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At least 325 records · Page 18

Design of the cryogenic moderator system for the second target station

The Second Target Station (STS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will be a 700 kW pulsed spallation neutron source designed to provide the world's highest brightness cold neutron beams. In order to produce the required neutron performance, two compact liquid hydrogen moderators are located adjacent to the tungsten spallation target and must be supplied with less than 20 K hydrogen and a para hydrogen fraction of 99.8% or greater. The Cryogenic Moderator System (CMS) will consist of a single hydrogen loop feeding the two moderators in series cooled by a helium refrigerator with a cooling capacity of 2.5 kW at 17 K. The hydrogen loop consists of a hydrogen circulator, hydrogen helium heat exchanger, ortho-para converter, accumulator, transfer lines and heater. The design of the hydrogen loop is based on the CMS design of the First Target Station at the Spallation Neutron Source and some of the component designs may be reused. General hydrogen temperature control is provided by controlling the flowrate of helium to the heat exchanger. The hydrogen loop will have a constant flowrate of 0.5 L/s and remove a nuclear heat load of about 850 W from the two moderators, which is deposited both directly in the hydrogen and the adjacent hydrogen containing structures. Because the nuclear heat load is accelerator driven, the hydrogen system must remain stable when the heat load is removed instantaneously during beam trips. System stability is maintained passively with the accumulator and actively with the heater. Ionizing radiation which interacts with the liquid hydrogen drives backconversion of the hydrogen from parahydrogen to orthohydrogen. The STS moderator performance is very sensitive to small fractions of orthohydrogen requiring an ortho-para converter to maintain the hydrogen supplied to the moderators at near equilibrium parahydrogen concentration. STS CMS is in the early stage of preliminary design and current focus is evaluating component sizing and system stability during beam transients.

Janney, Jim↗

Applicability of ASST-A Helium Refrigeration System for JLab End Station Refrigerator

The MØLLER experiment at Jefferson Lab (JLab) is a high power (5 kW) liquid hydrogen target scheduled to be operational in the 12 GeV-era. At present, cryogenic loads and targets at three of JLab's four experimental halls are supported by the End Station Refrigerator (ESR) - a CTI/Helix 1.5 kW 4.5 K refrigerator. It is not capable of supporting the high power target load and a capacity upgrade of the ESR cryogenic system is essential. The ASST-A helium refrigeration system is a 4 kW 4.5 K refrigerator. It was designed and used for the Superconducting Super Collider Lab (SSCL) magnet string test and later obtained by JLab after the cancellation of that project. The modified ASST-A refrigeration system, which will be called ESR-II along with a support flow from JLab's Central Helium Liquefier (CHL) is considered as an option for the End Station Refrigerator capacity upgrade. The applicability of this system for ESR-II under varying load conditions is investigated. The present paper outlines the findings of this process study.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Optical atomic clock aboard an Earth-orbiting space station (OACESS): enhancing searches for physics beyond the standard model in space

We present a concept for a high-precision optical atomic clock (OAC) operating on an Earth-orbiting space station. This pathfinder science mission will compare the space-based OAC with one or more ultra-stable terrestrial OACs to search for space-time-dependent signatures of dark scalar fields that manifest as anomalies in the relative frequencies of station-based and ground-based clocks. This opens the possibility of probing models of new physics that are inaccessible to purely ground-based OAC experiments where a dark scalar field may potentially be strongly screened near Earth's surface. This unique enhancement of sensitivity to potential dark matter candidates harnesses the potential of space-based OACs.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

GAMMA SPECTRUM STABILIZATION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL RADIATION MONITORING STATIONS USING NAI(TL) DETECTOR

Abstract Gamma spectrum measured by an NaI(Tl) detector is known to be unstable with the in situ temperature. In the present work, an advanced method has been applied to stabilize the gamma spectrum measured by the NaI(Tl) detector at environmental radiation monitoring (ERM) stations. The method is based on experimental data obtained under controlled conditions in laboratory. In the temperature range from 4 to 45°C, the relative deviation of the peak positions within the stabilized gamma spectrum is less than 2%. To test this method in a real scenario, it has been integrated into the ERM station at the Military Institute of Chemical and Environmental Engineering in Hanoi, Vietnam. The results show that the proposed method is ready for a real application.

