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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

Artificial Neural Network Models for Octane Number and Octane Sensitivity: A Quantitative Structure Property Relationship Approach to Fuel Design

Octane sensitivity (OS), defined as the research octane number (RON) minus the motor octane number (MON) of a fuel, has gained interest among researchers due to its effect on knocking conditions in internal combustion engines. Compounds with a high OS enable higher efficiencies, especially within advanced compression ignition engines. RON/MON must be experimentally tested to determine OS, requiring time, funding, and specialized equipment. Thus, predictive models trained with existing experimental data and molecular descriptors (via quantitative structure-property relationships (QSPRs)) would allow for the preemptive screening of compounds prior to performing these experiments. Here, the present work proposes two methods for predicting the OS of a given compound: using artificial neural networks (ANNs) trained with QSPR descriptors to predict RON and MON individually to compute OS (derived octane sensitivity (dOS)), and using ANNs trained with QSPR descriptors to directly predict OS. Twenty-five ANNs were trained for both RON and MON and their test sets achieved an overall 6.4% and 5.2% error, respectively. Twenty-five additional ANNs were trained for both dOS and OS; dOS calculations were found to have 15.3% error while predicting OS directly resulted in 9.9% error. A chemical analysis of the top QSPR descriptors for RON/MON and OS is conducted, highlighting desirable structural features for high-performing molecules and offering insight into the inner mathematical workings of ANNs; such chemical interpretations study the interconnections between structural features, descriptors, and fuel performance showing that connectivity, structural diversity, and atomic hybridization consistently drive fuel performance.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Automated nuclear cloud feature extraction from film

Chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosives incidents require rapid detection and characterization for appropriate response. For a nuclear detonation, visible-light cameras may be used to locate the cloud and characterize fallout deposition when coupled with numerical models. Films from the United States’ nuclear testing era compose the only sizeable collection of imagery depicting high-yield detonations. These films offer unique insights into characteristics of flows involving scales that are difficult to replicate experimentally, and they are a valuable source of data for the validation of models for nuclear fallout transport, either as part of emergency response or forensic activities. In this work, we implement modern computer vision and machine learning techniques to identify and track the cloud automatically and subsequently determine the time dependence of some of its features. We trained a ResNet-18 image classifier on hundreds of images to categorize nuclear cloud morphology. Each category or cloud regime is determined by early cloud evolution and is associated to constitutive properties of the flow, such as distribution of vorticity. Next, we identified keypoint features using the KAZE algorithm and tracked these keypoints in the images, allowing us to determine the dimensions and velocities of the cloud across film frames. These measurements converted to real-world units provide valuable experimental data that can be used in the development and validation of nuclear cloud models. We compared the results of this method against manual cloud rise measurements from two different films. In one, our automated method accelerated the feature extraction process without sacrificing measurement accuracy.

Khristy, Joel [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000209963060)↗

NREL’s Cyber-Energy Emulation Platform for Research and System Visualization

This paper presents NREL’s Cyber Energy Emulation (CEE) Platform. This is a novel emulation platform for achieving real-time visualization of large-scale environments involving cyber-physical devices. It allows for the environment to include real, physical hardware, along with emulated devices communicating with each other as part of the same system. The CEE Platform is also capable of streaming, collecting, storing, transporting, and visualizing all data within the emulated environment. By providing this capability, it enables high-fidelity visual analysis of events to be performed in real time as well as the use of historical data for forensic analysis. This paper presents the design of the CEE Platform as well as several potential use cases and applications. It also aims to highlight why this type of visualization tool has potential for research and education about cyber-physical systems.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Machine-Learning of Nonlocal Kernels for Anomalous Subsurface Transport from Breakthrough Curves

