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At least 109 records · Page 6

Consistency of Estimated Global Water Cycle Variations Over the Satellite Era

Motivated by the question of whether recent indications of decadal climate variability and a possible "climate shift" may have affected the global water balance, we examine evaporation minus precipitation (E-P) variability integrated over the global oceans and global land from three points of view-remotely sensed retrievals / objective analyses over the oceans, reanalysis vertically-integrated moisture convergence (MFC) over land, and land surface models forced with observations-based precipitation, radiation and near-surface meteorology. Because monthly variations in area-averaged atmospheric moisture storage are small and the global integral of moisture convergence must approach zero, area-integrated E-P over ocean should essentially equal precipitation minus evapotranspiration (P-ET) over land (after adjusting for ocean and land areas). Our analysis reveals considerable uncertainty in the decadal variations of ocean evaporation when integrated to global scales. This is due to differences among datasets in 10m wind speed and near-surface atmospheric specific humidity (2m qa) used in bulk aerodynamic retrievals. Precipitation variations, all relying substantially on passive microwave retrievals over ocean, still have uncertainties in decadal variability, but not to the degree present with ocean evaporation estimates. Reanalysis MFC and P-ET over land from several observationally forced diagnostic and land surface models agree best on interannual variations. However, upward MFC (i.e. P-ET) reanalysis trends are likely related in part to observing system changes affecting atmospheric assimilation models. While some evidence for a low-frequency E-P maximum near 2000 is found, consistent with a recent apparent pause in sea-surface temperature (SST) rise, uncertainties in the datasets used here remain significant. Prospects for further reducing uncertainties are discussed. The results are interpreted in the context of recent climate variability (Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Atlantic Meridional Overturning), and efforts to distinguish these modes from longer-term trends.

Robertson, F. R.↗

Characterization and automated optimization of laser-driven proton beams from converging liquid sheet jet targets

Compact, stable, and versatile laser-driven ion sources hold great promise for applications ranging from medicine to materials science and fundamental physics. While single-shot sources have demonstrated favorable beam properties, including the peak fluxes necessary for several applications, high-repetition-rate operation will be necessary to generate and sustain the high average flux needed for many of the most exciting applications of laser-driven ion sources. Further, to navigate through the high-dimensional space of laser and target parameters toward experimental optima, it is essential to develop ion acceleration platforms compatible with machine learning techniques and capable of autonomous real-time optimization. Here, we present a multi-Hz ion acceleration platform employing a liquid sheet jet target. We characterize the laser-plasma interaction and the laser-driven proton beam across a variety of key parameters governing the interaction using an extensive suite of online diagnostics. We also demonstrate real-time, closed-loop optimization of the ion beam maximum energy by tuning the laser wave front using a Bayesian optimization scheme. This approach increased the maximum proton energy by 11% compared to a manually optimized wave front by enhancing the energy concentration within the laser focal spot, demonstrating the potential for closed-loop optimization schemes to tune future ion accelerators for robust high-repetition-rate operation.

Glenn, G. D. [SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory↗

How do magnetized HED flows transition to collimated plasma jets? (Final Report)

We present results from a pulsed-power experiment designed to generate accretion-like flows in the laboratory that may be used to study the dynamics of astrophysical accretion-driven outflows. To emulate systems like Young Stellar Object (YSO) outflows, we create radially converging plasma flows in a short disk that transition into much longer bipolar outflows. Our experiment uses a ~1 MA pulsed-power driver to generate plasma from an array of thin aluminum wires mounted to a 3D-printed current path that controls the angular momentum and magnetic field topology. In this paper, we show that experimental data scale favorably to observed properties of YSO jets. This set of experiments tests the simplest version of our possible plasma dynamics, where outflows are generated without rotation or axial magnetic field present. The temperature, velocity and density of the disk and outflows are characterized using interferometry, gated optical and ultraviolet imaging, and Thomson scattering diagnostics. We discuss the Reynolds number, magnetic Reynolds number and Mach numbers calculated in three different stages of the experiment, and compare our results to 3D numerical simulations in the PERSEUS magnetohydrodynamics code. This report is a summary of the work done by the graduate students who were supported by the project.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

StarPlan: A model-based diagnostic system for spacecraft

The Sunnyvale Division of Ford Aerospace created a model-based reasoning capability for diagnosing faults in space systems. The approach employs reasoning about a model of the domain (as it is designed to operate) to explain differences between expected and actual telemetry; i.e., to identify the root cause of the discrepancy (at an appropriate level of detail) and determine necessary corrective action. A development environment, named Paragon, was implemented to support both model-building and reasoning. The major benefit of the model-based approach is the capability for the intelligent system to handle faults that were not anticipated by a human expert. The feasibility of this approach for diagnosing problems in a spacecraft was demonstrated in a prototype system, named StarPlan. Reasoning modules within StarPlan detect anomalous telemetry, establish goals for returning the telemetry to nominal values, and create a command plan for attaining the goals. Before commands are implemented, their effects are simulated to assure convergence toward the goal. After the commands are issued, the telemetry is monitored to assure that the plan is successful. These features of StarPlan, along with associated concerns, issues and future directions, are discussed.

