International Implementation of IAEA?s Borehole Disposal Concept.
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The transportation sector accounts for almost a third of the United States energy consumption. We are developing predictive simulations of the complex in-cylinder processes of internal combustion engines to improve performance and decrease pollutant emissions. Using volume rendering, we provide a first look at the jet impingement and ignition inside a piston-cylinder chamber. Through the visualization, we were able to construct a complete 3D picture of the jet impingement on the piston-bowl walls leading to the formation of pockets of auto-ignition of fuel-air mixture. These auto-ignition pockets subsequently lead to flame stabilization releasing the chemical energy for conversion to useful work. A detailed physical picture of flame stabilization as provided by the visualization techniques presented in this study help in the design next-generation internal combustion engines.
Quantum computing has been identified as a “wild card” by the International Energy Agency in predicting future global data center energy usage. This is primarily because both uncertainty in the extent to which quantum computing will be adopted, and uncertainty in the power consumption of individual quantum data centers. Unlike the classical counterparts, quantum computers need to be maintained at near absolute zero, requiring energy-intensive cryogenic cooling systems. Therefore, as quantum computers scale up from existing 50 qubit technology demonstrations to the 10,000 to 100,000 qubit systems that will be able to solve complex problems, the energy consumption of both the electronics and the required cooling systems will also increase. To predict this scaling, this work analyzes the energy requirements for both computation and cooling of quantum hardware. We show that the energy requirements for cooling of quantum computers is determined by several computing system parameters, including the number and type of physical qubits, the operating temperature, the packaging efficiency of the system, and the split between circuits operating at cryogenic temperatures and those operating at room temperature. The energy requirements can then be found based on thermal system parameters such as cooling efficiency and cryostat heat transfer. Analysis of these parameters shows that the energy required for cooling is significantly larger than that required for computation, a reversal from energy usage patterns seen in conventional computing. The results and discussions provide a road-map for creating energy efficient quantum computers through the selection of computer architectures and cryogenic system configurations that minimize cooling requirements.
The time integration of the granular phase in coupled computational fluid dynamics (CFD) – discrete element method (DEM) simulations presents a unique computational challenge brought about by the large variations in particle collisional time scales. Particles in the dilute regions of the computational domain can be advanced with large time steps while dense regions require much smaller time increments. However, the time step size in most solvers is globally set as the limit for accuracy and stability imposed by the collisions and is typically orders of magnitude less than that required away from collisions. This work addresses this precise issue and provides a strategy to avoid the use of a global conservative small time step size for the entire set of particles.A novel time stepping algorithm for CFD-DEM solvers using a partitioning approach using orthogonal recursive bisection (ORB) that allows for variable time steps among particles is described and its computational performance is compared against baseline explicit methods, typically used in several CFD-DEM solvers. ORB has advantages of being relatively quick and easy to update incrementally and has the required heuristic behavior (i.e., it will split the region in half with a cluster on each side) when groups of particles are well separated (clustered). The algorithm presented in this work uses a local time stepping approach to resolve collisional time scales for subsets of particles that are present at the leaves of the ORB, thereby resulting in substantial reduction of computational cost. The parallel implementation of this method where a ``knapsack” algorithm is used in tandem with ORB for effective load-balancing is also presented, where a best possible partitioning is obtained based on number of particles and local time-stepping costs. The algorithm is tested against benchmark problems with varying particle distributions that include fluidized bed and riser flow scenarios. Preliminary results indicate that the approach is 2-3X faster than traditional explicit methods for problems that involve both dense and dilute regions, while maintaining the same level of accuracy.
Reacting flow simulations for combustion applications require extensive computing capabilities. Leveraging the AMReX library, the Pele suite of combustion simulation tools targets the largest supercomputers available and future exascale machines. We introduce PeleC, the compressible solver in the Pele suite, and detail its capabilities, including complex geometry representation, chemistry integration, and discretization. We present a comparison of development efforts using both OpenACC and AMReX's C++ performance portability framework for execution on multiple GPU architectures. We discuss relevant details that have allowed PeleC to achieve high performance and scalability. PeleC's performance characteristics are measured through relevant simulations on multiple supercomputers. The success of PeleC's design for exascale is exhibited through demonstration of a 160 billion cell simulation and weak scaling onto 100\% of Summit, an NVIDIA-based GPU supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Our results provide confidence that PeleC will enable future combustion science simulations with unprecedented fidelity.
