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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 307 records · Page 17
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Scaling of Turbulence and Microphysics in a Convection–Cloud Chamber of Varying Height

Abstract The convection–cloud chamber enables measurement of aerosol and cloud microphysics, as well as their interactions, within a turbulent environment under steady‐state conditions. Increasing the size of a convection–cloud chamber, while holding the imposed temperature difference constant, leads to increased Rayleigh, Reynolds and Nusselt numbers. Large–eddy simulation coupled with a bin microphysics model allows the influence of increased velocity, time, and spatial scales on cloud microphysical properties to be explored. Simulations of a convection–cloud chamber, with fixed aspect ratio and increasing heights of H = 1, 2, 4, and (for dry conditions only) 8 m are performed. The key findings are: Velocity fluctuations scale as H 1/3 , consistent with the Deardorff expression for convective velocity, and implying that the turbulence correlation time scales as H 2/3 . Temperature and other scalar fluctuations scale as H −3/7 . Droplet size distributions from chambers of different sizes can be matched by adjusting the total aerosol injection rate as the horizontal cross‐sectional area (i.e., as H 2 for constant aspect ratio). Injection of aerosols at a point versus distributed throughout the volume makes no difference for polluted conditions, but can lead to cloud droplet size distribution broadening in clean conditions. Cloud droplet growth by collision and coalescence leads to a broader right tail of the distribution compared to condensation growth alone, and this tail increases in magnitude and extent monotonically as the increase of chamber height. These results also have implications for scaling within turbulent, cloudy mixed‐layers in the atmosphere, such as fog layers.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Simulations of divertor designs that spatially separate power and particle exhaust using mid-leg divertor particle pumping

Predictive design modeling of a Dissipation-Focused Divertor for future operation in DIII-D reveals that increasing the poloidal distance of the pump duct entrance from the target surface along the low-field side divertor baffle increases neutral compression and modifies the spatial distribution of power dissipation. With a divertor pump located mid-leg between the target and the X-point, SOLPS-ITER boundary plasma simulations without drifts predict the formation of a dense neutral cloud near the target with > 30x higher neutral compression in detachment, a more stable detachment front located further from the target, and ~25% lower outer midplane separatrix density required for detachment onset, compared to a pump located in the scrape-off layer at the target surface. Up to 19 MW of power flowing into the divertors is modeled using the following two numerical implementations for particle pumping: a specified fraction of particles incident on variable wall sections of the plasma grid is removed from the computational domain (so-called albedo pumping), and a pump duct is modeled which includes dynamics of kinetic neutrals in the duct. The simulations show that the detachment front is located between the divertor target and the X-point and is relatively stable near the pump entrance, without a strong dependence on gas puff rate or injected power. The mid-leg pump design spatially separates the two primary functions of a divertor (power handling and particle exhaust), with the majority of power dissipation occurring near the target plate and particle exhaust taking place further upstream. The benefit of enhanced dissipation using mid-leg pumping comes at the cost of a higher outer midplane separatrix density for a given amount of particle injection.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

S 5 : Probing the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds potentials with the 6D map of the Orphan–Chenab stream

We present a 6D map of the Orphan–Chenab (OC) stream by combining the data from Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey (S 5 ) and Gaia. We reconstruct the proper motion, radial velocity, distance, on-sky track, and stellar density along the stream with spline models. The stream has a total luminosity of M V = -8.2 and metallicity of [Fe/H] = -1.9, similar to classical Milky Way (MW) satellites like Draco. The stream shows drastic changes in its physical width varying from 200 pc to 1kpc, but a constant line-of-sight velocity dispersion of 5 km s -1 . Despite the large apparent variation in the stellar number density along the stream, the flow rate of stars along the stream is remarkably constant. We model the 6D stream track by a Lagrange-point stripping method with a flexible MW potential in the presence of a moving extended Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). This allows us to constrain the mass profile of the MW within the distance range 15.6 < r < 55∙5 kpc, with the best measured enclosed mass of (2.85 ± 0.1) X 10 11 M ⊙ within 32.4 kpc. Our stream measurements are highly sensitive to the LMC mass profile with the most precise measurement of its enclosed mass made at 32.8 kpc, 7.02 ± 0.9) X 10 11 M ⊙ . We also detect that the LMC dark matter halo extends to at least 53 kpc. The fitting of the OC stream allows us to constrain the past LMC trajectory and the degree of dynamical friction it experienced. We demonstrate that the stars in the OC stream show large energy and angular momentum spreads caused by LMC perturbation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Scaling Law for Cloud-Rise Velocity vs. Scaled Height of Burst (SHOB)

