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DOE OSTI2025

Separate Surface and Bulk Topological Anderson Localization Transitions in Disordered Axion Insulators

In topological phases of matter for which the bulk and boundary support distinct electronic gaps, there exists the possibility of decoupled mobility gaps in the presence of disorder. This is in analogy with the well-studied problem of realizing separate or concomitant bulk-boundary criticality in conventional Landau theory. Using a three-dimensional axion insulator having clean, gapped surfaces with 𝑒 2 /2⁢ℎ quantized Hall conductance, we show that the bulk and surface mobility gap evolve differently in the presence of disorder. The decoupling of the bulk and surface topology yields a regime that realizes a two-dimensional, unquantized anomalous Hall metal in the Gaussian unitary ensemble on each surface, which shares some spectral and response properties akin to the surface states of a conventional 3D topological insulator. The generality of these results, as well as extensions to other insulators and superconductors, is discussed.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

DOE OSTI2025

Enabling Technology for Energy Sustainability: Power Electronic Converter Control for Renewables

To ensure high penetration of renewable energy sources into power grids, their interfacing inverters need to be designed to provide grid support functions. Important grid support functions include frequency and voltage support. To this end, the research community has recently invested heavily on grid-forming control pilot projects. Grid forming control aims to replace traditional grid following control, which is based on phase-locked loop and can achieve decoupled real and reactive power control. Here, in this article, we review the state-of-the-art grid following and forming technology and point out some deficiencies in dynamic performance in the widely adopted grid-forming control design. We also examine how to ensure that the vector control capable of decoupled real and reactive power regulation can also be achieved in the grid forming design. This type of design has been prototyped and shown great potential to enable retrofitting of large amounts of grid-following controllers through purely software algorithm update. The technology ensures reliable operation of power grids with high penetration of IBRs, thereby further reducing fossil fueled energy sources and cut down carbon emission.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2026

ResSR: A Computationally Efficient Residual Approach to Super-Resolving Multispectral Images

Multispectral imaging (MSI) plays a critical role in material classification, environmental monitoring, and remote sensing. However, MSI sensors typically have wavelength-dependent resolution, which limits downstream analysis. MSI super-resolution (MSI-SR) methods address this limitation by reconstructing all bands at a common high spatial resolution. Existing methods can achieve high reconstruction quality but often rely on spatially-coupled optimization or large learning-based models, leading to significant computational cost and limiting their use in large-scale or time-critical settings. In this paper, we introduce ResSR, a computationally efficient, model-based MSI-SR method that achieves high-quality reconstruction without supervised training or spatially-coupled optimization. Notably, ResSR decouples spectral and spatial processing into two sequential steps. ResSR first computes a spectrally-informed high-resolution estimate of the MSI using singular value decomposition together with a spatially-decoupled approximate forward model. It then applies a residual correction step to restore low-frequency spatial consistency while preserving high-frequency detail recovered by the spectral reconstruction. ResSR achieves comparable or improved reconstruction quality relative to existing MSI-SR methods while being

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

DOE OSTI2022

Mechanism Analysis of Wind Turbine Var Oscillations

Electromagnetic transient simulation of parallel connected 4-MW type-3 wind turbines based on original equipment manufacturer's real-code turbine model shows 1.2-Hz turbine-turbine oscillations in reactive power. This letter reveals why such oscillations occur in the individual var measurement, while being insignificant in the total var measurement, regardless of the varying grid impedance. We adopt two analysis approaches: open-loop single-input single-output analysis and network decomposition. The two approaches differ in their treatment of turbine-network interaction. The open-loop analysis shows that the turbine-turbine oscillation mode is due to an open-loop system pole being attracted to an open-loop system zero. Furthermore, we use network decomposition method to explain why this mode is observable in individual vars while not observable in the total var. The entire system of n -turbines can be viewed as n decoupled circuits. For the two-turbine case, the system has an aggregated mode and a turbine-turbine oscillation mode. Here, the aggregated mode is associated with a circuit associated with the total var, while the turbine-turbine oscillation mode is associated with the var difference and is insensitive to the grid parameters.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2020