Heher, Dennis↗

Effect of cervicolabyrinthine impulsation on the spinal reflex apparatus

In view of the fact that the convergence effect of vestibular impulsation may both stimulate and inhibit intra and intersystemic coordination of physiological processes, an attempt was made to define the physiological effect on the spinal reflex apparatus of the convergence of cervicolabyrinthine impulsation on a model of the unconditioned motor reflex as a mechanism of the common final pathway conditioning the formation and realization of a focused beneficial result of human motor activities. More than 100 persons subjected to rolling effect and angular acceleration during complexly coordinated muscular loading were divided according to typical variants of the functional structure of the patella reflex in an experiment requiring 30 rapid counterclockwise head revolutions at 2/sec with synchronous recording of a 20 item series of patella reflex acts. A knee jerk coefficient was used in calculations. In 85 percent of the cases 2 patellar reflexograms show typical braking and release of knee reflex and 1 shows an extreme local variant. The diagnostic and prognostic value of these tests is suggested for determining adaptive possibilities of functional systems in respect to acceleration and proprioceptive stimuli.

Yarotskiy, A. I.↗

Reduced-dimension Bayesian optimization for model calibration of transient vapor compression cycles

Development and calibration of first-principles dynamic models of vapor compression cycles (VCCs) is of critical importance for applications that include control design and fault detection and diagnostics. Nevertheless, the inherent complexity of models that are represented by large systems of differential–algebraic equations leads to significant challenges for model calibration processes that utilize classical gradient-based methods. Bayesian optimization (BO) is a sample-efficient and gradient-free approach using a probabilistic surrogate model and optimal search over a feasible parameter space. Despite the benefits of BO in reducing computational costs, challenges remain in dealing with a high-dimensional calibration task resulting from a large set of parameters that have significant impacts on system behavior and need to be calibrated simultaneously. This paper presents a reduced-dimension BO framework for calibrating transient VCCs models where the calibration space is projected to a low-dimensional subspace for accelerating convergence of the solution algorithm and consequently reducing the number of transient simulations. The proposed approach was demonstrated via two case studies associated with different VCC applications where 10 parameters were calibrated in each case using laboratory measurements. The reduced-dimension BO framework only required 1 / 8 th of the iterations associated with a standard BO method that deals with high-dimensional calibration parameters for converged solutions and yielded comparable accuracy. Furthermore, both calibrated models revealed significant accuracy improvements compared to uncalibrated models.

Ma, Jiacheng↗

Measurements of the $^{5}D^{°}_{4}$–$^{5}P_{3}$ transition of singly ionized atomic iodine using intermodulated laser induced fluorescence

Iodine has been an element of recent interest for commercial use as fuel in electrostatic propulsion systems. A lingering problem when investigating ionized iodine using non-perturbative, laser-based techniques is determining the spectral width, i.e., the species temperature, of iodine. To this end, the hyperfine structure must be well understood to develop a spatially resolved diagnostic technique capable of ion flow and temperature measurements. Previous work investigated the lineshape of the transition between the $^{5}D^{°}_{4}$ and $^{5}P_{3}$ states of singly-ionized atomic iodine (I II) with laser induced fluorescence (LIF), but the hyperfine structure of the transition was unresolved in those measurements. In this work, an intermodulated LIF technique is used to measure an enhanced lineshape of the same I II transition. Here, a linear least squares fitting algorithm is used to fit the transition lineshape, where hyperfine transition locations and theorized relative amplitudes are constrained by theory. A lineshape model that incorporates hyperfine transition amplitude enhancement introduced from an intermodulated laser technique is implemented into the fitting function, as well as a nonlinear laser saturation effect. We report converged hyperfine coupling coefficients for these I II states.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Evaluation of Regional Water and Energy Balance in Contemporary Reanalyses

Regional to continental water and energy balance in reanalyses provide crucial information on the climate and climate variations in that region and can contrast other regions. Reanalyses are a valuable tool in piecing together the complete balance owing to the incorporation of the budgets in the background model and the assimilation of observation. On the other hand, the background model has its own biases and observational assimilation can lead to non-negligible tendencies within the budgets, and these can vary over space and time. Here, we will compare the balance within several reanalyses and how they have evolved over recent decades. Several observational data products will provide reference points in the comparison. In addition, a recent project has integrated observations of the water and energy budgets in an optimization that aims to reduce the imbalance of regional budgets in using observational terms from disparate sources. In evaluating the regional balances, we will incorporate, when available, the water and energy convergence terms as well as their analysis increments (which may be diagnosed as residuals). The reanalyses considered here include: Japanese Reanalyses for Three Quarters Century (JRA3Q), ECMWF Reanalysis version 5 (ERA5), Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2) and the NCEP Reanalysis II (NCEPR2). NCEPR2 is representative of the late 90s technology, while the others represent the contemporary climate reanalyses presently available. We will discuss the regional balances over key river basins (e.g. Mississippi and Amazon), and a range of continents including those well observed (North America and Europe) and those with fewer consistent observations (e.g. Africa). These contrasting regions show the degree of advancement in reanalyses and expose areas in need of improvement. The results also demonstrate the usefulness of producing complete atmospheric water and energy budgets as part of the diagnostic output.

