Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “SKELETON”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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

At least 217 records · Page 12
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Bioapatite in shark centra studied by wide-angle and by small-angle X-ray scattering

Members of subclass Elasmobranchii possess cartilage skeletons; the centra of many species are mineralized with a bioapatite, but virtually nothing is known about the mineral's organization. This study employed high-energy, small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS, i.e. X-ray diffraction) to investigate the bioapatite crystallography within blocks cut from centra of four species (two carcharhiniform families, one lamniform family and 1-ID of the Advanced Photon Source). All species' crystallographic quantities closely matched and indicated a bioapatite closely related to that in bone. The centra's lattice parameters a and c were somewhat smaller and somewhat larger, respectively, than in bone. Nanocrystallite sizes (WAXS peak widths) in shark centra were larger than typical of bone, and little microstrain was observed. Compared with bone, shark centra exhibited SAXS D-period peaks with larger D magnitudes, and D-period arcs with narrower azimuthal widths. The shark mineral phase, therefore, is closely related to that in bone but does possess real differences which probably affect mechanical property and which are worth further study.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

An HMM approach expands the landscape of sesquiterpene cyclases across the kingdom Fungi

Sesquiterpene cyclases (STC) catalyse the cyclization of the C15 molecule farnesyl diphosphate into a vast variety of mono- or polycyclic hydrocarbons and, for a few enzymes, oxygenated structures, with diverse stereogenic centres. The huge diversity in sesquiterpene skeleton structures in nature is primarily the result of the type of cyclization driven by the STC. Despite the phenomenal impact of fungal sesquiterpenes on the ecology of fungi and their potentials for applications, the fungal sesquiterpenome is largely untapped. The identification of fungal STC is generally based on protein sequence similarity with characterized enzymes. This approach has improved our knowledge on STC in a few fungal species, but it has limited success for the discovery of distant sequences. Besides, the tools based on secondary metabolite biosynthesis gene clusters have shown poor performance for terpene cyclases. Here, we used four sets of sequences of fungal STC that catalyse four types of cyclization, and specific amino acid motives to identify phylogenetically related sequences in the genomes of basidiomycetes fungi from the order Polyporales. We validated that four STC genes newly identified from the genome sequence of Leiotrametes menziesii, each classified in a different phylogenetic clade, catalysed a predicted cyclization of farnesyl diphosphate. We built HMM models and searched STC genes in 656 fungal genomes genomes. We identified 5605 STC genes, which were classified in one of the four clades and had a predicted cyclization mechanism. We noticed that the HMM models were more accurate for the prediction of the type of cyclization catalysed by basidiomycete STC than for ascomycete STC.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Towards replacing physical testing of granular materials with a Topology-based Model

In the study of packed granular materials, the performance of a sample (e.g., the detonation of a high-energy explosive) often correlates to measurements of a fluid flowing through it. The “effective surface area,” the surface area accessible to the airflow, is typically measured using a permeametry apparatus that relates the flow conductance to the permeable surface area via the Carman-Kozeny equation. This equation allows calculating the flow rate of a fluid flowing through the granules packed in the sample for a given pressure drop. However, Carman-Kozeny makes inherent assumptions about tunnel shapes and flow paths that may not accurately hold in situations where the particles possess a wide distribution in shapes, sizes, and aspect ratios, as is true with many powdered systems of technological and commercial interest. To address this challenge, we replicate these measurements virtually on micro-CT images of the powdered material, introducing a new Pore Network Model based on the skeleton of the Morse-Smale complex. Pores are identified as basins of the complex, their incidence encodes adjacency, and the conductivity of the capillary between them is computed from the cross-section at their interface. We build and solve a resistive network to compute an approximate laminar fluid flow through the pore structure. Here, we provide two means of estimating flow-permeable surface area: (i) by direct computation of conductivity, and (ii) by identifying dead-ends in the flow coupled with isosurface extraction and the application of the Carman-Kozeny equation, with the aim of establishing consistency over a range of particle shapes, sizes, porosity levels, and void distribution patterns.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Bone resorption and formation in the pedicles of European roe deer ( Capreolus capreolus ) in relation to the antler cycle—A morphological and microanalytical study