The shockwave produced by a nuclear detonation leaves a low-density region in the vicinity of air zero (i.e., the point of detonation). As the shockwave degenerates into an acoustic wave, the buoyant force takes over and causes the low-density region to begin to rise at speeds that can reach as high as ~200-300 mph. The objective of this project was to find out if this initial cloud rise followed any scaling law, by stimulating a cloud rise for a 1 kiloton (kt) detonation and determining if a correlation existed between the scaled-height-of-burst (SHOB) and the scaled-cloud-rise velocity.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Charge sharing in pixelated semiconductor sensors

The charge sharing between neighboring pixels in pixelated sensors can be used to measure particle or x-ray coordinates with accuracy better than the pixel pitch. The accurate model of the charge distribution shape is essential to achieve ultimate coordinate accuracy. The charge sharing is caused by charge carriers' diffusion on the path from the generation point to pixels. This paper is focused on the diffusion of the initially compact charge cloud in the field free region. The diffusion equation solutions are obtained using separation of variable and Fourier synthesis method for different initial conditions and resulting charge distributions are integrated over pixel areas. In conclusion, the look up table containing pre-calculated values for pixel charge fractions is proposed to speed up numerical calculations.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

The chemical composition of globular clusters in the Local Group

We present detailed chemical abundance measurements for 45 globular clusters (GCs) associated with galaxies in (and, in one case, beyond) the Local Group. The measurements are based on new high-resolution integrated-light spectra of GCs in the galaxies NGC 185, NGC 205, M 31, M 33, and NGC 2403, combined with reanalysis of previously published observations of GCs in the Fornax dSph, WLM, NGC 147, NGC 6822, and the Milky Way. The GCs cover the range -2.8 < [Fe/H] < -0.1 and we determined abundances for Fe, Na, Mg, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, Zr, Ba, and Eu. Corrections for non local thermodynamic equilibrium effects are included for Na, Mg, Ca, Ti, Mn, Fe, Ni, and Ba, building on a recently developed procedure. For several of the galaxies, our measurements provide the first quantitative constraints on the detailed composition of their metal-poor stellar populations. Overall, the GCs in different galaxies exhibit remarkably uniform abundance patterns of the α, iron-peak, and neutron-capture elements, with a dispersion of less than 0.1 dex in [α/Fe] for the full sample. There is a hint that GCs in dwarf galaxies are slightly less α-enhanced (by ~0.04 dex on average) than those in larger galaxies. One GC in M 33 (HM33-B) resembles the most metal-rich GCs in the Fornax dSph (Fornax 4) and NGC 6822 (SC7) by having α-element abundances closer to scaled-solar values, possibly hinting at an accretion origin. A principal components analysis shows that the α-element abundances strongly correlate with those of Na, Sc, Ni, and Zn. Several GCs with [Fe/H] < -1.5 are deficient in Mg compared to other α-elements. We find no GCs with strongly enhanced r-process abundances as reported for metal-poor stars in some ultra-faint dwarfs and the Magellanic Clouds. The similarity of the abundance patterns for metal-poor GCs in different environments points to similar early enrichment histories and only allow for minor variations in the initial mass function.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

ARM FY2021 Radar Plan

The fundamental objective of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) radar facility is to provide high-quality radar observations to the scientific user community with an overarching goal of improving the treatment of clouds and precipitation in climate models. ARM has a complement of 32 scanning and zenith pointing radars, not including the radar wind profilers. This large number of radars and deployment locales require an enormous commitment of effort to keep operational. It has been the experience in ARM that all these radars cannot be always operated at a high level, and priorities need to be developed to properly manage operations every fiscal year. This document provides an overview of the FY20 activities and documents the priorities for FY21.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Comparison of scattering ratio profiles retrieved from ALADIN/Aeolus and CALIOP/CALIPSO observations and preliminary estimates of cloud fraction profiles

