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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2017

Virtual machine provisioning, code management, and data movement design for the Fermilab HEPCloud Facility

The Fermilab HEPCloud Facility Project has as its goal to extend the current Fermilab facility interface to provide transparent access to disparate resources including commercial and community clouds, grid federations, and HPC centers. This facility enables experiments to perform the full spectrum of computing tasks, including data-intensive simulation and reconstruction. We have evaluated the use of the commercial cloud to provide elasticity to respond to peaks of demand without overprovisioning local resources. Full scale data-intensive workflows have been successfully completed on Amazon Web Services for two High Energy Physics Experiments, CMS and NOνA, at the scale of 58000 simultaneous cores. This paper describes the significant improvements that were made to the virtual machine provisioning system, code caching system, and data movement system to accomplish this work. The virtual image provisioning and contextualization service was extended to multiple AWS regions, and to support experiment-specific data configurations. A prototype Decision Engine was written to determine the optimal availability zone and instance type to run on, minimizing cost and job interruptions. We have deployed a scalable on-demand caching service to deliver code and database information to jobs running on the commercial cloud. It uses the frontiersquid server and CERN VM File System (CVMFS) clients on EC2 instances and utilizes various services provided by AWS to build the infrastructure (stack). We discuss the architecture and load testing benchmarks on the squid servers. We also describe various approaches that were evaluated to transport experimental data to and from the cloud, and the optimal solutions that were used for the bulk of the data transport. Finally, we summarize lessons learned from this scale test, and our future plans to expand and improve the Fermilab HEP Cloud Facility.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2019

A Total Internal Reflection Photoconductive Switch

We demonstrate a novel illumination technique for extrinsic photoconductive switches based on the creation of a total internal reflection trap to increase the optical path length. The optimal geometry is a square substrate illuminated from one of the corners along the diagonal, ensuring that the total internal reflection condition is maintained after any reflection off the device lateral sides. The optical absorption uniformity throughout the device bulk was improved by designing the entry window to have a cylindrical shape and by using a square core optical fiber as an illumination source. In conclusion, the concept is experimentally validated on a vanadium-doped silicon carbide device that shows approximately four-fold improvement in responsivity compared to normal illumination.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

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↗
DOE OSTI2023

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↗
NASA NTRS1989

Space vehicle thermal rejection system

A space vehicle thermal heat rejection system 10 utilizing separate optimized heat pipe components for the functions of heat acquisition, heat transport, and heat rejection. A honeycomb panel heat pipe evaporator section 20 performs the function of heat acquisition, and forms a closed thermodynamic system with a dual channel heat pipe transport section 30, which performs the function of heat transport. A plurality of truss or channel core heat pipe rejection fins 41 form the condenser section 40, which performs the function of heat rejection. A common wall 32 separates the condenser section 40 from the transport section 30. Using the above heat pipe components and having efficient interfacing between them results in high performance factors for the overall system.

Tanzer, Herbert J.↗
DOE OSTI2023

OCTOKV: An Agile Network-Based Key-Value Storage System with Robust Load Orchestration

In this paper, we propose OctoKV, an innovative network-based key-value storage system. OctoKV addresses the repetitive address translation overhead associated with traditional key-value stores running on file systems on the client side. To mitigate this overhead, we implemented the key-value store on the server side using NVMe-oF and a user-level NVMe driver. In particular, we employed fine-grained resource monitoring and load balancing based on heuristics to optimize I/O performance. OctoKV is deployed on a Linux cluster with Intel SPDK. The extensive evaluation shows that OctoKV achieves lower I/O response times in comparison to traditional approaches where key-value stores run on the client side. Also, the proposed load balancing strategies efficiently enhance I/O response times by equally distributing the workload from overloaded cores to other cores.

