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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 469 records · Page 26
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Defect Production and Microstructural Feature Impact for Radiation Damage in Additively Manufactured 316 Stainless Steel

This milestone presents multi-scale modeling research results for additively manufactured 316 stainless steel. A combination of phase field, cluster dynamics, molecular dynamics, and density functional theory with machine learning is used, allowing for predictions of radiation-driven microstructural evolution in additively manufactured 316 stainless steel over a range of temperatures, damage rates, neutron spectra, and microstructures, and supporting the development of combined ion and neutron irradiation for material qualification. Informed by ion irradiation and neutron irradiation results across the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies program, we investigate the unique aspects of radiation-driven microstructure evolution in additively manufactured 316 stainless steel. In particular, we focus on understanding the impact of carbon concentration (varying, for example, between the 316L and 316H standards) on void formation; radiation-induced segregation at dislocation cells and grain boundaries; and the evolution of dislocation loops and network dislocation populations. We find that the unique characteristics of the additively manufactured microstructures must be accounted for in understanding the evolution of dislocation populations under thermal and irradiation conditions, such as the variation in sink strengths arising due to the variation in dislocation density. We also find that the radiation-induced segregation of Cr and Ni to grain boundaries and cell walls differs due to the differences in their defect sink biases. We also find that increasing the Ni content can slow vacancy diffusion, which may provide a mechanism for the observed reduction in transient swelling rate for austenitic Fe-Cr-Ni alloys with increasing Ni content. In addition, ion irradiations have shown that increasing carbon content in 316 SS results in a larger population of smaller voids, suggesting reduced vacancy diffusion. Our results show that the carbon content of additively manufactured 316 SS has a significant impact on the migration rate of defect clusters. The presence of carbon atoms results in carbon-vacancy trapping, significantly reducing the diffusion rate of vacancies. Carbon atoms may also be trapped near the surface of a void, which may reduce void growth by trapping vacancies that diffuse toward the void.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2023

West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) (Annual Site Environmental Report (ASER), Calendar Year 2022)

The report, prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy West Valley Demonstration Project office (DOE-WVDP), summarizes the environmental protection program at the WVDP for calendar year (CY) 2022. Monitoring and surveillance of the facilities used by the DOE are conducted to verify protection of public health and safety and the environment. The report is a key component of DOE’s effort to keep the public informed of environmental conditions at the WVDP. The quality assurance protocols applied to the environmental monitoring program ensure the validity and accuracy of the monitoring data. In addition to demonstrating compliance with environmental laws, regulations, and directives, evaluation of data collected in 2022 continued to indicate that WVDP activities pose no threat to public health or safety, or to the environment.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2024

West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) Annual Site Environmental Report (ASER) for Calendar Year 2023

The report, prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy West Valley Demonstration Project office (DOE-WVDP), summarizes the environmental protection program at the WVDP for calendar year (CY) 2023. Monitoring and surveillance of the facilities used by the DOE are conducted to verify protection of public health and safety and the environment. The report is a key component of DOE’s effort to keep the public informed of environmental conditions at the WVDP. The quality assurance protocols applied to the environmental monitoring program ensure the validity and accuracy of the monitoring data. In addition to demonstrating compliance with environmental laws, regulations, and directives, evaluation of data collected in 2023 continued to indicate that WVDP activities pose no threat to public health or safety, or to the environment.

Record of Decision↗
DOE OSTI2023

Emissions and Energy Impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act

If goals set under the Paris Agreement are met, the world may hold warming well below 2 degrees C (1); however, parties are not on track to deliver these commitments (2), increasing focus on policy implementation to close the gap between ambition and action. Recently, the US government passed its most prominent piece of climate legislation to date - the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) - designed to invest in a wide range of programs that, among other provisions, incentivize clean energy and carbon management, encourage electrification and efficiency measures, reduce methane emissions, promote domestic supply chains, and address environmental justice concerns (3). IRA's scope and complexity make modeling important to understand impacts on emissions and energy systems. We leverage results from nine independent, state-of-the-art models to examine potential implications of key IRA provisions, showing economy-wide emissions reductions between 43 and 48% below 2005 levels by 2035.

