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At least 451 records · Page 25

A Method to Represent a Well in a Three‐Dimensional Discrete Fracture Network Model

Abstract In discrete fracture network (DFN) modeling, fractures are randomly generated and placed in the model domain. The rock matrix is considered impermeable. Small fractures and isolated fractures are often ignored to reduce computational expense. As a result, the rock matrix between fractures could be large and intersections may not be found between a well introduced in the model and the hydraulically connected fracture networks (fracture backbones). To overcome this issue, this study developed a method to conceptualize a well in a three‐dimensional (3D) DFN using two orthogonal rectangular fractures oriented along the well's axis. Six parameters were introduced to parameterize the well screen and skin zone, and to control the connectivity between the well and the fracture backbones. The two orthogonal fractures were discretized using a high‐resolution mesh to improve the quality of flow and transport simulations around and along the well. The method was successfully implemented within dfnWorks 2.0 (Hyman et al. 2015) to incorporate a well in a 3D DFN and to track particles leaving an injection well and migrating to a pumping well. Verification of the method against MODFLOW/MODPATH found a perfect match in simulated hydraulic head and particle tracking. Using three examples, the study showed that the method ensured the connectivity between wells and fracture backbones, and honored the physical processes of flow and transport along and around wells in DFNs. Recommendations are given for estimating the values of the six introduced well parameters in a real‐world case study.

Pham, Hai (ORCID:0000000310164394)↗

Crystal structure of Rb{sub 2}Mn{sub 3}(H{sub 2}O){sub 2}[P{sub 2}O{sub 7}]{sub 2}, a new representative of the family of hydrated diphosphates

The crystal structure of Rb{sub 2}Mn{sub 3}(H{sub 2}O){sub 2}[P{sub 2}O{sub 7}]{sub 2}, a new phase obtained in the form of single crystals under hydrothermal conditions in the MnCl{sub 2}–Rb{sub 3}PO{sub 4}–H{sub 2}O system, is determined by X-ray diffraction (Xcalibur-S-CCD diffractometer, R = 0.0270): a = 9.374(2), b = 8.367(2), c = 9.437(2) Å, ß = 99.12(2)°, space group P2{sub 1}/c, Z = 2, D{sub x} = 3.27 g/cm{sup 3}. A correlation between the unit-cell parameters and the size of cations forming the crystal structures of isostructural A{sub 2}M{sub 3}(H{sub 2}O){sub 2}[P{sub 2}O{sub 7}]{sub 2} diphosphates (A = K, NH{sub 4}, Rb, or Na; {sub M} = Mn, Fe, Co, or Ni) is revealed. It is shown that, due to the topological similarity, the structures of diphosphates and orthophosphates of the farringtonite structural type can undergo mutual transformations.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Physics-Based Model to Represent Membrane-Electrode Assemblies of Solid-Oxide Fuel Cells Based on Gadolinium-Doped Ceria

This paper reports a physics-based model that predicts membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) performance of solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) with Ce 0.9 Gd 0.1 O 2− δ (GDC10) electrolyte membranes. The paper derives self-consistent thermodynamic and transport properties for GDC1o mobile charged defects (oxide vacancies and reduced-ceria small polarons) by fitting published measurements of oxygen non-stoichiometry and conductivity over ranges of temperature and O 2 partial pressures. The button-cell model is applied to evaluate how mixed ionic-electronic conductivity influences the performance of an SOFC MEA with a GDC10 electrolyte sandwiched between a porous, composite Ni-GDC10 anode and a porous, composite cathode of Sm 0.5 Sr 0.5 CoO 3− δ (i.e., SSC) and GDC10. SSC properties are also derived by fitting published conductivity and oxygen non-stoichiometry measurements. Mixed conductivity of GDC10 and competing charge transfer reactions at both electrodes reduce open circuit voltages due to leakage current and buildup of defect concentrations at electrode-electrolyte interfaces. To fit polarization data, the button-cell model includes heterogeneous reaction rates for defect incorporation on the GDC10 surface along with Butler–Volmer expressions derived for competing charge transfer reaction rates from rigorous analyses assuming rate-limiting, elementary charge transfer reactions for each electrode. The calibrated MEA model can support rigorous SOFC modeling with GDC10 electrolytes over the range of conditions within a fully operating cell.

Electrochemistry↗

How Well Can CMIP6 Models Represent the Observed Influence of the Pacific and Indian Oceans on the Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall?

