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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 163 records · Page 9

Data-driven Whitney forms for structure-preserving control volume analysis

Control volume analysis models physics via the exchange of generalized fluxes between subdomains. Here, we introduce a scientific machine learning framework adopting a partition of unity architecture to identify physically-relevant control volumes, with generalized fluxes between subdomains encoded via Whitney forms. The approach provides a differentiable parameterization of geometry which may be trained in an end-to-end fashion to extract reduced models from full field data while exactly preserving physics. The architecture admits a data-driven finite element exterior calculus allowing discovery of mixed finite element spaces with closed form quadrature rules. An equivalence between Whitney forms and graph networks reveals that the geometric problem of control volume learning is equivalent to an unsupervised graph discovery problem. The framework is developed for manifolds in arbitrary dimension, with examples provided for H(div) problems in $\mathbb{R}$ establishing convergence and structure preservation properties. Finally, we consider a lithium-ion battery problem where we discover a reduced finite element space encoding transport pathways from high-fidelity microstructure resolved simulations. The approach reduces the 5.89M finite element simulation to 136 elements while reproducing pressure to under 0.1% error and preserving conservation.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Distributed Quantum Learning with co-Management in a Multi-tenant Quantum System

The rapid advancement of quantum computing has pushed classical designs into the quantum domain, breaking physical boundaries for computing-intensive and data-hungry applications with the hope that some systems may provide a quantum speedup. For example, variational quantum algorithms have been proposed for quantum neural networks to train deep learning models on qubits, achieving promising results. Existing quantum learning architectures and systems rely on single, monolithic quantum machines with abundant and stable resources, such as qubits. However, fabricating a large, monolithic quantum device is considerably more challenging than producing an array of smaller devices. In this paper, we investigate a distributed quantum system that combines multiple quantum machines into a unified system. We propose DQuLearn, which divides a quantum learning task into multiple subtasks. Each subtask can be executed distributively on individual quantum machines, with the results looping back to classical machines for subsequent training iterations. Additionally, our system supports multiple concurrent clients and dynamically manages their circuits according to the runtime status of quantum workers. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate that DQuLearn achieves similar accuracies with significant runtime reduction, by up to 68.7% and an increase per-second circuit processing speed, by up to 3.99 times, in a 4-worker multi-tenant setting.

quantum computing↗

Comparative Assessment of U-Net-Based Deep Learning Models for Segmenting Microfractures and Pore Spaces in Digital Rocks

Segmentation of high-resolution X-ray microcomputed tomography (µCT) images is crucial in digital rock physics (DRP), affecting the characterization and analysis of microscale phenomena in the porous media. The complexity of geological structures and nonideal scanning conditions pose significant challenges to conventional image segmentation approaches. Motivated by the recent increasing popularity of deep learning (DL) techniques in image processing, this work undertakes a comparative study of DL models, specifically U-Net and its variants, for segmenting multiple targets with distinguished features in digital rocks, including discrete fracture networks (DFNs), pore spaces, and solid rock. Particularly, DFNs have a smaller volumetric fraction over others, bringing in a substantial challenge of imbalanced segmentation. The primary focus is to evaluate the architecture and feature enhancement strategies of various DL models, including U-Net, attention U-Net, residual U-Net, U-Net++, and residual U-Net++. The models were designed as 2.5D, utilizing a central 2D image and its two adjacent upper and lower 2D images as input to provide a pseudo-3D context. In addition, because the ground truth of segmentation was unknown for real-world digital rocks, we created a benchmark data set following the inverse operations of segmentation. The data synthesis started from the label images (i.e., solid rock, pore spaces, and DFNs), followed by simulating partial volume blurring, adding random background noise, and introducing ring artifacts to mimic real raw X-ray µCT images. The data set, which included various rock types (i.e., sandstone and artificial data), scanning resolution, and magnitudes of noise and artifacts, was divided into training and testing data sets with a 90% and 10% ratio, respectively. Moreover, in addition to the conventional pixel-wise evaluation metrics, the physics-based metric of the lattice-Boltzmann method (LBM) simulated permeability provided more comprehensive assessments. The results demonstrated that the residual connections, nested architectures, and redesigned skip connections contribute to the model performance and give the residual U-Net++ the highest accuracy. The improvements were mainly on the boundaries and small targets, especially the DFNs, which dominate the interconnectivity and therefore affect the permeability greatly. This study also rigorously evaluated the efficiency and generalization of each model, demonstrating that the sophisticated architectures achieved excellent practicability and maintained robust performance on completely unseen data, ensuring their suitability for diverse and challenging DRP applications.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Task-specific sensor optical designs

