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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 361 records · Page 20
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Reaction process involving capillary condensation within a microporous catalyst

Described herein is a catalytic reaction process including introducing one or more gas-phase reactants into a reactor comprising a microporous catalyst having a pore size less than or equal to 2 nm and adjusting the temperature and/or the pressure of the reactor such that one or more of the gas-phase reactants condense within the micropores of the catalyst thereby causing the catalytic reaction to take place in a liquid phase. Additionally, a process for engineering defects on a carboxylate-based metal organic framework (MOF) catalyst is described. The process includes providing a carboxylate-based MOF catalyst; and heating the carboxylate-based MOF catalyst in an inert gas atmosphere at temperatures between about 150° C. and about 900° C.

Aguirrezabal, Iker↗
DOE OSTI2014

Engineering scale demonstration of a prospective Cast Stone process

This report documents an engineering-scale demonstration with non-radioactive simulants that was performed at SRNL using the Scaled Continuous Processing Facility (SCPF) to fill an 8.5 ft container with simulated Cast Stone grout. The Cast Stone formulation was chosen from the previous screening tests. Legacy salt solution from previous Hanford salt waste testing was adjusted to correspond to the average composition generated from the Hanford Tank Waste Operation Simulator (HTWOS). The dry blend materials, ordinary portland cement (OPC), Class F fly ash, and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS or BFS), were obtained from Lafarge North America in Pasco, WA. Over three days, the SCPF was used to fill a 1600 gallon container, staged outside the facility, with simulated Cast Stone grout. The container, staged outside the building approximately 60 ft from the SCPF, was instrumented with x-, y-, and z-axis thermocouples to monitor curing temperature. The container was also fitted with two formed core sampling vials. For the operation, the targeted grout production rate was 1.5 gpm. This required a salt solution flow rate of approximately 1 gpm and a premix feed rate of approximately 580 lb/h. During the final day of operation, the dry feed rate was increased to evaluate the ability of the system to handle increased throughput. Although non-steady state operational periods created free surface liquids, no bleed water was observed either before or after operations. The final surface slope at a fill height of 39.5 inches was 1-1.5 inches across the 8.5 foot diameter container, highest at the final fill point and lowest diametrically opposed to the fill point. During processing, grout was collected in cylindrical containers from both the mixer discharge and the discharge into the container. These samples were stored in a humid environment either in a closed box proximal to the container or inside the laboratory. Additional samples collected at these sampling points were analyzed for rheological properties and density. Both the rheological properties (plastic viscosity and yield strength) and density were consistent with previous and later SCPF runs.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2021

High performance protonic ceramic fuel cell systems for distributed power generation

The technology landscape around distributed generation continues to evolve in response to increasing demand for high-efficiency, low-emission, low-cost power generation. While emerging distributed power technologies, such as solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), continue to advance, they still face challenges due to their high capital costs, and shorter lifetimes that typically arise from electrochemical stack performance degradation at high operating temperatures (>750 °C). Recent advancements in protonic ceramic fuel cells (PCFCs) offer the potential to mitigate drawbacks of their higher temperature SOFC counterparts by enabling lower operating temperatures (550 °C–600 °C) with acceptable power densities. Here the present work leverages the recent progress in protonic ceramic cell and stack technology development to generate viable system configurations and evaluate the energetic performance potential of PCFC-based systems for stationary power generation. Process system engineering of two water-neutral system concepts, which provide 25 kW of electric power and process hot water, are presented and evaluated through sensitivity studies. Stack design parameters are altered and used to gauge the effect on system performance characteristics, including fuel cell stack and balance-of-plant sizing requirements, and electric and cogeneration efficiencies. The study finds that the potentially high per-pass fuel utilization capability of PCFC stacks could enable unprecedented electric efficiencies approaching 70% without hybridization with other prime movers.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2020

A Bezier Curve Informed Melt Pool Geometry to Model Additive Manufacturing Microstructures Using SPPARKS

