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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 451 records · Page 25
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

Implementation and analysis of an innovative digital charge amplifier for hysteresis reduction in piezoelectric stack actuators

Smart actuators are the key components in a variety of nanopositioning applications, such as scanning probe microscopes and atomic force microscopes. Piezoelectric actuators are the most common smart actuators due to their high resolution, low power consumption, and wide operating frequency but they suffer hysteresis which affects linearity. In this paper, an innovative digital charge amplifier is presented to reduce hysteresis in piezoelectric stack actuators. Compared to traditional analog charge drives, experimental results show that the piezoelectric stack actuator driven by the digital charge amplifier has less hysteresis. It is also shown that the voltage drop of the digital charge amplifier is significantly less than the voltage drop of conventional analog charge amplifiers.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

A brief history of design studies on innovative nuclear reactors

In a short period after the success of CP1, many types of nuclear reactors were proposed and investigated. However, soon only a small number of reactors were selected for practical use. Around 1970, only LWRs with small number of CANDUs were operated in the western world, and FBRs were under development. It was about the time when Apollo moon landing was accomplished. However, at the same time, the future of human being was widely considered pessimistic and Limits to Growth was published. In the end of 1970’s the TMI accident occurred and many nuclear reactor contracts were cancelled in USA and any more contracts had not been concluded until recent years. From the reflection of this accident, many Inherent Safe Reactors (ISRs) were proposed, though none of them were constructed. A common idea of ISRs is smallness of their size. Tokyo Institute of Technology (TokyoTech) held a symposium on small reactors, SR/TIT, in 1991, where many types of small ISRs were presented. Recently small reactors attract interest again. The most ideas employed in these reactors were the same discussed in SR/TIT. In 1980’s the radioactive wastes from fuel cycle became a severe problem around the world. In TokyoTech, this issue was discussed mainly from the viewpoint of nuclear transmutations. The neutron economy became inevitable for these innovative nuclear reactors especially small long-life reactors and transmutation reactors.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2014

An innovative Yb-based ultrafast deep ultraviolet source for time-resolved photoemission experiments

Time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy is a powerful technique to study ultrafast electronic dynamics in solids. Here, an innovative optical setup based on a 100-kHz Yb laser source is presented. Exploiting non-collinear optical parametric amplification and sum-frequency generation, ultrashort pump (hν = 1.82 eV) and ultraviolet probe (hν = 6.05 eV) pulses are generated. Overall temporal and instrumental energy resolutions of, respectively, 85 fs and 50 meV are obtained. Time- and angle-resolved measurements on BiTeI semiconductor are presented to show the capabilities of the setup.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2023

Pushing the performance limits of long wavelength interband cascade lasers using innovative quantum well active regions

Here, we report significantly enhanced device performance in long wavelength interband cascade lasers (ICLs) by employing a recently proposed innovative quantum well (QW) active region containing strained InAsP layers. These ICLs were able to operate at wavelengths near 14.4 μm, the longest ever demonstrated for III–V interband lasers, implying great potential of ICLs to cover an even wider wavelength range. Also, by applying the aforesaid QW active region configuration on ICLs at relatively short wavelengths, ICLs were demonstrated at a low threshold current density (e.g., 13 A/cm 2 at 80 K) and at temperatures up to 212 K near 12.4 μm, more than 50 K higher than the previously reported ICLs with the standard W-shape QW active region at similar wavelengths. This suggests that the QW active region with InAsP layers can be used to improve device performance at the shorter wavelengths.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2026

The Teller–Ulam Innovation at 75: An Idea that Changed the World and Disputes over Credit

The 1951 Teller–Ulam breakthrough led to the 1952 invention of the hydrogen bomb and set the template for subsequent thermonuclear weapons designs that have played a pivotal role in geopolitics. In the years that followed, disputes arose as to how credit should be apportioned. This article surveys the claims made by Teller and Ulam, as well as by top U.S. scientists who were working with them on the H-bomb project at Los Alamos, drawing on many sources that are not widely available. It is hoped that these documented opinions of key scientific leaders (Bethe, Wheeler, Bradbury, Garwin, and so on), together with the cover page of the H-bomb patent, will be of interest to readers. The opinions vary widely, and even Teller and Ulam changed their assessments with time, becoming more convinced of their own dominant role as they aged. The average of the opinions is that Teller deserves about two-thirds of the credit and Ulam, one-third. While these disputes might detract from the elegance of scientific progress, they do show that advances occur from collaboration, competition, and varying lines of attack; indeed, the key contributors to this innovation might be better named as Teller–Ulam–Fermi–Konopinski–de Hoffmann.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Innovative rail transport of a supersized land-based wind turbine blade

