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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 667 records · Page 37

A 130 point Nd:YAG Thomson scattering diagnostic on MAST

A Thomson scattering diagnostic designed to measure both edge and core physics has been implemented on MAST. The system uses eight Nd:YAG lasers, each with a repetition rate of 30 Hz. The relative and absolute timing of the lasers may be set arbitrarily to produce fast bursts of measurements to suit the time evolution of the physics being studied. The scattered light is collected at F/6 by a 100 kg six element lens system with an aperture stop of 290 mm. The collected light is then transferred to 130 polychromators by 130 independent fiber bundles. The data acquisition and processing are based on a distributed computer system of dual core processors embedded in 26 chassis. Each chassis is standalone and performs data acquisition and processing for five polychromators. This system allows data to be available quickly after the MAST shot and has potential for real-time operations.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Semantic Interaction for Visual Analytics: Toward Coupling Cognition and Computation

The dissertation discussed in this article [1] was written in the midst of an era of digitization. The world is becoming increasingly instrumented with sensors, monitoring, and other methods for generating data describing social, physical, and natural phenomena. Thus, data exist with the potential of being analyzed to uncover, or discover, the phenomena from which it was created. However, as the analytic models leveraged to analyze these data continue to increase in complexity and computational capability, how can visualizations and user interaction methodologies adapt and evolve to continue to foster discovery and sensemaking?

semantic interaction↗

Basic Research Needs for Microelectronics

Since the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958, advances in microelectronics have followed Moore’s law and other scaling laws. These have led to over a billion-fold increase in the number of transistors on a chip. The Department of Energy’s Office of Science (DOE-SC) programs have always been at the cutting edge of microelectronics, making major contributions to the scientific understanding, materials, and advanced instrumentation that enabled innovations to promote scaling. This has driven transformative advances in microelectronics for the challenging demands of DOE’s high performance computing and science facilities. Now, strong evidence exists that scaling is approaching its physical and economic limits, and yet, the growth of data-centric computing and sensor networks is redefining computing workloads and microelectronics needs. In addition, greatly improved microelectronics are needed for the nation’s electricity grid if it is to be energy-efficient, resilient to natural phenomena and intentional attack, and agile in adapting to fluctuations in demand and power generation. Sustained and rapid progress in microelectronics science and technology from millivolt to megavolt scales is thus essential if we are to continue pushing the boundaries of science within DOE, and more significantly, to continue to lead the global information and power technology revolution. In October 2018, DOE-SC convened a workshop to address Basic Research Needs for Microelectronics by a “co-design” approach. Participants focused on scientific issues associated with advanced microelectronics technologies for applications relevant to the DOE mission, including computing, power grid management, and science facility workloads. (Topics of direct relevance to quantum information science and quantum computing were outside the scope of this workshop.) The workshop was organized around microelectronics needs for three areas: 1) future DOE-SC facilities, 2) high performance computing beyond exascale (a billion billion calculations per second), and 3) power control, conversion, and detection for a modernized electrical grid and related high power applications. Panels were formed around each of these areas, with a fourth panel formed to address Crosscutting Research. Workshop participants were asked to focus on a co-design innovation ecosystem in which materials, chemistries, devices, systems, architectures, algorithms, and software are researched and developed in a closely integrated fashion, with feedback and interdisciplinary collaboration at each interface in this microelectronics technology hierarchy. The panels identified the five Priority Research Directions on the following page.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Analytics-at-scale of Sensor Data for Digital Monitoring in Nuclear Plants (4th Annual Report)

