Girder Deflection Tests Under 1-G Loading
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Robertson, D.↗
SEARCH · Engineering Papers
Results for “load testing”
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MINIATURIZED RESONANT PLATE TESTING WITH HIGH SHOCK LOADS
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Pelfrey, Elliott Archer↗
Direct measurement and calculation of rubber bulk modulus by piston-cylinder method using conventional mechanical testing equipment
This article describes a method to directly measure the bulk modulus of rubber using a piston-cylinder type apparatus. The function of the testing apparatus is to reliably transfer load to the water inside the vessel and allow for the accurate and continuous measurement of volumetric displacement as the contents are compressed. During the test, load is applied to a piston-cylinder containing the rubber test sample and water using a conventional mechanical testing load frame. Load and the travel of the piston are recorded by a load cell and extensometer, respectfully. A brass or stainless steel plug of the same dimensions as the test sample is tested as a control sample to isolate the compliance of the system, including the compressibility of water and compliance of the piston-cylinder. The results from this control test are used to disincorporate the compliance of the system from the sample test results. Load-linear displacement data are mathematically converted to pressure-volumetric displacement data, from which bulk modulus is calculated. The test apparatus and method are validated using the known bulk modulus of water. Finally, the bulk modulus for two similar rubbers is evaluated. The validity of the results and limitations of the device are discussed.
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
Experimental Evaluation of Load Rejection Over-Voltage from Grid-Tied Solar Inverters
This paper investigates the impact of load rejection over-voltage (LRO) from commercially available grid-tied photovoltaic (PV) solar inverters. LRO can occur when a local feeder or breaker opens and the power output from a distributed energy resource exceeds the load power. Simplified models of current controlled inverters can over-predict over-voltage magnitudes, thus it is useful to quantify testing. The load rejection event was replicated using a hardware testbed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and a set of commercially available PV inverters was tested to quantify the impact of LRO for a range of generation-to-load ratios. The magnitude and duration of the over-voltage events are reported in this paper along with a discussion of characteristic inverter output behavior. The results for the inverters under test showed that maximum over-voltage magnitudes were less than 200 percent of nominal voltage, and much lower in many test cases. These research results are important because utilities that interconnect inverter-based DER need to understand their characteristics under abnormal grid conditions.
14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
Initial ASME code rule analysis on Simple and Full assessment
ASME & ASTM codes present simple and full assessment methodologies to qualify nuclear grade graphite components. This report explains the theory behind the statistical portion of the codes and describes the issues discussed in a 2020 workshop in the simple assessment, as well as the full assessment. The methodology for the full assessment was developed by Hindley []. He used a validation methodology to match the experimental average failure load of test specimens from several geometries to the calculated 50% POF load to tune the grouping criteria parameters based on an RMSE penalty function. The grouping criteria consists of a minimum volume to satisfy the weakest link theory of the Weibull distribution and a minimum stress range parameter. Hindley’s work found a minimum link volume of 10 times the grain size and a stress range parameter of 7% [satisfy the validation requirements. Several studies found that the link volume of 10 times the grain size was not satisfactory for the volume grouping criteria for graphite grades with fine grains. ASME 2021 code adopted a new volume grouping criteria based on fracture toughness for calculation of the process zone volume. However, errors were found in the ASME 2021 code process zone volume equation and the question is now open as to what volume grouping criteria is satisfactory. This report presents results from sensitivity studies that were done to evaluate the volume grouping criteria effect on the full assessment POF. This report also presents results from sensitivity studies on other aspects of the code that affect the POF, the mesh size and the choice of the Weibull threshold parameter. All three sensitivity studies: the volume grouping criteria, the mesh size, and the threshold parameter choice are found to affect the component qualification decision for components of structural reliability class 1 (SRC-1). The sensitivity analysis results are presented in the body of the report for NBG-18, which is the same grade of graphite as Hindley used in his thesis. Results from NBG-17, IG-110, 2114, and PCEA are presented in the Appendix. For NBG-18, it was found that increasing the threshold increases the POF, finer meshes result in higher POFs, and that smaller link volume requirements lead to higher POFs (which is inconsistent with Hindley’s findings). This report proposes a new validation study similar to Hindley’s []. The purpose of the new validation study is to tune the threshold, mesh size and grouping criteria based on results from multiple grades of graphite, including finer grain graphites T220 (1-3 microns) and NG-CT-50 (5 microns). The test specimens will be broken at 3 labs, such that we can measure between lab measurement variability, with at least 5 test specimens per lab such that the within lab uncertainty can also be measured. Hindley’s validation method tried matching the average experimental load with the median. The future study will attempt to match failures at lower percentiles, which would be closer to the SRC POF limit. We are currently looking into what geometries make sense and the best method to measure multi-axial stress states. These design decisions are still being set.
