Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “DEVELOP Tech Paper”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

107 records · Page 6
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Electrolytically Assisted Surface Decontamination (EASD{sup TM}) for POCO Operations - 20282

NNL in collaboration with C-Tech Innovation Ltd and Sellafield Ltd has been exploring innovative technologies to enable a significant reduction of radiological hazards within facilities during the Post Operational Clean Out (POCO) phase of a nuclear plant's life cycle. Reducing the hazard by effectively decontaminating plants in-situ during POCO delivers huge cost reductions for future decommissioning operations. These cost reduction benefits are realized by reducing the number and complexity of remote operations as well as lowering the long-term waste disposal costs. Whilst chemical decontamination can achieve the desired level of decontamination, applying aggressive chemical reagents is hazardous, potentially difficult to control and requires there to be complimentary effluent treatment and waste routes. This work has aimed to develop flexible and controllable decontamination processes which could be operated without the additional complexity and issues associated with chemical decontamination. The processes needed to be relatively fast and effective to minimize the time operators would spend in an active area. In addition, there was a driver to produce decontamination methodologies which generated a secondary waste compatible with current routes and which takes advantage of current waste capacity. The strategy therefore was to come up with a solution that works with, rather than against, the science and engineering behind process plants at Sellafield. Electrolytically Assisted Surface Decontamination (EASD{sup TM}) is an innovative electrochemical decontamination process (developed by NNL and C-Tech Innovation Ltd) that can remove activity from contaminated metal in very short time periods. Application of the patented electric waveform to the surface when treating contaminated metal with nitric acid has been shown to significantly enhance the decontamination performance. When compared to proposed baseline washout procedures at Sellafield, the only change to the process is the applied electrical waveform which is temporary and controllable. The current causes dissolution of the metal surface being decontaminated which leads to activity transferring from the plant item into the nitric acid effluent stream. This innovation has the potential to transform the POCO process and allow a nitric acid based washout approach to deliver POCO quickly and cost effectively within the existing infrastructure. Several devices have now been designed that incorporate this EASD{sup TM} technology and enable the decontamination process to be applied to a range items commonly identified as being contaminated during nuclear decommissioning programmes such as pipework, tanks and hotspots of walls/floors. Inactive and active laboratory-scale testing has been completed using both simulated and 'real-life' contaminated (low level waste) metallic items retrieved from different nuclear sites. Active trials demonstrated that contaminated items could be treated to free release levels within minutes. Engineering scale tests are currently being performed, with guidance from Sellafield's system engineers and plant managers, to provide the necessary re-assurance the designed devices could be successfully deployed in an on-plant scenario. The final stage of this development work is to carry out an active demonstration of the decontamination technology on Thorp at Sellafield. This paper aims to highlight progress made to date with the EASD{sup TM} technology and, more specifically, the development of an in-situ decontamination device for deployment within radioactive pipework. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
NASA NTRS2016

Approach-Phase Precision Landing with Hazard Relative Navigation: Terrestrial Test Campaign Results of the Morpheus/ALHAT Project

The Morpheus Project began in late 2009 as an ambitious e ort code-named Project M to integrate three ongoing multi-center NASA technology developments: humanoid robotics, liquid oxygen/liquid methane (LOX/LCH4) propulsion and Autonomous Precision Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) into a single engineering demonstration mission to be own to the Moon by 2013. The humanoid robot e ort was redirected to a deploy- ment of Robonaut 2 on the International Space Station in February of 2011 while Morpheus continued as a terrestrial eld test project integrating the existing ALHAT Project's tech- nologies into a sub-orbital ight system using the world's rst LOX/LCH4 main propulsion and reaction control system fed from the same blowdown tanks. A series of 33 tethered tests with the Morpheus 1.0 vehicle and Morpheus 1.5 vehicle were conducted from April 2011 - December 2013 before successful, sustained free ights with the primary Vertical Testbed (VTB) navigation con guration began with Free Flight 3 on December 10, 2013. Over the course of the following 12 free ights and 3 tethered ights, components of the ALHAT navigation system were integrated into the Morpheus vehicle, operations, and ight control loop. The ALHAT navigation system was integrated and run concurrently with the VTB navigation system as a reference and fail-safe option in ight (see touchdown position esti- mate comparisons in Fig. 1). Flight testing completed with Free Flight 15 on December 15, 2014 with a completely autonomous Hazard Detection and Avoidance (HDA), integration of surface relative and Hazard Relative Navigation (HRN) measurements into the onboard dual-state inertial estimator Kalman lter software, and landing within 2 meters of the VTB GPS-based navigation solution at the safe landing site target. This paper describes the Mor- pheus joint VTB/ALHAT navigation architecture, the sensors utilized during the terrestrial ight campaign, issues resolved during testing, and the navigation results from the ight tests.

