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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 1,117 records · Page 62

Data-Driven Approaches for Bead Geometry Prediction Via Melt Pool Monitoring

In the realm of additive manufacturing, the selection of process parameters to avoid over and under deposition entails a time-consuming and resource-intensive trial-and-error approach. Given the distinct characteristics of each part geometry, there is a pressing need for advancing real-time process monitoring and control to ensure consistent and reliable part dimensional accuracy. Here, this research shows that support vector regression (SVR) and convolutional neural network (CNN) models offer a promising solution for real-time process control due to the models’ abilities to recognize complex, non-linear patterns with high accuracy. A novel experiment was designed to compare the performance of SVR and CNN models to indirectly detect bead height from a coaxial image of a melt pool from a single-layer, single bead build. The study showed that both SVR and CNN models trained on melt pool data collected from a coaxial optical camera can accurately predict the bead height with a mean absolute percentage error of 3.67% and 3.68%, respectively.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A GPU-Accelerated Population Generation, Sorting, and Mutation Kernel for an Optimization-Based Causal Inference Model

We develop a GPU-accelerated machine learning generative adversarial network model that can be used with observational data for the purpose of constructing causal inferences. The theoretical basis of our machine learning model is novel and is conceptualized to be operable and scalable for high performance computing platforms. Our GPU-accelerated code enables large-scale parallelization of the computation within a common and accessible computing environment. This will expand the reach of our model and empower research in new substantive domains while maintaining the underlying theoretical properties.

Cho, Wendy K. Tam↗

Streamflow simulation in data-scarce basins using Bayesian and physics-informed machine learning models

Hydrologic predictions at rural watersheds are important but also challenging due to data shortage. Long short-term memory (LSTM) networks are a promising machine learning approach and have demonstrated good performance in streamflow predictions. However, due to its data-hungry nature, most LSTM applications focus on well-monitored catchments with abundant and high-quality observations. In this work, we investigate predictive capabilities of LSTM in poorly monitored watersheds with short observation records. To address three main challenges of LSTM applications in data-scarce locations, i.e., overfitting, uncertainty quantification (UQ), and out-of-distribution prediction, we evaluate different regularization techniques to prevent overfitting, apply a Bayesian LSTM for UQ, and introduce a physics-informed hybrid LSTM to enhance out-of-distribution prediction. Through case studies in two diverse sets of catchments with and without snow influence, we demonstrate that 1) when hydrologic variability in the prediction period is similar to the calibration period, LSTM models can reasonably predict daily streamflow with Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency above 0.8, even with only 2 years of calibration data; 2) when the hydrologic variability in the prediction and calibration periods is dramatically different, LSTM alone does not predict well, but the hybrid model can improve the out-of-distribution prediction with acceptable generalization accuracy; 3) L2 norm penalty and dropout can mitigate overfitting, and Bayesian and hybrid LSTM have no overfitting; and 4) Bayesian LSTM provides useful uncertainty information to improve prediction understanding and credibility. In conclusion, these insights have vital implications for streamflow simulation in watersheds where data quality and availability are a critical issue.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Randomized methods to characterize large-scale vortical flow networks

We demonstrate the effective use of randomized methods for linear algebra to perform network-based analysis of complex vortical flows. Network theoretic approaches can reveal the connectivity structures among a set of vortical elements and analyze their collective dynamics. These approaches have recently been generalized to analyze high-dimensional turbulent flows, for which network computations can become prohibitively expensive. In this work, we propose efficient methods to approximate network quantities, such as the leading eigendecomposition of the adjacency matrix, using randomized methods. Specifically, we use the Nyström method to approximate the leading eigenvalues and eigenvectors, achieving significant computational savings and reduced memory requirements. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is demonstrated on two high-dimensional flow fields: two-dimensional flow past an airfoil and two-dimensional turbulence. We find that quasi-uniform column sampling outperforms uniform column sampling, while both feature the same computational complexity.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Transforming our understanding of chloroplast-associated genes through comprehensive characterization of protein localizations and protein-protein interactions