Anomalous behavior is ubiquitous in subsurface solute transport due to the presence of high degrees of heterogeneity at different scales in the media. Although fractional models have been extensively used to describe the anomalous transport in various subsurface applications, their application is hindered by computational challenges. Simpler nonlocal models characterized by integrable kernels and finite interaction length represent a computationally feasible alternative to fractional models; yet, the informed choice of their kernel functions still remains an open problem. We propose a general data-driven framework for the discovery of optimal kernels on the basis of very small and sparse data sets in the context of anomalous subsurface transport. Using spatially sparse breakthrough curves recovered from fine-scale particle-density simulations, we learn the best coarse-scale nonlocal model using a nonlocal operator regression technique. Predictions of the breakthrough curves obtained using the optimal nonlocal model show good agreement with fine-scale simulation results even at locations and time intervals different from the ones used to train the kernel, confirming the excellent generalization properties of the proposed algorithm. A comparison with trained classical models and with black-box deep neural networks confirms the superiority of the predictive capability of the proposed model.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Introduction to Special Section: Machine Learning for Image-based Geologic Interpretation

Image-based geological interpretation has been a labor-intensive and time-consuming process because it requires well-trained geoscientists to identify geological structures, features, and textures from various types of images. These images include scanning electron microscopic images, optical microscopic images, optical photos, resistivity images, seismic volumes, remote-sensing images, etc. With fast-evolving machine learning (ML) technology and computing power in recent decades, computers can achieve nearhuman-level to super-human-level performance with scalable high efficiency in the computer vision field. These technological revolutions facilitated image-based geological interpretation in petroleum exploration and production. For example, a fault picking method applied to 3-D seismic volume data using deep learning can achieve superior performance in comparison to conventional auto-picking methods. In addition, under the new normal of low oil prices, the petroleum industry seeks cost-effective strategies such as automating traditionally labor-intensive processes. Nevertheless, the potential of applying ML to geological image interpretation is still facing a few key challenges including data scarcity, data distribution, poor data and/or label quality, data leakage, learning algorithms, model architecture, training methodologies, testing and evaluation metrics, hyper-parameters optimization, model drift, production deployment, and the like.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Deep Learning for Full Waveform Inversion of Elastic Active-Source Seismic Data to Estimate P-Wave Velocity Models

Seismic imaging methods are critical for Global Security and Energy & Homeland Security missions and activities that rely on subsurface characterization, but traditional methods remain computationally expensive and require significant labor hours and expertise to execute. Within the past few years, machine learning (ML), namely deep learning (DL), has been used to develop data-driven end-to-end full waveform inversion (FWI) methods to estimate 2D P-wave velocity (Vp) models in a fraction of the time as conventional FWI. These methods, however, are trained on simplistic acoustic wave seismic data and Vp models that are not realistic nor representative of real-world observations, leaving a large gap between the state-of-the-art and deployable, feasible, and practical DL FWI methods. Here, we generate a synthetic active-source, 3D, elastic wave seismic data set and a variety of Vp models with realistic geologic structure for training DL FWI methods. We evaluate six different methods that have performed well for acoustic DL FWI or medical imaging tasks using our more realistic dataset. We find that these six trained models do not match the performance of published acoustic end-to-end DL FWI methods, indicating more training data may be needed, physics may need to be incorporated to achieve good accuracy at the sacrifice of the end-to-end advantage, and/or novel methods need to be developed to enable end-to-end DL FWI methods to perform well for real-world seismic data.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

The Double-edged Sword of Data-driven Super-Resolution: Adversarial Super-resolution Models

Data-driven super-resolution (SR) methods are often integrated into imaging pipelines as preprocessing steps to improve downstream tasks such as classification and detection. However, these SR models introduce a previously unexplored attack surface into imaging pipelines. In this paper, we present AdvSR, a framework demonstrating that adversarial behavior can be embedded directly into SR model weights during training, requiring no access to inputs at inference time. Unlike prior attacks that perturb inputs or rely on backdoor triggers, AdvSR operates entirely at the model level. By jointly optimizing for reconstruction quality and targeted adversarial outcomes, AdvSR produces models that appear benign under standard image quality metrics while inducing downstream misclassification. We evaluate AdvSR on three SR architectures (SRCNN, EDSR, SwinIR) paired with a YOLOv11 classifier and demonstrate that AdvSR models can achieve high attack success rates with minimal quality degradation. These findings highlight a new model-level threat for imaging pipelines, with implications for how practitioners source and validate models in safety-critical applications.

