Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Differentiable physics”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 181 records · Page 10

Physics Guided Simulation of Electrostatic Discharge: Technical Report

Triboelectrically-charged objects may create threshold sparks, electrostatic discharge (ESD) events, to equilibrate charge between themselves and other relatively charged objects. ESD events exhibit many complex physical phenomena. They are a nexus of several fields of physics with disparate characteristic scales: plasma physics, chemical kinetics, hydrodynamics, circuit models, etc. These scales can span many orders of magnitude from the varied collisions thermalizing information within a plasma on the $\mathcal{O}(fs/ps)$ to the physical size of the plasma channel on the $\mathcal{O}(100µm)$, to the speed of a nonlinear hydrodynamic wave propagating at $\mathcal{O}(µm, ns)$. These threshold ESD events may occur in situations of programmatic importance, delivering energy and power profiles to a “victim load” generating deleterious consequences. To predict and mitigate these consequences we must answer questions about the spark’s energy budget: how much energy goes into producing the spark channel; how much gets radiated away; how much energy is advected away into the hydrodynamics; and how much energy is delivered to a victim load. An ESD simulation toolset has been created and evolved in order to answer these questions. An appropriate, physics guided implementation for simulation can be done by gaining insight into its constituent physics and leveraging that intuition to choose a suitable numerical operator. We examine in detail the chemical kinetics, circuit discharge, and hydrodynamics to deter mine dominant regimes, values, timescales, and interactions to uncover the underlying physical dynamics. We also examine and propose model reduction schemes for high-dimensional chemical kinetics. We use past and current work with experimentally validated and theoretically-verified hydrodynamics to calculate applicability limits of the non-ionizing strong shock limit. We quantify the energy budget from a hydrodynamic perspective and demonstrate that a significant fraction of the stored energy is “earmarked” for hydrodynamic advection as an energy terminus. Lastly, we combine the constituent physics of an ESD event (chemical kinetics, circuit model, and hydrodynamics) into a cohesive, actionable toolset and obtain promising results from an isothermal test case. We then propose a viable, modular evolution of the ESD toolset based upon the performed examination of the physics uncovering dominant physical scales and the stiffness of the compositional differential system.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Comparative critical mass calculations for NNL and ENDF/B-VIII.0 - Zirconium hydride thermal neutron scattering laws

Zirconium hydride (ZrH{sub x}) is a moderator material for TRIGA reactors and historical space reactor systems, such as SNAP-10A. Thermal neutron scattering laws (TSL) for two phases of this material, δ and ε, have been previously evaluated by Naval Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) and submitted to the National Nuclear Data Center (NNDC) for inclusion in the US national ENDF/B-VIII.1 nuclear data library. In contrast to the current ENDF/B-VIII.0 TSL evaluations, which consider only a single phase, the new evaluations are derived from separate ab initio calculations for both phases and include coherent elastic effects of the zirconium sublattice. To estimate the impact of these changes to the TSL evaluation of this material, comparative critical mass calculations were performed with MC21 for homogenous mixtures of high-enriched uranium (HEU) and ZrH{sub x} in bare and water reflected sphere configurations. These calculations yield an impact on the estimated critical mass as a function of {sup 235}U loading density with maximum differences as large as 1% - 5% for over-moderated thermal spectrum systems. Consequently, the NNL TSL evaluations are anticipated to have a small impact on criticality calculations of thermal reactor systems regardless of the material phase. Nevertheless, characteristic differences exist in the predicted thermal spectra as function of energy for the two sets of TSL evaluations, which are attributed to difference in the underlying phonon density of states of hydrogen bound in ZrH{sub x}. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Development of a phonon-based sampling method for thermal neutron scattering data

