Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “experimental database”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,405 records · Page 78

CeTi 2 O 6 —A Promising Oxide for Solar Thermochemical Hydrogen Production

A large entropy of reduction is crucial in achieving materials capable of high-efficiency solar thermochemical hydrogen (STCH) production through two-step thermochemical water splitting cycles. We have recently demonstrated that the onsite electronic entropy of reduction attains an extreme value of 4.26 kB at 1500 K in Ce 4+ → Ce 3+ redox reactions, which explains the high performance and uniqueness of CeO 2 as an archetypal STCH material. However, ceria requires high temperatures (T > 1500 °C) to achieve a reasonable reduction extent because of its large reduction enthalpy, which is a major obstacle in practical applications. Therefore, new materials with a large entropy of reduction and lower reduction enthalpy are required. Here, we perform a systematic screening to search for Ce 4+ -based oxides which possess thermodynamics superior to CeO 2 for STCH production. We first search the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD) and literature for Ce 4+ -based oxides and subsequently use density functional theory to compute their reduction enthalpies (i.e., oxygen vacancy formation energies). Here, we find that CeTi 2 O 6 with the brannerite structure is the most promising candidate for STCH because it possesses three essential characteristics of an STCH material: (i) a smaller reduction enthalpy compared to ceria yet large enough to split water, (ii) a high thermal stability, as reported experimentally, and (iii) a large entropy of reduction associated with Ce 4+ → Ce 3+ redox. Our proposed design strategy suggests that further exploration of Ce 4+ oxides for STCH production is warranted.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Comparative Informatics Analysis to Evaluate Site-Specific Protein Oxidation in Multidimensional LC-MS/MS Data

Redox proteomics has yielded molecular insight into diseases of protein dysfunction attributable to oxidative stress, underscoring the need for robust detection of protein oxidation products. Additionally, oxidative protein surface mapping techniques utilize hydroxyl radicals to gain structural insight about solvent exposure. Interpretation of tandem mass spectral data is a critical challenge for such investigations, because reactive oxygen species target a wide breadth of amino acids. Additionally, oxidized peptides may be generated in a wide range of abundances since the reactivity of hydroxyl radicals with different amino acids spans three orders of magnitude. Taken together, these attributes of oxidative footprinting pose both experimental and computational challenges to detecting oxidized peptides that are naturally less abundant than their unoxidized counterparts. In this study, three model proteins were oxidized electrochemically and analyzed at both the intact protein and peptide levels. A multidimensional chromatographic strategy was utilized to expand the dynamic range of oxidized peptides measurements. Peptide mass spectral data were searched by the hybrid software packages Inspect and Byonic, which incorporate de novo elements of spectral interpretation into a database search. This dynamic search capacity accommodates the challenge of searching for more than forty oxidative mass shifts that can occur in a staggering variety of possible combinatorial occurrences. A prevailing set of oxidized residues was identified with this comparative approach, and evaluation of these sites was informed by solvent accessible surface area gleaned through molecular dynamics simulations. Along with increased levels of oxidation around highly reactive hotspot sites as expected, the enhanced sensitivity of these measurements uncovered a surprising level of oxidation on less reactive residues.

McClintock, Carlee↗

An AI-accelerated pathway for reproducible and stable halide perovskites

Halide perovskites (HPs) have remarkable optoelectronic properties, and in the last decade their photovoltaic power conversion efficiency and light-emitting diode efficiency have skyrocketed. Despite the surge in research on these burgeoning materials, two key challenges in the field remain: material irreproducibility and instability. Their behavior is especially dynamic in response to environmental stressors, due to complex interactions with the perovskite crystal lattice. Here, in this review, we survey the latest achievements in HP materials research accomplished with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI), through the implementation of automated experimentation and machine learning (ML) data analysis. Automated synthesis and characterization tackle problems with material irreproducibility by systematically controlling parameters with very high precision, creating massive datasets, and allowing methodical comparisons from which unbiased conclusions can be drawn. AI can reveal otherwise unnoticed trends, inform future experiments with the highest potential information gain, and forecast future performance. The review concludes with a forward viewpoint of how human-assisted closed-loop laboratories and shared databases allow halide perovskite materials’ processing, properties, and performance to be potentially optimized with AI, accelerating the development of highly reproducible and stable optoelectronic devices.