electricity↗
DOE OSTI2022

Test Report for DPP-1 Regulatory Compliance Testing. Volume 1 - Main Report

Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC (CNS), the management and operating contractor for the Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12) for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), is currently responsible for the regulatory testing of a new Type B fissile material shipping package called the Defense Programs Package (DPP)-1. The DPP-1 is a drum packaging with an inner liner and a removable lid. Both the drum body and the lid are filled with an impact-limiting, thermal-insulating material that protects the inner containment vessel (CV) during normal conditions of transport (NCT) and hypothetical accident conditions (HAC) as defined by 10 US code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 71. In fiscal year 2021, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Package Testing Program (PTP), located at the National Transportation Research Center (NTRC), conducted Type B performance tests as prescribed in Title 10 Code of Federal Regulations Part 71 (10 CFR 71) on seven DPP-1 prototype units. This test report documents test unit (TU) preparation, pretest condition, conditioning of each TU, NCT and HAC testing, and posttest measurements and observations made of the damage resulting from these tests.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Becoming a 10: A Closer Look at the U.S. Department of Energy Home Energy Score's Updates, Improvements, and Expansion

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Home Energy Score provides homeowners, buyers, and renters directly comparable and credible information about a home's estimated energy use and costs. Certified Qualified Assessors conduct low-cost assessments to provide each home a 1-10 score alongside a set of cost-effective upgrades to improve the score. As of February 2022, hundreds of assessors have delivered over 175,000 scores to homes across the country. Originally released in 2012 using DOE2.1e as the modeling backend, after years of effort, a new version of Home Energy Score was released in 2021 utilizing DOE's flagship energy modeling software, EnergyPlus. The updated architecture leverages modeling advancements and enables new building technologies to be added to the Scoring Tool. The new release represents a leap forward in harmonizing modeling assumptions across DOE and industry programs. In this paper we discuss the rigorous approach to model comparison with DOE2 undertaken prior to the update, utilizing test homes and real homes from the Home Energy Score database to strike a balance between consistency and more accurate energy predictions. We also discuss additional new capabilities, including improvements made to the upgrade recommendations methodology, the inclusion of an energy cost estimate metric based on ResStock analysis for use in home appraisals, and improved data analysis for quality assurance. Finally, we look at the impact Home Energy Score has had over the last decade and its future potential as its uptake in state energy plans, local ordinances, utility programs, and real estate data continues to grow.

building energy modeling↗
DOE OSTI2024

Distribution Grid Impact Study in Highland Park, Michigan: Understanding Rooftop Solar, Behind-the-Meter Energy Storage, Electric Vehicle Charging, and Building Electrification [Slides]

Through the Communities LEAP (Local Energy Action Program) Pilot, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) engaged the Highland Park Stakeholder Coalition to scope four technical assistance work areas to address their energy needs and goals. This slide deck addresses the highlighted tasks under work area "B" related to policy analysis, due diligence, and case studies for removing barriers and providing best practices for local clean energy development. Highland Park community members face frequent, long-duration power interruptions due largely to the aging distribution system serving the area and the legacy design standards used in its construction. While degrading physical infrastructure such as poles, crossarms, and transformers can result in this substandard reliability, another notable characteristic of this legacy system is the lower, 4.8 kV, voltage class. This is a legacy construction standard which many utilities, DTE included, are phasing out in favor of higher, 15 or 25 kV, voltage classes instead. The existing 4.8 kV distribution system serving Highland Park may limit significant adoptions of clean-energy technologies like high percentages of building electrification or electric vehicle adoption. The following analysis seeks to quantify these limitations under a variety of clean-energy technology adoption scenarios. It compares the overall system risks of the present system to those of a hypothetical, upgraded 13.2 kV system, using NREL-developed risk metrics and offers upgrade cost considerations. The legacy 4.8 kV voltage class serving Highland park is not, as we have modeled it, a major limitation to the widespread adoption of cost-optimal rooftop solar and/or behind-the-meter energy storage. Within our modeling framework, these technologies namely impact secondary, low-voltage assets, which may be remedied without the need for a system-wide upgrade to a 13.2 kV voltage class. Our model of the current 4.8kV system indicates it is not capable of supporting community-wide electrification efforts. Widespread building electrification, and the resulting large increase in wintertime load, dramatically increases the prevalence of voltage violations and thermal overloading on the current 4.8 kV distribution system. These impacts illustrate the need for system-wide upgrades to a 13.2 kV voltage class to accommodate these technologies. Low to Moderate DER adoption does not adversely impact the grid but does improve undervoltage and asset overloading issues. However, these benefits are insufficient to defer grid upgrades. Higher DER penetration is shown to increase overvoltage and asset overloading in future electrification scenarios.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Industrial Energy Management During a Pandemic: Lessons Learned from DOE Better Plants Program Partners