Sullivan, Haley [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000274069217)↗

Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision for Cost-Effective Benthic Habitat Characterizations

Machine learning applied to computer vision and pattern recognition is a type of artificial intelligence that has advanced rapidly in the last 10 to 15 years, spurred forward by breakthroughs in deep convolutional neural networks. These state-of-the-art methods are poised to become widely used in environmental monitoring applications as a result of the increasing abundance of data available from different imaging platforms (e.g., fixed-point cameras, drone surveys, high-resolution satellite data) that can be analyzed to observe, model, and understand environmental conditions. Computer vision and pattern recognition (CVPR) tools advance our ability to use imagery and camera-based tools in cost-effective ways for environmental monitoring. Although these techniques offer great potential, some challenges remain, such as the need for large sets of labeled images for model training and validation and optimized hardware and software to ensure that the models can be trained effectively and in a reasonable amount of time. Here, we have overcome many of these rate-limiting challenges by using a diverse image library built across multiple projects coupled with staff expertise and onsite computing resources. We are working toward a fully automated SPI processing system and also are moving to develop CVPR analytical tools for other imaging platforms and data sets.

02 PETROLEUM↗

Achieving balanced execution through runtime detection of performance variation

Systems, apparatuses, and methods for achieving balanced execution in a multi-node cluster through runtime detection of performance variation are described. During a training phase, performance counters and an amount of time spent waiting for synchronization is monitored for a plurality of tasks for each node of the multi-node cluster. These values are utilized to generate a model which correlates the values of the performance counters to the amount of time spent waiting for synchronization. Once the model is built, the values of the performance counters are monitored for a period of time at the start of each task, and these values are input into the model. The model generates a prediction of whether a given node is on the critical path. If the given node is predicted to be on the critical path, the power allocation of the given node is increased.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Digital Twin + AI: Control Room of the Future

A digital twin enhances power grid control room operations by providing real-time monitoring, predictive insights, simulation capabilities, remote control, training opportunities, data integration, and decision support. This technology empowers control room operators to effectively manage the grid, optimize performance, and ensure reliable and efficient energy distribution.

control room of the future↗

DS-TIDE: Harnessing Dynamical Systems for Efficient Time-Independent Differential Equation Solving

Time-Independent Differential Equations (TIDEs) are central to modeling equilibrium behavior across a wide range of scientific and engineering domains, from electrostatics to porous media flow. Conventional numerical solvers offer reliable solutions but incur significant computational costs due to fine-grained discretization and iterative procedures. Machine learning-based approaches address this by replacing iterative solving processes with one-time inference; however, their sophisticated models require extensive training resources that often exceed those of traditional solvers. Consequently, designing a TIDE solver that achieves high accuracy, broad applicability, and exceptional computational efficiency remains a fundamental challenge. In this paper, we propose DS-TIDE, a novel hardware solver that is inspired by, and subsequently leverages, the intrinsic connection between Dynamical Systems (DS) and Differential Equations (DEs) to efficiently and accurately solve TIDEs. DS-TIDE employs a CMOS-compatible DS-based processor, whose physical states evolve under carefully designed DE-driven dynamics and naturally converge to equilibrium -- the solution of the target TIDE -- within ~1µs on a ~1-watt DS-TIDE processor. To enhance expressivity, DS-TIDE incorporates Heterogeneous Dynamics with Temporal Layering (HDTL), which solves TIDEs through a three-stage DS evolution -- conditioning, solving, and decoding -- each governed by specialized dynamics. The entire evolution process is analogous to an infinitely deep neural network temporally unrolled, offering the system the capability of representing complex equations. Furthermore, DS-TIDE is equipped with an on-device DS-DE Auto-Alignment mechanism that dynamically adapts intrinsic hardware dynamics within milliseconds, effectively aligning the system’s dynamics to diverse target DEs. Experimental results across TIDEs from a wide range of scientific and engineering domains demonstrate that DS-TIDE achieves ~10^3× speedup, ~10^5× energy savings, and competitive or superior accuracy compared to state-of-the-art numerical and ML-based solvers.

