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Yu, G.

Publications and source records attributed to Yu, G..

At least 37 records · Page 2

On the Forward Modeling of Radar Doppler Spectrum Width From LES: Implications for Model Evaluation

Large-eddy simulations of an observed single-layer Arctic mixed-phase cloud are analyzed to study the value of forward modeling of profiling millimeter wave cloud radar Doppler spectral width for model evaluation. Individual broadening terms and their uncertainties are quantified for the observed spectral width and compared to modeled broadening terms. Modeled turbulent broadening is narrower than the observed values when the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate from the subgrid scale model is used in the forward model. The total dissipation rates, estimated with the subgrid scale dissipation rates and the numerical dissipation rates, agree much better with both the retrieved dissipation rates and those inferred from the power spectra of the simulated vertical air velocity. The comparison of the microphysical broadening provides another evaluative measure of the ice properties in the simulation. To accurately retrieve dissipation rates as well as each broadening term from the observations, we suggest a few modifications to previously presented techniques. First, we show that the inertial subrange spectrum filtered with the radar sampling volume is a better underlying model than the unfiltered -5/3 law for the retrieval of the dissipation rate from the power spectra of the mean Doppler velocity. Second, we demonstrate that it is important to filter out turbulence and remove the layer-mean reflectivity-weighted mean fall speed from the observed mean Doppler velocity to avoid overestimation of shear broadening. Finally, we provide a method to quantify the uncertainty in the retrieved dissipation rates, which eventually propagates to the uncertainty in the microphysical broadening.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Liquid crystal polymer substrate MMIC receiver modules for the ECE Imaging system on the DIII-D

A new generation of millimeter-wave heterodyne imaging receiver arrays has been developed and demonstrated on the DIII-D ECEI system. Improved circuit integration, allowing for absolute calibration, improved noise performance, and shielding from out-of-band emission, is made possible by using advanced liquid crystal polymer (LCP) substrates and MMIC (Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit) receiver chips. This array exhibits ~ 15 dB additional gain and > 30x reduction in noise temperature compared to the previous generation and provide ECEI capability for absolute 2-D electron temperature profile measurements. Each LCP horn-waveguide module houses a 3x3 mm GaAs MMIC receiver chip, which consists of a low noise amplifier (LNA), balanced mixer, local oscillator multiplier chain driven by ~12 GHz input via an RF cable to the enclosure box, and IF amplifier. A proof-of-principle instrument with 5 poloidal channels was installed on DIII-D in 2017. The full proof-of-principle system installation (20 poloidal x 8 radial channels) was commissioned early in 2018. The LCP ECEI system is used for pedestal region measurements, especially focusing on temperature evolution during ELM bursting. The DIII-D ECE Imaging signal has been significantly improved with extremely effective shielding of out-of-band microwave noise which plagued previous ECE Imaging studies on DIII-D. In H-mode ELM bursting, the radial propagation of electron heat flow has been detected on DIII-D. The LCP ECE Imaging is expected to be a valuable diagnostic tool for ELM physics investigations.

Zhu, Y.↗

Commensurate antiferromagnetic excitations as a signature of the pseudogap in the tetragonal high-T c cuprate HgBa 2 CuO 4+δ

We report that antiferromagnetic correlations have been argued to be the cause of the d-wave superconductivity and the pseudogap phenomena exhibited by the cuprates. Although the antiferromagnetic response in the pseudogap state has been reported for a number of compounds, there exists no information for structurally simple HgBa 2 CuO 4+δ . We report neutron-scattering results for HgBa 2 CuO 4+δ (superconducting transition temperature T c ≈71 K, pseudogap temperature T*≈305 K) that demonstrate the absence of the two most prominent features of the magnetic excitation spectrum of the cuprates: the X-shaped ‘hourglass’ response and the resonance mode in the superconducting state. Instead, the response is Y-shaped, gapped and significantly enhanced below T*, and hence a prominent signature of the pseudogap state.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Hyperfine-induced hysteretic funnel structure in spin blockaded tunneling current of coupled vertical quantum dots at low magnetic field

