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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 145 records · Page 8

High Performance Circuit Pastes for Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Applications: Final Technical Report

Using a combination of in-plane electrical conductivity measurements, electrical contact resistance measurements, tensile fracture tests, double shear lap fracture tests, rapid thermal cycling adhesion tests, in situ wetting angle measurements, 3D X-ray tomography, reduction-oxidation (RedOx) cycling, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDAX), Density Functional Theory (DFT) modeling, Molecular Dynamics (MD) modeling, and Phase Field modeling, this project determined that a new brazing technique developed by the PIs (specifically the use of nickel particles to direct the wetting and spreading of molten silver) could be used to produce well-adhered, >97% dense, electrically-conductive circuits, current collectors, and/or electrical contacts on a variety of ceramic and ceramic-coated substrates (specifically lanthanum strontium manganite, yttria stabilized zirconia, sapphire, Cr2O3-passivated stainless steel, and Al2O3-passivated stainless steel). Compared to other silver-based alternatives, Ag:Ni led to less manufacturing defects and was more tolerant of the extreme environments (isothermal high-temperature aging) and occasional abuse (rapid thermal cycling and RedOx cycling) encountered during Solid Oxide Fuel Cell and/or Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell operation. Further, in some situations (such as when to produce Ag:Ni electrical contacts to Al2O3-protected stainless steel) the Ni particles also improved operation by acting as chemical getters that removed electrically-insulating, surface-segregating substrate impurities (i.e. by lowering the contact resistance with the underlying substrate).

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Synchrotron micro-computed tomography analysis of neutron-irradiated U-Mo fuel

The three-dimensional (3D) microstructure of neutron-irradiated uranium-10 wt.% molybdenum (U-10Mo) fuel with a burn-up of 9.8 × 10 21 fissions/cm 3 was characterized using a novel, multi-modal synchrotron micro-computed tomography approach combining propagation-based phase-contrast enhanced and absorption contrast techniques. The porosity development, porosity interconnectedness, swelling, composition, local thickness of the zirconium (Zr) diffusion barrier, and the influence of the fuel–cladding interaction on the local composition and pore morphology, were uniquely determined in 3D. Two cuboids were produced using a focused ion beam-scanning electron microscope at the Zr diffusion barrier–fuel interface and in the bulk fuel. The bulk fuel sample swelled by 53.3 [+9.7/−3.1]%, while the fuel near the Zr–fuel interface swelled by 63.3 [+14.7/−7.2]%. The average local thickness of the Zr diffusion barrier decreased by 53 %, compared to the expected pre-irradiated thickness. Four pore morphology regions were identified initiating parallel to the fuel–Zr interaction region: (1) an interaction layer of suppressed porosity, (2) a layer of elongated and interconnected porosity, (3) a transition zone of low porosity, and (4) a layer of unoriented porosity representative of the bulk fuel behavior. The increase in porosity near the diffusion barrier corresponded to a higher U concentration compared to that in the bulk fuel. The interconnected porosity in the fuel near the diffusion barrier was extensive and oriented parallel to the diffusion barrier, while the bulk fuel had more compact and isolated pore networks. The interaction layer, despite having suppressed porosity, was nearly 100 wt.% U. Porosity suppression at the diffusion barrier corresponds to the expected reduction in radiation-driven diffusion of Xe at the interface despite the anticipated increase in fission product nucleation originating from a higher U concentration. In conclusion, the novel 3D insights of the porosity, swelling, and compositional variations characterized herein can improve the fidelity of fuel performance codes for proliferation-resistant fuels for research and test reactors.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Few-view computed tomography reconstruction using deep neural network inference

A system for generating 2D slices of a 3D image of a target volume is provided. The system receives a target sinogram collected during a computed tomography scan of the target volume. The system inputs the target sinogram to a convolutional neural network (CNN) to generate predicted 2D slices of the 3D image. The CNN is trained using training 2D slices of training 3D images. The system initializes 2D slices to the predicted 2D slices. The system reconstructs 2D slices of the 3D image from the target sinogram and the initialized 2D slices.