Khan, Awais↗
DOE OSTI2022

Nonlinear burn control in ITER using adaptive allocation of actuators with uncertain dynamics

Abstract ITER will be the first tokamak to sustain a fusion-producing, or burning, plasma. If the plasma temperature were to inadvertently rise in this burning regime, the positive correlation between temperature and the fusion reaction rate would establish a destabilizing positive feedback loop. Careful regulation of the plasma’s temperature and density, or burn control, is required to prevent these potentially reactor-damaging thermal excursions, neutralize disturbances and improve performance. In this work, a Lyapunov-based burn controller is designed using a full zero-dimensional nonlinear model. An adaptive estimator manages destabilizing uncertainties in the plasma confinement properties and the particle recycling conditions (caused by plasma–wall interactions). The controller regulates the plasma density with requests for deuterium and tritium particle injections. In ITER-like plasmas, the fusion-born alpha particles will primarily heat the plasma electrons, resulting in different electron and ion temperatures in the core. By considering separate response models for the electron and ion energies, the proposed controller can independently regulate the electron and ion temperatures by requesting that different amounts of auxiliary power be delivered to the electrons and ions. These two commands for a specific control effort (electron and ion heating) are sent to an actuator allocation module that optimally maps them to the heating actuators available to ITER: an electron cyclotron heating system (20 MW), an ion cyclotron heating system (20 MW), and two neutral beam injectors (16.5 MW each). Two different actuator allocators are presented in this work. The first actuator allocator finds the optimal mapping by solving a convex quadratic program that includes actuator saturation and rate limits. It is nonadaptive and assumes that the mapping between the commanded control efforts and the allocated actuators (i.e. the effector model) contains no uncertainties. The second actuator allocation module has an adaptive estimator to handle uncertainties in the effector model. This uncertainty includes actuator efficiencies, the fractions of neutral beam heating that are deposited into the plasma electrons and ions, and the tritium concentration of the fueling pellets. Furthermore, the adaptive allocator considers actuator dynamics (actuation lag) that contain uncertainty. This adaptive allocation algorithm is more computationally efficient than the aforementioned nonadaptive allocator because it is computed using dynamic update laws so that finding the solution to a static optimization problem is not required at every time step. A simulation study assesses the performance of the proposed adaptive burn controller augmented with each of the actuator allocation modules.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2022

Laminated Permanent Magnets Enable Compact Magnetic Components in Current-Source Converters

Magnetic components have become one of the primary barriers to high power density converters, especially to current-source converters (CSCs). In CSCs, the inductors/transformers have a predominantly dc flux to store energy, which can be offset by standard permanent magnets (PMs). However, eddy currents in standard PMs induce significant losses and thermal stress for medium-frequency applications. This article proposes using laminated PMs to offset the dc flux while reducing eddy currents, leading to significant reductions in the size, cost, and losses of inductors/transformers. Furthermore, the laminated PMs’ optimal location, orientation, and distribution are investigated to generalize this approach for maximum benefits. Here, three-dimensional finite-element analysis simulation and hardware experiments are presented to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in a medium-frequency transformer (MFT) for CSCs. Compared with standard PMs, the proposed use of laminated PMs reduces aggregate core-plus-PM losses by 85% in experiments, and thus, relaxes the MFT thermal design. Finally, the proposed approach is experimentally validated in a 40 kVA flyback-type MFT for a soft-switching solid-state transformer. Compared to the traditional design without any PMs, the proposed design increases the saturation current by 46% while inducing only 5% more losses, leading to significant savings in magnetics cost and size.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗
NASA NTRS2002

Advanced Engine Cycles Analyzed for Turbofans With Variable-Area Fan Nozzles Actuated by a Shape Memory Alloy

