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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 577 records · Page 32
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Additive Manufactured Compact Microwave Absorbers

A high-performance, compact microwave absorber was created using Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printing. Both a narrowband and a broadband absorber were created. The narrowband absorber was designed at 4.9 GHz, mid-band in WR-187 waveguide. The broadband absorber tried to achieve the best attenuation across the entire 3.95 to 5.85 GHz band. Two types of carbon loaded polylactic acid (PLA) plastic and one type of unloaded PLA were 3D printed with variable percentages of air to achieve different values of effective dielectric constant and loss tangent. The absorber comprised five or six rectangular pieces of these plastic materials. The thickness and fill factor values for each piece were optimized to minimize reflection through fast analytic modeling in MATLAB®. The results were then verified by HFSS® simulation as well. The stack progressed from the lowest loss and lowest dielectric constant to the highest at the shorting end. The final narrowband load had simulated return loss of 87 dB at 4.9 GHz with an analytic solution in MATLAB. The measured return loss of the 3D printed attenuator was 73 dB at 4.929 GHz. The total length of the absorber was 2.44 inches. A commercial absorber for WR-187 with return loss of 40 dB has length of 13 inches. The experiment proves that an effective and compact microwave absorber can be created using 3D printing.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2019

Modeling, Design, and Experimental Verification of a WPT Level-3 Wireless Charger with Compact Secondary Coupler

This study introduces a wireless power transfer (WPT) Level-3 rated charger with >11 kW nominal output. The proposed system is interoperable for WPT Level-1, 2, and 3 charger applications of which power levels and airgap separations are defined in SAE J2954. The system designed for this study is capable of operating at Z 1 (100-150 mm), Z 2 (140-210 mm) and Z 3 (170-250 mm) vehicle assembly ground clearance range classes with a very compact vehicle-side (secondary) coupler. The couplers are characterized for the maximum output power (P out ) and the coupling coefficient (k) with different airgaps. System frequency response and the sensitivity analysis are presented. Experimental results are shown for 190.5 mm and 216 mm airgap separations. These results demonstrate that the proposed system with a very compact secondary can be operated at these ground clearance classes with high efficiency at WPT level-3 charging levels.

Onar, Omer↗
DOE OSTI2014

Design and development of a portable flash X-ray source driven by battery powered compact Marx generator

The design, construction and operational characteristics of a portable flash X-ray source driven by battery-powered compact Marx is reported. The novel configuration of compact Marx utilizes hollow capacitors in successive stages to enhance the erection reliability. The characteristic impedance of this system is ∼ 200 Ω. At discharge of ∼ 22 kV, >200 kV output pulse of 60 ns duration (FWHM) with rise time of <5 ns (10% - 90%) is produced. The pulser requires Nitrogen gas pressurization up to 3 atm for operation at maximum rating. The Marx generator assembly is fitted in to a stainless steel tube of 10 cm diameter and 1.2 m length. While using a demountable sealed X-ray tube of matched impedance, this device produces an X-ray pulse of approximately ∼ 30 ns duration and has maximum energy of ∼ 200 keV. This true tabletop device is able to produce dose up to 100 mR per shot, measured at the distance of 30 cm from output window. The focal spot size has been passively confirmed to be in the sub-millimeter (<1 mm) range. (author)

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Compact Ferroelectric Programmable Majority Gate for Compute-in-Memory Applications

In this study, a compact and novel ferroelectric (FE) programmable majority gate is proposed and its novel application in Binary Neural Network (BNNs) is investigated. We demonstrate: i) by integrating N metal-ferroelectric-metal (MFM) capacitors on the gate of a transistor (1T-N-MFM structure), a nonvolatile and programmable majority (MAJ) gate that performs MAJ of AND between the gate input and polarization is realized; ii) validation the functionality of our 3-input MAJ of AND gate through comprehensive theoretical and experimental investigations; iii) a compact implementation of 3-input MAJ of XNOR gate that leverages only five of our 3-input MAJ of AND gates connected in parallel; iv) application of MAJ of XNOR gates to replace the XNOR gates and the first layer of the adder tree in the BNNs for up to 21x area saving on top of eliminating the energy-hungry memory accesses due to the compute-in-memory nature.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Conjugate Heat Transfer Analysis of the Supercritical CO2 Based Counter Flow Compact 3D Heat Exchangers

