how they might be addressed by using remote or autonomous vehicles. Specifically, we discuss the current state of the art in robotic autonomy for known or partially known environment mapping and patrolling, as well as shared autonomy, where humans collaborate with closed-loop autonomation to complete tasks. We explore the feasibility of using rovers for these verification tasks, along with the challenges associated with system implementation. Hardware and software suggestions are provided based on the adoption of similar technologies in other comparable areas and ability to close technical gaps. Lastly, human-robotic interactions are considered based on the challenges of the environment of the repository and effective deployment and continued operation of the robot system.

geologic repository, safeguards, IAEA, Robotics↗
DOE OSTI2025

Building workflows for an interactive human-in-the-loop automated experiment (hAE) in STEM-EELS

Exploring the structural, chemical, and physical properties of matter on the nano- and atomic scales has become possible with the recent advances in aberration-corrected electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) in scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). However, the current paradigm of STEM-EELS relies on the classical rectangular grid sampling, in which all surface regions are assumed to be of equal a priori interest. However, this is typically not the case for real-world scenarios, where phenomena of interest are concentrated in a small number of spatial locations, such as interfaces, structural and topological defects, and multi-phase inclusions. One of the foundational problems is the discovery of nanometer- or atomic-scale structures having specific signatures in EELS spectra. Herein, we systematically explore the hyperparameters controlling deep kernel learning (DKL) discovery workflows for STEM-EELS and identify the role of the local structural descriptors and acquisition functions in experiment progression. In agreement with the actual experiment, we observe that for certain parameter combinations the experiment path can be trapped in the local minima. We demonstrate the approaches for monitoring the automated experiment in the real and feature space of the system and knowledge acquisition of the DKL model. Based on these, we construct intervention strategies defining the human-in-the-loop automated experiment (hAE). This approach can be further extended to other techniques including 4D STEM and other forms of spectroscopic imaging. The hAE library is available on Github at https://github.com/utkarshp1161/hAE/tree/main/hAE.

Pratiush, Utkarsh [Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, ↗
DOE OSTI2017

Connecting dark matter annihilation to the vertex functions of Standard Model fermions

We consider here scenarios in which dark matter is a Majorana fermion which couples to Standard Model fermions through the exchange of charged mediating particles. The matrix elements for various dark matter annihilation processes are then related to one-loop corrections to the fermion-photon vertex, where dark matter and the charged mediators run in the loop. In particular, in the limit where Standard Model fermion helicity mixing is suppressed, the cross section for dark matter annihilation to various final states is related to corrections to the Standard Model fermion charge form factor. These corrections can be extracted in a gauge-invariant manner from collider cross sections. While current measurements from colliders are not precise enough to provide useful constraints on dark matter annihilation, improved measurements at future experiments, such as the International Linear Collider, could improve these constraints by several orders of magnitude, allowing them to surpass the limits obtainable by direct observation

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Measurement of a radial flow profile with eddy current flow meters and deep neural networks

Eddy current flow meters (ECFMs) measure flows of conductive fluids. Recent interest in ECFMs has increased due to applications in advanced nuclear reactors. ECFMs are well suited for such applications, as they can provide non-invasive measurements of flow in fluids that are often difficult to measure. Traditionally, ECFMs are operated using an alternating current at a single frequency, limiting ECFMs to measure average fluid velocities, blockages, or voids. Here, we expand the capabilities of ECFMs by measuring the fluid radial velocity profile of liquid mercury. To accomplish this, we made several ECFM sensitivity measurements at a range of frequencies. Different frequencies vary the electromagnetic skin depth of the device. By adjusting frequencies, we probed the fluid velocity at various radial locations and constructed a flow-velocity profile. The relationship between the ECFM measurements and velocity profile is nonlinear and requires solving an inverse problem. Using electromagnetic finite-element simulations to train a deep neural network (DNN), we created a model that provides a stable general relationship between the sensitivity measurements of an ECFM and the fluid velocity profile. Using ECFM measurements of liquid mercury, our DNN model calculates a flow profile that agrees well with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. This technique has potential to improve flow monitoring for optimization, safe operation of conductive fluid loops, and/or validating complex CFD models.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