Customizable Scale-Out Key-Value Stores

Enterprise KV stores are often not well suited for HPC applications, and thus cumbersome end-to-end KV design customization is required to meet the needs of modern HPC applications. To this end, in this article we present bespoKV, an adaptive, extensible, and scale-out KV store framework. bespoKV decouples the KV store design into the control plane for distributed management and the data plane for local data store. For the control plane, bespoKVprovides pre-built modules, called controlets, supporting common distributed functionalities (e.g., replication, consistency, and topology) and their various combinations. This decoupling allows bespoKV to take a user-provided single-server KV store, called a datalet, and transparently enables a scalable and fault-tolerant distributed KV store service. The resulting distributed stores are also adaptive to consistency or topology requirement changes and can be easily extended for new types of services. Such specializations enable innovative uses of KV stores in HPC applications, especially for emerging applications that utilize KV-friendly workloads. We evaluate bespoKV in a local testbed as well as in a public cloud settings. Experiments show that bespoKV-enabled distributed KV stores scale horizontally to a large number of nodes, and performs comparably and sometimes 1.2× to 2.6× better than the state-of-the-art systems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2024

Probing Quantum Telecloning on Superconducting Quantum Processors

Quantum information cannot be perfectly cloned, but approximate copies of quantum information can be generated. Quantum telecloning combines approximate quantum cloning, more typically referred to as quantum cloning, and quantum teleportation. Quantum telecloning allows approximate copies of quantum information to be constructed by separate parties, using the classical results of a Bell measurement made on a prepared quantum telecloning state. Quantum telecloning can be implemented as a circuit on quantum computers using a classical coprocessor to compute classical feedforward instructions using if statements based on the results of a midcircuit Bell measurement in real time. We present universal symmetric optimal 1 → M telecloning circuits and experimentally demonstrate these quantum telecloning circuits for M = 2 up to M = 10, natively executed with real-time classical control systems on IBM Quantum superconducting processors, known as dynamic circuits. We perform the cloning procedure on many different message states across the Bloch sphere, on seven IBM Quantum processors, optionally using the error suppression technique X–X sequence digital dynamical decoupling. Two circuit optimizations are utilized: one that removes ancilla qubits for M = 2,3 , and one that reduces the total number of gates in the circuit but still uses ancilla qubits. Parallel single-qubit tomography with maximum likelihood estimation density matrix reconstruction is used in order to compute the mixed-state density matrices of the clone qubits, and clone quality is measured using quantum fidelity. These results present one of the largest and most comprehensive noisy intermediate-scale quantum computer experimental analyses on (single qubit) quantum telecloning to date. The clone fidelity sharply decreases to 0.5 for M > 5 , but for M = 2 , we are able to achieve a mean clone fidelity of up to 0.79 using dynamical decoupling.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

DOE OSTI2022

Scalability Testing Approach for Internet of Things for Manufacturing SQL and NoSQL Database Latency and Throughput

The proliferation of low-cost sensors and industrial data solutions has continued to push the frontier of manufacturing technology. Machine learning and other advanced statistical techniques stand to provide tremendous advantages in production capabilities, optimization, monitoring, and efficiency. The tremendous volume of data gathered continues to grow, and the methods for storing the data are critical underpinnings for advancing manufacturing technology. This work aims to investigate the ramifications and design tradeoffs within a decoupled architecture of two prominent database management systems (DBMS): sql and NoSQL. A representative comparison is carried out with Amazon Web Services (AWS) DynamoDB and AWS Aurora MySQL. The technologies and accompanying design constraints are investigated, and a side-by-side comparison is carried out through high-fidelity industrial data simulated load tests using metrics from a major US manufacturer. The results support the use of simulated client load testing for comparing the latency of database management systems as a system scales up from the prototype stage into production. As a result of complex query support, MySQL is favored for higher-order insights, while NoSQL can reduce system latency for known access patterns at the expense of integrated query flexibility. Here, by reviewing this work, a manufacturer can observe that the use of high-fidelity load testing can reveal tradeoffs in IoTfM write/ingestion performance in terms of latency that are not observable through prototype-scale testing of commercially available cloud DB solutions.