Michael G Bosilovich↗

Evaluation of Regional Water and Energy Balance in Contemporary Reanalyses

Regional to continental water and energy balance in reanalyses provide crucial information on the climate and climate variations in that region and can contrast other regions. Reanalyses are a valuable tool in piecing together the complete balance owing to the incorporation of the budgets in the background model and the assimilation of observation. On the other hand, the background model has its own biases and observational assimilation can lead to non-negligible tendencies within the budgets, and these can vary over space and time. Here, we will compare the balance within several reanalyses and how they have evolved over recent decades. Several observational data products will provide reference points in the comparison. In addition, a recent project has integrated observations of the water and energy budgets in an optimization that aims to reduce the imbalance of regional budgets in using observational terms from disparate sources. In evaluating the regional balances, we will incorporate, when available, the water and energy convergence terms as well as their analysis increments (which may be diagnosed as residuals). The reanalyses considered here include: Japanese Reanalyses for Three Quarters Century (JRA3Q), ECMWF Reanalysis version 5 (ERA5), Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2) and the NCEP Reanalysis II (NCEPR2). NCEPR2 is representative of the late 90s technology, while the others represent the contemporary climate reanalyses presently available. We will discuss the regional balances over key river basins (e.g. Mississippi and Amazon), and a range of continents including those well observed (North America and Europe) and those with fewer consistent observations (e.g. Africa). These contrasting regions show the degree of advancement in reanalyses and expose areas in need of improvement. The results also demonstrate the usefulness of producing complete atmospheric water and energy budgets as part of the diagnostic output.

Michael Bosilovich↗

Neutral parcel transport in the high latitude F-region

The NCAR Thermospheric General Circulation model (TGCM) is used together with a 'post-processor' diagnostic package to analyze neutral parcel transport in the high latitude F-region. The diagnostic package includes a feature that enables individual parcels of neutral gas to be tracked by interpolation through the TGCM model grid in time and space. Various trajectories have been calculated to illustrate the predicted loci of neutral gas parcels that encounter large ion-drag forces due to the ionospheric mapping of the magnetospheric convection electric field. The trajectories, calculated for a 'steady state', diurnally reproducible run of the TGCM, show that the cusp region plays an exceedingly important regulatory or nozzle role for the overall flow pattern and has great influence on the energization of the F-region polar cap. In particular, it is found that the trajectory of a 'typical' F-region neutral gas parcel passes through the cusp region at least once and sometimes twice in a 24 hour period due to the convergent geometry of the ion convection pattern.

