Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Computer Programming and Softwar”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Computer Programs For Analysis Of Thermally Reactive Tracer Tests In Geothermal Reservoirs

The Tracer Analysis Toolbox (TAT) is a stand-alone executable software package that focuses on reservoir monitoring, using changes in concentration of thermally degrading tracers between and injection well and a production well to reflect the temperature-time histories along flow paths through the reservoir. By conducting such tests periodically, the thermal evolution of the flow paths connecting injection wells to production wells can be monitored. Because this approach is sensitive to temperature along the whole path, it can detect changes well before they occur at the distal end of the path (i.e., the production well). Thus, the thermally degrading tracer method provides early detection of thermal decline before it impacts that well. The goal of TAT is to simplify planning of a reactive tracer monitoring campaign and interpretation of results by providing: (1) tracer test planning and analysis tools to define the necessary kinetic parameters, injection concentrations, and other tracer parameters that are suitable for the expected reservoir residence time and temperature, (2) identification of tracers with suitable characteristics (defined by (1)) and (3) a suite of analysis programs to analyze tracer test results.

Plummer, MitchellAaron [Idaho National Laboratory ↗
DOE OSTI2025

Reimagining Disassembly Interfaces With Visualization: Combining Instruction Tracing and Control Flow With DisViz

In applications where efficiency is critical, developers may examine their compiled binaries, seeking to understand how the compiler transformed their source code and what performance implications that transformation may have. This analysis is challenging due to the vast number of disassembled binary instructions and the many-to-many mappings between them and the source code. These problems are exacerbated as source code size increases, giving the compiler more freedom to map and disperse binary instructions across the disassembly space. Interfaces for disassembly typically display instructions as an unstructured listing or sacrifice the order of execution. Here, we design a new visual interface for disassembly code that combines execution order with control flow structure, enabling analysts to both trace through code and identify familiar aspects of the computation. Central to our approach is a novel layout of instructions grouped into basic blocks that displays a looping structure in an intuitive way. We add to this disassembly representation a unique block-based mini-map that leverages our layout and shows context across thousands of disassembly instructions. Finally, we embed our disassembly visualization in a web-based tool, DisViz, which adds dynamic linking with source code across the entire application. DizViz was developed in collaboration with program analysis experts following design study methodology and was validated through evaluation sessions with ten participants from four institutions. Participants successfully completed the evaluation tasks, hypothesized about compiler optimizations, and noted the utility of our new disassembly view. Our evaluation suggests that our new integrated view helps application developers in understanding and navigating disassembly code.

Computer science↗
DOE OSTI2025

Cardinal: Seismic and Geoacoustic Array Processing

Data collected via seismic and infrasound array deployments are leveraged in the geosciences to detect and characterize a myriad of natural and anthropogenic sources. These deployments consist of numerous sensors placed in a predetermined configuration to amplify signal strength and improve the efficacy of array processing techniques used to measure signal directionality and waveform coherence. High‐fidelity feature extraction is often predicated on interstation distance as well as the frequency content and wavelength of an incident signal. Numerous array processing softwares analyze data in sequential frequency bands to obtain a more detailed characterization of a signal. However, current algorithms are limited in their ability to determine optimal array configuration for each band. We introduce an open‐source Python code, called Cardinal, to process seismic and infrasound array data in discretized time–frequency space with the option of applying an adaptive array design to determine optimal subarray configuration for each frequency band. To reduce computational time, the array processing step can be run in parallel using multithreading. Furthermore, the software has the capability to aggregate array processing results from different time–frequency pixels to produce separate sets of detections, or families, with added utility via the application of an adaptive semblance threshold, which aids in isolating signals‐of‐interest from coherent background noise. Upon appropriate configuration, Cardinal exhibits the potential to combine distinct seismic and infrasound phases into separate families.

Adaptive Array↗
DOE OSTI2024

The Italian Summer Students Program at Fermilab and other US Laboratories: 40 years of education in particle physics and technology

Since 1983 the Italian groups collaborating with Fermilab (US) have been running a 2-month summer training program for Master students. While in the first year the program involved only 4 physics students, in the following years it was extended to engineering students. Many students have extended their collaboration with Fermilab with their Master Thesis and PhD. The program has involved almost 600 Italian students from more than 20 Italian universities. Each intern is supervised by a Fermilab Mentor responsible for the training program. Training programs spanned from Tevatron, CMS, Muon (g-2), Mu2e and SBN and DUNE design and data analysis, development of particle detectors, design of electronic and accelerator components, development of infrastructures and software for tera-data handling, quantum computing and research on superconductive elements and accelerating cavities. In 2015 the University of Pisa included the program within its own educational programs. Summer Students are enrolled at the University of Pisa for the duration of the internship and at the end of the internship they write summary reports on their achievements. After positive evaluation by a University of Pisa Examining Board, interns are acknowledged 6 ECTS credits for their Diploma Supplement. In the years 2020 and 2021 the program was canceled due to the sanitary emergency but in 2022 it was restarted and allowed a cohort of 21 students in 2022, and a cohort of 27 students in 2023 to be trained for nine weeks at Fermilab. We are now organizing the 2024 program.

