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At least 451 records · Page 25

Isogeometric large-eddy simulations of turbulent particle-laden flows

In recent years, isogeometric analysis (IGA) has attracted significant attention from the computational mechanics community due to its ability to integrate design and analysis. Besides, IGA is also a higher-order discretization technique for solving partial differential equations, showing high approximation capability per degree of freedom. In this paper, we extend the application realm of IGA to particle-laden flows based on Eulerian–Eulerian description that couples Navier–Stokes equations with a density transport equation through a Boussinesq approximation. The coupled systems are solved by using quadratic non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) functions and a recently developed residual-based variational multiscale (VMS) formulation, which introduces coupling between the fine velocity scales and density equation residuals. We deploy the proposed approach to perform large-eddy simulations (LES) of dilute particle-laden flows over a flat surface at Reynolds number = 10,000. We compare the simulation results against direct numerical simulation (DNS) results from the literature. We find that combining VMS and IGA, the proposed approach enables accurate prediction of a wide range of flow/particle statistics with a relatively lower mesh resolution.

Mathematics↗

Observation-constrained kinetic modeling of isoprene SOA formation in the atmosphere

Isoprene has the largest global non-methane hydrocarbon emission, and the oxidation of isoprene plays a crucial role in the formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA). Two primary processes are known to contribute to SOA formation from isoprene oxidation: (1) the reactive uptake of isoprene-derived epoxides on acidic or aqueous particle surfaces and (2) the absorptive gas–particle partitioning of low-volatility oxidation products. In this study, we developed a new multiphase condensed isoprene oxidation mechanism that includes these processes with key molecular intermediates and products. The new mechanism was applied to simulate isoprene gas-phase oxidation products and SOA formation from previously published chamber experiments under a variety of conditions and atmospheric observations during the Southern Oxidant and Aerosol Studies (SOAS) field campaign. Our results show that SOA formation from most of the chamber experiments is reasonably reproduced using our mechanism, except when the concentration ratios of initial nitric oxide to isoprene exceed ~ 2, the formed SOA is significantly underpredicted. The SOAS simulations also reasonably agree with the measurements regarding the diurnal pattern and concentrations of different product categories, while the total isoprene SOA remains underestimated. The molecular compositions of the modeled SOA indicate that multifunctional low-volatility products contribute to isoprene SOA more significantly than previously thought, with a median mass contribution of ~ 57 % to the total modeled isoprene SOA. However, this contribution is intricately intertwined with IEPOX-derived SOA (IEPOX: isoprene-derived epoxydiols), posing challenges for their differentiation using bulk aerosol composition analysis (e.g., the aerosol mass spectrometer with positive matrix factorization). Furthermore, the SOA from these pathways may vary greatly, mainly dependent on the volatility estimation and treatment of particle-phase processes (i.e., photolysis and hydrolysis). Our findings emphasize that the various pathways to produce these low-volatility species should be considered in models to more accurately predict isoprene SOA formation. The new condensed isoprene chemical mechanism can be further incorporated into regional-scale air quality models, such as the Community Multiscale Air Quality Modelling System (CMAQ), to assess isoprene SOA formation on a larger scale.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA GRC ICME Schema for Materials Data Management: An Executive Summary

Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) has received a growing emphasis in attention due its potential impact on rapid material design, reduction in cost and time to market for new applications, and the promise of ‘fit-for-purpose’ materials coupled with recent advances in high performance computing and material characterization tools. However, for an organization to implement ICME practices for material discovery and design, a series of both technical and cultural challenges must be overcome to foster an environment that enables efficient, traceable, and predictive multiscale simulations of material behavior to enable virtual design of materials. In 2016, NASA sponsored a 2040 Vision study to define the potential 25-year future state required for integrated multiscale modeling of materials and systems to improve both the associated time and cost for aerospace and aeronautical innovation. The study envisions a cyber-physical-social ecosystem of experimentally validated computational models, tools, and techniques, along with the associated digital tapestry, that can enable rapid, optimized, ‘fit-for-purpose’ design of materials, components, and systems. A key requirement for such an ecosystem is the development of a robust information management system for materials across their full lifecycle, including material pedigree, experimental (real) and virtual (simulation) data, developed material models, and the implementation of models in engineering applications, such that process-structure-property-performance relationships can be established, thereby enabling the virtual design and optimization of materials. Such an information management system must be able to effectively capture: i) material information at each length scale; ii) test data and analysis; iii) associated material models; and iv) material and model deployment in engineering applications. These systems must also provide traceability between experimental and virtual representations of the material to ensure, when appropriate, the material digital twin is maintained. Additionally, this robust material information management system must be able to seamlessly connect with both commercial and an organization’s in-house software tools, be they analysis tools, other material databases, product lifecycle management (PLM) or simulation data management (SDM) tools, etc., such that automation of the design and analysis of a material across multiple length scales is possible. In this paper, an executive summary of the NASA GRC ICME Schema for materials information management is presented. The database best practices and schema design philosophy specifically for ICME materials data management and an overview description of each element in the schema is given, along with its associated role in an ICME workflow. Additionally, auxiliary tools that interact with the database and provide judicious automation with regards to importing, exporting, and analyzing materials data are presented. Such tools are critical to an ICME ecosystem, not only for their role in enabling optimization, but also in relieving users of tedious manual tasks, thus helping to promote adoption and combat the cultural challenges organizations face in enabling ICME.

Materials↗

SQMS Quantum R&D in Machine Learning, Optimization and Sensing beyond Fundamental Physics Applications

This newly formed team at SQMS under the Ecosystem Thrust is looking to develop capabilities impacting societal advances outside the core domain of HEP and condensed matter physics. We explicitly leverage the experimental and algorithmic innovations developed across all groups as well as connect to broad-scope external projects of the diverse team of PIs. As the inaugural set of projects, we are studying numerically quantum machine learning models inspired by efficiently trainable echo-state and orthogonal neural networks and developing designs for related experiments to be performed on quantum processors based on SQMS SRF cQED technology and Rigetti s transmon arrays. Investigated models exploit ideas and lessons learned from multiple prior work by SQMS team members in a variety of internal and external activities [R1]. Target initial applications include noisy signal processing, potentially captured by quantum sensors or noisy QPUs, as well as simulation and classification of healthcare data. For instance, image reconstruction of the brain s electrical properties by solving the inverse Maxwell equation problem with uncertainty [R2] through a hybrid quantum-classical physics-informed architecture for time-dependent processes [R3]. The group is also investigating the application and development of novel quantum sensors based on magnetic levitation of a superconducting sphere coupled to a superconducting qubit. This coupling enables high-precision measurements of the position of the sphere, which can be used for sensitive detection of forces, enabling practical applications such as gravimetry for geophysics analysis, or accelerometry for GPS-denied navigation [R4] [R1] Rieffel, Eleanor G., Ata Akbari Asanjan, M. Sohaib Alam, Namit Anand, David E. Bernal Neira, Sophie Block, Lucas T. Brady et al. "Assessing and advancing the potential of quantum computing: A NASA case study." Future Generation Computer Systems (2024). [R2] Yu, X., Serrall s, J.E., Giannakopoulos, I.I., Liu, Z., Daniel, L., Lattanzi, R. and Zhang, Z., 2023. Pifon-ept: Mr-based electrical property tomography using physics-informed fourier networks. IEEE Journal on Multiscale and Multiphysics Computational Techniques. [R3] Wudarski, Filip, Daniel OConnor, Shaun Geaney, Ata Akbari Asanjan, Max Wilson, Elena Strbac, P. Aaron Lott, and Davide Venturelli. "Hybrid quantum-classical reservoir computing for simulating chaotic systems." arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.14105 (2023). [R4] Higgins, Gerard, Saarik Kalia, and Zhen Liu. "Maglev for dark matter: Dark-photon and axion dark matter sensing with levitated superconductors." Physical Review D 109.5 (2024): 055024.