Hering, Abigail R. [Univ. of California, Davis, CA↗

A Guideline for the Assessment of Uniaxial Creep and Creep-Fatigue Data and Models

Of primary concern to FE practitioners is a determination of which constitutive models are the “best”, capable of reproducing the mechanisms expected in an intended design accurately; as well as what experimental datasets are proper or “best” to use for fitting the constitutive parameters needed for the model(s) of interest. In addition, the inherent uncertainty in experiments and the repeatability and stability of extrapolations (for long-lived FE components) is a major concern. The goal of this project is to develop a guideline for the assessment of uniaxial creep and creep-fatigue data and models. The research objectives are RO1) develop an aggregated database of creep and creep-fatigue data for P91 steel and 316 stainless steel and perform a systematic assessment of the uncertainty and integrity of the datasets. RO2) employ the database to benchmark existing creep and creep-fatigue models to evaluate the model’s ability to predict standard and nonstandard boundary conditions.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗

Evaluation of Secondary Gamma Environments at the Annular Core Research Reactor

An overview of experimental and computational studies of prompt secondary gamma production and transport, executed under the auspices of the Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities (RTBF) program, is presented. Relevant experiments at the Annular Core Research Reactor (ACRR) were conducted in the FY2012 -- FY2014 timeframe and pertain to the performance of various elemental calorimeters and the analytic fractionation of dose contributions to the calorimeter discs. In particular, the influence of the choice of prompt capture gamma production databases on the computed disc heating factors is discussed. Finally, the results of a polyurethane foam moderation experiment are detailed.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Outside Mainstream Electronic Databases: Review of Studies Conducted in the USSR and Post-Soviet Countries on Electric Current-Assisted Consolidation of Powder Materials

This paper reviews research articles published in the former USSR and post-soviet countries on the consolidation of powder materials using electric current that passes through the powder sample and/or a conductive die-punch set-up. Having been published in Russian, many of the reviewed papers are not included in the mainstream electronic databases of the scientific articles and thus are not known to the scientific community. The present review is aimed at filling this information gap. In the paper, the electric current-assisted sintering techniques based on high- and low-voltage approaches are presented. The main results of the theoretical modeling of the processes of electromagnetic field-assisted consolidation of powder materials are discussed. Sintering experiments and related equipment are described and the major experimental results are analyzed. Sintering conditions required to achieve the desired properties of the sintered materials are provided for selected material systems. Tooling materials used in the electric current-assisted consolidation set-ups are also described.

powder materials↗

An Experimental Study of Synthetic Jets from Rectangular Orifices

During the past two summers Professor Milanovic conducted Wind tunnel experiments on steady jets-in-cross-flow and synthetic jets. In her anticipated visit during the upcoming summer, she will continue and complete the research on synthetic jets involving 2-dimensional orifices of different aspect ratio as well as inclined slots. In addition, experiments will be conducted on pulsatile jets-in-cross-flow. The pulsation will be provided via an oscillating valve at controllable frequencies. The experiment will involve mainly hot-wire anemometer measurements in the low-speed wind tunnel. Overall goal will be to obtain database and investigate flow control strategies. The research will be of fundamental nature.