PELICAN Status Report for Year 2021

The Pressure Drop Experimental Loop for Investigations of Core Assemblies in Advanced Nuclear Reactors, PELICAN, is a novel experimental facility designed and constructed to recreate the prototypic full scale hydraulic flow conditions for the Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) currently under development by the U.S. Department of Energy. To support VTR design efforts, PELICAN is used to replicate VTR’s primary heat transport system (PHTS) in the core assembly region. The measurement objectives for data generated from this test facility are to mimic the prototypic VTR assembly and to meet the validation needs for code calculations and simulations of the reference design for the VTR core. These objectives focus on the need to validate pressure drop results across the various segments of the fuel assembly, including the axial reflectors, fuel, and transition regions, as they relate directly to the pumping power and safety behavior of the reactor. In the following sections, the major milestones for the experimental work performed on PELICAN over the calendar year (CY) 2021 are presented. In the next section, we discuss the assembly and shakedown testing of the facility. In Section 3, an analysis of the errors in the major measurements is performed. In Section 4 and 5 we present the results from the first set of test articles placed inside the loop. The design of the remaining test articles as part of the full assembly are shown in Section 6 and the conclusion and path forward for the following year, CY22 is given in the final section.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

A critical review of irradiation-induced changes in reactor pressure vessel steels

A large body of work has been conducted to investigate the embrittlement and degradation of reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels. This includes experiments on alloys with different compositions, performed in research and test reactors and ion accelerators that span various temperatures, fluxes, and fluences. In this paper, we perform a critical review of the published experimental data and compile experimentally reported values for dislocation loop size/density, precipitate size/density and yield stress into an easily downloadable format that can be used by both experimentalists and modelers. This thorough experimental review is complemented by a brief review of simulation efforts at atomistic and mesoscopic length scales. Finally, this paper highlights key aspects of the behavior of RPV steels under irradiation, identifies gaps or discrepancies in current understanding, and identifies priority future research directions.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

An Alfvenic reconnecting plasmoid thruster

A new concept for the generation of thrust for space propulsion is introduced. Energetic thrust is generated in the form of plasmoids (confined plasma in closed magnetic loops) when magnetic helicity (linked magnetic field lines) is injected into an annular channel. Using a novel configuration of static electric and magnetic fields, the concept utilizes a current-sheet instability to spontaneously and continuously create plasmoids via magnetic reconnection. Here, the generated low-temperature plasma is simulated in a global annular geometry using the extended magnetohydrodynamic model. Because the system-size plasmoid is an Alfvenic outflow from the reconnection site, its thrust is proportional to the square of the magnetic field strength and does not ideally depend on the mass of the ion species of the plasma. Exhaust velocities in the range of 20 to $500\ \textrm {km}\ \textrm {s}^{-1}$ , controllable by the coil currents, are observed in the simulations.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Regions of hepatitis C virus E2 required for membrane association

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) uses a hybrid entry mechanism. Current structural data suggest that upon exposure to low pH and Cluster of Differentiation 81 (CD81), the amino terminus of envelope glycoprotein E2 becomes ordered and releases an internal loop with two invariant aromatic residues into the host membrane. Here, we present the structure of an amino-terminally truncated E2 with the membrane binding loop in a bent conformation and the aromatic side chains sequestered. Comparison with three previously reported E2 structures with the same Fab indicates that this internal loop is flexible, and that local context influences the exposure of hydrophobic residues. Biochemical assays show that the amino-terminally truncated E2 lacks the baseline membrane-binding capacity of the E2 ectodomain. Thus, the amino terminal region is a critical determinant for both CD81 and membrane interaction. These results provide new insights into the HCV entry mechanism.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

STREAM2016: Streaming Requirements, Experience, Applications and Middleware Workshop

