Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “filled”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 73 records · Page 4

Thermal Desktop Modeling of 2016 CRYOTE-2 Tank Chill and Fill Testing

The storing and transfer of cryogenic propellants is an enabling technology for NASA and industry as civilization moves to expand future missions into low Earth orbit and beyond. Several ground propellant transfer tests have been conducted in past decades examining various tank chilldown and fill methods. Creating accurate models using these historical datasets is a vital step toward developing appropriate modeling tools to form pre-test predictions for subsequent ground and flight propellant transfers. This paper presents model validation of Thermal Desktop using data from the 2016 CRYOTE-2 liquid nitrogen transfer experiments whose purpose was to demonstrate the chill and fill process in a spherical receiver tank. Tank pressure, fill level, and wall temperature were all modeled and compared with 8 test cases using two modeling methods, Mass Controlled, and Pressure Controlled. This test series is the hardest Thermal Desktop tank chill and fill validation case to-date, yet the model was able to accurately predict each of these metrics for the 2016 tests within 28%, 10%, 20% respectively, for pressure, fill level, and wall temperature using the Mass Controlled model, and 29%, 79%, and 12%, respectively for the Pressure Controlled model.

Cryogenic Tank Chilldown↗

Validation of Cryogenic Propellant Tank Filling using Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation

Validation of cryogenic propellant tank filling was performed using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solver Loci/STREAM-VoF. The validation effort helped identify modeling methodologies that enable NASA to best support its partners in both launch pad and on-orbit filling operations. Data from liquid hydrogen ground tests filled via jet injection were used for the validation effort which include a sensitivity to initial tank wall temperature. Initially hot walls are expected to yield rapid evaporation and possibly boiling. A Volume of Fluid (VoF) methodology was used to capture the gas-liquid interface. Rapid breakup of the liquid jet was observed in simulation results as liquid evaporated and expanded. Inflowing liquid transitioned to a contiguous jet as tank temperatures decreased, gas pressure increased, and saturation conditions at the incoming liquid temperature were approached. The final phase of filling was distinguished by rapid gas pressure rise due to a higher rate of gas volume compression than condensation at the liquid surface. Key physics of propellant tank filling were captured in the computational predictions, and opportunities for added simulation robustness and efficiency in future modeling efforts were identified.

CFM↗

SPC-70734 Rev 1 MARVEL Primary Coolant System (PCS) Fill and Eutectic NaK Procurement

This specification contains the requirements for the filling the Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation (MARVEL) reactor Primary Coolant System (PCS) with eutectic sodium-potassium (NaK). The subcontractor will design and fabricate a NaK filling system (referred to herein as the PCS Fill System), the requisite volume of high purity NaK, and perform filling operations in conjunction with the Contractor Operations. The MARVEL reactor system will be operated by the Contractor, and the PCS fill system will be operated by Subcontractor personnel.

21 - SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLAN↗

Verification of numerical models for seismic fluid-structure interaction analysis of internal components in liquid-filled advanced reactors

Earthquake shaking of a liquid-filled advanced reactor induces fluid-structure interaction (FSI) between the reactor vessel (tank), its internal components, and the contained liquid. Seismic design, qualification, and risk assessment of such reactors must consider fluid-structure responses, their geometries and support conditions, and three-directional seismic inputs, all of which require numerical simulations. Numerical models used for analysis of safety-related nuclear equipment must be verified and validated. Here, this paper verifies numerical models of submerged components using analytical solutions. Seismic FSI analysis of the numerical models is performed using the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) and Incompressible Computational Fluid Dynamics (ICFD) solvers in LS-DYNA. Prior analytical solutions are reworked in this paper, and calculation errors are identified and corrected. The solutions address frequencies of two concentric cylindrical pipes filled with liquid: the inner pipe is a submerged component, and the outer pipe contains the liquid. A unitless frequency coefficient is defined and presented for pipes of different materials, filled with different liquids, and with a range of dimensions for application to advanced reactors. The numerical models are verified here by comparing the lateral frequencies of submerged components with those calculated using the corrected analytical solutions. Recommendations for verification of numerical models of internal components in advanced reactors for seismic FSI analysis are provided. Although the unitless frequency coefficients and verification procedures are developed for application to advanced nuclear reactors, they are broadly applicable to FSI analysis of submerged components in liquid-filled vessels such as storage tanks, boilers, and steam generators.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Simulating gas-filled neutron detector responses with DRiFT

