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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

Installation and commissioning of the ion source systems for the new spallation neutron source 2.5 MeV injector

The U.S. Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is a state-of-the-art neutron scattering facility delivering the world’s most intense pulsed neutron beams to a wide array of instruments, which are used to conduct investigations in many fields of engineering, physics, chemistry, material science, and biology. Neutrons are produced by spallation of liquid Hg by the bombardment of short (∼1 µs), intense (∼35 A) pulses of protons delivered at 60 Hz by an accumulator ring which is fed by a high-intensity, 1 GeV, H− LINAC (linear accelerator). This facility has operated nearly continuously since 2006 but has recently undergone a 4-month maintenance period, which featured a complete replacement of the 2.5 MeV injector feeding the LINAC. The new injector was developed at ORNL in an off-line beam test facility and consists of an ion source, low energy beam transport, and a Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ). This report first describes the installed configuration of the new injector detailing the ion source system. The first beam current, RFQ transmission, emittance, and energy measurements from the injector installed on the SNS are reported. These data not only show a significant performance improvement for our existing facility but will also make accessible the higher beam current requirements for future SNS upgrade projects: the proton power upgrade and second target station.

Welton, R. F.↗

Quantitative insights into the dislocation source behavior of twin boundaries suggest a new dislocation source mechanism

Pop-in statistics from nanoindentation with spherical indenters are used to determine the stress required to activate dislocation sources in twin boundaries (TBs) in copper and its alloys. The TB source activation stress is smaller than that needed for bulk single crystals, irrespective of the indenter size, dislocation density and stacking fault energy. Because an array of pre-existing Frank partial dislocations is present at a TB, we propose that dislocation emission from the TB occurs by the Frank partials splitting into Shockley partials moving along the TB plane and perfect lattice dislocations, both of which are mobile. The proposed mechanism is supported by recent high resolution transmission electron microscopy images in deformed nanotwinned (NT) metals and may help to explain some of the superior properties of nanotwinned metals (e.g. high strength and good ductility), as well as the process of detwinning by the collective formation and motion of Shockley partial dislocations along TBs.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

J-type Carbon Stars: A Dominant Source of 14 N-rich Presolar SiC Grains of Type AB

Here, we report Mo isotopic data of 27 new presolar SiC grains, including 12 14 N-rich AB ( 14 N/ 15 N > 440, AB2) and 15 mainstream (MS) grains, and their correlated Sr and Ba isotope ratios when available. Direct comparison of the data for the MS grains, which came from low-mass asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars with large s-process isotope enhancements, with the AB2 grain data demonstrates that AB2 grains show near-solar isotopic compositions and lack s-process enhancements. The near-normal Sr, Mo, and Ba isotopic compositions of AB2 grains clearly exclude born-again AGB stars, where the intermediate neutron-capture process (i-process) takes place, as their stellar source. On the other hand, low-mass CO novae and early R- and J-type carbon stars show 13 C and 14 N excesses but no s-process enhancements and are thus potential stellar sources of AB2 grains. And because both early R-type carbon stars and CO novae are rare objects, the abundant J-type carbon stars (10%–15% of all carbon stars) are thus likely to be a dominant source of AB2 grains.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Open-Source Framework for Data Storage and Visualization of Real-Time Experiments

Digital real time simulators (DRTS) are increasingly being used for the evaluation of power hardware and controller hardware in the laboratory prior to field deployment. Although DRTS are capable of simulating large models in real-time, it is challenging to visualize the results of large models without overdrawing or confounding the viewer. This paper provides an open-source framework for users to visualize their DRTS-based hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) experimental results in real-time. This proposed framework can be used by experimental test beds that can push data through an internet protocol based network. The proposed framework includes three main components. First, it includes the DRTS that generates and pushes the data to a relay. Second, it includes an application that serves multiple purposes, from data storage, testing, and translation of the data to a publisher/subscriber protocol. Finally, it includes libraries and applications that can be used to visualize the data by subscribing to the relay. This framework is available in open source, and it is tested using the HIL platform developed for testing advanced distribution management systems.

advanced distribution management systems↗

Relative Source Time Functions, Spectral Ratios, and Near‐Source Spallation in the Source Physics Experiment Phase I Chemical Explosions

The Source Physics Experiment (SPE) Phase I was composed of six chemical explosions at the Nevada National Security Sites (NNSS) between 2011 and 2016. The experiment provided a robust set of dense, local to regional distance observations suitable for characterizing shallow chemical explosions located within the same borehole. We investigate the time-dependent source processes of each chemical explosion using Relative Source Time Function (RSTF) estimation, derived from five linear seismometer profiles located between 100 and 2000 m of the shot location. The RSTF estimate provide a detailed characterization of each chemical explosion's time-history. Subsequent modeling efforts suggest these measurements may be useful for precise characterization of explosion processes and spallation. RSTF estimation allows us to expand our understanding of the SPE Phase I chemical explosion series. Application of these techniques contributes to our understanding of explosion source physics and facilitates future applications to additional seismic source experiments and characterization of explosion phenomenology.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Collaborative development of diffraction-limited beamline optical systems at US DOE light sources

