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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 1,549 records · Page 86
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Isolated vesicles in submarine pumice: insights from the 2019 Volcano F eruption, Kingdom of Tonga

No reliable method can distinguish between subaerial and submarine pumice, but recent work shows that highly vesicular (total porosity, φ > 65%) submarine pumice from the 2012 Havre and 2021 Fukutoku Oka-no-Ba eruptions contains abundant isolated porosity (connectivity, C < 0.6). This differs from textural measurements of subaerial pumice with similarly high vesicularities, where high connectivities (C > 0.8) are often measured. To investigate the implications of this under-studied texture for bubble nucleation, growth, and coalescence dynamics at submarine eruptions, we analyze the textural characteristics of rafted pumice clasts from the 2019 submarine eruption of Volcano F, located along the Tonga-Kermadec Arc. We examined clasts collected while floating near the vent (50–200 km) and distally on the shores of Fiji (900 km). Using helium pycnometry and X-ray tomography (XRT), we quantified porosity and connectivity in 45 pumice lapilli, classifying them by vesicle macrotexture and edge morphology. Microvesicular clasts, the majority of which have breadcrust and cauliflower textures, exhibit the lowest connectivities (C = 0.61 ± 0.2), while macrovesicular clasts have high connectivities with C ~ 1. We propose that isolated porosity abundance varies according to clast location in the eruption column post-fragmentation. Microvesicular clasts erupted on the edges of the column and experienced high levels of seawater ingestion and subsequent quenching of the entire clast. Macrovesicular clasts, in contrast, erupted in the center of the eruption column and were thus thermally insulated, allowing magmatic bubbles in the molten pumice to nucleate, grow, and coalesce for longer. Our results and interpretation imply that low connectivity, microvesicular clasts preserve pre and syn-eruptive bubble processes at the 2019 Volcano F eruption.

Permeability↗
DOE OSTI2016

Taxonomy of the order Mononegavirales : update 2016

In 2016, the order Mononegavirales was emended through the addition of two new families ( Mymonaviridae and Sunviridae ), the elevation of the paramyxoviral subfamily Pneumovirinae to family status ( Pneumoviridae ), the addition of five free-floating genera ( Anphevirus, Arlivirus, Chengtivirus, Crustavirus , and Wastrivirus ), and several other changes at the genus and species levels. In this article we present the updated taxonomy of the order Mononegavirales as now accepted by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV).

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

A genetic meta-algorithm-assisted inversion approach: hydrogeological study for the determination of volumetric rock properties and matrix and fluid parameters in unsaturated formations

An evolutionary inversion approach is suggested for the interpretation of nuclear and resistivity logs measured by direct-push tools in shallow unsaturated sediments. The efficiency of formation evaluation is improved by estimating simultaneously (1) the petrophysical properties that vary rapidly along a drill hole with depth and (2) the zone parameters that can be treated as constant, in one inversion procedure. In the workflow, the fractional volumes of water, air, matrix and clay are estimated in adjacent depths by linearized inversion, whereas the clay and matrix properties are updated using a float-encoded genetic meta-algorithm. The proposed inversion method provides an objective estimate of the zone parameters that appear in the tool response equations applied to solve the forward problem, which can significantly increase the reliability of the petrophysical model as opposed to setting these parameters arbitrarily. The global optimization meta-algorithm not only assures the best fit between the measured and calculated data but also gives a reliable solution, practically independent of the initial model, as laboratory data are unnecessary in the inversion procedure. The feasibility test uses engineering geophysical sounding logs observed in an unsaturated loessy-sandy formation in Hungary. The multi-borehole extension of the inversion technique is developed to determine the petrophysical properties and their estimation errors along a profile of drill holes. The genetic meta-algorithmic inversion method is recommended for hydrogeophysical logging applications of various kinds to automatically extract the volumetric ratios of rock and fluid constituents as well as the most important zone parameters in a reliable inversion procedure.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

