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Dynamics of Sheared Granular Materials

This work focuses on the properties of sheared granular materials near the jamming transition. The project currently involves two aspects. The first of these is an experiment that is a prototype for a planned ISS (International Space Station) flight. The second is discrete element simulations (DES) that can give insight into the behavior one might expect in a reduced-g environment. The experimental arrangement consists of an annular channel that contains the granular material. One surface, say the upper surface, rotates so as to shear the material contained in the annulus. The lower surface controls the mean density/mean stress on the sample through an actuator or other control system. A novel feature under development is the ability to 'thermalize' the layer, i.e. create a larger amount of random motion in the material, by using the actuating system to provide vibrations as well control the mean volume of the annulus. The stress states of the system are determined by transducers on the non-rotating wall. These measure both shear and normal components of the stress on different size scales. Here, the idea is to characterize the system as the density varies through values spanning dense almost solid to relatively mobile granular states. This transition regime encompasses the regime usually thought of as the glass transition, and/or the jamming transition. Motivation for this experiment springs from ideas of a granular glass transition, a related jamming transition, and from recent experiments. In particular, we note recent experiments carried out by our group to characterize this type of transition and also to demonstrate/ characterize fluctuations in slowly sheared systems. These experiments give key insights into what one might expect in near-zero g. In particular, they show that the compressibility of granular systems diverges at a transition or critical point. It is this divergence, coupled to gravity, that makes it extremely difficult if not impossible to characterize the transition region in an earth-bound experiment. In the DE modeling, we analyze dynamics of a sheared granular system in Couette geometry in two (2D) and three (3D) space dimensions. Here, the idea is to both better understand what we might encounter in a reduced-g environment, and at a deeper level to deduce the physics of sheared systems in a density regime that has not been addressed by past experiments or simulations. One aspect of the simulations addresses sheared 2D system in zero-g environment. For low volume fractions, the expected dynamics of this type of system is relatively well understood. However, as the volume fraction is increased, the system undergoes a phase transition, as explained above. The DES concentrate on the evolution of the system as the solid volume fraction is slowly increased, and in particular on the behavior of very dense systems. For these configurations, the simulations show that polydispersity of the sheared particles is a crucial factor that determines the system response. Figures 1 and 2 below, that present the total force on each grain, show that even relatively small (10 %) nonuniformity of the size of the grains (expected in typical experiments) may lead to significant modifications of the system properties, such as velocity profiles, temperature, force propagation, and formation shear bands. The simulations are extended in a few other directions, in order to provide additional insight to the experimental system analyzed above. In one direction, both gravity, and driving due to vibrations are included. These simulations allow for predictions on the driving regime that is required in the experiments in order to analyze the jamming transition. Furthermore, direct comparison of experiments and DES will allow for verification of the modeling assumptions. We have also extended our modeling efforts to 3D. The (preliminary) results of these simulations of an annular system in zero-g environment will conclude the presentation.

Kondic, Lou↗

On the utilization of engineering knowledge in design optimization

Some current research work conducted at the University of Michigan is described to illustrate efforts for incorporating knowledge in optimization in a nontraditional way. The incorporation of available knowledge in a logic structure is examined in two circumstances. The first examines the possibility of introducing global design information in a local active set strategy implemented during the iterations of projection-type algorithms for nonlinearly constrained problems. The technique used algorithms for nonlinearly constrained problems. The technique used combines global and local monotinicity analysis of the objective and constraint functions. The second examines a knowledge-based program which aids the user to create condigurations that are most desirable from the manufacturing assembly viewpoint. The data bank used is the classification scheme suggested by Boothroyd. The important aspect of this program is that it is an aid for synthesis intended for use in the design concept phase in a way similar to the so-called idea-triggers in creativity-enhancement techniques like brain-storming. The idea generation, however, is not random but it is driven by the goal of achieving the best acceptable configuration.

Papalambros, P.↗

Design of the Wind Tunnel Model Communication Controller Board

The NASA Langley Research Center's Wind Tunnel Reinvestment project plans to shrink the existing data acquisition electronics to fit inside a wind tunnel model. Space limitations within a model necessitate a distributed system of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) rather than a centralized system based on PC boards. This thesis will focus on the design of the prototype of the communication Controller board. A portion of the communication Controller board is to be used as the basis of an ASIC design. The communication Controller board will communicate between the internal model modules and the external data acquisition computer. This board is based around an Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), to allow for reconfigurability. In addition to the FPGA, this board contains buffer Random Access Memory (RAM), configuration memory (EEPROM), drivers for the communications ports, and passive components.