Barzi, Emanuela↗
DOE OSTI2025

The Italian Summer Students Program at Fermilab and other US Laboratories: 40 years of education in particle physics and technology

Since 1983 the Italian groups collaborating with Fermilab (US) have been running a 2-month summer training program for Master students. While in the first year the program involved only 4 physics students, in the following years it was extended to engineering students. Many students have extended their collaboration with Fermilab with their Master Thesis and PhD. The program has involved more than 600 Italian students from more than 20 Italian universities. Each intern is supervised by a Fermilab Mentor responsible for the training program. Training programs spanned from Tevatron, CMS, Muon (g-2), Mu2e and SBN (MicroBooNE, Icarus, and SBND) and DUNE design and data analysis, development of particle detectors, design of electronic and accelerator components, development of infrastructures and software for tera-data handling, quantum computing and research on superconductive elements and accelerating cavities. In 2015 the University of Pisa included the program within its own educational programs. Summer Students are enrolled at the University of Pisa for the duration of the internship and at the end of the internship they write summary reports on their achievements. After positive evaluation by a University of Pisa Examining Board, interns are acknowledged 6 ECTS credits for their Diploma Supplement. The program was paused in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it resumed in 2022. From 2022 to 2024, a total of 60 students participated in the nine-week training at Fermilab. We are currently organizing the 2025 program. This paper provides an overview of the program, which can serve as a model for other interested laboratories.

Barzi, Emanuela [Ohio State U.]↗
DOE OSTI2025

The DUNE Science Program

The international collaboration designing and constructing the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) at the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) has developed a two-phase strategy for the implementation of this leading-edge, large-scale science project. The 2023 report of the US Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) reaffirmed this vision and strongly endorsed DUNE Phase I and Phase II, as did the previous European Strategy for Particle Physics. The construction of DUNE Phase I is well underway. DUNE Phase II consists of a third and fourth far detector module, an upgraded near detector complex, and an enhanced > 2 MW beam. The fourth FD module is conceived as a 'Module of Opportunity', aimed at supporting the core DUNE science program while also expanding the physics opportunities with more advanced technologies. The DUNE collaboration is submitting four main contributions to the 2026 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics process. This submission to the 'Neutrinos and cosmic messengers', 'BSM physics' and 'Dark matter and dark sector' streams focuses on the physics program of DUNE. Additional inputs related to DUNE detector technologies and R&D, DUNE software and computing, and European contributions to Fermilab accelerator upgrades and facilities for the DUNE experiment, are also being submitted to other streams.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

LLM Benchmarking with LLaMA2: Evaluating Code Development Performance Across Multiple Programming Languages

The rapid evolution of large language models (LLMs) has opened new possibilities for automating various tasks in software development. This paper evaluates the capabilities of the LLaMA 2-70B model in automating these tasks for scientific applications written in commonly used programming languages. Using representative test problems, we assess the model's capacity to generate code, documentation, and unit tests, as well as its ability to translate existing code between commonly used programming languages. Our comprehensive analysis evaluates the compilation, runtime behavior, and correctness of the generated and translated code. Additionally, we assess the quality of automatically generated code, documentation, and unit tests. Here, our results indicate that while LLaMA 2-70B frequently generates syntactically correct and functional code for simpler numerical tasks, it encounters substantial difficulties with more complex, parallelized, or distributed computations, requiring considerable manual corrections. We identify key limitations and suggest areas for future improvements to better leverage AI-driven automation in scientific computing workflows.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2026

Quantum Computing and Visualization Research Challenges and Opportunities

Here, quantum computing (QC) has experienced rapid growth in recent years with the advent of robust programming environments, readily accessible software simulators and cloud-based QC hardware platforms, and growing interest in learning how to design useful methods that leverage this emerging technology for practical applications. From the perspective of the field of visualization, this article examines research challenges and opportunities along the path from initial feasibility to practical use of QC platforms applied to meaningful problems.

