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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 55 records · Page 3

Quasiparticle Interfacial Level Alignment of Highly Hybridized Frontier Levels: H2O on TiO2(110)

Knowledge of the frontier levels’ alignment prior to photoirradiation is necessary to achieve a complete quantitative description of H2O photocatalysis on TiO2(110). Although H2O on rutile TiO2(110) has been thoroughly studied both experimentally and theoretically, a quantitative value for the energy of the highest H2O occupied levels is still lacking. For experiment, this is due to the H2O levels being obscured by hybridization with TiO2(110) levels in the difference spectra obtained via ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy (UPS). For theory, this is due to inherent difficulties in properly describing many-body effects at the H2O–TiO2(110) interface. Using the projected density of states (DOS) from state-of-the-art quasiparticle (QP) G0W0, we disentangle the adsorbate and surface contributions to the complex UPS spectra of H2O on TiO2(110). We perform this separation as a function of H2O coverage and dissociation on stoichiometric and reduced surfaces. Due to hybridization with the TiO2(110) surface, the H2O 3a1 and 1b1 levels are broadened into several peaks between 5 and 1 eV below the TiO2(110) valence band maximum (VBM). These peaks have both intermolecular and interfacial bonding and antibonding character. We find the highest occupied levels of H2O adsorbed intact and dissociated on stoichiometric TiO2(110) are 1.1 and 0.9 eV below the VBM. We also find a similar energy of 1.1 eV for the highest occupied levels of H2O when adsorbed dissociatively on a bridging O vacancy of the reduced surface. In both cases, these energies are significantly higher (by 0.6 to 2.6 eV) than those estimated from UPS difference spectra, which are inconclusive in this energy region. Finally, we apply self-consistent QPGW (scQPGW1) to obtain the ionization potential of the H2O–TiO2(110) interface.

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory↗

Level monitoring system with pulsating sensor—Application to online level monitoring of dashpots in a fast breeder reactor

An innovative continuous type liquid level monitoring system constructed by using a new class of sensor, viz., pulsating sensor, is presented. This device is of industrial grade and it is exclusively used for level monitoring of any non conducting liquid. This instrument of unique design is suitable for high resolution online monitoring of oil level in dashpots of a sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor. The sensing probe is of capacitance type robust probe consisting of a number of rectangular mirror polished stainless steel (SS-304) plates separated with uniform gaps. The performance of this novel instrument has been thoroughly investigated. The precision, sensitivity, response time, and the lowest detection limit in measurement using this device are <0.01 mm, ∼100 Hz/mm, ∼1 s, and ∼0.03 mm, respectively. The influence of temperature on liquid level is studied and the temperature compensation is provided in the instrument. The instrument qualified all recommended tests, such as environmental, electromagnetic interference and electromagnetic compatibility, and seismic tests prior to its deployment in nuclear reactor. With the evolution of this level measurement approach, it is possible to provide dashpot oil level sensors in fast breeder reactor for the first time for continuous measurement of oil level in dashpots of Control and Safety Rod Drive Mechanism during reactor operation.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Multi-fidelity learning for interatomic potentials: low-level forces and high-level energies are all you need

The promise of machine learning interatomic potentials (MLIPs) has led to an abundance of public quantum mechanical (QM) training datasets. The quality of an MLIP is directly limited by the accuracy of the energies and atomic forces in the training dataset. Unfortunately, most of these datasets are computed with relatively low-accuracy QM methods, e.g. density functional theory with a moderate basis set. Due to the increased computational cost of more accurate QM methods, e.g. coupled-cluster theory with a complete basis set (CBS) extrapolation, most high-accuracy datasets are much smaller and often do not contain atomic forces. The lack of high-accuracy atomic forces is quite troubling, as training with force data greatly improves the stability and quality of the MLIP compared to training to energy alone. Because most datasets are computed with a unique level of theory, traditional single-fidelity (SF) learning is not capable of leveraging the vast amounts of published QM data. In this study, we apply multi-fidelity learning (MFL) to train an MLIP to multiple QM datasets of different levels of accuracy, i.e. levels of fidelity. Specifically, we perform three test cases to demonstrate that MFL with both low-level forces and high-level energies yields an extremely accurate MLIP—far more accurate than a SF MLIP trained solely to high-level energies and almost as accurate as a SF MLIP trained directly to high-level energies and forces. Therefore, MFL greatly alleviates the need for generating large and expensive datasets containing high-accuracy atomic forces and allows for more effective training to existing high-accuracy energy-only datasets. Indeed, low-accuracy atomic forces and high-accuracy energies are all that are needed to achieve a high-accuracy MLIP with MFL.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A Comparison of the Capability of Sensitivity Level 3 and Sensitivity Level 4 Fluorescent Penetrants to Detect Fatigue Cracks in Various Metals