– Gas-filled neutron detectors have numerous applications across the nuclear engineering and nuclear physics fields. The ability to accurately model and simulate these detectors is important for those applications but is currently limited by the lack of readily-useable detector response software. Recently, the capabilities of DRiFT, a Detector Response Function Toolkit, were expanded to model gas-filled, He-3 and BF3, neutron detectors so that, combined with the radiation transport capabilities of the MCNP code, a high-fidelity treatment of gas-filled neutron detectors can be obtained. Further, this model has been validated by an experiment carried out with the Epithermal Neutron Multiplicity Counter and its capabilities have been demonstrated in two additional experiments. This work shows that utilizing DRiFT to post-process MCNP outputs produces more accurate results than using the MCNP code alone, reducing the difference between experimental and simulated results for measurements taken near the end of a He-3 tube, where the MCNP code struggles to model inactive regions of the detector, from a maximum of 35% with the MCNP code alone to 15% with the MCNP code plus DRiFT. DRiFT's diagnostic capabilities are also demonstrated with measurements for scenarios when pulse pileup or room return effects are significant and must be considered. Altogether, these measurements underpin the ability of DRiFT to accurately model and predict the behavior of gas-filled neutron detectors, making it a valuable tool for the design and testing of systems and experiments that utilize these detectors.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Hyperspectral Detection of the Fluorescence Shift between Chirality-Sorted Empty and Water-Filled Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube Enantiomers

Single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have extraordinary electronic and optical properties that depend strongly on their exact chiral structure and their interaction with their inner and outer environment. The fluorescence (PL) of semiconducting SWCNTs, for instance, will shift depending on the molecules with which the SWCNT’s hollow core is filled. These interaction-induced shifts are challenging to resolve on the ensemble level in samples containing a mixture of different filling contents due to the relatively large inhomogeneous line width of the ensemble SWCNT PL compared to the size of these shifts. To circumvent this inhomogeneous broadening, single-tube spectroscopy and hyperspectral imaging are often applied, which until now required time-consuming statistical studies. Here, we present hyperspectral PL microscopy combined with automated SWCNT segmenting based on either principal component analysis or a convolutional neural network, capable of both spatially and spectrally resolving the PL along the length of many individual SWCNTs at the same time and automatically fitting peak positions and line widths of individual SWCNTs. The methodology is demonstrated by accurately determining the emission shifts and line widths of thousands of left- and right-handed empty and water-filled SWCNTs coated with a chiral surfactant, resulting in four statistical distributions which cannot be resolved in ensemble spectroscopy of unsorted samples. The results demonstrate a robust method to quickly probe ensemble properties with single-enantiomer spectral resolution. Moreover, it promises to be an absolute quantitative method to characterize the relative abundances of SWCNTs with different handedness or filling content in macroscopic samples, simply by counting individual species.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

High-Spin Superatom Stabilized by Dual Subshell Filling

Quantum confinement in small symmetric clusters leads to the bunching of electronic states into closely packed shells, enabling the classification of clusters with well-defined valences as superatoms. Like atoms, superatomic clusters with filled shells exhibit enhanced electronic stability. Here, we show that octahedral transition-metal chalcogenide clusters can achieve filled shell electronic configurations when they have 100 valence electrons in 50 orbitals or 114 valence electrons in 57 orbitals. While these stable clusters are intrinsically diamagnetic, we use our understanding of their electronic structures to theoretically predict that a cluster with 107 valence electrons would uniquely combine high stability and high-spin magnetic moment, attained by filling a majority subshell of 57 electrons and a minority subshell of 50 electrons. Further, we experimentally demonstrate this predicted stability, high-spin magnetic moment (S = 7/2), and fully delocalized electronic structure in a new cluster, [NEt 4 ] 5 [Fe 6 S 8 (CN) 6 ]. This work presents the first computational and experimental demonstration of the importance of dual subshell filling in transition-metal chalcogenide clusters.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Broken symmetries and excitation spectra of interacting electrons in partially filled Landau levels