Nuclear plant sites collect and store large volumes of data collected from various equipment and systems. These datasets typically include plant process parameters, maintenance records, technical logs, online monitoring data, and equipment failure data. The collection of such data affords an opportunity to leverage data-driven machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to provide diagnostic and prognostic capabilities within the nuclear power industry to reduce operating and maintenance costs. In this way, nuclear energy can become more economically competitive with other energy sources, and premature closures can be avoided. From a maintenance standpoint, savings can be achieved by leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to develop data-driven algorithms to better diagnose and predict potential faults within the system. Improved model accuracy can lead to reductions in unnecessary maintenance and more efficient planning of future maintenance, thus lowering the costs associated with parts, labor, and unnecessary planned, forced, or extended outages. From an operations perspective, cost savings can be generated by shifting from route-based monitoring to wireless technologies for online monitoring, and by transitioning from onsite- to cloud-based computing and storage services. Wireless monitoring would reduce the operator manhours required for taking routine measurements, while cloud computing services would generate cost savings by reducing the amount of hardware needing to be purchased and maintained—all while scaling to both computational and storage demands. This report summarizes this project’s effort to shift from costly, labor-intensive preventative maintenance to cheaper predictive maintenance.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Neutron tomography of particulate filters: A non-destructive investigation tool for applied and industrial research

This research describes the development and implementation of high-fidelity neutron imaging and the associated analysis of the images. This advanced capability allows the non-destructive, non-invasive imaging of particulate filters (PFs) and how the deposition of particulate and catalytic washcoat occurs within the filter. The majority of the efforts described here were performed at the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) CG-1D neutron imaging beamline at Oak Ridge National Laboratory; the current spatial resolution is approximately 50 μm. The sample holder is equipped with a high-precision rotation stage that allows 3D imaging (i.e., computed tomography) of the sample when combined with computerized reconstruction tools. What enables the neutron-based image is the ability of some elements to absorb or scatter neutrons where other elements allow the neutron to pass through them with negligible interaction. Of particular interest in this study is the scattering of neutrons by hydrogen-containing molecules, such as hydrocarbons (HCs) and/or water, which are adsorbed to the surface of soot, ash and catalytic washcoat. Even so, the interactions with this adsorbed water/HC is low and computational techniques were required to enhance the contrast, primarily a modified simultaneous iterative reconstruction technique (SIRT). Lastly, this effort describes the following systems: particulate randomly distributed in a PF, ash deposition in PFs, a catalyzed washcoat layer in a PF, and three particulate loadings in a SiC PF.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Lightweight runtime checking of C programs with RTC

The C Programming Language is known for being an efficient language that can be compiled on almost any architecture and operating system. However the absence of dynamic safety checks and a relatively weak type system allows programmer oversights that are hard to spot. In this paper, we present RTC, a runtime monitoring tool that instruments unsafe code and monitors the program execution. RTC is built on top of the ROSE compiler infrastructure. RTC finds memory bugs and arithmetic overflows and underflows, and run-time type violations. Most of the instrumentations are directly added to the source file and only require a minimal runtime system. As a result, the instrumented code remains portable. In tests against known error detection benchmarks, RTC found 98% of all memory related bugs and had zero false positives. Finally, in performance tests conducted with well known algorithms, such as binary search and MD5, we determined that our tool has an average run-time overhead rate of 9.7× and memory overhead rate of 3.5×.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

iSSH v. Auditd: Intrusion Detection in High Performance Computing

The goal is to provide insight into intrusions in high performance computing, focusing on tracking intruders motions through the system. The current tools, such as pattern matching, do not provide sufficient tracking capabilities. We tested two tools: an instrumented version of SSH (iSSH) and Linux Auditing Framework (Auditd). First discussed is Instrumented Secure Shell (iSSH): a version of SSH developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The goal is to audit user activity within a computer system to increase security. Capabilities are: Keystroke logging, Records user names and authentication information, and Catching suspicious remote and local commands. Strengths for iSSH are: (1) Good for keystroke logging, making it easier to track malicious users by catching suspicious commands; (2) Works with Bro to send alerts; could be configured to send pages to systems administrators; and (3) Creates visibility into SSH sessions. Weaknesses are: (1) Relatively new, so not very well documented; and (2) No capabilities to see if files have been edited, moved, or copied within the system. Second we discuss Auditd, the user component of the Linux Auditing System. It creates logs of user behavior, and monitors systems calls and file accesses. Its goal is to improve system security by keeping track of users actions within the system. Strenghts of Auditd are: (1) Very thorough logs; (2) Wider variety of tracking abilities than iSSH; and (3) Older, so better documented. Weaknesses are: (1) Logs record everything, not just malicious behavior; (2) The size of the logs can lead to overflowing directories; and (3) This level of logging leads to a lot of false alarms. Auditd is better documented than iSSH, which would help administrators during set up and troubleshooting. iSSH has a cleaner notification system, but the logs are not as detailed as Auditd. From our performance testing: (1) File transfer speed using SCP is increased when using iSSH; and (2) Network benchmarks were roughly the same regardless of which tool was running.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