Crain, Timothy P.↗
DOE OSTI2026

From Modular ADMS to Plug-and-Play Ops: Distribution Grid Operations with Platform-Level Orchestration to Enable Ambitious App Hosting

The core function of the distribution grid is to provide electricity to consumers affordably, reliably, and securely. In pursuing these core objectives, distribution utilities are accountable to customers, regulators, and in some cases, shareholders. Other third parties such as aggregators and microgrids can also have a stake in the smooth operation of the grid. Each of these stakeholders has economic, business, and/or governance objectives that inform their expectations of the distribution grid. This multi-objective, multi-stakeholder environment creates tension that must be reconciled to successfully design and operate the distribution grid. Innovative companies are competing to bring high-tech solutions to electric utilities and their customers that address each of these objectives. Many developers of advanced distribution management systems (ADMS) and distributed energy resource management systems (DERMS) have adopted a modular architecture that allows grid operators to select functions and features according to their individual system needs. A modular platform also allows the solution provider to develop and integrate specific new product modules; however, the need to pursue multiple objectives with a fixed set of controllable devices makes integration expensive whether it is done at the product development stage or the deployment stage. This cost creates a significant barrier to adoption and can lengthen the product to market time of new solutions. To fundamentally address the complexity of system integration for distribution grid operations, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity has funded the GridAPPS-D project at PNNL, which streamlines integration by contributing to standards development, defining system architecture, applying advanced mathematics, and developing open-source software to demonstrate the concept of an open data-integration platform for distribution operations. The open data-integration platform concept enables system operators and solution providers to deploy ambitious, best-of-breed applications (or apps) without continually reengineering for integration. Ambitious apps developed by different solution providers will inevitably attempt to achieve different control objectives with the same set of controllable devices. If the open platform itself can resolve these conflicts in a way that achieves the best available outcomes for all apps, doesn’t restrict the ambitious design of apps, and ensures safe and secure operations, apps will be able to plug-and-play with the platform at the same time as other ambitious apps. In this paper, we describe a framework called App Deconfliction that empowers a platform to assign setpoints to controllable devices based on the values preferred by different apps (and even external stakeholder entities like customers or aggregators). The App Deconfliction framework is compatible with several methods for determining setpoint values. We present two methods based on game theory that provide a subtle built-in incentive structure for developers to adapt their apps to the fact that they will be operating in a moderated multi-app environment and to favor device setpoints that have the most effect on their objectives over those that have the least effect. Our simulation-based demonstrations have shown that game-theory-based deconfliction can lead to a 7% improvement in control space utilization compared to design-based methods.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Greedy emulators for nuclear two-body scattering

Applications of reduced basis method emulators are increasing in low-energy nuclear physics because they enable fast and accurate sampling of high-fidelity calculations, enabling robust uncertainty quantification. Here, in this paper, we develop, implement, and test two model-driven emulators based on the (Petrov-)Galerkin projection using the prototypical test case of two-body scattering with the Minnesota potential and a more realistic local chiral potential. The high-fidelity scattering equations are solved with the matrix Numerov method, a reformulation of the popular Numerov recurrence relation for solving special second-order differential equations as a linear system of coupled equations. A novel error estimator based on reduced-space residuals is applied to an active learning approach (a greedy algorithm) to choosing training samples (“snapshots”) for the emulator and contrasted with a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) approach. Both approaches allow for computationally efficient offline-online decompositions, but the greedy approach requires many fewer snapshot calculations. These developments set the groundwork for emulating scattering observables based on chiral nucleon-nucleon and three-nucleon interactions and optical models, where computational speed-ups are necessary for Bayesian uncertainty quantification. Our emulators and error estimators are widely applicable to linear systems.

