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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

Scalable Data Center Capacity for DOE's AI Prototype: A Rapidly Available Gigawatt Data Center for DOE

The multilaboratory Gigawatt Data Center working group was commissioned to identify approaches to rapidly establish federal data centers with scalable capacities up to 1,000 MW. These state-of-the-art facilities will serve as hubs for interdisciplinary collaboration, industry partnerships, and transformative applications of artificial intelligence. The proposed strategic shift includes facilitating multilaboratory collaboration, prioritizing operational efficiency, expanding public–private partnerships, optimizing investments, ensuring long-term contractual flexibility, supporting open science and secure data enclaves, and exploiting high-speed national networks. Owing to their extensive experience and best practices, the US Department of Energy national laboratories are uniquely positioned to lead this initiative. We recommend conducting a feasibility analysis to rapidly identify the optimal sites for this initiative, and the effort will likely involve private industry for design, construction, financing, and operational integration. We also propose establishing multiple geographically diverse sites to ensure energy resilience, high operational reliability, and a diverse user base, thereby effectively addressing the nation’s critical needs.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Contribution of Road Grade to the Energy Use of Modern Automobiles Across Large Datasets of Real-World Drive Cycles: Preprint

Understanding the real-world power demand of modern automobiles is of critical importance to engineers using modeling and simulation to inform the intelligent design of increasingly efficient powertrains. Increased use of global positioning system (GPS) devices has made large scale data collection of vehicle speed (and associated power demand) a reality. While the availability of real-world GPS data has improved the industry's understanding of in-use vehicle power demand, relatively little attention has been paid to the incremental power requirements imposed by road grade. This analysis quantifies the incremental efficiency impacts of real-world road grade by appending high fidelity elevation profiles to GPS speed traces and performing a large simulation study. Employing a large real-world dataset from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Transportation Secure Data Center, vehicle powertrain simulations are performed with and without road grade under five vehicle models. Aggregate results of this study suggest that road grade could be responsible for 1% to 3% of fuel use in light-duty automobiles.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

2001 Atlanta Household Travel Survey

The 2001 Atlanta Household Travel Survey collected demographic, socioeconomic, and travel information on work and non-work travel behavior for a 48-hour travel period. The study was conducted on behalf of the Atlanta Regional Commission, and it is an essential element in the transportation planning and modeling efforts for the 13-county Atlanta region. The main objective of the study was to produce data that could be used to develop and calibrate travel demand models for use in travel forecasting, land use planning, and air quality planning to improve the transportation system. The second component in the survey was the deployment of an electronic travel diary with person-based GPS and an accelerometer to collect health and activity information. Travel data includes trip generation, trip distribution, and modal choice. The survey recruited a total of 12,184 households to participate in the study. Of these, 8,069 households (66%) completed travel. The 8,069 households, when weighted, represent 21,323 persons, 14,449 vehicles, and 126,127 places visited from April 2001 through April 2002. This dataset is part of the Metropolitan Travel Survey Archive, which includes travel surveys from numerous public agencies across the United States and is archived by the Transportation Secure Data Center to ensure their continued public availability.

1Hz data↗

An investigation of hard-disk drive circularity accounting for socio-technical dynamics and data uncertainty

The installed data storage capacity in the U.S. will reach 2.2 Zettabytes by 2025, generating about 50 million units of end-of-life (EOL) hard-disk drives (HDDs) per year. Due to data security concerns, most EOL HDDs are currently shredded (even when still functioning), representing an economic loss. Moreover, raw material extraction linked to the increased demand for storage causes environmental impacts. Besides mitigating the threat posed by sudden restrictions of raw materials, the circular economy (CE) offers to maximize value retention in the economy and reduce the environmental impacts of human activities. Common CE strategies are reusing and recycling products. However, the reuse of hard disk drives is currently burdened by the lack of trust HDD end-users have toward other non-physical means of data removal than shredding. Here, an agent-based modeling (ABM) approach is proposed to explore how techno-economic and social factors affect end-users' decisions to adopt EOL management practices other than shredding. The proposed method also accounts for data uncertainty by applying a semi-quantitative approach. Results demonstrate how increased green procurement and more robust standards could spur end-users' trust toward data-wiping technologies. Even when accounting for uncertainty, HDDs' reuse brings better environmental and economic benefits than HDD shredding followed by material recovery. The semi-quantitative approach proposed in this study could be more universally applied in future ABM, especially given the often-stochastic nature of such models. The developed ABM is also the first to represent several HDD industry stakeholders and demonstrate how the HDD shredding lock-in situation could be resolved.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