A method and system architecture for designing a compressive sensing matrix for machine learning includes receiving an image associated with a classification task and; generating a sensing matrix. The sensing matrix includes an array of nonzero elements of the image. A prism array of prism elements is in communication with the sensing matrix. A row of values corresponding with an input angle of the prism array is mapped to a respective column corresponding with a detector. Then the detector detects light refracted at an output angle dictated by the physical shape of the prism element. A physical model of the detector is fabricated and generates a compressed representation of the image. A machine learning classification algorithm is applied to the compressed representation of the image and generates an optimized non-invertible final determination of the image.

Birch, Gabriel Carlisle↗

Implementing a neural network interatomic model with performance portability for emerging exascale architectures

The two main thrusts of computational science are increasingly accurate predictions and faster calculations; to this end, the zeitgeist in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations is pursuing machine learned and data driven interatomic models, e.g. neural network potentials, and novel hardware architectures, e.g. GPUs. Current implementations of neural network potentials are orders of magnitude slower than traditional interatomic models and while looming exascale computing offers the ability to run large, accurate simulations with these models, achieving portable performance for MD with new and varied exascale hardware requires rethinking traditional algorithms, using novel data structures, and library solutions. We re-implement a neural network interatomic model in CabanaMD, an MD proxy application, built on libraries developed for performance portability. Our implementation shows significantly improved thread scaling in this complex kernel as compared to a current LAMMPS implementation, across both strong and weak scaling. Our single-source solution enables simulations up to 20 million atoms on a single CPU node and 4 million atoms with improved performance on a single GPU. Furthermore, we also explore parallelism and data layout choices (using flexible data structures called AoSoAs) and their effect on performance, seeing up to ~50% and ~5% improvements in performance on a GPU by choosing the right level of parallelism and data layout respectively.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Evaluation of automated stability testing in machining through closed-loop control and Bayesian machine learning

Here, this paper describes a system for automated identification of the optimal stable cutting parameters in milling through Bayesian machine learning and closed-loop control. The closed-loop control system consists of a process monitoring architecture, an analysis framework, and a feedback mechanism. The analysis framework consists of a Bayesian machine learning algorithm that learns a stability map given test results. The learned stability map is used to select parameters for stability testing using an expected improvement in the material removal rate criterion. The test parameters are communicated to the machine controller to complete the test cut through a feedback mechanism. The test cuts were monitored using an audio signal; the stability of the test cut was determined by analyzing the frequency content of the audio signal. The test result was fed back to the Bayesian learning algorithm to complete the loop. Experimental results demonstrate that the system can identify the optimal stable parameters without information about the cutting force model or the structural dynamics. The system provides a low-cost method for optimal stable parameter identification in an industrial environment.

Chatter↗

Leveraging large language models to address data scarcity in machine learning for graphene synthesis

Machine learning in experimental materials science faces significant challenges due to the scarcity of data, which are costly and time-consuming to generate, particularly when relying on in-house experiments. Literature data mining offers a potential solution but introduces issues like mixed data quality, inconsistent formats, and non-uniform reporting of synthesis parameters, resulting in partially missing and heterogeneous features across the dataset. Here, we propose data imputation and feature engineering methods that employ pre-trained large language models (LLMs) to enhance machine learning performance on scarce, heterogeneous datasets, demonstrated on graphene CVD synthesis data and the ML-HydPARK hydrogen storage dataset. GPT models perform data imputation via tailored prompting and semantic normalization of inconsistently reported features through embeddings, for example, to harmonize the complex nomenclature of CVD substrates. Beyond yielding more diverse and richer feature representations than traditional methods such as K-nearest neighbors (KNN) and Multivariate Imputation by Chained Equations (MICE), LLM-based data imputation is evaluated against dataset characteristics and prompting strategies. We vary the level of autonomy granted to the LLM, from generic prompting that leverages pre-trained knowledge for autonomous data generation to data-informed prompting that constrains outputs using target-specific information, and demonstrate which level of autonomy yields superior imputation performance across datasets and feature types. The proposed data engineering methods markedly improve downstream performance; for example, in graphene layer number classification using a support vector machine (SVM), binary accuracy increases from 39% to 65% and ternary accuracy from 52% to 72%. Fine-tuning experiments on both datasets show that combining our proposed LLM-based data imputation and feature encoding methods with numerical machine learning predictors outperforms standalone fine-tuned LLM predictors in data-scarce settings. The proposed strategies emphasize data enhancement techniques rather than refining learning architectures or regularizing loss functions, offering a broadly applicable framework for improving machine learning performance on scarce, inhomogeneous datasets.

