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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 OSTI2015

Underground Test Area Activity Quality Assurance Plan Nevada National Security Site, Nevada. Revision 2

This Quality Assurance Plan (QAP) provides the overall quality assurance (QA) requirements and general quality practices to be applied to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Field Office (NNSA/NFO) Underground Test Area (UGTA) activities. The requirements in this QAP are consistent with DOE Order 414.1D, Change 1, Quality Assurance (DOE, 2013a); U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Guidance for Quality Assurance Project Plans for Modeling (EPA, 2002); and EPA Guidance on the Development, Evaluation, and Application of Environmental Models (EPA, 2009). If a participant’s requirement document differs from this QAP, the stricter requirement will take precedence. NNSA/NFO, or designee, must review this QAP every two years. Changes that do not affect the overall scope or requirements will not require an immediate QAP revision but will be incorporated into the next revision cycle after identification. Section 1.0 describes UGTA objectives, participant responsibilities, and administrative and management quality requirements (i.e., training, records, procurement). Section 1.0 also details data management and computer software requirements. Section 2.0 establishes the requirements to ensure newly collected data are valid, existing data uses are appropriate, and environmental-modeling methods are reliable. Section 3.0 provides feedback loops through assessments and reports to management. Section 4.0 provides the framework for corrective actions. Section 5.0 provides references for this document.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2005

Simulator of Space Communication Networks

Multimission Advanced Communications Hybrid Environment for Test and Evaluation (MACHETE) is a suite of software tools that simulates the behaviors of communication networks to be used in space exploration, and predict the performance of established and emerging space communication protocols and services. MACHETE consists of four general software systems: (1) a system for kinematic modeling of planetary and spacecraft motions; (2) a system for characterizing the engineering impact on the bandwidth and reliability of deep-space and in-situ communication links; (3) a system for generating traffic loads and modeling of protocol behaviors and state machines; and (4) a system of user-interface for performance metric visualizations. The kinematic-modeling system makes it possible to characterize space link connectivity effects, including occultations and signal losses arising from dynamic slant-range changes and antenna radiation patterns. The link-engineering system also accounts for antenna radiation patterns and other phenomena, including modulations, data rates, coding, noise, and multipath fading. The protocol system utilizes information from the kinematic-modeling and link-engineering systems to simulate operational scenarios of space missions and evaluate overall network performance. In addition, a Communications Effect Server (CES) interface for MACHETE has been developed to facilitate hybrid simulation of space communication networks with actual flight/ground software/hardware embedded in the overall system.

Clare, Loren↗
DOE OSTI2022

Broadband impedance modeling and single bunch instabilities estimations of the advanced light source upgrade project

We report the Advanced Light Source Upgrade (ALS-U) is a 4th generation diffraction-limited soft x-ray radiation source, consisting of a new accumulator ring (AR) and a new storage ring (SR). In both rings coupling-impedance driven instabilities need careful evaluation to ensure meeting the machine’s high-performance goals. This paper presents the workflow followed in building the impedance models and the beam-stability analysis based on those models. We follow the commonly accepted approach of separating the resistive-wall and the geometric parts of the impedance; the former is obtained by analytical formulas, the latter by numerical electro-magnetic codes (primarily CST Studio software) with perfectly-conducting boundary conditions. Impedance budgets are established and pseudo-Green functions calculated to be used in beam dynamics studies. We also present various ways to cross-check simulation results for reliable impedance modeling. Finally, the crucial single-bunch instability current thresholds for various operation modes are determined and discussed.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Enhancing the Quality and Reliability of Machine Learning Interatomic Potentials through Better Reporting Practices

Recent developments in machine learning interatomic potentials (MLIPs) have empowered even nonexperts in machine learning to train MLIPs for accelerating materials simulations. However, reproducibility and independent evaluation of presented MLIP results is hindered by a lack of clear standards in current literature. In this Perspective, we aim to provide guidance on best practices for documenting MLIP use while walking the reader through the development and deployment of MLIPs including hardware and software requirements, generating training data, training models, validating predictions, and MLIP inference. We also suggest useful plotting practices and analyses to validate and boost confidence in the deployed models. Finally, we provide a step-by-step checklist for practitioners to use directly before publication to standardize the information to be reported. Altogether, we hope that our work will encourage the reliable and reproducible use of these MLIPs, which will accelerate their ability to make a positive impact in various disciplines including materials science, chemistry, and biology, among others.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
NASA NTRS1994