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing many challenges for manufacturers, especially those that depend on workers whose jobs cannot be performed remotely. This has detrimentally impacted the energy management workforce, energy support system performance, as well as operations and supply chains.This article discusses four primary challenges for industrial energy management caused by the pandemic, strained budget for energy projects, increased energy intensity caused by low production rates and other safety practices, limited access to energy systems, and the lost knowledge and experience of senior staff. This article also proposes some potential solutions for these challenges that include implementing no- and low-cost energy conservation measures, adopting alternative financing options, improving shutdown procedures, reducing baseloads, creating an effective online energy-monitoring system, performing virtual energy assessments, building a robust EnMS, and attending online and in-person training events.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

HopBox: An image analysis pipeline to characterize hop cone morphology

Abstract Hop cone morphology can influence picking and drying ability, and color can impact consumer preference and may be indicative of quality. However, these characteristics are not generally evaluated in hop breeding programs due to the tedious nature of trait quantification and the extensive variation among cones within a genotype. We developed the HopBox, which is a simply constructed light box with a camera mount, and a publicly available image processing pipeline that identifies hop cones within color‐corrected images, reads a QR code within the image, and outputs data on hop cone length, width, area, perimeter, openness, weight, color, and density. The trained model was applied to images of 500 cones each from 15 replicated advanced hop genotypes from the USDA‐ARS breeding program in Prosser, Washington. Analysis of variance revealed significant ( p < 0.001) differences between genotypes for all traits measured, enabling breeders to discriminate between genotypes for selection purposes. Broad sense heritability for all traits ranged from 0.23 to 0.59. A random sampling of hop cones from the complete dataset revealed that imaging only 5–10 cones adequately captured genotypic variation and provided acceptable rank correlations ( r s > 0.75); however, increasing the sample size to 30 provided optimal precision. Instructions for constructing a HopBox and the code for the analysis pipeline are publicly available online and have wide applicability for hop breeding and research.

Altendorf, Kayla R.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Injury severity analysis of truck-involved crashes under different weather conditions

This paper investigates truck-involved crashes to determine the statistically significant factors that contribute to injury severity under different weather conditions. The analysis uses crash data from the state of Ohio between 2011 and 2015 available from the Highway Safety Information System. To determine if weather conditions should be considered separately for truck safety analyses, parameter transferability tests are conducted; the results suggest that weather conditions should be modeled separately with a high level of statistical confidence. To this end, three separate mixed logit models are estimated for three different weather conditions: normal, rain and snow. The estimated models identify a variety of statistically significant factors influencing the injury severity. Different weather conditions are found to have different contributing effects on injury severity in truck-involved crashes. Rural, rear-end and sideswipe crash parameters were found to have significantly different levels of impact on injury severity. Based on the findings of this study, several countermeasures are suggested: 1) safety and enforcement programs should focus on female truck drivers, 2) a variable speed limit sign should be used to lower speeds of trucks during rainy condition, and 3) trucks should be restricted or prohibited on non-interstates during rainy and snowy conditions. These countermeasures could reduce the number and severity of truck-involved crashes under different weather conditions.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Evidence for multi-decadal fuel buildup in a large California wildfire from smoke radiocarbon measurements

In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in annual area burned in California's Sierra Nevada mountains. This rise in fire activity has prompted the need to understand how historical forest management practices affect fuel composition and emissions. Here we examined the total carbon (TC) concentration and radiocarbon abundance (Δ 14 C) of particulate matter (PM) emitted by the KNP Complex Fire, which occurred during California's 2021 wildfire season and affected several groves of giant sequoia trees in the southern Sierra Nevada. During a 26 h sampling period, we measured concentrations of fine airborne PM (PM 2.5 ), as well as dry air mole fractions of carbon monoxide (CO) and methane (CH 4 ), using a ground-based mobile laboratory. We also collected filter samples of PM 2.5 for analysis of TC concentration and Δ 14 C. High correlation among PM 2.5 , CO, and CH 4 time series confirmed that our PM 2.5 measurements captured variability in wildfire emissions. Using a Keeling plot approach, we determined that the mean Δ 14 C of PM 2.5 was 111.6 ± 7.7‰ (n = 12), which was considerably enriched relative to atmospheric carbon dioxide in the northern hemisphere in 2021 (-3.2 ± 1.4‰). Combining these Δ 14 C data with a steady-state one-box ecosystem model, we estimated that the mean age of fuels combusted in the KNP Complex Fire was 40 years, with a range of 29–57 years. These results provide evidence for emissions originating from woody biomass, larger-diameter fine fuels, and coarse woody debris that have accumulated over multiple decades. This is consistent with independent field observations that indicate high fire intensity contributed to widespread giant sequoia mortality. With the expanded use of prescribed fires planned over the next decade in California to mitigate wildfire impacts, our measurement approach has the potential to provide regionally-integrated estimates of the effectiveness of fuel treatment programs.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

