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Community Planning for Solar: Defining Realistic Solar Development Options

This guide is designed to aid in assessing community preferences for solar development and financing alternatives. To evaluate community preferences regarding solar, it is necessary to define the range of realistic options for solar development possible in a community, including potential future targets for solar capacity, the mixes of development possible based on the solar resources available, and potential community benefits and solar ownership structures. This guide can help community officials, volunteers, and regional planning agency staff in constructing a realistic suite of options for solar development, based on existing state and local laws, available solar resources and infrastructure, and economic and financial considerations.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Assessing Community Preferences Regarding Solar Development

Preparing a plan regarding solar development in your community requires bringing together people from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, who often have strong feelings and preferences about the amount and location of local solar PV projects developed in their community. The planning process should be designed in an inclusive way, where meaningful community engagement is prioritized. With a topic such as solar development, which can elicit strong reactions among community members, proactive community engagement that is perceived as fair will likely lead to more favorable outcomes. Whether your community hosts large tracts of forest, brownfields, residential neighborhoods, and/or large buildings and parking lots, there are a variety of ways community members might envision growth of solar energy. The engagement process can help clarify how and where solar is preferred, so that local government can respond to future solar development requests or to initiate solar projects that are preferred by the community.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Development of High-Fidelity and Efficient Modeling Capabilities for Enabling Co-Optimization of Fuels and Multi-Mode Engines

The objective of this closely coordinated research project is to develop improved physical sub-models and innovative numerical algorithms to enable accurate and efficient predictions of multi-mode combustion to support EERE’s Co-Optima program. To this end, a research pro-gram is proposed that seeks • to develop accurate submodels for predicting multi-mode combustion regimes, wall-heat transfer, non-equilibrium plasma ignition, and combustion-mode transition, • to develop dynamic load-rebalancing algorithms and efficient semi-implicit time-integration schemes for enabling exascale computing, • to validate the computational submodels against experiments and direct numerical simulation (DNS) data in conjunction with sensitivity analysis, and • to support the direct transition of the resulting sub-models into other engine-simulation tools through the development of self-contained modules. All sub-models will be integrated into the open-source exascale engine-simulation platform Nek5000.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Developing an intrinsically secure information barrier for arms control verification through machine learning

Near-term solutions are needed to allow for flexible engagement in future nuclear arms control discussions. This project developed a method for implementing an information barrier (IB) on commercial systems, shortening the research and development lifecycle for warhead verification technologies while offering improved and inherently flexible capabilities. The crux of the verification challenge remains the difficulty in developing an authenticatable IB which prevents sensitive host country information from inadvertent transmission to an inspector. Many concepts for IB’s rely on dedicated “trusted” processor modules developed with dedicated custom radiation detection systems and associated algorithms. Without a priori knowledge of the treaty item, the parameter space for measurements can be nearly infinite and robustness against spoofing without the ability to view sensitive data is key. This project has produced an unclassified framework capable of ingesting data from common gamma detectors and identifying the presence of weapons grade nuclear material at over 90% accuracy.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

Advanced Reactor Cyber Analysis and Development Environment (ARCADE) for System-Level Design Analysis

Cybersecurity is a persistent concern to the safety and security of Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs), but has lacked data-driven, evidence-based research. Rigorous cybersecurity analysis is critical for the licensing of advanced reactors using a performance-based approach. One tool that enables cybersecurity analysis is modeling and simulation. The nuclear industry makes extensive use of modeling and simulation throughout the decision process but lacks a method to incorporate cybersecurity analysis with existing models. To meet this need, the Advanced Reactor Cyber Analysis and Development Environment (ARCADE) was developed. ARCADE is a suite of publicly available tools that can be used to develop emulations of industrial control system devices and networks and integrate those emulations with physics simulators. This integration of cyber emulations and physics models enables rigorous cyber-physical analysis of cyber-attacks on NPP systems. This report provides an overview of key considerations for using ARCADE with existing physics models and demonstrates ARCADE’s capabilities for cybersecurity analysis. Using a model of the Small Modular Advanced High Temperature Reactor (SmAHTR), ARCADE was able to determine the sensitivity of the primary heat exchangers (PHX) to coordinated cyber-attacks. The analysis determined that while the PHX’s failures cause disruption to the reactor, they did not cause any safety limits to be exceeded because of the plant design, including passive safety features. Further development of ARCADE will enable rigorous, repeatable, and automated cyber-physical analysis of advanced reactor control systems. These efforts will also help reduce regulatory uncertainty by presenting similar types of cybersecurity analyses in a common format, driving standard approaches and reporting.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Microstructural Engineering and Accelerated Test Method Development to Achieve Low Cost, High Performance Solutions for Hydrogen Storage and Delivery

