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NASA NTRS2005

Analysis of Rapidly Developing Low Cloud Ceilings in a Stable Environment

This report describes the work done by the Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) in developing a database of days that experienced rapid (< 90 minutes) low cloud formation in a stable atmosphere, resulting in ceilings at the Shuttle Landing Facility (TTS) that violated Space Shuttle Flight Rules (FR). The meteorological conditions favoring the rapid formation of low ceilings include the presence of any inversion below 8000 ft, high relative humidity beneath the inversion, and a clockwise turning of the winds from the surface to the middle troposphere (approx. 15000 ft). The AMU compared and contrasted the atmospheric and thermodynamic conditions between days with rapid low ceiling formation and days with low ceiling resulting from other mechanism. The AMU found that the vertical wind profile is the probable discerning factor between the rapidly-forming ceiling days and other low ceiling days at TTS. Most rapidly-developing low ceiling days had a clockwise turning of the winds with height, whereas other low ceiling days typically had a counter-clockwise turning of the winds with height or negligible vertical wind shear. Forecasters at the Space Meteorology Group (SMG) issue 30 to 90 minute forecasts for low cloud ceilings at TTS to support Space Shuttle landings. Mission verification statistics have shown ceilings to be the number one forecast challenge. More specifically, forecasters at SMG are concerned with any rapidly developing clouds ceilings below 8000 ft in a stable, capped thermodynamic environment, Therefore, the AMU was tasked to examine archived events of rapid stable cloud formation resulting in ceilings below 8000 ft, and document the atmospheric regimes favoring this type of cloud development. The AMU examined the cool season months of November to March during the years of 1993-2003 for days that had low-level inversions and rapid, stable low cloud formation that resulted in ceilings violating the Space Shuttle FR. The AMU wrote and modified existing code to identify inversions from the morning Cape Canaveral, FL rawinsonde (XMR) during the cool season and output pertinent sounding information. They parsed all days with cloud ceilings below 8000 ft at TTS, forming a database of possible rapidly-developing low ceiling events. Days with precipitation or noticeable fog bum-off situations were excluded from the database. Only the daytime hours were examined for possible ceiling development events since low clouds are easier to diagnose with visible satellite imagery. Follow-on work would expand the database to include nighttime cases, using a special enhancement of the infrared imagery for identifying areas of low clouds. The report presents two sample cases of rapidly-developing low cloud ceilings. These cases depict the representative meteorological and thermodynamic characteristics of such events. The cases also illustrate how quickly the cloud decks can develop, sometimes forming in 30 minutes or less. The report also summarizes the composite meteorological conditions for 20 event days with rapid low cloud ceiling formation and 48 non-events days consisting of advection or widespread low cloud ceilings. The meteorological conditions were quite similar for both the event and non-event days, since both types of days experienced low cloud ceilings. Both types of days had a relatively moist environment beneath the inversion based below 8000 ft. In the 20 events identified, de onset of low ceilings occurred between 1200-1800 UTC in every instance. The distinguishing factor between the event and non-event days appears to be the vertical wind profile in the XMR sounding. Eighty-five percent of the event days had a clockwise turning of the winds with height in the lower to middle troposphere whereas 83% of the non-events had a counter-clockwise turning of the winds with height or negligible vertical wind shear. A clockwise turning of the winds with height indicates a warm advection regime, which supports large-scale rising motn and possible cloud formation. Meanwhile, a counter-clockwise turning of the winds with height indicates cold advection or sinking motion in a post-cold frontal environment.

Wheeler, Mark M.↗

NASA NTRS2009

The a(4) Scheme-A High Order Neutrally Stable CESE Solver

The CESE development is driven by a belief that a solver should (i) enforce conservation laws in both space and time, and (ii) be built from a nondissipative (i.e., neutrally stable) core scheme so that the numerical dissipation can be controlled effectively. To provide a solid foundation for a systematic CESE development of high order schemes, in this paper we describe a new high order (4-5th order) and neutrally stable CESE solver of a 1D advection equation with a constant advection speed a. The space-time stencil of this two-level explicit scheme is formed by one point at the upper time level and two points at the lower time level. Because it is associated with four independent mesh variables (the numerical analogues of the dependent variable and its first, second, and third-order spatial derivatives) and four equations per mesh point, the new scheme is referred to as the a(4) scheme. As in the case of other similar CESE neutrally stable solvers, the a(4) scheme enforces conservation laws in space-time locally and globally, and it has the basic, forward marching, and backward marching forms. Except for a singular case, these forms are equivalent and satisfy a space-time inversion (STI) invariant property which is shared by the advection equation. Based on the concept of STI invariance, a set of algebraic relations is developed and used to prove the a(4) scheme must be neutrally stable when it is stable. Numerically, it has been established that the scheme is stable if the value of the Courant number is less than 1/3

