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

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At least 235 records · Page 13
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DOE OSTI2011

GeoPhysical Analysis Code

GPAC is a code that integrates open source libraries for element formulations, linear algebra, and I/O with two main LLNL-Written components: (i) a set of standard finite elements physics solvers for rersolving Darcy fluid flow, explicit mechanics, implicit mechanics, and fluid-mediated fracturing, including resolution of contact both implicity and explicity, and (ii) a MPI-based parallelization implementation for use on generic HPC distributed memory architectures. The resultant code can be used alone for linearly elastic problems and problems involving hydraulic fracturing, where the mesh topology is dynamically changed. The key application domain is for low-rate stimulation and fracture control in subsurface reservoirs (e.g., enhanced geothermal sites and unconventional shale gas stimulation). GPAC also has interfaces to call external libraries for, e.g., material models and equations of state; however, LLNL-developed EOS and material models will not be part of the current release.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2023

Utah FORGE 5-2557: Fluid and Temperature in Fracture Mechanics and Coupled THMC Processes - Workshop Presentation

This is a presentation on the Role of Fluid and Temperature in Fracture Mechanics and Coupled Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical-Chemical (THMC) Processes for Enhanced Geothermal Systems project by Purdue University, presented by Distinguished Professor of Physics & Astronomy, Laura J. Pyrak-Nolte. The project's objective was to develop and validate a macroscopic model that accounts for local deformation/frictional behavior, seismic/aseismic behavior, chemical reactions, and determine the adequacy of classic Coulomb failure vs. rate-and-state friction. This presentation was featured in the Utah FORGE R&D Annual Workshop on September 8, 2023. The workshop provided a valuable opportunity to explore the progress made in each of the 17 Research and Development projects funded under Solicitation 2020-1 which aim to enhance our understanding of the crucial factors influencing the development of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) reservoirs and resources.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

An Advanced Actuator Line Method for Wind Energy Applications and Beyond: Preprint

The actuator line method to represent rotor aerodynamics within computational fluid dynamics has been in use for over a decade. This method applies a body force to the flow field along rotating lines corresponding to the individual rotor blades and employs tabular airfoil data to compute the force distribution. The actuator line method is attractive because compared to blade-resolved simulations, the required mesh is much simpler and the computational cost is lower. This work proposes a higher fidelity variant of the actuator line method meant to fill the space between current actuator line and blade-resolved simulations. It contains modifications in two key areas. The first is that of freestream velocity vector estimation along the line, which is necessary to compute the lift and drag along the line using tabular airfoil data. Most current methods rely on point sampling in which the location of sampling is ambiguous. Here we test a velocity sampling method that uses a properly weighted integral over space, removing this ambiguity. The second area of improvement is the function used to project the one-dimensional actuator line force onto the three-dimensional fluid mesh as a body force. We propose and test a projection function that spreads the force over a region that looks something like a real blade with the hope that it will produce the blade local and near wake flow features with more accuracy and higher fidelity. Our goal is that between these two improvements, not only will the flow field predictions be enhanced, but also the spanwise loading will be made more accurate. We refer to this combination of improvements as the advanced actuator line method. We apply these improvements to two different wind turbine cases. Although there is a strong wind energy motivation in our work, there is no reason these advanced actuator line ideas cannot be used in other applications, such as helicopter rotors.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

TOUGH2-seed: A coupled fluid flow and mechanical-stochastic approach to model injection-induced seismicity

