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At least 199 records · Page 11

Predicting High Energy Arcing Fault Zones of Influence for Aluminum Using an Arc Flash Modeling Approach: Evaluation of a model bias, uncertainty, parameter sensitivity and zone of influence estimation

This report documents the development of an arc flash hazard model to calculate the incident energy and zone of influence from high energy arcing faults involving aluminum. The NRC has identified the potential for (HEAFs) involving aluminum to increase the damage zone beyond what is currently postulated in fire probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) methodologies. To estimate the hazard from HEAFs involving aluminum an arc flash model was developed. Differences between the initial model and nuclear power plant (NPP) fire PRA scenarios were identified. Modification of the initial model established from existing literature and test data was used to minimize these differences. The developed model was evaluated against NRC datasets to understand the model prediction and relative uncertainties. Finally, a range of fire PRA zone of influences (ZOI) were developed based on the developed model, target fragility estimates and update HEAF PRA methodology. The results were developed to support an NRC LIC-504 evaluation in tandem with other modeling efforts. The report documents the effort and provides a reference for any future advancements in arc flash modeling.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

FueL Additives for Solid Hydrogen (FLASH) Carriers for Electric Aviation

Most UAV technologies currently rely on (non-renewable) electric power. Fuel cells with material-based H2 storage addresses this limitation and can be cost effective. The goals of this project are to develop FLASH formulation that can deliver 6g H2/100g fuel, to design, build and test fuel cell cartridge compatible with FLASH, and to test FLASH with 600 W fuel cell system and quantify cartridge and system specific energy.

AMR↗

Non Volatile Flash Memory Radiation Tests

Commercial flash memory industry has experienced a fast growth in the recent years, because of their wide spread usage in cell phones, mp3 players and digital cameras. On the other hand, there has been increased interest in the use of high density commercial nonvolatile flash memories in space because of ever increasing data requirements and strict power requirements. Because of flash memories complex structure; they cannot be treated as just simple memories in regards to testing and analysis. It becomes quite challenging to determine how they will respond in radiation environments.

single event upset results↗

CG-Kit: Code Generation Toolkit for performant and maintainable variants of source code applied to Flash-X hydrodynamics simulations

CG-Kit is a new Code Generation tool-Kit that we have developed as a part of the solution for portability and maintainability for multiphysics computing applications. The development of CG-Kit is rooted in the urgent need created by the shifting landscape of high-performance computing platforms and the algorithmic complexities of a particular large-scale multiphysics application: Flash-X. To efficiently use computing resources on a heterogeneous node, an application must have a map of computation to resources and a mechanism to move the data and computation to the resources according to the map. Most existing performance portability solutions are focussed on abstracting the expression of computations so that a unified source code can be specialized to run on different resources. However, such an approach is insufficient for a code like Flash-X, which has a multitude of code components that can be assembled in various permutations and combinations to form different instances of applications. Similar challenges apply to any code that has composability, where a single specified way of apportioning work among devices may not be optimal. Additionally, use cases arise where the optimal control flow of computation may differ for different devices while the underlying numerics remain identical. This combination leads to unique challenges including handling an existing large code base in Fortran and/or C/C++, subdivision of code into a great variety of units supporting a wide range of physics and numerical methods, different parallelization techniques for distributed and shared memory systems and accelerator devices, and heterogeneity of computing platforms requiring coexisting variants of parallel algorithms. All of these challenges demand that scientific software developers apply existing knowledge about domain applications, algorithms, and computing platforms to determine custom abstractions and granularity for code generation. There is a critical lack of tools to tackle those problems. CG-Kit is designed to fill this gap by providing a user with the ability to express their desired control flow and computation-to-resource map in the form a pseudocode-like recipe. It consists of standalone tools that can be combined into highly specific and, we argue, highly effective portability and maintainability toolchains. Here we present the design of our new tools: parametrized source trees, control flow graphs, and recipes. The tools are implemented in Python. They are agnostic to the programming language of the source code targeted for code generation. In conclusion, we demonstrate the capabilities of the toolkit with two examples, first, multithreaded variants of the basic AXPY operation, and second, variants of parallel algorithms within a hydrodynamics solver, called Spark, from Flash-X that operates on block-structured adaptive meshes.