High fidelity simulations of realistic combustion devices are extremely demanding computationally because of the requirements to capture complex fuel chemical decomposition, its intricate interactions with turbulent, often multiphase, flows, and the wide separation of space and time scales between the thin flame and the device boundaries. Software required to carry out such computations tends to be extremely complex, particularly when designed to exploit hardware accelerators, and can be difficult to port and maintain. We present Pele, a performance portable suite of tools for the simulation of combustion systems, including codes to evolve reactive multiphase configurations in the low Mach number and compressible flow regimes, along with a set of inter-compatible post processing and in situ analysis tools. The Pele suite of tools is built on top of the AMReX framework for block-structured adaptive mesh refinement, which provides efficient data structures and algorithms that enable the development of a wide variety of efficient mesh and particle based PDE integration schemes. A hierarchical MPI+X parallelism scheme supports CPU-only and accelerated architectures, where X can be OpenMP, CUDA, and HIP based approaches for intra-node computational work distribution. The algorithms and data structures underlying the Pele simulation and analysis tools are highly scalable and performant across a wide variety of high-performance computing platforms, including DOEs newest exascale-class machines, Frontier and Aurora. The simulation and analysis tools are fully documented and freely distributed as open source via GitHub. We present key algorithmic and software challenges, solution strategies, performance and resulting set of capabilities.
Supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) is of interest to a range of engineering problems, including carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) as well as advanced cycles for power generation. Non-ideal variations in physical properties of sCO2 impact the physics of these systems. In this study, we simulate turbulent sCO2 jets to gain a better understanding of these physics.We use a second order finite volume method with adaptive mesh refinement as implemented in the first-principles simulation code PeleC to perform a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of three turbulent jets of sCO2. Additionally, we use the Soave-Redlich-Kwong equation of state to close the system and examine the impact of a cubic equation of state on the turbulent flow physics. We look at velocity and Reynolds stress profiles at different downstream locations for three cases in which the temperature of the jet andthat of the ambient fluid differ in order to capture the effects of widely varying thermal properties in the pseudocritical region. These results are then contrasted with established theory for ideal gas jets.
PeleC is an Exascale Computing Project application for simulating compressible combustion in complex geometries. It has been built on top of the popular AMReX library. In the beginning of the Exascale Computing Project, PeleC was focused on KNL. It uses a mixture of C++, C, and kernels written in Fortran to obtain performance by focusing on vectorization. Recently we have taken two approaches in deciding PeleC's future for obtaining performance on exascale GPU machines. In the first programming model, we decorated the Fortran kernels with OpenACC directives. This expedited our ability to run at large scales on Summit's GPUs, where we achieved a significant speedup over the CPUs on Summit. The second programming model involved rewriting the Fortran kernels in C++ and using AMReX's Kokkos-like lambda abstractions for running on the GPU. This resulted in similar speedups on Summit's GPUs over merely utilizing the CPUs. Both approaches involved AMReX's management of memory transfers between the device and host. In this work, we compare and contrast the benefits and pitfalls to both programming approaches regarding performance, performance portability, and productivity. We also discuss advantages we have found in taking the time to modernize our code and why have chosen a specific pathway to prepare our code for the future DOE exascale machines.
This poster presents the status of the Pele Combustion project, an applications project in the Exascale Computing Project. It summarizes the goal of the projects, developments added to the Pele simulation capabilities over the last year, some example performance figures that target ultimate application on the Frontier supercomputer, and show a number of published and in-progress simulation results, by us and our collaborators.