Simulations of reactor systems require access to accurate nuclear data. For many systems, thermal neutron scattering data can have large effects on the eigenvalue and neutron flux distributions. Inelastic thermal neutron scattering can excite or de-excite vibrational, rotational, and translational modes in a material, so thermal scattering evaluations are often obtained by summing over the number of phonons created/destroyed by a scattering event. In recent years, the thermal scattering cross sections and angular distributions have greatly improved in accuracy, but the format in which this data is delivered to simulation codes has remained virtually unchanged. Thermal scattering data is typically either compiled into large tables and sorted by incoming neutron energy, outgoing neutron energy, scattering angle, and material temperature, or represented as cumulative distribution functions of momentum exchange or energy exchange. Either method can be quite memory intensive when fine bins are used. In an effort to decrease the amount of space that processed thermal scattering data requires, an alternate format is proposed. The phonon-based sampling method introduced here can sample the number of phonons excited for each collision, the change in neutron energy, and the scattering angle while avoiding pre-computed angular bins and limiting the amount of data that is dependent on incoming energy. Through this method, the generation and storage of large interpolation tables is avoided, which could have benefits in both memory storage and accuracy. While the initial implementation of this method is slower than current alternatives, it is significantly more resistant to grid coarseness errors and has good potential for improvement. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Investigation of Benchmark $k$ eff Sensitivity and Uncertainty for 239 Pu fission in Specific Energy Ranges

Nuclear data at intermediate energies (from 1 to 100s of keV) are evaluated based on scarce differential data and theory unable to capture physics’ expected structure. There is also a lack of integral data. This is a known deficiency and is challenging to address. Calculated effective multiplication factor, k eff , values for intermediate energy experiments are ~25× further from experiment than for fast energies and are often well outside the experimental uncertainties. The goal of the PARADIGM (PARallel Approach of Differential and InteGral Measurements) project is to significantly re duce the uncertainties of intermediate energy nuclear data for 239 Pu. To this end, PARADIGM simultaneously optimizes experiments at both the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) and National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC). The combined set of data will inform new intermediate-energy nuclear data. By execution of differential and integral experiments, establishment of new theory, and undertaking nuclear data evaluation in parallel, the timeline to deliver improved nuclear data to users will be reduced significantly that is to three years. For the PARADIGM project, it was decided to optimize an integral experiment for two neutron energy ranges, within the full intermediate energy range. The low energy range goes from 1 to 30 keV, while the higher energy range goes from 30 to 600 keV. This work focuses on nuclear data sensitivities and uncertainties for 239 Pu fission for existing experiments in the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP). When designing new experiments, it is important to understand what benchmarks currently exist. For a more traditional experiment design (in which a specific application model(s) exists), comparisons would be made between the application model(s) and existing benchmarks. For PARADIGM, there is no specific application model, but instead the specific nuclear data reaction and energy ranges of interest can be explored for existing benchmarks.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

A physics-informed operator regression framework for extracting data-driven continuum models

The application of deep learning toward discovery of data-driven models requires careful application of inductive biases to obtain a description of physics which is both accurate and robust. We present here a framework for discovering continuum models from high fidelity molecular simulation data. Our approach applies a neural network parameterization of governing physics in modal space, allowing a characterization of differential operators while providing structure which may be used to impose biases related to symmetry, isotropy, and conservation form. Here, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework for a variety of physics, including local and nonlocal diffusion processes and single and multiphase flows. For the flow physics we demonstrate this approach leads to a learned operator that generalizes to system characteristics not included in the training sets, such as variable particle sizes, densities, and concentration.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Method and apparatus for shape-based energy analysis of solids

A computer-readable medium stores instructions including storing a model of a physical structure and defining a mesh for the model. The mesh includes finite elements, each defined by a respective set of edges. The instructions include, for each finite element, identifying a governing differential equation and a set of complementary functions that exactly satisfy the governing differential equation. The instructions include determining an applied physical stimulus for the physical structure. The instructions include generating an energy optimization model that minimizes a difference between internal energy and external energy of the finite elements in response to the applied physical stimulus. The model includes a matrix of respective scalar multipliers for the complementary functions for each finite element. The instructions include transforming the matrix and calculating a physical parameter of interest. The instructions include, in response to the physical parameter not satisfying a design parameter, updating the model of the physical structure.

