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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 19 records

Turbine airfoil cooling system with cooling systems using high and low pressure cooling fluids

A turbine airfoil cooling system including a low pressure cooling system and a high pressure cooling system for a turbine airfoil of a gas turbine engine is disclosed. In at least one embodiment, the low pressure cooling system may be an ambient air cooling system, and the high pressure cooling system may be a compressor bleed air cooling system. In at least one embodiment, the compressor bleed air cooling system in communication with a high pressure subsystem that may be a snubber cooling system positioned within a snubber. A delivery system including a movable air supply tube may be used to separate the low and high pressure cooling subsystems. The delivery system may enable high pressure cooling air to be passed to the snubber cooling system separate from low pressure cooling fluid supplied by the low pressure cooling system to other portions of the turbine airfoil cooling system.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Cooling Matters: Benchmarking Large Language Models and Vision-Language Models on Liquid-Cooled Versus Air-Cooled H100 GPU Systems

The unprecedented growth in artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, recently dominated by large language models (LLMs) and vision-language models (VLMs), has intensified power and cooling demands in data centers. This study benchmarks LLMs and VLMs on two HGX nodes, each with 8× NVIDIA H100 graphics processing units (GPUs), using liquid and air cooling. Leveraging GPU Burn, Weights & Biases, and IPMItool, we collect detailed thermal, power, and computation data. Results show that the liquid-cooled systems maintain GPU temperatures between 41-50$^\circ$C, while the air-cooled counterparts fluctuate between 54-72$^\circ$C under load. This thermal stability of liquid-cooled systems yields 17% higher performance (54 TFLOPs/ GPU vs. 46 TFLOPs/GPU), performance-per-watt, reduced energy overhead, and greater system efficiency than the air-cooled counterparts. These findings underscore the energy and sustainability benefits of liquid cooling, offering a compelling path forward for hyperscale data centers seeking to optimize AI infrastructure. https://github.com/iscaas/Cooling-Matters.

Latif, Imran↗

Cooling of gas turbines IX : cooling effects from use of ceramic coatings on water-cooled turbine blades

The hottest part of a turbine blade is likely to be the trailing portion. When the blades are cooled and when water is used as the coolant, the cooling passages are placed as close as possible to the trailing edge in order to cool this portion. In some cases, however, the trailing portion of the blade is so narrow, for aerodynamic reasons, that water passages cannot be located very near the trailing edge. Because ceramic coatings offer the possibility of protection for the trailing part of such narrow blades, a theoretical study has been made of the cooling effect of a ceramic coating on: (1) the blade-metal temperature when the gas temperature is unchanged, and (2) the gas temperature when the metal temperature is unchanged. Comparison is also made between the changes in the blade or gas temperatures produced by ceramic coatings and the changes produced by moving the cooling passages nearer the trailing edge. This comparison was made to provide a standard for evaluating the gains obtainable with ceramic coatings as compared to those obtainable by constructing the turbine blade in such a manner that water passages could be located very near the trailing edge.

HEAT TRANSMISSION - METALS↗

Development of a cryogenically cooled platform for the Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF) Program [Development of a cryogenically-cooled platform for the Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF) Concept]

A cryogenically cooled hardware platform has been developed and commissioned on the Z Facility at Sandia National Laboratories in support of the Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF) Program. MagLIF is a magneto-inertial fusion concept that employs a magnetically imploded metallic tube (liner) to compress and inertially confine premagnetized and preheated fusion fuel. The fuel is preheated using a ~2 kJ laser that must pass through a ~1.5-3.5-μm-thick polyimide “window” at the target’s laser entrance hole (LEH). As the terawatt-class laser interacts with the dense window, laser plasma instabilities (LPIs) can develop, which reduce the preheat energy delivered to the fuel, initiate fuel contamination, and degrade target performance. Cryogenically cooled targets increase the parameter space accessible to MagLIF target designs by allowing nearly 10 times thinner windows to be used for any accessible gas density. Thinner LEH windows reduce the deleterious effects of difficult to model LPIs. The Z Facility’s cryogenic infrastructure has been significantly altered to enable compatibility with the premagnetization and fuel preheat stages of MagLIF. The MagLIF cryostat brings the liquid helium coolant directly to the target via an electrically resistive conduit. This design maximizes cooling power while allowing rapid diffusion of the axial magnetic field supplied by external Helmholtz-like coils. A variety of techniques have been developed to mitigate the accumulation of ice from vacuum chamber contaminants on the cooled LEH window, as even a few hundred nanometers of ice would impact laser energy coupling to the fuel region. Here, the MagLIF cryostat has demonstrated compatibility with the premagnetization and preheat stages of MagLIF and the ability to cool targets to liquid deuterium temperatures in approximately 5 min.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Comparison of temperature data from an engine investigation for film-cooled and non-film-cooled, panwise-finned vanes incorporating impingement cooling