Killeen, T. L.↗

NbTa_BCC_SolidSolution_128atoms_VASP6

We performed density functional theory (DFT) calculations for body-centered-cubic (BCC) structures with 128 lattices sites of solid solution binary alloys niobium-tantalum (Nb-Ta). The electronic structures of alloys have been calculated using Vienna Ab initio Simulation Package (VASP). Within this package the DFT approach is used to reduce many-body Schrodinger equation to set of single particle Kohn-Sham (KS) equations. The generalized electronic exchange-correlation functional is described by generalized gradient approximation with the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof parametrization. The electron-ion interactions is described by pseudopotentials developed within the plane-wave basis projector augmented-wave (PAW) approach \cite{PAW}. These pseudopotentials are available at the VASP portal (http://cms.mpi.univie.ac.at/vasp/). Our calculations have been run with the pseudopotentials treating s and p semi-core states as valence in case for the elements Nb. For Ta, p semi-core states as valence were chosen. The electronic densities and potentials are expanded over plane-waves with energy cutoff of 350 eV. 2x2x2 k-mesh and normal precision were used. The alloys were modeled by supercell containing 128 randomly distributed atoms. At initial step the atoms occupy perfect bcc lattice cites. This initial structure was optimized until energy changes less than 1e-6 eV, while forces acting on atoms don't exceed 1e-2 eV/angstrom. The electron-ion interaction is described by PAW pseudopotentials. The calculations have been collected by sampling chemical compositions across the entire compositional range. The chemical compositions have been sampled by progressively changing the number of atoms per constituent by 4. For each chemical composition of binaries and ternaries, the first-principle calculations have been run for 100 randomized arrangements of the constituents on the BCC lattice sites. We collected data for a total of 3,100 randomized atomic structures over 31 chemical compositions. The calculations have been collected on NERSC-Perlmutter using the VASP 6.3.2. The VASP calculations for every atomic structure have been performed in 2 main steps: 1. Starting from an ideal body-centered-cubic (BCC) structure, geometry optimization with low precision has been executed to perform a preliminary optimization of the atomic structure. The output for this calculations is available in the files 0.CONTCAR, 0.OUTCAR, rlx1.out. 2. Using the atomic structure resulting from the preliminary geometry optimization, a second geometry optimization has been performed using normal precision. The output for this calculations is available in the files CONTCAR, OUTCAR, rlx2.out, vaspout.h5, and vasprun.xml. Cases 1-10 have been run without generating the file 'vaspout.h5'. Every chemical composition sampled across the composition range in the dataset has its own directory. The convention used to name the directories for ternary alloys is AXBYCZ, where A, B, and C refer to the constituents, and X, Y, and Z are positive integers that represent the number of atoms for each constituent and their values still sum up to 128. Each atomic structure associated with a specific chemical composition has its own sub-directory within the directory of the corresponding chemical composition. The sub-directories for each atomic structure for each chemical composition are named 'case-*', where * is a positive integer that spans all the values from 1 through 100, extremes included. The files contained in each sub-directory 'case-*' for each atomic structure are as follows: FILES contained in each subdirectory with name case-N where N ranges between 11 and 100, extremes included: 1. INCAR: input file that contains various parameters and settings for controlling the behavior of the electronic structure calculations 2. KPOINTS: input file that specifies the Bloch vectors (k points) used to sample the Brillouin zone 3. 0.POSCAR: input file that defines the atomic structure of a system 4. 0.CONTCAR: output file that provides the atomic positions and cell parameters after the first geometry optimization has been run with the precision variable set to PREC=Low in the INCAR file 5. 0.OUTCAR: output file that contains detailed information about the progress of a calculation after the first geometry optimization has been run with the precision variable set to PREC=Low in the INCAR file 6. rlx1.out: file with diagnostic information about the execution of the first geometry optimization with precision variable set to PREC=Low in the INCAR file 7. POSCAR: input file that defines the atomic structure of a system after the first geometry optimization has been run at low precision. This represents the input for the second geometry optimization run with the precision variable set to PREC=Normal in the INCAR file 8. CONTCAR: output file that provides the atomic positions and cell parameters after the second geometry optimization has been run with the precision variable set to PREC=Normal in the INCAR file 9. OUTCAR: output file that contains detailed information about the progress of a calculation after the second geometry optimization has been run with the precision variable set to PREC=Normal in the INCAR file 10. rlx2.out: file with diagnostic information about the execution of the second geometry optimization with precision variable set to PREC=Normal in the INCAR file 11. vaspout.h5: hierarchical HDF5 file containing the inputs and outputs of a VASP calculation. To analyze the data in this file we recommend using py4vasp. This file is only produced if the VASP version used is compiled with HDF5 support 12. vasprun.xml: contains similar information to OUTCAR, but in an xml format. Subdirectories with name case-N, where N ranges between 1 and 10 (extremes included) contain all the files listed above except 'vaspout.h5'. Subdirectories with name case-N, where N ranges between 41 and 60 (extremes included), contain a duplicate copy of the files listed above except for KPOINTS. The names of the duplicate files end with -bis, and correspond to a second VASP calculation that has converged to a different optimized geometry. This research is sponsored by the Artificial Intelligence Initiative as part of the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the US Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725. This work used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725, under Directorate Discretionary awards MAT025 (Materials Science) and LRN026 (Machine Learning), and INCITE award MAT201. This work also used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, under award ERCAP0025216. REFERENCES (1) Kresse, G. and Hafner, J. Ab initio molecular dynamics for liquid metals. Phys. review B 47, 558 (1993). (2) Kresse, G. and Hafner, J. Ab initio molecular-dynamics simulation of the liquid-metal-amorphous-semiconductor transition in germanium. Phys. Rev. B 49, 14251 (1994) (3) Kresse, G. and Furthmüller, J. Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set. Comput. materials science 6, 15-50 (1996) (4) Kresse, G. and Furthmüller, J. Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set. Phys. review B 54, 11169 (1996) (5) Kresse, G. and Joubert, D. From ultrasoft pseudopotentials to the projector augmented-wave method. Phys. review b 59, 1758 (1999)

