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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2012

The Vapor Plume at Material Disposal Are C in Relation to Pajarito Corridor Facilities

A vapor plume made up of volatile organic compounds is present beneath Material Disposal Area C (MDA C) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The location and concentrations within the vapor plume are discussed in relation to existing and planned facilities and construction activities along Pajarito Road (the 'Pajarito Corridor') and in terms of worker health and safety. This document provides information that indicates that the vapor plume does not pose a threat to the health of LANL workers nor will it pose a threat to workers during construction of proposed facilities along Pajarito Road. The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL or the Laboratory) monitors emissions, effluents, and environmental media to meet environmental compliance requirements, determine actions to protect the environment, and monitor the long-term health of the local environment. LANL also studies and characterizes 'legacy' waste from past Laboratory operations to make informed decisions regarding eventual corrective actions and the disposition of that waste. Starting in 1969, these activities have been annually reported in the LANL Environmental Report (formerly Environmental Surveillance Report), and are detailed in publicly accessible technical reports meeting environmental compliance requirements. Included among the legacy sites being investigated are several formerly used material disposal areas (MDAs) set aside by the Laboratory for the general on-site disposal of waste from mission-related activities. One such area is MDA C located in Technical Area 50 (TA-50), which was used for waste disposal between 1948 and 1974. The location of TA-50 is depicted in Figure 1. The present paper uses a series of maps and cross sections to address the public concerns raised about the vapor plume at MDA C. As illustrated here, extensive sampling and data interpretation indicate that the vapor plume at MDA C does not pose a threat to the health of LANL workers nor will it pose a threat to workers during construction of the proposed facilities and utility trenches. The public cannot be directly exposed to the vapor plume beneath MDA C because Pajarito Road is closed to the public.

COMPLIANCE↗
DOE OSTI2013

Evaluation of Portable X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) Analyzer for Zirconium-Thickness Measurements

This Technical Evaluation Report provides details of preliminary testing/experiments performed using a handheld X-ray fluorescence analyzer. The analyzer will be utilized in upcoming fuel-foil-rolling optimization studies at the INL. The studies are being performed in support of DOE’s Office of Global Threat Reduction -- Reactor Conversion Subprogram. Details of the equipment used, operating parameters, and measurement results are provided in this report.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Optimization and Annual Average Power Predictions of a Backward Bent Duct Buoy Oscillating Water Column Device Using the Wells Turbine.

This Technical Report presents work completed by The Applied Research Laboratory at The Pennsylvania State University, in conjunction with Sandia National Labs, on the optimization of the power conversion chain (PCC) design to maximize the Average Annual Electric Power (AAEP) output of an Oscillating Water Column (OWC) device. The design consists of two independent stages. First, the design of a floating OWC, a Backward Bent Duct Buoy (BBDB), and second the design of the PCC. The pneumatic power output of the BBDB in random waves is optimized through the use of a hydrodynamically coupled, linear, frequency-domain, performance model that links the oscillating structure to internal air-pressure fluctuations. The PCC optimization is centered on the selection and sizing of a Wells Turbine and electric power generation equipment. The optimization of the PCC involves the following variables: the type of Wells Turbine (fixed or variable pitched, with and without guide vanes), the radius of the turbine, the optimal vent pressure, the sizing of the power electronics, and number of turbines. Also included in this Technical Report are further details on how rotor thrust and torque are estimated, along with further details on the type of variable frequency drive selected.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Concept Feasibility Report for Using Co-Extrusion to Bond Metals to Complex Shapes of U-10Mo

In support of the Convert Program of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has been investigating manufacturing processes for the uranium-10% molybdenum (U-10Mo) alloy plate fuel for the U.S. high-performance research reactors (USHPRR). This report documents the results of PNNL’s efforts to develop the extrusion process for this concept. The approach to the development of a co-extruded complex-shaped fuel has been described and an extrusion of DU-10Mo was made. The initial findings suggest that given the extrusion forces required for processing U-10Mo, the co-extrusion process can meet the production demands of the USHPRR fuel and may be a viable production method. The development activity is in the early stages and has just begun to identify technical challenges to address details such as dimensional tolerances and shape control. New extrusion dies and roll groove profiles have been developed and will be assessed by extrusion and rolling of U-10Mo during the next fiscal year. Progress on the development and demonstration of the co-extrusion process for flat and shaped fuel is reported in this document