This study evaluates the ability of CMIP6 climate models to simulate the observed effects of tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) on Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) variability. Using observational data and the large ensemble historical simulations of seven CMIP6 models from 1950 to 2014, we applied a cyclostationary linear inverse model (CS-LIM) to isolate the impacts of tropical Pacific SSTAs, Indian Ocean SSTAs and their interaction on the interannual variability of ISMR. Overall, CMIP6 models well reproduced the observed enhanced (reduced) ISMR variability from Pacific SSTAs (Indian Ocean SSTAs and the Indo-Pacific interaction), but with varying spatial patterns and magnitudes. While CESM2 and E3SM-2-0 showed the best agreement with observations for the effects of Pacific SSTAs and the Indo-Pacific interaction, respectively, CMIP6 models showed mixed results for the impacts from Indian Ocean SSTAs. Composite analysis of ISMR anomalies during the developing phases of pure and co-occurring El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) events revealed that the impacts from Pacific SSTAs were captured reasonably well by E3SM-2-0, CESM2, MIROC6, and MPI-ESM1-2-LR, while E3SM-2-0 also showed the best agreement with observations for the effects from the Indo-Pacific interaction. However, all models showed substantial biases in simulating the Indian Ocean SSTA impacts on ISMR, especially for pure El Niño events. Overall, this study provides new insights into how individual CMIP6 models simulate the isolated impacts from the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans, which has important applications for improving ISMR predictions and interpreting ISMR future projections.

monsoon↗

Can the GPM IMERG Final Product Accurately Represent MCSs’ Precipitation Characteristics over the Central and Eastern United States?

Mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) play an important role in water and energy cycles as they produce heavy rainfall and modify the radiative profile in the tropics and midlatitudes. An accurate representation of MCSs’ rainfall is therefore crucial in understanding their impact on the climate system. The V06B Integrated Multisatellite Retrievals from Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG) half-hourly precipitation final product is a useful tool to study the precipitation characteristics of MCSs because of its global coverage and fine spatiotemporal resolutions. However, errors and uncertainties in IMERG should be quantified before applying it to hydrology and climate applications. This study evaluates IMERG performance on capturing and detecting MCSs’ precipitation in the central and eastern United States during a 3-yr study period against the radar-based Stage IV product. The tracked MCSs are divided into four seasons and are analyzed separately for both datasets. IMERG shows a wet bias in total precipitation but a dry bias in hourly mean precipitation during all seasons due to the false classification of nonprecipitating pixels as precipitating. These false alarm events are possibly caused by evaporation under the cloud base or the misrepresentation of MCS cold anvil regions as precipitating clouds by the algorithm. IMERG agrees reasonably well with Stage IV in terms of the seasonal spatial distribution and diurnal cycle of MCSs precipitation. A relative humidity (RH)-based correction has been applied to the IMERG precipitation product, which helps reduce the number of false alarm pixels and improves the overall performance of IMERG with respect to Stage IV.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Subseasonal prediction with and without a well-represented stratosphere in CESM1

There is a growing demand for understanding sources of predictability on subseasonal to seasonal (S2S) time scales. Predictability at subseasonal time scales is believed to come from processes varying slower than the atmosphere such as soil moisture, snowpack, sea ice, and ocean heat content. The stratosphere as well as tropospheric modes of variability can also provide predictability at subseasonal time scales. Furthermore, the contributions of the above sources to S2S predictability are not well quantified. Here we evaluate the subseasonal prediction skill of the Community Earth System Model, version 1 (CESM1), in the default version of the model as well as a version with the improved representation of stratospheric variability to assess the role of an improved stratosphere on prediction skill. We demonstrate that the subseasonal skill of CESM1 for surface temperature and precipitation is comparable to that of operational models. We find that a better-resolved stratosphere improves stratospheric but not surface prediction skill for weeks 3–4.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Genome sequence of the pink–pigmented marine bacterium Loktanella hongkongensis type strain (UST950701–009PT), a representative of the Roseobacter group

Loktanella hongkongensis UST950701-009PT is a Gram-negative, non-motile and rod-shaped bacterium isolated from a marine biofilm in the subtropical seawater of Hong Kong. When growing as a monospecies biofilm on polystyrene surfaces, this bacterium is able to induce larval settlement and metamorphosis of a ubiquitous polychaete tubeworm Hydroides elegans. The inductive cues are low-molecular weight compounds bound to the exopolymeric matrix of the bacterial cells. In the present study we describe the features of L. hongkongensis strain DSM 17492T together with its genome sequence and annotation and novel aspects of its phenotype. The 3,198,444 bp long genome sequence encodes 3104 protein-coding genes and 57 RNA genes. Lastly, the two unambiguously identified extrachromosomal replicons contain replication modules of the RepB and the Rhodobacteraceae-specific DnaA-like type, respectively.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Genome sequence of Shimia str. SK013, a representative of the Roseobacter group isolated from marine sediment

