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At least 55 records · Page 3

Dynamic Analysis of Wind Turbine Planetary Gears Using an Extended Harmonic Balance Approach: Preprint

The dynamics of wind turbine planetary gears with gravity effects are investigated using an extended harmonic balance method that extends established harmonic balance formulations to include simultaneous internal and external excitations. The extended harmonic balance method with arc-length continuation and Floquet theory is applied to a lumped-parameter planetary gear model including gravity,fluctuating mesh stiffness, bearing clearance, and nonlinear tooth contact to obtain the planetary gear dynamic response. The calculated responses compare well with time domain integrated mathematical models and experimental results. Gravity is a fundamental vibration source in wind turbine planetary gears and plays an important role in system dynamics, causing hardening effects induced by toothwedging and bearing-raceway contacts. Bearing clearance significantly reduces the lowest resonant frequencies of translational modes. Gravity and bearing clearance together lowers the speed at which tooth wedging occurs lower than the resonant frequency.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Dynamic analysis of a circulating fluidized bed riser

A linear state model is proposed to analyze dynamic behavior of a circulating fluidized bed riser. Different operating regimes were attained with high density polyethylene beads at low and high system inventories. The riser was operated between the classical choking velocity and the upper transport velocity demarcating fast fluidized and transport regimes. At a given riser superficial gas velocity, the aerations fed at the standpipe were modulated resulting in a sinusoidal solids circulation rate that goes into the riser via L-valve. The state model was derived based on the mass balance equation in the riser. It treats the average solids fraction across the entire riser as a state variable. The total riser pressure drop was modeled using Newton’s second law of motion. The momentum balance equation involves contribution from the weight of solids and the wall friction caused by the solids to the riser pressure drop. The weight of solids utilizes the state variable and hence, the riser inventory could be easily calculated. The modeling problem boils down to estimating two parameters including solids friction coefficient and time constant of the riser. It has been shown that the wall friction force acts in the upward direction in fast fluidized regime which indicates that the solids were moving downwards on the average with respect to the riser wall. In transport regimes, the friction acts in the opposite direction. This behavior was quantified based on a sign of Fanning friction factor in the momentum balance equation. The time constant of the riser appears to be much higher in fast fluidized regime than in transport conditions.

42 ENGINEERING↗

RESONANCES REQUIRED: DYNAMICAL ANALYSIS OF THE 24 Sex AND HD 200964 PLANETARY SYSTEMS

We perform several suites of highly detailed dynamical simulations to investigate the architectures of the 24 Sextantis and HD 200964 planetary systems. The best-fit orbital solution for the two planets in the 24 Sex system places them on orbits with periods that lie very close to 2:1 commensurability, while that for the HD 200964 system places the two planets therein in orbits whose periods lie close to a 4:3 commensurability. In both cases, the proposed best-fit orbits are mutually crossing-a scenario that is only dynamically feasible if the planets are protected from close encounters by the effects of mutual mean-motion resonance (MMR). Our simulations reveal that the best-fit orbits for both systems lie within narrow islands of dynamical stability, and are surrounded by much larger regions of extreme instability. As such, we show that the planets are only feasible if they are currently trapped in mutual MMR-the 2:1 resonance in the case of 24 Sex b and c, and the 4:3 resonance in the case of HD 200964 b and c. In both cases, the region of stability is strongest and most pronounced when the planetary orbits are mutually coplanar. As the inclination of planet c with respect to planet b is increased, the stability of both systems rapidly collapses.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Molecular dynamics analysis of particle number fluctuations in the mixed phase of a first-order phase transition

Molecular dynamics simulations are performed for a finite nonrelativistic system of particles with Lennard-Jones potential. We study the effect of liquid-gas mixed phase on particle number fluctuations in coordinate subspace. A metastable region of the mixed phase, the so-called nucleation region, is analyzed in terms of a noninteracting cluster model. Large fluctuations due to spinodal decomposition are observed. They arise due to the interplay between the size of the acceptance region and that of the liquid phase. These effects are studied with a simple geometric model. The model results for the scaled variance of particle number distribution are compared with those obtained from the direct molecular dynamic simulations.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Fluid dynamics analysis of a gas attenuator for X-ray FELs under high-repetition-rate operation

