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NASA NTRS1990

A design algorithm using Z-plane closed loop pole placement

It is argued that the design of a single input single output (SISO) control system is simplified if the designer has direct control over the closed loop poles. A space-laser-communications design example utilizing a two-transform algorithm that constructs a generic discrete compensator is presented. The plant in the example has an anti-aliasing filter, a double integrator, a torquer time constant, and a sample-and-hold as continuous elements, and a discrete proportional plus integral module. This fifth-order system is representative of many instrument pointing control systems. Poles resulting from the compensator are placed near the origin of the Z-plane so that the response is dominated by the closed loop poles from the plant. Root locus, time response, and frequency response data are given. Normalization by the sample interval is used to provide a dimensionless example.

Gatlin, James A.↗

DOE OSTI2025

Advanced Sensors & Instrumentation FY24 Summary of Accomplishments

The Advanced Sensors and Instrumentation (ASI) program is the element of the Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) initiative dedicated to Instrumentation and Control (I&C) technology. This document collects in the form of summaries the research accomplishments presented at the program 2024 Annual Review meeting, which was held virtually between November 4 & 6-7, 2024.

46 - INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AN↗

NASA NTRS1990

Magellan space flight operations

This paper describes the Magellan spacecraft designed to collect information from the surface of Venus while orbiting this planet. Special attention is given to the attitude and articulation control of the spacecraft; the command, data, and data storage; the thermal control; and instrumentation. The operations at Venus, which will include Venus orbit insertion and in-orbit checkout and to both routine and nonroutine (at a period when Venus will be in superior conjunction, and the solar plasma will drive Magellan's telecommunications signal-to-noise ratio to a very high value) mapping of the surface, are discussed. Also discussed are operations on earth, carried out by the new Space Flight Operations Control Center.

Doody, Dave↗

NASA NTRS1976

Analytical evaluation of tilting proprotor wind tunnel test requirements

Specific test requirements related to the wind tunnel testing of the XV-15 advanced tilt rotor research aircraft were determined. The following analytical tools were developed: (1) digital simulation of the XV-15, incorporating a simplified tunnel support model, control system loop, measurement lags, gust disturbances, and sensor noise, (2) specialization of existing data analysis programs to the high order XV-15 dynamical model (transfer function program, a time series analysis program, an advanced maximum likelihood parameter identification program), (3) several auxiliary programs to provide estimates of damping from transfer functions as well as calculations of model decomposition of system response. The following results were discussed: (1) modelling of the aircraft, instrumentation, and controls, (2) results of the rotor/cantilever wing model and coupled wing, (3) examples of data prediction with system identification techniques, and (4) detailed conclusions and recommendations.

Hall, W. E., Jr.↗

DOE OSTI2022

Development of an Energy Efficient and Cost Effective Autonomous Vehicle Research Platform

Commercialization of autonomous vehicle technology is a major goal of the automotive industry, thus research in this space is rapidly expanding across the world. However, despite this high level of research activity, literature detailing a straightforward and cost-effective approach to the development of an AV research platform is sparse. To address this need, we present the methodology and results regarding the AV instrumentation and controls of a 2019 Kia Niro which was developed for a local AV pilot program. This platform includes a drive-by-wire actuation kit, Aptiv electronically scanning radar, stereo camera, MobilEye computer vision system, LiDAR, inertial measurement unit, two global positioning system receivers to provide heading information, and an in-vehicle computer for driving environment perception and path planning. Robotic Operating System software is used as the system middleware between the instruments and the autonomous application algorithms. After selection, installation, and integration of these components, our results show successful utilization of all sensors, drive-by-wire functionality, a total additional power* consumption of 242.8 Watts (*Typical), and an overall cost of $118,189 USD, which is a significant saving compared to other commercially available systems with similar functionality. This vehicle continues to serve as our primary AV research and development platform.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Cyber-Informed Engineering Guidance—Implementing CIE in Early Systems Engineering Lifecycle Stages

