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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 739 records · Page 41
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Developing an Ultra-Compact, Topology-Optimized Heat Exchanger using Additive Manufacturing

Traditional heat exchanger designs have relied on a plate-fin architecture, assembled in a crossflow configuration. These HX designs are limited in their maximum allowable temperature and, therefore, efficiency. More advanced designs, such as those containing counter-flow, microtube cores, can yield higher efficiencies, but generally require complex headers. The design of such headers is usually determined based on user experience rather than on rigorous design tools, which can lead to lossy architectures; conventional headers can generate up to 50% of the total pressure loss through the HX. Furthermore, the consequences of manufacturing techniques are rarely considered during the design phase. Our team has developed an ultra-compact, topology-optimized heat exchanger capable of operating in environments with temperatures and pressures up to 800°C (1472°F) and 250 bar (3626 psi), respectively. Throughout the program, the team leveraged extensive additive manufacturing research and experience in supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO 2 ) power generation experience to develop and commercialize the technology. The final power density numbers for the subscale and full-scale heat exchangers are >15 kW/kg and >50 kW/L, which includes the core and the headers. The team has involved the RTX business units, notably Collins Aerospace, in discussions for commercializing the technology.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Performance Test of Mini LVDT - ELVIS

The Institute for Energy (IFE) Technology has been a pioneer in the development of Linear Variable Differential Transformers (LVDTs) for in-pile testing, deploying over 2,200 units in various reactor environments with less than a 10% failure rate after five years of operation. This report focuses on the performance testing of IFE’s Mini LVDT, a compact sensor ideal for material test reactor experiments. The Mini LVDT, with a limited range of +/- 1.5 mm, offers excellent performance comparable to larger LVDTs, making it valuable in space-constrained applications. The development of an Enhanced Linear Variable Intrinsic Sensor (ELVIS) with internal temperature monitoring capabilities represents a significant advancement, addressing the critical need for real-time, accurate measurements in high-radiation and high-temperature environments. Two ELVIS prototypes were evaluated in terms of both temperature and displacement, showcasing promising results, though challenges with noise during temperature measurements were identified. This report summarizes the rigorous testing performed at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and highlights the potential applications of Mini LVDTs and ELVIS in nuclear and other high-precision industries.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Synroc Waste Treatment Facility for Fission-based Molybdenum-99 Production - 19335

ANSTO is building a nuclear waste treatment plant that represents a significant step change in the treatment of intermediate-level waste (ILW) from Molybdenum-99 nuclear medicine production. This industrial scale facility shall deploy ANSTO Synroc technologies; a wasteform tailored for immobilizing fission products, an integrated process line for converting liquid waste into free-flowing powder, automated canister filling and sealing, and a hot isostatic pressing (HIP) system designed for remote operation. The HIP represents the last processing step to consolidate the wasteform into a final durable solid compact with the required performance characteristics. This paper shall outline the various phases of development in realising the final plant design as well as timelines to progress through cold- and hot-commissioning. Further, plans for storage and final disposal of the HIPed canister product will be discussed. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2021

Cost Drivers for a Tokamak-Based Compact Pilot Plant

A comprehensive systems code that includes a range of physics and engineering considerations along with a simplified costing model has been utilized to evaluate the primary cost drivers for a compact tokamak pilot plant. The systems code has been benchmarked against several tokamak reactor designs and is utilized with sophisticated optimization algorithms to develop optimal solutions for a set of user-specified assumptions and design constraints. Here, in contrast to previous models that have focused on the cost of electricity as the key cost metric, this study uses the estimated capital cost of the facility. The analysis suggests that a pilot plant with the following features may offer potential for a cost-attractive pilot plant: A ~ 3, H 98y2 > 1.5, P net = 200 MW, 𝜏 𝑝⁢𝑢⁢𝑙⁢𝑠⁢𝑒 ~ 1 to 2 h utilizing rare-earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) magnet technology and a plug-bucked central solenoid/toroidal field (CS/TF) magnet support structure. While REBCO magnets offer some advantages relative to Nb 3 Sn magnets in all cases, the most gain is obtained when combined with the plug-bucked CS/TF bucking solution. Pulsed operation reduces capital cost requirements relative to steady-state operation, especially at low confinement. Cost sensitivity studies indicate that there are significant cost uncertainties associated with the achievable confinement quality, tritium breeding capability, attainable thermal efficiency, and achievable neutron wall loading, suggesting that these areas are the most critical areas in reducing the cost risk for a compact tokamak pilot plant. Further cost sensitivity studies indicate that the estimated cost is most sensitive to the underlying cost of the magnetic coils, providing further impetus to better establish cost-effective means for producing fusion magnets.