AWS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Reman Co-Design: A Combined Design and Remanufacturing Optimization Framework for the Sustainable Design of High-Value Components

Remanufacturing is a process that returns end-of-life equipment to as-new conditions and offers numerous environmental and economic benefits. To fully capitalize on remanufacturing, its synergistic interactions with design must be fully realized and addressed during the design stage. Although this fact is widely recognized in the literature, most of the current studies focus primarily either on the design or remanufacturing aspects of design for remanufacturing (DfRem). In an effort to offer a more integrated DfRem approach than those reported in the literature, we propose a new combined design and remanufacturing optimization (reman co-design) framework that takes a holistic approach by leveraging the intricate interplay between design and remanufacturing. Here, the aim of this formulation is to identify the optimal decisions that maximize the benefits of remanufacturing throughout the entire lifespan of a product. To showcase the utility of the new formulation, we are using a case study of a hydraulic manifold, (re)manufactured by John Deere. Using this industry example, we compare the results of reman co-design to the ones from a decoupled remanufacturing design approach. Results reveal that remanufacturing benefits are better realized and improved upon when using the developed reman co-design approach.

design for X↗

DOE OSTI2024

Direct quantification of ion composition and mobility in organic mixed ionic-electronic conductors

Ion transport in organic mixed ionic-electronic conductors (OMIECs) is crucial due to its direct impact on device response time and operating mechanisms but is often assessed indirectly or necessitates extra assumptions. Operando x-ray fluorescence (XRF) is a powerful, direct probe for elemental characterization of bulk OMIECs and was used to directly quantify ion composition and mobility in a model OMIEC, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS), during device operation. The first cycle revealed slow electrowetting and cation-proton exchange. Subsequent cycles showed rapid response with minor cation fluctuation (~5%). Comparison with optical-tracked electrochromic fronts revealed mesoscale structure–dependent proton transport. The calculated effective ion mobility demonstrated thickness-dependent behavior, emphasizing an interfacial ion transport pathway with a higher mobile ion density. The decoupling of interfacial effects on bulk ion mobility and the decoupling of cation and proton migration elucidate ion transport in conventional and emerging OMIEC-based devices and has broader implications for other ionic conductors writ large.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2020

A Scalable Multigrid Reduction Framework for Multiphase Poromechanics of Heterogeneous Media

Simulation of multiphase poromechanics involves solving a multiphysics problem in which multiphase flow and transport are tightly coupled with the porous medium deformation. To capture this dynamic interplay, fully implicit methods, also known as monolithic approaches, are usually preferred. The main bottleneck of a monolithic approach is that it requires solution of large linear systems that result from the discretization and linearization of the governing balance equations. Because such systems are nonsymmetric, indefinite, and highly ill-conditioned, preconditioning is critical for fast convergence. Recently, most efforts in designing efficient preconditioners for multiphase poromechanics have been dominated by physics-based strategies. Current state-of-the-art “black-box” solvers such as algebraic multigrid (AMG) are ineffective because they cannot effectively capture the strong coupling between the mechanics and the flow subproblems, as well as the coupling inherent in the multiphase flow and transport process. In this work, we develop an algebraic framework based on multigrid reduction (MGR) that is suited for tightly coupled systems of PDEs. Using this framework, the decoupling between the equations is done algebraically through defining appropriate interpolation and restriction operators. One can then employ existing solvers for each of the decoupled blocks or design a new solver based on knowledge of the physics. We demonstrate the applicability of our framework when used as a “black-box” solver for multiphase poromechanics. Here, we show that the framework is flexible to accommodate a wide range of scenarios, as well as efficient and scalable for large problems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2021

Multi-Fluid and Kinetic Models of Partially Ionized Magnetic Reconnection

Magnetic reconnection in partially ionized plasmas is a ubiquitous and important phenomena in both laboratory and astrophysical systems. Here, simulations of partially ionized magnetic reconnection with well-matched initial conditions are performed using both multi-fluid and fully-kinetic approaches. Despite similar initial conditions, the time-dependent evolution differs between the two models. In multi-fluid models, the reconnection rate locally obeys either a decoupled Sweet-Parker scaling, where neutrals are unimportant, or a fully coupled Sweet-Parker scaling, where neutrals and ions are strongly coupled, depending on the resistivity. In contrast, kinetic models show a faster reconnection rate that is proportional to the fully-coupled, bulk Alfv\'en speed, $v_A^\star$. These differences are interpreted as the result of operating in different collisional regimes. Multi-fluid simulations are found to maintain $\nu_{ni}L/v_A^\star \gtrsim 1$, where $\nu_{ni}$ is the neutral-ion collision frequency and $L$ is the time-dependent current sheet half-length. This strongly couples neutrals to the reconnection outflow, while kinetic simulations evolve to allow $\nu_{ni}L/v_A^\star < 1$, decoupling neutrals from the reconnection outflow. Differences in the way reconnection is triggered may explain these discrepancies.

