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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
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Automation of Nanoparticle Synthesis Processes in a Plasma Environment Using LabVIEW

This work presents an automated control system for the synthesis of nanomaterials by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), implemented using the LabVIEW software environment. The main objective of the study is to develop an integrated hardware-software platform that enables sequential control of the key stages of the PECVD process, including vacuum chamber preparation, pressure monitoring, working gas supply, plasma ignition, power matching, cyclic nanomaterial growth, and optical monitoring of nanoparticles in the plasma environment. The use of LabVIEW made it possible to integrate actuator control, experimental parameter acquisition, and realtime process visualization within a single automated system. The automated cycle begins with evacuation of the reaction chamber to a predefined base pressure. Transition to the next stage is permitted only after the specified pressure threshold has been reached, ensuring reproducible initial conditions for each experiment. The program then controls the supply of the working gas through mass flow controllers (MFCs). In this work, two gas-flow control modes were considered: analog control using a 0-5 V voltage signal and digital communication via RS-232 interface. It was shown that the analog approach requires accurate scaling of the control voltage, since applying 5 V corresponds to full-scale opening of the controller and results in the maximum gas flow. In contrast, the RS232 interface enables the gas flow rate to be specified directly in sccm, improving the accuracy, flexibility, and convenience of gas-environment control. After pressure stabilization, LabVIEW initiates RF plasma ignition and executes the RF matching algorithm aimed at minimizing reflected power and improving the stability of the plasma process. A separate software module implements the cyclic nanomaterial growth mode, in which the plasma-on time, plasma duration, and total number of synthesis cycles are predefined. This approach makes it possible to control material accumulation on the substrate and to correlate the process parameters with the morphological characteristics of the resulting nanostructures. The final module of the system is designed for optical monitoring of the nanoparticle cloud density in dusty plasma. For this purpose, the change in the intensity of laser radiation passing through the plasma region is recorded using a photodetector and a Keithley 2401 measuring unit connected to LabVIEW via RS-232 interface. The difference between the initial and modified optical signal intensity is used as a diagnostic parameter characterizing the formation and temporal evolution of nanoparticles. The developed system demonstrates that LabVIEW can be effectively applied not only for the automation of individual instruments, but also for the implementation of a complete digital control cycle for PECVD-based nanomaterial synthesis.

PECVD↗
DOE OSTI2022

NATS Client for LabVIEW

LabVIEW client for NATS, the cloud native messaging system.

Herron, Andrew [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oa↗
DOE OSTI2022

Design of a Combined Proportional Integral Derivative Controller to Regulate the Temperature Inside a High-Temperature Tubular Solar Reactor

Solar fuels are proven to be promising candidates for thermochemical energy storage. However, the transient nature of solar radiation is an obstacle to maintaining a stable operational temperature inside a solar reactor. To overcome this challenge, the temperature of a solar reactor can be regulated by controlling the incoming solar radiation or the feedstock flowrate inside the reactor. In this work, a combined proportional integral derivative (PID) controller is implemented to regulate the temperature inside a high-temperature tubular solar reactor with counter-current flowing gas/particles. The control model incorporates two control systems to regulate incoming solar radiation and gas flow simultaneously. The design of the controller is based on a reduced-order numerical model of a high-temperature tubular solar reactor that is vertically oriented with an upward gas flow and downward particle flow. The reactor receives heat circumferentially through its wall over a finite segment of its length. Formulation of the heat transfer model is presented by applying the energy balance for the reactor tube and considering heat and mass transfer inside. A set of governing differential equations are solved numerically by using the finite volume method to obtain reactor wall, particles, and gas temperatures along the reactor length with various boundary conditions. Simulation results are used to tune the PID controller parameters by utilizing the Ziegler–Nichols tuning method. Both the simulation results and the controller performance are visualized on the LABVIEW platform. The controller is challenged to track different temperature setpoints with different scenarios of transient solar radiation. Here, the performance of the PID controller was compared to experimental results obtained from an industrial PID controller embedded in a 7 kW electric furnace. Results show that the combined PID controller is successful in maintaining a stable temperature inside the reactor by regulating the incoming solar radiation and the flowrate via small steady-state error and reasonable settling time and overshoot.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

sCO2 heat exchanger control software

SAND2022-6992 O The sCO2 Heat Exchanger Control Software was written for control and operation of high temperature, high pressure supercritical CO2 systems designed for use as heat exchangers. The software was written using the basic LabVIEW package with LabVIEW modules added to it. The software controls valves and actuators, displays data from pressure transducers and thermocouples, and is able to record data at different storage rates. 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.

