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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Analysis and Recommendation of Tritium Gas Continuous Air Monitor Alarm Setpoints for the RPL Stack Exhaust

The Radiochemical Processing Laboratory (RPL) tritium continuous air monitor (CAM) is used for near real-time detection of tritium gas (i.e., elemental tritium [HT] and tritiated water vapor [HTO]) in the stack exhaust. The CAM interfaces with software developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)—called the “PNNL OS3700 Tritium Monitoring Software”—that provides near real-time estimates of tritium gas air concentrations and integrated daily activities that are calculated from measured CAM counts. The OS3700 software implements alarm setpoints to alert the facility of larger tritium gas releases that if allowed to persist, could begin to challenge permitted emission and established dose constraints. This report performs a detailed review of historical and current tritium alarm setpoints used at RPL, including discussion of the technical basis used in their development, analysis of alarm frequencies using measured historical data, and performs a detailed dose assessment using more realistic release scenarios and meteorology. Based on the results, the tritium air concentration and integrated daily tritium activity alarm setpoints will remain 2.0 × 10 -5 µCi/ml and 25 Ci/day, respectively. These setpoints achieve the right operational balance in identifying larger releases from planned tritium work at RPL, without being overly conservative so as to cause nuisance alarming. Furthermore, implied doses associated with these setpoints are well below defined and regulatory limits.

325RPL↗
DOE OSTI2021

Analysis and Recommendation of Alpha-Beta Continuous Air Monitor Alarm Setpoints for the RPL Stack Exhaust

The Radiochemical Processing Laboratory (RPL) alpha-beta continuous air monitor (CAM) is used for real-time detection of “artificial” alpha-beta particulates from the stack exhaust. The CAM interfaces with software developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory—called the “PNNL OS3300 Alpha-Beta Monitoring Software”—that provides real-time estimates of alpha-beta air concentrations and integrated activities that are calculated from measured CAM counts. The OS3300 software has alarm setpoints that can be used to provide an early indication of larger releases, that if allowed to persist, could approach defined dose limits. This report performs a detailed review of historical and current alarm setpoints used at RPL, including discussion of the technical basis used in their development, analysis of alarm frequencies using measured historical data, and performs a detailed dose assessment using more realistic release scenarios, meteorology, and adjustment factors used in estimating released stack activity. Based on the results, the alpha and beta air concentration alarm setpoints will remain 1.77 × 10 -8 µCi/ml and 3.47 × 10 -8 µCi/ml, respectively; and the alpha and beta integrated activity alarm setpoints will remain 70.22 µCi and 137.63 µCi, respectively. These setpoints achieve the right operational balance in identifying larger releases from planned radiological work at RPL, without being overly conservative so as to cause nuisance alarming. Furthermore, implied doses associated with these setpoints are below defined and regulatory limits.

325RPL↗
DOE OSTI2016

Argonne News Brief: First Sensors for Chicago’s “City Fitness Tracker”

This week in Chicago, the Array of Things team installed its first 50 nodes on city streets to kick off the groundbreaking urban sensing project. Array of Things is designed as a “fitness tracker” for the city, collecting new streams of data on Chicago’s environment, infrastructure, and activity. This hyper-local, open data can help researchers, city officials, and software developers study and address critical city challenges, such as preventing urban flooding, improving traffic safety and air quality, and assessing the nature and impact of climate change.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2017

R&D to Market Success: BTO-Supported Technologies Commercialized from 2010-2015

Technology commercialization plays an essential role in almost every facet of the U.S. economy. It spurs private sector funding that supports innovative breakthroughs, drives growth through increased productivity and product development, increases American competitiveness, and creates domestic jobs. The BTO Technology Commercialization report is an annual publication offering the latest information on successfully commercialized technologies resulting in part from BTO’s research partnerships. This report defines a “commercialized technology” as a process, technique, design, machine, tool, material, or software that was developed with funds provided at least in part by BTO, and that has resulted in domestic sales or is in use in the U.S. This definition also applies to open-source software products developed with support from BTO, all of which are currently distributed freely but are actively used for commercial purposes.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Open-air Demolition: Validation of EPA Approved Alternative Method for Emission Estimation - 19397