Chang, Sin-Chung↗

NASA NTRS2010

Mechanisms of Diurnal Precipitation over the United States Great Plains: A Cloud-Resolving Model Simulation

The mechanisms of summertime diurnal precipitation in the US Great Plains were examined with the two-dimensional (2D) Goddard Cumulus Ensemble (GCE) cloud-resolving model (CRM). The model was constrained by the observed large-scale background state and surface flux derived from the Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program s Intensive Observing Period (IOP) data at the Southern Great Plains (SGP). The model, when continuously-forced by realistic surface flux and large-scale advection, simulates reasonably well the temporal evolution of the observed rainfall episodes, particularly for the strongly forced precipitation events. However, the model exhibits a deficiency for the weakly forced events driven by diurnal convection. Additional tests were run with the GCE model in order to discriminate between the mechanisms that determine daytime and nighttime convection. In these tests, the model was constrained with the same repeating diurnal variation in the large-scale advection and/or surface flux. The results indicate that it is primarily the surface heat and moisture flux that is responsible for the development of deep convection in the afternoon, whereas the large-scale upward motion and associated moisture advection play an important role in preconditioning nocturnal convection. In the nighttime, high clouds are continuously built up through their interaction and feedback with long-wave radiation, eventually initiating deep convection from the boundary layer. Without these upper-level destabilization processes, the model tends to produce only daytime convection in response to boundary layer heating. This study suggests that the correct simulation of the diurnal variation in precipitation requires that the free-atmospheric destabilization mechanisms resolved in the CRM simulation must be adequately parameterized in current general circulation models (GCMs) many of which are overly sensitive to the parameterized boundary layer heating.

Lee, M.-I.↗

NASA NTRS2009

Spatial and Temporal Extrapolation of Disdrometer Size Distributions Based on a Lagrangian Trajectory Model of Falling Rain

Methodologies to improve disdrometer processing, loosely based on mathematical techniques common to the field of particle flow and fluid mechanics, are examined and tested. The inclusion of advection and vertical wind field estimates appear to produce significantly improved results in a Lagrangian hydrometeor trajectory model, in spite of very strict assumptions of noninteracting hydrometeors, constant vertical air velocity, and time independent advection during the scan time interval. Wind field data can be extracted from each radar elevation scan by plotting and analyzing reflectivity contours over the disdrometer site and by collecting the radar radial velocity data to obtain estimates of advection. Specific regions of disdrometer spectra (drop size versus time) often exhibit strong gravitational sorting signatures, from which estimates of vertical velocity can be extracted. These independent wind field estimates become inputs and initial conditions to the Lagrangian trajectory simulation of falling hydrometeors.

Lane, John E.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Exploring the Elevated Water Vapor Signal Associated With the Free Tropospheric Biomass Burning Plume Over the Southeast Atlantic Ocean

