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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 1,567 records · Page 87

Tagging efficiency study of incoherent diffractive vector meson production at the second interaction region at the Electron-Ion Collider

The Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) is an upcoming accelerator facility aimed at exploring the properties of quarks and gluons in nucleons and nuclei, shedding light on their structure and dynamics. The inaugural experimental apparatus, ePIC (electron-Proton and Ion Collider), is designed as a general-purpose detector to address the National Academy of Sciences and the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee physics program at the EIC. The wider EIC community is strongly supporting a second interaction region and an associated second detector to enhance the full science program. In this study, we evaluate how this second interaction region and detector can be complementary to ePIC. The layout of an interaction region for the second detector offers a secondary focus that provides better forward detector acceptance at scattering angles near θ ~ 0 mrad, which can specifically enhance the exclusive, tagging, and diffractive physics program. Here, this article presents an analysis of a tagging program using the second interaction region layout with incoherent diffractive vector meson production. The current design of the second EIC interaction region is evaluated for its vetoing capabilities of incoherent events required for the study of coherent diffractive measurements. We find an increased vetoing performance compared to the ePIC interaction region, thus improving measurements which are important for the spatial imaging of nucleons and nuclei.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Mass and momentum transport in the Tilted Rocket Rig experiment

Here, high-fidelity large eddy simulations of the inclined Rayleigh-Taylor instability in the Tilted Rocket Rig experimental configuration [Smeeton and Youngs, AWE Report No. O 35/87 (1987)] are performed using a tenth-order compact finite difference code. These simulations are analyzed for spatial distributions of turbulent kinetic energy, turbulent mass flux velocity, species mass fraction flux, species mass fraction variance, and Favre-averaged Reynolds stresses at two time instances, t = 37 ms and t = 52 ms. Additionally, the vertical distribution of the components of the unclosed budget equations over the center of the domain for these quantities are examined. The dominant terms of these budget equations are further decomposed to examine the principal contributions to these terms in each axis. Notably, the principal contribution to the horizontal turbulent mass flux velocity budget is found to be from a term which is commonly neglected in many Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes models.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Microwave Imaging of Edge Conductivity in Graphene at Charge Neutrality and Quantum Hall States

Here, we report local conductivity imaging of edge states in monolayer graphene by millikelvin microwave impedance microscopy. At the charge-neutrality point, as the magnetic field increases, the local conductivity at the edge drops to zero more slowly than in the bulk. This behavior is consistent with the calculated spatial profile of the charge gap in the canted antiferromagnetic phase. For comparison, we also perform microwave imaging of integer quantum Hall states away from neutrality, which host dissipationless chiral edge channels. The evolution of the edge signal as a function of the bulk gap is fundamentally different between the Landau level filling factor 𝜈 = 0 and |𝜈| ≥ 1 integer quantum Hall states, which can be qualitatively explained by numerical simulations and theoretical analysis. Our results provide a comprehensive microscopic picture of the edge and bulk states as the Fermi level moves across the unique Landau-level spectrum of graphene.

Hall effect↗

Predicting Nugget Size of Resistance Spot Welds Using Infrared Thermal Videos With Image Segmentation and Convolutional Neural Network

Resistance spot welding (RSW) is a widely adopted joining technique in automotive industry. Recent advancement in sensing technology makes it possible to collect thermal videos of the weld nugget during RSW using an infrared (IR) camera. The effective and timely analysis of such thermal videos has the potential of enabling in situ nondestructive evaluation (NDE) of the weld nugget by predicting nugget thickness and diameter. Deep learning (DL) has demonstrated to be effective in analyzing imaging data in many applications. However, the thermal videos in RSW present unique data-level challenges that compromise the effectiveness of most pre-trained DL models. We propose a novel image segmentation method for handling the RSW thermal videos to improve the prediction performance of DL models in RSW. The proposed method transforms raw thermal videos into spatial-temporal instances in four steps: video-wise normalization, removal of uninformative images, watershed segmentation, and spatial-temporal instance construction. The extracted spatial-temporal instances serve as the input data for training a DL-based NDE model. The proposed method is able to extract high-quality data with spatial-temporal correlations in the thermal videos, while being robust to the impact of unknown surface emissivity. Overall, our case studies demonstrate that the proposed method achieves better prediction of nugget thickness and diameter than predicting without the transformation.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Highly diverse and unknown viruses may enhance Antarctic endoliths’ adaptability

