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Fundamental Power Coupler Technical Development - Final CRADA Report

The SLAC ‘Linac Coherent Light Source -II’ project (LCLS II) is a hard X-ray Free Electron Laser now under construction in support of photon-based material science. LCLS II uses a superconducting linac design based on the twenty year-long TESLA- Technology development effort. The TESLA proposal, the European XFEL (EU-XFEL) project, and the ILC design employ a pulsed superconducting linac with roughly 0.5% duty factor. This aspect was changed for LCLS II so that the FEL could be operated continuous-wave (CW) namely with a 100% duty factor. Several critical changes to the linac design were required including RF power distribution, cryogenic heat-load management and cavity preparation. This note lists the changes required to the fundamental power coupler (FPC). All of these changes were made by the SLAC physics and engineering teams and reviewed by the cryomodule design lead (Fermilab) and international partners. Testing was done by the LCLS II cryomodule teams (Jefferson Lab and Fermilab). The SLAC LCLS II project team managed the design and procurement process. The LCLS II fundamental power coupler design is based upon the DESY TESLA Test Facility (TTF-3) design. DESY shared their drawings with LCLS II and SLAC copied and modified them to meet the LCLS II CW operation power and heat-load requirements. LCLS II had an external reviewer evaluate and compare SLAC drawings to EU-XFEL drawings. SLAC used the same industrial partners that EU-XFEL used.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Photobiological hydrogen production with switchable photosystem-II designer algae

A process for enhanced photobiological H.sub.2 production using transgenic alga. The process includes inducing exogenous genes in a transgenic alga by manipulating selected environmental factors. In one embodiment inducing production of an exogenous gene uncouples H.sub.2 production from existing mechanisms that would downregulate H.sub.2 production in the absence of the exogenous gene. In other embodiments inducing an exogenous gene triggers a cascade of metabolic changes that increase H.sub.2 production. In some embodiments the transgenic alga are rendered non-regenerative by inducing exogenous transgenes for proton channel polypeptides that are targeted to specific algal membranes.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

A pixel detector ROIC with a 3-bit, 40 Msps synchronous ADC per pixel for HL LHC

The prototype Fermi Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Pixel (FCP130), manufactured in a 130 nm process, is a readout integrated circuit (ROIC) designed for the High Luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider. It employs a synchronous analog to digital converter (ADC) for the front-end design, with signal processing and data conversion within a single bunch crossing of 25 ns. It is therefore capable of accurately detecting hits occurring in consecutive bunch crossings, without off-time registration of events, making it particularly suitable for the inner most layers of the vertex detector. The ROIC consists of a matrix of 48 × 160 pixels, each 100 × 30 μm2 in size. Each pixel contains a charge sensitive preamplifier with self-biasing leakage current compensation, eight auto-zero comparators and a Gray code encoder for a 3-bit flash-type ADC. The total power consumption is approximately 24 μW per pixel. The measured noise at the output of all the hit comparators across the ROIC is < 80 e- with threshold dispersion < 110 e-RMS, which allows an in-time threshold setting of ~ 1000 e-.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Lab-Scale Development of a Solid Sorbent for CO 2 Capture Process for Coal-Fired Power Plants

