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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 1,711 records · Page 95

First-principles calculations of thermal, electrical, and thermoelectric transport properties of semiconductors

The transport properties of semiconductors are key to the performance of many solid-state devices (transistors, data storage, thermoelectric cooling and power generation devices, etc). An understanding of the transport details can lead to material designs with better performances. In recent years simulation tools based on first-principles calculations have been greatly improved, being able to obtain the fundamental ground-state properties of materials (such as band structure and phonon dispersion) accurately. Accordingly, methods have been developed to calculate the transport properties based on an ab initio approach. We focus on the thermal, electrical, and thermoelectric transport properties of semiconductors, which represent the basic transport characteristics of the two degrees of freedom in solids—electronic and lattice degrees of freedom. Starting from the coupled electron-phonon Boltzmann transport equations, we illustrate different scattering mechanisms that change the transport features and review the first-principles approaches that solve the transport equations. We then present the first-principles results on the thermal and electrical transport properties of semiconductors. The discussions are grouped based on different scattering mechanisms including phonon-phonon scattering, phonon scattering by equilibrium electrons, carrier scattering by equilibrium phonons, carrier scattering by polar optical phonons, scatterings due to impurities, alloying and doping, and the phonon drag effect. We show how the first-principles methods allow one to investigate transport properties with unprecedented detail and also offer new insights into the electron and phonon transport. The current status of the simulation is mentioned when appropriate and some of the future directions are also discussed.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Validation of FAST.Farm Against Large-Eddy Simulations

FAST.Farm is a new midfidelity, multiphysics engineering tool for modeling the power performance and structural loads of wind turbines within a wind farm, including wake and array effects. Previous calibration of the tuneable model parameters of FAST.Farm has shown that its prediction of wake dynamics for a single wind turbine across different atmospheric stability conditions and nacelle-yaw errors matches well with high-fidelity large-eddy simulation at a small fraction of the computational expense. This paper presents a validation of FAST.Farm against large-eddy simulation for a series of cases - independent from those used to support the calibration - considering single-turbine and small wind-farm scenarios, which are both subject to variations in inflow and control. The validation has demonstrated that FAST.Farm reasonably accurately predicts: (1) thrust and power for individual turbines both in isolation and down the row of the small wind farm, (2) wake meandering behavior across different atmospheric conditions, and (3) averaged wake-deficit advection, evolution, and merging effects. As a result, the validation also highlights potential physics that could be improved in FAST.Farm in the future.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Autonomous stabilizer for incompressible photon fluids and solids

In this work, we suggest a simple approach to populate photonic quantum materials at nonzero chemical potential and near-zero temperature. Taking inspiration from forced evaporation in cold-atom experiments, the essential ingredients for our low-entropy thermal reservoir are (a) interparticle interactions and (b) energy-dependent loss. The resulting thermal reservoir may then be coupled to a broad class of Hamiltonian systems to produce low-entropy quantum phases. We present an idealized picture of such a reservoir, deriving the scaling of reservoir entropy with system parameters, and then propose several practical implementations using only standard circuit quantum electrodynamics tools, and extract the fundamental performance limits. Finally, we explore, both analytically and numerically, the coupling of such a thermalizer to the paradigmatic Bose-Hubbard chain, where we employ it to stabilize an n=1 Mott phase. In this case, the performance is limited by the interplay of dynamically arrested thermalization of the Mott insulator and finite heat capacity of the thermalizer, characterized by its repumping rate. This work explores an approach to preparation of quantum phases of strongly interacting photons, and provides a potential route to topologically protected phases that are difficult to reach through adiabatic evolution.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Data transfer between scientific facilities – bottleneck analysis, insights, and optimizations

Wide area file transfers play an important role in many science applications. File transfer tools typically deliver the highest performance for datasets with a small number of large files, but many science datasets consist of many small files. Thus it is important to understand the factors that contribute to the decrease in wide area data transfer performance for datasets with many small files. To this end, we (i) benchmark the performance of subsystems involved in end-to-end file transfer between two HPC facilities for a many-file dataset that is representative of production science transfers; (ii) characterize the per-file overhead introduced by different subsystems; (iii) identify potential dependencies and bottlenecks; (iv) study the effectiveness of transferring many files concurrently as a means of reducing per-file overheads; and (v) prototype a prefetching mechanism as an alternative of concurrency to reduce the per-file overhead on source storage system. We show that both concurrency and prefetching can help reduce the per-file overhead significantly. A reasonable level of concurrency combined with prefetching can bring the per-file overhead down to a negligible level.