The experimental temperature characteristics of two spanwise-finned, impingement-cooled vanes, one with film cooling and one without film cooling, were investigated in a modified J-75 research turbojet engine. Values of maximum temperature, average temperature, and maximum chordwise temperature difference were compared for the two vanes at the midspan. An analytical redesign of the two vane configurations indicated that the maximum and average temperatures and the maximum chordwise temperature difference could be significantly lowered. The experimental tests indicated that suction-surface film cooling may cause increased heat transfer near the trailing edge of the vane.

Gauntner, D. J.↗

Plasma Muon Beam Cooling for HEP

Ionization cooling has the potential to shrink the phase space of a muon beam by a factor of 10⁶ within the muons’ short lifetime (2.2 µs) because the collision frequency in a cooling medium is extremely high compared to conventional beam cooling methods. It has been realized that ionization cooling inherently produces a plasma of free electrons inside the absorber material, and this plasma can have an important effect on the muon beam. In particular, under the right circumstances, it can both improve the rate of cooling and reduce the equilibrium emittance of the beam. This has the potential to improve the performance of muon facilities based on muon cooling; in particular a future muon collider. We describe how this project will integrate Plasma muon beam cooling into both the basic Helical Cooling Channel (HCC) and extreme Parametric-resonance Ionization Cooling (PIC) techniques. This potentially whole new approach to muon cooling has exciting prospects for significantly reduced muon beam emittance.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Cooling process and system for dry cooling power plants

A seasonal process that captures stores and uses water in an ambient temperature-dependent manner to improve the efficiency of a natural gas power plant, comprising: (a) providing a natural gas power plant, the natural gas power plant having a flue gas stream, a cooling tower, and a gas turbine; (b) providing a water collection system; (c) providing a water storage facility; wherein the flue gas stream comprises uncondensed water vapor; wherein the water collection system is operably connected to the flue gas stream and the flue gas stream is directed to flow, at least in part, into the water collection system; wherein the water collection system is operably connected to the water storage facility; wherein the water storage facility is operably connected to the cooling tower and the water storage facility is operably connected to the gas turbine; wherein the process comprises the following steps of condensing flue gas water or using water that has been condensed from the flue gas stream based on outdoor ambient dry bulb temperature: (I) Only condensing water from the flue gas stream to produce a condensed water stream if outdoor ambient dry bulb temperature is less than 85° F.; (II) Only using condensed water to spray cool the cooling tower if outdoor ambient dry bulb temperature is at least 85° F.; (III) Only using condensed water to fog cool the gas turbine if outdoor ambient dry bulb temperature is at least 55° F.; wherein condensed water that is not immediately used to cool the cooling tower or to fog cool the gas turbine is stored in the water storage facility; and wherein the process uses a total amount of water on an annual basis to cool the cooling tower and to fog cool the gas turbine that does not exceed the annual amount of water condensed from the flue gas stream. Optionally, the process has a cooling tower that is a dry cooling tower and condensed water is used to spray cool the dry cooling tower, or the cooling tower is a wet cooling tower, or the cooling tower is a hybrid wet-dry cooling tower. The process may further comprise a water collection system having a three stage desiccant cycle and a calcium chloride desiccant that recovers at least about 60 wt % of the water from the flue gas, operates at or above ambient pressure or comprises plastic piping or plastic vessels. Or the process may further comprise using a water collection system having at least one direct contact condensing column that recovers at least about 60 wt % of the water from the flue gas, operates at or above ambient pressure or comprises plastic piping or plastic vessels. Or the process may further comprise using a water collection system having at least one direct contact condenser and a rotating wheel heat exchanger that recovers at least about 60 wt % of the water from the flue gas, operates at or above ambient pressure, or further comprises plastic piping or plastic vessels. The coefficient of performance for the cooling process is optionally at least 2.0.