Radioactive waste materials, including Transuranic (TRU) wastes from laboratories have been stored below ground in large containments at a number of sites in the US DOE Complex, and at nuclear sites in Europe. These containments are generally referred to as caissons or shafts. The containments are in a range of sizes and depths below grade. The caissons at the DOE's Hanford site are cylindrical, of the order of 2,500 mm in diameter, 3,050 mm in height and are buried about 6,000 mm below grade. One type of caisson is made out of corrugated pipe, whereas others are made of concrete with standard re-bar. However, the larger shafts in the UK are of the order of 4,600 mm in diameter, 53,500 mm deep, and 12,000 below grade. This paper describes the R and D work and testing activities performed to date to evaluate the concept of in-ground size reduction and stabilization of the contents of large containments similar to those at Hanford. In practice, the height of the Test Facility provided for a test cell that was approximately 22' deep. That prevented a 'full scale mockup' test in the sense that the Hanford Caisson configuration would be an identical replication. Therefore, the project was conducted in two phases. The first phase tested a simulated Caisson with surrogate contents, and part of a Chute section, and the second phase tested a full chute section. These tests were performed at VJ Technologies Test Facility located in East Haven, CT, as part of the Proof of Design Concept program for studying the feasibility of an in-situ grout/grind/mix/stabilize technology for the remediation of four caissons at the 618-11 Burial Ground at US Department of Energy Hanford Site. The test site was constructed such that multiple testing areas were provided for the evaluation of various tools, equipment and procedures under conditions that simulated the Hanford site, with representative soils and layout dimensions. (authors)
With funding from the Government of Canada, and support from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC's) Office of International Program and many others, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is supporting the field deployment of the Borehole Disposal Concept (BDC) for secure disposal of radioactive sources in Ghana, the Philippines and Malaysia. This is a first-of-its-kind implementation. Though small in volume, disused sealed radioactive sources can be intensively radioactive and create a significant safety and security liability for the majority of the 168 Member States in the IAEA. Millions of sealed radioactive sources have been manufactured since 1901, and it is estimated that hundreds of thousands are now unwanted. The irony is that some of the countries with the smallest inventories have the greatest difficulties managing their radioactive wastes. The BDC was originally conceptualized in an IAEA-study undertaken by the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA) for countries with small inventories of disused sealed radioactive sources. There are multiple, passive engineered and natural barriers in the BDC design, including an inner stainless-steel capsule (which holds the wastes), an inner cement containment barrier, an outer stainless steel container and outer backfill cement, as well as the surrounding geosphere. In common subsurface geochemical environments, these barriers will isolate the wastes from the biosphere, provide effective containment and ensure long-term safety. To greatly limit the likelihood of inadvertent human intrusion (safety), and deliberate human intrusion (security), these waste packages will be disposed of in a narrow diameter borehole (26 cm) at depths greater than 30 m. This type of borehole disposal creates an exceptionally small footprint, removes the wastes from normal human surficial activities, and isolates the waste packages from near-surface processes. Over the past 20 years, the IAEA, NECSA and many others have advanced the BDC on the shoulders of the IAEA's broader work supporting safe and secure disposal of radioactive wastes and management of sealed radioactive sources. With recent funding and support from many others, the IAEA has assisted Ghana, Malaysia and the Philippines in assessing their inventories and conditioning their disused sealed radioactive sources, in drilling investigation boreholes and characterizing their proposed sites, and in designing their disposal systems. These countries plan to place the uppermost waste package at depths greater than 100 m. While activities in the Philippines remain focused on-site characterization, Ghana is in the latter stages of developing their Safety Case for operational and 'post-closure' safety and Malaysia has completed their Safety Case and submitted a license application to construct and operate a BDC facility. Though this paper identifies the support provided to Member States by the IAEA, it is the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission and the Malaysian Nuclear Agency that are responsible for the safety and security of the disposals and that have been responsible for carrying-out their disposal programs. Once the BDC is licensed by the relevant national regulatory bodies, these first-of-a-kind disposal approaches will provide a template for other countries to safely dispose of their disused sealed radioactive sources - permanently eliminating their safety and security liabilities. (authors)