Liu, Yuanlai↗

Transforming Science Through Software: Improving While Delivering 100×

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Exascale Computing Project (ECP) funded the development of new (and the transformation of important existing) applications, libraries, and tools that realized improvement in performance and capabilities of often 100 times or more on emerging exascale computers. This exceptional gain inspired the title of this special issue: Transforming Science through Software: Improving while delivering 100X. The term 100X refers to advancing capabilities in modeling, simulation, and analysis by a factor of 100 or more using some combination of new algorithms, optimization techniques, software libraries, and programming models, coupled with the next generation of hardware for high-performance computing (HPC). The papers in this issue share experiences with the practice and science of scientific software development, with an emphasis on developing a coherent, portable, and sustainable HPC software ecosystem for next-generation computational science. Finally, we hope to foster expanded community efforts related to the fundamental role of sustainable scientific software ecosystems in advancing the computing sciences.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Emerging Frameworks for Advancing Scientific Workflows Research, Development, and Education

Lightning talks of the Workflows in Support of Large-Scale Science (WORKS) workshop are a venue where the workflow community (researchers, developers, and users) can discuss work in progress, emerging technologies and frameworks, and training and education materials. This paper summarizes the WORKS 2021 lightning talks, which cover four broad topics: (i) libEnsemble, a Python library to coordinate the concurrent evaluation of dynamic ensembles of calculations; (ii) Edu WRENCH, a set of online pedagogic modules that provides simulation-driven hands-on activity in the browser; (iii) VisDict, an envisioned visual dictionary framework that will translate terms, jargon, and concepts between research domains and workflow providers; and (iv) Pegasus Kickstart, a lightweight tool for capturing workflow tasks' performance, including performance metrics from Nvidia GPUs.

Casanova, Henri↗

TU-F-17A-08: The Relative Accuracy of 4D Dose Accumulation for Lung Radiotherapy Using Rigid Dose Projection Versus Dose Recalculation On Every Breathing Phase

Purpose: To investigate the accuracy of 4D dose accumulation using projection of dose calculated on the end-exhalation, mid-ventilation, or average intensity breathing phase CT scan, versus dose accumulation performed using full Monte Carlo dose recalculation on every breathing phase. Methods: Radiotherapy plans were analyzed for 10 patients with stage I-II lung cancer planned using 4D-CT. SBRT plans were optimized using the dose calculated by a commercially-available Monte Carlo algorithm on the end-exhalation 4D-CT phase. 4D dose accumulations using deformable registration were performed with a commercially available tool that projected the planned dose onto every breathing phase without recalculation, as well as with a Monte Carlo recalculation of the dose on all breathing phases. The 3D planned dose (3D-EX), the 3D dose calculated on the average intensity image (3D-AVE), and the 4D accumulations of the dose calculated on the end-exhalation phase CT (4D-PR-EX), the mid-ventilation phase CT (4D-PR-MID), and the average intensity image (4D-PR-AVE), respectively, were compared against the accumulation of the Monte Carlo dose recalculated on every phase. Plan evaluation metrics relating to target volumes and critical structures relevant for lung SBRT were analyzed. Results: Plan evaluation metrics tabulated using 4D-PR-EX, 4D-PR-MID, and 4D-PR-AVE differed from those tabulated using Monte Carlo recalculation on every phase by an average of 0.14±0.70 Gy, - 0.11±0.51 Gy, and 0.00±0.62 Gy, respectively. Deviations of between 8 and 13 Gy were observed between the 4D-MC calculations and both 3D methods for the proximal bronchial trees of 3 patients. Conclusions: 4D dose accumulation using projection without re-calculation may be sufficiently accurate compared to 4D dose accumulated from Monte Carlo recalculation on every phase, depending on institutional protocols. Use of 4D dose accumulation should be considered when evaluating normal tissue complication probabilities as well as in clinical situations where target volumes are directly inferior to mobile critical structures.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Poster — Thur Eve — 29: Characterization of Patient Immobilization for Head and Neck Cancer Treatment

