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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 559 records · Page 31
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Large Language Model for Validation, Optical Calibration, and Learning (VOCAL) Distributed Temperature Sensing Interface

Distributed temperature sensing (DTS) using fiber optic sensors (FOS) offers a promising method for temperature measurements in advanced reactors, such as sodium fast reactors and molten salt cooled reactors. To support the calibration and validation of DTS measurements, Argonne National Laboratory developed the Validation, Optical Calibration, and Learning (VOCAL) software package. This report describes the integration of a local large language model (LLM) with a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system into the VOCAL interface to serve as an interactive user assistant. The LLM framework enhances the VOCAL platform’s accessibility to users by explaining interface components, clarifying inputs and outputs, and answering user queries dynamically in real-time. The accuracy of the LLM assistant performance was evaluated with 20 queries regarding the interface and its parameters using experimental data from the Thermal Hydraulic Experimental Test Article (THETA) facility. Results demonstrate that the LLM achieved a 95% accuracy rate, with a BERTScore of 0.8816 and SBERT value of 0.7417. Furthermore, validation of the RAG system within the LLM framework showed optimal accuracy with k-values between 1 and 2 using the k-refinement convergence test. The prompt perturbation analysis demonstrated good initial consistency for the RAG system, exhibiting the highest accuracy under punctuation variations and the greatest sensitivity under query reordering. Notably, the model’s errors were limited to data retrieval failures rather than factual hallucinations, reinforcing its baseline reliability. The integration of LLM provides a highly accurate, userfriendly enhancement to the VOCAL platform without disrupting its core computational capabilities for FOS calibration and validation.

Hong, Evan↗
DOE OSTI2026

Generalizable Web User Interface for Scalable and Streamlined Deployment of Building Energy Management Systems in Small and Medium-Sized Commercial Buildings

Small and medium-sized commercial buildings (SMCBs) comprise 94% of US commercial buildings yet face significant barriers to implementing building energy management systems despite advances in smart device technology. Existing solutions present critical limitations: cloud-based API solutions simplify deployment but create vendor lock-in constraints; commercial integrated software solutions ensure compatibility via standardized protocols but require substantial cost and technical expertise; open-source IoT platforms offer cost-effective vendor independence but provide insufficient standardized protocol support for commercial building automation. This research presents a generalizable web user interface framework that bridges the gap between evolving smart device capabilities and lagging software infrastructure for SMCBs. The proposed system integrates VOLTTRON open-source middleware with an automated configuration converter that transforms unified specifications written in YAML, a human-readable data-serialization format, into system-specific files, streamlining manual setup processes. The vendor-agnostic architecture supports industry-standard protocols (BACnet and Modbus) and semantic building models while providing adaptive web interfaces that dynamically adjust to various building configurations. Demonstrations through simulation-based testing and a field deployment show automatic interface adaptation across heterogeneous HVAC systems and multizone monitoring. The automated configuration converter also substantially reduces labor-intensive setup.

Chung, Jihoon [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000184880815)↗
DOE OSTI2019

ESPResSo++ 2.0: Advanced methods for multiscale molecular simulation

We report that molecular simulation is a scientific tool used in many fields including material science and biology. This requires constant development and enhancement of algorithms within molecular simulation software packages. Here, we present computational tools for multiscale modeling developed and implemented within the ESPResSo++ package. These include the latest applications of the adaptive resolution scheme, the hydrodynamic interactions through a lattice Boltzmann solvent coupled to particle-based molecular dynamics, the implementation of the hierarchical strategy for equilibrating long-chained polymer melts and a heterogeneous spatial domain decomposition. The software design of ESPResSo++ has kept its highly modular C++ kernel with a Python user interface. Furthermore, it has been enhanced by automatic scripts that parse configurations from other established packages, providing scientists with the ability to rapidly set up their simulations.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Numerical assessment of triply periodic minimal surfaces for direct air capture of carbon dioxide