Srinivas, Girish↗

Geospatial characterization of low-temperature heating and cooling demand in residential, commercial, manufacturing, agricultural, and data center sectors for potential geothermal applications in the United States

Thermal demand for heating and cooling has been predominantly supplied by fossil fuel combustion in the United States, although low-carbon alternatives are extensively available including geothermal, solar thermal, and waste heat. Here, this study analyzed end-use energy consumption, fuel expenditure, and data center commissioned power data to geospatially characterize the U.S. low-temperature heating and cooling demand at the county level in residential, commercial, manufacturing, agricultural, and data center sectors and understand potential opportunities for geothermal applications. In the analysis, the regional-scale energy consumption data was incorporated with system efficiencies to address actual demand and was then disaggregated with weighting factors to the county level. The results indicated that total low-temperature heating and cooling demand is 16.7 EJ, combining heating demand of 10.8 EJ and cooling demand of 5.9 EJ. Overall, 59.9 % (10 EJ) of the low-temperature heating and cooling demand occurred in the residential sector. The heating and cooling demand visualized in maps represented that the geospatial distribution of heating and cooling demand in the residential and commercial sectors is governed by the number of housing units and climate zone designations, while heating and cooling demand in the manufacturing, agricultural, and data center sectors is dependent on the number and location of facilities. The results also demonstrated that geothermal heat pumps are broadly used in the residential and commercial sectors for heating and cooling in the U.S. Midwest, South, and Northeast regions but are limited in the West, implying great decarbonization potential in the future.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Overall Cooling Effectiveness With Internal Serpentine Channels and Optimized Film Cooling Holes

Abstract The overall cooling effectiveness for gas turbine airfoils is a function of the combined cooling due to internal cooling configurations and film cooling configurations. Typically, film cooling configurations are evaluated independent of the cooling effects of the internal feed channels, generally based on adiabatic effectiveness measurements. In this study, we consider the coupled effects of internal cooling and film cooling configurations through measurements of overall cooling effectiveness for film cooling holes fed by a coflow/counterflow channel and a serpentine channel. A film cooling hole designed by adjoint optimization techniques (X-AOpt) is compared to a standard-shaped hole with 7 deg forward and lateral expansions (7-7-7 SI). Experiments without film cooling showed that the serpentine channel had 35–50% greater overall cooling effectiveness than the straight, coflow channel. Experiments with the X-AOpt hole combined with a serpentine channel showed an area-averaged overall cooling effectiveness of ϕ¯¯=0.58, which was a 70% increase compared to the overall cooling effectiveness of the serpentine channel without film cooling. When the X-AOpt hole was fed with a coflow channel with similar coolant mass flowrate, the overall cooling effectiveness was ϕ¯¯=0.44, i.e., 30% lower than when using the serpentine channel. Interestingly, adiabatic effectiveness measurements with the X-AOpt holes showed a more uniform hole-to-hole performance when using the serpentine channel compared to the coflow channel.

