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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 109 records · Page 6
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Non-Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Corrective Action Unit (CAU) Post-Closure Inspection Report, Nevada National Security Site, Nevada (CY2021, Revision 0)

This report includes visual inspection results, maintenance and repair activities, and recommendations for calendar year (CY) 2021 for use restrictions (URs) at corrective action sites (CASs) located on the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) and on the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) that are accessed through the NNSS Main Gate. This document is formatted by project activity (i.e., Industrial Sites, Soils, and Defense Threat Reduction Agency [DTRA]); then by corrective action unit (CAU); and then by CAS.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Project Title: Development of a Pipe Crawler Inspection Tool for Fossil Energy Power Plants (Final Report)

This research effort focuses on the development of a pipe crawler inspection tool for fossil energy power plants. The pipe crawler is tethered and can navigate through 2 inch pipes that are often found in various systems within a power plant. The crawler can navigate through straight pipes and 180 degree elbows and includes instrumentation that can assess the integrity of the pipes. The sensors include a UT sensor for measuring the thickness of the pipe, a range finder and a camera. An additional module is used to prep the surface of the pipe prior to taking thickness measurements. Both bench scale and engineering scale testing was conducted to demonstrate the concept. Multiple crawlers were created and tethered together to distribute the load of the tether so that the crawler can navigate longer pipe distances.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2022

Automation of the Receipt Inspection of Criticality Control Overpacks (CCO)

This research work has been supported by the DOE-FIU Science & Technology Workforce Development Initiative, an innovative program developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM) and Florida International University’s Applied Research Center (FIU-ARC). During the spring of 2022, a DOE Fellow intern, Philip Moore, spent 16 weeks doing a spring internship at Savannah River National Lab under the supervision and guidance of Corey Hopper. The intern’s project was initiated on January 24, 2022, and continued through April 2, 2022, with the objective of contributing to a robotic system for automation of CCO inspection.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Post-Closure Inspection (PCI) Letter Report for Closed Non-Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Corrective Action Units (CAUs) on the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), for Calendar Year (CY) 2020

This letter report is for the following CAUs for CY 2020, including CAUs located on the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) that are accessed through the NNSS Main Gate. Use restriction (UR) issues that were identified in the 2019 inspections were addressed in 2020.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

High Dose Rate Irradiations of Enduray Vision System for Nuclear Inspections

Higher radiation-hardened video cameras are needed in the operation and remote handling of equipment in nuclear reactor inspection and refueling applications. Vega Wave Systems, Inc. has developed a radiation-hardened vision system for nuclear energy applications. This vision system has been developed under several small business innovative research programs (SBIRs) from the U.S. Department of Energy, and the previous GAIN voucher program at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) was successful in demonstrating that a prototype of the camera is radiation-hard up to at least 525 kGy (5.25 × 106 rad, Si equivalent) at dose rates of 10 kGy/hr with no measurable degradation in image quality and no measurable radiation-induced noise (RIN). Vega Wave Systems has developed a new version of the camera with more than 3X the resolution using a new design and new components, and this new design requires radiation-hardness qualification for marketplace acceptance. The program described in this report provided high radiation-hardness testing of this redesigned high-resolution vision system using the Argonne Low-Energy Accelerator Facility (LEAF). This report presents the results of irradiation tests performed on Vega Wave System’s redesigned high resolution vision system at a dose rate of 9.3 kGy/hr and up to total doses of 1823 kGy. This was an accumulation of 197 hours of irradiation. The results were excellent, providing proof of the redesigned high-resolution vision system’s immunity to high levels of radiation.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Non-Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Corrective Action Unit (CAU) Post-Closure Inspection Report, Nevada National Security Site, Nevada For Calendar Year 2022

This report includes visual inspection results, descriptions of maintenance and repair activities, and recommendations for calendar year (CY) 2022 for use restrictions (URs) at corrective action sites (CASs) located on the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) and on the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) that are accessed through the NNSS Main Gate. This document is formatted by project activity (i.e., Industrial Sites, Soils, and Defense Threat Reduction Agency [DTRA]); then by corrective action unit (CAU); and then by CAS.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2023

