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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 1,171 records · Page 65

Microstructural-Level Fuel Performance Modeling of U-Mo Monolithic Fuel

As the physics that governs the microstructural evolution of nuclear fuel span various time and spatial scales, to fully understand the fuel behavior inevitably involves atomic to mesoscale resolution that can be difficult to determine experimentally. Microstructural-level modeling and simulations can be used to develop physics-based materials models that can provide physical understanding to inform fabrication process control, as well as a valuable feedback mechanism between post-irradiation examination (PIE) results and fabrication parameters. In accordance with the program schedule, the primary goals of the microstructure modeling effort are to: 1. Address critical microstructural questions and provide practical guidance to the fabricator via the fuel product specification; 2. Provide mechanistic inputs for the existing fuel performance code to improve its descriptive and predictive capability at the macroscopic scale. In fiscal year (FY)-21, the work scope consisted of six main facets: (1) the effect of carbides on fuel performance; (2) gas diffusivity in different phases; (3) integration of microstructural fuel performance modeling; (4) property degradation; (5) irradiation creep; and (6) historical analysis of microstructure data. Brief summaries of each are included below.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Multiscale Development and Validation of the Stainless Steel Alloy Corrosion (SStAC) Tool for High Temperature Engine Materials

The goal of this project was to create a simulation tool to assist in part design, reducing costs by eliminating the need for conservative material selection, and enabling alloy optimization to improve corrosion resistance. Thus, it helps decrease costs for existing engines and assists in the material and engine design for the engines of the future. To meet our stated goal, we developed the Stainless-Steel Alloy Corrosion (SStAC) tool, which: (1) Models corrosion of engine valves fabricated from 21-2N valve steel in an engine environment at temperatures up to 800 °C. (2) Runs in 1D for a fast estimate of the corrosion rate, and in 2D or 3D for more detailed simulations that represent any part geometry and predict the precise location and rate of corrosion and its impact on the mechanical and thermal behavior. (3) Was implemented using the open-source Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE). (4) Couples the corrosion model with mechanics and thermal transport models. The SStAC tool can predict the corrosion rate of 21-2N engine valves with less than 10% error.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Sequential Inference of Hospitalization Electronic Health Records Using Probabilistic Models

In the dynamic hospital setting, decision support can be a valuable tool for improving patient outcomes. Data-driven inference of future outcomes is challenging in this dynamic setting, where long sequences such as laboratory tests and medications are updated frequently. This is due in part to heterogeneity of data types and mixed-sequence types contained in variable length sequences. In this work we design a probabilistic unsupervised model for multiple arbitrary-length sequences contained in hospitalization Electronic Health Record (EHR) data. The model uses a latent variable structure and captures complex relationships between medications, diagnoses, laboratory tests, neurological assessments, and medications. It can be trained on original data, without requiring any lossy transformations or time binning. Inference algorithms are derived that use partial data to infer properties of the complete sequences, including their length and presence of specific values. We train this model on data from subjects receiving medical care in the Kaiser Permanente Northern California integrated healthcare delivery system. The results are evaluated against held-out data for predicting the length of sequences and presence of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in hospitalization bed sequences. Our method outperforms a baseline approach, showing that in these experiments the trained model captures information in the sequences that is informative of their future values.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Advances in computational design and analysis of airbreathing propulsion systems

The development of commercial and military aircraft depends, to a large extent, on engine manufacturers being able to achieve significant increases in propulsion capability through improved component aerodynamics, materials, and structures. The recent history of propulsion has been marked by efforts to develop computational techniques that can speed up the propulsion design process and produce superior designs. The availability of powerful supercomputers, such as the NASA Numerical Aerodynamic Simulator, and the potential for even higher performance offered by parallel computer architectures, have opened the door to the use of multi-dimensional simulations to study complex physical phenomena in propulsion systems that have previously defied analysis or experimental observation. An overview of several NASA Lewis research efforts is provided that are contributing toward the long-range goal of a numerical test-cell for the integrated, multidisciplinary design, analysis, and optimization of propulsion systems. Specific examples in Internal Computational Fluid Mechanics, Computational Structural Mechanics, Computational Materials Science, and High Performance Computing are cited and described in terms of current capabilities, technical challenges, and future research directions.

Klineberg, John M.↗

Advances in computational design and analysis of airbreathing propulsion systems

The development of commercial and military aircraft depends, to a large extent, on engine manufacturers being able to achieve significant increases in propulsion capability through improved component aerodynamics, materials, and structures. The recent history of propulsion has been marked by efforts to develop computational techniques that can speed up the propulsion design process and produce superior designs. The availability of powerful supercomputers, such as the NASA Numerical Aerodynamic Simulator, and the potential for even higher performance offered by parallel computer architectures, have opened the door to the use of multi-dimensional simulations to study complex physical phenomena in propulsion systems that have previously defied analysis or experimental observation. An overview of several NASA Lewis research efforts is provided that are contributing toward the long-range goal of a numerical test-cell for the integrated, multidisciplinary design, analysis, and optimization of propulsion systems. Specific examples in Internal Computational Fluid Mechanics, Computational Structural Mechanics, Computational Materials Science, and High Performance Computing are cited and described in terms of current capabilities, technical challenges, and future research directions.

Klineberg, John M.↗

Monte Carlo Simulation of Alloy Design Techniques: Fracture and Welding Studied Using the BFS Method for Alloys

Large-scale simulations of dynamic processes at the atomic level have developed into one of the main areas of work in computational materials science. Until recently, severe computational restrictions, as well as the lack of accurate methods for calculating the energetics, resulted in slower growth in the area than that required by current alloy design programs. The Computational Materials Group at the NASA Lewis Research Center is devoted to the development of powerful, accurate, economical tools to aid in alloy design. These include the BFS (Bozzolo, Ferrante, and Smith) method for alloys (ref. 1) and the development of dedicated software for large-scale simulations based on Monte Carlo- Metropolis numerical techniques, as well as state-of-the-art visualization methods. Our previous effort linking theoretical and computational modeling resulted in the successful prediction of the microstructure of a five-element intermetallic alloy, in excellent agreement with experimental results (refs. 2 and 3). This effort also produced a complete description of the role of alloying additions in intermetallic binary, ternary, and higher order alloys (ref. 4).

Bozzolo, Guillermo H.↗