Direct air capture (DAC) systems often consist of packing material wetted by a capture fluid that reacts with CO 2 in the airstream. The efficiency of the contactor is determined by a complex relationship of fluid dynamics, heat and mass transfer, contactor geometry, and chemical properties. The efficiency of the contactor must be balanced with other factors, primarily pressure drop through the system. Triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) are a class of differential surfaces that have been explored in multiple engineering applications and have been shown to exhibit excellent performance when used in heat exchangers. Their tortuous path provides a high surface-to-volume ratio and favorable trade-off between contact area and pressure drop. In this work, a gyroid-type TPMS contactor was evaluated using computational fluid dynamics for a variety of geometric parameters to explore the potential benefit of TPMS shapes for DAC applications. A thin-film model was employed to model the flow and distribution of the capture solvent, allowing efficient simulations of TPMS structures at scale by eliminating the need for a computationally intensive interface capturing method. A liquid-gas mass transfer model was implemented in the commercial software STAR-CCM+ and used to predict the CO 2 capture efficiency and study the trade-off between capture performance and pressure drop through analysis of capture rates, mass transfer coefficients, and other relevant variables. TPMS contactors with a variety of geometric parameters and two capture solvent options were investigated to determine the effect of design choices on the operational performance of DAC systems. In conclusion, results showed that while contactor geometry is the dominant factor in efficiency and pressure drop, the physiochemical properties of the solvent are an important secondary influence on the contactor performance.

CFD↗
DOE OSTI2022

A field programmable gate array-based timing and control system for the dynamic compression sector

A field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based timing and trigger control system has been developed for the Dynamic Compression Sector (DCS) user facility located at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory. The DCS is a first-of-its-kind capability dedicated to dynamic compression science. All components of the DCS laser shock station—x-ray choppers, single-shot shutter, internal laser triggers, and shot diagnostics—must be synchronized with respect to the arrival of x rays in the hutch. An FPGA synchronized to the APS storage ring radio frequency clock (352 MHz) generates trigger signals for each stage of the laser and x-ray shutter system with low jitter. The developed FPGA-based control system was the first system used to control the laser and the shutter system since its commissioning, and it has been developing since then to improve the timing jitter. The system is composed of a Zynq FPGA, a debug card, line drivers, and a power supply. The delay and offsets of the trigger signals can be adjusted by using a user-friendly graphical user interface with high precision. Here, the details of the system architecture, timing requirements, firmware, and software implementation along with the performance evaluation are presented in this paper. The system offers low timing jitter (15.5 ps rms) with respect to the APS 352 MHz clock, suitable for the 100 ps (FWHM) x-ray bunch duration at the APS.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2020

XACC: a system-level software infrastructure for heterogeneous quantum–classical computing

Quantum programming techniques and software have advanced significantly over the past five years, with a majority focusing on high-level language frameworks targeting remote REST library APIs. As quantum computing architectures advance and become more widely available, lower-level, system software infrastructures will be needed to enable tighter, co-processor programming and access models. In this work, we present XACC, a system-level software infrastructure for quantum–classical computing that promotes a service-oriented architecture to expose interfaces for core quantum programming, compilation, and execution tasks. Additionally, we detail XACC's interfaces, their interactions, and its implementation as a hardware-agnostic framework for both near-term and future quantum–classical architectures. We provide concrete examples demonstrating the utility of this framework with paradigmatic tasks. Our approach lays the foundation for the development of compilers, associated runtimes, and low-level system tools tightly integrating quantum and classical workflows.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2017

The effect of self-consistent potentials on EXAFS analysis

A theory program intended for use with extended X-ray-absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy and based on the popular FEFF8 is presented. It provides an application programming interface designed to make it easy to integrate high-quality theory into EXAFS analysis software. This new code is then used to examine the impact of self-consistent scattering potentials on EXAFS data analysis by methodical testing of theoretical fitting standards against a curated suite of measured EXAFS data. For each data set, the results of a fit are compared using a well characterized structural model and theoretical fitting standards computed both with and without self-consistent potentials. It is demonstrated that the use of self-consistent potentials has scant impact on the results of the EXAFS analysis.

