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At least 235 records · Page 13

FitCache: A Transparent Drop-In Framework for Multi-Tier Caching to Accelerate Distributed Deep Learning Workloads

Training in Deep learning (DL) remains highly compute- and data-intensive, with I/O becoming a critical bottleneck as models and datasets scale. Recent studies report that data loading can dominate training time, especially on large-scale HPC systems with shared parallel file systems (PFS). Existing caching approaches either rely on single-tier designs or require intrusive modifications to training pipelines, limiting their portability and effectiveness. In this work, we present FitCache, a transparent drop-in framework for multi-tier caching to accelerate distributed DL training by coordinating fast local memory (e.g., DRAM, Persistent Memory (PMem)) and NVMe as hierarchical caches atop PFS. Our design adapts to hardware diversity, i.e., if NVMe is missing, memory transparently acts as a caching tier, ensuring stable performance. FitCache transparently intercepts I/O requests and issues concurrent fetches across all tiers, returning data from the fastest responder without centralized metadata or static redirection paths. FitCache adapts to dynamic workloads and heterogeneous clusters while maintaining POSIX compatibility. Experiments on Frontier (2048 GPUs) and smaller research clusters show that FitCache reduces training time by up to 40% and per-batch I/O latency by up to 71.6% compared to Lustre Orion PFS, offering a drop-in solution for scalable DL training.

Hu, Guangxing [ORNL] (ORCID:0009000283203614)↗

Operations automation

This is truly the era of 'faster-better-cheaper' at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA/JPL). To continue JPL's primary mission of building and operating interplanetary spacecraft, all possible avenues are being explored in the search for better value for each dollar spent. A significant cost factor in any mission is the amount of manpower required to receive, decode, decommutate, and distribute spacecraft engineering and experiment data. The replacement of the many mission-unique data systems with the single Advanced Multimission Operations System (AMMOS) has already allowed for some manpower reduction. Now, we find that further economies are made possible by drastically reducing the number of human interventions required to perform the setup, data saving, station handover, processed data loading, and tear down activities that are associated with each spacecraft tracking pass. We have recently adapted three public domain tools to the AMMOS system which allow common elements to be scheduled and initialized without the normal human intervention. This is accomplished with a stored weekly event schedule. The manual entries and specialized scripts which had to be provided just prior to and during a pass are now triggered by the schedule to perform the functions unique to the upcoming pass. This combination of public domain software and the AMMOS system has been run in parallel with the flight operation in an online testing phase for six months. With this methodology, a savings of 11 man-years per year is projected with no increase in data loss or project risk. There are even greater savings to be gained as we learn other uses for this configuration.

Boreham, Charles Thomas↗

2.2.2.405 - Verdant/NREL Research Measurement Campaign

The marine renewable energy industry primarily uses thermoset composite materials for blades and other hydrodynamic components, which can have up to 50% reduction in strength when exposed to seawater and are not recyclable. Thermoplastic composite materials have been shown at a coupon-scale to have improved seawater saturated properties but have not been validated at full scale. The primary goal of the project is to demonstrate the structural properties of thermoplastic-fiberglass composite blades compared to epoxy-fiberglass composite blades in seawater at a tidal energy site on an operational turbine. Through this work, NREL manufactured, tested and deployed thermoplastic blades and a data acquisition system on Verdant Power's turbine TriFrame in the East River, NYC. The thermoplastic blades and DAQ were retrieved after a 6-month deployment with no signs of degradation and all cable connections, structural supports and strain gages had a 100% survival rate. The blades are currently undergoing post-deployment structural validation to compare their performance to traditional epoxy blades that were deployed for the same amount of time. This will increase confidence in thermoplastic materials and move it closer to commercial adoption, as well as increase confidence in the design of a DAQ and instrumentation method for a tidal turbine. However, due to an error in the DAQ software that was introduced after the DAQ and software were validated, there was no loads data collected during the deployment.

blade testing↗

A wind-tunnel investigation of the effects of thrust-axis inclination on propeller first-order vibration

Data on the aerodynamic excitation of first-order vibration occurring in a representative three-blade propeller having its thrust axis inclined to the air stream at angles of 0 degrees, 4.55 degrees, and 9.8 degrees are included in this paper. For several representative conditions the aerodynamic excitation has been computed and compared with the measured values. Blade stresses also were measured to permit the evaluation of the blade stress resulting from a given blade aerodynamic excitation. It was concluded that the section aerodynamic exciting force of a pitched propeller may be computed accurately at low rotational speeds. As section velocities approach the speed of sound, the accuracy of computation of section aerodynamic exciting force is not always so satisfactory. First-order blade vibratory stresses were computed with satisfactory accuracy from untilted-propeller loading data. A stress prediction which assumes a linear relation between first-order vibratory stress and the product of pitch angle and dynamic pressure and which is based on stresses at low rotational speeds will be conservative when the outer portions of the blade are in the transonic and low supersonic speed range.