5G Communications in Nuclear: Potential Use Cases and Security Considerations

As fifth-generation (5G) communications continues to revolutionize the future of wireless technology, there is growing demand to utilize its benefits for critical infrastructures such as nuclear power plants (NPPs). In regard to achieving full automation and control in the operation of existing and future nuclear reactors, the unique capabilities of 5G can bring several potential advantages over other wireless technologies. However, a deep investigation is needed for the availability and security of 5G communications under various NPP operational scenarios. This article examines how 5G security capabilities can be architecturally deployed in nuclear applications so as to replace existing communication infrastructures. We discuss the current use of all wireless technologies in NPPs with their key features. Consequently, we investigated several NPP use cases in which 5G offers potential advantages but entails specific security considerations. The present article covers the characteristics of 5G communications, general challenges to its application in nuclear, and the security gaps that need to be addressed. We also highlight certain 5G security-by-design features that can help addressing current stringent NPP requirements. In addition, we discuss some future research direction that can facilitate the implementation of 5G in a nuclear facility. The findings presented herein can help foster 5G deployment in NPPs, thus enabling secured data transmission, cost savings, and increased operational efficiency with enhanced reliability.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

An Experimental Investigation of Students’ Learning Effects When Using a Simplified Nuclear Simulator

Securing enough data has been a main challenge in human reliability analysis (HRA). Many researchers and institutes have made a lot of efforts for collecting HRA data to produce reasonable human error probabilities (HEPs) as well as reduce the uncertainty of HRA quantification. Representatively, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (U.S. NRC), Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have led lots of empirical research regarding the HRA data collection. The U.S. NRC and KAERI have mainly carried out full-scope simulator research collecting HRA data through experiments using full-scope simulators with actual operators. In contrast, INL has experimentally collected the data using simplified simulators and student operators. INL has proposed the Simplified Human Error Experimental Program (SHEEP) framework to complement full-scope data collection efforts by suggesting a way to infer full-scope data based on experimental data collected from students operating simplified simulators, specifically the Rancor Microworld Simulator (Rancor) and the Compact Nuclear Simulator (CNS). The aim of the SHEEP framework is to lower the entry point for collecting useful HRA data by securing large sample sizes at a reasonable amount of cost and labor while also guaranteeing a high degree of freedom when designing experiments. The authors’ previous research investigated whether data collected from the SHEEP framework could support a representative full-scope study. Besides, human performance differences between professional and student operators when using Rancor and CNS have been analyzed to understand the lack of fidelity of the simplified simulators and student operators within the SHEEP study. As a follow up research, this study experimentally investigates students’ learning effects and the performance trends over a certain period when using Rancor. This study aims to find out 1) how much training or education is required to collect HRA data from non-experts (i.e., students) when using Rancor and 2) how much differences there are in human performance measures between students and professional operators. In this study, a longitudinal experiment is developed. The four experiment trials with two weeks interval are carried out for sixteen undergraduate students majoring nuclear engineering at Chosun University. Totally four scenarios randomly selected from ten Rancor scenarios are used in each experiment trial. Four human performance measurements (i.e., workload, situation awareness, time and error) are considered in the experiment. Lastly, the trend of students’ performance is compared with operator data having been collected from the previous experiment.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Universal Utility Data Exchange (UUDEX) Phase 4 Demonstration Environment and Results

This report provides an overview of the environment used by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in the Universal Utility Data Exchange (UUDEX) Phase 4 demonstration, and description of the demonstrations performed in the environment. The UUDX Phase 4 demonstration took place on March 31, 2021, with representatives from PNNL and the two project sub-contractors, OATI and MITRE, performing the demonstration for members of the UUDEX Industry Advisory Board (IAB). The demonstration tasks were based on the previous Phase 3 demonstration but conducted in a multi-site environment. Additional demonstrations showed features that were developed since the Phase 3 demonstration. The development environment was constructed by PNNL programming staff using the previously developed UUDEX Functional Design, Protocol Design, and Workflow Design documents as a starting point. The environment was augmented with subject creation management and access control security data structures and workflows, and data exchange structure documents developed as part of Phase 3 and Phase 4.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Distributed ADMM Using Private Blockchain for Power Flow Optimization in Distribution Network With Coupled and Mixed-Integer Constraints

