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DOE OSTI2025

Divergent evolution of slip banding in CrCoNi alloys

Abstract Metallic materials under high stress often exhibit deformation localization, manifesting as slip banding. Over seven decades ago, Frank and Read introduced the well-known model of dislocation multiplication at a source, explaining slip band formation. Here, we reveal two distinct types of slip bands (confined and extended) in compressed CrCoNi alloys through multi-scale testing and modeling from microscopic to atomic scales. The confined slip band, characterized by a thin glide zone, arises from the conventional process of repetitive full dislocation emissions at Frank–Read source. Contrary to the classical model, the extended band stems from slip-induced deactivation of dislocation sources, followed by consequent generation of new sources on adjacent planes, leading to rapid band thickening. Our findings provide insights into atomic-scale collective dislocation motion and microscopic deformation instability in advanced structural materials.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗

NASA NTRS2008

NASA Battery Working Group - 2007-2008: Battery Task Summary Report

This presentation provides a summary of the 2007-2008 NASA Battery Working Group efforts completed in support of the NASA Engineering Safety Center (NESC). The effort covered a series of pro-active tasks that address the following: Binding Procurements -- guidelines related to requirements for the battery system that should be considered at the time of contract award Wet Life of Ni-H2 Batteries -- issues/strategies for effective storage and impact of long-term storage on performance and life Generic Guidelines for Lithium-ion Safety, Handling and Qualification -- Standardized approaches developed and risk assessments (1) Lithium-ion Performance Assessment -- survey of manufacturers and capabilities to meet mission needs. Guidelines document generated (2) Conditions Required for using Pouch Cells in Aerospace Missions -- focus on corrosion, thermal excursions and long-term performance issues. Document defining requirements to maintain performance and life (3) High Voltage Risk Assessment -- focus on safety and abuse tolerance of battery module assemblies. Recommendations of features required for safe implementation (4) Procedure for Determination of Safe Charge Rates -- evaluation of various cell chemistries and recommendation of safe operating regimes for specific cell designs

Manzo, Michelle↗

NASA NTRS2026

Raising TRL of Your Lunar Payload

Preparing payloads for the lunar surface requires rigorous testing that accurately captures the extreme environmental and operational conditions. This presentation provides an overview of the lunar relevant test capabilities at NASA JSC’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) laboratories as well as the Energy System Test Area (ESTA) Lunar Development and Test Facility. These facilities allow teams to assess hardware performance in dusty vacuum environments, characterize interactions with high fidelity lunar regolith simulants, evaluate mechanical and thermal durability, and understand the effects of micrometeoroid and orbital debris impacts—critical factors for certifying payloads that will operate on the lunar surface or in orbit. While Lunar power challenges such as variable illumination, extreme temperatures, and dust driven degradation will be briefly summarized, the focus of this talk is on how JSC’s test infrastructure enables developers to validate designs, reduce mission risk, and ensure compatibility with CLPS and Artemis objectives. NASA JSC’s expertise and experience help industry, academic, and government teams prepare robust hardware ready for successful delivery and operation on the surface of the Moon.

Lunar Regolith Simulant↗

DOE OSTI2024

Charmonium Transport in Heavy-Ion Collisions at the LHC

We provide an update on our semi-classical transport approach for quarkonium production in high-energy heavy-ion collisions, focusing on 𝐽/𝜓 and 𝜓(2𝑆) mesons in 5.02 TeV Pb-Pb collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at both forward and mid-rapidity. In particular, we employ the most recent charm-production cross sections reported in pp collisions, which are pivotal for the magnitude of the regeneration contribution, and their modifications due to cold-nuclear-matter (CNM) effects. Multi-differential observables are calculated in terms of nuclear modification factors as a function of centrality, transverse momentum, and rapidity, including the contributions from feeddown from bottom hadron decays. For our predictions for 𝜓(2𝑆) production, the mechanism of sequential regeneration relative to the more strongly bound 𝐽/𝜓 meson plays an important role in interpreting recent ALICE data.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

DOE OSTI2026

Recyclable Materials for Resource Constrained Environments

In-space manufacturing exhibits severe limitations in resources as astronauts are only afforded with the materials that are brought on-board the space craft. Consequently, the use of recyclable and re-usable materials is paramount. Researchers at NLR leverage their expertise in polymer and recycling chemistry to develop material systems capable of high performance applications with intentional consideration on multi-life use through chemical recycling, mechanical recycling, bio-degradation, and thermoforming. Disclosed within this poster presentation are highlighted projects that illustrate several recyclable by design material systems that have been developed.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

