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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 127 records · Page 7

Clean Hydrogen Production R&D

Comprehensive, concerted efforts supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO) are advancing research and development to demonstrate clean hydrogen production and industrial decarbonization pathways. These pathways enable an economically competitive and environmentally beneficial future energy system across sectors and can address specific applications that are difficult to decarbonize. NREL's research accelerates development, integration, and scale up of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies to enable widespread deployment across multiple energy sectors. Our work helps industry overcome technical challenges and supports DOE's H2@Scale vision for clean hydrogen across multiple applications and economic sectors. We also bridge technologies with other research areas across the lab and through multiple DOE and national lab research initiatives, consortia, and collaborations including: H2NEW: Hydrogen from Next-generation Electrolyzers of Water Consortium, HydroGEN: Advanced Water Splitting Materials Consortium, and BioH2. Within the plenary panel called: From the Classroom to the Lab to the Board Room, I will represent the Lab in this panel and will be talking about hydrogen technology at NREL, the lab's role in bridging university research with industry commercialization. I will also talk about my personal career path and what it's like to work at NREL, along with work force development and DEIA programs at NREL.

BIL↗

Diversification and Challenges of Software Engineering Standards

The author poses certain questions in this paper: 'In the future, should there be just one software engineering standards set? If so, how can we work towards that goal? What are the challenges of internationalizing standards?' Based on the author's personal view, the statement of his position is as follows: 'There should NOT be just one set of software engineering standards in the future. At the same time, there should NOT be the proliferation of standards, and the number of sets of standards should be kept to a minimum.It is important to understand the diversification of the areas which are spanned by the software engineering standards.' The author goes on to describe the diversification of processes, the diversification in the national and international character of standards organizations, the diversification of the professional organizations producing standards, the diversification of the types of businesses and industries, and the challenges of internationalizing standards.

software standards international standards softwar↗

Improving and Automating Building Model Data Exchange

There are many instances throughout a project’s lifecycle where there arises a need for quick and accurate risk assessment of building designs. For example, an unexpected design change during construction may necessitate structural engineers to perform a seismic risk assessment on analytical models of the updated building design using high fidelity structural analysis software, such as ANSYS or Abaqus. However, the efficiency of such workflows often depends upon the interoperability of architectural design software and structural analysis software. When the quality of this interoperability is lacking or even non-existent, the efficiency of virtual engineering workflows is hampered, which increases project costs. A McGraw Hill industry survey of professional users of Building Information Modeling (BIM) technologies found that there is high demand for BIM interoperability for structural analysis, but that the value/difficulty ratio is currently too low for practical use. There have been efforts by the academic community to facilitate model data exchange between the architectural design and structural analysis domains, but such solutions have not been widely adopted by industry, face technical challenges, and oftentimes are limited in applicability for users of various BIM software. Therefore, INL is developing capabilities to improve, automate, and generalize model data exchange between architectural BIM software (e.g., Revit) and structural analysis software (e.g., SAP2000, ANSYS). The goal is to help expedite and automate as much of the pre-processing step for creating analytical models in finite element analysis software as reasonably as possible. Such a "BIM-to-FEA" conversion tool should provide direct benefit to end-users through accuracy, automation, quick turn-around, and wide applicability. To generalize the application of this BIM-to-FEA conversion tool and increase its useability among the many different commercial BIM software currently used by industry, the program is being developed with the concept of openBIM. OpenBIM is the application of non-proprietary, open data standards that allow for BIM model data exchange in a format that is accessible, retainable, and useable for all users. The most widely used open, non-proprietary data exchange format for BIM is the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) schema. IFC is developed by buildingSMART international and is ISO certified (ISO 16739-1:2018). The BIM-to-FEA conversion tool is being developed for compatibility with typical commercial building designs of steel framed structures. The tool is currently capable of importing architectural BIM data of framed building structures, recognizing and extracting the aspects of the model that are required for structural analysis, adjusting the connectivity of frame members, and finally exporting to an analytical model stored in the IFC format. The exported IFC analytical model can then be imported into various openBIM compliant software, such as SAP2000. Such capabilities have already been tested on commercial software, as shown above, and continue to be improved. Work is underway to test the conversion on various commercial BIM software, develop a user-friendly interface, incorporate the program into the broader DeepLynx data warehouse project being developed by INL, and to eventually open-source the tool for the benefit of the community. Future development of the tool envisions the ability for efficient iterative risk assessment of generative building designs, all within a workflow utilizing open-source tools. One such open-source tool will be MOOSE, an advanced finite element analysis tool developed at INL. The conversion tool will also branch out from typical commercial building designs and will aim to incorporate nuclear construction. The aim will be to convert both structural and non-structural components of nuclear facilities, such as curved concrete containment structures and piping systems, respectively.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Overview of Nuclear Materials Discovery & Qualification initiative (NMDQi)