A Unified Approach for Reporting ARM Measurement Uncertainties Technical Report

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility is observationally based, and quantifying the uncertainty of its measurements is critically important. With over 300 widely differing instruments providing over 2,500 datastreams, concise expression of measurement uncertainty is quite challenging. The ARM Facility currently provides data and supporting metadata (information about the data or data quality) to its users through a number of sources. Because the continued success of the ARM Facility depends on the known quality of its measurements, the Facility relies on instrument mentors and the ARM Data Quality Office (DQO) to ensure, assess, and report measurement quality. Therefore, an easily accessible, well-articulated estimate of ARM measurement uncertainty is needed. Note that some of the instrument observations require mathematical algorithms (retrievals) to convert a measured engineering variable into a useful geophysical measurement. While those types of retrieval measurements are identified, this study does not address particular methods for retrieval uncertainty. As well, the ARM Facility also provides engineered data products, or value-added products (VAPs), based on multiple instrument measurements. This study does not include uncertainty estimates for those data products. We propose here that a total measurement uncertainty should be calculated as a function of the instrument uncertainty (calibration factors), the field uncertainty (environmental factors), and the retrieval uncertainty (algorithm factors). The study will not expand on methods for computing these uncertainties. Instead, it will focus on the practical identification, characterization, and inventory of the measurement uncertainties already available in the ARM community through the ARM instrument mentors and their ARM instrument handbooks. As a result, this study will address the first steps towards reporting ARM measurement uncertainty: 1) identifying how the uncertainty of individual ARM measurements is currently expressed, 2) identifying a consistent approach to measurement uncertainty, and then 3) reclassifying ARM instrument measurement uncertainties in a common framework.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Computational fluid dynamics analysis of char conversion in Sandia’s pressurized entrained flow reactor

Design and analysis of practical reactors utilizing solid feedstocks rely on reaction rate parameters that are typically generated in lab-scale reactors. Evaluation of the reaction rate information often relies on assumptions of uniform temperature, velocity, and species distributions in the reactor, in lieu of detailed measurements that provide local information. This assumption might be a source of substantial error, since reactor designs can impose significant inhomogeneities, leading to data misinterpretation. Spatially resolved reactor simulations help understand the key processes within the reactor and support the identification of severe variations of temperature, velocity, and species distributions. In this work, Sandia’s pressurized entrained flow reactor is modeled to identify inhomogeneities in the reaction zone. Tracer particles are tracked through the reactor to estimate the residence times and burnout ratio of introduced coal char particles in gasifying environments. The results reveal a complex mixing environment for the cool gas and particles entering the reactor along the centerline and the main high-speed hot gas reactor flow. Furthermore, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results show that flow asymmetries are introduced through the use of a horizontal gas pre-heating section that connects to the vertical reactor tube. Computed particle temperatures and residence times in the reactor differ substantially from the idealized plug flow conditions typically evoked in interpreting experimental measurements. Furthermore, experimental measurements and CFD analysis of heat flow through porous refractory insulation suggest that for the investigated conditions (1350 °C, <20 atm), the thermal conductivity of the insulation does not increase substantially with increasing pressure.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Passive method to measure strength of turbulence

