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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 OSTI2020

Semantic Interoperability to Enable Smart, Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings

Achieving a widespread transition to grid-interactive, efficient buildings (GEBs) depends critically on there being sufficient interoperability among connected building systems. While many critical elements already exist at the technical interoperability level (TCP/IP, BACnet, etc.), a lack of interoperability in the semantic level hinders streamlined integration of interdependent applications. Semantics refers to expressing information about “things” in a way that can be consistently understood by applications. Key components of formalized semantics include identifying what a “thing” is (its “type”), defining general information about that “thing” (its characteristics or properties), and defining the appropriate relationships of that “thing” to other “things” (its function or role in a larger system). Although this might seem initially trivial, the success of smart building applications is highly dependent on maintaining consistent self-descriptive notions of the “things”. Without semantic interoperability, it is technically difficult, labor-intensive, and cost-prohibitive to enable three key objectives of GEBs: optimizing performance, automatically identifying and diagnosing faults, and delivering grid services. Industry, academia, and standards bodies have invested effort in developing information models to facilitate semantic interoperability, however, they have not been widely adopted across the U.S. commercial building portfolio. This paper will present a pathway to drive semantic interoperability through a three-pronged approach to be led by the DOE Building Technologies Office in partnership with NIST and multiple national laboratories comprising: 1) industry engagement and coordination across existing efforts; 2) a semantic interoperability standard that empowers building owners to identify and require interoperable attributes when procuring equipment and applications; 3) tools to assist in implementation and a test framework to verify compliance of products with semantic interoperability specifications. This approach is designed to accelerate the timeline for adoption of semantic interoperability specifications. The intent is to reduce soft costs associated with implementing advanced controls, fault detection and diagnostics, and other smart building technologies and use cases as a necessary step in achieving an energy efficient smart grid future.

Bergmann, Harry↗
DOE OSTI2020

Semantic Interoperability to Enable Smart, Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings

Achieving a widespread transition to grid-interactive, efficient buildings (GEBs) depends critically on there being sufficient interoperability among connected building systems. While many critical elements already exist at the technical interoperability level (TCP/IP, BACnet, etc.), a lack of interoperability in the semantic level hinders streamlined integration of interdependent applications. Semantics refers to expressing information about “things” in a way that can be consistently understood by applications. Key components of formalized semantics include identifying what a “thing” is (its “type”), defining general information about that “thing” (its characteristics or properties), and defining the appropriate relationships of that “thing” to other “things” (its function or role in a larger system). Although this might seem initially trivial, the success of smart building applications is highly dependent on maintaining consistent self-descriptive notions of the “things”. Without semantic interoperability, it is technically difficult, labor-intensive, and cost-prohibitive to enable three key objectives of GEBs: optimizing performance, automatically identifying and diagnosing faults, and delivering grid services. Industry, academia, and standards bodies have invested effort in developing information models to facilitate semantic interoperability, however, they have not been widely adopted across the U.S. commercial building portfolio. This paper will present a pathway to drive semantic interoperability through a three-pronged approach to be led by the DOE Building Technologies Office in partnership with NIST and multiple national laboratories comprising: 1) industry engagement and coordination across existing efforts; 2) a semantic interoperability standard that empowers building owners to identify and require interoperable attributes when procuring equipment and applications; 3) tools to assist in implementation and a test framework to verify compliance of products with semantic interoperability specifications. This approach is designed to accelerate the timeline for adoption of semantic interoperability specifications. The intent is to reduce soft costs associated with implementing advanced controls, fault detection and diagnostics, and other smart building technologies and use cases as a necessary step in achieving an energy efficient smart grid future.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Microstructure-Based Degradation Modeling in Solid Oxide Cells

The presentation is intended for a graduate class in Georgia Southern University taught by Dr. Hayri Sezer on electrochemistry, SOFC and Li ion battery. It summaries NETL's recent works on microstructure-based modeling of degradation in solid oxide cells. It covers the degradation mechanism of Ni coarsening, Ni migration and the build-up of oxygen partial pressure inside the electrolyte. The phase-field models developed for Ni coarsening and migration are reviewed and the results are compared to experiments in literature to examine different diffusion mechanisms (Ni self-diffusion, Ni(OH)2 diffusion in pores and Ni(OH) surface diffusion) and driving forces (Ni(OH)x concentration and Ni-YSZ contact angle change). It also demonstrates the developed model for oxygen partial pressure and shows that the predicted oxygen partial pressure can explain the Ni oxidation in the hydrogen electrode and crack growth on the electrolyte-oxygen electrode interface under certain operating conditions.

