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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 703 records · Page 39
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Heat transfer through a box beam from an impinging hydrogen flame

An analysis was performed to determine whether a hydrogen jet flame impinging on a tunnel ceiling composed of multiple prestressed steel reinforced concrete box beams could result in permanent damage to the tunnel. The lower layer of the concrete box beam was modeled to determine whether heat reaches the steel reinforcing bars and whether spalling could occur. Heat transfer analysis shows that the temperature remains constant at the location of the steel reinforcing bars after 1.3 minutes of impingement and reaches a maximum of 130°C after 5 minutes. However, assuming a constant impingement for 5 minutes is an over estimation due the existing fire model which includes conservative assumptions. Explosive spalling may occur at a thin layer (~0.05 in. at 50 seconds, 0.1 in. at 5 minutes) at the bottom surface of the concrete box beam, but the steel reinforcing bars will not be exposed to the hydrogen flame.

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DOE OSTI2024

Report on technical development in ANL for innovative creep testing and measurement

This report summarizes a research effort undertaken by Argonne National Laboratory to accelerate the development of creep data package for ASME code qualification. Progress on the fabrication of a 3-sample load train and the application of a direct current potential drop (DCPD) technique to measure large creep strains are reported. Specifically: (1) The 3-sample load train, with three sets of Linear Variable Differential Transformers (LVDT), has been fabricated and assembled. (2) A DCPD method for creep-strain measurement up to 50% has been demonstrated. The DCPD data matches very well to LVDT results, suggesting its potential application in future creep testing. The technical developments contribute towards shortening the time needed to generate a creep data package for an ASME code case of the laser powder bed fusion 316H stainless steel, an effort under the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) program.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Development of Human and Technology Integration Guidance for Work Optimization and Effective Use of Information

Existing nuclear power contributes to roughly 20% of the total electricity generation, and consistently provides the highest capacity factor of any other electricity generating resource in the United States. Despite these advantages, the existing nuclear power plant fleet in the United States has been enduring significant challenges in providing electricity in a cost-competitive manner, which has ultimately threatened the long-term economic viability of these plants. A major contributor to these increased operating and maintenance costs has been the continued reliance of a large workforce who perform their work under an operating model that has largely remained unchanged since the commissioning of these nuclear power plants. Unfortunately, while this operating model has provided safe and reliable electricity, other industries have already began transforming their workforce through the use of advanced digital technology and automation that has reduced their operating and maintenance cost significantly. In order for the United States nuclear industry to remain economically viable, a similar transformation must be considered in which digital technologies and automation capabilities are brought in to support key plant functions across all work functions across plant operation, maintenance, and support. To effectively integrate digital technology and automation in the existing nuclear power plant operating model, a multidisciplinary approach is needed that addresses technological and sociotechnical (i.e., human and technology integration) considerations. This report describes an extension to the human and technology integration methodology, herein referred to as Human Integration and Technology Task Force for Work Management Optimization (HITT), to support the safe, reliable, and efficient use of proposed innovations with the intended users in their intended environment to perform their intended tasks. By effectively incorporating human and technology integration into a plant modernization effort by using HITT, we believe that a utility can significantly improve work performance and overall workforce quality of life. For instance, if HITT is performed to optimize work management, scheduling performance and scope stability can be improved by up to 10%. HITT enables these benefits through developing a rich understanding of the work being performed, the utility’s vision, and the opportunities that provide greatest value to optimize performance through a 10-step process illustrated below as a quick guide. The quick guide contains links in the righthand side of each step that allows for navigation to the detailed section (Section 4) of HITT in this technical report.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

CubeSat Interplanetary Exploration: A Deep Dive into Nuclear Propulsion and Astrodynamics for Small Satellites

