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DOE OSTI2020

Investing in STEM Benefits Community, Company, and Industry - 20243

Like many organizations and groups, the Department of Energy Environmental Management program and the nuclear industry are facing an aging employee population and record numbers of employee retirements. This 'silver tsunami' of retirees means the industry as a whole is recruiting graduates at a fast pace. So, how do we ensure the nuclear industry has a robust pipeline of graduates with the necessary background? Fluor Idaho's investment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education programs helps promote the next generation of technical professionals, benefiting both the company and the industry. Through community outreach initiatives and student mentoring programs, Fluor Idaho promotes kids' interest in STEM. The programs are designed to spark STEM interest in grade school and then foster and grow that interest through high school and higher education. After igniting student excitement about STEM topics in school, Fluor Idaho focuses on providing work-specific opportunities including mentoring and intern programs. These programs give students a better look at real-world job opportunities while still stimulating their interest in STEM. These programs ultimately provide career opportunities for the students and a pipeline of workers. Fluor Idaho's strategy for its summer interns has been to place students in a wide variety of projects - from the commissioning of a first-of-a-kind nuclear processing facility, to operating nuclear waste management facilities, to developing computer programs and applications - and give them responsibilities that make them feel like valued contributors. This approach has created a positive and rewarding summer-intern program experience for the students. Fluor Idaho's investment in its future today is reducing the knowledge gap - or cliff - that many contractors in the nuclear industry are facing. It's a worthwhile investment that is readily visible within its many cleanup projects. The next generation of technical professionals is making an impact now - benefiting both the company and the nuclear industry. This paper will review Fluor Idaho's programs, including STEM community outreach and education and mentoring programs. It will also present statistics about the reach of those programs and their successes. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

DOE OSTI2016

Local Petrovskii lacunas close to parabolic singular points of the wavefronts of strictly hyperbolic partial differential equations

We enumerate the local Petrovskii lacunas (that is, the domains of local regularity of the principal fundamental solutions of strictly hyperbolic PDEs with constant coefficients in R{sup N}) close to parabolic singular points of their wavefronts (that is, at the points of types P{sub 8}{sup 1}, P{sub 8}{sup 2}, ±X{sub 9}, X{sub 9}{sup 1}, X{sub 9}{sup 2}, J{sub 10}{sup 1} and J{sub 10}{sup 3}). These points form the next most difficult family of classes in the natural classification of singular points after the so-called simple singularities A{sub k}, D{sub k}, E{sub 6}, E{sub 7} and E{sub 8}, which have been investigated previously. Also we present a computer program which counts the topologically distinct morsifications of critical points of smooth functions, and hence also the local components of the complement of a generic wavefront at its singular points. Bibliography: 22 titles. (paper)

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2017

An Unsteady State Gas Transport Model in Matrix Laboratory (MATLAB) for PWR Gas Management

Reactor Coolant System (RCS) hydrogen gas management can be a challenge at Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs) during shutdown, startup, and steady state operation. Poor hydrogen control can result in higher general corrosion rates for RCS components and increases in critical path time for shutdown or startup. Also, performance indicator penalties may be accrued by entry into Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) Action Level conditions or by accrual of Chemistry Effectiveness Index (CEI) penalties established by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO). Furthermore, poor hydrogen control may increase industrial safety risk due to the creation of an explosive environment. Part of the hydrogen management difficulty arises from the interaction of several phenomena that require complex simulations to fully understand. While hydrogen gas transport models have been developed, the application of these models is limited by the computational intensity required to accurately model the dynamism inherent in plant shutdown or startup. Subsequently, a gas transport model is developed in a suitable computational program to meet these needs and provide input to an optimized RCS hydrogen management strategy for all operational modes. The gas transport model is used to model RCS hydrogen behavior for an example PWR during an End of Cycle (EOC) Forced Outage (FO) startup, a refueling outage (RFO) shutdown, and during nominal steady state operation. The computational software selected is Matrix Laboratory (MATLAB{sup R})

