Final Progress Report: Through-Metal Communications and Power Transfer System
No abstract provided.
42 ENGINEERING↗
SEARCH · Engineering Papers
Results for “Progress Report”
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.
Q2 FY 2018 Progress Report on Ultrasonic Dehumidification: Milestone 2.1, Design of High-Volume-Density Pores on Sheets of Material
During the second quarter of FY18, two potential candidate porous films for humidity removal via capillary condensation were studied: a commercially available Anodic Aluminum Oxide (AAO) film and a laboratory-derived porous film fabricated using sol-gel processing. Important experimental results were obtained for characterizing the moisture adsorption kinetics of the AAO film.
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
Mercury Remediation Technology Development for Lower East Fork Poplar Creek—FY 2017 Progress Report
Mercury (Hg) remediation is a high priority for the US Department of Energy (DOE) Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, especially at and near the Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12) where historical Hg use has resulted in contaminated buildings, soils, and downstream surface waters. To address Hg contamination of East Fork Poplar Creek (EFPC), DOE has adopted a phased, adaptive management approach to remediation, which includes Hg treatment actions at Y-12 in the short-term and research and technology development (TD) to evaluate longer-term solutions in the downstream environment (US Department of Energy 2014).
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
Development and Validation of a Lagrangian Soot Model Considering Detailed Gas Phase Kinetics and Surface Chemistry (July 2018 Progress Report)
The role of Sandia National Laboratories to this project is to image in-cylinder soot and PAH under conditions where PAH and soot are on the threshold of formation due to dilution by excess nitrogen gas. The primary effect of dilution is to lower the combustion temperatures, and if sufficient dilution is provided, soot and/or PAH formation can be completely inhibited. Hence, these experimental data are useful for validation of CFD predictions of initial soot and PAH formation.
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
2018 Annual Continuation And Progress Report For Nuclear Theory At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Research in the area of nuclear structure and reactions, with an emphasis on ab initio approaches, was been conducted under base research funding (FWP SCW0498) and the Topical Collaboration (TC) “DBD: Nuclear Theory for Double-Beta Decay and Fundamental Symmetries” (FWP SCW1579). New funding under FWP SCW0498 in FY19 was $130k and, which augmented carryover from the previous year, which was primarily intended to fund an FRIB Theory Fellow. In the period covered by this review, we generated 9 publications (including a Letter, two submissions to Nature, and an invited review paper), and 3 invited talks. In the following we highlight the most important accomplishments.
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
Stochastic Simulation of Complex Fluid Flows (Progress Report for period 07/01/2016 - 06/30/2018)
At a microscopic scale, fluids are composed of molecules whose positions and velocities are random. This gives rise to thermal fluctuations that span the whole range of scales from the microscopic through the mesoscopic, and even the macroscopic. The inclusion of thermal fluctuations is crucial in multi-scale models, which are an important theme in the research program of the DOE Office of Science, and in particular the ASCR Applied Mathematics program's priority focus area on modeling of complex systems involving processes that span vastly different time and/or length scales. In this five-year Early Career project, the PI Aleksandar Donev and collaborators developed computational algorithms for modeling complex fluid mixtures at small scales using a formulation based on fluctuating hydrodynamics. Novel computational methods were developed to model complex fluids with increasing physical complexity, starting from binary miscible and immiscible mixtures, going through multispecies non-reactive and reactive mixtures, and culminating with reactive electrolytes mixtures of neutral molecules and ions. In close collaboration with the group of John Bell at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the methods were implemented in a scalable computational framework suitable for modern parallel supercomputers, and made publicly available on github. A number of physical examples in which giant nonequilibrium fluctuations are improtant were studied, with a special focus on instabilities at a liquid-liquid interface driven by gravity, diffusion, reactions, and/or electric fields. The methods and codes developed in this project are expected to enable other novel applications in the DOE Basic Energy Sciences program, and engineering sciences more broadly.