Garcia Maldonado, Luis↗
DOE OSTI2022

Performance Testing of Software Upgrade for SRNL CPC Instrument at the Nuclear Material Laboratory, Office of Safeguards Analytical Services, International Atomic Energy Agency

This report summarizes the performance testing for the Software upgrade for the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) Controlled Potential Coulometry (CPC) instrument. This upgrade is specifically to meet the needs of the Nuclear Material Laboratory, Office of Safeguards Analytical Services, International Atomic Energy Agency at Seibersdorf, Austria. The instrument hardware was upgraded in 2010, but the software continued to operate on a Windows platform using a High Tech Basic (HT Basic) application. HT Basic usage is declining. The IAEA requested an upgrade to the existing coulometer software to Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW), an object-oriented programming language in wide use and one the NML staff is familiar with. The software was developed by SRNL Software Engineer, with assistance from Electrical Engineer and Scientist. Once developed, the new LabVIEW software was validated, tested with Iron (surrogate for plutonium) and plutonium. Once testing was completed, the software was installed at the International Atomic Energy Agency Nuclear Material Laboratory (IAEA NML) coulometer, and SRNL provided hands on training to NML staff on using the new software.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2020

Experimental system for studying temperature gradient-driven fracture of oxide nuclear fuel out of reactor

Temperature gradients in ceramic light water reactor (LWR) uranium dioxide (UO 2 ) nuclear fuel pellets generate thermal stresses that cause fractures in the fuel beginning early in the life of fresh fuel. The combination of heating due to fission and forced convective cooling on the exterior of LWR fuel rods generates a temperature profile that is difficult to replicate outside the reactor environment. In the present study, a state-of-the-art experimental set-up using electrical heating to replicate fission heating was built and surrogate fuel materials such as ceria (CeO 2 ) were used to validate the system. Cracking experiments were conducted on these surrogates by inducing reactivity-initiated-accident (RIA) like temperature gradients in the pellets via induction and direct resistance heating. Induction heating was done using copper coils and molybdenum susceptors which heated the surrogates to a threshold temperature that is sufficiently high for the fuel material to conduct current. Thereafter, direct resistance heating was used by a D.C. power supply to introduce volumetric heating to replicate LWR operating conditions analogous to fission heating. The pellets were held against nickel electrodes and mounted on a boron nitride test-stand. All the tests were carried out in a stainless-steel vacuum chamber. Simultaneous real-time dual imaging of the surrogate pellet surface has been implemented using an optical and infrared camera system which will be mounted along axial and perpendicular directions to the pellet surface respectively. A beam-splitter was used to split the incoming radiation from the sample into two halves. While one of the beams is transmitted from the splitter through a bandpass filter to obtain optical images, the other beam is reflected from the splitter to the thermal camera to capture full field temperature gradients of the as fabricated pellet surface during crack initiation and propagation. In the current series of tests, a 2-color pyrometer was used for recording and comparing the surface and centerline temperatures of the surrogate pellets in lieu of the thermal camera. A LabVIEW data acquisition system has been set up for collecting useful data during experiments.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2024

AEcroscopy: A Software–Hardware Framework Empowering Microscopy Toward Automated and Autonomous Experimentation

Microscopy has been pivotal in improving the understanding of structure-function relationships at the nanoscale and is by now ubiquitous in most characterization labs. However, traditional microscopy operations are still limited largely by a human-centric click-and-go paradigm utilizing vendor-provided software, which limits the scope, utility, efficiency, effectiveness, and at times reproducibility of microscopy experiments. Here, in this work, a coupled software–hardware platform is developed that consists of a software package termed AEcroscopy (short for Automated Experiments in Microscopy), along with a field-programmable-gate-array device with LabView-built customized acquisition scripts, which overcome these limitations and provide the necessary abstractions toward full automation of microscopy platforms. The platform works across multiple vendor devices on scanning probe microscopes and electron microscopes. It enables customized scan trajectories, processing functions that can be triggered locally or remotely on processing servers, user-defined excitation waveforms, standardization of data models, and completely seamless operation through simple Python commands to enable a plethora of microscopy experiments to be performed in a reproducible, automated manner. This platform can be readily coupled with existing machine-learning libraries and simulations, to provide automated decision-making and active theory-experiment optimization to turn microscopes from characterization tools to instruments capable of autonomous model refinement and physics discovery.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2020

An experimental investigation of the effectiveness of Ar-CO 2 shielding gas mixture for the wire arc additive process