Interacting electrons in flat bands give rise to a variety of quantum phases. One fundamental aspect of such states is the ordering of the various flavours – such as spin or valley – that the electrons can undergo and the excitation spectrum of the broken symmetry states that they form. These properties cannot be probed directly with electrical transport measurements. The zeroth Landau level of monolayer graphene with four-fold spin-valley degeneracy is a model system for such investigations, but the nature of its broken symmetry states – particularly at partial fillings – is still not understood. Here, in this study, we demonstrate a non-invasive spectroscopic technique with a scanning tunneling microscope and use it to perform measurements of the valley polarization of the electronic wavefunctions and their excitation spectrum in the partially filled zeroth Landau level of graphene. We can extract information such as the strength of Haldane pseudopotentials that characterize the repulsive interactions underlying the fractional quantum states. Our experiments also demonstrate that fractional quantum Hall phases are built upon broken symmetry states that persist at partial filling. Our experimental approach quantifies the valley phase diagram of the partially filled Landau level as a model flat band platform which is applicable to other graphene-based electronic systems.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Insulators at fractional fillings in twisted bilayer graphene partially aligned to hexagonal boron nitride

At partial fillings of its flat electronic bands, magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG) hosts a rich variety of competing correlated phases that show sample-to-sample variations. Divergent phase diagrams in MATBG are often attributed to the sublattice polarization energy scale, tuned by the degree of alignment of the hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) substrates typically used in van der Waals devices. Unaligned MATBG exhibits unconventional superconductor and correlated insulator phases, while nearly perfectly aligned MATBG/hBN exhibits zero-field Chern insulating phases and lacks superconductivity. Here we use scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy (STM/STS) to observe gapped phases at partial fillings of the flat bands of MATBG in a new intermediate regime of sublattice polarization, observed when MATBG is only partially aligned (θ Gr-hBN ≈ 1.65°) to the underlying hBN substrate. Under this condition, MATBG hosts not only phenomena that naturally interpolate between the two sublattice potential limits, but also unexpected gapped phases absent in either of these limits. At charge neutrality, we observe an insulating phase with a small energy gap (Δ < 5 meV) likely related to weak sublattice symmetry breaking from the hBN substrate. In addition, we observe new gapped phases near fractional fillings ν = ±1/3 and ν = ±1/6, which have not been previously observed in MATBG. Importantly, energy-resolved STS unambiguously identifies these fractional filling states to be of single-particle origin, possibly a result of the super-superlattice formed by two moiré superlattices. Finally, our observations emphasize the power of STS in distinguishing single-particle gapped phases from many-body gapped phases in situations that could be easily confused in electrical transport measurements, and demonstrate the use of substrate engineering for modifying the electronic structure of a moiré flat-band material.

Physics↗

Topological protection in a Landau flat band at v = 7/11, a candidate filling factor for unconventional correlations

Strong interactions in Landau flat bands are known to stabilize correlated states that do not form in other types of flat bands. We report hallmarks of topological protection at the Landau level filling factor v = 7/11 in a 2D electron system. The v = 7/11 filling factor is the particle-hole conjugate of v = 4/11⁠, a filling factor intensely studied for the possibility of realizing unconventional electronic correlations. Our data establish a new instance for an unusual fractional quantum Hall state and opens up possibilities for the study of unconventional correlations in an enlarged parameter space. We report and discuss transport signatures developing at other filling factors of interest v = 7/11, 5/8⁠, and 8/13⁠, which however in our sample do not exhibit topological protection.

composite fermions↗

Impacts of random filling on spin squeezing via Rydberg dressing in optical clocks

Here, we analyze spin squeezing via Rydberg dressing in optical lattice clocks with random fractional filling. We compare the achievable clock stability in different lattice geometries, including unity-filled tweezer clock arrays and fractionally filled lattice clocks with varying dimensionality. We provide practical considerations and useful tools in the form of approximate analytical expressions and fitting functions to aid in the experimental implementation of Rydberg-dressed spin squeezing. We demonstrate that spin squeezing via Rydberg dressing in one-, two-, and three-dimensional optical lattices can provide significant improvements in stability in the presence of random fractional filling.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Numerical simulation of mold filling water blown polyurethane foams: Effects of sequential pour

