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DOE OSTI2019

Real-Time Signal-to-Noise Ratio Estimation by Universal Grid Analyzer

This paper presents a real-time Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) estimation performed by the distribution level phasor measurement unit, Universal Grid Analyzer (UGA). The hardware and software architectures of the UGA are discussed followed by the introduction of SNR estimation algorithm. To verify the effectiveness of both SNR estimation algorithm and its implementation, a real world test bench is set up in the laboratory. The experimental results validate the implementation of the existing SNR algorithm which has maximum of 5 dB error in real-time measurement.

Bhandari, Apsana↗

DOE OSTI2019

Adaptive Learning for Concept Drift in Application Performance Modeling

Supervised learning is a promising approach for modeling the performance of applications running on large HPC systems. A key assumption in supervised learning is that the training and testing data are obtained under the same conditions. However, in production HPC systems these conditions might not hold because the conditions of the platform can change over time as a result of hardware degradation, hardware replacement, software upgrade, and configuration updates. These changes could alter the data distribution in a way that affects the accuracy of the predictive performance models and render them less useful; this phenomenon is referred to as concept drift. Ignoring concept drift can lead to suboptimal resource usage and decreased efficiency when those performance models are deployed for tuning and job scheduling in production systems. To address this issue, we propose a concept-drift-aware predictive modeling approach that comprises two components: (1) an online Bayesian changepoint detection method that can automatically identify the location of events that lead to concept drift in near-real time and (2) a moment-matching transformation inspired by transfer learning that converts the training data collected before the drift to be useful for retraining. We use application input/output performance data collected on Cori, a production supercomputing system at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. The results show that concept-drift-aware models obtain significant improvement in accuracy; the median absolute error of the best-performing Gaussian process regression improved by 58.8% when the proposed approaches were used.

adaptive learning↗

DOE OSTI2017

Emission Performance of Low Cetane Naphtha as Drop-In Fuel on a Multi-Cylinder Heavy-Duty Diesel Engine and Aftertreatment System

With higher volatility and longer ignition delay characteristics than typical diesel fuel, low cetane naphtha fuel has been shown to promote partially premixed combustion and produce lower soot for improved fuel economy. In this study, emission performance of low cetane, low octane naphtha (CN 35, RON 60) as a drop-in fuel was examined on a MY13 Cummins ISX15 6-cylinder heavy-duty on-highway truck engine and aftertreatment system. Using the production hardware and development calibrations, both the engine-out and tailpipe emissions of naphtha and ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuels were examined during the EPA s heavy-duty emission testing cycles. Without any modification to the calibrations, the tailpipe emissions were comparable when using naphtha or ULSD on the heavy duty Federal Test Procedure (FTP) and ramped modal cycle (RMC) test cycles. Overall lower CO2 emissions and fuel consumption were also measured for naphtha due in part to its higher heating value and higher hydrogen to carbon ratio. Engine-out and tailpipe NOx emissions were lower for naphtha fuel at the same catalyst conversion levels and measured particulate matter (PM) emissions were also lower when using naphtha due to its higher volatility and lower aromatic content compared to ULSD. To help assess the potential impact on diesel particulate filter design and operation, engine-out PM samples were collected and characterized at the B50 operating point. A significant reduction in elemental carbon (EC) within the particulate emissions was found when using naphtha compared to ULSD.

LeePhD, John↗

DOE OSTI2017

A Tool for Longitudinal Beam Dynamics in Synchrotrons

A number of codes are available to simulate longitudinal dynamics in synchrotrons. Some established ones include TIBETAN, LONG1D, ESME and ORBIT. While they embody a wealth of accumulated wisdom and experience, most of these codes were written decades ago and to some extent they reflect the constraints of their time. As a result, there is an interest for updated tools taking better advantage of modern software and hardware capabilities. At Fermilab, the PIP-II project has provided the impetus for development of such a tool. In this contribution, we discuss design decisions and code architecture. A selection of test cases based on an initial prototype are also presented.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Synchronous High-frequency Distributed Readout For Edge Processing At The Fermilab Main Injector And Recycler

The Main Injector (MI) was commissioned using data acquisition systems developed for the Fermilab Main Ring in the 1980s. New VME-based instrumentation was commissioned in 2006 for beam loss monitors (BLM)[2], which provided a more systematic study of the machine and improved displays of routine operation. However, current projects are demanding more data and at a faster rate from this aging hardware. One such project, Real-time Edge AI for Distributed Systems (READS), requires the high-frequency, low-latency collection of synchronized BLM readings from around the approximately two-mile accelerator complex. Significant work has been done to develop new hardware to monitor the VME backplane and broadcast BLM measurements over Ethernet, while not disrupting the existing operations critical functions of the BLM system. This paper will detail the design, implementation, and testing of this parallel data pathway.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Investigating resource-efficient neutron/gamma classification ML models targeting eFPGAs