Wire arc additive manufacturing (AM) is the process by which a large, metallic structure is built layer-by-layer using a welding arc to melt a wire feedstock. A novel opportunity exists to alter the shielding gas composition to fabricate distinct geometrical features without altering the other AM parameters. In this paper, shielding gases with varied concentrations of Argon (Ar) and CO 2 was used to deposit three distinct geometric shapes (walls, infill, and overhang) using a wire-based additive manufacturing system utilizing the gas metal arc welding (GMAW) surface tension transfer (STT) process. Computer-aided design (CAD) models were sliced with a custom-built slicer, and the sliced algorithm was converted into optimal robotic toolpaths. A custom virtual instrument (VI) was built in LabVIEW to compare the temperature profiles on the surface during each deposition process. After each deposition, the geometric features were scanned, and the surface waviness value was evaluated. Tensile and Charpy impact coupons were extracted from the wall geometries in the longitudinal and transverse directions and tested. The results indicated that a higher CO 2 content produced higher melt pool temperatures to an extent, while lower contents of CO 2 resulted in a dimensionally accurate geometry. The data also indicated that the 2%/98% CO 2 /Ar blend produced scatter in tensile strength and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows significant difference. However, the intermediate range of CO 2 (5–10%) resulted in uniform tensile properties. Altogether, these results indicate that a 5%/95% CO 2 /Ar blend is the ideal shielding gas for lowering process temperatures and improving mechanical properties in wire arc additive manufacturing using the gas metal arc welding surface tension transfer process. Additionally, varying concentrations of Ar/CO 2 can be used within the same part in order to modify the local properties or process parameters such as strength, toughness, temperature, or dimensional features. This may improve overall manufacturing quality without sacrificing specific properties.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Compact automated apparatus for rapid astatine recovery from nitric acid media: Design, application, and impurity characterization

We report automation of irradiated bismuth target dissolution and astatine recovery from nitric acid media has been achieved at Texas A&M University. This process can be controlled remotely; it does not require any chemical treatment or evaporation of dissolution solution prior to the separation of above-mentioned elements on an extraction chromatography column, making the final product ready within 20 min. The accompanying radio-impurities have been identified and successfully separated from astatine, leading to greater than 99% radiopurity of the desired fractions. The system consists of only one pump and a set of LabVIEW controlled valves, and allows the connection of up to 10 different columns, providing the opportunity to prepare a variety of air dry columns, which can be different column geometries, containing astatine ready for further chemistry or shipment to desired facilities.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2024

A flexible data acquisition system architecture for the Nab experiment

Here, the Nab experiment will measure the electron–neutrino correlation and Fierz interference term in free neutron beta decay to test the Standard Model and probe Beyond the Standard Model physics. Using National Instrument’s PXIe-5171 Reconfigurable Oscilloscope module, we have developed a data acquisition system that is not only capable of meeting Nab’s specifications, but flexible enough to be adapted in situ as the experimental environment dictates. The L1 and L2 trigger logic can be reconfigured to optimize the system for coincidence event detection at runtime through configuration files and LabVIEW controls. This system is capable of identifying L1 triggers at a rate of at least 1 MHz, while reading out a peak signal rate of approximately 2 GB/s. During the commissioning phase of the experiment, the system ran at a sustained readout rate of 400 MB/s of detector signal data originating from roughly 6 kHz L2 triggers, well within the peak performance of the system.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2023

Rapid Quantification of 237 U Specific Activity for Nuclear Forensics

In the event of an unattributed nuclear explosion, rapid assessment of the short-lived uranium isotope activity and mass can provide valuable information for subsequent forensic analysis. Rapid analysis in the field is enabled by using microfluidic chemistry and deployable instrumentation. Here, this work presents a flow chemistry system, controlled in LabVIEW, that integrates three functionalities: (1) selective extraction of uranium from the sample matrix via a 3D-printed supported liquid membrane module; (2) UV–visible absorbance spectrophotometry to measure the total uranium concentration in the strip flow; and (3) a portable CdTe γ-ray spectrometer coupled to a 3D-printed flow cell to measure 237 U activity concentration in the strip solution. The system was calibrated using standard solutions, and its functionality was demonstrated using a solution of depleted uranium spiked with 237 U. Uranium concentrations of 40–5000 μg/mL were directly quantified online using a 100 mm optical flow cell, while concentrations of 0.5–10 μg/mL were quantified online using a colorimetric reagent. The mass concentration measurement takes approximately 60 min while the activity concentration via γ-ray spectrometry varies depending on the activity of 237 U, with 1 kBq/mL requiring about 30 min of acquisition time to obtain <10% uncertainty at 1σ. This platform provides a fieldable approach for quantifying uranium mass and radioactivity relevant to postdetonation nuclear debris.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2021

