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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
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2017

Analog, Digital, or Enhanced Human-System Interfaces? Results of an Operator-in-the-Loop Study on Main Control Room Modernization for a Nuclear Power Plant

The second Operator Study of System Overviews (OSSO-2) was conducted with a three-person reactor operator crew in the Human Systems Simulation Laboratory (HSSL) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in August, 2017. The study supported control room modernization at a nuclear power plant and featured a benchmark comparison of three variants of a turbine control system (TCS): the existing analog TCS, a proposed standalone digital TCS with two displays, and the digital TCS with the addition of a third display consisting of a system overview screen. TCS prototypes were developed at INL to allow evaluation of operator performance and preferences during realistic turbine scenarios in the full-scope simulator. The study revealed that completion of turbine startup was several minutes faster with the digital TCS variants than with the conventional analog TCS. Eye tracking scan paths were more widely distributed in the overview vs. standalone TCS condition, suggesting the overview screen was cueing reactor operators to verify values across the boards. There was no significant difference in workload or situation awareness across the three interfaces. Reviewing key plant parameters showed smoother transitions during load following for the digital vs. analog TCS. Despite some performance advantages for the digital TCS variants, operators preferred the existing analog TCS. Open-ended responses suggested this finding may be more an artifact of familiarity than a reflection of dissatisfaction with the new TCS. OSSO-2 provides compelling evidence that the new digital TCS was used successfully by the operators without extensive training of rewriting of the operating procedures, suggesting high usability for the digital TCS design. Further advantages were realized through the addition of the system overview screen to provide crews with at-a-glance indicators of key turbine parameters.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Standard model physics and the digital quantum revolution: thoughts about the interface

Advances in isolating, controlling and entangling quantum systems are transforming what was once a curious feature of quantum mechanics into a vehicle for disruptive scientific and technological progress. Pursuing the vision articulated by Feynman, a concerted effort across many areas of research and development is introducing prototypical digital quantum devices into the computing ecosystem available to domain scientists. Through interactions with these early quantum devices, the abstract vision of exploring classically-intractable quantum systems is evolving toward becoming a tangible reality. Beyond catalyzing these technological advances, entanglement is enabling parallel progress as a diagnostic for quantum correlations and as an organizational tool, both guiding improved understanding of quantum many-body systems and quantum field theories defining and emerging from the standard model. Here, from the perspective of three domain science theorists, this article compiles thoughts about the interface on entanglement, complexity, and quantum simulation in an effort to contextualize recent NISQ-era progress with the scientific objectives of nuclear and high-energy physics.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2017

Migration to a fully-integrated control room - 349

The nuclear industry is faced with a pressing need to reduce operating costs in order to remain competitive with other forms of electric generation. While current industry initiatives are focused on incremental gains by streamlining work processes and reducing worker burdens, very few, if any, involve significant reductions in the base workload of a nuclear plant. Migration to a fully-integrated control room affords just such an opportunity. This report describes an NPP digital instrumentation and control (I and C) system design, along with its corresponding human systems interface (HSI) design, which achieves high plant availability, while selectively applying digital equipment redundancy and integrating traditional I and C system partitions, to minimize the digital equipment needed, and thereby minimize initial installation costs and ongoing operations and maintenance (O and M) costs. An additional key component of digital equipment minimization is optimization of the digital interface to conventional plant sensors and controlled plant devices (e.g., pumps, valves), which requires no disturbance to plant cables and results in eliminating thousands of electro-mechanical relay control components. The design is rooted in the highly integrated digital technology applied to the most recent advanced light water reactors under United States (U.S.) Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) design certification review and approval. While this design employs technology from new plants, that technology has been adapted to the modernization of current operating NPPs. Hence, the highly integrated digital I and C and HSI design is referred to as the compact control room digital modernization (CDM). Along with minimal digital equipment, the corresponding HSI design employs compact operator workstations with visual display units (VDU) and soft controls for both the main control room (MCR) and remote shutdown room (RSR), to immediately improve human performance and ultimately facilitate operating staff reduction. Some advanced light water reactors have demonstrated this staff reduction through full scope simulator testing of normal and abnormal plant conditions, with U.S. licensed operating crews from currently-operating U.S. plants. Digital equipment minimization, compact operator workstations, and optimized plant component interfaces that require no disturbance to field cables, also facilitate implementation of the CDM over multiple phases, most of which can be conducted during normal refueling shutdown windows. This phased implementation method includes a novel transition of the I and C, MCR and RSR with an operations centered focus. This paper presents the CDM design, along with qualitative cost/benefit comparisons to currently operating plants with conventional analog I and C and HSI technology; this generation of I and C/HSI is referred to as a conventional control room (CCR). A CCR also includes NPPs that have been upgraded with digital systems, but retain the current partitions between plant I and C systems (i.e., no I and C integration) and retain the current plant system to control board configuration of current NPP control rooms. Even though these comparisons are qualitative, a compelling case is presented for the CDM. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2016