Magnetic reconnection↗

DOE OSTI2020

Summertime Post-Cold-Frontal Marine Stratocumulus Transition Processes over the Eastern North Atlantic

Abstract Marine boundary layer (MBL) cloud morphology associated with two summertime cold fronts over the eastern North Atlantic (ENA) is investigated using high-resolution simulations from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model and observations from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) ENA Climate Research Facility. Lagrangian trajectories are used to study the evolution of post-cold-frontal MBL clouds from solid stratocumulus to broken cumulus. Clouds within specified domains in the vicinity of transitions are classified according to their degree of decoupling, and cloud-base and cloud-top breakup processes are evaluated. The Lagrangian derivative of the surface latent heat flux is found to be strongly correlated with that of the cloud fraction at cloud base in the simulations. Cloud-top entrainment instability (CTEI) is shown to operate only in the decoupled MBL. A new indicator of inversion strength at cloud top that employs the vertical gradients of equivalent potential temperature and saturation equivalent potential temperature, which can be computed directly from soundings, is proposed as an alternative to CTEI. Overall, results suggest that the deepening–warming hypothesis suggested by Bretherton and Wyant explains many of the characteristics of the summertime postfrontal MBL evolution of cloud structure over the ENA, thereby widening the phase space over which the hypothesis may be applied. A subset of the deepening–warming hypothesis involving warming initially dominating over moistening is proposed. It is postulated that changes in climate change–induced modifications in cold-frontal structure over the ENA may be accompanied by coincident changes in the location and timing of MBL cloud transitions in the post-cold-frontal environment.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2021

Quantifying the Impacts of Land Surface Modeling on Hub-Height Wind Speed under Different Soil Conditions

We investigate the impact of three land surface models (LSMs) on hub-height wind speed under three different soil regimes (dry, wet, and frozen) to understand and improve the physics of wind energy forecasts using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. A six-day representative period is selected for each soil condition. The simulated wind speed, surface energy budget and soil properties are compared with the observations collected from the second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2). For the selected cases, our simulation results suggest that, the impact of LSMs on hub-height wind speed are sensitive to the soil states but not so much to the choice of LSM. The simulated hub-height wind speed is in much better agreement with the observations for the dry soil case than the wet and frozen soil cases. Over the dry soil, there is a strong physical connection between the land surface and hub-height wind speed through near-surface turbulent mixing. Over the wet soil, the simulated hub-height wind speed is less impacted by land surface due to weaker surface fluxes and more dominated by large-scale synoptic disturbances. Over the frozen soil, the land surface model seems to have limited impact on hub-height wind speed variability due to the decoupling of the land surface with the overlying atmosphere. Two main sources of modeling uncertainties are proposed. The first are the insufficient model physics representing the surface energy budget, especially the ground heat flux, and the second are the inaccurate initial soil states such as soil temperature and soil moisture.

Xia, Geng↗

DOE OSTI2022

Optimizing the fuel efficiency of an opposed piston engine for electric power generation

This paper investigates the optimal crankshaft motion for an opposed piston (OP) engine in a novel hybrid architecture to maximize fuel efficiency. The OP engine was selected for this work due to its inherent thermodynamic benefits and the balanced nature of the engine which can achieve downsizing through reducing the number of cylinders rather than the individual cylinder volume. The typical geartrain required on an OP engine was exchanged for two electric motors, reducing friction loss and decoupling the crankshafts. Using the motors to control the crankshaft motion profiles, this architecture introduces capabilities to dynamically vary compression ratio, combustion volume, and scavenging dynamics. To leverage these opportunities, an optimization scheme was developed utilizing nonlinear optimization of a 0-D model to compute the crankshaft motion profile that maximizes the work generated by the system. This optimization was then iteratively coupled with a high fidelity model which supplies the cylinder flow boundary conditions. This iterative approach reduces the model complexity used in the optimal control problem (OCP) while capturing the gas exchange dynamics critical to the 2-stroke cycle of the OP engine. By using the rate of change of motor torque as the input to the OCP, the torque fluctuation in a single cycle can be limited to ensure tracking feasibility. The results show crankshaft velocity slows during the compression stroke and conversely accelerates during the expansion stroke, reducing the peak motor torque required for control and thus reducing the motor losses. The extended residence time at top dead center, however, leads to an increase in heat transfer, illustrating the trade-off between the work extraction efficiency and the indicated engine efficiency.