Abstract Background Rock-dwelling microorganisms are key players in ecosystem functioning of Antarctic ice free-areas. Yet, little is known about their diversity and ecology, and further still, viruses in these communities have been largely unexplored despite important roles related to host metabolism and nutrient cycling. To begin to address this, we present a large-scale viral catalog from Antarctic rock microbial communities. Results We performed metagenomic analyses on rocks from across Antarctica representing a broad range of environmental and spatial conditions, and which resulted in a predicted viral catalog comprising > 75,000 viral operational taxonomic units (vOTUS). We found largely undescribed, highly diverse and spatially structured virus communities which had predicted auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs) with functions indicating that they may be potentially influencing bacterial adaptation and biogeochemistry. Conclusion This catalog lays the foundation for expanding knowledge of virosphere diversity, function, spatial ecology, and dynamics in extreme environments. This work serves as a step towards exploring adaptability of microbial communities in the face of a changing climate.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Data-Driven Model Reduction of Multiphase Flow in a Single-Hole Automotive Injector

Fuel injector design has a substantial influence on the performance and emissions of direct injection engines. To date, large eddy simulations coupled with a single-fluidmixture modeling approach have shown great success in evaluating the complex interplay among injector design, fuel properties, and operating conditions on the injector performance. However, this simulation approach is too computationally expensive to be used by industry routinely for injector design due to the fine temporal and spatial resolution required to resolve wall-bounded flow within the injector. The work presented in this paper highlights a potential pathway to addressing this issue. To study the influence of injector design, fuel properties, and operating conditions on injector performance, large eddy simulations were performed to model the turbulent multiphase flow development through a side-oriented singlehole diesel injector. Using Latin hypercube sampling, the design space spanning a range of fuel properties, operating conditions, and needle lifts were explored. Two techniques for dimensionality reduction, namely proper orthogonal decomposition and autoencoders, were compared to evaluate their accuracy in representing the flow in a reduced dimensional space. Finally, based on the findings from this work, recommendations are provided in using machine learning approaches within the context of emulation to construct reduced-ordermodels for internal flow development relevant to automotive applications.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors

The Advanced High-Temperature Pebble Bed Reactor concept leverages a particle-based fuel format consisting of discrete spherical graphite pebbles arrayed in a packed bed architecture. Thermal regulation achieved via flow of gas (e.g., helium) or liquid (e.g., molten salt) coolants through the void spaces between pebbles in the bed (characteristic pebble diameters: ~ 6 cm, gas cooled; ~ 3 cm, liquid cooled). This design is of interest owing to inherent advantages including passive safety features and highly efficient heat transfer characteristics that enable high power densities to be achieved. Fully leveraging these advantages requires a fundamental understanding of the complex coolant flow structure within the pebble-shaped fuel bed. Unfortunately, complexities associated with non-invasively probing the micro-scale flow phenomena within the complex network of void spaces between pebbles have hindered efforts to characterize the underlying transport phenomena. Without this fundamental foundation, it becomes challenging to rationally construct macroscopic transport models based upon volume averages of micro-scale parameters that accurately capture the observed flow behavior. Consequently, this lack of fundamental knowledge has limited previous work to coarse comparisons between theory and extremely limited experimental data. Moreover, these comparisons have been made only in terms of integral or macroscopic results. Therefore, multipoint measurements with a high level of spatial and temporal resolution are critically needed to fully map the complex flow patterns and to provide data at high spatial density to permit accurate volume averaging in the pebble bed. For this project, we performed a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within the pebble bed. The major accomplishments of this project included the important knowledge acquired for the flow mixing and heat transfer in the interstitial pore scales, the effects of flow mixing in the near-wall and far-wall regions, and the by-pass flows of pebble bed systems. The produced high-resolution experimental data (not broadly available in existing literature) were then used for the numerical studies enabling the refinement and validation of standard simulation tools (Nek5000).