Hung, Dinh Tien↗

Proton Shell Gaps in N = 28 Nuclei from the First Complete Spectroscopy Study with FRIB Decay Station Initiator

The first complete measurement of the $β$-decay strength distribution of $_{17}^{45}$Cl 28 was performed at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) with the FRIB Decay Station Initiator during the second FRIB experiment. The measurement involved the detection of neutrons and $γ$ rays in two focal planes of the FRIB Decay Station Initiator in a single experiment for the first time. This enabled an analytical consistency in extracting the $β$-decay strength distribution over the large range of excitation energies, including neutron unbound states. Here, we observe a rapid increase in the $β$-decay strength distribution above the neutron separation energy in $_{18}^{45}$Ar 27 . This was interpreted to be caused by the transitioning of neutrons into protons excited across the Z = 20 shell gap. The SDPF-MU interaction with reduced shell gap best reproduced the data. The measurement demonstrates a new approach that is sensitive to the proton shell gap in neutron rich nuclei according to SDPF-MU calculations.

39 ≤ A ≤ 58↗

Macromolecular neutron crystallography at the Protein Crystallography Station (PCS)

The Protein Crystallography Station user facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory not only offers open access to a high-performance neutron beamline, but also actively supports and develops new methods in protein expression, deuteration, purification, robotic crystallization and the synthesis of substrates with stable isotopes and provides assistance with data-reduction and structure-refinement software and comprehensive neutron structure analysis. The Protein Crystallography Station (PCS) at Los Alamos Neutron Science Center is a high-performance beamline that forms the core of a capability for neutron macromolecular structure and function determination. Neutron diffraction is a powerful technique for locating H atoms and can therefore provide unique information about how biological macromolecules function and interact with each other and smaller molecules. Users of the PCS have access to neutron beam time, deuteration facilities, the expression of proteins and the synthesis of substrates with stable isotopes and also support for data reduction and structure analysis. The beamline exploits the pulsed nature of spallation neutrons and a large electronic detector in order to collect wavelength-resolved Laue patterns using all available neutrons in the white beam. The PCS user facility is described and highlights from the user program are presented.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

CAMP@FLASH: an end-station for imaging, electron- and ion-spectroscopy, and pump–probe experiments at the FLASH free-electron laser

The non-monochromatic beamline BL1 at the FLASH free-electron laser facility at DESY was upgraded with new transport and focusing optics, and a new permanent end-station, CAMP, was installed. This multi-purpose instrument is optimized for electron- and ion-spectroscopy, imaging and pump–probe experiments at free-electron lasers. It can be equipped with various electron- and ion-spectrometers, along with large-area single-photon-counting pnCCD X-ray detectors, thus enabling a wide range of experiments from atomic, molecular, and cluster physics to material and energy science, chemistry and biology. Here, an overview of the layout, the beam transport and focusing capabilities, and the experimental possibilities of this new end-station are presented, as well as results from its commissioning.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Fifteen years of the Protein Crystallography Station: The coming of age of macromolecular neutron crystallography

The Protein Crystallography Station (PCS), located at the Los Alamos Neutron Scattering Center (LANSCE), was the first macromolecular crystallography beamline to be built at a spallation neutron source. Following testing and commissioning, the PCS user program was funded by the Biology and Environmental Research program of the Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-OBER) for 13 years (2002–2014). The PCS remained the only dedicated macromolecular neutron crystallography station in North America until the construction and commissioning of the MaNDi and IMAGINE instruments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which started in 2012. The instrument produced a number of research and technical outcomes that have contributed to the field, clearly demonstrating the power of neutron crystallography in helping scientists to understand enzyme reaction mechanisms, hydrogen bonding and visualization of H-atom positions, which are critical to nearly all chemical reactions. During this period, neutron crystallography became a technique that increasingly gained traction, and became more integrated into macromolecular crystallography through software developments led by investigators at the PCS. As a result, this review highlights the contributions of the PCS to macromolecular neutron crystallography, and gives an overview of the history of neutron crystallography and the development of macromolecular neutron crystallography from the 1960s to the 1990s and onwards through the 2000s.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Enhancing EV Charging Station Resilience with Multifunctional Converter Leg Integration