Additive manufacturing is a transformative technology with the potential to manufacture designs which traditional subtractive machining methods cannot. Additive manufacturing offers fast builds at near final desired geometry; however, material properties and variability from part to part remain a challenge for certification and qualification of metallic components. AM induced metallic microstructures are spatially heterogeneous and highly process dependent. Engineering properties such as strength and toughness are significantly affected by microstructure morphologies resulting from the manufacturing process Linking process parameters to microstructures and ultimately to the dynamic response of AM materials is critical to certifying and qualifying AM built parts and components and improving the performance of AM materials. The AM fabrication process is characterized by building parts layer by layer using a selective laser melt process guided by a computer. A laser selectively scans and melts metal according to a designated geometry. As the laser scans, metal melts, fuses, and solidifies forming the final geometry in a layerwise fashion. As the laser heat source moves away, the metal cools and solidifies forming metallic microstructures. This work describes a microstructure modeling application implemented in the SPPARKS kinetic Monte Carlo computational framework for simulating the resulting microstructures. The application uses Bzier curves and surfaces to model the melt pool surface and spatial temperature profile induced by moving the laser heat source; it simulates the melting and fusing of metal at the laser hot spot and microstructure formation and evolution when the laser moves away. The geometry of the melt pool is quite flexible and we explore effects of variances in model parameters on simulated microstructures.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Selective engineering of cavity resonance for frequency matching in optical parametric processes

We propose to selectively engineer a single cavity resonance to achieve frequency matching for optical parametric processes in high-Q microresonators. For this purpose, we demonstrate an approach, selective mode splitting (SMS), to precisely shift a targeted cavity resonance, while leaving other cavity modes intact. We apply SMS to achieve efficient parametric generation via four-wave mixing in high-Q silicon microresonators. The proposed approach is of great potential for broad applications in integrated nonlinear photonics.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2013

Enterprise SRS: Leveraging Ongoing Operations To Advance Nuclear Fuel Cycles Research And Development Programs

The Savannah River Site (SRS) is repurposing its vast array of assets to solve future national issues regarding environmental stewardship, national security, and clean energy. The vehicle for this transformation is Enterprise SRS which presents a new, radical view of SRS as a united endeavor for ''all things nuclear'' as opposed to a group of distinct and separate entities with individual missions and organizations. Key among the Enterprise SRS strategic initiatives is the integration of research into facilities in conjunction with on-going missions to provide researchers from other national laboratories, academic institutions, and commercial entities the opportunity to demonstrate their technologies in a relevant environment and scale prior to deployment. To manage that integration of research demonstrations into site facilities, The Department of Energy, Savannah River Operations Office, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) have established a center for applied nuclear materials processing and engineering research (hereafter referred to as the Center). The key proposition of this initiative is to bridge the gap between promising transformational nuclear fuel cycle processing discoveries and large commercial-scale-technology deployment by leveraging SRS assets as facilities for those critical engineering-scale demonstrations necessary to assure the successful deployment of new technologies. The Center will coordinate the demonstration of R&D technologies and serve as the interface between the engineering-scale demonstration and the R&D programs, essentially providing cradle-to-grave support to the research team during the demonstration. While the initial focus of the Center will be on the effective use of SRS assets for these demonstrations, the Center also will work with research teams to identify opportunities to perform research demonstrations at other facilities. Unique to this approach is the fact that these SRS assets will continue to accomplish DOE's critical nuclear material missions (e.g., processing in H-Canyon and plutonium storage in K-Area). Thus, the demonstration can be accomplished by leveraging the incremental cost of performing demonstrations without needing to cover the full operational cost of the facility. Current Center activities have been focused on integrating advanced safeguards monitoring technologies demonstrations into the SRS H-Canyon and advanced location technologies demonstrations into K-Area Materials Storage. These demonstrations are providing valuable information to researchers and customers as well as providing the Center with an improved protocol for demonstration management that can be exercised across the entire SRS (as well as to offsite venues) so that future demonstrations can be done more efficiently and provide an opportunity to utilize these unique assets for multiple purposes involving national laboratories, academia, and commercial entities. Key among the envisioned future demonstrations is the use of H-Canyon to demonstrate new nuclear materials separations technologies critical for advancing the mission needs DOE-Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) to advance the research for next generation fuel cycle technologies. The concept is to install processing equipment on frames. The frames are then positioned into an H-Canyon cell and testing in a relevant radiological environment involving prototypic radioactive materials can be performed.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Rational Optimization of Microbial Processing for High Yield CO 2 -to-Isopropanol Conversion: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-20-17114