NASA NTRS2026

Raising TRL of Your Lunar Payload

Laboratories↗

DOE OSTI2025

Unique Conductivity Behavior in Water-In-Salt Electrolytes Driven by Ion Clusters

Understanding and predicting ion transport in aqueous electrolytes are crucial for advanced energy storage and biophysics, and many emergent technologies yet remain elusive. Herein, we introduce a unified framework to quantitatively describe and predict electrolyte conductivity that shifts from conventional molar concentration-based metrics to a volume fraction-based approach. Through analyzing a variety of electrolyte solutions via this perspective, we observe a universal conductivity peak at a 37% volume fraction. Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations reveal that nanometer-scale ion clusters drive this general behavior. Moreover, key geometric features of the ion transport pathwayssuch as pore size, tortuosity, and connectivityfollow a consistent dependence with respect to the volume fraction, reinforcing the argument for the universal conductivity trend. This paradigm shift opens new avenues for designing high-performance electrolytes and provides transformative insights for advancing studies in many fields, wherein molecular aggregates dictate transport properties.

Nguyen, Huong T. D.↗

DOE OSTI2026

Density Functional Theory Analysis of Candidate Tritium Permeation Barriers for Vanadium Alloys as a Fusion Structural Material

Vanadium alloys are being considered as a candidate structural material for the breeder blanket component of future fusion reactors due to their good thermal conductivity, low activation, and chemical compatibility with FLiBe. However, vanadium has a high hydrogen solubility, resulting in hydrogen diffusion and trapping in the vanadium structural alloy and lower than expected tritium breeding ratios. To mitigate the permeation of hydrogen into the structural alloy, a tritium permeation barrier will be coated onto the vanadium alloy. Multiple materials have been proposed as candidate tritium permeation barriers, but the extent to which each of these materials impacts hydrogen diffusion and trapping is still unknown. In this project, we perform atomic-scale calculations to narrow down the list of potential tritium permeation barrier candidates and to understand the mechanisms through which hydrogen diffusion is affected in these materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2026

Techno-Economic Evaluation of a 600MW Pumped Storage Hydropower Plant using the Pumped Storage Hydropower Valuation Tool

This paper presents a techno-economic evaluation of the proposed 600 MW, 8-hour Craig – Hayden pumped storage hydropower project using the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pumped Storage Hydropower Valuation Tool. The analysis integrates plant technical characteristics, regional grid conditions, and market-based operating assumptions to quantify stacked value streams from energy arbitrage, capacity, ancillary services, transmission congestion relief, and reliability. Both price taker and price influencer frameworks are applied to examine the impact of market participation and system interactions on lifecycle economic performance using Benefit - Cost Analysis and Multi - Criteria Decision Analysis. The results show that the price taker approach provides higher revenue estimates based on exogenous price signals, while the price influencer approach captures production cost savings, renewable curtailment reduction, and market price formation, yielding more conservative but system-representative outcomes. The study demonstrates the strategic value of long-duration PSH for enhancing operational flexibility, resource adequacy, and grid reliability in a high-renewable Western Interconnection.

Bhattacharyya, Arjun [ORNL] (ORCID:000900060976046↗

DOE OSTI2026

Influence of linkage chemistry and side-chain polarity on Ion 2 transport in click-functionalized polymerized ionic liquids.

Post-polymerization functionalization offers precise molecular weight control and enables the high-throughput investigation of structure−property relationships in polymer research. However, post-polymerization functionalization strategies often introduce additional linkage chemistry, and its role in the physical properties of polymerized ionic liquids (PILs) has yet to be explored. In this work, a series of PILs were synthesized using Cu(I)-catalyzed azide−alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC), with comparison made to N-alkylation substitution chemistry. The triazole ring introduced by CuAAC chemistry was found to induce extensive ion aggregation and deteriorate ion transport. The impact of linkage chemistry on ion transport can be alleviated by incorporating polar ethylene glycol spacers in the side chain, achieving an ionic conductivity of 2.1 × 10−4 S/cm at 30 °C. Furthermore, the effect of polar spacer placement was explored, revealing that overall side-chain polarity, rather than polarity in the vicinity of the ionic group, governs ion aggregation and ion transport in PILs.