Compact heat exchangers using supercritical fluids such as CO2 are preferred due to their high heat transfer capacity and smaller footprint. Three-dimensional conjugate forced convection heat transfer analysis was performed on several shell-and-tube counter-flow microchannel heat exchangers. Numerical simulations were conducted to test effect of change in mass flow rate, hydraulic diameter and various cross sections on the heat transfer. Increasing mass flow rate improved heat transfer up to a maximum value and then decreased downstream with increasing turbulence. Maximum heat transfer was obtained for the micro channel with the smallest hydraulic diameter. Amongst the cross sections analyzed (circular, square, circular with radial ribs, and square with radial ribs), the most uniform distribution of temperature and maximum heat transfer were obtained for circular cross section with radial ribs. An optimally efficient operation of such a heat exchanger can be attained by considering these factors during multi-objective constrained optimization of geometric parameters and requirements for additive manufacturing of such compact heat exchangers.

Chitale, Janhavi↗
DOE OSTI2021

Compact, All-PM Fiber Integrated and Alignment-Free Ultrafast Yb:Fiber NALM Laser With Sub-Femtosecond Timing Jitter

We report a simple and compact design of a dispersion compensated mode-locked Yb:fiber oscillator based on a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror (NALM). The fully polarization maintaining (PM) fiber integrated laser features a chirped fiber Bragg grating (CFBG) for dispersion compensation and a fiber integrated compact non-reciprocal phase bias device, which is alignment-free. The main design parameters were determined by numerically simulating the pulse evolution in the oscillator and by analyzing their impact on the laser performance. Experimentally, we achieved an 88 fs compressed pulse duration with sub-fs timing jitter at 54 MHz repetition rate and 51 mW of output power with 5.5×10 -5 [20 Hz, 1 MHz] integrated relative intensity noise (RIN). Furthermore, we demonstrate tight phase-locking of the laser's carrier-envelope offset frequency ( fceo ) to a stable radio frequency (RF) reference and of one frequency comb tooth to a stable optical reference at 291 THz.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2018

Influence of Compaction During Reaction Heat Treatment on the Interstrand Contact Resistances of Nb 3 Sn Rutherford Cables for Accelerator Magnets

The high field superconducting magnets required for ongoing and planned upgrades to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be wound with Nb 3 Sn Rutherford cables for which reason studies of Nb 3 Sn strand, cable, and magnet properties will continue to be needed. Of particular importance is field quality. Here, the amplitudes of multipoles in the bore fields of dipole and quadrupole magnets, induced by ramp-rate-dependent coupling currents, are under the control of the interstrand contact resistances-crossing strand, R c , adjacent strand, R a , or a combination of them, R eff . Although two decades ago it was agreed that for the LHC R c should be in the range 10-30 μΩ, more recent measurements of LHC quadrupoles have revealed R c values ranging from 95 to 230 μΩ. This paper discusses ways in which these values can be achieved. In a heavily compacted cable R eff can be tuned to some predictable value by varying the width of an included stainless steel (effectively “insulating”) core. But cables are no longer heavily compacted with the result that the crossing strands of the impregnated cable are separated by a thick epoxy layer that behaves like an insulating core. If a stainless steel core is actually present, Reff must be independent of core width. Since there is no guarantee that a fixed predetermined amount of interlayer separation could be reproduced from winding to winding it would be advisable to include a full width core.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Grouper: A Compact, Streamable Triangle Mesh Data Structure

Here, we present Grouper: an all-in-one compact file format, random-access data structure, and streamable representation for large triangle meshes. Similarly to the recently published SQuad representation, Grouper represents the geometry and connectivity of a mesh by grouping vertices and triangles into fixed-size records, most of which store two adjacent triangles and a shared vertex. Unlike SQuad, however, Grouper interleaves geometry with connectivity and uses a new connectivity representation to ensure that vertices and triangles can be stored in a coherent order that enables memory-efficient sequential stream processing. We also present a linear-time construction algorithm that allows streaming out Grouper meshes using a small memory footprint while preserving the initial ordering of vertices. In this construction, we show how the problem of assigning vertices and triangles to groups reduces to a well-known NP-hard optimization problem, and present a simple yet effective heuristic solution that performs well in practice. Our array-based Grouper representation also doubles as a triangle mesh data structure that allows direct access to vertices and triangles. Storing only about two integer references per triangle-i.e., less than the three vertex references stored with each triangle in a conventional indexed mesh format-Grouper answers both incidence and adjacency queries in amortized constant time. Our compact representation enables data-parallel processing on multicore computers, instant partitioning and fast transmission for distributed processing, as well as efficient out-of-core access. We demonstrate the versatility and performance benefits of Grouper using a suite of example meshes and processing kernels.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2014