Spears, Robert E.↗

Structure–Capacitance Relationships of Graphene/Ionic Liquid Electrolyte Double Layers

The differential capacitance profile of electrochemical interfaces reflects the physical properties of the double layer. For carbon electrodes and ionic liquid based electrolytes, these capacitance profiles are not fully understood. In this work, we utilize constant voltage molecular dynamics simulations to compute differential capacitance profiles of ionic liquids [BMIm + ][BF 4 - ] and [BMIm + ][TFSI - ] mixed with acetonitrile and 1,2-dichloroethane, at model graphene electrodes. We find that both pure and 10% mole fraction ionic liquid electrolytes exhibit camel shaped capacitance profiles with two peaks on either side of a minimum centered at the potential of zero charge. This profile shape results from electric field induced rearrangement of ion structure within the inner layer closest to the electrode interface. At low potential, the ionic liquid inner layer is concentrated with non-polar tri-fluoromethyl and butyl functional groups of the anions and cations, corresponding to the minimum of the capacitance profiles. With increasing voltage, electrostatic interactions of polar/charged functional groups with the electrode surface compete with these non-polar interactions, leading to ion rearrangement that increases the inner layer charge density and results in higher capacitance. After the ion restructuring is complete, the response saturates and capacitance diminishes. The presence of organic solvent significantly changes the composition of the inner layer. For example, strong non-polar interactions between dichloroethane molecules and the graphene surface substantially block ion/electrode contact at moderate potentials. Overall, our simulations highlight the dynamic nature of the inner region of organic electrolyte double layers, and the sensitive dependence on electrolyte composition and applied voltage.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Brill-Noether-general limit root bundles: absence of vector-like exotics in F-theory Standard Models

Root bundles appear prominently in studies of vector-like spectra of 4d F-theory compactifications. Of particular importance to phenomenology are the Quadrillion F-theory Standard Models (F-theory QSMs). In this work, we analyze a superset of the physical root bundles whose cohomologies encode the vector-like spectra for the matter representations ($3$, $2$) 1/6 , ($\overline{3}$, $1$) -2/3 and ($1$, $1$) 1 . For the family B 3 (Δ$^{°}_{4}$) consisting of $\mathcal{O}$(10 11 ) F-theory QSM geometries, we argue that more than 99.995% of the roots in this superset have no vector-like exotics. This indicates that absence of vector-like exotics in those representations is a very likely scenario in the O(10 11 ) QSM geometries B 3 (Δ$^{°}_{4}$). The QSM geometries come in families of toric 3-folds B 3 (Δ°) obtained from triangulations of certain 3-dimensional polytopes Δ°. The matter curves in X Σ $\large{ϵ}$ B 3 (Δ°) can be deformed to nodal curves which are the same for all spaces in B 3 (Δ°). Therefore, one can probe the vector-like spectra on the entire family B 3 (Δ°) from studies of a few nodal curves. We compute the cohomologies of all limit roots on these nodal curves. In our applications, for the majority of limit roots the cohomologies are determined by line bundle cohomology on rational tree-like curves. For this, we present a computer algorithm. The remaining limit roots, corresponding to circuit-like graphs, are handled by hand. The cohomologies are independent of the relative position of the nodes, except for a few circuits. On these jumping circuits, line bundle cohomologies can jump if nodes are specially aligned. This mirrors classical Brill-Noether jumps. B 3 (Δ°) admits a jumping circuit, but the root bundle constraints pick the canonical bundle and no jump happens.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Jacobian-free Newton–Krylov method for the simulation of non-thermal plasma discharges with high-order time integration and physics-based preconditioning

A preconditioning framework for the numerical simulation of non-thermal streamer discharges is developed using the Jacobian-free Newton-Krylov (JFNK) method. A reduced plasma fluid model is considered, consisting of electrons, one positive ion, one negative ion, and the electrostatic potential. Here, the plasma kinetics model includes ionization, electron-ion recombination, electron attachment, electron detachment, and ion-ion recombination. The governing equations are made dimensionless, discretized in space with finite differences, and integrated in time with a fully implicit method based on high-order backward differentiation formulas. The preconditioning framework is based on a linearized form of the governing equations and physics-based operator splitting. The efficiency of the preconditioning strategy is assessed through two test cases: streamer propagation between parallel plates and an axisymmetric pin-to-pin discharge. The fully implicit approach overcomes traditional restrictions in the time step size due to processes such as electron drift, electron diffusion, and dielectric relaxation. Excellent performance is observed through relevant statistics of the JFNK solver, although the number of linear iterations increases for the pin-to-pin discharge when nonlinear numerical boundary conditions are imposed at the electrodes. Performance studies show scalability with O(100-1000) processors for O(10M) unknowns with ample room for optimization.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

