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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 181 records · Page 10
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Observations and Simulations of Dropout Events and Flux Decays in October 2013: Comparing MEO Equatorial With LEO Polar Orbit

We compare ESA PROBA-V observations of electron flux at LEO with those from the NASA Van Allen Probes mostly at MEO for October 2013. Dropouts are visible at all energy during four storms from both satellites. Equatorially trapped electron fluxes are higher than at LEO by 10 2 (<1 MeV) to 10 5 (>2.5 MeV). We observe a quite isotropic structure of the outer belt during quiet times, contrary to the inner belt, and pitch angle dependence of high energy injection. We find a very good overlap of the outer belt at MEO and LEO at ~0.5 MeV. We use test-particle simulations of the energetic electrons trapped in the terrestrial magnetic field to study the outer radiation belt electron flux changes during geomagnetic storms. We show that the Dst (Disturbance storm time) effect during the main phase of a geomagnetic storm results in a betatron mechanism causing outward radial drift and a deceleration of the electrons. This outward drift motion is energy independent, pitch angle-dependent, and represents a significant distance (~1 L-shell at L = 5 for moderate storms). At fixed L-shell, this causes a decay of the LEO precipitating flux (adiabatic outward motion), followed by a return to the normal state (adiabatic inward motion) during main and recovery phases. Dst effect, associated with magnetopause shadowing and radial diffusion can explain the main characteristics of outer radiation belt electron dropouts in October 2013. We also use Fokker-Planck simulations with event-driven diffusion coefficients at high temporal resolution, to distinguish instantaneous loss from the gradual scattering that depopulates the slot region and the outer belt after storms. Simulations reproduce the slot formation and the gradual loss in the outer belt. The typical energy dependence of these losses leads to the absence of scattering for relativistic and ultra-relativistic electrons in the outer belt, oppositely to dropouts.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Progress Towards Developing Neutron Tolerant Magnetostrictive and Piezoelectric Transducers

Current generation light water reactors (LWRs), sodium cooled fast reactors (SFRs), small modular reactors (SMRs), and next generation nuclear plants (NGNPs) produce harsh environments in and near the reactor core that can severely tax material performance and limit component operational life. To address this issue, several Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) research programs are evaluating the long duration irradiation performance of fuel and structural materials used in existing and new reactors. In order to maximize the amount of information obtained from Material Testing Reactor (MTR) irradiations, DOE is also funding development of enhanced instrumentation that will be able to obtain in-situ, real-time data on key material characteristics and properties, with unprecedented accuracy and resolution. Such data are required to validate new multi-scale, multi-physics modeling tools under development as part of a science-based, engineering driven approach to reactor development. It is not feasible to obtain high resolution/microscale data with the current state of instrumentation technology. However, ultrasound-based sensors offer the ability to obtain such data if it is demonstrated that these sensors and their associated transducers are resistant to high neutron flux, high gamma radiation, and high temperature. To address this need, the Advanced Test Reactor National Scientific User Facility (ATR-NSUF) is funding an irradiation, led by PSU, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research Reactor to test the survivability of ultrasound transducers. As part of this effort, PSU and collaborators have designed, fabricated, and provided piezoelectric and magnetostrictive transducers that are optimized to perform in harsh, high flux, environments. Four piezoelectric transducers were fabricated with either aluminum nitride, zinc oxide, or bismuth titanate as the active element that were coupled to either Kovar or aluminum waveguides and two magnetostrictive transducers were fabricated with Remendur or Galfenol as the active elements. Pulse-echo ultrasonic measurements of these transducers are made in-situ. This paper will present an overview of the test design including selection criteria for candidate materials and optimization of test assembly parameters, data obtained from both out-of-pile and in-pile testing at elevated temperatures, and an assessment based on initial data of the expected performance of ultrasonic devices in irradiation conditions

Reinhardt1, Brian↗
DOE OSTI2024

A Variable Eddington Factor Model for Thermal Radiative Transfer with Closure Based on Data-Driven Shape Function