Development of a Computer-Aided Differential Diagnosis System to Distinguish Between Usual Interstitial Pneumonia and Non-specific Interstitial Pneumonia Using Texture- and Shape-Based Hierarchical Classifiers on HRCT Images

A computer-aided differential diagnosis (CADD) system that distinguishes between usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP) and non-specific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP) using high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) images was developed, and its results compared against the decision of a radiologist. Six local interstitial lung disease patterns in the images were determined, and 900 typical regions of interest were marked by an experienced radiologist. A support vector machine classifier was used to train and label the regions of interest of the lung parenchyma based on the texture and shape characteristics. Based on the regional classifications of the entire lung using HRCT, the distributions and extents of the six regional patterns were characterized through their CADD features. The disease division index of every area fraction combination and the asymmetric index between the left and right lungs were also evaluated. A second SVM classifier was employed to classify the UIP and NSIP, and features were selected through sequential-forward floating feature selection. For the evaluation, 54 HRCT images of UIP (n = 26) and NSIP (n = 28) patients clinically diagnosed by a pulmonologist were included and evaluated. The classification accuracy was measured based on a fivefold cross-validation with 20 repetitions using random shuffling. For comparison, thoracic radiologists assessed each case using HRCT images without clinical information or diagnosis. The accuracies of the radiologists’ decisions were 75 and 87%. The accuracies of the CADD system using different features ranged from 70 to 81%. Finally, the accuracy of the proposed CADD system after sequential-forward feature selection was 91%.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗
DOE OSTI2016

Chamber measurements of high CO 2 emissions from a rainforest stream receiving old C-rich regional groundwater

Carbon emissions from fluvial systems are a key component of local and regional carbon cycles. We used floating chambers to investigate the CO 2 flux from stream water to air (f CO 2 ) in the Arboleda, a stream in the lowland rainforest of Costa Rica, fed partly by old regional groundwater high in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). Drifting and static chambers showed f CO 2 averaging 35.5 and 72.7 μmol C m –2 s –1 , respectively, bracketing the previously-published f CO 2 value of 56 μmol C m –2 s –1 obtained using tracer methods in this stream. These values are much higher than most f CO 2 data in the literature and reflect a large flux of deep crustal (non-biogenic) CO 2 out of the Arboleda, a flux that does not represent a component of ecosystem respiration. Static chambers appeared to overestimate f CO 2 by creating artificial turbulence, while drifting chambers may have underestimated f CO 2 by under-sampling areas of potentially high gas exchange (e.g., riffles around coarse woody debris obstructions). Both static and drifting chambers revealed high spatial heterogeneity in f CO 2 at the scale of 5–30 m reaches. Some observed temporal trends were localized, e.g., among three reaches with repeated measurements through the wet and dry seasons, (1) only the reach located between the other two showed significantly lower f CO 2 during the dry season, and (2) the highest and lowest f CO 2 were consistently observed in the reaches farthest upstream and downstream, respectively. As a result, streams like the Arboleda receiving significant inputs of high-DIC regional groundwater merit additional study as hotspots for C emissions from terrestrial ecosystems.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

Determination of Ice Characteristics for Marine Hydroengineering Structures

Problems and potential approaches to determining ice characteristics for sea hydroengineering structures design are considered. A system for numerical modeling of ice dynamics is presented. The system may be used to define ice characteristics on approaches to structures with due regard for local hydrometeorological conditions and ice loads on structures. System application examples are presented for determining computational scenarios for ice loads at structures of the Pevek floating nuclear power plant (FNPP), as well as for the breakwater pier under reconstruction in Vanino. A scenario approach is used to determined ice loads.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Signature of Ferromagnetic Phase at Low Temperature in Low-Doped La{sub 0.88}Ca{sub 0.12}MnO{sub 3} Single Crystal

