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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

HPB_strengthmodel

Python-implementation of the Hunter-Preston strength model, but with generalized drag coefficient B. For details, see D. N. Blaschke, A. Hunter, and D. L. Preston, Int. J. Plast. 131 (2020) 102750. This code was used to generate most of the figures in this paper.

Blaschke, Daniel N.↗

A NWB-based dataset and processing pipeline of human single-neuron activity during a declarative memory task

A challenge for data sharing in systems neuroscience is the multitude of different data formats used. Neurodata Without Borders: Neurophysiology 2.0 (NWB:N) has emerged as a standardized data format for the storage of cellular-level data together with meta-data, stimulus information, and behavior. A key next step to facilitate NWB:N adoption is to provide easy to use processing pipelines to import/export data from/to NWB:N. Here, we present a NWB-formatted dataset of 1863 single neurons recorded from the medial temporal lobes of 59 human subjects undergoing intracranial monitoring while they performed a recognition memory task. We provide code to analyze and export/import stimuli, behavior, and electrophysiological recordings to/from NWB in both MATLAB and Python. The data files are NWB:N compliant, which affords interoperability between programming languages and operating systems. This combined data and code release is a case study for how to utilize NWB:N for human single-neuron recordings and enables easy re-use of this hard-to-obtain data for both teaching and research on the mechanisms of human memory.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗

Encoder–decoder neural network for solving the nonlinear Fokker–Planck–Landau collision operator in XGC

An encoder–decoder neural network has been used to examine the possibility for acceleration of a partial integro-differential equation, the Fokker–Planck–Landau collision operator. This is part of the governing equation in the massively parallel particle-in-cell code XGC, which is used to study turbulence in fusion energy devices. The neural network emphasizes physics-inspired learning, where it is taught to respect physical conservation constraints of the collision operator by including them in the training loss, along with the ℓ 2 loss. In particular, network architectures used for the computer vision task of semantic segmentation have been used for training. A penalization method is used to enforce the ‘soft’ constraints of the system and integrate error in the conservation properties into the loss function. During training, quantities representing the particle density, momentum and energy for all species of the system are calculated at each configuration vertex, mirroring the procedure in XGC. This simple training has produced a median relative loss, across configuration space, of the order of 10 –4 , which is low enough if the error is of random nature, but not if it is of drift nature in time steps. The run time for the current Picard iterative solver of the operator is O(n 2 ), where n is the number of plasma species. As the XGC1 code begins to attack problems including a larger number of species, the collision operator will become expensive computationally, making the neural network solver even more important, especially since its training only scales as O(n). Here, a wide enough range of collisionality has been considered in the training data to ensure the full domain of collision physics is captured. An advanced technique to decrease the losses further will be subject of a subsequent report. Eventual work will include expansion of the network to include multiple plasma species.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Plasma rotation and diamagnetic drift effects on the resistive wall modes in the negative triangularity tokamaks

Abstract It was found previously that the negative triangularity (NT) configuration is more MHD-unstable for low n modes than the positive triangularity (PT) case, although the situation is reversed for intermediate n modes and the NT configuration becomes more stable for intermediate n modes ( n = 3 − 10 ) (Zheng et al 2021 Nucl. Fusion 61 116014). Here, n is the toroidal mode number. In this work, we extend the studies to include the rotation effects, as well as the diamagnetic drift effects, to see how the resistive wall modes (RWMs) in the NT configuration are affected as compared with the PT configuration. This is particularly motivated by noting that the wall interface with the plasma is quite different between the NT and PT configurations. It affects the plasma rotation and diamagnetic drift effects on the low n RWM. We consider the DIII-D-NT-experiment equilibrium reconstructed by the EFIT code. Based on the equilibrium g-file, the extended equilibria are constructed with the VMEC code by varying the beta values while keeping the pressure and poloidal current flux profiles basically unchanged. The bootstrap current contribution to the equilibria is taken into account with the Sauter formula. The MHD stability is then computed using the AEGIS code with the rotation and diamagnetic drift effects taken into account. We found that, although the NT configuration is less stable for n = 1 MHD modes, the rotation and diamagnetic drift stabilization effects on RWMs are more effective in the NT configuration than in the PT one. Note that even in the PT case, the stabilization of RWMs by the rotation and kinetic effects is critical. Because the low-n RWMs in the regular NT case are more unstable, the rotation and diamagnetic drift stabilization effects found in this research are important for the NT tokamak concept.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Recent progress in the design of the K-DEMO divertor