A Statistical Testing Approach for Quantifying Software Reliability; Application to an Example System

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) encourages the use of probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) technology in all regulatory matters, to the extent supported by the state-of-the-art in PRA methods and data. Although much has been accomplished in the area of risk-informed regulation, risk assessment for digital systems has not been fully developed. The NRC established a plan for research on digital systems to identify and develop methods, analytical tools, and regulatory guidance for (1) including models of digital systems in the PRA's of nuclear power plants (NPPs), and, (2) incorporating digital systems in the NRC's risk-informed licensing and oversight activities. Under NRC's sponsorship, Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) explored approaches for addressing the failures of digital instrumentation and control (I and C) systems in the current NPP PRA framework. Specific areas investigated included PRA modeling digital hardware , development of a philosophical basis for defining software failure , and identification of desirable attributes of quantitative software reliability methods . Based on the earlier research, statistical testing is considered a promising method for quantifying software reliability. It is widely recognized that software failures are due to the triggering of pre-existing defects by the software's operational environment. Software defects can arise from errors made in user requirements or coding errors introduced during the developmental process. The software's operational environment includes factors such as the time history of digital system inputs, communication interfaces, the internal state of the digital system, and external conditions. Thus, software reliability is a function of both the number of pre-existing defects and the presence of a triggering condition caused by the manner in which the software is used. In this paper, we describe a statistical software-testing approach for quantifying software reliability and applied it to the loop-operating control system (LOCS) of an experimental loop of the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The work involved collaboration between BNL and INL. The objectives of the study include: (1) Development of a statistical testing approach for estimating software failure probability on demand, the results of which are suitable for including in a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA); and, (2) Application of the approach to the LOCS to estimate its failure probability, and obtain insights into the feasibility, practicality, and usefulness of the estimation in models of digital systems for inclusion in nuclear power plants' PRAs. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Organo–organic and organo–mineral interfaces in soil at the nanometer scale

The capacity of soil as a carbon (C) sink is mediated by interactions between organic matter and mineral phases. However, previously proposed layered accumulation of organic matter within aggregate organo–mineral microstructures has not yet been confirmed by direct visualization at the necessary nanometer-scale spatial resolution. Here, we identify disordered micrometer-size organic phases rather than previously reported ordered gradients in C functional groups. Using cryo-electron microscopy with electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), we show organo–organic interfaces in contrast to exclusively organo–mineral interfaces. Single-digit nanometer-size layers of C forms were detected at the organo–organic interface, showing alkyl C and nitrogen (N) enrichment (by 4 and 7%, respectively). At the organo–mineral interface, 88% (72–92%) and 33% (16–53%) enrichment of N and oxidized C, respectively, indicate different stabilization processes than at organo–organic interfaces. However, N enrichment at both interface types points towards the importance of N-rich residues for greater C sequestration.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

A 24-Channel Digitizer With a JESD204B-Compliant Serial Interface for High-Speed Detectors

In this report a 24-channel application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for the readout of high-speed CMOS active pixel sensors for charged particle detection is presented. The chip comprises 24 preamplifiers, 24 distinct 12-bit, 25 MSPS Pipelined analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) with self-calibration, an internal phase-locked loop (PLL), and a 3 Gbps serial interface that conforms to the JESD204B standard. To simplify interfacing with a variety of sensors, the ASIC also includes an automatic offset calibration loop. The high level of integration of the ASIC reduces overall system cost and area, and exploiting the signal characteristics of the image sensor allows the ADC to be optimized for reduced power dissipation. The use of an integrated serializer and an industry standard protocol simplifies integration of the ASIC into a complete camera system. The ASIC, called the High-Speed Image Preprocessor Targeted for Electron Readout, or HIPSTER, with a die area of 64.26 mm 2 , is packaged in a 480-ball grid array (BGA) and is fabricated in 180-nm CMOS technology. HIPSTER achieves typical differential nonlinearity (DNL) < 0.55 LSB, input-referred thermal noise of $114.5 μV-rms, and a bit error rate (BER) of better than 10-14. The power dissipation is 98 mW/channel.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2018

Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms

The purpose of this grant was to refine and test methods to evaluate digital human system interfaces (HSI) for existing largely analog nuclear power plant (NPP) control rooms (CRs). We hypothesized that CR operator performance (CROP) in hybrid NPP CRs will be improved if future digital HSI is designed based on: 1) more robust design guidelines for operator situation awareness (SA) and decision-making (DM); 2) enhanced CROP metrics during HSI evaluation; 3) an ontology for selecting simulation scenarios to evaluate digital HSI; and 4) a model to predict optimal HSI design attributes given CROP objectives. The team conducted numerous nuclear power plant site visits (e.g., to Brown’s Ferry, Palo Verde, Sequoyah and Vogtle) to study control room operations and crisis management and 3 visits to the NRC Chattanooga Training Center. We observed research studies at DC Cook and NRC Chattanooga in collaboration with the Halden Reactor Project. We collected operator performance and workload data in one NPP simulator. A comprehensive human (i.e., CROP) performance literature review was published in Applied Ergonomics. We obtained operator team performance data from CAER to produce our data fusion model and a paper delineating the results have been accepted (revision submitted) in Resilience Engineering and System Safety. We analyzed interview data related to scenario ontology development; a manuscript is still in preparation.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2017

A REVIEW OF HUMAN-SYSTEM INTERFACE DESIGN ISSUES OBSERVED DURING ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL AND DIGITAL-TO-DIGITAL MIGRATIONS IN U.S. NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS

The United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) program is developing a scientific basis through targeted research and development (R&D) to support the U.S. nuclear power plant (NPP) fleet in extending their existing licensing period and ensuring their long-term reliability, productivity, safety, and security. Over the last several years, human factors engineering (HFE) professionals at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have supported the LWRS Advanced Instrumentation, Information, and Control (II&C) System Technologies pathway across several U.S. commercial NPPs in analog-to-digital migrations (i.e., turbine control systems) and digital-to-digital migrations (i.e., Safety Parameter Display System). These efforts have included in-depth human factors evaluation of proposed human-system interface (HSI) design concepts against established U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) design guidelines from NUREG-0700, Rev 2 to inform subsequent HSI design prior to transitioning into Verification and Validation. This paper discusses some of the overarching design issues observed from these past HFE evaluations. In addition, this work presents some observed challenges such as common tradeoffs utilities are likely to face when introducing new HSI technologies into NPP hybrid control rooms. The primary purpose of this work is to distill these observed design issues into general HSI design guidance that industry can use in early stages of HSI design.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2017

A review of human-system interface design issues observed during analog-to-digital and digital-to-digital migrations in U.S. nuclear power plants - 312

The United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) program is developing a scientific basis through targeted research and development (R and D) to support the U.S. nuclear power plant (NPP) fleet in extending their existing licensing period and ensuring their long-term reliability, productivity, safety, and security. Over the last several years, human factors engineering (HFE) professionals at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have supported the LWRS Advanced Instrumentation, Information, and Control (II and C) System Technologies pathway across several U.S. commercial NPPs in analog-to-digital migrations (i.e., turbine control systems) and digital-to-digital migrations (i.e., Safety Parameter Display System). These efforts have included in-depth human factors evaluation of proposed human-system interface (HSI) design concepts against established U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) design guidelines from NUREG-0700, Rev 2 to inform subsequent HSI design prior to transitioning into Verification and Validation. This paper discusses some of the overarching design issues observed from these past HFE evaluations. In addition, this work presents some observed challenges such as common tradeoffs utilities are likely to face when introducing new HSI technologies into NPP hybrid control rooms. The primary purpose of this work is to distill these observed design issues into general HSI design guidance that industry can use in early stages of HSI design. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Study on the assessment method of human error probabilities in the digitalized main control room - 170

