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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

United States Nuclear Power Reactor Used Nuclear Fuel Database and Applications

The Unified Database (UDB) within STANDARDS serves as the foundational data infrastructure for managing the United States' spent nuclear fuel inventory of 315,111 discharged assemblies totaling 91,036 metric tons of heavy metal. The database organizes this complex inventory through over 200 interconnected tables structured into eight primary attribute categories, supporting integrated analyses across storage, transportation, and disposal domains. Data enters the UDB through the GC-859 Nuclear Fuel Data Survey, which transitioned to web-based collection in 2023, improving data quality through real-time validation. The UDB enables automated generation of input files for nuclear safety analyses, reducing preparation time from weeks to hours while maintaining traceability. Applications include national inventory reporting, Certificate of Compliance assessments, and facility optimization. The three-tier distribution model balances accessibility with security requirements for federal agencies, national laboratories, and research organizations. The UDB provides essential data infrastructure as spent fuel management transitions from site-specific to integrated national campaigns.

Stefanovic, Peter↗
DOE OSTI2020

Data-Driven Understanding of Low-to-Moderate Income Customers’ Adoption and Financial Qualification in Community Solar (Final Technical Report)

When Solstice began working in the community solar industry, it quickly became clear that there was a wide disparity along race and class lines in terms of what kind of household traditional solar offerings benefited. Solstice is an organization that aligns itself to the principles of a Just Transition, or the concept that a transition to a green economy should benefit and prioritize historically marginalized groups of people. Given that low-income communities are disproportionately burdened by our current polluting fossil fuel economy, Solstice set out to investigate the root causes of the exclusion of low to moderate income (LMI) households in the community solar market. As we worked more and more with financiers, developers, and LMI households, we recognized that significant barriers to entry in a developer-owned project were credit threshold requirements. A FICO score of 750 and higher discriminates against LMI households that are not financially stable enough to take on multiple lines of credit (or who may not have been deemed credit worthy enough to access a line of credit) yet who may have been reliable utility customers. As Solstice began looking further into preliminary data and speaking to community-based organizations (CBOs) that serve LMI households, we found our hypothesis to be worth investigating; there was indeed a subset of LMI households with poor FICO scores (or no FICO score at all) that had perfect bill payment history. Though initially Solstice was intent on gathering a body of data to prove or disprove this hypothesis, we were also concerned that all this proof of a financially stable and reliable customer was not being incorporated into FICO, and wondered if such a score would be possible. After preliminary research into the existence of alternative scores, Solstice realized that many mission-driven lending institutions rely on alternative metrics that are formulated for their specific industry. However, we also realized that community solar did not have an alternative credit underwriting mechanism, though there was great need from solar financiers for one. We anticipated that the creation of an EnergyScore would contribute to financiers’ need to qualify more people, as these entities are desperately looking for ways to lower the cost of customer acquisition. FICO turns away nearly 50% of potential customers (according to our own acquisition experience), and much of the community solar industry is realizing that FICO is not the perfect qualifying mechanism. Additionally, with a grounding in energy justice, just transitions, and climate justice, Solstice recognizes the need for a solution that addresses a more urgent need for LMI households to access renewable energy savings and relieve energy burdens. With funding from the Department of Energy, we gathered the data necessary to build the EnergyScore, reached out to mission-driven developers willing to test the metric, and secured several demonstration projects to pilot the EnergyScore. After acquiring customers for these demo projects using the EnergyScore, we will be continuously collecting customer payment behavior data. Though it goes beyond the scope of this project, we plan to disseminate this de-identified data with the wider community solar industry, which includes not only financiers and developers, but other mission-driven nonprofits, solar cooperatives, community-based organizations, environmental justice activists, and academics. While we intend to disprove the notion that LMI households cannot be included in projects without acutely increasing the risk to project finances, we also hope the data can be used to negotiate better pricing of systems and terms of ownership for community groups seeking to build inclusive projects.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

The European wood pellets for heating market - Price developments, trade and market efficiency

Competitive international markets imply adjustments towards competitive spatial equilibrium in which excess from one market is transferred to another and prices are equilibrated except for remaining differences that can be assigned to transfer costs. The European market for wood pellets used in small-scale heating systems has been expanding significantly over the past decade. Small scale pellet heating is arguably a mature technology, but whether the market is mature is another question. In this paper we analyse recent data on trade flows and price developments between Italy, Austria, Germany and France to understand the developments of wood pellet market efficiency and to draw conclusions about market function. The objective of this study is to establish a framework to test the European residential wood pellet market for competitive spatial equilibrium using modern trade theory. We find mainly inefficiently integrated markets with remaining positive marginal profits and detectable arbitrageurs’ activity. Based on a thorough discussion of these findings and the underlying data we outline possible methodology advancements and list policy recommendations to secure access and affordability of this renewable heating commodity in the long run.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2018