Emissions from open-air demolition of US Department of Energy (DOE) facilities are regulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under 40 CFR 61 subpart H. This regulation requires that facilities estimate emissions using an EPA approved method from activities such as open-air demolition prior to commencing the activity. Should those emissions exceed certain thresholds, the facility may be required to obtain an Approval to Construct or Modify the facility and/or installed monitoring methods meeting methods acceptable to EPA. There are no EPA approved methods that are specific to open-air demolition methods. For this project the DOE and CH2M Hill BWXT elected to prepare an alternative method specific to open-air demolition. EPA conditionally approved the method but required validation of the method during the demolition of the Vitrification Facility at the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) before use for open-air demolition at other WVDP structures. The validation method included detailed source characterization, close-in ambient samplers, and a comparison of measured results to predicted emissions using AERMOD (American Meteorological Society (AMS) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regulatory Model). The methods evaluated include hydraulic hammers, mechanical shears, load out of waste and handling of the debris piles. The validation method involved the collection and analysis of ambient air samples from air samplers located at strategic locations within the projected plume path of the demolition activities. The analytical results from the air samplers were then compared to ambient air concentrations predicted at the sampler locations with the EPA model AERMOD. The input to the AERMOD software is a source term developed weekly using the alternative method and material at risk disturbed during each week. To account for the building wake effects of the surrounding structures, virtual point sources were developed in the AERMOD model and placed at the locations of the demolition, debris piles, debris handling and load out areas. It was found that the factors used for hydraulic hammering were extremely conservative and that emissions from the debris pile were not only the primary emission source, but that the moisture content of the debris pile and the wind speed were critical factors that must be considered in future open-air demolition projects. Based on the results of the validation process, adjustments were made to the alternative method. The final validated alternative method provides an approach for estimating airborne emissions from open-air demolition methods and techniques. The method will be used in lieu of 40 CFR 61 Appendix D to estimate emissions from future open-air demolition projects at the WVDP. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2015

Heat pump concepts for nZEB Technology developments, design tools and testing of heat pump systems for nZEB in the USA: Country report IEA HPT Annex 40 Task 2, Task 3 and Task 4 of the USA

The IEA HPT Annex 40 "Heat pump concepts for Nearly Zero Energy Buildings" deals with the application of heat pumps as a core component of the HVAC system for Nearly or Net Zero energy buildings (nZEB). This report covers Task 2 on the system comparison and optimisation and Task 3 dedicated to the development of adapted technologies for nZEB and field monitoring results of heat pump systems in nZEB. In the US team three institutions are involved and have worked on the following projects: The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) will summarize development activities through the field demonstration stage for several integrated heat pump (IHP) systems electric ground-source (GS-IHP) and air-source (AS-IHP) versions and an engine driven AS-IHP version. The first commercial GS-IHP product was just introduced to the market in December 2012. This work is a contribution to Task 3 of the Annex. The University of Maryland will contribute a software development project to Task 2 of the Annex. The software ThermCom evaluates occupied space thermal comfort conditions accounting for all radiative and convective heat transfer effects as well as local air properties. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is working on a field study effort on the NIST Net Zero Energy Residential Test Facility (NZERTF). This residential building was constructed on the NIST campus and officially opened in summer 2013. During the first year, between July 2013 and June 2014, baseline performance of the NZERTF was monitored under a simulated occupancy protocol. The house was equipped with an air-to-air heat pump which included a dedicated dehumidification operating mode. Outdoor conditions, internal loads and modes of heat pump operation were monitored. Field study results with respect to heat pump operation will be reported and recommendations on heat pump optimization for a net zero energy building will be provided. This work is a contribution to Task 3 of the Annex.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2018

