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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 1,495 records · Page 83
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Conclusions from 3 years of continuous capture plant operation without exchange of the AMP/PZ-based solvent at Niederaussem – insights into solvent degradation management

A many times heard mantra of solvent degradation management in amine-based post combustion capture is “keep the solvent clean” to minimize solvent consumption. It is assumed that the amine losses would decrease by the removal of metals, degradation products, and reactive trace components which are captured from the flue gas, like NO 2 (as potentially driving components of the amine degradation besides dissolved O 2 ). However, this theoretical hypothesis – based on results from laboratory experiments typically generated with fresh amines – disregards the complexity of the solvent matrix, interaction of potential metal catalysts with degradation products and oxidizing agents, and specific chemical requirements which must be fulfilled before a degradation mechanism can proceed. Degradation of the solvent CESAR1 (aqueous solution of 3.0 molar 2-amino-2-methylpropan-1-ol (AMP) and 1.5 molar piperazine (PZ)) is investigated in a unique long-time test campaign (testing time up to now 40 months; 24/7 operation) without replacement of the solvent inventory at the capture pilot plant at the lignite-fired power plant in Niederaussem. Three solvent management strategies with different effect mechanisms are investigated and evaluated: (a) removal of only anionic compounds and trace elements (within 75 days solvent inventory treated two times) and anionic as well as cationic compounds and trace elements (114 days, inventory treated four times) from the solvent by ion exchange, (b) adsorptive removal of trace elements from the solvent by active carbon in 35% of the operating time, and (c) removal of >80% NO 2 by flue gas pretreatment with thiosulfate/sulfite solution (dosing for 2,000 h). The results of the testing program clearly show that “solvent cleanliness” is not a well-defined parameter and that results from laboratory tests, tests without fully representative industrial flue gasses, and short-term testing of monoethanolamine cannot be generalized for other solvents and industrial application. Furthermore, these results showcase that specific degradation management considering solvent, capture plant and flue gas quality is reasonable. Overshooting efforts for solvent management are contra-productive and produce unnecessary waste streams, efficiency losses and costs.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2023

Mesoscale shock structure in particulate composites

Multiscale experiments in heterogeneous materials and the knowledge of their physics under shock compression are limited. Here, this study examines the multiscale shock response of particulate composites comprised of soda-lime glass particles in a PMMA matrix using full-field high speed digital image correlation (DIC) for the first time. Normal plate impact experiments, and complementary numerical simulations, are conducted at stresses ranging from 1.1 - 3.1 GPa to elucidate the mesoscale mechanisms responsible for the distinct shock structure observed in particulate composites. The particle velocity from the macroscopic measurement at continuum scale shows a relatively smooth velocity profile, with shock thickness decreasing with an increase in shock stress, and the composite exhibits strain rate scaling as the second power of the shock stress. In contrast, the mesoscopic response was highly heterogeneous, which led to a rough shock front and the formation of a train of weak shocks traveling at different velocities. Additionally, the normal shock was seen to diffuse the momentum in the transverse direction, affecting the shock rise and the rounding-off observed at the continuum scale measurements. The numerical simulations indicate that the reflections at the interfaces, wave scattering, and interference of these reflected waves are the primary mechanisms for the observed rough shock fronts.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Throughput Optimization of Molybdenum Carbide Nanoparticle Catalysts in a Continuous Flow Reactor Using Design of Experiments