We analyzed pedicle bone from roe bucks that had died around antler casting or shortly before or during the rutting period. Pedicles obtained around antler casting were highly porous and showed signs of intense osteoclastic activity that had caused the formation of an abscission line. Following the detachment of the antler plus a portion of pedicle bone, osteoclastic activity in the pedicles continued for some time, and new bone was deposited onto the separation plane of the pedicle stump, leading to partial pedicle restoration. Pedicles obtained around the rutting period were compact structures. The newly formed, often very large secondary osteons, which had filled the resorption cavities, exhibited a lower mineral density than the persisting older bone. The middle zones of the lamellar infilling frequently showed hypomineralized lamellae and enlarged osteocyte lacunae. This indicates a deficiency in mineral elements during the formation of these zones that occurred along with peak antler mineralization. We suggest that growing antlers and compacting pedicles compete for mineral elements, with the rapidly growing antlers being the more effective sinks. The competition between the two simultaneously mineralizing structures is probably more severe in Capreolus capreolus than in other cervids. This is because roe bucks regrow their antlers during late autumn and winter, a period of limited food and associated mineral supply. The pedicle is a heavily remodeled bone structure with distinct seasonal variation in porosity. Pedicle remodeling differs in several aspects from the normal bone remodeling process in the mammalian skeleton.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Biomineralization: Integrating mechanism and evolutionary history

Calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ) biomineralizing organisms have played major roles in the history of life and the global carbon cycle during the past 541 Ma. Both marine diversification and mass extinctions reflect physiological responses to environmental changes through time. An integrated understanding of carbonate biomineralization is necessary to illuminate this evolutionary record and to understand how modern organisms will respond to 21st century global change. Biomineralization evolved independently but convergently across phyla, suggesting a unity of mechanism that transcends biological differences. In this review, we combine CaCO 3 skeleton formation mechanisms with constraints from evolutionary history, omics, and a meta-analysis of isotopic data to develop a plausible model for CaCO 3 biomineralization applicable to all phyla. The model provides a framework for understanding the environmental sensitivity of marine calcifiers, past mass extinctions, and resilience in 21st century acidifying oceans. Thus, it frames questions about the past, present, and future of CaCO 3 biomineralizing organisms.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Pore-Filled PEMs from Poly(Phenylene Sulfonic Acid)s and Electrospun Poly(Phenylene Sulfone) Fiber Mats

A novel, composite, non-PFSA-based fuel cell membrane has been fabricated using a pore filling technique. The membrane consists of a mechanically stabilizing skeleton from an electrospun poly(phenylene sulfone) (PPSU) fiber mat and a thermally crosslinkable poly(phenylene sulfonic acid) (cPPSA) proton conducting ionomer that fills the interfiber voids. cPPSA copolymer was synthesized using Ullmann coupling copolymerization of 4,4-dibromobiphenyl 3,3-disulfonic acid with 1,4-dibromobenzene-2,5-disulfonic, followed by grafting a certain fraction of backbone sulfonic acid groups with biphenyl linker. The PPSU fiber mat was electrospun from NMP/acetone solution. Pore-filling was carried out by pouring a solution of cPPSA in methanol over the mat, followed by heating at 70°C to evaporate solvent. The cPPSA was crosslinked by an additional heating step, in a vacuum oven at 210°C for 5 hours. Here the resultant membrane had excellent proton conductivity, 5 times greater than that of Nafion® 211 in the 40-90% RH range at 80°C.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Consistent Space Runtime (CSPACER) v1.0

This software provides a runtime for communication-bound applications, especially with irregular communication patterns. The target programming abstraction for the runtime is the space consistency model, which defines consistency guarantees at the granularity of memory spaces. This model has relaxed consistency semantics that enables a wide range of runtime optimizations. The runtime leverages threading to accelerate communication primitives, especially collective operations. It also allows efficient pipelining of communication operations and enable constructing a consistent state of multiple unordered communication activities targeting a memory space. The runtime uses a reduced API design that decomposes complex communication primitives in traditional general-purpose runtime into a sequence of simpler steps. To improve the productivity of using this runtime, we provide communication patterns commonly used for regular scientific computing applications and irregular data analytics. These communication patterns offer skeletons for the integration with application computation to allow efficient overlap.

