PHM-RIAM Tools and Future Directions
Presentation for South Texas project meeting
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
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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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Power uprates core design and safety analyses
RELAP5-3D power uprates core design and safety analyses for the DOE LWRS - Power Uprate Project.
21 - SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLAN↗
An investigation of transitional management problems for the NSTS at NASA, executive summary
A summary is given of the work of the University of Houston research team for the third quarter of effort in a yearly grant for the National Space Transportation System (NSTS). As such it serves as a resting place for the ideas and concepts developed this quarter with the collaboration of the Management Integration Offices of NASA. Another objective is the hope that the report will help to stimulate the healthy problem solving process already present at NASA. The main goal of the contractual work is to help NASA to find ways and means of moving into a truly operational era with the shuttle program. This work is a continuation of early work and the reader is encouraged to read the final reports of earlier years. Chapter One of the report is an introduction. Chapter Two deals with industrial adaptation and is in two parts: theory and application. In the theory section, impressions of the management system immediately after reflight are discussed. A key issue, in the author's opinion is the seeming lack of purpose of the program. The application section has six appendices: 1988 Demographic Survey, Field Notes of Interview with HL/P South Texas Nuclear Project, a comparison of the Agendas of the current manager with that of a previous manager, a note on compartmentalization to assist in manifesting, a study on launch prediction for STS-26, and a discussion of a statistical decision-making course for upper level managers. Chapter Three deals with theoretical results returned on flow shop scheduling which will be of use downstream. Chapter Four deals with a statistical model developed to predict the flight rate in future years and indicates the program will have trouble making its schedule. Chapter Five covers the constructural effort and shows the work to be on schedule.
Hunsucker, John↗
Objective method for analysis and tracking of convective cells as seen by radar
A special method has been developed for the study of cells that are embedded in convective rain systems. This method consists of a package of computer programs that use pattern recognition techniques on three-dimensional digital radar data to identify the rain cells, track them with time, and calculate their properties. The product of the computations is a comprehensive database of physically meaningful properties of rain cells, which can be used to infer the internal structure and the dynamics of convective rain systems. The cell-tracking method has been applied to the summer convective clouds of south Florida for the following purposes: (1) derivation of the relationship between the echo top height and the precipitation characteristics (e.g., area, water yield, rain intensity and duration of the rain cells); (2) study of the microphysical behaviorof cumulus clouds in relation to their cell properties; (3) evaluation of the effect of seeding on cumulus clouds on the cell scale; and (4) examination of cloud-to-ground lightning discharges in relation to convective cell intensity. The cell-tracking method is also currently being used in rain enhancement projects in Texas, Israel, and South Africa. The cell-tracking method, its products and their use in meteorological research are described in this paper.
Rosenfeld, Daniel↗
Initial Risk Inventory for Commercial Scale Storage Sites
The “Southeast Regional CO 2 Utilization and Storage Acceleration Partnership” (SECARB-USA) project supports the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy's (FE) mission to help the United States meet its need for secure, affordable, and environmentally sound fossil energy supplies by utilizing the advancements made since 2003 by the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (RCSP) Initiative to continue to identify and address knowledge gaps. The SECARB-USA regional initiative encompasses the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and portions of Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia. The primary objective of the project is to identify and address regional onshore storage and transport challenges facing commercial deployment of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies. This document provides an overview of risks relevant to commercial CCUS projects.