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2012

Bottom-Up Energy Analysis System - Methodology and Results

The main objective of the development of BUENAS is to provide a global model with sufficient detail and accuracy for technical assessment of policy measures such as energy efficiency standards and labeling (EES&L) programs. In most countries where energy efficiency policies exist, the initial emphasis is on household appliances and lighting. Often, equipment used in commercial buildings, particularly heating, air conditioning and ventilation (HVAC) is also covered by EES&L programs. In the industrial sector, standards and labeling generally covers electric motors and distribution transformers, although a few more types of industrial equipment are covered by some programs, and there is a trend toward including more of them. In order to make a comprehensive estimate of the total potential impacts, development of the model prioritized coverage of as many end uses commonly targeted by EES&L programs as possible, for as many countries as possible.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Final Technical Report of Project DE-FG02-96ER14647

This is the final technical report of work completed under DOE support over the period Sept. 1, 1996 until May 31, 2015. The title of the project was "Ion/Excited Atom Collision Studies with a Rydberg Target and a CO2 Laser" from 9/1/96 to 10/31/06, and "Properties of Actinide Ions from Measurements of Rydberg Ion Fine Structure" from 11/1/06 until 5/31/15. The primary technical results were a detailed experimental study of resonant charge transfer between Rydberg atoms and highly-charged ions, and unique measurements of many properties of multiply-charged Thorium ions.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Principle Findings from Development of a Recirculated Exhaust Gas Intake Sensor (REGIS) Enabling Cost-Effective Fuel Efficiency Improvement

Kick-off of the Bosch scope of work for the REGIS project started in October 2012. The primary work-packages included in the Bosch scope of work were the following: overall project management, development of the EGR sensor (design of sensor element, design of protection tube, and design of mounting orientation), development of EGR system control strategy, build-up of prototype sensors, evaluation of system performance with the new sensor and the new control strategy, long-term durability testing, and development of a 2nd generation sensor concept for continued technology development after the REGIS project. The University of Clemson was a partner with Bosch in the REGIS project. The Clemson scope of work for the REGIS project started in June 2013. The primary work-packages included in the Clemson scope of work were the following: development of EGR system control strategy, and evaluation of system performance with the new sensor and new control strategy. This project was split into phase I, phase II and phase III. Phase I work was completed by the end of June 2014 and included the following primary work packages: development of sensor technical requirements, assembly of engine testbench at Clemson, design concept for sensor housing, connector, and mounting orientation, build-up of EGR flow test benches at Bosch, and build-up of first sensor prototypes. Phase II work was completed by the end of June 2015 and included the following primary work pack ages: development of an optimizing function and demonstration of robustness of sensor, system control strategy implementation and initial validation, completion of engine in the loop testing of developed control algorithm, completion of sensor testing including characteristic line, synthetic gas test stand, and pressure dependency characterization, demonstration of benefits of control w/o sensing via simulation, development of 2nd generation sensor concept. Notable technical achievements from phase II were the following: publication of two new technical papers by Clemson detailing the control strategies used for the EGR system control. The two papers was published in the 2016 SAE World Congress in April 2016. The titles of each paper are, “Physics-Based Exhaust Pressure and Temperature Estimation for Low Pressure EGR Control in Turbocharged Gasoline Engines,” by K. Siokos, and “A Control Algorithm for Low Pressure – EGR Systems using a Smith Predictor with Intake Oxygen Sensor Feedback”, by R. Koli. All phase III work packages have been completed. The primary work packages in phase III were the following: completion of long-term sensor durability testing, final demonstration of benefits of EGR control w/o sensing, final decision of the second generation sensor development path.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2016

Developing novel techniques for readout, calibration and event selection in the NOvA long-baseline neutrino experiment

