Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Advanced Features”

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 145 records · Page 8

A Plug-and-Play Design Suite of Converters for the Electric Grid

Power electronic (PE) systems are increasingly being integrated into the electric grid in a distributed fashion. As the number of installations increases, the challenge of integration of these systems into the grid is also growing. Advanced control features of these systems are often overlooked or neglected due to the complex nature and novelty of these systems. This is also complicated from the vendor point of view as different converter topology integration is usually composed of single system designs with tight coupling and configurations. The presented work discusses a novel architecture for the integration of PE systems with other sources and loads to create a coordinated controllable resource for the grid. The presented work also describes a system level controller to coordinate these systems. 1 Testing results on a hardware in the loop (HIL) platform are provided to show the validity of the proposed architecture and framework.

Starke, Michael↗

Real-Time Ecodriving Control in Electrified Connected and Autonomous Vehicles Using Approximate Dynamic Programing

Connected and automated vehicles (CAVs), particularly those with a hybrid electric powertrain, have the potential to significantly improve vehicle energy savings in real-world driving conditions. In particular, the ecodriving problem seeks to design optimal speed and power usage profiles based on available information from connectivity and advanced mapping features to minimize the fuel consumption over an itinerary. This paper presents a hierarchical multilayer model predictive control (MPC) approach for improving the fuel economy of a 48 V mild-hybrid powertrain in a connected vehicle environment. Approximate dynamic programing (DP) is used to solve the receding horizon optimal control problem, whose terminal cost is approximated with the base policy obtained from the long-term optimization. The controller was tested virtually (with deterministic and Monte Carlo simulation) across multiple real-world routes, demonstrating energy savings of more than 20%. The controller was then deployed on a test vehicle equipped with a rapid prototyping embedded controller. In-vehicle testing confirm the energy savings obtained in simulation and demonstrate the real-time ability of the controller.

Automation & Control Systems↗

Sci—Sat AM: Stereo — 05: The Development of Quality Assurance Methods for Trajectory based Cranial SRS Treatments

The goal of this work was to develop and validate non-planar linac beam trajectories defined by the dynamic motion of the gantry, couch, jaws, collimator and MLCs. This was conducted on the Varian TrueBeam linac by taking advantage of the linac's advanced control features in a non-clinical mode (termed developers mode). In this work, we present quality assurance methods that we have developed to test for the positional and temporal accuracy of the linac's moving components. The first QA method focuses on the coordination of couch and gantry. For this test, we developed a cylindrical phantom which has a film insert. Using this phantom we delivered a plan with dynamic motion of the couch and gantry. We found the mean absolute deviation of the entrance position from its expected value to be 0.5mm, with a standard deviation of 0.5mm. This was within the tolerances set by the machine's mechanical accuracy and the setup accuracy of the phantom. We also present an altered picket fence test which has added dynamic and simultaneous rotations of the couch and the collimator. While the test was shown to be sensitive enough to discern errors 1° and greater, we were unable to identify any errors in the coordination of the linacs collimator and couch. When operating under normal conditions, the Varian TrueBeam linac was able to pass both tests and is within tolerances acceptable for complex trajectory based treatments.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗

CUDAMicroBench

CUDAMicroBench is a collection of fourteen microbenchmarks that demonstrate performance challenges in CUDA programming and techniques to optimize the CUDA programs to address these challenges. It also includes examples and techniques for using advanced CUDA features such as data shuffling between threads, dynamic parallelism, etc that can help users optimize the CUDA program for performance.