The Nuclear Materials Discovery and Qualification Initiative (NMDQi) is a program launched in 2020 to address the need for development of new nuclear materials on shorter timelines. The NMDQi has a goal to accelerate nuclear materials qualification to fulfill the promises of early and advanced reactor technologies as a safe, clean, and low-cost baseload energy. Materials development and qualification in the nuclear industry is by definition challenging due to stringent safety requirements, limited availability of specialized facilities for materials irradiation and testing, and the challenging high-temperature, high-radiation environment. Outside the nuclear industry, options exist for increasing the efficiency and rate of materials discovery for accelerated technology commercialization, which can also be applied for our use through the NMDQi. Focus will be on generating tools and capabilities that integrate experimental and computational techniques, allowing materials to be selected prior to fabrication, and providing crucial data to improve upon modeling.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Clean Hydrogen Production R&D at NREL

Comprehensive, concerted efforts supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO) are advancing research and development to demonstrate clean hydrogen production and industrial decarbonization pathways. These pathways enable an economically competitive and environmentally beneficial future energy system across sectors and can address specific applications that are difficult to decarbonize. NREL's research accelerates development, integration, and scale up of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies to enable widespread deployment across multiple energy sectors. Our work helps industry overcome technical challenges and supports DOE's H2@Scale vision for clean hydrogen across multiple applications and economic sectors. We also bridge technologies with other research areas across the lab and through multiple DOE and national lab research initiatives, consortia, and collaborations including: H2NEW: Hydrogen from Next-generation Electrolyzers of Water Consortium, HydroGEN: Advanced Water Splitting Materials Consortium, H2@Scale CRADA, and helping de-risk the hydrogen systems via large-scale validation and demonstration.

clean hydrogen↗

Overview of Clean Hydrogen Program at NREL

Comprehensive, concerted efforts supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO) are advancing research and development to demonstrate clean hydrogen production and industrial decarbonization pathways. These pathways enable an economically competitive and environmentally beneficial future energy system across sectors and can address specific applications that are difficult to decarbonize. NREL's research accelerates development, integration, and scale up of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies to enable widespread deployment across multiple energy sectors. Our work helps industry overcome technical challenges and supports DOE's H2@Scale vision for clean hydrogen across multiple applications and economic sectors. We also bridge technologies with other research areas across the lab and through multiple DOE and national lab research initiatives, consortia, and collaborations including: the Hydrogen Energy Earthshot, H2@Scale, National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap, H2NEW: Hydrogen from Next-generation Electrolyzers of Water Consortium, HydroGEN: Advanced Water Splitting Materials Consortium, HyMARC Hydrogen Materials Advanced Research Consortium.