Shan, Naisong↗

DOE OSTI2025

CRADA 2022-03 Final Report: Advanced Bearing Materials for Harsh Service Conditions

Develop advanced bearing materials for hydrogen gas turbines and wind turbines. Two candidate materials have been selected based on Ames lab’s recent work on high entropy alloys and shape memory alloys. These materials are designed to exhibit a balance of hardness, strength, toughness, and corrosion resistance. The hydrogen diffusion coefficient in the NiTi based shape memory alloy is two order of magnitude lower than that of the conventional case hardened bearing steel. We plan to atomize these materials into powders, additive manufacture cylindrical bearings, then test these bearing for rolling-contact fatigue, corrosion properties, and hydrogen embrittlement. We are a vertically integrated team comprises of national labs, bearing manufacturers, raw material powders makers, and aircraft gas turbine manufacturer.

Argibay, Nicolas [Ames Laboratory (AMES), Ames, IA↗

NASA NTRS2003

Control of Thermo-Acoustics Instabilities: The Multi-Scale Extended Kalman Approach

"Multi-Scale Extended Kalman" (MSEK) is a novel model-based control approach recently found to be effective for suppressing combustion instabilities in gas turbines. A control law formulated in this approach for fuel modulation demonstrated steady suppression of a high-frequency combustion instability (less than 500Hz) in a liquid-fuel combustion test rig under engine-realistic conditions. To make-up for severe transport-delays on control effect, the MSEK controller combines a wavelet -like Multi-Scale analysis and an Extended Kalman Observer to predict the thermo-acoustic states of combustion pressure perturbations. The commanded fuel modulation is composed of a damper action based on the predicted states, and a tones suppression action based on the Multi-Scale estimation of thermal excitations and other transient disturbances. The controller performs automatic adjustments of the gain and phase of these actions to minimize the Time-Scale Averaged Variances of the pressures inside the combustion zone and upstream of the injector. The successful demonstration of Active Combustion Control with this MSEK controller completed an important NASA milestone for the current research in advanced combustion technologies.

Dzu K Le↗

NASA NTRS2026

Hydrofluoroether (HFE) Cleaning Fluid Replacement and Qualification

This NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) Technical Assessment Report addresses the urgent need to identify, test, and qualify replacement cleaning solvents and technologies following 3M’s decision to discontinue production of hydrofluoroether (HFE) products, including Novec HFE-7100, by the end of 2025. HFE-7100 is widely used across NASA for precision cleaning of ground and flight hardware, especially in oxygen system components, and as a heat transfer fluid in high-power-density thermal control systems. The assessment evaluates commercially available replacement solvents, alternative cleaning technologies, and their compatibility with NASA’s operational requirements. Key findings include the identification of viable solvent replacements, their performance in contaminant removal, materials compatibility, and oxygen system safety. The report also explores novel cleaning approaches, including aqueous, supercritical CO₂, cryogenic aerosol, plasma, UV-ozone, magnetically optimized fluids, and induced charge active filtration, highlighting their merits, limitations, and readiness for NASA adoption. The NESC provides recommendations for solvent selection, facility adaptation, and continued technology maturation to ensure mission continuity and regulatory compliance.

Alternative Cleaning Technologies↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA's Small Spacecraft and Distributed Systems: Development and Demonstration of Technologies Enabling Swarms and New Spacecraft Platforms with AI and Edge Computing

NASA’s Small Spacecraft & Distributed Systems (SSDS) within the Research and Technology Mission Directorate (RTMD) expands U.S. capability to execute unique missions through targeted investment, rapid development, and flight demonstration of small spacecraft technologies applicable to exploration, science and the commercial space sector. SSDS strategically invests in technology development and on-orbit demonstrations executed across NASA, other government agencies, industry, and academia. The program’s University SmallSat Technology Partnerships initiative awards academic researchers with the opportunity to collaborate with NASA to mature innovative technology. Capabilities aligned with RTMD’s technology shortfalls and interests - power, processing, propulsion, sensors, communications, autonomous navigation, architectures, and advanced applications like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and edge computing - are prioritized in SSDS investments. These investments enable distributed, autonomous, and cooperative small spacecraft systems that support swarm missions extending beyond low Earth orbit into cislunar and deep space. This paper highlights representative SSDS flight demonstrations that mature these capabilities to enable a future operational infrastructure needed to support sustained exploration of the Moon and beyond. SSDS’s investment strategy emphasizes rapid development and on-orbit demonstration to validate spacecraft technologies required for swarms and distributed mission architectures. The Starling swarm technology demonstration mission exemplifies this approach by advancing distributed spacecraft autonomy, cooperative operations, and space situational awareness. Extended flight testing and ongoing studies of next generation swarm configurations and on-orbit space traffic monitoring and management continue to inform future swarm designs. DiskSat’s four-spacecraft demonstration mission represents SSDS’s strategic vision to expand the design space for future small spacecraft through its commitment to advance novel platform concepts that can impact how science is performed on orbit. Continuing to invest in future platforms, the notional PY12 concept is a 12-spacecraft swarm hosting neuromorphic processors and is envisioned as an on-orbit testbed for AI, edge computing, and positioning, navigation and timing technologies. SSDS also invests in single-spacecraft technology demonstrations that underpin the success of future swarm missions and accelerate the availability of validated technologies across the small spacecraft ecosystem. Examples of such demonstrations include Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator-3 (PTD-3), which performed high-rate optical communications; PTD-R, which demonstrated a camera capable of simultaneous ultraviolet and short-wave infrared optical sensing; and CAPSTONE, the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology and Operations Navigation Experiment, which validated autonomous navigation in cislunar space. Collectively, SSDS-funded demonstrations advance capabilities across swarms and illustrate a coordinated investment strategy to mature high-impact technologies required for autonomous, distributed, and cooperative small spacecraft systems for low Earth orbit, cislunar, and deep space applications. Technology demonstrations strengthen SSDS partnerships with industry, academia, and other government agencies, and promote small spacecraft community adoption of capabilities required to close technical gaps for swarm missions.

