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Kelly, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Kelly, J..

At least 19 records

CTF Validation and Verification: Version 4.3

Coolant-Boiling in Rod Arrays- Two Fluids (COBRA-TF) is a thermal/hydraulic (T/H) simulation code designed for light water reactor (LWR) analysis. It uses a two-fluid, three-field (i.e., fluid film, fluid drops, and vapor) modeling approach. Both subchannel and 3D Cartesian forms of nine conservation equations are available for LWR modeling. The code was originally developed by Pacific Northwest Laboratory in 1980 and has been used and modified by several institutions over the last several decades. COBRA-TF is also used at the Pennsylvania State University (PSU) by the Reactor Dynamics and Fuel Modeling Group (RDFMG) and has been improved, updated, and subsequently became the CTF. One part of the improvement process includes validating the methods in CTF. This document seeks to provide a certain level of certainty and confidence in the predictive capabilities of the code for the scenarios it was designed to model—rod bundle geometries with operating conditions that are representative of prototypical pressurized water reactor (PWR)s and boiling water reactor (BWR)s in both normal and accident conditions. This is done by modeling a variety of experiments that simulate these scenarios and then presenting a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the results that demonstrates the accuracy to which CTF is capable of capturing specific quantities of interest.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Robust Chiral Organization of Cellulose Nanocrystals in Capillary Confinement

Here we showed large area uniformly aligned chiral photonic bioderived films from a liquid crystal phase formed by a cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) suspension placed in a thin capillary. As a result of the spatial confinement of the drying process, the interface between coexisting isotropic and chiral phases aligns perpendicular to the long axis of the capillary. This orientation facilitates a fast homogeneous growth of chiral pseudolayers parallel to the interface. Overall, the formation of organized solids takes hours vs weeks in contrast to the slow and heterogeneous process of drying from the traditional dish-cast approach. The saturation of water vapor in one end of the capillary causes anisotropic drying and promotes unidirectional propagation of the anisotropic phase in large regions that results in chiral CNC solid films with a uniformly oriented layered morphology. Corresponding ordering processes were monitored in situ at a nanoscale, mesoscale, and microscopic scale with complementary scattering and microscopic techniques. The resulting films show high orientation order at a multilength scale over large regions and preserved chiral handedness causing a narrower optical reflectance band and uniform birefringence over macroscopic regions in contrast to traditional dish-cast CNC films and those assembled in a magnetic field and on porous substrates. Finally, these thin films with a controllable and well-identified uniform morphology, structural colors, and handedness open up interesting possibilities for broad applications in bioderived photonic nanomaterials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Traveling wave parametric amplifier with Josephson junctions using minimal resonator phase matching

Josephson parametric amplifiers have become a critical tool in superconducting device physics due to their high gain and quantum-limited noise. Traveling wave parametric amplifiers (TWPAs) promise similar noise performance, while allowing for significant increases in both bandwidth and dynamic range. We present a TWPA device based on an LC-ladder transmission line of Josephson junctions and parallel plate capacitors using low-loss amorphous silicon dielectric. Crucially, we have inserted λ/4 resonators at regular intervals along the transmission line in order to maintain the phase matching condition between pump, signal, and idler and increase gain. We achieve an average gain of 12 dB across a 4 GHz span, along with an average saturation power of −92 dBm with noise approaching the quantum limit.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Characterization and reduction of microfabrication-induced decoherence in superconducting quantum circuits

Many superconducting qubits are highly sensitive to dielectric loss, making the fabrication of coherent quantum circuits challenging. To elucidate this issue, we characterize the interfaces and surfaces of superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators and study the associated microwave loss. We show that contamination induced by traditional qubit lift-off processing is particularly detrimental to quality factors without proper substrate cleaning, while roughness plays at most a small role. Aggressive surface treatment is shown to damage the crystalline substrate and degrade resonator quality. We also introduce methods to characterize and remove ultra-thin resist residue, providing a way to quantify and minimize remnant sources of loss on device surfaces.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Strong environmental coupling in a Josephson parametric amplifier

We present a lumped-element Josephson parametric amplifier designed to operate with strong coupling to the environment. In this regime, we observe broadband frequency dependent amplification with multi-peaked gain profiles. We account for this behavior using the “pumpistor” model which allows for frequency dependent variation of the external impedance. Using this understanding, we demonstrate control over the complexity of gain profiles through added variation in the environment impedance at a given frequency. With strong coupling to a suitable external impedance, we observe a significant increase in dynamic range, and large amplification bandwidth up to 700 MHz giving near quantum-limited performance.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

High fidelity qubit readout with the superconducting low-inductance undulatory galvanometer microwave amplifier