An ongoing collaboration among four US Department of Energy National Laboratories has demonstrated key technology prototypes and software modeling tools required for new high-coherent flux beamline optical systems. New free electron laser (FEL) and diffraction-limited storage ring (DLSR) light sources demand wavefront preservation from source to sample to achieve and maintain optimal performance. Fine wavefront control was achieved using a novel, roomtemperature cooled mirror system called REAL (resistive element adjustable length) that combines cooling with applied, spatially variable auxiliary heating. Single-grating shearing interferometry (also called Talbot interferometry) and Hartmann wavefront sensors were developed and used for optical characterization and alignment on several beamlines, across a range of photon energies. Demonstrations of non-invasive hard x-ray wavefront sensing were performed using a thin diamond single-crystal as a beamsplitter.

Goldberg, Kenneth A.↗

Propagation From Deceptive News Sources Who Shares, How Much, How Evenly, and How Quickly?

As people rely on social media as their primary sources of news, the spread of misinformation has become a significant concern. In this large-scale study of news in social media we analyze eleven million posts and investigate propagation behavior of users that directly interact with news accounts identified as spreading trusted versus malicious content. Unlike previous work, which looks at specific rumors, topics, or events, we consider all content propagated by various news sources. Moreover, we analyze and contrast population versus sub-population behaviour (by demographics) when spreading misinformation, and distinguish between two types of propagation, i.e. direct retweets and mentions. Our evaluation examines how evenly, how many, how quickly, and which users propagate content from various types of news sources on Twitter. Our analysis has identified several key differences in propagation behavior from trusted versus suspicious news sources. These include high inequity in the diffusion rate based on the source of disinformation, with a small group of highly active users responsible for the majority of disinformation spread overall and within each demographic. Analysis by demographics showed that users with lower annual income and education share more from disinformation sources compared to their counterparts. News content is shared significantly more quickly from trusted, conspiracy, and disinformation sources compared to clickbait and propaganda. Older users propagate news from trusted sources more quickly than younger users, but they share from suspicious sources after longer delays. Finally, users who interact with clickbait and conspiracy sources are likely to share from propaganda accounts, but not the other way around.

social network analysis, information propagation, ↗

Millimeter-wave Point Sources from the 2500 Square Degree SPT-SZ Survey: Catalog and Population Statistics

In this work, we present a catalog of emissive point sources detected in the SPT-SZ survey, a contiguous 2530- square-degree area surveyed with the South Pole Telescope (SPT) from 2008 - 2011 in three bands centered at 95, 150, and 220GHz. The catalog contains 4845 sources measured at a significance of 4.5σ or greater in at least one band, corresponding to detections above approximately 9.8, 5.8, and 20.4 mJy in 95, 150, and 220 GHz, respectively. Spectral behavior in the SPT bands is used for source classification into two populations based on the underlying physical mechanisms of compact, emissive sources that are bright at millimeter wavelengths: synchrotron radiation from active galactic nuclei and thermal emission from dust. The latter population includes a component of high-redshift sources often referred to as submillimeter galaxies (SMGs). In the relatively bright flux ranges probed by the survey, these sources are expected to be magnified by strong gravitational lensing. The survey also contains sources consistent with protoclusters, groups of dusty galaxies at high redshift undergoing collapse. We cross-match the SPT-SZ catalog with external catalogs at radio, infrared, and X-ray wavelengths and identify available redshift information. The catalog splits into 3980 synchrotron-dominated and 865 dust-dominated sources and we determine a list of 506 SMGs. Ten sources in the catalog are identified as stars. We calculate number counts for the full catalog, and synchrotron and dusty components, using a bootstrap method and compare our measured counts with models. This paper represents the third and final catalog of point sources in the SPT-SZ survey.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