The optimization problem for scheduling distributed energy resources (DERs) and battery energy storage systems (BESS) integrated with the power grid is important to minimize energy consumption from conventional sources in response to demand. Conventionally this optimization problem is solved in a centralized manner, limiting the size of the problem that can be solved and creating a high communication overhead because all the data is transferred to the central controller. These limitations are addressed by the proposed distributed consensus-based alternating direction method of multiplier (DC-ADMM) optimization algorithm, which decomposes the optimization problem into subproblems with private cost function and constraints. The distribution feeder is partitioned into low coupling subnetworks/regions, which solves the private subproblem locally and exchanges information with the neighboring regions to reach consensus. The relaxation strategy is employed for mixed-integer and coupled constraints introduced in the optimal power flow (OPF) problem by stationary and transportable BESS because DC-ADMM convergence is only guaranteed for strict convex problems. The information exchange and synchronization between subnetworks/regions are vital for distributed optimization. In this work, both of these aspects are addressed by the blockchain. The smart contract deployed on the blockchain network acts as a mediator for secure data exchange and synchronization in distributed computation. The blockchain-based distributed optimization problem’s effectiveness is tested for a 0.5-MW laboratory microgrid for one hour ahead and day-ahead for the IEEE 123-bus and EPRI J1 test feeders, and results are compared with a centralized solution.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Quantum Communication Networks for Energy Applications: Review and Perspective

Abstract The energy sector is expected to undergo significant changes in the coming decades with the advent of new technologies, including smart grid development, microgrid expansion, increasing electric vehicle and renewable energy usage, and enhanced measures to minimize greenhouse gas emission, among others. In tandem, these changes are expected to create new opportunities for the deployment of quantum technologies within the energy sector. Building on the authors' previous reviews on the current state of and future opportunities for quantum sensing, quantum computing and quantum simulations for energy sector applications, this work provides an overview of recent progress in quantum networking and communications for the energy industry, with a focus on platforms, devices, and protocols, including quantum teleportation and quantum key distribution. Specific areas of relevance to the energy sector are then analyzed, including the role of quantum networks for greenhouse gas monitoring, secure data collection and transmission in smart grids, nuclear power plants’ safety, facilitating oil and gas exploration, and other energy‐relevant applications. This review concludes with a brief overview of areas for future innovation, including the need for platforms for simulating quantum networks, quantum material and platform design, and computational approaches to accelerate quantum protocol discovery and development.

Paudel, Hari P.↗

Ultrafast optical message encryption–decryption system using semiconductor optical amplifier based XOR logic gate

Encryption of information is required to secure data transmitted in optical networks. In this communication, authors propose simple and novel scheme for all-optical encryption–decryption at 120 Gb/s. Encryption–decryption system is based on XOR logic designed using semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) based Mach–Zehnder interferometers. SOA model is presented theoretically from the stand point of high-speed application and implemented in encryption decryption setups for simulation. Extinction ratio for encrypted and decrypted signal is obtained as 10.5 dB and 8.30 dB respectively with satisfactory quality factor. The system has simple, compact architecture and easily integrable with other photonic devices.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Outage probability and average BER estimation of FSO system employing wavelength diversity

Free space optical (FSO) communication has gained significant attention among researchers for high bandwidth and secured data transfer applications. However, its performance is limited by the local atmospheric conditions. This paper focusses on an FSO system employing a diversity method to compensate signal loss occurred due to atmospheric turbulence conditions varying from moderate to strong. We derive a closed-form expression for two important parameters, viz.: average bit error rate (BER) and outage probability over gamma–gamma distribution channel. The numerical results for different combining schemes are presented in this paper. Enhancement in reliability and performance of FSO communication system with wavelength diversity is investigated. Effect of different wavelengths 850 nm, 1310 nm and 1550 nm on average BER is analysed and minimum BER is achieved for optimal combining at 1550 nm at diversity order R=3.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Extended convex hull-based distributed optimal energy flow of integrated electricity-gas systems