This project made advancements in developing lower cost steel alloys with novel microstructural design for use in hydrogen refueling infrastructure such as storage, compressors, and dispensing components, and utilizing accelerated test methods to efficiently evaluate variations in alloy and microstructure design. The project specifically sought to design alloys with lower nickel contents to reduce alloy cost, which was accomplished through substituting manganese for nickel along with other alloy additions to control deformation characteristics known to be important for hydrogen embrittlement resistance. Through Mn substitutions for nickel, austenitic and duplex austenite-ferrite steels were successfully developed with lower cost than currently available commercial stainless steel products that are employed for hydrogen refueling infrastructure. The steels were processed to achieve comparable strength and toughness in hydrogen environments as the commercially available steels containing high Ni contents. To evaluate mechanical performance in hydrogen, a testing methodology was employed to compare ubiquitous laboratory testing using electrochemical hydrogen charging in a liquid electrolyte to less accessible high pressure gaseous testing. While the application of these steels is in high pressure gaseous environments, the electrochemical hydrogen charging tests produced comparable results. Additionally, the Los Alamos Neutron Scatting Center enabled characterization of deformation mechanisms of the steel alloys in the presence of hydrogen, which has been associated with steel alloy characteristics associated with hydrogen embrittlement. Finally, a fracture mechanics based test bed model was developed to predict the influence of hydrogen gas pressure and fatigue conditions on fatigue lifetimes of pressure vessel steels. Together, these developments can be employed to enable lower cost hydrogen fueling infrastructure and more reliable prediction of steel alloy components in hydrogen service conditions. In particular, the newly alloys have the potential to replace stainless steels, having demonstrated comparable performance at substantially reduced cost.

08 HYDROGEN↗

Applying deep learning methods to develop new models of molecular charge transfer, nonadiabatic dynamics, and nonlinear spectroscopy in the condensed phase

Photon- and field-induced charge transfer has central importance in the generation and storage of electricity, the novel properties of materials, photo-induced catalysis, and electro-optic activity (e.g., photovoltaic cells, fuel cells, and organic chromophores for use in optical fibers and light-emission diodes). These non-equilibrium electronic and chemical transformations are probed by ultrafast, nonlinear spectroscopies. Accurate simulations play a crucial role in our ability to understand, optimize, and control these transformations. This project applies modern deep learning and machine learning (ML) methods to dramatically improve models of electronic dynamics, electronic-nuclear dynamics, and spectroscopic measurements for improved simulations of chemistry in complex environments, far from equilibrium phenomena, and processes in extreme environments, such as materials exposed to strong or resonant fields. This project develops accurate neural net models that go beyond predictive capability to also provide new insight into the fundamental physics underlying electron and nuclear dynamics. To achieve its objectives, this project explores and develops customized versions of high-capacity deep learning algorithms/models. These techniques are developed with an emphasis on fundamental chemical insight, not just predictive accuracy, to assist the development of the next generation of quantum simulation methods.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Using Hardware-In-The-Loop Methodology to Develop Test Systems

Hardware in the Loop (HIL) testing methodologies have become widespread in industry. Typically, they focus on developing control algorithms for systems such as autonomous vehicles or aircraft. An oft overlooked aspect of product development is the design and fabrication of a test system for validating that the product meets requirements. Abstractly, a test system differs little from a control system—testers provide signals to the unit, monitor feedback, and base decisions on the results. While the time scales may differ, the functionalities are conceptually similar. Viewed in this light, it becomes natural to extend HIL approaches to tester development. By replacing a physical unit with a proxy model deployed to a real-time or pseudo real-time target, test systems can be developed in parallel with the design and fabrication of a first production unit. This saves considerable time in the life cycle from conceptual design to realized product. This manuscript demonstrates the process flow using a capacitive discharge unit as an exemplar.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Design of Novel Hot Gas Component for Gas Turbine Engines Enabled by Materials and Additive Manufacturing Process Development

