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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 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Particle Flux Measurements during TRACER (TRACER PFM) (Field Campaign Report)

The purpose of this campaign was to deploy an instrument payload collocated with a suite of in situ and remote-sensing aerosol instruments at the urban site at the La Porte, Texas Municipal Airport during the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Tracking Aerosol Convection Interactions Experiment (TRACER) in Houston, Texas. The payload was designed to characterize the physicochemical properties, mixing state, and size-resolved vertical fluxes of aerosols. Deployed aerosol instruments associated with the flux measurements included three condensation particle counters (CPCs) with different lower cutoff diameters ( D > 2.5 nm, D > 10 nm, and D > 40 nm), a single-particle soot photometer (SP2) measuring refractory black carbon, and a portable optical particle spectrometer (POPS) measuring the optical size distribution (~180 nm < D < ~5000 nm). A 10-m flux tower hosted a sonic anemometer (SONIC) for vertical velocity measurements. In addition, a humidified tandem differential mobility analyzer (HTDMA) was deployed to measure the growth factors and hygroscopicity parameter of 15-50 nm-sized particles in order to constrain the composition of compounds responsible for modal aerosol growth during new particle formation/growth events. Finally, a radial differential mobility analyzer (RDMA) was deployed to extend the size distribution measurement to 5 nm.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

2023 Global Security Awards & Accomplishments [Slides]

The STPSat-6 Payloads TO/EOT Team, responsible for the successful activation and early on-orbit testing of the two NNSA payloads on the STPSat-6 satellite, was recognized for its accomplishments with a 2022 Secretary of Energy Achievement Award.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2024

High Capacity Step-Shaped Hydrogen Adsorption in Robust, Pore-Gating Zeolitic Imidazolate Frameworks (Final Technical Report)

The use of porous adsorbents for the densification of H 2 under relatively mild pressures and temperatures has been long pursued through various avenues of synthetic organic frameworks, namely metal–organic frameworks. However, the overwhelming majority of these materials are macroscopically rigid, exhibiting adsorption–desorption profiles that require appreciable energetic input for their full payload capacity to be stored and subsequently delivered. This reduced “deliverable” capacity is a core inefficiency in the use of porous adsorbents for H 2 densification. Our core mission is to determine a material-based strategy that fundamentally alters the adsorption¬–desorption profile in a manner that obviates these deleterious energetic requirements. Towards this, we have focused on metal–organic frameworks that exhibit “cooperative flexibility”, wherein the material undergoes reversible macroscopic phase changes in response to changes to external temperature and/or adsorbate pressure (i.e., concentration). Where these reversible switches occur between states of disparate enough accessible porosity, cooperatively flexible frameworks can exhibit “step-shaped” adsorption–desorption profiles that enable use of the delivery gaseous payload without the aforementioned additional energy requirements. However, before our work, such the observation of this phenomenon with very weakly adsorbing H 2 had not been observed with the necessary profile and P/T conditions desired for H 2 storage and delivery. During this project we have leveraged a deep understanding of the phase change in family of cooperatively flexible metal–organic frameworks to systematically alter their adsorption–desorption profiles to achieve step-shaped adsorption and desorption of H 2 in a precise P/T regime that enables a high deliverable capacity. Specifically, the thermodynamics of the adsorption/desorption induced phase changes in the baseline framework CdIF-13 (sod–Cd(benzimidazolate) 2 ) were tuned using the mixed-linker, or multivariate, approach to framework derivatization. Follow this, we have pursued a similar approach to tuning the adsorption–desorption profile of a second framework family, MIL-53(Al), which contains only Al(III) and theoretically exhibits a much higher deliverable capacity. In total, our work demonstrates that by first understanding the structural consequences of phase changes in these materials, their behavior can be systematically altered through ligand substitutions, tuning the pressure and temperature conditions at which H 2 is adsorbed and desorbed. Thus, enabling high deliverable capacities of H 2 with minimized energetic requirements.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2025

Digitally Optimized Autonomous Robotic System for Hanford Waste Tank Handling [Slides]

Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is developing a robotic system and digital twin to perform monitoring, inspection, and mapping of underground tank pits at the Hanford Site, operated by the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE). The Autonomous Pit Exploration System (APES) will consist of four primary components: an electric vehicle truck with a robotic system developed by INL to deploy payloads into the tanks through small diameter preexisting risers, a robotic arm developed by Florida International University (FIU) for the purposes of deploying a variety of payloads into the tank pit environment, and a small robotic COTS crawler platform for examining the bottom of the pits.