Voltron Compatible Whole Building Root-Fault Detection and Diagnosis

Buildings consume more than 40% of primary energy in the U.S. Malfunctioning sensors, components, and control systems, as well as degrading components in Heating, Ventilating and Air-conditioning (HVAC) and lighting systems are main reasons for energy waste and unsatisfactory indoor environment. Field studies have shown that an energy saving of 5-30% of total building energy consumption and improved indoor air quality can be achieved by simply applying automated fault detection and diagnosis (AFDD), followed by corrections even if these are not done in real time. Extensive research has been made on the development of component level AFDD tools in the past two decades. However, in recent years, the development of method for a whole building level AFDD has received much attention. Here, a whole building fault refers to a fault happening in one subsystem but impact on more than one subsystems, or has a significant impact on building performances, such as building’s energy consumption. Existing component level AFDD tools could fail to detect or give false alarm for faults that trigger abnormalities in multiple subsystems. Isolating such whole building faults, which have impacts on multiple subsystems, is also challenging by simply using component based AFDD solutions. On the other hand, it might be more cost-effective for medium- or small-sized commercial buildings that have subsystems (e.g. primary cooling subsystem, air loop subsystem, heating subsystem, lighting subsystem, etc.) to install one whole building level AFDD tool, rather than many component level AFDD tools, to focus on significant faults. The focus of this project is firstly to provide training opportunities in building AFDD research area for undergraduate students and to develop a workforce pipeline in building sciences. The objective of the proposed research activities is to develop cost-effective and scalable AFDD solutions for whole building level faults. The developed AFDD solution is VOLTTRONTM compatible to further increase its plug-n-play capacity and the market penetration. VOLTTRONTM is an open-source innovative distributed control and sensing software platform developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. A VOLTTRONTM compatible AFDD tool brings the benefits such as low-cost deployment, and better building to grid integration, etc. The performance of the developed whole building AFDD tools is evaluated using data collected from a mixed-use medium-sized university campus building. Another significant goal of this project is to engage undergraduate students in research activities and expose them to building control and AFDD fields. A demonstration building – Nesbitt Hall at Drexel University is identified for this study. This demonstration building has a typical HVAC system configuration, which includes a water-cooled chiller system, three variable air volume (VAV) air handling unit (AHU) systems, and a hydronic heating system. Faults, that are expected to have a whole building level impact, are artificially implemented in this demonstration building for three different seasons. Building data have been collected in this project, which include fault free building automation system (BAS) data and BAS data that contain system behaviors caused by artificially implemented and naturally occurred faults. These collected data are used to evaluate the developed whole building AFDD tools. A data-driven method, which includes a weather and schedule-based pattern matching (WPM) method and Feature based Principal Component Analysis (FPCA) method, is developed for whole building level fault detection. Parameter sensitivity tests, including snapshot window size, data sample searching pool size, etc., are implemented to evaluate the impacts of various WPM-FPCA parameters. A data-driven and expert knowledge/rule-based method using Bayesian Network (BN) and WPM is developed for whole building level fault diagnosis. The developed WPM-BN method, which includes a two-layer BN structure model and BN parameters, are either learned from baseline data or developed from expert knowledge. The developed whole building AFDD tools are evaluated using BAS data collected from the demonstration building. Using the evaluation data set, the WPM-FPCA fault detection method is evaluated under two different Principle Component (PC) retention rates, i.e., 0.65 retention rate and 0.95 retention rate. It is observed that when using 0.65 PC retention rate, the WPM-FPCA fault detection method achieves a 79% fault detection rate (this rate reaches to 85% when including the six make-up fault test cases discussed in the next bullet), while when using 0.95 PC retention rate, the WPM-FPCA fault detection method achieves 100% fault detection rate (this rate remains to be 100% when including the six make-up fault test cases). Under both PC retention rates, the WPM-FPCA fault detection method demonstrates 0% false alarm rates. Using the evaluation data set, the developed WPM-BN fault diagnosis method has successfully diagnosed thirteen (13) faults out of the fourteen (14) fault test cases. The one mis-diagnosed case exhibits fewer fault symptoms in different subsystems, when compared with other fault test cases. Overall speaking, the developed whole building AFDD solutions demonstrate satisfactory fault detection/diagnosis accuracy with very low false alarm rate. Lastly, a survey and market study has been performed to understand the existing AFDD market, including its gaps and needs.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2019

Prediction of Performance of a Pilot-Scale Dual Fluidized Bed System for Chemical Looping with Oxygen Uncoupling