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Generating and Analyzing Program Call Graphs using Ontology

Call graph or caller-callee relationships have been used for various kinds of static program analysis, performance analysis and profiling, and for program safety or security analysis such as detecting anomalies of program execution or code injection attacks. However, different tools generate call graphs in different formats, which prevents efficient reuse of call graph results. In this paper, we present an approach of using ontology and resource description framework (RDF) to create knowledge graphs for specifying call graphs to facilitate the construction of full-fledged and complex call graphs of computer programs, realizing more interoperable and scalable program analyses than conventional approaches. We create a formal ontology-based specification of call graph information to capture concepts and properties of both static and dynamic call graphs so different tools can collaboratively contribute to more comprehensive analysis results. Our experiments show that ontology enables merging of call graphs generated from different tools and flexible queries using a standard query interface. Index Terms—Callgraph, ontology, knowl

Dorta, E.↗

DOE OSTI2016

Multiyear Plan for Validation of EnergyPlus Multi-Zone HVAC System Modeling using ORNL's Flexible Research Platform

This document describes the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) multiyear experimental plan for validation and uncertainty characterization of whole-building energy simulation for a multi-zone research facility using a traditional rooftop unit (RTU) as a baseline heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. The project’s overarching objective is to increase the accuracy of energy simulation tools by enabling empirical validation of key inputs and algorithms. Doing so is required to inform the design of increasingly integrated building systems and to enable accountability for performance gaps between design and operation of a building. The project will produce documented data sets that can be used to validate key functionality in different energy simulation tools and to identify errors and inadequate assumptions in simulation engines so that developers can correct them. ASHRAE Standard 140, Method of Test for the Evaluation of Building Energy Analysis Computer Programs (ASHRAE 2004), currently consists primarily of tests to compare different simulation programs with one another. This project will generate sets of measured data to enable empirical validation, incorporate these test data sets in an extended version of Standard 140, and apply these tests to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) EnergyPlus software (EnergyPlus 2016) to initiate the correction of any significant deficiencies. The fitness-for-purpose of the key algorithms in EnergyPlus will be established and demonstrated, and vendors of other simulation programs will be able to demonstrate the validity of their products. The data set will be equally applicable to validation of other simulation engines as well.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2016

SURROGATE MODEL DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION FOR RELIABILITY ANALYSIS OF REACTOR PRESSURE VESSELS

In nuclear light water reactors (LWRs), the reactor coolant, core and shroud are contained within a massive, thick walled steel vessel known as a reactor pressure vessel (RPV). Given the tremendous size of these structures, RPVs typically contain a large population of pre-existing flaws introduced in the manufacturing process. After many years of operation, irradiation-induced embrittlement makes these vessels increasingly susceptible to fracture initiation at the locations of the pre-existing flaws. Because of the uncertainty in the loading conditions, flaw characteristics and material properties, probabilistic methods are widely accepted and used in assessing RPV integrity. The Fracture Analysis of Vessels – Oak Ridge (FAVOR) computer program developed by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is widely used for this purpose. This program can be used in order to perform deterministic and probabilistic risk-informed analyses of the structural integrity of an RPV subjected to a range of thermal-hydraulic events. FAVOR uses a one-dimensional representation of the global response of the RPV, which is appropriate for the beltline region, which experiences the most embrittlement, and employs an influence coefficient technique to rapidly compute stress intensity factors for axis-aligned surface-breaking flaws. The Grizzly code is currently under development at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to be used as a general multiphysics simulation tool to study a variety of degradation mechanisms in nuclear power plant components. The first application of Grizzly has been to study fracture in embrittled RPVs. Grizzly can be used to model the thermo-mechanical response of an RPV under transient conditions observed in a pressurized thermal shock (PTS) scenario. The global response of the vessel provides boundary conditions for local 3D models of the material in the vicinity of a flaw. Fracture domain integrals are computed to obtain stress intensity factors, which can in turn be used to assess whether a fracture would initiate at a pre-existing flaw. To use Grizzly for probabilistic analysis, it is necessary to have a way to rapidly evaluate stress intensity factors. To accomplish this goal, a reduced order model (ROM) has been developed to efficiently represent the behavior of a detailed 3D Grizzly model used to calculate fracture parameters. This approach uses the stress intensity factor influence coefficient method that has been used with great success in FAVOR. Instead of interpolating between tabulated solutions, as FAVOR does, the ROM approach uses a response surface methodology to compute fracture solutions based on a sampled set of results used to train the ROM. The main advantages of this approach are that the process of generating the training data can be fully automated, and the procedure can be readily used to consider more general flaw configurations. This paper demonstrates the procedure used to generate a ROM to rapidly compute stress intensity factors for axis-aligned flaws. The results from this procedure are in good agreement with those produced using the traditional influence coefficient interpolation procedure, which gives confidence in this method. This paves the way for applying this procedure for more general flaw configurations.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2014