Ibrahim, Khaled↗
DOE OSTI2021

FENATE

FENATE: Fast Evaluation of Network Architecture -- Toolchain and Environment. Our framework is comprised of scalable tools to both skeletonize and simulate MPI communication patterns providing a functional view of the network under investigation (trading off accuracy for speed)

Young, Stephen↗
DOE OSTI2025

Catalyst-Vision (PEM Catalyst Layer Image Analysis Tool) [SWR-25-100]

Catalyst-Vision (PEM Catalyst Layer Image Analysis Tool) provides an advanced Python-based tool, primarily designed for use in a Jupyter/Colab notebook, for the quantitative morphological analysis of pre-segmented shapes. While developed for analyzing PEM catalyst layers from microscopy, its methodology is suitable for characterizing any grayscale object provided on a uniform white background. The tool uses a robust computer vision pipeline based on the Euclidean Distance Transform and skeletonization to accurately measure local thickness and tortuosity, providing a comprehensive characterization of an object's geometry and internal texture. If you find this code useful, please cite our preprint as: Chan, Ai-Lin and Hayden, Steven and Harvey, Steven P. and Smeaton, Michelle and Okrucky, Caleb and Watt, John and Ulična, Soňa and Spurgeon, Steven and Jungjohann, Katherine and Alia, Shaun, Mechanism-informed breakdown: understanding degradation by controlling voltage hold patterns in PEM water electrolyzers. Preprint (2025).

Spurgeon, Steven [National Laboratory of the Rocki↗
DOE OSTI2023

Biomineral mesostructure

Abstract Biominerals formed by animals are most frequently calcium carbonate or phosphate polycrystalline materials with complex hierarchical structures. This article will focus on the 10-nm–10-µm scale, termed “mesoscale,” at which the “mesostructure” differs greatly across biominerals, is relevant to their mechanical properties, and reveals formation mechanisms in sea urchin teeth, mollusk shell prisms and nacre, human enamel, and coral skeletons. This article will conclude by focusing on important unanswered questions to inspire future research. Graphical abstract

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Predicting Execution Times for Disk-based and In-Situ Parallel Data Analytics (Final Technical Report)

In recent years, there has been a significant amount of interests in in-situ analytics on simulation programs. For a variety of reasons, it is desirable to be able to predict the execution time of an analytics program. At the same time, frameworks such as MapReduce have become popular for scientific data analytics. This paper focuses on developing performance models for predicting execution time of parallel data analytics, with a special emphasis on in-situ analytics. We take two distinct approach towards performance prediction. We first expand SKOPE (a SKeleton framewOrk for Performance Exploration) with performance models for disk data read, cache performance, and page fault penalty. Second, an analytical performance model is also developed. We have evaluated our performance prediction framework as well as the analytical model on three hardware setups with well-known data mining algorithms implemented in three programming paradigms, MapReduce, MATE (a MapReduce-like parallel system with an alternate API for multi-core environments) and Smart (a MapReduce-like framework for in-situ analytics). Results show that our performance prediction framework along with the incorporated performance models are capable of accurately predicting execution times for parallel scientific analytics on different hardware setups.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Surrogate Assembly 30 cm Drop Test

The 30 cm drop is the remaining NRC normal conditions of transport (NCT) regulatory requirement (10 CFR 71.71) for which there are no data on the actual surrogate fuel. While obtaining data on the actual fuel is not a direct requirement, it provides definitive information which aids in quantifying the risk of fuel breakage resulting from a cask drop from a height of 30 cm or less. The 30 cm drop test with the full-scale surrogate assembly conducted in May 2020 was the last step needed for quantifying the strains on the surrogate assembly rods under NCT. The full-scale surrogate assembly used in the 2020 30 cm drop test was built using a new 17x17 Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) Westinghouse skeleton filled with the copper rods and 3 zircaloy rods from the full-scale surrogate assembly used in the Multi-Modal Transportation Test (MMTT). Felt pads were attached to the surrogate assembly bottom prior to the 30 cm drop to adequately represent the effects of the impact limiters and the cask. Note that felt "programming material" has been used extensively in past drop tests and is known to be a good material for programming a desired shock pulse. The felt pad configuration was determined during a previous series of tests reported in. The acceleration pulses observed on the surrogate assembly during the test were in good agreement with the expected pulses. This confirmed that during the 30 cm drop the surrogate assembly experienced the same conditions as it would if it was dropped in the cask with the impact limiters.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2020

