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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 253 records · Page 14

Next-Generation Marine Energy Software Needs Assessment

Over the past decade the marine energy industry has continued to grow and evolve, with new concepts and technologies constantly being pursued. Additionally, the field of computing is vastly different today than it was five or ten years ago. By utilizing advanced software and hardware architectures, like graphics processing units as well as parallelization and high-performance computing resources, software can produce higher quality outputs and a higher volume of outputs. These software and hardware resources can enable the marine energy community to exploit computational advancements from other research fields, which can include machine learning, differentiable programming, and controls co-design. Better integration of existing software and development of potential new software is necessary to take advantage of trends in modern computing and respond to the current and future needs of the marine energy community. In order to better understand the existing marine energy software landscape and industry needs, DOE's Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) tasked Sandia National Laboratories and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to update the needs assessment by identifying existing software gaps and software needs, and assisting WPTO in planning the next wave of marine energy software development. The proposed effort involved cataloguing and analyzing the available data on existing software related to marine energy. The marine energy software landscape has vastly changed in the last ten years. There are now nearly 230 different software packages utilized by the marine energy sector, compared to a decade ago when the Cardinal Engineering survey identified approximately 40 software packages. In 2012, the marine energy software landscape was captured in two tables, whereas the current marine energy software landscape required development of a software database to collect and categorize software.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

Line Faults Classification Using Machine Learning on Three Phase Voltages Extracted from Large Dataset of PMU Measurements

An end-to-end supervised learning method is developed to classify transmission line faults in a twoyear field-recorded dataset that includes synchronized measurements of three-phase voltages recorded by 38 Phasor Measurement Units (PMU) sparsely located in in the US Western Grid interconnection. Statistical analysis is performed to extract features from this large dataset to train Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), and eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) classifiers initially. The training further leverages a simulated dataset from a synthetic grid with 12 PMUs to increase the number of faults of types infrequently seen in the field-recorded dataset. Training the classification models with the combined dataset resulted in a classification accuracy of 97.7%. This is a significant improvement over 89.7% to 92.5% accuracy obtained by relying on the field-recorded dataset alone.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

A Data-Driven Framework for Direct Local Tensile Property Prediction of Laser Powder Bed Fusion Parts

This article proposes a generalizable, data-driven framework for qualifying laser powder bed fusion additively manufactured parts using part-specific in situ data, including powder bed imaging, machine health sensors, and laser scan paths. To achieve part qualification without relying solely on statistical processes or feedstock control, a sequence of machine learning models was trained on 6299 tensile specimens to locally predict the tensile properties of stainless-steel parts based on fused multi-modal in situ sensor data and a priori information. A cyberphysical infrastructure enabled the robust spatial tracking of individual specimens, and computer vision techniques registered the ground truth tensile measurements to the in situ data. The co-registered 230 GB dataset used in this work has been publicly released and is available as a set of HDF5 files. The extensive training data requirements and wide range of size scales were addressed by combining deep learning, machine learning, and feature engineering algorithms in a relay. The trained models demonstrated a 61% error reduction in ultimate tensile strength predictions relative to estimates made without any in situ information. Lessons learned and potential improvements to the sensors and mechanical testing procedure are discussed.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Data from: Understanding the biogeochemical and spatial drivers of methane and carbon dioxide fluxes in a large temperate reservoir

This dataset contains spatially resolved measurements of CO₂ and CH₄ fluxes and associated environmental variables collected across 200 sites in Douglas Reservoir (Tennessee, USA) between July 29-August 2, 2024. Measurements include diffusive fluxes of CO₂ and CH₄, CH₄ ebullition, and biogeochemical and spatial variables such as dissolved oxygen, temperature, conductivity, chlorophyll-a, pH, water depth, and distance from the dam. Sampling was conducted using a spatially balanced design to capture longitudinal and depth-related gradients throughout the reservoir. The dataset is structured to support analyses of spatial variability, flux pathway comparisons, and modeling approaches (e.g., spatial statistics and machine learning) aimed at understanding controls on reservoir CO₂ and CH₄ fluxes and improving upscaling to whole-reservoir and regional estimates.

Neeper, Jamie [ORNL] (ORCID:0009000842342101)↗

Fuel Cell Inverter Dataset

This data set contains the three phase AC voltage, three phase AC current, DC voltage and DC current. These data sets were captured during fuel cell inverter operation in grid-connected dispatch, islanded load changes, transition from grid-connected mode to islanded mode and vice-versa.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Transforming Energy through Computational Science: Computing for Clean Energy

This fact sheet discusses the opportunity space for NREL's computational science capabilities to address national clean energy objectives. Achieving a carbon-free power sector by 2035 as a step towards a decarbonized U.S. energy economy in 2050 will require major advances in power generation, autonomous energy systems, transportation, and buildings/communities. Development of integrated modeling approaches for complex energy systems will be essential for deployment. Success requires developments in optimization and control theory, complemented by machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), all of which in turn need targeted investments in breadth and scale of computing. This document defines an opportunity space where: embracing computing can link established research and development (R&D) to a decarbonization agenda; pursuing emerging approaches can accelerate the pace of technology advancement across the portfolio; and leading by example could reduce the carbon footprint of computing worldwide.