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
Westinghouse Accident Tolerant Fuel Program
The Westinghouse accident tolerant fuel (ATF) program is aimed at providing a significant increase in fuel robustness able to increase its tolerance to beyond design basis accidents at an economically attractive price to nuclear power providers. The Westinghouse ATF program, which began in 2004, advanced significantly during the current first phase (1A and 1B) begun in 2012 of this Department of Energy (DOE) program. Phase 1B will culminate in the manufacture of fuel rods that will undergo a 6 year exposure at steady state conditions in the Advanced Test Reactor and the Halden test reactor (Phase 2) and in transient tests in TREAT and Halden. The goal is to load lead test rods in a commercial reactor in 2022. In this paper, the current status of the ATF development and future irradiation plan is discussed in detail. Westinghouse has picked the most viable concepts that will provide maximum accident tolerance as well as economics, and those that will make the most sense for utility adoption. All three options appear to be feasible from a technical and economic point of view. (authors)
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
FY14 Status Report: CIRFT Testing Results on High Burnup UNF
The objective of this project is to perform a systematic study of SNF/UNF (spent nuclear fuel/or used nuclear fuel) integrity under simulated transportation environments by using hot cell testing technology developed recently at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), CIRFT (Cyclic Integrated Reversible-Bending Fatigue Tester). Under Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) sponsorship, ORNL completed four benchmarking tests, four static tests, and twelve dynamic or cycle tests on H. B. Robinson (HBR) high burn-up (HBU) fuel. With support from the US Department of Energy and the NRC, CIRFT testing has been continued. The CIRFT testing was conducted on three HBR rods (R3, R4, and R5), with two specimens failed and one specimen un-failed. The total number of cycles in the test of un-failed specimens went over 2.23 107; the test was stopped as because the specimen did not show any sign of failure. The data analysis on all the HBR SNF rods demonstrated that it is necessary to characterize the fatigue life of used fuel rods in terms of both the curvature amplitude and the maximum of absolute of curvature extremes. The latter is significant because the maxima of extremes signify the maximum of tensile stress of the outer fiber of the bending rod. So far, a large variety of hydrogen contents has been covered in the CIRFT testing on HBR rods. It has been shown that the load amplitude is the dominant factor that controls the lifetime of bending rods, but the hydrogen content also has an important effect on the lifetime attained, according to the load range tested.
fuel vibration integrity↗
Speculative instruction wakeup to tolerate draining delay of memory ordering violation check buffers
A technique for speculatively executing load-dependent instructions includes detecting that a memory ordering consistency queue is full for a completed load instruction. The technique also includes storing data loaded by the completed load instruction into a storage location for storing data when the memory ordering consistency queue is full. The technique further includes speculatively executing instructions that are dependent on the completed load instruction. The technique also includes in response to a slot becoming available in the memory ordering consistency queue, replaying the load instruction. The technique further includes in response to receiving loaded data for the replayed load instruction, testing for a data mis-speculation by comparing the loaded data for the replayed load instruction with the data loaded by the completed load instruction that is stored in the storage location.
Kalamatianos, John↗
Workplace Charge Management with Aggregated Building Loads
This paper describes a workplace charge management system developed to control plug-in electric vehicle charging stations based on aggregated building loads. A system to collect information from drivers was also developed for better charge management performance since the present AC charging station standard does not provide battery state of charge information. First, simulations with uncontrolled charging data were conducted to investigate several scenarios and control methods, and then one method with the most power curtailment during peak load was selected for verification tests. This paper illustrates load reduction test results for 36 charging stations and real-time campus net load data.
25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
Complete Initial Scoping Tests on the Incorporation of Novel Loaded Iodine Getters into GCM
This study encompasses initial scoping tests on the incorporation of a novel iodine loaded getter material into the Sandia developed low temperature sintering glass ceramic material (GCM) waste form. In particular, we studied the PNNL Ag-I-Aerogel. Optical microscopy indicates inhomogenous samples based on particle sizes and variations in color (AgI vs Ag/AgO on silica). TGA/MS data when heated in air indicates loss of iodine and organics (CO2) between 250-450°C a total of ~15wt% loss, with additional / small iodine loss when during 550°C hold for 1 hr. TGA/MS data when heated in N2 indicates less organic and slightly less iodine loss below 550°C, with no loss of iodine in 550°C 1 hour hold. Furthermore, a substantial mass loss of sulfur containing compounds is observed (m/e of 34 and 36) between 150 – 550°C in both air and N2 sintering atmospheres. In an effort to capture iodine lost to volatilization during heating (at temps below glass sintering temperature of 550°C), we added 5 wt% Ag flake to the AgIaerogel. Resulting data indicates the iodine is retained with the addition of the Ag flake, resulting in only a small iodine loss (< 1wt%) at ~350°C. No method of curtailing loss of sulfur containing compounds due to heating was successful in this scoping study.