Compact pilot plant↗
DOE OSTI2016

Modeled Performance of the Hathaway Solar Patriot house - Washington D.C

This Dataset contains field research raw data, analysis spreadsheet, photos, and final report from the Hathaway Solar Patriot House Building America Case Study project. This dataset details the monitored and modeled performance of a solar home outside of Washington, D.C. We modeled the home energy performance using DOE 2.2, performed numerous short-terms tests on the home, and monitored its occupied performance for 29 months. The home used modular construction, solar water heating, a ground-coupled heat pump, efficient appliances, and compact fluorescent lighting to reduce its energy consumption by 35% compared to the Building America research benchmark home. The addition of 6kW of photovoltaics (PV) increased the savings to 67% compared to the Building America research benchmark. A more efficient shell to reduce space conditioning loads would have brought the home closer to its zero energy goals. However, even with efficient lighting and appliances, the lights, appliance and plug loads were a significant energy consumer. About 4 kW of PV was required to meet the needs of these loads alone. To achieve the zero energy goal with no further efficiency increases, the Hathaway house would need about 2.6 kW of PV in addition to the 6.0 kW it now has. Applying advanced efficiency measures available or being developed, such as heat-recovery ventilation, superinsulation, and electrochromic windows, could reduce the heating, cooling, and domestic hot water (DHW) energy use to less than 1700 kWh per year, an 88% reduction in these loads from the Building America Benchmark. At this efficiency level, the appliance and plug loads come to dominate energy consumption and account for nearly 70% of the total energy use. This analysis points out that even with highly effective energy-savings technologies (pushed beyond levels currently practical), whole-house energy use reduction by efficiency measures is only about 60% without also reducing the energy use of appliances and plug loads largely considered outside the designers jurisdiction.

Array↗
DOE OSTI2020

Highly efficient separation membrane based on cellulose acetate/chitosan fibrous composite substrate with activated carbon functional adsorption layer

Abstract BACKGROUND For improving the permeability and selectivity of adsorption separation membranes, membrane materials, structural morphology and separation technology must continue to be investigated. Development of a membrane that is environmentally friendly, cost‐effective and with high filter precision is an important direction in current research. RESULTS The air pressure spraying method was used to prepare an activated carbon (AC)–cellulose acetate/chitosan (CA/CS) composite membrane. The CA/CS fiber composite membrane was prepared as substrate layer, and AC was loaded on the surface of the CA/CS composite membrane as a functional adsorption layer. When the spraying pressure was 0.01 MPa and the mass ratio of AC/CS was 2:1, a composite membrane with even and compact morphology could be obtained. Both the compact AC functional layer and complete CA/CS substrate layer endowed the AC–CA/CS composite membrane with an excellent water filtration property. At low feeding pressure, the permeate flux and rejection rate of bisphenol A (BPA) could reach 9.27 × 10 3 L m −2 h −1 and 98.31%, respectively. Meanwhile, the adsorption capacities of the membrane were investigated. It tended to equilibrate quickly in 2 min for dyes and BPA. The equilibrium adsorption capacities of the membrane for acid blue, acid yellow and BPA were 175.80, 164.0815 and 79.58 mg g −1 , respectively. The adsorption process conformed to pseudo‐second‐order kinetics and the Langmuir monolayer adsorption model. CONCLUSIONS This work could provide a practical and effective feasibility for membrane separation technology. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI)

