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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 OSTI2024

Quantum extremal modular curvature: modular transport with islands

Modular Berry transport is a useful way to understand how geometric bulk information is encoded in the boundary CFT: the modular curvature is directly related to the bulk Riemann curvature. We extend this approach by studying modular transport in the presence of a non-trivial quantum extremal surface. Focusing on JT gravity on an AdS background coupled to a non-gravitating bath, we compute the modular curvature of an interval in the bath in the presence of an island: the Quantum Extremal Modular Curvature (QEMC). We highlight some important properties of the QEMC, most importantly that it is non-local in general. In an OPE limit, the QEMC becomes local and probes the bulk Riemann curvature in regions with an island. Our work gives a new approach to probe physics behind horizons.

2D Gravity↗
DOE OSTI2025

Modularization of Small Modular Reactor Facilities: Physical Protection Recommendations

U.S. nuclear power facilities face increasing challenges in meeting dynamic security requirements caused by evolving and expanding threats while keeping costs reasonable to make nuclear energy competitive. In consideration of the economic viability of small modular reactor (SMR) facilities, many designers and utilities are considering a modular approach to the construction and operation of these facilities. This modular approach considers building and operating a first unit; once the first reactor is in operation, construction will begin on a second reactor. This process would allow the vendor or utility to ensure production of energy and financial income while the second reactor is under construction. This project evaluates the feasibility of modular construction in terms of physical protection and identifies several recommendations for vendors and utilities considering this approach. To conduct this evaluation, a hypothetical three-unit SMR facility was developed, a physical protection system (PPS) was considered for the design, and a hypothetical design basis threat (DBT) was used to evaluate this PPS. Multiple outsider sabotage scenarios were examined, with adversary team sizes ranging from 4-to-8 to determine security system effectiveness. The results of this work will influence PPS designs and facility designs for U.S. domestic SMRs. This work will also demonstrate how a series of experimental and modeling capabilities across the Department of Energy (DOE) complex can impact the design and completion of security-by-design (SeBD) for SMRs considering modular construction. The conclusions and recommendations in this document may be applicable to all SMR designs.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Modular Interface for CLPS-Scale Excavators (MICE) – Feasibility Testing of a Modular Disconnect System for Regolith Manipulation Implements Focused on Excavation and Site Preparation Activies

The Artemis Program seeks to establish a sustained lunar presence and robust economy driven by re-sources available on the Moon and enabled by sup-porting infrastructure. This will require robotic manipulation of tens of thousands of metric tons of regolith. Excavation and site preparation tasks in the unforgiving lunar environment will inevitably lead to component wear and necessitate periodic maintenance and repair. System modularity and standard interfaces are key components of enabling robotic repair and maintenance. The Modular Interface for CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payloads Services) -scale Excavators (MICE) project is a funded fiscal year 2024 Internal Research and Development (IRAD) project at NASA KSC. The MICE project seeks to test concepts for modular re-configuration of a CLPS-scale excavation and site preparation rover. These concepts, henceforth referred to as Modular Disconnect Systems (MDS), allow a mobility platform to interface with regolith manipulation implements such as a bucket drum excavator or compactor. The MDS concepts allow the mobility platform to detect one implement and swap to another implement in-situ. Power and communications is fed through a dust-tolerant electrical connection on the MDS to the implement’s actuator(s) and sensors.

MICE↗
DOE OSTI2022

The Energy in Modular (EMOD) Buildings Method: A Guide to Energy-Efficient Design for Industrialized Construction of Modular Buildings

Industrialized construction has immense potential to address the growing need globally to build and upgrade the building stock to be affordable, energy-efficient, and resilient. It can also help achieve the United States' goal of a 50% reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030. Despite this potential, and the ever-increasing push for electrification and decarbonization of households in the United States, industrialized construction has not yet been leveraged specifically to help address these challenges and accelerate the pathway to meet these goals. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) aims to claim this missed opportunity by focusing on delivering affordable, grid-efficient net-zero energy (NZE) modular buildings for underserved communities to ensure an equitable transition to the future of clean energy, accelerate decarbonization of the built environment, and support the development of a high-productivity construction and energy efficiency workforce. The Energy in Modular (EMOD) method is our approach to designing, producing, and delivering affordable, net-zero energy, low-carbon, and healthier buildings at scale. The following energy efficiency strategies are part of the scope of this guide: envelope thermal control, envelope infiltration control, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, smart controls, and solar plus storage. We draw synergies between design for manufacturing and assembly, process optimization, retrofit technologies, and digitization. Our goal is to influence the improvement and production of buildings to increase performance, enhance energy efficiency, and reduce GHG emissions. This guide documents the research and development efforts initiated by a set of design objectives to "modularize" a set of energy efficiency and low-carbon strategies into a housing unit while preserving and enhancing energy efficiency benefits and decarbonization pathways. This guide is intended to serve as a framework for housing developers, housing agencies, architects, energy experts, and process engineers or factory operator personnel who are critical to today's modular builder teams. This guide focuses on specific energy efficiency strategies, decarbonization pathways, and associated processes as part of NREL's research efforts. Stakeholders may substitute other means, methods, and technologies for the ones evaluated in this study.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Modular CO 2 Capture Processes for Integration with Modular Scale Gasification Technologies: Literature Review and Gap Analysis for Future R&D

