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At least 487 records · Page 27

Optimizing Geothermal Drilling: Oil and Gas Technology Transfer

There is a significant amount of financial risk associated with geothermal drilling; however, there are opportunities to improve upon current practices and technologies used. The scope of this drilling operational study included 21 geothermal wells and 21 oil and gas wells. The goal was to determine a 'perfect well' using historical data to compare the best oil and gas well to the best geothermal well. Unfortunately, limitations encountered in the study included missing data (bit records, mud information, etc.), poor data collection, and difficult to ascertain handwriting. An online software database was used to format drilling data to IADC coded daily drilling reports and generate analysis figures. Six major issues have been found in geothermal drilling operations. These problems include lost circulation, rig/equipment selection, cementing, penetration rate, drilling program, and time management. As a result of these issues, geothermal drilling averages 56.4 days longer than drilling comparable oil and gas wells in the wells in this study. Roughly $13.9 million would be lost due to non-productive time in the 21 geothermal wells and only $1.3 million in the oil and gas wells, assuming a cost of $50,000 per day. Comparable events such as drilling the same sized hole, tripping in/out, cementing, and running the same size casing took substantially less time in the oil and gas wells. Geothermal wells were drilled using older and/or less advanced technology to depths less than 10,000 feet, while oil and gas wells reached 12,500 feet faster with purpose built rigs. A new approach is now underway that will optimize drilling programs throughout the drilling industry. It is the use of Mechanical Specific Energy (MSE) as a tool to realize efficient drilling processes. However, a work-flow must also be established in order for there to be an efficient drilling program. Potential improvements for current geothermal operations are: the use of electronic records, real time services, and official glossary terms to describe rig operations, and advanced drilling rigs/technology.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

SPITZER IRAC PHOTOMETRY FOR TIME SERIES IN CROWDED FIELDS

We develop a new photometry algorithm that is optimized for the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) Spitzer time series in crowded fields and that is particularly adapted to faint or heavily blended targets. We apply this to the 170 targets from the 2015 Spitzer microlensing campaign and present the results of three variants of this algorithm in an online catalog. We present detailed accounts of the application of this algorithm to two difficult cases, one very faint and the other very crowded. Several of Spitzer's instrumental characteristics that drive the specific features of this algorithm are shared by Kepler and WFIRST, implying that these features may prove to be a useful starting point for algorithms designed for microlensing campaigns by these other missions.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Learning to Trigger: Reinforcement Learning at the Large Hadron Collider

High-throughput scientific facilities such as the Large Hadron Collider depend on real-time event filtering (\textit{triggering}) under tight constraints on bandwidth, latency, and storage. In practice, trigger menus are largely static and hand-tuned and can become suboptimal as detector conditions, pileup, and background composition drift over time. We cast online threshold tuning as a sequential decision-making problem: a reinforcement learning agent ingests streaming summaries of recent rates and signal-sensitive features and updates trigger thresholds to maximize signal efficiency while tracking a target background rate within a tolerance band. We adapt Group-Filtered Policy Optimization (GFPO) to streaming control and introduce two variants (GFPO-F, GFPO-FR) that enforce background rate feasibility during training. On a benchmark that emulates realistic collider operation, we study two representative triggers: a total transverse energy ($H_{T}$) trigger sensitive to pileup variation, and an anomaly-detection (AD) trigger based on reconstruction loss for rare or non-standard signatures. On Monte Carlo streams, our agent increases the fraction of in-tolerance time intervals by 48% ($H_T$) and 28% (AD), with a cumulative gain of up to 2% in signal efficiency on those in-tolerance intervals. Transferring from simulation to \emph{real} collision data (CMS Run 283408), the same agent, without fine-tuning, achieves a 56% ($H_T$) and 28% (AD) in-tolerance improvement over baselines, with further signal-efficiency gain on both triggers. To our knowledge, this is the \emph{first} demonstration of RL-based trigger control on real Large Hadron Collider collision data. Code is available at https://github.com/Zixind/GFPO_LHC (see repo for details).