2020 Postclosure Groundwater Monitoring and Inspection Report, Central Nevada Test Area, Subsurface Corrective Action Unit 443

This report presents the groundwater monitoring data collected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Legacy Management (LM) from the Central Nevada Test Area (CNTA), Nevada, Site, Subsurface Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 443 in Nye County, Nevada (Figure 1). The CNTA is the site of an underground nuclear test in 1968 that resulted in residual contamination near the detonation depth of 3200 feet (ft); the contamination requires long-term monitoring. Responsibility for the environmental restoration and long-term monitoring was transferred from DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration, Nevada Field Office, to LM on October 1, 2006. The environmental restoration and site closure process were completed in 2015 in accordance with the amended 1996 Nevada Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order (FFACO) (State of Nevada et al. 1996, as amended) and all applicable Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (NDEP) policies and regulations. The Closure Report, Central Nevada Test Area, Subsurface Corrective Action, Unit 443 (DOE 2018), also called the Closure Report, originally was completed in January 2016 and revised in October 2018; it describes LM’s plan for long-term postclosure monitoring. This includes monitoring of the radioisotopes of interest and water elevations, inspecting the site and maintaining the institutional controls (ICs), evaluating and reporting data, and documenting the site’s records and data management processes (DOE 2018).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Historic Source Inspection Metadata

Although this data dictionary describes the raw data format, it is relevant only for data entered in 2017 and later. Entries in this date range represent formatted, standardized data that have been verified against original, raw data files by the database manager. She took ownership of the database in September 2022 and was able to standardize entries by comparing against raw data files back to 2017. Furthermore, for comparison of historic pre-source inspection data to new pre-source data supplied by the vendor and intended for action limit analysis purposes, this time period is of sufficient length.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Non-Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Corrective Action Unit (CAU) Post-Closure Inspection Report, Nevada National Security Site, Nevada: For Calendar Year 2023

This report includes visual inspection results, descriptions of maintenance and repair activities, and recommendations for CY 2023 for URs at CASs located on the NNSS and on the NTTR that are accessed through the NNSS Main Gate. This document is formatted by project activity (i.e., Industrial Sites, Soils, and DTRA]; then by CAU; and then by CAS.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Quartz Ampoule Loading, Sealing, and Inspection

This procedure applies to the loading of materials into quartz ampoules and flame sealing these ampoules. Flame sealed quartz ampoules are commonly used as a sealed containment for neutron irradiation. Due to the importance of maintaining containment for this application, this procedure involves a double encapsulation design wherein a sealed inner ampoule is sealed is in turn sealed within a larger diameter outer ampoule. General guidance for inspection of ampoules by destructive, non-destructive, qualitative (e.g., visual) and other methods are given. Materials to be placed inside the ampoules may consist of stable element materials or radioactive materials in either solid or liquid form. Liquids shall be dried prior to sealing the ampoule.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Assessment of Condition Monitoring Methods and Technologies for Inservice Inspection and Testing of Nuclear Power Plant Components