Venturelli, Davide↗

Multiscale Temporal Variability of the Global Air‐Sea CO 2 Flux Anomaly

Abstract The global air‐sea CO 2 flux (F) impacts and is impacted by a plethora of climate‐related processes operating at multiple time scales. In bulk mass transfer formulations, F is driven by physico‐ and bio‐chemical factors such as the air‐sea partial pressure difference (∆pCO 2 ), gas transfer velocity, sea surface temperature, and salinity–all varying at multiple time scales. To de‐convolve the impact of these factors on variability in F at different time scales, time‐resolved estimates of F were computed using a global data set assembled between 1988 and 2015. The F anomalies were defined as temporal deviations from the 28‐year time‐averaged value. Spectral analysis revealed four dominant timescales of variability in F–subseasonal, seasonal, interannual, and decadal with relative amplitude differences varying across regions. A second‐order Taylor series expansion was then conducted along these four timescales to separate drivers across differing regions. The analysis showed that on subseasonal timescales, wind speed variability explains some 66% of the global F anomaly and is the dominant driver. On seasonal, interannual, and decadal timescales, the ∆pCO 2 effect controlled by the ∆pCO 2 anomaly, explained much of the F anomaly. On decadal timescales, the F anomaly was almost entirely governed by the ∆pCO 2 effect with large contributions from high latitudes. The main drivers across timescales also dominate the regional F anomaly, particularly in the mid‐high latitude regions. Finally, the driver of the ∆pCO 2 effect was closely connected with the relative strength of atmospheric pCO 2 and the nonthermal component of oceanic pCO 2 anomaly associated with dissolved inorganic carbon and alkalinity.

Environmental Sciences & Ecology↗

MATEY: multiscale adaptive transformer models for spatiotemporal physical systems

Accurate representation of the multiscale features in spatiotemporal physical systems using vision transformer architectures requires extremely long, computationally prohibitive token sequences. To address this issue, we propose two novel adaptive tokenization schemes that dynamically adjust patch sizes based on local features: one ensures convergent behavior to uniform patch refinement, while the other offers better computational efficiency. Moreover, we present a set of spatiotemporal attention schemes, where the temporal or axial spatial dimensions are decoupled, to evaluate their baseline computational and data efficiencies and to determine whether adaptive tokenization can improve this performance. We assess the performance of the proposed multiscale adaptive model, MATEY, in a sequence of experiments. Compared to a full spatiotemporal attention scheme or a scheme that decouples only the temporal dimension, we find that fully decoupled axial attention is less efficient and expressive, requiring more training time and model parameters to achieve the same accuracy. The experiments on the adaptive tokenization schemes show that, compared to a uniformly refined model, the proposed schemes achieve comparable or improved accuracy at a much lower cost in the tested two-dimensional settings. While the asymptotic analysis suggests the potential for favorable scaling, empirical validation at substantially longer sequence lengths remains to be performed in future work. Finally, we demonstrate in two fine-tuning tasks featuring different physics that models pretrained on PDEBench data outperform the ones trained from scratch, especially in the low data regime with frozen attention.

adaptive tokenization↗

Purification Techniques for Actinide Radiolysis Studies

Our fundamental understanding of actinide radiation-induced redox chemistry is crucial due to their unavoidable exposure to ionizing radiation fields, both inherent and from in-process applications. Plutonium (Pu) and americium (Am) both possess multiple oxidation states, the careful manipulation of which are essential in the study and utilization of their rich chemistry, developing new technologies, and securing the long-term sustainability of nuclear power. However, knowledge in this area is far from complete. We have studied the radiation-induced chemistry of both Pu and Am through a variety of techniques, including gamma irradiation, in-situ alpha irradiation and pulse radiolysis experiments. However, for the collection of accurate data, thorough purification and quantification of actinide-containing solutions is required. This presentation will cover the purification and quantification techniques employed for the radiolysis experiments described in our recent publications: Kynman et al., Multiscale Modeling of Plutonium Radiation Chemistry in Nitric Acid Solutions. 1. Cobalt-60 Gamma Irradiation of Pu(IV) [https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.inorgchem.4c00138] and Kynman et al., Generation and Study of Am(IV) by Temperature-Controlled Electron Pulse Radiolysis [https://doi.org/10.1039/D4DT00991F].