Newtonian fluid dynamics simulations were performed using the Navier–Stokes–Fourier formulations to elucidate the short time-scale (µs and longer) evolution of the density and temperature distributions in an argon-gas-filled attenuator for an X-ray free-electron laser under high-repetition-rate operation. Both hydrodynamic motions of the gas molecules and thermal conductions were included in a finite-volume calculation. It was found that the hydrodynamic wave motions play the primary role in creating a density depression (also known as a filament) by advectively transporting gas particles away from the X-ray laser–gas interaction region, where large pressure and temperature gradients have been built upon the initial energy deposition via X-ray photoelectric absorption and subsequent thermalization. Concurrent outward heat conduction tends to reduce the pressure in the filament core region, generating a counter gas flow to backfill the filament, but on an initially slower time scale. If the inter-pulse separation is sufficiently short so the filament cannot recover, the depth of the filament progressively increases as the trailing pulses remove additional gas particles. Since the rate of hydrodynamic removal decreases while the rate of heat conduction back flow increases as time elapses, the two competing mechanisms ultimately reach a dynamic balance, establishing a repeating pattern for each pulse cycle. Finally, by performing simulations at higher repetition rates but lower per pulse energies while maintaining a constant time-averaged power, the amplitude of the hydrodynamic motion per pulse becomes smaller, and the evolution of the temperature and density distributions approach asymptotically towards, as expected, those calculated for a continuous-wave input of the equivalent power.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Fully quantum-mechanical dynamic analysis of single-photon transport in a single-mode waveguide coupled to a traveling-wave resonator

We analyze the dynamics of single-photon transport in a single-mode waveguide coupled to a micro-optical resonator by using a fully quantum-mechanical model. We examine the propagation of a single-photon Gaussian packet through the system under various coupling conditions. We review the theory of single-photon transport phenomena as applied to the system and we develop a discussion on the numerical technique we used to solve for dynamical behavior of the quantized field. To demonstrate our method and to establish robust single-photon results, we study the process of adiabatically lowering or raising the energy of a single photon trapped in an optical resonator under active tuning of the resonator. We show that our fully quantum-mechanical approach reproduces the semiclassical result in the appropriate limit and that the adiabatic invariant has the same form in each case. Finally, we explore the trapping of a single photon in a system of dynamically tuned, coupled optical cavities.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Stochastic Dynamic Analysis for Power Systems Under Uncertain Variability

This paper proposes a novel method to analyze impacts of uncertain variability on power system dynamics. There is considerable interest in integrating intermittent renewable energy and plug-in electric vehicles into power systems. Therefore, power systems are in an environment with increasing uncertain variability. In this paper, the uncertain variability is described as a continuous-time stochastic process, and thus, the power system under uncertain variability is modeled by stochastic differential equations. To quantify impacts of uncertain variability on power system dynamics, an intra-region probability index is presented. Based on the stochastic averaging method, an analytical method is proposed to calculate the intra-region probability. Compared to Monte Carlo simulation, the proposed method is many orders of magnitude faster without sacrificing the result accuracy. As a result, several insights are given to improve the power system dynamics under uncertain variability.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Molecular-dynamics analysis of mobile helium cluster reactions near surfaces of plasma-exposed tungsten