On the Convergence of Physics Informed Neural Networks for Linear Second-Order Elliptic and Parabolic Type PDEs

Physics informed neural networks (PINNs) are deep learning based techniques for solving partial differential equations (PDEs) encountered in computational science and engineering. Guided by data and physical laws, PINNs find a neural network that approximates the solution to a system of PDEs. Such a neural network is obtained by minimizing a loss function in which any prior knowledge of PDEs and data are encoded. Despite its remarkable empirical success in one, two or three dimensional problems, there is little theoretical justification for PINNs. As the number of data grows, PINNs generate a sequence of minimizers which correspond to a sequence of neural networks. We want to answer the question: Does the sequence of minimizers converge to the solution to the PDE? We consider two classes of PDEs: linear second-order elliptic and parabolic. By adapting the Schauder approach and the maximum principle, we show that the sequence of minimizers strongly converges to the PDE solution in C 0 . Furthermore, we show that if each minimizer satisfies the initial/boundary conditions, the convergence mode becomes H 1 . Computational examples are provided to illustrate our theoretical findings. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first theoretical work that shows the consistency of PINNs.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Open Call LDRD: Physically Informed Autoencoders for Galactic Redshift Regression

Physical constraints have been suggested to make neural network models more generalizable, act scientifically plausible, and be more data-efficient over unconstrained baselines. In this report, we present preliminary work on evaluating the effects of adding soft physical constraints to computer vision neural networks trained to estimate the conditional density of redshift on input galaxy images for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We introduce physically motivated soft constraint terms that are not implemented with differential or integral operators. We frame this work as a simple ablation study where the effect of including soft physical constraints is compared to an unconstrained baseline. We compare networks using standard point estimate metrics for photometric redshift estimation, as well as metrics to evaluate how faithful our conditional density estimate represents the probability over the ensemble of our test dataset. We find no evidence that the implemented soft physical constraints are more effective regularizers than augmentation.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Slow manifold reduction as a systematic tool for revealing the geometry of phase space

Many non-dissipative reduced plasma models can be derived from more fundamental non-dissipative models by restricting to an approximate invariant manifold. I present a general systematic procedure for finding the Hamiltonian formulation of a plasma model that can be derived in this manner. Several illustrative examples are considered in detail.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

On the effectiveness of neural operators at zero-shot weather downscaling

Machine-learning (ML) methods have shown great potential for weather downscaling. These data-driven approaches provide a more efficient alternative for producing high-resolution weather datasets and forecasts compared to physics-based numerical simulations. Neural operators, which learn solution operators for a family of partial differential equations, have shown great success in scientific ML applications involving physics-driven datasets. Neural operators are grid-resolution-invariant and are often evaluated on higher grid resolutions than they are trained on, i.e., zero-shot super-resolution. Given their promising zero-shot super-resolution performance on dynamical systems emulation, we present a critical investigation of their zero-shot weather downscaling capabilities, which is when models are tasked with producing high-resolution outputs using higher upsampling factors than are seen during training. To this end, we create two realistic downscaling experiments with challenging upsampling factors (e.g., 8x and 15x) across data from different simulations: the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis version 5 (ERA5) and the Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit. While neural operator-based downscaling models perform better than interpolation and a simple convolutional baseline, we show the surprising performance of an approach that combines a powerful transformer-based model with parameter-free interpolation at zero-shot weather downscaling. We find that this Swin-Transformer-based approach mostly outperforms models with neural operator layers in terms of average error metrics, whereas an Enhanced Super-Resolution Generative Adversarial Network-based approach is better than most models in terms of capturing the physics of the ground truth data. We suggest their use in future work as strong baselines.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Unified differentiable digital twin for the IOTA/FAST facility