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEA↗

SynopFrame: Multiscale time-dependent visual abstraction framework for analyzing DNA nanotechnology simulations

We present an open-source framework, SynopFrame, that allows DNA nanotechnology (DNA-nano) experts to analyze and understand molecular dynamics simulation trajectories of their designs. We use a multiscale multi-dimensional abstraction space, connect the representations to a projected conformational space plot of the structure’s temporal sequence, and thus enable experts to analyze the dynamics of their structural designs and, specifically, failure cases of the assembly. In addition, our time-dependent abstraction representation allows the biologists, for the first time in a smooth and structurally clear way, to identify and observe temporal transitions of a DNA-nano design from one configuration to another, and to highlight important periods of the simulation for further analysis. We realize SynopFrame as a dashboard of the different synchronized 3D spatial and 2D schematic visual representations, with a color overlay to show essential properties such as the status of hydrogen bonds. The linking of the spatial, schematic, and abstract views ensures that users can effectively analyze the high-frequency motion. We also categorize the status of the hydrogen bonds into a new format to allow us to color-encode it and overlay it on the representations. To demonstrate the utility of SynopFrame, we describe example usage scenarios and report user feedback.

Abstraction space↗

Environmental Assessment and Monitoring with ICAMS (Image Characterization and Modeling System) Using Multiscale Remote-Sensing Data

With the rapid increase in spatial data, especially in the NASA-EOS (Earth Observing System) era, it is necessary to develop efficient and innovative tools to handle and analyze these data so that environmental conditions can be assessed and monitored. A main difficulty facing geographers and environmental scientists in environmental assessment and measurement is that spatial analytical tools are not easily accessible. We have recently developed a remote sensing/GIS software module called Image Characterization and Modeling System (ICAMS) to provide specialized spatial analytical tools for the measurement and characterization of satellite and other forms of spatial data. ICAMS runs on both the Intergraph-MGE and Arc/info UNIX and Windows-NT platforms. The main techniques in ICAMS include fractal measurement methods, variogram analysis, spatial autocorrelation statistics, textural measures, aggregation techniques, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and delineation of land/water and vegetated/non-vegetated boundaries. In this paper, we demonstrate the main applications of ICAMS on the Intergraph-MGE platform using Landsat Thematic Mapper images from the city of Lake Charles, Louisiana. While the utilities of ICAMS' spatial measurement methods (e.g., fractal indices) in assessing environmental conditions remain to be researched, making the software available to a wider scientific community can permit the techniques in ICAMS to be evaluated and used for a diversity of applications. The findings from these various studies should lead to improved algorithms and more reliable models for environmental assessment and monitoring.

Lam, N.↗

The Effects of Thrust Uncertainty and Attitude Knowledge Errors on the MMS Formation Maintenance Maneuver

The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) Mission will use a formation of four spinning spacecraft to study the Earth s magnetosphere. The science objectives of MMS require a near-regular tetrahedron formation to be maintained with side lengths ranging from ten kilometers to several thousand kilometers at orbit apogee. To reduce spacecraft complexity and cost, the current mission concept assumes MMS can achieve its formation goals through open-loop orbit control from the ground, rather than in-flight, closed-loop formation control that has been the subject of recent study. Significant analysis has been performed to provide optimal reference orbit and relative orbit designs. However, the feasibility of achieving these orbits, and maintaining them for an extended period of time in the presence of real world errors and perturbations has not been investigated. In particular, attitude knowledge and control errors, which may have a negligible effect on orbit control for conventional missions with spinning spacecraft, can contribute significant errors to the MMS orbits. In this work, a 6 degree-of-freedom (DOF) simulation is developed and used to analyze the effects of realistic errors on formation maintenance maneuver accuracy. Several realistic considerations including a finite-burn model, attitude perturbations, and thrust uncertainty are studied. The primary objective is to quantify the effects of realistic attitude and orbit control, knowledge, and actuator errors on the formation geometry by observing representative maneuver errors of a single spacecraft.