ARIES↗

Towards the scale-up production of cellulose nanocomposites using melt processing: A critical review on structure-processing-property relationships

Cellulose nanomaterials (CNMs) naturally exist in plant biomass. The success of extraction of CNMs opened up a new era of using plant biomass for innovative industrial applications. Because CNMs are abundant, renewable, biodegradable, transparent, light weight and low in cost, they are ideal materials for large volume applications such as packaging, automotive, building and infrastructure. In many potential application areas, CNM-enable products appear in a composite form, mostly polymer composites. Additionally, the industrial-scale manufacturing of CNM/thermoplastic composites remains as a set of unsolved problems for academia and industry. A prime challenge in applications is the nanoscale dispersion of CNMs in thermoplastic matrices during melt processing. Both bench-scale and pilot-scale studies have been conducted to solve the dispersion issue of CNMs. In this article, research related to the dispersion of CNMs in thermoplastic matrices during melt processing were critically reviewed. All research papers were classified into three groups: chemically-aided dispersion, physically-aided dispersion and mechanically-aided dispersion. Numerous factors affect the CNM dispersion and the mechanical performance of its nanocomposites. There are material-related factors, including CNM types and forms, polymer matrices, surface modification, coupling agents, etc. Furthermore, extrusion processing parameters also play a significant role, covering screw rotation speed, extrusion barrel temperature settings and screw design. In addition, the material-related factors interact with the processing-related factors. Understanding all factors and their interactions are important for moving CNM nanocomposites research a step further towards industrial-relevant production, which is the final ambitious goal of this manuscript.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Understanding Advanced Vehicle Technology Adoption Potential in Commercial Fleets Across Major Trucking Sectors

Adopting advanced vehicle technologies, such as battery-electric, hybrid, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, can be an effective strategy for reducing fleet owners' operating costs. However, different trucking sectors, such as private and for-hire carriers and short- or long-haul operations, may face unique challenges in adopting those vehicle technologies due to their own operational needs and budget constraints. Current studies on fleet-wide vehicle technology projections frequently overlook such sectoral differences and fail to capture variation in adoption potential across sectors. This study addresses this gap by analyzing the disparities in the total cost of ownership (TCO) and payback period (PBP) among a large and heterogeneous sample of fleet owners. It aims to understand the sectoral differences in the long-term potential for adopting advanced vehicle technologies. Utilizing the 2021 US Vehicle Inventory and Use Survey (US VIUS), which offers data on various commercial vehicle sectors, their operational patterns, and current vehicle assets, this research estimates the TCO and PBP for individual trucks over multiple future years. The results reveal variation in the cost-effectiveness of different vehicle technologies across trucking sectors, as well as the potential technology landscape in both the short and long term. The findings from this study can inform policymakers and practitioners on how to prioritize sectors with lower barriers for advanced vehicle technology adoption and support industries that face challenges in switching to advanced vehicles.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Transitioning from Simulation to Reality: Applying Chatter Detection Models to Real-World Machining Data

Chatter, a self-excited vibration phenomenon, is a critical challenge in high-speed machining operations, affecting tool life, product surface quality, and overall process efficiency. While machine learning models trained on simulated data have shown promise in detecting chatter, their real-world applicability remains uncertain due to discrepancies between simulated and actual machining environments. The primary goal of this study is to bridge the gap between simulation-based machine learning models and real-world applications by developing and validating a Random Forest-based chatter detection system. This research focuses on improving manufacturing efficiency through reliable chatter detection by integrating Operational Modal Analysis (OMA), Receptance Coupling Substructure Analysis (RCSA), and Transfer Learning (TL). The study applies a Random Forest classification model trained on over 140,000 simulated machining datasets, incorporating techniques like Operational Modal Analysis (OMA), Receptance Coupling Substructure Analysis (RCSA), and Transfer Learning (TL) to adapt the model for real-world operational data. The model is validated against 1600 real-world machining datasets, achieving an accuracy of 86.1%, with strong precision and recall scores. The results demonstrate the model’s robustness and potential for practical implementation in industrial settings, highlighting challenges such as sensor noise and variability in machining conditions. This work advances the use of predictive analytics in machining processes, offering a data-driven solution to improve manufacturing efficiency through more reliable chatter detection.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Advanced Retrieval and Disposition Techniques for Remote Handled Mixed Low-Level Waste - 20319