The motivation for this report is the recent focus of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) gasification program to develop modular scale gasification processes for electricity generation and other applications. Mass-produced, modular gasification systems have been proposed to decrease the upfront capital costs and to encourage flexible deployment of advanced gasification technology using a diverse set of feedstocks. To fully realize the benefits of advanced gasification technology for power generation as well as other chemical applications, precombustion carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) capture must be considered. Therefore, the aim of this report is to assess the potential of integrating modular scale carbon capture processes with modular scale coal gasification technologies, and to help guide future research and development efforts in this area.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗
NASA NTRS1978

The modular power subsystem for the multimission modular spacecraft

The block diagram, subsystems, and components of the modular power subsystem for the multimission modular spacecraft (MMS) are described. The basic design studies were guided by considerations of cost, efficiency, simplicity, and flexibility to serve a variety of missions. Components discussed are the power regulator unit, the power control unit, the signal conditioning assembly, bus protection assembly, and the 20 Ah and 50 Ah batteries. The plan for the modular power subsystem protoflight module tests is shown. The testing has four phases: (1) component level tests, (2) subsystem integration and initial performance test, (3) subsystem protoflight environmental tests, and (4) subsystem final performance tests, qualification/acceptance review and delivery.

Harris, D. W.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Modeling the use of mobile modular gas samplers in near-field detection

The Wireless Independent Noble Gas Sampler (WINGS) is a mobile, modular gas sampling system designed for use in low infrastructure environments. In the case of a suspected underground nuclear explosion (UNE), WINGS units could be deployed to detect noble gases emanating from the suspected explosion site or identify gases originating from another source entering the local area from offsite. In conclusion, this work uses the atmospheric transport modeling tool inline WRF-HYSPLIT to test the effectiveness of WINGS units around a suspected UNE site as a function of sampler density and distance from the emission point of gases from a UNE.

Air sampling↗
DOE OSTI2021

Multiobjective Modular Biorefinery Configuration under Uncertainty

With increasing interest in using biomass as a raw material for fuel, the development of biorefineries is an active area of research. However, increasing market competition, uncertainty, and environmental concerns are a few of the challenges that need to be addressed. In this work, mathematical optimization formulations are proposed to address these challenges simultaneously. A multiobjective deterministic optimization framework is proposed to address economic and environmental objectives. A two-stage stochastic optimization framework is proposed to account for uncertainties in material flow and product yields. To model the environmental objective, an environmental risk metric is proposed. Finally, as modularization is gaining popularity in the process industry due to its ability to save capital cost because of standardization and reduce time to market, a formulation for simultaneously achieving modular process design and biorefinery configuration is proposed. Furthermore, the results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Internal Model-Based Active Damping Strategy for a Back-to-Back Modular Multilevel Converter System for Advanced Grid Support: Preprint

The proposed work focuses on the possibility of achieving the reduction in the size of the interfacing filter for the grid connection for a back-to-back modular multilevel converter system with the use of third order LCL filters. To achieve the same attenuation, it is possible to reduce the size of the interfacing filters by the usage of third order filters. However, this kind of filtering comes with the limitation of having sustained oscillations due to lack of damping especially during transient changes. Therefore, in this work, a methodology has been proposed based on the principle of internal model to cater for this unwanted oscillations. The third order system is modeled inside the microcontroller with the damping enabled. The error between the output from the model and the actual are compared and the error is utilized to accomplish the active damping strategy. The proposed architecture is verified via computer simulations based on MATLAB/Simulink domain and various case study results along with their discussion is presented in this paper.

dq control↗
DOE OSTI2022

Conceptual design of the modular detector and readout system for the CMB-S4 survey experiment

We present the conceptual design of the modular detector and readout system for the Cosmic Microwave Background – Stage four (CMB-S4) ground-based survey experiment. CMB-S4 will map the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the millimeter-wave sky to unprecedented sensitivity, using 500,000 superconducting detectors observing from Chile and Antarctica to map over 60% of the sky. The fundamental building block of the detector and readout system is a detector module package operated at 100 mK, which is connected to a readout and amplification chain that carries signals out to room temperature. It uses arrays of feedhorn-coupled orthomode transducers (OMT) that collect optical power from the sky onto dc-voltage-biased transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers. The resulting current signal in the TESs is then amplified by a two-stage cryogenic Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) system with a time-division multiplexer to reduce wire count, and matching room-temperature electronics to condition and transmit signals to the data acquisition system. Sensitivity and systematics requirements are being developed for the detector and readout system over wide range of observing bands (20 to 300 GHz) and optical powers to accomplish CMB-S4’s science goals. While the design incorporates the successes of previous generations of CMB instruments, CMB-S4 requires an order of magnitude more detectors than any prior experiment. This requires fabrication of complex superconducting circuits on over 10 m2 of silicon, as well as significant amounts of precision wiring, assembly and cryogenic testing

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
NASA NTRS2010

Localized Triple Modular Redundancy vs. Distributed Triple Modular Redundancy on a ProASIC3E Reprogrammable FPGA