Purpose: Evaluate an immobilization system to determine its adequacy for the reduced margins required for proton therapy. Methods: Twelve head-and-neck cancer patients were immobilized for conventional photon radiotherapy and imaged with pre- and post-treatment cone beam CTs (CBCTs) for each treatment fraction. To quantify the patient positioning reproducibility, each CBCT was registered to the simulation CT offline. Registrations were performed using auto-match tools and a matching volume-of-interest (VOI) consisting of a 5mm expansion around the mandible, occipital bone, C1/C2 and C7/T1. For each registration, the bony anatomy in the VOI was evaluated for agreement with the simulation position using 3 and 5mm margins. Registrations were initially restricted to translational corrections. If the bony anatomy did not agree with the simulation position to within 3mm or 5mm, the auto-match was repeated with 3 additional rotational corrections. Intrafraction motion was calculated as the difference between the pre- and post-treatment CBCT matches. Results: Pre-treatment patient positioning agreed with the simulation CT to within 3mm/5mm for 62%/86% of fractions using translational matching and 84%/100% of fractions when rotations were included. Intrafraction motion averaged 1.1±0.8mm, with 12% of fractions having >2mm intrafraction motion. Post-treatment positioning accuracy was 57%/84% and 80%/100% for registrations without/with rotations. For the mandible, positioning accuracy dropped from 93% pre-treatment to 82% post-treatment. Conclusion: If rotational corrections are available, the immobilization system studied created reproducible patient positioning to within 3mm for 84% of fractions. However, intrafraction motion caused additional anatomy to fall outside the 3mm margin by the end of treatment.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

TU-AB-303-05: Clinical Guidelines for Determining When An Adaptive Replan May Be Warranted for Head and Neck Patients

Purpose: Tools are now available to perform daily dose assessment in radiotherapy, however, guidance is lacking as to when to replan to limit increase in normal tissue dose. This work performs statistical analysis to provide guidance for when adaptive replanning may be necessary for head/neck (HN) patients. Methods: Planning CT and daily kVCBCT images for 50 HN patients treated with VMAT were retrospectively evaluated. Twelve of 50 patients were replanned due to anatomical changes noted over their RT course. Daily dose assessment was performed to calculate the variation between the planned and delivered dose for the 38 patients not replanned and the patients replanned using their delivered plan. In addition, for the replanned patients, the dose that would have been delivered if the plan was not modified was also quantified. Deviations in dose were analyzed before and after replanning, the daily variations in patients who were not replanned assessed, and the predictive power of the deviation after 1, 5, and 15 fractions determined. Results: Dose deviations were significantly reduced following replanning, compared to if the original plan would have been delivered for the entire course. Early deviations were significantly correlated with total deviations (p<0.01). Using the criteria that a 10% increase in the final delivered dose indicates a replan may be needed earlier in the treatment course, the following guidelines can be made with a 90% specificity after the first 5 fractions: deviations of 7% in the mean dose to the inferior constrictors and 5% in the mean dose to the parotid glands and submandibular glands. No significant dose deviations were observed in any patients for the CTV -70Gy (max deviation 4%). Conclusions: A 5–7% increase in mean dose to normal tissues within the first 5 fractions strongly correlate to an overall deviatios in the delivered dose for HN patients. This work is funded in part by NIH 2P01CA059827-16.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

GPU-Accelerated Drug Discovery with Docking on the Summit Supercomputer: Porting, Optimization, and Application to COVID-19 Research

Protein-ligand docking is an in silico tool used to screen potential drug compounds for their ability to bind to a given protein receptor within a drug-discovery campaign. Experimental drug screening is expensive and time consuming, and it is desirable to carry out large scale docking calculations in a high-throughput manner to narrow the experimental search space. Few of the existing computational docking tools were designed with high performance computing in mind. Therefore, optimizations to maximize use of high-performance computational resources available at leadership-class computing facilities enables these facilities to be leveraged for drug discovery. Here we present the porting, optimization, and validation of the AutoDock-GPU program for the Summit supercomputer, and its application to initial compound screening efforts to target proteins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the current COVID-19 pandemic.