Kim, Hyojin↗

Thresholding Analysis and Feature Extraction from 3D Ground Penetrating Radar Data for Noninvasive Assessment of Peanut Yield

This study explores the efficacy of utilizing a novel ground penetrating radar (GPR) acquisition platform and data analysis methods to quantify peanut yield for breeding selection, agronomic research, and producer management and harvest applications. Sixty plots comprising different peanut market types were scanned with a multichannel, air-launched GPR antenna. Image thresholding analysis was performed on 3D GPR data from four of the channels to extract features that were correlated to peanut yield with the objective of developing a noninvasive high-throughput peanut phenotyping and yield-monitoring methodology. Plot-level GPR data were summarized using mean, standard deviation, sum, and the number of nonzero values (counts) below or above different percentile threshold values. Best results were obtained for data below the percentile threshold for mean, standard deviation and sum. Data both below and above the percentile threshold generated good correlations for count. Correlating individual GPR features to yield generated correlations of up to 39% explained variability, while combining GPR features in multiple linear regression models generated up to 51% explained variability. The correlations increased when regression models were developed separately for each peanut type. This research demonstrates that a systematic search of thresholding range, analysis window size, and data summary statistics is necessary for successful application of this type of analysis. The results also establish that thresholding analysis of GPR data is an appropriate methodology for noninvasive assessment of peanut yield, which could be further developed for high-throughput phenotyping and yield-monitoring, adding a new sensor and new capabilities to the growing set of digital agriculture technologies.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Dynamic compressed sensing for real-time tomographic reconstruction

Electron tomography has achieved higher resolution and quality at reduced doses with recent advances in compressed sensing. Compressed sensing (CS) exploits the inherent sparse signal structure to efficiently reconstruct three-dimensional (3D) volumes at the nanoscale from undersampled measurements. However, the process bottlenecks 3D reconstruction with computation times that run from hours to days. Here we demonstrate a framework for dynamic compressed sensing that produces a 3D specimen structure that updates in real-time as new specimen projections are collected. Researchers can begin interpreting 3D specimens as data is collected to facilitate high-throughput and interactive analysis. Using scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), we show that dynamic compressed sensing accelerates the convergence speed by ~3-fold while also reducing its error by 27% for a Au/SrTiO 3 nanoparticle specimen. Before a tomography experiment is completed, the 3D tomogram has interpretable structure within ~33% of completion and fine details are visible as early as ~66%. Upon completion of an experiment, a high-fidelity 3D visualization is produced without further delay. Additionally, we report reconstruction parameters that tune data fidelity can be manipulated throughout the computation without re-running the entire process.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

FY23 Progress Report: SRNL Analysis of ICCWR LCM and WAMS data for Corrosion and Cracking

Algorithms for Machine Learning (ML) and data analysis for the 3013 Surveillance Program have been developed in an ongoing collaborative effort by the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and the University of South Carolina (USC). The objective of the algorithms is to automate the identification of corrosion and crack formation in the Inner Container Closure Weld Region (ICCWR) of the canister system used to store Pu-bearing material. Data for corrosion and cracking is collected from large binary files generated by a Laser Confocal Microscope (LCM), the Wide Area 3D Measurement System (WAMS), and in a recent proposal, by a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The ML software uses the physical attributes in the data files (e.g., one or all of: height, color, and grayscale values as functions of position in a plane projection) to detect the presence of surface corrosion and cracking after being trained on similar data with the features to be detected labeled.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

FY24 Progress Report: SRNL Analysis of ICCWR LCM and WAMS data for Corrosion and Cracking