Wind turbine blade logistic providers are being challenged with escalating costs and routing complexities as one-piece blade approach lengths of 75 m in various regions of the U.S. land-based market. New lower cost solutions are needed to enable further reductions in the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and continued market expansion. In this paper, a novel method of using existing U.S. rail infrastructure to deploy 100-m, one-piece blades to U.S. land-based wind sites is numerically investigated. The study removes the constraint that blades must be kept rigid during transport, and it allows bending to keep blades within a clearance profile while navigating horizontal and vertical curvatures. Novel system optimization and blade design processes consider blade structural constraints and rail logistic constraints in parallel to develop a highly flexible, rail-transportable blade. Results indicate maximum deployment potential in the Interior region of the United States and limited deployment potential in other regions. The study concludes that innovative rail transportation solutions combined with advanced rotor technologies can provide a feasible alternative to segmentation and support continued LCOE reductions in the U.S. land-based wind energy market.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Innovative compact braze-free accelerating cavity

We report that high energy physics experiments using particle accelerators as well as industrial and medical applications are continuously seeking more compact, robust and cheaper accelerating structures. As of today, stable operating gradients, exceeding 100 MV/m, have been demonstrated by the SLAC group in the X-Band (11.424 GHz). These experiments show that hard structures, fabricated without high-temperature processes, achieve a better high gradient performance in terms of accelerating gradients. Therefore, we present an innovative and compact type of accelerating cavity that avoids any high-temperature processes like brazing or diffusion bonding. All cells are joined together by means of specifically designed and proprietary screws which ensure good vacuum and RF contacts. Two three-cell standing-wave accelerating structures, designed to operate in the pi-mode at 11.424 GHz, have been successfully built and cold tested. In order to guarantee a vacuum envelope and mechanically robust assembly, we used the Electron Beam Welding (EBW) and the Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) processes. Lastly, this work has been carried out in the framework of a funded project by the Vth Committee of the INFN for the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (LNF), within a large international collaboration between LNF, SLAC and KEK for the development of X-Band accelerating cavities using "hard structure" technology.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Chapter 5: Major Biological Innovations in the History of Life on Earth

All organisms living on Earth descended from a single, common ancestral population of cells, known as LUCA—the last universal common ancestor. Since its emergence, the diversity and complexity of life have increased dramatically. Here this chapter focuses on four key biological innovations throughout Earth's history that had a significant impact on the expansion of phylogenetic diversity, organismal complexity, and ecospace habitation. First is the emergence of the last universal common ancestor, LUCA, which laid the foundation for all life-forms on Earth. Second is the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis, which resulted in global geochemical and biological transformations. Third is the appearance of a new type of cell—the eukaryotic cell—which led to the origin of a new domain of life and the basis for complex multicellularity. Fourth is the multiple independent origins of multicellularity, resulting in the emergence of a new level of complex individuality. A discussion of these four key events will improve our understanding of the intertwined history of our planet and its inhabitants and better inform the extent to which we can expect life at different degrees of diversity and complexity elsewhere.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2017

Product-Focused Innovation and Value Creation are Needed to Drive Commodity-Scale Algae Production

Microalgae’s (algae) productivity can greatly exceed that of terrestrial plants. Scientists, policy makers, entrepreneurs, and investors have long hoped to harness these high biomass yields to produce novel solutions for energy and nutrition. Despite nearly 60 years of research and development efforts, commodity-scale production of algae food or fuels has yet to materialize. A recent pivot in focus from fuels to food by the algal biotechnology industry presents an opportunity to evaluate historical challenges to commodity-scale production. Food and fuel commercialization efforts are compared below though a lens of product-focused innovation strategy. Here, this analysis is then used to identify several recommendations to enable industry growth.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Functional Divergence in a Multi-gene Family Is a Key Evolutionary Innovation for Anaerobic Growth in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The amplification and diversification of genes into large multi-gene families often mark key evolutionary innovations, but this process often creates genetic redundancy that hinders functional investigations. When the model budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae transitions to anaerobic growth conditions, the cell massively induces the expression of seven serine/threonine-rich anaerobically-induced cell wall mannoproteins (anCWMPs): TIP1, TIR1, TIR2, TIR3, TIR4, DAN1, and DAN4. Here, we show that these genes likely derive evolutionarily from a single ancestral anCWMP locus, which was duplicated and translocated to new genomic contexts several times both prior to and following the budding yeast whole genome duplication (WGD) event. Based on synteny and their phylogeny, we separate the anCWMPs into four gene subfamilies. To resolve prior inconclusive genetic investigations of these genes, we constructed a set of combinatorial deletion mutants to determine their contributions toward anaerobic growth in S. cerevisiae. We found that two genes, TIR1 and TIR3, were together necessary and sufficient for the anCWMP contribution to anaerobic growth. Overexpressing either gene alone was insufficient for anaerobic growth, implying that they encode non-overlapping functional roles in the cell during anaerobic growth. We infer from the phylogeny of the anCWMP genes that these two important genes derive from an ancient duplication that predates the WGD event, whereas the TIR1 subfamily experienced gene family amplification after the WGD event. Taken together, the genetic and molecular evidence suggests that one key anCWMP gene duplication event, several auxiliary gene duplication events, and functional divergence underpin the evolution of anaerobic growth in budding yeasts.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2015