Recently, nuclear power plants (NPPs) in Republic of Korea have been constructed with the new type of main control room (MCR) which is called as digitalized MCR. In digitalized MCR, as digital technologies are being adopted, the environment of MCR has been considerably changed. The operators may obtain the plant data via digitalized human system interfaces (HSIs), large display panel (LDP), computerized procedure system (CPS), soft controls and other system features. Accordingly, the necessity to consider the new environment of MCR has been raised when performing human reliability analysis (HRA) methods. However, none of HRA methods consider the newly installed MCRs. The goal of this paper is to propose new frameworks to assess the human error probabilities (HEPs) in digitalized MCR. Generally, the HEPs are obtained by summing the probabilities of diagnosis errors and the probabilities of execution errors and those probabilities are modified by performance shaping factors (PSFs). In this paper, two parts are included; (1) Assessing the probabilities of diagnosis errors, and (2) Assessing the probabilities of execution errors. In this paper, the process to develop the frameworks are introduced and we expect that the HEPs affecting the features of digitalized MCR can be calculated by using the proposed frameworks. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Demand Driven Energy Management for PIPO Auxiliary Power Supply Architecture

In this paper, a demand driven energy management (DDEM) technique is implemented on modular parallel input parallel output DC/DC auxiliary power supply (APS) structure. In this method, modules are brought in/out of the operation making them operate under high loading conditions, avoiding low efficiency under light load. Such a method finds its application in power conservative systems with variable load. Implementation of DDEM and the energy saved is shown using APS comprised of two 15W commercially off-the-shelf DC-DC modules, with 100–1000 VDC input and 24 V output voltage. Along with the DDEM, the lifetime of the power stage devices is controlled minimizing their junction temperature swing through control of cooling system. This control method uses digital twin as interface to virtualize the power devices loading operation/ health condition. Accordingly, no extra sensor or closed loop control required to measure the junction temperature of the devices or feedback the losses to the cooling flow.

Azadeh, Yalda↗
DOE OSTI2018

Rancor Microworld Simulation Environment for Nuclear Process Control

The Rancor Microworld is a simplified nuclear power plant simulator. It represents the process of an integrated pressurized light water reactor core with a secondary Rankine cycle turbine/generator. The reactor core is governed by simplified core physics. Operators have the ability to raise and lower control rods to change the reactivity and consequently generate more or less electricity. The microworld provides a digital human machine interface for operating and monitoring the plant efficiently to maximize profits within the simulation. The simulation supports multi-unit operations analogous to small modular reactor plants and supports faults on various components within each unit to simulate some common training scenarios such as reactor and turbine trip events. The microworld includes experimental modules to log process parameters and both automated and user control inputs and events, administer situation awareness probes, and interface with eye tracking software.

Ulrich, ThomasA.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Achieving the hydrogen shot: Interrogating ionomer interfaces

The aim of this study is to enable the hydrogen economy and decarbonize various sectors in our environment that requires less expensive and more durable water electrolyzers, which can meet the Hydrogen-Shot target. The key is to improve the ionomer interfaces in low-temperature water electrolyzers as rapidly as possible, but to do so, it requires a systematic and holistic campaign combining both experiments and theory. In this perspective, we discuss the issues of electrolyzers and needs for translational science. We then present the approach that the Energy EarthShot Research Center: Center for Ionomer-based Water Electrolysis is taking in hopes of inspiring the community with this approach that can be leveraged to multiple problems and technologies.Graphical abstractHighlightsOne way to achieve the Hydrogen-Shot goal of low-cost, clean hydrogen, is advancing research and development on the interfaces of water electrolyzers for both performance and lifetime. The Center for Ionomer-based Water Electrolysis is exploring new techniques and strategies to not only interrogate interfacial phenomena in water electrolyzers to increase efficiency and durability, but also a new paradigm related to synergistic, cojoined experimental and theoretical research.DiscussionCatalyst\ionomer interfaces are complex and not fully understood, but through investigating different interfaces and utilizing digital and physical twins, we can elucidate key mechanisms and understanding.Understanding the dynamic double layer in electrochemical systems that use solid electrolytes is crucial to identifying and mitigating the controlling phenomena to enable increased performance and durability at the technology level.Studying the time and length scales of interfacial changes can be a powerful tool to understand reaction mechanisms and changes in the electrolyzer performance and durability.

Fornaciari, Julie C↗
DOE OSTI2017

Evaluation of Two Guralp Preamplifiers for GS13 Seismometer Application.