Wilson, William C.↗

Great Lakes Water Resources II: A Google Earth Engine Tool to Automate Wetland Extent Mapping Using Optical and Radar Satellite Sensors in the Great Lakes Basin for Wetland Management and Monitoring

The Great Lakes Basin is one of the world’s largest freshwater ecosystems. The Basin harbors over 200,000 acres of wetlands that provide a variety of environmental, ecological, and recreational functions to over 30 million people in the region. Some of these functions include improving water quality, mitigating flood impacts, providing wildlife habitat, and housing recreational activities. However, due to anthropogenic activities, habitat conversion and degradation threaten to disrupt or destroy remaining wetland ecosystems. Maps of wetland distribution based on ground surveys are costly and labor-intensive, prohibiting timely evaluations of wetland loss and gain. The Great Lakes Water Resources II team at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed the Wetlands Extent Tool 2.0 (WET 2.0) in Google Earth Engine to automate mapping of wetland distribution in the Great Lakes Basin. The team partnered with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Environmental Protection Agency, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Ducks Unlimited. WET 2.0 incorporates Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), Sentinel-1 C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (C-SAR), and Sentinel-2 Multispectral Instrument (MSI) data. Utilizing a Random Forest classifier, WET 2.0 is capable of automatically mapping wetland extent in the entire Great Lakes Basin, achieving a mean overall accuracy of 80.12% when tested in Michigan.Findings and maps produced by WET 2.0 will enable our partners to identify areas of ecosystem degradation and wetland destruction in order to enact environmental practices and policy initiatives to maintain environmental and economic health in the area.

Water Resources↗

Initial Assessment of the Ares I-X Launch Vehicle Upper Stage to Vibroacoustic Flight Environments

The Ares I launch vehicle will be NASA s first new launch vehicle since 1981. Currently in design, it will replace the Space Shuttle in taking astronauts to the International Space Station, and will eventually play a major role in humankind s return to the Moon and eventually to Mars. Prior to any manned flight of this vehicle, unmanned test readiness flights will be flown. The first of these readiness flights, named Ares I-X, is scheduled to be launched in April 2009. The NASA Glenn Research Center is responsible for the design, manufacture, test and analysis of the Ares I-X upper stage simulator (USS) element. As part of the design effort, the structural dynamic response of the Ares I-X launch vehicle to its vibroacoustic flight environments must be analyzed. The launch vehicle will be exposed to extremely high acoustic pressures during its lift-off and aerodynamic stages of flight. This in turn will cause high levels of random vibration on the vehicle's outer surface that will be transmitted to its interior. Critical flight equipment, such as its avionics and flight guidance components are susceptible to damage from this excitation. This study addresses the modelling, analysis and predictions from examining the structural dynamic response of the Ares I-X upper stage to its vibroacoustic excitations. A statistical energy analysis (SEA) model was used to predict the high frequency response of the vehicle at locations of interest. Key to this study was the definition of the excitation fields corresponding to lift off acoustics and the unsteady aerodynamic pressure fluctuations during flight. The predicted results will be used by the Ares I-X Project to verify the flight qualification status of the Ares I-X upper stage components.

Larko, Jeffrey M.↗

Equity Considerations in Siting Consolidated Interim Storage Facilities for Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel

Questions of equity and fairness are often raised by representatives from State, Tribal and local governments and members of the public when resolving conflicts over siting of nuclear facilities. However, the two terms are not synonymous: equity can be quantified while fairness is much more subjective. The Department of Energy's (DOE) December 2021 Request for Information sought input on how to site federal facilities for the temporary, consolidated storage of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) using a consent-based approach. It is anticipated that just such questions about equity and fairness associated with the potential emergence of more than one host site may be raised by the twelve groups of university, nonprofit and private sector partners (Consortia) working to support community engagement, inclusively involve stakeholders, build relationships, and develop innovative forms of mutual learning and public capacity to participate in the consent-based siting process for a federal consolidated interim storage facility during the current Planning & Capacity Building stage of the consent-based siting process. In terms of DOE's Integrated Waste Management System (IWMS), sociopolitical equity concepts are a factor in all aspects of IWMS development and operations and will be particularly applicable should two or more host sites become a possibility, either by the emergence of multiple volunteer hosts or by pursuit as a IWMS program strategy. This paper summarizes recent analyses that explore how four equity metrics - number of states, division of the projected SNF total by the year 2083, current population and land area - might be perceived by host communities, states and regions if two, three or four sites for hosting federal consolidated interim storage facilities were to be contemporaneously realized. Existing institutional arrangements, including Nuclear Regulatory Commission regions, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regions and Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compacts, were selected to create hypothetically merged two, three and four-region scenarios to calculate how the four metrics balance out. Projected SNF burden was prioritized with regional contiguity of the consolidated regions a requirement for a functional scenario. The intent was not to promote or suggest any construct as a program objective; the configurations are geopolitical abstractions only to explore potential perceptions of equity. Understanding the possible issues of equity that could arise may benefit program efforts toward achieving a cooperative federalism wherein both the federal and multiple State governments share the goal of manifesting more than one federal consolidated interim storage facility. The main finding is that it is not possible to optimize for all four metrics simultaneously. The analyses demonstrate that trying to create a sense of equity by backfitting a solution to a random population and land distribution will always contain a degree of artificiality.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Underwater Target Detection Software Demonstration on the RivGen Turbine