Engineering↗

DOE OSTI2023

PKA regulatory subunit Bcy1 couples growth, lipid metabolism, and fermentation during anaerobic xylose growth in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Organisms have evolved elaborate physiological pathways that regulate growth, proliferation, metabolism, and stress response. These pathways must be properly coordinated to elicit the appropriate response to an ever-changing environment. While individual pathways have been well studied in a variety of model systems, there remains much to uncover about how pathways are integrated to produce systemic changes in a cell, especially in dynamic conditions. We previously showed that deletion of Protein Kinase A (PKA) regulatory subunit BCY1 can decouple growth and metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae engineered for anaerobic xylose fermentation, allowing for robust fermentation in the absence of division. This provides an opportunity to understand how PKA signaling normally coordinates these processes. Here, we integrated transcriptomic, lipidomic, and phospho-proteomic responses upon a glucose to xylose shift across a series of strains with different genetic mutations promoting either coupled or decoupled xylose-dependent growth and metabolism. Together, results suggested that defects in lipid homeostasis limit growth in the bcy1Δ strain despite robust metabolism. To further understand this mechanism, we performed adaptive laboratory evolutions to re-evolve coupled growth and metabolism in the bcy1Δ parental strain. The evolved strain harbored mutations in PKA subunit TPK1 and lipid regulator OPI1 , among other genes, and evolved changes in lipid profiles and gene expression. Deletion of the evolved opi1 gene partially reverted the strain’s phenotype to the bcy1Δ parent, with reduced growth and robust xylose fermentation. We suggest several models for how cells coordinate growth, metabolism, and other responses in budding yeast and how restructuring these processes enables anaerobic xylose utilization.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2024

Tethered balloon measurements reveal enhanced aerosol occurrence aloft interacting with Arctic low-level clouds

Low-level clouds in the Arctic affect the surface energy budget and vertical transport of heat and moisture. The limited availability of cloud-droplet-forming aerosol particles strongly impacts cloud properties and lifetime. Vertical particle distributions are required to study aerosol–cloud interaction over sea ice comprehensively. This article presents vertically resolved measurements of aerosol particle number concentrations and sizes using tethered balloons. The data were collected during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate expedition in the summer of 2020. Thirty-four profiles of aerosol particle number concentration were observed in 2 particle size ranges: 12–150 nm (N 12−150 ) and above 150 nm (N >150 ). Concurrent balloon-borne meteorological measurements provided context for the continuous profiles through the cloudy atmospheric boundary layer. Radiosoundings, cloud remote sensing data, and 5-day back trajectories supplemented the analysis. The majority of aerosol profiles showed more particles above the lowest temperature inversion, on average, double the number concentration compared to below. Increased N 12−150 up to 3,000 cm −3 were observed in the free troposphere above low-level clouds related to secondary particle formation. Long-range transport of pollution increased N >150 to 310 cm −3 in a warm, moist air mass. Droplet activation inside clouds caused reductions of N >150 by up to 100%, while the decrease in N 12−150 was less than 50%. When low-level clouds were thermodynamically coupled with the surface, profiles showed 5 times higher values of N 12−150 in the free troposphere than below the cloud-capping temperature inversion. Enhanced N 12−150 and N >150 interacting with clouds were advected above the lowest inversion from beyond the sea ice edge when clouds were decoupled from the surface. Vertically discontinuous aerosol profiles below decoupled clouds suggest that particles emitted at the surface are not transported to clouds in these conditions. It is concluded that the cloud-surface coupling state and free tropospheric particle abundance are crucial when assessing the aerosol budget for Arctic low-level clouds over sea ice.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2020

Technical report: Design of the accessor

As we have seen the arithmetic power of hardware architectures growing much faster than the memory bandwidth, there is an urgent need to rethink the way we operate, communicate, and store data. A promising strategy for overcoming the “memory wall” is the decoupling of memory precision from arithmetic precision as proposed in Anzt et al. Such a decoupling of memory precision and arithmetic precision requires an “accessor” that handles the conversion between formats (resp. compression of the data) on the fly in registers. Such an accessor has to be general in the sense that it can handle a wide range of floating point formats and compression strategies, and still allows for further extension. At the same time, is important that the use of the accessor is not a burden for the developer. Therefore, it is important to abstract all implementation details from the user, hide the underlying storage format from the user, and make the accessor cross-platform portable. In this document we present the design of an accessor that aims at fulfilling all these requirements.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2021

Technical Report: Accessor Realization

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