The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) facilities including accelerators, light sources and neutron sources and sensors that study, the environment, and the atmosphere, are producing streaming data that needs to be analyzed for next-generation scientific discoveries. There has been an explosion of new research and technologies for stream analytics arising from the academic and private sectors. However, there has been no corresponding effort in either documenting the critical research opportunities or building a community that can create and foster productive collaborations. The two-part workshop series, STREAM: Streaming Requirements, Experience, Applications and Middleware Workshop (STREAM2015 and STREAM2016), were conducted to bring the community together and identify gaps and future efforts needed by both NSF and DOE. This report describes the discussions, outcomes and conclusions from STREAM2016: Streaming Requirements, Experience, Applications and Middleware Workshop, the second of these workshops held on March 22-23, 2016 in Tysons, VA. STREAM2016 focused on the Department of Energy (DOE) applications, computational and experimental facilities, as well software systems. Thus, the role of “streaming and steering” as a critical mode of connecting the experimental and computing facilities was pervasive through the workshop. Given the overlap in interests and challenges with industry, the workshop had significant presence from several innovative companies and major contributors. The requirements that drive the proposed research directions, identified in this report, show an important opportunity for building competitive research and development program around streaming data. These findings and recommendations are consistent with vision outlined in NRC Frontiers of Data and National Strategic Computing Initiative (NCSI) [1, 2]. The discussions from the workshop are captured as topic areas covered in this report's sections. The report discusses four research directions driven by current and future application requirements reflecting the areas identified as important by STREAM2016. These include (i) Algorithms, (ii) Programming Models, Languages and Runtime Systems (iii) Human-in-the-loop and Steering in Scientific Workflow and (iv) Facilities.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Tritium Transport Phenomena in Molten-Salt Reactors: Molten Salt Tritium Transport Experiment Design

Tritium is produced from neutron interactions with both lithium and beryllium. Large quantities of tritium are generated in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) which use LiF/BeF2 (FLiBe) as the fuel salt. Tritium is unique among the radionuclide hazards as it readily permeates through metal structural materials at high temperatures. All metal surfaces are potential release paths for tritium. For adequate safety analysis and eventual licensing of new reactors, predictive models for tritium transport and release from MSRs must be developed. These models must account for the multiple transport phenomena involved with tritium: fuel salt phase mass transport, dissociation/recombination reactions on metal surfaces, interstitial diffusion through the metal structure, and salt or gas phase mass transport in the downstream fluid. These models also must also be validated with representative experiments. Our previous report outlined tritium transport phenomena involved in MSRs, made suggestions on gaps in the transport dataset, and proposed an experimental test stand to test combined transport effects – tritium transport through pipe walls in a convective salt flow. In this report, we summarize an updated analysis framework for tritium transport in MSRs, report our results on hydrogen and deuterium permeation through Hastelloy N, and describe the final design of the Molten Salt Tritium Transport Experiment (MSTTE, pronounced “misty”). The MSRE provides the only wholistic experimental data set for tritium transport in MSRs and understanding the transport phenomena involved in the MSRE is crucial for future model development. One set of parameters in our analysis framework was unknown for the MSRE—surface reaction rates for tritium on Hastelloy N. This warranted our hydrogen and deuterium permeation campaign to assess the permeability, diffusivity, and solubility of hydrogen isotopes in clean Hastelloy N. Surface reaction rate constants were probed by low pressure measurements, however, no surface effects were observed in the limits of our permeation apparatus. Permeation experiments on oxidized Hastelloy N were not performed for this report but are planned in future work. The experimental test stand, MSTTE, measures combined transport properties of the salt-metal system. MSTTE is a forced convection FLiBe loop with custom designed test section to measure tritium transport through candidate structural materials. We use MSRE relevant dimensionless numbers to design and scale the test section. Hastelloy N is a candidate loop and test section material due to the relevance for the MSRE and related designs, however, other metals are being considered (e.g. 316H SS) which may better align with current vendor concepts.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2016