It is increasingly clear that CO 2 capture and sequestration (CCS) must play a critical role in curbing worldwide CO 2 emissions to the atmosphere. Development of these technologies to cost-effectively remove CO 2 from coal-fired power plants is very important to mitigating the impact these power plants have within the world’s power generation portfolio. Currently, conventional CO 2 capture technologies, such as aqueous-monoethanolamine based solvent systems, are prohibitively expensive and if implemented could result in a 75 to 100% increase in the cost of electricity for consumers worldwide. Solid sorbent CO 2 capture processes – such as RTI’s 3rd Generation Solid Sorbent CO 2 Capture Process – are promising alternatives to conventional, liquid solvents. Supported amine sorbents – of the nature RTI has developed – are particularly attractive due to their potential for high CO 2 loadings, excellent stability over multiple cycles, reduced corrosivity/volatility and a potential to reduce the regeneration energy needed to carry out CO 2 capture. The remaining challenges for these sorbent processes have provided the framework for the project team’s research and development and target for advancing the technology beyond lab-scale testing. Previous work in this area has failed to adequately address various technology challenges such as sorbent stability and regenerability, sorbent scale-up, improved physical strength and attrition-resistance, proper heat management and temperature control, proper solids handling, as well as the proper coupling of process engineering advancements that are tailored for a promising sorbent technology. Under a cooperative agreement with the US Department of Energy, and part of NETL’s CO 2 Capture Program, RTI has led an effort to address and mitigate the challenges associated with solid sorbent CO 2 capture. The overall objective of this project was to mitigate the technical and economic risks associated with the performance and scale-up of solid sorbent-based CO 2 capture processes, enabling subsequent larger pilot demonstrations and ultimately commercial deployment. An integrated development approach has been a key focus of this project in which sorbent development, process development, and economic analyses have informed each of the other development processes. Development efforts have focused on developing novel hybrid solids-based CO 2 capture sorbents and improving their performance stability, refining process engineering and design, and evaluating the viability of the technology through detailed economic analyses. Sorbent advancements have led to a next generation, commercially-viable CO 2 capture sorbent exhibiting performance stability in various gas environments and a physically strong fluidizable form. The team has reduced sorbent production costs and optimized the production and scale-up of novel metal-organic framework (MOF) hybrid solids-based CO 2 capture sorbents, fluidizable sorbents. Refinement of the process engineering and design at the lab-scale research unit has demonstrated promising CO 2 capture performance in simulated coal-fired flue gas conditions. Long-term testing has informed the project team on the process conditions needed to operate a solids-based system for optimal performance. Data collected from all phases of testing has been used to develop a detailed techno-economic assessment of RTI’s technology. These detailed analyses show that RTI’s technology has significant economic advantages over current amine scrubbing and potential to achieve the DOE’s Carbon Capture Program’s goal of >90% CO 2 capture rate at a cost of almost $40/tonne CO 2 captured by 2025. Through this integrated technology development approach, the project team has advanced RTI’s 3rd generation CO 2 capture technology to TRL-3, according to the DOE/FE definitions for Technology Readiness Levels. At a broader level, this project has advanced the whole of the solid sorbent CO 2 capture field, with advancements in process engineering and design, technical risk mitigation, sorbent scale-up optimization, and an understanding of the commercial viability and applicability of solid sorbent CO 2 capture technologies for the U.S. existing fleet of coal-fired power plants.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗

An Integrated Computational Materials Engineering Method for Woven Carbon Fiber Composites Preforming Process

An integrated computational materials engineering method is proposed in this paper for analyzing the design and preforming process of woven carbon fiber composites. The goal is to reduce the cost and time needed for the mass production of structural composites. It integrates the simulation methods from the micro-scale to the macro-scale to capture the behavior of the composite material in the preforming process. In this way, the time consuming and high cost physical experiments and prototypes in the development of the manufacturing process can be circumvented. This method contains three parts: the micro-scale representative volume element (RVE) simulation to characterize the material; the metamodeling algorithm to generate the constitutive equations; and the macro-scale preforming simulation to predict the behavior of the composite material during forming. The results show the potential of this approach as a guidance to the design of composite materials and its manufacturing process.

Composite, Preforming, Integrated Computational Ma↗

Additively Manufactured IN718 Components with Wirelessly Powered and Interrogated Embedded Sensing

A methodology is described for embedding commercial-off-the-shelf sensors together with wireless communication and power circuit elements using direct laser metal sintered additively manufactured components. Physics based models of the additive manufacturing processes and sensor/wireless level performance models guided the design and embedment processes. A combination of cold spray deposition and laser engineered net shaping was used to fashion the transmitter/receiving elements and embed the sensors, thereby providing environmental protection and component robustness/survivability for harsh conditions. By design, this complement of analog and digital sensors were wirelessly powered and interrogated using a health and utilization monitoring system; enabling real-time, in situ prognostics and diagnostics.

embedded sensing↗

Robot for Investigations and Assessments of Nuclear Areas

RIANA is a remote controlled Robot dedicated for Investigations and Assessments of Nuclear Areas. The development of RIANA is motivated by the need to have at disposal a proven robot, tested in hot cells; a robot capable of remotely investigate and characterise the inside of nuclear facilities in order to collect efficiently all the required data in the shortest possible time. It is based on a wireless medium sized remote carrier that may carry a wide variety of interchangeable modules, sensors and tools. It is easily customised to match specific requirements and quickly configured depending on the mission and the operator's preferences. RIANA integrates localisation and navigation systems. The robot will be able to generate / update a 2D map of its surrounding and exploring areas. The position of the robot is given accurately on the map. Furthermore, the robot will be able to autonomously calculate, define and follow a trajectory between 2 points taking into account its environment and obstacles. The robot is configurable to manage obstacles and restrict access to forbidden areas. RIANA allows an advanced control of modules, sensors and tools; all collected data (radiological and measured data) are displayed in real time in different format (chart, on the generated map...) and stored in a single place so that may be exported in a convenient format for data processing. This modular design gives RIANA the flexibility to perform multiple investigation missions where humans cannot work such as: visual inspections, dynamic localization and 2D mapping, characterizations and nuclear measurements of floor and walls, non destructive testing, samples collection: solid and liquid. The benefits of using RIANA are: - reducing the personnel exposures by limiting the manual intervention time, - minimizing the time and reducing the cost of investigation operations, - providing critical inputs to set up and optimize cleanup and dismantling operations. (authors)