Chemical vapor deposition↗

Enabling Efficient Sparse Computations using Linear Algebra Aware Compilers

This project developed the LAPIS compiler framework, built on the Multilevel Intermediate Representation (MLIR), to optimize sparse linear algebra operations and support performance portability across diverse architectures. The main innovation of LAPIS is the Kokkos dialect, which allows for lowering codes from a high productivity language to different architectures in an elegant way. The dialect also allows the conversion of lower-level MLIR code to C++ Kokkos code, facilitating the integration of scientific machine learning (SciML) models into applications. To extend LAPIS for distributed memory architectures, a new partition dialect was created to manage the distribution of sparse tensors and express communication patterns for sparse linear algebra operations. This dialect also supports the distributed execution of operators and includes algorithmic optimizations to minimize communication to improve performance. The project also demonstrates that MLIR can enable effective linear algebra-level optimizations, improving performance on different GPUs for both sparse and dense linear algebra kernels. Key applications of LAPIS include sparse linear algebra and graph kernels, TenSQL, a relational database management solution built on GraphBLAS, and the development of subgraph isomorphism and monomorphism kernels, showcasing performance portability. In summary, the LAPIS framework supports productivity, performance, portability, and distributed memory execution, while also enabling linear algebra-level optimizations that are challenging in traditional programming languages, with successful applications ranging from simple sparse linear algebra to complex graph kernels.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Entropic control of the free-energy landscape of an archetypal biomolecular machine

Biomolecular machines are complex macromolecular assemblies that utilize thermal and chemical energy to perform essential, multistep, cellular processes. Despite possessing different architectures and functions, an essential feature of the mechanisms of action of all such machines is that they require dynamic rearrangements of structural components. Surprisingly, biomolecular machines generally possess only a limited set of such motions, suggesting that these dynamics must be repurposed to drive different mechanistic steps. Although ligands that interact with these machines are known to drive such repurposing, the physical and structural mechanisms through which ligands achieve this remain unknown. Using temperature-dependent, single-molecule measurements analyzed with a time-resolution-enhancing algorithm, here, we dissect the free-energy landscape of an archetypal biomolecular machine, the bacterial ribosome, to reveal how its dynamics are repurposed to drive distinct steps during ribosome-catalyzed protein synthesis. Specifically, we show that the free-energy landscape of the ribosome encompasses a network of allosterically coupled structural elements that coordinates the motions of these elements. Moreover, we reveal that ribosomal ligands which participate in disparate steps of the protein synthesis pathway repurpose this network by differentially modulating the structural flexibility of the ribosomal complex (i.e., the entropic component of the free-energy landscape). Here, we propose that such ligand-dependent entropic control of free-energy landscapes has evolved as a general strategy through which ligands may regulate the functions of all biomolecular machines. Such entropic control is therefore an important driver in the evolution of naturally occurring biomolecular machines and a critical consideration for the design of synthetic molecular machines.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗

SHARP-Net: Platform for Self-Healing and Attack Resilient PMU Networks

Synchrophasor technology plays a pivotal role in developing the next generation of wide-area monitoring, protection, and control in the smart grid environment. As technology and communications infrastructures evolve, however, so do the attack surfaces in the synchrophasor network that can be exploited by advanced persistent threat (APT) actors to affect power system stability and reliability. In this paper, we propose a novel platform for developing a self-healing and attack-resilient PMU network (SHARP-Net) by instituting a state-of-the-art intrusion detection system (IDS) with an intrusion mitigation system (IMS) and an alert management system (AMS). In particular, the proposed platform detects anomalies during cyberattacks on phasor data concentrators (PDCs) based on the rules defined in the IDS, then the generated alerts are published to the IMS through the AMS. The proposed IMS proceeds to take automated corrective responses to mitigate cyberattacks by reconfiguring the synchrophasor network to isolate the compromised PDCs, and it orchestrates new PDCs to prevent the future propagation of attacks. Further, the IMS restores the system's observability by reconnecting the new PDCs to make the grid attack-resilient. In this work, the SHARP-Net platform is developed by using Python-based libraries, minimega's software-defined network, and virtual machine orchestration. We implement and validate the proposed SHARP-Net architecture by testing a PMU network in the smart grid environment. SHARP-Net showed promising performance in detecting cyberattacks and mitigating them through the network reconfiguration.