In this paper, a multifunctional converter leg is integrated into an EV charger’s power circuit to enhance EV charging station resilience under power electronics converter device faults and grid outages. In the event of a device fault, it substitutes the failed converter leg, maintaining operation. During a grid outage, it assists the system as a fourth leg to the front-end converter, enabling grid-forming capability to supply power to the charging station critical loads while allowing limited power vehicle charging. The proposed approach’s effectiveness under both front-end power converter device faults and grid outage scenarios are validated through simulation and controller hardware-in-the-loop results.

Pereira Pinto, Joao [ORNL]↗

Improving Resiliency in Planning MW-Scale Medium and Heavy Duty EV Charging Stations Considering TSCOTS Optimization

Electrification of heavy-duty (HD) vehicles marks an important milestone and technical challenge in the electric vehicle (EV) industry and the public grid. However, implementing EV charging at this scale will necessitate that traditional truck stops be updated with EV charging infrastructure that could represent 10's of MW in electricity consumption. Furthermore, as the transportation sector is represented as critical infrastructure, supporting resiliency considerations in EV charging infrastructure will be critical. This paper proposes an optimization-based approach for optimally designing a MW-scale microgrid charging network. This approach transforms conventional designed truck stops into a reliable HDEV charging stations capable of overnight slow charging and 30-minute to 1 hour fast charging. Using a mixed-integer linear program formulation blending capacity planning and reliability constraints, an optimal network configuration can be solved for a proposed EV charging station that includes photovoltaic and battery energy storage capabilities.

Ponce, Moises [University of Tennessee, Knoxville ↗

Fast Demand Forecast of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations for Cell Phone Application

This paper describes the core cellphone application algorithm which has been implemented for the prediction of energy consumption at Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stations at UCLA. For this interactive user application, the total time of accessing database, processing the data and making the prediction, needs to be within a few seconds. We analyze four relatively fast Machine Learning based time series prediction algorithms for our prediction engine: Historical Average, kNearest Neighbor, Weighted k-Nearest Neighbor, and Lazy Learning. The Nearest Neighbor algorithm (k Nearest Neighbor with k=1) shows better performance and is selected to be the prediction algorithm implemented for the cellphone application. Two applications have been designed on top of the prediction algorithm: one predicts the expected available energy at the station and the other one predicts the expected charging finishing time. The total time, including accessing the database, data processing, and prediction is about one second for both applications.

Majidpour, Mostafa↗

Bounds on Optimal Revisit Times in Persistent Monitoring Missions With a Distinct and Remote Service Station</strong

We report persistent monitoring missions require an up-to-date knowledge of the changing state of the underlying environment. Unmannned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be gainfully employed to continually visit a set of targets representing tasks (and locations) in the environment and collect data therein for long time periods. The enduring nature of these missions requires the UAV to be regularly recharged at a service station. In this article, we consider the case in which the service station is not colocated with any of the targets. An efficient monitoring requires the revisit time, defined as the maximum of the time elapsed between successive revisits to targets, to be minimized. Here, we consider the problem of determining UAV routes that lead to the minimum revisit time. The problem is NP-hard, and its computational difficulty increases with the fuel capacity of the UAV. We develop an algorithm to construct near-optimal solutions to the problem quickly when the fuel capacity exceeds a threshold. We also develop lower bounds to the optimal revisit time and use these bounds to demonstrate (through numerical simulations) that the constructed solutions are, on an average, at most 0.01% away from the optimum.