Engineering↗

Cost-Benefit Analysis For Indonesia Building Sector: Whole-Building Cooling Solutions

The Net Zero World (NZW) Initiative Collaborative Work Program with the Government of Indonesia (GoI) includes technical assistance and investment mobilization facilitation to accelerate deployment of energy efficiency technologies and solutions for the building sector. A February 2023 U.S.–Indonesia Joint Workshop on Decarbonizing the Building Sector yielded a NZW Indonesia Building Decarbonization Working Group (NZW IBDWG) with four sub-working groups (SWG): SWG-A National Center, SWG-B Capacity Building, SWG-C Investment and Financing, and SWG-D Pilot Projects. Technical analysis of whole-building cooling solutions for tropical climates of Indonesia was conducted by SWG-A to quantify energy savings, carbon dioxide reductions, and comfort improvements offered by 12 passive or low-energy cooling strategies: ceiling fans with and without thermostat setbacks; cool roofs; cool walls; exterior awnings; exterior shades; interior shades; insulated roofs; insulated walls; low-e windows; solar window films; and natural ventilation. Leveraging the results from SWG-A, cost-benefit analysis (CBA) was conducted by SWG-C to assess the consumer and national costs and impacts associated with these 12 cooling solutions. The evaluation involved estimating life-cycle costs (LCC), payback period (PBP), net present values (NPV), annual electricity burden change for low-income households, and reduced national annual power-sector generation demand by 2030, 2040, 2050, and 2060. This evaluation can help guide Indonesia’s Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) investments in policies and programs to advance research, development, deployment, and commercial adoption (RDDCA) of efficient residential building sector cooling technologies and solutions in Indonesia. Four key energy conservation measures (ECM) have been identified to reduce air-conditioning (AC) energy demand in single-family housing in Indonesia: ceiling fan with temperature setback (to 28.1 °Celcius from 25 °C); insulated walls; insulated roof; and cool roof. This study found that low-income households with AC installations in Indonesia currently face a high energy cost burden of approximately 10%. However, by implementing a ceiling fan with temperature setback, this burden could decrease to 2.5% today and further reduce to 1.3% by the year 2060. The PBP for a ceiling fan with temperature setback is one year, indicating one of the lowest LCC and best NPV. In the planned upcoming phase of CBA, a series of building cooling improvement scenarios can be further defined, incorporating more than one ECM in combination with socio-economic factors evaluated in the initial CBA phase. Additionally, the analysis of ECM effects in multifamily housing can be expanded. This broader national analysis aims to encompass a holistic and comprehensive system-level perspective, including factors such as avoided power sector infrastructure investments, domestic job creation, domestic manufacturing job creation, and gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Analysis of radiant cooling system integrated with cooling tower for composite climatic conditions

Increased demand for cooling leads to consumption of a significant amount of energy by heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in buildings. Building envelope acts as a thermal barrier and plays a significant role in improving building energy efficiency. Radiant cooling systems often utilize building structure in the form of thermal storage and provide thermal comfort. The radiant cooling system has the potential of saving peak power in the buildings. In present study experimental and a simulation study is performed for chiller and cooling tower integrated chilled ceiling radiant cooling system for chilled water source and a parallel dedicated outdoor air system (DOAS) is used for providing latent load and fresh air requirements of the zone. Cooling tower based radiant cooling system is compared with a chiller-based radiant cooling system for achieving annual energy saving. Experiments are conducted for the chiller and cooling tower operated radiant cooling system. Based on experimental data, whole building simulation models of both cooling tower and chiller-based systems were calibrated. For both the simulation model of chiller and cooling tower operated radiant cooling system simulation were carried out for round the year. The annual simulation results show that the cooling tower operated radiant cooling system saves 14% energy as compared to the chilled water operated radiating cooling system.

Srivastava, Prateek↗

Performance Assessment of a Photonic Radiative Cooling System for Office Buildings

Spectrally selective materials show high technical potential for use as radiative cooling heat exchangers for buildings. Recent work by Stanford University has applied a photonic approach to tailor the optical properties of a coating material. In a prototype test, a radiative cooler based on that photonic material has demonstrated the ability to maintain radiator surfaces at below-ambient temperatures in the presence of intense, direct sunlight. This paper presents the simulation and parametric analysis of photonic radiative cooling system that integrates the use of the photonic radiative cooler and radiant floor cooling via the whole energy simulation program EnergyPlus. The simulation was made for a medium office building with three floors and a total floor area of 5,000 m2. Three key design parameters including the storage tank size, the radiator area, and the number of floors are expected to have a large impact on system performance were investigated in this paper. The results show that the percentage of cooling electricity savings from the photonic radiative cooling system relative to a reference variable-air-volume system has a linear relationship with the radiator area, and a quadratic correlation with both tank size and the number of floors. The findings from this parametric analysis are valuable to understand how component sizing affects system performance.