The NOvA long-baseline neutrino experiment uses a fine-grained, low-Z, fully active detector that offers unprecedented electron neutrino identification capabilities for a detector of its scale. In this award’s proposal, the PI outlined the development and implementation of novel techniques for channel readout, detector calibration, and event reconstruction that make full use of the strengths of the NOvA detector technology. In particular, this included designing custom event reconstruction algorithms that utilize the rich information available in the substructure of hadronic and electromagnetic showers. Exploiting this information provides not only substantial improvement in background rejection for the electron neutrino search but also better shower energy resolution (improving the precision on measured oscillation parameters) and a high-energy electromagnetic calibration source (through neutral pion events). The PI further proposed developing and deploying a new electronics readout scheme compatible with the existing hardware that can reduce near detector event pile-up and can offer powerful timing information to the reconstruction, allowing for cosmic ray muon tagging via track direction determination, among other things. In conjunction with the above, the PI proposed leading the calibration of the NOvA detectors, including characterizing individual electronics channels, correcting for spatial variations across the detector, and establishing absolute event energy scales. All three of these lines of effort have been successfully completed, feeding directly into the NOvA’s recent exciting neutrino oscillation results. The techniques developed under this award are detailed in this final technical report.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2016

High-Throughput Method for Strontium Isotope Analysis by Multi-Collector-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometer

This technical report presents the details of the Sr column configuration and the high-throughput Sr separation protocol. Data showing the performance of the method as well as the best practices for optimizing Sr isotope analysis by MC-ICP-MS is presented. Lastly, this report offers tools for data handling and data reduction of Sr isotope results from the Thermo Scientific Neptune software to assist in data quality assurance, which help avoid issues of data glut associated with high sample throughput rapid analysis.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2016

High-Throughput Method for Strontium Isotope Analysis by Multi-Collector-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometer

This technical report presents the details of the Sr column configuration and the high-throughput Sr separation protocol. Data showing the performance of the method as well as the best practices for optimizing Sr isotope analysis by MC-ICP-MS is presented. Lastly, this report offers tools for data handling and data reduction of Sr isotope results from the Thermo Scientific Neptune software to assist in data quality assurance, which help avoid issues of data glut associated with high sample throughput rapid analysis.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2017

Hypothetical Case and Scenario Description for International Transportation of Spent Nuclear Fuel.

To support more rigorous analysis on global security issues at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), there is a need to develop realistic data sets without using "real" data or identifying "real" vulnerabilities, hazards or geopolitically embarrassing shortcomings. In response, an interdisciplinary team led by subject matter experts in SNL's Center for Global Security and Cooperation (CGSC) developed a hypothetical case description. This hypothetical case description assigns various attributes related to international SNF transportation that are representative, illustrative and indicative of "real" characteristics of "real" countries. There is no intent to identify any particular country and any similarity with specific real-world events is purely coincidental. To support the goal of this report to provide a case description (and set of scenarios of concern) for international SNF transportation inclusive of as much "real-world" complexity as possible -- without crossing over into politically sensitive or classified information -- this SAND report provides a subject matter expert-validated (and detailed) description of both technical and political influences on the international transportation of spent nuclear fuel.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Final Report: SECA Core Technology Program - PNNL

This report summarizes results from experimental and modeling studies performed by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on behalf of the Solid-State Energy Conversion Alliance (SECA) Core Technology Program. The work was performed from 1999 through 2014, under FWP 40552. PNNL’s scientific and technical contributions included development/evaluation of improved materials and fabrication processes for solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) components, development/implementation of modeling tools to facilitate cell and stack design and optimization, and improved understanding/mitigation of SOFC performance degradation mechanisms. Primary areas of contribution were 1) Materials and fabrication processes, 2) Modeling and simulation tools, 3) Understanding of degradation mechanisms, and 4) New test protocols. The report contains brief descriptions of primary scientific and technical achievements; references to detailed descriptions of the work (patents, papers, and reports) are also provided.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗
DOE OSTI2019

Major improvements on the longwave radiative interactions between surface and clouds in the polar regions in atmospheric global circulation model