Chemical looping with oxygen uncoupling (CLOU) is a variant of chemical looping combustion that involves spontaneous release of gaseous oxygen in the fuel reactor, which enables efficient combustion of solid fuel char. The University of Utah has constructed a 200 kW pilot-scale chemical looping process development unit (PDU) consisting of two fluidized beds. The CLOU oxygen carrier uses copper as the active metal, cycling between cupric (CuO) and cuprous (Cu2O) oxides. As an aid for design, troubleshooting and evaluation of the pilot system, a CFD model has been developed using CPFD Software’s Barracuda VR software. The 3D model includes both reactors, as well as loop seals and cyclone separators. Mechanisms describing CLOU reaction kinetics for cuprous oxide oxidation in the air reactor and cupric oxide reduction in the fuel reactor were adapted from previously reported experimental work. Coal char kinetics were based on the carbon-hydrogen-nitrogen-oxygen-sulfur, CHNOS, method. Submodels for devolatilization, gasification, and homogenous gas-phase reactions used preexisting relationships in the literature. Three different simulations were performed, analyzing the influence of particle properties (a base carrier and an alternate carrier referred to as cariact) and coal feeding rate (100kW, 200kW). Increased coal feeding rate caused significant increase in cuprious oxide oxidation in the air reactor as well as higher temperature. The alternate carrier predicted CO2 capture below 90%, in contrast to the other cases.

Reinking, Zachary↗
DOE OSTI2019

Prediction of Performance of a Pilot Scale Dual Fluidized Bed System for Chemical Looping with Oxygen Uncoupling

Chemical looping with oxygen uncoupling (CLOU) is a variant of chemical looping combustion that involves spontaneous release of gaseous oxygen in the fuel reactor, which enables efficient combustion of solid fuel char. The University of Utah has constructed a pilot-scale dual fluidized bed chemical looping process development unit (PDU) with a nominal thermal input of 200 kW. The CLOU oxygen carrier uses copper as the active metal, cycling between cupric (CuO) and cuprous (Cu2O) oxides. As an aid for design, troubleshooting and evaluation of the pilot system, a CFD model has been developed using CPFD Software’s Barracuda VR software. The 3D model includes both reactors, as well as loop seals and cyclone separators. Mechanisms describing CLOU reaction kinetics for cuprous oxide oxidation in the air reactor and cupric oxide reduction in the fuel reactor were adapted from previously done experimental work. Coal char kinetics were based on the carbon-hydrogen-nitrogen-oxygen-sulfur, CHNOS, method. Submodels for devolatilization, gasification, and homogenous gas-phase reactions used preexisting relationships in the literature. Results predict temperature profiles, concentration profiles, product gas composition, and CO¬2 capture efficiency. This paper presents results of a parametric study in which key operational variables were adjusted to determine the influence on simulated performance of the PDU. The adjusted variables include fuel feed rate, fuel particle size, total oxygen carrier inventory, oxygen carrier copper oxide loading, and oxygen carrier particle physical properties.

Reinking, Zachary↗
DOE OSTI2019

Collaborative Research On Ecophysiological Controls on Amazonian Precipitation Seasonality And Variability

We developed and deployed a robust and accurate instrumentation package for measurement of solar induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) from above a plant canopy. The sensor collects light from identical up and down facing hemispheric collectors. A fiber optic transmits the collected light (selected by a rotatable prism) to spectrometers located at the base of the tower. Spectra of the down welling and upwelling light were collected alternatively and stored for later analysis. SIF was retrieved by a spectral unmixing approach using high resolution spectra in the 730-760 nm band. Most other ground-based sensors base their analysis on O 2 -alpha band (760-780 nm) for SIF retrieval. We found that the former gave identical results when the atmosphere was clear, but the former was more stable in the cloudy conditions that often prevailed in the Amazon. The mechanical design and software developed for the system are available on request. The sensor was mounted near the top of an 80 m tower at K34 near Manaus in the Brazilian Amazon Forest. The sensor system proved weather-tight and functioned flawlessly over the time of deployment. Our experiment was cut short at 6 months by failure of air conditioning infrastructure at the tower. We found that SIF emitted by canopy was remarkably stable when scaled by the downwelling photosynthetically active radiation or the upwelling near infrared light. We detected a 3.4% increase in SIF over the course of the dry season. This finding is consistent with the observation that several trees in the field of view flushed new leaves in the dry season. We saw no evidence of drought stress or photo damage of the forest canopy during our study.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Methods to Account for CAP-88 PC-Omitted Nuclides in Radioactive Air Emissions From DOE Facilities