In southern Africa, widespread agricultural fires produce substantial biomass burning (BB) emissions over the region. The seasonal smoke plumes associated with these emissions are then advected westward over the persistent stratocumulus cloud deck in the southeast Atlantic (SEA) Ocean, resulting in aerosol effects which vary with time and location. Much work has focused on the effects of these aerosol plumes, but previous studies have also described an elevated free tropospheric water vapor signal over the SEA. Water vapor influences climate in its own right, and it is especially important to consider atmospheric water vapor when quantifying aerosol–cloud interactions and aerosol radiative effects. Here we present airborne observations made during the NASA ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) campaign over the SEA Ocean. In observations collected from multiple independent instruments on the NASA P-3 aircraft (from near-surface to 6–7 km), we observe a strongly linear correlation between pollution indicators (carbon monoxide (CO) and aerosol loading) and atmospheric water vapor content, seen at all altitudes above the boundary layer. The focus of the current study is on the especially strong correlation observed during the ORACLES-2016 deployment (out of Walvis Bay, Namibia), but a similar relationship is also observed in the August 2017 and October 2018 ORACLES deployments. Using reanalyses from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2), and specialized WRF-Chem simulations, we trace the plume–vapor relationship to an initial humid, smoky continental source region, where it mixes with clean, dry upper tropospheric air and then is subjected to conditions of strong westward advection, namely the southern African easterly jet (AEJ-S). Our analysis indicates that air masses likely left the continent with the same relationship between water vapor and carbon monoxide as was observed by aircraft. This linear relationship developed over the continent due to daytime convection within a deep continental boundary layer (up to ∼5–6 km) and mixing with higher-altitude air, which resulted in fairly consistent vertical gradients in CO and water vapor, decreasing with altitude and varying in time, but this water vapor does not originate as a product of the BB combustion itself. Due to a combination of conditions and mixing between the smoky, moist continental boundary layer and the dry and fairly clean upper-troposphere air above (∼6 km), the smoky, humid air is transported by strong zonal winds and then advected over the SEA (to the ORACLES flight region) following largely isentropic trajectories. Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model (HYSPLIT) back trajectories support this interpretation. This work thus gives insights into the conditions and processes which cause water vapor to covary with plume strength. Better understanding of this relationship, including how it varies spatially and temporally, is important to accurately quantify direct, semi-direct, and indirect aerosol effects over this region.

Kristina Pistone↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Biomass Burning Smoke and Coincident Water Vapor Over the Southeast Atlantic Stratocumulus Region: Results from Observations and Models

Kristina Pistone↗

NASA NTRS2021

Diagnosing Seasonal to Multi-decadal Phytoplankton Group Dynamics in a Highly Productive Coastal Ecosystem

The Santa Barbara Channel, CA (SBC) is a biodiverse marine ecosystem fueled largely by phytoplankton productivity, and the composition of the phytoplankton community influences the magnitude and fates of this productivity. Here, we create a 22-year monthly time series of phytoplankton biomarker pigment concentrations in the SBC by combining 12 years of high performance liquid chromatography phytoplankton pigment concentrations with bio-optical models and 10 additional years of bio-optical observations. The bio-optical models skillfully predict biomarker pigment concentrations representative of five distinct phytoplankton groups (PGs; diatoms, dinoflagellates, chlorophytes, prymnesiophytes, and picophytoplankton) and resolve seasonal responses to the annual upwelling-relaxation cycle for all PGs except the dinoflagellates. Our observations indicate that nanophytoplankton groups respond most rapidly to seasonal upwelling, followed by diatoms, and then by picophytoplankton as the water column stratifies in the summer. A Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) solution is used to relate advection of different source waters to the observed PG dynamics. The ROMS simulation results suggest that, on seasonal time scales, pronounced cross-SBC differences in PG seasonality are related to cross-SBC differences in source waters. El Niño Southern Oscillation events drive interannual variability in the upwelling response of most PGs. On decadal time scales, dinoflagellate blooms are associated with the warm phase of the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation and anomalous advection of Southern California Bight source waters into the SBC. Taken together, our results provide a novel view of phytoplankton community succession in response to seasonal upwelling by considering the dynamics of pico- and nano-phytoplankton and suggest that regional surface ocean advection plays a substantial role in driving phytoplankton composition in the SBC.

Phytoplankton↗

DOE OSTI2025

Using ground-based lidar data to investigate the water–vapor budget in the daytime atmospheric boundary layer

The moisture advection term in the water–vapor budget equation is investigated with a combination of a vertically-staring water–vapor lidar and Doppler lidar systems. These instruments make it possible to get the mean profile of moisture tendency and the latent heat flux (LHF) divergence. We use data of the Land–Atmosphere Feedback Experiment (LAFE) at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program’s Southern Great Plains (SGP) site, Oklahoma, USA, collected on 30 August 2017 between 15 and 24 UTC, which corresponds to 09 to 18 LT. The lidars provide turbulence resolving profiles of moisture and vertical wind fluctuations. The LHF profile is derived from the covariance of these moisture and vertical wind fluctuations. The mean boundary layer height z i is determined from the peak of the moisture variance. The results demonstrate that the combination of two remote sensing instruments can be applied for determining the dominant water–vapor budget terms, namely moisture tendency, latent heat flux divergence and moisture advection.