Traditionally, cybersecurity is not considered in the design process. Design engineers typically focus on building safety and reliability into their products and applications. Security against malicious cyber incidents is often an afterthought, resulting in deployment of security solutions during installation or operation. Unfortunately, waiting to consider cybersecurity until later in the systems engineering lifecycle often results in less effective and more expense security. Idaho National Laboratory (INL) developed the concept of Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) in 2015 to provide a framework that enables cybersecurity to be built into systems beginning at the conceptual design stage. In addition to ongoing research by INL, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response has recently developed a National CIE Strategy document for incorporating CIE into the design and operation of infrastructure systems reliant on digital monitoring or controls. This paper provides a brief review of this National CIE Strategy as well as a roadmap to historical, current, and future CIE research by INL through the U.S. DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) Cybersecurity Crosscutting Technology Development Program. A near-term focus of the DOE-NE’s research and development is to extend the foundational CIE work into detailed guidance for implementation during initial systems engineering stages in nuclear digital instrumentation and control projects and to demonstrate use of the guidance in an integrated energy systems project.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2020

Development and Test of High Temperature Surface Acoustic Wave Gas Sensors

The demand for sensors in hostile environments, such as power plant environments, aerospace environments, oil and gas extraction, and high-temperature metallurgy environments, has risen over the past decades in a continuous attempt to increase process control, improve energy and process efficiency in production, reduce operational and maintenance costs, increase safety, and perform condition-based maintenance in equipment and structures operating in high-temperature harsh-environment conditions. The increased reliability, improved performance, and development of new sensors and networks with a multitude of components, especially wireless networks, are the target for operation in harsh environments. Gas sensors, in particular H2 sensors, operating above 200 C are required in the instrumentation, process control and general safety of a number of industries including coal, natural gas, and nuclear power generation facilities, the aerospace and automotive industries, metallurgical production and defense-related applications. The surface acoustic wave (SAW) platform is a particularly promising option for high-temperature, harsh-environment gas sensing applications since the platform exhibits advantages, such as battery-free and wireless operation, small size, possibility for scale production using well-developed technologies from the semiconductor industry, and low cost of installation and operation. In this work, one-port SAW resonators (SAWRs) operating along five different orientations on a commercially available langasite (LGS) wafer employing Pt-Al2O3 electrodes and reflectors were designed, fabricated, and used as high-temperature H2 sensors. Two of the selected orientations were predicted and confirmed to have temperature-compensated operation above 150 C. A gas sensor test setup was developed, capable of gas cycling between N2, O2 and N2/H2 mixtures under extended high-temperature periods (up to 650 C for over 20 hours). Thin film Pt-Al2O3 was used as the electrode material for the transducers and reflectors capable of high-temperature operation, and also as H2 sensing film. In addition, yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) thin films with Pt decoration were tested as sensing films aimed to enhance the SAWR sensor response to H2. The SAW devices were monitored in excess of 1700 hours in real-time during gas cycling sequences up to 600 C, leading to the following findings: i) the Pt-Al2O3 electrodes performed better for H2 sensing than the Pt-decorated YSZ sensing film, showing as much as 50% higher frequency variation response in the 200 C to 400 C range; ii) different crystallographic orientations operating on the same LGS wafer experienced different responses to H2 exposures up to 500 C; iii) the surface oxidation state of the SAWR sensors was shown to have an important impact on subsequent H2 exposure responses. In addition, a sensor system employing two LGS SAWRs, aligned along two different orientations, has been developed to simultaneously determine H2 presence and temperature. Finally, wireless interrogation of a SAWR sensor was successful within the gas cycling test fixture, and successful wireless H2 detection was achieved above 400 C.

Ayes Moncada, Armando↗

NASA NTRS2022

Silicon Carbide Sensors and Electronics Technology for Extreme Environments: Opportunities for Nuclear Power Applications

Over the past five decades, NASA Glenn Research Center had been advancing the development of single crystal silicon carbide growth, sensors and electronics device technologies, culminating in the recent demonstration of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems scale batch fabricated pressure sensors operating at 800 °C and integrated circuit electronics with demonstrated durability of over 1000 hours at 500 °C. As a result of the progress made in demonstrating the high temperature capability of the technology, insertion into actual operational environments, such as in jet engines and planet Venus, are in progress. The high temperature, near inert surface chemistry, and radiation hardness attributes of SiC, coupled with the relative maturation of the device batch microfabrication, contact metallization, and packaging technologies, make the material a prime candidate for use as part of future advanced nuclear reactor instrumentation and control strategy. Hence the current research efforts at NASA Glenn are aimed toward harnessing these attributes in developing SiC sensors and electronics for nuclear reactor applications, potentially for future Lunar/Martian nuclear power and the emerging terrestrial micro nuclear power plants.