Liu, Chuan↗

DSS-SimPy-RL (Open-DSS and SimPy based Cyber-Physical RL environment) [SWR-23-29]

Recently, numerous data-driven approaches to control an electric grid using machine learning techniques have been investigated. With the advancement of reinforcement learning (RL) based techniques, gradually the conventional optimization based solvers are being replaced with RL approach where there is uncertainty in the environment such as renewable generation or cyber system emulation. However, to train an agent efficiently, it requires numerous interactions with an environment to learn the best policies. There are numerous RL environments for the power systems based on some well-known simulators, similarly there are environment for communication domains. While majority of the cyber emulators are based in an UNIX environment, the power simulators are based in the Windows-based operating system, the generation of cyber-physical mixed domain RL environment has been challenging. Existing co-simulation methods are efficient but resource and time intensive to generate large scale data set for training RL agents. Hence, this software focuses on development and validation of a mixed domain RL environment using Open DSS for the physical side and leverages a discrete event simulator python package, SimPy, for cyber-side emulation which is Operating Systems agnostic. Further utilizing this software co-simulation and training RL agents for re-routing based resilient control for network reconfiguration and volt-var control in power distribution feeder are performed.

Sahu, Abhijeet↗

A Robust Neural Network for Extracting Dynamics from Electrostatic Force Microscopy Data

Advances in scanning probe microscopy (SPM) methods such as time-resolved electrostatic force microscopy (trEFM) now permit the mapping of fast local dynamic processes with high resolution in both space and time, but such methods can be time-consuming to analyze and calibrate. Here, we design and train a regression neural network (NN) that accelerates and simplifies the extraction of local dynamics from SPM data directly in a cantilever-independent manner, allowing the network to process data taken with different cantilevers. We validate the NN’s ability to recover local dynamics with a fidelity equal to or surpassing conventional, more time-consuming, calibrations using both simulated and real microscopy data. We apply this method to extract accurate photoinduced carrier dynamics on n = 1 butylammonium lead iodide, a halide perovskite semiconductor film that is of interest for applications in both solar photovoltaics and quantum light sources. Lastly, we use SHapley Additive exPlanations to evaluate the robustness of the trained model, confirm its cantilever-independence, and explore which parts of the trEFM signal are important to the network.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

A physics-constrained deep learning treatment of runaway electron dynamics

An adjoint formulation leveraging a physics-informed neural network (PINN) is employed to advance the density moment of a runaway electron (RE) distribution forward in time. A distinguishing feature of this approach is that once the adjoint problem is solved, its solution can be used to project the RE density forward in time for an arbitrary initial momentum space distribution of REs. Furthermore, by employing a PINN, a parametric solution to the adjoint problem can be learned. Thus, once trained, this adjoint-deep learning framework is able to efficiently project the RE density forward in time across various plasma conditions while still including a fully kinetic description of RE dynamics. As an example application, the temporal evolution of the density of primary electrons is studied, with particular emphasis on evaluating the decay of a RE population when below threshold. Predictions from the adjoint-deep learning framework are found to be in good agreement with a traditional relativistic electron Fokker–Planck solver, for several distinct initial conditions, and across an array of physics parameters. Once trained, the PINN thus provides a means of generating RE density time histories with exceptionally low online execution time.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Scalable training of graph convolutional neural networks for fast and accurate predictions of HOMO-LUMO gap in molecules