nickel coarsening↗
DOE OSTI2024

Design and Analysis of Liquid Lithium Plasma Facing Components

In this study, liquid metal (LM) on plasma-facing components (PFCs) creates a renewable protective cover enhancing power exhaust and protecting the solid substrate. Additionally, energy confinement improvement through particle pumping can be achieved in the case of liquid lithium (LL). A new variant of PFCs was recently introduced at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) where a porous wall is used to stabilize the LM surface, while using magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) drive to push the LM flow inside the component. This arrangement allows efficient heat exhaust, and enhanced control of the LM surface temperature, leading to spatial control of evaporation and condensation of LL on the plasma interface. This feature is particularly attractive when vapor shielding is introduced to allow heat flux redistribution. This system has the advantage that as the heat flux increases, the evaporation rate will increase, while decreasing heat flux will decrease the evaporation rate of lithium, ideally creating a feedback effect which could self-regulate the amount of lithium evaporated. Analytical and numerical models for LL PFCs were developed in PPPL. To calculate the target temperature distribution for the case of evaporation from the divertor, we apply an iterative process allowing two-way coupling between the fluid-kinetic analysis of plasma using SOLPS-ITER code and the flow and heat transfer analysis of the PFC using an analytical model. In the last stage, the results are validated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis with customized version of the CFX code from ANSYS. CFX was modified at PPPL to allow MHD analysis at the high magnetic field typical for fusion applications. Results of the analysis for NSTX-U tokamak conditions will be presented.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1987

Relativistic electromagnetic waves in an electron-ion plasma

High power laser beams can drive plasma particles to relativistic energies. An accurate description of strong waves requires the inclusion of ion dynamics in the analysis. The equations governing the propagation of relativistic electromagnetic waves in a cold electron-ion plasma can be reduced to two equations expressing conservation of energy-momentum of the system. The two conservation constants are functions of the plasma stream velocity, the wave velocity, the wave amplitude, and the electron-ion mass ratio. The dynamic parameter, expressing electron-ion momentum conversation in the laboratory frame, can be regarded as an adjustable quantity, a suitable choice of which will yield self-consistent solutions when other plasma parameters were specified. Circularly polarized electromagnetic waves and electrostatic plasma waves are used as illustrations.

Chian, Abraham C.-L.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Lighting a Star on Earth—Again and Again

At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) National Ignition Facility (NIF), scientists are learning what it takes to keep a fusion reaction burning. Their latest experiments, presented this week at the American Physical Society’s Division of Plasma Physics annual meeting, build on a series of successful ignition shots to reveal how capsule design and laser precision can sustain record-setting performance. At NIF, researchers are consistently producing plasmas dominated by self-heating from fusion reactions, achieving target gain greater than two — meaning the fusion output energy exceeds twice the energy used to initiate the reaction. Using the world’s most energetic laser to create these conditions, LLNL scientists can explore the detailed physics of ignition and burn that underpin the Laboratory’s stockpile modernization mission. “It’s a bit like lighting a campfire with a match and a single breath,” said LLNL physicist David Schlossberg, who is co-leading the work. “If you have too little fuel, it burns out quickly; too much, and it won’t light at all. We’ve found the balance between capsule mass and drive strength that starts the burn and keeps it going efficiently.” NIF is the only laboratory in the world to have achieved fusion ignition, a historic breakthrough first realized in December 2022. Since then, the facility has repeated ignition ten times, most recently in October 2025, demonstrating the robustness of the experimental platform and the reproducibility of ignition physics.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

The Complexation Properties of Self-Defensive Microgel-Modified Antimicrobial Surfaces

The complexation of cationic antimicrobials with polyanionic microgels on a biomaterial surface can render that surface self-defensive against bacteria by killing those bacteria which physically contact the antimicrobial-loaded microgels. This killing has been attributed to the contact-driven transfer of antimicrobial from a microgel to a challenging bacterium, though much remains unknown about this process. Here, in this study, we use a combination of experiments and computational modeling to identify key aspects of the complexation phenomena which influence the self-defensive properties. We synthesize poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) microgels (∼2–5 μm diameter) via membrane emulsification and electrostatically deposit them onto polycaprolactone (PCL) coupons or onto glass to form a discontinuous submonolayer. Subsequent microgel loading with colistin or with Sub5 antimicrobial peptide (AMP) causes microgel deswelling. Under physiological conditions Sub5 remains stably sequestered whereas colistin is quickly released. Coarse-grained molecular dynamics (CGMD) simulations confirm stronger Sub5/PAA complexation. CGMD calculations also indicate that Sub5 forms dimers and higher-order structures, a prediction confirmed experimentally by Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS). Supramolecular structure entropically enhances the complexation strength because of enhanced counterion release per complexation event, and this finding can help identify other antimicrobials well suited for such a nonelutive yet self-defensive strategy. CGMD simulations also show that Sub5 has a higher complexation strength with the Staphylococcus aureus membrane than it does with PAA, confirming that there is a thermodynamic driving force for antimicrobial transfer. Such self-defensive surfaces significantly reduce S. aureus colonization (over 90% reduction relative to unmodified controls) in an in vitro hematogenous contamination model and remain cyto-compatible as evidenced by mesenchymal stem cell spreading and proliferation.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS1987