Algorithmic portability↗

Ultra-high-dose-rate FLASH and Conventional-Dose-Rate Irradiation Differentially Affect Human Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and Normal Hematopoiesis

Ultra-high-dose-rate FLASH radiation therapy has been shown to minimize side effects of irradiation in various organs while keeping antitumor efficacy. This property, called the FLASH effect, has caused enthusiasm in the radiation oncology community because it opens opportunities for safe dose escalation and improved radiation therapy outcome. Here, we investigated the impact of ultra-high-dose-rate FLASH versus conventional-dose-rate (CONV) total body irradiation (TBI) on humanized models of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) and normal human hematopoiesis.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Deciphering Time-Dependent DNA Damage Complexity, Repair, and Oxygen Tension: A Mechanistic Model for FLASH-Dose-Rate Radiation Therapy

Irradiation with ultrahigh dose rates (FLASH) has reemerged as a promising radiation therapy approach to effectively lower potential damage burden on normal tissue without sacrificing tumor control. However, the large number of recent FLASH studies have been conducted under vastly different experimental conditions and circumstances (ie, investigated biological endpoint, radiation quality, and environmental oxygen level), with unverified biological mechanisms of action and unexplored interplay effect of the main dependencies. To facilitate radiobiological investigation of FLASH phenomena and assessment of clinical applicability, we present an extension of the mechanistic radiobiological model “UNified and VERSatile bio response Engine” (UNIVERSE).

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Quantification of Oxygen Depletion During FLASH Irradiation In Vitro and In Vivo

Delivery of radiation at ultrahigh dose rates (UHDRs), known as FLASH, has recently been shown to preferentially spare normal tissues from radiation damage compared with tumor tissues. However, the underlying mechanism of this phenomenon remains unknown, with one of the most widely considered hypotheses being that the effect is related to substantial oxygen depletion upon FLASH, thereby altering the radiochemical damage during irradiation, leading to different radiation responses of normal and tumor cells. Testing of this hypothesis would be advanced by direct measurement of tissue oxygen in vivo during and after FLASH irradiation.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Flash Graphene from Plastic Waste

In this work, an approach to upcycling plastic waste (PW) products is presented. The method relies on flash Joule heating (FJH) to convert PW into flash graphene (FG). In addition to FG, the process results in the formation of carbon oligomers, hydrogen, and light hydrocarbons. In order to make high quality graphene, a sequential alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC) flash is used. Here, the FJH process requires no catalyst and works for PW mixtures, which makes the process suitable for handling landfill PW. The energy required to convert PW to FG is ~ 23 kJ/g or ~ $125 in electricity per ton of PW, potentially making this process economically attractive for scale-up. The FG was characterized by Raman spectroscopy and had a I 2D /I G peak ratio up to 6 with a low-intensity D band. Moreover, transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis show that the FG is turbostratic with an interlayer spacing of 3.45 Å. The large interlayer spacing will facilitate its dispersion in liquids and composites. Analysis of FG dispersions in 1% Pluronic aqueous solution shows that concentrations up to 1.2 mg/mL can be achieved. The carbon oligomers that distilled from the process were characterized by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and have chemical structures similar to the starting PW. Initial analysis of gas phase products shows the formation of considerable amounts of hydrogen along with other light hydrocarbons. Since graphene is naturally occurring and it shows a low toxicity profile, this could be an environmentally beneficial method to upcycle PE.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Flash droughts present a new challenge for subseasonal-to-seasonal prediction

Flash droughts are a recently recognized type of extreme event distinguished by sudden onset and rapid intensification of drought conditions with severe impacts. They unfold on subseasonal-to-seasonal timescales (weeks to months), presenting a new challenge for the surge of interest in improving subseasonal-to-seasonal prediction. In this perspective we discuss existing prediction capability for flash droughts and what is needed to establish their predictability. We place them in the context of synoptic to centennial phenomena, consider how they could be incorporated into early warning systems and risk management, and propose two definitions. The growing awareness that flash droughts involve particular processes and severe impacts, and probably a climate change dimension, makes them a compelling frontier for research, monitoring and prediction.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Ultra-high dose rate FLASH irradiator at the radiological research accelerator facility