Algorithms for Machine Learning (ML) and data analysis for the 3013 Surveillance Program have been developed in an ongoing collaborative effort by the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and the University of South Carolina (USC). The objective of the algorithms is to automate the identification of corrosion and crack formation in the Inner Container Closure Weld Region (ICCWR) of the canister system used to store Pu-bearing material. Data for corrosion and cracking is collected from large binary files generated by a Laser Confocal Microscope (LCM), the Wide Area 3D Measurement System (WAMS), or,in a recent proposal, by a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The ML software uses the physical attributes in the data files (e.g., one or more of: height, color, and 16-bit grayscale values as functions of position in a plane projection) to detect signs of surface corrosion and cracking after being trained on similar data, with the features to be detected. Although the initial scope included screening for broader indicators of corrosion, e.g., pitting, identification of potential cracks was prioritized for the past several years at the request of program leadership. Labeled training data is essential to developing the ML algorithm, and enhancements to data labeling capability have been developed to address this essential precursor to application of ML routines. Efficient labeling is particularly important in view of the large volume of data required to train ML algorithms and the relative rarity of cracks in the ICCWR data set. The updated program will read binary data from either LCM, WAMS or SEM files, interrogate data attributes, facilitate user labeling of data for training ML algorithms, execute ML algorithms, output parameters from trained ML algorithms, report ML model accuracy with respect to labeled data, and generate graphical representations for various analyses. In FY24, hourglass neural networks (HNNs) that were initiated in FY22 were further developed and tested using available LCM data, and their performance was tested against that of the alternative U-Net Neural Network algorithm structure. HNNs along with previously developed Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) comprise a suite of ML tools for identification of cracks in the ICCWR

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

FY25 Progress Report: SRNL Analysis of ICCWR LCM and WAMS data for Corrosion and Cracking

Algorithms for Machine Learning (ML) and image analysis for the 3013 Surveillance Program have been developed in an ongoing collaborative effort by the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and the University of South Carolina (USC). The objective of the algorithms is to automate the identification of corrosion and cracks in the Inner Container Closure Weld Region (ICCWR) of the canister system used to store Pu-bearing material. Data for corrosion and cracking is collected from large binary files generated by a Laser Confocal Microscope (LCM), the Wide Area 3D Measurement System (WAMS), or, in a recent proposal, by a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The ML software uses the physical attributes in the data files (e.g., one or more of: height, color, and 16-bit grayscale values as functions of position in a plane projection) to detect signs of surface corrosion and cracking after being trained on similar data with the features to be detected. Although the initial scope included screening for broader indicators of corrosion, e.g., pitting, the identification of potential cracks was prioritized for the past several years at the request of program leadership.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Illuminating early-stage dynamics of heavy-ion collisions through photons at RHIC BES energies

Heavy-ion collisions at $\sqrt {^SNN}$~10 GeV probe the QCD phase diagram at large baryon densities. Because the longitudinal Lorentz contraction is small at these collision energies, understanding the dynamics during the early phase of the collision is essential for the subsequent modeling of the system evolution and for constraining the QGP transport properties at finite baryon densities. Direct photons provide undistorted information on early-stage dynamics. We model relativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC Beam Energy Scan energies with a hybrid dynamical approach consisting of a 3D-Glauber initial state followed by viscous hydrodynamics and hadronic transport (MUSIC + UrQMD). The implemented thermal photon emission takes into account the enhancement from finite baryon chemical potentials. We show that direct photon spectra and their anisotropic flow coefficients have a strong sensitivity to the early stage of heavy-ion collisions. Thus, they provide constraints on QGP dynamics complementary to those obtained from hadronic observables.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Recent Developments in Femtosecond Laser-Enabled TriBeam Systems

Streams of multimodal three-dimensional (3D) and four-dimensional (4D) data are revolutionizing our ability to design and predict the behavior of a broad array of advanced materials systems. Over the last 10 years, a new 3D imaging platform consisting of a femtosecond (fs) pulsed laser coupled with a focused ion beam scanning electron microscope (FIB SEM) has been developed by UC Santa Barbara in collaboration with Thermo Fisher Scientific (formerly FEI). The femtosecond-laser-enabled FIB SEM, called the TriBeam, has become one of the only 3D serial sectioning methods available that can gather millimeter-scaled multimodal datasets at sub-μm voxel resolutions; these length scales are critical for many materials problems. Multimodal chemical, crystallographic, and morphological information can be gathered rapidly on a layer-by-layer basis and reconstructed in 3D. Large (gigabyte to terabyte scale) 3D datasets have been generated for a broad array of materials systems, including metallic alloys, ceramics, biomaterials, polymer- and ceramic-matrix composites, and semiconductors. The research tasks conducted have resulted in a completely new design, operating with a dual-wavelength femtosecond-pulsed laser on a plasma focused ion beam (PFIB) platform.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