Early Lab scientists had questions, Plastic Man gave them answers

He was a willing subject in countless scientific experiments, a superstar of health physics, as well as a favorite photo prop -- and not just around Halloween time. He was Plastic Man. Beginning in the mid-1950s, the Lab (then called Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) often relied on several life-sized synthetic test subjects to avoid experimenting on people. In the early days of the Laboratory, not much was known about how different radioisotopes interacted with the human body and how much it absorbed from different radiation sources. Answering queries like these is where Plastic Man came in. For example, during the 1950s and 1960s, the Lab was tasked with developing nuclear rockets for space exploration under the Rover Program. One of the concerns was how astronauts might be affected when exposed to radiation from these rocket engines. So, the Lab’s health group set up an experiment in which Plastic Man was placed in close proximity to an experimental Rover nuclear rocket engine. Running experiments like this using Plastic Man kept humans safer. How life-like was he? There were actually two variations of Plastic Man. Both had hard plastic exteriors, but one of the models encased a real human skeleton. They also had movable joints and simulated organs, such as a liver, a spleen, kidneys, lungs and a thyroid. Although Plastic Man in its entirety was used in experiments, much of the data collected were from research conducted inside on these replicated organs. In time, technology advanced and Plastic Man was able to retire from the Lab. He found a new home in 1964 as a display at the Laboratory’s science museum, and is sometimes displayed today in the Bradbury Science Museum in downtown Los Alamos.

63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTAN↗
DOE OSTI2022

Response of a Pressurized Water Reactor Dashpot Region to Commercial Drying Cycles

The purpose of this report is to document updates to the simulation of commercial vacuum drying procedures at the Nuclear Energy Work Complex at Sandia National Laboratories. Validation of the extent of water removal in a dry spent nuclear fuel storage system based on drying procedures used at nuclear power plants is needed to close existing technical gaps. Operational conditions leading to incomplete drying may have potential impacts on the fuel, cladding, and other components in the system. A general lack of data suitable for model validation of commercial nuclear canister drying processes necessitates additional, well-designed investigations of drying process efficacy and water retention. Scaled tests that incorporate relevant physics and well-controlled boundary conditions are essential to provide insight and guidance to the simulation of prototypic systems undergoing drying processes. This report documents testing updates for the Dashpot Drying Apparatus (DDA), an apparatus constructed at a reduced scale with multiple Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) fuel rod surrogates and a single guide tube dashpot. This apparatus is fashioned from a truncated 5×5 section of a prototypic 17×17 PWR fuel skeleton and includes the lowest segment of a single guide tube, often referred to as the dashpot region. The guide tube in this assembly is open and allows for insertion of a poison rod (neutron absorber) surrogate.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Update on the Investigation of Commercial Drying Cycles Using the Advanced Drying Cycle Simulator

The purpose of this report is to document updates on the apparatus to simulate commercial vacuum drying procedures at the Nuclear Energy Work Complex at Sandia National Laboratories. Validation of the extent of water removal in a dry spent nuclear fuel storage system based on drying procedures used at nuclear power plants is needed to close existing technical gaps. Operational conditions leading to incomplete drying may have potential impacts on the fuel, cladding, and other components in the system during subsequent storage and disposal. A general lack of data suitable for model validation of commercial nuclear canister drying processes necessitates well-designed investigations of drying process efficacy and water retention. Scaled tests that incorporate relevant physics and well-controlled boundary conditions are essential to provide insight and guidance to the simulation of prototypic systems undergoing drying processes. This report documents a new test apparatus, the Advanced Drying Cycle Simulator (ADCS). This apparatus was built to simulate commercial drying procedures and quantify the amount of residual water remaining in a pressurized water reactor (PWR) fuel assembly after drying. The ADCS was constructed with a prototypic 17×17 PWR fuel skeleton and waterproof heater rods to simulate decay heat. These waterproof heaters are the next generation design to heater rods developed and tested at Sandia National Laboratories in FY20. This report describes the ADCS vessel build that was completed late in FY22, including the receipt of the prototypic length waterproof heater rods and construction of the fuel basket and the pressure vessel components. In addition, installations of thermocouples, emissivity coupons, pressure and vacuum lines, pressure transducers, and electrical connections were completed. Preliminary power functionality testing was conducted to demonstrate the capabilities of the ADCS. In FY23, a test plan for the ADCS will be developed to implement a drying procedure based on measurements from the process used for the High Burnup Demonstration Project. While applying power to the simulated fuel rods, this procedure is expected to consist of filling the ADCS vessel with water, draining the water with applied pressure and multiple helium blowdowns, evacuating additional water with a vacuum drying sequence at successively lower pressures, and backfilling the vessel with helium. Additional investigations are expected to feature failed fuel rod simulators with engineered cladding defects and guide tubes with obstructed dashpots to challenge the drying system with multiple water retention sites.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Rays for Roots - Integrating Backscatter X-Ray Phenotyping, Modeling and Genetics to Increase Carbon Sequestration and Switchgrass Resource Use (Final Report)