Ding, Zixin [Chicago U.]↗

Two-Stage Adaptive Restoration Decision Support System for a Self-Healing Power Grid

Power outages cost American industries and businesses billions of dollars and jeopardize the lives of hospital patients. The losses can be greatly reduced with a fast, reliable, and flexible self-healing tool. This paper is aimed to tackle the challenging task of developing an adaptive restoration decision support system (RDSS). The proposed RDSS determines restoration actions both in planning and real-time phases and adapts to constantly changing system conditions. The comprehensive formulation encompasses practical constraints including ac power flow, dynamic reserve, and load modeling. Here, the combinatorial problem is decomposed into a two-stage formulation solved by an integer L-shaped algorithm. The two stages are then executed online in the RDSS framework employing a sliding window method. The IEEE 39-bus system has been studied under normal and contingency conditions to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed online RDSS.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Computational Tools and Workflows for Quantitative Risk Assessment and Decision Support for Geologic Carbon Storage Sites: Progress and Insights from the U.S. DOE’s National Risk Assessment Partnership

The 2005 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on CCS raised the profile of CO2 capture and storage (CCS) as an important technology for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. CCS is now recognized as a key component of most climate change mitigation scenarios. Since publication of that report the international research, development, and deployment (RD&D) community has advanced key technical aspects, clarified regulatory requirements, explored value chain and infrastructure solutions, and developed incentive paradigms to enable and promote large-scale deployment of CCS. These efforts have included research to better characterize geologic storage resources, to improve injection performance and storage efficiency, to assess and manage subsurface environmental risks, and to advance monitoring technologies to assure system conformance. These efforts have helped to build confidence in the viability of geologic carbon storage (GCS), but stakeholder concerns about long-term risks and liability associated with GCS remain a hurdle to broad acceptance and large-scale deployment of CCS. Since 2010, the U.S. DOE’s National Risk Assessment Partnership (NRAP) – a research collaboration between five contributing national laboratories – has worked to establish and demonstrate methods and tools to quantify and manage the subsurface environmental risks associated with GCS, amidst uncertainty. This work supports the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management Carbon Transport and Storage Program’s goal of advancing safe and secure commercial-scale GCS deployment. To address the technical challenge of simulating the physical response of the GCS site to large-scale CO2 injection, NRAP has adopted an approach that relies on coupling computationally efficient reduced-order and/or data-driven proxy models of important system components (i.e., storage reservoir, sealing caprock, leakage pathways, intermediate formations, overlying groundwater aquifers, and the atmosphere) in integrated assessment framework. That integrated model of the physical system is complemented with fit-for purpose functionality to support site characterization and risk-related decisions. The recently released NRAP Phase II toolset includes the Open-Source Integrated Assessment Model (NRAP-Open-IAM) for evaluation of trends in leakage risk and potential impact, tools to support monitoring design optimization (Designs for Risk Evaluation and Management – DREAM v3.0 and Passive Seismic Monitoring Tool - PSMT), and tools for state of stress evaluation (State-of-Stress Analysis Tool - SOSAT) and forecasting induced seismicity risk. The NRAP team has also released a pair of reports describing conceptual workflows to incorporate physics-based, quantitative risk assessment into many of the design, planning, operation, and closure decisions for GCS projects. An online catalogue highlights published studies where these tools and methods are demonstrated. In this presentation, the utility of these products to assess risks and address key stakeholder questions will be highlighted through examples, and related insights about the safety and security of geologic carbon storage in qualified storage sites will be discussed. The prospect of rapid, large-scale deployment of GCS technology to aggressively reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions requires careful consideration of interference between multiple commercial-scale storage projects within a basin. Going forward, NRAP is expanding and adapting site-scale risk quantification tools and methods to enable assessment of risks and inform management decisions for basin-scale deployment. Increasingly, this work will leverage next-generation approaches for surrogate modelling, fast prediction, and advanced visualization enabled by machine learning and artificial intelligence to promote virtual learning, scenario evaluation, and augment risk-based decision making.