Motivations: One of the most important tasks in the study of physical and socioeconomic aspects of climate change is the simulation of polar climate and how it changes in response to global warming. One import component of the polar energy budget (and thus of polar climate) is the radiative interaction between surface and clouds. As of today, the vast majority of state-of-the-art global climate models (GCMs), including all three US flagship GCMs (NCAR CESM, GFDL CM3, and GISS E2-H/E2-R), still assume constant surface emissivity overall spectral bands in their longwave radiation treatment. Similarly, a majority of state-of-the-art GCMs assume non-scattering clouds in the longwave spectrum, including both the NCAR CESM and GFDL CM3. The issues of ignoring spectral variation in surface emissivity and scattering by clouds manifest themselves in the far-infrared (IR) over the polar continents because (1) there is so little water vapor in such areas that surface far-IR emission can reach clouds; and (2) the imaginary part of the refractive index of ice has a local minimum over 350-550 cm-1, which implies possible strong scattering effects over this spectral region both within and between the snow surface and ice clouds. Our sensitivity studies using CloudSat-retrieved hydrometeor profiles over the high-elevation Antarctic continent show that, in winter, an appropriate inclusion of snow surface spectral emissivity and ice cloud scattering in radiative transfer calculations can noticeably reduce the monthly-mean surface net downward far-IR flux and net atmospheric far-IR emission over the entire region. For the far-IR alone, the magnitude of these effects is ~1Wm-2 or even larger. Projection Objectives: We propose to carry out the following studies: (1) Develop or update schemes that can be used in the CESM to compute the optical properties of the snow surface and ice clouds consistently across the longwave and the shortwave spectrum; (2) Modify the longwave radiation scheme in the CESM such that it can incorporate surface spectral emissivity and scattering of clouds; (3) Validate schemes developed for (1) and (2) against measurements or benchmark models; (4) Evaluate the effects of these new treatments on the simulated polar energy budget and climate by the CESM. Technical Approaches:1.Use a detailed snowpack radiative transfer model to simulate spectrally resolved emissivity of snow surfaces as a function of snow effective radius. The model will be validated against available high spectral-resolution measurements of snow spectral emissivity (ASTER spectra library v2.0). Currently the CESM prognoses vertically-resolved snow effective radius, and snow shortwave albedo is parameterized based on snow effective radius. Our treatment of snow spectral emissivity here will be consistent with the treatment of snow albedo in the shortwave and seamlessly connected with the snow physical module in the CESM. 2. Update the parameterization of ice cloud optical properties in the CESM, for both longwave and shortwave, based on the latest ice-cloud scattering database developed by co-I Prof. Yang. 3. Modify RRTMG_LW, the current longwave radiation scheme in the CESM, to include the surface spectral emissivity and the scattering of clouds in the longwave calculation. Validate modified scheme against a line-by-line radiative transfer model with multiple scattering capability (LBLRTM/CHARTS). 4. Implement products from Steps 1-3 into the CESM and conduct simulations to evaluate their effects on the simulated polar climate and energy budget. These runs will be compared to control runs and evaluated using routine model-observation diagnostics, including data from the ARM NSA (North Slope of Alaska) site. Moreover, a novel aspect in this step is that we will evaluate the simulated longwave band-by-band fluxes and cloud radiative effect against observational counterparts over both polar continents, using a product recently derived by the lead PI Prof. Huang from collocated AIRS and CERES satellite observations from 2002 to 2013. Benefits and outcomes: This project will significantly improve the longwave radiation scheme in the CESM and its successors and provide more realistic treatment of radiative interactions between polar surfaces and clouds. In the future, it will also be straightforward to extend this framework to include spectral emissivity of all surface types. This is responsive to identified DoE Earth System Modeling Science Drivers to improve the performance of the fully coupled climate system modeling and to help address questions on how rapid changes in cryospheric systems interact with the climate system.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

An Overview of Non-LWR Vessel Cooling Systems for Passive Decay Heat Removal (Technical Letter Final Report)