To increase carbon (C) deposition in the soil and enhance crop resource use efficiency, characterizing root form and function is essential. Several root and soil traits have been linked to increased root-to-soil C transfer. Technology that could provide high-resolution characterization of many of these traits in field conditions would revolutionize our ability to study and understand how to increase C sequestration. In this effort, we developed an initial early prototype backscatter X-ray system for non-destructive imaging of root traits. We collected initial backscatter X-ray data in field and lab settings and carried out early analysis of these data. Along with this prototype, we also developed a suite of root phenotyping approaches including advanced minirhizotron image analysis, soil core imaging, and mesocosm imaging. Minirhizotron (MR) tubes are clear tubes inserted into the soil in the field and used to image roots and the surrounding soil. Our team has developed deep learning-based methods that can segment roots from soil that can learn from imprecise image-level labels. The ability to learn or fine-tune our deep learning algorithms from image-level labels allows easier and faster application of these approaches to new locations and new plant species. We have successfully implemented and applied our MR analysis approaches to thousands of switchgrass MR images collected across geographical regions. An advantage of MR imaging is the ability to collect root and soil images over time. Our soil core analysis included collecting hundreds of soil core samples from harvested switchgrass fields and imaging these cores with both X-ray CT and backscatter X-ray imaging. Initial segmentation approaches for the X-ray CT images of these cores have been developed and applied. An advantage of soil core analysis is that it preserves the three-dimensional structures of the roots and soil in the core collected. Our group also developed photogrammetry-based mesocosm root imaging and phenotyping approaches. In this approach, a plant was grown in a large mesocosm with a three-dimensional grid of thin supporting lines inserted throughout the mesocosm. After the plant (and, correspondingly, the root architecture is grown and established) the soil media was removed and the supporting lines approximately preserved the three-dimensional root architecture. Then, we applied photogrammetry techniques to create a three-dimensional digital representation of the root architecture for which we developed analysis algorithms including skeletonization. We carried out our phenotyping development with powerful switchgrass resources and physiological and agroecosystem modeling to deliver novel technology. This project contributes to multiple ARPA-E missions including reduction of foreign imports of energy, reduction of energy-related emissions including greenhouse gases, and ensuring that the United States maintains a technological lead in developing and deploying advanced energy technology. Furthermore, the developed tools could transform public and private plant breeding and could be broadly applicable to other crops and, potentially, other application areas. Our team of engineers, plant and soil scientists, and modelers i) developed an early prototype backscatter X-ray platform that can operate in field conditions; ii) developed a suite of root phenotyping and characterization approaches as described above; iii) developed and carried out plant biology and physiology roots studies and; iv) developed and implemented mechanistic physiological modeling.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Generating MCNP Input Files for Unstructured Mesh Geometries

