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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Versailles Project on Advanced Materials and Standards interlaboratory study on intensity calibration for x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy instruments using low-density polyethylene

We report the results of a Versailles Project on Advanced Materials and Standards interlaboratory study on the intensity scale calibration of x-ray photoelectron spectrometers using low-density polyethylene (LDPE) as an alternative material to gold, silver, and copper. An improved set of LDPE reference spectra, corrected for different instrument geometries using a quartz-monochromated Al Kα x-ray source, was developed using data provided by participants in this study. Using these new reference spectra, a transmission function was calculated for each dataset that participants provided. When compared to a similar calibration procedure using the NPL reference spectra for gold, the LDPE intensity calibration method achieves an absolute offset of ~3.0% and a systematic deviation of ±6.5% on average across all participants. For spectra recorded at high pass energies (≥90 eV), values of absolute offset and systematic deviation are ~5.8% and ±5.7%, respectively, whereas for spectra collected at lower pass energies (<90 eV), values of absolute offset and systematic deviation are ~4.9% and ±8.8%, respectively; low pass energy spectra perform worse than the global average, in terms of systematic deviations, due to diminished count rates and signal-to-noise ratio. Differences in absolute offset are attributed to the surface roughness of the LDPE induced by sample preparation. We further assess the usability of LDPE as a secondary reference material and comment on its performance in the presence of issues such as variable dark noise, x-ray warm up times, inaccuracy at low count rates, and underlying spectrometer problems. In response to participant feedback and the results of the study, we provide an updated LDPE intensity calibration protocol to address the issues highlighted in the interlaboratory study. Finally, we also comment on the lack of implementation of a consistent and traceable intensity calibration method across the community of x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) users and, therefore, propose a route to achieving this with the assistance of instrument manufacturers, metrology laboratories, and experts leading to an international standard for XPS intensity scale calibration.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Practical considerations in using a binary pseudorandom array for instrument transfer function calibration

Binary pseudo-random array (BPRA) artifacts are useful devices for calibrating the instrument transfer function (ITF) of interferometric microscopes and other optical and non-optical surface and wavefront measurement instruments. The intrinsic white noise character of the power spectral density function of the artifact simplifies the deconvolution of the ITF from the measured power spectral density (PSD). However, resampling of the BPRA intrinsic artifact features with the measurement tool's specific sampling pattern modifies the white noise character of the intrinsic spectrum and needs to be accounted for in the ITF-based data deconvolution process. We have developed an analytic solution to the spectrum of a resampled one- and two- dimensional BPRA. The resultant nominal PSD function is a simple twoparameter cosine function with a period equal to the resampled pixel width. A transfer function model for interferometric microscopes that incorporates this function, along with an ITF that includes aliasing effects and variable numerical aperture (NA), wavelength, and obscuration factor, is used to fit to the BPRA PSDs measured by an interference microscope for a range of objective and zoom lens magnification combinations.

Takacs, PZ↗
DOE OSTI2015

SU-E-I-51: Quantitative Assessment of X-Ray Imaging Detector Performance in a Clinical Setting - a Simple Approach Using a Commercial Instrument

Purpose: To measure and compare the performance of X-ray imaging detectors in a clinical setting using a dedicated instrument for the quantitative determination of detector performance. Methods: The DQEPro (DQE Instruments Inc., London, Ontario Canada) was used to determine the MTF, NPS and DQE using an IEC compliant methodology for three different imaging modalities: conventional radiography (CsI-based detector), general-purpose radioscopy (CsI-based detector), and mammography (a-Se based detector). The radiation qualities (IEC) RQA-5 and RQA-M-2 were used for the CsI-based and a-Se-based detectors, respectively. The DQEPro alleviates some of the difficulties associated with DQE measurements by automatically positioning test devices over the detector, guiding the user through the image acquisition process and providing software for calculations. Results: A comparison of the NPS showed that the image noise of the a-Se detector was less correlated than the CsI detectors. A consistently higher performance was observed for the a-Se detector at all spatial frequencies (MTF: 0.97@0.25 cy/mm, DQE: 0.72@0.25 cy/mm) and the DQE drops off slower than for the CsI detectors. The CsI detector used for conventional radiography displayed a higher performance at low spatial frequencies compared to the CsI detector used for radioscopy (DQE: 0.65 vs 0.60@0.25 cy/mm). However, at spatial frequencies above 1.3 cy/mm, the radioscopy detector displayed better performance than the conventional radiography detector (DQE: 0.35 vs 0.24@2.00 cy/mm). Conclusion: The difference in the MTF, NPS and DQE that was observed for the two different CsI detectors and the a-Se detector reflect the imaging tasks that the different detector types are intended for. The DQEPro has made the determination and calculation of quantitative metrics of X-ray imaging detector performance substantially more convenient and accessible to undertake in a clinical setting.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