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
International Collaboration on Spent Fuel Disposition in Crystalline Media: FY18 Progress Report
Active participation in international R&D is crucial for achieving the Spent Fuel Waste Science & Technology (SFWST) long-term goals of conducting "experiments to fill data needs and confirm advanced modeling approaches" and of having a "robust modeling and experimental basis for evaluation of multiple disposal system options" (by 2020). DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) has developed a strategic plan to advance cooperation with international partners. The international collaboration on the evaluation of crystalline disposal media at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) in FY18 focused on the collaboration through the Development of Coupled Models and their Validation against Experiments (DECOVALEX- 2019) project. The DECOVALEX project is an international research and model comparison collaboration, initiated in 1992, for advancing the understanding and modeling of coupled thermo-hydro-mechanicalchemical (THMC) processes in geological systems. SNL has been participating in three tasks of the DECOVALEX project: Task A. Modeling gas injection experiments (ENGINEER), Task C. Modeling groundwater recovery experiment in tunnel (GREET), and Task F. Fluid inclusion and movement in the tight rock (FINITO). FY18 work focused on Task C and preparing the interim reports for the three tasks SNL has been imvolved. The major accomplishments are summarized
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
Second Annual Progress Report on Transmission of Information by Acoustic Communication along Metal Pathways in Nuclear Facilities
Transmission of information using elastic waves on existing metallic pipes provides an alternative communication option for a nuclear facility. The advantages of this approach consist of transmitting information through barriers, such as the containment building wall. In this paper, we discuss acoustic communication system design considerations, including data transmission requirements for a nuclear facility and transducer operating conditions.
42 ENGINEERING↗
Quarter 2 Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) - DOE Solar Program
Creep-fatigue deformation is an important consideration for a thermal receiver of a gas phase (GP) Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) system due to the constant static stress or pressure, diurnal cycling, and elevated service temperatures required for efficient operation. An accurate description of the creep-fatigue behavior, not available for five of the six candidate materials, is important for assessment of preliminary designs. This project will provide a detailed analysis of the creep-fatigue behavior and damage accumulation of a candidate structural material for a CSP solar thermal receiver to address a critical knowledge barrier for receiver design in the GP pathway concept identified in the CSP Gen3 Demonstration Roadmap. This effort includes the development of rules for the design of solar receiver components against high temperature creep-fatigue and ratcheting failure modes. The ASME Code rules for high temperature nuclear components will form the basis of the method but adjustments will be made to reflect the generally shorter, diurnal operating cycles of thermal receivers and the relative consequences of failure, comparing nuclear to solar components. This is report covers the second quarter's work, which addressed outstanding questions on alloy selection for Quarter 1, and began laying the ground work for mechanical testing.
14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
Plasma Surface Interactions: Bridging from the Surface to the Micron Frontier through Leadership Class Computing (Final Technical Progress Report)
The performance demands on plasma-facing components (PFCs) in future fusion power plants are beyond the capability of current materials. In defining the plasma-surface interaction (PSI), it is evident that three coupled spatial regions influence PFC materials evolution and performance. These regions consist of (1) the edge and scrape-off layer region of the plasma, (2) the near-surface material response to extreme thermal and particle fluxes under the influence of, and feedback to, the plasma sheath, and (3) the structural material’s response to an intense, 14 MeV peaked neutron spectrum, which produces very high concentrations of transmuted elements through (n,p) and (n,α) reactions and structural material property degradation. The objective of this project is to develop and deploy validated, high-performance simulation tools capable of predicting the performance of tungsten-based plasma-facing components (PFCs) in a burning fusion plasma environment, which includes modeling surface morphology evolution in either erosion or re-deposition regimes, and the recycling of hydrogen species. This requires the development of a leadership-scale computational code to predict PFC behavior that is well integrated to a suite of multiscale modeling techniques to bridge the scales needed to address complex physical and computational issues at the plasma surface interface and the transition region below the surface where neutron damage processes in the bulk dominate material behavior. Successful completion of this project will provide PFC simulation tools to evaluate steady-state performance of tungsten-based PFC and divertor components in burning plasma environments. This will enable the identification of critical experiments to confirm whether practical PFC solutions exist for magnetic fusion energy beyond ITER. More specifically, the research activities within this project focus on two broadly defined research thrusts: 1) Developing a new simulation code, Xolotl-PSI to predict PFC operating lifetime and performance, that is specifically designed to take advantage of leadership class computing facilities; and 2) Integrating and applying discrete particle-based, as well as continuum-based, multiscale modeling techniques to provide scientific discovery of the mechanisms controlling PFC and bulk materials evolution under fusion plasma and 14-MeV neutron exposure; in this thrust, the challenge of scale-bridging between atomistic/microstructural modeling and the continuum-scale of PFC device performance is achieved through multiscale modeling techniques. Throughout the grant period, research at UMass Amherst focused on the atomic-scale analysis of the dynamics and kinetics (transport and reactions) of small mobile helium clusters near surfaces and grain boundaries in plasma-exposed tungsten, as well as the proper parameterization and incorporation of these processes into our SciDAC team’s continuum-level cluster dynamics code (Xolotl). Our work also included characterization of large-scale molecular-dynamics (MD) simulation results of helium implantation into tungsten based on the findings of our analysis and comparisons of Xolotl simulation predictions with the large-scale MD simulation results for Xolotl validation purposes; emphasis was placed on the impact of helium cluster dynamics/kinetics on tungsten surface morphology, near-surface tungsten structure, and helium retention. Furthermore, our work included initiation of a research program on evaluating the impact of structural defects in tungsten due to plasma exposure (such as helium nanobubbles) on tungsten’s thermophysical properties, focusing on lattice thermal conductivity. Our studies contributed to a fundamental understanding of the effects of plasma-surface interactions on the dynamical response of plasma-facing materials in nuclear fusion devices and the development of predictive hierarchical multiscale computational tools for the quantitative description of the material’s dynamical response to plasma exposure.