The confirmation of ferromagnetism at low temperature in a low-doped manganites system is always debatable. It is for the first time, electrical, magnetic, and thermal properties have been measured for manganites single crystal of La{sub 0.88}Ca{sub 0.12}MnO{sub 3} by using a floating-zone method. The electrical resistivity shows a perceptible change of resistance at a low temperature which can be viewed as a signature of the ferromagnetic phase. The ferromagnetic phase of the investigated La{sub 0.88}Ca{sub 0.12}MnO{sub 3} single crystal with Curie temperature of T{sub C} = 120 K which is in closed agreement with ac-susceptibility measurement. An analysis of the specific heat suggests the transition peak (T{sub P}) coincides with the T{sub C} and attains 1.2 J mol{sup −1} K at 116 K. The magnetoresistance (MR) and temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) were found to be 69% and 10% respectively, which expands its subtle potential for applications in spintronics and thermistor.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2022

Optimal size of the block in block GMRES on GPUs: computational model and experiments

The block version of GMRES (BGMRES) is most advantageous over the single right hand side (RHS) counterpart when the cost of communication is high while the cost of floating point operations is not. This is the particular case on modern graphics processing units (GPUs), while it is generally not the case on traditional central processing units (CPUs). Here, in this paper, experiments on both GPUs and CPUs are shown that compare the performance of BGMRES against GMRES as the number of RHS increases, with a particular focus on GPU performance. The experiments indicate that there are many cases in which BGMRES is slower than GMRES on CPUs, but faster on GPUs. Furthermore, when varying the number of RHS on the GPU, there is an optimal number of RHS where BGMRES is clearly most advantageous over GMRES. A computational model for the GPU is developed using hardware specific parameters, providing insight towards how the qualitative behavior of BGMRES changes as the number of RHS increase, and this model also helps explain the phenomena observed in the experiments.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Two-Phase Flow Mechanisms Controlling CO2 Intrusion into Shaly Caprock

Abstract Geologic carbon storage in deep saline aquifers has emerged as a promising technique to mitigate climate change. CO 2 is buoyant at the storage conditions and tends to float over the resident brine jeopardizing long-term containment goals. Therefore, the caprock sealing capacity is of great importance and requires detailed assessment. We perform supercritical CO 2 injection experiments on shaly caprock samples (intact caprock and fault zone) under representative subsurface conditions. We numerically simulate the experiments, satisfactorily reproducing the observed evolution trends. Simulation results highlight the dynamics of CO 2 flow through the specimens with implications to CO 2 leakage risk assessment in field practices. The large injection-induced overpressure drives CO 2 in free phase into the caprock specimens. However, the relative permeability increase following the drainage path is insufficient to provoke an effective advancement of the free-phase CO 2 . As a result, the bulk CO 2 front becomes almost immobile. This implies that the caprock sealing capacity is unlikely to be compromised by a rapid capillary breakthrough and the injected CO 2 does not penetrate deep into the caprock. In the long term, the intrinsically slow molecular diffusion appears to dominate the migration of CO 2 dissolved into brine. Nonetheless, the inherently tortuous nature of shaly caprock further holds back the diffusive flow, favoring safe underground storage of CO 2 over geological time scales.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2017

Flotation of Metallurgical Grade Silicon and Silicon Metal from Slag by Selective Hydrogen Fluoride-Assisted Flotation

Flotation experiments performed on metallurgical grade silicon have demonstrated that silicon (Si) can be floated in diluted solutions of hydrogen fluoride (HF) and a frother. The recovery was found to depend on HF conditioning time, frother type, and the concentration of both HF and frother. Although Brij 58 produced the highest recoveries of the frothers that was tested, good recoveries were also obtained for Flotanol C07. Chemical analyses showed that the flotation products were purer than the corresponding feed materials, and that most impurity elements were concentrated in the tailings. A case study on cleaning of slag containing 36 pct metallurgical silicon showed promising results concerning the recovery of silicon by flotation.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2018