Framework for Shared Drinking Water Risk Assessment

Risk assessment plays a vital role in protecting our nation's critical infrastructure. Traditionally, such assessments have been conducted as a singular activity confined to the boarders of a particular asset or utility with little external sharing of information. In contrast other domains, e.g., disaster preparedness, cyber security, food-borne hazards, have demonstrated the benefits of sharing data, experiences and lessons learned in assessing and managing risk. Here we explore the concept of a Shared Risk Framework (SRF) in the context of critical infrastructure assessments. In this exploration, key elements of an SRF are introduced and initial instantiations demonstrated by way of three water utility assessments. Results from these three demonstrations were then combined with results from four other risk assessments developed using a different risk assessment application by a different set of analysts. Through this comparison we were able to explore potential challenges and benefits from implementation of a SRF. Challenges included both the capacity and interest of local utilities to conduct a shared risk assessment; particularly, wide scale adoption of any SRF will require a clear demonstration that such an effort supports the basic mission of the utility, adds benefit to the utility, and protects utility data from unintended access or misuse. In terms of benefits, anonymous sharing of results among utilities could provide the added benefits of recognizing and correcting bias; identifying ‘unknown, unknowns’; assisting self-assessment and benchmarking for the local utility; and providing a basis for treating shared assets and/or threats across multiple utilities.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Overview of JET results for optimising ITER operation

The JET 2019–2020 scientific and technological programme exploited the results of years of concerted scientific and engineering work, including the ITER-like wall (ILW: Be wall and W divertor) installed in 2010, improved diagnostic capabilities now fully available, a major neutral beam injection upgrade providing record power in 2019–2020, and tested the technical and procedural preparation for safe operation with tritium. Research along three complementary axes yielded a wealth of new results. Firstly, the JET plasma programme delivered scenarios suitable for high fusion power and alpha particle (α) physics in the coming D–T campaign (DTE2), with record sustained neutron rates, as well as plasmas for clarifying the impact of isotope mass on plasma core, edge and plasma-wall interactions, and for ITER pre-fusion power operation. The efficacy of the newly installed shattered pellet injector for mitigating disruption forces and runaway electrons was demonstrated. Secondly, research on the consequences of long-term exposure to JET-ILW plasma was completed, with emphasis on wall damage and fuel retention, and with analyses of wall materials and dust particles that will help validate assumptions and codes for design and operation of ITER and DEMO. Thirdly, the nuclear technology programme aiming to deliver maximum technological return from operations in D, T and D–T benefited from the highest D–D neutron yield in years, securing results for validating radiation transport and activation codes, and nuclear data for ITER.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Distributed Intrusion Detection System using Semantic-based Rules for SCADA in Smart Grid

Cyber-physical system (CPS) security for the smart grid enables secure communication for the SCADA and wide-area measurement system data. Power utilities world-wide use various SCADA protocols, namely DNP3, Modbus, and IEC 61850, for the data exchanges across substation field devices, remote terminal units (RTUs), and control center applications. Adversaries may exploit compromised SCADA protocols for the reconnaissance, data exfiltration, vulnerability assessment, and injection of stealthy cyberattacks to affect power system operation. In this paper, we propose an efficient algorithm to generate robust rule sets. We integrate the rule sets into an intrusion detection system (IDS), which continuously monitors the DNP3 data traffic at a substation network and detects intrusions and anomalies in real-time. To enable CPS-aware wide-area situational awareness, we integrated the methodology into an open-source distributed-IDS (D-IDS) framework. The D-IDS facilitates central monitoring of the detected anomalies from the geographically distributed substations and to the control center. The proposed algorithm provides an optimal solution to detect network intrusions and abnormal behavior. Different types of IDS rules based on packet payload, packet flow, and time threshold are generated. Further, IDS testing and evaluation is performed with a set of rules in different sequences. The detection time is measured for different IDS rules, and the results are plotted. All the experiments are conducted at Power Cyber Lab, Iowa State University, for multiple power grid models. After successful testing and evaluation, knowledge and implementation are transferred to field deployment.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Stealthy Cyber Anomaly Detection On Large Noisy Multi-material 3D Printer Datasets Using Probabilistic Models