42 - ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Methods and systems for detection of man-in-the-middle attacks for SCADA communication networks and applications of same

A system for detecting MITM for SCADA communication networks includes secure substation-substation communication links for providing secure and reliable paths to exchange OT data between substations for OT data consistency check; a SIB in each substation for sampling CT and PT measurements to calculate voltage magnitude and phase angle thereof; a S&C server in each substation coupled to the SIB for receiving the voltage magnitude and phase angle from the SIB and obtaining a packet carrying active power flow in transmission lines between two substations and a time stamp; an IDS server placed in a SCADA center for collecting the packet of each substation sent by the S&C server; analyzing the received packet from every adjacent substation; inspecting the payload of the received packet; and triggering an intrusion alarm to a SCADA operator when the power flow is not the same as the payload of the packets.

McCann, Roy A.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Vibration isolation for centrifuge testbeds

A method for isolating vibrations for centrifuge testing devices is provided. The method comprises coupling a test payload platform to a number of piezoelectric actuators and coupling the piezoelectric actuators to a reaction mass coupled to a centrifuge arm. A layer of vibration-absorbing material is sandwiched between the reaction mass and the centrifuge arm. The centrifuge arm is rotated around an axis, and the test payload platform is vibrated with the piezoelectric actuators as the centrifuge rotates, wherein the layer of vibration-absorbing material prevents vibrations from traveling down the centrifuge arm.

Siler, David Michael↗
DOE OSTI2020

HBU R and D Cask Transportation Options - 20436

The TN-32B HBU Demonstration Cask was successfully loaded in November 2017 with 32 high burnup (HBU) fuel assemblies at Dominion's North Anna Nuclear Plant and is collecting thermal data as intended. The first two phases of this very successful project sponsored by DOE and EPRI was designed to collect thermal data of HBU fuel to support extended storage. The next phase of the project requires the cask be licensed for transportation so the cask can be relocated to a site (to be determined by DOE) to facilitate long term monitoring and additional research on the fuel. This is a unique challenge given the constraints that exist for this particular bolted metal cask. The TN-32B cask is a 234,288 lb. (storage configuration) dry storage system that was selected for this project and it was modified to provide thermal data and the ability to collect gas samples after loading. Several major issues must be addressed to obtain the transport license including protecting the seven lid penetrations that were made to allow for the insertion of the thermocouples into the selected fuel assemblies after the cask was loaded. In order to protect the integrity of the research, the payload must remain as is. Therefore, the cask system must be placed into the transportation configuration without rewetting the fuel, replacing the lid and without removing the thermocouple instrumentation that is currently installed. A critical portion of the design and engineering that was performed in the first two phases of the project was to ensure that future transportation of the cask was integrated into the approach. Efforts were made to accommodate requirements such as containment boundary leakage testing, installation of impact limiter brackets and lid bolts suitable for transportation. Due to the science requirements of the project, the fuel selected was intended to yield the highest payload temperatures permitted to provide the greatest value for the researchers. This resulted in higher than usual external dose rates and surface temperatures that warranted performing as much preparatory work prior to cask loading to ensure ALARA and personnel safety to the greatest extent practical rather than working on a loaded cask. In addition to the work performed prior to cask load, there are remaining challenges such as protecting the modified lid, design and fabrication of impact limiters that accommodate the modified cask lid and preserving the thermocouple connections for continued monitoring. The project team is currently performing the necessary calculations, engineering, and design to support the licensing as required by the US NRC. Pre-application meetings have been held to inform the regulator of the planned technical approach to ensure compliance with the applicable regulations. The current plan is to obtain the transportation C of C by the end of 2021. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2025

Real-Time Testbed for Studying Cyberattacks and Defense in DER-integrated Smart Inverter Systems