There has been considerable interest and resulting progress in implementing machine learning (ML) models in hardware over the last several years from the particle and nuclear physics communities. A big driver has been the release of the Python package, hls4ml, which has enabled porting models specified and trained using Python ML libraries to register transfer level (RTL) code. So far, the primary end targets have been commercial field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) or synthesized custom blocks on application specific integrated circuits (ASICs). However, recent developments in open-source embedded FPGA (eFPGA) frameworks now provide an alternate, more flexible pathway for implementing ML models in hardware. These customized eFPGA fabrics can be integrated as part of an overall chip design. In general, the decision between a fully custom, eFPGA, or commercial FPGA ML implementation will depend on the details of the end-use application. In this work, we explored the parameter space for eFPGA implementations of fully-connected neural network (fcNN) and boosted decision tree (BDT) models using the task of neutron/gamma classification with a specific focus on resource efficiency. We used data collected using an AmBe sealed source incident on Stilbene, which was optically coupled to an OnSemi J-series silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) to generate training and test data for this study. We investigated relevant input features and the effects of bit-resolution and sampling rate as well as trade-offs in hyperparameters for both ML architectures while tracking total resource usage. The performance metric used to track model performance was the calculated neutron efficiency at a gamma leakage of 10 -3 . The results of the study will be used to aid the specification of an eFPGA fabric, which will be integrated as part of a test chip.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

DOE OSTI2023

Field Test Best Practices

This report can be used as a resource for advice on every stage of field research in residential buildings. It can be used as a reference document to find descriptions of specific types of common measurements and tricks of the trade, or as a primer on home field research providing a basic education on the subject. The report begins with descriptions of field experiment design and discusses advantages and disadvantages of different types of data acquisition systems. The bulk of the paper describes the common measurements needed in residential field work, the hardware options for making the measurements, and field notes on with tips, tricks, and cautions.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2020

ARCS Replacement at TREAT for TRTR 2020 - Abstract

The Transient REActor Test (TREAT) facility was restarted in 2017 to perform reactor fuels testing under transient conditions, following shutdown in 1994 and 23 years in non-operational standby. TREAT is a transient reactor that, like most pulsing reactors, can create natural shaped power pulses. However, TREAT provides the ability to shape the power pulse and control the energy deposition rate on the test specimens by automatically controlling the amount of reactivity insertion over time. The original automatic reactor control system (ARCS) was created in the 1980s using INTEL 8086 CPU boards and software written in assembly code. The need to maintain the system for the next 40+ years of TREAT life led to the decision to replace ARCS with modern hardware while maintaining the original functionality. After a prototyping effort, the replacement was successfully completed in the first quarter of 2020. The process and results of that effort are reported here.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

DOE OSTI2020

SuperCam Calibration Targets: Design and Development

Abstract SuperCam is a highly integrated remote-sensing instrumental suite for NASA’s Mars 2020 mission. It consists of a co-aligned combination of Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), Time-Resolved Raman and Luminescence (TRR/L), Visible and Infrared Spectroscopy (VISIR), together with sound recording (MIC) and high-magnification imaging techniques (RMI). They provide information on the mineralogy, geochemistry and mineral context around the Perseverance Rover. The calibration of this complex suite is a major challenge. Not only does each technique require its own standards or references, their combination also introduces new requirements to obtain optimal scientific output. Elemental composition, molecular vibrational features, fluorescence, morphology and texture provide a full picture of the sample with spectral information that needs to be co-aligned, correlated, and individually calibrated. The resulting hardware includes different kinds of targets, each one covering different needs of the instrument. Standards for imaging calibration, geological samples for mineral identification and chemometric calculations or spectral references to calibrate and evaluate the health of the instrument, are all included in the SuperCam Calibration Target (SCCT). The system also includes a specifically designed assembly in which the samples are mounted. This hardware allows the targets to survive the harsh environmental conditions of the launch, cruise, landing and operation on Mars during the whole mission. Here we summarize the design, development, integration, verification and functional testing of the SCCT. This work includes some key results obtained to verify the scientific outcome of the SuperCam system.