As Additive Layer Manufacturing (ALM) becomes pervasive in industry, its applications in safety critical component manufacturing are being explored and adopted. However, ALM's reliance on embedded computing renders it vulnerable to tampering through cyber-attacks. Sensor instrumentation of ALM devices allows for rigorous process and security monitoring, but also results in a massive volume of noisy data for each run. As such, in-situ, near-real-time anomaly detection is very challenging. The ideal algorithm for this context is simple, computationally efficient, minimizes false positives, and is accurate enough to resolve small deviations. In this paper, we present a probabilistic-model-based approach to address this challenge. To test our approach, we analyze current measurements from a polymer composite 3D printer during emulated tampering attacks. Our results show that our approach can consistently and efficiently locate small changes in the presence of substantial operational noise.

Yoginath, Srikanth↗
DOE OSTI2016

Applying the World Water and Agriculture Model to Filling Scenarios for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

The World Water and Agriculture Model has been used to simulate water, hydropower, and food sector effects in Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia during the filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam reservoir. This unique capability allows tradeoffs to be made between filling policies for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam reservoir. This Nile River Basin study is presented to illustrate the capacity to use the World Water and Agriculture Model to simulate regional food security issues while keeping a global perspective. The study uses runoff data from the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 and information from the literature in order to establish a reasonable set of hydrological initial conditions. Gross Domestic Product and population growth are modelled exogenously based on a composite projection of United Nations and World Bank data. The effects of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam under various percentages of water withheld are presented.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

Modeling of Pyroprocessing Hot Cell for Process Monitoring Evaluation

In this report, we examine studies undertaken to determine the applicability of applying measurements with a neutron counter within a pyroprocessing hot cell. The studies focus on the modeling of the hot cell and neutron counter in Monte Carlo N- Particle Code (MCNP) to determine expected radiation effects and applicability of neutron counters. The neutron counter of focus was the High Dose Neutron Detector (HDND) developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). We studied the HDND to determine what would be the detector response under normal background conditions with operating process equipment as well as the background’s potential effect on counting applications involving a U/TRU ingot produced by the pyroprocessing electrorefiner. To perform this task, we were required to develop models of the pyroprocessing process cell and unit operations and generate source terms for various different times in the process. The data for the pyroprocessing materials came from SNL’s Safeguards and Security Process Model (SSPM) as part of MPACT’s advanced integration mission. This report will discuss the development of the pyroprocessing process cell and unit operations models in MCNP as well as various simulations to determine the applicability of the HDND for process monitoring efforts in the hot cell.

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEA↗
NASA NTRS1994

Robotic tape library system level testing at NSA: Present and planned

In the present of declining Defense budgets, increased pressure has been placed on the DOD to utilize Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) solutions to incrementally solve a wide variety of our computer processing requirements. With the rapid growth in processing power, significant expansion of high performance networking, and the increased complexity of applications data sets, the requirement for high performance, large capacity, reliable and secure, and most of all affordable robotic tape storage libraries has greatly increased. Additionally, the migration to a heterogeneous, distributed computing environment has further complicated the problem. With today's open system compute servers approaching yesterday's supercomputer capabilities, the need for affordable, reliable secure Mass Storage Systems (MSS) has taken on an ever increasing importance to our processing center's ability to satisfy operational mission requirements. To that end, NSA has established an in-house capability to acquire, test, and evaluate COTS products. Its goal is to qualify a set of COTS MSS libraries, thereby achieving a modicum of standardization for robotic tape libraries which can satisfy our low, medium, and high performance file and volume serving requirements. In addition, NSA has established relations with other Government Agencies to complete this in-house effort and to maximize our research, testing, and evaluation work. While the preponderance of the effort is focused at the high end of the storage ladder, considerable effort will be extended this year and next at the server class or mid range storage systems.

Shields, Michael F.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Cell prestress. I. Stiffness and prestress are closely associated in adherent contractile cells

The tensegrity hypothesis holds that the cytoskeleton is a structure whose shape is stabilized predominantly by the tensile stresses borne by filamentous structures. Accordingly, cell stiffness must increase in proportion with the level of the tensile stress, which is called the prestress. Here we have tested that prediction in adherent human airway smooth muscle (HASM) cells. Traction microscopy was used to measure the distribution of contractile stresses arising at the interface between each cell and its substrate; this distribution is called the traction field. Because the traction field must be balanced by tensile stresses within the cell body, the prestress could be computed. Cell stiffness (G) was measured by oscillatory magnetic twisting cytometry. As the contractile state of the cell was modulated with graded concentrations of relaxing or contracting agonists (isoproterenol or histamine, respectively), the mean prestress ((t)) ranged from 350 to 1,900 Pa. Over that range, cell stiffness increased linearly with the prestress: G (Pa) = 0.18(t) + 92. While this association does not necessarily preclude other interpretations, it is the hallmark of systems that secure shape stability mainly through the prestress. Regardless of mechanism, these data establish a strong association between stiffness of HASM cells and the level of tensile stress within the cytoskeleton.