Batch molding of polyurethane foams is a widely used processing technique to produce crosslinked cellular structures which form to the shape of the mold. For water-blown polyurethane foams, water is reacted to form gaseous carbon dioxide resulting in a foam which expands to fill the mold completely. Batch molding typically requires an operator to coat the surface of a mold, introducing a significant lag time during the filling stage where significant asymmetric volume change can occur. The purpose of this work is to show, through simulations, that this lag time is significant when predicting flow profiles and part quality. When the mold geometry is complex enough to force bifurcation of the flow, simulations incorporating various filling lag times predicted significantly different locations of knit or weld lines where the flow fronts meet. Current simulation techniques, which assume the filling stage occurs instantaneously, are unable to predict variations in weld line locations. The introduction of a lag time, referred to herein as sequential pour, was achieved through user-defined modules incorporated into Ansys Fluent software.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Gap-filled methane and carbon dioxide fluxes across two ecosystem states at the US-OWC AmeriFlux site (2015−2016, 2020−2022)

This dataset contains gap-filled measurements of methane flux (FCH4), net ecosystem CO2 exchange (NEE) partitioned into gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (RE), as well as latent heat flux (LE) from a Great Lakes coastal freshwater wetland at the US-OWC AmeriFlux site. The dataset covers the peak growing seasons (June−September) of 2015−2016, dominated by Typha spp., and 2020−2022, characterized by floating-leaved species (lotus and water lily). These data were generated to investigate how rising water levels and vegetation shifts influence CH4 and CO2 fluxes across two distinct ecosystem states in this wetland. The dataset, provided in CSV format, includes half-hourly gap-filled flux data from June to September for 2015, 2016, 2020, 2021, and 2022. The gap-filled data refers to measurements where missing values due to instrument issues or quality control were filled using artificial neural networks (ANNs).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Dual-Purpose Canister Filling Demonstration Project Progress Report

This report discusses the initial progress made at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to support direct disposal of dual-purpose canisters (DPCs) using filler materials to demonstrate that the probability of criticality in DPCs during disposal to be below the probability for inclusion in a repository performance assessment. In the initial phase of a multi-phase effort that will result in a full-scale demonstration, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed to gauge the filling process and to uncover any unforeseen issues. The initial filling simulations of the lower region (mouse holes) of a prototypic DPC show successful removal of the inner space voids and smooth, even progression of the liquid level. In the initial phase, flow through a pipe that is similar to the drain pipe in a DPC will be investigated separately to gain valuable insight of flow regime inside a pipe. The initial experimental setups for validating the computational filling model have been designed, and the various assembly parts are being procured. The experience gained from the initial experiments will be applied to the next steps toward a full-scale demonstration and to the validation of multiphysics filling simulation models.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Environmental impacts of dam reservoir filling in the East Amazon