Here, a new variable Eddington factor (VEF) model is presented for nonlinear problems of thermal radiative transfer (TRT). The VEF model is data-driven and acts on known (a-priori) radiation-diffusion solutions for material temperatures in the TRT problem. A linear auxiliary problem is constructed for the radiative transfer equation (RTE) whose emission source and opacities are evaluated at these known material temperatures. The solution to this RTE approximates the specific intensity distribution in phase-space and time. It is applied as a shape function to define the Eddington tensor for the presented VEF model. The shape function computed via the auxiliary RTE problem will capture some degree of transport effects within the TRT problem. The VEF moment equations closed with this approximate Eddington tensor will thus carry with them these captured transport effects. In this study, the temperature data comes from multigroup P 1 , P 1/3 , and flux-limited diffusion radiative transfer models. The proposed VEF model can be interpreted as a transport-corrected diffusion reduced-order model. Numerical results are presented on the Fleck-Cummings test problem which models a supersonic wavefront of radiation. The VEF model is shown to improve accuracy by 1–2 orders of magnitude compared to the considered radiation-diffusion model solutions to the TRT problem.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Meteorological, reference evapotranspiration and estimated transpiration data, July 2020-Dec 2021, Slate River Floodplain, Crested Butte, Colorado

This data package includes a time series of meteorological data (air temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, precipitation, wind speed, soil heat flux, incoming shortwave radiation, incoming longwave radiation, outgoing shortwave radiation and outgoing longwave radiation) from the Slate River floodplain outside Crested Butte, Colorado, a focus field site for the SLAC Floodplain Hydro-Biogeochemistry SFA. The data was generated as part of the work targeting the overarching research question for the SLAC SFA: How do ubiquitous subsurface interfaces mediate molecular-scale biogeochemical processes and groundwater quality in floodplains and watersheds? The package also includes reference evapotranspiration calculated via the Penman-Monteith equation and an estimate of willow (Salix spp.) evapotranspiration using the method of Irmak et al., J. Hydrology, 2013. Due to two malfunctioning sensors (incoming shortwave radiation from Oct 2020-May 2021 and incoming longwave radiation from May 2021-March 2022), observed net radiation and calculated evapotranspiration are only included from July-October 2020. However, users may be able to extend calculated evapotranspiration using estimates of these two parameters from other sources. Both sensors have been replaced and data beyond 2021 be uploaded to this repository when it is available.Within the data package, "FLMD.csv" describes file-level metadata and "dd.csv" defines column headers and universal terms across the dataset. The data package includes 3 "*data.csv" files, two for meteorological data for 2020 and 2021 and one for reference evapotranspiration and transpiration data from 2020 ("SLT_OBJ2_PenmanMonteith_2020_data.csv"). Each "*data.csv" file of meteorological data has a corresponding "*_InstallationMethods.csv" file that describes the location, sensor model, sensor serial number and other metadata corresponding to each measured parameter. We also include a Jupyter notebook ("PenmanMonteithET_Calculations.ipynb") that details the assumptions and equations used to calculate daily and hourly reference evapotranspiration and daily willow transpiration from raw meteorological data.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Investigation of Drift Effects in UEDGE Simulations of NSTX-U Edge Plasma With Lithium Divertors

Lithium is a low-Z material, and lithium-based plasma-facing components (PFCs) are planned for the National Spherical Torus Experiment Upgrade (NSTX-U) to explore potential benefits for divertor power exhaust and core plasma management. NSTX-U is a medium-sized spherical tokamak with up to 12 MW of auxiliary heating, capable of generating reactor-relevant plasma conditions. This work presents boundary plasma simulations for NSTX-U with lithium PFCs using the UEDGE code, incorporating full magnetic and 𝐄 ×𝐁 drift physics. The simulations show that drifts strongly influence heat and particle transport: they enhance convective transport, broaden the scrape-off layer heat-flux width 𝜆 𝑞 , and reduce the anomalous heat diffusivity 𝜒 required to reproduce predicted SOL heat-flux width. 𝐄 ×𝐁 drifts provide poloidal transport, while ∇𝐵 (which includes both gradB and curvature) drifts provide radial heat and particle transport. Lithium transport is also affected by drifts, with lithium ions migrating from the outer divertor to the inner divertor through the private flux region (PFR) following the 𝐄 ×𝐁 drifts flow, lowering upstream impurity lithium densities. UEDGE is self-consistently coupled with the Wall-Li model to study plasma lithium PFC interactions depending on the local lithium sourcing based on local plasma conditions and lithium surface temperature. In these simulations, lithium evaporation shows a vapor-shielding effect that reduces divertor heat flux and increases radiative losses once surface temperatures exceed 450°C. This research work provides a first step toward self-consistent modeling of lithium PFCs in NSTX-U, demonstrating the impact of drift-driven plasma transport in SOL and divertor regions.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Challenging and Improving the Simulation of Mid-Level Mixed-Phase Clouds Over the High-Latitude Southern Ocean