Zhao, Xiaoyan↗
DOE OSTI2024

Inverse Design of Photonic Surfaces via High throughput Femtosecond Laser Processing and Tandem Neural Networks

Abstract This work demonstrates a method to design photonic surfaces by combining femtosecond laser processing with the inverse design capabilities of tandem neural networks that directly link laser fabrication parameters to their resulting textured substrate optical properties. High throughput fabrication and characterization platforms are developed that generate a dataset comprising 35280 unique microtextured surfaces on stainless steel with corresponding measured spectral emissivities. The trained model utilizes the nonlinear one‐to‐many mapping between spectral emissivity and laser parameters. Consequently, it generates predominantly novel designs, which reproduce the full range of spectral emissivities (average root‐mean‐squared‐error < 2.5%) using only a compact region of laser parameter space 25 times smaller than what is represented in the training data. Finally, the inverse design model is experimentally validated on a thermophotovoltaic emitter design application. By synergizing laser‐matter interactions with neural network capabilities, the approach offers insights into accelerating the discovery of photonic surfaces, advancing energy harvesting technologies.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Crystal dissolution by particle detachment

Crystal dissolution, which is a fundamental process in both natural and technological settings, has been predominately viewed as a process of ion-by-ion detachment into a surrounding solvent. Here we report a mechanism of dissolution by particle detachment (DPD) that dominates in mesocrystals formed via crystallization by particle attachment (CPA). Using liquid phase electron microscopy to directly observe dissolution of hematite crystals — both compact rhombohedra and mesocrystals of coaligned nanoparticles — we find that the mesocrystals evolve into branched structures, which disintegrate as individual sub-particles detach. The resulting dissolution rates far exceed those for equivalent masses of compact single crystals. Applying a numerical generalization of the Gibbs-Thomson effect, we show that the physical drivers of DPD are curvature and strain inherently tied to the original CPA process. Based on the generality of the model, we anticipate that DPD is widespread for both natural minerals and synthetic crystals formed via CPA.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2019

Low‐loss and ultra‐wide passband highpass filter using suspended integrated strip‐line technology

This Letter presents a low‐loss highpass filter (HPF) with an ultra‐wide passband using the suspended integrated strip‐line (SISL) technology. The HPF is an 11th‐order generalised Chebyshev design with a cutoff frequency of 2 GHz and a passband that extends up to 18 GHz. Measured results show of insertion loss across the 16 GHz passband and of suppression below 1.5 GHz. The proposed fully board embedded SISL HPF also has advantages of compact size, light‐weight, and low cost following the trend to reduce the size, weight, power, and cost.

McDaniel, J. W.↗
DOE OSTI2015

Inorganic Materials and Assembly Techniques for Flexible and Stretchable Electronics

In recent years, important progress has been made in developing design strategies, materials, and associated assembly techniques that provide empowering approaches to electronics with unconventional formats, ones that allow useful but previously hard to realize attributes of function. Notable examples of the progress made include: light weight, large area, high performance electronics, optics, and photonics; electronic and optical systems with curvilinear shapes and capacities for accommodating demanding forms of mechanical flexure; new device form factors for use in sensing and imaging; the integration of high performance electronics in 3-D with demanding nanometer design rules; functional bioresponsive electronics; and advanced hybrid materials systems for lighting, energy storage, and photovoltaic energy conversion. In this report we highlight advances that are enabling such promising capabilities in technology-specifically, the fabrication of device elements using high performance inorganic electronic materials joined with printing and transfer methods to effect their integration within functional modules. Here, we emphasize in this review considerations of the design strategies and assembly techniques that, when taken together, circumvent limitations imposed by approaches that integrate circuit elements within compact, rigid, and essentially planar form factor devices, and provide a transformational set of capabilities for high performance flexible/stretchable electronics.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2019