Bioenergy crops are a renewable source of fuels and are a critical base for building a carbon-neutral economy. Rational engineering of bioenergy crops has the potential to enhance the yields. However, our ability to engineer plants is limited because the functions of most genes remain unknown. Systematic characterization of gene function in plants thus has the potential to greatly accelerate bioenergy research. Here, we focus on the chloroplast, an underexplored energy-producing organelle that is a hallmark of plants. The chloroplast is one of the promising targets of biofuel crop engineering efforts because of its central role in photosynthesis, metabolism, and intracellular signaling. However, the protein composition of the chloroplast and the functions of most of its proteins remain poorly characterized. At the core of this project, we sought to comprehensively determine the localization of chloroplast-associated proteins and generate a spatially defined protein-protein interaction network for chloroplast. For this purpose, we used the leading model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, which greatly increased experimental speed and throughput. We illustrated the value of our findings to land plants by determining the localization of Arabidopsis thaliana land plant homologs of the Chlamydomonas proteins. Altogether, we were successful in determining the localization of 1,034 chloroplast-associated proteins in Chlamydomonas. The localizations provide numerous insights into the spatial organization of chloroplasts and how they function to support photosynthesis. The localization patterns of distinct proteins revealed new chloroplast structures and revealed new spatial organization inside the chloroplast. We also identified new components of known chloroplast structures, such as the chloroplast envelope, nucleoid, plastoglobuli, and pyrenoid. We identified these new components by investigating the interacting partners of known proteins. Many proteins localized in both the chloroplast and other cellular structures, thereby hinting at new functions and communication between cellular structures. We also applied machine learning on the atlas to generate predictions for the location of all of the proteins in Chlamydomonas. This enabled us to assign putative functions to many uncharacterized proteins based on their cellular location. Altogether, this research establishes a rich resource that opens new avenues of investigation and guides future work in deciphering and manipulating chloroplast function. Next, we developed an extensive protein-protein interaction network for the chloroplast by performing affinity purification-mass spectrometry on ~1,150 tagged chloroplast-associated proteins, the first such large-scale study in any photosynthetic organism. This dataset reveals 4,694 high-confidence protein-protein interactions, offering insights into the functions of thousands of conserved poorly-characterized chloroplast proteins. This systematic identification of protein-protein interactions in the chloroplast also provides multiple exciting new research directions and a detailed blueprint of the chloroplast's operation. This research lays the groundwork to decipher the inner workings of the chloroplast, the cell structure at the heart of photosynthesis. The spatial atlas and protein-protein interactions reveal chloroplast organizational features that would not have been accessible with traditional approaches. The localization mapping, insights into the function, and research materials generated further provide a rich resource for the research community to advance the understanding of how the chloroplast is organized to enable engineering of enhanced photosynthetic organisms.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Exploring Infiniband Hardware Virtualization in OpenNebula towards Efficient High-Performance Computing

has been widely accepted that software virtualization has a big negative impact on high-performance computing (HPC) application performance. This work explores the potential use of Infiniband hardware virtualization in an OpenNebula cloud towards the efficient support of MPI-based workloads. We have implemented, deployed, and tested an Infiniband network on the FermiCloud private Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud. To avoid software virtualization towards minimizing the virtualization overhead, we employed a technique called Single Root Input/Output Virtualization (SRIOV). Our solution spanned modifications to the Linux’s Hypervisor as well as the OpenNebula manager. We evaluated the performance of the hardware virtualization on up to 56 virtual machines connected by up to 8 DDR Infiniband network links, with micro-benchmarks (latency and bandwidth) as well as w a MPI-intensive application (the HPL Linpack benchmark).

Pais Pitta de Lacerda Ruivo, Tiago↗

Arctic Vegetation Mapping Using Unsupervised Training Datasets and Convolutional Neural Networks

Land cover datasets are essential for modeling and analysis of Arctic ecosystem structure and function and for understanding land–atmosphere interactions at high spatial resolutions. However, most Arctic land cover products are generated at a coarse resolution, often limited due to cloud cover, polar darkness, and poor availability of high-resolution imagery. A multi-sensor remote sensing-based deep learning approach was developed for generating high-resolution (5 m) vegetation maps for the western Alaskan Arctic on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska. The fusion of hyperspectral, multispectral, and terrain datasets was performed using unsupervised and supervised classification techniques over a ~343 km 2 area, and a high-resolution (5 m) vegetation classification map was generated. An unsupervised technique was developed to classify high-dimensional remote sensing datasets into cohesive clusters. We employed a quantitative method to add supervision to the unlabeled clusters, producing a fully labeled vegetation map. We then developed convolutional neural networks (CNNs) using the multi-sensor fusion datasets to map vegetation distributions using the original classes and the classes produced by the unsupervised classification method. To validate the resulting CNN maps, vegetation observations were collected at 30 field plots during the summer of 2016, and the resulting vegetation products developed were evaluated against them for accuracy. Our analysis indicates the CNN models based on the labels produced by the unsupervised classification method provided the most accurate mapping of vegetation types, increasing the validation score (i.e., precision) from 0.53 to 0.83 when evaluated against field vegetation observations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Artificial neural network algorithms for pulse shape discrimination and recovery of piled-up pulses in organic scintillators