US Department of Energy, Office of Science High Performance Computing Facility Operational Assessment 2021: Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL’s) Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) continues to surpass its operational target goals of supporting users; delivering fast, reliable computational ecosystems; creating innovative solutions for high-performance computing (HPC) needs; contributing to the community to build the next generation HPC workforce, and managing risks, safety, and security associated with operating some of the most powerful computers in the world. The results can be seen in the cutting-edge science conducted by users and the praise from the research community. Calendar year (CY) 2021 saw continued excellence in research supported by the OLCF’s leadership-class computing resources, including Summit (the nation’s most powerful supercomputer), the global scratch file system Alpine, the Scalable Protected Infrastructure (SPI), the Exploratory Visualization Environment for Research in Science and Technology (EVEREST), and the archival mass-storage resource High-Performance Storage System (HPSS). While maintaining access and exceptional user support for Summit, the OLCF continued to make progress on the installation and deployment of Frontier, which will be the nation’s first exascale system when it comes online at the start of CY 2023. Users have already begun running and optimizing scientific codes on Crusher, the OLCF test and development system equipped with Frontier’s architecture. Throughout the year, the OLCF maintained a strong culture of operational excellence, including risk management, workplace safety, and cybersecurity. The OLCF’s rigorous risk management strategy anticipated and mitigated risks, and at this time there are no high-priority operational risks. Similarly, ORNL and the OLCF were committed to operating under the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) safety regulations that ensure a safe workplace. Technical staff tracked and monitored existing threats and vulnerabilities within the OLCF while continually developing tools and practices to enhance operations without increasing the facility’s risk. CY 2021 was filled with outstanding results and accomplishments, including a very high rating from users on overall satisfaction for the eighth consecutive year; a tremendous number of node hours delivered to 1,671 researchers on Summit; and the successful delivery of the allocation split of roughly 60%, 20%, and 20% of core-hours offered for the Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE), Advanced Scientific Computing Research Leadership Computing Challenge (ALCC), and Director’s Discretionary (DD) programs, respectively (Section 2). COVID-19 research remained a focus in 2021, and the ALCC and DD programs allocated over 1 million Summit hours to the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium. These accomplishments, coupled with the high utilization rates (i.e., overall and capability usage), represent the fulfillment of the promise of leadership class machines: efficient facilitation of leadership-class computational applications.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Investigation of Defect Physics for Efficient, Durable and Ubiquitous Perovskite Solar Modules (Final Technical Report)

Organometal halide perovskite solar cells have experienced eye-catching improvements in its recent few years. It serves as one of the most promising candidates to replace the currently widely used silicon-based solar modules. To implement its final step to the real application, functional longevity becomes the dernier continent to conquer. As a polycrystalline material, defect plays critical role in the efficiency and stability of the perovskite solar cells. Thus, the investigation of the defect physics of the perovskite layer is indispensable in this research field. However, hard evidence and a consensus are still lacking in terms of the specific nature of the defects and their effects on performance and hysteresis, and perhaps even more importantly, there is absence of fundamental understanding of the correlations between the defects and long-term operational stability of the device. A more fundamental understanding of the nature of defects in perovskite materials is of paramount importance to progress their efficiency and durability. In this work we propose in-depth studies of correlations of defects with performance and stability of perovskite solar cells. Our project aimed 1) to investigate the defects physics in perovskite solar cells, and 2) to develop a comprehensive understanding and physical model of defects and its influence on performance and stability of perovskite solar cells. With the support from program manager, Peter Lobaccaro, and the Solar Energy Technologies Office of U.S. Department of Energy, the project ends with impact achievements. Our research results have systematically provided strategies to analyze the influences of constructive molecular configurations to the charged defects in the perovskite lattices and developed in-depth understanding of chemical additive approach to improve the perovskite solar cell performance and stability. As history has shown us, control over defect properties of semiconductor materials is the key to achieving high performance and low cost devices. Therefore, the potential impact of unlocking the understanding and manipulation of defects in perovskites is great, enabling this technology to realize SETO goals. The research project is highly productive with 18 published papers in three years in top-level journals such as Science, Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Communications, Journal of American Chemistry Society, Joule, Advanced Materials, and Nano Letters. These works have drawn great attention nationwide with notable total citations over 700 times from 2020 to 2022.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Resilient Distribution System Restoration with Equitable Load Shedding