Integrated electricity and gas systems are constructed to facilitate the gas-fired generation, and the distributed operation of these integrated systems have received much attention due to the increased emphasis on data security and privacy between different agencies. This paper proposes an extended convex hull based method to address optimal energy flow problems for the integrated electricity and gas systems in a distributed manner. First, a multi-block electricity-gas system model is constructed by dividing the whole system into N blocks considering both physical and regional differences. This multi-block model is then convexified by replacing the nonconvex gas transmission equation with the extended convex hull-based constraints. The Jacobi-Proximal alternating direction method of multipliers algorithm is adopted to solve the convexified model and minimize its operation cost. Finally, the feasibility of the optimal solution for the convexified model is checked, and a sufficient condition is developed. If the sufficient condition is satisfied, the optimal solution for the original nonconvex problem can be recovered from that for the convexified problem. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method is tractable and effective in obtaining feasible optimal solutions for multi-block optimal energy flow problems.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Tight-binding study of beryllium

In this work, we have applied the Naval Research Laboratory Tight-binding (NRL-TB) Method to the hcp alkaline-earth metal Beryllium. This approach consists of fitting to energy band and total energy data generated by the Linearized Augmented Plane Wave (LAPW) for the fcc, bcc, sc, and hcp structures as a function of volume. First, we found that using the Generalized Gradient Approximation (GGA) for the input data secures a better agreement to experimental volumes than the LDA. Second, we found that including small volumes to the fit is needed to get TB parameters that are transferable enough to successfully predict the energies of structures that were not fitted, and to perform molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The non-orthogonal Hamiltonian obtained, is successful in correctly predicting the hcp lattice as the ground state of Be and finding eight other structures, that were not fitted to LAPW, positioned at higher energies. In addition, the NRL-TB produces accurate energy bands, densities of states, elastic constants, the Bain path and several quantities derived from MD simulations.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Roadmap and Benchmarking: Privacy in Federated Load Forecasting

Data-driven techniques for energy demand forecasting continue to emerge with promising impacts on distribution grid planning. However, the development of robust and generalizable machine learning models requires that representative high quality training data are available. Distributed energy resources have begun to embed intelligence, gathering large amounts of data on customer demand, behavior, and household devices that are connected to the grid. Though utilities aggregate meter-level demand data for load shaping, demand response, outage management, reliability planning, and billing applications, there lies an inherent privacy concern in sharing consumption data that may identify individual consumer behavioral patterns. Hence, while sharing the data is crucial, the private sensitive customer data must be safeguarded from being exposed or manipulated. In this study, we propose a roadmap for implementing a based privacy preserving framework to support the advancement of data-driven analytics in data-sensitive distributed energy resources environments. The roadmap incorporates federated learning–a distributed training framework, differential privacy–a statistical framework that provides guarantees to safeguard the leakage of sensitive data, secure multiparty computation and homomorphic encryption– techniques for encrypting model gradients and applying secure aggregation on the server. Moreover, we perform baseline experiments on the federated short-term load forecasting (STLF) task using open-source residential load profile datasets, offering insights into the challenges of integrating differential privacy into federated learning.

Abebe, Waqwoya [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORN↗

Securing 3D NAND Without Density Loss via In-Situ Encryption Using a Single Transistor XOR Cell

In this article, we push lightweight XOR-based in-situ encryption to extreme density by proposing a singletransistor XOR memory cell and applying it to 3D NAND, enabling secure data storage without density loss. Using a ferroelectric field-effect transistor (FeFET) as an example technology, we demonstrate that: i) a single-transistor memory can realize the XOR function by exploiting the ability to charge the source and drain separately and control current flow direction, eliminating the need for conventional encrypted cells that rely on complementary devices; ii) with a XOR-based cipher, encryption and decryption can be mapped to in-situ array operations, where ciphertext is stored as the threshold voltage (VTH) states of FeFETs in a NAND string, and decryption is achieved through read operations using key-dependent complementary source/drain bias; iii) the proposed technique is scalable to multi-level cell (MLC) storage by encrypting and decrypting data bit by bit; iv) using an integrated NAND FeFET array, we experimentally demonstrate encryption and decryption operations for both single-level cell (SLC) and MLC storage; v) systemlevel benchmarking shows that the proposed technique achieves 48× and 278× improvements in encryption and decryption throughput, respectively, compared to AES.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Active Time-Domain Reflectometry for Unattended Safeguards Systems: FY16 Report