42 ENGINEERING↗

TU-AB-BRD-03: Fault Tree Analysis

Current quality assurance and quality management guidelines provided by various professional organizations are prescriptive in nature, focusing principally on performance characteristics of planning and delivery devices. However, published analyses of events in radiation therapy show that most events are often caused by flaws in clinical processes rather than by device failures. This suggests the need for the development of a quality management program that is based on integrated approaches to process and equipment quality assurance. Industrial engineers have developed various risk assessment tools that are used to identify and eliminate potential failures from a system or a process before a failure impacts a customer. These tools include, but are not limited to, process mapping, failure modes and effects analysis, fault tree analysis. Task Group 100 of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine has developed these tools and used them to formulate an example risk-based quality management program for intensity-modulated radiotherapy. This is a prospective risk assessment approach that analyzes potential error pathways inherent in a clinical process and then ranks them according to relative risk, typically before implementation, followed by the design of a new process or modification of the existing process. Appropriate controls are then put in place to ensure that failures are less likely to occur and, if they do, they will more likely be detected before they propagate through the process, compromising treatment outcome and causing harm to the patient. Such a prospective approach forms the basis of the work of Task Group 100 that has recently been approved by the AAPM. This session will be devoted to a discussion of these tools and practical examples of how these tools can be used in a given radiotherapy clinic to develop a risk based quality management program. Learning Objectives: Learn how to design a process map for a radiotherapy process Learn how to perform failure modes and effects analysis analysis for a given process Learn what fault trees are all about Learn how to design a quality management program based upon the information obtained from process mapping, failure modes and effects analysis and fault tree analysis. Dunscombe: Director, TreatSafely, LLC and Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences; Consultant to IAEA and Varian Thomadsen: President, Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences Palta: Vice President of the Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

TU-AB-BRD-04: Development of Quality Management Program

Current quality assurance and quality management guidelines provided by various professional organizations are prescriptive in nature, focusing principally on performance characteristics of planning and delivery devices. However, published analyses of events in radiation therapy show that most events are often caused by flaws in clinical processes rather than by device failures. This suggests the need for the development of a quality management program that is based on integrated approaches to process and equipment quality assurance. Industrial engineers have developed various risk assessment tools that are used to identify and eliminate potential failures from a system or a process before a failure impacts a customer. These tools include, but are not limited to, process mapping, failure modes and effects analysis, fault tree analysis. Task Group 100 of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine has developed these tools and used them to formulate an example risk-based quality management program for intensity-modulated radiotherapy. This is a prospective risk assessment approach that analyzes potential error pathways inherent in a clinical process and then ranks them according to relative risk, typically before implementation, followed by the design of a new process or modification of the existing process. Appropriate controls are then put in place to ensure that failures are less likely to occur and, if they do, they will more likely be detected before they propagate through the process, compromising treatment outcome and causing harm to the patient. Such a prospective approach forms the basis of the work of Task Group 100 that has recently been approved by the AAPM. This session will be devoted to a discussion of these tools and practical examples of how these tools can be used in a given radiotherapy clinic to develop a risk based quality management program. Learning Objectives: Learn how to design a process map for a radiotherapy process Learn how to perform failure modes and effects analysis analysis for a given process Learn what fault trees are all about Learn how to design a quality management program based upon the information obtained from process mapping, failure modes and effects analysis and fault tree analysis. Dunscombe: Director, TreatSafely, LLC and Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences; Consultant to IAEA and Varian Thomadsen: President, Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences Palta: Vice President of the Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