Advection↗

DOE OSTI2021

Reduced order models for Lagrangian hydrodynamics

It is reported, as a mathematical model of high-speed flow and shock wave propagation in a complex multimaterial setting, Lagrangian hydrodynamics is characterized by moving meshes, advection-dominated solutions, and moving shock fronts with sharp gradients. These challenges hinder the existing projection-based model reduction schemes from being practical. We develop several variations of projection-based reduced order model techniques for Lagrangian hydrodynamics by introducing three different reduced bases for position, velocity, and energy fields. A time-windowing approach is also developed to address the challenge imposed by the advection-dominated solutions. Lagrangian hydrodynamics is formulated as a nonlinear problem, which requires a proper hyper-reduction technique. Therefore, we apply the over-sampling DEIM and SNS approaches to reduce the complexity due to the nonlinear terms. Finally, we also present both a posteriori and a priori error bounds associated with our reduced order model. We compare the performance of the spatial and time-windowing reduced order modeling approaches in terms of accuracy and speed-up with respect to the corresponding full order model for several numerical examples, namely Sedov blast, Gresho vortices, Taylor-Green vortices, and triple-point problems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2024

A high-order finite difference method for moving immersed domain boundaries and material interfaces

Here, we present a high-order sharp treatment of immersed moving domain boundaries and material interfaces, and apply it to the advection-diffusion equation in two and three dimensions. The spatial discretization combines dimension-split finite difference schemes with an immersed boundary treatment based on a weighted least-squares reconstruction of the solution, providing stable discretizations with up to sixth order accuracy for diffusion terms and third order accuracy for advection terms. The temporal discretization relies on a novel strategy for maintaining high-order temporal accuracy in problems with moving boundaries that minimizes implementation complexity and allows arbitrary explicit or diagonally-implicit Runge-Kutta schemes. The approach is broadly compatible with popular PDE-specialized Runge-Kutta time integrators, including low-storage, strong stability preserving, and diagonally implicit schemes. Through numerical experiments we demonstrate that the full discretization maintains high-order spatial and temporal accuracy in the presence of complex 3D geometries and for a range of boundary conditions, including Dirichlet, Neumann, and flux conditions with large jumps in coefficients.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2024

Phase field-volumetric lattice Boltzmann model of ion uptake in porous nuclear waste form materials under continuous flow

The flow field within the mesopores of sorbent particles plays a crucial role in radionuclide diffusion and ion uptake kinetics, thus, impacting the overall performance of porous nuclear waste form materials. To fundamentally understand the influence of microstructures and material properties on the radionuclide absorption and retention processes requires a coupled multi-physics model that considers the advection and diffusion within the flow field, the reaction at liquid-solid interfaces, and finally, the solid-state diffusion within a complex nanoporous medium. Here, this study employs the volumetric lattice Boltzmann method (VLBM) to accurately and efficiently calculate the steady state velocity field inside the mesopores of sorbent particles. The obtained velocity field is then utilized to calculate the advection of ions in the steady flow. A phase field (PF) model of ion uptake is used to describe the reaction occurring at the solid-liquid interface and diffusion inside the porous medium. The integrated PF-VLBM model is verified in terms of the mass conservation and numerical efficiency and validated qualitatively with experimental observation data. Then, it is applied to study the influence of thermodynamic and kinetic properties, as well as flow field conditions on the ion uptake kinetics. The numerical results demonstrate that the ion uptake kinetics in porous particles has three distinct stages, which is in agreement with the observations in continuous flow experiments. In the first stage, the kinetics is predominantly controlled by the flow field and ion diffusivity in the liquid phase. The kinetics in the second stage is primarily governed by ion diffusivity in the solid phase. In the third stage the system reaches a dynamic equilibrium with a net zero uptake flux at the interface. It is also found that porous structures significantly affect the efficiency and capacity of ion uptake. The simulation results can help to understand the physics behind the observed ion uptake kinetics in experiments and to facilitate the development of constitutive equations that can account for heterogeneous microstructures in engineering performance codes.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