Legacy waste generated by the sodium-cooled fast reactor, EBR-II, program at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) (owned by the U.S. Department of Energy and managed and operated by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC) is challenging to treat and disposition using conventional methods. As a result, Veolia Nuclear Solutions is under contract with the Idaho National Laboratory to demonstrate an integrated retrieval and disposition solution for Remote-Handled Mixed Low-Level Waste currently stored in underground liners at INL. Delivery of the integrated solution builds on the expertise and successes of Veolia Nuclear Solutions under its Problematic Waste Treatment Initiative with INL. This initiative focuses solely on the treatment of problematic (reactive metal containing) waste streams using the Veolia Nuclear Solutions GeoMelt{sup R} In-Container Vitrification (ICV{sup TM}) technology. Under the contract, Veolia Nuclear Solutions will provide a fully commissioned prototype remote retrieval system to semi-remotely retrieve and size-reduce problematic waste liners into a safe and consolidated package for transport. The consolidated package will be shipped to Richland, Washington for demonstration treatment using the robust GeoMelt Richland system at Perma-Fix Northwest. The treated waste will ultimately be disposed of as a vitrified Low-Level Waste glass monolith. Veolia Nuclear Solutions has delivered countless remotely operated systems globally to solve some of the industry's most challenging problems. To ensure risk is mitigated in the best possible manner, a methodical phased approach is being utilized to validate the integrated solution. This contract focuses on the delivery and deployment of the prototype retrieval system onsite and the treatment of a single liner. Following successful demonstration treatment using GeoMelt ICV, the project is planning to make prototype enhancements before retrieving and treating another liner. Establishing a new integrated approach for retrieval and disposition of waste offers many benefits to INL and the U.S. Department of Energy. It is anticipated that the integrated solution will provide significant cost and schedule savings by increasing the number of liners dispositioned per year. In addition, the complexity of the overall waste disposition process will be reduced. Remotely retrieving and size-reducing waste in the field will provide additional safety to operational personnel and allow critical resources, such as hot cells, to focus on the primary missions at hand. Vitrification (using the GeoMelt ICV technology) allows for the direct processing of metal clad waste thereby significantly reducing pretreatment steps while providing a robust waste form for long-term disposal. The results from this ongoing contract are presented in this paper. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Wedge-Shaped Hopper Design for Milled Woody Biomass Flow

The bioenergy industry has been challenged by unstable flow and transport of milled biomass in material handling operations. Handling issues such as hopper clogging and auger jamming are attributed to knowledge gaps between existing handling units designed for bulk solids and their suitability for milled biomass with high compressibility. This work investigates various flow behaviors of granular woody biomass in wedge-shaped hoppers. Herein, hopper flow physical experiments and numerical simulations are conducted to study the influence of the critical material attributes and critical processing parameters on the flow pattern, arching, and throughput. The results show that (1) the preferred flow pattern, mass flow, can be achieved by controlling the material’s internal friction angle, hopper inclination, and hopper wall friction; (2) hopper arching, governed by the competing gravity-driven force against flow resistance from material internal friction and material–wall friction, can be controlled by the hopper wall friction angle and the inclination angle; and (3) flow throughput can be accurately estimated from our empirical equation with inputs of hopper outlet geometry and particle-scale to bulk-scale material attributes. This study elucidates woody biomass flow physics and provides guidance for industrial equipment design.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Development of Plant Reload Optimization Framework Capabilities for Core Design and Fuel Performance Analysis