Tsai, Dean C.↗

Force Balance at the Magnetopause Determined with MMS: Application to Flux Transfer Events

The Magnetospheric Multiscale mission (MMS) consists of four identical spacecraft forming a closely separated (less than or equal to 10 km) and nearly regular tetrahedron. This configuration enables the decoupling of spatial and temporal variations and allows the calculation of the spatial gradients of plasma and electromagnetic field quantities. We make full use of the well cross-calibrated MMS magnetometers and fast plasma instruments measurements to calculate both the magnetic and plasma forces in flux transfer events (FTEs) and evaluate the relative contributions of different forces to the magnetopause momentum variation. This analysis demonstrates that some but not all FTEs, consistent with previous studies, are indeed force-free structures in which the magnetic pressure force balances the magnetic curvature force. Furthermore, we contrast these events with FTE events that have non-force-free signatures.

MMS↗

Revealing EDL-driven reduction mechanisms in binary, ternary, and quaternary fluorinated electrolytes via an integrated MD–DFT–ML framework

Accurately predicting solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) formation requires explicitly resolving the electric double layer (EDL) structure, which deviates significantly from that of the bulk electrolyte. Although an established molecular dynamics (MD) and Density Functional Theory (DFT) framework can model SEI formation by evaluating reduction reactions of local clusters in the EDL, it suffers from a combinatorial computational bottleneck. To overcome this limitation, we introduce a machine-learning-accelerated simulation workflow (MD–DFT–ML), integrating a gradient-boosted regression model trained on EDL composition data to efficiently predict reduction potentials. We apply this framework to seven fluorinated electrolytes comprising fluorinated anions, a fluorinated ester solvent, two types of diluent (ion-solvating ester vs. non-solvating ether), and an FEC additive. The analysis shows that the EDL selectively accumulates cation-binding species; consequently, the non–cation-binding ether diluent rarely enters the EDL and makes minimal contributions to SEI formation. DFT calculations on statistically representative EDL clusters provide reduction potentials and fluorine-release pathways, while the ML model, which substantially reduces the DFT workload, predicts cluster reduction energies with a mean absolute error of 0.1 eV. The combined MD–DFT–ML approach also quantifies contributions from different sources to LiF formation in the SEI. This methodology establishes a generalizable route for multiscale modeling electrolyte and interphase design for next-generation electrochemical energy-storage systems.

DFT-MD-ML workflow↗

Ion Correlations and Partial Ionicities in the Lamellar Phases of Block Copolymeric Ionic Liquids

Recently, significant interest has arisen on the impact of dynamical ion correlations on the conductivity and transport properties of polymeric electrolyte materials. It has been hypothesized that confining ion motion to narrow channels may reduce such ion correlations and enhance the resulting ionic conductivity. Motivated by such considerations, in this study we used a multiscale simulation framework to study the dynamical ion correlations in the microphase-separated lamella phase of block copolymeric ionic liquids and compare with the corresponding results for homopolymeric systems. We probed the influence of ion correlations through the partial ionicity, Δ, which quantifies the ratio of true conductivity to the ideal, Nernst–Einstein conductivity for the anion-related contributions. Consistent with our original hypothesis, our results demonstrate that the partial ionicity relating to the mobile anions is much larger in the lamella phases of block copolymers compared to that in homopolymers. Analysis of the distinct conductivity contributions demonstrates that such results arise as a result of an intricate compensation among the nonideal dynamical correlations relating to anions in lamella phases. Overall, our results suggest that self-assembled phases of block copolymers may provide an avenue to tune the dynamical ion correlations in polymer electrolyte systems.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A multiscale model of immune surveillance in micrometastases gives insights on cancer patient digital twins