Sandia National Laboratories has tested and evaluated a new preamplifier, the Guralp Preamplifier for GS13, manufactured by Guralp. These preamplifiers are used to interface between Guralp digitizers and Geotech GS13 Seismometers. The purpose of the preamplifier evaluation was to measure the performance characteristics in such areas as power consumption, input impedance, sensitivity, full scale, self-noise, dynamic range, system noise, response, passband, and timing. The Guralp GS13 Preamplifiers are being evaluated for potential use in the International Monitoring System (IMS) of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban-Treaty Organization (CTBTO).

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

(U) MIT Capstone Project (Final Report)

This capstone project focuses on modernizing the design development processes, production development processes, and communication between design agencies (DAs) and production agencies (PAs) to decrease the timeline from conceptual study to first production unit. To focus the scope, the researchers looked only at interactions between the DA, Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL), and the PA, Kansas City National Security Campus (KCNSC). The project’s system problem statement (SPS) is: TO decrease the time from conceptual study to first production unit BY reducing the DA to-PA engineering interface complexity USING digital engineering software that centralizes product definition and information exchange protocols.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2017

Developmental study of advanced HIS design method for digital I and C+HMIT of PWR plant - 277

A new conceptual frame of how to design and validate a digital HIS (human interface system) on an innovative numerical simulation basis is proposed for the support of plant operators' supervisory control of various types of automated complex NPPs (nuclear power plants). The proposed conceptual framework utilizes the object-oriented software for plant DiD (defense-in depth) risk monitor with the combination of nuclear reactor accident simulation by an advanced nuclear safety analysis code RELAP5/MOD4. The conceptual frame proposed in this paper will be applied for an example practice for the SBLOCA (small break loss of coolant accident) case of passive safety PWR (pressurized water reactor) AP1000. (authors)

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Rancor-HUNTER: Using a Simulator Engine for Realistic Human Performance Modeling of Nuclear Power Operations

The Human Unimodel for Nuclear Technology to Enhance Reliability (HUNTER) is a software system to simulate human performance in support of human reliability analysis (HRA) in nuclear power plants. This paper summarizes recent work to integrate HUNTER with a plant simulator, namely the Rancor Microworld Simulator. Rancor is an offshoot of earlier work at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to support plant modernization. The graphical software tools used to mimic digital human-system interface upgrades at INL’s Human Systems Simulation Laboratory were linked to the Rancor Microworld Simulator, an INL-developed simplified plant model. HUNTER becomes a “virtual operator” coupled to the Rancor simulator, thereby allowing a tight coupling between a digital human twin and a digital twin of the plant. Rancor-HUNTER may be run through Monte Carlo iterations across a dynamic range of performance shaping factors, thereby producing distributions of human performance in terms of procedure paths, errors instantiations, and task durations. This paper overviews the various unique features of Rancor-HUNTER and presents an example run of Rancor-HUNTER for a startup scenario.

99 - GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Human Factors for Advanced Reactors

Existing light water reactors in the U.S. are primarily large baseload electricity generating facilities. The concept of operations for these plants remains largely unchanged since the advent of commercial nuclear power—the main control room serves as the hub of plant activities and is staffed with multiple licensed operators who work in tandem under the shift supervisor, and staff such as field workers support the control room remotely. While newer plants have brought the advent of digital human-machine interfaces to replace earlier analog and mechanical instrumentation and controls, much of the control process remains unchanged and manual. It is simply a newer version of legacy concepts. Advanced reactors potentially bring considerable changes to the size, fuel type, automation, and staffing of nuclear power plants, necessitating a fundamental shift not just from analog to digital, but further from human to automation, from onsite to remote, from control to monitoring, and from many to few operators. Despite this multitude of parallel evolutions in reactor designs, many of the vendors developing the next generation of reactors represent smaller research and development enterprises. It is therefore not feasible to address all aspects of plant design at the same time. In particular, the competing design aspects of new reactors present a significant challenge to the development of robust and human factored systems at the plant. As vendors develop new reactor designs, much of the early focus is naturally on the fuel and reactor system technology. Looming behind these early advances is the daunting prospect of first-of-a-kind control concepts that have not yet been developed or validated. A failure to address the human element of reactor design early will lead to missed opportunities. The quickest development process is the replication of existing concepts of operations at legacy plants, even when such systems were long ago surpassed by better human-machine technologies outside the nuclear industry. Conversely, attempting to undertake novel concepts of operations late in the design life cycle of a plant could result in protracted development efforts and delays in licensing and deployment. This does not have to happen, and it is imperative that human factors be considered now, early in the design of new reactors.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