Transition metal carbides (TMCs) have attracted significant attention because of their applications toward a wide range of catalytic transformations. However, the practicality of their synthesis is still limited because of the harsh conditions in which most TMCs are prepared. Recently, a solution-phase synthesis of phase-pure a-MoC1-x nanoparticles was presented. While this synthetic route yielded nanoparticles with exceptional catalytic performance, the reaction parameter space was not explored, and catalyst throughput was not optimized for scale-up. Continuous flow platforms coupled with statistical design of experiments (DoE) can provide a powerful method for understanding the reaction parameter space for optimizations. Here, we demonstrate the use of statistical DoE in tandem with response surface methodology for a parametric screening analysis to optimize the throughput of a MoC1-x nanoparticle synthesis utilizing a millifluidic flow reactor. A full factorial design was implemented to evaluate four input variables (reaction temperature, flow rate, solvent fraction of oleylamine, and precursor concentration) that carry statistically significant effects on three responses (throughput, residence time, and isolated yield). A Doehlert matrix was implemented to investigate each significant variable at a higher number of levels to optimize throughput. Our results give a nonintuitive set of experimental conditions that resulted in an optimized throughput of 2.2 g h-1. This translates to a 50-fold increase in throughput compared to the previously reported batch method. The catalytic performance of the MoC1-x nanoparticles produced under optimized throughput was demonstrated in the CO2 hydrogenation reaction. This DoE screening analysis and throughput optimization of MoC1-x synthesis open the door to an increased feasibility for scale-up.

design of experiments↗
DOE OSTI2021

A cloud platform for atomic pair distribution function analysis: PDFitc

A cloud web platform for analysis and interpretation of atomic pair distribution function (PDF) data ( PDFitc ) is described. The platform is able to host applications for PDF analysis to help researchers study the local and nanoscale structure of nanostructured materials. The applications are designed to be powerful and easy to use and can, and will, be extended over time through community adoption and development. The currently available PDF analysis applications, structureMining, spacegroupMining and similarityMapping , are described. In the first and second the user uploads a single PDF and the application returns a list of best-fit candidate structures, and the most likely space group of the underlying structure, respectively. In the third, the user can upload a set of measured or calculated PDFs and the application returns a matrix of Pearson correlations, allowing assessment of the similarity between different data sets. structureMining is presented here as an example to show the easy-to-use workflow on PDFitc . In the future, as well as using the PDFitc applications for data analysis, it is hoped that the community will contribute their own codes and software to the platform.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Spray Drying Enzyme-Treated Cellulose Nanofibrils

Enzyme-treated cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) were produced via a lab-scale mass colloider using bleached kraft pulp (BKP) to evaluate their processability and power requirements during refining and spray-drying operations. To evaluate the energy efficiency in the CNF refining process, the net energy consumption, degree of polymerization (DP), and viscosity were determined. Less energy was consumed to attain a given fines level by using the endoglucanase enzymes. The DP and viscosity were also decreased using the enzymes. The morphological properties of the enzyme-pretreated spray-dried CNF powders (SDCNFs) were measured. Subsequently, the enzyme-pretreated SDCNFs were added to a PP matrix with MAPP as a coupling agent. The mixture was then compounded through a co-rotating twin-screw extruder to determine whether the enzyme treatment of the CNFs affects the mechanical properties of the composites. Compared to earlier studies on enhancing PMCs with SDCNF powders, this research investigates the use of enzyme-pretreated SDCNF powders. It was confirmed that the strength properties of PP increased by adding SDCNFs, and the strength properties were maintained after adding enzyme-pretreated SDCNFs.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1991

Solar dynamic heat receiver technology

A full-size, solar dynamic heat receiver was designed to meet the requirements specified for electrical power modules on the U.S. Space Station, Freedom. The heat receiver supplies thermal energy to power a heat engine in a closed Brayton cycle using a mixture of helium-xenon gas as the working fluid. The electrical power output of the engine, 25 kW, requires a 100 kW thermal input throughout a 90 minute orbit, including when the spacecraft is eclipsed for up to 36 minutes from the sun. The heat receiver employs an integral thermal energy storage system utilizing the latent heat available through the phase change of a high-temperature salt mixture. A near eutectic mixture of lithium fluoride and calcium difluoride is used as the phase change material. The salt is contained within a felt metal matrix which enhances heat transfer and controls the salt void distribution during solidification. Fabrication of the receiver is complete and it was delivered to NASA for verification testing in a simulated low-Earth-orbit environment. This document reviews the receiver design and describes its fabrication history. The major elements required to operate the receiver during testing are also described.