Disclosed is a method to passively measure and calculate the strength of turbulence via the index of refraction structure constant C.sub.n.sup.2 from video imagery gathered by an imaging device, such as a video camera. Processing may occur with any type computing device utilizing a processor executing machine executable code stored on memory. This method significantly simplifies instrumentation requirements, reduces cost, and provides rapid data output. This method combines an angle of arrival methodology, which provides scale factors, with a new spatial/temporal frequency domain method. As part of the development process, video imagery from high speed cameras was collected and analyzed. The data was decimated to video rates such that statistics could be computed and used to confirm that this passive method accurately characterizes the atmospheric turbulence. C.sub.n.sup.2 accuracy from this method compared well with scintillometer data through two full orders of magnitude and more capability is expected beyond this verification.

O'Neill, Mary Morabito↗

Passive method to measure strength of turbulence

Disclosed is a method to passively measure and calculate the strength of turbulence via the index of refraction structure constant Cn2 from video imagery gathered by an imaging device, such as a video camera. Processing may occur with any type computing device utilizing a processor executing machine executable code stored on memory. This method significantly simplifies instrumentation requirements, reduces cost, and provides rapid data output. This method combines an angle of arrival methodology, which provides scale factors, with a new spatial/temporal frequency domain method. As part of the development process, video imagery from high speed cameras was collected and analyzed. The data was decimated to video rates such that statistics could be computed and used to confirm that this passive method accurately characterizes the atmospheric turbulence. Cn2 accuracy from this method compared well with scintillometer data through two full orders of magnitude and more capability is expected beyond this verification.

O'Neill, Mary Morabito↗

Development of utility generic functional requirements for electronic work packages and computer-based procedures

The Nuclear Electronic Work Packages - Enterprise Requirements (NEWPER) initiative is a step toward a vision of implementing an eWP framework that includes many types of eWPs. This will enable immediate paper-related cost savings in work management and provide a path to future labor efficiency gains through enhanced integration and process improvement in support of the Nuclear Promise (Nuclear Energy Institute 2016). The NEWPER initiative was organized by the Nuclear Information Technology Strategic Leadership (NITSL) group, which is an organization that brings together leaders from the nuclear utility industry and regulatory agencies to address issues involved with information technology used in nuclear-power utilities. NITSL strives to maintain awareness of industry information technology-related initiatives and events and communicates those events to its membership. NITSL and LWRS Program researchers have been coordinating activities, including joint organization of NEWPER-related meetings and report development. The main goal of the NEWPER initiative was to develop a set of utility generic functional requirements for eWP systems. This set of requirements will support each utility in their process of identifying plant-specific functional and non-functional requirements. The NEWPER initiative has 140 members where the largest group of members consists of 19 commercial U.S. nuclear utilities and eleven of the most prominent vendors of eWP solutions. Through the NEWPER initiative two sets of functional requirements were developed; functional requirements for electronic work packages and functional requirements for computer-based procedures. This paper will describe the development process as well as a summary of the requirements.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

High performance techniques for micro channel plate computations in photo multipliers

Monte Carlo - MC methods, requiring heavy computations of large data volume, can be used to predict the amplitude distribution and variance of outputted electron charge in Micro Channel Plates - MCPs, which are fed with primary emitted electrons in their inputs. The concept of parallel and serial combination of separate stages of such stochastic processes, which can be applied in MCP systems and simulated using MC computations, has recently proposed and shown interesting theorems and results. Separating the electron multiplication procedures, occurring in the channels of MCP systems, into sub-procedures, which are similar in nature and occur either in parallel or in consecutive manners, is equivalent to splitting the relevant stochastic system calculations into smaller ones, which can be performed concurrently and/or sequentially. In this way, calculations similar in nature, can be executed only once, thus, eliminating a great percentage of heavy computations. However, when designing and implementing the calculation inferences of the derived theorems using High Performance Computation - HPC techniques, the overall computation cost can further and significantly be reduced. In this paper, the hardware mappings of the relevant theorem inferences onto parallel computing architectures, resulting in circuits of computing blocks for calculation purposes of MCP system stochastic processes, are investigated. Each of the designed and implemented computing circuits corresponds to a theorem inference or to a combination of inferences. The parallelism of the proposed circuits consists of both the concurrent functioning of all the system blocks and of the simultaneous operation of each block, which is processing pieces of data, for many parts of the whole circuit in which it belongs. All the circuits are designed and tested using Altera Quartus II environment and can be implemented as chips, which can be incorporated in computing devices to assist Monte Carlo computations for the estimation of different MCP electron multiplication system performances.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Recent Advances in Analytical Electron Microscopy for Irradiated Materials