We outline the properties of the hyperfine-induced funnel structure observed in the two-electron spin blockade region of a weakly coupled vertical double quantum dot device. Hysteretic steps in the leakage current occur due to dynamic nuclear polarization when either the bias voltage or the magnetic field is swept up and down. When the bias voltage is swept, an intriguing ∼3 mT wide cusp near 0 T appears in the down-sweep position, and when the magnetic field is swept, the current at 0 T can be switched from 'low' to 'high' as the bias is increased.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Power spectra and auto correlation analysis of hyperfine-induced long period oscillations in the tunneling current of coupled quantum dots

We outline power spectra and auto correlation analysis performed on temporal oscillations in the tunneling current of coupled vertical quantum dots. The current is monitored for ∼2325 s blocks as the magnetic field is stepped through a high bias feature displaying hysteresis and switching: hallmarks of the hyperfine interaction. Quasi-periodic oscillations of ∼2 pA amplitude and of ∼100 s period are observed in the current inside the hysteretic feature. Compared to the baseline current outside the hysteretic feature the power spectral density is enhanced by up to three orders of magnitude and the auto correlation displays clear long lived oscillations about zero.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗

RMC - A Monte Carlo code for reactor physics analysis

A new Monte Carlo neutron transport code RMC has been being developed by Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing as a tool for reactor physics analysis on high-performance computing platforms. To meet the requirements of reactor analysis, RMC now has such functions as criticality calculation, fixed-source calculation, burnup calculation and kinetics simulations. Some techniques for geometry treatment, new burnup algorithm, source convergence acceleration, massive tally and parallel calculation, and temperature dependent cross sections processing are researched and implemented in RMC to improve the efficiency. Validation results of criticality calculation, burnup calculation, source convergence acceleration, tallies performance and parallel performance shown in this paper prove the capabilities of RMC in dealing with reactor analysis problems with good performances. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Research on acceleration method of reactor physics based on FPGA platforms

The physical designs of the new concept reactors which have complex structure, various materials and neutronic energy spectrum, have greatly improved the requirements to the calculation methods and the corresponding computing hardware. Along with the widely used parallel algorithm, heterogeneous platforms architecture has been introduced into numerical computations in reactor physics. Because of the natural parallel characteristics, the CPU-FPGA architecture is often used to accelerate numerical computation. This paper studies the application and features of this kind of heterogeneous platforms used in numerical calculation of reactor physics through practical examples. After the designed neutron diffusion module based on CPU-FPGA architecture achieves a 11.2 speed up factor, it is proved to be feasible to apply this kind of heterogeneous platform into reactor physics. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

GPU-accelerated 3D neutron diffusion code based on finite difference method

Finite difference method, as a traditional numerical solution to neutron diffusion equation, although considered simpler and more precise than the coarse mesh nodal methods, has a bottle neck to be widely applied caused by the huge memory and unendurable computation time it requires. In recent years, the concept of General-Purpose computation on GPUs has provided us with a powerful computational engine for scientific research. In this study, a GPU-Accelerated multi-group 3D neutron diffusion code based on finite difference method was developed. First, a clean-sheet neutron diffusion code (3DFD-CPU) was written in C++ on the CPU architecture, and later ported to GPUs under NVIDIA's CUDA platform (3DFD-GPU). The IAEA 3D PWR benchmark problem was calculated in the numerical test, where three different codes, including the original CPU-based sequential code, the HYPRE (High Performance Pre-conditioners)-based diffusion code and CITATION, were used as counterpoints to test the efficiency and accuracy of the GPU-based program. The results demonstrate both high efficiency and adequate accuracy of the GPU implementation for neutron diffusion equation. A speedup factor of about 46 times was obtained, using NVIDIA's Geforce GTX470 GPU card against a 2.50 GHz Intel Quad Q9300 CPU processor. Compared with the HYPRE-based code performing in parallel on an 8-core tower server, the speedup of about 2 still could be observed. More encouragingly, without any mathematical acceleration technology, the GPU implementation ran about 5 times faster than CITATION which was speeded up by using the SOR method and Chebyshev extrapolation technique. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Comparisons on thin and thick neutron target for low energy proton beam

