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At least 469 records · Page 26
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2019

Experimental and numerical comparisons of a dual-flap floating oscillating surge wave energy converter in regular waves

The floating oscillating surge wave energy converter (FOSWEC) is a wave energy converter that was designed, built, and tested to develop an open-access data set for the purpose of numerical model validation. Here, this paper details the experimental testing of the 1:33-scale FOSWEC in a directional wave basin, and compares experimental data to numerical simulations using the wave energy converter simulator (WEC-Sim) open-source code. The FOSWEC consists of a floating platform moving in heave, pitch, and surge, and two pitching flaps. Power is extracted through relative motion between each of the flaps and the platform. The device was designed to constrain different degrees of freedom so that it could be configured into a variety of operating conditions with varying dynamics. The FOSWEC was tested in a range of different conditions including: static offset, free decay, forced oscillation, wave excitation, and dynamic response to regular waves. In this paper, results from the range of experimental tests are presented and compared to numerical simulations using the WEC-Sim code.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
DOE OSTI2020

Experimental and numerical studies of seismic fluid-structure interaction in a base-supported cylindrical vessel

Seismic design and qualification of advanced reactors will rely heavily on the use of verified and validated numerical models capable of capturing the interaction of the vessel, its contained fluid, and the internal equipment: fluid-structure interaction (FSI) analysis. Analytical solutions can be used for preliminary sizing and design of such vessels but their application is limited to simple geometries and boundary conditions, and small amplitude, translational (and rotational) inputs. To validate numerical models for seismic FSI analysis in finite element codes, a comprehensive set of experiments was performed on a liquid-filled cylindrical vessel, using a 6 degree-of-freedom earthquake simulator. Results in terms of sloshing frequency, damping ratio in sloshing modes, and hydrodynamic responses (wave height, hydrodynamic pressure, base shear, and base moment) for multi-directional earthquake simulator inputs are reported and compared with analytical solutions for liquid-filled vessels. The impact of seismic (base) isolation on hydrodynamic responses was studied using earthquake simulator inputs generated using a virtual isolation system. Data from the experiments are used to validate a numerical model of the fluid-filled vessel using the Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) solver in the commercial finite element program LS-DYNA. Validation studies are presented for multi-directional seismic inputs, including rocking motions. Lagrangian modeling approaches using an elastic material formulation for the fluid are also investigated and their limitations and possible applications are identified. Here, the results are broadly applicable to the seismic response of base supported, liquid-filled vessels.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

An extended numerical manifold method for unsaturated soil-water interaction analysis at micro-scale

To investigate unsaturated soil-water interaction at micro-scale, this work extends the numerical manifold method (NMM) by incorporating a soil-water coupling model considering specific capillary water distribution and capillary force calculation. The soil skeleton is constructed by a soil skeleton generation algorithm with random polygons. To more realistically capture the interaction between soil grains and capillary water, a capillary mechanics-based geometric algorithm is proposed to iteratively calculate the capillary water distribution. The capillary forces corresponding to the capillary water distribution are calculated based on the Young-Laplace equation. The proposed capillary water solving framework is first verified by reproducing the soil-water characteristic curve and the capillary water distribution of an ideal contact-disk model against analytical solutions. To further validate the ability of the capillary water solving framework to predict hydraulic behavior of the real soil, a laboratory test on the Toyoura sand is reproduced numerically. Then an ideal direct shear test is performed to further validate the two-way soil-water coupling procedure, in which a comparison between the numerical and analytical results regarding the shear strength and matric suction is presented. Finally, microscopic hydraulic and compression tests are conducted on two soil specimens with the same porosity and mean grain diameter but different uniformity coefficients. The results elucidate that the extended method is a potential tool to explore unsaturated soil behaviors at micro-scale.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2014

Massively parallel solvers for elliptic partial differential equations in numerical weather and climate prediction

The demand for substantial increases in the spatial resolution of global weather and climate prediction models makes it essential to use numerically efficient and highly scalable algorithms to solve the equations of large-scale atmospheric fluid dynamics. For stability and efficiency reasons, several of the operational forecasting centres, in particular the Met Office and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in the UK, use semi-implicit semi-Lagrangian time-stepping in the dynamical core of the model. The additional burden with this method is that a three-dimensional elliptic partial differential equation (PDE) for the pressure correction has to be solved at every model time step and this often constitutes a significant proportion of the time spent in the dynamical core. In global models, this PDE must be solved in a thin spherical shell. To run within tight operational time-scales, the solver has to be parallelized and there seems to be a (perceived) misconception that elliptic solvers do not scale to large processor counts and hence implicit time-stepping cannot be used in very high-resolution global models. After reviewing several methods for solving the elliptic PDE for the pressure correction and their application in atmospheric models, we demonstrate the performance and very good scalability of Krylov subspace solvers and multigrid algorithms for a representative model equation with more than 1010 unknowns on 65 536 cores on the High-End Computing Terascale Resource (HECToR), the UK's national supercomputer. Here, we tested and optimized solvers from two existing numerical libraries (the Distributed and Unified Numerics Environment (DUNE) and Parallel High Performance Preconditioners (hypre)) and implemented both a conjugate gradient solver and a geometric multigrid algorithm based on a tensor-product approach, which exploits the strong vertical anisotropy of the discretized equation. We study both weak and strong scalability and compare the absolute solution times for all methods; in contrast to one-level methods, the multigrid solver is robust with respect to parameter variations.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Towards accelerating particle-resolved direct numerical simulation with neural operators