LeGrand, Scott↗

AERCalc v1.2.10

AERCalc is a software tool for evaluating the energy performance of window attachments (e.g., shading systems, attached window panels, etc.). All the annual energy modeling is performed by the EnergyPlus OS engine. The program incorporates a user-friendly GUI.

Mitchell, Robin↗

LinkShop v.1.0.0

LinkShop is a software tool for applying the method of Linkography to the analysis time-sequence data. LinkShop provides command line, web, and application programming interfaces (API) for input and processing of time-sequence data, abstraction models, and ontologies. The software creates graph representations of the abstraction model, ontology, and derived linkograph. Finally, the tool allows the user to perform statistical measurements of the linkograph and refine the ontology through direct manipulation of the linkograph.

Jarocki, JohnCharles↗

Mitos

Mitos is a library and a tool for collecting sampled memory performance data to view with MemAxes.

Gamblin, GeorgeT.↗

GeoGridFusion (Open-Source Geospatial Toolkit for Solar Data Integration​) [SWR-25-19]

GeoGridFusion facilitates the usage and storage of gridded geospatial satellite data by users outside of the National Renewable Lab (NREL), particularly those without access to high-performance computing (HPC) resources. This tool builds on work done by the PVDegradationTools project for DuraMAT, with the goal of making our advancements from this project widely accessible. This repo contains utilities to allow for the storage of user downloaded geospatial weather data by providing a local datastore for storage and spatial queries, supporting large-scale analyses without the need for HPC resources.

Ford, Tobin [National Renewable Energy Laboratory ↗

MiniMOD

SAND2025-03854O MiniMod is a user-friendly software tool designed to assess the performance of high-performance computing (HPC) systems. Researchers can use the program to test communication methods and computational tasks to understand how different setups can affect application efficiency. This software is particularly useful for optimizing network performance in scientific research, simulations, and data analysis. MiniMod‘s flexible design allows users to make informed decisions about their computing environments, which can enhance productivity and results in real-world applications. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

Dosanjh, Matthew [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), L↗

Hybrid Natural Gas Geothermal Combined Cycle Power Plant Analysis

Low temperature geothermal resources, including those associated with oil and gas production, are an underutilized source of low carbon energy. The present work investigates coupling of low-temperature geothermal resources with concentrating solar and/or natural gas energy sources to increase the number of locations at which power generation from low temperature geothermal resources would be technically and economically viable. Stand-alone and hybrid geothermal power cycles are simulated using SimTech IPSEpro process modeling software. Design point strategies for a hybrid power cycle that may operate with either a single heat source or two simultaneous heat input sources are considered. Additionally, off-design power plant operation is investigated to consider the impacts of the heat source availability and ambient temperature variations. The off-design analysis utilizes a modeling tool that predicts power plant performance at each time step as a function of topping cycle heat input (from gas or solar), bottoming cycle heat input (from geothermal), and ambient temperature. Addition of a steam topping cycle to an organic Rankine cycle geothermal power plant provides opportunities to increase the efficiency and power output relative to a stand-alone geothermal power plant. Additionally, use of the waste heat from gas turbine power generation in a geothermal bottoming cycle provides opportunities to increase the amount of power generation associated with each unit of carbon dioxide emitted. This paper will describe the hybrid plant configuration evaluated, discuss the predicted power cycle performance, and compare with stand-alone natural gas and geothermal power generation cases. The power cycle investigated is expected to be applicable for use with conventional hydrothermal resources as well as with geologic thermal energy storage applications and/or enhanced geothermal systems. The steam topping cycle could use a concentrated solar heat source for fully renewable hybrid plant configuration. A plant initially constructed with a natural gas topping cycle heat source could be converted to a solar heat source part way though the power cycle operational life to achieve life cycle carbon emission reductions.

concentrating solar power↗