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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 271 records · Page 15
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2024

Snow4Flow: Concept Paper for a NASA Earth Venture Suborbital-4 Investigation

Snow4Flow was proposed as a large ($30M cost cap) Earth Venture Suborbital (EVS-4) mission in April 2023 and selected as such in April 2024. It will commence pending an Investigation Confirmation Review in 2025. Its airborne and ground campaigns are presently expected to occur in March–May 2027–2029. Quantifying the ongoing retreat of glaciers and ice sheets – and projecting their futures – are major societal concerns due to their contribution to sea-level rise and influence on water resources, natural hazards, and associated socioeconomic impacts. The ability to confidently project glacier and ice-sheet mass change is limited by a severe lack of observations that reliably constrain both their input (Snow) and output (Flow) mass fluxes. Snow4Flow will capture the spatial variability in snow accumulation and ice volume across 4 Northern Hemisphere (NH) regions containing hundreds of rapidly changing glaciers to deliver more reliable, societally relevant projections of land-ice change. This major advance requires spatially extensive radar-sounding surveys that are not possible from orbit (Fig. 1). This EVS-4 mission will drive foundational improvements to NH land-ice boundary conditions and forcing data – including orographic precipitation patterns in alpine environments, ice thickness and subglacial topography – and directly leverages them into state-of-the-art models and projections. Our key science questions are: 1. How will NH glaciers respond to climate change through the end of the 21st century? 2. How does snow accumulation vary in regions of high topographic relief?

Jack W Holt↗
DOE OSTI2020

Are You Resilient? Site Energy and Water Resilience Indicators

There is growing interest among operators of individual or co-located facilities to plan for utility disruptions caused by natural hazards and threats. Energy and water resilience at the site level can be characterized as the ability to withstand, adapt, and recover from an energy and/or water supply disruption. But how can a site’s energy and water resilience posture be measured? An evaluation framework with clear performance measures or indicators can help organizations establish what it means to be energy and water resilient and assess progress towards meeting resilience goals across sites and over time. Tracking a consistent set of indicators can help organizations identify problem areas that should be addressed and ascertain if energy and water resilience has improved as a result of investments or operational or policy changes. Resilience indicators also provide a means for organizations with geographically distributed sites to identify common problem areas that may require higher-level attention. This paper outlines an approach that organizations can use to measure site energy and water resilience. This approach was developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Management Program as part of an effort to help federal agencies plan for energy and water resilience in a more systematic and rigorous way. The paper defines a general structure for defining energy and water resilience indicators, and provides example indicators and potential rating methods.

resilience, metrics for resilience, site resilienc↗
DOE OSTI2024

American Samoa: Unlocking Renewable Energy Potential

Located approximately between Hawaii and New Zealand, American Samoa is the only U.S. territory in the southern hemisphere. American Samoa faces similar climate and energy resilience challenges as other Pacific islands: geographic remoteness, dependence on imported fossil fuels, and increased vulnerability to natural hazards like earthquakes, cyclones, and tsunamis. In 2022, the average electricity price for residential customers in American Samoa was approximately 45 cents/kilowatt-hour (kWh) - almost three times the U.S. average of 15 cents/kWh. Renewable energy represents a small but growing power system contribution, although American Samoa relies almost entirely on imported fossil fuels. The territory possesses substantial solar resources and wind and biomass resource potential. Planned renewable power projects include utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind generation with battery storage systems.