TU-AB-BRD-00: Task Group 100

Current quality assurance and quality management guidelines provided by various professional organizations are prescriptive in nature, focusing principally on performance characteristics of planning and delivery devices. However, published analyses of events in radiation therapy show that most events are often caused by flaws in clinical processes rather than by device failures. This suggests the need for the development of a quality management program that is based on integrated approaches to process and equipment quality assurance. Industrial engineers have developed various risk assessment tools that are used to identify and eliminate potential failures from a system or a process before a failure impacts a customer. These tools include, but are not limited to, process mapping, failure modes and effects analysis, fault tree analysis. Task Group 100 of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine has developed these tools and used them to formulate an example risk-based quality management program for intensity-modulated radiotherapy. This is a prospective risk assessment approach that analyzes potential error pathways inherent in a clinical process and then ranks them according to relative risk, typically before implementation, followed by the design of a new process or modification of the existing process. Appropriate controls are then put in place to ensure that failures are less likely to occur and, if they do, they will more likely be detected before they propagate through the process, compromising treatment outcome and causing harm to the patient. Such a prospective approach forms the basis of the work of Task Group 100 that has recently been approved by the AAPM. This session will be devoted to a discussion of these tools and practical examples of how these tools can be used in a given radiotherapy clinic to develop a risk based quality management program. Learning Objectives: Learn how to design a process map for a radiotherapy process Learn how to perform failure modes and effects analysis analysis for a given process Learn what fault trees are all about Learn how to design a quality management program based upon the information obtained from process mapping, failure modes and effects analysis and fault tree analysis. Dunscombe: Director, TreatSafely, LLC and Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences; Consultant to IAEA and Varian Thomadsen: President, Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences Palta: Vice President of the Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

TU-AB-BRD-01: Process Mapping

Current quality assurance and quality management guidelines provided by various professional organizations are prescriptive in nature, focusing principally on performance characteristics of planning and delivery devices. However, published analyses of events in radiation therapy show that most events are often caused by flaws in clinical processes rather than by device failures. This suggests the need for the development of a quality management program that is based on integrated approaches to process and equipment quality assurance. Industrial engineers have developed various risk assessment tools that are used to identify and eliminate potential failures from a system or a process before a failure impacts a customer. These tools include, but are not limited to, process mapping, failure modes and effects analysis, fault tree analysis. Task Group 100 of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine has developed these tools and used them to formulate an example risk-based quality management program for intensity-modulated radiotherapy. This is a prospective risk assessment approach that analyzes potential error pathways inherent in a clinical process and then ranks them according to relative risk, typically before implementation, followed by the design of a new process or modification of the existing process. Appropriate controls are then put in place to ensure that failures are less likely to occur and, if they do, they will more likely be detected before they propagate through the process, compromising treatment outcome and causing harm to the patient. Such a prospective approach forms the basis of the work of Task Group 100 that has recently been approved by the AAPM. This session will be devoted to a discussion of these tools and practical examples of how these tools can be used in a given radiotherapy clinic to develop a risk based quality management program. Learning Objectives: Learn how to design a process map for a radiotherapy process Learn how to perform failure modes and effects analysis analysis for a given process Learn what fault trees are all about Learn how to design a quality management program based upon the information obtained from process mapping, failure modes and effects analysis and fault tree analysis. Dunscombe: Director, TreatSafely, LLC and Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences; Consultant to IAEA and Varian Thomadsen: President, Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences Palta: Vice President of the Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

TU-AB-BRD-02: Failure Modes and Effects Analysis

Current quality assurance and quality management guidelines provided by various professional organizations are prescriptive in nature, focusing principally on performance characteristics of planning and delivery devices. However, published analyses of events in radiation therapy show that most events are often caused by flaws in clinical processes rather than by device failures. This suggests the need for the development of a quality management program that is based on integrated approaches to process and equipment quality assurance. Industrial engineers have developed various risk assessment tools that are used to identify and eliminate potential failures from a system or a process before a failure impacts a customer. These tools include, but are not limited to, process mapping, failure modes and effects analysis, fault tree analysis. Task Group 100 of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine has developed these tools and used them to formulate an example risk-based quality management program for intensity-modulated radiotherapy. This is a prospective risk assessment approach that analyzes potential error pathways inherent in a clinical process and then ranks them according to relative risk, typically before implementation, followed by the design of a new process or modification of the existing process. Appropriate controls are then put in place to ensure that failures are less likely to occur and, if they do, they will more likely be detected before they propagate through the process, compromising treatment outcome and causing harm to the patient. Such a prospective approach forms the basis of the work of Task Group 100 that has recently been approved by the AAPM. This session will be devoted to a discussion of these tools and practical examples of how these tools can be used in a given radiotherapy clinic to develop a risk based quality management program. Learning Objectives: Learn how to design a process map for a radiotherapy process Learn how to perform failure modes and effects analysis analysis for a given process Learn what fault trees are all about Learn how to design a quality management program based upon the information obtained from process mapping, failure modes and effects analysis and fault tree analysis. Dunscombe: Director, TreatSafely, LLC and Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences; Consultant to IAEA and Varian Thomadsen: President, Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences Palta: Vice President of the Center for the Assessment of Radiological Sciences.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