CubeSats are small satellites most commonly used by universities, however, nowadays places like NASA are looking to CubeSats for interplanetary missions. Because of their universal form fit it makes them cost effective, economical, and therefor desirable for deep space. To achieve deep space exploration, we must explore the applications of propulsion and astrodynamics on small satellites. This paper will touch on one scaling Ion and chemical propulsion as well as nuclear kilo reactors. Two choreographing a flight path for these small satellites and lastly designing an efficient cost-effective platform for CubeSats to get to deep space territory.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

High Energy Arcing Fault (HEAF): Sandia National Laboratories 2023 Report

High Energy Arcing Faults (HEAFs) are hazardous events in which an electrical arc leads to the rapid release of energy in the form of heat, vaporized metal, and mechanical force. In Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs), these events are often accompanied by loss of essential power and complicated shutdowns. To confirm the probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) methodology in NUREG/CR-6850, which was formulated based on limited observational data, the NRC led an international experimental campaign from 2014 to 2016. The results of these experiments uncovered an unexpected hazard posed by aluminum components in or near electrical equipment and the potential for unanalyzed equipment failures. Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), in support of the NRC work, collaborated with NIST, BSI, KEMA, and NRC to support the full-scale HEAF test campaign in 2023. SNL provided high speed and real time from visible and infrared video/data of tests that collected data from copper and aluminum busses from switchgears and bus-ducts. Part of SNL work was to place cameras with high-speed data collection capability at different vantage points that provide the NRC a more complete and granular view of the test events.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Predicting High Energy Arcing Fault Zones of Influence for Aluminum Using an Arc Flash Modeling Approach: Evaluation of a model bias, uncertainty, parameter sensitivity and zone of influence estimation

This report documents the development of an arc flash hazard model to calculate the incident energy and zone of influence from high energy arcing faults involving aluminum. The NRC has identified the potential for (HEAFs) involving aluminum to increase the damage zone beyond what is currently postulated in fire probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) methodologies. To estimate the hazard from HEAFs involving aluminum an arc flash model was developed. Differences between the initial model and nuclear power plant (NPP) fire PRA scenarios were identified. Modification of the initial model established from existing literature and test data was used to minimize these differences. The developed model was evaluated against NRC datasets to understand the model prediction and relative uncertainties. Finally, a range of fire PRA zone of influences (ZOI) were developed based on the developed model, target fragility estimates and update HEAF PRA methodology. The results were developed to support an NRC LIC-504 evaluation in tandem with other modeling efforts. The report documents the effort and provides a reference for any future advancements in arc flash modeling.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

FY24 Efforts to Revive the ANS-54.8 Liquid Metal Fire Protection in LMR Plants Standard

The U.S. has Designed, constructed, and operated several sodium fast reactors (SFRs). To support these efforts and to document best practices, activities associated with the development of standards and consensus standards were carried out, however the vast majority of those SFR standards are currently in a withdrawn or inactive status.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Hazards and Probabilistic Risk Assessments of a Light-Water Reactor Coupled with Industrial Facilities

This report provides a roadmap and toolkit for site-specific risk assessments across a broad range of industrial customers co-located with nuclear power plants (NPPs). This report builds upon the body of work sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE) Light-Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Flexible Plant Operation and Generation Pathway that presented hazards assessment and generic probabilistic risk assessments (PRAs) for the addition of a heat extraction system (HES) to light-water reactors co-located with hydrogen production facilities. The report expands the hazards assessments to include other industrial facilities: an oil refinery, a methanol plant, a synthetic fuel (synfuel) plant, the production of synthetic gas (syngas) as part of the methanol and synfuel plants, and wood pulp and paper mills. All these facilities are specified through industrial process and requirements research performed by national laboratories, universities, and interaction with industry. Many of the processes used in this report are pre-conceptual designs to use for decarbonization of the current technology facilities. A process of failure modes and effects analysis (what can go wrong) and accidentology (what has historically gone wrong) was used to determine the hazards presented to the NPP by the addition of the HES and the industrial customer. Chemical properties of feedstocks and products are summarized as part of the hazards assessment. Example analysis procedures are provided for each of the hazard types identified. These deterministic analyses can be used to assess adherence to licensing criteria. They can also be used to meet other safety goals like protection of the public, workers, or industrial facility equipment. The probabilistic analysis consisted of three sizes of HESs modeled in a PRA to assess the impact on the initiating events (IE) and results of the PRA. The PRA results conclude that the resulting increases in IE frequencies are below the limits required for small changes to existing NPPs under 10 CFR 50.59.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2024