In this paper, we propose a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulation testbed suitable for the implementation and testing of realistic cyberattacks on grid-tied smart inverter systems integrated with Distributed Energy Resources (DER) that use the Distributed Network Protocol-3 (DNP3) protocol for communications between grid components. Specifically, our testbed combines a Real-Time Digital Simulator (RTDS) NovaCor device, outfitted with GNETx2 network interface cards, a gridtied DER topology implemented via the RTDS software package RSCAD, and a custom virtual network that emulates a man in the middle attacker. The Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacker captures DNP3 traffic and falsifies telemetry data in DNP3 packets to trigger unwarranted commands from a DNP3 controller that exploit smart inverter grid support functions. We choose DNP3 and implement grid support functions according to the IEEE Std. 1547-2018 mandated for the interconnection and interoperability of DER power systems with associated power components. Furthermore, we develop a protocol payload agnostic attack detection framework that leverages the round-trip time (RTT) anomalies between DNP3 requests and responses and can detect the presence of attacks without having to analyze the payload’s contents, while balancing trade-offs between false alarm counts, missed detections, and time to detection. To facilitate further research, we publicly release benign and attack network traffic exchanged between various sensors, controllers, and actuators in our grid-tied inverter testbed.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2026

New Report Highlights LAMP's Role as a Robust and Reliable System for Wave Energy Converter Testing

Harnessing the power of waves requires more than just putting devices in the ocean - it takes tools that can refine and accelerate innovation before the first deployment. That's where NLR's largeamplitude motion platform, or LAMP, comes in. LAMP is a six-degree-of-freedom motion system designed to replicate the response of a wave energy converter (WEC) device in realistic ocean conditions. By letting researchers evaluate WEC performance in a safe, controlled lab environment before moving offshore, LAMP helps accelerate innovation while reducing risk. An NLR report, titled Initial Characterization of the NLR LargeAmplitude Motion Platform (https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy26osti/93733.pdf), provides a deeper understanding of LAMP's capabilities and also lays the groundwork for future advancements in WEC testing methodologies. Researchers studied LAMP's amplitude and frequency limits across different payloads and collected data from 16 test profiles. Testing demonstrated that platform accuracy remained consistent across all payloads evaluated; researchers expect similar accuracy up to LAMP's 10,000-kilogram capacity limit. The measured position limits for single degrees of freedom experienced by WECs, including surge, sway, heave, roll, pitch, and yaw, also exceeded the original manufacturer specifications, providing new insight into the true boundaries of the system.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
DOE OSTI2024

EV SALaD 2023 Demonstration: Best Practices and Mitigations for Protecting EVSE Infrastructure

The Electric Vehicle Secure Architecture Laboratory Demonstration (EV SALaD) program is a demonstration of cybersecurity best practices for high-power electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure led by Idaho National Laboratory (INL), in collaboration with other DOE National Laboratories participating in the EVs at Scale Consortium.a Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) participated in the first 2-year (FY22-23) demonstration cycle for EV SALaD. This report documents the FY23 demonstration, the second in a series of demonstrations and collaborations in deploying and operating cybersecure EV charging infrastructure. It includes a summary of improvements from the FY22 demonstration, technical analysis of the FY23 demonstration, how the research demonstrates cyber-physical and cybersecurity best practices for high-power EV charging infrastructure, and related impacts to national and energy security. For EV SALaD, the FY22 demonstration focused on the detection, ranking, and prioritization of anomalous events for high-power EV charging. The FY23 demonstration additionally included the demonstration of cybersecurity best practices, which included protection and mitigation solutions to prevent, respond, and recover from anomalous events. During the demonstrations, the multi-lab EV SALaD team conducted a Test Effect Payload (TEP)b evaluation on extreme fast charger (XFC) hardware equipped with Cerberus, a detection and response solution, to demonstrate anomaly detection and mitigation cybersecurity best practices against cyber-enabled events.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Metal–Organic Framework as a New Type of Magnetothermally‐Triggered On‐Demand Release Carrier