advanced computing↗

Outlook towards deployable continual learning for particle accelerators

Particle accelerators are high power complex machines. To ensure uninterrupted operation of these machines, thousands of pieces of equipment need to be synchronized, which requires addressing many challenges including design, optimization and control, anomaly detection and machine protection. With recent advancements, machine learning (ML) holds promise to assist in more advance prognostics, optimization, and control. While ML based solutions have been developed for several applications in particle accelerators, only few have reached deployment and even fewer to long term usage, due to particle accelerator data distribution drifts caused by changes in both measurable and non-measurable parameters. In this paper, we identify some of the key areas within particle accelerators where continual learning can allow maintenance of ML model performance with distribution drifts. Particularly, we first discuss existing applications of ML in particle accelerators, and their limitations due to distribution drift. Next, we review existing continual learning techniques and investigate their potential applications to address data distribution drifts in accelerators. By identifying the opportunities and challenges in applying continual learning, this paper seeks to open up the new field and inspire more research efforts towards deployable continual learning for particle accelerators.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Operator learning for energy-efficient building ventilation control with computational fluid dynamics simulation of a real-world classroom

Energy-efficient ventilation control plays an important role in reducing building energy consumption while ensuring occupant health and comfort. While Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations provide detailed and physically accurate representations of indoor airflow, their high computational cost limits their use in real-time building control. In this work, we present a neural operator learning framework that combines the physical accuracy of CFD with the computational efficiency of machine learning to enable building ventilation control with the high-fidelity fluid dynamics models. Our method jointly optimizes the airflow supply rates and vent angles to reduce energy use and adhere to air quality constraints. We train an ensemble of neural operator transformer models to learn the mapping from building control actions to airflow fields using high-resolution CFD data. This learned neural operator is then embedded in an optimization-based control framework for building ventilation control. Experimental results show that our approach achieves significant energy savings compared to maximum airflow rate control, rule-based control, as well as data-driven control methods using spatially averaged CO 2 prediction and deep learning–based reduced-order models, while consistently maintaining safe indoor air quality. These results highlight the practicality and scalability of our method in maintaining energy efficiency and indoor air quality in real-world buildings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

An Evaluation of Machine Learning Methods to Detect Malicious SCADA Communications

Critical infrastructure Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems were designed to operate on closed, proprietary networks where a malicious insider posed the greatest threat potential. The centralization of control and the movement towards open systems and standards has improved the efficiency of industrial control, but has also exposed legacy SCADA systems to security threats that they were not designed to mitigate. This work explores the viability of machine learning methods in detecting the new threat scenarios of command and data injection. Similar to network intrusion detection systems in the cyber security domain, the command and control communications in a critical infrastructure setting are monitored, and vetted against examples of benign and malicious command traffic, in order to identify potential attack events. Multiple learning methods are evaluated using a dataset of Remote Terminal Unit communications, which included both normal operations and instances of command and data injection attack scenarios.

critical infrastructure protection↗

Low latency optical-based mode tracking with machine learning deployed on FPGAs on a tokamak

Active feedback control in magnetic confinement fusion devices is desirable to mitigate plasma instabilities and enable robust operation. Optical high-speed cameras provide a powerful, non-invasive diagnostic and can be suitable for these applications. Here, in this study, we process high-speed camera data, at rates exceeding 100 kfps, on in situ field-programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware to track magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) mode evolution and generate control signals in real time. Our system utilizes a convolutional neural network (CNN) model, which predicts the n = 1 MHD mode amplitude and phase using camera images with better accuracy than other tested non-deep-learning-based methods. By implementing this model directly within the standard FPGA readout hardware of the high-speed camera diagnostic, our mode tracking system achieves a total trigger-to-output latency of 17.6 μs and a throughput of up to 120 kfps. This study at the High Beta Tokamak-Extended Pulse (HBT-EP) experiment demonstrates an FPGA-based high-speed camera data acquisition and processing system, enabling application in real-time machine-learning-based tokamak diagnostic and control as well as potential applications in other scientific domains.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Explosively driven Richtmyer–Meshkov instability jet suppression and enhancement via coupling machine learning and additive manufacturing

The ability to control the behavior of fluid instabilities at material interfaces, such as the shock-driven Richtmyer–Meshkov instability, is a grand technological challenge with a broad number of applications ranging from inertial confinement fusion experiments to explosively driven shaped charges. In this work, we use a linear-geometry shaped charge as a means of studying methods for controlling material jetting that results from the Richtmyer–Meshkov instability. A shaped charge produces a high-velocity jet by focusing the energy from the detonation of high explosives. The interaction of the resulting detonation wave with a hollowed cavity lined with a thin metal layer produces the unstable jetting effect. By modifying the characteristics of the detonation wave prior to striking the lined cavity, the kinetic energy of the jet can be enhanced or reduced. Modifying the geometry of the liner material can also be used to alter jetting properties. We apply optimization methods to investigate several design parameterizations for both enhancing or suppressing the shaped-charge jet. This is accomplished using 2D and 3D hydrodynamic simulations to investigate the design space that we consider. We also apply new additive manufacturing methods for producing the shaped-charge assemblies, which allow for the experimental testing of complicated design geometries obtained through computational optimization. We present a direct comparison of our optimized designs with experimental results carried out at the High Explosives Application Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Exploration of Domain Aware Machine Learning for Grid Analytics: Transfer-Learnt Energy Models to Assist Buildings Control with Sparse Field Data