Ancient origin and recent innovations of RNA polymerase IV and V

Small RNA-mediated chromatin modification is a conserved feature of eukaryotes. In flowering plants, the short interfering (si)RNAs that direct transcriptional silencing are abundant and subfunctionalization has led to specialized machinery responsible for synthesis and action of these small RNAs. In particular, plants possess polymerase (Pol) IV and Pol V, multi-subunit homologs of the canonical DNA-dependent RNA Pol II, as well as specialized members of the RNA-dependent RNA Polymerase (RDR), Dicer-like (DCL), and Argonaute (AGO) families. Together these enzymes are required for production and activity of Pol IV-dependent (p4-)siRNAs, which trigger RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM) at homologous sequences. p4-siRNAs accumulate highly in developing endosperm, a specialized tissue found only in flowering plants, and are rare in nonflowering plants, suggesting that the evolution of flowers might coincide with the emergence of specialized RdDM machinery. Through comprehensive identification of RdDM genes from species representing the breadth of the land plant phylogeny, we describe the ancient origin of Pol IV and Pol V, suggesting that a nearly complete and functional RdDM pathway could have existed in the earliest land plants. We also uncover innovations in these enzymes that are coincident with the emergence of seed plants and flowering plants, and recent duplications that might indicate additional subfunctionalization. Phylogenetic analysis reveals rapid evolution of Pol IV and Pol V subunits relative to their Pol II counterparts and suggests that duplicates were retained and subfunctionalized through Escape from Adaptive Conflict. Finally, evolution within the carboxy-terminal domain of the Pol V largest subunit is particularly striking, where illegitimate recombination facilitated extreme sequence divergence.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

Gene duplication and genetic innovation in cereal genomes

Organisms continuously require genetic variation to adapt to fluctuating environments, yet major evolutionary events are episodic, making the relationship between genome evolution and organismal adaptation of considerable interest. Here, by genome-wide comparison of sorghum, maize, and rice SNPs, we investigated reservoirs of genetic variations with high precision. For sorghum and rice, which have not experienced whole-genome duplication in 96 million years or more, tandem duplicates accumulate relatively more SNPs than paralogous genes retained from genome duplication. However, maize, which experienced lineage-specific genome duplication and has a relatively larger supply of paralogous duplicates, shows SNP enrichment in paralogous genes. The proportion of genes showing signatures of recent positive selection is higher in small-scale (tandem and transposed) than genome-scale duplicates in sorghum, but the opposite is true in maize. A large proportion of recent duplications in rice are species-specific; however, most recent duplications in sorghum are derived from ancestral gene families. A new retrotransposon family was also a source of many recent sorghum duplications, illustrating a role in providing variation for genetic innovations. This study shows that diverse evolutionary mechanisms provide the raw genetic material for adaptation in taxa with divergent histories of genome evolution.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

Innovative sensing technologies for nuclear instrumentation

The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is engaged in research and development activities for the development of nuclear instrumentation that contribute to advances in measurement methodologies, measurement systems, instrumentation, and sensors in the area of nuclear engineering. The activities described in this paper are centered on the INL Measurement Science Department, which was formed in 2018. Their mission is to develop instrumentation that provides real time, accurate, spatially resolved information regarding test conditions and the performance of fuels and materials during irradiation. This paper describes the integration of innovative optical fiber, acoustic and electrical impedance sensing technologies and measurement techniques as part of the activities.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2021

A Review of Current Research Trends in Power-Electronic Innovations in Cyber–Physical Systems