Milanovic, Ivana M.↗

Nuclear Structure and Decay Data for A=71 Isobars

Experimental nuclear spectroscopic data are evaluated for 12 known nuclides of mass number=71 (Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ga, Ge, As, Se, Br, Kr). Detailed compiled and evaluated information is presented for each reaction and decay experiment. The β – n decay of 72 Co to 71 Ni is included in this work, while for β – n decay of 71 Co to 70 Ni, consult Nuclear Data Sheets for A=70 (2016Gu11) or the ENSDF database for 70 Ni. Combining all the available data, recommended values are provided for energies, spins and parities, and half-lives of levels, with energies, branching ratios and multipolarities of γ radiations, and characteristics of β and α radiations in radioactive decays. Excited-states have not yet been identified in 71 Mn, 71 Fe, and 71 Kr, with the ground-state half-life remaining unknown only for 71 Mn; data for excited states in 71 Co and 71 Ni are very limited; 71 Ga, 71 Ge and 71 As are the most extensively studied nuclides via various reactions and decays, followed by 71 Cu, 71 Zn, 71 Se, and 71 Br, however, except for 71 Ge, the decay schemes of all other nuclides are considered as incomplete due to a large gap between the decay Q-value and the highest observed level. Lastly, this work supersedes earlier evaluations of A=71 by 2011Ab01.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Evaluation of copper, aluminum, and nickel interatomic potentials on predicting the elastic properties

Choice of appropriate force field is one of the main concerns of any atomistic simulation that needs to be seriously considered in order to yield reliable results. Since investigations on the mechanical behavior of materials at micro/nanoscale have been becoming much more widespread, it is necessary to determine an adequate potential which accurately models the interaction of the atoms for desired applications. In this framework, reliability of multiple embedded atom method based interatomic potentials for predicting the elastic properties was investigated. Assessments were carried out for different copper, aluminum, and nickel interatomic potentials at room temperature which is considered as the most applicable case. Examined force fields for the three species were taken from online repositories of National Institute of Standards and Technology, as well as the Sandia National Laboratories, the LAMMPS database. Using molecular dynamic simulations, the three independent elastic constants, C{sub 11}, C{sub 12}, and C{sub 44}, were found for Cu, Al, and Ni cubic single crystals. Voigt-Reuss-Hill approximation was then implemented to convert elastic constants of the single crystals into isotropic polycrystalline elastic moduli including bulk modulus, shear modulus, and Young's modulus as well as Poisson's ratio. Simulation results from massive molecular dynamic were compared with available experimental data in the literature to justify the robustness of each potential for each species. Eventually, accurate interatomic potentials have been recommended for finding each of the elastic properties of the pure species. Exactitude of the elastic properties was found to be sensitive to the choice of the force fields. Those potentials that were fitted for a specific compound may not necessarily work accurately for all the existing pure species. Tabulated results in this paper might be used as a benchmark to increase assurance of using the interatomic potential that was designated for a problem.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Standardized description of scientific evidence using the Evidence Ontology (ECO)

The Evidence Ontology (ECO) is a structured, controlled vocabulary for capturing evidence in biological research. ECO includes diverse terms for categorizing evidence that supports annotation assertions including experimental types, computational methods, author statements and curator inferences. Using ECO, annotation assertions can be distinguished according to the evidence they are based on such as those made by curators versus those automatically computed or those made via high-throughput data review versus single test experiments. Originally created for capturing evidence associated with Gene Ontology annotations, ECO is now used in other capacities by many additional annotation resources including UniProt, Mouse Genome Informatics, Saccharomyces Genome Database, PomBase, the Protein Information Resource and others. Information on the development and use of ECO can be found at http://evidenceontology.org. The ontology is freely available under Creative Commons license (CC BY-SA 3.0), and can be downloaded in both Open Biological Ontologies and Web Ontology Language formats at http://code.google.com/p/evidenceontology. Also at this site is a tracker for user submission of term requests and questions. ECO remains under active development in response to user-requested terms and in collaborations with other ontologies and database resources.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Microbial Potential for Ecosystem N Loss Is Increased by Experimental N Deposition