This project focuses on the production of the fuel blendstock isopropanol using a CO 2 -fixing Clostridium by metabolic engineering and process optimizations. The project will initiate from a baseline isopropanol producer and pursue isopropanol production at high carbon-conversion efficiency. We will lead engineering work by in-depth pathway analyses including thermodynamics optimization, enzyme expense analysis, metabolic robustness analysis, and -omics analysis. The isopropanol production will be optimized via genome editing followed by fermentation optimizations. This project will deliver a novel microbial process that efficiently converts waste CO 2 to isopropanol at ~g/L titer level within 18-months. This project will layout a solid knowledge basis and technology platform for renewable CO 2 valorization to bio-blendstock that help achieve Co-Optima and Shell's goals.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Development of ITM Oxygen Technology for Low-cost and Low-emission Gasification and Other Industrial Applications

Air Products is carrying out a scope of work under DOE Award No. DE-FE0012065 “Development of ITM Oxygen Technology for Low-cost and Low-emission Gasification and Other Industrial Applications.” The Statement of Project Objectives (SOPO) includes a Task 4f in which a Decision Point shall be reached, necessitating a review of Tasks 2-5 with an emphasis on Task 4f. This Topical Report constitutes the Decision Point Application pertaining to Task 4f. The SOPO under DOE Award No. DE-FE0012065 is aimed at furthering the development of the Ion Transport Membrane (ITM) Oxygen production process toward a demonstration scale facility known as the Oxygen Development Facility (ODF). It is anticipated that the completion of the current SOPO will advance the technology significantly along a pathway towards enabling the design and construction of the ODF. Development progress on several fronts is critical before an ODF project can commence; this Topical Report serves as an early update on the progress in critical development areas. Progress was made under all tasks, including Materials Development, Ceramic Processing Development, Engineering Development, and Performance Testing. Under Task 4f, Air Products carried out a cost and performance study in which several process design and cost parameters were varied and assessed with a process model and budgetary costing exercise. The results show that the major variables include ceramic module reliability, ITM operating temperature, module production yield, and heat addition strategy. High-temperature compact heat exchangers are shown to contribute significant cost benefits, while directly firing into the feed stream to an ITM are even a mild improvement on the high-temperature recuperation approach. Based on the findings to-date, Air Products recommends no changes to the content or emphasis in the current SOPO and recommends its completion prior to another formal assessment of these factors.

Armstrong, Phillip↗
DOE OSTI2021

Lightweight, strong, moldable wood via cell wall engineering as a sustainable structural material

Turning wood into honeycombs Wood is an attractive material for structural applications, but it usually works best as boards or sheets. Xiao et al . have developed a process for engineering hardwood that allows these sheets to be manipulated into complex structures (see the Perspective by Tajvidi and Gardner). The key is to manipulate the cell wall structure by shrinking and blasting open the fibers and vessels by drying and “water-shocking” them. This process creates a window wherein the wood can be manipulated without ripping or tearing. Honeycomb, corrugated, or other complex structures are locked in once the wood dries. —BG

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗
DOE OSTI2024

The Digital Engineering Vision for DOME: Facilitating Design, Deployment, and Operations [Poster]

DOME is a planned microreactor test facility at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex. It is a complex system with several interdependent sub-systems such as the reactor (up to 20 MWth), radioactive confinement, temperature and pressure regulation system, ventilation system, etc. The engineering design process for such a system traditionally involves several documents from various sources and the system information is scattered across these documents. Digital engineering represents a paradigm shift through which systems are designed using digital models and integrated data. The digital engineering vision for DOME utilizes a model-based systems engineering (MBSE) approach. The system architecture, physical components, control logic, and verification experiments are all designed using MathWorks MATLAB and Simulink. This hierarchical model can combine data from multiple sources at various levels of abstraction. It can be used to simulate the facility’s operations and to test the system using different sets of parameters. Its capabilities can be expanded by interfacing it with high-fidelity multi-physics models, risk analysis tools, etc. The same model can evolve into a digital twin that can monitor operations and conduct predictive analysis using real-time sensor data from the facility. The eventual goal of this effort is to transform the end-to-end engineering of nuclear facilities in every phase of their lifecycle, including design, deployment, and operations.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2024