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
CarbonSAFE Phase I: Integrated CCS Pre-Feasibility – Northwest Gulf of Mexico (Final Research Performance Progress Report)
Offshore storage achieves two major objectives for the US commercial large scale CCS deployment: 1. Adding large capacity to serve local regional, and potentially broader objectives 2. Lowering risk by providing storage with one public owner, away from population, with no conflict with water resources and reduced concern about induced seismicity. A high-concentration CO 2 source was identified as the top candidate for the project and going forward with the CarbonSAFE Phase II proposal. The top-rated source is the NET Power facility in Houston (La Porte), Texas. A manuscript based on analysis of results from the two-stage survey conducted in eight selected Texas counties was submitted to the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control on August 21, 2018. A primary confining interval (seal) is associated with MFS9 (biochronozone Amphistegina B) which can reach a thickness of up to 250 m. However, the Amphistegina B confining interval thins considerably in the onshore direction. Consequently, the most suitable portion of the Miocene section for future CO 2 sequestration in the study area is considered to be the offshore area where Amphistegina B is thickest. Based on three models for capacity assessment, the study proposes a base case for the High Island 10-L Field in which 9 wells operated for 12 years each completed into 4 zones will emplace a total of 150MMT of CO 2 with wells placed in the water leg where all the plume will slowly migrate into the structural trap is feasible in terms of geology and engineering. The 10-L Field was assessed in more detail than other examined oil and gas fields in the study area in order to look at some specifics about how initial future CCS projects might be accomplished in the favorable GoM of the US region and expand the sites to a larger set to experiment with matching all the possible sources to sinks. The 10-L site is large enough to accept CO 2 from multiple sinks; the expanded sinks are estimated to be large enough to accept all the CO 2 from the region plus some from outside the region. A number of uncertainties were identified. The largest and most consequential uncertainty is the cost of offshore pipelines in the study setting, which impacts the conditions where CO 2 transport would be by ship versus the cases where pipeline would be preferred. Ships are preferred for small volumes and short durations; pipelines for larger volumes and long duration. Additional work is needed to advance the maturity of multiple sinks available, to continue outreach to industries and the public, and to develop realistic source opportunities. The study demonstrates that industrial source clusters connected to a transport hub delivering CO 2 to a nearby storage complex is the most cost-effective and improved way to de-carbonize industrial activities, particularly, in an expected low-carbon and increasing carbon price environmental. The feasibility of the new business models should be based on the best use of the existing infrastructure and strategically build on new supporting infrastructure to drive down the costs of large-scale CCS deployment. Assessing the pre-feasibility of the commercial implementation of a CCS cluster and hub in the GoM energy ecosystem, our study links these elements successfully through an optimized combination (minimum cost) of CO 2 sources on land with offshore storage. Offshore storage achieves two major objectives for the US commercial large scale CCS deployment: 1. Adding large capacity to serve local regional, and potentially broader objectives 2. Lowering risk by providing storage with one public owner, away from population, with no conflict with water resources and reduced concern about induced seismicity.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Building America Research Dissemination (FY 2018 Annual Progress Report)
This report documents additions and upgrades to the Building America Solution Center, https://basc.pnnl.gov, a web-based resource developed and maintained by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Technology Office. The Building America Solution Center makes research funded by DOE through its Building America program more readily accessible and easily searchable by members of the residential building and remodeling community, including builders, contractors, installers, remodelers, code officials, raters, manufacturers, sales professionals, and building science researchers. This report fulfills 1.5.2.75 PNNL - Building America Research Dissemination, Milestone 4, "Prepare an annual summary of significant platform maintenance activities and all content uploaded to the BASC site (Tasks 1 & 2)."
42 ENGINEERING↗
1L Target TMRS MK IV Upper Target Progress Report
No abstract provided.