3FHL: The Third Catalog of Hard Fermi -LAT Sources

We present a catalog of sources detected above 10 GeV by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) in the first 7 years of data using the Pass 8 event-level analysis. This is the Third Catalog of Hard Fermi -LAT Sources (3FHL), containing 1556 objects characterized in the 10 GeV–2 TeV energy range. The sensitivity and angular resolution are improved by factors of 3 and 2 relative to the previous LAT catalog at the same energies (1FHL). The vast majority of detected sources (79%) are associated with extragalactic counterparts at other wavelengths, including 16 sources located at very high redshift ( z > 2). Of the sources, 8% have Galactic counterparts and 13% are unassociated (or associated with a source of unknown nature). The high-latitude sky and the Galactic plane are observed with a flux sensitivity of 4.4 to 9.5 × 10{sup −11} ph cm{sup −2} s{sup −1}, respectively (this is approximately 0.5% and 1% of the Crab Nebula flux above 10 GeV). The catalog includes 214 new γ -ray sources. The substantial increase in the number of photons (more than 4 times relative to 1FHL and 10 times to 2FHL) also allows us to measure significant spectral curvature for 32 sources and find flux variability for 163 of them. Furthermore, we estimate that for the same flux limit of 10{sup −12} erg cm{sup −2} s{sup −1}, the energy range above 10 GeV has twice as many sources as the range above 50 GeV, highlighting the importance, for future Cherenkov telescopes, of lowering the energy threshold as much as possible.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Impedance sources (Z sources) with inherent fault protection for resilient and fire-free electricity grids

Modern societies would not survive without electricity and at the same time electrical faults could cause and have caused many catastrophes—mainly deadly fires—to our societies. There are two types of electricity sources: the voltage source such as generators, charged batteries and capacitors, and the current source such as charged inductors, current-regulated rectifiers, and superconducting magnetic energy storage. An “ideal” voltage source—that is often-sought-or-intentionally engineered—generates a constant voltage irrespective of its load current, and an “ideal” current source injects a constant current irrespective of its load voltage. However, two problems exist: (1) voltage or current sources do not represent many emerging natural/renewable energy sources such as wind turbine generators, photovoltaic cells, and fuel cells, whose output voltage and current are strongly dependent on each other, and (2) a short-circuit fault to an artificially-made and controlled “ideal” voltage source or an open-circuit fault to an “ideal” current source can cause catastrophic failures of the source itself and its surrounding circuits due to large (theoretically infinite) short-circuit current or open-circuit voltage. Here we introduce an impedance source concept to represent, characterize, and model those electricity sources whose output voltage and current are strongly dependent on each other. First, we found that many electric sources with no feedback (or active) control of their output voltage and/or current are a natural impedance source with inherent fault protection at short-circuit or open-circuit faults. Second, any electrical source can be artificially controlled to mimic a natural impedance source. Finally, we show how to apply natural impedance sources and nature-mimicking artificially-controlled sources to the electricity grid—the most complex machine ever made by human beings—to realize electricity grids that are naturally stable, self-protected against electrical faults, and resilient to natural and human-made events.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

The Off-Site Source Recovery Program Capabilities in Recovering Transuranic Sealed Sources - 17599

Over the past 16 years, the mission of the Off-Site Source Recovery Program (OSRP) has been recovering disused radioactive sealed sources in the interest of national security, public health and safety. This program, which is sponsored by the National Nuclear Security Administration's Office of Global Material Security's Office of Radiological Security, is managed at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory and has recovered sources worldwide. To date, OSRP has recovered more than 38,000 sources from over 1,300 locations worldwide. Since its inception, OSRP has grown from recovering only sealed sources containing one transuranic (TRU) isotope, Pu-239, in the early days of the program, to recovering sealed sources containing several other TRU and non-TRU isotopes. Primarily, OSRP's mission includes Pu-238, Pu-239, Am-241, Cf-252, Cm-244, Sr-90, Cs-137, Co-60, Ir-192 and Ra-226 sources that are US-origin, defense related and not commercially disposable. Over the lifetime of this program the types of recoveries performed have expanded from a single site to multi-site round-up recoveries. An additional approach, referred to as self-ship recoveries, is also used in cases where only a few sources may be present at a licensee's site. In these situations, the licensee ships their source(s) to an OSRP staging facility for ultimate consolidation and disposal. OSRP recovers sources from many types of licensees, with the majority of sources being removed from industry, universities and hospitals. These include sealed sources used in industrial radiological devices like moisture-density gauges and thickness gauges, medical devices such as blood irradiators and radiotherapy devices and sealed sources from nuclear power plants, among others. The recovery and management of sealed sources is a complex process covering multidisciplinary areas, including source construction, characteristics of the radioactive material, source packaging and transportation per DOT regulations, safe and secure storage, and final disposition per waste acceptance criteria of repository sites. (authors)

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗

A Statistical Approach to Recognizing Source Classes for Unassociated Sources in the First FERMI-LAT Catalog

The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) First Source Catalog (1FGL) provided spatial, spectral, and temporal properties for a large number of gamma -ray sources using a uniform analysis method. After correlating with the mostcomplete catalogs of source types known to emit gamma rays, 630 of these sources are "unassociated" (i.e., have no obvious counterparts at other wavelengths). Here, we employ two statistical analyses of the primary gamma-ray characteristics for these unassociated sources in an effort to correlate their gamma-ray properties with the active galactic nucleus (AGN) and pulsar populations in 1FGL. Based on the correlation results, we classify 221 AGN-like and 134 pulsar-like sources in the 1FGL unassociated sources. The results of these source "classifications" appear to match the expected source distributions, especially at high Galactic latitudes. While useful for planning future multiwavelength follow-up observations, these analyses use limited inputs, and their predictions should not be considered equivalent to "probable source classes" for these sources. We discuss multiwavelength results and catalog cross-correlations to date, and provide new source associations for 229 Fermi-LAT sources that had no association listed in the 1FGL catalog. By validating the source classifications against these new associations, we find that the new association matches the predicted source class in approximately 80% of the sources.