As the design complexity of modern accelerators grows, there is more interest in using advanced simulations that have fast execution time or produce insights about accelerator state. One notable example of additional information are gradients of physical observables with respect to design parameters produced by differentiable simulations. The IOTA/FAST facility has recently begun a program to implement and experimentally validate a unified start-to-end differentiable digital twin to serve as a virtual accelerator test stand, allowing for rapid prototyping of new software and experiments with minimal beam time costs. In this contribution we will discuss our plans and progress. Specifically, we will cover the selection and benchmarking of both physics and ML codes, the development of generic interfaces between device models and surrogate or physics-based sections, and the export of the parameters through either a deterministic event loop or a fully asynchronous EPICS soft input/output controller. We will also discuss challenges in model calibration and uncertainty quantification, as well as future plans to support larger proton accelerators like PIPII and Booster.

Kuklev, Nikita [Fermilab]↗

Scalable algorithms for physics-informed neural and graph networks

Physics-informed machine learning (PIML) has emerged as a promising new approach for simulating complex physical and biological systems that are governed by complex multiscale processes for which some data are also available. In some instances, the objective is to discover part of the hidden physics from the available data, and PIML has been shown to be particularly effective for such problems for which conventional methods may fail. Unlike commercial machine learning where training of deep neural networks requires big data, in PIML big data are not available. Instead, we can train such networks from additional information obtained by employing the physical laws and evaluating them at random points in the space–time domain. Such PIML integrates multimodality and multifidelity data with mathematical models, and implements them using neural networks or graph networks. Here, we review some of the prevailing trends in embedding physics into machine learning, using physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) based primarily on feed-forward neural networks and automatic differentiation. For more complex systems or systems of systems and unstructured data, graph neural networks (GNNs) present some distinct advantages, and here we review how physics-informed learning can be accomplished with GNNs based on graph exterior calculus to construct differential operators; we refer to these architectures as physics-informed graph networks (PIGNs). We present representative examples for both forward and inverse problems and discuss what advances are needed to scale up PINNs, PIGNs and more broadly GNNs for large-scale engineering problems.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Methodology of the Extraction of Multi-Differential Cross Sections of Charged-Current $\nu_\mu$-Argon Interactions in MicroBooNE Using Wire-Cell $\nu_\mu$CC Selection

Neutrino physics experiments rely on accurate nuclear-interaction models that are in part guided by experimental observations. Multi-differential cross section measurements are particularly valuable for exploring the underlying physics described in these models, making them a significant step forward in the field. This note presents methodology in preparation to unfold neutrino flux-averaged double and triple-differential cross sections of the inclusive muon neutrino charged-current interaction on Argon. This work builds upon the existing framework and methodology presented in recent energy dependent cross section measurements at MicroBooNE using the Wire-Cell tomographic event reconstruction. The signal definition, choice of binning, and handling of estimated detector uncertainties are discussed, and the MicroBooNE simulation model is validated over the multi-dimensional phase space of muon momentum, muon polar angle, and visible hadronic energy.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Basic Research Needs in Quantum Computing and Networking

Employing quantum mechanical resources in computing, information processing, and networking opens the door to potential exponential advantages over classical counterparts. However, quantifying and realizing such advantages poses extensive scientific and engineering challenges. Department of Energy (DOE) investments have driven steady progress in addressing such challenges. Recently developed quantum algorithms offer asymptotic exponential advantages in speed or accuracy for fundamental scientific problems. These problems include simulating physical systems, solving systems of linear equations, differential equations, and optimization problems. Empirical demonstrations on nascent quantum hardware suggest better performance on contrived computational tasks than classical analogs. However, the requirements for a quantum computer or network to demonstrate an end-to-end rigorously quantifiable performance improvement over classical analogs remains a grand challenge, especially for problems of practical value. In particular, what will be required for quantum technology to ultimately exhibit scalable, rigorous, and transformative performance advantages for practical applications? In July 2023, DOE’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research program in the Office of Science convened the Workshop on Basic Research Needs in Quantum Computing and Networking, where major opportunities and grand challenges were identified. The following five priority research directions (PRDs) were identified as a result of the workshop.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