The preliminary conceptual design of the Korean fusion demonstration reactor (K-DEMO) with a major radius of 6.8 m and the fusion power of 2200 MW has been studied since 2012. The overall configuration of the K-DEMO divetor system based on the ITER-like water-cooled tungsten technology is a double-null type symmetric divertor subdivided into 32 toroidal modules for the vertical maintenance. A detached divertor scenario with impurity seeding was considered as the primary approach for the power exhaust to reduce the peak heat flux lower than the engineering limit of 10 MW/m 2 . The power exhaust performance at the scrap off layer was estimated by using UEDGE-2D code, a two-dimensional fluid transport code for collisional edge plasma and neutral species like N, Ne, and Ar. Particle and heat flux on inboard and outboard divertor targets were calculated for the detached cased depending on parameters such as the impurity seeding rate, pumping rate, and the pedestal density. On the other hand, a magnetic solution like X-divertor, snowflake divertor, and super X-divertor to expand the plasma wet area was considered for K-DEMO since the detached divertor increasing a radiation fraction by impurity seeding might be able to be unstable. However, the extremely high current of poloidal coils was required more than the engineering limit, 20 MA, to form magnetic field lines for the alternative divertors. Based on the physical calculation of the edge plasma, engineering analyses were carried out to find out the thermal and structural reliability. The thermo-hydraulic analysis confirmed thermal stability, whether all comprising materials are operating within their allowable temperature windows when the case of the peak heat flux is set to 10 MW/m 2 on the outboard divertor target. The response surface optimization method derived two optimal design candidates employing two kinds of heat sink materials, respectively: the reduced activation ferritic martensitic (RAFM) steel and CuCrZr alloy. Additionally, the drawbacks and merits of the two materials were definite. The optimal design with applying RAFM steel was vulnerable to withstand thermal and mechanical loads since low thermal conductivity caused too thin thickness of the heat sink. On the other hand, the CuCrZr alloy has critical drawbacks in terms of activation and radioactive waste despite its high thermal conductivity. Meanwhile, preliminary electromagnetic (EM) analysis was carried out to estimate the EM loads caused by the abnormal behaviors of plasma since EM loads are one of the most critical external loads for designing a DEMO divertor.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Reactor cell neutron dose for the molten salt breeder reactor conceptual design

The private sector’s interest in the active development of molten salt reactors has led to the need to develop and test advanced modeling and simulation tools to analyze various advanced reactor types under numerous conditions. This paper discusses the effort undertaken to model the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Molten Salt Breeder Reactor (MSBR) design using ORNL’s Shift Monte Carlo code. The MSBR model integrates a Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) MSBR core model with an MCNP model that was generated from a CAD model of the external components and the reactor building, which was subsequently run in Shift. This paper focuses on development of the fully integrated model and its use in performing neutron transport calculations in the reactor cell area. This model is intended to aid in understanding radiological dose conditions during operation, as well as the iron dpa rates in the reactor vessel. The neutron biological dose rates and flux calculated in the reactor cell are much higher in the MSBR than in typical light-water reactors. The implications of these results and future work are also discussed in this paper.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Equipartition and the Temperature of Maximum Density of TIP4P/2005 Water

Here, we simulate TIP4P/2005 water in the temperature range of 257 to 318 K with time-steps δ = 0.25, 0.50, 1.00, 2.00, and 4.00 fs. The density–temperature behavior obtained using 0.25 or 0.50 fs is in excellent agreement with each other but differs from those obtained using time steps that have been shown earlier to lead to a breakdown of equipartition. For δt = 0.25 or 0.50 fs, the temperature of maximum density (TMD) is 277.15 K and the density value is in close agreement with experiments. For δt = 1.00 fs, the TMD is 277.15 K, but the density value is shifted higher. For the other time steps considered here, the TMD is shifted to progressively lower values for longer time steps, a trend that holds for different thermostat/barostat combinations. Enhancing the water–water dispersion interaction, as has been recommended for simulating disordered proteins in TIP4P/2005, degrades the description of the liquid–vapor phase envelope. We present a simple physically transparent explanation that highlights the separation of the time scales between translational and rotational motion. We also develop a metric, χ, that we term the equipartition anomaly, to detect equipartition violations in simulations that include molecules that are treated as rigid objects. Calculating χ is shown to be straightforward and sensitive to equipartition violations. A key takeaway from this study is that using sufficiently short time steps (≤0.5 fs) to preserve equipartition is essential for obtaining meaningful liquid water properties and for producing reliable simulation data, as correct ensemble sampling is fundamental to ensure reproducibility across codes and simulation algorithms.