Manrique, J. A. (ORCID:0000000220532819)↗

DOE OSTI2023

Contact-Less Integrity Verification of Microelectronics Using Near-Field EM Analysis

Modern microelectronics life-cycle and supply chain ecosystem bring multiple untrusted entities, which can compromise their integrity. A major integrity issue of microelectronics stems from piracy of intellectual properties (IP) and counterfeiting, which causes significant revenue loss to the semiconductor manufacturers. Further, these components often lead to compromised functionality, reliability, security, and safety of an electronic system. This paper presents secure information transmission and probing methods for verifying the integrity of digital integrated circuit (ICs) based on their electromagnetic (EM) near-field emissions and thereby protecting systems against counterfeit components. The proposed method has been tested on both high-level instructions executed by microprocessors or Systems-on-Chip (serving as examples of software), and also logic circuits within FPGA fabrics and ASICs (serving as examples of hardware). The authentication information required by each digital system is generated using a pseudo-random number generator circuit and securely transmitted via near-field magnetic emissions. The authorized party can probe these emissions using a near-field probe, process the acquired signals to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and then recover the secure information through matched filtering. Experimental results from commercial SoCs are used to demonstrate the proposed technique. Methods for reducing EM interference during integrity verification of both FPGAs and ASICs are also described.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

DOE OSTI2023

Material Identification From Radiographs Without Energy Resolution

We propose a method for performing material identification from radiographs without energy-resolved measurements. Material identification has a wide variety of applications, including in biomedical imaging, nondestructive testing, and security. While existing techniques for radiographic material identification make use of dual energy sources, energy-resolving detectors, or additional (e.g., neutron) measurements, such setups are not always practical— requiring additional hardware and complicating imaging. We tackle material identification without energy resolution, allowing standard X-ray systems to provide material identification information without requiring additional hardware. Assuming a setting where the geometry of each object in the scene is known and the materials come from a known set of possible materials, we pose the problem as a combinatorial optimization with a loss function that accounts for the presence of scatter and an unknown gain and propose a branch and bound algorithm to efficiently solve it. We present experiments on both synthetic data and real, experimental data with relevance to security applications— thick, dense objects imaged with MeV X-rays. We show that material identification can be efficient and accurate, for example, in a scene with three shells (two copper, one aluminum), our algorithm ran in six minutes on a consumer-level laptop and identified the correct materials as being among the top 10 best matches out of 8,000 possibilities.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2016

SU-F-I-54: Spatial Resolution Studies in Proton CT Using a Phase-II Prototype Head Scanner

Purpose: To characterize the modulation transfer function (MTF) of the pre-clinical (phase II) head scanner developed for proton computed tomography (pCT) by the pCT collaboration. To evaluate the spatial resolution achievable by this system. Methods: Our phase II proton CT scanner prototype consists of two silicon telescopes that track individual protons upstream and downstream from a phantom, and a 5-stage scintillation detector that measures a combination of the residual energy and range of the proton. Residual energy is converted to water equivalent path length (WEPL) of the protons in the scanned object. The set of WEPL values and associated paths of protons passing through the object over a 360° angular scan is processed by an iterative parallelizable reconstruction algorithm that runs on GP-GPU hardware. A custom edge phantom composed of water-equivalent polymer and tissue-equivalent material inserts was constructed. The phantom was first simulated in Geant4 and then built to perform experimental beam tests with 200 MeV protons at the Northwestern Medicine Chicago Proton Center. The oversampling method was used to construct radial and azimuthal edge spread functions and modulation transfer functions. The spatial resolution was defined by the 10% point of the modulation transfer function in units of lp/cm. Results: The spatial resolution of the image was found to be strongly correlated with the radial position of the insert but independent of the relative stopping power of the insert. The spatial resolution varies between roughly 4 and 6 lp/cm in both the the radial and azimuthal directions depending on the radial displacement of the edge. Conclusion: The amount of image degradation due to our detector system is small compared with the effects of multiple Coulomb scattering, pixelation of the image and the reconstruction algorithm. Improvements in reconstruction will be made in order to achieve the theoretical limits of spatial resolution.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2015

Reduced Hardware NOrec: A Safe and Scalable Hybrid Transactional Memory

Because of hardware TM limitations, software fallbacks are the only way to make TM algorithms guarantee progress. Nevertheless, all known software fallbacks to date, from simple locks to sophisticated versions of the NOrec Hybrid TM algorithm, have either limited scalability or weakened semantics. We propose a novel reduced-hardware (RH) version of the NOrec HyTM algorithm. Instead of an all-software slow path, in our RH NOrec the slow-path is a "mix" of hardware and software: one short hardware transaction executes a maximal amount of initial reads in the hardware, and the second executes all of the writes. Furthermore, this novel combination of the RH approach and the NOrec algorithm delivers the first Hybrid TM that scales while fully preserving the hardware's original semantics of opacity and privatization. Our GCC implementation of RH NOrec is promising in that it shows improved performance relative to all prior methods, at the concurrency levels we could test today.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2015

