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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 433 records · Page 24
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1989

Summary and evaluation of the Strategic Defense Initiative Space Power Architecture Study

The Space Power Architecture Study (SPAS) identified and evaluated power subsystem options for multimegawatt electric (MMWE) space based weapons and surveillance platforms for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) applications. Steady state requirements of less than 1 MMWE are adequately covered by the SP-100 nuclear space power program and hence were not addressed in the SPAS. Four steady state power systems less than 1 MMWE were investigated with little difference between them on a mass basis. The majority of the burst power systems utilized H(2) from the weapons and were either closed (no effluent), open (effluent release) or steady state with storage (no effluent). Closed systems used nuclear or combustion heat source with thermionic, Rankine, turboalternator, fuel cell and battery conversion devices. Open systems included nuclear or combustion heat sources using turboalternator, magnetohydrodynamic, fuel cell or battery power conversion devices. The steady state systems with storage used the SP-100 or Star-M reactors as energy sources and flywheels, fuel cells or batteries to store energy for burst applications. As with other studies the open systems are by far the lightest, most compact and simplist (most reliable) systems. However, unlike other studies the SPAS studied potential platform operational problems caused by effluents or vibration.

Edenburn, M.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Zero Trust Strategies for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Detection Systems: D.1 Cyber Scenarios

The evolving landscape of cybersecurity necessitates a paradigm shift to a Zero Trust (ZT) model, which assumes breaches and continuously verifies trust. This approach reshapes how trust boundaries are established, focusing on identities, devices, networks, applications, and data, rather than solely relying on perimeter defenses such as firewalls. Central to this transformation is the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) Special Publication 800-207, outlining the Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), along with Executive Order 14028, which mandates federal agencies to adopt ZT principles. Complementary to these efforts, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) developed the Zero Trust Maturity Model (ZTMM), providing a framework with five pillars and three cross-cutting capabilities to guide agencies toward enhanced cybersecurity maturity. In support of these initiatives, the DHS Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office (CWMD) is applying ZT principles to secure Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) detection systems. Recognizing the diverse deployment models and network connectivity of these systems—from stationary, non-networked units to mobile, cloud-connected devices—the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is developing cybersecurity scenarios specifically for CBRN environments. These scenarios examine various configurations and technological capabilities, offering insights into the application of ZTMM pillars in enhancing the security postures of CBRN devices. The cybersecurity scenarios presented by PNNL are hypothetical, crafted to explore theoretical situations and stimulate discussion on the potential use or compromise of CBRN detection systems in varied contexts. These narratives are illustrative and do not reference any real events or actual networks. Instead, they employ generalized reference models to highlight concepts and potential issues within CBRN security, focusing on how Zero Trust strategies can be adapted to address these challenges effectively.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2024

The University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR) LEU Fuel Element Flow Test Preliminary Design

As part of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) mission to eliminate or minimize the civilian use of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU, ≥ 20 wt% U-235) fuels, the NNSA Material Management and Minimization (M3) Office of Reactor Conversion and Uranium Supply is collaborating with six U.S. high performance research reactors (USHPRR), including one critical facility, to convert from the use of HEU to low-enriched uranium (LEU, < 20 wt% U-235) fuel. Primary conversion objectives for the USHPRR are to develop LEU fuel element designs that will ensure safe reactor operations and maintain the existing experimental facilities performance. The work is being conducted through many interrelated activities by stakeholders across organizations.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Associate Laboratory Directorate for Weapon Physics (ALDX) [Slides]

ALDX is one of seven technical Directorates at the Laboratory and resides within the Weapons Program. The Weapons Physics Directorate stewards a number of critical capabilities to meet its mission. Our mission is to sustain the resilience of the US nuclear stockpile and help shape a globalized nuclear world. Sustaining the aging stockpile poses scientific challenges to assess and certify the stockpile without testing. We are helping to solve major technical challenges in the nuclear global security regime. Geopolitical realities demand the Laboratory’s excellence in providing solutions to national security problems. High Performance Computing at Los Alamos opens the doors to many sophisticated modeling techniques. We use many experimental facilities to probe weapons physics. The diverse skill set required to execute ALDX’s mission has benefited greatly from the Postdoc program.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2021

University of Missouri Research Reactor LEU Fuel Element Flow Test Conceptual Design

As part of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) mission to eliminate or minimize the civilian use of weapon-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuels, the NNSA Office of Material Management and Minimization (M 3 ) Conversion Program is collaborating with six U.S. High Performance Research Reactors (USHPRR), including one critical facility, to convert from the use of HEU to low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. The M 3 conversion objectives for the USHPRR are to develop LEU fuel-element designs that will ensure safe reactor operations, as well as maintain the existing experimental performance of each facility. The work is being conducted through many interrelated activities that are being completed by stakeholders across organizations.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2022