Bayesian methods↗
DOE OSTI2016

Experimental High Energy Physics Research

This final report summarizes activities of the Florida Tech High Energy Physics group supported by DOE under grant #DE-SC0008024 during the period June 2012 – March 2015. We focused on one of the main HEP research thrusts at the Energy Frontier by participating in the CMS experiment. We were exploiting the tremendous physics opportunities at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and prepared for physics at its planned extension, the High-Luminosity LHC. The effort comprised a physics component with analysis of data from the first LHC run and contributions to the CMS Phase-2 upgrades in the muon endcap system (EMU) for the High-Luminosity LHC. The emphasis of our hardware work was the development of large-area Gas Electron Multipliers (GEMs) for the CMS forward muon upgrade. We built a production and testing site for such detectors at Florida Tech to complement future chamber production at CERN. The first full-scale CMS GE1/1 chamber prototype ever built outside of CERN was constructed at Florida Tech in summer 2013. We conducted two beam tests with GEM prototype chambers at CERN in 2012 and at FNAL in 2013 and reported the results at conferences and in publications. Principal Investigator Hohlmann served as chair of the collaboration board of the CMS GEM collaboration and as co-coordinator of the GEM detector working group. He edited and authored sections of the detector chapter of the Technical Design Report (TDR) for the GEM muon upgrade, which was approved by the LHCC and the CERN Research Board in 2015. During the course of the TDR approval process, the GEM project was also established as an official subsystem of the muon system by the CMS muon institution board. On the physics side, graduate student Kalakhety performed a Z' search in the dimuon channel with the 2011 and 2012 CMS datasets that utilized 20.6 fb⁻¹ of p-p collisions at √s = 8 TeV. For the dimuon channel alone, the 95% CL lower limits obtained on the mass of a Z' resonance are 2770 GeV for a Z' with the same standard-model couplings as the Z boson. Our student team operated a Tier-3 cluster on the Open Science Grid (OSG) to support local CMS physics analysis and remote OSG activity. As a service to the HEP community, Hohlmann participated in the Snowmass effort over the course of 2013. Specifically, he acted as a liaison for gaseous detectors between the Instrumentation Frontier and the Energy Frontier and contributed to five papers and reports submitted to the summer study.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2026

Demonstration and performance of an online data selection algorithm for liquid argon time projection chambers using MicroBooNE

The MicroBooNE detector is a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) that produces three-dimensional images of particle interactions using ionization charge collected by anode wire plane arrays and scintillation light collected by a light detection system. In addition to testing long-standing experimental neutrino anomalies and performing measurements of neutrino interactions with argon nuclei using the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam, MicroBooNE aims to develop methodologies for rare beyond the Standard Model and off-beam physics searches. Looking ahead to the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), with MicroBooNE serving as a valuable testbed, achieving high sensitivity and livetime for off-beam physics while satisfying data processing and storage constraints will require data-driven, intelligent, and online or real-time data selection techniques. These techniques are essential for reducing data rates and preserving rare signals with high accuracy. In this paper, we describe a fast data selection algorithm suitable for online execution to identify electrons from stopping cosmic ray muons in the MicroBooNE detector utilizing ionization charge information, and present its performance. This represents the first demonstration of online data selection in a LArTPC using real data and charge information exclusively and provides an important proof-of-principle for applying such techniques to other LArTPC experiments such as the Short-Baseline Near Detector and DUNE.

Abratenko, P. [Tufts U. (main)]↗
DOE OSTI2025

Projections of future climate for U.S. national assessments: past, present, future

Climate assessments consolidate our understanding of possible future climate conditions as represented by climate projections, which are largely based on the output of global climate models. Over the past 30 years, the scientific insights gained from climate projections have been refined through model structural improvements, emerging constraints on climate feedbacks, and increased computational efficiency. Within the same period, the process of assessing and evaluating information from climate projections has become more defined and targeted to inform users. As the size and audience of climate assessments has expanded, the framing, relevancy, and accessibility of projections has become increasingly important. This paper reviews the use of climate projections in national climate assessments (NCA) while highlighting challenges and opportunities that have emerged over time. Reflections and lessons learned address the continuous process to understand the broadening assessment audience and evolving user needs. Insights for future NCA development include (1) identifying benchmarks and standards for evaluating downscaled datasets, (2) expanding efforts to gather research gaps and user needs to inform how climate projections are presented in the assessment (3) providing practitioner guidance on the use, interpretation, and reporting of climate projections and uncertainty to better inform decision-making.

Assessment↗
DOE OSTI2024

DUNE Phase II: scientific opportunities, detector concepts, technological solutions

The international collaboration designing and constructing the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) at the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) has developed a two-phase strategy toward the implementation of this leading-edge, large-scale science project. The 2023 report of the US Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) reaffirmed this vision and strongly endorsed DUNE Phase I and Phase II, as did the European Strategy for Particle Physics. While the construction of the DUNE Phase I is well underway, this White Paper focuses on DUNE Phase II planning. DUNE Phase-II consists of a third and fourth far detector (FD) module, an upgraded near detector complex, and an enhanced 2.1 MW beam. The fourth FD module is conceived as a “Module of Opportunity”, aimed at expanding the physics opportunities, in addition to supporting the core DUNE science program, with more advanced technologies. This document highlights the increased science opportunities offered by the DUNE Phase II near and far detectors, including long-baseline neutrino oscillation physics, neutrino astrophysics, and physics beyond the standard model. It describes the DUNE Phase II near and far detector technologies and detector design concepts that are currently under consideration. A summary of key R&D goals and prototyping phases needed to realize the Phase II detector technical designs is also provided. DUNE's Phase II detectors, along with the increased beam power, will complete the full scope of DUNE, enabling a multi-decadal program of groundbreaking science with neutrinos.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