Climate models exhibit major radiative biases over the Southern Ocean owing to a poor representation of mixed-phase clouds. In this study, we used the remote-sensing dataset from the Measurements of Aerosols, Radiation and Clouds over the Southern Ocean (MARCUS) campaign to assess the ability of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to reproduce frontal clouds off Antarctica. It focuses on the modeling of thin mid-level supercooled liquid water layers which precipitate ice. The standard version of WRF produces almost fully glaciated clouds and cannot reproduce cloud top turbulence. Our work demonstrates the importance of adapting the ice nucleation parameterization to the pristine austral atmosphere to reproduce the supercooled liquid layers. Once simulated, droplets significantly impact the cloud radiative effect by increasing downwelling longwave fluxes and decreasing downwelling shortwave fluxes at the surface. The net radiative effect is a warming of snow and ice covered surfaces and a cooling of the ocean. Despite improvements in our simulations, the local turbulent circulation related to cloud-top radiative cooling is not properly reproduced, advocating for the need to develop a parameterization for top-down convection to capture the turbulence-microphysics interplay at cloud top.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Outer Radiation Belt Dynamics During the October 2012 Storm Revisited: Rapid Inward Radial Transport From a Dynamic Outer Boundary

Earth's outer radiation belt electron flux is highly variable and can be enhanced by over an order of magnitude over timescales less than one day, as observed during the October 2012 storm. Previous studies of this storm (e.g., Reeves et al., 2013, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1237743) have invoked local acceleration to explain this. However, here, we argue that the observations can instead be explained by fast inward radial transport. One method often invoked to distinguish between these two acceleration processes is the existence of local peaks in electron phase space density (PSD) as a function of L* at fixed first, M, and second, K, adiabatic invariants. However, this method relies on the assumption that the evolution of the PSD as a function of L* occurs over timescales slower than the satellite orbital period. Here, high spatiotemporal resolution data from the Global Positioning System (GPS) spacecraft constellation is used to show that enhancements in the PSD occur during the October 2012 storm over short timescales not resolvable by the Van Allen Probes. In addition, Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite spacecraft data also indicate that these enhancements are consistent with relativistic electron injections. A radial diffusion model is shown to reproduce the PSD dynamics observed by the Van Allen Probes, once rapid variations at the simulation outer boundary are included, consistent with GPS data. This verifies that apparently “locally growing” peaks in PSD along high apogee satellite orbits can be produced by fast inward radial transport without requiring the action of any local acceleration processes.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Impact of the isotope effect on divertor detachment and pedestal structure in DIII-D

Dedicated H-mode hydrogen experiments have been conducted at DIII-D and are compared to similar deuterium plasmas under a range of divertor conditions, revealing significant effects of the isotope mass on divertor and pedestal conditions. H-mode confinement is found to be systematically lower in hydrogen and experiences a worse degradation with increased fueling. This coincides with a higher ne,sep in hydrogen for similar fueling rates. When ne,ped is matched in hydrogen and deuterium as are the ne and Te pedestal structures, the target conditions deviate strongly from each other. An analysis of two major factors in the pedestal structure, pedestal stability and neutral fueling, shows they are not sufficient to explain either the pedestal differences between isotopes or the hydrogen pedestal structure respectively. An analysis of hydrogen and deuterium density ramps demonstrates a 20% higher ion current and a 30% higher upstream density at detachment onset in hydrogen. The characteristics of target heat flux and divertor radiation are shown to change significantly with the isotope mass in each divertor operational regime. The results shown here indicate divertor conditions trend with ion mass in a manner beneficial for divertor performance in future devices.