Converting DYNAMO simulations to Powersim Studio simulations

DYNAMO is a computer program for building and running 'continuous' simulation models. It was developed by the Industrial Dynamics Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for simulating dynamic feedback models of business, economic, and social systems. The history of the system dynamics method since 1957 includes many classic models built in DYANMO. It was not until the late 1980s that software was built to take advantage of the rise of personal computers and graphical user interfaces that DYNAMO was supplanted. There is much learning and insight to be gained from examining the DYANMO models and their accompanying research papers. We believe that it is a worthwhile exercise to convert DYNAMO models to more recent software packages. We have made an attempt to make it easier to turn these models into a more current system dynamics software language, Powersim © Studio produced by Powersim AS 2 of Bergen, Norway. This guide shows how to convert DYNAMO syntax into Studio syntax.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2016

New approach to calculate the true-coincidence effect of HpGe detector

The corrections for true-coincidence effects in HpGe detector are important, especially at low source-to-detector distances. This work established an approach to calculate the true-coincidence effects experimentally for HpGe detectors of type Canberra GC3018 and Ortec GEM25-76-XLB-C, which are in operation at neutron activation analysis lab in Malaysian Nuclear Agency (NM). The correction for true-coincidence effects was performed close to detector at distances 2 and 5 cm using {sup 57}Co, {sup 60}Co, {sup 133}Ba and {sup 137}Cs as standard point sources. The correction factors were ranged between 0.93-1.10 at 2 cm and 0.97-1.00 at 5 cm for Canberra HpGe detector; whereas for Ortec HpGe detector ranged between 0.92-1.13 and 0.95-100 at 2 and 5 cm respectively. The change in efficiency calibration curve of the detector at 2 and 5 cm after correction was found to be less than 1%. Moreover, the polynomial parameters functions were simulated through a computer program, MATLAB in order to find an accurate fit to the experimental data points.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗

DOE OSTI2023

Electron Target Cooling Analyses of the KIPT ADS Using MCNP and Ansys Fluent

This study presents multiphysics analyses of the electron target cooling system of the accelerator-driven system (ADS) of the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology (KIPT) using MCNP and Fluent computer programs. MCNP has been used to transport electrons, gammas, and neutrons, and to calculate the energy deposition in the target materials. The MCNP mesh-tally data have been imported into Fluent by a C subroutine that has been compiled and linked to Fluent as a user-defined function.The KIPT ADS is located in Ukraine and was in operation until February 2022. The Fluent model is based on the computer-aided design files from the manufacturing process of the target assembly. Here, the Fluent results for the reference case match very well the literature results obtained by STAR-CCM+ during the design phase. Other cases that differ from the reference one have been analyzed; in these cases, it is assumed a malfunction of the electron accelerator or of the water cooling system. The target cooling system operates normally for all the analyzed cases except when the inlet water mass flow rate is decreased. The transient analysis showed that the target cooling system can operate for 180 s with full power when the inlet water mass flow rate is decreased down by 75%.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2017