WHOLESCALE - Water & Hole Observations Leverage Effective Stress Calculations And Lessen Expenses (Final Technical Report 2020 - 2024)

The WHOLESCALE acronym stands for Water & Hole Observations Leverage Effective Stress Calculations and Lessen Expenses. The goal of the WHOLESCALE project is to simulate the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of stress in the geothermal system at San Emidio in Nevada, United States. To reach this goal, the WHOLESCALE team has developed a methodology to incorporate and interpret data from four methods of measurement into a multi-physics model that couples thermal, hydrological, and mechanical (T H-M) processes. The WHOLESCALE team has applied this methodology at the San Emidio geothermal field, located ~100 km north of Reno, Nevada in the northwestern Basin and Range province. The WHOLESCALE team includes 30 individuals working at two universities, two national laboratories, and one industry partner. Two master-degree students and five post-doctoral researchers have gained professional experience and earned partial financial support via the WHOLESCALE project. The WHOLESCALE team has taken advantage of the perturbations created by changes in pumping operations during planned shutdowns in 2016, 2021, and 2022 to infer temporal changes in the state of stress in the geothermal system at San Emidio, Nevada, U.S. The WHOLESCALE results support the working hypothesis that increasing pore-fluid pressure reduces the effective normal stress acting across fault zones. During normal operations, pumping in deep production wells decreases fluid pressures and thus increases the effective normal stresses on faults, reducing microseismicity. During planned shutdowns, the cessation of production increases pore-fluid pressure and reduces effective normal stress. The WHOLESCALE products generated during the 4-year period between 2020 and 2024 include: three articles published in the open-access, peer-reviewed scientific literature, two master’s theses, 20 presentations or papers at scientific conferences, and 17 data sets available on public repositories. The WHOLESCALE project has been completed in two phases that included three performance periods separated by two Go/No-go Stage Gate Reviews. Tasks were classified by data type (i.e., Geologic Structure, Borehole, Geodesy, Hydrology, Seismology, and Modeling). The first phase of the project started July 31, 2020 and included ongoing project coordination (Task 1), a project kickoff (Task 2), analysis of existing data (Task 3), development of the initial stress model & deployment design (Task 4), and Go/No-go Decision Point #1 (Task 5). Phase II began with implementing the 2022 deployment (Task 6), followed by Go/No-go Decision Point #2 (Task 7) The remainder of Phase II consisted of analyzing data collected during deployment (Task 8), calibration of the stress model on all observations (Task 9), and the Final Review (August 23, 2024) & Reporting (Task 10).

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Pushing the Limits of Pulse Shape Discrimination in a Large Liquid Xenon Detector

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment is a direct-detection dark matter experiment, optimized to search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) through WIMP-nucleon interactions. The main challenge in dark matter detection is differentiating between WIMP signals and background events. In LZ, the ratio of ionization to scintillation signals (charge-to-light) is the primary method for rejecting electronic recoil (ER) background. Pulse shape discrimination (PSD) offers a method for additional ER backgrounds rejection in liquid xenon detectors. In this paper, the discrimination power of PSD with the LZ experiment is discussed. To precisely characterize the scintillation pulse shape, an analysis framework is developed to reconstruct the detection time of individual photons. Using LZ calibration data, the photon-timing prompt fraction discriminator is optimized and achieves ER leakage as low as $15\%$. For specific background processes such as $^{124}$Xe double electron capture, the leakage is reduced further to about $5\%$. PSD is combined with charge-to-light to form two-factor discrimination (TFD). The optimized TFD performance is compared with the performance of the charge-to-light method, with the corresponding false positive rate reduced by up to a factor of two for large scintillation pulses. Finally, PSD and TFD are applied to data from LZ's WS2024 run and their performance is summarized.