SU-D-BRE-07: Neutron Shielding Assessment for a Compact Proton Therapy Vault

Purpose: To perform a neutron shielding assessment of a commercially available compact proton therapy system. Methods: TOPAS (TOol for PArticle Simulation) beta release was used to model beam line components for Mevion S250 proton treatment system the design of which is that the cyclotron is present in the treatment room. Three neutron production sources were taken into account in the simulation. These are the cyclotron, the treatment nozzle and the patient itself, respectively. The cyclotron was modeled as a cylindrical iron target (r =5 cm, length = 8 cm). A water phantom (10 cm ×10 cm ×60 cm) was used to model the patient and various structures (scattering foils, range modulator wheel, applicator and compensator) defaulted in TOPAS were used to model the passive scattering treatment nozzle. Neutron fluences and energy spectra were counted in a spherical scoring geometry per incident proton in 18 angular bins (10 degree each). Fluence to dose conversion factors from ICRU publication 74 were used to acquire neutron ambient dose equivalent H*(10). A point source line of sight model was then used to calculate neutron dose at eight locations beyond shielding barriers. Results: The neutron ambient dose equivalent was calculated at the 8 points of interest around the proton treatment vault. The highest dose was found to be less than 0.781 mSv/year outside south barrier wall. However, the dose is less than 0.05 mSv/year at the control room area of the proton vault. Conclusion: All Points of interest were well under annual dose limits. This suggests that the shielding design of this compact proton therapy system is sufficient for radiation protection purpose. However, it is important to note that the workload and the occupancy factors are direct multipliers for dose calculations beyond the barrier and must be accurately estimated for validation of our results.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗
DOE OSTI2015

SU-E-T-568: Neutron Dose Survey of a Compact Single Room Proton Machine

Purpose: To ensure acceptable radiation limits are maintained for those working at and near the machine during its operation, a comprehensive radiation survey was performed prior to the clinical release of Mevion S250 compact proton machine at Stephenson Oklahoma Cancer Center. Methods: The Mevion S250 proton therapy system consists of the following: a superconducting cyclotron to accelerate the proton particles, a passive double scattering system for beam shaping, and paired orthogonal x-ray imaging systems for patient setup and verification via a 6D robotic couch. All equipment is housed within a single vault of compact design. Two beam delivery applicators are available for patient treatment, offering field sizes of as great as 14 cm and 25 cm in diameter, respectively. Typical clinical dose rates are between 1 and 2 Gy/min with a fixed beam energy of 250 MeV. The large applicator (25 cm in diameter) was used in conjunction with a custom cut brass aperture to create a 20 cm x 20 cm field size at beam isocenter. A 30 cm − 30 cm − 35 cm high density plastic phantom was placed in the beam path to mimic the conditions creating patient scatter. Measurements integrated-ambient-neutron-dose-equivalence were made with a SWENDII detector. Gantry angles of 0, 90 and 180 degrees, with a maximum dose rate of 150 MU/min (for large applicator) and beam configuration of option 1 (range 25 cm and 20 cm modulation), were selected as testing conditions. At each point of interest, the highest reading was recorded at 30 cm from the barrier surface. Results: The highest neutron dose was estimated to be 0.085 mSv/year at the console area. Conclusion: All controlled areas are under 5 mSv/year and the uncontrolled areas are under 1 mSv/year. The radiation protection provided by the proton vault is of sufficient quality.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗
DOE OSTI2016

TU-H-BRA-02: The Physics of Magnetic Field Isolation in a Novel Compact Linear Accelerator Based MRI-Guided Radiation Therapy System