As the progress on accelerator physics and neutronics, the compact neutron sources driven by low energy and high intensity beam are becoming extensively developed and researched all around the world. The neutron target of an accelerator driven neutron source is one of the key components, and the stability of the neutron target affect the operation and performance of the neutron facility. When a low energy proton is projected to the beryllium target, the main reaction is the inelastic scattering between the proton and extra-nuclear electrons. As the decreasing of proton energy, the rate of elastic scattering between proton and target nucleus begins to increase. When the energy of proton is very low, the pickup charge reaction begins to appear. Focus on the problems brought by high intensity proton beam such as proton implantation, radiation damages, heat deposition and gas production, we performed sufficient numerical simulations for both thin and thick target determined by proton range. The results show that the critical problem for thick target is the proton implantation, causing the forming of bubbles and beryllium flaked in vacuum. The thin target sacrifices a little neutron yield, but avoid the proton stopped in target, and decrease the radiation damage and energy deposition. (authors)

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Research on Fast-Doppler-Broadening of neutron cross sections

A Fast-Doppler-Broadening method is developed in this work to broaden Continuous Energy neutron cross-sections for Monte Carlo calculations. Gauss integration algorithm and parallel computing are implemented in this method, which is unprecedented in the history of cross section processing. Compared to the traditional code (NJOY, SIGMA1, etc.), the new Fast-Doppler-Broadening method shows a remarkable speedup with keeping accuracy. The purpose of using Gauss integration is to avoid complex derivation of traditional broadening formula and heavy load of computing complementary error function that slows down the Doppler broadening process. The OpenMP environment is utilized in parallel computing which can take full advantage of modern multi-processor computers. Combination of the two can reduce processing time of main actinides (such as {sup 238}U, {sup 235}U) to an order of magnitude of 1{approx}2 seconds. This new method is fast enough to be applied to Online Doppler broadening. It can be combined or coupled with Monte Carlo transport code to solve temperature dependent problems and neutronics-thermal hydraulics coupled scheme which is a big challenge for the conventional NJOY-MCNP system. Examples are shown to determine the efficiency and relative errors compared with the NJOY results. A Godiva Benchmark is also used in order to test the ACE libraries produced by the new method. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

A multi-group Monte Carlo core analysis method and its application in SCWR design

Complex geometry and spectrum have been the characteristics of many newly developed nuclear energy systems, so the suitability and precision of the traditional deterministic codes are doubtable while being applied to simulate these systems. On the contrary, the Monte Carlo method has the inherent advantages of dealing with complex geometry and spectrum. The main disadvantage of Monte Carlo method is that it takes long time to get reliable results, so the efficiency is too low for the ordinary core designs. A new Monte Carlo core analysis scheme is developed, aimed to increase the calculation efficiency. It is finished in two steps: Firstly, the assembly level simulation is performed by continuous energy Monte Carlo method, which is suitable for any geometry and spectrum configuration, and the assembly multi-group constants are tallied at the same time; Secondly, the core level calculation is performed by multi-group Monte Carlo method, using the assembly group constants generated in the first step. Compared with the heterogeneous Monte Carlo calculations of the whole core, this two-step scheme is more efficient, and the precision is acceptable for the preliminary analysis of novel nuclear systems. Using this core analysis scheme, a SCWR core was designed based on a new SCWR assembly design. The core output is about 1,100 MWe, and a cycle length of about 550 EFPDs can be achieved with 3-batch refueling pattern. The average and maximum discharge burn-up are about 53.5 and 60.9 MWD/kgU respectively. (authors)

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

The interstellar wake of the solar wind

The present work examines theoretically the cooling of the subsonic solar wind by the interstellar hydrogen gas entering the solar system. It is assumed that the interstellar hydrogen gas is distributed uniformly in the space where the solar wind is subsonic, and the solar-wind wake is represented by an idealized column flow of plasma in which the flow velocity is constant and the temperature varies along, not across, the wake. The results are therefore to be taken only in their order of magnitude. In the hot region near the shock sphere the electrons are cooled mainly through electron ionization while the protons cool through charge exchange. In the cooler regions far away from the shock, the protons are still cooled by charge exchange and the electron is cooled by collisions with protons. As the temperature of the solar wind decreases, the magnetic field becomes relatively more important. When the spin axis of the sun is parallel to the direction of the incident interstellar gas flow, the lines of force are in spiral form and the tension causes the plasma to be concentrated along the center of the wake.

Yu, G.↗