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

TaV_BCC_SolidSolution_128atoms_VASP6

We performed density functional theory (DFT) calculations for body-centered-cubic (BCC) structures with 128 lattices sites of solid solution binary alloys tantalum-vanadium (Tanu-V). The electronic structures of alloys have been calculated using Vienna Ab initio Simulation Package (VASP). Within this package the DFT approach is used to reduce many-body Schrodinger equation to set of single particle Kohn-Sham (KS) equations. The generalized electronic exchange-correlation functional is described by generalized gradient approximation with the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof parametrization. The electron-ion interactions is described by pseudopotentials developed within the plane-wave basis projector augmented-wave (PAW) approach. These pseudopotentials are available at the VASP portal (http://cms.mpi.univie.ac.at/vasp/). Our calculations have been run with the pseudopotentials treating s and p semi-core states as valence in case for the element V. For Ta, p semi-core states as valence were chosen. The electronic densities and potentials are expanded over plane-waves with energy cutoff of 350 eV. 2x2x2 k-mesh and normal precision were used. The alloys were modeled by supercell containing 128 randomly distributed atoms. At initial step the atoms occupy perfect bcc lattice cites. This initial structure was optimized until energy changes less than 1e-6 eV, while forces acting on atoms don't exceed 1e-2 eV/angstrom. The electron-ion interaction is described by PAW pseudopotentials. The calculations have been collected by sampling chemical compositions across the entire compositional range. The chemical compositions have been sampled by progressively changing the number of atoms per constituent by 4. For each chemical composition of binaries and ternaries, the first-principle calculations have been run for 100 randomized arrangements of the constituents on the BCC lattice sites. We collected data for a total of 3,100 randomized atomic structures over 31 chemical compositions. The calculations have been collected on NERSC-Perlmutter and OLCF-Summit using the VASP 6.3.2. The VASP calculations for every atomic structure have been performed in 2 main steps: 1. Starting from an ideal body-centered-cubic (BCC) structure, geometry optimization with low precision has been executed to perform a preliminary optimization of the atomic structure. The output for this calculations is available in the files 0.CONTCAR, 0.OUTCAR, rlx1.out. 2. Using the atomic structure resulting from the preliminary geometry optimization, a second geometry optimization has been performed using normal precision. The output for this calculations is available in the files CONTCAR, OUTCAR, rlx2.out, vaspout.h5, and vasprun.xml. Cases 1-10 have been run without generating the file 'vaspout.h5'. Every chemical composition sampled across the composition range in the dataset has its own directory. The convention used to name the directories for binary alloys is AXBY, where A and B refer to the constituents, whereas X and Y are positive integers that represent the number of atoms for each constituent and their values still sum up to 128. Each atomic structure associated with a specific chemical composition has its own sub-directory within the directory of the corresponding chemical composition. The sub-directories for each atomic structure for each chemical composition are named 'case-*', where * is a positive integer that spans all the values from 1 through 100, extremes included. The files contained in each sub-directory 'case-*' for each atomic structure are as follows: FILES contained in each subdirectory with name case-N where N ranges between 11 and 100, extremes included: 1. INCAR: input file that contains various parameters and settings for controlling the behavior of the electronic structure calculations 2. KPOINTS: input file that specifies the Bloch vectors (k points) used to sample the Brillouin zone 3. 0.POSCAR: input file that defines the atomic structure of a system 4. 0.CONTCAR: output file that provides the atomic positions and cell parameters after the first geometry optimization has been run with the precision variable set to PREC=Low in the INCAR file 5. 0.OUTCAR: output file that contains detailed information about the progress of a calculation after the first geometry optimization has been run with the precision variable set to PREC=Low in the INCAR file 6. rlx1.out: file with diagnostic information about the execution of the first geometry optimization with precision variable set to PREC=Low in the INCAR file 7. POSCAR: input file that defines the atomic structure of a system after the first geometry optimization has been run at low precision. This represents the input for the second geometry optimization run with the precision variable set to PREC=Normal in the INCAR file 8. CONTCAR: output file that provides the atomic positions and cell parameters after the second geometry optimization has been run with the precision variable set to PREC=Normal in the INCAR file 9. OUTCAR: output file that contains detailed information about the progress of a calculation after the second geometry optimization has been run with the precision variable set to PREC=Normal in the INCAR file 10. rlx2.out: file with diagnostic information about the execution of the second geometry optimization with precision variable set to PREC=Normal in the INCAR file 11. vaspout.h5: hierarchical HDF5 file containing the inputs and outputs of a VASP calculation. To analyze the data in this file we recommend using py4vasp. This file is only produced if the VASP version used is compiled with HDF5 support 12. vasprun.xml: contains similar information to OUTCAR, but in an xml format. Subdirectories with name case-N, where N ranges between 1 and 10 (extremes included) contain all the files listed above except 'vaspout.h5'. Subdirectories with name case-N, where N ranges between 41 and 60 (extremes included), contain a duplicate copy of the files listed above except for KPOINTS. The names of the duplicate files end with -bis, and correspond to a second VASP calculation that has converged to a different optimized geometry. This research is sponsored by the Artificial Intelligence Initiative as part of the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the US Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725. This work used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725, under Directorate Discretionary awards MAT025 (Materials Science) and LRN026 (Machine Learning), and INCITE award MAT201. This work also used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, under award ERCAP0025216. REFERENCES (1) Kresse, G. and Hafner, J. Ab initio molecular dynamics for liquid metals. Phys. review B 47, 558 (1993). (2) Kresse, G. and Hafner, J. Ab initio molecular-dynamics simulation of the liquid-metal-amorphous-semiconductor transition in germanium. Phys. Rev. B 49, 14251 (1994) (3) Kresse, G. and Furthmuller, J. Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set. Comput. materials science 6, 15-50 (1996) (4) Kresse, G. and Furthmuller, J. Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set. Phys. review B 54, 11169 (1996) (5) Kresse, G. and Joubert, D. From ultrasoft pseudopotentials to the projector augmented-wave method. Phys. review b 59, 1758 (1999)