Akerib, D. S. [SLAC; KIPAC, Menlo Park]↗
NASA NTRS1999

NASA Aeronautics Multidisciplinary Analysis and Design Fellowship Program

This program began as a grant from NASA Headquarters, NGT-10025, which was in effect from 10/l/93 until 10/31/96. The remaining funding for this effort was transferred from NASA Headquarters to NASA Langley and a new grant NGT-1-52155 was issued covering the period II/l/96 to 5/15/99. This report serves as the final report of NGT-1-52155. For a number of years, Virginia Tech had been on the forefront of research in the area of multidisciplinary analysis and design. In June of 1994, faculty members from aerospace and ocean engineering, engineering science and mechanics, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, mathematics and computer sciences, at Virginia Tech joined together to form the Multidisciplinary Analysis and Design (MAD) Center for Advanced Vehicles. The center was established with the single goal: to perform research that is relevant to the needs of the US industry and to foster collaboration between the university, government and industry. In October of 1994, the center was chosen by NASA headquarters as one of the five university centers to establish a fellowship program to develop a graduate program in multidisciplinary analysis and design. The fellowship program provides full stipend and tuition support for seven U. S. students per year during their graduate studies. The grant is currently being administered by the NMO Branch of NASA Langley. To advise us regarding the problems faced by the industry, an industrial advisory board has been formed consisting of representatives from industry as well as government laboratories. The present membership includes major aerospace companies: Aurora Flight Sciences, Boeing: Philadelphia, Boeing: Long Beach, Boeing: Seattle, Boeing: St. Louis, Cessna, Ford, General Electric, Hughes, Lockheed-Martin: Palo Alto, Northrop-Grumman, Sikorsky, smaller, aerospace software companies: Aerosoft, Phoenix Integration and Proteus Engineering, along with representatives from government agencies, including: NASA Ames, Langley and Lewis. The function of the advisory board is to channel information from its member companies to faculty members concerning problems that need research attention in the general area of multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO). The faculty and their graduate students make presentations to the board on their research. The board makes recommendations on the research and suggests new areas and problems which need attention. Many students participating in the program spend 3-6 months in industry working on their research projects. We are completing the fifth year of the fellowship program and have had four advisory board meetings in Blacksburg. Ten students have spent the three month periods in industry. In addition to the research element of the MAD Center efforts we also have an academic component. We have developed a menu of design-related graduate courses and two new courses: one in Aerospace Manufacturing and another in MDO. Some of the MAD Center activities are described on the world-wide web at http://www.aoe.vt.edu/mads.html The MAD Center represents an innovative approach for joint Industry-Government-University cooperation in the development of a comprehensive program in engineering education which addresses the design needs of industry. The following charts list detail of the grant: mission of the MAD center, faculty members, purpose of the advisory board, board members, summary of the graduate and undergraduate program, history of the fellowship program, mission of the fellowship program, requirements of MAD fellows, course requirements, students supported, advisory board participants, and MAD center research papers

Grossman, B.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Supporting ARPA-E Power Grid Optimization (Final Report)

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Arizona State University (ASU), Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Texas A&M University (TAMU), The University of Texas at Austin (UT), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-M) supported the ARPA-E Grid Optimization (GO) Competition by providing a common problem formulation, data format, datasets, evaluation mechanism, scoring, rules, and results that resulted in the awarding of $\$9.24$ million dollars to teams from academia, industry, and national labs for solving three sets of increasingly difficult non-linear, security- constrained AC Optimal Powerflow (AC-OPF) optimization problems in order to increase the efficiency of the US Electric Grid. It is estimated that a 1% increase in efficiency can save $\$1$ billion. Current industry practices typically use a linear DC model (DC-OPF) in order solve the OPF problem within the time constraints of the operation schedule. The GO Competition challenges the best power engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists to make possible operational decisions based on accurate physical models. To accomplish this, the GO Competition created a series of Challenges and funded teams to produce the best solver. Challenge 1 was to solve the security constrained Alternating Current Optimal Power Flow (ACOPF) problem. Challenge 2 extended that to by adding adjustable transformer tap ratios, phase shifting transformers, switchable shunts, price-responsive demand, ramp rate constrained generators and loads, and fast-start unit commitment (UC). Furthermore, Challenge 2 was a maximization problem while Challenge 1 was a minimization problem. While Challenge 3 was being developed, the entrants were invited to find better solutions to the Challenge 2 synthetic datasets with no restrictions on time, hardware, or algorithms. The Challenge 2 solutions turned out to be very good. Challenge 3 expanded the Challenge 2 problem further by using multiperiod dynamic markets, including advisory models for extreme weather events, day-ahead markets, and the real-time markets with an extended look-ahead. These problems included active bid-in demand and topology optimization. Together the Challenges used nearly 30 million CPU hours. Since each team was working on the same problem, using the same data, and running on the same hardware, fair comparisons could be drawn as to the best solver. The datasets were varied enough, however, that the best solver for one dataset was not necessarily the best at another, so cumulative scores were used. The process was managed by the PNNL maintained website https://GOCompetition.energy.gov, where Entrants could find information about the problem, the data, the rules, submit their solver for evaluation, and see the scores of all the competing teams on a Leaderboard. Interest was world-wide but only American teams were eligible for prizes. The Competition has produced 34 journal articles 115 papers and been cited over 500 times in the literature, including 12 dissertations (4 from foreign countries; Columbia (2), Germany, and Italy) and 3 from the DOE ExaScale project. Software developed by Pearl Street Technologies for Challenges 1 and 2 is now deployed by Southwest Power Pool (SPP) and Midcontinent Independent Service Operator (MISO). Other teams have received inquiries from venture capitalists. Google DeepMind has thanked the Competition for making the datasets developed for the Competition public. They are using it to train machine learning models. The larger datasets have billions of unknowns to be solved for, but only a small percent matter in the final solution. Knowing what unknowns are important can dramatically speedup the solution.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2026