Fossil fuel combustion and fertilizer use has increased the amount of biologically available N entering terrestrial ecosystems. Nonetheless, our understanding of how anthropogenic N may alter the physiological mechanisms by which soil microorganisms cycle N in soil is still developing. Here, we applied shotgun metagenomics to a replicated long-term field experiment to determine how two decades of experimental N deposition, at a rate expected by mid-century, has affected the genetic potential of the soil microbial community to cycle N in soils. Experimental N deposition lead to a significant and persistent increase in functional assemblages mediating N cycle transformations associated with ecosystem N loss (i.e., denitrification and nitrification), whereas functional assemblages associated with N input and retention (i.e., N fixation and microbial N assimilation) were less positively affected. Furthermore, the abundance and composition of microbial taxa, as well as functional assemblages involved in housekeeping functions (i.e., DNA replication) were unaffected by experimental N deposition. Here taken together, our results suggest that functional genes and gene pathways associated with ecosystem N loss have been favored by experimental N deposition, which may represent a genetic mechanism fostering increased N loss as anthropogenic N deposition increases in the future.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Fast Search for Dynamic Multi-Relational Graphs

Acting on time-critical events by processing ever growing social media or news streams is a major technical challenge. Many of these data sources can be modeled as multi-relational graphs. Continuous queries or techniques to search for rare events that typically arise in monitoring applications have been studied extensively for relational databases. This work is dedicated to answer the question that emerges naturally: how can we efficiently execute a continuous query on a dynamic graph? This paper presents an exact subgraph search algorithm that exploits the temporal characteristics of representative queries for online news or social media monitoring. The algorithm is based on a novel data structure called the that leverages the structural and semantic characteristics of the underlying multi-relational graph. The paper concludes with extensive experimentation on several real-world datasets that demonstrates the validity of this approach.

Choudhury, Sutanay↗

Scientific Basis For Ultra-High Burn-Up Nuclear Fuels

A key issue on the path to nuclear energy becoming an essential component of the U.S. clean energy strategy is complete burn of the nuclear fuel. We propose research that will enable high-burn-up fuels by establishing the basic science for development and qualification of advanced nuclear fuel that will couple modern computational materials modeling, fabrication, and characterization capabilities with targeted performance-testing experiments using ion-beam facilities. This work will establish the scientific foundation and guide selection of the optimum fuel type for advanced reactor concepts. We expect to experimentally quantify the phase stability and kinetics of phase transformations, inter-diffusion, microstructural evolution, micromechanical properties, and the influence of severe radiation environments on fuel performance and, by the end of the project, develop a validated model for advanced nuclear energy materials under extreme conditions of radiation, temperature, and evolving chemistry. We will provide a science-based path forward to an optimized inert matrix fuel, while contributing to the development of a validated nuclear fuel database. We expect this project will further establish LLNL’s credibility in the nuclear energy community.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Evaluation of the Self Retrieval Augmented Generation Technique on Common Security Advisory Framework Data

This small experimental report evaluates a variation of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), called Self-RAG. This method uses a generative language model that incorporates retrieved facts into its generation and is explicitly trained to be able to determine whether retrieved information is enough to answer the input query, with a user-defined threshold for confidence. We performed an experiment using data from the publicly available CISA Common Security Advisory Framework (CSAF) repository (https://github.com/cisagov/CSAF) as the database of facts to be used in retrieval. Qualitative results from the experiment demonstrate that the Self-RAG method has some ability to provide reasonable answers to queries that are in the dataset and will often ignore irrelevant information when asked outside of domain questions (e.g., general facts). In settings with deliberately confusing questions (the question is within domain, but asks about a fabricated advisory), it was able to refuse 40% of the time without further adjustments to the original framework. While this performance is not sufficient for current practical use, further improvements to data formatting, disambiguating results, and leveraging threshold values could improve performance significantly. However, evaluating this will require more extensive evaluations on larger datasets and potentially better models.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Denitrifying and diazotrophic community responses to artificial warming in permafrost and tallgrass prairie soils