Advanced, large commercial turbofan engines using low-fan-pressure-ratio, very high bypass ratio thermodynamic cycles can offer significant fuel savings over engines currently in operation. Several technological challenges must be addressed, however, before these engines can be designed. To name a few, the high-diameter fans associated with these engines pose a significant packaging and aircraft installation challenge, and a large, heavy gearbox is often necessary to address the differences in ideal operating speeds between the fan and the low-pressure turbine. Also, the large nacelles contribute aerodynamic drag penalties and require long, heavy landing gear when mounted on conventional, low wing aircraft. Nevertheless, the reduced fuel consumption rates of these engines are a compelling economic incentive, and fans designed with low pressure ratios and low tip speeds offer attractive noise-reduction benefits. Another complication associated with low-pressure-ratio fans is their need for variable flow-path geometry. As the design fan pressure ratio is reduced below about 1.4, an operational disparity is set up in the fan between high and low flight speeds. In other words, between takeoff and cruise there is too large a swing in several key fan parameters-- such as speed, flow, and pressure--for a fan to accommodate. One solution to this problem is to make use of a variable-area fan nozzle (VAFN). However, conventional, hydraulically actuated variable nozzles have weight, cost, maintenance, and reliability issues that discourage their use with low-fan-pressure-ratio engine cycles. United Technologies Research, in cooperation with NASA, is developing a revolutionary, lightweight, and reliable shape memory alloy actuator system that can change the on-demand nozzle exit area by up to 20 percent. This "smart material" actuation technology, being studied under NASA's Ultra-Efficient Engine Technology (UEET) Program and Revolutionary Concepts in Aeronautics (RevCon) Program, has the potential to enable the next generation of efficient, quiet, very high bypass ratio turbofans. NASA Glenn Research Center's Propulsion Systems Analysis Office, along with NASA Langley Research Center's Systems Analysis Branch, conducted an independent analytical assessment of this new technology to provide strategic guidance to UEET and RevCon. A 2010-technology-level high-spool engine core was designed for this evaluation. Two families of low-spool components, one with and one without VAFN's, were designed to operate with the core. This "constant core" approach was used to hold most design parameters constant so that any performance differences between the VAFN and fixed nozzle cycles could be attributed to the VAFN technology alone. In this manner, the cycle design regimes that offer a performance payoff when VAFN's are used could be identified. The NASA analytical model of a performance-optimized VAFN turbofan with a fan pressure ratio of 1.28 is shown. Mission analyses of the engines were conducted using the notional, long-haul, advanced commercial twinjet shown. A high wing design was used to accommodate the large high-bypassratio engines. The mission fuel reduction benefit of very high bypass shape-memory-alloy VAFN aircraft was calculated to be 8.3 percent lower than a moderate bypass cycle using a conventional fixed nozzle. Shape-memory-alloy VAFN technology is currently under development in NASA's UEET and RevCon Programs.

Berton, Jeffrey J.↗
DOE OSTI2017

High-Fidelity Modelng and Simulation for a High Flux Isotope Reactor Low-Enriched Uranium Core Design

A high-fidelity model of the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) with a low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel design and a representative experiment loading has been developed to serve as a new reference model for LEU conversion studies. With the exception of the fuel elements, this HFIR LEU model is completely consistent with the current highly enriched uranium HFIR model. Results obtained with the new LEU model provide a baseline for analysis of alternate LEU fuel designs and further optimization studies. The newly developed HFIR LEU model has an explicit representation of the HFIR-specific involute fuel plate geometry, including the within-plate fuel meat contouring, and a detailed geometry model of the fuel element side plates. Such high-fidelity models are necessary to accurately account for the self-shielding from 238 U and the depletion of absorber materials present in the side plates. In addition, a method was developed to account for fuel swelling in the high-density LEU fuel plates during the depletion simulation. In conclusion, calculated time-dependent metrics for the HFIR LEU model include fission rate and cumulative fission density distributions, flux and reaction rates for relevant experiment locations, point kinetics data, and reactivity coefficients.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Subsurface Characterization of Hydraulic Fracture Test Site-2 (HFTS-2), Delaware Basin