Flexible manipulator control experiments and analysis

Modeling and control design for flexible manipulators, both from an experimental and analytical viewpoint, are described. From the application perspective, an ongoing effort within the laboratory environment at the Ohio State University, where experimentation on a single link flexible arm is underway is described. Several unique features of this study are described here. First, the manipulator arm is slewed by a direct drive dc motor and has a rigid counterbalance appendage. Current experimentation is from two viewpoints: (1) rigid body slewing and vibration control via actuation with the hub motor, and (2) vibration suppression through the use of structure-mounted proof-mass actuation at the tip. Such an application to manipulator control is of interest particularly in design of space-based telerobotic control systems, but has received little attention to date. From an analytical viewpoint, parameter estimation techniques within the closed-loop for self-tuning adaptive control approaches are discussed. Also introduced is a control approach based on output feedback and frequency weighting to counteract effects of spillover in reduced-order model design. A model of the flexible manipulator based on experimental measurements is evaluated for such estimation and control approaches.

Yurkovich, S.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Toward an improved nonlocal thermodynamic equilibrium model for more predictive simulations of ignition scale hohlraums

Recently, nonlocal thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) modeling has been identified as the primary reason for discrepant predictions of the peak neutron production time in indirectly driven inertial confinement fusion (ICF) platforms. It has also been observed that predictions of collisional excitation rates differ by as much as 50% from measurements. Theoretical uncertainties in dielectronic recombination rates have also been posited as possibly contributing to errors in NLTE predictions. This work examines the impact of multipliers on collisional excitation and dielectronic recombination rates on simulations of a directly driven gold sphere and an indirect drive ICF implosion. It is found that multipliers on the collisional excitation rates have a strong impact on radiant intensity and electron temperature and a weaker impact on ionization state, whereas multipliers on dielectronic recombinations rates strongly impact ionization state with a smaller impact on radiant intensity and electron temperature. A self-consistent NLTE model which places multipliers on differing transitions, as motivated by experimental measurements and more detailed atomic physics predictions, improves agreement but does not completely eliminate discrepancies with measurements of the radiant intensity within the 2–4 keV spectral range.

Farmer, W. A. [Lawrence Livermore National Laborat↗
NASA NTRS2021

AI4MARS: A Dataset for Terrain-Aware Autonomy on Mars

Deep learning has quickly become a necessity for selfdriving vehicles on Earth. In contrast, the self-driving vehicles on Mars, including NASA’s latest rover, Perseverance, which is planned to land on Mars in February 2021, are still driven by classical machine vision systems. Deep learning capabilities, such as semantic segmentation and object recognition, would substantially benefit the safety and productivity of ongoing and future missions to the red planet. To this end, we created the first large-scale dataset, AI4Mars, for training and validating terrain classification models for Mars, consisting of ~326K semantic segmentation full image labels on 35K images from Curiosity, Opportunity, and Spirit rovers, collected through crowdsourcing. Each image was labeled by ~10 people to ensure greater quality and agreement of the crowdsourced labels. It also includes ~1.5K validation labels annotated by the rover planners and scientists from NASA’s MSL (Mars Science Laboratory) mission, which operates the Curiosity rover, and MER (Mars Exploration Rovers) mission, which operated the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. We trained a DeepLabv3 model on the AI4Mars training dataset and achieved over 96% overall classification accuracy on the test set. The dataset is made publicly available.1