Routine research and development activities at US Department of Energy facilities can result in the release of radioactive emissions, potentially exposing the public and the environment. Such emissions are subject to certain Clean Air Act regulations, specifically those outlined in 40 CFR Part 61, Subpart H, which are enforced by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Compliance is determined in part with a dose standard. Doses to members of the public from most US Department of Energy facility airborne emissions are modeled using CAP-88 PC software, the latest version of which contains more than 1,200 radionuclides. Radioactive effluents from US Department of Energy facilities may contain radioisotopes that are not available in CAP-88 PC, and those radioisotopes must still be evaluated to determine whether doses to members of the public are below established limits. CAP-88 PC-omitted radionuclides can be accounted for using alternate methods, including the use of surrogate radionuclides. Here, this paper elucidates the process of accounting for CAP-88 PC-omitted radionuclides by providing criteria and rationale for surrogate selection, a compilation of surrogate radionuclides used in the past by US Department of Energy facilities, a discussion of alternate methods used to account for CAP-88 PC-omitted radionuclides and a comparison of methods and impacts on receptor doses. Ultimately, this paper aims to aid in the process of surrogate selection and consequently to simplify and expedite compliance with Clean Air Act regulations.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Economic and Jobs Impacts of Point-Source Carbon Capture in Cement Industry – Case Study

The cement industry accounts for an estimated 8% of global CO2 emissions, which surpasses that of the entire aviation sector. In contrast with other industries, where CO2 emissions can be drastically reduced via electrification or fuels substitution, cement production releases CO2 as part of its process, during the calcination of carbonates to yield oxides. Thus, point-source carbon capture has become a key technology in the cement industry’s decarbonization. Apart from the expected environmental benefits, point-source carbon capture in the cement industry can yield important economic benefits and create jobs. The objective of this study was to perform a preliminary assessment of the economic and workforce impacts associated with the construction and operation of a point-source carbon capture retrofit of an existing cement production facility, using as a basis the data from a front-end engineering design (FEED) study to install a 3.9 million metric tons per year (Mtpy) CO2 capture facility at Holcim Ste Genevieve cement plant in Missouri, United States of America. The advanced carbon capture technology used in this FEED study was Air Liquide’s Cryocap™ FG carbon capture technology. The study evaluated the direct, indirect, and induced economic impacts of the construction, operation, and maintenance activities of the project over its lifespan. It also covered how the project will generate new jobs, their nature, and quantity, along with strategies to prepare the workforce. To perform this study, construction, operation, and maintenance cost estimates, as well as construction and operation staffing plans from the FEED study were input into IMPLAN version 7.5 software, licensed by IMPLAN Group LLC (Huntersville, VC), to predict the direct, indirect and induced economic impacts of the project using industry multipliers from the software. Additionally, recruitment strategies were developed for hiring individuals who belong to groups that are historically underserved or underrepresented, as well as anticipated recruitment of workers from the local community (whether training will be required or if the skills are associated with an existing labor force). The analysis estimated that the construction and operation of the carbon capture at Holcim Ste. Genevive will result in over 24 thousand work-years of job opportunities, close to USD 10 billion of economic impacts, including over USD 460 million of tax revenue. These results encompass the direct, indirect, and induced effects. A strategy to maximize hiring from the project and neighboring counties was developed, leveraging training agreements with local trade groups and universities. The result of this study can be used for a strategic preliminary assessment of the potential regional economic and job impacts of retrofitting existing cement plants with point source carbon systems, and its methodology can be replicated to individual projects to aid in planning and workforce development.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2018

Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities

This work developed a new computational method for improving the ability to calculate the neutron flux in deep-penetration radiation shielding problems that contain areas with strong streaming. The “gold standard” method for radiation transport is Monte Carlo (MC) as it samples the physics exactly and requires few approximations. Historically, however, MC was not useful for shielding problems because of the computational challenge of following particles through dense shields. Instead, deterministic methods, which are superior in term of computational effort for these problems types but are not as accurate, were used. Hybrid methods, which use deterministic solutions to improve MC calculations through a process called variance reduction, can make it tractable from a computational time and resource use perspective to use MC for deep-penetration shielding. Perhaps the most widespread and accessible of these methods are the Consistent Adjoint Driven Importance Sampling (CADIS) and Forward-Weighted CADIS (FW-CADIS) methods. For problems containing strong anisotropies, such as power plants with pipes through walls, spent fuel cask arrays, active interrogation, and locations with small air gaps or plates embedded in water or concrete, hybrid methods are still insufficiently accurate. In this work, a new method for generating variance reduction parameters for strongly anisotropic, deep penetration radiation shielding studies was developed. This method generates an alternate form of the adjoint scalar flux quantity, Φ Ω , which is used by both CADIS and FW-CADIS to generate variance reduction parameters for local and global response functions, respectively. The new method, called CADIS-Ω, was implemented in the Denovo/ADVANTG software. Results indicate that the flux generated by CADIS-Ω incorporates localized angular anisotropies in the flux more effectively than standard methods. CADIS-Ω outperformed CADIS in several test problems. This initial work indicates that CADIS- may be highly useful for shielding problems with strong angular anisotropies. This is a benefit to the public by increasing accuracy for lower computational effort for many problems that have energy, security, and economic importance.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2018