The development of external stimuli‐controlled payload systems has been sought after with increasing interest toward magnetothermally‐triggered drug release (MTDR) carriers due to their non‐invasive features. However, current MTDR carriers present several limitations, such as poor heating efficiency caused by the aggregation of iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) or the presence of antiferromagnetic phases which affect their efficiency. Herein, a novel MTDR carrier is developed using a controlled encapsulation method that fully fixes and confines IONPs of various sizes within the metal–organic frameworks (MOFs). This novel carrier preserves the MOF's morphology, porosity, and IONP segregation, while enhances heating efficiency through the oxidation of antiferromagnetic phases in IONPs during encapsulation. It also features a magnetothermally‐responsive nanobrush that is stimulated by an alternating magnetic field to enable on‐demand drug release. The novel carrier shows improved heating, which has potential applications as contrast agents and for combined chemo and magnetic hyperthermia therapy. It holds a great promise for magneto‐thermally modulated drug dosing at tumor sites, making it an exciting avenue for cancer treatment.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

Investigating Mercury’s Environment with the Two-Spacecraft BepiColombo Mission

The ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission will provide simultaneous measurements from two spacecraft, offering an unprecedented opportunity to investigate magnetospheric and exospheric dynamics at Mercury as well as their interactions with the solar wind, radiation, and interplanetary dust. Many scientific instruments onboard the two spacecraft will be completely, or partially devoted to study the near-space environment of Mercury as well as the complex processes that govern it. Many issues remain unsolved even after the MESSENGER mission that ended in 2015. The specific orbits of the two spacecraft, MPO and Mio, and the comprehensive scientific payload allow a wider range of scientific questions to be addressed than those that could be achieved by the individual instruments acting alone, or by previous missions. These joint observations are of key importance because many phenomena in Mercury’s environment are highly temporally and spatially variable. Finally, examples of possible coordinated observations are described in this article, analysing the required geometrical conditions, pointing, resolutions and operation timing of different BepiColombo instruments sensors.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

The SuperCam Instrument Suite on the Mars 2020 Rover: Science Objectives and Mast-Unit Description

On the NASA 2020 rover mission to Jezero crater, the remote determination of the texture, mineralogy and chemistry of rocks is essential to quickly and thoroughly characterize an area and to optimize the selection of samples for return to Earth. As part of the Perseverance payload, SuperCam is a suite of five techniques that provide critical and complementary observations via Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), Time-Resolved Raman and Luminescence (TRR/L), visible and near-infrared spectroscopy (VISIR), high-resolution color imaging (RMI), and acoustic recording (MIC). SuperCam operates at remote distances, primarily 2–7 m, while providing data at sub-mm to mm scales. We report on SuperCam’s science objectives in the context of the Mars 2020 mission goals and ways the different techniques can address these questions. The instrument is made up of three separate subsystems: the Mast Unit is designed and built in France; the Body Unit is provided by the United States; the calibration target holder is contributed by Spain, and the targets themselves by the entire science team. This publication focuses on the design, development, and tests of the Mast Unit; companion papers describe the other units. The goal of this work is to provide an understanding of the technical choices made, the constraints that were imposed, and ultimately the validated performance of the flight model as it leaves Earth, and it will serve as the foundation for Mars operations and future processing of the data.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2025

The Psyche Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer

A Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer (GRNS) instrument has been developed as part of the science payload for NASA’s Discovery Program Psyche mission to the M-class asteroid (16) Psyche. The GRNS instrument is designed to measure the elemental composition of Psyche with the goal to understand the origin of this mysterious, potentially metal-rich planetary body. The GRNS will measure the near-surface abundances for the elements Ni, Fe, Si, K, S, Al, and Ca, as well as the spatial distribution of Psyche’s metal-to-silicate fraction (or metal fraction). These measurements address three of the five Psyche mission science objectives: determine if Psyche is a core; determine whether small metal bodies incorporate light elements into the metal phase; and determine whether Psyche was formed under reducing conditions. The Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (GRS) uses a cryocooled, high-purity Ge (HPGe) sensor to detect cosmic-ray generated gamma rays in the 60 to 9000-keV energy range. The HPGe sensor is surrounded by a borated plastic anticoincidence shield that provides three functions: active background rejection from charged particle interactions in the HPGe sensor; fast neutron measurements; and direct measurements of the incident galactic cosmic ray flux. The Neutron Spectrometer (NS) uses three 3 He gas proportional sensors, each with different material wraps to measure thermal (<0.4 eV), low-energy epithermal (0.4 eV to 1 keV), and high-energy epithermal (up to 100 keV) neutrons. This paper provides an overview of the Psyche GRNS, including: its science and measurement objectives; the design of the instrument hardware, software, and operation; pre-launch performance measurements and its initial performance in space; and an overview of its data products and expected operation for different Psyche mission phases.