Asthagiri, Dilipkumar N. [Oak Ridge National Labor↗

Effect of convective transport in edge and scrape-off-layer plasmas of ADITYA-U tokamak

The 2-D edge plasma fluid transport code, UEDGE has been used to simulate the edge and scrape-off layer regions of circular limiter plasmas of ADITYA-U. The computational mesh defining the limiter geometry of ADITYA-U has been introduced in the UEDGE code through an in-house developed routine. It has successfully been integrated with the UEDGE code and the measured radial profile of electron density (n e ) in the edge region is modelled using the simulations. The plasma discharge for the present study has plasma current I P ~ 130 kA, duration ~ 150 ms, chord-averaged electron density ~ 1.3 x 10 19 m -3 , and central electron temperature ~ 270 eV has been observed. The maximum toroidal magnetic field is ~ 1.2 T. It has been found that an inward convective velocity, v conv ~ 1.5 m/s is required in addition to the constant perpendicular diffusion coefficient, D ⟂ ~ 0.2 m 2 /s to adequately match the measured n e profile in typical discharges of ADITYA-U. The value of D ⟂ ~ 0.2 m 2 /s is found to lie between the estimated neoclassical diffusivity and Bohm diffusivity.

Physics - Plasma physics↗

Draft ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Cases and Technical Bases for Use of Alloy 617 for Constructions of Nuclear Component Under Section III, Division 5

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code currently only allows five materials for use in construction of nuclear components for high temperature service. These are: 2.25Cr-1Mo and V-modified 9Cr-1Mo steels, Types 304 and 316 stainless steels and the high nickel Alloy 800H. Since 2005, the US high temperature gas-cooled reactor program has been characterizing elevated temperature mechanical properties of Alloy 617 as the leading candidate construction material for the intermediate heat exchanger. After analysis of these experimental results, along with historical data and additional results available through the Generation IV International Forum, Very High Temperature Reactor, Materials Program Management Board Materials Handbook, a draft ASME Code Case to allow nuclear construction with Alloy 617 for temperatures up to 1750°F (954°C) has been developed. This report contains the Code Case for Low Temperature Service Construction of Section III, Division 5, Subsection HB, Subpart A, Class A and Subsection HC, Subpart A, Class B components, which has been approved in Section II, Materials, and Section III, Rules for Construction of Nuclear Facility Components. Supporting technical justification for the low temperature Code Case is also included. This Code Case allows use of Alloy 617 up to 800°F (425°C). This report also contains an updated draft of a Section III, Division 5, Subsection HB, Subpart B, Class A Code Case for Alloy 617 to qualify it for use in construction of nuclear components up to 1750°F (954°C) for service life up to 100,000 hours. The draft contained in Appendix 4, subject to editorial revision and approval by the ASME Special Task Group on Alloy 617 Code Qualification, will be submitted for approval by letter ballot by the appropriate ASME Committees. The technical justification supporting the Code Case is presented in Appendix 5 of this report. This background document is part of the information package that will be submitted with the Code Case for ballot.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Geochemical Modeling of the Confining Unit at a CO 2 Storage Site in the Williston Basin, North Dakota

Conference presentation for American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Conference, Houston, TX, April 25–27, 2023. This geochemical modeling study investigates the evolution of geochemical reactions among CO 2 , formation water, and rocks of the two confining units above and below the CO 2 storage unit at one of the permitted CO 2 storage sites in the Williston Basin. The model is built on PHREEQC-coded chemical equilibrium thermodynamics.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗

Relations between Shot Noise, Gain Bandwidth, and Saturation of Instabilities

There are numerous instabilities present in charged particle beams that undergo exponential growth and reach saturation. In various applications, such as free-electron lasers or micro-bunching light sources, achieving saturation is desirable. Conversely, there are applications where these instabilities are utilized as linear broad-band amplifiers for signals embedded in the charged beam. In the latter scenario, the saturation of an instability induces non-linear distortions in the imprinted signal, thereby limiting the useful range of such amplifiers. Accurate evaluation of these instabilities necessitates a complete and comprehensive modeling approach that includes shot noise within the beam. Unfortunately, such modeling is not always feasible or practical. In this paper, we introduce a methodology utilizing the frequency and bandwidth of the instability as key parameters. Through this, we derive an estimation for the range of linear instability growth. Our derivation is conducted in a model-independent manner, making it applicable to a broad spectrum of instabilities. To validate our approach, we employ established and thoroughly benchmarked simulations with a free electron laser (FEL) code as well as self-consistent 3-dimensional simulation of plasma-cascade instability using code SPACE.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Yttrium Hydride Post-Irradiation Examination Plan

Micro nuclear reactors are expected to use metal hydride moderators to ensure thier compact design for the flexible operational purposes. Department of Energy’s Microreactor program therefore aims to provide infrasture and qualification bed for the development of micro nuclear reactors. Because micro nuclear reactors must be compact to offer a flexible operational purposes, metal hydrides are expected to be used as neutron moderator materials due to their high hydrogen number density. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) directed by the DOE to provide a qualified fabrication techniques of metals hydride, especially the yttrium hydride (YHx) which provides advantages over other metal hydride candiates. Qualification of YHx involves fabrication, property, and performance pillars, which must be met for the deployment of microreactors. In the support of the qualification process metal hydride, LANL has developed fabrication techniques based in direct hydriding and powder compacting. For both manufacturing techniques, fresh material properties of metal hydrides have been reported in the literature. To establish the performance limits and the qualification parameters, an irradiation campaign has been initated at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The irradation campaign aims to investigate the critical irradiated YHx properties as a function of neutron fluence and temperaute. The first phase of the irradiation campaign includes the effect of the operating temperature under neutron irradiation which provides initial data on the metal hydrides and informs the manufacturing processes. So that, drop-in irradations in Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) has been designed. This document depicts the post-irradation examination (PIE) plan of the ATR irradiated YHx. Objective of the PIE plan is to serve as a qualification basis for YHx as a neutron moderator material by understanding the impacts irradiation has on the physical and thermophysical properties; to establish a link between fabrication and the irradiated YHx properties; to institute a PIE strategy for other solid-state neutron moderator candidates, and; to inform micro nuclear reactor fuel performance and safety codes.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Jet-veto resummation at N 3 LL p + NNLO in boson production processes

Vetoing energetic jet activity is a crucial tool for suppressing backgrounds and enabling new physics searches at the LHC, but the introduction of a veto scale can introduce large logarithms that may need to be resummed. We present an implementation of jet-veto resummation for color-singlet processes at the level of N 3 LL p matched to fixed-order NNLO predictions. Our public code MCFM allows for predictions of a single boson, such as Z/γ*, W ± or H, or with a pair of vector bosons, such as W + W – , W ± Z or ZZ. The implementation relies on recent calculations of the soft and beam functions in the presence of a jet veto over all rapidities, with jets defined using a sequential recombination algorithm with jet radius R. However one of the ingredients that is required to reach full N 3 LL accuracy is only known approximately, hence N 3 LL p . We describe in detail our formalism and compare with previous public codes that operate at the level of NNLL. Our higher-order predictions improve significantly upon NNLL calculations by reducing theoretical uncertainties. We demonstrate this by comparing our predictions with ATLAS and CMS results.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Predicted thermophysical properties of UN, PuN, and (U,Pu)N

Molecular dynamics and density functional theory simulations are used to predict the lattice and electronic contributions of thermophysical properties for UN, PuN, and mixed (U,Pu)N systems. The properties predicted include the lattice parameter, linear thermal expansion, enthalpy, and specific heat capacity, as a function of temperature. The simulation predictions for high temperature specific heat capacity are compared against experimental measurements to understand the behavior, and why differences in the experimental measurements are observed. The influence of adding U vacancies, N interstitials, and Pu to UN is also examined. For this, a new PuN potential parameter set is developed and used with the Kocevski UN potential, enabling the dynamics of mixed (U,Pu)N systems to be studied. How defects impact the thermophysical properties is important for understanding fuel behavior under different reactor conditions, and these mechanistic predictions can be used to support fuel performance codes where data is scarce.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Predicting nonresonant pressure-driven MHD modes in equilibria with low magnetic shear