SU-G-IeP3-09: Investigating the Interplay of Antiscatter Grids with Modern Detectors and Image Processing in Digital Radiography

Purpose: To use phantom and simulation experiments to relate technique factors, patient size and antiscatter grid use to image quality in portable digital radiography (DR), in light of advancements in detector design and image processing. Methods: Image contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) on a portable DR system (MobileDaRt Evolution, Shimadzu) was measured by imaging four aluminum inserts of varying thickness, superimposed on a Lucite slab phantom using a pediatric abdominal protocol. Three thicknesses of Lucite were used: 6.1cm, 12cm, and 18.2cm, with both 55 and 65 kVp beams. The mAs was set so that detector entrance exposure (DEE) was matched between kVp values. Each technique and phantom was used with and without an antiscatter grid (focused linear grid embedded in aluminum with an 8:1 ratio). The CNR-improvement-factor was then used to determine the thickness- and technique-dependent appropriateness of grid use. Finally, the same experiment was performed via Monte Carlo simulation, integrating incident energy fluence at each detector pixel, so that effects of detector design and image processing could be isolated from physical factors upstream of the detector. Results: The physical phantom experiment demonstrated a clear improvement for the lower tube voltage (55kVp), along with substantial CNR benefits with grid use for 12–18cm phantoms. Neither trend was evident with Monte Carlo, suggesting that suboptimal quantum-detection-efficiency and automated grid-removal could explain trends in kVp and grid use, respectively. Conclusion: Physical experiments demonstrate marked improvement in CNR when using a grid for phantoms of 12 and 18cm Lucite thickness (above ∼10cm soft-tissue equivalent). This benefit is likely due to image processing, as this result was not seen with Monte Carlo. The impact of image processing on image resolution should also be investigated, and the CNR benefit of low kVp and grid use should be weighed against the increased exposure time necessary to achieve adequate DEE.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

A Verification of Flux Sensitivity Estimates Using the MCNP Tally Perturbation Tool

Nuclear data is commonly used in applications such as nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and criticality safety. More specifically, nuclear data is used in predictive simulation codes like the Monte-Carlo N-Particle (MCNP ® ) transport code, Serpent, and similar radiation transport codes. The improvement of nuclear data enables more precise and accurate simulations, which result in higher fidelity designs and reduced operational/procedural costs. Therefore, the improvement of nuclear data is of paramount importance across the nuclear community. Nuclear data is improved and validated through integral benchmark experiments. The design of benchmark experiments is an extensive process; therefore, these experiments are often optimized on multiple characteristics, including sensitivity to the nuclear data, during the design process. Sensitivity is a measure of how much a quantity changes due to changes in independent variables such as experimental configuration. An experimental design that has a larger sensitivity to the nuclear data of interest will have a larger impact on the accuracy and precision of the validated data. Past integral benchmark experiments have primarily used the effective multiplication factor ($k_{eff}$) as the predominant measured quantity; however, experiments designed with other quantities in mind would be able to optimize on validating different areas of the nuclear data. A primary goal of the EUCLID project is to design, constrain, and reduce compensating errors in experiments focused on quantities other than $k_{eff}$ to better validate nuclear data across the board. Currently, there is a capability in MCNP to easily calculate the sensitivity of $k_{eff}$ to specific nuclear data of numerous reactions types and isotopes (KSEN card); however, the sensitivity of other quantities must be estimated in more strenuous manners. For example, the perturbation feature (PERT card) of MCNP can be used to estimate first-order sensitivities of some response in fixed source simulations. A recent announcement revealed that the first- and second-order perturbation features in previous releases of MCNP contained a bug. It was identified that particles were being scored into the wrong energy bin. The bug is in the most recent public release (MCNP6.2); however, a patch has been added to the most up to date version (MCNP6.2.2) that has not been released publicly. A direct comparison of the PERT card results for an F4 (neutron flux averaged over a cell) tally before and after the patch are shown in figure 1. All simulations used in the sensitivity estimates in this report were performed with MCNP6.2.2. This work verifies the patched MCNP perturbation tool by comparing first order sensitivities made using the PERT card to estimates made using manual perturbation of the compact ENDF (ACE) files.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