silicon carbide↗

NASA NTRS2020

ExoSpec Project: An Exoplanet Spectroscopy Technology Research Collaboration Based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Ames Research Center

The exoplanet atmosphere characterization goals of future UV/Optical/Infrared flagship space missions will drive challenging design requirements for instrument wavefront controls, spatial and spectral sampling, spectral bandwidth, and detector performance. The new ExoSpec Project links four previously distinct research efforts at Goddard and Ames for enabling and enhancing the characterization of directly-imaged exoplanets. ExoSpec is comprised of three laboratory subsystem demonstrations: high-contrast integral field spectrographs, p-channel CCDs, and parabolic deformable mirrors. A fourth component, exoplanet spectral retrieval, is an iterative data simulation activity driven by the goal of optimizing the system-level instrument design for atmosphere retrieval metrics. The ExoSpec Project’s emphasis on system-level spectroscopy performance complements the objectives of other technology demonstrations supported by NASA.

Neil T Zimmerman↗

DOE OSTI2025

Automating Bug Report Classification with Few Shot Learning

Orthogonal defect classification (ODC) is a method used to categorize software defects, providing valuable insights into the development process. This study focuses on automating the classification of software bug reports into different ODC defect types using few shot learning, a machine learning approach that requires minimal labeled data. Previous research has manually classified bug reports or used traditional machine learning algorithms like linear support vector machine, achieving limited success. Our approach uses few shot learning to improve classification accuracy and efficiency. The results show a harmonic mean of recall and precision (i.e., the F1 score) of around 0.6 which is a performance improvement over previous methods. The results highlight the potential benefit of few shot learning techniques and their application in enhancing the safety and reliability of nuclear digital instrumentation and control (DI&C) systems. Future work will explore incorporating advanced techniques to supplement the model's training data and achieve better results.

42 - ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2021

Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program Plant Modernization Technical Program Plan for FY 2021

This report presents the Technical Program Plan for FY 2019 for the Department of Energy Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program – Plant Modernization research pathway. A summary of the vision and strategy is provided to explain how this program addresses key issues and barriers for modernizing instrumentation and control technologies and infrastructure in domestic nuclear power plants. The report describes the pilot projects that have been formulated to develop and validate enabling technologies over the next several years that will result in digital alternatives to the legacy analog II&C systems in place today. This will allow much needed modernization of these systems to address reliability and obsolescence problems, as well as serve as a platform for substantial operational improvement. The report further describes key project resources and cooperative relationships, including the Electric Power Research Institute, the Nuclear Energy Institute )NEI), the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), the IFE Halden Reactor Project, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and industry suppliers, that are instrumental to the success of the program. The report also lists the schedule for all program products, including the titles and report numbers for all published reports under this program.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

NASA NTRS1992

Project Ares 3

The mission of Project Ares is to design and fabricate an Earth prototype, autonomous flying rover capable of flying on the Martian surface. The project was awarded to California State University, Northridge (CSUN) in 1989 where an in-depth paper study was completed. The second year's group, Project Ares 2, designed and fabricated a full-scale flight demonstration aircraft. Project Ares 3, the third and final group, is responsible for propulsion system design and installation, controls and instrumentation, and high altitude testing. The propulsion system consists of a motor and its power supply, geartrain, and propeller. The motor is a four-brush DC motor powered by a 50-V NiCd battery supply. A pulley and belt arrangement is used for the geartrain and includes light weight, low temperature materials. The propeller is constructed from composite materials which ensures high strength and light weight, and is specifically developed to provide thrust at extremely high altitudes. The aircraft is controlled with a ground-based radio control system and an autopilot which will activate in the event that the control signal is lost. A transponder is used to maintain radar contact for ground tracking purposes. The aircraft possesses a small, onboard computer for collecting and storing flight data. To safeguard the possibility of computer failure, all flight data is transmitted to a ground station via a telemetry system. An initial, unpowered, low-level test flight was completed in August of 1991. Testing of systems integration in the second low-level test flight resulted in loss of elevator control which caused considerable damage on landing. Complete failure analysis and repairs are scheduled for September of 1992.