American Samoa↗
DOE OSTI2021

High-Quality Revision of the Israeli Seismic Bulletin

Seismic bulletins, with trustworthy phase picks, origin times, and source locations are key for regional seismic studies, such as travel-time (TT) tomography, attenuation tomography, and anisotropy studies. To lay the groundwork for such studies in Israel, we revised the seismic bulletin of Israel and the surrounding area and obtained a trustworthy TT data set. From the earthquake and explosion bulletins of the Geophysical Institute of Israel, we compiled a starting data set of about 123,000 earthquakes and explosions that occurred during the past 40 yr. After screening out the poorly recorded events, we were left with a data set of ~38,000 well-recorded events. We then revised the remaining data set in two consecutive steps. In the first, we reviewed and updated station metadata, including changes in station metadata parameters over time. In the second step, we jointly relocated a list of selected seismic events, using the Bayesian hierarchical location software package (BayesLoc) of Myers et al. (2007) that performs joint relocation of multiple events. We observed striking dissimilarities between the spatial distributions of the newly relocated catalog and the initial locations. Although the depth distribution of the starting catalog is trimodal with peaks at 0, 5, and 10 km, the distribution in this study is unimodal, with a broad peak between 7.5 and 12.5 km. By differencing the observed arrival times and the origin times obtained through relocation with BayesLoc, we obtained a revised TT database that consists of 261,336 Pg, 132,876 Pn, 114,816 Sg, and 60,394 Sn arrivals, from a set of 30,458 jointly relocated seismic sources. In this work, we compared prerevision and postrevision TTs as a function of epicentral distance and concluded that the revised data set contains far fewer outliers and inconsistencies than the original data set. The revised TT data set may be used for seismic studies, such as TT tomography, attenuation tomography, and anisotropy studies.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Increasing risk of cascading hazards in the central Himalayas

Cascading hazards are becoming more prevalent in the central Himalayas. Primary hazards (e.g., earthquakes, avalanches, and landslides) often trigger secondary hazards (e.g., landslide dam, debris flow, and flooding), compounding the risks to human settlements, infrastructures, and ecosystems. Risk management strategies are commonly tailored to a single hazard, leaving human and natural systems vulnerable to cascading hazards. In this commentary, we characterize diverse natural hazards in the central Himalayas, including their cascading mechanisms and potential impacts. A scientifically sound understanding of the cascading hazards, underlying mechanisms, and appropriate tools to account for the compounding risks are crucial to informing the design of risk management strategies. Here, we also discuss the need for an integrated modeling framework, reliable prediction and early warning system, and sustainable disaster mitigation and adaptation strategies.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Preliminary Nuclear Containment Vessel Modeling for Multi-Hazard Probabilistic Risk Assessment under Seismic Hazards and Concrete Degradation

The current practice for natural phenomena hazards (NPH) risk assessment of nuclear facilities is to compute the risk for each hazard independently and then compound the total risk as a combination of single hazard risks. This state of practice does not consider correlations between hazards and the cascading impacts to structures, systems, and components (SSCs), and could thus underestimate the NPH risk or overestimate the nuclear facility safety. Events such as the Fukushima Daiichi accident have highlighted the importance of multi-hazard risk considerations to nuclear power plants (NPPs) that quantify the cascading damage effects to SSCs in the risk models. Moreover, the current fleet of NPPs in the United States is aging; these NPPs are now expected to operate well beyond their initially planned design life. Aging-related deterioration can potentially decrease the capacity of critical structures such as containment vessels to withstand NPH. Such aging considerations may not be adequately accounted for by the current NPH risk assessment guidelines. This paper presents a preliminary modeling and simulation of a representative reinforced concrete containment vessel subjected to seismic mainshock and aftershock considering concrete degradation due to alkali silica reaction. The broader aim is to develop multi-hazard time-dependent fragility functions that could be subsequently used in the probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) model. The multi-hazard component comes into play due to the consideration of damage to the containment vessel under seismic loads and concrete degradation. Consideration of concrete degradation also brings into play the time-dependent nature of the containment vessel response. The response of the containment vessel under varying degrees of concrete degradation to seismic loads is investigated. The results presented are simulated using the Multi-hazard Analysis for STOchastic time-DOmaiN phenomena (MASTODON) software for seismic analysis and the Blackbear software for concrete degradation and damage modeling. Both software are open source and developed within the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE).

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Oak Ridge Reservation Meteorological Overview Report, Oak Ridge, TN

This report is purposed to provide a summary of the local climate and data from meteorological (Met) towers and wind profilers at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), the Y-12 National Security Complex Site (Y-12), the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), as well as other federal, state, or local agencies as necessary to support the natural phenomena hazards (NPH) analysis 10-year update required by Department of Energy (DOE)- STD-1020-2016, Natural Phenomena Hazards Analysis and Design Criteria for DOE Facilities. The data from this report will be used to support high wind analyses, precipitation analysis, flood analysis, lightning analysis, and other severe weather phenomena for the ETTP, the ORNL, and Y-12.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Composition, Emissions, and Air Quality Impacts of Hazardous Air Pollutants in Unburned Natural Gas from Residential Stoves in California