42 ENGINEERING↗

A Hybrid Fuel Cell and Battery Storage Power Management for Grid-Interactive EV Charging Station

With the increasing adoption of renewable energy sources in grid-interactive Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations, the role of energy storage systems has become critical. While large energy storage systems have mitigated the intermittency of renewable energy, integrating multi-source energy management with prioritized charging can further enhance the reliability of charging stations (CS). This paper presents a decentralized energy management (DEM) approach combining battery energy storage (BES) and fuel cell (FC) systems using a rule-based line resistance correction droop (LRCD) control technique. The proposed droop control dynamically adjusts the gain to balance the state-of-charge (SoC) of the BES, enhancing power support longevity and improving battery life under varying capacity conditions by reducing current stress. Additionally, the paper addresses the challenges of using fuel cells in linear regions to optimize efficiency and manage various charging scenarios. The CS integrates unity power factor grid interaction, and power support for auxiliary loads, maintaining harmonic distortion within 5% during grid islanding. The approach evaluates DC bus voltage regulation under various scenarios of PV array power fluctuations and dynamic load variations, in both grid-connected and standalone operations. In conclusion, the proposed control strategy is validated on a laboratory prototype through various dynamic load variation and grid islanding scenarios.

Khalid, Mohd [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)↗

WE-AB-209-09: Optimization of Rotational Arc Station Parameter Optimized Radiation Therapy

Purpose: To develop a fast optimization method for station parameter optimized radiation therapy (SPORT) and show that SPORT is capable of improving VMAT in both plan quality and delivery efficiency. Methods: The angular space from 0° to 360° was divided into 180 station points (SPs). A candidate aperture was assigned to each of the SPs based on the calculation results using a column generation algorithm. The weights of the apertures were then obtained by optimizing the objective function using a state-of-the-art GPU based Proximal Operator Graph Solver (POGS) within seconds. Apertures with zero or low weight were thrown out. To avoid being trapped in a local minimum, a stochastic gradient descent method was employed which also greatly increased the convergence rate of the objective function. The above procedure repeated until the plan could not be improved any further. A weighting factor associated with the total plan MU also indirectly controlled the complexities of aperture shapes. The number of apertures for VMAT and SPORT was confined to 180. The SPORT allowed the coexistence of multiple apertures in a single SP. The optimization technique was assessed by using three clinical cases (prostate, H&N and brain). Results: Marked dosimetric quality improvement was demonstrated in the SPORT plans for all three studied cases. Prostate case: the volume of the 50% prescription dose was decreased by 22% for the rectum. H&N case: SPORT improved the mean dose for the left and right parotids by 15% each. Brain case: the doses to the eyes, chiasm and inner ears were all improved. SPORT shortened the treatment time by ∼1 min for the prostate case, ∼0.5 min for brain case, and ∼0.2 min for the H&N case. Conclusion: The superior dosimetric quality and delivery efficiency presented here indicates that SPORT is an intriguing alternative treatment modality.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Optimization of rotational arc station parameter optimized radiation therapy