Use of Integrated Instrumentation to Detect and Classify Targets in Shallow Water

The detection and classification of targets in shallow water environments (e.g., depth < 20 m) is of increasing interest, both in security applications and more general environmental studies. Here, we report the ability of a cabled integrated instrumentation system to detect and classify targets in a shallow (15 m deep), narrow (150 m wide) channel influenced by moderate tidal currents (peak currents < 2 m/s). The instrumentation system incorporates a passive acoustic array, multibeam sonar, acoustic camera, stereo-optical camera, and acoustic Doppler current profiler. The system effectiveness is benchmarked using autonomous “cooperative” targets (e.g., drifters with known position and acoustic characteristics), divers, and opportunistic observations of fish and marine mammals. By fusing data streams from multiple sensors, detection and classification rates are improved, particularly for smaller targets. Approaches to data management (data rates exceed 80 MB/s), real-time classification, and de-noising of acoustic imagery are also discussed.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
DOE OSTI2018

Statistics-Based Correction to Measurements of Hardness of Rough Surfaces by Instrumented Indentation

Abstract—A procedure for correcting hardness data measured on rough surfaces using instrumented indentation is presented. The correction procedure relies on the knowledge of surface topography, which can be obtained by atomic force microscopy or other appropriate instrumental technique. The analyzed surface is characterized by the standard deviation of height distribution and an autocorrelation function. The latter is proposed to be modeled with an exponential function with either a quadratic or linear exponent.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2024

Instrumental uncertainties in radiative corrections for the MUSE experiment

The MUSE experiment at the Paul Scherrer Institute is measuring elastic lepton-proton scattering cross sections in a four-momentum transfer range from Q 2 of approximately 0.002–0.08 GeV 2 using positively and negatively charged electrons and muons. The extraction of the Born cross sections from the experimental data requires radiative corrections. Estimates of the instrumental uncertainties in those corrections have been made using the ESEPP event generator. The results depend in particular on the minimum lepton momentum that contributes to the experimental cross section and the fraction of events with hard initial-state radiation that is detected in the MUSE calorimeter and is excluded from the data. Furthermore, these results show that the angular-dependent instrumental uncertainties in radiative corrections to the electron cross section are less than 0.4% and are negligible for the muon cross section.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

First-Order Individual Gas Sensors as Next Generation Reliable Analytical Instruments

It is conventionally expected that the performance of existing gas sensors may degrade in the field compared to laboratory conditions because (i) a sensor may lose its accuracy in the presence of chemical interferences and (ii) variations of ambient conditions over time may induce sensor-response fluctuations (i.e., drift). Breaking this status quo in poor sensor performance requires understanding the origins of design principles of existing sensors and bringing new principles to sensor designs. Existing gas sensors are single-output (e.g., resistance, electrical current, light intensity, etc.) sensors, also known as zero-order sensors (Karl Booksh and Bruce R. Kowalski, Analytical Chemistry, DOI: 10.1021/ac00087a718). Any zero-order sensor is undesirably affected by variable chemical background and sensor drift that cannot be distinguished from the response to an analyte. To address these limitations, we are developing multivariable gas sensors with independent responses, which are first-order analytical instruments. Here, we demonstrate self-correction against drift in two types of first-order gas sensors that operate in different portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Our radiofrequency sensors utilize dielectric excitation of semiconducting metal oxide materials on the shoulder of their dielectric relaxation peak and achieve self-correction of the baseline drift by operation at several frequencies. Our photonic sensors utilize nanostructured sensing materials inspired by Morpho butterflies and achieve self-correction of the baseline drift by operation at several wavelengths. These principles of self-correction for drift effects in first-order sensors open opportunities for diverse emerging monitoring applications that cannot afford frequent periodic maintenance that is typical of traditional analytical instruments.