We report the results of a systematic atomic-scale analysis of the reactions of small mobile helium clusters (He{sub n}, 4 ≤ n ≤ 7) near low-Miller-index tungsten (W) surfaces, aiming at a fundamental understanding of the near-surface dynamics of helium-carrying species in plasma-exposed tungsten. These small mobile helium clusters are attracted to the surface and migrate to the surface by Fickian diffusion and drift due to the thermodynamic driving force for surface segregation. As the clusters migrate toward the surface, trap mutation (TM) and cluster dissociation reactions are activated at rates higher than in the bulk. TM produces W adatoms and immobile complexes of helium clusters surrounding W vacancies located within the lattice planes at a short distance from the surface. These reactions are identified and characterized in detail based on the analysis of a large number of molecular-dynamics trajectories for each such mobile cluster near W(100), W(110), and W(111) surfaces. TM is found to be the dominant cluster reaction for all cluster and surface combinations, except for the He{sub 4} and He{sub 5} clusters near W(100) where cluster partial dissociation following TM dominates. We find that there exists a critical cluster size, n = 4 near W(100) and W(111) and n = 5 near W(110), beyond which the formation of multiple W adatoms and vacancies in the TM reactions is observed. The identified cluster reactions are responsible for important structural, morphological, and compositional features in the plasma-exposed tungsten, including surface adatom populations, near-surface immobile helium-vacancy complexes, and retained helium content, which are expected to influence the amount of hydrogen re-cycling and tritium retention in fusion tokamaks.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Dynamical analysis of an orbiting three-rigid-body system

The development of multi-joint-spacecraft mission concepts calls for a deeper understanding of their nonlinear dynamics to inform and enhance system design. This paper presents a study of a three-finite-shape rigid-body system under the action of an ideal central gravitational field. The aim of this paper is to gain an insight into the natural dynamics of this system. The Hamiltonian dynamics is derived and used to identify relative attitude equilibria of the system with respect to the orbital reference frame. Then a numerical investigation of the behaviour far from the equilibria is provided using tools from modern dynamical systems theory such as energy methods, phase portraits and Poincarè maps. Results reveal a complex structure of the dynamics as well as the existence of connections between some of the equilibria. Stable equilibrium configurations appear to be surrounded by very narrow regions of regular and quasi-regular motions. Trajectories evolve on chaotic motions in the rest of the domain.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Flexible Duct Junction Box Design

IBACOS explored the relationships between pressure and physical configurations of flexible duct junction boxes by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to predict individual box parameters and total system pressure, thereby ensuring improved HVAC performance. Current Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) guidance (Group 11, Appendix 3, ACCA Manual D, Rutkowski 2009) allows for unconstrained variation in the number of takeoffs, box sizes, and takeoff locations. The only variables currently used in selecting an equivalent length (EL) are velocity of air in the duct and friction rate, given the first takeoff is located at least twice its diameter away from the inlet. This condition does not account for other factors impacting pressure loss across these types of fittings. For each simulation, the IBACOS team converted pressure loss within a box to an EL to compare variation in ACCA Manual D guidance to the simulated variation. IBACOS chose cases to represent flows reasonably correlating to flows typically encountered in the field and analyzed differences in total pressure due to increases in number and location of takeoffs, box dimensions, and velocity of air, and whether an entrance fitting is included. The team also calculated additional balancing losses for all cases due to discrepancies between intended outlet flows and natural flow splits created by the fitting. In certain asymmetrical cases, the balancing losses were significantly higher than symmetrical cases where the natural splits were close to the targets. Thus, IBACOS has shown additional design constraints that can ensure better system performance.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Flexible Duct Junction Box Design

IBACOS explored the relationships between pressure and physical configurations of flexible duct junction boxes by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to predict individual box parameters and total system pressure, thereby ensuring improved HVAC performance. Current Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) guidance (Group 11, Appendix 3, ACCA Manual D, Rutkowski 2009) allows for unconstrained variation in the number of takeoffs, box sizes, and takeoff locations. The only variables currently used in selecting an equivalent length (EL) are velocity of air in the duct and friction rate, given the first takeoff is located at least twice its diameter away from the inlet. This condition does not account for other factors impacting pressure loss across these types of fittings. For each simulation, the IBACOS team converted pressure loss within a box to an EL to compare variation in ACCA Manual D guidance to the simulated variation. IBACOS chose cases to represent flows reasonably correlating to flows typically encountered in the field and analyzed differences in total pressure due to increases in number and location of takeoffs, box dimensions, and velocity of air, and whether an entrance fitting is included. The team also calculated additional balancing losses for all cases due to discrepancies between intended outlet flows and natural flow splits created by the fitting. In certain asymmetrical cases, the balancing losses were significantly higher than symmetrical cases where the natural splits were close to the targets. Thus, IBACOS has shown additional design constraints that can ensure better system performance.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