quantitative risk assessment, geologic carbon stor↗

A framework to evaluate machine learning crystal stability predictions

The rapid adoption of machine learning in various scientific domains calls for the development of best practices and community agreed-upon benchmarking tasks and metrics. We present Matbench Discovery as an example evaluation framework for machine learning energy models, here applied as pre-filters to first-principles computed data in a high-throughput search for stable inorganic crystals. We address the disconnect between (1) thermodynamic stability and formation energy and (2) retrospective and prospective benchmarking for materials discovery. Alongside this paper, we publish a Python package to aid with future model submissions and a growing online leaderboard with adaptive user-defined weighting of various performance metrics allowing researchers to prioritize the metrics they value most. To answer the question of which machine learning methodology performs best at materials discovery, our initial release includes random forests, graph neural networks, one-shot predictors, iterative Bayesian optimizers and universal interatomic potentials. We highlight a misalignment between commonly used regression metrics and more task-relevant classification metrics for materials discovery. Accurate regressors are susceptible to unexpectedly high false-positive rates if those accurate predictions lie close to the decision boundary at 0 eV per atom above the convex hull. The benchmark results demonstrate that universal interatomic potentials have advanced sufficiently to effectively and cheaply pre-screen thermodynamic stable hypothetical materials in future expansions of high-throughput materials databases.

Riebesell, Janosh↗

Gamma-ray burst flares: X-ray flaring. II

We present a catalog of 498 flaring periods found in gamma-ray burst (GRB) light curves taken from the online Swift X-Ray Telescope GRB Catalogue. We analyzed 680 individual light curves using a flare detection method developed and used on our UV/optical GRB Flare Catalog. This method makes use of the Bayesian Information Criterion to analyze the residuals of fitted GRB light curves and statistically determines the optimal fit to the light curve residuals in an attempt to identify any additional features. These features, which we classify as flares, are identified by iteratively adding additional 'breaks' to the light curve. We find evidence of flaring in 326 of the analyzed light curves. For those light curves with flares, we find an average number of ∼1.5 flares per GRB. As with the UV/optical, flaring in our sample is generally confined to the first 1000 s of the afterglow, but can be detected to beyond 10{sup 5} s. Only ∼50% of the detected flares follow the 'classical' definition of Δt/t ≤ 0.5, with many of the largest flares exceeding this value.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Review of Particle Physics

Abstract The Review summarizes much of particle physics and cosmology. Using data from previous editions, plus 2,143 new measurements from 709 papers, we list, evaluate, and average measured properties of gauge bosons and the recently discovered Higgs boson, leptons, quarks, mesons, and baryons. We summarize searches for hypothetical particles such as supersymmetric particles, heavy bosons, axions, dark photons, etc. Particle properties and search limits are listed in Summary Tables. We give numerous tables, figures, formulae, and reviews of topics such as Higgs Boson Physics, Supersymmetry, Grand Unified Theories, Neutrino Mixing, Dark Energy, Dark Matter, Cosmology, Particle Detectors, Colliders, Probability and Statistics. Among the 120 reviews are many that are new or heavily revised, including a new review on Machine Learning, and one on Spectroscopy of Light Meson Resonances. The Review is divided into two volumes. Volume 1 includes the Summary Tables and 97 review articles. Volume 2 consists of the Particle Listings and contains also 23 reviews that address specific aspects of the data presented in the Listings. The complete Review (both volumes) is published online on the website of the Particle Data Group (pdg.lbl.gov) and in a journal. Volume 1 is available in print as the PDG Book. A Particle Physics Booklet with the Summary Tables and essential tables, figures, and equations from selected review articles is available in print, as a web version optimized for use on phones, and as an Android app.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