Temperature prediction of space flight experiments by computer thermal analysis

Life sciences experiments are especially sensitive to temperature. A small temperature difference between otherwise identical samples can cause various differences in biological reaction rates. Knowledge of experimental temperatures and temperature histories help to distinguish the effects of microgravity and temperature on spaceflight experiments compared to ground based studies, and allow appropriate controls and sensitivity tests. Up to the present time, the Orbiter (Space Shuttle) has not generally provided temperature measurement instrumentation inside ambient lockers located in the Mid-deck of the Orbiter, or inside similar facilities such as Spacehab and Spacelab, but many pieces of hardware do have temperature recording capability. Most of these temperatures, however, have only been roughly measured or estimated. Such reported experimental temperatures, while accurate within a range of several degrees Celsius, are of limited utility to biological researchers. The temperature controlled lockers used in spaceflight, such as Commerical-Refrigeration Incubation Modules (C-R/IMs), severely reduce the mass and volume available for test samples and do not necessarily provide uniform thermal environments. While these test carriers avoid some of the experimental temperature variations of the ambient lockers, the number of samples which can be accommodated in these temperature controlled units is limited. In the present work, improved models of thermal prediction and control were sought. Temperatures are predicted by thermal analysis software using empirical temperatures recorded during STS-57. These temperatures are compared to data recorded throughout the mission using Ambient Temperature Recorders (ATRs) located within several payload lockers. Additional test cases are undertaken using controlled ground experiments to more precisely determine the reliability of the thermal model. The approach presented should increase the utility of various spaceflight carriers in the support of biological and material science research and ground control studies done in preparation for flight.

Birdsong, M. B.↗
DOE OSTI2015

Enabling Co-Design of Multi-Layer Exascale Storage Architectures

Growing demands for computing power in applications such as energy production, climate analysis, computational chemistry, and bioinformatics have propelled computing systems toward the exascale: systems with 10 18 floating-point operations per second. These systems, to be designed and constructed over the next decade, will create unprecedented challenges in component counts, power consumption, resource limitations, and system complexity. Data storage and access are an increasingly important and complex component in extreme-scale computing systems, and significant design work is needed to develop successful storage hardware and software architectures at exascale. Co-design of these systems will be necessary to find the best possible design points for exascale systems. The goal of this work has been to enable the exploration and co-design of exascale storage systems by providing a detailed, accurate, and highly parallel simulation of exascale storage and the surrounding environment. Specifically, this simulation has (1) portrayed realistic application checkpointing and analysis workloads, (2) captured the complexity, scale, and multilayer nature of exascale storage hardware and software, and (3) executed in a timeframe that enables “what if'” exploration of design concepts. We developed models of the major hardware and software components in an exascale storage system, as well as the application I/O workloads that drive them. We used our simulation system to investigate critical questions in reliability and concurrency at exascale, helping guide the design of future exascale hardware and software architectures. Additionally, we provided this system to interested vendors and researchers so that others can explore the design space. We validated the capabilities of our simulation environment by configuring the simulation to represent the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility Blue Gene/Q system and comparing simulation results for application I/O patterns to the results of executions of these I/O kernels on the actual system.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS1998

Modeling, Simulation and Analysis of Public Key Infrastructure

Security is an essential part of network communication. The advances in cryptography have provided solutions to many of the network security requirements. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is the foundation of the cryptography applications. The main objective of this research is to design a model to simulate a reliable, scalable, manageable, and high-performance public key infrastructure. We build a model to simulate the NASA public key infrastructure by using SimProcess and MatLab Software. The simulation is from top level all the way down to the computation needed for encryption, decryption, digital signature, and secure web server. The application of secure web server could be utilized in wireless communications. The results of the simulation are analyzed and confirmed by using queueing theory.