Gray, W H↗

Aerodynamic Effects of High Turbulence Intensity on a Variable-Speed Power-Turbine Blade With Large Incidence and Reynolds Number Variations

The effects of high inlet turbulence intensity on the aerodynamic performance of a variable speed power turbine blade are examined over large incidence and Reynolds number ranges. These results are compared to previous measurements made in a low turbulence environment. Both high and low turbulence studies were conducted in the NASA Glenn Research Center Transonic Turbine Blade Cascade Facility. The purpose of the low inlet turbulence study was to examine the transitional flow effects that are anticipated at cruise Reynolds numbers. The current study extends this to LPT-relevant turbulence levels while perhaps sacrificing transitional flow effects. Assessing the effects of turbulence at these large incidence and Reynolds number variations complements the existing database. Downstream total pressure and exit angle data were acquired for 10 incidence angles ranging from +15.8deg to −51.0deg. For each incidence angle, data were obtained at five flow conditions with the exit Reynolds number ranging from 2.12×10(exp 5) to 2.12×10(exp 6) and at a design exit Mach number of 0.72. In order to achieve the lowest Reynolds number, the exit Mach number was reduced to 0.35 due to facility constraints. The inlet turbulence intensity, Tu, was measured using a single-wire hotwire located 0.415 axial-chord upstream of the blade row. The inlet turbulence levels ranged from 8 to 15 percent for the current study. Tu measurements were also made farther upstream so that turbulence decay rates could be calculated as needed for computational inlet boundary conditions. Downstream flow field measurements were obtained using a pneumatic five-hole pitch/yaw probe located in a survey plane 7 percent axial chord aft of the blade trailing edge and covering three blade passages. Blade and endwall static pressures were acquired for each flow condition as well. The blade loading data show that the suction surface separation that was evident at many of the low Tu conditions has been eliminated. At the extreme positive and negative incidence angles, the data show substantial differences in the exit flow field. These differences are attributable to both the higher inlet Tu directly and to the thinner inlet endwall boundary layer that the turbulence grid imposes.

Flegel, Ashlie B.↗

Aerodynamic Effects of Turbulence Intensity on a Variable-Speed Power-Turbine Blade with Large Incidence and Reynolds Number Variations

The effects of inlet turbulence intensity on the aerodynamic performance of a variable speed power turbine blade are examined over large incidence and Reynolds number ranges. Both high and low turbulence studies were conducted in the NASA Glenn Research Center Transonic Turbine Blade Cascade Facility. The purpose of the low inlet turbulence study was to examine the transitional flow effects that are anticipated at cruise Reynolds numbers. The high turbulence study extends this to LPT-relevant turbulence levels while perhaps sacrificing transitional flow effects. Downstream total pressure and exit angle data were acquired for ten incidence angles ranging from +15.8 to 51.0. For each incidence angle, data were obtained at five flow conditions with the exit Reynolds number ranging from 2.12105 to 2.12106 and at a design exit Mach number of 0.72. In order to achieve the lowest Reynolds number, the exit Mach number was reduced to 0.35 due to facility constraints. The inlet turbulence intensity, Tu, was measured using a single-wire hotwire located 0.415 axial-chord upstream of the blade row. The inlet turbulence levels ranged from 0.25 - 0.4 for the low Tu tests and 8- 15 for the high Tu study. Tu measurements were also made farther upstream so that turbulence decay rates could be calculated as needed for computational inlet boundary conditions. Downstream flow field measurements were obtained using a pneumatic five-hole pitchyaw probe located in a survey plane 7 axial chord aft of the blade trailing edge and covering three blade passages. Blade and endwall static pressures were acquired for each flow condition as well. The blade loading data show that the suction surface separation that was evident at many of the low Tu conditions has been eliminated. At the extreme positive and negative incidence angles, the data show substantial differences in the exit flow field. These differences are attributable to both the higher inlet Tu directly and to the thinner inlet endwall boundary layer that the turbulence grid imposes.