Ono, Hiro↗
NASA NTRS2021

Dare Mighty Things

Winston Churchill once said, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” JPL’s Property Accountability objective is to provide superior services related to property accountability, reutilization, and disposition. JPL must report property reutilized and disposed through either sales, donation, or scrap. Implementing the JPL designed and built Property Information Reporting System (PIRS), opened a new perspective with our data and what are we reporting to NASA. With this new depth of visibility, we self-implemented as assessment to validate the fiduciary and stewardship responsibilities of what is being reporting to NASA. JPL strives to perform at a level beyond the basic primary expectations of our NASA requirements. JPL developed the PIRS - which rolled out in 2018 - to simplify the delivery of JPL’s Personal Property and Equipment (PP&E) reporting: PIRS takes the raw data from Oracle to generate the NASA Form (NF) 1018 and Contractor Held Asset Reporting System (CHATS) Reports, and to meet the requirements established for AS9100 compliance. The data presented from PIRS is exportable and used to analyze our property records. JPL is also embarking on an effort to define the JPL of the future with “Enterprise 2.0”. Enterprise 2.0 is the driving force of JPL’s strategy to digitally transform the Laboratory from the current legacy processes and systems to a modern, integrated, information-driven highway of business transactions. This should include automation of routine processes and data-related tasks, integration of data and systems, advanced search and analytics, and improved information sharing and collaboration. As JPL’s evolving landscape of digital technologies advance to meet the future, JPL Property Accountability is making strides to surpass these expectations. For every cause there is an effect: a revealing of something that aids in the further development and transformation of JPL best business practices.

Sucher, Jay M↗
DOE OSTI2020

Gas Transport in the Insensitive High Explosive PBX 9502

Small-scale laboratory experiments were performed to analyze gas transport mechanics in PBX 9502, an insensitive high explosive (IHE) composition. Two independent investigations are reported here. First, gas permeametry and dynamic pycnometry techniques were used to measure the molecular flow (Knudsen) coefficient and the internally interconnected void fraction of pristine and thermally damaged samples in two uniaxial pressing orientations. The permeability of PBX 9502 was found to be unmeasurably low (of the same order of magnitude as PTFE) with gas transport being diffusion-dominated. Secondly, a pressure vessel experiment was developed to measure quasi-static and dynamic gas generation as the explosive was heated to self-ignition (cookoff). The gas generation results and the permeability/diffusivity findings provide evidence that PBX 9502 remains impermeable until seconds prior to self-ignition. At ignition, internal void-pressure drives macro-scale cracking and the sample becomes uniformly incorporated in the following deconsolidating deflagration. These results are discussed within the context of previous observations of pressure-dependent cookoff behavior of PBX 9502 and provide a more complete description of thermal damage evolution in this explosive composition.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
NASA NTRS2002

The Laboratory Production of Complex Organic Molecules in Simulated Interstellar Ices

Much of the volatiles in interstellar dense clouds exist in ices surrounding dust grains. Their low temperatures preclude most chemical reactions, but ionizing radiation can drive reactions that produce a suite of new species, many of which are complex organics. The Astrochemistry Lab at NASA-Ames studies the UV radiation processing of interstellar ice analogs to better identify the resulting products and establish links between interstellar chemistry, the organics in meteorites, and the origin of life on Earth. Once identified, the spectral properties of the products can be quantified to assist with the search for these species in space. Of particular interest are findings that UV irradiation of interstellar ice analogs produces molecules of importance in current living organisms, including quiriones, amphiphiles, and amino acids. Quinones play a variety of roles including electron transport and are used by all organisms. Studies show that quinones should be made wherever polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are irradiated in interstellar ices (Bernstein et al. 2001). Amphiphiles are also made when mixed molecular ices are irradiated. These amphiphiles self-assemble into membrane-walled vesicles when put in liquid water (Dworkin et al. 2001). Ice irradiation can also produce (Bernstein et al. 2002) and destroy amino acids (Ehrenfreund et al. 2001). Many of the same processes thought to make organics in space should yield products highly enriched in deuterium (D) (Sandford et al. 2001). The high D/H ratios in some interstellar species, and the knowledge that many of the organics in primitive meteorites are D-enriched, suggests that such linkages do exist. By using D as a tracer, we expect to learn more about the different chemical processes occurring in space and their relative importance in the production of different organic compounds and delivery to planetary surfaces.

Dworkin, Jason P.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Energy Flow in Thin Shell Implosions and Explosions

Energy flow and balance in convergent systems beyond petapascal energy densities controls the fate of late-stage stars and the potential for controlling thermonuclear inertial fusion ignition. Time-resolved x-ray self-emission imaging combined with a Bayesian inference analysis is used to describe the energy flow and the potential information stored in the rebounding spherical shock at 0.22 PPa (2.2 Gbar or billions of atmospheres pressure). This analysis, together with a simple mechanical model, describes the trajectory of the shell and the time history of the pressure at the fuel-shell interface, ablation pressure, and energy partitioning including kinetic energy of the shell and internal energy of the fuel. Here, the techniques used here provide a fully self-consistent uncertainty analysis of integrated implosion data, a thermodynamic-path independent measurement of pressure in the petapascal range, and can be used to deduce the energy ow in a wide variety of implosion systems to petapascal energy densities.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Seeing is Believing: Autonomous Microscopy and the Data Revolution in Materials Science [Slides]