Potyrailo, Radislav A.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Anomaly Detection in Seismic Data with Deep Learning: Application for Instrument Failure Detection and Forecasting

Seismic data quality assessment (QA) is the first and one of the most important steps before conducting any further data analysis. Traditional methods involve checking various metrics, such as spike detection and power spectral density, by setting strict thresholds or comparing data against synthetic benchmarks. However, these approaches often rely on pre-existing knowledge and assumptions about data anomalies, leading to potential misclassification of unusual cases. Here, in this study, we propose a deep autoencoder model, an unsupervised learning approach that evaluates data quality without making assumptions about normal and anomalous data, which can be used to identify deviations in recorded data that may indicate nascent instrument failure. We test the model with the U.S. International Monitoring System (IMS) seismic stations and demonstrate the capability of detecting anomalies on a monthly scale. This could prompt station operators to examine potential problems early, allowing sufficient time for instrument maintenance to prevent data outages. In addition, we use a new manually selected testing dataset to compare our model performance against two supervised machine learning (ML) approaches and a standard QA package, as baseline models. When applied to the dataset containing known data anomalies, performance of the supervised and unsupervised ML approaches is similar, with an accuracy of 88.1% for our model compared to ∼90% for the supervised ML approach and 78.2% for the standard QA package. Our model outperforms the baseline models when applied to new stations, where new types of data anomalies can be station-specific and not included in the training dataset. Finally, we show model transferability by training the model with data from the Global Seismograph Network only and applying it to the IMS network data. The results suggest that our model is generalizable and can be applied to new stations with good accuracy.

Lin, Jiun-Ting [Lawrence Livermore National Labora↗
DOE OSTI2019

Beam Instrumentation Challenges for the Fermilab PIP-II Accelerator

Fermilab is undertaking the development of a new 800 MeV superconducting RF linac to replace it’s present normal conducting 400 MeV linac. The PIP-II linac warm front-end consists of an ion source, LEBT, RFQ and MEBT which includes an arbitrary pattern bunch chopper, to generate a 2.1 MeV, 2mA H⁻ beam. This is followed immediately by a series of superconducting RF cryomodules to produce a 800 MeV beam. Commissioning, operate and safety present challenges to the beam instrumentation. This paper describes these beam instrumentation challenges and the choices made for PIP-II.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Raman Lidar (RL) Instrument Handbook

The Raman lidar at the ARM Climate Research Facility (ACRF) Southern Great Plains (SGP) Central Facility (SGPRL) is an active, ground-based laser remote sensing instrument that measures height and time resolved profiles of water vapor mixing ratio and several cloud- and aerosol-related quantities. The system is a non-commercial custom-built instrument developed by Sandia National Laboratories specifically for the ARM Program. It is fully computer automated, and will run unattended for many days following a brief (~5-minute) startup period. The self-contained system (requiring only external electrical power) is housed in a climate-controlled 8’x8’x20’ standard shipping container.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2012

Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program: Advanced Instrumentation, Information, and Control Systems Technologies Technical Program Plan

Reliable instrumentation, information, and control (II&C) systems technologies are essential to ensuring safe and efficient operation of the U.S. light water reactor (LWR) fleet. These technologies affect every aspect of nuclear power plant (NPP) and balance-of-plant operations. In 1997, the National Research Council conducted a study concerning the challenges involved in modernization of digital instrumentation and control systems in NPPs. Their findings identified the need for new II&C technology integration.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Brookhaven National Laboratory meteorological services instrument calibration plan and procedures

This document describes the Meteorological Services (Met Services) Calibration and Maintenance Schedule and Procedures, The purpose is to establish the frequency and mechanism for the calibration and maintenance of the network of meteorological instrumentation operated by Met Services. The goal is to maintain the network in a manner that will result in accurate, precise and reliable readings from the instrumentation.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2014

Differential Die-Away Instrument: Report on Initial Simulations of Spent Fuel Experiment

New Monte Carlo simulations of the differential die-away (DDA) instrument response to the assay of spent and fresh fuel helped to redefine the signal-to-Background ratio and the effects of source neutron tailoring on the system performance. Previously, burst neutrons from the neutron generator together with all neutrons from a fission chain started by a fast fission of 238 U were considered to contribute to active background counts. However, through additional simulations, the magnitude of the 238 U first fission contribution was found to not affect the DDA performance in reconstructing 239 Pu eff . As a result, the newly adopted DDA active background definition considers now any neutrons within a branch of the fission chain that does not include at least one fission event induced by a thermal neutron, before being detected, to be the active background. The active background, consisting thus of neutrons from a fission chain or its individual branches composed entirely of sequence of fast fissions on any fissile or fissionable nuclei, is not expected to change significantly with different fuel assemblies. Additionally, while source tailoring materials surrounding the neutron generator were found to influence and possibly improve the instrument performance, the effect was not substantial.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Performance Refactoring of Instrumentation, Measurement, and Analysis Technologies for Petascale Computing. The PRIMA Project