MeVPrtl: An Event Generator for Dark Sector Particles in the Short-Baseline Neutrino Program

MeVPrtl is a modular event generator of beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics particles developed for use in the Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) Program. A large class of BSM physics models predict that new particles could be produced in the intense Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) and Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beams at Fermilab, travel to the SBN Program detectors, and decay into Standard Model (SM) particles. These new physics models are motivated by dark matter, the neutrino mass scale, and a solution to the strong CP problem. MeVPrtl provides an interface to implement the overlapping phenomenology of these models, and to connect them with meson flux inputs and object outputs used by the SBN Program's LArSoft-based detector simulation. Implementations for the Higgs portal, heavy neutral lepton, and heavy QCD axion models exist within MeVPrtl. In this paper these implementations and their validation, as well as details of the MeVPrtl interface, are specified.

Abratenko Ao, P.↗
DOE OSTI2013

Rotation-Enabled 7-Degree of Freedom Seismometer for Geothermal Resource Development. Phase 1 Final Report

Under this Department of Energy (DOE) grant, A-Tech Corporation d.b.a. Applied Technology Associates (ATA), seeks to develop a seven-degree-of-freedom (7-DOF) seismic measurement tool for high-temperature geothermal applications. The Rotational-Enabled 7-DOF Seismometer includes a conventional tri-axial accelerometer, a conventional pressure sensor or hydrophone, and a tri-axial rotational sensor. The rotational sensing capability is novel, based upon ATA's innovative research in rotational sensing technologies. The geothermal industry requires tools for high-precision seismic monitoring of crack formation associated with Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) stimulation activity. Currently, microseismic monitoring is conducted by deploying many seismic tools at different depth levels along a 'string' within drilled observation wells. Costs per string can be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Processing data from the spatial arrays of linear seismometers allows back-projection of seismic wave states. In contrast, a Rotational-Enabled 7-DOF Seismometer would simultaneously measure p-wave velocity, s-wave velocity, and incident seismic wave direction all from a single point measurement. In addition, the Rotational-Enabled 7-DOF Seismometer will, by its nature, separate p- and s-waves into different data streams, simplifying signal processing and facilitating analysis of seismic source signatures and geological characterization. By adding measurements of three additional degrees-of-freedom at each level and leveraging the information from this new seismic observable, it is likely that an equally accurate picture of subsurface seismic activity could be garnered with fewer levels per hole. The key cost savings would come from better siting of the well due to increased information content and a decrease in the number of confirmation wells drilled, also due to the increase in information per well. Improved seismic tools may also increase knowledge, understanding, and confidence, thus removing some current blocks to feasibility and significantly increasing access to potential geothermal sites. During the Phase 1 effort summarized in this final report, the ATA Team modeled and built two TRL 3 proof-of-concept test units for two competing rotational sensor technologies. The two competing technologies were based on ATA's angular rate and angular displacement measurement technologies; Angular rate: ATA's Magnetohydrodynamic Angular Rate Sensor (Seismic MHD); and Angular displacement: ATA's Low Frequency Improved Torsional Seismometer (LFITS). In order to down-select between these two technologies and formulate a go / no go decision, the ATA Team analyzed and traded scientific performance requirements and market constraints against sensor characteristics and components, acquiring field data where possible to validate the approach and publishing results from these studies of rotational technology capability. Based on the results of Phase 1, the ATA Team finds that the Seismic MHD (SMHD) technology is the best choice for enabling rotational seismometry and significant technical potential exists for micro-seismic monitoring using a downhole 7-DOF device based on the SMHD. Recent technical papers and field data confirm the potential of rotational sensing for seismic mapping, increasing confidence that cost-reduction benefits are achievable for EGS. However, the market for geothermal rotational sensing is small and undeveloped. As a result, this report recommends modifying the Phase 2 plan to focus on prototype development aimed at partnering with early adopters within the geothermal industry and the scientific research community. The highest public benefit will come from development and deployment of a science-grade SMHD rotational seismometer engineered for geothermal downhole conditions and an integrated test tool for downhole measurements at active geothermal test sites.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2003