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
Inverter Ground Fault Overvoltage Testing
This report describes testing conducted at NREL to determine the duration and magnitude of transient overvoltages created by several commercial PV inverters during ground fault conditions. For this work, a test plan developed by the Forum on Inverter Grid Integration Issues (FIGII) has been implemented in a custom test setup at NREL. Load rejection overvoltage test results were reported previously in a separate technical report.
24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
Physics and technology in the ion-cyclotron range of frequency on Tore Supra and TITAN test facility: implication for ITER
To support the design of an ITER ion-cyclotron range of frequency heating (ICRH) system and to mitigate risks of operation in ITER, CEA has initiated an ambitious Research & Development program accompanied by experiments on Tore Supra or test-bed facility together with a significant modelling effort. The paper summarizes the recent results in the following areas: Comprehensive characterization (experiments and modelling) of a new Faraday screen concept tested on the Tore Supra antenna. A new model is developed for calculating the ICRH sheath rectification at the antenna vicinity. The model is applied to calculate the local heat flux on Tore Supra and ITER ICRH antennas. Full-wave modelling of ITER ICRH heating and current drive scenarios with the EVE code. With 20 MW of power, a current of 400 kA could be driven on axis in the DT scenario. Comparison between DT and DT(3He) scenario is given for heating and current drive efficiencies. First operation of CW test-bed facility, TITAN, designed for ITER ICRH components testing and could host up to a quarter of an ITER antenna. R&D of high permittivity materials to improve load of test facilities to better simulate ITER plasma antenna loading conditions.
Litaudon, X↗
Wear and Corrosion Resistances of Active Screen Plasma-Nitrided Duplex Stainless Steels
Two grades of duplex stainless steel, SAF 2205 and SAF 2507, were nitrided using an active screen plasma process carried out at 380 °C for 10 h and were characterized in terms of microstructure and hardness. Wear resistance was assessed by means of linear scratch tests, using loads below and above the critical load. Potentiodynamic polarization was used to analyze corrosion behavior in 0.6 M NaCl solution. X-ray diffractometry showed expanded austenite formation in all nitrided samples. The super duplex steel SAF 2507 showed much better scratch resistance, with low friction coefficient and greater toughness, as judged by the pattern of superficial cracks when it was tested above the critical load. The corrosion behavior of steels was also different, mainly in the active region, and nitriding had a more beneficial effect upon SAF 2507. The potential relative to the transpassive region was practically unaffected by the nitriding.
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
Robust Kriged Kalman Filtering
Although the kriged Kalman filter (KKF) has well-documented merits for prediction of spatial-temporal processes, its performance degrades in the presence of outliers due to anomalous events, or measurement equipment failures. This paper proposes a robust KKF model that explicitly accounts for presence of measurement outliers. Exploiting outlier sparsity, a novel l1-regularized estimator that jointly predicts the spatial-temporal process at unmonitored locations, while identifying measurement outliers is put forth. Numerical tests are conducted on a synthetic Internet protocol (IP) network, and real transformer load data. Test results corroborate the effectiveness of the novel estimator in joint spatial prediction and outlier identification.
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
Fuel assembly shaker and truck test simulation
This study continues the modeling support of the SNL shaker table task from 2013 and includes analysis of the SNL 2014 truck test campaign. Detailed finite element models of the fuel assembly surrogate used by SNL during testing form the basis of the modeling effort. Additional analysis was performed to characterize and filter the accelerometer data collected during the SNL testing. The detailed fuel assembly finite element model was modified to improve the performance and accuracy of the original surrogate fuel assembly model in an attempt to achieve a closer agreement with the low strains measured during testing. The revised model was used to recalculate the shaker table load response from the 2013 test campaign. As it happened, the results remained comparable to the values calculated with the original fuel assembly model. From this it is concluded that the original model was suitable for the task and the improvements to the model were not able to bring the calculated strain values down to the extremely low level recorded during testing. The model needs more precision to calculate strains that are so close to zero. The truck test load case had an even lower magnitude than the shaker table case. Strain gage data from the test was compared directly to locations on the model. Truck test strains were lower than the shaker table case, but the model achieved a better relative agreement of 100-200 microstrains (or 0.0001-0.0002 mm/mm). The truck test data included a number of accelerometers at various locations on the truck bed, surrogate basket, and surrogate fuel assembly. This set of accelerometers allowed an evaluation of the dynamics of the conveyance system used in testing. It was discovered that the dynamic load transference through the conveyance has a strong frequency-range dependency. This suggests that different conveyance configurations could behave differently and transmit different magnitudes of loads to the fuel even when traveling down the same road at the same speed. It is recommended that the SNL conveyance system used in testing be characterized through modal analysis and frequency response analysis to provide context and assist in the interpretation of the strain data that was collected during the truck test campaign.