In this paper, we present our ongoing work aimed at accelerating a particle-resolved direct numerical simulation model designed to study aerosol–cloud–turbulence interactions. The dynamical model consists of two main components—a set of fluid dynamics equations for air velocity, temperature, and humidity, coupled with a set of equations for particle (i.e., cloud droplet) tracing. Rather than attempting to replace the original numerical solution method in its entirety with a machine learning (ML) method, we consider developing a hybrid approach. We exploit the potential of neural operator learning to yield fast and accurate surrogate models and, in this study, develop such surrogates for the velocity and vorticity fields. We discuss results from numerical experiments designed to assess the performance of ML architectures under consideration as well as their suitability for capturing the behavior of relevant dynamical systems.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

Comparison of Asymptotic and Numerical Approaches to the Study of the Resonant Tunneling in Two-Dimensional Symmetric Quantum Waveguides of Variable Cross-Sections

The waveguide considered coincides with a strip having two narrows of width ε. An electron wave function satisfies the Dirichlet boundary value problem for the Helmholtz equation. The part of the waveguide between the narrows serves as a resonator, and conditions for the electron resonant tunneling may occur. In the paper, asymptotic formulas as ε → 0 for characteristics of the resonant tunneling are used. The asymptotic results are compared with the numerical ones obtained by approximate calculation of the scattering matrix for energies in the interval between the second and third thresholds. The comparison allows us to state an interval of ε, where the asymptotic and numerical approaches agree. The suggested methods can be applied to more complicated models than that considered in the paper. In particular, the same approach can be used for asymptotic and numerical analysis of the tunneling in three-dimensional quantum waveguides of variable cross-sections. Bibliography: 3 titles.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2019

Analytical and numerical demonstration of phase characteristics on two solitons under the influence of third-order dispersion

In the present work, influence of third-order dispersion (TOD) on phase change properties of two-soliton model is numerically and analytically investigated. Using perturbation theory approach and split-step Fourier transform, phase characteristics of two solitons pulse are evolved and solved by nonlinear Schrodinger’s equation. Each phase variation in the form of temporal shift under the base of third-order dispersion is also numerically devoted using the moments equation. As a result, it was found that the shift of soliton pulse mainly depends on third-order dispersion parameter β{sub 3}. With the good agreement between analytical and numerical analysis, the impact of TOD has realized in a single channel telecommunication system.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2022

Numerical Errors in Ice Microphysics Parameterizations and their Effects on Simulated Regional Climate

The major characteristics of ice microphysics in Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Double-Moment 6-class (WDM6) bulk-type cloud microphysics originate from the diagnosed ice number concentration, which is a function of the cloud-ice mixing ratio. In this study, we correct numerical errors in ice microphysics processes of the WDM6, in which the cloud-ice shape is assumed as single bullets and examine the impact on regional climate simulations. Here, by rederiving the relationships between cloud microphysics characteristics, including the one linking the cloud-ice mixing ratio and number concentration, we remove numerical errors intrinsic to the description of cloud-ice characteristics in the original WDM6 microphysics scheme. The revised WDM6 is tested using a WRF framework for regional climate simulations over the East Asian region. We find that our correction to the WDM6 improves the model’s performance in capturing the observed distribution of the monsoon rain band. A reduction in cloud ice is significant in the revised WDM6, which strengthens the Western North Pacific High. By conducting the additional sensitivity experiment in which the characteristics of cloud-ice shape are revised as the one for the column type, our study also finds out that the impacts of the existing numerical errors on the simulated monsoon is as large as the ones of the changes in cloud-ice shape.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

Theoretical analysis and numerical simulation for a hyperbolic equation with Dirichlet and acoustic boundary conditions

This paper is concerned with a theoretical and numerical study for the initial-boundary value problem for a linear hyperbolic equation with variable coefficient and acoustic boundary conditions. On the theoretical results, we prove the existence and uniqueness of global solutions, and the uniform stability of the total energy. Numerical simulations using the finite element method associated with the finite difference method are employed, for one-dimensional and two-dimensional cases, to validate the theoretical results. In addition, numerically the uniform decay rate for energy and the order of convergence of the approximate solution are also shown.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2018