Application of Circulation Control Technology to Airframe Noise Reduction

This report is a summary of the work performed by Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) under NASA Langley Grant NAG-1-2146, which was awarded as a part of NASA's Breakthrough Innovative Technologies (BIT) initiative. This was a three-year program, with a one-year no-cost extension. Each year's study has been an integrated effort consisting of computational fluid dynamics, experimental aerodynamics, and detailed noise and flow measurements. Year I effort examined the feasibility of reducing airframe noise by replacing the conventional wing systems with a Circulation Control Wing (CCW), where steady blowing was used through the trailing edge of the wing over a Coanda surface. It was shown that the wing lift increases with CCW blowing and indeed for the same lift, a CCW wing was shown to produce less noise. Year 2 effort dealt with a similar study on the role of pulsed blowing on airframe noise. The main objective of this portion of the study was to assess whether pulse blowing from the trailing edge of a CCW resulted in more, less, or the same amount of radiated noise to the farfield. Results show that a reduction in farfield noise of up to 5 dB is measured when pulse flow is compared with steady flow for an equivalent lift configuration. This reduction is in the spectral region associated with the trailing edge jet noise. This result is due to the unique advantage that pulsed flow has over steady flow. For a range of frequencies, more lift is experienced with the same mass flow as the steady case. Thus, for an equivalent lift and slot height, the pulsed system can operate at lower jet velocities, and hence lower jet noise. The computational analysis showed that for a given time-averaged mass flow rate, pulsed jets give a higher value of C(sub l) and a higher L/D than equivalent steady jets. This benefit is attributable to higher instantaneous jet velocities, and higher instantaneous C(sub mu) values for the pulsed jet. Pulsed jet benefits increase at higher frequencies. However, these advantages are somewhat offset by the unsteadiness in the loads, which will cause structural vibrations and fatigue. Additional studies must be done, perhaps with multiple jets on the upper and lower surfaces, to smooth out the fluctuations in lift while retaining the benefits. The rest of the effort was devoted to examining ways of reducing flap edge noise by blowing air through a Coanda nozzle over a rounded tip of the flap. In this case, we were successful in moving the tip vortex away from the tip, but the device producing the blowing was noisy and we were unable to examine the noise benefits, although we believe that the movement of the tip vortex far from the tip should provide noise benefits. It should be noted that in an effort to understand the fluid dynamics and the aeroacoustics of a jet blowing over a Coanda surface, we also carried out a very extensive study of the high aspect ratio slot jets. A first-ever set of far-field noise spectra were measured for jets exhausting from slots with aspect ratios in the range 100 to 3000. Parallel measurements of velocity profiles, length scales and convection velocities were measured to understand the noise generation of high aspect ratio jets. Attempts were also made to develop jet noise prediction schemes for such jets. Much of the work done under this effort has been described in five conference papers and two doctoral theses. The first year s work on the use of steady blowing was described in two AIAA papers presented at the 2001 AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting in Reno. Subsequent work was presented at the 9th AIMCEAS Aeroacoustics Conference and Exhibit held at Hilton Head May 12-13. Another paper is to be presented at the 2004 AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting in Reno in January 2004. All six papers are included with this report as Appendices. The bulk of the experimental work done in an effort to produce a pulsed flow that is free of upstream noise is also attached as an Appendix.

Ahuja, K. K.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Evaluation of 3D pixel silicon sensors for the CMS Phase-2 Inner Tracker

The high-luminosity upgrade of the CERN LHC requires the replacement of the CMS tracking detector to cope with the increased radiation fluence while maintaining its excellent performance. An extensive R&D program, aiming at using 3D pixel silicon sensors in the innermost barrel layer of the detector, has been carried out by CMS in collaboration with the FBK (Trento, Italy) and CNM (Barcelona, Spain) foundries. The sensors will feature a pixel cell size of 25 × 100 µm 2 , with a centrally located electrode connected to the readout chip. The sensors are read out by the RD53A and CROCv1 chips, developed in 65 nm CMOS technology by the RD53 Collaboration, a joint effort between the ATLAS and CMS groups. This paper reports the results achieved in beam test experiments before and after irradiation, up to a fluence of approximately 2 . 6 × 1 0 16 n eq /cm 2 . Measurements of assemblies irradiated to a fluence of 1 × 10 16 n˙eq/cm 2 show a hit detection efficiency higher than 96% at normal incidence, with fewer than 2% of channels masked, across a bias voltage range greater than 50 V . Even after irradiation to a higher fluence of 1.6 × 10 16 n˙eq/cm 2 , similar performance is maintained over a bias voltage range of 30 V , remaining well within CMS requirements.