Understanding the injection-induced triggering mechanism is a fundamental step towards controlling the seismicity generated by deep underground exploitation. Here we propose a modeling approach based on coupling the TOUGH2 simulator with a geomechanical-stochastic model. Additionally, the hydro-mechanical-stochastic model provides a good representation of different mechanisms influencing each other during and after the injection phase. Each mechanism affects the induced seismicity in a different way and at different times during the reservoir stimulation, confirming that a complex interaction is in place, and that more sophisticated and physics-based approaches coupled with statistical model are required to explain such a complex interaction. In addition to previous statistical and hybrid models, our approach accounts for a full 3D formulation of both stresses and fluid flow, further including all the TOUGH2 capabilities. Furthermore, it includes interactions between triggered seismic events through calculation of static stress transfer. Here, in this work, we present the main capabilities of TOUGH2-SEED and apply the model to the Basel EGS case, successfully reproducing the injection pressure as well as the evolution of the seismicity.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Effects of external magnetic fields on the multi-mode Rayleigh–Taylor instability

The magneto-Rayleigh–Taylor instability (mRTI) is a key process in inertial confinement fusion and is thought to be widespread in the interstellar medium, where it can concentrate plasma into discrete structures. We present resistive MHD simulations of the nonlinear evolution of multi-mode mRTI in both two and three dimensions, examining the effects of uniform external magnetic fields oriented either parallel or perpendicular to the initial interface. In both 2D and 3D, weak parallel fields enhance mixing-zone growth, whereas stronger fields suppress it. For perpendicular fields, growth is initially inhibited but becomes enhanced at later times. These behaviors arise from magnetic tension, which modifies flow anisotropy, buoyancy, drag, and vortex dynamics. The interplay of these mechanisms governs the distinct ways in which magnetic fields influence mRTI evolution.

Flow instabilities↗
DOE OSTI2015

Jet formation in cerium metal to examine material strength

Examining the evolution of material properties at extreme conditions advances our understanding of numerous high-pressure phenomena from natural events like meteorite impacts to general solid mechanics and fluid flow behavior. Recent advances in synchrotron diagnostics coupled with dynamic compression platforms have introduced new possibilities for examining in-situ, spatially resolved material response with nanosecond time resolution. In this work, we examined jet formation from a Richtmyer-Meshkov instability in cerium initially shocked into a transient, high-pressure phase, and then released to a low-pressure, higher-temperature state. Cerium's rich phase diagram allows us to study the yield stress following a shock induced solid-solid phase transition. X-ray imaging was used to obtain images of jet formation and evolution with 2–3 μm spatial resolution. From these images, an analytic method was used to estimate the post-shock yield stress, and these results were compared to continuum calculations that incorporated an experimentally validated equation-of-state (EOS) for cerium coupled with a deviatoric strength model. Reasonable agreement was observed between the calculations and the data illustrating the sensitivity of jet formation on the yield stress values. The data and analysis shown here provide insight into material strength during dynamic loading which is expected to aid in the development of strength aware multi-phase EOS required to predict the response of matter at extreme conditions.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2022

A mechanism for reduced compression in indirectly driven layered capsule implosions

High-yield implosions on the National Ignition Facility rely on maintaining low entropy in the deuterium–tritium fuel, quantified by its adiabat, in order to efficiently couple energy to the hot spot through high compression of the fuel layer. We present very-high-resolution xRAGE simulation results that study the impacts of interfacial mixing and the jetting of materials due to surface defects, defects on internal interfaces, voids, and engineering features on fuel layer compression. Defects and voids are typically neglected in implosion simulations due to their small size and three-dimensional geometry. Our results showed that supersonic jets of material arise through weak spots in the shell at peak implosion velocity that prevent uniform compression of the fuel layer even when they do not introduce contaminant into the hot spot. This occurs despite maintaining low fuel entropy, since the formation of the weak spots involves nonradial displacement of fuel mass. In contrast, simulations show that fuel–ablator mixing due to interfacial instabilities has a much smaller impact on compression. We show that defects on interior interfaces of plastic capsules decrease compression by 15% to 25% and interfacial mixing between the ablator and fuel decreases compression by less than 1% for implosions with plastic or high-density carbon (HDC) ablators. For low adiabat implosions, the impact of jetting seeded by the support tent can also decrease the compression by 25%. We demonstrate that the inclusion of interior defects in simulations can explain the inferred compression in two fielded plastic capsule implosions and that the inclusion of voids, for which available characterization has large uncertainties, in simulations of HDC capsule implosions has a qualitatively consistent impact. This mechanism offers a potential explanation for persistently overestimated fuel compression in design simulations of layered implosions on the National Ignition Facility.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2011