This CRADA project was the result of a project award under FOA-DOE-0001980. The overarching FOA project team consisted of researchers from Carpenter Technology Corporation (CTC), Solar Turbines Incorporated (Solar), Pennsylvania State University (PSU), University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Evaluations were conducted on two high-γ’ superalloys that were designed by CTC and the UCSB. One alloy named GammaPrint-700 (GP-700) is a cobalt-base superalloy. The other alloy named GammaPrint-1100 (GP-1100) is a nickel-base (Ni-base) superalloy. PSU provided expertise and experimental testing of the thermal performance of AM micro-cooling architectures. ORNL provided expertise with the AM superalloy materials characterization and AM processing science. Solar provided turbine component design expertise. The focus of this CRADA report is to document the efforts between ORNL and CTC towards the development of superalloys designed for AM. The project goal was to use an AM processable high-temperature superalloy and design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) techniques to design an efficient turbine component (i.e. a turbine tip shoe) with enhanced cooling features that can only be fabricated through additive manufacturing (AM). The efficiencies of existing combined heat and power (CHP) engines are capped by both component design and materials limitations. However, AM of a tip shoe component from a γ’strengthened superalloy offers the design flexibility to increase the efficiency and power of an industrial gas turbine. This project brought about advancements in the DfAM tip shoe design space and in the area of high temperature superalloys processable through laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) AM. State of art computation design tools were utilized to optimize unique cooling features into a tip shoe component design. A two-prong materials development approach was taken to support development of the AM tip shoe geometry. The first approach centered on investigating the processability and the appropriate process science for the industry standard high-γ’ nickel-base (Ni-base) superalloy Mar-M247. This superalloy is typically cast and considered non-weldable by traditional welding standards. In the course of this work, the alloy was not deemed feasible for process scale-up due to significant cracking issues during printing. The second approach focused on the development and evaluation of a novel cobalt-base superalloy, GammaPrint™-700 (GP-700 and a Ni-base superalloy, GammaPrint™-1100 (GP-1100) designed to mitigate the significant AM processing issues with Mar-M247. The processability of these two alloys were investigated through electron beam melting (EBM) binder-jet AM (BJAM), and LPBF as a risk mitigation for manufacturability. To be considered a candidate material for down-selection to proceed to full-scale AM tip shoe engine testing trials, the high temperature creep rupture strength was required to achieve at a minimum, a Larsen Miller Parameter (LMP) increase of 10.9% over the baseline material LPBF AM Hastelloy X.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Development of an Energy Services Interface for the EGoT

The Energy Services Interface (ESI) is a set of rules that ensure private, secure, and trustworthy information exchange between Grid Service Providers (GSPs) and utility customers. Large-scale adoption of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) will be necessary for GSPs to dispatch effective grid services, and to stimulate technological innovations in DER and DERMS (DER Management Systems) technologies, as well as novel grid service programs. The ESI promotes these objectives by advancing a set of rules and interoperability requirements that define bi-directional, service-oriented, logical interfaces between GSPs and customers’ DERs, with expectations for privacy, security, and trust. The ESI rules and interoperability requirements establish boundaries between customers and GSPs that delineate the functions and responsibilities that must be implemented by the developers of Energy Grid of Things (EGoT) ecosystem products. These rules impose constraints on the implementation of a DERMS. The ESI interoperability requirements are based on the Interoperability Maturity Model (IMM), developed by the Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium. By emphasizing private, secure, and trustworthy information exchange, and by mandating a service-oriented and interoperable architecture, the ESI promotes the development of an EGoT ecosystem that motivates customer participation and technological innovation. Interoperability will encourage innovation by reducing barriers to entry and increasing confidence of stakeholders. Customers will be willing to participate in DER service programs that establish trust and emphasize customer choice. Large-scale customer participation ensures GSPs have ample DER resources to provide grid services that have significant impact on grid reliability and reduce electricity cost for consumers. This in turn signals economic opportunities that encourage innovation, resulting in the development of a robust EGoT ecosystem.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Enabling Low-Temperature (LTP) Ignition Technologies for Multi-Mode Engines through the Development of a Validated High-Fidelity LTP Model for Predicative Simulations Tools

The goal of multi-mode engine architectures is to extend current lean-burn dilution limits with renewable fuels, which requires spark plugs to deposit high energies (hundreds of mJ) in order to initiate ignition and complete combustion. At elevated energy deposition rates, spark plugs experience increased electrode erosion and thermal losses, which ultimately shortens the spark-plug lifetime and lowers ignition efficiency. As such, in order to safeguard the efficiency gains of multi-mode concepts, new and improved ignition technologies are required. Recently, non-equilibrium low-temperature plasmas (LTP) have been shown to promote energy-efficient ignition via quenching and transport of electronically excited atoms and molecules, selective radical production and fast heating of hydrocarbon/air mixtures [1-2]. Thus, LTP is seen as a technology that can potentially improve the energy extraction efficiency of fuels, while enabling kinetically controlled combustion modes towards fuel leaner conditions to realize current DOE VTO goals of improving the sustainability of future mobility [3]. Although many previous studies have demonstrated the efficacy of plasma-assisted ignition to enhance combustion, the detailed enhancement mechanisms remain largely unknown, especially for oxygenated fuels and at elevated pressures that are most relevant to practical engine conditions. These barriers hinder the development of accurate and comprehensive numerical models that seek to describe LTP-based ignition in existing engine design software tools and methods. Current state-of-the-art simulation capabilities for LTP ignition systems are in need of improvements since they deliver qualitative results only due to important limitations of existing approaches. Firstly, validated kinetic models with elementary steps for plasma discharges in oxygenated fuel/air mixtures of relevance to the transportation sector are required. Such kinetic models do not exist at present and will be developed and validated within this project. Secondly, plasma discharges and reactive mixture ignition are multi-scale, unsteady processes requiring high-performance numerical methods and software that execute efficiently on DOE supercomputers. Such software does not exist at present and will be developed and applied to practical LTP ignition scenarios as part of this project. Thirdly, experimental databases that are tailored to serve as benchmark in support of the development of predictive computational models of LTP ignition do not exist and will be part of this project.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Design of Novel Hot Gas Component for Gas Turbine Engines Enabled by Materials and Additive Manufacturing Process Development