Engineering - Instrumentation related to nuclear s↗
DOE OSTI2021

Development of a cosmic ray oriented trigger for the fluorescence telescope on EUSO-SPB2

The Extreme Universe Space Observatory on a Super Pressure Balloon 2 (EUSO-SPB2), in preparation, aims to make the first observations of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs) from near space using optical techniques. EUSO-SPB2 will prototype instrumentation for future satellite-based missions, including the Probe of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (POEMMA) and K-EUSO. The payload will consist of two telescopes. The first is a Cherenkov telescope (CT) being developed to quantify the background for future below-the-limb very high energy (E 10 PeV) astrophysical neutrino observations, and the second is a fluorescence telescope (FT) being developed for detection of UHECRs. The FT will consist of a Schmidt telescope, and a 6192 pixel ultraviolet camera with an integration time of 1.05 s. The first step in the data acquisition process for the FT is a hardware level trigger in order to decide which data to record. In order to maximize the number of UHECR induced extensive air showers (EASs) which can be detected, a novel trigger algorithm has been developed based on the intricacies and limitations of the detector. Finally, the expected performance of the trigger has been characterized by simulations and, pending hardware verification, shows that EUSO-SPB2 is well positioned to attempt the first near-space observation of UHECRs via optical techniques.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Measurements of sound propagation in Mars' lower atmosphere

Acoustics has become extraterrestrial and Mars provides a new natural laboratory for testing sound propagation models compared to those ones on Earth. Owing to the unique combination of a microphone and two sound sources, the Ingenuity helicopter and the SuperCam laser-induced sparks, the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover payload enables the in situ characterization of unique sound propagation properties of the low-pressure CO 2 -dominated Mars atmosphere. In this study, we show that atmospheric turbulence is responsible for a large variability in the sound amplitudes from laser-induced sparks. This variability follows the diurnal pattern of turbulence. In addition, acoustic measurements acquired over one Martian year reveal a variation of the sound intensity by a factor of 1.8 from a constant source due to the seasonal cycle of pressure and temperature that significantly modifies the acoustic impedance and shock-wave formation. Finally, we show that the evolution of the Ingenuity tones and laser spark amplitudes with distance is consistent with one of the existing sound absorption models, which is a key parameter for numerical simulations applied to geophysical experiments on CO 2 -rich atmospheres. Overall, these results demonstrate the potential of sound propagation to interrogate the Mars environment and will therefore help in the design of future acoustic-based experiments for Mars or other planetary atmospheres such as Venus and Titan.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Examining experimental nitrogen-based emissions trends from ammonia/diesel and ammonia/hydrogen/diesel combustion

Ammonia has garnered interest as an alternative fuel for power sectors with heavy payload and distance requirements, such as shipping. In this study, ammonia was used in a dual-fuel compression-ignition combustion strategy to overcome some of its technical barriers, using a diesel pilot to ignite a premixed mixture of ammonia and air. Mixtures of premixed ammonia and hydrogen were also explored to evaluate whether the inclusion of hydrogen improves nitrogen-based emissions from the combustion process. A single-cylinder version of a Cummins ISB 6.7 L engine platform was used to experimentally study these effects at various global air/fuel ratios and hydrogen energy fractions. Hydrogen inclusion produced pronounced NOx and N2O emissions, while inclusion of trapped residuals increased N2O but reduced NOx. The two most recent and relevant mechanisms available in the literature—those from Xu and Zhang-Ren-Kokjohn—were used in a chemical kinetics analysis to examine the observed differences in the NOx trends from two dual-fuel ammonia/diesel datasets: (1) in which a portion of the premixed ammonia was substituted with hydrogen and (2) in which the effect of hot trapped residuals was evaluated with only ammonia/air premixed mixtures. The analysis with both mechanisms showed agreement with experimental trends; however, contributions from thermal vs. fuel-borne NOx pathways showed disagreement. A reaction pathway analysis showed that the HNO to NO pathway was the key to NO formation in the mixture.

Tyrewala, Daanish [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000208599324)↗