Fast Magnetic Reconnection in Laser-Produced Plasma Bubbles

Recent experiments have observed magnetic reconnection in high-energy-density, laser-produced plasma bubbles, with reconnection rates observed to be much higher than can be explained by classical theory. Based on fully kinetic particle simulations we find that fast reconnection in these strongly driven systems can be explained by magnetic flux pileup at the shoulder of the current sheet and subsequent fast reconnection via two-fluid, collisionless mechanisms. In the strong drive regime with two-fluid effects, we find that the ultimate reconnection time is insensitive to the nominal system Alfven time.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2011

Magnetohydrodynamic turbulent cascade of coronal loop magnetic fields

The Parker model for coronal heating is investigated through a high resolution simulation. An inertial range is resolved where fluctuating magnetic energy E{sub M}(k{sub perpendicular}){proportional_to}k{sub perpendicular}{sup -2.7} exceeds kinetic energy E{sub K}(k{sub perpendicular}){proportional_to}k{sub perpendicular}{sup -0.6}. Increments scale as {delta}b{sub l}{approx_equal}l{sup -0.85}and {delta}u{sub l}{approx_equal}l{sup +0.2} with velocity increasing at small scales, indicating that magnetic reconnection plays a prime role in this turbulent system. We show that spectral energy transport is akin to standard magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence even for a system of reconnecting current sheets sustained by the boundary. In this new MHD turbulent cascade, kinetic energy flows are negligible while cross-field flows are enhanced, and through a series of ''reflections'' between the two fields, cascade more than half of the total spectral energy flow.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

The general low-frequency prediction for asymptotically nonlinear material functions in oscillatory shear

We use a fourth-order fluid expansion to make general predictions for asymptotically nonlinear material functions in oscillatory shear, a characterization protocol sometimes known as medium-amplitude oscillatory shear. The calculation applies to any viscoelastic fluid in the terminal regime defined by the limit of Deborah number much less than one. Two viscous nonlinearities appear at third order, with shear stress scaling as ω 3 , and are interrelated by a constant multiplicative factor. Two elastic nonlinearities appear at fourth order, with shear stress scaling as ω 4 , and are also interrelated by a constant multiplicative factor. These nonlinear measures are decoupled from the linear material functions G' and G" because they depend on different expansion coefficients. Experimental measurements are presented for all four asymptotic shear material functions using a linear and well-entangled homopolymer of polyisoprene. Here, the experimental observations are consistent with both the predicted frequency scaling and the predicted interrelations in the terminal regime. Signs and magnitudes cannot be universally predicted, leaving these as free parameters that depend on the specifics of the material microstructure or constitutive model. These general results explain previous observations involving different materials and constitutive models, and provide an important reference for future experiments, analytical results, and numerical computations of these rheological fingerprints.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2019

The Role of Chemistry in Fracture Pattern Development and Opportunities to Advance Interpretations of Geological Materials