Here, in this article, a broad overview of the current research trends in power-electronic innovations in cyber–physical systems (CPSs) is presented. The recent advances in semiconductor device technologies, control architectures, and communication methodologies have enabled researchers to develop integrated smart CPSs that can cater to the emerging requirements of smart grids, renewable energy, electric vehicles, trains, ships, the Internet of Things (IoT), and so on. The topics presented in this article include novel power-distribution architectures, protection techniques considering large renewable integration in smart grids, wireless charging in electric vehicles, simultaneous power and information transmission, multihop network-based coordination, power technologies for renewable energy and smart transformer, CPS reliability, transactive smart railway grid, and real-time simulation of shipboard power systems. It is anticipated that the research trends presented in this article will provide a timely and useful overview to the power-electronics researchers with broad applications in CPSs.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Virtual Power Plants: Pilots, Challenges, and Innovations Shaping Future Development

Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) aggregate distributed energy resources (DERs) to provide grid services traditionally delivered by centralized power plants. This article reviews the current state of VPP deployment, highlighting business models, compensation mechanisms, and global pilot projects. While VPPs offer benefits such as grid flexibility, resilience, and cost savings, challenges remain in communication infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, market access, and customer engagement. To address these, we propose a scalable, privacy-preserving hierarchical VPP architecture that coordinates with distribution utilities and preserves customer data. We also present the Integrated T&D Control Room of the Future as a key test bed for validating and accelerating VPP adoption. These innovations can help transition VPPs from pilot programs to integral components of a modern, reliable power grid.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2018

An Innovative Software Tool Suite for Power Plant Model Validation and Parameter Calibration using PMU Measurements

Maintaining good quality of power plant stability models is of critical importance to ensure the secure and economic operation and planning of today’s power grid with its increasing stochastic and dynamic behavior. According to North American Electric Reliability (NERC) standards, all generators in North America with capacities larger than 10 MVA are required to validate their models every five years. Validation is quite costly and can significantly affect the revenue of generator owners, because the traditional staged testing requires generators to be taken offline. Over the past few years, validating and calibrating parameters using online measurements including phasor measurement units (PMUs) and digital fault recorders (DFRs) has been proven to be a cost-effective approach. In this paper, an innovative open-source tool suite is presented for validating power plant models using PPMV tool, identifying bad parameters with trajectory sensitivity analysis, and finally calibrating parameters using an ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) based algorithm. The architectural design and the detailed procedures to run the tool suite are presented, with results of test on a realistic hydro power plant using PMU measurements for 12 different events. The calibrated parameters of machine, exciter, governor and PSS models demonstrate much better performance than the original models for all the events and show the robustness of the proposed calibration algorithm.

Li, Yuanyuan↗
DOE OSTI2016

Innovative divertor concept development on DIII-D and EAST

A critical issue facing the design and operation of next-step high-power steady-state fusion devices is the control of heat fluxes and erosion at the plasma-facing components, in particular, the divertor target plates. A new initiative has been launched on DIII-D to develop and demonstrate innovative boundary plasma-materials interface solutions. The central purposes of this new initiative are to advance scientific understanding in this critical area and develop an advanced divertor concept for application to next-step fusion devices. Finally, DIII-D will leverage strong collaborative efforts on the EAST superconducting tokamak for extending integrated high performance advanced divertor solutions to true steady-state.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Development, calibration, and experimental results obtained with an innovative calorimeter (CALMOS) for nuclear heating measurements

Nuclear heating inside an MTR reactor has to be known in order to be able to control samples temperature during irradiation experiments. An R and D program has been carried out at CEA to design a new type of in-core calorimetric system. This new development, started in 2002, has for main objective to manufacture a calorimeter suitable to monitoring nuclear heating inside the 70 MWth OSIRIS material testing reactor operated by CEA's Nuclear Energy Division at the Saclay research center. An innovative calorimetric probe, associated to a specific handling system, has been designed to provide access to measurements both along the fissile height and on the upper part of the core, where nuclear heating still remains high. Two mock-ups of the probe were manufactured and tested in 2005 and 2009 in ex-core area of OSIRIS reactor for process validation, while a displacement system has been especially studied to move the probe along a given axial measurement range. This paper deals with the development, tests on preliminary mock-ups and the finalization of the probe. Main modeling and experimental results are presented. Moreover, alternative methods to calibration for nuclear heating rate measurements which are now possible with this new calorimeter are presented and discussed. (authors)

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