Purpose: To develop a method for isolating the MRI magnetic field from field-sensitive linear accelerator components at distances close to isocenter. Methods: A MRI-guided radiation therapy system has been designed that integrates a linear accelerator with simultaneous MR imaging. In order to accomplish this, the magnetron, port circulator, radiofrequency waveguide, gun driver, and linear accelerator needed to be placed in locations with low magnetic fields. The system was also required to be compact, so moving these components far from the main magnetic field and isocenter was not an option. The magnetic field sensitive components (exclusive of the waveguide) were placed in coaxial steel sleeves that were electrically and mechanically isolated and whose thickness and placement were optimized using E&M modeling software. Six sets of sleeves were placed 60° apart, 85 cm from isocenter. The Faraday effect occurs when the direction of propagation is parallel to the magnetic RF field component, rotating the RF polarization, subsequently diminishing RF power. The Faraday effect was avoided by orienting the waveguides such that the magnetic field RF component was parallel to the magnetic field. Results: The magnetic field within the shields was measured to be less than 40 Gauss, significantly below the amount needed for the magnetron and port circulator. Additional mu-metal was employed to reduce the magnetic field at the linear accelerator to less than 1 Gauss. The orientation of the RF waveguides allowed the RT transport with minimal loss and reflection. Conclusion: One of the major challenges in designing a compact linear accelerator based MRI-guided radiation therapy system, that of creating low magnetic field environments for the magnetic-field sensitive components, has been solved. The measured magnetic fields are sufficiently small to enable system integration. This work supported by ViewRay, Inc.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

HU multimerization shift controls nucleoid compaction

Molecular mechanisms controlling functional bacterial chromosome (nucleoid) compaction and organization are surprisingly enigmatic but partly depend on conserved, histone-like proteins HUαα and HUαβ and their interactions that span the nanoscale and mesoscale from protein-DNA complexes to the bacterial chromosome and nucleoid structure. We determined the crystal structures of these chromosome-associated proteins in complex with native duplex DNA. Distinct DNA binding modes of HUαα and HUαβ elucidate fundamental features of bacterial chromosome packing that regulate gene transcription. By combining crystal structures with solution x-ray scattering results, we determined architectures of HU-DNA nucleoproteins in solution under near-physiological conditions. These macromolecular conformations and interactions result in contraction at the cellular level based on in vivo imaging of native unlabeled nucleoid by soft x-ray tomography upon HUβ and ectopic HUα38 expression. Structural characterization of charge-altered HUαα-DNA complexes reveals an HU molecular switch that is suitable for condensing nucleoid and reprogramming noninvasive Escherichia coli into an invasive form. Collective findings suggest that shifts between networking and cooperative and noncooperative DNA-dependent HU multimerization control DNA compaction and supercoiling independently of cellular topoisomerase activity. By integrating x-ray crystal structures, x-ray scattering, mutational tests, and x-ray imaging that span from protein-DNA complexes to the bacterial chromosome and nucleoid structure, we show that defined dynamic HU interaction networks can promote nucleoid reorganization and transcriptional regulation as efficient general microbial mechanisms to help synchronize genetic responses to cell cycle, changing environments, and pathogenesis.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

A hot and fast ultra-stripped supernova that likely formed a compact neutron star binary

Compact neutron star binary systems are produced from binary massive stars through stellar evolution involving up to two supernova explosions. The final stages in the formation of these systems have not been directly observed. Here, we report the discovery of iPTF 14gqr (SN 2014ft), a type Ic supernova with a fast-evolving light curve indicating an extremely low ejecta mass (≈0.2 solar masses) and low kinetic energy (≈2 × 10 50 ergs). Early photometry and spectroscopy reveal evidence of shock cooling of an extended helium-rich envelope, likely ejected in an intense pre-explosion mass-loss episode of the progenitor. Taken together, we interpret iPTF 14gqr as evidence for ultra-stripped supernovae that form neutron stars in compact binary systems.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Compact Stars with Modified Gauss–Bonnet Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff Equation

We study compact stars for f(G) gravity model using modified Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff equation. Firstly, the hydrostatic equilibrium equations have been developed in the context of f(G) gravity. Secondly, the profiles of energy density, pressure and mass of stars are investigated through two different equations of state models, p = ωρ{sup 5/3} and p = a(ρ – 4b), ρ being the energy density, ω, a and b are the specific constants. For f(G) = αG{sup 2} model with α being an arbitrary constant, the physical attributes of the compact objects have been discussed for the different values of model parameter α. It is concluded that in the framework of f(G) gravity, neutron and strange stars follow physically accepted patterns and the results agree with those already available in literature.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Insights into the thermo-hydraulic properties of compacted MX80 bentonite during hydration under elevated temperature