Abstract Graph Convolutional Neural Network (GCNN) is a popular class of deep learning (DL) models in material science to predict material properties from the graph representation of molecular structures. Training an accurate and comprehensive GCNN surrogate for molecular design requires large-scale graph datasets and is usually a time-consuming process. Recent advances in GPUs and distributed computing open a path to reduce the computational cost for GCNN training effectively. However, efficient utilization of high performance computing (HPC) resources for training requires simultaneously optimizing large-scale data management and scalable stochastic batched optimization techniques. In this work, we focus on building GCNN models on HPC systems to predict material properties of millions of molecules. We use HydraGNN, our in-house library for large-scale GCNN training, leveraging distributed data parallelism in PyTorch. We use ADIOS, a high-performance data management framework for efficient storage and reading of large molecular graph data. We perform parallel training on two open-source large-scale graph datasets to build a GCNN predictor for an important quantum property known as the HOMO-LUMO gap. We measure the scalability, accuracy, and convergence of our approach on two DOE supercomputers: the Summit supercomputer at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) and the Perlmutter system at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC). We present our experimental results with HydraGNN showing (i) reduction of data loading time up to 4.2 times compared with a conventional method and (ii) linear scaling performance for training up to 1024 GPUs on both Summit and Perlmutter.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Integrated edge-to-exascale workflow for real-time steering in neutron scattering experiments

We introduce a computational framework that integrates artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and high-performance computing to enable real-time steering of neutron scattering experiments using an edge-to-exascale workflow. Focusing on time-of-flight neutron event data at the Spallation Neutron Source, our approach combines temporal processing of four-dimensional neutron event data with predictive modeling for multidimensional crystallography. At the core of this workflow is the Temporal Fusion Transformer model, which provides voxel-level precision in predicting 3D neutron scattering patterns. The system incorporates edge computing for rapid data preprocessing and exascale computing via the Frontier supercomputer for large-scale AI model training, enabling adaptive, data-driven decisions during experiments. This framework optimizes neutron beam time, improves experimental accuracy, and lays the foundation for automation in neutron scattering. Although real-time experiment steering is still in the proof-of-concept stage, the demonstrated potential of this system offers a substantial reduction in data processing time from hours to minutes via distributed training, and significant improvements in model accuracy, setting the stage for widespread adoption across neutron scattering facilities and more efficient exploration of complex material systems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

An Automatic Learning Framework for Smart Residential Communities

Predictability has been foundational to matching supply and demand in the day-to-day operation of the electric power system. Demand predictability is eroding because of the increased use of renewable energy resources and more sophisticated loads, such as electric vehicles and smart appliances. In this paper, an automatic software framework is described which can be used for load forecasting in smart communities. A time-varying clustering-based Markov chain approach is used to predict the energy consumption of residential buildings in a smart community. The training data is based on 1-minute meter data of occupied homes over one month. The data points are first clustered based on the energy consumption and the time of the day. Then, the original data is converted using the Centroids of the clusters. A time-varying Markov chain is subsequently trained to model the energy consumption behavior of residents for each home using the transformed data. The trained model is shown to successfully predict load in 5-minute intervals over a 24 hours period.

Zandi, Helia↗

Delivering Effective Virtual Energy-Focused Trainings: Successful Strategies and Lessons Learned from the Virtual Cohort In-Plant Training Pilot

While there are always barriers to energy efficiency efforts, few challenges have been as severe as the global COVID-19 pandemic. Many manufacturers throughout the United States and the world have been trying to determine how to safely open and operate their plants. To minimize the number of people working within facilities and maximize the physical distance between workers, only essential facility engineers are allowed into plants to ensure proper operations. The Department of Energy’s Better Plants Program created In-Plant Trainings (INPLTs) to help partners develop in-house expertise in energy efficiency. Delivering INPLTs in the traditional in-person fashion is infeasible under these circumstances. To continue providing INPLTs during this difficult time, the Better Plants Program piloted Virtual Cohort In-Plant Trainings (VINPLTs) on wastewater treatment and ammonia industrial refrigeration systems from October 27 to November 19, 2020. This paper provides an overview of the pilot, then discusses successful strategies and lessons learned from this pilot for delivering effective virtual energy-focused trainings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