SOURCES↗

Negative hydrogen ion sources for particle accelerators: Sustainability issues and recent improvements in long-term operations

High brightness, negative hydrogen ion sources are used extensively in scientific facilities operating worldwide. Negative hydrogen beams have become the preferred means of filling circular accelerators and storage rings as well as enabling efficient extraction from cyclotrons. Several well-known facilities now have considerable experience with operating a variety of sources such as RF-, filament-, magnetron- and Penning-type H- ion sources. These facilities include the US Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC), Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL-ISIS), Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), numerous installations of D-Pace (licenced by TRIUMF) ion sources used mainly on cyclotrons and, most recently, the CERN-LINAC-1 injector. This report first summarizes the current performance of these ion sources in routine, daily operations with attention toward source service-periods and availability metrics. Sustainability issues encountered at each facility are also reported and categorized to identify areas of common concern and key issues. Recent ion source improvements to address these issues are also discussed as well as plans for meeting future facility upgrade requirements.

Welton, Robert F.↗

An Open-Source Virtual Testbed for a Real Net-Zero Energy Community

Net zero energy communities (NZECs) are critical to ensure sustainability and resilience of modernized power systems. System modeling helps overcome technical challenges in designing and operating NZECs. In this paper, we present the modeling work based on a real NZEC. Two sets of models are developed: higher-fidelity physics-based models considering the interaction between subsystems of the studied NZEC and capturing fast-dynamics; and lower-fidelity data-driven models requiring less resource to establish and/or run. All models are validated against measurements from this real NZEC. In addition, we create a simulation framework which streamlines the processes for simulation and thus allows using developed models to form a virtual testbed. To demonstrate the usage of the virtual testbed, a case study is conducted where a building-to-grid integration control is evaluated via simulation. The evaluation results suggest that the tested control significantly smooths the power draw of the studied community and doesn’t sacrifice the thermal comfort to a great extent.

Huang, Sen↗

A portable and monoenergetic 24 keV neutron source based on 124Sb-9Be photoneutrons and an iron filter

A portable monoenergetic 24 keV neutron source based on the 124Sb-9Be photoneutron reaction and an iron filter has been constructed and characterized. The coincidence of the neutron energy from SbBe and the low interaction cross-section with iron (mean free path up to 29 cm) makes pure iron specially suited to shield against gamma rays from 124Sb decays while letting through the neutrons. To increase the 124Sb activity and thus the neutron flux, a >1 GBq 124Sb source was produced by irradiating a natural Sb metal pellet with a high flux of thermal neutrons in a nuclear reactor. The design of the source shielding structure makes for easy transportation and deployment. A hydrogen gas proportional counter is used to characterize the neutrons emitted by the source and a NaI detector is used for gamma background characterization. At the exit opening of the neutron beam, the characterization determined the neutron flux in the energy range 20–25 keV to be 6.00±0.30 neutrons per cm2 per second and the total gamma flux to be 245±8 gammas per cm2 per second (numbers scaled to 1 GBq activity of the 124Sb source). A liquid scintillator detector is demonstrated to be sensitive to neutrons with incident kinetic energies from 8 to 17 keV, so it can be paired with the source as a backing detector for neutron scattering calibration experiments. This photoneutron source provides a good tool for in-situ low energy nuclear recoil calibration for dark matter experiments and coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering experiments.

Dark Matter detectors (WIMPs, axions, etc.)↗

Search for Extended Sources in the Galactic Plane Using Six Years of Fermi -Large Area Telescope Pass 8 Data above 10 GeV

The spatial extension of a γ -ray source is an essential ingredient to determine its spectral properties, as well as its potential multiwavelength counterpart. The capability to spatially resolve γ -ray sources is greatly improved by the newly delivered Fermi -Large Area Telescope (LAT) Pass 8 event-level analysis, which provides a greater acceptance and an improved point-spread function, two crucial factors for the detection of extended sources. Here, we present a complete search for extended sources located within 7° from the Galactic plane, using 6 yr of Fermi -LAT data above 10 GeV. We find 46 extended sources and provide their morphological and spectral characteristics. This constitutes the first catalog of hard Fermi -LAT extended sources, named the Fermi Galactic Extended Source Catalog, which allows a thorough study of the properties of the Galactic plane in the sub-TeV domain.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