An Integrated Computer-Aided Design and Manufacturing Workflow for Synthetic Biology

Biological computer-aided design and manufacturing (bioCAD/CAM) tools facilitate the design and build processes of engineering biological systems using iterative design-build-test-learn (DBTL) cycles. In this book chapter, we highlight some of the bioCAD/CAM tools developed and used at the US Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI), Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), and Agile BioFoundry (ABF). We demonstrate the use of these bioCAD/CAM tools on a common workflow for designing and building a multigene pathway in a hierarchical fashion. Additionally, each tool presented in this book chapter is specifically tailored to support one or more specific steps in a workflow, can be integrated with the others into design and build workflows, and can be deployed at academic, government, or commercial entities.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Sim-Situ: A Framework for the Faithful Simulation of in situ Processing

The amount of data generated by numerical simulations in various scientific domains led to a fundamental redesign of how the analysis and visualization of simulation outputs are performed. The throughput and capacity of storage subsystems have not evolved as fast as the computing power in extreme-scale supercomputers, making the classical post-hoc approach highly inefficient. In situ processing has then emerged as a solution in which simulation and data analysis/visualization are intertwined for better performance and greater interactivity.Determining the best allocation, i.e., how many resources to allocate to simulation and analysis respectively, mapping, i.e., where and at which frequency to run the analysis/visualization, and data transfer mode is a complex task whose performance assessment is crucial to the efficient execution of in situ processing. However, such a performance evaluation of different strategies usually relies either on directly running them on the targeted execution environments, which can rapidly become extremely time- and resource-consuming, or on resorting to simplified models of the components of an in situ application, which can lack of realism. In both cases, the validity of the performance evaluation is limited.In this paper, we present Sim-Situ, a simulation-based framework for the faithful performance evaluation of in situ processing strategies. We designed Sim-Situ to reflect the typical features of in situ processing systems. Thanks to its modular design, Sim-situ has the necessary flexibility to easily and faithfully evaluate the behavior and performance of various allocation, mapping, and data transfer strategies. We illustrate the simulation capabilities of Sim-Situ on a Molecular Dynamics use case. We study the impact of different strategies on performance and show how users can leverage Sim-Situ to determine interesting tradeoffs when adding analysis/visualization components to their application.

Honoré, Valentin↗

Platform Of Optimal Experiment Management

The platform of optimal experiment management, POEM, powered with automated machine learning to accelerate the discovery of optimal solutions, and automatically guide the design of experiments to be evaluated. POEM currently supports 1) random model explorations for experiment design, 2) sparse grid model explorations with Gaussian Polynomial Chaos surrogate model to accelerate experiment design ,3) time-dependent model sensitivity and uncertainty analysis to identify the importance features for experiment design, 4) model calibrations via Bayesian inference to integrate experiments to improve model performance, and 5) Bayesian optimization for optimal experimental design. In addition, POEM aims to simplify the process of experimental design for users, enabling them to analyze the data with minimal human intervention, and improving the technological output from research activities.

Wang, Congjian [Idaho National Laboratory (INL), I↗

Alternatives to MARVEL Power Conversion -- Comparison of Stirling Engine Thermal Efficiency and Design to Other Power Conversion Cycles

PRESENTATION for CONFERENCE PAPER: The Microreactor Applications, Research, Validation, and Evaluation (MARVEL) Reactor is a small liquid-metal thermal reactor that will be built at the Idaho National Laboratory to demonstrate design and operating processes for microreactors, microgrid integration, and process heat applications. Power conversion in the MARVEL design is provided by Stirling engines, which have disadvantages in nuclear environments. Compared to Stirling engine performance, some alternative power cycles can increase power production when coupled to a liquid-metal thermal reactor. In this paper, the thermal efficiency of MARVEL’s power production with Stirling engines is compared to the thermal efficiency of power production with MARVEL and alternative power cycles. Those cycles include a superheated Rankine cycle, open and closed Brayton cycles, and a supercritical carbon dioxide cycle. All cycles (except the Stirling engines) were modeled with an intermediate helium loop to meet MARVEL’s principal design criteria. All models are simple designs with conservative assumptions for consistent comparison. Detailed optimization will depend largely on reactor location and application, and the relative merit of each cycle is discussed for different environmental conditions. The study informs significant early decisions on power cycle design and economics for deployment of advanced microreactors as they move from theory and concept to execution.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