Theory of Carbon Dioxide Absorption by Hanford Waste - 18208

Hanford nuclear waste has a very high pH, and Hanford tanks are ventilated with air. Air has CO{sub 2(g)} in it, which is an acid, so it has some affinity for the waste. The absorption of CO{sub 2} by the waste is important because CO{sub 2} absorption consumes hydroxide at the liquid-air interface, and the hydroxide is important for inhibiting tank corrosion. NaOH is periodically added to some tanks in order to mitigate the surface acidification. The NaOH added then becomes part of the waste and must be treated as waste, increasing the cost of the mission. The Hobbs Equation, developed at the Savannah River site, is used at Hanford to predict CO{sub 2} absorption from the tank ventilation system. In this study, the Hobbs Equation functional form is theoretically evaluated from thermodynamic calculations of CO{sub 2} absorption, and diffusion rates in the waste surface. This study theoretically justifies the empirical equation reported by Hobbs. Thermodynamic calculations performed using the Environmental Simulation Program (ESP) software on a typical double-shell tank waste composition indicate that essentially 100 % of CO{sub 2} that contacts the waste will react with the waste whenever the pH is above 10. In the 1990's, a substantial amount of data was collected on the concentration of CO{sub 2} in the off-gas of ventilated double-shell tanks at Hanford. This historic data was mined in order to determine the quantity of CO{sub 2} absorbed by the waste. The results of this data mining activity determined that tanks below approximately pH 10 (i.e., tank 241-AN-107) will show limited CO{sub 2} absorption, consistent with both the Hobbs model and the theory developed here. Two other tank with higher pH showed contrasting CO{sub 2} absorption. One showed substantial CO{sub 2} absorption, and the other showed minimal CO{sub 2} absorption despite the high waste pH in one tank, presumably because there was minimal contact between the waste surface and most of the air flow. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2016

Supply Chain-Based Solution to Prevent Fuel Tax Evasion: Final Report

The primary source of funding for the United States transportation system is derived from motor fuel and other highway use taxes. Loss of revenue attributed to fuel-tax evasion has been assessed to be somewhere between 1 billion and 3 billion per year. Any solution that addresses this problem needs to include not only the tax-collection agencies and auditors, but also the carriers transporting oil products and the carriers customers. This report presents a system developed by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for the Federal Highway Administration which has the potential to reduce or eliminate many fuel-tax evasion schemes. The solution balances the needs of tax-auditors and those of the fuel-hauling companies and their customers. The system has three main components. The on-board subsystem combined sensors, tracking and communication devices, and software (the on-board Evidential Reasoning System, or obERS) to detect, monitor, and geo-locate the transfer of fuel among different locations. The back office sub-system (boERS) used self-learning algorithms to determine the legitimacy of the fuel loading and offloading (important for tax auditors) and detect potential illicit operations such as fuel theft (important for carriers and their customers, and may justify the deployment costs). The third sub-system, the Fuel Distribution and Auditing System or FDAS, is a centralized database, which together with a user interface allows tax auditors to query the data submitted by the fuel-hauling companies and correlate different parameters to quickly identify any anomalies. Industry partners included Barger Transport of Weber City, Virginia (fleet); Air-Weigh, of Eugene, Oregon (and their wires and harnesses); Liquid Bulk Tank (LBT) of Omaha, Nebraska (three five-compartment trailers); and Innovative Software Engineering (ISE) of Coralville, Iowa(on-board telematics device and back-office system). ORNL conducted a pilot test with the three instrumented vehicles collecting real-world data during an eight-month period (October 2014 to June 2015). The vehicles logged a total of 375,000 miles and transported more than 7.5 million gallons of fuel. The drivers entered information on the telematics device about 77% of the time, with about 15% (10%) of the data showing at least one compartment with loading (offloading) valve activity, but not driver information entry for that compartment. Seven events (or about 0.7% of the trips) were identified by the boERS as having a missing fuel diversion number. The solution developed and tested in the pilot test had federal- and state-level tax auditors as its main audience. Nonetheless, the technology has to be adopted by the fuel carriers and therefore the solution had to address the needs of fuel-hauling companies and their customers (i.e., fuel theft and cocktailing). Sensors in the hatches allowed the obERS recognize when one of those were opened (always a suspicious activity, unless it happens at locations where maintenance is performed on the vehicle). The fuel-theft issue was addressed by a self-learning algorithm deployed on the boERS that continuously processed the data from the field to construct probability distributions of measures such as elapsed time of fuel loading and offloading by driver, vehicle, and compartment, valve actuation sequence, elapsed time between the first two valve actuations (by driver, compartment, and location), and other parameters. Probability thresholds, which can be set up by the carrier, determined how to classify the observed events. The boERS also kept track of valve sequencing at a given location and analyzed these actuations to help identify any suspicious activities. Technical and economic recommendations include: a) simplification of the driver data-entry task; b) reduction of system deployment cost; c) addition of capabilities that make the system more appealing to industry (i.e., identify and avoid fuel misdelivery); and d) incorporation of additional capabilities to the FDAS. Path to commercialization recommendations include: a) identify a company willing to further develop, test, and certify a hardened system with a price point the market will bear; b).transfer ERS to licensee; c) establish a fleet or fleets who want this technology for carrier benefits or trailer manufacturer who wants to offer it as optional technology; and d) identify a location for the deployment of FDAS.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Building fault detection and diagnostics: Achieved savings, and methods to evaluate algorithm performance

Fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) represents one of the most active areas of research and commercial product development in the buildings industry. This paper addresses two questions concerning FDD implementation and advancement 1) What are today's users of FDD saving and spending on the technology? 2) What methods and datasets can be used to evaluate and benchmark FDD algorithm performance? Relevant to the first question, 26 organizations that use FDD across a total 550 buildings and 97 M sf achieved median savings of 8%. Twenty-seven FDD users reported that the median base cost for FDD software, annual recurring software cost, and annual labor cost were $8, $2.7 and $8 per monitoring point, with a median implementation size of approximately 1300 points. To address the second question, this paper describes a systematic methodology for evaluating the performance of FDD algorithms, curates an initial test dataset of air handling unit (AHU) system faults, and completes a trial to demonstrate the evaluation process on three sample FDD algorithms. The work provided a first step toward a standard evaluation of different FDD technologies. Finally, it showed the test methodology is indeed scalable and repeatable, provided an understanding of the types of insights that can be gained from algorithm performance testing, and highlighted the priorities for further expanding the test dataset.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2019

Port Hope Area Initiative: Information Management for A Very Large Radiation Survey - 19567

The Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) represents the Government of Canada's commitment to the cleanup and safe, local, long-term management of historic low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) in two Southern Ontario municipalities - Port Hope. The PHAI is based on community-recommended solutions for the cleanup and safe long-term management of approximately 1.7 million cubic meters of LLRW. It is currently one of Canada's largest environmental remediation projects at a cost of over one billion dollars. The PHAI is being implemented by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) on behalf of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, a federal Crown corporation. The waste is the result of radium and uranium processing in Port Hope by the former federal crown corporation Eldorado Nuclear Limited between 1933 and 1988. The waste has been distributed in the Municipality of Port Hope through placement of contaminated materials (e.g. fill), reuse of contaminated objects (e.g. tailings use in concrete, steel posts, structural wood) and air-borne deposition. Signature contaminants of potential concern (COPCs) are Ra-226, Th-230, uranium and arsenic; however, there are an additional 17 COPCs that also need to be considered. A very large amount of information has been collected during the survey and effectively managing and analyzing this information is critical to the success for the property owners, CNL's implementation of the PHAI, and Arcadis. Data collected during the survey includes information pertaining to long-term interior radon gas measurements, interior gamma radiation surveys, contaminated objects and surfaces, exterior gamma radiation and subsurface investigations. exterior gamma radiation surveys. The information management (IM) is structured with SharePoint as a focal point supported by an EQuIS database, mobile data collection and GIS support. The IM process for this project is being advanced using recent software developments to assist with internal activities (e.g. QA) and interactions with CNL including notifications and scheduling and status of property completion. Different applications have been developed to help automate, visualize, actively track, and QA different processes using recent software developments by Microsoft. We have used SharePoint to organize and track our data. Power BI has been used to actively track and visualize our data from Interior gamma surveying to exterior drilling. The creation of dynamic/advanced visualizations in Power BI gathers data daily from our multiple sources and analyzes it for anomalous data and trends. Microsoft Flow syncs with Power BI and has been implemented to automate many processes including the QA of surveys and soil results for identification of LLRW. To tie everything together, our GIS and EQuIS systems are our primary data compilation source that makes our advanced analytics/visualization and automation/tracking our data possible. Specific examples will be discussed, as will challenges encountered during the continuing development of the IM system. The incorporation of software advancements to the existing IM system for Port Hope characterization has improved the quality of the surveys, the tracking of completion, meeting schedule requirements and providing the required data for tracking, report preparation and supporting remediation of contamination on the properties. (authors)