Hydraulic Fracturing Test Site-2 (HFTS-2) is a field-based research experiment performed in the Wolfcamp Formation of the Permian (Delaware) Basin. This paper focuses on integration, advanced geological characterization, and 3D subsurface modeling of the comprehensive HFTS-2 dataset. The study showcases a multidisciplinary reservoir characterization approach that incorporates geology, petrophysics, geochemistry, geomechanics, microseismic, and subsurface engineering analysis. Subsurface characterization of organic-rich mudstone formations requires understanding complex hydraulic fracture network growth in relation to inherent lithology, geomechanical properties, and interaction with pre-existing natural fractures. This paper presents a characterization workflow incorporating pre- and post-stimulation subsurface data, unique to the HFTS-2 dataset. The study integrated: (1) rock properties from logs, cores, and thin sections; (2) natural and hydraulic fracture descriptions from cores and image logs; (3) local and regional stresses; (4) geomechanics; (5) microseismic; (6) fiber optic (FO) and bottomhole pressure gauge (BHPG) response; and (7) produced fluids analysis. During a stimulation treatment, creation of the stimulated rock volume (SRV) is influenced by several subsurface factors. Key contributing factors include structural context, stress conditions, lithology, facies architecture, pre-existing natural fractures, and geomechanical properties. The HFTS-2 subsurface data integration indicates that the SRV is comprised of a complex juxtaposition of hydraulic fracture swarms, as evidenced by image logs analysis, core description, and microseismic monitoring. The HFTS-2 microseismic event density was used to generate 3D heat maps that serve as a representative SRV footprint, corroborated by secondary datasets. These maps were further integrated with petrophysical and geomechanical characteristics, as well as responses from FO and BHPG, to estimate the lateral and vertical dimensions of the effective fractures. The geological characterization for the HFTS-2 dataset combined with 3D modeling for petrophysical and geomechanical properties provides a strong foundation for subsurface simulation and optimization studies. Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/URTECONF/proceedings-pdf/21URTC/1-21URTC/D011S005R001/2477501/urtec-2021-5243-ms.pdf/1 by Carol Worster on 28 February 2022 URTeC 5243 The workflow improved our understanding of HFTS-2 hydraulic fracture propagation and characteristics in relation to offset pressure depletion and interaction with pre-existing natural fractures. Analysis showed that fracture geometry varies by stage and by well, and a complex fracture network is generated with varying fracture density. The multidisciplinary workflow presented herein for integration and characterization serves as a foundation to evaluate completion efficiency and estimate areal and vertical stimulation and depletion extent for the project. Furthermore, the workflow and learnings can also be transferred to other unconventional plays.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Exploring temporal community evolution: algorithmic approaches and parallel optimization for dynamic community detection

Abstract Dynamic (temporal) graphs are a convenient mathematical abstraction for many practical complex systems including social contacts, business transactions, and computer communications. Community discovery is an extensively used graph analysis kernel with rich literature for static graphs. However, community discovery in a dynamic setting is challenging for two specific reasons. Firstly, the notion of temporal community lacks a widely accepted formalization, and only limited work exists on understanding how communities emerge over time. Secondly, the added temporal dimension along with the sheer size of modern graph data necessitates new scalable algorithms. In this paper, we investigate how communities evolve over time based on several graph metrics under a temporal formalization. We compare six different algorithmic approaches for dynamic community detection for their quality and runtime. We identify that a vertex-centric (local) optimization method works as efficiently as the classical modularity-based methods. To its advantage, such local computation allows for the efficient design of parallel algorithms without incurring a significant parallel overhead. Based on this insight, we design a shared-memory parallel algorithm DyComPar , which demonstrates between 4 and 18 fold speed-up on a multi-core machine with 20 threads, for several real-world and synthetic graphs from different domains.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Review—Development of Highly Active and Durable Hybrid Compressive Platinum Lattice Catalysts for Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells: Mathematical Modeling and Experimental Work