We developed two neural-network (NN)-based algorithms (fully-connected neural network (Fc-NN) and recurrent neural network (RNN)) to perform pulse shape discrimination (PSD) and identification of piled-up pulses produced by organic scintillators, upon interaction with neutrons and gamma rays. We tested the algorithms on measured and verification sets of data and compared their classification performances to standard approaches. At a high acquisition count rate (100,000 counts per second, cps), in the presence of a gamma-to-neutron ratio of approximately 400–1, the proposed NN-based algorithm achieves a fraction of misclassified neutron, gamma, and piled-up pulses of approximately 1%, 1.8%, and 0.6%, respectively. Compared to the traditional approach, it exhibits 3×, 14×, and 11× improved (lower) miscalculation rates for neutron, gamma, and piled-up pulses, respectively. Here, we also demonstrate the capability of NN-based algorithms of successfully recovering and identifying neutron and gamma ray compositions from piled-up pulses in challenging, high pulse count rate conditions.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Secondary Pore Network Design Optimization Analytical Diffusion Model for Lithium Ion Battery

Fast ion transport along the electrode thickness is required for Lithium ion battery (LIB) to sustain continuous high-rate discharge or charge currents, which is a desired feature for the fast charging of electric vehicle batteries. Advance in LIB electrode manufacturing allows to control, to a certain extent, the electrode microstructure architecture in order to improve the macroscopic performances of these devices. For instance, several groups have experimentally tested architectures tailored specifically to increase the through plane ionic diffusion in regards for fast charge application by adding channels or groove-like large pores oriented along the electrode thickness. These voids do not replace the existing pores of the electrode microstructure but consist in a second, coarser, pore network, called the secondary pore network (SPN). The model quantifies the impact of SPN on ionic diffusion with a composite electrode through a simple analytical approach, considering various pore channel geometries and comparing to standard electrodes with identical gravimetric and identical volumetric specific theoretical capacity. The goal is to find optimal SPN design parameters according to three optimization objectives aiming to balance the improved overall through-plane, thanks to the coarse aligned channels, and the degraded in-plane diffusion, due to the porous matrix densification required to maintain gravimetric and volumetric specific theoretical capacity. The analytical model must be considered as a pre-screening tool to quickly investigate large design space, that can be refined later with more complex electrochemical CPU-expensive numerical models.

Usseglio Viretta, Francois↗

Synchronized Wireless Measurement of High-Voltage Power System Frequency Using Mobile Embedded Systems

This paper focuses on synchronized wireless measurement of high-voltage (HV) power system frequency using mobile embedded systems (MESs) integrated with a wireless electric field sensor (WEFS). Unlike traditional synchronized frequency measurement devices, which rely on potential transformers and current transformers physically connected to system elements, a WEFS is used to realize wireless signal acquisition in the vicinity of any HV apparatus. The MES performs real-time frequency estimation using a recursive discrete Fourier transform based algorithm. Network time protocol (NTP) is used for time synchronization, increasing the system flexibility by eliminating global positioning system reliance. An NTP-based synchronized sampling control method is proposed and implemented in MES to compensate the sampling time error caused by local time drift and division residue. The proposed system has the advantages of portability and lower cost, making it highly accessible and useful for a wide array of synchronized frequency measurement applications. Experiment results verify the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed system.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Cluster-to-cluster data transfer with data compression over wide-area networks

The recent emergence of ultra high-speed networks up to 100 Gb/s has posed numerous challenges and has led to many investigations on efficient protocols to saturate 100 Gb/s links. However, end-to-end data transfers involve many components, not only protocols, affecting overall transfer performance. These components include disk I/O subsystem, additional computation associated with data streams, and network adapters. For example, achievable bandwidth by TCP may not be implementable if disk I/O or CPU becomes a bottleneck in end-to-end data transfer. In this paper, we first model all the system components involved in end-to-end data transfer as a graph. We then formulate the problem whose goal is to achieve maximum data transfer throughput using parallel data flows. We also propose a variable data flow GridFFP XIO stack to improve data transfer with data compression. Our contributions lie in how to optimize data transfers considering all the system components involved rather than in accurately modeling all the system components involved. Our proposed formulations and solutions are evaluated through experiments on the ESnet 100G testbed and a wide-area cluster-to-cluster testbed. The experimental results on the ESnet 100G testbed show that our approach is several times faster than Globus Online-8 x faster for datasets with many 10 MB files and 3-4 x faster for other datasets of larger size files. The experimental results on the cluster-to-cluster testbed show that our variable data flow approach is up to 4 x faster than a normal cluster data transfer.