CANDELINC2

This work presents a method of performing PARAFAC2 factorization of a three-way data using a compact representation of the data. The data are decomposed into a core matrix and sets of orthogonal loading matrices. The algorithm is particularly useful for very large data sets and essentially permits imposition of nonnegativity in all three modes. SAND2019-10097 M Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

Van Benthem, Mark↗
DOE OSTI2023

A new center for heavy ion research

Progress in cancer therapy with ions heavier than protons, i.e., helium, carbon, oxygen and neon, requires research and development capability. Ion research activity, however, is limited from the absence of U.S. accelerator facilities offering ion beams for therapy – placing the U.S. significantly behind Europe and Asia. With dramatic advances in beam delivery and compact accelerators, the potential exists to create a facility that can play a leadership role in particle therapy and ion-based research. This paper announces summary details of a new center for ion therapy research under construction in Waco, TX, in collaboration with recognized accelerator entities both academic and industrial. The advanced accelerator technologies will produce beams for both clinical and research applications, offering a complete range of ions, intensities and energies required by the medical community, including the capability to perform ultra-high dose irradiation (FLASH) research. FLASH, a recent research initiative, which has the potential of reducing cancer treatment toxicities, is an important if not critical capability for a competitive research center – requiring beam intensities well beyond those provided by current medical accelerators. Building a state-of-the-art cancer research center within a comprehensive facility will provide the resources to promote ion therapy in the U.S, including, preclinical/clinical trials and protocols between modalities, and also support broad ion R&D.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2017

deBGR: an efficient and near-exact representation of the weighted de Bruijn graph

Abstract Motivation Almost all de novo short-read genome and transcriptome assemblers start by building a representation of the de Bruijn Graph of the reads they are given as input. Even when other approaches are used for subsequent assembly (e.g. when one is using ‘long read’ technologies like those offered by PacBio or Oxford Nanopore), efficient k-mer processing is still crucial for accurate assembly, and state-of-the-art long-read error-correction methods use de Bruijn Graphs. Because of the centrality of de Bruijn Graphs, researchers have proposed numerous methods for representing de Bruijn Graphs compactly. Some of these proposals sacrifice accuracy to save space. Further, none of these methods store abundance information, i.e. the number of times that each k-mer occurs, which is key in transcriptome assemblers. Results We present a method for compactly representing the weighted de Bruijn Graph (i.e. with abundance information) with essentially no errors. Our representation yields zero errors while increasing the space requirements by less than 18–28% compared to the approximate de Bruijn graph representation in Squeakr. Our technique is based on a simple invariant that all weighted de Bruijn Graphs must satisfy, and hence is likely to be of general interest and applicable in most weighted de Bruijn Graph-based systems. Availability and implementation https://github.com/splatlab/debgr. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Pandey, Prashant↗
DOE OSTI2023

Design Criteria for High-Gradient Radio-Frequency Linacs

This article will review methods used at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and other world accelerator laboratories to design high-gradient normal conducting accelerating structures. A quest for compact radio-frequency linacs fueled decades of studies toward a higher accelerating gradient. A major phenomena limiting the increase of the gradient is vacuum radio-frequency breakdown; therefore, this paper will address the breakdown physics and discuss approaches that reduce the breakdown probability. This discussion will cover both the electrical design and fabrication technology of the accelerating structures to achieve practical operating accelerating gradients in excess of 100 MV/m. Most of the data described here were obtained during the development of 11 GHz linacs for electron–positron linear colliders, so extrapolation of the results to other frequencies should be performed cautiously.