Numerical Simulation of Slag Eye Formation and Slag Entrapment in a Bottom-Blown Argon-Stirred Ladle

A transient mathematical model is developed for simulating the bubble-steel-slag-top gas four-phase flow in a bottom-blown argon-stirred ladle with a 70-ton capacity. The Lagrangian discrete phase model (DPM) is used for describing the moving behavior of bubbles in the steel and slag. To observe the formation process of slag eye, the volume of fluid (VOF) model is used to track the interfaces between three incompressible phases: metal/slag, metal/gas, and slag/gas. The complex multiphase turbulent flow induced by bubble-liquid interactions is solved by a large eddy simulation (LES) model. Slag eye area and slag droplet dispersion are investigated under different gas flow rates. The results show that the movement of bubbles, formation and collapse of slag eye, volatility of steel/slag interface and behavior of slag entrapment can be properly predicted in the current model. When the gas flow rate is 300 L/min, the circulation driven by the bubble plume will stir the entire ladle adequately and form a slag eye of the right size. At the same time, it will not cause strong erosion to the ladle wall, and the fluctuation of the interface is of adequate intensity, which will be helpful for improving the desulfurization efficiency; the slag entrapment behavior can also be decreased. Interestingly, with the motion of liquid steel circulation, the collision and coalescence of dispersed slag droplets occur during the floating process in the vicinity of the wall.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2018

Thermodynamic and Structural Study of the Copper-Aluminum System by the Electrochemical Method Using a Copper-Selective Beta″ Alumina Membrane

The liquid phase thermodynamics of mixing of the copper-aluminum binary system are investigated as a function of temperature and composition using the electrochemical potential difference method. A copper-selective beta″ alumina is used as a solid electrolyte, synthesized through ion exchange, sintering from base oxide powders, and the floating zone method of crystal growth. Measured thermodynamics of mixing data were used to inform short-range ordering in copper-aluminum melts through Darken’s factor for excess stability and Bhatia–Thornton structure factors, revealing a strong departure from ideality and pronounced ordering. Mixing properties were used to predict viscosity and self-diffusion coefficients. Features observed in calculated electronic entropy of mixing for copper-aluminum were compared with trends in viscosity, demonstrating the utility of electronic properties of mixing in the description of structure–properties in this liquid binary system.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2019

Numerical Simulation of the Three-Phase Flow of a Bubble Interacting with the Steel–Slag Interface During the Secondary Refining Process

Gas stirring is an effective method for the secondary refining process of steel. The microphenomena among the phases of an argon bubble floating in steel and motion across the steel–slag interface were simulated and discussed with a sharp interface tracking method. A water-model experiment was set to validate the numerical model, and the experimental results showed agreement with the numerical model. A critical size for bubbles to pass the interface was found using the model.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2019

Numerical Simulation of Metal Melt Flow in a One-Strand Tundish Regarding Active Filtration and Reactive Cleaning

In the paper, two different cleaning strategies for nonmetallic inclusions in steel melts, active filtration and reactive cleaning, are examined in a prototype tundish configuration. In active filtration, nonmetallic inclusions are deposited at the filter surfaces. In reactive cleaning, nonmetallic inclusions stick to the filter surfaces, too. In addition, they are floated by the action of carbon monoxide bubbles, which are generated by reaction between carbon and oxygen in the steel melt. In order to compare the performance of both strategies, numerical simulations of the two-phase flows of steel melt and dispersed nonmetallic inclusions are performed. Turbulence is resolved with implicit large eddy simulation. If necessary, species transports of dissolved carbon in the melt and reaction with oxygen are employed. Cleaning efficiencies are deduced from the simulations which demonstrate that reactive cleaning is much more efficient than active filtration.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2018

Spurious Grain Formation at Cross-Sectional Expansion During Directional Solidification: Influence of Thermosolutal Convection