01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
Reservoir Drought Resilience Under Future Warming Scenarios: Regional Disparities Across Heavily Regulated US Basins
Droughts across the U.S. have imposed substantial challenges to the management of water resources. Reservoir drought, one type of hydrological drought, is characterized by abnormally low reservoir storage levels, reflecting combined impacts of natural water shortages and water management practices. We investigate how reservoir drought signatures, particularly onset, severity, duration, recovery and frequency, may shift under rising temperatures, and how these shifts vary by reservoir typology and degree of regulation. By coupling atmosphere-land-river models with reservoir operations at ~12-km resolution, we simulated reservoir storage and characterized reservoir droughts across five heavily regulated U.S. basins. Our findings reveal significant regional and functional disparities in reservoir drought resilience under the scenario of rising temperatures. Reservoirs in the Texas-Gulf region are projected to become more resilient, while systems in the Upper Colorado and South Atlantic-Gulf regions face increased risk due to prolonged drought durations and slower recovery. With respect to primary function, reservoirs used for irrigation and hydropower, particularly those with smaller storage capacity and lower degrees of regulation, are most susceptible to future drought stress. These results are valuable in understanding water availability in highly regulated environments, and the influence of hydrometeorological conditions on storage dynamics. Overall, this study provides the first of its kind benchmark for reservoir droughts at a continental scale to support evolving multi-sectoral drought mitigation efforts. Future research is needed to link reservoir drought conditions to actual supply shortages across competing water uses, while leveraging existing adaptive management strategies and coordinated reservoir operations.
reservoir↗
Applications of remote sensing surveys in Texas
The grant project continues to introduce remote sensing technology to users in Texas and other regions in the South through presentation of papers and briefings at technical and professional meetings.
Source record↗
An Analysis of Future Wind Energy Resources and Cost Uncertainties Across the United States
Wind power is a growing source of energy generation that relies on complex global atmospheric and earth system processes. There has been evidence of reductions in average wind speeds over land in North America since the 1980s, and several models project that average wind speeds will continue to decrease. Concurrently, the cost of wind energy systems in the United States has been decreasing since around 2010, a trend also projected to continue. There is considerable uncertainty in these future projections, with quantitative estimates of future wind resource and system costs varying widely. To study this, we run wind energy models with possible future system costs, turbine designs, and meteorological inputs from multiple downscaled earth system models over the contiguous United States. Changes in mean annual energy production from 2000-2019 to 2040-2059 can be as high as +10% in South Texas or as low as -20% in Iowa. Larger turbines and moderate reductions in system costs can offset the largest projected decreases in wind resource, but much uncertainty remains in the extent to which wind resources will change and to what extent system costs can be reduced. An analysis of variance shows, in several states in the Midwest, uncertainty in future wind resources can influence the cost of wind energy nearly as much as uncertainty in future system costs.
17 WIND ENERGY↗
MARMOK-Oscillating Water Column: WEC Tank Testing Campaign Data (November 2022)
The main objective of this project is advancing towards the commercial viability of IDOM's floating Oscillating Water Column (OWC) technology by performing a detailed WEC design to fit PacWave-South site conditions. This includes tank testing campaign data conducted by IDOM at TEXAS A&M OTRC wave basin. This submission has the tank wave test data, summary of the project, and details on specifics of the project.
16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
Southeast Regional CO 2 Utilization and Storage Acceleration Partnership (SECARB-USA): Risk Inventory for Commercial Storage Projects
The “Southeast Regional CO2 Utilization and Storage Acceleration Partnership” (SECARB USA) project supports the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Odice of Fossil Energy's (FE) mission to help the United States meet its need for secure, adordable, and environmentally sound fossil energy supplies by utilizing the advancements made since 2003 by the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (RCSP) Initiative to continue to identify and address knowledge gaps. The SECARB-USA regional initiative encompasses the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and portions of Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia as noted in Figure 1. The primary objective of the project is to identify and address regional onshore storage and transport challenges facing commercial deployment of carbon dioxide (CO2) capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies.
42 ENGINEERING↗
Southeast Regional CO 2 Utilization and Storage Acceleration Partnership (SECARB-USA): A Sub-Basin Framework for Future CO 2 Infrastructure Development (Task 4.1.a)
The “Southeast Regional CO 2 Utilization and Storage Acceleration Partnership” (SECARB-USA) project supports the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy's (FE) mission to help the United States meet its need for secure, affordable, and environmentally sound fossil energy supplies by utilizing the advancements made since 2003 by the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (RCSP) Initiative to continue to identify and address knowledge gaps. The SECARB-USA regional initiative encompasses the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and portions of Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia as noted in Figure 1.1. The primary objective of the project is to identify and address regional onshore storage and transport challenges facing commercial deployment of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies.