The Radiological Research Accelerator Facility has modified a decommissioned Varian Clinac to deliver ultra-high dose rates: operating in 9 MeV electron mode ( FLASH mode), samples can be irradiated at a Source-Surface Distance (SSD) of 20 cm at average dose rates of up to 600 Gy/s (3.3 Gy per 0.13 µs pulse, 180 pulses per second). In this mode multiple pulses are required for most irradiations. By modulating pulse repetition rate and irradiating at SSD = 171 cm, dose rates below 1 Gy/min can be achieved, allowing comparison of FLASH and conventional irradiations with the same beam. Operating in 6 MV photon mode, with the conversion target removed ( SuperFLASH mode), samples are irradiated at higher dose rates (0.2–150 Gy per 5 µs pulse, 360 pulses per second) and most irradiations can be performed with a single very high dose rate pulse. In both modes we have seen the expected inverse relation between dose rate and irradiated area, with the highest dose rates obtained for beams with a FWHM of about 2 cm and ± 10% uniformity over 1 cm diameter. As an example of operation of the ultra-high dose rate FLASH irradiator, we present dose rate dependence of dicentric chromosome yields.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Analytical Bit-Error Model of NAND Flash Memories for Dosimetry Application

In this work, we provide an analytical model for the total ionizing dose (TID) effects on the bit error statistics of commercial flash memory chips. We have validated the model with experimental data collected by irradiating several commercial NAND flash memory chips from different technology nodes. We find that our analytical model can project bit errors at higher TID values (~ 20 krad(Si)) from measured data at lower TID values (<1 krad(Si)). Based on our model and the measured data, we have formulated basic design rules for using a commercial flash memory chip as a dosimeter. We discuss the impact of NAND chip-to-chip variability, noise margin and the intrinsic errors on the dosimeter design using detailed experimentation.

3-D NAND↗

Onset of selective laser flash sintering of AlN

Abstract Flash sintering uses a combination of heating and electric fields to rapidly densify ceramics. Previously, it has been shown that a scanning laser can be used to initiate flash sintering in localized regions on an yttria‐stabilized zirconia (YSZ) sample in a process known as selective laser flash sintering (SLFS). In this work, we show using a combination of measurements of electric current flowing through the sample and observations of necks formed between powder particles that aluminum nitride (AlN) can also undergo SLFS. Scan conditions required to initiate SLFS are characterized over a range of laser powers and laser scan speeds in a dry nitrogen environment. It is shown that initiation of SLFS in AlN is governed by both the local input energy density per scan and heat dissipation and a numerical model is developed to predict temperatures during SLFS. Assuming the minimum temperature along the conductive path determines the onset of SLFS, the minimum temperature and time required is 450–670 K in 2–0.25 s for the pressed AlN pellets used in this study for laser scan speeds of 33–300 m/s, laser powers of 10–30 W, and an applied electric field of 3000 V/cm.

Gouws, Andre↗

In-operando synchrotron experiments of flash sintering carried out in current rate mode

Here, we report first-time results for in-operando flash sintering synchrotron experiments carried out in current rate mode where the specimen, held at a constant temperature, is fed current that is increased at a constant rate. These experiments are unique because the time dependence of the sintering behavior can be stretched out over a longer period (by changing the current rate) than in voltage-to-current experiments in which sintering occurs in a burst at the onset of the flash. Two results are presented: (i) A comparison of temperatures measured with the platinum standard to those predicted by the black body radiation model leading to estimates of the emissivity as a function of porosity whereby emissivity increases from 0.65 to 0.9 as the sample sinters from its green state to full density, and (ii) measurements of the excess lattice expansion as a function of density as the sample sinters continuously while the current is increased. The present work highlights the promise of current rate experiments to obtain results while the sample sinters gradually from its green density to full density (somewhat akin to conventional sintering) for gaining further insights into the mechanisms of flash sintering.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Flash Heating of a Hollow Rod to Determine Thermal Properties