Identifying and evaluation of contamination sources during clean room preparation of SRF cavities

Particles are one possible cause of field emission issues in SRF cavity operations. During clean room cavity preparation, several processes could contribute to the generation of particles. One of them is friction between hardware during assembly and disassembly. It is important to understand the behaviours that generate and propagate particles into cavities. Using a single cell cavity, particle shedding between flanges and other materials have been tested. The number of particles is recorded with an airborne particle counter, and the generated particles are examined with microscope. The migration of particles into a cavity due to different movements is studied. Suggestions are made to reduce particle generation and prevent contamination of the cavity interior area.

Zhao, Liang↗

DOE OSTI2015

Identification and Evaluation of Contamination Sources During Clean Room Preparation of SRF Cavities

Zhao, Liang↗

DOE OSTI2016

Investigation of Portable Event-Based Monte Carlo Transport Using the NVIDIA Thrust Library

Power consumption considerations are driving future high performance computing platforms toward many-core computing architectures. Los Alamos National Laboratory's Trinity machine, available in 2016, will use both Intel Xeon Haswell processors and Intel Xeon Phi Knights Landing many integrated core (MIC) architecture coprocessors. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Sierra machine, available in 2018, will use an IBM PowerPC architecture along with Nvidia graphics processing unit (GPU) architecture accelerators. These different advanced architectures make the computing landscape in upcoming years complex. Traditional approaches to Monte Carlo transport do not work efficiently on these new computing platforms. MIC architectures require vectorization to operate efficiently, and vectorization is difficult to achieve in Monte Carlo transport. GPU architectures require additional code to explicitly use the hardware, requiring significant code changes or hardware specific branches in the source code. A significant challenge for Monte Carlo transport projects is to simultaneously support within a single source code base efficient simulations for both the current generation of architectures and the different advanced computing architectures. In order to address these challenges, two important changes are typically required: a new algorithmic approach for solving Monte Carlo transport, and explicit use of hardware specific software. In this paper, we describe initial research investigations of an event-based Monte Carlo transport algorithm implemented using the Nvidia Thrust library on a GPU for a Monte Carlo test code. The event-based algorithm targets many-core architectures by increasing SIMD (single instruction multiple data) parallelism, while Thrust potentially provides portable performance by allowing one source code base to compile code targeted for both CPUs and GPUs. We described preliminary investigations of portable event-based Monte Carlo algorithms implemented using the Nvidia Thrust library in a research Monte Carlo test code. We found that an explicit CUDA implementation of an event-based Monte Carlo algorithm performed significantly more efficiently than a Thrust implementation on GPU platforms, most likely as a result of additional flexibility in access to different memory spaces on the GPU. Additionally, we showed that on GPU platforms and at large enough problem sizes the event-based implementations perform more efficiently than the serial history-based implementation running on the host CPU. While investigating this problem, we also discovered that the performance of the event-based algorithm is affected by what tallies are being used. A zonal scalar flux tally requires atomic operations that significantly impacted the performance of the code, in some cases producing slowdowns instead of speedups. We decided to remove the tally in order to focus on the effectiveness of the event-based algorithm. Future work will be required to research more effective ways of handling such tallies. Additionally, we would like to consider new ways for optimizing both the Thrust and CUDA versions, in order to see how much performance we have yet to achieve. The potential trade-off between portability and performance was demonstrated in this investigation. Thrust provides both CPU and GPU versions of the code in one code base, but it does so at a cost. We discovered approximately a factor of 2-5 performance difference between Thrust and CUDA on each GPU platform we tested. Thrust provides a tool to access the GPUs with less effort and specialization, but it does so by giving up fine grained control where extra performance can be found for this application. Future work will be required to determine whether this performance differential between Thrust and CUDA can be reduced for event-based Monte Carlo transport. (authors)