Turbines↗

Aerodynamic Effects of High Turbulence Intensity on a Variable-Speed Power-Turbine Blade with Large Incidence and Reynolds Number Variations

The effects of high inlet turbulence intensity on the aerodynamic performance of a variable speed power turbine blade are examined over large incidence and Reynolds number ranges. These results are compared to previous measurements made in a low turbulence environment. Both high and low turbulence studies were conducted in the NASA Glenn Research Center Transonic Turbine Blade Cascade Facility. The purpose of the low inlet turbulence study was to examine the transitional flow effects that are anticipated at cruise Reynolds numbers. The current study extends this to LPT-relevant turbulence levels while perhaps sacrificing transitional flow effects. Assessing the effects of turbulence at these large incidence and Reynolds number variations complements the existing database. Downstream total pressure and exit angle data were acquired for 10 incidence angles ranging from +15.8deg to −51.0deg. For each incidence angle, data were obtained at five flow conditions with the exit Reynolds number ranging from 2.12×10(exp 5) to 2.12×10(exp 6) and at a design exit Mach number of 0.72. In order to achieve the lowest Reynolds number, the exit Mach number was reduced to 0.35 due to facility constraints. The inlet turbulence intensity, Tu, was measured using a single-wire hotwire located 0.415 axial-chord upstream of the blade row. The inlet turbulence levels ranged from 8 to 15 percent for the current study. Tu measurements were also made farther upstream so that turbulence decay rates could be calculated as needed for computational inlet boundary conditions. Downstream flow field measurements were obtained using a pneumatic five-hole pitch/yaw probe located in a survey plane 7 percent axial chord aft of the blade trailing edge and covering three blade passages. Blade and endwall static pressures were acquired for each flow condition as well. The blade loading data show that the suction surface separation that was evident at many of the low Tu conditions has been eliminated. At the extreme positive and negative incidence angles, the data show substantial differences in the exit flow field. These differences are attributable to both the higher inlet Tu directly and to the thinner inlet endwall boundary layer that the turbulence grid imposes.

Flegel, Ashlie B.↗

Understanding early HIV-1 rebound dynamics following antiretroviral therapy interruption: The importance of effector cell expansion

Most people living with HIV-1 experience rapid viral rebound once antiretroviral therapy is interrupted; however, a small fraction remain in viral remission for an extended duration. Understanding the factors that determine whether viral rebound is likely after treatment interruption can enable the development of optimal treatment regimens and therapeutic interventions to potentially achieve a functional cure for HIV-1. We built upon the theoretical framework proposed by Conway and Perelson to construct dynamic models of virus-immune interactions to study factors that influence viral rebound dynamics. We evaluated these models using viral load data from 24 individuals following antiretroviral therapy interruption. The best-performing model accurately captures the heterogeneity of viral dynamics and highlights the importance of the effector cell expansion rate. Our results show that post-treatment controllers and non-controllers can be distinguished based on the effector cell expansion rate in our models. Furthermore, these results demonstrate the potential of using dynamic models incorporating an effector cell response to understand early viral rebound dynamics post-antiretroviral therapy interruption.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

2026 Large Load Literature Review and Data Sources [Slides]

The Large Load Literature Review and Data Sources reports are updated monthly, summarizing reports and data published in 2026 that focus on large loads. The 2025 literature review reviewed and categorized over 90 resources into 12 themes.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

University of Hawai‘i, Shallow Geothermal Resources: Energy Technology Innovation Partnership Project (Final Report)