Instruments & Instrumentation↗
DOE OSTI2023

Autonomy Loops for Monitoring, Operational Data Analytics, Feedback, and Response in HPC Operations

Many High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities have developed and deployed frameworks in support of continuous monitoring and operational data analytics (MODA) to help improve efficiency and throughput. Because of the complexity and scale of systems and workflows and the need for low-latency response to address dynamic circumstances, automated feedback and response have the potential to be more effective than current human-in-the-loop approaches which are laborious and error prone. Progress has been limited, however, by factors such as the lack of infrastructure and feedback hooks, and successful deployment is often site- and case-specific. In this position paper we report on the outcomes and plans from a recent Dagstuhl Seminar, seeking to carve a path for community progress in the development of autonomous feedback loops for MODA, based on the established formalism of similar (MAPE-K) loops in autonomous computing and self-adaptive systems. By defining and developing such loops for significant cases experienced across HPC sites, we seek to extract commonalities and develop conventions that will facilitate interoperability and interchangeability with system hardware, software, and applications across different sites, and will motivate vendors and others to provide telemetry interfaces and feedback hooks to enable community development and pervasive deployment of MODA autonomy loops.

autonomy loops↗
DOE OSTI2015

SU-D-213-03: Towards An Optimized 3D Scintillation Dosimetry Tool for Quality Assurance of Dynamic Radiotherapy Techniques

Purpose: The purpose of this work is to simulate a multi-focus plenoptic camera used as the measuring device in a real-time three-dimensional scintillation dosimeter. Simulating and optimizing this realistic optical system will bridge the technological gap between concept validation and a clinically viable tool that can provide highly efficient, accurate and precise measurements for dynamic radiotherapy techniques. Methods: The experimental prototype, previously developed for proof of concept purposes, uses an off-the-shelf multi-focus plenoptic camera. With an array of interleaved microlenses of different focal lengths, this camera records spatial and angular information of light emitted by a plastic scintillator volume. The three distinct microlens focal lengths were determined experimentally for use as baseline parameters by measuring image-to-object magnification for different distances in object space. A simulated plenoptic system was implemented using the non-sequential ray tracing software Zemax: this tool allows complete simulation of multiple optical paths by modeling interactions at interfaces such as scatter, diffraction, reflection and refraction. The active sensor was modeled based on the camera manufacturer specifications by a 2048×2048, 5 µm-pixel pitch sensor. Planar light sources, simulating the plastic scintillator volume, were employed for ray tracing simulations. Results: The microlens focal lengths were determined to be 384, 327 and 290 µm. A realistic multi-focus plenoptic system, with independently defined and optimizable specifications, was fully simulated. A f/2.9 and 54 mm-focal length Double Gauss objective was modeled as the system’s main lens. A three-focal length hexagonal microlens array of 250-µm thickness was designed, acting as an image-relay system between the main lens and sensor. Conclusion: Simulation of a fully modeled multi-focus plenoptic camera enables the decoupled optimization of the main lens and microlens specifications. This work leads the way to improving the 3D dosimeter’s achievable resolution, efficiency and build for providing a quality assurance tool fully meeting clinical needs. M.R. is financially supported by a Master’s Canada Graduate Scholarship from the NSERC. This research is also supported by the NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Optical Design.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2025

Future Circular Collider Feasibility Study Report

Volume 1 of the FCC Feasibility Report presents an overview of the physics case, experimental programme, and detector concepts for the Future Circular Collider (FCC). This volume outlines how FCC would address some of the most profound open questions in particle physics, from precision studies of the Higgs and EW bosons and of the top quark, to the exploration of physics beyond the Standard Model. The report reviews the experimental opportunities offered by the staged implementation of FCC, beginning with an electron-positron collider (FCC-ee), operating at several centre-of-mass energies, followed by a hadron collider (FCC-hh). Benchmark examples are given of the expected physics performance, in terms of precision and sensitivity to new phenomena, of each collider stage. Detector requirements and conceptual designs for FCC-ee experiments are discussed, as are the specific demands that the physics programme imposes on the accelerator in the domains of the calibration of the collision energy, and the interface region between the accelerator and the detector. The report also highlights advances in detector, software and computing technologies, as well as the theoretical tools/reconstruction techniques that will enable the precision measurements and discovery potential of the FCC experimental programme. The content and structure of this report are guided by the scope and priorities defined in the mandate of the FCC Feasibility Study. It is therefore not intended to serve as an exhaustive review of the full physics potential of FCC. Several topics, already covered in earlier reports such as the FCC CDR, are not reiterated here or are addressed only briefly, in alignment with the study’s focus. This volume reflects the outcome of a global collaborative effort involving hundreds of scientists and institutions, aided by a dedicated community-building coordination, and provides a targeted assessment of the scientific opportunities and experimental foundations of the FCC programme.