Wang, Weimin↗

Cold-air annular-cascade investigation of aerodynamic performance of cooled turbine vanes. 2: Trailing-edge ejection, film cooling, and transpiration cooling

The aerodynamic performance of four different cooled vane configurations was experimentally determined in a full-annular cascade at a primary- to coolant-total-temperature ratio of 1.0. The vanes were tested over a range of coolant flow rates and pressure ratios. Overall vane efficiencies were obtained and compared, where possible, with the results obtained in a four-vane, annular-sector cascade. The vane efficiency and exit flow conditions as functions of radial position were also determined and compared with solid (uncooled) vane results.

Goldman, L. J.↗

Late-time Cooling of Neutron Star Transients and the Physics of the Inner Crust

An accretion outburst onto a neutron star transient heats the neutron star’s crust out of thermal equilibrium with the core. After the outburst, the crust thermally relaxes toward equilibrium with the neutron star core, and the surface thermal emission powers the quiescent X-ray light curve. Crust cooling models predict that thermal equilibrium of the crust will be established ≈1000 days into quiescence. Recent observations of the cooling neutron star transient MXB 1659-29, however, suggest that the crust did not reach thermal equilibrium with the core on the predicted timescale and continued to cool after ≈2500 days into quiescence. Because the quiescent light curve reveals successively deeper layers of the crust, the observed late-time cooling of MXB 1659-29 depends on the thermal transport in the inner crust. In particular, the observed late-time cooling is consistent with a low thermal conductivity layer near the depth predicted for nuclear pasta that maintains a temperature gradient between the neutron star’s inner crust and core for thousands of days into quiescence. As a result, the temperature near the crust–core boundary remains above the critical temperature for neutron superfluidity, and a layer of normal neutrons forms in the inner crust. We find that the late-time cooling of MXB 1659-29 is consistent with heat release from a normal neutron layer near the crust–core boundary with a long thermal time. We also investigate the effect of inner crust physics on the predicted cooling curves of the accreting transient KS 1731-260 and the magnetar SGR 1627-41.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Calibrated simulation analysis for integration of evaporative cooling and radiant cooling system for different Indian climatic zones

Radiant cooling system (RCS) has proven to be an energy efficient system for meeting a building's cooling requirements. RCS is energy efficient and provides better thermal comfort compared to conventional all-air heating ventilation air conditioning (HVAC) system. To further improve the efficiency of RCS, a parallel evaporative cooling system (cooling tower) is coupled with RCS and analyzed for different climatic condition using calibrated model. A statistical analysis of weather files (based on wet bulb temperature), was used to identify the availability of useful water for cooling tower integration with RCS. A comprehensive simulation feasibility study of the application of cooling tower in RCS was performed for different cities to cover every climatic zones of India. It was found that in summer, the wet bulb temperature (WBT) of different climatic zones, except warm-humid, is suitable for the integration of cooling tower with RCS. An experimental setup was designed and developed for integration of parallel chiller and cooling tower with panel-based RCS for cooling and a dedicated outdoor air system (DOAS) for dehumidification and ventilation. Experiments were conducted for chiller and cooling tower operated RCS in Composite climate of Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. Building Energy Models (BEM) were developed for both the chiller-operated RCS and cooling tower-operated RCS in EnergyPlus and calibrated with the measured data. Using the calibrated models, performance of the system was analyzed for different climatic zones of India. A chiller-operated RCS was considered as a baseline to compare the annual energy saving potential and monthly performance of the cooling tower integrated RCS. Here, in the cooling tower–operated RCS, a total annual savings of 7% in hot and dry climates, 11% in composite climates and 20% in temperate climates was achieved compared to the chiller-operated RCS.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