Sedgwick, Leigh M.↗
DOE OSTI2017

Correlation of precipitate evolution with Vickers hardness in Haynes® 282® superalloy: In-situ high-energy SAXS/WAXS investigation

Here, the aim of this work is to characterise precipitation kinetics in Haynes® 282® superalloy using high-energy Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) together with Wide Angle X-ray Scattering (WAXS). The phases identified by WAXS include: γ (matrix), γ' (hardening precipitates), MC (metallic carbides), and M 23 C 6 /M 6 C (secondary metallic carbides). The γ'-precipitates are spheroids with a diameter of several nanometres, depending on temperature and aging time. From the SAXS data quantitative parameters such as volume fraction, number density and inter-particle distance were determined and correlated with Vickers microhardness measurements performed ex situ . The strengthening components associated with precipitates and solid solutions were separated using the measured Vickers microhardness and SAXS model parameters. A power law dependence between strengthening attributable to the precipitates and the product of volume fraction and mean precipitate radius was found. The solid solution strengthening component was found to be correlated with the repulsion/diffusion zone width around the precipitates.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Structural characterization of ion-vapor deposited hydrogenated amorphous carbon coatings by solid state {sup 13}C nuclear magnetic resonance

In the present study, unique structural heterogeneity was observed in ion-vapor deposited a-C:H coatings by performing {sup 13}C MAS and {sup 1}H-{sup 13}C CPMAS experiments on solid state nuclear magnetic resonance devices. Two distinct types of sp{sup 2} C clusters were discovered: one of them denoted as sp{sup 2} C′ in content of 3–12 at. % was non-protonated specifically localized in hydrogen-absent regions, while the other dominant one denoted as sp{sup 2} C″ was hydrogenated or at least proximate to proton spins. On basis of the notably analogous variation of sp{sup 2} C′ content and Raman parameters as function of substrate bias voltage in the whole range of 0.5 kV–3.5 kV, a model of nano-clustering configuration was proposed that the sp{sup 2} C′ clusters were embedded between sp{sup 2} C″ clusters and amorphous sp{sup 3} C matrix as trapped interfaces or boundaries where the sp{sup 2} carbon bonds were highly distorted. Continuous increase of bias voltage would promote the nano-clustering and re-ordering of dominant sp{sup 2} C″ clusters, thus results in a marked decrease of interspace and a change of the content of sp{sup 2} C′ clusters. Further investigation on the {sup 13}C magnetization recovery showed typical stretched-exponential approximation due to the prominent presence of paramagnetic centers, and the stretched power α varied within 0.6–0.9 from distinct types of sp{sup 2} C clusters. Differently, the magnetization recovery of {sup 1}H showed better bi-exponential approximation with long and short T{sub 1}(H) fluctuated within 40–60 ms and 0.1–0.3 ms approximately in content of 80% ± 5% and 20% ± 5%, respectively, varying with various bias voltages. Meanwhile, the interrupted {sup 13}C saturation recovery with an interval of short T{sub 1}(H) showed that most of quick-relaxing protons were localized in sp{sup 2} C″ clusters. Such a short T{sub 1}(H) was only possibly resulted from a relaxation mechanism associated with electron-nuclear dipolar interaction or spinning diffusion, and its partial distribution in sp{sup 2} C″ clusters may imply more complex configurations of unpaired electrons in studied a-C:H coatings.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2013