Mattes, Ray [Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (Un↗
DOE OSTI2021

Permafrost thaw driven changes in hydrology and vegetation cover increase trace gas emissions and climate forcing in Stordalen Mire from 1970 to 2014

Permafrost thaw increases active layer thickness, changes landscape hydrology and influences vegetation species composition. These changes alter belowground microbial and geochemical processes, affecting production, consumption and net emission rates of climate forcing trace gases. Net carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and methane (CH 4 ) fluxes determine the radiative forcing contribution from these climate-sensitive ecosystems. Permafrost peatlands may be a mosaic of dry frozen hummocks, semi-thawed or perched sphagnum dominated areas, wet permafrost-free sedge dominated sites and open water ponds. We revisited estimates of climate forcing made for 1970 and 2000 for Stordalen Mire in northern Sweden and found the trend of increasing forcing continued into 2014. The Mire continued to transition from dry permafrost to sedge and open water areas, increasing by 100% and 35%, respectively, over the 45-year period, causing the net radiative forcing of Stordalen Mire to shift from negative to positive. This trend is driven by transitioning vegetation community composition, improved estimates of annual CO 2 and CH 4 exchange and a 22% increase in the IPCC's 100-year global warming potential (GWP_100) value for CH 4 . These results indicate that discontinuous permafrost ecosystems, while still remaining a net overall sink of C, can become a positive feedback to climate change on decadal timescales.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Forward Pixel Detector for the Phase 2 Upgrade of CMS And Module Testing at UIC

High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) upgrade aims to increase performance. In order to efficiently handle the larger particle flux and increased radiation, an upgrade is planned for the inner Tracker of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector, which is located at the innermost part of the CMS. To efficiently reconstruct and track particles, the existing pixel tracker will be upgraded with novel sensors, readout chips, and front-end electronics designed to handle increased data rates. These improvements will allow the detector to track particles more precisely. In the United States, we are working on assembling new sensor modules to be inserted into disks, referred to as TFPX, for installation in the CMS detector for the HL-LHC era. We are currently testing the prototype of TFPX modules to ensure the upgrade is carried out in the best way possible. The University of Ilinois Chicago has been tasked with testing the final versions of the TFPX sensor modules before they are sent to CERN to be installed into the CMS detector. This work is supported by NSF.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Prediction of Potential and Actual Evapotranspiration Fluxes Using Six Meteorological Data-Based Approaches for a Range of Climate and Land Cover Types

Evapotranspiration is the major component of the water cycle, so a correct estimate of this variable is fundamental. The purpose of the present research is to assess the monthly scale accuracy of six meteorological data-based models in the prediction of evapotranspiration (ET) losses by comparing the modelled fluxes with the observed ones from eight sites equipped with eddy covariance stations which differ in terms of vegetation and climate type. Three potential ET methods (Penman-Monteith, Priestley-Taylor, and Blaney-Criddle models) and three actual ET models (the Advection-Aridity, the Granger and Gray, and the Antecedent Precipitation Index method) have been proposed. The findings show that the models performances differ from site to site and they depend on the vegetation and climate characteristics. Indeed, they show a wide range of error values ranging from 0.18 to 2.78. It has been not possible to identify a single model able to outperform the others in each biome, but in general, the Advection-Aridity approach seems to be the most accurate, especially when the model calibration in not carried out. It returns very low error values close to 0.38. When the calibration procedure is performed, the most accurate model is the Granger and Gray approach with minimum error of 0.13 but, at the same time, it is the most impacted by this process, and therefore, in a context of data scarcity, it results the less recommended for ET prediction. The performances of the investigated ET approaches have been furthermore tested in case of lack of measured data of soil heat fluxes and net radiation considering using empirical relationships based on meteorological data to derive these variables. Results show that, the use of empirical formulas to derive ET estimates increases the errors up to 200% with the consequent loss of model accuracy.