The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP)1 transport code version 6.3 (also known as MCNP6.3) has the capability for tracking particles on unstructured mesh (UM) geometry models embedded into constructive solid geometry (CSG) cells. This feature has been developed for performing calculations of complex geometry models because manually creating CSG models is time-consuming and error-prone as the complexities of geometries increase. A UM geometry model is a collection of finite elements representing a solid geometry. The first step of the MCNP UM calculation is using other software packages to create a finite element mesh representation of a solid 3D geometry because the MCNP code cannot be used to generate a UM model. Computer-aided design (CAD) software is typically used to create a solid geometry model, which is later imported into mesh generation software to create a UM model. Some mesh generation software packages may also be used to create solid geometries and thus CAD files are not needed. The MCNP UM feature was originally designed for models generated by the Abaqus/CAE software suite. The MCNP code version 6.0 and later can process UM models formatted as Abaqus input files. Starting with a 6.3 version, the MCNP code can process HDF5 mesh input files. We only focus on the UM models formatted as Abaqus input files in this report since currently no external software can be used to generate HDF5 mesh input files for MCNP UM calculations. The MCNP code version 6.3 can be used to convert the Abaqus mesh input files into the HDF5 mesh input files, but this option is typically used by the MCNP code development team to test the HDF5 mesh input file feature. Several software packages (such as Abaqus, Attila4MC, or Cubit) can be used to create the Abaqus input files for MCNP UM calculations. An MCNP UM calculation using an Abaqus model requires two input file types: MCNP and Abaqus input files. The Abaqus input files needed for MCNP UM calcu lations must have the correct Abaqus syntax and meet the additional requirements by the MCNP code. The MCNP code can process only Abaqus input files that make use of part and assembly definitions, where elements in each part must be grouped into one or more element sets (i.e., elset) using *Elset keyword lines with specified naming formats. The MCNP and Abaqus input files required for MCNP UM simulations must be related; pseudo-cells in an MCNP input file must be constructed from mesh model data from an Abaqus input file. For large complex UM models, it is tedious to manually create MCNP UM input files. The um pre op (unstructured mesh pre operations) program with the -m option can be used to create a skeleton MCNP input file from an Abaqus input file [6]. Since the um pre op program was written in Fortran and was not written for optimized performance, this program is a deprecated feature in the MCNP code version 6.3 and may be removed in the next release of the code. To improve calculation flow of multiphysics calculations, a Python3 code called write mcnp um input has been developed to generate an MCNP input file instead of using the um_pre_op -m option. This Python code was initially released to the public in 2020. We have updated this Python code for MCNP6.3 and it was used to generate the MCNP input files used to verify the MCNP6.3 code. The write_mcnp_um_input code is included with the MCNP6.3 code package which will be released to the public through the Radiation Safety Information Computational Center (RSICC) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This report is a revision of LA-UR-20-27139 report.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Preliminary Simulations of Commercial Drying Cycles Using the Advanced Drying Cycle Simulator

The purpose of this report is to document updates on the apparatus to simulate commercial vacuum drying procedures at the Nuclear Energy Work Complex at Sandia National Laboratories. Validation of the extent of water removal in a dry spent nuclear fuel storage system based on drying procedures used at nuclear power plants is needed to close existing technical gaps. Operational conditions leading to incomplete drying may have potential impacts on the fuel, cladding, and other components in the system during subsequent storage and disposal. A general lack of data suitable for model validation of commercial nuclear canister drying processes necessitates well-designed investigations of drying process efficacy and water retention. Scaled tests that incorporate relevant physics and well-controlled boundary conditions are essential to provide insight and guidance to the simulation of prototypic systems undergoing drying processes. This report documents fiscal year 2023 (FY23) updates on the Advanced Drying Cycle Simulator (ADCS). This apparatus was built to simulate commercial drying procedures and quantify the amount of residual water remaining in a pressurized water reactor (PWR) fuel assembly after drying. The ADCS was constructed with a prototypic 17×17 PWR fuel skeleton and waterproof heater rods to simulate decay heat. These waterproof heaters are the next generation design to heater rods developed and tested at Sandia National Laboratories in FY20. In FY23, a series of four simulated commercial drying tests was completed. This report presents the temperature and pressure histories of the drying tests as well as axial temperature profiles that can be compared to data from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) High Burnup Demonstration TN-32B cask. Water content measurements and dew point calculations from a Hiden Analytical HPR-30 mass spectrometer are also presented in this report. Due to familiarization with this first-of-a-kind system, refinements to equipment calibration and test procedures have been identified to better match commercial drying cycles for future simulated tests. However, the presented data demonstrate the successful construction and operation of a viable research platform for quantifying residual water content closely approaching that expected in dry storage canisters during commercial drying procedures.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