Groundwater flow and heat transport for systems undergoing freeze-thaw: Intercomparison of numerical simulators for 2D test cases

In high-elevation, boreal and arctic regions, hydrological processes and associated water bodies can be strongly influenced by the distribution of permafrost. Recent field and modeling studies indicate that a fully-coupled multidimensional thermo-hydraulic approach is required to accurately model the evolution of these permafrost-impacted landscapes and groundwater systems. However, the relatively new and complex numerical codes being developed for coupled non-linear freeze-thaw systems require verification. Here in this paper, this issue is addressed by means of an intercomparison of thirteen numerical codes for two-dimensional test cases with several performance metrics (PMs). These codes comprise a wide range of numerical approaches, spatial and temporal discretization strategies, and computational efficiencies. Results suggest that the codes provide robust results for the test cases considered and that minor discrepancies are explained by computational precision. However, larger discrepancies are observed for some PMs resulting from differences in the governing equations, discretization issues, or in the freezing curve used by some codes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

Numerical analysis of experimental studies of methane hydrate formation in a sandy porous medium

Here we analyse numerically an earlier experimental study that involved the formation of methane hydrates by the excess water method in a small reactor filled with a sandy porous medium, and seek to address questions about the type of the hydration reaction and the phase heterogeneity in the resulting hydrate-bearing sand. Using a fine discretization describing the reactor assembly, the experimental process is faithfully replicated numerically. The multi-stage process of hydrate formation is subdivided in 7 steps. The experimental data from the continuously-monitored pressure and temperature during each step are used for comparison against the numerical predictions, the identification of the dominant processes and the determination of the associated parameters through a history-matching process that minimizes deviations between observations and simulation results. The results of this first-ever study on this subject demonstrate unequivocally that the hydration reaction is a kinetic (as opposed to an equilibrium) process, and that the spatial distributions of the various phases (aqueous, gas and hydrate) at the end of the formation process are strongly heterogeneous. This has serious implications in simulation studies of hydrate dissociation that assume uniform initial phase saturation distributions. Finally, the history-matching process indicates that (a) the system behaviour is sensitive to some flow parameters (porosity and irreducible water saturation) only during the first water injection, (b) it is insensitive to the sand intrinsic permeability during all steps of the study, and (c) thermal processes dominate after the first water injection, yielding estimates of the thermal properties of the sand and of time-variable key parameters of the kinetic reaction.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

Numerical modeling and performance analysis of a membrane-based air dehumidifier using ionic liquid desiccant

Membrane-based Liquid Desiccant Air Dehumidifier (MLDAD) has the potential to overcome the shortcomings of the conventional open-tower liquid desiccant air dehumidifier. The MLDAD uses membranes with high water vapor permeability to separate air stream from the liquid desiccant and thus eliminates carry-over and the resulting corrosion issues. Recently, the ionic liquid desiccant becomes a promising alternative to conventional liquid desiccant. The ionic liquid desiccant has a large potential of dehumidification, which is also non-corrosive to metals and non-crystallizable. A two-dimensional numerical heat and mass transfer model of the MLDAD using a recently identified ionic liquid desiccant, [EMIM]OAc, is presented in this paper. We report this model can simulate the performance of the MLDAD with various designs, including different selections of liquid desiccant and membrane materials, dimensions of the MLDAD, and flow patterns. For porous membranes, this model accounts for several micro-scale mass transfer mechanisms of vapor transportation across the membrane. It can also model the mass transfer performance of dehumidifiers using non-porous membranes based on the experimentally measured membrane permeance. The numerical model was validated against the performance data available from literature and experimental tests. The maximum discrepancy of the latent effectiveness between the measured and the model-predicted results was about 6% when porous membranes were used. A parametric study was conducted with the numerical model. The results indicated that the membrane permeability, air path height, and solution to air mass ratio were the most critical parameters, determining the dehumidification performance of the MLDAD.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Numerical modeling and performance analysis of a membrane-based air dehumidifier using ionic liquid desiccant

Membrane-based Liquid Desiccant Air Dehumidifier (MLDAD) has the potential to overcome the shortcomings of the conventional open-tower liquid desiccant air dehumidifier. The MLDAD uses membranes with high water vapor permeability to separate air stream from the liquid desiccant and thus eliminates carry-over and the resulting corrosion issues. Recently, the ionic liquid desiccant becomes a promising alternative to conventional liquid desiccant. The ionic liquid desiccant has a large potential of dehumidification, which is also non-corrosive to metals and non-crystallizable. A two-dimensional numerical heat and mass transfer model of the MLDAD using a recently identified ionic liquid desiccant, [EMIM]OAc, is presented here. This model can simulate the performance of the MLDAD with various designs, including different selections of liquid desiccant and membrane materials, dimensions of the MLDAD, and flow patterns. For porous membranes, this model accounts for several micro-scale mass transfer mechanisms of vapor transportation across the membrane. It can also model the mass transfer performance of dehumidifiers using non-porous membranes based on the experimentally measured membrane permeance. The numerical model was validated against the performance data available from literature and experimental tests. The maximum discrepancy of the latent effectiveness between the measured and the model-predicted results was about 6% when porous membranes were used. A parametric study was conducted with the numerical model. Finally, the results indicated that the membrane permeability, air path height, and solution to air mass ratio were the most critical parameters, determining the dehumidification performance of the MLDAD.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Effect of the numerical discretization scheme in Shock-Driven turbulent mixing simulations