Disk-to-Disk Transfer↗

High-performance organic photodetectors enabled by a refined fibrillar multiphase morphology

Film morphology of donor:acceptor blend layers plays a critical role in photon-to-current efficiency and dark/noise current of organic photodetectors (OPDs). One effective approach to manipulate crystallization and mesoscale phase separation of such blend layers is sequential casting (SC). However, the guiding strategies to control the morphology and the impacts on OPD performance of the SC films remain elusive, as the film structural evolution during SC is different from conventional blend casting (BC). In this report a refined fibrillar multiphase morphology is demonstrated by SC in an NT812:IEICO-4F blend film, where the high-quality IEICO-4F crystallites infiltrate the robust NT812 fibril network from the surface to the bulk. Such a morphology leads to improved charge generation and collection, reduced trap states, and enhanced charge block capability of resultant device, enabling simultaneous achievement of high external quantum efficiency and low dark/noise current. A maximum special detectivity of 5 × 10 13 Jones is achieved at 860 nm under –0.1 V, which is among the highest detectivities for vis-to-NIR OPDs. The linear dynamic range and response speed are also improved. Such enhancements are parallelly observed from OPD devices based on other blend systems with similar fibrillar refinement, which provides guidelines for film structure manipulation towards high OPD performance.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Evacuee Compliance Behavior Analysis using High Resolution Demographic Information

The purpose of this study is to examine whether evacuee compliance behavior with route assignments from different resolutions of demographic data would impact the evacuation performance. Most existing evacuation strategies assume that travelers will follow evacuation instructions, while in reality a certain percent of evacuees do not comply with prescribed instructions. In this paper, a comparison study of evacuation assignment based on Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZ) and high resolution LandScan USA Population Cells (LPC) were conducted for the detailed road network representing Alexandria, Virginia. A revised platform for evacuation modeling built on high resolution demographic data and activity-based microscopic traffic simulation is proposed. The results indicate that evacuee compliance behavior affects evacuation efficiency with traditional TAZ assignment, but it does not significantly compromise the efficiency with high resolution LPC assignment. The TAZ assignment also underestimates the real travel time during evacuation, especially for high compliance simulations. This suggests that conventional evacuation studies based on TAZ assignment might not be effective at providing efficient guidance to evacuees. From the high resolution data perspective, traveler compliance behavior is an important factor but it does not impact the system performance significantly. The highlight of evacuee compliance behavior analysis should be emphasized on individual evacuee level route/shelter assignments, rather than the whole system performance.

Lu, Wei↗

Neural Network Approaches for Mobile Spectroscopic Gamma-Ray Source Detection

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) for performing spectroscopic gamma-ray source identification have been previously introduced, primarily for applications in controlled laboratory settings. To understand the utility of these methods in scenarios and environments more relevant to nuclear safety and security, this work examines the use of ANNs for mobile detection, which involves highly variable gamma-ray background, low signal-to-noise ratio measurements, and low false alarm rates. Simulated data from a 2” × 4” × 16” NaI(Tl) detector are used in this work for demonstrating these concepts, and the minimum detectable activity (MDA) is used as a performance metric in assessing model performance.In addition to examining simultaneous detection and identification, binary spectral anomaly detection using autoencoders is introduced in this work, and benchmarked using detection methods based on Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). On average, the autoencoder provides a 12% and 23% improvement over NMF- and PCA-based detection methods, respectively. Additionally, source identification using ANNs is extended to leverage temporal dynamics by means of recurrent neural networks, and these time-dependent models outperform their time-independent counterparts by 17% for the analysis examined here. The paper concludes with a discussion on tradeoffs between the ANN-based approaches and the benchmark methods examined here.