Formation of spurious grains during directional solidification (DS) of Al-7 wt.% Si and Al-19 wt.% Cu alloys through an abrupt increase in cross-sectional area has been examined by experiments and by numerical simulations. Stray grains were observed in the Al-19 wt.% Cu samples and almost none in the Al-7 wt.% Si. The locations of the stray grains correlate well where numerical solutions indicate the solute-rich melt to be flowing up the thermal gradient faster than the isotherm velocity. It is proposed that the spurious grain formation occurred by fragmentation of slender tertiary dendrite arms was enhanced by thermosolutal convection. In Al-7 wt.% Si, the dendrite fragments sink in the surrounding melt and get trapped in the dendritic array growing around them, and therefore they do not grow further. In the Al-19 wt.% Cu alloy, on the other hand, the dendrite fragments float in the surrounding melt and some find conducive thermal conditions for further growth and become stray grains.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Simulation at Extreme-Scale: Co-Design Thinking and Practices

The current trend of computer architecture evolving towards exaflop/s is the fast increasing floating point performance (the so-called “free” flops) accompanied by much slowly improving the bandwidth of memory and network. Numerical simulation would undergo the challenge posed by the unbalanced increase in the compute power and the capability of data movement. In this paper, after reviewing the challenges of hardware and software in moving towards exascale computing, we present co-design thinking for selecting, optimizing, and developing a numerical algorithm and a simulation tool to meet the challenge of simulation at extreme scale. Examples are presented to demonstrate the new way of thinking and its effectiveness on the emerging architecture.

Computer Science↗
DOE OSTI2021

Joining AA7099 to Ni-Cr-Mo Steel Using Single Pass Friction Stir Dovetailing and AA6061 Butter Layer

A novel single pass friction stir dovetailing (FSD) was developed to join thick plate AA7099 to Ni-Cr-Mo steel in a lap configuration through the use of an AA6061 butter layer. The butter layer approach can be shown to significantly reduce interfacial failures by inhibiting the formation of brittle Fe–Al intermetallic compounds (IMCs) which are typically formed during conventional friction stir welding (FSW) of AA7099 directly to steel. This study evaluates the strength and microstructural evolution of the aluminum/steel joint interface between single pass FSD of AA7099/AA6061(butter)/steel fabricated using three different FSD tool configurations. The butter layer was achieved by placement of a free-floating strip of AA6061 within the dovetail groove that was pre-machined in the steel substrate. Friction stir welding was then used to simultaneously join the thick plate AA7099, the AA6061 strip and the AA7099 in a single weld pass. To optimize the joining process, three different pin geometries (full thread, half smooth/half thread, no thread) were evaluated; it was demonstrated that the half smooth/half thread tool produced the strongest weld joint due to the absence of a Zn rich layer at the Al/steel interface. The efficacy of this unique processing technique was tested using lap shear tensile testing as well as high resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM). A discussion of the new FSD technique, joint configurations, and process parameters are provided along with joint microstructural analyses and mechanical performance.

Olszta, Matthew J.↗
DOE OSTI2017

Compression-based integral curve data reuse framework for flow visualization

Currently, by default, integral curves are repeatedly re-computed in different flow visualization applications, such as FTLE field computation, source-destination queries, etc., leading to unnecessary resource cost. We present a compression-based data reuse framework for integral curves, to greatly reduce their retrieval cost, especially in a resource-limited environment. In our design, a hierarchical and hybrid compression scheme is proposed to balance three objectives, including high compression ratio, controllable error, and low decompression cost. Specifically, we use and combine digitized curve sparse representation, floating-point data compression, and octree space partitioning to adaptively achieve the objectives. Results have shown that our data reuse framework could acquire tens of times acceleration in the resource-limited environment compared to on-the-fly particle tracing, and keep controllable information loss. Moreover, our method could provide fast integral curve retrieval for more complex data, such as unstructured mesh data.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