SinhaRoy_TechPresentation_2024 [Slides]

DOME is a planned microreactor test facility at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex. It is a complex system with several interdependent sub-systems such as the reactor (up to 20 MWth), radioactive confinement, temperature and pressure regulation system, ventilation system, etc. The engineering design process for such a system traditionally involves several documents from various sources and the system information is scattered across these documents. Digital engineering represents a paradigm shift through which systems are designed using digital models and integrated data. The digital engineering vision for DOME utilizes a model-based systems engineering (MBSE) approach. The system architecture, physical components, control logic, and verification experiments are all designed using MathWorks MATLAB and Simulink. This hierarchical model can combine data from multiple sources at various levels of abstraction. It can be used to simulate the facility’s operations and to test the system using different sets of parameters. Its capabilities can be expanded by interfacing it with high-fidelity multi-physics models, risk analysis tools, etc. The same model can evolve into a digital twin that can monitor operations and conduct predictive analysis using real-time sensor data from the facility. The eventual goal of this effort is to transform the end-to-end engineering of nuclear facilities in every phase of their lifecycle, including design, deployment, and operations.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2019

FEARCE: Fast, Easy, Accurate, and Robust Continuum Engineering Improving fuel efficiency and reducing emissions in combustion engines 2019 R&D 100 Awards

FEARCE investigates and simulates turbulent chemically reactive flows in fuel combustion, such as fuel injection and fuel-air mixing, thermodynamic combustion losses, and combustion–emission formation processes in engines. Our objective is to understand turbulent flows and how they react and interact with other complicating variables, including highly nonlinear heat and mass transfer, small-scale velocity, and chemical kinetics or reactions. Our emphasis is on the fluid dynamics and chemical reactions that take place in all kinds of internal combustion engines, including the reactions between multiple species (such as air, gasoline, carbon dioxide, water, and hundreds of other species) and multiphase (liquid and gas) fluid flow.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Direct Air Capture of CO 2 Using Solvents

Large-scale deployment of negative emissions technologies (NETs) that permanently remove CO 2 from the atmosphere is now considered essential for limiting the global temperature increase to less than 2°C by the end of this century. One promising NET is direct air capture (DAC), a technology that employs engineered chemical processes to remove atmospheric carbon dioxide, potentially at the scale of billions of metric tons per year. This review highlights one of the two main approaches to DAC based on aqueous solvents. The discussion focuses on different aspects of DAC with solvents, starting with the fundamental chemistry that includes the chemical species and reactions involved and the thermodynamics and kinetics of CO 2 binding and release. Chemical engineering aspects are also discussed, including air–liquid contactor design, process development, and technoeconomic assessments to estimate the cost of the DAC technologies. Various solvents employed in DAC are reviewed, from aqueous alkaline solutions (NaOH, KOH) to aqueous amines, amino acids, and peptides, along with different solvent regeneration methods, from the traditional thermal swinging to the more exploratory carbonate crystallization with guanidines or electrochemical methods.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2023

Criticality Safety Evaluation Project Development for University of California Berkely Nuclear Criticality Safety Pipeline Course

The Nuclear Criticality Safety Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has taken a unique approach to developing criticality safety evaluation topics in support of the University of California Berkeley criticality safety pipeline course. The evaluation topics are designed to go beyond the typical evaluation examples used for many training courses including vault storage and variations on storage arrays. These types of evaluations provide in-depth analysis into the fundamentals of criticality safety and are complex but may be far off from what a new criticality safety engineer may actually be evaluating. To provide more practical examples of criticality safety evaluation topics that are better fit for the knowledge level of a criticality safety engineer in-training, variations of current and future operations and research operations performed at LLNL are used as evaluation topics. Additionally, an emphasis on research is included in all evaluation topics as it allows students to take advantage of the concepts learned in class to apply them for process improvement, engineering equipment that is favorable for criticality safety, and negotiation tactics to work with operations personnel. The process used by LLNL to develop project topics for the pipeline course is provided in this paper. The intent is to provide an alternative technique for training students and potentially younger staff members in criticality safety on developing criticality safety evaluations.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Impacts of the Additive Manufacturing Process on the Roughness of Engine Scale Vanes and Cooling Channels