This CRADA project was the result of a project award under FOA-DOE-0001980. The overarching FOA project team consisted of researchers from Carpenter Technology Corporation (CTC), Solar Turbines Incorporated (Solar), Pennsylvania State University (PSU), University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Evaluations were conducted on two high-γ’ superalloys that were designed by CTC and the UCSB. One alloy named GammaPrint-700 (GP-700) is a cobalt-base superalloy. The other alloy named GammaPrint-1100 (GP-1100) is a nickel-base (Ni-base) superalloy. PSU provided expertise and experimental testing of the thermal performance of AM micro-cooling architectures. ORNL provided expertise with the AM superalloy materials characterization and AM processing science. Solar provided turbine component design expertise. The focus of this CRADA report is to document the efforts between ORNL and CTC towards the development of superalloys designed for AM. The project goal was to use an AM processable high-temperature superalloy and design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) techniques to design an efficient turbine component (i.e. a turbine tip shoe) with enhanced cooling features that can only be fabricated through additive manufacturing (AM). The efficiencies of existing combined heat and power (CHP) engines are capped by both component design and materials limitations. However, AM of a tip shoe component from a γ’strengthened superalloy offers the design flexibility to increase the efficiency and power of an industrial gas turbine. This project brought about advancements in the DfAM tip shoe design space and in the area of high temperature superalloys processable through laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) AM. State of art computation design tools were utilized to optimize unique cooling features into a tip shoe component design. A two-prong materials development approach was taken to support development of the AM tip shoe geometry. The first approach centered on investigating the processability and the appropriate process science for the industry standard high-γ’ nickel-base (Ni-base) superalloy Mar-M247. This superalloy is typically cast and considered non-weldable by traditional welding standards. In the course of this work, the alloy was not deemed feasible for process scale-up due to significant cracking issues during printing. The second approach focused on the development and evaluation of a novel cobalt-base superalloy, GammaPrint™-700 (GP-700 and a Ni-base superalloy, GammaPrint™-1100 (GP-1100) designed to mitigate the significant AM processing issues with Mar-M247. The processability of these two alloys were investigated through electron beam melting (EBM) binder-jet AM (BJAM), and LPBF as a risk mitigation for manufacturability. To be considered a candidate material for down-selection to proceed to fullscale AM tip shoe engine testing trials, the high temperature creep rupture strength was required to achieve at a minimum, a Larsen Miller Parameter (LMP) increase of 10.9% over the baseline material LPBF AM Hastelloy X.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Essence2.0 Development and Deployment (Final Report)

The objective of the project was to take two core technologies that have been developed under the Recipient’s solid laboratory products and integrate them into a single CyberPhysical awareness platform and complete development on current field-tested prototypes that will extend the integrated capability of the platform. During the final development phase, the Recipient development team and its selected industry partners tested and hardened the platform to ensure resilient and secure operation of the integrated platform. The team also executed substantial field testing and established the framework for defining the organization and/or commercial infrastructure needed to sustain operations and provide readiness for a national scale deployment. The focus of the project was (1) the improvement, refinement, and deployment of technology for the detection of cyber-attacks on utility operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) networks and assets, including Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems (SCADA) systems; and (2) support for containment and remediation of adversarial threats and actions against those systems and environments.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Deliverable 6.7-Final Technical Report: Development Summary and Evaluation of the Solar Uncertainty Integrator (SUNI) Software