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
FY 2017 Progress Report on the Argonne Sodium Draining and Refilling Experiments
The main incentive for utilization of compact diffusion-bonded sodium-to-CO 2 heat exchangers for a Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) with a supercritical carbon dioxide ( s CO 2 ) Brayton cycle power converter is the potential for reduction in heat exchanger size and cost relative to traditional shell-and-tube technology. There is an incentive for the designer to reduce the width of the sodium and CO 2 channels as much as possible to realize the greatest size and cost reductions. However, there are practical limits on minimum channel size due to fundamental phenomena particular to sodium and CO 2 . One is that the channel size must be large enough to enable the rapid draining of sodium from the heat exchanger sodium channels in the event that a sodium leak is detected in an intermediate sodium heat transport system loop, in order to rapidly drain the sodium into the loop sodium storage vessel/tank and thereby limit the sodium mass released that could potentially burn if exposed to air. Information about the minimum sodium channel size can only be obtained by actually draining sodium from representative wetted stainless steel sodium channels under prototypical conditions. It is not possible to obtain such information through modeling and simulation or through simulant experiments. The ANL Sodium Draining and Refilling experiment facility has been designed and is being assembled to obtain data on the draining of sodium from compact diffusion-bonded sodium-to-carbon dioxide heat exchanger sodium channels including the mass of sodium drained versus time, the mass of sodium retained inside of the channels, and the potential for sodium to bridge the channel, freeze, and form a plug inside the channel versus the channel size. This information is needed to determine the minimum sodium channel size required to meet the requirements for sodium draining without bridges being left inside of the channels. Initial shakedown testing has been initiated using water and glass and plastic tubes before transitioning to sodium and stainless steel test sections. For the latter, the test sections will be heated to high temperature to promote rapid sodium wetting of the stainless steel prior to draining. Testing with sodium will be initiated in FY 2018.
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
FY 19 Performance Evaluation and Measurement Plan (PEMP) Progress Report Trimester 1: November 2018 - January 2019
No abstract provided
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems South East Regional Case Progress Report
This report discusses ongoing work to develop and evolve the modeling framework for evaluating nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) from a dynamic performance and cost perspective. A high-level multi-tiered steam header/turbine step-down system used in many chemical plants is coupled with a multi-modular nuclear reactor facility, representative of potential NHES deployment scenarios in the south eastern United States, to begin to demonstrate the feasibility of these hybrid systems in the market. The preliminary results of this system for three different scenarios is presented and future work is discussed
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
Quarterly Progress Report Q1 FY2019 Oct-Dec 2018 for Gamma-ray mirrors project
Our main activity this quarter was focused on scheduling and preparing for the experiment at the Irradiated Fuel Examination Laboratory (IFEL) at ORNL in order to “Carry out the experimental campaign with the three-mirror system” in the second quarter of FY19 as described in Phase 1/Task 1/Task1.1. Access to the IFEL beam port was finalized in December and the experiment is scheduled from January 22 to February 1st 2019. We are on track to complete our first technical milestone by the end of the second quarter.
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy: Final Progress Report
This project addresses the need for real time monitoring of actinide concentrations for spent fuel reprocessing utilizing alpha spectroscopy. This project specifically focuses on spent fuel reprocessing with the pyroprocessing technique that uses high temperature molten salt. Pyroprocessing uses molten salt such as lithium chloride and potassium chloride to separate out uranium and plutonium from spent fuel. To prevent any possible diversion of high purity plutonium in this process, monitoring of the actinide concentrations within the refinery are essential for safeguards and non-proliferation efforts. Alpha spectroscopy enables the identification and quantification of actinide isotopic concentrations. However, current assay methods involving intrusive sampling and ex-suit measurement require weeks to provide accurate information. A near real-time and in-situ measurement system is required to quickly quantify actinide isotopic concentrations within the salt. Semiconductor radiation detectors provide a compact, high energy resolution option for completing these measurement needs. Silicon carbide (SiC) has been shown to operate effectively at high temperatures and high chemical stability in the molten salt environment. 4H-SiC Schottky diode alpha particle detectors were fabricated and tested to determine their alpha spectroscopy capabilities. The detectors need to operate at the elevated temperatures, survive the molten salt environment, be radiation hard, and have sufficient energy resolution under all these conditions to determine isotopic concentrations. Along with the detector, a method of producing samples of the actinides in the salt is required. To produce a thin film of the actinides on the detector, which is a necessity for alpha spectroscopy, electrodeposition can be used. Electrodeposition uses an electric potential difference to selectively deposit uranium or other actinides from the salt using an anode and cathode. Deposition of the material directly onto the sensor would produce a thin film of material that would enable materials accountability measurements to be taken in real time.
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