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have teamed up with the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa (UH Manoa) through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Technology Innovation Partnership Project to evaluate the technological and market feasibility of shallow geothermal heat exchanger (GHE) technology. UH requested this analysis to evaluate opportunities in building cooling, energy efficiency, and emissions reduction applications in Hawai‘i. UH has an abundance of geologic and geothermal data and is looking to the national labs’ expertise to execute this analysis. UH is also interested in investigating policy, regulatory, and business conditions advantageous for implementation of a pilot project and more broad deployment of this technology in Hawai‘i. In many locations around the world, the demands for heating and cooling are roughly balanced over the course of the year, so GHEs do not cause significant long-term changes in subsurface temperature. This is not the case in Hawai’i, where the demand for heating is very small, meaning that, over time, GHEs will add heat to the subsurface. If temperatures increase significantly, GHE systems will not work as designed. Regional groundwater flow has the potential to sweep heated water away from boreholes, thereby maintaining the functionality of the GHE system. Significant regional groundwater flow requires two things: a sufficiently large driving hydraulic head gradient (usually closely related to surface topography), and sufficient porosity and permeability to enable groundwater to flow in large enough quantities to enable near-borehole temperatures to be maintained at ambient values. Hawai‘i’s volcanic terrain offers ample surface topographic variation. The lava itself shows an extremely large range of porosity and permeability, so sites with large enough values of these properties must be selected. Numerical modeling of coupled groundwater and heat flow can be used to determine how large is large enough. Primarily, closed-loop systems have been investigated. Other options considered are open-loop systems and using cool seawater as the chilling source. Project work investigated the feasibility of GHE technology at two scales. At the island scale, GIS layers of various attributes relevant for GHE were combined to develop an overall favorability map for employing GHE in Hawai‘i. At the local scale, a hydrogeologic model for the subsurface component of a closed-loop system was developed for the Stan Sheriff Center at the UH Manoa campus. This site is considered promising because the rock below and immediately downgradient of the borefield is highly permeable, consisting of a subsurface karst system (limestone containing high-permeability open channels), which is underlain by a thick, high-permeability fractured basalt. Moreover, the site is near the base of the Ko‘olau Range, providing a large hydraulic head gradient. Thus, groundwater flow through the site is expected to be large, enabling efficient removal of heated groundwater. A full-GHE-system model of the site was also developed, with a simplified representation of the subsurface, in which groundwater flow is not considered and heat transfer is purely by conduction. Using the building cooling load data provided by UH, simulation results show that with groundwater flow present, a GHE can operate successfully for at least 10 years, but with no groundwater flow, the subsurface begins to heat up after only one year of operation, making the GHE unviable within 2-6 years. The team also developed a techno-economic model for this site to compare the cost of cooling using a GHE system with the costs of operating the current air-conditioning system. The GHE system is advantageous economically if favorable tax incentives and interest rates can be obtained.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Continuous-time look-ahead flexible ramp scheduling in real-time operation

This paper develops a novel continuous-time look-ahead optimization model for co-optimizing balancing energy and flexible ramp products in real-time power systems operation. In addition, a continuous-time day-ahead operation model is developed to commit and schedule an adequate subset of generating units for providing balancing energy and ramping requirements in real-time operation. The up and down flexible ramp products are defined as continuous-time decision trajectories that continuously supply the real-time up and down ramping requirements of the system. The deliverability of flexible ramp products is secured through reserving the respective power requirements in generation capacity constraints of generating units. A function space solution method is proposed to reduce the dimensionality of day-ahead and real-time models through projecting them into finite-dimensional function spaces spanned by Bernstein polynomials, where the real-time operation decisions are modeled with a higher accuracy level than day-ahead decisions. Simulations are conducted on the IEEE-RTS system using CAISO load data, and the numerical results showcase the effectiveness of the proposed model in supplying the energy and flexible ramp requirements and avoiding ramping scarcity in the system, while reducing the operation costs.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Transmission-distribution long-term volt-var planning considering reactive power support capability of distributed PV

High penetration of grid-edge, inverter-based photovoltaic (PV) can cause significant voltage fluctuations not only at the distribution but also at the sub-transmission levels due to PV output intermittency. Traditional reactive power planning approaches do not consider intermittency, nor the possibility of coordinating the control of existing and future volt-ampere reactive resources. This paper proposes a reactive power planning tool for sub-transmission systems to mitigate voltage violations and fluctuations caused by high PV penetration and intermittency with a minimum investment cost. The planning tool coordinates with an optimization-based volt-var operational tool for: a) modeling the coordination of all existing var assets in both sub-transmission and distribution systems to reduce the need of new equipment, and b)selecting a set of scenarios with voltage violations, derived from PV intermittency c) testing the final investment decision. The tool obtains an investment need for each intermittency scenario with a proposed optimal power-flow framework with efficient techniques to handle a high number of discrete variables. Two options are provided for final planning decision: i) a conservative direct combination of investment need solutions and ii) a machine learning-based selection of representative investment needs at most time steps. The final investment decision options are verified using a realistic large-scale sub-transmission system and 5-minute PV and load data. The results show a significant voltage performance improvement with a lower investment cost for additional var equipment compared to conventional approaches.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Block encoding of the three-dimensional heterogeneous Poisson equation with application to fracture flow