Benedikt, M. [European Organization for Nuclear Re↗
DOE OSTI2023

ZPAL v.1.0.0

SAND2024-01003O ZPAL is a Python software development kit designed for use by network automation engineers. It is an application programming interface (API) wrapper that is compatible with ZPE System's Nodegrid API. ZPE produces networking equipment. ZPAL simplifies connections to the ZPE Nodegrid API and makes configuration changes on the associated networking equipment. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

Hill, Roscoe↗
DOE OSTI2016

Assessment of SFR Wire Wrap Simulation Uncertainties

Predictive modeling and simulation of nuclear reactor performance and fuel are challenging due to the large number of coupled physical phenomena that must be addressed. Models that will be used for design or operational decisions must be analyzed for uncertainty to ascertain impacts to safety or performance. Rigorous, structured uncertainty analyses are performed by characterizing the model’s input uncertainties and then propagating the uncertainties through the model to estimate output uncertainty. This project is part of the ongoing effort to assess modeling uncertainty in Nek5000 simulations of flow configurations relevant to the advanced reactor applications of the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program. Three geometries are under investigation in these preliminary assessments: a 3-D pipe, a 3-D 7-pin bundle, and a single pin from the Thermal-Hydraulic Out-of-Reactor Safety (THORS) facility. Initial efforts have focused on gaining an understanding of Nek5000 modeling options and integrating Nek5000 with Dakota. These tasks are being accomplished by demonstrating the use of Dakota to assess parametric uncertainties in a simple pipe flow problem. This problem is used to optimize performance of the uncertainty quantification strategy and to estimate computational requirements for assessments of complex geometries. A sensitivity analysis to three turbulent models was conducted for a turbulent flow in a single wire wrapped pin (THOR) geometry. Section 2 briefly describes the software tools used in this study and provides appropriate references. Section 3 presents the coupling interface between Dakota and a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) code (Nek5000 or STARCCM+), with details on the workflow, the scripts used for setting up the run, and the scripts used for post-processing the output files. In Section 4, the meshing methods used to generate the THORS and 7-pin bundle meshes are explained. Sections 5, 6 and 7 present numerical results for the 3-D pipe, the single pin THORS mesh, and the 7-pin bundle mesh, respectively.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2017

High Performance Data Transfer for Distributed Data Intensive Sciences

We report on the development of ZX software providing high performance data transfer and encryption. The design scales in: computation power, network interfaces, and IOPS while carefully balancing the available resources. Two U.S. patent-pending algorithms help tackle data sets containing lots of small files and very large files, and provide insensitivity to network latency. It has a cluster-oriented architecture, using peer-to-peer technologies to ease deployment, operation, usage, and resource discovery. Its unique optimizations enable effective use of flash memory. Using a pair of existing data transfer nodes at SLAC and NERSC, we compared its performance to that of bbcp and GridFTP and determined that they were comparable. With a proof of concept created using two four-node clusters with multiple distributed multi-core CPUs, network interfaces and flash memory, we achieved 155Gbps memory-to-memory over a 2x100Gbps link aggregated channel and 70Gbps file-to-file with encryption over a 5000 mile 100Gbps link.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2019

Bifacial_Radiance Training: Part 1

Learn to model bifacial fields using bifacial_radiance. This software-oriented webinar will cover the basics of opening and running simulations in the Visual Interface, as well as working with scripts for more specific simulations with the help of the jupyter journals and the visual interface. The methodology and framework over which bifacial_radiance has been created will also be covered - how files are created and how they interact, how the scene geometry works, how to run a full simulation and interpret the results.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Slow control and data acquisition development in the Mu2e experiment