Dolgashev, Valery A. (ORCID:0000000166715402)↗
DOE OSTI2025

Data Quality Monitoring for the Hadron Calorimeters Using Transfer Learning for Anomaly Detection

The proliferation of sensors brings an immense volume of spatio-temporal (ST) data in many domains, including monitoring, diagnostics, and prognostics applications. Data curation is a time-consuming process for a large volume of data, making it challenging and expensive to deploy data analytics platforms in new environments. Transfer learning (TL) mechanisms promise to mitigate data sparsity and model complexity by utilizing pre-trained models for a new task. Despite the triumph of TL in fields like computer vision and natural language processing, efforts on complex ST models for anomaly detection (AD) applications are limited. In this study, we present the potential of TL within the context of high-dimensional ST AD with a hybrid autoencoder architecture, incorporating convolutional, graph, and recurrent neural networks. Motivated by the need for improved model accuracy and robustness, particularly in scenarios with limited training data on systems with thousands of sensors, this research investigates the transferability of models trained on different sections of the Hadron Calorimeter of the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at CERN. The key contributions of the study include exploring TL’s potential and limitations within the context of encoder and decoder networks, revealing insights into model initialization and training configurations that enhance performance while substantially reducing trainable parameters and mitigating data contamination effects.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2016

Collaboration for the Advancement of Indirect 3D Printing Technology

Amorphous powders often possess high hardness values and other useful mechanical properties. However, densifying these powders into complex shapes while retaining their unique properties is a challenge with standard processing routes. Pressureless sintering, for example, can densify intricate green parts composed of rapidly-solidified powders. But this process typically involves long exposures to elevated temperatures, during which the non-equilibrium microstructure of the powder can evolve towards lower energy configurations with inferior properties. Pressure-assisted compaction techniques, by contrast, can consolidate green parts with simple shapes while preserving the microstructure and properties of the powder feedstock. But parts made with these processes generally require additional post-processing, including machining, which introduces new challenges due to the high hardness of these materials. One processing route that can potentially avoid these issues is Indirect 3D Printing (I-3DP; aka Binder Jetting) followed by melt infiltration. In I-3DP, an organic binder is used to join powder feedstock, layer-by-layer, into a green part. In melt infiltration, this green preform is densified by placing it in contact with a molten alloy that wets the preform and wicks into the pores as a result of capillary forces. When these processes are paired together, they offer two key advantages for the densification of rapidly-solidified powders. The first advantage is that the timescale associated with melt infiltration is on the order of seconds for parts with cm-scale dimensions. So in many instances, infiltration requires only a brief thermal excursion that does not degrade the feedstock’s microstructure. The second advantage is that the combination of binder-jet 3D printing and melt infiltration gives fully-dense net shape objects, minimizing the need for subsequent post-processing. In this work, fully-dense, net shape objects have been fabricated from an amorphous powder using I-3DP and molten bronze infiltration while maintaining the amorphous microstructure. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and differential thermal analysis were used to characterize the structural evolution of the powder feedstock during an infiltration heating cycle. Microindentation and bend tests were performed on the infiltrated material to evaluate its mechanical properties. It was found that infiltration improved both the ductility and strength of the sintered preforms by eliminating the stress concentration at the interparticle necks. The infiltrated material had an 11 GPa Vickers hardness and moderate damage tolerance, making it well-suited for applications requiring hard, net shape parts.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2016

Double crystal monochromator controlled by integrated computing on BL07A in New SUBARU, Japan

The BL07A beamline in New SUBARU, University of Hyogo, has been used for many studies of new materials. A new double crystal monochromator controlled by integrated computing was designed and installed in the beamline in 2014. In this report we will discuss the unique features of this new monochromator, MKZ-7NS. This monochromator was not designed exclusively for use in BL07A; on the contrary, it was designed to be installed at low cost in various beamlines to facilitate the industrial applications of medium-scale synchrotron radiation facilities. Thus, the design of the monochromator utilized common packages that can satisfy the wide variety of specifications required at different synchrotron radiation facilities. This monochromator can be easily optimized for any beamline due to the fact that a few control parameters can be suitably customized. The beam offset can be fixed precisely even if one of the two slave axes is omitted. This design reduces the convolution of mechanical errors. Moreover, the monochromator’s control mechanism is very compact, making it possible to reduce the size of the vacuum chamber can be made smaller.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