Nonresonant internal modes can be difficult to anticipate as there is no resonant surface in the plasma. However, equilibria that are unstable to multiple nonresonant magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) modes may be more prone to global loss of confinement since these instabilities generate spatially extended linear displacements, potentially enhancing magnetic field line chaos via nonlinear interactions. Here, we successfully predict the unstable nonresonant pressure-driven modes for equilibria with zero shear in the plasma core, irrational q on axis, and a central pressure gradient, which is consistent with pre-crash profiles in sawtoothing tokamak plasmas in the large-aspect-ratio limit. A criterion for identifying nonresonant modes most likely to be unstable is developed from the convergents of the continued fraction representation of q 0 . A higher-order analysis of the standard Energy Principle reveals the conditions under which these modes are expected to dominate. Linear growth rate spectra, as a function of toroidal mode number (up to n = 30), calculated using the initial-value extended-MHD code, M3D-C1, recover the characteristic dependence observed for ideal infernal modes. Nonresonant modes have also been invoked in some ideal sawtooth crash models. Finally, this work provides a mechanism to predict the mode numbers of infernal modes and, potentially, the width of some post-sawtooth-crash profiles.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Evaluation of a collisional radiative model for electron temperature determination in hydrogen plasma

A collisional-radiative (CR) model that extracts the electron temperature, T e , of hydrogen plasmas from Balmer-line-ratio measurements is examined for the plasma electron density, n e , and T e ranges of 10 10 –10 15 cm –3 and 5–500 eV, respectively. The CR code, developed and implemented in Python, has a forward component that computes the densities of excited states up to n = 15 as functions of T e , n e , and the molecular-to-atomic neutral ratio r(H 2 /H). The backward component provides ne and r(H 2 /H) as functions of the Balmer ratios to predict the T e . The model assumes Maxwellian electrons. Furthermore, the density profiles of the electrons and of the molecular and atomic hydrogen neutrals are shown to be of great importance, as is the accuracy of the line-ratio measurement method.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Lorentzian contours for tree-level string amplitudes

We engineer compact contours on the moduli spaces of genus-zero Riemann surfaces that achieve analytic continuation from Euclidean to Lorentzian worldsheets. These generalized Pochhammer contours are based on the combinatorics of associahedra and make the analytic properties of tree-level amplitudes entirely manifest for any number and type of external strings. We use them in practice to perform first numerical computations of open and closed string amplitudes directly in the physical kinematics for n=4,5,6,7,8,9 n = 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 . We provide a code that allows anyone to do such computations.

Physics↗

Tycho: Realistically Simulating Exoplanets within Stellar Clusters. I. Improving the Monte Carlo Approach

To fully understand the diverse population of exoplanets, we must study their early lives within open clusters, the birthplace of most stars with masses >0.5M {sub ⊙} (including those currently in the field). Indeed, when we observe planets within clustered environments, we notice highly eccentric and odd systems that suggest the importance of dynamical pathways created by interactions with additional bodies (as in the case of HD 285507b). However, it has proven difficult to investigate these effects, as many current numerical solvers for the multi-scale N-body problem are simplified and limited in scope. To remedy this, we aim to create a physically complete computational solution to explore the role of stellar close encounters and interplanetary interactions in producing the observed exoplanet populations for both open cluster stars and field stars. We present a new code, Tycho, which employs a variety of different computational techniques, including multiple N-body integration methods, close encounter handling, modified Monte Carlo scattering experiments, and a variety of empirically informed initial conditions. We discuss the methodology in detail, and its implementation within the AMUSE software framework. Approximately 1% of our systems are promptly disrupted by star-star encounters contributing to the rogue planets occurrence rate. Additionally, we find that close encounters which that perturb long-period planets lead to 38.3% of solar-system-like planetary systems becoming long-term unstable.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