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2026

Artificial Intelligence Thermostat to Detect Faults

Residential air conditioners and heat pumps often experience faults due to inadequate maintenance, which can severely reduce efficiency or even cause system failure. Common issues include dirty or clogged air filters and refrigerant leaks. These problems degrade performance and increase energy use and operating costs. This study presents a smart thermostat with embedded artificial intelligence to detect such faults and alert homeowners when maintenance is needed. The thermostat uses low-cost measurements—including return-air temperature, relative humidity, supply-air temperature, outdoor-air temperature, and condenser subcooling—to identify abnormal operations. Because different faults produce distinct response patterns, tailored algorithms are developed to recognize characteristic fault signatures. The investigation is built on a detailed co-simulation platform that couples EnergyPlus with the DOE/ORNL Heat Pump Design Model (HPDM). EnergyPlus represents the building’s dynamic environment, while HPDM is a high-fidelity, hardware-based model that can simulate fault-free performance as well as a wide range of faults, including gradual degradation such as minor refrigerant leakage. This platform provides a virtual training and testing environment that helps distinguish fault-induced behavior from normal operation and supports development of robust diagnostic algorithms. Using this framework, a Dynamic Bayesian Network was developed to identify two common faults—gradual refrigerant charge loss and indoor airflow blockage—and the AI-embedded thermostat was verified through annual building simulations.

Shen, Bo [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000336600393)↗

DOE OSTI2022

Report on Year-4 of Water NSTF Matrix Testing: Facility Maintenance and Accident Testing

Under support from the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Office of Advanced Reactor Technologies (ART), a large-scale test facility has been constructed at Argonne National Laboratory to generate NQA-1 qualified validation data for passive decay heat removal systems in advanced reactors. The Natural convection Shutdown heat removal Test Facility (NSTF) reflects key features of a ½ scale, water-based, Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) and is intended to study the behavior, bound performance, and ultimately guide design decisions for passive decay heat removal systems for advanced reactors. In addition to the experimental activities detailed in this report, a supportive computational modeling effort is on-going which has been demonstrated to significantly strengthen the experimental program while also improving accuracy of the computer models. Together these create a mutually beneficial relationship integral to meeting the overall program objective of examining the heat removal performance of the RCCS concept. This report serves as a summary of maintenance and experimental activities during the program’s fourth year of water-based operation. A planned six-month maintenance period began in August 2021, during which major inspections, repairs, cleaning, and installation of new instrumentation and data acquisition hardware were conducted. Most significantly, two heaters that faulted during Year-3 were repaired, allowing the facility to resume use of the full heated section area and full range of available electric power. The remainder of the year consisted of eight months of test operations, during which the facility logged 211 hours of active heating across one bake-out (following the maintenance period) and seven matrix tests; five classifieds as Accepted per NQA-1, one as Trending, and one as Failed. Testing began by performing two repeat cases to confirm expected facility response and behavior during both single- and two-phase flow conditions, ensuring no changes were introduced during the maintenance period that might have altered the thermal-hydraulic characteristics of the facility. In continuation of the power parametric series initiated in previous years, a high-power test case was then performed examining heat removal performance at a decay heat load equivalent to 2.4 MWt, full-scale, a level exceeding maximum design targets. Additional testing then introduced various blockage scenarios along the network piping, examining the effects of partial and complete blockages of the flow paths on the system behavior and heat removal performance. A study of static boiling tests directed at understanding the geysering two-phase instability was also conducted. The loop was filled only to the bottom of the tank outlet, creating an open loop configuration that prevents any natural circulation flow from occurring, and the heaters were powered on until the facility reached saturation conditions. Following, a series of quasi-steady-state conditions were introduced by adjusting the inventory level in the adiabatic chimney piping at decreasingly lower elevations above the heated region. A strong correlation of geysering characteristics and loop level was observed, with flow and temperature excursions decreasing in intensity, but increasing in frequency, as the fill were reduced to lower elevations along the chimney piping. Once the level fell very low in the chimney, at points near the top of the heated section, the system reached a stable state of continuous boiling without any occurrence of geysering eruptions. A final significant testing accomplishment this year was successful completion of an “accident scenario” test, whose operating conditions were based on a prototypic decay heat curve provided by Framatome and scaled for the NSTF. This test began by establishing steady-state, single-phase “normal operation” conditions, before simulating an accident trip where the availability of active cooling systems was lost. Loop temperatures gradually increased until reaching saturation and subsequent two-phase boiling flow. Over the course of an extended operational period along the defined decay heat curve, steam boil-off caused gradual but continued depletion of liquid inventory until reaching a critically low level causing flow stagnation and cessation of natural circulation heat removal. At this point, after nearly 72 hours of continuous operation, a cold refill was performed to replenish the system inventory and allow the facility to re-establish closed loop natural circulation flow and return to a safe operational state.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