3D Cloud Aerosol Precipitation Experiment at kennaook Cape Grim (3D-CAPE-k) Field Campaign Report

The objective of this campaign was to complement the U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) User Facility’s Cloud And Precipitation Experiment at kennaook (CAPE-k) in northwest Tasmania by deploying scanning, fixed pointing angle, and in situ aerosol, cloud, and precipitation remote-sensing instruments during the last six months of the experiment. These instruments provided a three-dimensional (3D) context to the second ARM Mobile Facility (AMF2) vertically pointing observations collected at the kennaook Cape Grim (KCG) site and captured a portion of the life cycle of the clouds before and after the passage over the AMF2 vertical column. These 3D cloud measurements will be used in the near future to 1) investigate how the vertical profiles of aerosol and cloud properties are representative of the broader area and how these properties evolve during the portion of the cloud life cycle captured by the scanning instruments, 2) quantify how accurate the cloud fraction derived with assumptions from vertically pointing observations are compared with direct 3D cloud fraction measurements, 3) evaluate cloud fraction and liquid water path in the Australian Community Climate and Earth-System Simulator–Convective-scale (ACCESS-C) forecast model, and 4) evaluate aerosol and cloud products from the European Space Agency/Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (ESA/JAXA) Earth Cloud Aerosol Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) mission using the scanning measurements, offering more chances of exact collocation, thereby complementing the statistical approach we are planning to employ with AMF2 observations for that same purpose.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Automated segmentation of porous thermal spray material CT scans with predictive uncertainty estimation

Abstract Thermal sprayed metal coatings are used in many industrial applications, and characterizing the structure and performance of these materials is vital to understanding their behavior in the field. X-ray computed tomography (CT) enables volumetric, nondestructive imaging of these materials, but precise segmentation of this grayscale image data into discrete material phases is necessary to calculate quantities of interest related to material structure. In this work, we present a methodology to automate the CT segmentation process as well as quantify uncertainty in segmentations via deep learning. Neural networks (NNs) have been shown to excel at segmentation tasks; however, memory constraints, class imbalance, and lack of sufficient training data often prohibit their deployment in high resolution volumetric domains. Our 3D convolutional NN implementation mitigates these challenges and accurately segments full resolution CT scans of thermal sprayed materials with maps of uncertainty that conservatively bound the predicted geometry. These bounds are propagated through calculations of material properties such as porosity that may provide an understanding of anticipated behavior in the field.

Martinez, Carianne↗

3D full wave fast wave modeling with realistic antenna geometry and SOL plasma

This paper reports the significant advancement of our ability to model and to understand how RF waves interact with the SOL plasma, by simulating the full torus 3D SOL plasma together with the antenna and core plasma. We introduce and use a recently developed and open source code, Petra-M, which was constructed on the scalable MFEM C++ finite element library, and performed 3D full wave simulations in the HHFW regime for both NSTX-U and LAPD plasmas. A first full wave simulation for a full 3D torus including a realistic antenna geometry and SOL plasma region for NSTX-U is presented. A scan of the antenna phasing shows a strong interaction between FWs and the SOL plasma for lower antenna phasing, which is consistent with previous NSTX HHFW observations. The effect of the 3D wave field on the fast ion population from NBI beams in NSTX-U is also discussed by using the 3D field obtained from the Petra-M simulations in the full-orbit following particle SPIRAL code. On LAPD, 3D full wave simulations of a new HHFW 4-strap antenna recently installed by TAE Technologies on LAPD are performed showing a qualitative agreement with experimental data.