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

NbV_BCC_SolidSolution_128atoms_VASP6

We performed density functional theory (DFT) calculations for body-centered-cubic (BCC) structures with 128 lattices sites of solid solution binary alloys niobium-vanadium (Nb-V). The electronic structures of alloys have been calculated using Vienna Ab initio Simulation Package (VASP). Within this package the DFT approach is used to reduce many-body Schrodinger equation to set of single particle Kohn-Sham (KS) equations. The generalized electronic exchange-correlation functional is described by generalized gradient approximation with the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof parametrization. The electron-ion interactions is described by pseudopotentials developed within the plane-wave basis projector augmented-wave (PAW) approach \cite{PAW}. These pseudopotentials are available at the VASP portal (http://cms.mpi.univie.ac.at/vasp/). Our calculations have been run with the pseudopotentials treating s and p semi-core states as valence in case for the elements Nb and V. The electronic densities and potentials are expanded over plane-waves with energy cutoff of 350 eV. 2x2x2 k-mesh and normal precision were used. The alloys were modeled by supercell containing 128 randomly distributed atoms. At initial step the atoms occupy perfect bcc lattice cites. This initial structure was optimized until energy changes less than 1e-6 eV, while forces acting on atoms don't exceed 1e-2 eV/angstrom. The electron-ion interaction is described by PAW pseudopotentials. The calculations have been collected by sampling chemical compositions across the entire compositional range. The chemical compositions have been sampled by progressively changing the number of atoms per constituent by 4. For each chemical composition of binaries and ternaries, the first-principle calculations have been run for 100 randomized arrangements of the constituents on the BCC lattice sites. We collected data for a total of 3,100 randomized atomic structures over 31 chemical compositions. The calculations have been collected on NERSC-Perlmutter and OLCF-Summit using the VASP 6.3.2. The VASP calculations for every atomic structure have been performed in 2 main steps: 1. Starting from an ideal body-centered-cubic (BCC) structure, geometry optimization with low precision has been executed to perform a preliminary optimization of the atomic structure. The output for this calculations is available in the files 0.CONTCAR, 0.OUTCAR, rlx1.out. 2. Using the atomic structure resulting from the preliminary geometry optimization, a second geometry optimization has been performed using normal precision. The output for this calculations is available in the files CONTCAR, OUTCAR, rlx2.out, vaspout.h5, and vasprun.xml. Cases 1-10 have been run without generating the file 'vaspout.h5'. Every chemical composition sampled across the composition range in the dataset has its own directory. The convention used to name the directories for binary alloys is AXBY, where A and B refer to the constituents, whereas X and Y are positive integers that represent the number of atoms for each constituent and their values still sum up to 128. Each atomic structure associated with a specific chemical composition has its own sub-directory within the directory of the corresponding chemical composition. The sub-directories for each atomic structure for each chemical composition are named 'case-*', where * is a positive integer that spans all the values from 1 through 100, extremes included. The files contained in each sub-directory 'case-*' for each atomic structure are as follows: FILES contained in each subdirectory with name case-N where N ranges between 11 and 100, extremes included: 1. INCAR: input file that contains various parameters and settings for controlling the behavior of the electronic structure calculations 2. KPOINTS: input file that specifies the Bloch vectors (k points) used to sample the Brillouin zone 3. 0.POSCAR: input file that defines the atomic structure of a system 4. 0.CONTCAR: output file that provides the atomic positions and cell parameters after the first geometry optimization has been run with the precision variable set to PREC=Low in the INCAR file 5. 0.OUTCAR: output file that contains detailed information about the progress of a calculation after the first geometry optimization has been run with the precision variable set to PREC=Low in the INCAR file 6. rlx1.out: file with diagnostic information about the execution of the first geometry optimization with precision variable set to PREC=Low in the INCAR file 7. POSCAR: input file that defines the atomic structure of a system after the first geometry optimization has been run at low precision. This represents the input for the second geometry optimization run with the precision variable set to PREC=Normal in the INCAR file 8. CONTCAR: output file that provides the atomic positions and cell parameters after the second geometry optimization has been run with the precision variable set to PREC=Normal in the INCAR file 9. OUTCAR: output file that contains detailed information about the progress of a calculation after the second geometry optimization has been run with the precision variable set to PREC=Normal in the INCAR file 10. rlx2.out: file with diagnostic information about the execution of the second geometry optimization with precision variable set to PREC=Normal in the INCAR file 11. vaspout.h5: hierarchical HDF5 file containing the inputs and outputs of a VASP calculation. To analyze the data in this file we recommend using py4vasp. This file is only produced if the VASP version used is compiled with HDF5 support 12. vasprun.xml: contains similar information to OUTCAR, but in an xml format. Subdirectories with name case-N, where N ranges between 1 and 10 (extremes included) contain all the files listed above except 'vaspout.h5'. Subdirectories with name case-N, where N ranges between 41 and 60 (extremes included), contain a duplicate copy of the files listed above except for KPOINTS. The names of the duplicate files end with -bis, and correspond to a second VASP calculation that has converged to a different optimized geometry. This research is sponsored by the Artificial Intelligence Initiative as part of the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the US Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725. This work used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725, under Directorate Discretionary awards MAT025 (Materials Science) and LRN026 (Machine Learning), and INCITE award MAT201. This work also used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, under award ERCAP0025216. REFERENCES (1) Kresse, G. and Hafner, J. Ab initio molecular dynamics for liquid metals. Phys. review B 47, 558 (1993). (2) Kresse, G. and Hafner, J. Ab initio molecular-dynamics simulation of the liquid-metal-amorphous-semiconductor transition in germanium. Phys. Rev. B 49, 14251 (1994) (3) Kresse, G. and Furthmüller, J. Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set. Comput. materials science 6, 15-50 (1996) (4) Kresse, G. and Furthmüller, J. Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set. Phys. review B 54, 11169 (1996) (5) Kresse, G. and Joubert, D. From ultrasoft pseudopotentials to the projector augmented-wave method. Phys. review b 59, 1758 (1999)