Abstract Fracture pattern development has been a challenging area of research in the Earth sciences for more than 100 years. Much has been learned about the spatial and temporal complexity inherent to these systems, but severe challenges remain. Future advances will require new approaches. Chemical processes play a larger role in opening‐mode fracture pattern development than has hitherto been appreciated. This review examines relationships between mechanical and geochemical processes that influence the fracture patterns recorded in natural settings. For fractures formed in diagenetic settings (~50 to 200 °C), we review evidence of chemical reactions in fractures and show how a chemical perspective helps solve problems in fracture analysis. We also outline impediments to subsurface pattern measurement and interpretation, assess implications of discoveries in fracture history reconstruction for process‐based models, review models of fracture cementation and chemically assisted fracture growth, and discuss promising paths for future work. To accurately predict the mechanical and fluid flow properties of fracture systems, a processes‐based approach is needed. Progress is possible using observational, experimental, and modeling approaches that view fracture patterns and properties as the result of coupled mechanical and chemical processes. A critical area is reconstructing patterns through time. Such data sets are essential for developing and testing predictive models. Other topics that need work include models of crystal growth and dissolution rates under geological conditions, cement mechanical effects, and subcritical crack propagation. Advances in machine learning and 3‐D imaging present opportunities for a mechanistic understanding of fracture formation and development, enabling prediction of spatial and temporal complexity over geologic timescales. Geophysical research with a chemical perspective is needed to correctly identify and interpret fractures from geophysical measurements during site characterization and monitoring of subsurface engineering activities.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Utah FORGE 5-2557: Role of Fluid and Temperature in Fracture Mechanics and Couples THMC Processes for Enhanced Geothermal Systems - 2024 Annual Workshop Presentation

This is a presentation on the Role of Fluid and Temperature in Fracture Mechanics and Couples THMC Processes for Enhanced Geothermal Systems by Purdue University, presented by Laura Pyrak-Nolte. This video slide presentation describes the development and validation of a macroscopic model that can account for local deformation/friction behavior, seismic/aseismic behavior, chemical reactions, and determine the adequacy of classic Coulomb failure vs. rate-and-state friction. This presentation was featured in the Utah FORGE R&D Annual Workshop on August 13, 2024.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Fluid inflation

In this work we present an inflationary mechanism based on fluid dynamics. Starting with the action for a single barotropic perfect fluid, we outline the procedure to calculate the power spectrum and the bispectrum of the curvature perturbation. It is shown that a perfect barotropic fluid naturally gives rise to a non-attractor inflationary universe in which the curvature perturbation is not frozen on super-horizon scales. We show that a scale-invariant power spectrum can be obtained with the local non-Gaussianity parameter f{sub NL} = 5/2.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

The Ingestion of Fluorescent, Magnetic Nanoparticles for Determining Fluid-uptake Abilities in Insects

Here, fluid-feeding insects ingest a variety of liquids, which are present in the environment as pools, films, or confined to small pores. Studies of liquid acquisition require assessing mouthpart structure and function relationships; however, fluid uptake mechanisms are historically inferred from observations of structural architecture, sometimes unaccompanied with experimental evidence. Here, we report a novel method for assessing fluid-uptake abilities with butterflies (Lepidoptera) and flies (Diptera) using small amounts of liquids. Insects are fed with a 20% sucrose solution mixed with fluorescent, magnetic nanoparticles from filter papers of specific pore sizes. The crop (internal structure used for storing fluids) is removed from the insect and placed on a confocal microscope. A magnet is waved by the crop to determine the presence of nanoparticles, which indicate if the insects are able to ingest fluids. This methodology is used to reveal a widespread feeding mechanism (capillary action and liquid bridge formation) that is potentially shared among Lepidoptera and Diptera when feeding from porous surfaces. In addition, this method can be used for studies of feeding mechanisms among a variety of fluid-feeding insects, including those important in disease transmission and biomimetics, and potentially other studies that involve nano- or micro-sized conduits where liquid transport requires verification.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Influence of an optical pulsed discharge on the structure of a supersonic air flow

We present the results of investigation of the parameters of an optical pulsed discharge (OPD) and their relation with gasdynamic parameters of a supersonic flow and with characteristics of laser radiation. For the first time the discrete objects are detected in the OPD by an optical method, namely, low-density caverns moving along with the flow. The propagation velocity of the thermal track arising in a supersonic flow under the action of the OPD is measured. It is found that at a pulse repetition rate of 90 – 120 kHz the caverns unite into a single plasma jet. (laser applications and other topics in quantum electronics)

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