computer architecture↗

Neural network representability of fully ionized plasma fluid model closures

The closure problem in fluid modeling is a well-known challenge to modelers aiming to accurately describe their systems of interest. Over many years, analytic formulations in a wide range of regimes have been presented but a practical, generalized fluid closure for magnetized plasmas remains an elusive goal. Here, as a first step toward constructing a novel data-based approach to this problem, we apply ever-maturing machine learning methods to assess the capability of neural network architectures to reproduce crucial physics inherent in known magnetized plasma closures. We find encouraging results, indicating the applicability of neural networks to closure physics, but also arrive at recommendations on how one should choose appropriate network architectures for the given locality properties dictated by the underlying physics of the plasma.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Power Analysis of an ePump Applied to the Linear Functions of an Agricultural Planter

Like many other industries, the agricultural industry has recently ex-perienced pressure to reduce vehicle emissions while improving productivity. Electric actuation is perceived as a viable solution to replace or augment hydrau-lic and mechanical actuation. However, electrification presents challenges with regards to linear functions, where hydraulic actuators have advantages in terms of compactness, tolerance to contamination and resistance to shocks. A combined electro-hydraulic actuation architecture can leverage the benefits of both electric and hydraulic actuation, while reducing the drawbacks of both approaches. This work investigates the potential of a centralized electric driven pump (ePump) system powering the pressure-controlled linear functions of an agricul-tural planter, with the goal of improving the operating point of the main supply pump. In this application, the rotary functions are hydraulically actuated, alt-hough such a solution could be applied also to electric rotary actuation. This is accomplished by setting the ePump to boost the pressure supplied by the tractor to the level required by the linear functions. An accumulator is used to stabilize the flow requirements of the linear functions, and control the pressure supplied to the actuators. Two control schemes are proposed for the regulation of the ac-cumulator pressure, one favoring an efficient operating point for the ePump, the other favoring stable steady state operation. A simulation model of the baseline system and proposed system is developed and validated using experimental data from a full-scale machine. Using the vali-dated simulation, both control architectures are then evaluated for improvement in system power consumption and dynamic requirements on the ePump to assess their effectiveness. Both systems demonstrate significant improvement in power consumption over the baseline system, with the best solution improving effi-ciency by 64%.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Sparse Symmetric Format for Tucker Decomposition

Tensor-based methods are receiving renewed attention in recent years due to their prevalence in diverse real-world applications. There is considerable literature on tensor representations and algorithms for tensor decompositions, both for dense and sparse tensors. Many applications in hypergraph analytics, machine learning, psychometry, and signal processing result in tensors that are both sparse and symmetric, making them an important class for further study. Similar to the critical Tensor Times Matrix chain operation (TTM c ) in general sparse tensors, the $\underline{S}$ parse $\underline{S}$ ymmetric $\underline{T}$ ensor $\underline{T}$ imes $\underline{S}$ ame $\underline{M}$ atrix $\underline{c}$ hain (S 3 TTM c ) operation is compute and memory intensive due to high tensor order and the associated factorial explosion in the number of non-zeros. We present the novel Compressed Sparse Symmetric (CSS) format for sparse symmetric tensors, along with an efficient parallel algorithm for the S 3 TTM c operation. We theoretically establish that S 3 TTM c on CSS achieves a better memory versus run-time trade-off compared to state-of-the-art implementations, and visualize the variation of the performance gap over the parameter space. We demonstrate experimental findings that confirm these results and achieve up to 2.72× speedup on synthetic and real datasets. The scaling of the algorithm on different test architectures is also showcased to highlight the effect of machine characteristics on algorithm performance.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Architectural development of an ST fusion device

A recent U.S. National Academy study recommended the development of a next step Sustained High Power Density (SHPD) facility within the U.S. as an intermediate step in designing and building a Pilot Plant device. Several papers have been written describing the physics, design and engineering scoping analysis performed in developing this machine design. This paper places emphasis on the continued evolution of the architectural development of past activities to meet the requirements of an ST fusion pilot plant and power plant. The current effort centers on meeting basic physics and component requirements in a machine design that improves the chance of achieving fission level availability (95%) within an arrangement that promotes design simplicity, offsite construction with on-site modular assembly. As a prelude to both the SHPD and Pilot Plant, a scoping design of a 500MWe Spherical Tokamak Advanced Reactor (STAR) has been defined to investigate design options and physics scenarios that can successfully meet physics performance, engineering requirements and economic conditions of an ST power plant. Following a successful physics/engineering assessment, the STAR Power Plant design will be downsized to meet the specifications established in the design of a near term ST Pilot Plant