Jan Stupl↗

DOE OSTI2025

Wide-ranging predictions of new stable compounds powered by recommendation engines

The computational search for new stable inorganic compounds is faster than ever, thanks to high-throughput density functional theory (DFT). However, stable compound searches remain highly expensive because of the enormous search space and the cost of DFT calculations. To aid these searches, recommendation engines have been developed. We conduct a systematic comparison of the performance of previously developed recommendation engines, specifically ones based on elemental substitution, data mining, and neural network prediction of formation enthalpy. After identifying ways to improve the recommendation engines, we find the neural network to be superior at recommending stable Heusler compounds. Armed with improved recommendation engines, we identify tens of thousands of compounds that are stable at zero temperature and pressure, now available in the Open Quantum Materials Database. We summarize this diverse pool of compounds, including the elusive mixed anion compounds, and two of their many applications: thermoelectricity and solar thermochemical fuel production.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗

NASA NTRS1992

Design of A CVD Reactor for the Deposition of Diamond in A Microgravity Environment

There is a growing body of theoretical and experimental evidence suggesting that the uniformity, rate, adhesion, quality, and other key properties of Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) diamond coatings are influenced by the gas mixing kinetics in the thermal plasma environment of the reaction chamber. The implementation of, for example, Microwave Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (MPECVD) process in microgravity has, thus, been suggested. Such a diamond deposition system, which overcomes the limitations of present systems and which is distiguishable from them by the use of high pressure MPECVD and recirculation of the would be effluent hydrogen and carbon, is described. Given the key fact that there is nothing in the effluent of the MPECVD process that is truly a byproduct or 'waste', the system can, at least in principle, lend itself to being closed loop yet dynamic. The exhaust contains hydrogen and carbon species which can be recirculated to the plasma reactor, that is, since there are no unusable reaction byproducts, the effluent can be fed back to the reaction chamber with no detriment, thus allowing deployment in a microgravity environment.

M L Languell↗

NASA NTRS2017

Legacy of the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM)

NASA’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM) began with the recognition in a 2010 NASA study that emerging high-power solar electric propulsion technology could be used to rendezvous with, capture, and return an entire, very small (~10,000 kg), near Earth asteroids to the International Space Station. A 2011 workshop by the Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) extended the earlier NASA study to asteroid masses of order 500,000 kg by returning them to cislunar space. Subsequent detailed NASA studies in 2013-2014 confirmed the feasibility of this concept. This led to the establishment of the Asteroid Redirect Mission program that consisted of a robotic mission to return multiple tons of asteroid material to cislunar space and a crewed mission to rendezvous with the robotic vehicle, perform two extra vehicular activities (EVAs), collect samples of the asteroid material, and return this material to Earth. Implementation of ARRM got midway through Phase B before being cancelled in April 2017. Although ARRM was cancelled, it has left a near-term legacy of positive impacts to the human spaceflight community, the planetary defense community, the deep space science community, and asteroid mining interests.

John R Brophy↗

DOE OSTI2026

Sierra/SD - Users Manual - 5.32

Sierra/SD provides a massively parallel implementation of structural dynamics finite element analysis, required for high-fidelity, validated models used in modal, vibration, static and shock analysis. This document provides a user's guide to the input for Sierra/SD. Details of input specifications for the different solution types, output options, element types and parameters are included.

Beale, Dagny Marie [Sandia National Laboratories (↗