Data visualization↗
DOE OSTI2025

Hydropower Biological Evaluation Toolset (HBET) Version 3.0: User Guide

The Hydropower Biological Evaluation Tools (HBET) software package, developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), is designed to assemble, organize, and process data collected by Sensor Fish and live fish. HBET enable users to characterize the hydraulic conditions of hydropower structures and estimate fish injury and mortality rates from various stressors. Future updates of the software may support other technologies, such as bead tracking in physical models and computational fluid dynamics. The HBET program can be customized to analyze different hydraulic applications, including turbines, spillways, weirs, pumped storage, and other user-defined functions, and therefore, help researchers, turbine designers, hydropower operators, and regulators better evaluate hydropower structures regarding their environmental sustainability and cost-effectiveness. Added content to the user guide about the new feature for predicting absolute injury rates.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

IRIS: A Performance-Portable Framework for Cross-Platform Heterogeneous Computing

From edge to exascale, computer architectures are becoming more heterogeneous and complex. The systems typically have fat nodes, with multicore CPUs and multiple hardware accelerators such as GPUs, FPGAs, and DSPs. This complexity is causing a crisis in programming systems and performance portability. Several programming systems are working to address these challenges, but the increasing architectural diversity is forcing software stacks and applications to be specialized for each architecture. As we show, all of these approaches critically depend on their software framework for discovery, execution, scheduling, and data orchestration. To address this challenge, we believe that a more agile and proactive software framework is essential to increase performance portability and improve user productivity. To this end, we have designed and implemented IRIS: a performance-portable framework for cross-platform heterogeneous computing. IRIS can discover available resources, manage multiple diverse programming platforms (e.g., CUDA, Hexagon, HIP, Level Zero, OpenCL, OpenMP) simultaneously in the same execution, respect data dependencies, orchestrate data movement proactively, and provide for user-configurable scheduling. To simplify data movement, IRIS introduces a shared virtual device memory with relaxed consistency among different heterogeneous devices. IRIS also adds an automatic kernel workload partitioning technique using the polyhedral model so that it can resize kernels for a wide range of devices. Our evaluation on three architectures, ranging from Qualcomm Snapdragon to a Summit supercomputer node, shows that IRIS improves portability across a wide range of diverse heterogeneous architectures with negligible overhead.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

pyTCR: A tropical cyclone rainfall model for python

pyTCR is a climatology software package developed in the Python programming language. It integrates the capabilities of several legacy physical models and increases computational efficiency to allow rapid estimation of tropical cyclone (TC) rainfall consistent with the large-scale environment. Specifically, pyTCR implements a horizontally distributed and vertically integrated model [Zhu et al., 2013] for simulating rainfall driven by TCs. Along storm tracks, rainfall is estimated by computing the cross-boundary-layer, upward water vapor transport caused by different mechanisms including frictional convergence, vortex stretching, large-scale baroclinic effect (i.e., wind shear), topographic forcing, and radiative cooling [Lu et al., 2018]. The package provides essential functionalities for modeling and interpreting spatio-temporal TC rainfall data. pyTCR requires a limited number of model input parameters, making it a convenient and useful tool for analyzing rainfall mechanisms driven by TCs. To sample rare (most intense) rainfall events that are often of great societal interest, pyTCR adapts and leverages outputs from a statistical-dynamical TC downscaling model [Lin et al., 2023] capable of rapidly generating a large number of synthetic TCs given a certain climate. As a result, pyTCR significantly reduces computational effort and improves the efficiency in capturing extreme TC rainfall events at the tail of the distributions from limited datasets. Furthermore, the TC downscaling model is forced entirely by large-scale environmental conditions from reanalysis data or coupled General Circulation Models (GCMs), simplifying the projection of TC-induced rainfall and wind speed under future climate using pyTCR. Finally, pyTCR can be coupled with hydrological and wind models to assess risks associated with independent and compound events (e.g., storm surges and freshwater flooding).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Integration of the NCRC Database and Other INL Databases

The Nuclear Computational Resource Center provides a portal by which industry professionals, educational staff, students, national laboratory employees, and others may request access to certain engineering software tools. As the tools provided through the Nuclear Computational Resource Center portal are not open-source and freely available, a set of approvals are necessary before access is granted. All code recipients must be associated with an institution that has a license with Idaho National Laboratory for the code requested. Information about these licenses is controlled by Idaho National Laboratory’s Technology Deployment organization and housed in a Technology Deployment database. Those requesting code access who are not citizens of the United States must also have a security plan, mandated by Idaho National Laboratory policy. Security plans are managed by the International Access Program and are stored in an International Access Program database known as IFacts. Granting access to software thus depends on information stored in the Technology Deployment database and IFacts. In the past, no connection between the Nuclear Computational Resource Center portal and these databases existed, making checking the status of license agreements and security plans time consuming and error prone. This report demonstrates that the Nuclear Computational Resource Center portal now connects to both the Technology Deployment database and IFacts, greatly improving the ease of use of the Nuclear Computational Resource Center system for administrators, which leads to a better overall experience for those requesting code access.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Numerical simulation projects in micromagnetics with Jupyter

We report a case study where an existing materials science course was modified to include numerical simulation projects on the micromagnetic behavior of materials. The Ubermag micromagnetic simulation software package is used in order to solve problems computationally. The simulation software is controlled through the Python code in Jupyter notebooks. Our experience is that the self-paced problem-solving nature of the project work can facilitate a better in-depth exploration of the course contents. We discuss which aspects of the Ubermag and the project Jupyter ecosystem have been beneficial for the students' learning experience and which could be transferred to similar teaching activities in other subject areas.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Verification of EvaluateFLux Utility Program