In a nuclear reactor, prolonged exposure to high neutron flux levels can change material properties of reactor components. Due to the danger posed to personnel by highly radioactive components such as spent fuel, noncontact methods must be used to determine these properties. The objective of the current research is to test the viability of using a flash-heating method to determine the thermal diffusivity of a silicon carbide (SiC) tube, which could be used as cladding for a nuclear fuel rod. The flash-heating experiment was conducted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and temperature results were analyzed as a two-Dimensional cross section which assumed axial symmetry. The model was fitted iteratively to the temperature measurements using nonlinear regression which required values for thermal diffusivity, Biot number and a term to determine the magnitude of the heat absorbed by the flash. The method could be expanded in the future to estimate the thermal diffusivity of spent nuclear fuel rods in an effort to increase the certainty of new reactor designs using precise thermal properties throughout the core life. A statistical analysis of the results of this work is provided as part of the analysis.

McMasters, Robert L [Virginia Military Institute, ↗

Flash-X

Flash-X is a highly composable multiphysics software system that can be used to simulate physical phenomena in several scientific domains. It is derived from FLASH, which has been a community code for several communities over the last 20 years. The Flash-X architecture has been redesigned to be compatible with increasingly heterogeneous hardware platforms. A part of the redesign is a utilizing a newly designed performance portability layer that is language agnostic.

Dubey, Anshu [Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), A↗

CodeFlow: A Code Generation System for Flash-X Orchestration Runtime

We propose the CodeFlow toolchain for Flash-X that realizes the “recipe-to-source” code transformation for Flash-X simulations and that is necessary to achive performance portability. We design a high-level language to express operations of simulations in so-called recipes, which are given as input to the toolchain. The tools of the CodeFlow pipeline include code transformation with tree-based source code representation techniques and code orchestration and generation based on control flow graphs. The generated source code utilizes a new runtime, developed for Flash-X, that orchestrates dynamic and asynchronous data movement and task execution. The functionality of CodeFlow is demonstrated using a hydrodynamic problem with a strong shock.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Modeling Z-Pinches with the FLASH code

Z-Pinches occur when large amounts of current are run axially through a cylindrical conducting material, and the magnetic pressure causes said material to implode radially to its z-axis. They are useful concepts in a large range of physics and fields like fusion. Simulating these experiments are important to not only national laboratories but also in the private sector as well. FLASH is an open source MHD code that is a useful option for modeling these experiments. However, the physics needed to be verified against an actual theory. Using a paper written by S.A Slutz, Z-Pinch experiments were run with FLASH based on the parameters described in the paper, and then results were validated against the theory presented. This verified that FLASH, although has some discrepancies in the theory due to a difference in physics calculations, remains a powerful tool for modeling Z-Pinch experiments not only on the scale of the Z-Machine from Sandia National Laboratory, but also at the scale of the proposed Next Generation Pulsed Power (NGPP) machine.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Disastrous Flash Floods Triggered by Moderate to Minor Rainfall Events. Recent Cases in Coastal Benguela (Angola)

The present work focuses on two recent flash floods in coastal Benguela (Angola), both triggered by moderate rainfall but which had disastrous consequences for local populations (namely 71 deaths in 2015 and 17 in 2019). The research involved a regional survey to establish the effects of these floods combined with a geomorphological and socio-economic analysis of the most affected areas to understand the main forcing factors. The two flash floods produced major damage in restricted sectors within very small coastal catchments (<16 km2). The prevalence of fine-grained sedimentary rocks, relatively steep hills, thin soil cover, and vegetation scarcity are natural factors that promote surface runoff. However, socio-economic conditions are most likely the main reasons of flood damage. Namely, rapid population growth with poor planning and making use of low-quality construction materials, the high waste yields that are not properly managed and the absence of flood risk awareness. In the small valleys around the fast-growing cities of coastal Benguela, hazardous flash floods occur recurrently, even after moderate precipitation. Most affected areas are determined by local conditions that compromise drainage at the time of the rainfall event, being very difficult to predict.

Dinis, Pedro A. (ORCID:0000000175587369)↗