The space-borne active sounders have been contributing invaluable vertically resolved information of atmospheric optical properties since the launch of Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) in 2006. To build long-term records from space-borne lidars useful for climate studies, one has to understand the differences between successive space lidars operating at different wavelengths, flying on different orbits, and using different viewing geometries, receiving paths, and detectors. In this article, we compare the results of Atmospheric Laser Doppler INstrument (ALADIN) and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) lidars for the period from 28 June to 31 December 2019. First, we build a dataset of ALADIN–CALIOP collocated profiles (Δdist<1°; Δtime<6 h). Then we convert ALADIN's 355 nm particulate backscatter and extinction profiles into the scattering ratio vertical profiles SR(z) at 532 nm using molecular density profiles from Goddard Earth Observing System Data Assimilation System, version 5 (GEOS-5 DAS). And finally, we build the CALIOP and ALADIN globally gridded cloud fraction profiles CF(z) by applying the same cloud detection threshold to the SR(z) profiles of both lidars at the same spatial resolution. Before comparing the SR(z) and CF(z) profiles retrieved from the two analyzed lidar missions, we performed a numerical experiment to estimate the best achievable cloud detection agreement CDA norm (z) considering the differences between the instruments. We define CDA norm (z) in each latitude–altitude bin as the occurrence frequency of cloud layers detected by both lidars, divided by a cloud fraction value for the same latitude–altitude bin. We simulated the SR(z) and CF(z) profiles that would be observed by these two lidars if they were flying over the same atmosphere predicted by a global model. By analyzing these simulations, we show that the theoretical limit for CDA$_{norm}^{theor}$(z) for a combination of ALADIN and CALIOP instruments is equal to 0.81±0.07 at all altitudes. In other words, 19 % of the clouds cannot be detected simultaneously by two instruments due to said differences. The analyses of the actual observed CALIOP–ALADIN collocated dataset containing ~78 000 pairs of nighttime SR(z) profiles revealed the following points: (a) the values of SR(z) agree well up to ~3 km height. (b) The CF(z) profiles show agreement below ~3 km, where ~80 % of the clouds detected by CALIOP are detected by ALADIN as expected from the numerical experiment. (c) Above this height, the CDA$_{norm}^{obs}$(z) reduces to ~50 %. (d) On average, better sensitivity to lower clouds skews ALADIN's cloud peak height in pairs of ALADIN–CALIOP profiles by ~0.5±0.6 km downwards, but this effect does not alter the heights of polar stratospheric clouds and high tropical clouds thanks to their strong backscatter signals. (e) The temporal evolution of the observed CDA$_{norm}^{obs}$(z) does not reveal any statistically significant change during the considered period. This indicates that the instrument-related issues in ALADIN L0/L1 have been mitigated, at least down to the uncertainties of the following CDA$_{norm}^{obs}$(z) values: 68±12 %, 55±14 %, 34±14 %, 39±13 %, and 42±14 % estimated at 0.75, 2.25, 6.75, 8.75, and 10.25 km, respectively.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Physics-guided machine learning for improved accuracy of the National Solar Radiation Database

The National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB) provides high-resolution spatiotemporal solar irradiance data for the entire globe. The NSRDB uses a two-step Physical Solar Model (PSM) to compute the effects of clouds and other atmospheric variables on the solar radiation reaching the surface of the Earth. Physical and optical cloud properties are fundamental inputs to the PSM and are derived from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites. This paper describes recent improvements to the NSRDB driven by physics-guided machine learning methods for cloud property retrieval. The impacts of these new methods on the NSRDB irradiance data are validated using an extensive set of ground measurement sites, showing significant improvement for all sites. We report on average, the mean absolute percentage error for global horizontal irradiance and direct normal irradiance show reductions of 2.16 and 3.95 percentage points respectively for all daylight conditions, 5.92 and 17.39 percentage points respectively for cloudy conditions, and 9.00 and 22.59 percentage points respectively for gap-filled cloudy conditions. These new methods will help improve the quality and accuracy of the irradiance and cloud data in the NSRDB.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

‘The Cloud is Not Not IT’: Ecological Change in Research Computing in the Cloud

Along with a number of other computing technologies, cloud computing services are increasingly being promoted as a way of enabling openness, reproducibility, and the acceleration of scientific work. While there have been a variety of studies of the cloud in terms of computing performance, there has been little empirical attention to the changes going on around cloud computing at the level of work and practice. Through a qualitative, ethnographic study, we follow a cosmology research group’s transition from a shared high performance computing cluster to a cloud computing service, and examine the cloud service as a coordinative artifact being integrated into a larger ecology of existing practices and artifacts. We find that the transition involves both change and continuity in the group’s coordinative work and maintenance work, and point out some of the effects this adoption has on the group’s larger set of practices. Finally, we discuss practical implications this has for the broader adoption of cloud computing in university-based scientific work.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