In April 2008, NASA-STD-5009 established a requirement that only sensitivity level 4 penetrants are acceptable for NASA Standard Level liquid penetrant inspections. Having NASA contractors change existing processes or perform demonstration tests to certify sensitivity level 3 penetrants posed a potentially huge cost to the Agency. This study was conducted to directly compare the probability of detection (POD) of sensitivity level 3 and level 4 penetrants using both Method A and Method D inspection processes. POD demonstration tests were performed on 6061-Al, Haynes 188 and Ti-6Al-4V crack panel sets. The study results strongly support the conclusion that sensitivity level 3 penetrants are acceptable for NASA Standard Level inspections.

Parker, Bradford H.↗

An Observational Comparison of Level of Neutral Buoyancy and Level of Maximum Detrainment in Tropical Deep Convective Clouds

Tropical deep convective clouds are important drivers of large-scale atmospheric circulation representing the main vertical transport pathway through the depth of the troposphere for heat, momentum, water, and chemical species. The strength and depth of this transport are impacted by the convective updraft size and intensity that are driven by buoyancy, dynamical forcing, and mixing of environmental air, i.e., entrainment. In this paper, we identify tropical deep convective systems with well-defined forward anvils using Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) ground-based profiling radars, at three ARM fixed-sites in the Tropical Western Pacific (TWP; i.e., Manus, Nauru, Darwin) and three ARM Mobile Facility deployments in Niamey, Niger; Gan Island, Maldives; and Manacapuru, Brazil. We use the difference between the level of neutral buoyancy (LNB) and the level of maximum detrainment (LMD) as a proxy for the effective bulk convective entrainment (εproxy). The LNB, the theoretical height that a parcel raised above the level of free convection would reach with no mixing, is calculated based on pre-convection radiosonde measurements using parcel theory. The LMD is the height of the maximum reflectivity observed in forward anvil clouds by profiling radars. Deep convective systems over the TWP show higher LNBs that extend to 16.3 km on average and larger εproxy (median LNB minus LMD up to 6.5 km) compared to their continental counterparts in the Amazon and West Africa. Oceanic conditions show larger convective available potential energy (CAPE) coupled with higher moisture at low levels which favors larger εproxy. In contrast, continental cases initiate and develop under high convective inhibition, steeper environmental lapse rate, and high wind shear conditions, which show smaller offset between LNB and LMD. Deep convective cases that promote significant cold pools at the surface experience less εproxy. Using a Random Forest regression algorithm, CAPE is associated with the highest feature importance score for predicting convective εproxy, followed by low-level relative humidity. For continental cases, the low-level wind shear also indicates higher importance.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Observation of an electron band above the Fermi level in FeTe{sub 0.55}Se{sub 0.45} from in-situ surface doping

We used in-situ potassium (K) evaporation to dope the surface of the iron-based superconductor FeTe{sub 0.55}Se{sub 0.45}. The systematic study of the bands near the Fermi level confirms that electrons are doped into the system, allowing us to tune the Fermi level of this material and to access otherwise unoccupied electronic states. In particular, we observe an electron band located above the Fermi level before doping that shares similarities with a small three-dimensional pocket observed in the cousin, heavily electron-doped KFe{sub 2−x}Se{sub 2} compound.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Identifying attributes of CO 2 leakage zones in shallow aquifers using a parametric level set method: Original Research Article: Identifying attributes of CO 2 leakage zones in shallow aquifers using a parametric level set method