Bilton, Kyle J. (ORCID:0000000184553689)↗

Ps and Qs: Quantization-Aware Pruning for Efficient Low Latency Neural Network Inference

Efficient machine learning implementations optimized for inference in hardware have wide-ranging benefits, depending on the application, from lower inference latency to higher data throughput and reduced energy consumption. Two popular techniques for reducing computation in neural networks are pruning, removing insignificant synapses, and quantization, reducing the precision of the calculations. In this work, we explore the interplay between pruning and quantization during the training of neural networks for ultra low latency applications targeting high energy physics use cases. Techniques developed for this study have potential applications across many other domains. We study various configurations of pruning during quantization-aware training, which we term quantization-aware pruning, and the effect of techniques like regularization, batch normalization, and different pruning schemes on performance, computational complexity, and information content metrics. We find that quantization-aware pruning yields more computationally efficient models than either pruning or quantization alone for our task. Further, quantization-aware pruning typically performs similar to or better in terms of computational efficiency compared to other neural architecture search techniques like Bayesian optimization. Surprisingly, while networks with different training configurations can have similar performance for the benchmark application, the information content in the network can vary significantly, affecting its generalizability.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

New Shortwave Array Spectroradiometer-Hemispheric (SAS-He): Hyperspectral Design and Initial Applications

Aerosol optical depth (AOD) derived from hyperspectral measurements can serve as an invaluable input for simultaneous retrievals of particle size distributions and major trace gases. The required hyperspectral measurements are provided by a new ground-based radiometer, the so-called Shortwave Array Spectroradiometer-Hemispheric (SAS-He), recently developed with support from the Department of Energy (DOE) Office Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program. The SAS-He has wide spectral coverage (350-1700nm) and high spectral resolution: about 2.4 nm and 6 nm within 350-1000 nm and 970-1700 nm spectral ranges, respectively. To illustrate an initial performance of the SAS-He, we take advantage of integrated dataset collected during the ARM-supported Two-Column Aerosol Project (TCAP) over the US coastal region (Cape Cod, Massachusetts). This dataset includes AODs derived using data from Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) sunphotometer and Multi-Filter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer (MFRSR). We demonstrate that, on average, the SAS-He AODs closely match the MFRSR and AERONET AODs in the ultraviolet and visible spectral ranges for this area with highly variable AOD. Also, we discuss corrections of SAS-He total optical depth for gas absorption in the near-infrared spectral range and their operational implementation.

Kassianov, Evgueni I.↗

Migration of Al within dealuminated beta extruded catalysts influences olefin distribution during ethanol upgrading

Zeolites serve as essential catalytic platforms for many industrial processes, including emerging ethanol-to-olefins (ETO) upgrading technologies. Although metal-loaded (Cu, Zn, Y) dealuminated beta (deAlBeta) zeolite powders are promising catalysts for direct ETO conversion with high selectivity to butene-rich C3+ olefins necessary for production of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), development of these materials as shaped technical bodies through the incorporation of binders is required for scale-up and commercial viability. Here, we report the ethanol upgrading performance of Cu-Zn-Y/deAlBeta extruded catalysts formulated with either alumina or kaolin clay binders. Both extrudates exhibit high ethanol dehydration reactivity which competes with the initial ethanol dehydrogenation step in the direct ETO reaction network. Consequently, elevated selectivity to dehydration side products (ethylene, diethyl ether) at ∼100% ethanol conversion is observed on Cu-Zn-Y/deAlBeta extrudates compared to the powder catalyst, which inhibits production of desired C3+ olefins. Utilizing microscopy and spectroscopic characterizations, we attribute this to Al migration from binder to zeolite particles within the extrudates, thus re-aluminating the zeolite and generating Brønsted acid sites active for dehydration reactions. This work elucidates the effects of binder incorporation on ETO product distributions and emphasizes that binder selection must be carefully considered during design of extruded zeolite catalysts.

Jacobs, Hunter [ORNL] (ORCID:000000016190874X)↗

Evaluation of low-exergy heating and cooling systems and topology optimization for deep energy savings at the urban district level

District energy systems have the potential to achieve deep energy savings by leveraging the density and diversity of loads in urban districts. However, planning and adoption of district thermal energy systems is hindered by the analytical burden and high infrastructure costs. It is hypothesized that network topology optimization would enable wider adoption of advanced (ambient temperature) district thermal energy systems, resulting in energy savings. In this study, energy modeling is used to compare the energy performance of “conventional” and “advanced” district thermal energy systems at the urban district level, and a partial exhaustive search is used to evaluate a heuristic for the topology optimization problem. For the prototypical district considered, advanced district thermal energy systems mated with low-exergy building heating and cooling systems achieved a source energy use intensity that was 49% lower than that of conventional systems. The minimal spanning tree heuristic was demonstrated to be effective for the network topology optimization problem in the context of a prototypical district, and contributes to mitigating the problem’s computational complexity. The work presented in this paper demonstrates the potential of advanced district thermal energy systems to achieve deep energy savings, and advances to addressing barriers to their adoption through topology optimization.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