Abstract Shimia strain SK013 is an aerobic, Gram-negative, rod shaped alphaproteobacterium affiliated with the Roseobacter group within the family Rhodobacteraceae . The strain was isolated from surface sediment (0–1 cm) of the Skagerrak at 114 m below sea level. The 4,049,808 bp genome of Shimia str. SK013 comprises 3,981 protein-coding genes and 47 RNA genes. It contains one chromosome and no extrachromosomal elements. The genome analysis revealed the presence of genes for a dimethylsulfoniopropionate lyase, demethylase and the trimethylamine methyltransferase ( mttB ) as well as genes for nitrate, nitrite and dimethyl sulfoxide reduction. This indicates that Shimia str. SK013 is able to switch from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism and thus is capable of aerobic and anaerobic sulfur cycling at the seafloor. Among the ability to convert other sulfur compounds it has the genetic capacity to produce climatically active dimethyl sulfide. Growth on glutamate as a sole carbon source results in formation of cell-connecting filaments, a putative phenotypic adaptation of the surface-associated strain to the environmental conditions at the seafloor. Genome analysis revealed the presence of a flagellum ( fla 1) and a type IV pilus biogenesis, which is speculated to be a prerequisite for biofilm formation. This is also related to genes responsible for signalling such as N-acyl homoserine lactones, as well as quip-genes responsible for quorum quenching and antibiotic biosynthesis. Pairwise similarities of 16S rRNA genes (98.56 % sequence similarity to the next relative S. haliotis ) and the in silico DNA-DNA hybridization (21.20 % sequence similarity to S. haliotis ) indicated Shimia str. SK013 to be considered as a new species. The genome analysis of Shimia str. SK013 offered first insights into specific physiological and phenotypic adaptation mechanisms of Roseobacter- affiliated bacteria to the benthic environment.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Representative Source Terms and the Influence of Reactor Attributes on Functional Containment in Modular High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors

Modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (MHTGRs) offer a high degree of passive safety. The low power density of the reactor and the high heat capacity of the graphite core result in slow transients that do not challenge the integrity of the robust TRISO fuel. Another benefit of this fuel form and the surrounding graphite is their superior ability to retain fission products under all anticipated normal and off-normal conditions, which limits reactor accident source terms to very low values. In this paper, we develop estimates of the source term for a generic MHTGR to illustrate the performance of the radionuclide barriers that comprise the MHTGR functional containment. We also examine the influence of initial fuel quality, fuel performance/failure, reactor outlet temperature, and retention outside of the reactor core on the resultant source term to the environment.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Representing Kidney Development Using the Gene Ontology

Gene Ontology (GO) provides dynamic controlled vocabularies to aid in the description of the functional biological attributes and subcellular locations of gene products from all taxonomic groups (www.geneontology.org). Here we describe collaboration between the renal biomedical research community and the GO Consortium to improve the quality and quantity of GO terms describing renal development. In the associated annotation activity, the new and revised terms were associated with gene products involved in renal development and function. This project resulted in a total of 522 GO terms being added to the ontology and the creation of approximately 9,600 kidney-related GO term associations to 940 UniProt Knowledgebase (UniProtKB) entries, covering 66 taxonomic groups. We demonstrate the impact of these improvements on the interpretation of GO term analyses performed on genes differentially expressed in kidney glomeruli affected by diabetic nephropathy. In summary, we have produced a resource that can be utilized in the interpretation of data from small- and large-scale experiments investigating molecular mechanisms of kidney function and development and thereby help towards alleviating renal disease.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

A Comparative Study on Representativeness and Stochastic Efficacy of Miniature Tensile Specimen Testing

Here, in this article, a miniature dog bone tensile coupon design was tested against the existing ASTM standard specimen design. Specimens were prepared from commercially sourced austenitic stainless steel 304 alloy, and a defect-ridden additively manufactured 304L alloy was studied. By utilizing a tensile specimen design that is 1/230th volume of the smallest ASTM E8-04(2016), Standard Test Methods for Tension Testing of Metallic Materials, dog bone specimen, coupled to a digital image correlation (DIC) setup, case studies were performed to compare tensile property measurements and strain field evolution. Whereas yield strength measurements were observed to be similar, post-yield, the ultimate strength measurements and ductility measurements from the miniature specimens were observed to be higher than the ASTM specimen design. Although the strength measurements were comparable, the strain evolution was found to differ in the miniature specimens. Studies to assess effects of varying thickness and defect population were also pursued on the miniature tensile specimen. From the DIC strain field estimations, the peak local strain values at ultimate tensile strength were observed to be increasing with reducing specimen thickness. Testing of defect ridden stainless steel revealed the sensitivity to failure through strain localization and the influence of defect size was captured in the strength measurements.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Aerial and Processed Model Data Representing As-built Conditions in Coastal Port Arthur, Texas in May 2025