Raymer, Dan↗

DOE OSTI2020

Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program Plant Modernization Technical Program Plan for FY 2021

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Droplet Entrainment in Steam Supply System of Water-Cooled Small Modular Reactors: Experiment and Modeling Approaches

Droplet entrainment in steam-flow is a prominent phenomenon that needs adequate safety and risk analysis of postulated transient and accident scenarios—including experimental investigation and representative modeling and simulation (M&S)—for small modular reactor (SMR) system design and demonstration. This study identifies knowledge gaps by evaluating experimental and computational fluid dynamics modeling approaches to support early-stage reactor system design, testing, and model evaluation. Previous studies reported in the literature for steam-flow entrainment primarily focused on gigawatt capacity pressurized water reactor (PWR) systems. However, entrainment phenomena are even more prominent for PWR-type SMRs due to their more compact integrated designs, which need further research and development. To fill the research gaps, this study provides insight by specifying the phenomena of interest by leveraging the lessons learned from past research, adopting advanced M&S techniques and advanced instrumentation and control. The findings and recommendations are applicable for evaluating steam-flow entrainment models and for designing integral effect test and separate effect test facilities for gaining reactor design approvals.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

NASA NTRS2011

Operational Parameters, Considerations, and Design Decisions for Resource-Constrained Ion Trap Mass Spectrometers

Mass spectrometers are increasingly finding applications in new and unique areas, often in situations where key operational resources (i.e. power, weight and size) are limited. One such example is the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA). This instrument is a joint venture between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop an ion trap mass spectrometer for chemical analysis on Mars. The constraints on such an instrument are significant as are the performance requirements. While the ideal operating parameters for an ion trap are generally well characterized, methods to maintain analytical performance with limited power and system weight need to be investigated and tested. Methods Experiments have been performed on two custom ion trap mass spectrometers developed as prototypes for the MOMA instrument. This hardware consists of quadrupole ion trap electrodes that are 70% the size of common commercial instrumentation. The trapping RF voltage is created with a custom tank circuit that can be tuned over a range of RF frequencies and is driven using laboratory supplies and amplifiers. The entire instrument is controlled with custom Lab VIEW software that allows a high degree of flexibility in the definition of the scan function defining the ion trap experiment. Ions are typically generated via an internal electron ionization source, however, a laser desorption source is also in development for analysis of larger intact molecules. Preliminary Data The main goals in this work have been to reduce the power required to generate the radio frequency trapping field used in an ion trap mass spectrometer. Generally minimizing the power will also reduce the volume and mass of the electronics to support the instrument. In order to achieve optimum performance, commercial instruments typically utilize RF frequencies in the 1 MHz range. Without much concern for power usage, they simply generate the voltage required to access the mass range of interest. In order to reduce the required RF voltage (and power), operation of the ion trap at lower RF frequencies has been investigated. Surprisingly, the performance of the instrument has only been slightly degraded at RF frequencies all the way down to 500 kHz. Mass resolution is relatively stable to this point and depending on the resonant ejection point used, the peak intensity is also quite stable. To date only masses up to m/z 200 have been fully investigated, however, additional studies are planned to verify the performance with higher mass ions. The lower frequency and voltage should reduce the pseudo potential well depth, eventually affecting the trapping efficiency of the instrument -- effect that could manifest itself in significantly limiting the mass range of trapped ions. Other methods to reduce the RF power while maintaining analytical performance are also under investigation. This includes ion ejection at lower q(sub z) values to access a given mass with a lower RF voltage. The loss of mass resolution at lower q(sub eject) points has been measured and current work is underway to leverage scan speed and the use of non-linear resonances in order to counter this trend. The overall trap performance under this range of operating conditions will be presented with a goal of identifying what trade-offs are acceptable.