Liao, Chunhua↗

Resiliency in numerical algorithm design for extreme scale simulations

Here this work is based on the seminar titled ‘Resiliency in Numerical Algorithm Design for Extreme Scale Simulations’ held March 1–6, 2020, at Schloss Dagstuhl, that was attended by all the authors. Advanced supercomputing is characterized by very high computation speeds at the cost of involving an enormous amount of resources and costs. A typical large-scale computation running for 48 h on a system consuming 20 MW, as predicted for exascale systems, would consume a million kWh, corresponding to about 100k Euro in energy cost for executing 10 23 floating-point operations. It is clearly unacceptable to lose the whole computation if any of the several million parallel processes fails during the execution. Moreover, if a single operation suffers from a bit-flip error, should the whole computation be declared invalid? What about the notion of reproducibility itself: should this core paradigm of science be revised and refined for results that are obtained by large-scale simulation? Naive versions of conventional resilience techniques will not scale to the exascale regime: with a main memory footprint of tens of Petabytes, synchronously writing checkpoint data all the way to background storage at frequent intervals will create intolerable overheads in runtime and energy consumption. Forecasts show that the mean time between failures could be lower than the time to recover from such a checkpoint, so that large calculations at scale might not make any progress if robust alternatives are not investigated. More advanced resilience techniques must be devised. The key may lie in exploiting both advanced system features as well as specific application knowledge. Research will face two essential questions: (1) what are the reliability requirements for a particular computation and (2) how do we best design the algorithms and software to meet these requirements? While the analysis of use cases can help understand the particular reliability requirements, the construction of remedies is currently wide open. One avenue would be to refine and improve on system- or application-level checkpointing and rollback strategies in the case an error is detected. Developers might use fault notification interfaces and flexible runtime systems to respond to node failures in an application-dependent fashion. Novel numerical algorithms or more stochastic computational approaches may be required to meet accuracy requirements in the face of undetectable soft errors. These ideas constituted an essential topic of the seminar. The goal of this Dagstuhl Seminar was to bring together a diverse group of scientists with expertise in exascale computing to discuss novel ways to make applications resilient against detected and undetected faults. In particular, participants explored the role that algorithms and applications play in the holistic approach needed to tackle this challenge. This article gathers a broad range of perspectives on the role of algorithms, applications and systems in achieving resilience for extreme scale simulations. The ultimate goal is to spark novel ideas and encourage the development of concrete solutions for achieving such resilience holistically.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Advanced Control Techniques and High Performance Discharges on DIII-D

The advancement of plasma control techniques has enabled significant progress to be made toward the scientific understanding and realization of Advanced Tokamak operation on DIII–D. The Advanced Tokamak features fully noninductive current drive, operation at high plasma pressure and high energy confinement time. These features require efficient current drive systems, simultaneous control of plasma current and pressure profiles, and active feedback control of plasma instabilities. A number of key systems on DIII-D have been developed to provide this control capability. A versatile electron cyclotron heating and current drive system is routinely providing in excess of 2 MW of power for pulse lengths from 2 to 5 s. This system has been used to provide offaxis current drive, direct electron heating and pressure profile modification, and stabilization of the Neoclassical Tearing Mode instability. A combination of control of magnetic error fields, neutral beam induced plasma rotation, and active feedback stabilization using both external and internal nonaxisymmetric coil systems has been used to stabilize the Resistive Wall Mode at high values of plasma pressure. Control of the ELM instability has recently been demonstrated using the newly installed internal coil system. The higher speed and expanded realtime diagnostic capability of our recently upgraded plasma control system permits these various control techniques to be simultaneously integrated to achieve our high performance discharges. This has resulted in fully noninductively driven plasmas with β N = 3.5 and β T = 3.6% sustained for up to 1 s. Finally, upgrades and facility modifications to further enhance our control and scientific capabilities including rotation of a neutral beamline, expanded EC system power, and installation of a new lower divertor are discussed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Winchester/Camberley Homes New Construction Test House Design, Construction, and Short-Term Testing in a Mixed-Humid Climate

The NAHB Research Center partnered with production builder Winchester/Camberley Homes to build a DOE Building America New Construction Test House (NCTH). This single family, detached house, located in the mixed-humid climate zone of Silver Spring, MD, was completed in June 2011. The primary goal for this house was to improve energy efficiency by 30% over the Building America B10 benchmark bydeveloping and implementing an optimized energy solutions package design that could be cost effectively and reliably constructed on a production basis using quality management practices. The intent of this report is to outline the features of this house, discuss the implementation of the energy efficient design, and report on short-term testing results. During the interactive design process ofthis project, numerous iterations of the framing, air sealing, insulation, and space conditioning systems were evaluated for energy performance, cost, and practical implementation. The final design featured numerous advanced framing techniques, high levels of insulation, and the HVAC system entirely within conditioned space. Short-term testing confirmed a very tight thermal envelope andefficient and effective heating and cooling. In addition, relevant heating, cooling, humidity, energy, and wall cavity moisture data will be collected and presented in a future long-term report.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Fort Benning Indianhead Townhome Renovations