Accelerating Subsurface Transport Simulation on Heterogeneous Clusters

Reactive transport numerical models simulate chemical and microbiological reactions that occur along a flowpath. These models have to compute reactions for a large number of locations. They solve the set of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) that describes the reaction for each location through the Newton-Raphson technique. This technique involves computing a Jacobian matrix and a residual vector for each set of equation, and then solving iteratively the linearized system by performing Gaussian Elimination and LU decomposition until convergence. STOMP, a well known subsurface flow simulation tool, employs matrices with sizes in the order of 100x100 elements and, for numerical accuracy, LU factorization with full pivoting instead of the faster partial pivoting. Modern high performance computing systems are heterogeneous machines whose nodes integrate both CPUs and GPUs, exposing unprecedented amounts of parallelism. To exploit all their computational power, applications must use both the types of processing elements. For the case of subsurface flow simulation, this mainly requires implementing efficient batched LU-based solvers and identifying efficient solutions for enabling load balancing among the different processors of the system. In this paper we discuss two approaches that allows scaling STOMP's performance on heterogeneous clusters. We initially identify the challenges in implementing batched LU-based solvers for small matrices on GPUs, and propose an implementation that fulfills STOMP's requirements. We compare this implementation to other existing solutions. Then, we combine the batched GPU solver with an OpenMP-based CPU solver, and present an adaptive load balancer that dynamically distributes the linear systems to solve between the two components inside a node. We show how these approaches, integrated into the full application, provide speed ups from 6 to 7 times on large problems, executed on up to 16 nodes of a cluster with two AMD Opteron 6272 and a Tesla M2090 per node.

GPU↗
NASA NTRS2000

Boiling on Microconfigured Composite Surfaces Enhanced

Boiling heat transfer is one of the key technologies for the two-phase active thermal-control system used on space platforms, as well as for the dynamic power systems aboard the International Space Station. Because it is an effective heat transfer mode, boiling is integral to many space applications, such as heat exchangers and other cooling devices. Nucleate boiling near the critical heat flux (CHF) can transport very large thermal loads with a much smaller device and much lower pumping power than for single-phase heat exchangers. However, boiling performance sharply deteriorates in a reduced-gravity environment, and operation in the CHF regime is somewhat perilous because of the risk of burnout to the device surface. New materials called microconfigured metal-graphite composites can enhance boiling. The photomicrograph shows the microconfiguration (x3000) of the copper-graphite (Cu-Gr) surface as viewed by scanning electronic microscope. The graphite fiber tips appear as plateaus with rugged surfaces embedded in the copper matrix. It has been experimentally demonstrated that this type of material manifests excellent boiling heat transfer performance characteristics and an increased CHF. Nonisothermal surfaces were less sensitive to variations of wall superheat in the CHF regime. Because of the great difference in conductivity between the copper base and the graphite fiber, the composite surfaces have a nonisothermal surface characteristic and, therefore, will have a much larger "safe" operating region in the CHF regime. In addition, the thermocapillary forces induced by the temperature differences between the fiber tips and the metal matrix play an important role in bubble detachment, and may not be adversely affected in a reduced-gravity environment. All these factors indicate that microconfigured composites may improve the reliability and economy (dominant factors in all space applications) of various thermal components found on spacecraft during future missions.

Chao, David F.↗
DOE OSTI2014

Competing effects of electronic and nuclear energy loss on microstructural evolution in ionic-covalent materials

Ever increasing energy needs have raised the demands for advanced fuels and cladding materials that withstand the extreme radiation environments with improved accident tolerance over a long period of time. Ceria (CeO2) is a well known ionic conductor that is isostructural with urania and plutonia-based nuclear fuels. In the context of nuclear fuels, immobilization and transmutation of actinides, CeO2 is a model system for radiation effect studies. Covalent silicon carbide (SiC) is a candidate for use as structural material in fusion, cladding material for fission reactors, and an inert matrix for the transmutation of plutonium and other radioactive actinides. Understanding microstructural change of these ionic-covalent materials to irradiation is important for advanced nuclear energy systems. While displacements from nuclear energy loss may be the primary contribution to damage accumulation in a crystalline matrix and a driving force for the grain boundary evolution in nanostructured materials, local non-equilibrium disorder and excitation through electronic energy loss may, however, produce additional damage or anneal pre-existing defect. At intermediate transit energies where electronic and nuclear energy losses are both significant, synergistic, additive or competitive processes may evolve that affect the dynamic response of materials to irradiation. The response of crystalline and nanostructured CeO2 and SiC to ion irradiation are studied under different nuclear and electronic stopping powers to describe some general material response in this transit energy regime. Although fast radiation-induced grain growth in CeO2 is evident with no phase transformation, different fluence and dose dependence on the growth rate is observed under Si and Au irradiations. While grain shrinkage and amorphization are observed in the nano-engineered 3C SiC with a high-density of stacking faults embedded in nanosize columnar grains, significantly enhanced radiation resistance is attributed to stacking faults that promote efficient point defect annihilation. Moreover, competing effects of electronic and nuclear energy loss on the damage accumulation and annihilation are observed in crystalline 4H-SiC. Systematic experiments and simulation effort are needed to understand the competitive or synergistic effects.