Increasing temperatures have been shown to impact soil biogeochemical processes, although the corresponding changes to the underlying microbial functional communities are not well understood. Alterations in the nitrogen (N) cycling functional component are particularly important as N availability can affect microbial decomposition rates of soil organic matter and influence plant productivity. To assess changes in the microbial component responsible for these changes, the composition of the N-fixing (nifH), and denitrifying (nirS, nirK, nosZ) soil microbial communities was assessed by targeted pyrosequencing of functional genes involved in N cycling in two major biomes where the experimental effect of climate warming is under investigation, a tallgrass prairie in Oklahoma (OK) and the active layer above permafrost in Alaska (AK). Raw reads were processed for quality, translated with frameshift correction, and a total of 313,842 amino acid sequences were clustered and linked to a nearest neighbor using reference datasets. The number of OTUs recovered ranged from 231 (NifH) to 862 (NirK). The N functional microbial communities of the prairie, which had experienced a decade of experimental warming were the most affected with changes in the richness and/or overall structure of NifH, NirS, NirK and NosZ. In contrast, the AK permafrost communities, which had experienced only 1 year of warming, showed decreased richness and a structural change only with the nirK-harboring bacterial community. A highly divergent nirK-harboring bacterial community was identified in the permafrost soils, suggesting much novelty, while other N functional communities exhibited similar relatedness to the reference databases, regardless of site. Lastly, prairie and permafrost soils also harbored highly divergent communities due mostly to differing major populations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Mobile satellite system fade statistics for shadowing and multipath from roadside trees at UHF and L-band

Field tests related to planned mobile satellite systems were performed, and results that add to the existing database of propagation measurements at L-band (1.5 GHz) are described. They are considered particularly useful in that propagation effects were studied systematically, with repeated and controlled runs pertaining to different path elevation angles, road types, and path geometries defining shadowing and line-of-sight modes. In addition, simultaneous L-band and UHF measurements were performed for the purpose of establishing scaling factors applicable to previous UHF (870 MHz) results. The control of the experimental parameters was made possible by using a helicopter as the source platform and a mobile van to house the receiver.

Goldhirsh, Julius↗

Navier-Stokes calculation of transonic flow past the NTF 65-deg delta wing

Viscous flow past a wind tunnel model of a 65-degree swept angle Delta wing at transonic speeds is being studied. The model was tested in the 8-foot cryogenic transonic wind tunnel at the National Transonic Facility. Aerodynamic forces and wing surface pressure data were obtained at various angles of attack, Mach numbers, and Reynold's numbers for four different leading edges of the wing. The objectives of the present investigation are: (1) to perform numerical modeling of the flow around the wing; (2) to validate the experimental data with a Navier-Stokes computational fluid dynamics code and vice versa; (3) to investigate the effects of the sting mount of the wing; (4) to evaluate the effects of leading edge radius on the flow; and (5) to explain the Reynold's number effect as indicated by the test data. Several computer programs were developed to define the surfaces of the wing, the four leading edges, and the sting mount. Based on these geometric databases, the surface grids of a single-block computational domain was generated interactively on the IRIS workstation using the GRIDGEN2D module of GRIDGEN. To refine the grids and to avoid excessive loss of grid points due to collapsed edges, a 9-block computational domain containing approximately 750,000 grid points was developed with the GRIDBLOCK module to replace the single-block grid.

Wu, Chivey↗

Data-Driven Study of Shape Memory Behavior of Multi-Component Ni-Ti Alloys

Ni-Ti based shape memory alloys (SMAs) have found wide-spread use in aerospace, automotive, biomedical, and commercial applications owing to their favorable properties and ease of operation. Especially important for many NASA applications is the ability to tune the martensitic transformation temperature of Ni-Ti alloys by varying the alloy composition and processing conditions. Recently, researchers at NASA have compiled an extensive database of shape memory properties of materials, including over 8,000 multi-component Ni-Ti alloys containing 37 different alloying elements. Using this dataset, machine learning models are trained to predict transformation temperatures, hysteresis, and transformation strain with extremely low mean absolute errors. These models are used to learn relationships between shape memory behavior and input parameters in the composition and processing space. ML predictions are validated through new experiments. The combination of an extensive experimental dataset and accurate learning models, together, make our approach highly suitable for the rapid discovery and design of novel SMAs with targeted properties. We are not aware of any current approaches capable of predicting SMA transformation behavior over such a wide range of compositions and processing conditions.

Shape memory alloys↗