DOE OSTI2022

Observing Profiles of Derived Kinematic Field Quantities Using a Network of Profiling Sites

Abstract Observations of thermodynamic and kinematic parameters associated with derivatives of the thermodynamics and wind fields, namely, advection, vorticity, divergence, and deformation, can be obtained by applying Green’s theorem to a network of observing sites. The five nodes that comprise the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains (SGP) profiling network, spaced 50–80 km apart, are used to obtain measurements of these parameters over a finite region. To demonstrate the applicability of this technique at this location, it is first applied to gridded model output from the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) numerical weather prediction model, using profiles from the locations of ARM network sites, so that values calculated from this method can be directly compared to finite difference calculations. Good agreement is found between both approaches as well as between the model and values calculated from the observations. Uncertainties for the observations are obtained via a Monte Carlo process in which the profiles are randomly perturbed in accordance with their known error characteristics. The existing size of the ARM network is well suited to capturing these parameters, with strong correlations to model values and smaller uncertainties than a more closely spaced network, yet it is small enough that it avoids the tendency for advection to go to zero over a large area.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS2015

Effects of Mesoscale Eddies in the Active Mixed Layer: Test of the Parametrisation in Eddy Resolving Simulations

In eddy resolving simulations, we test a mixed layer mesoscale parametrisation, developed recently by Canuto and Dubovikov [Ocean Model., 2011, 39, 200-207]. With no adjustable parameters, the parametrisation yields the horizontal and vertical mesoscale fluxes in terms of coarse-resolution fields and eddy kinetic energy (EKE). We compare terms of the parametrisation diagnosed from coarse-grained fields with the eddy mesoscale fluxes diagnosed directly from the high resolution model. An expression for the EKE in terms of mean fields has also been found to get a closed parametrisation in terms of the mean fields only. In 40 numerical experiments we simulated two types of flows: idealised flows driven by baroclinic instabilities only, and more realistic flows, driven by wind and surface fluxes as well as by inflow-outflow. The diagnosed quasi-instantaneous horizontal and vertical mesoscale buoyancy fluxes (averaged over 1-2 degrees and 10 days) demonstrate a strong scatter typical for turbulent flows, however, the fluxes are positively correlated with the parametrisation with higher (0.5-0.74) correlations at the experiments with larger baroclinic radius Rossby. After being averaged over 3-4 months, diffusivities diagnosed from the eddy resolving simulations are consistent with the parametrisation for a broad range of parameters. Diagnosed vertical mesoscale fluxes restratify mixed layer and are in a good agreement with the parametrisation unless vertical turbulent mixing in the upper layer becomes strong enough in comparison with mesoscale advection. In the latter case, numerical simulations demonstrate that the deviation of the fluxes from the parametrisation is controlled by dimensionless parameter estimating the ratio of vertical turbulent mixing term to mesoscale advection. An analysis using a modified omega-equation reveals that the effects of the vertical mixing of vorticity is responsible for the two-three fold amplification of vertical mesoscale flux. Possible physical mechanisms, responsible for the amplification of vertical mesoscale flux are discussed.

simulation↗

DOE OSTI2020

Contaminant Transport Modeling for Technology Evaluation and Long-Term Monitoring in the Tims Branch Testbed, SC - 20343