Buildings are a primary consumer of energy in the United States and are also increasingly being perceived as providers of grid services such as load shifting, shedding and modulation. High fidelity models of building energy consumption are needed to set appropriate baselines for measurement and verification (M&V) of controllers designed for energy efficient operation of buildings and to enable buildings to provide grid services via. participation in demand response programs. State-of-the-art building energy modeling techniques either rely on Physics based models, or extensive instrumentation of the building envelope to gather “big” data to train machine learning based models such as deep neural networks. While Physics based models are often limited by their accuracy, it is not always feasible to gather a significant amount of field data required to train machine learning based models with sufficient accuracy. In this paper, we explore the use of transfer learning-based strategies to address unsatisfactory accuracy of models for estimating building energy consumption when available field data for training is sparse or of unacceptable quality. In particular, we transfer knowledge in the form of data and parameters, from Physics based simulation frameworks to the field to improve the model accuracy, thus resulting in a Physics-informed Machine Learning framework. We evaluated the efficacy of our approach on field data collected from six commercial buildings and our results indicate that the proposed transfer learning based models provide comparative (and in some cases better) accuracy than state-of-the-art machine learning and deep learning solutions, with just one month of field data.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Differentiable multiphase flow model for physics-informed machine learning in reservoir pressure management

Accurate subsurface reservoir pressure control is extremely challenging due to geological heterogeneity and multiphase fluid-flow dynamics. Predicting behavior in this setting relies on high-fidelity physics-based simulations that are computationally expensive. Yet, the uncertain, heterogeneous properties that control these flows make it necessary to perform many of these expensive simulations, which is often prohibitive. To address these challenges, we introduce a physics-informed machine learning workflow that couples a fully differentiable multiphase flow simulator, which is implemented in the DPFEHM framework with a convolutional neural network (CNN). The CNN learns to predict fluid extraction rates from heterogeneous permeability fields to enforce pressure limits at critical reservoir locations. By incorporating transient multiphase flow physics into the training process, our method enables more practical and accurate predictions for realistic injection-extraction scenarios compared to previous works. To speed up training, we pretrain the model on single-phase, steady-state simulations and then finetune it on full multiphase scenarios, which dramatically reduces the computational cost. We demonstrate that high-accuracy training can be achieved with fewer than three thousand full-physics multiphase flow simulations – compared to previous estimates requiring up to ten million. This drastic reduction in the number of simulations is achieved by leveraging transfer learning from much less expensive single phase simulations.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Quantifying Streambed Grain Size, Uncertainty, and Hydrobiogeochemical Parameters Using Machine Learning Model YOLO

Abstract Streambed grain sizes control river hydro‐biogeochemical (HBGC) processes and functions. However, measuring their quantities, distributions, and uncertainties is challenging due to the diversity and heterogeneity of natural streams. This work presents a photo‐driven, artificial intelligence (AI)‐enabled, and theory‐based workflow for extracting the quantities, distributions, and uncertainties of streambed grain sizes from photos. Specifically, we first trained You Only Look Once, an object detection AI, using 11,977 grain labels from 36 photos collected from nine different stream environments. We demonstrated its accuracy with a coefficient of determination of 0.98, a Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency of 0.98, and a mean absolute relative error of 6.65% in predicting the median grain size of 20 ground‐truth photos representing nine typical stream environments. The AI is then used to extract the grain size distributions and determine their characteristic grain sizes, including the 10th, 50th, 60th, and 84th percentiles, for 1,999 photos taken at 66 sites within a watershed in the Northwest US. The results indicate that the 10th, median, 60th, and 84th percentiles of the grain sizes follow log‐normal distributions, with most likely values of 2.49, 6.62, 7.68, and 10.78 cm, respectively. The average uncertainties associated with these values are 9.70%, 7.33%, 9.27%, and 11.11%, respectively. These data allow for the computation of the quantities, distributions, and uncertainties of streambed HBGC parameters, including Manning's coefficient, Darcy‐Weisbach friction factor, top layer interstitial velocity magnitude, and nitrate uptake velocity. Additionally, major sources of uncertainty in grain sizes and their impact on HBGC parameters are examined.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Learning and Controlling Silicon Dopant Transitions in Graphene Using Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy

A machine learning approach is introduced to determine the transition dynamics of silicon atoms on a single layer of carbon atoms, when stimulated by the electron beam of a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM). This method is data-centric, leveraging data collected on a STEM. The data samples are processed and filtered to produce symbolic representations, which is used to train a neural network to predict transition probabilities. These learned transition dynamics are then leveraged to guide a single silicon atom throughout the lattice to pre-determined target destinations. Empirical analyses are presented that demonstrate the efficacy and generality of the approach.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