The EvaluateFlux program is a post-processing utility program for DIF3D, specifically DIF3D-VARIANT which handles Cartesian and hexagonal geometries. The EvaluateFlux program was developed to allow users to obtain flux and power traverses through the geometry domain, and its initial purpose was to facilitate foil analysis by evaluating the flux solution from DIF3D-VARIANT and combining it with foil cross section data. The EvaluateFlux program can calculate the neutron flux, as well as the reaction rates, at any user provided evaluation point. It does this by identifying the spatial mesh associated with the evaluation point and then evaluates the polynomial based neutron flux moments stored in the NHFLUX file at that point. The output of EvaluateFlux varies depending on the input setup. The maximum output includes the neutron flux and microscopic and macroscopic reaction rates at each evaluation point. The purpose of this work is to verify the outputs of EvaluateFlux. Simple models that have hand calculatable results are first defined and used to verify the EvaluateFlux outputs. More complex cases are then added where a duplicate program of EvaluateFlux that uses PrintTables outputs of the binary files is used to verify the EvaluateFlux outputs. In those complex cases, hand calculations of selected evaluation points were also displayed to confirm the software verification. For all the tests done, the hand calculations agreed well with those calculated by EvaluateFlux. For the larger complex problems, the duplicate program that can process hundreds of evaluation points was able to identify that zero points within some meshes have large errors. This aspect was attributed to the truncation error on the input provided to the duplicate program and is not a concern for the accuracy of the EvaluateFlux software.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2026

Application of Portable Parallelization Strategies for GPUs on track reconstruction kernels

Utilizing the computational power of GPUs is one of the key ingredients to meet the computing challenges presented to the next generation of High-Energy Physics (HEP) experiments. Unlike CPUs, developing software for GPUs often involves using architecturespecific programming languages promoted by the GPU vendors and hence limits the platform that the code can run on. Various portability solutions have been developed to achieve portable, performant software across different GPU vendors. Given the rapid evolution of these portability solutions, an early adoption of them in simple HEP testbed applications will help us understand the strengths and weaknesses of respective approaches.We apply several portability solutions, including Alpaka, Kokkos, SYCL and std::execution::par, on kernels for track propagation extracted from the mkFit project. We report on the development experience of the same application with different portability solutions, as well as their performance on GPUs, measured as the throughput of the kernels, from different manufacturers such as NVIDIA, AMD and Intel.

Kwok, Martin [Fermilab] (ORCID:0000000286936146)↗
DOE OSTI2024

Likelihood-based interactive local docking into cryo-EM maps in ChimeraX

The interpretation of cryo-EM maps often includes the docking of known or predicted structures of the components, which is particularly useful when the map resolution is worse than 4 Å. Although it can be effective to search the entire map to find the best placement of a component, the process can be slow when the maps are large. However, frequently there is a well-founded hypothesis about where particular components are located. In such cases, a local search using a map subvolume will be much faster because the search volume is smaller, and more sensitive because optimizing the search volume for the rotation-search step enhances the signal to noise. A Fourier-space likelihood-based local search approach, based on the previously published em_placement software, has been implemented in the new emplace_local program. Tests confirm that the local search approach enhances the speed and sensitivity of the computations. An interactive graphical interface in the ChimeraX molecular-graphics program provides a convenient way to set up and evaluate docking calculations, particularly in defining the part of the map into which the components should be placed.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Vibrational Signatures of Electronic Properties in Renewable-Energy Catalysis

The objective of this research program is to discover and develop new approaches for ab initio computational simulations of molecular motion. Specifically, this program aims to decipher the connection between the underlying electronic structure and the accordant molecular vibrations in reactive ions and radicals for renewable-energy purposes. Recent experimental progress in ion sources and optical spectroscopies has unearthed considerable new inner-sphere detail for these complexes, but the connection between these spectral signatures and mechanistic information often remains elusive, to the continued frustration of experimentalists. For this purpose, new anharmonic vibrational frequency methods, along with a publicly deployed software package, will be developed. Working closely with committed experimental collaborators, this conceptual and computational framework will be used to explain the results of new spectroscopy experiments, focusing specifically on the inner-shell mechanisms of renewable-energy catalysis. The oxidation half of catalytic water-splitting chemistry will be a central focus, along with fundamental studies of the manner in which strong ions and radicals activate solvent as a chemical species. The resulting products of the research program will include openly available software and algorithms for the ab initio simulation of challenging vibrational spectra, as well as critical mechanistic insight into energy-focused catalytic processes that are opaque to other existing analytical techniques.

42 ENGINEERING↗