The Data Quality and Uncertainty Integration Project was a three-year effort to address stakeholder needs for assessing solar radiation resource data quality based on existing tools for estimating radiometer measurement uncertainties and assessing post-measurement data quality. The annual research objectives for the project addressed a logical progression of effort needed to achieve the ultimate project goal of developing the Solar Uncertainty Integrator (SUNI) software. This final technical report summarizes the development process for achieving these key research objectives and addresses the outreach and code development efforts in the final year of the project to develop a new solar irradiance data uncertainty integration software package.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Epitaxial Growth Development: CRADA Final Report

The purpose of this CRADA is to assist Trumpf Photonics in developing a procedure to grow ZnSe epilayers on the (110) facets of AlGaAs/InGaAs laser diodes that will provide high degrees of electronic passivation and performance reliability. Work will be divided into four tasks: 1) characterization of material growth at Trumpf Photonics, 2) development of a highly effective AlGaAs facet cleaning procedure at NREL, 3) development of a ZnSe epitaxy procedure at NREL, and 4) transfer of the procedures developed at NREL to the Trumpf Photonics site. This CRADA is designed to last 3 years total.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Enhancing Developer Productivity - L2 Milestone (Final Report)

This report documents the work done as part of the “Enhancing Developer Productivity” level 2 milestone. The team surveyed developers about impediments and successes; improved our CI pipeline monitoring and reporting; developed tools for line coverage reporting and analysis; improved compiler warning adherence in SIERRA; prototyped static analysis, AI, and mutation testing tooling in SIERRA; and developed a 3-5 year SIERRA plan document to help these initiatives continue past this milestone.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Status of SPCA-ANL Software Development, Software Quality Assurance, and Application (FY2025)

SPCA-ANL is a simulation tool used to perform deterministic analyses of sodium spray and pool fires. Development of the SPCA-II (Spray Pool Combustion Analysis) code began in the mid- 1980s as part of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor (CRBR) Project. At that time, development of SPCA-II, which was led by Rockwell International, was focused on treatment of large-scale sodium spray, stream, and pool fires that were anticipated to be prototypic of the steam generator building cells in CRBR. Under more recent DOE NE programmatic activities, the SPCA-II code was recovered from existing literature and underwent minor modifications to generate a stable executable. This recovered version of the code was not formally released. As part of the Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) Project in the 2010s, the SPCA-II code underwent key modifications to improve stability, address modeling deficiencies, improve consistency between the code manual and software, and address numerous bugs. At this point, SPCA-II was renamed SPCA-ANL. Given that SPCA-II served as the original basis for SPCA-ANL, both codes share an integrated history. Following termination of the VTR Project, the DOE NE Fast Reactor Program resumed support of the software with the goal of building and maintaining software infrastructure that can enable commercial-grade dedication of SPCA-ANL by an end user. Version 1.0, the first external release of SPCA-ANL, was generated in June 2024. This report summarizes the development and maintenance activities completed for SPCAANL in FY2025. This year’s work was focused on improving quality and usability of the code. The provisional Software Quality Assurance (SQA) program has been established and was used to test the procedures for infrastructure improvements, code development, bug fixes, and code releases, as described in the following sections of this report. A code Version 1.0.1 was released in FY25, as described in Chapter 4.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Beyond Magic Barrels: Digital manufacturing for crystallization, process development and optimization of explosive materials: Part II Resveratrol Exemplar

This SAND report summarizes work supported by an Engineering Sciences Research Foundation (ESRF) Lab Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project entitled “Beyond Magic Barrels: Digital manufacturing for crystallization, process development and optimization of explosive materials.” This SAND report is written in two parts with Part 1 discusses recrystallization of our explosive exemplar and Part 2 summarizing our work with recrystallization of resveratrol. We have studied resveratrol recrystallization with a multiscale approach combining experiments, modeling and simulation. At the single crystal scale, microscopy experiments illuminate crystal time-dependent growth rates using advanced image analysis. Bench scale experiments were carried out to look at growth of multiple particles in a small reactor creating thousands of particles and analyzing the results with microscopy and μCT. For the modeling we combine kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC) models with subscale information from density functional theory (DFT) or molecular dynamics. This work is discussed in Part 1 and can also be found in a paper from the project discussing a coarse-grained kMC model specifically developed for resveratrol. For well-mixed systems, we have population balance equations (PBE) linked with species mass conservation forming a set of ordinary differential equations that can be solved quickly. For more complicated geometries, such as the vat crystallization used throughout the complex, a coupled computational fluid dynamic (CFD)/PBE method was developed to account for gradients in temperature and concentration and differences in crystallization rates throughout the domain. These simulations are more complex and require high performance computing. We present results for two cases: 5% seed fast cool with parameters fit to the well-mixed case and 5% seed slow cool using the same parameters. We show reasonable agreement with experiments though are particles are significantly larger than the experiments.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