ThermoBase: A Database of the Phylogeny and Physiology of Thermophilic and Hyperthermophilic Organisms

Thermophiles and hyperthermophiles are those organisms which grow at high temperature (> 40°C). The unusual properties of these organisms have received interest in multiple fields of biological research, and have found applications in biotechnology, especially in industrial processes. However, there are few listings of thermophilic and hyperthermophilic organisms and their relevant environmental and physiological data. Such repositories can be used to standardize definitions of thermophile and hyperthermophile limits and tolerances and would mitigate the need for extracting organism data from diverse literature sources across multiple, sometimes loosely related, research fields. Therefore, we have developed ThermoBase, a web-based and freely available database which currently houses comprehensive descriptions for 1238 thermophilic or hyperthermophilic organisms. ThermoBase reports taxonomic, metabolic, environmental, experimental, and physiological information in addition to literature resources. This includes parameters such as coupling ions for chemiosmosis, optimal pH and range, optimal temperature and range, optimal pressure, and optimal salinity. The database interface allows for search features and sorting of parameters. As such, it is the goal of ThermoBase to facilitate and expedite hypothesis generation, literature research, and understanding relating to thermophiles and hyperthermophiles within the scientific community in an accessible and centralized repository. ThermoBase is freely available online at the Astrobiology Habitable Environments Database (AHED; https://ahed.nasa.gov), at the Database Center for Life Science (TogoDB; http://togodb.org/db/thermobase), and in the S1 File.

Thermophiles↗

Review of Particle Physics

The Review summarizes much of particle physics and cosmology. Using data from previous editions, plus 3,324 new measurements from 878 papers, we list, evaluate, and average measured properties of gauge bosons and the recently discovered Higgs boson, leptons, quarks, mesons, and baryons. We summarize searches for hypothetical particles such as supersymmetric particles, heavy bosons, axions, dark photons, etc. Particle properties and search limits are listed in Summary Tables. We give numerous tables, figures, formulae, and reviews of topics such as Higgs Boson Physics, Supersymmetry, Grand Unified Theories, Neutrino Mixing, Dark Energy, Dark Matter, Cosmology, Particle Detectors, Colliders, Probability and Statistics. Among the 120 reviews are many that are new or heavily revised, including a new review on High Energy Soft QCD and Diffraction and one on the Determination of CKM Angles from B Hadrons. The Review is divided into two volumes. Volume 1 includes the Summary Tables and 98 review articles. Volume 2 consists of the Particle Listings and contains also 22 reviews that address specific aspects of the data presented in the Listings. The complete Review (both volumes) is published online on the website of the Particle Data Group (pdg.lbl.gov) and in a journal. Volume 1 is available in print as the PDG Book. A Pariicle Physics Booklet with the Summary Tables and essential tables, figures, and equations from selected review articles is available in print and as a web version optimized for use on phones as well as an Android app.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Data Access Services that Make Remote Sensing Data Easier to Use

This slide presentation reviews some of the processes that NASA uses to make the remote sensing data easy to use over the World Wide Web. This work involves much research into data formats, geolocation structures and quality indicators, often to be followed by coding a preprocessing program. Only then are the data usable within the analysis tool of choice. The Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center is deploying a variety of data access services that are designed to dramatically shorten the time consumed in the data preparation step. On-the-fly conversion to the standard network Common Data Form (netCDF) format with Climate-Forecast (CF) conventions imposes a standard coordinate system framework that makes data instantly readable through several tools, such as the Integrated Data Viewer, Gridded Analysis and Display System, Panoply and Ferret. A similar benefit is achieved by serving data through the Open Source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol (OPeNDAP), which also provides subsetting. The Data Quality Screening Service goes a step further in filtering out data points based on quality control flags, based on science team recommendations or user-specified criteria. Further still is the Giovanni online analysis system which goes beyond handling formatting and quality to provide visualization and basic statistics of the data. This general approach of automating the preparation steps has the important added benefit of enabling use of the data by non-human users (i.e., computer programs), which often make sub-optimal use of the available data due to the need to hard-code data preparation on the client side.