42 ENGINEERING↗
Data-Driven Modeling and Control of Systems with Plasma-Surface Interactions (Final Technical Report)
This final technical report summarizes the activities and accomplishments in the period from February 2023 thru January 2026. The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the physical mechanisms and processes underlying the formation of structures and patterns in systems with plasma-surface interactions. In the past decades, there have been extensive studies on the interaction of glow discharges, dielectric barrier discharges, and arc discharges with confining or intervening surfaces. The advancement of the understanding of these phenomena is not only of fundamental scientific interest and relevance to the knowledge of the plasma state, but also with profound implications in various technological applications. The research will integrate theoretical, computational, and experimental work within an innovative framework of data assimilation, i.e., optimally combining model predictions with measurements. The scientific merit of this research has three aspects. Firstly, it extends the studies of plasma-surface interactions to systems with insulator surfaces and multi-layer systems, while existing studies are predominantly on electrode surfaces. Secondly, it expects to develop a novel data-driven modeling approach based on data assimilation to enhance the predictive and control capabilities, which could make transformative contributions to basic plasma research. Thirdly, it will shed new light on outstanding problems related to formation of patterns interfacing plasmas. This project also aims to launch an education and outreach initiative at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, a non-R1, minority-serving institution in South Texas. The initiative is structured as a four-tier pyramid. Tier one will be a webinar series for culture and capacity building to inform broader audience in the region about the research fields of plasma science and engineering. Tier two will be the creation and offering of an upper-level undergraduate course on introductory plasma physics, which will help with the recruitment for the upper tiers. On tier three, we will engage and mentor senior design students to conduct work toward the research goal of this project. There will also be a certificate program on general plasma science for undergrad and graduate students, part of which will be lab training at Princeton University. Tier four will be the supervision and mentoring of Ph.D. students. Therefore, this project will systematically expand the talent pipeline, broaden participation from communities historically and geographically underrepresented in DOE SC research portfolio, significantly improve the research and education capacity at the PI’s institution, and contribute to developing a diverse workforce in plasma science and engineering.
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
AgRISTARS: Supporting research. US crop calendars in support of the early warning project
The crop calendars produced for the Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE) and crop calendar samples for Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Texas are presented. These calendars are based on weekly crop reporting district level observations of the percentage of various crops at several growth stages. A sample of the statistical treatments of the weekly data is provided. Four to five years of 50-percent dates for stages on a crop reporting district level for Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio and Wisconsin are also given.
Hodges, T.↗
Vulnerability of Wetlands Due to Projected Sea-Level Rise in the Coastal Plains of the South and Southeast United States
Coastal wetlands are vulnerable to accelerated sea-level rise, yet knowledge about their extent and distribution is often limited. We developed a land cover classification of wetlands in the coastal plains of the southern United States along the Gulf of Mexico (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida) using 6161 very-high (2 m per pixel) resolution WorldView-2 and WorldView-3 satellite images from 2012 to 2015. Area extent estimations were obtained for the following vegetated classes: marsh, scrub, grass, forested upland, and forested wetland, located in elevation brackets between 0 and 10 m above sea level at 0.1 m intervals. Sea-level trends were estimated for each coastal state using tide gauge data collected over the period 1983–2021 and projected for 2100 using the trend estimated over that period. These trends were considered conservative, as sea level rise in the region accelerated between 2010 and 2021. Estimated losses in vegetation area due to sea level rise by 2100 are projected to be at least 12,587 km 2 , of which 3224 km 2 would be coastal wetlands. Louisiana is expected to suffer the largest losses in vegetation (80%) and coastal wetlands (75%) by 2100. Such high-resolution coastal mapping products help to guide adaptation plans in the region, including planning for wetland conservation and coastal development.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Future Wind Energy Resources and Cost Uncertainties Across the United States
This dataset contains results estimating projections of change of annual capacity factors and levelized cost of energy for several turbine technologies in the 2024 Annual Technology Baseline (ATB). Projections of change are based on downscaled earth system model (ESM) data from Sup3rCC. There has been evidence of reductions in average wind speeds over land in North America since the 1980s, and several models project that average wind speeds will continue to decrease. Concurrently, the cost of wind energy systems in the United States has been decreasing since around 2010, a trend also projected to continue. There is considerable uncertainty in these future projections, with quantitative estimates of future wind resource and system costs varying widely. To study this, we run land-based wind energy models with a range of possible future system costs, turbine designs, and meteorological inputs from multiple downscaled earth system models over the contiguous United States to estimate critical system performance metrics such as annual energy production (AEP) and levelized cost of energy. Where multiple earth system models agree, changes in mean AEP from the time period 2000-2019 to 2040-2059 can be as high as +10% in South Texas or as low as -20% in Iowa. Several additional states in the Midwest that currently have considerable wind generation capacity show the possibility of substantial decreases in AEP by mid-century. Larger turbines and moderate reductions in system costs can offset even the largest projected decreases in wind resource, but much uncertainty remains in the extent to which wind resources will actually change into the future and to what extent wind energy systems can drive down future costs. An analysis of variance shows, in several states in the Midwest, the uncertainty in future wind resource can be almost as important for future changes in the cost of wind energy as the uncertainty in future system costs.