Zhang, Yanwen↗
DOE OSTI2021

Real time evolution for ultracompact Hamiltonian eigenstates on quantum hardware

In this work we present a detailed analysis of variational quantum phase estimation (VQPE), a method based on real-time evolution for ground and excited state estimation on near-term hardware. We derive the theoretical ground on which the approach stands, and demonstrate that it provides one of the most compact variational expansions to date for solving strongly correlated Hamiltonians. At the center of VQPE lies a set of equations, with a simple geometrical interpretation, which provides conditions for the time evolution grid in order to decouple eigenstates out of the set of time evolved expansion states, and connects the method to the classical filter diagonalization algorithm. Further, we introduce what we call the unitary formulation of VQPE, in which the number of matrix elements that need to be measured scales linearly with the number of expansion states, and we provide an analysis of the effects of noise which substantially improves previous considerations. The unitary formulation allows for a direct comparison to iterative phase estimation. Our results mark VQPE as both a natural and highly efficient quantum algorithm for ground and excited state calculations of general many-body systems. We demonstrate a hardware implementation of VQPE for the transverse field Ising model. Further, we illustrate its power on a paradigmatic example of strong correlation (Cr2 in the SVP basis set), and show that it is possible to reach chemical accuracy with as few as ~50 timesteps.

Klymko, Katherine↗
DOE OSTI2019

Minimization of Nuclear Waste using AHWR Reactor Technology

Nuclear sciences have grown from creating reactors to a greater understanding of how to dispose off the waste exhibited by the nuclear activities. Various methodologies have been proposed and are being used in order to do the same. This poster poses great attention to 'Using a fuel cycle dedicated to the production of the lower quantity of minor actinides, is one of the key targets in reducing nuclear waste in india'. A significant fraction of thorium is utilized as a fertile host in the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR300-LEU) fuel. Being lower in the periodic table, it leads to a reduction of minor actinides. It produces only half of the minor actinides as a waste as compared to modern LWRs. As thorium oxide has inert nature, it benefits in its prolonged storage. Therefore, safe disposal of spent fuel is achieved due to the inert matrix, on completion of one fuel cycle mode. AHWR is a 300 MWe, vertical, pressure-tube type, boiling light water-cooled, and heavy water-moderated reactor. Employs natural circulation for removal of heat from the reactor core. In-situ conversion of {sup 232}Th into {sup 233}U. The reactor design permits flexible fuel cycle options. There are two types of AHWR depending upon the fuel cycle options. Uses thorium-based oxide fuels: two fuel cycle options. With the adoption of thorium fuel cycle, AHWR300-LEU produces less minor actinides. As compared to modern LWRSs, it produces almost 37% less amount of actinides for the same amount of energy production, which in turn minimizes the burden on waste disposal requirements. But, it is associated with radionuclides such as {sup 231}Pa (produced through absorption of one neutron and emission of two neutrons). Since, the reaction rate of (n,2n) reactions is very low in thermal neutron reactors, thus making the fuel cycle the favorable one. Thorium oxide (ThO{sub 2}) is chemically stable and is the highest oxidation state of thorium, therefore the inert nature of the matrix is advantageous for safe disposal of spent fuel in case of adoption of open fuel cycle mode and offers prolonged storage of spent fuel. The AHWR is thorium fueled Indian nuclear reactor that assimilates several new features with diminished environmental concern due to reduced waste generation. Since thorium fuel cycle produces less long lived nuclear waste, thus it can possibly bring the world cleaner and more sustainable nuclear energy. Currently, India being the only country with large scale research program of thorium nuclear power serves a platform for the development and demonstration of all technologies and advanced safety systems.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2024