This report was prepared for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to explore the application of advanced technologies toward meeting the current and future regulatory requirements for maintenance and condition monitoring of structures, systems, and components. The advanced technologies considered in this work are advanced sensors and instrumentation, data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML/AI), physics-based models, and digital twins (DT). The interest in the application of advanced technologies for condition monitoring in nuclear power plants continues to grow, and current and future licensees are expected to implement advanced technologies as part of their inservice inspection (ISI) and inservice testing (IST) programs. This report delineates the outcomes of an exploratory investigation into the implementation of advanced condition monitoring technologies to address ISI and IST requirements. A thorough review was conducted of the existing regulatory requirements for ISI and IST, along with an analysis of associated industry practices. Additionally, a state-of-the-art assessment was performed on advanced condition monitoring technologies frequently employed in non-nuclear sectors. This research incorporated two nuclear-specific case studies to illustrate the application of these technologies within the current nuclear fleet. The report provides an exhaustive discussion on the technical challenges, considerations, and opportunities associated with the deployment of advanced condition monitoring technologies. The following are key considerations in the application of advanced technologies for the ISI and IST of nuclear power plant components: • Developing adequate verification and validation procedures to confirm the functional and non-functional requirements, • Developing technical capabilities to conduct real-time asset condition monitoring, • Establishing guidance and protocol for modeling and simulation tools to continuously meet regulatory requirements, • Addressing trustworthiness, explainability, and interpretability of ML/AI methods, • Evaluating maintenance activities to maintain an adequate safety margin and avoid undesirable conditions, • Establishing cybersecure condition monitoring programs associated with a computer-based software system, and • Establishing standardized evaluation metrics for advanced condition monitoring programs. Interest in the use of advanced technologies for condition monitoring in ISI and IST programs continues to grow, and the technology is expected to experience rapid and wide industry adoption in the near future. Adoption of advanced technologies for condition monitoring could have novel and unique impacts on regulatory activities associated with ISI and IST programs. The NRC is continuing to explore the regulatory aspects of advanced technologies as part of ISI and IST programs by pursuing additional research in this technical area.

22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Automated segmentation and analysis of point clouds of pier foundations using Pier Inspection and Evaluation Report (PIER)

Pier foundations are commonly used in locations with unstable soil or where other types of foundations are unsuitable or cost prohibitive. A pier foundation consists of vertical columns to support the structure and elevate it above the ground. Common materials for pier foundations include masonry, concrete, timber, and steel. The methods for accurate placement of pier foundations have remained relatively unchanged for decades. For simple installations, construction chalk lines are used to layout the locations of piers to ensure accurate placement and elevation. For more complex installations, surveying instruments operated by trained professionals are employed to accurately locate piers and assess correct elevation before construction. After installation, another survey may need to be performed to assess the quality of the as-built foundation. However, with the advent of terrestrial laser scanners (TLS), the means now exist for contractors to conduct their own assessments of as-built foundations. The major barrier preventing contractors from performing their own assessments of as-built foundation quality is the segmentation and analysis of point cloud data, a skill that often requires a trained user. The objective of this research is to develop a software tool (PIER: Pier Inspection and Evaluation Report) to enable automated segmentation and analysis of point clouds of pier foundations. In this paper, the automated segmentation and analysis algorithms are detailed. A mockup lay out of pier foundations was built using concrete masonry units, and the algorithms were tested to evaluate performance. Limitations of the current algorithms and future research direction are discussed.

Turki, Amine [ORNL]↗
DOE OSTI2025

Development of a Multi-Robot System for Autonomous Inspection of Nuclear Waste Tank Pits

This paper introduces the overall design plan, development timeline, and preliminary progress of the Autonomous Pit Exploration System project. This project aims to develop an advanced multi-robot system for the efficient inspection of nuclear waste-storage tank pits. The project is structured into three phases: Phase 1 involves data collection and interface definition in collaboration with Hanford Site experts and university partners, focusing on tank riser geometry and hardware solutions. Phase 2 includes the selection of sensors and robot components, detailed mechanical design, and prototyping. Phase 3 integrates all components into a cohesive system managed by a master control package which also incorporates digital twin and surrogate models, and culminates in comprehensive testing and validation at a simulated tank pit at the Idaho National Laboratory. Additionally, the system’s communication design ensures coordinated operation through shared data, power, and control signals. For transportation and deployment, an electric vehicle (EV) is chosen to support the system for a full 10 h shift with better regulatory compliance for field deployment. A telescopic arm design is selected for its simple configuration and superior reach capability and controllability. Preliminary testing utilizes an educational robot to demonstrate the feasibility of splitting computational tasks between edge and cloud computers. Successful simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) tasks validate our distributed computing approach. More design considerations are also discussed, including radiation hardness assurance, SLAM performance, software transferability, and digital twinning strategies.