ECAR-7932 Rev 0 Large Eddy Simulation of MARVEL Reactor Core Subchannel to Evaluate Model Uncertainty of Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Equation Based Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis

In the previous work (ECAR-7210), the peak cladding temperature of the MARVEL microreactor has been evaluated by steady-state Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Although numerical uncertainties of RANS-based CFD simulations has been assessed in ECAR-7210, the model uncertainty of RANS turbulence models must be investigated to resolve the issues related to inaccurate prediction of turbulent heat flux and flow pulsation in a tight lattice rod bundle using the steady-state RANS simulations. Consequently, this ECAR conducted a high-fidelity CFD analysis utilizing Large Eddy Simulation (LES) to generate reference data and investigated the model uncertainty of RANS-based CFD simulations.

21 - SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLAN↗

Dynamic Analysis Methods for Detecting Anomalies in Asynchronously Interacting Systems

Detecting modifications to digital system designs, whether malicious or benign, is problematic due to the complexity of the systems being analyzed. Moreover, static analysis techniques and tools can only be used during the initial design and implementation phases to verify safety and liveness properties. It is computationally intractable to guarantee that any previously verified properties still hold after a system, or even a single component, has been produced by a third-party manufacturer. In this paper we explore new approaches for creating a robust system design by investigating highly-structured computational models that simplify verification and analysis. Our approach avoids the need to fully reconstruct the implemented system by incorporating a small verification component that dynamically detects for deviations from the design specification at run-time. The first approach encodes information extracted from the original system design algebraically into a verification component. During run-time this component randomly queries the implementation for trace information and verifies that no design-level properties have been violated. If any deviation is detected then a pre-specified fail-safe or notification behavior is triggered. Our second approach utilizes a partitioning methodology to view liveness and safety properties as a distributed decision task and the implementation as a proposed protocol that solves this task. Thus the problem of verifying safety and liveness properties is translated to that of verifying that the implementation solves the associated decision task. We develop upon results from distributed systems and algebraic topology to construct a learning mechanism for verifying safety and liveness properties from samples of run-time executions.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Beam-Dynamics Analysis of Long-Range Wakefield Effects on the SCRF Cavities at the Fast Facility

Long-range wakefields in superconducting RF (SCRF) cavities create complicated effects on beam dynamics in SCRF-based FEL beamlines. The driving bunch excites effectively an infinite number of structure modes (including HOMs) which oscillate within the SCRF cavity. Couplers with loads are used to damp the HOMs. However, these HOMs can persist for long periods of time in superconducting structures, which leads to long-range wakefields. Clear understanding of the long-range wakefield effects is a critical element for risk mitigation of future SCRF accelerators such as XFEL at DESY, LCLS-II XFEL, and MaRIE XFEL. We are currently developing numerical tools for simulating long-range wakefields in SCRF accelerators and plan to experimentally verify the tools by measuring these wakefields at the Fermilab Accelerator Science and Technology (FAST) facility. This paper previews the experimental conditions at the FAST 50 MeV beamline based on the simulation results.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Spectral and dynamical analysis of a single vortex ring in anisotropic harmonically trapped three-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates

Here in the present work, motivated by numerous recent experimental developments we revisit the dynamics of a single vortex ring in anisotropic harmonic traps. At the theoretical level, we start from a general Lagrangian dynamically capturing the evolution of a vortex ring and not only consider its spectrum of linearized excitations, but also explore the full nonlinear dynamical evolution of the ring as a vortical filament. The theory predicts that the ring is stable for 1 ≤ λ ≤ 2, where λ = ω z /ω r is the ratio of the trapping frequencies along the z and r axes, i.e., for spherical to slightly oblate condensates. We compare this prediction with direct numerical simulations of the full three-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) capturing the linearization spectrum of the ring for different values of the chemical potential and as a function of the anisotropy parameter λ . We identify this result as being only asymptotically valid as the chemical potential μ → ∞, revealing how the stability interval narrows and, in particular, its upper bound decreases for finite μ. Finally, we compare at the dynamical level the results of the GPE with the ones effectively capturing the ring dynamics, revealing the unstable evolution for different values of λ, as well as the good agreement between the two.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics Analysis of Xenon Incorporation in Uranium Dioxide