Liu, Yuan-Kwei↗
DOE OSTI2025

ChatHPC: Building the Foundations for a Productive and Trustworthy AI-Assisted HPC Ecosystem

ChatHPC democratizes large language models for the high-performance computing (HPC) community by providing the infrastructure, ecosystem, and knowledge needed to apply modern generative AI technologies to rapidly create specific capabilities for critical HPC components while using relatively modest computational resources. Our divide-and-conquer approach focuses on creating a collection of reliable, highly specialized, and optimized AI assistants for HPC based on the cost-effective and fast Code Llama fine-tuning processes and expert supervision. We target major components of the HPC software stack, including programming models, runtimes, I/O, tooling, and math libraries. Thanks to AI, ChatHPC provides a more productive HPC ecosystem by boosting important tasks related to portability, parallelization, optimization, scalability, and instrumentation, among others. With relatively small datasets (on the order of KB), the AI assistants, which are created in a few minutes by using one node with two NVIDIA H100 GPUs and the ChatHPC library, can create new capabilities with Meta’s 7-billion parameter Code Llama base model to produce high-quality software with a level of trustworthiness of up to 90% higher than the 1.8-trillion parameter OpenAI ChatGPT-4o model for critical programming tasks in the HPC software stack.

Young, Aaron [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000254484667)↗
NASA NTRS1990

Failure analysis and modeling of a VAXcluster system

This paper discusses the results of a measurement-based analysis of real error data collected from a DEC VAXcluster multicomputer system. In addition to evaluating basic system dependability characteristics such as error and failure distributions and hazard rates for both individual machines and for the VAXcluster, reward models were developed to analyze the impact of failures on the system as a whole. The results show that more than 46 percent of all failures were due to errors in shared resources. This is despite the fact that these errors have a recovery probability greater than 0.99. The hazard rate calculations show that not only errors, but also failures occur in bursts. Approximately 40 percent of all failures occur in bursts and involved multiple machines. This result indicates that correlated failures are significant. Analysis of rewards shows that software errors have the lowest reward (0.05 vs 0.74 for disk errors). The expected reward rate (reliability measure) of the VAXcluster drops to 0.5 in 18 hours for the 7-out-of-7 model and in 80 days for the 3-out-of-7 model.

Tang, Dong↗
DOE OSTI2020

Solar+ Optimizer: A Model Predictive Control Optimization Platform for Grid Responsive Building Microgrids

With the falling costs of solar arrays and battery storage and reduced reliability of the grid due to natural disasters, small-scale local generation and storage resources are beginning to proliferate. However, very few software options exist for integrated control of building loads, batteries and other distributed energy resources. The available software solutions on the market can force customers to adopt one particular ecosystem of products, thus limiting consumer choice, and are often incapable of operating independently of the grid during blackouts. In this paper, we present the “Solar+ Optimizer” (SPO), a control platform that provides demand flexibility, resiliency and reduced utility bills, built using open-source software. SPO employs Model Predictive Control (MPC) to produce real time optimal control strategies for the building loads and the distributed energy resources on site. SPO is designed to be vendor-agnostic, protocol-independent and resilient to loss of wide-area network connectivity. The software was evaluated in a real convenience store in northern California with on-site solar generation, battery storage and control of HVAC and commercial refrigeration loads. Preliminary tests showed price responsiveness of the building and cost savings of more than 10% in energy costs alone.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Resonance Control System for the CEBAF Separator Upgrade

Abstract The Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) energy upgrade from 6 GeV to 12 GeV includes the installation of four new 748.5 MHz normal conducting deflecting cavities in the 5th pass extraction region. The RF system employs two digital LLRF systems controlling four normal conducting cavities in a vector sum setting. Cavity tune information of the individual cavities is obtained using a multiplexing scheme of the forward and reflected RF signals. Water skids equipped with heaters and valves are used to control resonance. A new FPGA-based hardware and EPICS-based predictive control algorithm has been developed to support reliable operation of the beam extraction process. This paper presents the architecture design of the existing hardware and software as well as a plan to develop a model predictive control system.

Plawski, Tomasz↗
NASA NTRS1979

Care 3, Phase 1, volume 1

A computer program to aid in accessing the reliability of fault tolerant avionics systems was developed. A simple mathematical expression was used to evaluate the reliability of any redundant configuration over any interval during which the failure rates and coverage parameters remained unaffected by configuration changes. Provision was made for convolving such expressions in order to evaluate the reliability of a dual mode system. A coverage model was also developed to determine the various relevant coverage coefficients as a function of the available hardware and software fault detector characteristics, and subsequent isolation and recovery delay statistics.