42 ENGINEERING↗

The Trillion Pixel GeoAI Challenge Workshop

Rapid innovations in satellite and airborne remote sensing capabilities holds the promise of collecting high-resolution imagery with daily, even hourly cadence across the entire planet. Availability of such earth observation data streams at varying spatial and temporal scales, coupled with astonishing progress in AI and transformational advances in high performance computing bring into view the possibility of mapping and interpreting the surface of our planet at unprecedented detail. The implications of such capability for science, technology, policy, and security are far reaching. Moreover, even at a modest 5m resolution, 100 trillion pixels will describe the surface of the Earth every day. Consequently, monitoring the pulse of our planet will entail collecting, refining, analyzing, and curating those 100 trillion pixels within a 24-hour period. That is a challenge with unknown solutions as of today’s advances and therefore serves as a key motivation for this workshop. The GEOINT and AI communities have a unique opportunity to enable detailed monitoring the pulse of our planet and obtain new insights into how humans occupy, interact with, and alter the surface of the Earth over time. From a science and technology standpoint, this is a modern-day moonshot that presents numerous challenges particularly related to scaling the analysis to every pixel covering the planet. The challenge of making sense of all these pixels in a timely fashion include image processing at scale, selective analysis of only the pixels that matter, generalizing AI models across heterogeneous locations, computing on hardware that is memory constrained, and deploying automated feature extraction on edge devices. The designing of capable GeoAI workflows and data pipelines will require interdisciplinary efforts and partnerships. The Trillion Pixel Challenge for GeoAI workshop was is promoted as a first community effort to discuss priority research and development directions and to establish the partnerships and collaborations needed to make progress on critical scientific and operational applications from local to regional to planet scale.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

SCALE Modeling of the Fast Spectrum Heat Pipe Reactor

As part of the severe accident analysis collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), SCALE models were developed for a fast-spectrum heat pipe reactor. These models were based on the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Design A concept, which is an alternative design to the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Special Purpose Reactor (SPR), also known as the Megapower reactor. The model contains 1,134 heat pipes, surrounded by hexagonal fuel elements, with a potassium working fluid; the fuel is UO 2 with 19.75 wt% 235 U enrichment. The model contains axial beryllium oxide (BeO) reflectors above and below the active fuel region along with a radial alumina reflector containing 12 B 4 C control drums. The center of the core is left unfueled to make room for two shutdown control rods, one annular and one solid. The active region of the core was discretized into twenty axial and five radial zones to analyze spatial variations in power and burnup. Infinite lattice unit cell sensitivity studies were used to perform verification between the SCALE and INL models. The eigenvalue results agreed well with the reported results to within roughly 50 percent mille (pcm). Full-core model verification was performed by analyzing system eigenvalues with differing configurations of control drum and shutdown rod positions. These full core results all had eigenvalue differences less than 310 pcm. Control drum and shutdown rod worths were also compared, with differences of 3.2% or less. Using the verified model, the isotopic inventory and decay heat, as well as temperature feedback coefficients, were calculated and provided to SNL as input to the MELCOR severe accident code to analyze potential releases from this class of reactor. The results of the MELCOR analysis are provided in a different report.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Distributed Sensors for Waste Plastics Gasification and Clean Hydrogen Productions

This project developed distributed fiber sensors for plastics gasification reactor for clean hydrogen production. These sensors can be directly inserted into gasification reactors to perform real-time, in-situ hydrogen and temperature profile measurements with 5-cm spatial resolution across the entire reactor chamber. Our research team will use this new sensor capability to study how feedstock mixtures, feedstock preparations, and air/steam flows impact feedstock consumption, hydrogen production, and harmful chemical production emissions.

08 HYDROGEN↗

A Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) Approach to Large Eddy Simulation (LES) for Transport and Contaminant Dispersion

Recent advances in the development of large eddy simulation (LES) atmospheric models with corresponding atmospheric transport and dispersion (AT&D) modeling capabilities have made it possible to simulate short, time-averaged, single realizations of pollutant dispersion at the spatial and temporal resolution necessary for common atmospheric dispersion needs, such as designing air sampling networks, assessing pollutant sensor system performance, and characterizing the impact of airborne materials on human health. The high computational burden required to form an ensemble of single-realization dispersion solutions using an LES and coupled AT&D model has, until recently, limited its use to a few proof-of-concept studies. An example of an LES model that can meet the temporal and spatial resolution and computational requirements of these applications is the joint outdoor-indoor urban large eddy simulation (JOULES). A key enabling element within JOULES is the computationally efficient graphics processing unit (GPU)-based LES, which is on the order of 150 times faster than if the LES contaminant dispersion simulations were executed on a central processing unit (CPU) computing platform. JOULES is capable of resolving the turbulence components at a suitable scale for both open terrain and urban landscapes, e.g., owing to varying environmental conditions and a diverse building topology. In this paper, we describe the JOULES modeling system, prior efforts to validate the accuracy of its meteorological simulations, and current results from an evaluation that uses ensembles of dispersion solutions for unstable, neutral, and stable static stability conditions in an open terrain environment.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Status of yield estimation technology: A review of second-generation model development and evaluation

Multiple regression models were studied in order to determine their yield estimation capability for any arbitrary unit area and to obtain greater responsiveness and accuracy through the use of additional data sources applied at smaller spatial and temporal scales. It was concluded that data base inadequacy was the factor limiting performance in the models studied and that each of the models has more yield predicting capability than was reached during LACIE.