Blast-Wave Characteristics Near Site 300

We have developed a procedure for calculating the maximum high-explosive weight limit for use at Site 300 based on the analysis of the blast-wave propagation behavior in the atmosphere. Both analytical and experimental efforts have been involved in the present work, including a literature search, evaluation of other data, measurements of local weather conditions, and implementation of relevant computational programs. Major results of the present effort are • Comparison of the LLNL data with other data reveals discrepancies, suggesting that local effects, such as weather conditions in the downrange regions, may play a role in affecting the wave-propagation behavior. Our measurements of the local weather conditions indeed show that they differ from those at Site 300. • Analyses of other, newer models and data have resulted in the implementation of relevant computer codes, such as the BLASTO code, to be used at Site 300. • A new procedure for predicting the weight limit at Site 300 has been recommended. This new procedure consists of - Site 300 and local valley weather measurements. - The LAP code. - The BLASTO code. The LAP code is a modified SIPS code and computes the acoustic ray trajectories, including the focus ("caustic") locations, under varying local weather conditions. The BLASTO code calculates the peak overpressure vs distance relationship for a given charge weight and weather condition. Both the LAP code and the BLASTO code have been implemented and are operational at Site 300. Future plans include conducting selective tests to verify the validity of the predictive procedure recommended for Site 300.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

DOE OSTI1978

Plant Engineers Solar Energy Handbook: Southern California Region

Discussed in order after the introduction are solar components and systems (collectors, storage, service hot water systems, space heating with liquid and air systems, space cooling, heat pumps and controls); computer programs for system optimization; local solar and weather data; a description of buildings and plants in Southern California applying solar technology; current Federal and California solar legislation; standards, codes and performance testing information; a listing of manufacturers, distributors, and professional services available in Southern California region; and information access. Finally, solar design check lists for those engineers who wish to design their own systems. The program for the Solar Workshop for the Plant Engineer, March 30, 1978, Los Angeles, California is included.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2014

Patient-based radiographic exposure factor selection: a systematic review

Digital technology has wider exposure latitude and post-processing algorithms which can mask the evidence of underexposure and overexposure. Underexposure produces noisy, grainy images which can impede diagnosis and overexposure results in a greater radiation dose to the patient. These exposure errors can result from inaccurate adjustment of exposure factors in response to changes in patient thickness. This study aims to identify all published radiographic exposure adaptation systems which have been, or are being, used in general radiography and discuss their applicability to digital systems. Studies in EMBASE, MEDLINE, CINAHL and SCOPUS were systematically reviewed. Some of the search terms used were exposure adaptation, exposure selection, exposure technique, 25% rule, 15% rule, DuPont™ Bit System and radiography. A manual journal-specific search was also conducted in The Radiographer and Radiologic Technology. Studies were included if they demonstrated a system of altering exposure factors to compensate for variations in patients for general radiography. Studies were excluded if they focused on finding optimal exposures for an ‘average’ patient or focused on the relationship between exposure factors and dose. The database search uncovered 11 articles and the journal-specific search uncovered 13 articles discussing systems of exposure adaptation. They can be categorised as simple one-step guidelines, comprehensive charts and computer programs. Only two papers assessed the efficacy of exposure adjustment systems. No literature compares the efficacy of exposure adaptations system for film/screen radiography with digital radiography technology nor is there literature on a digital specific exposure adaptation system.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

DOE OSTI2017

Numerical Analysis of Flow Instability in Once-through Steam Generator

Two-phase flow instability is a critical area to consider in the design of steam generators. Oscillation of the flow rate and the system pressure caused by heating may cause several problems and is unfavorable in an extreme case because it causes a burnout of the heat transfer surface. A large amplitude variation in the heat transfer tube wall temperature generally occurs under density wave oscillation (DWO) conditions, and a continuous cycling tube wall temperature may lead to damage to the tube, causing thermal fatigue problems. Therefore, instability of the flow should be avoided, and a two-phase flow system should be designed to have a sufficient margin to avoid this. A computer program was developed for predicting a two-phase flow instability in a steam generator heated by liquid sodium, and the results of numerical studies for several parameters are presented in this paper.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2026