NASA Discipline Cell Biology↗
NASA NTRS2014

Mars Relay Operations Service (MaROS): A Present Service Preparing for the Future

The Mars Relay Operations Service (MaROS) has been deployed by NASA's Mars Program Office and the Multimission Ground Systems and Services (MGSS) Project into mission operations to aid in the coordination of relay activities at Mars. This live system presents standardized interfaces and a centralized infrastructure to current and future participants in the Mars Relay Network for the purpose of reliably and securely exchanging and storing all relay-related planning and operations data. The initial development of this system leveraged over eight years of experience performing relay operations between the various spacecraft at Mars. Now, four years after its initial deployment, MaROS continues to undergo further refinement to better meet the needs of the Mars Relay Network. The most substantial, recent update was focused on providing capabilities needed by the Mars Science Laboratory project, which landed on Mars in August of 2012. This paper will describe the nature of that update and describe additional features being added to the system to better serve the needs of current and future Mars missions.

Gladden, Roy E.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Properties of Rubble-Pile Asteroid (101955) Bennu from OSIRIS-REx Imaging and Thermal Analysis

Establishing the abundance and physical properties of regolith and boulders on asteroids is crucial for understanding the formation and degradation mechanisms at work on their surfaces. Using images and thermal data from NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft, we show that asteroid (101955) Bennu's surface is globally rough, dense with boulders, and low in albedo. The number of boulders is surprising given Bennu's moderate thermal inertia, suggesting that simple models linking thermal inertia to particle size do not adequately capture the complexity relating these properties. At the same time, we find evidence for a wide range of particle sizes with distinct albedo characteristics. Our findings imply that ages of Bennu's surface particles span from the disruption of the asteroid's parent body (boulders) to recent in situ production (micrometre-scale particles).

DellaGiustina, D. N.↗
DOE OSTI2016

The effect of the NERC CIP standards on the reliability of the North American Bulk Electric System

Considerable money and effort has been expended by generation, transmission, and distribution entities in North America to implement the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards for the bulk electric system. Assumptions have been made that as a result of the implementation of the standards, the grid is more cyber secure than it was pre-NERC CIP, but are there data supporting these claims, or only speculation? Has the implementation of the standards had an effect on the grid? Furthermore, developing a research study to address these and other questions provided surprising results.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Cybersecurity Vulnerability Assessment Methodologies for Nuclear Power Plants

As any mechanical system ages, broken or outdated parts must be replaced; nuclear power plants (NPPs) are no different. The average age of a NPP in the United States' aging fleet of commercial reactors is 35 years, with many of these plants operating under extensions of their original licenses. These plants, originally designed in the 1960's and 1970's, are controlled by analog instrumentation and control (I and C) systems, and have since been upgraded (to varying degrees) to hybrid analog-digital systems. As these NPPs are upgraded to continue operating and to meet more stringent safety requirements imposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the implementation of digital systems to monitor and run the power plant introduces new vulnerabilities that must be addressed. The main objectives of a vulnerability assessment (VA) are to identify, quantify, and prioritize all of the susceptibilities inherent in a system. This allows for all weaknesses to be analyzed, and for the most serious concerns to be addressed first. Traditional VA methodologies deal with the analysis of physical systems associated with the NPP; with the introduction of digital control systems and computer networks, these methodologies must be expanded to include these fundamentally different systems and vulnerability concerns. Digital systems have been used in NPPs since the 1980's, but only for non-safety control systems; attacks on these systems were not deemed consequential, and no dedicated VA methodology was required. However, 'all new NPPs are being designed with integrated digital instrumentation and control systems as the backbone of protection, controls, alarms, and display and monitoring'. This gives rise to new vulnerabilities such as disrupted data displays, the suppression of critical alarms, or unauthorized access to secure systems from connected networks. The NRC released formal cybersecurity regulations in March 2009 (10 CFR 73.54), as well as a guide for the program in January 2010 (RG 5.71). However, the regulations and guide provide limited insight on how to identify these vulnerabilities; the focus is on remediating them once found. Hence, there is a need for a comprehensive, systematic methodology to conduct a VA on digital computer and communications and network systems. In this paper, we review traditional VA methodologies and discuss relevant cases. Then we discuss challenges to vulnerabilities within the context of modernization of the fleet and what needs to be done to address this issue.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2017