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
Effect of Thermal Storage on the Performance of a Wood Pellet-fired Residential Boiler
Interest in the direct use of biomass for thermal applications as a renewable technology is increasing as is also focus on air pollutant emissions from these sources and methods to minimize the impact. This work has focused on wood pellet-fired residential boilers, which are the cleanest fuel in this category. In the residential application the load varies strongly over the course of a year and a high fraction of the load is typically under 15% of the maximum boiler capacity. Thermal storage can be used even with boilers which have modulation capacity typically to 30% of the boiler maximum. One common pellet boiler was tested at full load and also at the minimum load used in the U.S. certification testing (15%). In these tests the load was steady over the test period. Testing was also done with an emulated load profile for a home in Albany, N.Y. on a typical January, March, and April day. In this case the load imposed on the boiler varied hourly under computer control, based on the modeled load for the example case used. The boiler used has a nominal output of 25 kW and a common mixed hardwood/softwood commercial pellet was used. Moisture content was 3.77%. A dilution tunnel approach was used for the measurement of particulate emissions, in accordance with U.S. certification testing requirements. The test results showed that the use of storage strongly reduces cycling rates under part load conditions. The transients which occur as these boilers cycle contribute to increased particulate emissions and reduced efficiency. The time period of a full cycle at a given load condition can be increased by increasing the storage tank volume and/or increasing the control differential range. It was shown that increasing the period strongly increased the measured efficiency and reduced the particulate emission (relative to the no storage case). The impact was most significant at the low load levels. Storage tank heat loss is shown to be a significant factor in thermal efficiency, particularly at low load. Different methods to measure this heat loss were explored. For one of the tanks evaluated the efficiency loss at the 15% load point was found to be as high as 7.9%. Where storage is used good insulation on the tank, insulation on the piping, and attention to fittings are recommended.
09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
Multiaxial Fatigue Life Prediction Based on Nonlinear Continuum Damage Mechanics and Critical Plane Method
A new multiaxial fatigue life prediction model has been proposed in this paper. The concepts of nonlinear continuum damage mechanics and critical plane criteria were incorporated in the proposed model. The shear strain-based damage control parameter was chosen to account for multiaxial fatigue damage under constant amplitude loading. Fatigue tests were conducted on nickel-based superalloy GH4169 tubular specimens at the temperature of 400 °C under proportional and nonproportional loading. The proposed method was checked against the multiaxial fatigue test data of GH4169. Most of prediction results are within a factor of two scatter band of the test results.
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
CO2-Binding Organic Liquids Gas Capture with Polarity-Swing-Assisted Regeneration Full Technology Feasibility Study B1 - Solvent-based Systems
PNNL, Fluor Corporation and Queens University (Kingston, ON) successfully completed a three year comprehensive study of the CO2BOL water-lean solvent platform with Polarity Swing Assisted Regeneration (PSAR). This study encompassed solvent synthesis, characterization, environmental toxicology, physical, thermodynamic and kinetic property measurements, Aspen Plus™ modeling and bench-scale testing of a candidate CO2BOL solvent molecule. Key Program Findings The key program findings are summarized as follows: • PSAR favorably reduced stripper duties and reboiler temperatures with little/no impact to absorption column • >90% CO2 capture was achievable at reasonable liquid-gas ratios in the absorber • High rich solvent viscosities (up to 600 cP) were successfully demonstrated in the bench-scale system. However, the projected impacts of high viscosity to capital cost and operational limits compromised the other levelized cost of electricity benefits. • Low thermal conductivity of organics significantly increased the required cross exchanger surface area, and potentially other heat exchange surfaces. • CO2BOL had low evaporative losses during bench-scale testing • There was no evidence of foaming during bench scale testing • Current CO2BOL formulation costs project to be $35/kg • Ecotoxicity (Water Daphnia) was comparable between CO2BOL and MEA (169.47 versus 103.63 mg/L) • Full dehydration of the flue gas was determined to not be economically feasible. However, modest refrigeration (13 MW for the 550 MW reference system) was determined to be potentially economically feasible, and still produce a water-lean condition for the CO2BOLs (5 wt% steady-state water loading). • CO2BOLs testing with 5 wt% water loading did not compromise anhydrous performance behavior, and showed actual enhancement of CO2 capture performance. • Mass transfer of CO2BOLs was not greatly impeded by viscosity • Facile separation of antisolvent from lean CO2BOL was demonstrated on the bench cart • No measurable solvent degradation was observed over 4 months of testing – even with 5 wt% water present
Heldebrant, David J↗