Stiffler, J. J.↗
NASA NTRS1989

A perspective on future directions in aerospace propulsion system simulation

The design and development of aircraft engines is a lengthy and costly process using today's methodology. This is due, in large measure, to the fact that present methods rely heavily on experimental testing to verify the operability, performance, and structural integrity of components and systems. The potential exists for achieving significant speedups in the propulsion development process through increased use of computational techniques for simulation, analysis, and optimization. This paper outlines the concept and technology requirements for a Numerical Propulsion Simulation System (NPSS) that would provide capabilities to do interactive, multidisciplinary simulations of complete propulsion systems. By combining high performance computing hardware and software with state-of-the-art propulsion system models, the NPSS will permit the rapid calculation, assessment, and optimization of subcomponent, component, and system performance, durability, reliability and weight-before committing to building hardware.

Miller, Brent A.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Serial Network Flow Monitor

Using a commercial software CD and minimal up-mass, SNFM monitors the Payload local area network (LAN) to analyze and troubleshoot LAN data traffic. Validating LAN traffic models may allow for faster and more reliable computer networks to sustain systems and science on future space missions. Research Summary: This experiment studies the function of the computer network onboard the ISS. On-orbit packet statistics are captured and used to validate ground based medium rate data link models and enhance the way that the local area network (LAN) is monitored. This information will allow monitoring and improvement in the data transfer capabilities of on-orbit computer networks. The Serial Network Flow Monitor (SNFM) experiment attempts to characterize the network equivalent of traffic jams on board ISS. The SNFM team is able to specifically target historical problem areas including the SAMS (Space Acceleration Measurement System) communication issues, data transmissions from the ISS to the ground teams, and multiple users on the network at the same time. By looking at how various users interact with each other on the network, conflicts can be identified and work can begin on solutions. SNFM is comprised of a commercial off the shelf software package that monitors packet traffic through the payload Ethernet LANs (local area networks) on board ISS.

Robinson, Julie A.↗
NASA NTRS2020

Quasi-Static and Dynamic Analysis of Composite Panels: Challenges in Engineering-Level Commercial Software

In engineering applications, where analysis time and efficiency are essential, analytical models and commercially available finite element (FE) material models are the two mainstream methods used to analyze composite crush scenarios. A reliable numerical model addressing the crushing response of composite materials requires a nonlinear progressive damage analysis which includes appropriate failure mechanisms such as matrix cracking, fragmentation, delamination, and fiber breakage. One might be able to address all these interacting failure responses through implementation/validation of a user defined material model or by utilization of a commercially available model, the latter being the most efficient engineering approach. In this paper, the quasi-static and dynamic crushing response of composite specimens, consisting of a C-channel and a corrugated geometry manufactured with carbon fiber/epoxy matrix fabric, are modeled using the progressive composite damage model within ABAQUS. The novel part of this work, which has not been previously addressed in the literature, is the utilization of a detailed parametric study to optimize composite damage model parameters for a given quasi-static crush simulation in ABAQUS. C-channel experiments were used to calibrate the model and then refine/optimize a set of material parameters that best fit the experimental results. These identical parameters were then used to simulate the crush response of the corrugated channel specimens, thereby making it a pure prediction and not a double recalibration. Next, the dynamic response of both panels were predicted, further confirming the predictive capability of the developed numerical model. The effect of parameter variation on the crush response is fully documented for future use in engineering applications utilizing this specific ABAQUS damage model.

Paria Naghipour↗
NASA NTRS1988

A support architecture for reliable distributed computing systems

The Clouds project is well underway to its goal of building a unified distributed operating system supporting the object model. The operating system design uses the object concept of structuring software at all levels of the system. The basic operating system was developed and work is under progress to build a usable system.