Leakage through abandoned wells and geologic faults poses the greatest risk to CO 2 storage permanence. For shallow aquifers, secondary CO 2 plumes emanating from the leak zones may go undetected for a sustained period of time and has the greatest potential to cause large-scale and long-term environmental impacts. Identification of the attributes of leak zones, including their shape, location, and strength, is required for environmental risk assessment. This study applies a parametric level set (PaLS) method to characterize leak zones. Level set methods are appealing for tracking topological changes and recovering unknown shapes of objects. However, level set evolution using the conventional level set methods is computationally challenging. In PaLS, the level set function is approximated by using a weighted sum of basis functions and the level set evolution problem is replaced by an optimization problem. The efficacy of PaLS is demonstrated by reconstructing attributes of a CO 2 leak zone in a carbonate aquifer. Our results show that PaLS is a robust source identification method that can recover the approximate leak zone locations in the presence of measurement errors, model parameter uncertainty, and inaccurate guesses of source flux strengths. Accurate delineation of source geometry is achievable when a relatively dense observation network is used. The PaLS-based, source recovery framework introduced in this work is generic and can be adapted for any reactive transport model by simply switching the pre- and post-processing routines.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Observation of b 2 symmetry vibrational levels of the SO 2 C 1 B 2 state: Vibrational level staggering, Coriolis interactions, and rotation-vibration constants

Here, the C 1 B 2 state of SO 2 has a double-minimum potential in the antisymmetric stretch coordinate, such that the minimum energy geometry has nonequivalent SO bond lengths. However, low-lying levels with odd quanta of antisymmetric stretch (b 2 vibrational symmetry) have not previously been observed because transitions into these levels from the zero-point level of the X ~ state are vibronically forbidden. We use IR-UV double resonance to observe the b 2 vibrational levels of the C state below 1600 cm –1 of vibrational excitation. This enables a direct characterization of the vibrational level staggering that results from the double-minimum potential. In addition, it allows us to deperturb the strong c-axis Coriolis interactions between levels of a 1 and b 2 vibrational symmetry, and to determine accurately the vibrational dependence of the rotational constants in the distorted C electronic state.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Solar PV and BESS Plant-Level Voltage Control and Interactions: Experiments and Analysis

In real world operation, low-frequency oscillations associated with plant-level voltage control of inverter-based resources (IBRs) have been a concern of grid operators. Here, this research aims to demonstrate and analyze the effect of plant-level voltage control on system stability and potential interactions among IBRs. The experiment results of a 13.2-kV system interconnected with two IBRs—a 1-MW battery energy storage system (BESS) and a 430-kW solar photovoltaic (PV) plant—are presented. Both 0.5-Hz and 3-Hz oscillations become visible at certain conditions. The phenomenon is further explained by use of a feedback system consisting of the plant-level droop control and the effect of reactive power or var injection on voltage. The main components of the block diagram are obtained via frequency scan measurements. The analysis offers an understanding of the main contributors and other influencing factors of the 3-Hz and 0.5-Hz modes. It also reveals the role of the volt-var droop gain, the low-pass filter time constant, and the system impedance in stability.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Enraf reference level updates for high-level nuclear waste tanks at Hanford site - 15705

The United States Department of Energy Hanford Site Tank Farm has implemented a system for monitoring tank waste levels in all single-shell tanks (SST), double-shell tanks (DST) and miscellaneous catch tanks using Enraf Series 854 level gauges. To ensure an accurate computation of the tank waste levels, a precise calculation of the tank reference level must be kept up to date. A system was developed where accurate waste tank reference levels are kept consistent with each Enraf assembly in the Tank Farms to ensure the continuation of accurate waste level monitoring. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

An international initiative on long-term behavior of high-level nuclear waste glass

Nations using borosilicate glass as an immobilization material for radioactive waste have reinforced the importance of scientific collaboration to obtain a consensus on the mechanisms controlling the long-term dissolution rate of glass. This goal is deemed to be crucial for the development of reliable performance assessment models for geological disposal. The collaborating laboratories all conduct fundamental and/or applied research using modern materials science techniques. This paper briefly reviews the radioactive waste vitrification programs of the six participant nations and summarizes the current state of glass corrosion science, emphasizing the common scientific needs and justifications for on-going initiatives.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