We describe the high fidelity dispersive measurement of a superconducting qubit using a microwave amplifier based on the Superconducting Low-inductance Undulatory Galvanometer (SLUG). The SLUG preamplifier achieves gain of 19 dB and yields a signal-to-noise ratio improvement of 9 dB over a state-of-the-art HEMT amplifier. We demonstrate a separation fidelity of 99% at 700 ns compared to 59% with the HEMT alone. The SLUG displays a large dynamic range, with an input saturation power corresponding to 700 photons in the readout cavity.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Fabrication and characterization of aluminum airbridges for superconducting microwave circuits

Superconducting microwave circuits based on coplanar waveguides (CPW) are susceptible to parasitic slotline modes which can lead to loss and decoherence. We motivate the use of superconducting airbridges as a reliable method for preventing the propagation of these modes. We describe the fabrication of these airbridges on superconducting resonators, which we use to measure the loss due to placing airbridges over CPW lines. We find that the additional loss at single photon levels is small, and decreases at higher drive powers.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

DRIFT-INDUCED PERPENDICULAR TRANSPORT OF SOLAR ENERGETIC PARTICLES

Drifts are known to play a role in galactic cosmic ray transport within the heliosphere and are a standard component of cosmic ray propagation models. However, the current paradigm of solar energetic particle (SEP) propagation holds the effects of drifts to be negligible, and they are not accounted for in most current SEP modeling efforts. We present full-orbit test particle simulations of SEP propagation in a Parker spiral interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), which demonstrate that high-energy particle drifts cause significant asymmetric propagation perpendicular to the IMF. Thus in many cases the assumption of field-aligned propagation of SEPs may not be valid. We show that SEP drifts have dependencies on energy, heliographic latitude, and charge-to-mass ratio that are capable of transporting energetic particles perpendicular to the field over significant distances within interplanetary space, e.g., protons of initial energy 100 MeV propagate distances across the field on the order of 1 AU, over timescales typical of a gradual SEP event. Our results demonstrate the need for current models of SEP events to include the effects of particle drift. We show that the drift is considerably stronger for heavy ion SEPs due to their larger mass-to-charge ratio. This paradigm shift has important consequences for the modeling of SEP events and is crucial to the understanding and interpretation of in situ observations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

ENERGETIC PARTICLE DIFFUSION IN CRITICALLY BALANCED TURBULENCE

Observations and modeling suggest that the fluctuations in magnetized plasmas exhibit scale-dependent anisotropy, with more energy in the fluctuations perpendicular to the mean magnetic field than in the parallel fluctuations and the anisotropy increasing at smaller scales. The scale dependence of the anisotropy has not been studied in full-orbit simulations of particle transport in turbulent plasmas so far. In this paper, we construct a model of critically balanced turbulence, as suggested by Goldreich and Sridhar, and calculate energetic particle spatial diffusion coefficients using full-orbit simulations. The model uses an enveloped turbulence approach, where each two-dimensional wave mode with wavenumber k is packed into envelopes of length L following the critical balance condition, L{proportional_to}k {sup -2/3} , with the wave mode parameters changing between envelopes. Using full-orbit particle simulations, we find that both the parallel and perpendicular diffusion coefficients increase by a factor of two, compared to previous models with scale-independent anisotropy.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Reducing software security risk through an integrated approach

The fourth quarter delivery, FY'01 for this RTOP is a Property-Based Testing (PBT), 'Tester's Assistant' (TA). The TA tool is to be used to check compiled and pre-compiled code for potential security weaknesses that could be exploited by hackers. The TA Instrumenter, implemented mostly in C++ (with a small part in Java), parsels two types of files: Java and TASPEC. Security properties to be checked are written in TASPEC. The Instrumenter is used in conjunction with the Tester's Assistant Specification (TASpec)execution monitor to verify the security properties of a given program.

software security↗

Reducing Software Security Risk Through an Integrated Approach

This paper discusses new joint work by the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California at Davis sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to develop a security assessment instrument for the software development and maintenance life cycle.

risk matrix↗

2nd GSFC-JPL Quality Mission Workshop Report

The 2nd GSFC-JPL QMSW workshop brought together 56 participants mostly from GSFC and JPL to focus on critical challenges for mission software.

software infrastructure technology meterics practi↗

Prototype Tool Support for SEI Process and Risk Knowledge

We have developed a prototype of tool support for risk assessment that uses selected components of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) information, specifically: Capability Maturity Model (CMM) process activities, CMM process goals and the SEI taxonomy of software project risks.

risk management risk assessment SEI CMM software r↗

Formal Inspection: A Tool for TQM

The goal of the Formal Inspection Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is to support projects wishing to use Formal Inspections to improve the quality of software and system level engineering products.

errors total quality↗