National Bureau of Standards Reactor LEU Fuel Element Flow Test Conceptual Design

As part of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) mission to eliminate or minimize the civilian use of weapon-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuels, the NNSA Office of Material Management and Minimization (M 3 ) Reactor Conversion Program is collaborating with six U.S. High Performance Research Reactors (USHPRR), including one critical facility, to convert from the use of HEU to low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. The M3 conversion objectives for the USHPRR are to develop LEU fuel element designs that will ensure safe reactor operations and maintain the existing experimental performance of each facility. The work is being conducted through many interrelated activities that are being completed by stakeholders across organizations.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2023

IER 500: AWE-LLNL Measurement Campaign at DAF [Slides]

Presentation Hosted at Device Assembly Facility (DAF). Joint collaboration by Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Multiple measurements were recorded through a two-week period with 12 unique objects measured. LLNL deployed Machine learning software program for diagnostic assessments. Current status notes the dedicated DAF team LLNL maintains. Additionally, LLNL is compiling a report on the AWE-LLNL measurements and designing security benchmark experiments. The presentation concludes with future work envisioned.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Cyber-Physical Tabletop Exercise for Small Modular Reactor Facilities

U.S. nuclear power facilities face increasing challenges in meeting dynamic security requirements caused by evolving and expanding threats while keeping costs reasonable to make nuclear energy competitive. This evolving threat landscape includes adversaries having offensive cyber capabilities to attack information technology (IT) systems and operation technology (OT) systems. These adversaries may have the ability to attack the physical protection system (PPS) networks with potential consequential impacts that could degrade the effectiveness of the PPS. These cyber attacks may also be used to attack the safety and operational systems used to operate and ensure the safety of the reactor. Additionally, adversaries may gain access to unmanned aerial systems (UAS) that may be used to provide reconnaissance and surveillance of the facility, provide information to the adversaries, and be equipped with kinetic capabilities such as explosives or weapons that can be used to directly attack the facility. The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy’s Advanced Reactor Safeguards and Security (ARSS) program funded Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop a cyber-physical tabletop exercise (TTX). This exercise was conducted on a hypothetical small modular reactor (SMR) facility, and only considered a potential adversary cyber attack on the PPS to a physical attack on the hypothetical facility to achieve a radiological release. This cyber-physical TTX is meant to provide lessons learned to integrate the cyber security system design and the physical protection system (PPS) design to decrease design, operation, and maintenance costs as well as increase effectiveness for defending against design basis threat attacks at the facility. This TTX will also provide a framework and method for SMR and microreactor vendors to conduct their own cyber-physical TTX and gain impactful insights to improving the cyber and physical protection system design for their SMR or microreactor facility design.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS2008

Fabricating High-Resolution X-Ray Collimators

A process and method for fabricating multi-grid, high-resolution rotating modulation collimators for arcsecond and sub-arcsecond x-ray and gamma-ray imaging involves photochemical machining and precision stack lamination. The special fixturing and etching techniques that have been developed are used for the fabrication of multiple high-resolution grids on a single array substrate. This technology has application in solar and astrophysics and in a number of medical imaging applications including mammography, computed tomography (CT), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), and gamma cameras used in nuclear medicine. This collimator improvement can also be used in non-destructive testing, hydrodynamic weapons testing, and microbeam radiation therapy.

Appleby, Michael↗
DOE OSTI2021

Plutonium workers get a new level of education in the actinide mission

The Associate Laboratory Directorate for Weapons Production (ALDWP) and the National Security Education Center (NSEC) have teamed to develop a new Nuclear Enterprise Science and Technology (NEST) Academic Certificate program offered through the University of New Mexico – Los Alamos (UNM-LA). The pilot program, which virtually kicked off on January 19 even amidst snow closures, received accreditation by the State Higher Education Department (HED) in FY20 and is designed for LANL’s existing fissile material handler technician and technologist employee workforce. It will provide essential science, operations, and business education on all aspects of working in modern nuclear materials handling and processing facilities. The first course for the certificate program is called “Nuclear Facility Fundamentals.” A call for nominations went out to the directorate and a cohort of 15 individuals has been established to start the program.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Gleaming new facility delivers expertise now and into the future

On Tuesday, July 27, leadership from the Prototype Fabrication (PF) division welcomed a band of machinists, managers, project managers, members of Lab leadership, and NNSA to celebrate the official opening of a facility like no other at the Laboratory, and unique across the globe. The Mark Quality Manufacturing Center (MQMC) was developed throughout 2020 in support of weapons production capabilities, and is the Lab’s new home for high-precision non-nuclear components manufacturing. Work has been occurring there for several months, but with pandemic restrictions easing, it was finally time to celebrate.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2022