Nuclear waste management↗
DOE OSTI2026

Discovering Strong Gravitational Lenses in the Dark Energy Survey with Interactive Machine Learning and Crowd-sourced Inspection with Space Warps

We conduct a search for strong gravitational lenses in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 6 imaging data. We implement a pre-trained Vision Transformer (ViT) for our machine learning (ML) architecture and adopt interactive machine learning to construct a training sample with multiple classes to address common types of false positives. Our ML model reduces ∼236 million DES cutout images to 22,564 targets of interest, including ∼85% of previously reported galaxy–galaxy lens candidates discovered in DES. These targets were visually inspected by citizen scientists, who ruled out ∼90% as false positives. Of the remaining 2618 candidates, 149 were expert-classified as “definite” lenses and 516 as “probable” lenses, for a total of 665 systems, with 147 of these candidates being newly identified. Additionally, we trained a second ViT to find double-source plane lens systems, finding at least one double-source system. Our main ViT excels at identifying galaxy–galaxy lenses, consistently assigning high scores to candidates with high expert assessments. The top 800 ViT-scored images include ∼100 of our “definite” lens candidates. This selection is an order of magnitude higher in purity than previous convolutional neural-network-based lens searches and demonstrates the feasibility of applying our methodology for discovering large samples of lenses in future surveys.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Solar permitting, inspection, and interconnection cycletimes and requirements

Twenty three small-to-large residential, commercial, and industrial PV installers submitted project-level data for analysis, which included timestamps for major components of the permitting, inspection, and interconnection process as well as contract and installation dates. NREL calculated median timelines for these processes across the authorities having jurisdiction (AHJs) and utilities represented in the data. Also included are relevant permitting requirements for AHJs and interconnection process requirements for utilities. This dataset represents the underlying results shown in the Solar Time-based Residential Analytics and Cycle time Estimator (SolarTRACE) viewer. This dataset has been reviewed but errors may exist, and it may not be comprehensive. Errors in the sources (e.g., AHJ permitting requirements lists from data partners) may be duplicated in the dataset.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Methods of making and inspecting a web of vitreous lithium sulfide separator sheet and lithium electrode assemblies

A lithium ion-conductive solid electrolyte including a freestanding inorganic vitreous sheet of sulfide-based lithium ion conducting glass is capable of high performance in a lithium metal battery by providing a high degree of lithium ion conductivity while being highly resistant to the initiation and/or propagation of lithium dendrites. Such an electrolyte is also itself manufacturable, and readily adaptable for battery cell and cell component manufacture, in a cost-effective, scalable manner. An automated machine based system, apparatus and methods assessing and inspecting the quality of such vitreous solid electrolyte sheets, electrode sub-assemblies and lithium electrode assemblies can be based on spectrophotometry and can be performed inline with fabricating the sheet or web (e.g., inline with drawing of the vitreous Li ion conducting glass) and/or with the manufacturing of associated electrode sub-assemblies and lithium electrode assemblies and battery cells.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Multi-barrier wellbore integrity inspection system with eccentricity correction

A downhole inspection system includes a neutron imaging device operable to generate data for detecting potential wellbore anomalies and an electromagnetic imaging device operable to generate data for detecting potential wellbore eccentricity. The neutron imaging device includes a neutron generator operable to emit neutrons, and a neutron detector fixed relative to the neutron generation unit and operable to detect backscattered neutrons from a surrounding environment. The electromagnetic imaging device includes at least one transmitter for generating electromagnetic pulse, and at least one receiver for detecting returning electromagnetic pulse. Correlation of the neutron imaging data with the electromagnetic imaging data provides additional data regarding the potential wellbore anomalies.

Kasten, Ansas Matthias↗
DOE OSTI2021

Method for real-time inspection of structural components

A multi-mode approach for real-time inspection of structural components may be applied to rapid, wide area measurement of thickness of thick plate-like structures using full-field multi-mode response measurement and analysis. The approach may allow estimation of thickness from full-field multi-mode response to single-tone ultrasonic excitation in thick plates. The approach may utilize wavenumber information across all available wave modes in order to make wavenumber spectroscopy sensitive to changes in thickness for a broader range of nominal initial thicknesses.

Stull, Nicholas D.↗