The United States (U.S.) nuclear industry faces a challenge in maintaining required levels of safety while ensuring economic competitiveness to stay in business. Safety remains a key parameter for all aspects of light water reactor (LWR) nuclear power plant (NPP) operations. Safety can become more economical by using a risk-informed ecosystem, such as the one being developed by the Risk-Informed Systems Analysis (RISA) Pathway under the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program. The LWRS Program promotes a wide range of research and development activities with the goal of maximizing both the safety and economic efficiency of NPPs through improved scientific understanding, especially given many plants are now considering second license renewals. The RISA Pathway has two main goals: (1) deploy methodologies and technologies that better represent safety margins and cost and safety factors and (2) develop advanced applications that enable cost-effective plant operation. The Plant Reload Optimization Platform development project aims to build a reactor core design tool that includes reactor safety and fuel performance analyses, and also uses artificial intelligence to support optimization of core design solutions. This report summarizes Fiscal Year 2022 (FY-22) activity in platform capability developments in RAVEN. This platform performs simulations using industry codes for core design (i.e., PARCS) and fuel performance (i.e., TRANSURANUS) which will allow expansion of the capabilities to include advanced fuel designs such as accident-tolerant fuel (ATF)s with high burnup.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

In Search of Optimum Fresh-Cut Raw Material: Using Computer Vision Systems as a Sensory Screening Tool for Browning-Resistant Romaine Lettuce Accessions

The popularity of ready-to-eat (RTE) salads has prompted novel technology to prolong the shelf life of their ingredients. Fresh-cut romaine lettuce is widely used in RTE salads; however, its tendency to quickly discolor continues to be a challenge for the industry. Selecting the ideal lettuce accessions for use in RTE salads is essential to ensure maximum shelf life, and it is critical to have a practical way to assess and compare the quality of multiple lettuce accessions that are being considered for use in fresh-cut applications. Thus, in this work we aimed to determine whether a computer vision system (CVS) composed of image acquisition, processing, and analysis could be effective to detect visual quality differences among 16 accessions of fresh-cut romaine lettuce during postharvest storage. The CVS involved a post-capturing color correction, effective image segmentation, and calculation of a browning index, which was tested as a predictor of quality and shelf life of fresh-cut romaine lettuce. The results demonstrated that machine vision software can be implemented to replace or supplement the scoring of a trained panel and instrumental quality measurements. Overall visual quality, a key sensory parameter that determines food preferences and consumer behavior, was highly correlated with the browning index, with a Pearson correlation coefficient of −0.85. Other important sensory decision parameters were also strongly or moderately correlated with the browning index, with Pearson correlation coefficients of −0.84 for freshness, 0.79 for off odor, and 0.57 for browning. The ranking of the accessions according to quality acceptability from the sensory evaluation produced a similar pattern to those obtained with the CVS. This study revealed that multiple lettuce accessions can be effectively benchmarked for their performance as fresh-cut sources via a CVS-based method. Future opportunities and challenges in using machine vision image processing to predict consumer preferences for RTE salad greens is also discussed.

Agriculture↗

Energy Storage for Manufacturing and Industrial Decarbonization (Energy StorM)

This report summarizes the needs, challenges, and opportunities associated with carbon-free energy and energy storage for manufacturing and industrial decarbonization. Energy needs and challenges for different manufacturing and industrial sectors (e.g., cement/steel production, chemicals, materials synthesis) are identified. Key issues for industry include the need for large, continuous on-site capacity (tens to hundreds of megawatts), compatibility with existing infrastructure, cost, and safety. Energy storage technologies that can potentially address these needs, which include electrochemical, thermal, and chemical energy storage, are presented along with key challenges, gaps, and integration issues. Analysis tools to value energy storage technologies in the context of manufacturing and industrial decarbonizations are also presented. Material is drawn from the Energy Storage for Manufacturing and Industrial Decarbonization (Energy StorM) Workshop, held February 8 - 9, 2022. The objective was to identify research opportunities and needs for the U.S. Department of Energy as part of its Energy Storage Grand Challenge program.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Separating Xylene Isomers with a Calcium Metal‐Organic Framework

Abstract The purification of p‐xylene (pX) from its xylene isomers represents a challenging but important industrial process. Herein, we report the efficient separation of pX from its ortho‐ and meta‐ isomers by a microporous calcium‐based metal–organic framework material (HIAM‐203) with a flexible skeleton. At 30 °C, all three isomers are accommodated but the adsorption kinetics of o‐xylene (oX) and m‐xylene (mX) are substantially slower than that of pX, and at an elevated temperature of 120 °C, oX and mX are fully excluded while pX can be adsorbed. Multicomponent column breakthrough measurements and vapor‐phase/liquid‐phase adsorption experiments have demonstrated the capability of HIAM‐203 for efficient separation of xylene isomers. Ab initio calculations have provided useful information for understanding the adsorption mechanism.