Field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) are used in every space application. Currently, most space flight applications use radiation hardened (RH) FPGAs, which are very expensive. There is a desire to use cheaper, commercial off the shelf reprogrammable FPGAs, which are more susceptible to radiation effects known as single-event effects (SEE). The RH parts have SEE and total ionizing dose (TID) hardened elements pre-integrated into the part. This means that the designer does not need to implement any hardening techniques while configuring the device. The COTS parts on the other hand must be mitigated by design in order to insure any form of mitigation. The design techniques this project examines concern the use of localized triple modular redundancy (LTMR) and distributed triple modular redundancy (DTMR). LTMR triples every flip flop in the device architecture while DTMR triples everything except for the global routes (clocks, resets, and enables). The testing was performed on a ProASIC3E FPGA at the Texas A&M cyclotron facility. Two design architectures were used: shift registers and counters, both with LTMR and DTMR mitigation techniques. The test results prove that DTMR is more effective at reducing SEE than LTMR. We also determined that there was not a significant difference between the use of shift registers and counters for test purposes. More testing is required to obtain additional linear energy transfer values for each architecture and mitigation technique in order to determine the most cost-effective method of SEE mitigation.

McGuffey, Alex↗
DOE OSTI2020

Modular nuclear reactors including fuel elements and heat pipes extending through grid plates, and methods of forming the modular nuclear reactors

A modular nuclear reactor comprises a plurality of sections arranged in a pattern and a side reflector material surrounding the plurality of sections. Each section includes a tank comprising a front plate, a back plate, side plates, a top plate, and a bottom plate. A plurality of grid plates are located within the tank. Each grid plate comprises a plurality of apertures and is vertically separated from an adjacent grid plate. The tank further includes a plurality of fuel elements extending through each grid plate. A plurality of heat pipes extend through each grid plate, the top plate, and an upper reflector. Methods of forming the modular nuclear reactor are also disclosed.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Modular Plasma Microreactor for Intensified Hydrogen Peroxide Production

Sustainable and decentralized manufacturing of hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) has been extensively sought to replace the energy- and waste-intensive anthraquinone process. We introduce a helical biphasic microreactor in a coaxial dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) configuration as a modular, adaptable, and scalable intensified unit for H 2 O 2 production. Geometric and operating parameters such as electrode length, applied voltage, and gas and liquid flow rates can be tuned to regulate the residence time, delivered power, and gas–liquid interfacial area. In turn, these affect the key output parameters, i.e., H 2 O 2 concentration, production rate, and energy yield. We found a direct correlation between the H 2 O 2 production rate and the product of the interfacial area and residence time in the plasma region. We investigated the H 2 O 2 formation pathways using DMSO as an ·OH radical scavenger and found that H 2 O 2 forms by the dissolution of gaseous H 2 O 2 at low interfacial areas and is enhanced probably due to the interfacial recombination of ·OH radicals at a large gas–liquid interfacial area. The reactor temperature can also be externally controlled to intensify the production rate and energy yield of H 2 O 2 . Concentrations of up to 33 mM can be attained with a small footprint reactor that features a maximum energy yield of 4 g kWh –1 . Here, the plasma microreactor could epitomize a powerful process intensification tool for sustainable and distributed chemical manufacturing.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

Modular Growth and Nucleation Formulations in Modular Plasticity Models

Recent investigations like the second and third Sandia Fracture Challenges have characterized and demonstrated the performance of a variety of failure techniques and models. These surveys have considered a wide breadth of models encapsulating both general failure criteria as well as those focusing on pore nucleation and growth. Extensive reviews exist on both topics. The former category generally consists of classic models like the Johnson-Cook or Wilkins criteria. These models were recently added to modular plasticity models in the Library of Advanced Materials for Engineering (LAME) as criteria for use with element death capabilities. The latter category was not treated in that effort. There exists a large class of failure models based on predicting the evolution of pores and failure associated with such microstructures. While the exact mechanisms and corresponding impact on the macroscale behavior remain an active area of research, a large suite of formulations have been proposed combining different features of both pore nucleation and subsequent growth. The most famous of these are based on the popular Gurson model of pore growth derived via micromechanical analysis assuming a plastically incompressible matrix. Numerous other models exist for both growth and nucleation and the Cocks-Ashby growth and Horstemeyer-Gokhale nucleation models have been used successfully in recent Sandia Fracture Challenges. This specific combination is colloquially referred to as the "BCJ-failure model as it has been frequently used with the Bammann-Chisea-Johnson plasticity model.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Design Basis Model for Hosting Small Modular Reactors

An aggressive transition from fossil fuels to other types of energy implies the need to construct a large number of nuclear power plants in the near future. However, the real and perceived risks of nuclear energy remain a significant impediment to this transition. This paper describes a comprehensive work process that combines the rigor of model-based systems engineering (MBSE) with 1) the Idaho National Laboratory's (INL) decades of experience with small reactors and with 2) modern project delivery processes. The objective is to reduce the risk of building new facilities or converting existing facilities to nuclear power generation.

42 ENGINEERING↗