In this work, we evaluate the effects of distinct numerical strategies in simulations of shock-driven turbulent mixing. An air-SF 6 -air gas curtain subjected to Mach 1.2 shock-waves is computed with Implicit Large-Eddy Simulation based on three numerical schemes: directional-split with Harten-Lax-van Leer (HLL) solver; directional-unsplit using HLL-Contact (HLLC) solver; and directional-unsplit with HLLC solver and a Low Mach number Correction (LMC). The results illustrate the importance of the numerical strategy to the accuracy of the predictions. Whereas both split and unsplit schemes result in a similar spatial development of the initial shock-driven instability, only the unsplit schemes can predict the turbulent mixing transition after reshock observed by the laboratory experiments. Such feature increases the mixing rate of the two fluids, this being particularly pronounced when the LMC is active due to i) the reduced flow Mach number, and ii) the larger effective Reynolds number. Since the selected mixing problem is driven by the deposition of vorticity at the fluids’ interface, the resultant flow physics is analyzed by investigating the contribution of distinct inviscid mechanisms to the production of vorticity: baroclinicity, stretching, and dilatation. As expected, it is observed that the production of vorticity is initially dominated by the baroclinicity mechanism. Yet, the relevance of the remainder mechanisms is enhanced after the reshock and may even surpass the baroclinicity term.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Numerical simulation of coupled THM behaviour of full-scale EBS in backfilled experimental gallery in the Horonobe URL

Bentonite-based engineered barrier system (EBS) is a key component of many repository designs for the geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste. Given the complexity and interaction of the phenomena affecting the barrier system, coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) numerical analyses are a potentially useful tool for a better understanding of their behaviour. In this context, a Task (the Horonobe EBS experiment) was undertaken to study, using numerical analyses, the thermo-hydro-mechanical (and thermo-hydro) interactions in bentonite based engineered barriers within the international cooperative project DECOVALEX 2023. One full-scale in-situ experiment and four laboratory experiments, largely complementary, were selected for modelling. The Horonobe EBS experiment is a temperature-controlled non-isothermal experiment combined with artificial groundwater injection. The Horonobe EBS experiment consists of the heating and cooling phases. Six research teams performed the THM or TH (depended on research team approach) numerical analyses using a variety of computer codes, formulations and constitutive laws. Finally, for each experiment, the basic features of the analyses are described and the comparison between calculations and laboratory experiments and field observations are presented and discussed.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2021

Relationship between the contact force strength and numerical inaccuracies in piecewise-smooth systems

This work studies the different types of behavior and inaccuracies that can occur when contact is not adequately accounted for in a dynamical system with freeplay, as the strength of the contact stiffness increases. The MATLAB® ode45 time integration solver, with the built-in Event Location capability, is first validated using past experimental data from a forced Duffing oscillator with freeplay. Next, numerical results utilizing event location are compared to results neglecting event location in order to highlight possible numerical errors and effects on multistable dynamical responses. Inaccuracies tend to occur in two different ways. First, neglecting event location can affect the boundaries between basins of attraction. Second, neglecting event location has little effect on the behaviors of the attractor solutions themselves besides merely resembling poorly converged solutions. Errors are less pronounced at the limits of soft or hard contact stiffness. Finally, this study shows the importance of accurately solving piecewise-smooth systems and the existing correlation between the strength of the contact force and possible numerical inaccuracies.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2013

Numerical solution of the time dependent neutron transport equation by the method of the characteristics

This study presents three numerical algorithms to solve the time dependent neutron transport equation by the method of the characteristics. The algorithms have been developed taking into account delayed neutrons and they have been implemented into the novel MCART code, which solves the neutron transport equation for two-dimensional geometry and an arbitrary number of energy groups. The MCART code uses regular mesh for the representation of the spatial domain, it models up-scattering, and takes advantage of OPENMP and OPENGL algorithms for parallel computing and plotting, respectively. The code has been benchmarked with the multiplication factor results of a Boiling Water Reactor, with the analytical results for a prompt jump transient in an infinite medium, and with PARTISN and TDTORT results for cross section and source transients. The numerical simulations have shown that only two numerical algorithms are stable for small time steps.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