The growing number of cores provided by today’s high-­end computing systems present substantial challenges to application developers in their pursuit of parallel efficiency. To find the most effective optimization strategy, application developers need insight into the runtime behavior of their code. The University of Oregon (UO) and the Juelich Supercomputing Centre of Forschungszentrum Juelich (FZJ) develop the performance analysis tools TAU and Scalasca, respectively, which allow high-­performance computing (HPC) users to collect and analyze relevant performance data – even at very large scales. TAU and Scalasca are considered among the most advanced parallel performance systems available, and are used extensively across HPC centers in the U.S., Germany, and around the world. The TAU and Scalasca groups share a heritage of parallel performance tool research and partnership throughout the past fifteen years. Indeed, the close interactions of the two groups resulted in a cross-­fertilization of tool ideas and technologies that pushed TAU and Scalasca to what they are today. It also produced two performance systems with an increasing degree of functional overlap. While each tool has its specific analysis focus, the tools were implementing measurement infrastructures that were substantially similar. Because each tool provides complementary performance analysis, sharing of measurement results is valuable to provide the user with more facets to understand performance behavior. However, each measurement system was producing performance data in different formats, requiring data interoperability tools to be created. A common measurement and instrumentation system was needed to more closely integrate TAU and Scalasca and to avoid the duplication of development and maintenance effort. The PRIMA (Performance Refactoring of Instrumentation, Measurement, and Analysis) project was proposed over three years ago as a joint international effort between UO and FZJ to accomplish these objectives: (1) refactor TAU and Scalasca performance system components for core code sharing and (2) integrate TAU and Scalasca functionality through data interfaces, formats, and utilities. As presented in this report, the project has completed these goals. In addition to shared technical advances, the groups have worked to engage with users through application performance engineering and tools training. In this regard, the project benefits from the close interactions the teams have with national laboratories in the United States and Germany. We have also sought to enhance our interactions through joint tutorials and outreach. UO has become a member of the Virtual Institute of High-­Productivity Supercomputing (VI-­HPS) established by the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres as a center of excellence, focusing on HPC tools for diagnosing programming errors and optimizing performance. UO and FZJ have conducted several VI-­HPS training activities together within the past three years.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2014

Nearest Neighbor Averaging and its Effect on the Critical Level and Minimum Detectable Concentration for Scanning Radiological Survey Instruments that Perform Facility Release Surveys.

Through the SNL New Mexico Small Business Assistance (NMSBA) program, several Sandia engineers worked with the Environmental Restoration Group (ERG) Inc. to verify and validate a novel algorithm used to determine the scanning Critical Level (L c ) and Minimum Detectable Concentration (MDC) (or Minimum Detectable Areal Activity) for the 102F scanning system. Through the use of Monte Carlo statistical simulations the algorithm mathematically demonstrates accuracy in determining the L c and MDC when a nearest-neighbor averaging (NNA) technique was used. To empirically validate this approach, SNL prepared several spiked sources and ran a test with the ERG 102F instrument on a bare concrete floor known to have no radiological contamination other than background naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM). The tests conclude that the NNA technique increases the sensitivity (decreases the L c and MDC) for high-density data maps that are obtained by scanning radiological survey instruments.

Fournier, Sean Donovan↗
DOE OSTI2014

Advanced Instrumentation, Information, and Control Systems Technologies Technical Program Plan for 2014

The Advanced Instrumentation, Information, and Control (II&C) Systems Technologies Pathway conducts targeted research and development (R&D) to address aging and reliability concerns with the legacy instrumentation and control and related information systems of the U.S. operating light water reactor (LWR) fleet. This work involves two major goals: (1) to ensure that legacy analog II&C systems are not life-limiting issues for the LWR fleet, and (2) to implement digital II&C technology in a manner that enables broad innovation and business improvement in the nuclear power plant operating model. Resolving long-term operational concerns with the II&C systems contributes to the long-term sustainability of the LWR fleet, which is vital to the nation's energy and environmental security.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Instrumentation: Nondestructive Examination for Verification of Canister and Cladding Integrity. FY2014 Status Update

This report documents FY14 efforts for two instrumentation subtasks under storage and transportation. These instrumentation tasks relate to developing effective nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods and techniques to (1) verify the integrity of metal canisters for the storage of used nuclear fuel (UNF) and to (2) verify the integrity of dry storage cask internals.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Differential Die-Away Instrument: Report on Benchmark Measurements and Comparison with Simulation for the Effects of Neutron Poisons

In this report, new experimental data and MCNPX simulation results of the differential die-away (DDA) instrument response to the presence of neutron absorbers are evaluated. In our previous fresh nuclear fuel experiments and simulations, no neutron absorbers or poisons were included in the fuel definition. These new results showcase the capability of the DDA instrument to acquire data from a system that better mimics spent nuclear fuel.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