Instrument for spatially resolved, temperature-dependent electrochemical impedance spectroscopy of thin films under locally controlled atmosphere

We demonstrate an instrument for spatially resolved measurements (mapping) of electrochemical impedance under various temperatures and gas environments. Automated measurements are controlled by a custom LabVIEW program, which manages probe motion, sample motion, temperature ramps, and potentiostat functions. Sample and probe positioning is provided by stepper motors. Dry or hydrated atmospheres (air or nitrogen) are available. The configurable heater reaches temperatures up to 500 °C, although the temperature at the sample surface is moderated by the gas flow rate. The local gas environment is controlled by directing flow toward the sample via a glass enclosure that surrounds the gold wire probe. Software and hardware selection and design are discussed. Reproducibility and accuracy are quantified on a Ba(Zr,Y)O 3-δ proton-conducting electrolyte thin film synthesized by pulsed laser deposition. The mapping feature of the instrument is demonstrated on a compositionally graded array of electrocatalytically active Ba(Co,Fe,Zr,Y)O 3-δ thin film microelectrodes. The resulting data indicate that this method proficiently maps property trends in these materials, thus demonstrating the reliability and usefulness of this method for investigating electrochemically active thin films.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Versatile semi-batch apparatus for manometric measurement of gas–solid reaction rates

In this study, we describe the design, construction, operation, and performance of a simple and versatile semi-batch reactor that is especially useful for measurement of gas/solid reaction rates at pressures in the range of 1 mTorr to 1500 Torr. The reactor operates by repeatedly imposing small AC modulations of reactant gas pressure on top of a much larger DC pressure background. Based on the rate of pressure relaxation following each AC pulse, the reaction rate is determined. Our design is characterized by modular construction from off-the-shelf, ultra-high-vacuum-compatible components, which facilitate easy retrofitting and adaptation to a range of experimental conditions. Automated experiment control and data acquisition is accomplished via a custom National Instruments © LabView virtual instrument. Data analysis is automated using a custom series of Mathworks © Matlab scripts. We demonstrate reactor performance through measurements of hydrogenation kinetics for a composite H 2 getter material consisting of 1,4-bis(phenylethynyl)benzene mixed with a palladium/carbon catalyst.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Characterization of a new ultra-high pressure shock tube facility for combustion and propulsion studies

A new shock tube facility has been designed, constructed, and characterized at the University of Central Florida. This facility is capable of withstanding pressures of up to 1000 atm, allowing for combustion diagnostics of extreme conditions, such as in rocket combustion chambers or in novel power conversion cycles. For studies with toxic gas impurities, the high initial pressures required the development of a gas delivery system to ensure the longevity of the facility and the safety of the personnel. Data acquisition and experimental propagation were implemented with remote access to ensure safety, paired with a LabVIEW- and Python-based user interface. Thus far, test pressures of 270 atm, blast pressures of 730 atm, and temperatures approaching 10 000 K have been achieved. The extreme limitations of this facility allow for emission spectroscopy to be performed during the oxidation of fuel mixtures, e.g., alkanes diluted in argon and carbon dioxide. Ignition delay times were determined and compared to simulations using chemical kinetic mechanisms. The design, experimental procedures, processes of analysis, and uncertainty determination are outlined, and typical pressure profiles are compared with a new gas dynamics solver and empirical correlations developed across multiple shock tube facilities. Preliminary reactive mixture analyses are included with further investigation of the mixtures outlined.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

An automatic multi-precursor flow-type atomic layer deposition system

Designs for two automated atomic layer deposition (ALD) flow reactors are presented, and their capabilities for coating additively manufactured (AM) metal prints are described. One instrument allows the coating of several AM parts in batches, while the other is useful for single part experiments. To demonstrate reactor capabilities, alumina (Al 2 O 3 ) was deposited onto AM 316L stainless steel by dosing with water (H 2 O) vapor and trimethylaluminum (TMA) and purging with nitrogen gas (N 2 ). Both instruments are controlled by custom-programmed LabVIEW software that enables in situ logging of temperature, total pressure, and film thickness using a quartz crystal microbalance. An initial result shows that 150 ALD cycles led to a film thickness of ~55 nm, which was verified with Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy. This indicates that the reactors were indeed depositing single atomic layers of Al 2 O 3 per ALD cycle, as intended.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