The NAHB Research Center partnered with production builder Winchester/Camberley Homes to build a DOE Building America New Construction Test House (NCTH). This single family, detached house, located in the mixed-humid climate zone of Silver Spring, MD, was completed in June 2011. The primary goal for this house was to improve energy efficiency by 30% over the Building America B10 benchmark by developing and implementing an optimized energy solutions package design that could be cost effectively and reliably constructed on a production basis using quality management practices. The intent of this report is to outline the features of this house, discuss the implementation of the energy efficient design, and report on short-term testing results. During the interactive design process of this project, numerous iterations of the framing, air sealing, insulation, and space conditioning systems were evaluated for energy performance, cost, and practical implementation. The final design featured numerous advanced framing techniques, high levels of insulation, and the HVAC system entirely within conditioned space. Short-term testing confirmed a very tight thermal envelope and efficient and effective heating and cooling. In addition, relevant heating, cooling, humidity, energy, and wall cavity moisture data will be collected and presented in a future long-term report.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

ZFS on RBODs - Leveraging RAID Controllers for Metrics and Enclosure Management

Traditionally, the Lustre file system has relied on the ldiskfs file system with reliable RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) storage underneath. As of Lustre 2.4, ZFS was added as a backend file system, with built-in software RAID, thereby removing the need of expensive RAID controllers. ZFS was designed to work with JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) storage enclosures under the Solaris Operating System, which provided a rich device management system. Long time users of the Lustre file system have relied on the RAID controllers to provide metrics and enclosure monitoring and management services, with rich APIs and command line interfaces. This paper will study a hybrid approach using an advanced full featured RAID enclosure which is presented to the host as a JBOD, This RBOD (RAIDed Bunch Of Disks) allows ZFS to do the RAID protection and error correction, while the RAID controller handles management of the disks and monitors the enclosure. It was hoped that the value of the RAID controller features would offset the additional cost, and that performance would not suffer in this mode. The test results revealed that the hybrid RBOD approach did suffer reduced performance.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Fort Benning Indianhead Townhome Renovations

The NAHB Research Center partnered with production builder Winchester/Camberley Homes to build a DOE Building America New Construction Test House (NCTH). This single family, detached house, located in the mixed-humid climate zone of Silver Spring, MD, was completed in June 2011. The primary goal for this house was to improve energy efficiency by 30% over the Building America B10 benchmark by developing and implementing an optimized energy solutions package design that could be cost effectively and reliably constructed on a production basis using quality management practices. The intent of this report is to outline the features of this house, discuss the implementation of the energy efficient design, and report on short-term testing results. During the interactive design process of this project, numerous iterations of the framing, air sealing, insulation, and space conditioning systems were evaluated for energy performance, cost, and practical implementation. The final design featured numerous advanced framing techniques, high levels of insulation, and the HVAC system entirely within conditioned space. Short-term testing confirmed a very tight thermal envelope and efficient and effective heating and cooling. In addition, relevant heating, cooling, humidity, energy, and wall cavity moisture data will be collected and presented in a future long-term report.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

FY17Q4 Ristra project: Release Version 1.0 of a production toolkit

The Next Generation Code project will release Version 1.0 of a production toolkit for multi-physics application development on advanced architectures. Features of this toolkit will include remap and link utilities, control and state manager, setup, visualization and I/O, as well as support for a variety of mesh and particle data representations. Numerical physics packages that operate atop this foundational toolkit will be employed in a multi-physics demonstration problem and released to the community along with results from the demonstration.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

NREL's HydroGEN Photoreactor Platform Design and Characterization

This technical report details the design, fabrication, and construction of a flow-through photoreactor developed at The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The photoreactor is designed to facilitate indoor or outdoor testing on photoelectrochemical or integrated solar water splitting devices. The photoreactor design described here is based on a previous demonstration. The photoreactor version described herein contains several advanced design features that include: 1) Chassis-chuck two-part design, 2) Separable counter electrode compartments (here, the counter electrodes are anodes), 3) Reduced electrode separation to reduce electrolyte resistance, 4) Improved flow pattern for bubble removal, 5) Mounting for spectroradiometer receptor, 6) Fresnel lens and collimating tube attachments. The photoreactor presented here was designed primarily to accommodate photocathode materials in an illuminated compartment and a dark anode as the oxygen evolution catalyst. The build materials were thus chosen to for acid electrolyte compatibility. Other embodiments could accommodate a photoanode with dark hydrogen evolution catalyst and other build materials for alkaline compatibility.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Results from the 35-ton Liquid-argon Prototype using Cosmic Rays and Lessons Learned

Liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs) provide a robust and elegant method for measuring the properties of neutrino interactions above a few tens of MeV by providing 3D event imaging with excellent spatial resolution. LArTPCs have been chosen by the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) as the far detector technology and it will play an essential role in the studies of neutrino mass ordering and CP violation as well as searches for proton decays and supernova neutrinos. The 35-ton prototype, located at Fermilab, featured many advanced technologies being considered by the DUNE far detector, such as the membrane cryostat, cold electronics, anode plane assembly (APA) with wrapped wires, silicon photomultipliers to readout scintillation photons, scintillator counters to trigger cosmic ray muons. The high quality data in the 35-ton LArTPC are important to the understanding of many physics effects such as the attenuation caused by impurities, diffusion, space charge, and calorimetric response of muons, protons and neutral pions.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Versatility of Synthetic tRNAs in Genetic Code Expansion

Transfer RNA (tRNA) is a dynamic molecule used by all forms of life as a key component of the translation apparatus. Each tRNA is highly processed, structured, and modified, to accurately deliver amino acids to the ribosome for protein synthesis. The tRNA molecule is a critical component in synthetic biology methods for the synthesis of proteins designed to contain non-canonical amino acids (ncAAs). The multiple interactions and maturation requirements of a tRNA pose engineering challenges, but also offer tunable features. Major advances in the field of genetic code expansion have repeatedly demonstrated the central importance of suppressor tRNAs for efficient incorporation of ncAAs. Here we review the current status of two fundamentally different translation systems (TSs), selenocysteine (Sec)- and pyrrolysine (Pyl)-TSs. Idiosyncratic requirements of each of these TSs mandate how their tRNAs are adapted and dictate the techniques used to select or identify the best synthetic variants.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Field Study and Energy-Plus Benchmarks for Energy Saver Homes having Different Envelope Designs

An alliance to maximize energy efficiency and cost-effective residential construction (ZEBRAlliance) built and field tested four homes that are 50 percent more energy efficient than a code compliant home. The homes are unoccupied for the duration of a two-year field study, thereby eliminating the confounding issue of occupancy habits. All homes have about the same consistent and scheduled internal load. Each home showcases a unique envelope strategy: 1) structural insulated panel (SIP), 2) optimal value wall framing (OVF), 3) advanced framing featuring the benefits of insulations mixed with phase change materials (PCM), and 4) an exterior insulation and finish system (EIFS). All homes have different weather resistive barriers (WRBs) and/or air barriers to limit air and moisture infiltration. Three homes provide space conditioning and water heating via a ground loop heat exchanger, while the fourth home uses a high efficiency air-to-air heat pump and heat pump water heater. Field performance and results of EnergyPlus V7.0 benchmarks were made for roof and attics as compared to cathedral design and for wall heat flows to validate models. The moisture content of the wall sheathing is shown to prove the protecting effectiveness of WRBs. Temperature distributions through insulations in the wall and ceiling with and without PCMs are described to characterize the performance of the PCM building envelopes.

Attic↗

MELCOR accident analysis for ARIES-ACT

We model a loss of flow accident (LOFA) in the ARIES-ACT1 tokamak design. ARIES-ACT1 features an advanced SiC blanket with LiPb as coolant and breeder, a helium cooled steel structural ring and tungsten divertors, a thin-walled, helium cooled vacuum vessel, and a room temperature water-cooled shield outside the vacuum vessel. The water heat transfer system is designed to remove heat by natural circulation during a LOFA. The MELCOR model uses time-dependent decay heats for each component determined by 1-D modeling. The MELCOR model shows that, despite periodic boiling of the water coolant, that structures are kept adequately cool by the passive safety system.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