3D pixel↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Multi-Disciplinary Analysis Framework for the Design of Small Launch Vehicles

Between the years of 1995 and 2014 the number of small satellites (1-500 kg) went up from 20 to 180. [1] Out of the 180 launched in 2014 66% were Nano satellites (1-10 kg). [1] With this trend of smaller satellites, one would expect a rise in number of small launch vehicles (SLVs are defined by capability to carry 1-100 kg to orbit), but this has not happened: [3] only 8% of all small satellites are launched on SLVs and the others become secondary payloads on regular launch vehicles. [1] This results in small satellites being placed into either suboptimal orbits or waiting for launch schedules to align with bigger launches, resulting in long waiting times. Dedicated SLVs could improve the responsiveness of small satellite launches, but SLV design is complicated by the large architecture space needed to be explored in order to find efficient and affordable designs. The SLV architecture trade space contains many discrete options, e.g. solid vs. liquid fuels, air launch vs. ground launch, number of stages, etc. [2][3] Performing detailed analysis for all the options at once would be prohibitive. Thus, a sizing environment/framework that is capable of providing necessary information for conceptual-level trade studies and can rapidly explore the vast SLV architecture space is necessary. The framework, illustrated in Figure 1, consists of four disciplines central to the sizing and synthesis of launch vehicles: propulsion, aerodynamics, structures, and trajectory. For the aerodynamics and trajectory disciplines, Missile DATCOM and POST2 are used, respectively. The propulsion and structures disciplines are represented in the framework with tools developed at ASDL Georgia Tech. For propulsion, the Solid Motor Analysis Code (SMAC) is a physics-based conceptual design tool for solid rocket motors. SMAC is capable of geometric burn simulation, ballistic analysis, and prediction of thrust performance. [4] For structures, Launch Vehicle Structural Analysis (LVSA) tool is a physics-based tool that focuses on structural dynamic analysis with sizing capability. These tools are integrated into the framework illustrated in Figure 1 with the corresponding connections described in Table 1. The process flow is as follows: first, SMAC sizes insulation and calculates maximum operating pressures for each vehicle stage. The MEOP and insulation thickness values from SMAC are fed to LVSA which then utilizes this information to size the motor casing. This creates a feedback loop between LVSA and SMAC that converges on the radius available for fuel, casing, and insulation thickness. Once the stage sizing is converged on SMAC creates an engine deck that is passed to POST2. Next, the data from SMAC and LVSA goes into Missile DATCOM which generates an aerodynamics database for POST2. Finally, POST2 performs a targeting optimization while maximizing the payload mass to orbit. Within the framework, POST2 is automated in order to be robust to a wide variety of possible designs by performing a Monte Carlo simulation over the initialization vector of the POST2 optimization variables. To demonstrate the capability of this framework, a sample problem of exploring the design space of an SLV capable of placing satellites into a low Earth orbit (inclination=47 deg, 196.5 by 211.3 nm) is used. This sample problem is a ground-launched SLV consisting of four in-line SRM stages. The multidisciplinary design analysis (MDA) environment is utilized to explore a design space consisting of 22 continuous and 12 discrete variables, shown by Table 1 by blocks 1,2,3. Running a full factorial design of experiments (DOE) would have been prohibitively expensive even with this reduced design space, thus a space filling design with 3,502 and then additional expansion of 2,602 cases was used. The first DOE consisted of 3,502 cases, and all of the variables were varied. These input variables are listed in blocks 1, 2, and 3 in Table 1. Most of the variables are propulsion related with stage lengths determining the delta-V split of the SLV. The expansion consisted of 2,602 cases, and the continuous variables were set to be equal to the most promising designs from the sizing of first DOE. For each set of continuous variables, the discrete variables (grain type, star points, and propellant) were to varied. The results of the DOE can be seen in Figure 2; each of the points in this plot represents a closed launch vehicle that reaches the targeted orbit. For each of the cases, there is information on flown trajectory, structural, and propulsion properties of the SLV. For example, Figure 3 shows changes in altitude and velocity with time for a particular case. The right side of Figure 3 clearly shows the coasting (slow decrease) and burning phases (sharp increase) of the SLV mission. LV mass is positively correlated with the optimized payload mass to orbit because heavier LVs carry more fuel and thus have more stored chemical energy. Furthermore, for any given payload mass to orbit, the most efficient design would result in the smallest LV. The results as visualized in Figure 2 shows this tradeoff, and the Pareto frontier of the efficient designs can be seen along the dotted line. Figure 2 can be divided into regions with the lowest mass vehicles corresponding to the minimum bound on radius, and the highest mass vehicles corresponding to the maximum bound on radius. Within a mass region, the discrete variables, such as propellant type and propellant grain arrangement, have the most effect on payload mass. This paper presents an MDA framework that can perform an automated physics-based sizing of SLV designs and a corresponding methodology to utilize the MDA to explore the design space of SLVs. The proposed methodology was applied to a perform a design space exploration for a four stage SLV. The outputs show the expected pareto frontier forming and provide detailed information about the SLV performance and staging. Using the produced data, it will be possible to select a set of pareto optimal designs that can then be further explored in subsequent design cycles. This demonstration shows that automated design space exploration should be used in the early phase design of future SLV concepts.

Nikita S Birbasov↗