ARM FY2022 Radar Plan

The fundamental objective of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) radar facility is to provide high-quality radar observations to the scientific user community with an overarching goal of improving the treatment of clouds and precipitation in climate models. ARM has a complement of 32 radars, including scanning and zenith pointing varieties (Table 1). The effort to maintain and operate these radars is significant and requires a large, distributed staffing commitment. However, at available staffing levels, ARM’s experience dictates that it is not feasible to ensure the continuous, high-level operations expected by the ARM user community for all radars at all locations at all times. Therefore, priorities must be established to routinely manage select radar operations every fiscal year.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Earth as a Proxy Exoplanet: Deconstructing and Reconstructing Spectrophotometric Light Curves

Point-source spectrophotometric (single-point) light curves of Earth-like planets contain a surprising amount of information about the spatial features of those worlds. Spatially resolving these light curves is important for assessing time-varying surface features and the existence of an atmosphere, which in turn is critical to life on Earth and significant for determining habitability on exoplanets. Given that Earth is the only celestial body confirmed to harbor life, treating it as a proxy exoplanet by analyzing time-resolved spectral images provides a benchmark in the search for habitable exoplanets. The Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) provides such an opportunity, with observations of ∼5000 full-disk sunlit Earth images each year at 10 wavelengths with high temporal frequency. We disk-integrate these spectral images to create single-point light curves and decompose them into principal components (PCs). Using machine-learning techniques to relate the PCs to six preselected spatial features, we find that the first and fourth PCs of the single-point light curves, contributing ∼83.23% of the light-curve variability, contain information about low and high clouds, respectively. Surface information relevant to the contrast between land and ocean reflectance is contained in the second PC, while individual land subtypes are not easily distinguishable (<0.1% total light-curve variation). We build an Earth model by systematically altering the spatial features to derive causal relationships to the PCs. This model can serve as a baseline for analyzing Earth-like exoplanets and guide wavelength selection and sampling strategies for future observations.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2020

Data product development for cold cloud and precipitation process analysis/Snow regime classifications from the NSA snow product

This grant funded work focused first on developing a data product for cold-cloud precipitation and second, under a continuation, on examining distinct snowfall regimes occurring at the North Slope Alaska (NSA) facility. The overarching goal under the first phase was to provide a data product that quantifies the vertically- and temporally-resolved properties of cold, precipitating clouds and that will enable future analyses of the processes that control their formation and evolution. The data product derives from observations at the NSA Utqiagvik (BRW) and Oliktok Point (OLI) sites, its algorithm utilizing radar observations supplemented with in situ and other collocated remote sensing measurements to constrain an optimal estimation retrieval.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Mapping the Spatial Footprint of Sea Breeze Winds in the Southeastern United States

Abstract Sea breeze winds are observed at various locations worldwide, but the spatially continuous mapping of sea breeze winds is rare. We have developed a scheme to map the areas of the southeastern United States (SEUS) coast influenced by sea breeze winds using a range of surface re‐analysis data to identify their occurrence. Changes in wind direction and dew point temperature are both used to detect a potential sea breeze signature, which is then confirmed by cumuliform clouds seen in satellite images or coastal fronts shown as cohesive lines in radar reflectivity images. Filters are employed to remove onshore winds not induced by the temperature difference between land and sea. From March to September 2019, this scheme identified 134 days with sea breeze occurrence somewhere in the SEUS, a frequency of 63 percent. The number of sea breezes increased from March to July and then decreased to September. Deep inland propagation of sea breezes during this period left footprints in a band parallel to the coastline up to about 220 km inland, after which the sea breeze winds quickly diminished. Comparisons show that the findings using the scheme are consistent with site observations, theoretical estimates, and idealized and semi‐idealized numerical model simulations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Elucidating the chemical dynamics of the elementary reactions of the 1-propynyl radical (CH 3 CC; X 2 A 1 ) with 2-methylpropene ((CH 3 ) 2 CCH 2 ; X 1 A 1 )