Chiral matrix model of the semi-QGP in QCD

Previously, a matrix model of the region near the transition temperature, in the “semi”quark gluon plasma, was developed for the theory of SU(3) gluons without quarks. In this paper we develop a chiral matrix model applicable to QCD by including dynamical quarks with 2+1 flavors. This requires adding a nonet of scalar fields, with both parities, and coupling these to quarks through a Yukawa coupling, y. Treating the scalar fields in mean field approximation, the effective Lagrangian is computed by integrating out quarks to one loop order. As is standard, the potential for the scalar fields is chosen to be symmetric under the flavor symmetry of SU (3) L × SU(3) R × Z (3) A , except for a term linear in the current quark mass, m qk . In addition, at a nonzero temperature T it is necessary to add a new term, ~ m qk T 2 . The parameters of the gluon part of the matrix model are identical to those for the pure glue theory without quarks. The parameters in the chiral matrix model are fixed by the values, at zero temperature, of the pion decay constant and the masses of the pions, kaons, η , and η' . The temperature for the chiral crossover at T$χ$ = 155 MeV is determined by adjusting the Yukawa coupling y . We find reasonable agreement with the results of numerical simulations on the lattice for the pressure and related quantities. In the chiral limit, besides the divergence in the chiral susceptibility there is also a milder divergence in the susceptibility between the Polyakov loop and the chiral order parameter, with critical exponent β $-$ 1 . We compute derivatives with respect to a quark chemical potential to determine the susceptibilities for baryon number, the $χ$ 2n . Especially sensitive tests are provided by $χ$ 4 $-$ $χ$ 2 and by $χ$ 6 , which changes in sign about T$χ$ . In conclusion, the behavior of the susceptibilities in the chiral matrix model strongly suggests that as the temperature increases from T$χ$ , that the transition to deconfinement is significantly quicker than indicated by the measurements of the (renormalized) Polyakov loop on the lattice.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Power-Hardware-in-the-Loop Interfaces for Inverter-Based Microgrid Experiments Including Transitions

Microgrids continue to proliferate, particularly those that rely on inverter-based resources as the microgrid's voltage and frequency leader. Hardware-in-the-loop simulations can de-risk microgrid deployments, and therefore we need power-hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) interfaces for grid-forming (GFM) inverters to enable simulations of seamless transitions between islanded and grid-connected operation. Such interfaces are particularly challenging when the inverters need to switch modes, i.e., between grid-following (GFL) and GFM as the microgrid transitions between grid-connected and islanded operation. This paper presents two PHIL interfaces for such microgrids and the preliminary experimental results.

experiments↗
DOE OSTI2025

Stability of superconducting strings

We investigate the stability of superconducting strings as bound states of strings and fermion zero modes at both the classical and quantum levels. The dynamics of these superconducting strings can result in a stable configuration, known as a vorton . We mainly focus on global strings, but the majority of the discussion can be applied to local strings. Using lattice simulations, we study the classical dynamics of superconducting strings and confirm that they relax to the vorton configuration through Nambu-Goldstone boson radiation, with no evidence of over-shooting that would destabilize the vorton. We explore the tunneling of fermion zero modes out of the strings. Both our classical analysis and quantum calculations yield consistent results: the maximum energy of the zero mode significantly exceeds the fermion mass, in contrast to previous literature. Additionally, we introduce a world-sheet formalism to evaluate the decay rate of zero modes into other particles, which constitute the dominant decay channel. We also identify additional processes that trigger zero-mode decay due to non-adiabatic changes of the string configuration. In these decay processes, the rates are suppressed by the curvature of string loops, with exponential suppression for large masses of the final states. We further study the scattering with light charged particles surrounding the string core produced by the zero-mode current and find that a wide zero-mode wavefunction can enhance vorton stability.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2026

Demonstration of reconstruction-free static magnetic control of DIII-D plasma with deep reinforcement learning

This paper presents the development and experimental validation of a reinforcement learning (RL)-based magnetic controller on the DIII-D tokamak. The controller directly maps raw magnetic diagnostic signals to actuator commands, replacing the traditional isoflux control algorithm based on equilibrium reconstruction. Four RL controllers are trained using the Soft Actor–Critic algorithm with an asymmetric Actor–Critic architecture in the NSFsim simulator. All controllers are deployed in the DIII-D Plasma Control System and operated with a 4 kHz feedback loop. Two randomization strategies are evaluated during training: evolving kinetic profiles and fixed kinetic profiles within each episode. The latter approach is found to better capture experimental deviations in the current density profile and to provide overall improved control performance. Robust operation is demonstrated across heating power scans in both L- and H-mode plasmas, as well as during transient events such as L–H transitions and pellet injections. Control errors in plasma shape and radial position remained within 1.5–2.0 cm and 1 cm, respectively. A notable discrepancy was observed in the vertical X-point position, with errors of up to approximately 4 cm, attributed to the current density distribution mismatches between simulations and experiments.

DIII-D↗