Bertelli, Nicola↗

3D segmentation using space carving and 2D convolutional neural networks

A system for generating a 3D segmentation of a target volume is provided. The system accesses views of an X-ray scan of a target volume. The system applies a 2D CNN to each view to generate a 2D multi-channel feature vector for each view. The system applies a space carver to generate a 3D channel volume for each channel based on the 2D multi-channel feature vectors. The system then applies a linear combining technique to the 3D channel volumes to generate a 3D multi-label map that represents a 3D segmentation of the target volume.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Geometry dependence of the fluctuation intensity in gyrokinetic turbulence

The findings of an investigation into the properties of the three dimensional (3D) saturated fluctuation intensity of the electric potential in gyrokinetic turbulence simulations is presented. Scans in flux surface elongation and Shafranov shift are used to isolate the tokamak geometric dependencies. The potential intensity required in order to compute exact fluxes by a quasilinear method is determined using linear eigenmodes computed with the gyrokinetic code. A model of this non-linear intensity is constructed using the linear eigenmode properties and the geometry shape functions obtained from the 3D intensity spectrum. The model computes the poloidal wavenumber spectrum of the electron and ion energy fluxes with unprecedented accuracy. In conclusion, new insights are gained into the way zonal flow mixing saturates ion-scale turbulence by controlling the radial wavenumber width of the turbulence spectrum.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Using 2.5D super-resolution to improve flaw detection in metal additive manufacturing parts

Industrial X-ray computed tomography (XCT) enables non-destructive inspection of additively manufactured (AM) parts, but high-resolution scanning requires long acquisition times and significant computational resources, limiting throughput in production environments. Super-resolution techniques can recover high-resolution information from low-resolution scans, but existing methods face a trade-off between 2D approaches that ignore inter-slice information and 3D methods that are computationally prohibitive for practical deployment. To address this trade-off, we propose a 2.5D deep learning-based super-resolution approach that uses seven neighbouring low-resolution slices to super-resolve the centre slice. This work evaluates the method on real XCT scans of steel AM parts, comparing reconstruction quality and flaw detection performance of 2D, 2.5D, and 3D ESRGAN-based super-resolution methods. Results demonstrate that 2.5D super-resolution significantly improves detection of small, process-induced flaws (e.g. porosity) compared to 2D methods, while avoiding the prohibitive computational burden of full 3D approaches. These findings provide initial evidence of 2.5D super-resolution as a practical, deployable solution for improving flaw detection in high-throughput industrial XCT inspection.

X-ray CT↗

3D Visualization of Proteins within Metal–Organic Frameworks via Ferritin‐Enabled Electron Microscopy

Abstract Electron tomography holds great promise as a tool for investigating the 3D morphologies and internal structures of metal‐organic framework‐based protein biocomposites (protein@MOFs). Understanding the 3D spatial arrangement of proteins within protein@MOFs is paramount for developing synthetic methods to control their spatial localization and distribution patterns within the biocomposite crystals. In this study, the naturally occurring iron oxide mineral core of the protein horse spleen ferritin (Fn) is leveraged as a contrast agent to directly observe individual proteins once encapsulated into MOFs by electron microscopy techniques. This methodology couples scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and electron tomography to garner detailed 2D and 3D structural interpretations of where proteins spatially lie in Fn@MOF crystals, addressing the significant gaps in understanding how synthetic conditions relate to overall protein spatial localization and aggregation. These findings collectively reveal that adjusting the ligand‐to‐metal ratios, protein concentration, and the use of denaturing agents alters how proteins are arranged, localized, and aggregated within MOF crystals.

Chemistry↗

Influence of plasticizers on thermal and mechanical properties of biocomposite filaments made from lignin and polylactic acid for 3D printing

Polylactic acid (PLA) and organosolv lignin were mixed at different ratios and extruded to obtain PLA-lignin composite filaments. PLA was replaced with lignin up to 20 wt%. Two plasticizers (polyethylene glycol (PEG) 2000 and struktol TR451) were added in varying concentrations to enhance the properties of PLA_L20 (20% lignin in PLA) composite filaments. Furthermore, the effect of lignin in PLA, and PEG, and struktol in PLA_L20 composites was investigated via tensile test, differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy of the filaments, and dynamic mechanical analysis of 3D printed samples. A 2 wt% PEG was able to enhance both tensile stress and elongation at maximum load of PLA_L20 composite by 19% and 35%, respectively, whereas struktol TR451 was able to improve elongation at maximum load by 24%.

3D printing↗