17 WIND ENERGY↗
Analysis of Geothermal Resources in Three Texas Counties
This project updates the geothermal resources beneath our oil and gas fields, as part of the research for the Texas GEO project. This report "Analysis of Geothermal Resources in Three Texas Counties" (October 2020) improves on previous mapping of the Texas resources for the counties of Crockett (West Texas), Jackson (central Gulf Coast) and Webb (South Texas). Through additional bottom-hole temperatures (BHT), the number of well sites increased from 532 to 5,410 in total for these counties. The improved methodology to calculate formation temperatures from 3.5 km (11,500 ft) to 10 km (32,800 ft) includes thermal conductivity values more closely related to the actual county geological formations, incorporated radiogenic heat production of formations, and the related mapped depth to basement. The results show deep temperatures as hotter than previously calculated, with temperatures of 150 degrees Celcius possible for Webb County between depths of 2.6 - 5.1 km, Jackson County between depths 3.0 - 5.4 km, and Crockett County between depths of 2.7 - 8.0 km.
10 km↗
TRACER-Coastal Urban Boundary-Layer Interactions with Convection (TRACER-CUBIC) Field Campaign Report
To better understand the complicated web of processes governing convective cloud life cycle and aerosol-convection interactions, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility supported deployment of a variety of advanced atmospheric measurement systems to the greater Houston, Texas, area from 1 October 2021 to 30 September 2022 as part of the Tracking Aerosol Convection Interactions Experiment (TRACER). Houston was selected as a study area because isolated convection and a variety of aerosol conditions are common in this region. This one-year ARM Mobile Facility (AMF) deployment featured a four-month intensive operational period (IOP) during summer 2022 (1 June–30 September). The ARM instrumentation was deployed at three sites along an east-west transect from La Porte, Texas to an ancillary site in a less-polluted rural region southwest of downtown Houston (Figure 1). At the La Porte Site, which is located near the Houston ship channel in an area that experiences significant pollution, the first ARM Mobile Facility (AMF1) was deployed. During the IOP, the ARM tethered balloon system (TBS) operated at the ancillary site. The second-generation C-Band Scanning ARM Precipitation Radar (CSAPR) operated near Pearland, Texas, roughly halfway between the Laporte and ancillary sites. As part of the TRACER- Coastal Urban Boundary-Layer Interactions with Convection (CUBIC) project, three boundary-layer profiling systems) were deployed along a north-south transect spanning from the University of Houston Coastal Center to the Aldine site north of downtown Houston (also blue dot in Figure 1) during the TRACER IOP. These systems included the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Severe Storms Laboratory CLAMPS2 (C2), which was deployed at the UHCC, the University of Wisconsin SPARC, which was deployed at the ARM CSAPR site near Pearland (orange diamond in middle of map in Figure 1), and the University of Oklahoma CLAMPS1 (C1), which was deployed at Aldine. These three systems have been successfully operated in various field campaigns, providing data sets that collectively offer new insights into atmospheric-boundary-layer (ABL) processes, sea-breeze (SB) circulations, and convection initiation (CI). For the TRACER IOP window, these systems ran continuously between 1 June and 26 September, 2022. Due to commitments to NOAA projects, the Doppler lidar at the UHCC site was not available until 24 June 2022. The CLAMPS and SPARC profiling systems are self-contained platforms that have benefited from several years of development and deployment. Instruments and data processing were maintained remotely, which made the 4-month deployment for the TRACER-CUBIC IOP period possible. The same basic instrument configuration comprises each system: a scanning Doppler wind lidar for flow characterization and passive profiler(s) for characterizing planetary-boundary-layer (PBL) thermodynamic properties. Each platform includes a