The fission process in nuclear fuel produces volatile fission product gases, such as xenon, that migrate out of the fuel and into surrounding structures. Consequently, these fission product gases may affect thermal performance and integrity of the fuel. Fission gas release models, used in modern fuel performance codes such as BISON, are currently under investigation to improve their accuracy and ability to simulate the fission gas release phenomenon and its consequences. For uranium dioxide (UO{sub 2}), the most commonly used fuel in commercial power reactors, fission gas release models are known to have significant uncertainties. In the interest of improving such models, several complex diffusional mechanisms have been examined using a variety of techniques such as Nudge Elastic Band (NEB), utilizing both Density Functional Theory (DFT) and semi-empirical inter-atomic potential functions. One proposed diffusion mechanism in UO{sub 2} is through tetra-vacancy (i.e., 2U{sub V} + 2O{sub V}) structures, which is expected to provide a suitable means for the incorporation and diffusion of xenon in the fuel crystal. In this work, a model was developed to study the incorporation of xenon in UO{sub 2} via a tetra-vacancy using ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD). This is a first principles technique that abandons the use empirical force fields as usually is the case of classical MD analysis. Furthermore, in contrast with static transition analysis tools such as NEB, AIMD is able to capture the dynamics of a given process. The translation of xenon within a tetra-vacancy has been investigated using ab-initio molecular dynamics. The transition frequency, barrier energy, and incorporation energy were extracted from the model, demonstrating its ability to capture a variety of parameters and its potential for use in studying fission gas diffusive behavior. Future refinements to the model will seek to develop additional insight into Xe and Kr mobility and will likely involve executing more elaborate AIMD simulations to investigate this phenomenon. (authors)

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Very High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System

The design of passive heat removal systems is one of the main concerns for the modular very high temperature gas-cooled reactors (VHTR) vessel cavity. The reactor cavity cooling system (RCCS) is a key heat removal system during normal and off-normal conditions. The design and validation of the RCCS is necessary to demonstrate that VHTRs can survive to the postulated accidents. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) STAR-CCM+/V3.06.006 code was used for three-dimensional system modeling and analysis of the RCCS. A CFD model was developed to analyze heat exchange in the RCCS. The model incorporates a 180-deg section resembling the VHTR RCCS experimentally reproduced in a laboratory-scale test facility at Texas A&M University. All the key features of the experimental facility were taken into account during the numerical simulations. The objective of the present work was to benchmark CFD tools against experimental data addressing the behavior of the RCCS following accident conditions. Two cooling fluids (i.e., water and air) were considered to test the capability of maintaining the RCCS concrete walls' temperature below design limits. Different temperature profiles at the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) wall obtained from the experimental facility were used as boundary conditions in the numerical analyses to simulate VHTR transient evolution during accident scenarios. Mesh convergence was achieved with an intensive parametric study of the two different cooling configurations and selected boundary conditions. To test the effect of turbulence modeling on the RCCS heat exchange, predictions using several different turbulence models and near-wall treatments were evaluated and compared. The comparison among the different turbulence models analyzed showed satisfactory agreement for the temperature distribution inside the RCCS cavity medium and at the standpipes walls. For such a complicated geometry and flow conditions, the tested turbulence models demonstrated that the realizable k-epsilon model with two-layer all y+ wall treatment performs better than the other k-epsilon and k-omega turbulence models when compared to the experimental results and the Reynolds stress transport turbulence model results. A scaling analysis was developed to address the distortions introduced by the CFD model in simulating the physical phenomena inside the RCCS system with respect to the full plant configuration. The scaling analysis demonstrated that both the experimental facility and the CFD model achieve a satisfactory resemblance of the main flow characteristics inside the RCCS cavity region, and convection and radiation heat exchange phenomena are properly scaled from the actual plant.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