Studies conducted at U.S. DOE sites have shown the presence of heavy metals, radionuclides, and volatile organic compounds in surface water, groundwater, and soil as a result of nuclear activity in the Cold War era. Since the 1990's, innovative cleanup methods have been implemented in the Tims Branch watershed at Savannah River Site (SRS) to limit the contaminant flux to the stream that have reduced the contaminant concentrations to acceptable regulatory levels in the dissolved phase. A tin-based treatment which effectively eliminated all local anthropogenic mercury inputs to this ecosystem resulted in a known step function addition of inert tin oxide particles which now serve as a potential tracer for sedimentation and particle transport processes in the stream. The long-term effectiveness of this and other remediation techniques and the potential for remobilization of adsorbed contaminant in sediment during extreme hydrologic conditions however remains unclear. It is therefore important to understand not only the fate and transport of dissolved contaminants, but also the movement of sediment and the relevant interactions with dissolved contaminant. To narrow this knowledge gap, a study is being conducted using the Tims Branch watershed as a stream-scale ecosystem test-bed to identify the primary transport processes of major contaminants of concern (such as mercury, nickel and uranium) with an emphasis on interactions with sediment transport. This involves the development of a fully distributed hydrologic watershed model of the Tims Branch watershed to predict streamflow under extreme weather conditions, as well as the development of a comprehensive contaminant transport model that can properly account for coupled contaminant and sediment transport. Review of relevant research reports and peer-reviewed journals revealed that aside from advection-dispersion transport of dissolved contaminants, adsorption and desorption with suspended solids and bed sediment also play an important role in the transport of those contaminants of concern. To develop the fully distributed hydrologic watershed model, the MIKE SHE 2-dimensional (2D) land surface/3D groundwater model that simulates surface/subsurface hydrologic processes (such as overland flow, evapotranspiration, and infiltration) was coupled with a 1D streamflow model that accounts for stream water hydraulics (such as hydraulic structures, cross-sections, and network). To model contaminant transport, the MIKE 11 streamflow component was coupled with the MIKE 11 AD module that simulates solute transport through advection and dispersion, and MIKE ECO Lab module that accounts for both sediment transport and interactions with dissolved contaminant. At this stage, the development and optimization of the fully distributed hydrologic model has been completed, achieving satisfactory statistical results between observed and predicted discharge as indicated by a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.039 cms and a Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (NSE) of 0.764. The ongoing development of the contaminant transport model has also yielded realistic results from preliminary tests. Results from this study are a key to evaluating the effectiveness of tin (II)-based mercury treatment of wetlands at the SRS site, and are also relevant to evaluating the potential of using this type of novel remediation technology in other mercury-contaminated stream systems. Knowledge acquired from this research will also support interpretation of historical data on the trends of contaminant concentration distribution in Tims Branch, particularly considering the effect of extreme hydrological events on the stream flow and pollutant transport. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

DOE OSTI2022

Removing numerical pathologies in a turbulence parameterization through convergence testing

Discretized numerical models of the atmosphere are usually intended to faithfully represent an underlying set of continuous equations, but this necessary condition is violated sometimes by subtle pathologies that have crept into the discretized equations. Such pathologies can introduce undesirable artifacts, such as sawtooth noise, into the model solutions. The presence of these pathologies can be detected by numerical convergence testing. This study employs convergence testing to verify the discretization of the Cloud Layers Unified By Binormals (CLUBB) model of clouds and turbulence. That convergence testing identifies two aspects of CLUBB's equation set that contribute to undesirable noise in the solutions. First, numerical limiters (i.e. clipping) used by CLUBB introduce discontinuities or slope discontinuities in model fields. Second, this noise can be amplified by an advective term in CLUBB's background diffusion. Smoothing the limiters and removing the advective component of the background diffusion reduces the noise and restores the expected first-order convergence in CLUBB's solutions. These model reformulations improve the results at coarser, near-operational grid spacing and time step in cumulus cloud and dry turbulence tests. In addition, convergence testing is proved to be a valuable tool for detecting pathologies, including unintended discontinuities and grid dependence, in the model equation set.