The following report provides a technical review of various reactor vessel cooling system (VCS) concepts under consideration for decay heat removal (DHR) in non-light water advanced reactor designs. This review focuses on ex-vessel designs, including the Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS), the Reactor Vessel Auxiliary Cooling System (RVACS), and hybrid iterations, using both air and water cooling to achieve their heat removal function. Based on a literature review of publicly available sources published between 1979 and 2021, a technical summary is presented detailing existing and planned VCS design options, their applicability to specific reactor type, and review of authored research and development studies. Following an assessment of the availability of data and modeling tools, an evaluation was performed analyzing their likely performance during normal, degraded, and accident conditions, including reliability, stability, and longevity. With renewed consideration of air-based DHR systems by some US vendors, there is a need to fully understand the complexities inherent to natural circulation systems, and more importantly, how they may influence safety-related heat removal functions and system performance. For DHR systems that rely on air-based mode of cooling, this entails quantification of the impacts of low flow conditions during start-up, relative elevations of inlet and outlet ducts for below-grade installations, effects of the use of multiple parallel chimneys for redundancy, and impact of weather conditions at the plant site. For systems relying on water-based mode cooling, reliance on limited coolant inventory in an event of pipe break or extended duration accident scenarios, sensitivities related to stability of boiling flow and heat transfer conditions, and quantification of full-scale structural vibrations on balance of plant structures are among the complicating factors.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Independent Analyses of Antares R1 Core Design

This report summarizes the reactor analysis work performed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for Antares Nuclear Incorporated's R1 Mark-1 heat pipe reactor design. The work was performed under a collaboration through the Department of Energy GAIN Nuclear Energy Voucher program. The purpose of this work is to perform an independent reactor analysis of the Antares reactor design and, where possible, compare ORNL's results with the results obtained by Antares. The overarching goal is to provide Antares with an independent review and calculation of their design, thereby contributing to Antares' mission to further their reactor design concept. A report with all ORNL technical results and proprietary details was provided to Antares Nuclear Incorporated separately; the present report provides a summary of the work completed, and all proprietary information is omitted. The independent reactor analysis was performed using both the SCALE code system for neutronics analysis and Flownex for thermal hydraulics analysis.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2025

A case study in contrastive learning information combination: Application to technical forensics of additive manufacturing filament source identification

Combination of information from disparate data sources into a single decision is a core challenge in many fields, including the field of technical forensics. Technical forensics (TF) utilizes technical characterization of questioned samples to determine properties of that sample; these properties are then used to infer information of forensic interest, such as provenance, age, or attribution. TF is utilized in traditional forensic applications, such as the attribution of material fragments from an explosive, and in nuclear forensic applications, such as the attribution of actinides which have been interdicted out of regulatory control. The challenge of combining information from disparate sources, described alternately by many terms including “Data Fusion” and “Data Integration”, is exacerbated in the technical forensics domain due to at least two factors: the challenge of interpreting each information source singularly, and the relatively small data set sizes available. Extensive literature exists attempting to combine technical forensics information sources, both in manual and automated processes. These attempts are often bespoke to the specific information sources (such as the bi-, tri-, or quad-isotope chart (Moody, Grant, and Hutcheon 2005)), with some emerging examples of simple early- and late- fusion (, respectively). Simultaneous to the information combination efforts described in the previous paragraph, the field of natural language processing attempted (and largely succeeded) in combining information from multiple non-technical information sources. The ecosystem of “multi-modal” language models, which can take text and images as input, and generate text and images as output, became large and diverse by 2025 (Khan et al. 2025). In a generalized sense, many of these methods are trained by learning neural networks which can convert raw text or images into a vector of numbers describing the text or image, hereafter called “embeddings” and the neural networks performing the conversion are called “embedders”. By using a separate embedder for text and images, finding coincident text and images (such as images with their captions), and optimizing the parameters of the embedders such that the embeddings for the text and the image are similar, the field has found a bridge between text and images (Girdhar et al. 2023). It is the contention of the authors of this report that this insight is not limited to text and images but instead can be extended to any modality which can be found coincidently. The subject of the rest of this report is the application of this method to example multi-modal technical forensic data. Some details about the data used in this report are not appropriate for this report, and are included in a companion report (PNNL-38669).

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS1983

Microcomputer numerical analysis system for gas dynamics application

The original objective (scope) of the effort was to deliver a microcomputer version of the Continuum gas dynamic numerical analysis on existing NASA equipment. It became apparent during the course of the contract that the interests of NASA would be much better served by the delivery of a dedicated system designed and developed by Continuum, which would provide NASA with additional hardware ideally suited to the specific task at no increase in cost. Accordingly, the contract was modified to reflect this new development. The details of the modification and the delivered capability will be discussed in greater detail in the ensuing technical discussion.

Prozan, R. J.↗