Purpose: To develop a fast optimization method for station parameter optimized radiation therapy (SPORT) and show that SPORT is capable of matching VMAT in both plan quality and delivery efficiency by using three clinical cases of different disease sites. Methods: The angular space from 0° to 360° was divided into 180 station points (SPs). A candidate aperture was assigned to each of the SPs based on the calculation results using a column generation algorithm. The weights of the apertures were then obtained by optimizing the objective function using a state-of-the-art GPU based proximal operator graph solver. To avoid being trapped in a local minimum in beamlet-based aperture selection using the gradient descent algorithm, a stochastic gradient descent was employed here. Apertures with zero or low weight were thrown out. To find out whether there was room to further improve the plan by adding more apertures or SPs, the authors repeated the above procedure with consideration of the existing dose distribution from the last iteration. At the end of the second iteration, the weights of all the apertures were reoptimized, including those of the first iteration. The above procedure was repeated until the plan could not be improved any further. The optimization technique was assessed by using three clinical cases (prostate, head and neck, and brain) with the results compared to that obtained using conventional VMAT in terms of dosimetric properties, treatment time, and total MU. Results: Marked dosimetric quality improvement was demonstrated in the SPORT plans for all three studied cases. For the prostate case, the volume of the 50% prescription dose was decreased by 22% for the rectum and 6% for the bladder. For the head and neck case, SPORT improved the mean dose for the left and right parotids by 15% each. The maximum dose was lowered from 72.7 to 71.7 Gy for the mandible, and from 30.7 to 27.3 Gy for the spinal cord. The mean dose for the pharynx and larynx was reduced by 8% and 6%, respectively. For the brain case, the doses to the eyes, chiasm, and inner ears were all improved. SPORT shortened the treatment time by ∼1 min for the prostate case, ∼0.5 min for brain case, and ∼0.2 min for the head and neck case. Conclusions: The dosimetric quality and delivery efficiency presented here indicate that SPORT is an intriguing alternative treatment modality. With the widespread adoption of digital linac, SPORT should lead to improved patient care in the future.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Analysis of the Results of Astroclimate Research at the Kara-Dag Radioastronomical Station in Crimea and the Possibilities for Reducing the Influence of the Atmosphere on Millimeter-Band Radioastronomical Observations

The results of astroclimate research at the Kara-Dag radioastronomical station (Crimea) from July 22 to September 21, 2017, are presented. The algorithms for processing the data obtained by the atmospheric profile method are analyzed. The broad bands of the MIAP-2 receivers are shown to lead to a non-cosecant dependence of the antenna temperatures on viewing angle. The absorption calculation from three zenith angles by the least-squares method and a reference region with a brightness temperature close to the air temperature is optimal. The patterns of change in atmospheric transparency parameters and their connection with the climatic peculiarities of the observing site are considered. The existing atmospheric circulation is shown to create favorable conditions for nighttime astronomical observations in the millimeter wavelength range on the territory of the Kara-Dag station. Alternative and cheaper approaches to reducing the influence of atmospheric moisture on the measurements in this range than the existing trends are proposed. The first approach consists in choosing a location in a zone with a suitable wind rose and a relief leading to the replacement of moist warm air by dry cold one, for example, in the zones of such local winds as a bora. The second approach suggests the introduction of atmospheric parameter measurements by radiometric methods and allowance for their influence in a real time scale. Since the results obtained are based on limited statistics, they are preliminary ones and stimulate further systematic measurements at Kara-Dag.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Performance of the CMS ME1/1 muon station

ME1/1 is a part of the endcap muon system of the CMS detector at the LHC (CERN). It plays the key role in the muon detection providing muon track matching with the CMS inner tracker. ME1/1 should provide high spatial and time resolution. The station is composed of 72 6-layer cathode strip chambers. The chambers were designed and produced at JINR (Dubna). ME1/1 is the innermost muon detector and operates in the strong axial magnetic field (B = 3 T) in the presence of high background of secondary particles. The paper presents the chamber design features and the ME1/1 station characteristics in the CMS runs with proton-proton collisions.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

PoroTomo: BRAD and BRDY GPS Station RINEX Files - December 20, 2014

This dataset provides links to daily RINEX files for two GPS stations at Brady's Hot Springs as of December 20, 2014. The data is formatted as compressed GNSS RINEX observation files and is accessible through CSV files containing metadata such as file size, data type, and publication dates. The dataset includes FTP links for downloading the individual RINEX files and covers data collected through 2012. The CSV files serve as a directory for navigating to the correct FTP locations to access the desired data. Users are advised to cross-reference the filenames and station identifiers (BRAD or BRDY) when downloading files. The files were generated by the UNAVCO GSAC Repository, and all data-related timestamps and units are specified within the CSV structure. Links to additional resources, including the original database for direct downloads and a more recent dataset with data as of March 26, 2015, are also provided.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