An Open Source Extensible Smart Energy Framework

Aggregated distributed energy resources are the subject of much interest in the energy industry and are expected to play an important role in meeting our future energy needs by changing how we use, distribute and generate electricity. This energy future includes an increased amount of energy from renewable resources, load management techniques to improve resiliency and reliability, and distributed energy storage and generation capabilities that can be managed to meet the needs of the grid as well as individual customers. These energy assets are commonly referred to as Distributed Energy Resources (DER). DERs rely on a means to communicate information between an energy provider and multitudes of devices. Today DER control systems are typically vendor-specific, using custom hardware and software solutions. As a result, customers are locked into communication transport protocols, applications, tools, and data formats. Today’s systems are often difficult to extend to meet new application requirements, resulting in stranded assets when business requirements or energy management models evolve. By partnering with industry advisors and researchers, an implementation DER research platform was developed called the Smart Energy Framework (SEF). The hypothesis of this research was that an open source Internet of Things (IoT) framework could play a role in creating a commodity-based eco-system for DER assets that would reduce costs and provide interoperable products. SEF is based on the AllJoynTM IoT open source framework. The demonstration system incorporated DER assets, specifically batteries and smart water heaters. To verify the behavior of the distributed system, models of water heaters and batteries were also developed. An IoT interface for communicating between the assets and a control server was defined. This interface supports a series of “events” and telemetry reporting, similar to those defined by current smart grid communication standards. The results of this effort demonstrated the feasibility and application potential of using IoT frameworks for the creation of commodity-based DER systems. All of the identified commodity-based system requirements were met by the AllJoyn framework. By having commodity solutions, small vendors can enter the market and the cost of implementation for all parties is reduced. Utilities and aggregators can choose from multiple interoperable products reducing the risk of stranded assets. Based on this research it is recommended that interfaces based on existing smart grid communication protocol standards be created for these emerging IoT frameworks. These interfaces should be standardized as part of the IoT framework allowing for interoperability testing and certification. Similarly, IoT frameworks are introducing application level security. This type of security is needed for protecting application and platforms and will be important moving forward. Recommendations are that along with DER-based data model interfaces, platform and application security requirements also be prescribed when IoT devices support DER applications.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Calibration of a compact ASIC-based data acquisition system for neutron/$γ$ discrimination and spectroscopy with organic scintillators

Segmented neutron detectors that use silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) are receiving significant attention in nuclear security applications. Some of these detectors employ hundreds of channels and would therefore benefit from the use of high-channel-density and low-cost-per-channel data acquisition (DAQ) systems. Candidate DAQ systems that meet these requirements exist, but few perform full waveform digitization, which permits neutron and gamma-ray interaction discrimination via pulse shape. In this work, we study the performance of the TOFPET2 (PETsys Electronics), an ASIC-based DAQ designed for positron emission tomography, which has been adapted to provide sensitivity to pulse shape by the use of variable-period charge integration. We use a light-emitting diode to calibrate a combination of an ON Semiconductor (SensL) 60035-64P J-Series SiPM and TOPFET2 DAQ and evaluate the linearity of their response and dynamic range. Here, the calibration curve was obtained by comparing the DAQ response to that measured with a photodiode interfaced with a traditional waveform digitizer. This calibration process was used for rudimentary spectroscopy of various neutron and sources.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2026

Predicting multiphase flow and tracer transport for an underground chemical explosive test

Detecting radionuclide gas seepage from clandestine underground nuclear tests is central to nonproliferation explosion monitoring research. Yet, early-time (<6 day) gas transport driven by the explosive pressure wave remains poorly constrained due to scarcity of field data. We simulate multi-phase gas transport in the vadose zone using pre-shot data from a recent chemical explosion in P-Tunnel at the Nevada National Security Site, USA. Despite using a simplified 2D-radial model, predictions of tracer arrival matched observations within one order-of-magnitude. Our results show how transient blast forcing rapidly mobilizes gases from the cavity into surrounding rock – critical for optimizing sensor placement and test planning. This unique integration of field data and modeling represents a significant improvement in our ability to predict gas migration from underground explosions. More broadly, it offers insights into the coupled dynamics of pressure waves and contaminant transport in the vadose zone, with implications for monitoring and hazard assessment.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