Post-Deployment Characterization of Glass Fiber-Reinforced Thermoset and Thermoplastic Composite Tidal Turbine Blades

In 2021, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) supported Verdant Power with the most successful tidal energy deployment in U.S. history. Three of their Gen5d 5 m turbines were deployed as part of the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy project. Initially, the three rotors initially deployed were manufactured from glass fiber-reinforced epoxy composites. Midway through the deployment, one rotor was replaced with one manufactured at NREL. The new rotor utilized a novel infusible thermoplastic resin system. Since the deployment, one epoxy rotor and one thermoplastic rotor were returned to NREL for continued materials and manufacturing research. The two rotors underwent full-scale structural testing before being sectioned and cut into specimens for a variety of manufacturing quality tests, thermomechanical characterization, and evaluation of material performance in marine environments to understand the key differences between the fiberglass-reinforced epoxy and Elium composites used for the respective rotors. Matrix burn-off tests showed that the Elium blades had a considerably higher fiber volume fraction compared to the epoxy blades (61% vs. 49%). Environmental aging of the specimens showed that the epoxy laminates absorbed more water over the conditioning period; however, it was determined that the Elium laminates had higher diffusion coefficients, so they initially absorbed water faster. Finally, one full epoxy blade and one full Elium blade were conditioned at ambient temperatures for up to 11 months, while periodic mass measurements were taken. The datasets were extrapolated to assume a full 20-year operational life span, and it was determined that the blades would not reach full saturation during that time span.

composite manufacturing↗
DOE OSTI2022

The importance of maldistribution matching for thermal performance of compact heat exchangers

Compact heat exchangers have gained increased attention in recent years, particularly in demanding applications where high temperatures, high pressures, and/or high power densities are required. For decades, the heat exchanger (HX) community believes that flow maldistribution is a key factor for HX effectiveness, that is, reducing the degree of flow maldistribution (MALD) can help increase the HX effectiveness. Therefore, significant efforts have been devoted in the past to optimizing the header geometry to minimize flow maldistribution. This work was initially motivated by this, and the original goal was to figure out a HX header design with the lowest maldistribution. However, by systematically constructing a comprehensive maldistribution matrix, the analysis revealed that the HX effectiveness is not actually determined by the MALD, but instead dominated by the degree of maldistribution mismatch (MISM). This conclusion was also theoretically generalized, which indicated that matching of the local heat capacity rate is key for achieving maximum performance. The MISM provides a local means of tracking this information, while the MALD only provides a global approximation of the maldistribution itself. With this new perspective, flow maldistribution needs not necessarily be avoided, but instead matched between two fluid streams, to improve the HX performance. We demonstrated that by carefully designing the header geometry to match the velocity profiles of the two fluids in a 2 MW PCHE with molten salt and supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) as the heat transfer fluids, the HX could achieve a higher effectiveness even when the maldistribution increased. Finally, a technoeconomic study using a CSP system as an example revealed that the use of this new HX design paradigm could result in CSP capital cost savings as large as 16.6%.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2024

Investigation of ion irradiation effects on mineral analogues of concrete aggregates