The muon campus program at Fermilab includes the Mu2e experiment that will search for a charged-lepton flavor violating processes where a negative muon converts into an electron in the field of an aluminum nucleus, improving by four orders of magnitude the search sensitivity reached so far.Mu2e’s Trigger and Data Acquisition System (TDAQ) uses {\it otsdaq} solution. Developed at Fermilab, {\it otsdaq} uses the {\it artdaq} DAQ framework and {\it art} analysis framework, for event transfer, filtering, and processing.{\it otsdaq} is an online DAQ software suite with a focus on flexibility and scalability, and provides a multi-user interface accessible through a web browser.A Detector Control System (DCS) for monitoring, controlling, alarming, and archiving has been developed using the Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) open source Platform. The DCS System has also been integrated into {\it otsdaq}, providing a GUI multi-user, web-based control, and monitoring dashboard.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2016

OVERVIEW OF THE SAPHIRE PROBABILISTIC RISK ANALYSIS SOFTWARE

The Systems Analysis Programs for Hands-on Integrated Reliability Evaluations (SAPHIRE) is a software application developed for performing a complete probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) using a personal computer (PC) running the Microsoft Windows operating system. SAPHIRE Version 8 is funded by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and developed by the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). INL's primary role in this project is that of software developer and tester. However, INL also plays an important role in technology transfer by interfacing and supporting SAPHIRE users, who constitute a wide range of PRA practitioners from the NRC, national laboratories, the private sector, and foreign countries. In this paper, we provide an overview of the current technical capabilities found in SAPHIRE Version 8, including the user interface and enhanced solving algorithms.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Modeling Non-UO2 Fuel With UNF-ST&DARDS

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Used Nuclear Fuel-Storage, Transportation & Disposal Analysis Resource and Data System (UNF-ST&DARDS) provides an easy-to-use interface to analyze irradiated UO2 fuel by allowing all analysis to be performed within the software and being able to store and use dozens of fuel assembly, canister, and cask designs [1]. However, performing these same analyses with non-UO2 fuel, such as UN or U3Si2, requires more user intervention in the process. This work uses UN, UN-ZrO2, and U3Si2 fuel to demonstrate how to perform criticality analyses in the current versions of UNF-ST&DARDS and how a non-UO2 fuel will compare to UO2. This work is part of a larger effort that also includes shielding and thermal analyses, but they will not be discussed.

Ivanusa, Pavlo↗
DOE OSTI2022

Failure Mechanism Traceability and Application in Human System Interface of Nuclear Power Plants using RESHA

In recent years, there has been considerable effort to modernize existing and new nuclear power plants with digital instrumentation and control systems (DI&C). However, there has also been considerable concern both by industry and regulatory bodies for the risk and consequence analysis of these systems. Of particular concern are digital common cause failures (CCFs) specifically related to software defects. These “misbehaviors” by the software can occur in both the control and monitoring of a system. While many new methods have been proposed to identify potential software failure modes, such as Systems-theoretic Process Analysis (STPA), Hazard and Consequence Analysis for Digital Systems (HAZCADS), etc., these methods are focused primarily on the control action pathway of a system. In contrast, the information feedback pathway lacks unsafe control actions (UCAs), which are typically related to software basic events; thus, assessment of software basic events in such systems is unclear. In this work, we present the idea of intermediate processors and unsafe information flow (UIF) to help safety analysts trace failure mechanisms in the feedback pathway and how they can be integrated into a fault tree for improved assessment capability. The concepts presented are demonstrated in two comprehensive case studies, a smart sensor integrated platform for unmanned autonomous vehicles and another on a representative advanced human system interface (HSI) for safety critical plant monitoring. The qualitative software basic events are identified, and a fault tree analysis is conducted based on a modified Redundancy-guided Systems-theoretic Hazard Analysis (RESHA) methodology. The case studies demonstrate the use of UIF and intermediate processors in the fault tree to improve traceability of software failures in highly complex digital instrumentation feedback. The improved method can also clarify fault tree construction when multiple component dependencies are present in the system.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