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Computational Power of Random Quantum Circuits in Arbitrary Geometries

Empirical evidence for a gap between the computational powers of classical and quantum computers has been provided by experiments that sample the output distributions of two-dimensional quantum circuits. Many attempts to close this gap have utilized classical simulations based on tensor network techniques, and their limitations shed light on the improvements to quantum hardware required to frustrate classical simulability. In particular, quantum computers having in excess of approximately 50 qubits are primarily vulnerable to classical simulation due to restrictions on their gate fidelity and their connectivity, the latter determining how many gates are required (and, therefore, how much infidelity is suffered) in generating highly entangled states. Here, we describe recent hardware upgrades to Quantinuum’s H2 quantum computer, enabling it to operate on up to 56 qubits with arbitrary connectivity and 99.843(5)% two-qubit gate fidelity. We define a class of circuits with random geometries that become hard to classically simulate in very low depth and implement them utilizing the flexible connectivity of H2. A careful analysis demonstrating the fast saturation of classical simulation complexity with depth indicates that H2 can yield data well beyond the reach of state-of-the art classical simulation methods at unprecedented fidelities. We find that the considerable difficulty of classically simulating H2 is likely limited only by qubit number, demonstrating the promise and scalability of the quantum charge-coupled device architecture as continued progress is made toward building larger machines. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

DeCross, M.↗

Smart Spectral Matching (SSM)

Smart Spectral Matching (SSM) catalogs spectroscopic data and, within the platform, investigates subtle attributes of spectral signatures from Raman and infrared spectroscopic data and enables statistical identification of connections between underlying structural units and spectroscopic information, particularly in fuel cycle materials that are amorphous or a mixture of several phases. Catalogs spectroscopic data, provides UIs for machine learning training either via JupyterHub for notebooks or domain scientist-specific views, machine learning and catalog REST API Python client libraries, and ability to identify features in files uploaded using pre-trained machine learning models. This is a "service-based" architecture with multiple applications represented by each repository in the group https://github.com/smart-spectral-matching

McDonnell, Marshall [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL↗

CRADA Final Report: CRADA Number NFE-22-09330 with General Fusion

General Fusion is developing a magnetized target fusion (MTF) approach that involves compressing an initial magnetically confined plasma inside a cavity formed in liquid metal. This approach builds from concepts initially developed under the Linus program at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and combines it with advances from compact toroid experiment (CTX) and sustained spheromak plasma experiment (SSPX) in compact toroid plasmas and coaxial Marshall gun systems. Modeling the tokamak during compression is central to designing a successful MTF device. The plasma is formed by coaxial helicity injection in the General Fusion device. Immediately after formation, the plasma has a diverted tokamak configuration with a single null. As the wall moves inwards, the plasma is repelled from the conducting surface and driven inwards by currents induced by its magnetic field in the liquid metal wall. As the liquid metal closes (or bridges) the opening of the coaxial plasma injector, the magnetic field topology alters to remove the null. Due to this, the plasma moves from a diverted to a wall-limited configuration. The liquid metal liner continues to close in and change shape, reducing in radius by a factor of ten at the peak of plasma compression. A model of the MTF plasma must be able to handle this continually varying geometry, and to be predictive, it must faithfully include the real imperfections arising in the process. In this project, we pursued a Monte Carlo approach to closures for MHD by computing kinetic electron trajectories in an MHD plasma background from simulations of GF devices. This requires enhancing the capabilities of the KORC-T code for running large ensembles of kinetic trajectories by porting it to GPU architectures and enabling workflows for large ensembles on OLCF machines. With these capabilities, it is possible to produce a large library of kinetic calculations of electron orbits evolving in plasma configurations spanning the magnetic configurations and plasma density profiles, including non-axisymmetry, arising in the General Fusion’s existing PI3 spherical tokamak device. Using ensembles will capture particles passing a single point in space in a given magnetic configuration, and the entire dataset will cover a range of global magnetic field geometries. By sampling around many starting points, this dataset will capture the spatial dependence of the plasma parameters. From this large dataset, it is possible to produce a reduced model for the kinetic effects not captured in MHD.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