Irradiation can cause prominent damage to reactor concrete aggregates leading to amorphization, strength and modulus decrease, radiation induced volume expansion (RIVE) and micro-cracking, which limits their long-term performance. Here, to develop an improved understanding of irradiation effects in concrete, three mineral analogues of concrete aggregates (limestone, marble and quartzite) were irradiated by 5.5 MeV He ions and 13 MeV Ni ions to surface doses of 0.011 displacements per atom (dpa) and 0.23 dpa, respectively, at room temperature. The two different ion species allow irradiation spectrum effects (ionizing and displacive) to be examined. Irradiation induced cracks were observed in He irradiated limestone and marble, and Ni irradiated quartzite. Full amorphization was observed in Ni irradiated quartzite with 14.3 % RIVE, and ∼25 % hardness and modulus decrease, while almost no change was observed in He irradiated quartzite except 4.35 % RIVE, revealing a possible ionization enhanced diffusion effect for high energy light ions. Furthermore, partial amorphization was observed in Ni irradiated marble and limestone matrix with a 12 % hardness decrease in marble while no amorphization was observed for He irradiation with a 20 % hardness increase in limestone matrix. The role of knock-on damage and irradiation spectrum on amorphization, volumetric expansion and mechanical property changes are discussed. Moreover, the onset and critical doses for amorphization and RIVE in quartz are obtained for ion irradiations at room temperature. The dose dependence of RIVE exhibits a delay compared to the amorphization behavior. The superior irradiation resistance of calcite phase compared to quartz phase implies there could be advantages to using calcareous aggregates and lowering the usage of siliceous aggregates for concrete in nuclear power plants for extended operation beyond 60 years. However, other effects such as corrosion, aging and reactions during severe accidents should also be considered, and further investigations are needed.

Amorphous↗
DOE OSTI2025

Structural response reconstruction using a system-equivalent singular vector basis

Here, this paper develops a novel method for reconstructing the full-field response of structural dynamic systems using sparse measurements. The singular value decomposition is applied to a frequency response matrix relating the structural response to physical loads, base motion, or modal loads. The left singular vectors form a non-physical reduced basis that can be used for response reconstruction with far fewer sensors than existing methods. The contributions of the singular vectors to measured response are termed singular-vector loads (SVLs) and are used in a regularized Bayesian framework to generate full-field response estimates and confidence intervals. The reconstruction framework is applicable to the estimation of single data records and power spectral densities from multiple records. Reconstruction is successfully performed in configurations where the number of SVLs to identify is less than, equal to, and greater than the number of sensors used for reconstruction. In a simulation featuring a seismically excited shear structure, SVL reconstruction significantly outperforms modal FRF-based reconstruction and successfully estimates full-field responses with as few as two uniaxial accelerometers. SVL reconstruction is further verified in a simulation featuring an acoustically excited cylinder. Finally, response reconstruction and uncertainty quantification are performed on an experimental structure with three shaker inputs and 27 triaxial accelerometer outputs.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2019

Controlled Design of Phase- and Size-Tunable Monodisperse Ni 2 P Nanoparticles in a Phosphonium-Based Ionic Liquid through Response Surface Methodology

Nanoparticles of nickel phosphide are finding wide ranging utility as catalysts for hydrodesulfurization, hydrogen evolution reaction, and hydrodeoxygenation of bio-oils. Herein, we present a methodology to tailor monodisperse nickel phosphide nanoparticles in terms of size and phase through the use of a statistical response surface methodology. Colloidal nickel phosphide nanoparticles were synthesized by replacing octadecene (ODE), a commonly used organic solvent, by a more sustainable phosphonium-based ionic liquid (IL). The replacement of ODE with the phosphonium-based IL resulted in faster crystallization at lower temperatures to yield phase-pure, monodisperse Ni2P nanoparticles. Using a first-order design, the PPh3/Ni precursor ratio was identified as the most critical factor influencing the resulting size and phase of the nanoparticles. Optimization using a Doehlert matrix for second-order design yielded a second-degree polynomial equation used to predict the mean diameter of the nanoparticles (over a range of 4-12 nm) as a function of the PPh3/Ni precursor ratio and the temperature used during synthesis. The resulting model was validated by performing reactions using randomly chosen sets of conditions; the experimentally determined nanoparticle sizes were in excellent agreement with the theoretical sizes predicted by our model. This demonstrates the utility of a multivariate experimental design as a powerful tool in the development of synthetic strategies toward the preparation of colloidal nanoparticles with highly controlled size, size distribution, and phase.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