The presence of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) entrained in end-use natural gas (NG) is an understudied source of human health risks. We performed trace gas analyses on 185 unburned NG samples collected from 159 unique residential NG stoves across seven geographic regions in California. Our analyses commonly detected 12 HAPs with significant variability across region and gas utility. Mean regional benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and total xylenes (BTEX) concentrations in end-use NG ranged from 1.6–25 ppmv–benzene alone was detected in 99% of samples, and mean concentrations ranged from 0.7–12 ppmv (max: 66 ppmv). By applying previously reported NG and methane emission rates throughout California’s transmission, storage, and distribution systems, we estimated statewide benzene emissions of 4,200 (95% CI: 1,800–9,700) kg yr –1 that are currently not included in any statewide inventories–equal to the annual benzene emissions from nearly 60,000 light-duty gasoline vehicles. Additionally, we found that NG leakage from stoves and ovens while not in use can result in indoor benzene concentrations that can exceed the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment 8-h Reference Exposure Level of 0.94 ppbv–benzene concentrations comparable to environmental tobacco smoke. This study supports the need to further improve our understanding of leaked downstream NG as a source of health risk.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

New Opportunities to Study Earthquake Precursors

The topic of earthquake prediction has a long history, littered with failed attempts. Part of the challenge is that possible precursory signals are usually reported after the event, and the systematic relationships between potential precursors and main events, should they exist, are unclear. Furthermore, several recent studies have shown the potential of new approaches to simultaneously detect earthquake foreshocks and slow-slip phenomena through ground deformation, seismic, and gravitational transients—weeks to months before large subduction zone earthquakes. The entire international community of earthquake researchers should be engaged in deploying instrumentation, sharing data in real time, and improving physical models to resolve the extent to which slow slip events and earthquake swarms enhance the likelihood (or not) for later, larger earthquakes.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Strategic Energy Plan: City of Key West, Florida

This Strategic Energy Plan for the city of Key West, Florida—developed through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Technology Innovation Partnership Project (ETIPP)—outlines a comprehensive strategy to advance the city’s energy vision: to improve energy efficiency and independence using local energy resources to foster long-term resilience. To guide this effort, the plan is structured around four focus areas: • Energy efficiency: Reduce overall energy consumption and utility costs across municipal, residential, and commercial buildings. • Local energy generation: Increase the share of energy produced from local sources to enhance energy independence. • Resilience: Strengthen critical infrastructure and community preparedness for flooding, hurricanes, and other natural weather hazards. • Electric transportation: Support the addition of new electric vehicles (EVs) and develop reliable charging infrastructure to reduce reliance on imported fuels. ETIPP provides strategic energy planning, technical assistance, and direct funding to U.S. coastal, remote, and island communities to improve energy resilience. Key West was part of ETIPP’s fourth cohort. As a low-lying island community vulnerable to infrastructure damage due to natural weather hazards, Key West seeks to reduce its dependence on external energy and build long-term sustainability. The Strategic Energy Plan identifies specific challenges, sets clear goals, and proposes actionable opportunities with implementation timelines and key stakeholders. A baseline assessment reveals significant energy consumption in both city-owned and residential/commercial buildings, limited local energy generation, and an early-stage EV market with vulnerable charging infrastructure. The proposed solutions emphasize a multifaceted approach, leveraging both established and innovative technologies, while addressing financial, technical, and community engagement challenges. The baseline assessment provided a snapshot of current energy conditions in Key West, evidencing key challenges and opportunities across the city’s energy priorities. Building on the baseline assessment and extensive input from city staff, local stakeholders, and community partners, a set of targeted opportunities was identified to address Key West’s energy goals. Each was evaluated in terms of its potential benefits, key implementation steps, associated challenges and mitigation strategies, and the city departments and stakeholders best positioned to lead or support progress.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
NASA NTRS2002

Research on Hazardous States of Awareness and Physiological Factors in Aerospace Operations

The technical memorandum describes research conducted to examine the etiologies and nature of hazardous states of awareness and the psychophysiological factors involved in their onset in aerospace operations. A considerable amount of research has been conducted at NASA that examines psychological and human factors issues that may play a role in aviation safety. The technical memorandum describes some of the research that was conducted between 1998 and 2001, both in-house and as cooperative agreements, which addressed some of these issues. The research was sponsored as part of the physiological factors subelement of the Aviation Operation Systems (AOS) program and Physiological / Psychological Stressors and Factors project. Dr. Lance Prinzel is the Level III subelement lead and can be contacted at l.j.prinzel@larc.nasa.gov.