Abstract Metastasis is the leading cause of death in patients with cancer, driving considerable scientific and clinical interest in immunosurveillance of micrometastases. We investigated this process by creating a multiscale mathematical model to study the interactions between the immune system and the progression of micrometastases in general epithelial tissue. We analyzed the parameter space of the model using high-throughput computing resources to generate over 100,000 virtual patient trajectories. We demonstrated that the model could recapitulate a wide variety of virtual patient trajectories, including uncontrolled growth, partial response, and complete immune response to tumor growth. We classified the virtual patients and identified key patient parameters with the greatest effect on the simulated immunosurveillance. We highlight the lessons derived from this analysis and their impact on the nascent field of cancer patient digital twins (CPDTs). While CPDTs could enable clinicians to systematically dissect the complexity of cancer in each individual patient and inform treatment choices, our work shows that key challenges remain before we can reach this vision. In particular, we show that there remain considerable uncertainties in immune responses, unreliable patient stratification, and unpredictable personalized treatment. Nonetheless, we also show that in spite of these challenges, patient-specific models suggest strategies to increase control of clinically undetectable micrometastases even without complete parameter certainty.

Mathematical & Computational Biology↗

2020 Multiscale Microbial Dynamics Modeling Course

The 2020 Multiscale Microbial Dynamics course is adapted from the virtual 2020 Mutliscale Microbial Dynamics Summer School that was hosted by Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) science user facility located on the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) campus, in collaboration with the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and the DOE Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase). The course course covers how to incorporate microbial metagenomic and environmental metabolite data from watershed ecosystems into metabolic and community modeling using computational frameworks, such as KBase and PFLOTRAN. The curriculum includes lectures and software and data analysis tutorials. All materials are freely accessible to the community as part of the 2020 Microbial Dynamics Summer School Organization in KBase.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Development of Composite Photocatalyst Materials that are Highly Selective for Solar Hydrogen Production and their Evaluation in Z-Scheme Reactor Designs

The key technology gap preventing a vertically stacked dual-bed particle suspension reactor from achieving the DOE MYRD&D ultimate cost target for H 2 production remains the lack of materials in particle form factor that exhibit ≥10% solar-to-H 2 energy conversion (STH) efficiency as a suspension. Therefore, our project goals centered around strategies to increase the STH efficiency by enhancing photophysical properties of perovskite oxide particles including increased visible-light absorption, increased selectivity for electrocatalysis of the H 2 evolution reaction (HER) and the O 2 evolution reaction (OER) through development of ultrathin oxide coatings, correlating composition and structure to function, and improving understanding of multiscale transport and kinetic processes.

08 HYDROGEN↗

Effect of Material Porosity on Residual Stress in an Additive Manufacturing Simulation using the Generalized Method of Cells

The effect of material porosity on final part distortion and residual stresses in a selective laser sintering manufacturing simulation is presented here. A time-dependent thermo-mechanical model is used with the open-source FEA software CalculiX. Effective homogenized material properties for Inconel 625 are precomputed using NASA’s Micromechanics Analysis Code with the Generalized Method of Cells. The evolving porosity of the material is estimated with each pass of the laser beam during simulation runtime. A comparison with a homogenous model and the evolving model shows that the model with evolving porosity predicts larger distortions with greater residual stresses.

Additive Manufactuirng↗

Utilizing Oxygen Redox in Layered Cathode Materials from Multiscale Perspective

We report in high-capacity layered oxide cathode materials, utilization of lattice oxygen as a redox center is considered to be one of the most promising approaches to overcome the capacity limitation set by conventional transition metal redox centers. However, rapid material degradation is often associated with oxygen oxidation, leading to formidable challenges in utilizing oxygen redox. Further mechanistic understanding of the oxygen activities thus becomes critical to better control oxygen redox reactions. This review summarizes recent advances for investigating oxygen redox reactions in cathode materials from a multiscale perspective, i.e., from the atomistic level to the microstructure regime. First the mechanistic aspects of oxygen redox and the consequences of this reaction on various electrode degradation pathways during battery operation (e.g., oxygen loss, transition metal migration, irreversible phase transition), relating structural changes at the crystallographic scale to those at the macro scale, are discussed. Then recent developments based on atomic and microstructure modifications that are promising for improving the reversibility of oxygen redox reaction or mitigating the harmful processes arising from oxidation of the oxygen centers under high operating voltage are recounted. The analysis is concluded with a commentary on further research directions toward optimizing the oxygen activity for high-capacity charge storage.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