Danell, Ryan M.↗

DOE OSTI2023

Non-Nuclear Test Facility Development to Support Verification and Validation Needs

This study focuses on developing a non-nuclear test facility to help meet the verification and validation (V&V) requirements of a water-cooled small modular reactor (SMR) system. The scaling analysis necessary for reactor system experimentation and assessment model V&V considers various reactor system accident scenarios such as main steam line break (MSLB), steam generator tube rupture (SGTR), and containment condensation and heat transfer. The goal is to identify key physics based phenomena of interest (POI), specific figures of merit (FOMs), and the state of knowledge (SOK) by employing phenomena identification and ranking table (PIRT) studies. Important physics phenomena such as heat transfer, fluid dynamics, structural integrity, and material selection must be addressed when scaling a thermal-hydraulics system. Alongside these considerations, modifications to the facility may be needed to align the scaled system with the available footprint (height and space) of the facility. These modifications may include infrastructure upgrades, changes to the piping layout, implementation of safety measures, and installation of new instrumentation and control systems. The test facility aims to provide a scaled-down version of prototypic facilities for comprehensive V&V activities by overcoming these challenges and making the necessary modifications. This approach minimizes scaling distortion, simulates prototypic plant conditions, and accurately models accident event progressions. Thus, the facility will be capable of adequately modeling a scaled SMR system to support the design, development and licensing needs.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

DOE OSTI2020

Initial Radiation of Nuclear Power Plant Components (CRADA NFE-17-06892 Final Report)

As advanced reactor concepts are developed, instrumentation and control (I&C) cables and sensors will play a significant role in assuring their operation is well understood, and safety-related process information can be collected reliably over the course of their design life. As a first step to develop acceptance criteria and define the limits of currently available nuclear I&C cable and sensor technology, a collaboration between Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Analysis and Measurement Services (AMS) Corporation was initiated under the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) Program. This collaborative effort focused on providing technical information related to the combined thermal and radiation aging of nuclear power plant (NPP) cables, companion NPP cable insulation samples, and two prototype temperature and two pressure sensors. This work was carried out using the instrumented gamma irradiation system that is part of the High Flux Isotope Reactor Gamma Irradiation Facility (HFIR GIF). This system provided the opportunity for the condition of the prototype sensors to be tracked during the irradiation in order to determine their functional limits with greater granularity when compared to a simple irradiation insertion at the HFIRGIF. Experimental assemblies for sensor irradiation were successfully completed, and sensor irradiation to accumulated dose of 3000 kGy at a rate of approximately 6 kGy/hr was carried out. Two prototype temperature assemblies were continuously monitored during exposure to 3000 kGy and found to have no observable degradation from the irradiation. Two pressure sensors were first irradiated to 1000 kGy. At which point, one of the sensors was found to operate normally; however, a second sensor failed the operability test. The operable pressure sensor output was then continuously monitored from 1000 kGy to 3000 kGy. The sensor output exhibited steady trendable drift versus the accumulated radiation dose. At the conclusion of the irradiation, the four test sensors were released for laboratory calibration checks. The calibration check of the temperature sensors found no significant change after irradiation compared to baseline measurements before irradiation; however, both pressure sensors failed the post-test calibration checks and both sensors were not functioning properly. These results will help inform sensor manufacturers and I&C design engineers of potential limitations of these types of sensors for use in high radiation environments associated with the compact configuration of new Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) such as NuScale’s reactor power module. Irradiations on NPP cables and companion samples were not completed due to programmatic delays, however a path forward that was based on lessons learned from this project was defined to accommodate future, comparable instrumented gamma irradiations at the HFIR GIF.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2024

An automatic multi-precursor flow-type atomic layer deposition system

Designs for two automated atomic layer deposition (ALD) flow reactors are presented, and their capabilities for coating additively manufactured (AM) metal prints are described. One instrument allows the coating of several AM parts in batches, while the other is useful for single part experiments. To demonstrate reactor capabilities, alumina (Al 2 O 3 ) was deposited onto AM 316L stainless steel by dosing with water (H 2 O) vapor and trimethylaluminum (TMA) and purging with nitrogen gas (N 2 ). Both instruments are controlled by custom-programmed LabVIEW software that enables in situ logging of temperature, total pressure, and film thickness using a quartz crystal microbalance. An initial result shows that 150 ALD cycles led to a film thickness of ~55 nm, which was verified with Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy. This indicates that the reactors were indeed depositing single atomic layers of Al 2 O 3 per ALD cycle, as intended.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