Prinzel, Lawrence J., III↗
DOE OSTI2025

Advancing Multi-Hazard Risk and Safety Considerations for Aging Nuclear Facilities (Revision 1)

This project will demonstrate a multi-hazard time-dependent probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) approach for nuclear facilities considering aging-related deterioration of structures. A generic pressurized water reactor (PWR) reactor subjected to seismic mainshock-aftershock sequences considering the aging of the containment structure will be used as a case study to demonstrate the multi-hazard PRA approach. Using advanced modeling and simulation, seismic mainshock-aftershock fragility functions will be simulated for the containment structure considering aging effects. A multi-hazard PRA model for a generic PWR reactor will be built to quantify the multi-hazard core damage frequency (CDF) and large early release frequency (LERF) with explicit time-dependent modeling of event sequences. To date, the cascading impacts of multi-hazards are not adequately accounted for in the PRA models for nuclear facilities. In addition, for both initial and periodic evaluation of facilities to withstand natural phenomena hazards (NPH), deterioration of the SSCs due to aging and other effects is not adequately considered. By advancing multi-hazard considerations accounting for aging effects, this project will contribute to improved understanding of the safety of aging nuclear facilities. Project outcomes such as the multi-hazard CDF and LERF will also allow facility owners to optimize upgrade and retrofit protocols. This project is divided into two components: (1) advanced modeling and simulations; and (2) multi-hazard PRA. For the first component, Idaho National Laboratory’s (INL) Multi-hazard Analysis for STOchastic time-DOmaiN phenomena (MASTODON) and BlackBear codes will be used to simulate the seismic response and damage of a containment structure under cascading mainshock-aftershock sequences with aging effects. Uncertainties related to the seismic inputs, material parameters, and environmental factors such as temperature and humidity will be identified and propagated to the fragility functions. These fragility functions, which consider aging effects, will be time dependent. The second component will take the fragility information from the first component to build a multi-hazard time-dependent PRA model starting from a generic PWR model to evaluate the multi-hazard CDF and LERF and characterize the associated consequences. For this component, OpenPRA Web Application and SAPHIRE code will be used. Events such as the Fukushima Daiichi accident have highlighted the importance of considering the cascading impacts of multi-hazards for PRA. Moreover, many of the reactors in the current nuclear fleet in the United States (US) are already operating well beyond their initially planned design life, and applications for further extensions to operating licenses are being considered. Therefore, considering multi-hazard effects and aging deterioration in the NPH risk assessment process will contribute to the safety of both existing and future nuclear facilities. Outcomes of this project will thus directly benefit the standards DOE-STD-1020-16 and DOE-HDBK-1224-18.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
NASA NTRS1995

More About Hazard-Response Robot For Combustible Atmospheres

Report presents additional information about design and capabilities of mobile hazard-response robot called "Hazbot III." Designed to operate safely in combustible and/or toxic atmosphere. Includes cameras and chemical sensors helping human technicians determine location and nature of hazard so human emergency team can decide how to eliminate hazard without approaching themselves.

Stone, Henry W.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Equivalent Safety Evaluation of the 2021 Edition of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code to Editions Incorporated by Reference in 49 CFR 192, 193, and 195

Federal safety standards for natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines and liquid natural gas facilities incorporate rules and requirements for boiler and pressure vessel design and fabrication into 49 CFR Parts 192, 193, and 195 through the IBR process. The equivalent safety evaluations documented in this report demonstrate that boilers and pressure vessels in pipeline facilities that are designed and fabricated in accordance with rules and requirements specified in the 2021 edition do not violate the fundamental safety assumptions stated or implied in the 2007 edition of the ASME BPVC and therefore provide equivalent safety.

03 NATURAL GAS↗
NASA NTRS2000

New mapping technologies - mapping and imaging from space

New and significantly enhanced space based observational capabiities are available which are of potential use to the hazards community. In combination with existing methodologies, these instruments and data can significantly enhance and extend current procedures for seismic zonation and hazards evaluation. This paper provides a brief overview of several of the more useful data sets available.

natural hazards space technology↗