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) continues to expand its use of unattended measurement systems. An increasing number of systems and an expanding family of instruments create challenges in terms of deployment efficiency and the implementation of data authentication measures. Traditional data security measures, for example tamper-indicating (TI) conduit, are impractical for the long separation distances (often 100 meters or more) between unattended monitoring system (UMS) components. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is studying the viability of active time-domain reflectometry (TDR) for the detection of cable tampering in unattended radiation detection systems. The instrument concept under investigation would allow for unmanned cable integrity measurements, remote surveillance reporting and locating of cable faults and/or tampers. This report describes PNNL’s FY16 progress and includes: an overview of the TDR methods under investigation; description of the TDR evaluation testbed developed by PNNL; development and testing of advanced signal processing algorithms to extract weak signals from relatively high noise levels; and initial testing of a laboratory prototype intended for IAEA UMS applications and based on a commercially available TDR module. Preliminary viability findings and recommendations for the next stage of development and testing are provided.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗

Concept of Operations: National Technology Test Bed Network for Water Resource Recovery

There is an urgency to advancing wastewater technologies due to aging water infrastructure and emerging regulations. A crosscutting working group proposes a conceptual design for a test bed network to understand and evaluate wastewater technologies to drive acceptance and deployment of new technologies to enhance performance. The working group includes contributors from the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the Water Research Foundation (formerly known as the Water Environment & Reuse Foundation). Upgrading today's aging wastewater treatment infrastructure to a new generation of water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) requires the development and deployment of innovative technologies. The path to technology adoption depends on expensive, time consuming, and often repetitive cycles of testing and validation. Existing water resource recovery technology testing facilities (e.g., test beds) are underutilized and cannot, by themselves, broaden technology uptake. It has been proposed that technology adoption could be accelerated by a network linking these test facilities with innovators, manufacturers, utilities, regulators, policymakers, and educators. This document proposes a structure for a National Test bed Network (TBN) for water resource recovery. The concepts for its operation are explored herein. This document identifies drivers to launch a TBN and critical needs for successful implementation of the network. An important driver to technology implementation at WRRFs is the relationship between local utilities and state regulators. The TBN could provide access to validated performance data and facilitate deployment. To link the stakeholders and accelerate deployment, the TBN will require standards for methods, data quality, data management, and data security. These standards will enable validation of performance and will expand the “toolbox” that utilities and regulators could consider. Design, set up, and launch of this toolbox is beyond the scope of operations of utilities and regulators and will likely require external support to achieve full operation. Herein, a pathway is proposed to achieve this full operation. This document defines the function of a WRRF TBN. It also proposes a structure for the TBN to achieve its stated goals and mission. Finally, this document summarizes findings from several sources, including a series of workshops about the TBN concept, operators of test beds in ancillary industries, and discussions with regulators and permitting agencies. A description of this work was published in the peer-reviewed literature (Mihelcic 2017).

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

The Synchronic Web

The Synchronic Web is a distributed network for securing data provenance on the World Wide Web. By enabling clients around the world to freely commit digital information into a single shared view of history, it provides a foundational basis of truth on which to build decentralized and scalable trust across the Internet. Its core cryptographical capability allows mutually distrusting parties to create and verify statements of the following form: “I commit to this information—and only this information—at this moment in time.” The backbone of the Synchronic Web infrastructure is a simple, small, and semantic-free blockchain that is accessible to any Internet-enabled entity. The infrastructure is maintained by a permissioned network of well-known servers, called notaries, and accessed by a permissionless group of clients, called journals. Through an evolving stack of flexible and composable semantic specifications, the parties cooperate to generate synchronic commitments over arbitrary data. When integrated with existing infrastructures, adapted to diverse domains, and scaled across the breadth of cyberspace, the Synchronic Web provides a ubiquitous mechanism to lock the world’s data into unique points in discrete time and digital space. This document provides a technical description of the core Synchronic Web system. The distinguishing innovation in our design—and the enabling mechanism behind the model—is the novel use of verifiable maps to place authenticated content into canonically defined locations off-chain. While concrete specifications and software implementations of the Synchronic Web continue to evolve, the information covered in the body of this document should remain stable. We aim to present this information clearly and concisely for technical non-experts to understand the essential functionality and value proposition of the network. In the interest of promoting discourse, we take some liberty in projecting the potential implications of the new model.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