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Use of On-Line Tracers as a Diagnostic Tool in General Circulation Model Development: Transport Between the Troposphere and Stratosphere - 2

A key component of climate/chemistry modeling is how to handle the influx into (and egress from) the troposphere. This is especially important when considering tropospheric ozone, and its precursors (e.g., NO(x) from aircraft). A study has been conducted with various GISS models to determine the minimum requirements necessary for producing realistic troposphere-stratosphere exchange. Four on-line tracers are employed: CFC-11 and SF6 for mixing from the troposphere into the stratosphere, Rn222 for vertical mixing within the troposphere, and 14C for mixing from the stratosphere into the troposphere. Four standard models are tested, with varying vertical resolution, gravity wave drag and location of the model top, and additional subsidiary models are employed to examine specific features. The results show that proper vertical transport between the troposphere and stratosphere in the GISS models requires lifting the top of the model considerably out of the stratosphere, and including gravity wave drag in the lower stratosphere. Increased vertical resolution without these aspects does not improve troposphere-stratosphere exchange. The transport appears to be driven largely by the residual circulation within the stratosphere; associated E-P flux convergences require both realistic upward propagating energy from the troposphere, and realistic pass-through possibilities. A 23 layer version with a top at the mesopause and incorporating gravity wave drag appears to have reasonable stratospheric-tropospheric exchange, in terms of both the resulting tracer distributions and atmospheric mass fluxes.

Rind, David H.↗

Azimuthally averaged wind and thermodynamic structures of tropical cyclones in global climate models and their sensitivity to horizontal resolution

Characteristics of tropical cyclones (TCs) in global climate models (GCMs) are known to be influenced by details of the model configurations, including horizontal resolution and parameterization schemes. Understanding model-to-model differences in TC characteristics is a prerequisite for reducing uncertainty in future TC activity projections by GCMs. This study performs a process-level examination of TC structures in eight GCM simulations that span a range of horizontal resolutions from 1° to 0.25°. A recently developed set of process-oriented diagnostics is used to examine the azimuthally averaged wind and thermodynamic structures of the GCM-simulated TCs. Results indicate that the inner-core wind structures of simulated TCs are more strongly constrained by the horizontal resolutions of the models than are the thermodynamic structures of those TCs. As expected, the structures of TC circulations become more realistic with smaller horizontal grid spacing, such that the radii of maximum wind (RMW) become smaller, and the maximum vertical velocities occur off the center. However, the RMWs are still too large, especially at higher intensities, and there are rising motions occurring at the storm centers, inconsistently with observations. The distributions of precipitation, moisture, radiative and surface turbulent heat fluxes around TCs are diverse, even across models with similar horizontal resolutions. At the same horizontal resolution, models that produce greater rainfall in the inner-core regions tend to simulate stronger TCs. Further, when TCs are weak, the radial gradient of net column radiative flux convergence is comparable to that of surface turbulent heat fluxes, emphasizing the importance of cloud-radiative feedbacks during the early developmental phases of TCs.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Supersonic shock wave/vortex interaction