Quantum linear system (QLS) algorithms offer the potential to solve large-scale linear systems exponentially faster than classical methods. However, applying QLS algorithms to real-world problems remains challenging due to issues such as state preparation, data loading, and efficient information extraction. In this work, we study the feasibility of applying QLS algorithms to solve discretized three-dimensional (3D) heterogeneous Poisson equations, with specific examples relating to groundwater flow through geologic fracture networks. We explicitly construct a block encoding for the 3D heterogeneous Poisson matrix by leveraging the sparse local structure of the discretized operator. While classical solvers benefit from preconditioning, we show that block encoding the system matrix and preconditioner separately does not improve the effective condition number that dominates the QLS run-time. This differs from classical approaches where the preconditioner and the system matrix can often be implemented independently. Nevertheless, due to the structure of the problem in three dimensions, the quantum algorithm achieves a run-time of 𝑂⁡(𝑁 2/3 polylog 𝑁 ⋅log (1/𝜖)), outperforming the best classical methods (with run times of 𝑂⁡(𝑁⁢log 𝑁 ⋅log (1/𝜖))) and offering exponential memory savings. These results highlight both the promise and limitations of QLS algorithms for practical scientific computing, and point to effective condition-number reduction as a key barrier in achieving quantum advantages.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Performance Profile of Transformer Fine-Tuning in Multi-GPU Cloud Environments

The study presented here focuses on performance characteristics and trade-offs associated with running machine-learning tasks in multi-GPU environments on both on-site cloud computing resources and commercial cloud services (Azure). Specifically, this study examines these tradeoffs by examining the performance of training and fine-tuning of transformer-based deep-learning (DL) networks on clinical notes and data, a task of critical importance in the medical domain. To this end, we perform DL-related experiments on the widely deployed NVIDIA V100 GPUs and on the newer A100 GPUs connected via NVLink or PCIe. This study analyzes the execution time of major operations to train DL models and investigate popular options to optimize each of them. We examine and present the findings on the impacts that various operations (e.g. data loading into GPUs, training, fine-tuning), optimizations, and system configurations (single vs. multi-GPU, NVLink vs. PCIe) have on the overall training performance.

Begoli, Edmon↗

Using Artificial Intelligence to Improve Reliability and Operational Efficiency of Small-Scale Hydroelectric Distributed Generation

Reliability and resilience are critical concerns for distributed generation (DG) at the rural electric level. The integration of renewable energy sources, such as small-scale hydroelectric distributed generators (hydro DGs), introduces operational challenges, particularly regarding aging infrastructure and grid stability. Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven Machine Learning (ML) models and applications of Large Language Models (LLMs) offer promising solutions for optimizing DG operations and enhancing resilience. This paper explores AI-based models for improving efficiency, fault resolution, and outage mitigation in small-scale hydro DGs. Furthermore, it highlights the development of a centralized, AI-powered information portal for rural electric cooperatives and municipalities. The research evaluates hydro DG plant models and discusses the applicability of AI-powered question-answering tools for real-time operations, focusing on statistical data, load flow, voltage regulation, and generation power. The findings demonstrate AI’s potential to transform DG management to ensure greater stability and resilience in rural electric grids.

Bhattacharyya, Arjun [ORNL] (ORCID:000900060976046↗

An Adaptive-Importance-Sampling-Enhanced Bayesian Approach for Topology Estimation in an Unbalanced Power Distribution System

The reliable operation of a power distribution system relies on a good prior knowledge of its topology and its system state. Although crucial, due to the lack of direct monitoring devices on the switch statuses, the topology information is often unavailable or outdated for the distribution system operators for real-time applications. Apart from the limited observability of the power distribution system, other challenges are the nonlinearity of the model, the complicated, unbalanced structure of the distribution system, and the scale of the system. To overcome the above challenges, we, in this paper, propose a Bayesian-inference framework that allows us to simultaneously estimate the topology and the state of a three-phase, unbalanced power distribution system. Specifically, by using the very limited number of measurements available that are associated with the forecast load data, we efficiently recover the full Bayesian posterior distributions of the system topology under both normal and outage operation conditions. This is performed through an adaptive importance sampling procedure that greatly alleviates the computational burden of the traditional Monte-Carlo (MC)-sampling-based approach while maintaining a good estimation accuracy. The simulations conducted on the IEEE 123-bus test system and an unbalanced 1282-bus system reveal the excellent performances of the proposed method.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

slacgismo/loadshape_analysis

Loadshape analysis tool: The loadshape analysis module computes loadshapes for arbitary CSV load data sets.

Chassin, David P.↗