Stuff, R. G.↗

Spatial orientation in weightlessness and readaptation to earth's gravity

Unusual vestibular responses to head movements in weightlessness may produce spatial orientation illusions and symptoms of space motion sickness. An integrated set of experiments was performed during Spacelab 1, as well as before and after the flight, to evaluate responses mediated by the otolith organs and semicircular canals. A variety of measurements were used, including eye movements, postural control, perception of orientation, and susceptibility to space sickness.

Young, L. R.↗

NPLOT: an Interactive Plotting Program for NASTRAN Finite Element Models

The NPLOT (NASTRAN Plot) is an interactive computer graphics program for plotting undeformed and deformed NASTRAN finite element models. Developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the program provides flexible element selection and grid point, ASET and SPC degree of freedom labelling. It is easy to use and provides a combination menu and command driven user interface. NPLOT also provides very fast hidden line and haloed line algorithms. The hidden line algorithm in NPLOT proved to be both very accurate and several times faster than other existing hidden line algorithms. A fast spatial bucket sort and horizon edge computation are used to achieve this high level of performance. The hidden line and the haloed line algorithms are the primary features that make NPLOT different from other plotting programs.

Jones, G. K.↗

A Japanese plan: Large radio heliograph in the solar max no. 22

An outline as of February, 1986 is briefly described of a Japanese plan to construct a large radio heliograph in the next solar maximum. The principal performance specifications of the heliograph are 10 arsec by 10 arcsec x SEC(Zenith Distance) spatial resolution, 1 arc degree by 1 arc degree field of view, 1-sec temporal resolution, and six hour coverage of observing time. It will be operated at 17 GHz with possible other frequency of 35GHz.

Enome, Shinzo↗

Measurement of micro-roughness and effects of detector bandwidth and finite width

Surface micro-roughness of grazing incidence optics has long been recognized as a critical parameter in the control of the scattered X-ray intensity and its effects on the point spread function half-energy width. Accurate knowledge of the amplitude of surface micro-roughness is vital to assess optic predicted performance during the final stages of fabrication. This requires not only a knowledge of the spatial bandwidth over which surface features must be measured, but also knowledge of the bandwidth of the measurement instrument. We show that the standard assumption that instruments respond up to their Nyquist limit is an oversimplification which neglects the finite detector size and its bandwidth limiting effects when sampling a real (i.e., two-dimensional) surface.

Reid, P. B.↗

Adaptive implicit-explicit finite element algorithms for fluid mechanics problems

The adaptive implicit-explicit (AIE) approach is presented for the finite-element solution of various problems in computational fluid mechanics. In the AIE approach, the elements are dynamically (adaptively) arranged into differently treated groups. The differences in treatment could be based on considerations such as the cost efficiency, the type of spatial or temporal discretization employed, the choice of field equations, etc. Several numerical tests are performed to demonstrate that this approach can achieve substantial savings in CPU time and memory.

Tezduyar, T. E.↗

Integration of airborne Thematic Mapper Simulator (TMS) data and digitized aerial photography via an ISH transformation

A simple method for enhancing the spatial and spectral resolution of disparate data sets is presented. Two data sets, digitized aerial photography at a nominal spatial resolution 3,7 meters and TMS digital data at 24.6 meters, were coregistered through a bilinear interpolation to solve the problem of blocky pixel groups resulting from rectification expansion. The two data sets were then subjected to intensity-saturation-hue (ISH) transformations in order to 'blend' the high-spatial-resolution (3.7 m) digitized RC-10 photography with the high spectral (12-bands) and lower spatial (24.6 m) resolution TMS digital data. The resultant merged products make it possible to perform large-scale mapping, ease photointerpretation, and can be derived for any of the 12 available TMS spectral bands.

Ambrosia, Vincent G.↗