Analytical electron microscopy (AEM) in the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) has long been a staple of post-irradiation examination (PIE) and materials development campaigns. Recently, new advances in both STEM hardware and post-processing data-analysis software, along with ancillary advances such as in focused ion beam (FIB) sample preparation, has led to exciting advances in the quantity and quality of data that can be obtained. This talk will summarize recent experiments performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), especially work on neutron-irradiated materials and fuels taking advantage of a newly-installed latest-generation AEM tool in the ORNL irradiated materials laboratories. ORNL installed a new FEI Talos F200X microscope, a 200 keV, high-brightness Schottky emission AEM system optimized for high-speed, high-efficiency X-ray mapping experiments. The F200X features the FEI 'SuperX' four-sector silicon drift detector (SDD) X-ray detector, which provides 0.9 sr solid angle of collection. By combining the high-brightness electron source, latest-generation electron optics, and fast computers and pulse processors, X-ray mapping speed is increased by a factor of 50-100 x compared to the previous-generation instruments. In addition to improvements in hardware, data mining via multivariate statistical analysis (MVSA) allows for maximum insight to the data obtained from the new hardware. MVSA data mining of the X-ray maps allows, for instance, unbiased computational identification of the phases present, and discovery of small phases or precipitates not expected by the human analyst. This talk will present examples of experiments performed using the most modern AEM tools and software. Silicon carbide is a major candidate for next-generation nuclear applications. Nano-infiltration by transient eutectic (NITE) SiC requires low sintering temperatures. X-ray mapping of the NITE structure find pockets of different oxides, such as Zr-Y-oxide, Y-Al-oxide, and yttria. MVSA data mining finds the regions where different oxides are present and indicates that Y additions preferentially wet grain boundaries, where Zr additions are preferentially concentrated at grain triple points. SiC coatings from AGR-I experiment TRISO particles were found to contain significant quantities of fission products (e.g., Pd) as well as actinides (U, Pu). MVSA data mining found complex precipitates and grain boundary films of the fission products and actinides deep (∼several microns) into the SiC layer. Advanced AEM methods, combined with MVSA data mining, makes possible both rapid and detailed PIE. Ferritic alloys, such as accident-tolerant FeCrAl grades, benefit greatly from advanced AEM examination. Neutron-irradiated FeCrAl precipitates the detrimental Cr-rich α' phase. Because the SuperX SDD system has four detectors, it is possible to obtain high X-ray count rates even on a highly tilted specimen, as might be needed to obtain STEM images of dislocation loops. Results on neutron-irradiated FeCrAl indicates that α' size and number density can be obtained by AEM, and MVSA results determine that minor elements (such as Si) has complex radiation-induced segregation behavior at grain boundaries. We have also developed and validated computer models of the AEM experiment, allowing different microstructures' X-ray map results to be simulated for different STEM instruments. This allows X-ray mapping to be more quantitative, such as by estimating what size nanoclusters in an oxide-dispersion strengthened steel would be visible or invisible in STEM. In summary, new advanced AEM technology provides a major leap forward in experiments possible in PIE of irradiated materials. (authors)

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Framework Application for Core Edge Transport Simulations (FACETS) Performance Analysis (Final Report)