Abstract By leveraging the additive manufacturing (AM) platform, development time and costs for turbine component testing can be reduced relative to traditional investment casting. Surface roughness is a key characteristic of the additive manufacturing process that can impact flow, heat transfer, and mechanical integrity of printed components. There are multiple design and build considerations that result in variability in surface roughness, especially when additively fabricating complicated three-dimensional vanes and internal cooling passages. This study characterizes the surface roughness of internal cooling passages, vanes, and flat external surface samples made using additive manufacturing, specifically the direct metal laser sintering process. The samples were manufactured with various wall thicknesses, layer thicknesses, build locations, build directions, and on different AM machines. A combination of computed tomography scanning and optical profilometry was used to evaluate surface roughness levels. The data indicate that the dominant factors in roughness for a given layer thickness are a function of wall thickness, build location, and build direction.

Engineering↗
DOE OSTI2013

Defining efficient enzyme-cofactor pairs for bioorthogonal profiling of protein methylation

Protein methyltransferase (PMT)-mediated posttranslational modification of histone and nonhistone substrates modulates stability, localization, and interacting partners of target proteins in diverse cellular contexts. These events play critical roles in normal biological processes and are frequently deregulated in human diseases. In the course of identifying substrates of individual PMTs, bioorthogonal profiling of protein methylation (BPPM) has demonstrated its merits. In this approach, specific PMTs are engineered to process S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM) analogs as cofactor surrogates and label their substrates with distinct chemical modifications for target elucidation. Despite the proof-of-concept advancement of BPPM, few efforts have been made to explore its generality. With two cancer-relevant PMTs, EuHMT1 (GLP1/KMT1D) and EuHMT2 (G9a/KMT1C), as models, we defined the key structural features of engineered PMTs and matched SAM analogs that can render the orthogonal enzyme–cofactor pairs for efficient catalysis. Here we have demonstrated that the presence of sulfonium-β-sp 2 carbon and flexible, medium-sized sulfonium-δ-substituents are crucial for SAM analogs as BPPM reagents. The bulky cofactors can be accommodated by tailoring the conserved Y1211/Y1154 residues and nearby hydrophobic cavities of EuHMT1/2. Profiling proteome-wide substrates with BPPM allowed identification of >500 targets of EuHMT1/2 with representative targets validated using native EuHMT1/2 and SAM. This finding indicates that EuHMT1/2 may regulate many cellular events previously unrecognized to be modulated by methylation. The present work, therefore, paves the way to a broader application of the BPPM technology to profile methylomes of diverse PMTs and elucidate their downstream functions.

Islam, Kabirul↗
DOE OSTI2016

Developing Materials Processing to Performance Modeling Capabilities and the Need for Exascale Computing Architectures (and Beyond)

Additive Manufacturing techniques are presenting the Department of Energy and the NNSA Laboratories with new opportunities to consider novel component production and repair processes, and to manufacture materials with tailored response and optimized performance characteristics. Additive Manufacturing technologies already are being applied to primary NNSA mission areas, including Nuclear Weapons. These mission areas are adapting to these new manufacturing methods, because of potential advantages, such as smaller manufacturing footprints, reduced needs for specialized tooling, an ability to embed sensing, novel part repair options, an ability to accommodate complex geometries, and lighter weight materials. To realize the full potential of Additive Manufacturing as a game-changing technology for the NNSA’s national security missions; however, significant progress must be made in several key technical areas. In addition to advances in engineering design, process optimization and automation, and accelerated feedstock design and manufacture, significant progress must be made in modeling and simulation. First and foremost, a more mature understanding of the process-structure-property-performance relationships must be developed. Because Additive Manufacturing processes change the nature of a material’s structure below the engineering scale, new models are required to predict materials response across the spectrum of relevant length scales, from the atomistic to the continuum. New diagnostics will be required to characterize materials response across these scales. And not just models, but advanced algorithms, next-generation codes, and advanced computer architectures will be required to complement the associated modeling activities. Based on preliminary work in each of these areas, a strong argument for the need for Exascale computing architectures can be made, if a legitimate predictive capability is to be developed.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