A methodology is proposed for the improvement of electric distribution system resilience to high-impact, low-probability catastrophic events. An approach for dynamic network reconfiguration and coordination of distributed energy resources is introduced to assist in restoration efforts. The problem is formulated as a mixed-integer linear program that minimizes generation costs, the cost of lost load, and costs associated with equitable load shedding, while respecting operational limits of generation, loads, and the network. Constraints are imposed on binary switching variables to ensure equitable load shedding in emergency situations. Numerical validation of the proposed approach is conducted on an example distribution feeder, and case studies are performed to analyze the impact of various parameters in the optimization problem formulation.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Powering Post-COVID-19 Resilient Recovery with Green Stimulus

As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic spread globally in early 2020, many governments enacted lockdown measures as an initial containment response. These lockdowns, while effective in slowing infection rates, have also had substantial economic consequences. A series of supply and demand shocks, workforce and supply chain disruptions, and other impacts of the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns have upended the livelihoods for much of the world's population. This quick read spotlights how green stimulus plans and other recovery measures can support near-term recovery and enable longer-term power system resilience against future threats. The term “green stimulus” encompasses fiscal measures (i.e., governmental tax and spending actions) that support short-term economic activity that enhances environmental and natural resource quality over a longer term. The deployment of energy efficiency (EE) and renewable energy (RE) technologies, as well as associated initiatives (e.g., grid modernization, electrification of transport, and so on) have been demonstrably effective in providing this kind of short-run economic boost while simultaneously strengthening the resilience of the power sector. Along with green stimulus packages, concurrent action on the regulatory side—for example, the development of green building codes, updating grid interconnection standards, creating programs and marketplaces for demand-side efficiency, and others—can be a force multiplier in ensuring that public spending achieves maximum impact in near-term recovery and long-term power sector transformation

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2020

PNNL Superfund Research Program Analytics (srpAnalytics Data Release v.1.0)

The OSU/PNNL superfund Research Program represents a longstanding collaboration to quantify Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons at various superfund sites in the Pacific Northwest and assess their potential impact on human health. To link the chemical measurements to biological activity, we describe the use of the zebrafish as a high-throughput developmental model of human exposure that provides quantitative measurements of the biological ramifications of exposure to toxicants. The PNNL Superfund have implemented a dose-response modelling pipeline to calculate benchmark dose parameters that enable the comparison of potency across chemicals and phenotypes. Our portal provides public access to this dataset and an interactive web site designed to enable exploration and re-use of this data by the scientific community at http://srp.pnnl.gov.

OSU-PNNL Superfund Research Program Center SRP↗
DOE OSTI2024

Using Likwid and Byfl to Benchmark Hardware Performance

This paper outlines a benchmarking study conducted during my internship at LANL, focusing on CPU (Computer Processing Unit) and program performance assessment. The primary goal was to gather memory access data using three methods across five polybench kernels The data gathered would then be used to compare and contrast to one another and calculate operational intensity for performance comparisons. Benchmarking tools like Byfl and Likwid were employed, with Byfl offering hardware-independent data through LLVM compiler communication and Likwid directly interacting with computer hardware. The study considered various benchmarking factors, including optimization levels, Big O notation ((n)), CPU diversity and specific kernel equations. Big O notation was utilized to simplify code complexity, with detailed breakdwons of operations and memory components for each polybench application. Specific O(n) equations enabled nuanced kernel compariosns, facilitating the identification of performance variations. CPU efficiency assessments were conducted using Likwid tests on two CPUs. The central focus on code optimization aimed at achieving higher speeds and reduced memory usage through streamlined code. Future work propsoes creating a roofline model, synthesizing benchmarking data into a comprehensive data graph to assist in optimizing code and improving hardware performance. The potential impact on the laboratory or national mission was underscored, emphasizing the importance of optimizing applications and hardware to conserve resources and accelerate program execution. The specific relevance to LANL’s operations in math-intensive fields such as Nuclear Fission, Space Exploration, and Nanotechnology highlights the necessity of efficient benchmarking for resource conservation and proram speed. Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of CPU and program performance, providing insights for future optimization efforts in a laboratory setting

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Nuclear Science User Facilities: Instrument Scientist Program

The traditional single institution User Facility model prevalent in the DOE complex funds Instrument Scientists (IS) full-time to collaborate with and guide users, disseminate results through publication, build a broad and competent user base, continuously improve instrumentation, enhance data collection methods, and improve data analysis methods. This model focuses the Instrument Scientist on ensuring that visiting researchers obtain the best and most comprehensive data. Instrument Scientists are also expected to establish personal research programs based on the use of the instrument(s) under their charge, which allows for further advances in instrumentation and science. This model ensures that the User Facility offers unique, world-leading instruments and data analysis to the user community, creates high demand among top researchers for the use of these capabilities, and as a result, positively impacts science and technology in the United States.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