Taylor-Couette Flow Modeling (Rev.1)

The Taylor-Couette Flow is a form of viscous flow in which fluid flows between two cylindrical walls with a prescribed rotation. A diagram is shown on the right (Figure 1) where Ω is the rotational velocity, H is the distance between the two cylinders, R is the radius the outer cylinder, r is the radius of the inner cylinder and L is the length of the cylinders. When the rotating inner cylinder reaches a critical velocity, the flow of the liquid becomes unstable and creates vortices in between the layers. In this experiment, the Taylor-Couette cylinders were modeled so that the vortices would be created after reaching a critical velocity. After the initial experiment, the velocity of the inner cylinder was decreased and increased to look at how the results changed.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2024

FY-24 Progress on Computational Modeling of the Water Based NSTF

This report summarizes the computational modeling of the Natural Convection Shutdown Heat Removal Test Facility (NSTF) completed in FY24. This year’s modeling campaign focuses on the continual testing of the RELAP5 model against experimental data. Several fault cases were simulated with the RELAP5 model in FY23 to study the accuracy of the model under complex flow conditions. Similarly, in FY24, a case is simulated where the chimney outlet is throttled with a valve while the flow is undergoing two-phase oscillations. The purpose of this case is to study the effects of increasing pressure drop in the two-phase region on the system behavior. Even though the model is able to capture the experimental data qualitatively, it overpredicts the pressure drops experienced by the flow in the two-phase regime. Nevertheless, the model and the experiment show that oscillations are stabilized with increased pressure drop in the two-phase region.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Advanced Reactor Safeguards and Security - Advanced Delay Technologies

As a new generation of reactors is developed, reducing the cost of physical security without impacting the required system effectiveness will help to make new reactors economical. This report discusses several access delay technologies available to help improve the overall effectiveness of the physical security system. These technologies include both passive and active delay elements, as well as guidance on best practices related to security by design principles.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Convergence QL: NSF/DOE Quantum Science Summer School: QS3 Final Report

Convergence QL: NSF/DOE Quantum Science Summer School (QS3) was a 2-week summer program held in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2022. The program was aimed at graduate students and postdoctoral researchers working on a wide range of topics related to quantum science and quantum engineering. Expert leaders in this field served as lectures for the school. The school program included lectures, active learning, project activities, poster presentations, and industry panel discussions. The school covered four topics: Fundamentals and Applications of Quantum Computing (2017), Fundamentals and Applications of Quantum Materials (2018), Fundamentals and Applications of Quantum Devices (2019), and Modern Synthesis of Quantum Materials (2022). In terms of intellectual merit, the school brought together students from different areas of research related to quantum science to educate them on a broad range of related topics, providing a unique crucible for the development of educational content and learning opportunities in a cross-disciplinary fashion in the context of quantum science and quantum engineering. In terms of broader impacts, this may serve to create a workforce which would accelerate research in quantum science, quantum engineering, and the development of new quantum technologies beneficial to society. Additionally, this may add to the training of a cadre of scientists and engineers to serve as future leaders in this research field.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Wireless System Development for GaN-Based Transmitters for Advanced Nuclear Reactor Environments