Mitigating the environmental impacts caused by hydroelectric dams is a worldwide challenge. The aquatic ecosystem is the most impacted during the reservoir filling phase, yet biogeochemical dynamics at this stage are not well-studied. Here we evaluate water quality and hydraulic parameters in the Araguari River (Amapá/Brazil) during the filling of the Ferreira Gomes Hydroelectric Power Plant reservoir (UHEFG). Five field campaigns were performed from July 2014 to August 2015 across nine sample sites within the reservoir (P1, P2, …P9) and only one downstream (P10). The following key variables were monitored: Trophic State Index (TSI), Total Coliforms (TC), E. coli (EC) and Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a), along with physical and chemical variables (Temperature, Suspended Solids, Total Dissolved Solids, Electrical Conductivity, Turbidity, Color, pH, DO, Al3+, NH4+, Cl-, Mg1+, Ca2+, total Phosphorous, NH3, NO3-, and SO42). Besides that, hydraulic-operational variables were also investigated: inflows (Qa), outflows (Qd), and variation in reservoir volume (Vol%). Multiple Regression Analyses showed that the key parameters were both significantly influenced by physio-chemical and hydraulic variables (0.46=R2adj=0.99, p<0.05). The DO showed significant spatial variation, being influenced by the turbulence from the Coaracy Nunes dam (UHECN) upstream and the UHEFG dam downstream. The Vol% influenced the TSI, which ranged from oligotrophic to hypertrophic and eventually stabilized at mesotrophic. The levels of TSI, TC, and Chl-a decreased and the level of E. coli increased (p<0.05) as a function of Vol%. A Cluster Analysis showed the formation of three spatial groups - two inside the reservoir and one downstream (P10). This suggests that in the rainy season or transition season, the hydraulic residence time in the reservoir is very low (16 = thr = 36 h) when hydrodynamic processes are dominant. In the dry season (thr ˜ 1 month), biogeochemical and hydrodynamic processes occur at similar time scales to the nutrient and microbial abundance. These results confirm the hypothesis that the filling phase has significant impacts on the key parameters of the water quality (p<0.05). We conclude that the filling phase of the UHEFG reservoir generated significant environmental impacts, which have repercussions even retrospectively.

Amazon, biogeochemistry, ecosystem, extreme event,↗

Computing water flow through complex landscapes – Part 3: Fill–Spill–Merge: flow routing in depression hierarchies

Abstract. Depressions – inwardly draining regions – are common to many landscapes. When there is sufficient moisture, depressions take the form of lakes and wetlands; otherwise, they may be dry. Hydrological flow models used in geomorphology, hydrology, planetary science, soil and water conservation, and other fields often eliminate depressions through filling or breaching; however, this can produce unrealistic results. Models that retain depressions, on the other hand, are often undesirably expensive to run. In previous work we began to address this by developing a depression hierarchy data structure to capture the full topographic complexity of depressions in a region. Here, we extend this work by presenting the Fill–Spill–Merge algorithm that utilizes our depression hierarchy data structure to rapidly process and distribute runoff. Runoff fills depressions, which then overflow and spill into their neighbors. If both a depression and its neighbor fill, they merge. We provide a detailed explanation of the algorithm and results from two sample study areas. In these case studies, the algorithm runs 90–2600 times faster (with a reduction in compute time of 2000–63 000 times) than the commonly used Jacobi iteration and produces a more accurate output. Complete, well-commented, open-source code with 97 % test coverage is available on GitHub and Zenodo.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Experimental studies of effects of tilt and structural asymmetry on vibration characteristics of thin-wall circular cylinders partly filled with liquid

The effects of tilt and structural asymmetry on the vibration characteristics of partly liquid-filled thin-wall cylinders were experimentally studied. It was found that tilting the longitudinal axis of a partly filled axisymmetric cylinder from the vertical could markedly reduce its resonant frequencies and change significantly the shape of the circumferential modes. For the minimum frequency modes, vibratory motion occurred only on that side of the cylinder where the liquid was deepest. An empirical equation was derived that gives the equivalent liquid depth of an untilted cylinder having the same minimum resonant frequency as a tilted, partly filled cylinder. Circumferential mode shapes of an untilted asymmetric cylinder were similar to those of the tilted, partly filled axisymmetric cylinder. Vibratory motion in the minimum frequency modes occurred in most instances only on the side of minimum thickness. Correlation between test data and results from a reformulated NASTRAN hydroelastic analysis was excellent.

Herr, R. W.↗

Lunar luminescence and the filling-in of Fraunhofer lines in moonlight

The filling-in of Fraunhofer lines in moonlight has been attributed to lunar luminescence. In order to test mechanisms proposed for this effect, measurements were made of the filling-in of the H-alpha line, the Na D doublet, and a number of lines near the doublet. The degree of filling-in was not correlated with wavelength in a way expected from a broadband luminescence, such as thermoluminescence. However, it was correlated with equivalent width of the Fraunhofer line, such that it increased as equivalent width decreased. This suggests that the Fraunhofer line filling at the moon's surface is caused by inelastic scattering of sunlight with a small wavelength shift, as for example, photon-phonon scattering.

Potter, A. E.↗