net radiation↗
DOE OSTI2025

Cosmic Ray Mediated Thermal Fronts in the Warm-Hot Circumgalactic Medium

We investigate the 1D plane-parallel front connecting the warm ($10^4$ K) and hot ($10^6$ K) phases of the circumgalactic medium (CGM), focusing on the influence of cosmic rays (CRs) in shaping these transition layers. We find that cosmic rays dictate the thermal balance while other fluxes (thermal conduction, radiative cooling, and gas flow) adjust to compensate. We compute column density ratios for selected transition temperature ions and compare them with observational data. While most of our models fail to reproduce the observations, a few are successful, although we make no claims for their uniqueness. Some of the discrepancies may indicate challenges in capturing the profiles in cooler, photoionized regions, as has been suggested for by previous efforts to model thermal transition layers.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

A multi-year short-range hindcast experiment with CESM1 for evaluating climate model moist processes from diurnal to interannual timescales

Abstract. We present a multi-year short-range hindcast experiment and its experimental design for better evaluation of both the mean state and variability of atmospheric moist processes in climate models from diurnal to interannual timescales and facilitate model development. We used the Community Earth System Model version 1 as the base model and performed a suite of 3 d hindcasts initialized every day starting at 00:00 Z from 1997 to 2012. Three processes – the diurnal cycle of clouds during different cloud regimes over the central US, precipitation and diabatic heating associated with the Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO), and the response of precipitation, surface radiative and heat fluxes, as well as zonal wind stress to sea surface temperature anomalies associated with the El Niño–Southern Oscillation – are evaluated as examples to demonstrate how one can better utilize simulations from this experiment to gain insights into model errors and their connection to physical parameterizations or large-scale state. This is achieved by comparing the hindcasts with corresponding long-term observations for periods based on different phenomena. These analyses can only be done through this multi-year hindcast approach to establish robust statistics of the processes under well-controlled large-scale environment because these phenomena are either a result of interannual climate variability or only happen a few times in a given year (e.g., MJO, or cloud regime types). Furthermore, comparison of hindcasts to the typical simulations in climate mode with the same model allows one to infer what portion of a model's climate error directly comes from fast errors in the parameterizations of moist processes. As demonstrated here, model biases in the mean state and variability associated with parameterized moist processes usually develop within a few days and manifest within weeks to affect the simulations of large-scale circulation and ultimately the climate mean state and variability. Therefore, model developers can achieve additional useful understanding of the underlying problems in model physics by conducting a multi-year hindcast experiment.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Data for A Hybrid Biophysical-Machine Learning Framework for Diurnal Surface Energy Flux Estimation Using Proximal Sensing

Thermal infrared-based remote sensing of surface energy fluxes has traditionally relied on high spatial resolution satellite data with revisit frequencies on the order of weeks. In this study, we evaluate a biophysics-based analytical surface energy balance model for predicting latent energy (LE) and sensible heat (H) fluxes using proximal sensing observations. The Surface Temperature Initiated Closure (STIC1.2) model has been extensively validated across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales using various satellite-derived thermal infrared data sets. Here we extend this validation by applying STIC at sub-hourly temporal resolution over multiple growing seasons for four distinct agricultural systems. We further develop and evaluate novel STIC variants that incorporate machine learning (ML) techniques to eliminate the need for surface energy balance observations, specifically net radiation and soil heat flux, thereby enhancing model applicability in data-sparse settings. The integration of a ML component to estimate surface available energy is shown to have strong predictive performance for both LE (R2 = 0.81–0.94) and H (R2 = 0.46–0.72) across all agricultural systems examined here, demonstrating the potential of hybrid biophysical-machine learning approaches for surface energy balance modeling with minimal data requirements. This study concludes with a novel application of explainable machine learning (exML) to diagnose sources of model error. This exML framework attributes residual prediction errors to both model input variables and environmental drivers not explicitly included in the simulation experiments. This approach provides a new pathway for improving model design and integrating previously overlooked yet influential variables into future model iterations.

AI/ML↗