The goal of the FACETS project (Framework Application for Core-Edge Transport Simulations) was to provide a multiphysics, parallel framework application (FACETS) that will enable whole-device modeling for the U.S. fusion program, to provide the modeling infrastructure needed for ITER, the next step fusion confinement device. Through use of modern computational methods, including component technology and object oriented design, FACETS is able to switch from one model to another for a given aspect of the physics in a flexible manner. This enables use of simplified models for rapid turnaround or high-fidelity models that can take advantage of the largest supercomputer hardware. FACETS does so in a heterogeneous parallel context, where different parts of the application execute in parallel by utilizing task farming, domain decomposition, and/or pipelining as needed and applicable. ParaTools, Inc. was tasked with supporting the performance analysis and tuning of the FACETS components and framework in order to achieve the parallel scaling goals of the project. The TAU Performance System® was used for instrumentation, measurement, archiving, and profile / tracing analysis. ParaTools, Inc. also assisted in FACETS performance engineering efforts. Through the use of the TAU Performance System, ParaTools provided instrumentation, measurement, analysis and archival support for the FACETS project. Performance optimization of key components has yielded significant performance speedups. TAU was integrated into the FACETS build for both the full coupled application and the UEDGE component. The performance database provided archival storage of the performance regression testing data generated by the project, and helped to track improvements in the software development.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Development of an Energy Efficient and Cost Effective Autonomous Vehicle Research Platform

Commercialization of autonomous vehicle technology is a major goal of the automotive industry, thus research in this space is rapidly expanding across the world. However, despite this high level of research activity, literature detailing a straightforward and cost-effective approach to the development of an AV research platform is sparse. To address this need, we present the methodology and results regarding the AV instrumentation and controls of a 2019 Kia Niro which was developed for a local AV pilot program. This platform includes a drive-by-wire actuation kit, Aptiv electronically scanning radar, stereo camera, MobilEye computer vision system, LiDAR, inertial measurement unit, two global positioning system receivers to provide heading information, and an in-vehicle computer for driving environment perception and path planning. Robotic Operating System software is used as the system middleware between the instruments and the autonomous application algorithms. After selection, installation, and integration of these components, our results show successful utilization of all sensors, drive-by-wire functionality, a total additional power* consumption of 242.8 Watts (*Typical), and an overall cost of $118,189 USD, which is a significant saving compared to other commercially available systems with similar functionality. This vehicle continues to serve as our primary AV research and development platform.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Methods of chemical and phase composition analysis of gallstones

This review presents the instrumental methods used for chemical and phase composition investigation of gallstones. A great body of data has been collected in the literature on the presence of elements and their concentrations, obtained by fluorescence microscopy, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, neutron activation analysis, proton (particle) induced X-ray emission, atomic absorption spectroscopy, high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometry, electron paramagnetic resonance. Structural methods—powder X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy—provide information about organic and inorganic phases in gallstones. Stone morphology was studied at the macrolevel with optical microscopy. Results obtained by analytical scanning and transmission electron microscopy with X-ray energy dispersive spectrometry are discussed. The chemical composition and structure of gallstones determine the strategy of removing stone from the body and treatment of patients: surgery or dissolution in the body. Therefore one chapter of the review describes the potential of dissolution methods. Early diagnosis and appropriate treatment of the disease depend on the development of clinical methods for in vivo investigation, which gave grounds to present the main characteristics and potential of ultrasonography (ultrasound scanning), magnetic resonance imaging, and X-ray computed tomography.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Characterizing and Interpreting the In Situ Strain Tensor During CO 2 Injection

Injecting fluid into a well creates an evolving strain tensor field in the rocks enveloping the well. Understanding the strain field has the potential to improve the effectiveness of CO 2 storage, but the strain tensor had never been measured during injection. The objective of this project was to evaluate how the strain tensor can be measured and interpreted to improve the assessment of geomechanical properties and advance an understanding of geomechanical processes that may present risks to CO 2 storage. The project consisted of three primary tasks related to 1) developing instruments for measuring the strain tensor with high precision; 2) developing methods for analyzing strain signals; and 3) demonstrating the approach at a CO 2 storage analog site.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