Machine intelligence has the potential to revolutionize materials science, enabling autonomous synthesis, self-driving characterization, and accelerated modeling. However, despite the promise, successful implementation of these methods in day-to-day research remains a challenge. This talk will delve into the reasons behind this, exploring how truly intelligent experiments are hindered by opaque experiment control, a lack of domain-specific models, and human-centric design. Through a focus on the characterization of next-generation microelectronics and energy storage materials, I will share insights from both successful and failed attempts to implement machine intelligence. We will then explore the next steps necessary to unlock the full potential of machine intelligence in materials science, creating a future where intelligent systems work seamlessly alongside researchers to drive innovation and discovery.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations of Giant Magnetar Bursts

Gradual crustal deformation can generate strongly twisted magnetic fields around magnetars, potentially triggering giant flares with total energies exceeding 10 44 erg. In this letter, we present the first relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulation of a surface shear-driven magnetar eruption, capturing reconnection-driven plasma heating, the ejection of relativistically hot plasma, and the formation of a hot fireball confined within the inner magnetosphere. We find that magnetic reconnection in the equatorial current sheet launches a hot trailing outflow capable of powering the initial spike observed in giant flares, while simultaneously leaving behind a thermally stratified fireball with sufficient thermal energy to produce the pulsating, decaying tail. Together, these features provide a self-consistent physical framework for understanding the observed energetics of magnetar giant flares. The eruption also expels a magnetically dominated giant plasmoid carrying up to ∼9% of the magnetosphere’s total magnetic energy. Furthermore, our simulation demonstrates how the plasmoid drives the formation of a blast wave—an important ingredient in models linking magnetar eruptions to fast radio bursts.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Out-of-time-order correlators bridge classical transport and quantum dynamics

The out-of-time-order correlator (OTOC) has emerged as a central tool for quantifying decoherence across wide-ranging physical platforms. Here, we demonstrate its direct measurement in a classical ensemble using nuclear magnetic resonance with a modulated gradient spin echo sequence and extend the method into a multidimensional correlation to track exchange phenomena. Position is encoded through magnetic field gradients and momentum through the velocity autocorrelation function, enabling experimental access to OTOCs for proton motion confined within the self-similar lattice of the metal–organic framework MOF-808. Here, water confined to specified geometries within the MOF pores gives rise to spatially distinct diffusive eigenmodes with characteristic relative entropies. We demonstrate that periodic radio frequency driving combined with gradient modulation yields entropy evolution through the selection of distinct diffusion modes. Frequency-resolved diffusion spectra connect these entropy dynamics to classical heat exchange laws, revealing how operational features of quantum systems are mirrored in confined, macroscopic spin ensembles.

Fricke, Sophia N. [University of California, Berke↗
DOE OSTI2025

Interactive Gas Chemistry for Enhanced Science Capabilities of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model Version 3

Atmospheric chemistry plays a crucial role in Earth system models (ESMs), controlling atmospheric composition and radiative balance; it is highly interactive with the physical climate, biogeochemical cycles, and human systems. However, it often imposes computational challenges in an ESM. Here we develop a full troposphere‐stratosphere interactive chemistry module for the US Department of Energy's Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM). We intentionally build a streamlined module based on E3SM version 2 that interacts with other components and maintains all of major chemical and chemistry‐climate feedbacks. The module incorporates a new, highly efficient tracer advection scheme; linearization of stratospheric chemistry; and abridged tropospheric chemical mechanism with 28 reactive tracers. This new model, E3SM‐chem, can readily perform century‐long climate simulations of ozone, methane, and nitrous oxide based on emission scenarios as well as provide hourly budgets for the gas‐phase radicals that drive aerosol chemistry. We evaluate E3SM‐chem with an atmosphere‐only simulation as in the recent climate model intercomparison project (CMIP6) finding results similar to the other CMIP6 models. For the present‐day, E3SM‐chem matches the standard measurement metrics for stratospheric and tropospheric ozone, surface air quality, other key reactive gases like carbon monoxide, and the methane lifetime. Overall, E3SM‐chem maintains the climate fidelity of the baseline model while adding at most 20% to the computational cost of the atmosphere model. Hence, interactive chemistry can be a default configuration for long climate simulations at resolutions of 1° or finer, which is crucial for producing self‐consistent chemistry‐climate feedbacks that alter the climate system.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