This review provides a comprehensive overview on the development of highly active and durable platinum catalysts with ultra-low Pt loadings for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) through a combined mathematical modeling and experimental work. First, simulation techniques were applied to evaluate the validity of the Tafel approximation for the calculation of the mass activity (MA) and specific activity (SA). A one-dimensional agglomeration model was developed and solved to understand the effects of exchange current density, porosity, agglomerate size, Nafion ® film thickness, and Pt loading on the MA and SA. High porosity (> 60%) and agglomerations at high Pt loadings cause the loss of the Tafel approximation and consequently the decrease in MA and SA. A new structure parameter was introduced to estimate the real porous structure using the fractal theory. The volumetric catalyst density was corrected by the fractal dimension (measured by Hg porosimetry), which gave a good agreement with the experimental values. The loading-dependent Tafel equation was then derived, which contains both the utilization and the non-linear scaling factor. Second, activated carbon composite support (ACCS) with optimized surface area, porosity, pore size, and pore size distribution was developed. The hydrophilic/hydrophobic ratio, structural properties (amorphous/crystalline ratio), and the number of active sites were optimized through metal-catalyzed pyrolysis. Stability of ACCS and Pt/ACCS were evaluated using an accelerated stress test (AST). The results indicated that Pt/ACCS showed no significant loss of MA and power density after 5,000 cycles at 1.0–1.5 V, while the commercial Pt/C catalysts showed drastic losses of MA and power density. Finally, monolayers of compressed Pt (core–shell-type Pt 3 Co 1 ) catalysts were structured by diffusing Co atoms (previously embedded in ACCS) into Pt. Compressive Pt lattice (Pt * ) catalysts were synthesized through an annealing procedure developed at the University of South Carolina (USC). The Pt * /ACCS catalyst showed high initial power density (rated) of 0.174 g Pt kW −1 and high stability (24 mV loss) at 0.8 A cm −2 after 30,000 cycles (0.6–1.0 V). The outstanding performance of Pt * /ACCS is due to the synergistic effect of ACCS and compressive Pt * lattice.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2020

High temperature water electrolysis testing of gold-based electrodes for H 2 production

The Hybrid Sulfur (HyS) process is a promising thermochemical water-splitting cycle with global scale hydrogen production potential. The SO 2 -depolarized electrolyzer (SDE) is a critical component of the cycle. At the core of the SDE is the membrane-electrode assembly (MEA), which consists of a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) sandwiched between two electrocatalyst layers. New electrocatalyst and membrane materials are being developed with the goals of improving the electrolyzer performance and extending the lifetime of the MEA. In this work, we evaluated the performance of three different membranes and optimized operating conditions, resulting is one of the highest performances in the literature.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2021

A New Approach to Predict Hydrogeological Parameters Using Shear Waves from the Multichannel Analysis of Surface Waves Method

For near-surface contaminant characterization, the accurate prediction of hydrogeological parameters in anisotropic and heterogeneous environments has been a challenge since the last decades. However, recent advances in near-surface geophysics have facilitated the use of geophysical data for hydrogeological characterization in the last few years. A pseudo 3-D high resolution P-wave shallow seismic reflection survey was performed at the P Reactor Area, Savannah River Site, South Carolina in order to delineate and predict migration pathways of a large contaminant plume including trichloroethylene. This contaminant plume originates from the northwest section of the reactor facility that is located within the Upper Atlantic Coastal Plain. The data were collected with 40 Hz geophones, an accelerated weight-drop as seismic source and 1 m receiver spacing with near- and far-offsets of 0.5 and 119.5 m, respectively. In such areas with near-surface contaminants, a detailed subsurface characterization of the vadose zone hydraulic parameters is very important. Indeed, an inexpensive method of deriving such parameters by the use of seismic reflection surveys is beneficial, and our approach uses the relationship between seismic velocity and hydrogeological parameters together with empirical observations relating porosity to permeability and hydraulic conductivity. Shear wave velocity ( V s ) profiles were estimated from surface wave dispersion analysis of the seismic reflection data and were subsequently used to derive hydraulic parameters such as porosity, permeability, and hydraulic conductivity. Additional geophysical data including core samples, vertical seismic profiling, surface electrical resistivity tomography, natural gamma and electrical resistivity logs allowed for a robust assessment of the validity and geological significance of the estimated V s and hydrogeological models. The results demonstrate the usefulness of this approach for the upper 15 m of shallow unconsolidated sediments even though the survey design parameters were not optimal for surface wave analysis due to the higher than desired frequency geophones.