A GPU-based compressible combustion solver for applications exhibiting disparate space and time scales

High-speed chemically active flows pose significant computational challenges due to their disparate space and time scales, with stiff chemistry often dominating simulation time. While modern scientific computing programs achieve exascale performance by leveraging graphics processing units (GPUs), existing GPU-based compressible combustion solvers face critical limitations in memory management, load balancing, and handling the highly localized nature of chemical reactions. To this end, we present a high-performance compressible reacting flow solver built on the AMReX framework and optimized for multi-GPU settings. Here, our approach addresses three GPU performance bottlenecks: memory access patterns through column-major storage optimization, computational workload variability via a bulk-sparse integration strategy for chemical kinetics, and multi-GPU load distribution for adaptive mesh refinement applications. The solver adapts existing matrix-based chemical kinetics formulations to multi-grid contexts. Using representative combustion applications, including 2D and 3D detonations and a 3D jet-in-crossflow configuration, we demonstrate 1.4–5× performance improvements over initial implementations on an in-house cluster of NVIDIA H100 GPUs, and near-ideal weak scaling on the Frontier supercomputer (Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility) with up to 1024 AMD Instinct MI250X GPUs. Roofline analysis reveals substantial improvements in arithmetic intensity for both convection (∼ 10 ×) and chemistry (∼ 4 ×) routines, confirming efficient utilization of GPU memory bandwidth and computational resources.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2018

Series Solution for Magnetic Flux Density of Circular Current Loop and a Relevant Application

The series solution to the magnetic flux density of a circular current loop is presented in the paper. The convergences of these series are assessed. Comparing the result with elliptic integral method, the validity and feasibility of series solution were verified. A computer program has been developed by the method to calculate the magnetic flux density of a multi-coil magnet and its uniformity successfully.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2022

User’s Manual for Seal_Flux: A Seal Barrier Reduced-Order Model

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2023

User’s Manual for Seal_Flux: A Seal Barrier Reduced-Order Model (Update)

This report provides a brief description on the use of the Seal_Flux computer program developed as part of the effort to quantify the risk of geologic storage of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) under the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Risk Assessment Partnership (NRAP). The Seal_Flux code simulates the flow of CO 2 through a low permeability rock horizon or seal formation overlying the storage reservoir into which CO 2 is injected. A two-phase, relative permeability approach with Darcy’s law is used for one-dimensional (1D) flow computations of CO 2 through the horizon in the vertical direction. The code also allows the simulation of time-dependent processes that can influence such flow. However, as part of its design, Seal_Flux is what can be termed a “reduced-order model” (ROM) and is not intended as a full-functioning flow code. The theory and simulation in the code is streamlined and directed towards the implementation of Monte Carlo risk analyses of CO 2 transport or as termed in this context as “leakage.” While presented in this report as a stand-alone tool, the Seal_Flux code is intended to function in the future as one of several models as part of an integrated, systems-level model of CO 2 storage performance. Finally, the code is written in Python 3.10 to provide an open framework for further development by others and to assist in linking the code with other modules in an integrated assessment model.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2016

Strength of concrete structures under dynamic loading

The use of elastic supports is one the efficient methods of decreasing the dynamic loading. The paper describes the influence of elastic supports on the stress-strain state of steel concrete structures exposed to one-time dynamic loading resulting in failure. Oblique bending beams on elastic supports and their elastic, elastoplastic, and elastoplastic consolidation behavior are considered in this paper. For numerical calculations the developed computer program is used based on the finite element method. Research findings prove high efficiency of elastic supports under dynamic loading conditions. The most effective behavior of elastic supports is demonstrated at the elastoplastic stage. A good agreement is observed between the theoretical and experimental results.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