Exploiting the crossed molecular beam technique, we studied the reaction of the 1-propynyl radical (CH 3 CC; X 2 A 1 ) with 2-methylpropene (isobutylene; (CH 3 ) 2 CCH 2 ; X 1 A 1 ) at a collision energy of 38 ± 3 kJ mol –1 . The experimental results along with ab initio and statistical calculations revealed that the reaction has no entrance barrier and proceeds via indirect scattering dynamics involving C 7 H 11 intermediates with lifetimes longer than their rotation period(s). The reaction is initiated by the addition of the 1-propynyl radical with its radical center to the π-electron density at the C1 and/or C2 position in 2-methylpropene. Further, the C 7 H 11 intermediate formed from the C1 addition either emits atomic hydrogen or undergoes isomerization via [1,2-H] shift from the CH 3 or CH 2 group prior to atomic hydrogen loss preferentially leading to 1,2,4-trimethylvinylacetylene (2-methylhex-2-en-4-yne) as the dominant product. The molecular structures of the collisional complexes promote hydrogen atom loss channels. RRKM results show that hydrogen elimination channels dominate in this reaction, with a branching ratio exceeding 70%. Since the reaction of the 1-propynyl radical with 2-methylpropene has no entrance barrier, is exoergic, and all transition states involved are located below the energy of the separated reactants, bimolecular collisions are feasible to form trimethylsubstituted 1,3-enyne (p1) via a single collision event even at temperatures as low as 10 K prevailing in cold molecular clouds such as G+0.693. As a result, the formation of trimethylsubstituted vinylacetylene could serve as the starting point of fundamental molecular mass growth processes leading to di- and trimethylsubstituted naphthalenes via the HAVA mechanism.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2022

ARM FY2023 Radar Plan

The fundamental objective of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility’s radar capability is to provide high-quality radar observations to the scientific user community with an overarching goal of improving the treatment of clouds and precipitation in climate models. ARM has a complement of 32 radars, including scanning and zenith-pointing varieties (Table 1). The effort to maintain and operate these radars is significant and requires a large, distributed staffing commitment. It has not been feasible to ensure the continuous, high-level operations expected by the ARM user community for all radars at all times, so priorities are established to routinely manage select radar operations every fiscal year. These priorities for FY23 are listed herein.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Assessing Cloud and Precipitation Properties on Temporal and Spatial Scales Using LASSO Simulations over ENA

Low clouds and precipitation representation remain a major source of uncertainty in Earth System Models (ESMs), particularly due to challenges in representing their sub-grid variability and scale-dependent sampling. This study evaluates the performance of preliminary simulations from the Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) ARM Symbiotic Simulation and Observation (LASSO) project over the Eastern North Atlantic (ENA), with a focus on liquid water path (LWP), ice water path (IWP), cloud fraction (CF), and surface precipitation simulated across closed-cell, open-cell, and transitional cloud regimes. Using LES (100 m horizontal grid spacing) driven by ERA5 and MERRA-2 reanalyses, we assess the representativeness of ground-based point observations by analyzing their correspondence to model-resolved spatial and temporal means. Results suggest that observational sampling of at least 6 hours is required to achieve consistency with domain-scale averages, in particular for observations that exhibit pronounced sub-grid heterogeneity, such as precipitation. ERA5-forced simulations exhibit improved spatial coherence and agreement with domain-averaged quantities when compared to MERRA-2 runs, with performance discrepancies largest for convective cloud conditions due to differences in forcing fidelity and temporal resolution. These findings highlight the importance of regime-aware model evaluation strategies and potentially demonstrate how LES can inform observation-model comparison practices and the development of cloud and precipitation parameterizations in ESMs.

Liang, Jiakun [University of Hawai'i at Manoa] (OR↗
DOE OSTI2020

Smaller than Expected Bright-spot Offsets in Spitzer Phase Curves of the Hot Jupiter Qatar-1b

We present Spitzer full-orbit thermal phase curves of the hot Jupiter Qatar-1b, a planet with the same equilibrium temperature—and intermediate surface gravity and orbital period—as the well-studied planets HD 209458b and WASP-43b. We measure secondary eclipse depths of 0.21 ± 0.02% at 3.6 μm and 0.30 ± 0.02% at 4.5 μm, corresponding to dayside brightness temperatures of 1542{sub −31}{sup +32} K and 1557{sub −36}{sup +35} K, respectively, consistent with a vertically isothermal dayside. The respective nightside brightness temperatures are 1117{sub −71}{sup +76} and 1167{sub −74}{sup +69} K, in line with a trend that hot Jupiters all have similar nightside temperatures. We infer a Bond albedo of 0.12{sub −0.16}{sup +0.14} and a moderate day–night heat recirculation efficiency, similar to HD 209458b. General circulation models for HD 209458b and WASP-43b predict that their bright spots should be shifted east of the substellar point by tens of degrees, and these predictions were previously confirmed with Spitzer full-orbit phase curve observations. The phase curves of Qatar-1b are likewise expected to exhibit eastward offsets. Instead, the observed phase curves are consistent with no offset: 11° ± 7° at 3.6 μm and −4° ± 7° at 4.5 μm. The discrepancy in circulation patterns between these three otherwise similar planets points to the importance of secondary parameters like rotation rate and surface gravity, and the presence or absence of clouds, in determining atmospheric conditions on hot Jupiters.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