Mathematics and Computing, Geosciences↗

DOE OSTI2026

A Scalable Reduced‐Order Model for the Steady Navier–Stokes Equations

Scaling up new scientific technologies from laboratory to industry often involves demonstrating performance on a larger scale. Computer simulations can accelerate design and predictions in the deployment process, though traditional numerical methods are computationally intractable even for intermediate pilot plant scales. Recently, the component reduced order modeling method has been developed to tackle this challenge by combining projection reduced order modeling and discontinuous Galerkin domain decomposition. However, while many scientific or engineering applications involve nonlinear physics, this method has only been demonstrated for various linear systems. In this work, the component reduced order modeling method is extended to steady Navier–Stokes flow, with application to general nonlinear physics in view. The large‐scale, global domain is decomposed into a combination of small‐scale unit component. Linear subspaces for flow velocity and pressure are identified via proper orthogonal decomposition over sample snapshots collected from each small‐scale unit component. Velocity bases are augmented with a pressure supremizer to satisfy the inf–sup condition for stable pressure prediction. Two different nonlinear reduced order modeling methods are employed and compared for efficient evaluation of nonlinear advection: A third‐order tensor projection operator and the empirical quadrature procedure. The proposed method is demonstrated on the flow over arrays of five different unit objects, achieving a 23‐fold speedup with less than 4% relative error in domains up to 256 times larger than the unit components. Furthermore, a numerical experiment with the pressure supremizer strongly indicates the need for a supremizer for stable pressure prediction. A comparison between the tensorial approach and the empirical quadrature procedure revealed a slight advantage of the empirical quadrature procedure. The framework is compared with an alternating Schwarz‐based reduced‐order approach, demonstrating improved efficiency and robustness for the DG‐based global solver while retaining flexibility for sub‐scale iterative solvers. The method is further extended to a coupled advection–diffusion and Navier–Stokes system, illustrating its applicability to multi‐physics problems and its potential for more general, inter‐coupled nonlinear systems.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2020

An Experimental Method to Measure Gaseous Diffusivity in Tight and Partially Saturated Porous Media via Continuously Monitored Mass Spectrometry

Detection of radioxenon and radioargon produced by underground nuclear explosions is one of the primary methods by which the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test–Ban Treaty (CTBT) monitors for nuclear activities. However, transport of these noble gases to the surface via barometric pumping is a complex process relying on advective and diffusive processes in a fractured porous medium to bring detectable levels to the surface. To better understand this process, experimental measurements of noble gas and chemical surrogate diffusivity in relevant lithologies are necessary. However, measurement of noble gas diffusivity in tight or partially saturated porous media is challenging due to the transparent nature of noble gases, the lengthy diffusion times, and difficulty maintaining consistent water saturation. Here, the quasi-steady-state Ney–Armistead method is modified to accommodate continuous gas sampling via effusive flow to a mass spectrometer. An analytical solution accounting for the cumulative sampling losses and induced advective flow is then derived. Experimental results appear in good agreement with the proposed theory, suggesting the presence of retained groundwater reduces the effective diffusivity of the gas tracers by 10–1000 times. Finally, by using a mass spectrometer, the method described herein is applicable to a broad range of gas species and porous media.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

DOE OSTI2022

Phenomenological Model of Nonlinear Dynamics and Deterministic Chaotic Gas Migration in Bentonite: Experimental Evidence and Diagnostic Parameters

Understanding gas migration in compacted clay materials, e.g., bentonite and claystone, is important for the design and performance assessment of an engineered barrier system of a radioactive waste repository system, as well as many practical applications. Existing field and laboratory data on gas migration processes in low-permeability clay materials demonstrate the complexity of flow and transport processes, including various types of instabilities, caused by nonlinear dynamics of coupled processes of liquid–gas exchange, dilation, fracturing, fracture healing, etc., which cannot be described by classical models of fluid dynamics in porous media. We here show that the complexity of gas migration processes can be explained using a phenomenological concept of nonlinear dynamics and deterministic chaos theory. To do so, we analyzed gas pressure and gas influx (i.e., input) and outflux (i.e., output), recorded during the gas injection experiment in the compact Mx80-D bentonite sample, and calculated a set of the diagnostic parameters of nonlinear dynamics and chaos, such a global embedding dimension, a correlation dimension, an information dimension, and a spectrum of Lyapunov exponents, as well as plotted 2D and 3D pseudo-phase-space strange attractors, based on the univariate influx and outflux time series data. These results indicate the presence of phenomena of low-dimensional deterministic chaotic behavior of gas migration in bentonite. In particular, during the onset of gas influx in the bentonite core, before the breakthrough, the development of gas flow pathways is characterized by the process of chaotic gas diffusion. After the breakthrough, with inlet-to-outlet movement of gas, the prevailing process is chaotic advection. During the final phase of the experiment, with no influx to the sample, the relaxation pattern of gas outflux is resumed back to a process of chaotic diffusion. The types of data analysis and a proposed phenomenological model can be used to establish the basic principles of experimental data-gathering, modeling predictions, and a research design.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