Welcome to the Nuclear Fundamentals Orientation (NFO) Module 3 [Slides]

The purpose of NFO is to create a shared understanding of and appreciation for the overall weapons mission and how it is accomplished; highlight how the various roles in the Weapons Program contribute to mission success; and accelerate new employee integration.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2024

Measurements of radioxenon activities during periods of gaseous release from an advanced gas-cooled reactor

Activities of radioxenon isotopes are reported from an Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) during periods of gaseous release. Xenon isotopes are relevant to the monitoring regime of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). These releases may affect detections from the International Monitoring System (IMS) by influencing the radioxenon background. Time series activity plots have been produced from both in-core monitoring and direct measurement at the point of release using a stack monitor system. Ratio plots using both data sets have been produced with results compared with a commonly chosen nuclear explosion “discrimination line.” The reported results improve the understanding of radionuclide emissions from civil nuclear power plants. This work is being performed as part of the Xenon Environmental Nuclide Analysis at Hartlepool (XENAH) collaboration between the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE, UK), EDF Energy (UK), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL, USA), and the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI).

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Data from Rossi-α and Pulsed Neutron Prompt Neutron Time Decay Measurements at the Oak Ridge Critical Experiments Facility

This report briefly describes the prompt neutron decay measurements by the Rossi-α and pulsed neutron methods performed at the Oak Ridge Critical Experiments Facility. It briefly describes the measurement equipment, the type of data, and how to access the actual data from the Laboratory Records Department at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the International Nuclear Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Program at Idaho National Laboratory. Most of the data was acquired between 1960 and 1975 with weapons-grade enriched uranium metal assemblies. It also includes measurement of these types performed at Los Alamos National Laboratory by Oak Ridge National Laboratory with the JEZEBEL and FLATTOP criticality assemblies and other plutonium metal parts. The purpose of this report is to support future mining of the data for publication of additional information that can be used to verify calculational methods and nuclear cross sections. Present calculational methods can be used to directly calculate the measured data.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Structural Health Monitoring: Using an Autoencoder to Identify Damage in a Bolted Joint [Capstone Project]

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is an important fixture in the United States Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) complex. LANL is one of the largest national laboratories in the country, and the laboratory’s primary mission is to support the nation’s nuclear stockpile. The lab functions as a design agencies for the NNSA and performs extensive testing on weapons as part of that mission. The shock and vibration test team at LANL utilizes electrodynamic shaker systems for important qualification testing in support of the laboratory’s mission. Modern engineering relies heavily on bolted joints to connect two objects. During these shaker tests, engineers depend on bolted joints to secure the test article to a fixture and the fixture to the table. The test article may be hazardous and contain high explosives which could create a safety issue if a bolted joint failed. A loss of preload in a bolt will affect the way energy is input to the system and may introduce nonlinearities as the joint opens and closes. The loss of preload can create challenges controlling the test and make acquired signals useless. Being able to monitor preload within bolted joints during testing can improve the quality of the data and keep workers safe.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Routine Beryllium-10 analysis from post-detonation debris and geologic materials [Slides]

Beryllium (Be) isotope measurements provide insight into weapon design, yield, etc. Sample preparation nor measurement capability currently existed at LANL. Potential capability directly benefits nuclear forensics venture. PI Goehring has nearly 20 years of Be chemistry experience, including method implementation with difficult samples.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Heat Loss Correction Factor for Fireball Yield Measurements

Fireball yield calculations are performed using Taylor’s radius equation. However, at early times, the x-ray diffusion process has a significant effect on the size of the fireball, and at late times the shock wave degenerates into an acoustic wave. Thus, earlier research determined that the range of validity for Taylor’s equation was in the scaled time regime of 0.004–0.008 s. So, when performing a yield calculation, the only values that are analyzed are those that lie within that range of validity. While Taylor’s equations offer an approximation of the scaled yield, they also rely on several assumptions. For example, the equations assume that the shock wave is adiabatic, when, in fact, the first light pulse on the nuclear test films, which occurs as the shock wave is forming, suggests that the shock wave is not adiabatic. Furthermore, the amount of heat loss from the shock wave that occurs prior to the scaled time regime of 0.004–0.008 s can change significantly as a function of air density. This may cause the shock wave radius to be smaller relative to the assumed adiabatic shock wave. Therefore, the objective of this project was to determine the correction factor for heat transfer, which should be applied in order to produce a more accurate approximation of the weapon’s yield.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