In high-level radioactive waste geological repositories, compacted bentonite undergoes coupled thermo-hydraulic processes due to heat released from a central waste canister and groundwater imbibition from the surrounding host rock. An understanding of these processes is essential for long-term simulations of radionuclide migration and canister corrosion, which requires an understanding of temperature effects on the coupled thermo-hydraulic properties governing these processes. In this study, a tank-scale radial infiltration test was used to investigate water imbibition processes in compacted bentonite under a central heater temperature of 200 °C that simulates high thermal gradients in a repository. Interpretation of this test focuses on evaluation of the liquid water wetting front during hydration and the interpretation of the temperature-dependent transient soil water retention curve (SWRC), thermal conductivity function (TCF), and hydraulic conductivity function (HCF). The SWRC during imbibition follows a temperature-dependent wetting path. Temperature effects on the hydraulic conductivity of bentonite in saturated conditions had the greatest effect on the shape of the HCF, with minimal temperature effects at higher suctions. The transient thermal conductivity data matched well with a new TCF linked with the SWRC shape. Although the bentonite layer was restrained, local deformations during hydration may have affected the shapes of the TCF and HCF.

Engineering↗
DOE OSTI2019

Performance and Molière radius measurements using a compact prototype of LumiCal in an electron test beam

A new design of a detector plane of sub-millimetre thickness for an electromagnetic sampling calorimeter is presented. It is intended to be used in the luminometers LumiCal and BeamCal in future linear e \(^{+}\) e \(^{-}\) collider experiments. The detector planes were produced utilising novel connectivity scheme technologies. They were installed in a compact prototype of the calorimeter and tested at DESY with an electron beam of energy 1–5 GeV. The performance of a prototype of a compact LumiCal comprising eight detector planes was studied. The effective Molière radius at 5 GeV was determined to be (8.1 ± 0.1 (stat) ± 0.3 (syst)) mm, a value well reproduced by the Monte Carlo (MC) simulation (8.4 ± 0.1) mm. The dependence of the effective Molière radius on the electron energy in the range 1–5 GeV was also studied. Good agreement was obtained between data and MC simulation.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2026

TCAD-Machine Learning Enabled TID Compact Model Development for Commercial SiC MOSFET

We propose a TCAD (Technology Computer Aided Design)-machine learning coupled approach that combines a TCAD tool (Charon), optimization/uncertainty quantification tool (Dakota), surrogate models, and Bayesian learning capabilities. The coupling approach is used for accurate modeling and calibration of total ionizing dose (TID) induced threshold voltage (V th ) shifts in Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) semiconductor devices and to develop physics-informed TID compact models. This versatile approach is applied to model the TID effect in an exemplar COTS 3.3 kV SiC power MOSFET (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor). With the Charon-Dakota coupling, we can determine key device geometry and doping values based on device physics, which are difficult to obtain or not available for COTS devices but important for TCAD simulation; additionally, we can efficiently generate thousands of simulation results in a large parameter space, which makes it possible to develop data-driven surrogate models and perform Bayesian calibration. Utilizing the full tool-coupling approach, we achieve calibrated TCAD simulation models that accurately capture the average TID-induced V th shifts behavior with total doses and V th shifts saturation at high doses as observed in experimental data. More importantly, the calibrated TCAD simulations are obtained with determined TID model parameters (e.g., hole trap density and capture cross section) values that contain well quantified uncertainties. Furthermore, we can isolate and quantify the noises that are not captured by the TCAD models but exist in the measured data due to measurements and devices variabilities. Lastly, the calibrated surrogate models are used to develop physics-informed TID compact models. The method is generalizable to other devices and/or radiation conditions with few modifications and can provide well-determined uncertainties.

COTS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Compact intermediates in RNA folding

Large noncoding RNAs fold into their biologically functional structures via compact yet disordered intermediates, which couple the stable secondary structure of the RNA with the emerging tertiary fold. The specificity of the collapse transition, which coincides with the assembly of helical domains, depends on RNA sequence and counterions. It determines the specificity of the folding pathways and the magnitude of the free energy barriers to the ensuing search for the native conformation. By coupling helix assembly with nascent tertiary interactions, compact folding intermediates in RNA also play a crucial role in ligand binding and RNA-protein recognition.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