This dataset was collected by the Co-Design Team of the Southeast Texas Urban Integrated Field Lab, a research initiative led by the University of Texas at Austin and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The broader project focuses on developing climate-resilient design solutions for the Beaumont–Port Arthur region, with more information available at www.setx-uifl.org. Our team conducted aerial surveys of the Port Arthur coastal neighborhood in May 2025, before the start of construction scheduled for Summer 2026. These pre-construction datasets are designed to facilitate comparative analyses, including pre- and post-construction assessments and simulated inundation scenario evaluations. Aerial images were captured using DroneDeploy autonomous flight systems, with imagery processed through the DroneDeploy engine. All original aerial photographs are provided in JPG format and organized in zipped folders by area. The processed data package includes: 3D surface models Orthomosaics Geospatial and topographic mappings Point clouds For guidance on file contents, structure, and recommended usage, please refer to the included README file.

2D mapping↗

Midmorning Point Sampling May Not Accurately Represent Nitrous Oxide Emissions Following Fertilizer Applications

A common approach for measuring N 2 O emissions is to collect midmorning or early evening gas samples from experiments utilizing the chamber-based flux methodology. However, due to high spatial and temporal variability, N 2 O estimates based on midmorning or early evening sampling may not provide accurate estimates of total emissions. This study determined the impact of sampling collection timing on the precision and accuracy of N 2 O emissions estimates. Nitrous oxide emissions, air and soil temperatures, and soil moisture were measured for 21 d following the application of 224 kg urea-N ha –1 on 20 Sept. 2017, 11 Oct. 2017, and 1 May 2018, at six time intervals (0130–0230, 0530–0630, 0930–1030, 1330–1430, 1730–1830, and 2130–2230 h) over a 24-h period. Based on multiple daily measurements, point samples collected between 0930 and 1030 h (midmorning) were inconsistent in their ability to predict N 2 O emissions. However, samples collected between 2130 and 2230 h (early evening) were similar to average emissions. The number of randomly collected point samples to be within 20% of the mean 80% of the time over a 21-d period ranged from 13 samples for fertilizer applied on 20 Sept. 2017 to 48 samples for fertilizer applied on 11 Oct. 2017. This research indicates that management and climatic variability affect N 2 O emissions, and that accurate sampling protocols vary across management and climates. To reduce uncertainty, N 2 O sampling protocol should be tested under conditions likely to occur and where possible, near-continuous measurement systems should be adopted.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Comprehensive Report For Proposed Elevated Temperature Elastic Perfectly Plastic (EPP) Code Cases Representative Example Problems

Background: The current rules in the nuclear section of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel (B&PV) Code , Section III, Subsection NH for the evaluation of strain limits and creep-fatigue damage using simplified methods based on elastic analysis have been deemed inappropriate for Alloy 617 at temperatures above 1200F (650C)1. To address this issue, proposed code rules have been developed which are based on the use of elastic-perfectly plastic (E-PP) analysis methods and which are expected to be applicable to very high temperatures. The proposed rules for strain limits and creep-fatigue evaluation were initially documented in the technical literature 2, 3, and have been recently revised to incorporate comments and simplify their application. The revised code cases have been developed. Task Objectives: The goal of the Sample Problem task is to exercise these code cases through example problems to demonstrate their feasibility and, also, to identify potential corrections and improvements should problems be encountered. This will provide input to the development of technical background documents for consideration by the applicable B&PV committees considering these code cases for approval. This task has been performed by Hollinger and Pease of Becht Engineering Co., Inc., Nuclear Services Division and a report detailing the results of the E-PP analyses conducted on example problems per the procedures of the E-PP strain limits and creep-fatigue draft code cases is enclosed as Enclosure 1. Conclusions: The feasibility of the application of the E-PP code cases has been demonstrated through example problems that consist of realistic geometry (a nozzle attached to a semi-hemispheric shell with a circumferential weld) and load (pressure; pipe reaction load applied at the end of the nozzle, including axial and shear forces, bending and torsional moments; through-wall transient temperature gradient) and design and operating conditions (Levels A, B and C).

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

EPA GHG Certification of Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles: Development of Road Grade Profiles Representative of US Controlled Access Highways

This report includes a detailed comparison of the TomTom national road grade database relative to a local road grade dataset generated by Southwest Research Institute and a national elevation dataset publically available from the U.S. Geological Survey. This analysis concluded that the TomTom national road grade database was a suitable source of road grade data for purposes of this study.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