The market for consumer electronics is dominated by Si-based electronics. Many Si-based complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) devices are reaching their limitations in terms of switching frequencies, voltages, currents, and temperatures. Furthermore, these devices are widely known to be susceptible to ionizing radiation and neutrons. Advanced nuclear reactors, especially microreactors and small modular reactors, require wireless electronics that can survive larger neutron and gamma doses than Si CMOS. Because of their size, electronics will need to be placed closer to the reactor cores, and cabling capabilities may be limited. However, GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) have been shown to switch faster with higher gains, and they can achieve current and voltage limits beyond traditional Si CMOS. However, they have less market maturity and have undergone less testing. These GaN HEMTs have been shown to survive ionizing radiation with little effects, but the effects of neutron radiation remain widely unknown. In this report, a wireless electronic system capable of supporting multiple radiation-hardened (rad-hard) sensors is presented. The proposed transmission scheme was designed to be simple to increase the likelihood of success in the immature GaN HEMT process and in high-radiation environments. The transmission system was tested using software-defined radios to emulate the transmission scheme before the transmitter circuitry in the GaN process was developed.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Entanglement Traffic Engineering in Quantum Optical Fiber Networks based on High-Dimensional Kerr Optical Frequency Combs

The purpose of the project was to explore the performance of entanglement protocols based on microresonator Kerr optical frequency combs. We have addressed these challenges by developing a rigorous frequency-bin approach that allowed us to determine an explicit steady-state density operator for quantum microcombs below threshold. Our novel approach has allowed us to derived an explicit formula for the density operator on the frequency-bin basis, and to propose a complete description of quantum Kerr combs regardless of the number of sidemodes or loss-induced coupling to the environment. This formalism also allows for the explicit determination of their fidelity, purity, and entropy. These results are expected to permit the exploitation of the full potential of entangled microcombs for quantum technology.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

High Energy Arcing Fault (HEAF) Photometrics 2022 Test Report

High Energy Arcing Faults (HEAFs) are hazardous events in which an electrical arc leads to the rapid release of energy in the form of heat, vaporized metal, and mechanical force. In Nuclear Power Plants, these events are often accompanied by loss of essential power and complicated shutdowns. To confirm the probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) methodology in NUREG/CR-6850, which was formulated based on limited observational data, the NRC led an international experimental campaign from 2014 to 2016. The results of these experiments uncovered an unexpected hazard posed by aluminum components in or near electrical equipment and the potential for unanalyzed equipment failures. Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), in support of the NRC work, collaborated with NIST, BSI, KEMA, and NRC to support the full-scale HEAF test campaign in 2022. SNL provided high speed visible and infrared video/data of ten tests that collected data from HEAFs originated on copper and aluminum buses inside switchgears and bus ducts. Part of the SNL scope was to place cameras with high-speed data collection at different vantage points within the test facility to provide NRC a more complete and granular view of the test events.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Non-invasive Pipe Pressure Monitoring for Safeguards

Our project explores a new solution to complement current safeguards toolbox by independently, and noninvasively, determining the pressure inside uranium hexafluoride (UF 6 )-carrying Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plant (GCEP) pipes. Proof-of-principle, non-invasive pipe pressure monitoring tests were conducted through measurements of hoop and axial strain using an optical-interference dilatometry technique based on fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) inscribed in the core of telecommunication-type 125 µm diameter optical fibers. The fibers were affixed to commercial stainless steel and aluminum tubes and pipes of the type expected to be found at GCEP’s, each measuring four inches in diameter. When the internal air pressure in the pipes changes their external diameter and length follow, and the pitch in the FBG shrinks and/or expands accordingly. In turn, these changes result in a shift of the light wavelength reflected by the FBGs. Several FBGs physically attached to the pipe, as well as control FBGs not attached, were interrogated during the process using state-of-the-art commercial interrogators that operate on swept-wavelength laser technology. Strains measured were contrasted against calculations based on the known elastic and mechanical properties of the pipes. Good agreement is found, and strategies are proposed for further improvement of the experimental resolution as well as future implementation of this novel approach for GCEP safeguards.

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