Lynnes, Christopher↗

Flow Enhanced Electrochemical Sensor Performance in Complex Salt Systems

To advance MSR MC&A practices, Argonne National Laboratory developed and optimized robust flow enhanced electrochemical sensors (FEES) and multielectrode array voltammetry sensors (MAVS) which provide accurate near-real time measurements of actinides in molten salts. Flow-enhanced electrochemical sensors are installed directly into MSR flow conduits for inline salt chemistry measurement, while MAVS are deployed in quiescent salt conditions enabling online species concentration determination in stationary salt vessels. This report summarizes efforts to improve electrochemical sensor technological readiness through (1) sensor testing in complex, high concentration molten salt systems to demonstrate low uncertainty actinide measurements in MSR-representative solutions and (2) demonstrations of sensor performance in challenging real-world conditions in collaboration with partner MSR institutions.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Reducing Disk Storage of Full-3D Seismic Waveform Tomography (F3DT) Through Lossy Online Compression

Full-3D seismic waveform tomography (F3DT) is the latest seismic tomography technique that can assimilate broadband, multi-component seismic waveform observations into high-resolution 3D subsurface seismic structure models. The main drawback in the current F3DT implementation, in particular the scattering-integral implementation (F3DT-SI), is the high disk storage cost and the associated I/O overhead of archiving the 4D space-time wavefields of the receiver- or source-side strain tensors. The strain tensor fields are needed for computing the data sensitivity kernels, which are used for constructing the Jacobian matrix in the Gauss-Newton optimization algorithm. In this study, we have successfully integrated a lossy compression algorithm into our F3DT SI workflow to significantly reduce the disk space for storing the strain tensor fields. The compressor supports a user-specified tolerance for bounding the error, and can be integrated into our finite-difference wave-propagation simulation code used for computing the strain fields. The decompressor can be integrated into the kernel calculation code that reads the strain fields from the disk and compute the data sensitivity kernels. During the wave-propagation simulations, we compress the strain fields before writing them to the disk. To compute the data sensitivity kernels, we read the compressed strain fields from the disk and decompress them before using them in kernel calculations. Experiments using a realistic dataset in our California statewide F3DT project have shown that we can reduce the strain-field disk storage by at least an order of magnitude with acceptable loss, and also improve the overall I/O performance of the entire F3DT-SI workflow significantly. The integration of the lossy online compressor may potentially open up the possibilities of the wide adoption of F3DT-SI in routine seismic tomography practices in the near future.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Power Flow Geometry and Approximation

Here, the power flow equations are important in numerous power systems problems of practical interest which consider alternating current power flow (ACPF) physics. Perhaps the most well studied being the alternating current optimal power flow problem (ACOPF), seeking to optimize the operation of an electric power system. Due to their non-linearity, problems which include the power flow equations are typically challenging, particularly in optimization. Interestingly, the set of solutions to the power flow equations forms a smooth manifold. As a result, differential geometry can be used to describe and analyze this set of equations. This approach has proven effective in several engineering applications (e.g., solving ACOPF and analyzing the solution space boundary). Central to the success of this approach is an understanding of the power flow manifold's geometry. In this work, we develop the geometric and topological properties of this manifold using concepts from differential geometry. After demonstrating the convenience of this manifold's representation as a function's graph, computational methods are emphasized: we develop retractions, error bounds for linear approximation, and formulas for evaluating the Riemannian metric (including associated objects such as geodesics and the curvature tensor). Scalar curvature and the second fundamental form play a new role in quantifying the quality of linear approximations, like the popular direct current approximation. All functions are implemented in Julia and available in an online repository. Proofs are included for completeness.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Optimization of LIBS Acquisition Parameters for Chemical Analysis on HLW Liquid Solution - 18291