Yu, Liang↗

Separating Xylene Isomers with a Calcium Metal–Organic Framework

Here, the purification of p-xylene (pX) from its xylene isomers represents a challenging but important industrial process. Herein, we report the efficient separation of pX from its ortho- and meta- isomers by a microporous calcium-based metal–organic framework material (HIAM-203) with a flexible skeleton. At 30 °C, all three isomers are accommodated but the adsorption kinetics of o-xylene (oX) and m-xylene (mX) are substantially slower than that of pX, and at an elevated temperature of 120 °C, oX and mX are fully excluded while pX can be adsorbed. Multicomponent column breakthrough measurements and vapor-phase/liquid-phase adsorption experiments have demonstrated the capability of HIAM-203 for efficient separation of xylene isomers. Ab initio calculations have provided useful information for understanding the adsorption mechanism.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Toward integrating high-fidelity CFD approaches in the thermal-hydraulic analysis of turbulent dry cask systems

Nuclear power plants have been supplying resilient and reliable electricity for decades, contributing to energy independence of the U.S.. However, nuclear waste management remains one of the most significant challenges in the industry. The safety of dry cask storage systems relies heavily on their thermal-hydraulic performance. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are often used to demonstrate this performance and ensure that the system design meets safety standards. This study presents reduced numerical models for various types of dry cask systems. These numerical models can produce efficient and fast results based on the employed modeling strategies. Additionally, the study uses a novel approach to high-fidelity simulations to evaluate modeling assumptions in dry cask modeling. Large Eddy Simulations (LES) are used for this purpose, particularly in regions where fluid velocity is relatively high and the turbulence characteristics become important. Furthermore, the results of these high-fidelity simulations will enhance the interpretation of outcomes produced from a lower-fidelity CFD model.

CFD↗

Economic competitiveness of pultruded fiber composites for wind turbine applications

Pultrusion manufacturing of fiber reinforced polymers has been shown to yield some of the highest mechanical properties for unidirectional composites, having a high degree of fiber alignment with consistent performance. Pultrusions offer a low-cost manufacturing approach for producing unidirectional composites with a constant cross-section and are used in many applications, including spar caps of wind turbine blades. However, as an intermediate processing step for wind blades, the additional cost of manufacturing pultrusions must be accompanied by sufficient increases in mechanical performance and system benefits. Wind turbine blades are manufactured using vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding with infused unidirectional fiberglass or carbon pultrusions for the spar cap. Infused fiberglass composites are among the most cost-effective structural materials available and replacing this material in the cost-driven wind industry has proven challenging, where infused fiberglass spar caps are still the predominant material system in use. To evaluate alternative material systems in a pultruded composite form, it is necessary to understand the costs for this additional manufacturing step which are shown to add 33%–55% on top of the material costs. A pultrusion cost model has been developed and used to quantify cost sensitivities to various processing parameters. The mechanical performance for pultruded composites is improved versus resin-infusion manufacturing with a 17% increase in design strength at a constant fiber volume fraction, but also enables higher achievable fiber volume fractions. The cost-specific mechanical performance is compared as a function of processing parameters for pultruded composites to identify the opportunities for alternative material and manufacturing approaches for wind turbine spar caps. Finally, four materials are compared in a representative wind turbine blade model to assess the performance of pultruded carbon fiber systems and pultruded fiberglass relative to infused fiberglass, where the pultruded systems produce lower weight blades with various cost distinctions.

42 ENGINEERING↗