Although shock wave/vortex interaction is a basic and important fluid dynamics problem, very little research has been conducted on this topic. Therefore, a detailed experimental study of the interaction between a supersonic streamwise turbulent vortex and a shock wave was carried out at the Penn State Gas Dynamics Laboratory. A vortex is produced by replaceable swirl vanes located upstream of the throat of various converging-diverging nozzles. The supersonic vortex is then injected into either a coflowing supersonic stream or ambient air. The structure of the isolated vortex is investigated in a supersonic wind tunnel using miniature, fast-response, five-hole and total temperature probes and in a free jet using laser Doppler velocimetry. The cases tested have unit Reynolds numbers in excess of 25 million per meter, axial Mach numbers ranging from 2.5 to 4.0, and peak tangential Mach numbers from 0 (i.e., a pure jet) to about 0.7. The results show that the typical supersonic wake-like vortex consists of a non-isentropic, rotational core, where the reduced circulation distribution is self similar, and an outer isentropic, irrotational region. The vortex core is also a region of significant turbulent fluctuations. Radial profiles of turbulent kinetic energy and axial-tangential Reynolds stress are presented. The interactions between the vortex and both oblique and normal shock waves are investigated using nonintrusive optical diagnostics (i.e. schlieren, planar laser scattering, and laser Doppler velocimetry). Of the various types, two Mach 2.5 overexpanded-nozzle Mach disc interactions are examined in detail. Below a certain vortex strength, a 'weak' interaction exists in which the normal shock is perturbed locally into an unsteady 'bubble' shock near the vortex axis, but vortex breakdown (i.e., a stagnation point) does not occur. For stronger vortices, a random unsteady 'strong' interaction results that causes vortex breakdown. The vortex core reforms downstream of the rear stagnation point, and the reduced circulation distribution once again becomes self-similar in this region. A-new model of this interaction is proposed. Finally, a curve defining the approximate limits of supersonic vortex breakdown is presented.

Settles, G. S.↗

The estimation of Poisson’s ratio by time-averaging and Cornu’s method for isotropic beams

Prior research suggests that direct static (e.g., uniaxial testing) and dynamic (e.g., ultrasonic wave propagation analysis) measurements differ in the estimation of Poisson’s ratio because anisotropies and heterogeneities in the sample material affect the two types of tests differently. Even assuming isotropic and homogeneous material properties, prior research further suggests that discrepancies between static/dynamic test results will exist because the error of the diagnostic techniques for the measurand are inherently different. Finally, thermodynamic effects are not present in static tests but can significantly affect dynamic test results. Given the potential for all these variables to produce discrepancies, it would be helpful to have the measurement of Poisson’s ratio obtainable from the same theory and experimental measurements by either static or dynamic testing methods. Our finite element calculations show that by combining time-averaged scanning digital holography with Cornu’s method, it is theoretically possible to estimate the effective Poisson’s ratio from the anticlastic contours at the antinode of the first out-of-plane bending mode shape. This is true regardless of frequency and therefore applicable for both static and dynamic measurements. Our results show that the estimate of Poisson’s ratio by Cornu’s method using data from simulations of mode shapes approaches the true value of Poisson’s ratio. Additionally, our research suggests that beam geometry and boundary conditions are fundamental factors limiting the convergence of the estimate of Poisson’s ratio to the true value of Poisson’s ratio regardless of performing a static or dynamic test.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Detrimental effects and mitigation of the joint feature in double shell implosion simulations

Double shell capsules provide an attractive option in inertial confinement fusion experiments due to their potential for achieving a low-convergence, robust burn. However, these designs suffer from symmetry degradation and accompanying reduced fuel confinement due to the currently necessary joint between the two hemispheres of the outer shell. Here, the gap widens as a result of the excess ablation pressure produced by x rays that penetrate the joint during the drive phase, and this perturbation grows and imprints onto the inner shell during the collision. xRAGE Eulerian radiation-hydrodynamic simulations predict significant reductions in deuterium–tritium fusion yields compared to joint-less simulations when the depth of the outer joint is increased, whereas the performance is less sensitive to the depth of the inner gap. Here we examine the technique of plating the insides of the outer gap with a high-Z material to mitigate the impact of this feature. Gold-plating in quantities comparable to or exceeding the “missing” outer shell mass shows promise toward restoring both implosion symmetry and yield closer to the joint-less levels, and synthetic diagnostics suggest that high-energy x-ray radiographs can capture this shape retention of the inner and outer shells in experiments.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