Halo Streamline Doppler wind lidar, an Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI), and a surface meteorology station. CLAMPS1 and CLAMPS2 each also include a microwave radiometer (MWR, Figure 1d). The TRACER-CUBIC hypotheses included (i) Interactions of SB and urban circulations and how they affect the PBL structure in the Houston environment, causing spatially (horizontally and vertically) and temporally highly variable flow patterns, (ii) heat, moisture, and aerosol transport and mixing depend on these flow dynamics, and (iii) an improved understanding of the flow patterns and PBL structure are critical for investigating the processes leading to CI. To test these hypotheses, the project aimed at (i) characterizing SB circulations and their impacts on the diurnal evolution of the structure of the ABL, (ii) studying the evolution of Houston’s complex urban boundary layer, and (iii) identifying effects of urban-induced circulations on pre-convective environments. TRACER-CUBIC observations generally provide good coverage during the summer IOP. Initial screening of the data indicates a good number of cases with bay-breeze (BB) and/or SB signatures, local CI, and interesting boundary-layer features such as strong nocturnal low-level jets (LLJs, Table 1). The numbers listed in rows 3-5 in this table will be further updated as part of ongoing in-depth analyses and systematic identification of local circulations and CI events. More detailed information about the data availability and quality for each instrument is provided in the “readme” files that were submitted to the ARM Data Center along with each archived data sets. These “readme” files also provide instrument descriptions, information about the data collection and processing procedures, data formats, and any additional information relevant for further data analysis.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Identification of Adaptive Fungal Pathogen Resistance Loci in Switchgrass (Final Report)
Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) has great potential as a sustainable bioenergy and bioproducts feedstock. However, there are a number of challenges that must be overcome to achieve this goal. One of the most significant challenges to switchgrass productivity are fungal pathogens, especially rusts and smuts. The primary goals of our project were to characterize the distribution of fungal pathogens on switchgrass across central North America and to identify genetic loci that control resistance to those pathogens. The research was primarily conducted with large common garden plantings of a switchgrass, distributed along a latitudinal gradient from South Texas to South Dakota. By conducting this research simultaneously at 10 field locations, we were able establish the relative contributions of genes and the environment to pathogen resistance. Through this research, we identified multiple genomic regions (loci) that contribute to rust resistance and found that the effects of these loci on resistance were highly influenced by field site location. Our research revealed that most of the rust damage to switchgrass from Texas to the northern United States is caused by a single fungal species, Puccinia novopanici. Therefore, genetic variation within this species and/or local environmental conditions are responsible for the inconsistent efficacy of pathogen resistance loci. We are currently investigating these two non-mutually exclusive hypotheses. In addition to our studies of rust pathogens, we were able to identify resistance loci for the head smut fungal pathogen Tilletia maclaganii. The funding from this grant facilitated a collaboration with the DOE Joint Genome Institute to develop a reference genome for T. maclaganii. A reference genome will make population genetic studies of this smut fungus possible, which in turn will facilitate the development of strategies to mitigate its impact. Overall, the funded research has greatly advanced our understanding of the genetic basis of fungal pathogen resistance switchgrass. This knowledge will help facilitate the breeding of more resistant cultivars and thus, increase the productivity of swichgrass generally.
09 BIOMASS FUELS↗