Engineering↗
DOE OSTI2023

Towards Automated and High-Throughput Quantitative Sizing and Isotopic Analysis of Nanoparticles via Single Particle-ICP-TOF-MS

The work described herein assesses the ability to characterize gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) of 50 and 100 nm, as well as 60 nm silver shelled gold core nanospheres (Au/Ag NPs), for their mass, respective size, and isotopic composition in an automated and unattended fashion. Here, an innovative autosampler was employed to mix and transport the blanks, standards, and samples into a high-efficiency single particle (SP) introduction system for subsequent analysis by inductively coupled plasma–time of flight–mass spectrometry (ICP-TOF-MS). Optimized NP transport efficiency into the ICP-TOF-MS was determined to be >80%. This combination, SP-ICP-TOF-MS, allowed for high-throughput sample analysis. Specifically, 50 total samples (including blanks/standards) were analyzed over 8 h, to provide an accurate characterization of the NPs. This methodology was implemented over the course of 5 days to assess its long-term reproducibility. Impressively, the in-run and day-to-day variation of sample transport is assessed to be 3.54 and 9.52% relative standard deviation (%RSD), respectively. The determination of Au NP size and concentration was of <5% relative difference from the certified values over these time periods. Isotopic characterization of the 107 Ag/ 109 Ag particles (n = 132,630) over the course of the measurements was determined to be 1.0788 ± 0.0030 with high accuracy (0.23% relative difference) when compared to the multi-collector–ICP-MS determination.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Scattering of Radio Frequency Waves by Density Filaments

The edge region and the scrape-off layer of magnetically confined fusion devices, like tokamaks and stellarators, are replete with turbulent plasma that is a mixture of coherent, blob or filament like, structures [1] and incoherent fluctuations [2]. The variation in the density due to turbulence can be comparable to or greater than the ambient density [2]. As part of an overall effort to optimize the efficiency of operation, radio frequency (RF) waves are commonly used for heating fusion plasmas and, in tokamaks, for generating plasma current needed for confinement and controlling instabilities. The RF waves are excited by antenna structures that are placed near the wall of a fusion device. In order to deliver energy and momentum to charged particles in the core of fusion plasmas, RF waves have to propagate through the turbulent plasma. In present fusion devices, the scrap-off layer and the edge plasma region is of the order of a few centimeters. In reactor type devices, like ITER, this region is expected to be of the order of tens of centimeters. Since the efficiency of operation of a fusion reactor is of prime importance, it is imperative that we understand the effect of turbulence on RF waves. The fluctuations in density lead to changes in the plasma permittivity. As in conventional electrodynamics, the propagation of RF waves through different dielectric media is subject to reflection, refraction, and diffraction. In this paper, we summarize our theoretical and computational studies on the propagation of RF waves through filamentary structures present in the scrape-off layer.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Hybrid Thermally Efficient Core (HyTEC) Project Overview

Goal: - The Hybrid Thermally Efficient Core (HyTEC) Project will accelerate the development of the next generation small-core turbofan engine technologies with improvements in efficiency, durability, performance, hybridization, and sustainability in order to meet the next Entry into Service (EIS) single aisle aircraft expected in the 2030’s. Objectives: - Achieve 5-10% fuel burn reduction versus 2020 best in class. - Achieve up to 20% power extraction (4 times current state of the art) at altitude to optimize propulsion system performance and enable hybridization. - Demonstrate the effective and efficient operability of high blend (>80%) Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs) in 2030s EIS combustors.

Tony Nerone↗