Research programs are currently underway in the Joint CEA-AREVA Vitrification Laboratory (LCV) to develop and optimize Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) for nuclear waste streams analyses. The laboratory has full scale prototypes with the advantage of working on simulated inactive solutions of fission products. LIBS is an elemental chemical analysis technology that uses a short laser pulse to create a micro-plasma on the sample surface. This analytical technique offers many advantages compared to other techniques. It includes a sample preparation-free measurement and an extremely fast measurement time, from a few seconds to a few minutes. This paper presents the LIBS technique available in the laboratory. The first LIBS analyzes results of liquid samples from the off-gas treatment unit integrated on the full scale vitrification process are also presented and discussed. These complex solutions contain suspended particles and up to 30 chemical elements. A vision of an online LIBS analysis cell is also proposed with the development and associated research steps. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Achieving real-time performance in FIESTA

The Fault Isolation Expert System for TDRSS Applications (FIESTA) is targeted for operation in a real-time online environment. Initial stages of the prototype development concentrated on acquisition and representation of the knowledge necessary to isolate faults in the TDRSS Network. Recent efforts focused on achieving real-time performance including: a discussion of the meaning of FIESTA real-time requirements, determination of performance levels (benchmarking) and techniques for optimization. Optimization techniques presented include redesign of critical relations, filtering of redundant data and optimization of patterns used in rules. Results are summarized.

Wilkinson, William↗

An Optimal-Estimation-Based Aerosol Retrieval Algorithm Using OMI Near-UV Observations

An optimal-estimation(OE)-based aerosol retrieval algorithm using the OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instrument) near-ultraviolet observation was developed in this study. The OE-based algorithm has the merit of providing useful estimates of errors simultaneously with the inversion products. Furthermore, instead of using the traditional lookup tables for inversion, it performs online radiative transfer calculations with the VLIDORT (linearized pseudo-spherical vector discrete ordinate radiative transfer code) to eliminate interpolation errors and improve stability. The measurements and inversion products of the Distributed Regional Aerosol Gridded Observation Network campaign in northeast Asia (DRAGON NE-Asia 2012) were used to validate the retrieved aerosol optical thickness (AOT) and single scattering albedo (SSA). The retrieved AOT and SSA at 388 nm have a correlation with the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) products that is comparable to or better than the correlation with the operational product during the campaign. The OEbased estimated error represented the variance of actual biases of AOT at 388 nm between the retrieval and AERONET measurements better than the operational error estimates. The forward model parameter errors were analyzed separately for both AOT and SSA retrievals. The surface reflectance at 388 nm, the imaginary part of the refractive index at 354 nm, and the number fine-mode fraction (FMF) were found to be the most important parameters affecting the retrieval accuracy of AOT, while FMF was the most important parameter for the SSA retrieval. The additional information provided with the retrievals, including the estimated error and degrees of freedom, is expected to be valuable for relevant studies. Detailed advantages of using the OE method were described and discussed in this paper.

Air Pollution↗

Robust trajectory-constrained frequency control for microgrids considering model linearization error

Grid supportive modes integrated within inverter-based resources can improve the frequency response of renewable-rich microgrids. The synthesis of grid supportive modes to guarantee frequency trajectory constraints under a predefined disturbance set is challenging but essential. To tackle this challenge, a numerical optimal control (NOC)-based control synthesis methodology is proposed. Without loss of generality, a wind-diesel fed microgrid is studied, where we aim to design grid supportive functions in the wind turbine. In the control design, linearized models are used, and the linearization-induced errors are quantitatively analyzed by reachability and interval arithmetics and represented in the form of interval uncertainties. Then, the NOC problem can be formulated into a robust mixed-integer linear program. The control structure is strategically configured into two levels to realize online deployment. The proposed control is verified on the modified 33-node microgrid with a full-order three-phase nonlinear model in Simulink. In conclusion, the simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed control paradigm and the necessity of considering linearization-induced uncertainty.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