Dasgupta, Partha↗
DOE OSTI2016

Pre-commercial Demonstration of Direct Non-iterative State Estimator for Operational Use of Synchrophasor Management Systems

The objective of this project was to demonstrate functionality and performance of a Direct Non-iterative State Estimator (DNSE) integrated with NYPA’s Energy Management System (EMS) and with enhanced Real Time Dynamics Monitoring System (RTDMS) synchrophasor platform from Electric Power Group (EPG). DNSE is designed to overcome a major obstacle to operational use of Synchro-Phasor Management Systems (SPMS) by providing to synchrophasor management systems (SPMS) applications a consistent and a complete synchrophasor data foundation in the same way that a traditional EMS State Estimator (SE) provides to EMS applications. Specifically, DNSE is designed to use synchrophasor measurements collected by a central PDC, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) measurements, and Energy Management System (EMS) network model, to obtain the complete state of the utility’s operating model at rates that are close to the synchrophasor data rates. In this way, the system is comprehensive in that it does not only cover the part of the network that is “visible” via synchrophasors, but also the part that is only “visible” through the SCADA measurements. Visualization needs associated with the use of DNSE results are fulfilled through suitably enhanced Real Time Dynamics Monitoring System (RTDMS), with the enhancements implemented by EPG. This project had the following goals in mind: To advance the deployment of commercial grade DNSE software application that relies on synchrophasor and SCADA data ; Apply DNSE at other utilities, to address a generic and fundamental need for “clean” operational data for synchrophasor applications; Provide means for “live” estimated data access by control system operators; Enhance potential for situational awareness through full system operational model coverage; Sub-second execution rate of the Direct Non-iterative State Estimator, eventually at a near-phasor data rate execution speed, i.e. < 0.1 sec. Anticipated benefits from this projects are: Enhanced reliability and improvements in the economic efficiency of bulk power system planning and operations; Providing “clean” data to other synchrophasor applications; Enhancement of situational awareness by providing the full operational model updated at near synchrophasor rate; A production-grade software tool that incorporate synchrophasor and SCADA data; Provides a basis for development of next generation monitoring and control applications, based on both SCADA and PMU data. Quanta Technology (QT) team worked in collaboration with Electric Power Group (EPG) whose team has enhanced its commercial Real Time Dynamics Monitoring System (RTDMS) to accommodate the requirements posed by DNSE application. EPG also provided its ePDC and Model-less Data Conditioning (PDVC) software for integration with DNSE+. QT developed the system requirements for DNSE; developed system architecture and defined interfaces between internal DNSE components. The core DNSE algorithm with all surrounding interfaces was named DNSE+. Since the DNSE development was done in a simulated system environment, QT used its PMU simulator that was enhanced during this project for development and factory acceptance testing (FAT). SCADA data in this stage was simulated by commercial PSS/e software. The output of DNSE are estimates of System states in C37.118-2 format, sent to RTDMS for further processing and display. As the number of these states is large, it was necessary to expand the C37.111-2 standard to accommodate large data sets. This enhancement was implemented in RTDMS. The demonstration of pre-production DNSE technology was done at NYPA using streaming field data from NYPA PMUs and from its RTUs through their SCADA system. NYPA provided ICCP interface as well as Common Information Model (CIM). The relevance of the DNSE+ application is that it provides state estimation of the power system based on hybrid set of data, consisting of both available PMU data and SCADA measurements. As this is a direct, non-iterative method of calculation of the system states, if does not suffer from convergence issues which is potential problem for conventional state estimators. Also, it can take any available PMU measurements, so it does not need to have a high percentage of PMU coverage needed in the case of Linear State Estimator. As the DNSE calculates synchrophasors of the system states (both phase and absolute value) as sub-second rate, this application can provide a basis for development of next generation of applications based both on SCADA and PMU data.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
NASA NTRS1992

Technology test results from an intelligent, free-flying robot for crew and equipment retrieval in space

The ground-based demonstrations of Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) Retriever, a voice-supervised, intelligent, free-flying robot, are designed to evaluate the capability to retrieve objects (astronauts, equipment, and tools) which have accidentally separated from the Space Station. The EVA Retriever software is required to autonomously plan and execute a target rendezvous, grapple, and return to base while avoiding stationary and moving obstacles with subsequent object handover. The software architecture incorporates a heirarchical decomposition of the control system that is horizontally partitioned into five major functional subsystems: sensing, perception, world model, reasoning, and acting. The design provides for supervised autonomy as the primary mode of operation. It is intended to be an evolutionary system improving in capability over time and as it earns crew trust through reliable and safe operation. This paper gives an overview of the hardware, a focus on software, and a summary of results achieved recently from both computer simulations and air bearing floor demonstrations. Limitations of the technology used are evaluated. Plans for the next phase, during which moving targets and obstacles drive realtime behavior requirements, are discussed.

Erickson, J.↗