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DOE OSTI2017

Novel Serpentine Robot Combinations for Inspection in Hard-to-Reach Areas of Damaged or Decommissioned Structures - 17335

U.S. government agencies, particularly the Dept. of Energy, need robotic tools to handle and inspect high-consequence materials - materials for which mishandling would result in great risk to both application operators and the general public. The remediation and documentation of nuclear waste has become a problem of national significance and it cannot be addressed without robotic tools. The use of robots bypasses the danger and decreases the preparation time to handle harmful materials. In the 1980's and 90's, the US Dept. of Energy (DOE) invested heavily in robotic technologies as part of a comprehensive program of research and development aimed at enabling safer and more efficient cleanup of nuclear waste sites. For the next generation of harder, more complex clean-up problems, there is a clear need for more R and D. There is a clear need for flexible, quickly deployable robotic technologies that can be configured to respond to unforeseen situations -- or can be purpose-built for planned activities -- while keeping human workers safe, yet effective. Modularity and inter-operability are core capabilities for inspection tasks in contaminated facilities with a large variety of inspection problems. With any tool, familiarity breeds ingenuity, and ingenuity leads to new innovations in efficiency, effectiveness, safety, and performance. For example, the simple screwdriver can be held fourteen different ways by an experienced machinist who knows exactly what he or she wants to accomplish at any given moment. As a tool, robots are no different. To maximize the efficiency, effectiveness, safety and performance, redeployment and reuse of familiar tools is essential. Modularity can assist with re-deployment and modularity manifests itself in both hardware and software. In some applications of inspection of high-consequence materials, a common concern has been the simplicity of the tool -- often correlated with cost (which is not always accurate) -- in case it becomes unrecoverable. In the case of robots, which have complex user interfaces and complex dynamics of interaction, the lack of familiarity can lead to clumsy operations and reduced accumulation of knowledge. As a result, while incremental successes may be achieved with sequential uses of different robots, there often is little knowledge gain that is generalizable across multiple uses. Total cost often goes down when a more sophisticated, but more familiar tool, can be used more frequently.An example is the inspection of the H-Canyon Exhaust Air Tunnel at the Savannah River Site nuclear waste facility in the United States [1]. This is a particularly nasty environment, due to the acidic gases, large amounts of erosion and debris, and wet, mucky puddles. Over the past twelve years, six inspections have been attempted with five different robotic vehicles. In fact, these inspections have been successful with their limited, but progressively increasing objectives, although most robots have been abandoned in the tunnel. While each vehicle has cost less than $75,000 (the sacrificial part), the total costs of development have been much higher. The robots used to investigate changed much from iteration to iteration and it is not clear a strong body of generalizable expertise was built up across trials. The authors of this study demonstrated the combination of two types of modular, serpentine, re-configurable robots for locomotion over complex terrains and the inspection of hard-to-reach areas. The MOTHERSHIP is a tread/limb/serpentine hybrid robot design for locomotion over complex terrains, while the CMU snake robot provides highly articulated inspection of highly confined spaces. The demonstration at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant involves a combination of the two whereby gross locomotion is achieved with the MOTHERSHIP and the CMU Snake deploys a sensor package to gather data from behind and under obstacles. Although statically configured in its present state, the combined robot is built of individual modules for which reconfiguration has been demonstrated in both labs at Purdue and CMU. In future work, much higher degrees of reconfiguration and re-purposing of both software and hardware are easily achievable with these unique platforms. (authors)

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