This repository contains data and processing scripts necessary to train the object detection models utilized in the underwater target detection software demonstration on the RivGen turbine project and to produce performance metrics (precision, recall, mAP50, mAP50-95). - Contents - Data consist of "images" and "labels". Each image has an associated label, both share the same time string in its file name (e.g., 2024_05_25_09_01_57.98.jpg and 2024_05_25_09_01_57.98.txt). Time strings have the format %yyyy_%mm_%dd_%HH_%MM_%SS.%3f. Images and labels were curated from 2021 and 2024 smolt outmigration periods at the project site in Igiugig, AK. Images are monochrome 8-bit images of objects (smolt, debris, and other) passing through the field of view of the deployed cameras during various operational stages of the RivGen turbine. Labels are text files indicating the class and bounding polygon of each object in an image. The provided labels use the "YOLO" label format. - Requirements - Python3.8+ is required to install and run the train and validation script. The README.md provides instruction for installing the requirements from the requirements.py file. - Instructions - The "example_train.py" file ingests the provided data, trains a model, and produces model performance metrics at completion. NOTE: model performance metrics will vary from run to run as a consequence of the random selection of training and validation data.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

An Investigation Into Some Important Aspects of Droplet Breakup/Vaporization Behavior Caused By a Gas Flow (Both Nonreacting & Detonative Combustion) in a Shock Tube

As a part of the rotating detonation engine (RDE) technology enablement project at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC), an effort was undertaken to extend our current computational capabilities of OpenNCC in some important ways with the implementation of a modeling approach to account for the droplet breakup caused by a shock-induced gas motion, & a vaporization model valid over a wide range of pressure conditions encountered in multiphase detonation. With the modified code, a study was undertaken to investigate the individual droplet behavior followed by the passage of a shock front. The study is carried out by tracking a sparse group of droplets to gain some understanding of shock induced droplet behavior under various shock strengths & fuel injector conditions. The study also looks into the effect of randomization involved in determining the droplet breakup outcomes. Over a wide range of sub-critical conditions examined, larger droplets are observed to undergo significant changes in droplet behavior following their breakup. However, smaller droplets (10 µm or less ) remain unaffected by any shock induced breakup. In a follow-on work, we investigated the impact of shock and droplet interaction in a detonation study involving both gaseous as well as gas/liquid (droplet clouds) fuel/air stoichiometric mixtures in a simple 3D shock-tube configuration. The droplet clouds are made up of different initial droplet sizes of either 6, 10, or 30 µm. We also investigated the individual droplet behavior followed by the passage of a detonation front. The results represent conditions that lead to both overdriven and C-J (ChapmanJouguet) detonations. Under both test conditions, most of the droplet vaporization is completed within a short distance (duration) behind the detonation front & well within the region of complete combustion observed in a corresponding equivalent gas-phase fuel/air mixture. The impact of the shock-induced droplet breakup is found to be significant in the calculations involving the 30-µm droplets. Subsequent to the breakup, the drop sizes vary from 1 to 10 µm. Another factor that contributed to the observed rapid vaporization is the result of vaporization taking place under supercritical conditions. The overall detonation properties of various droplet clouds (made up of different initial sizes) are similar to those observed in a corresponding gaseous fuel/air mixture. In the calculation involving a gaseous fuel, the calculated C-J detonation velocity is 1822 m/s involving Jet-A/air and φ = 1. In the overdriven detonation, it is 2044 m/s. In the calculations involving droplet clouds, the corresponding detonation velocities are lower. The impact of increased droplet size is primarily seen in a higher reduction in the detonation velocity.

shock/droplet interaction↗

Development and Validation of Quantitative Model-Based Image Reconstruction for NDE of Reinforced Steel-Lined Concrete Structures: Kal-El FY 2020

This project studied the capabilities of Model-Based Image Reconstruction (MBIR) and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms in the imaging and estimation of rebar corrosion from ultrasound signals. The application was challenging due to the introduction of a steel liner between the sensor and the concrete containing the rebar. The study focused in a synthetic specimen with a 6.35 mm thick steel liner, and a 19.05 mm diameter rebar at a depth of 44.5 mm and with four levels of corrosion; 0%, 20%, 50%, and 100% corrosion level. The corrosion was applied uniformly around the rebar, generating a ring in the perimeter of the rebar with different acoustic density. In order to generate a realistic synthetic dataset, we added random texture to the concrete of the synthetic specimens. This texture will mimic the variations encountered in real concrete specimens.We adapted our MBIR algorithm for the application and enhanced the algorithm to integrate in the physical model known specimen features, such as the steel liner thickness. The new MBIR method was able to cancel out reverberation from the steel liner and properly image the rebar. In particular, corrosion for the 50% and 100% cases were easily visible and quantitative metrics showed a slight separation for the 0% and 20% levels. The quantitative results were in agreement with the qualitative assessment. We also developed a ML XGBoost model to estimate corrosion level from the ultrasound signals. By combining the ML method with MBIR, we can pinpoint in the ultrasound signals the section that corresponds to the echoes from the rebar. The extract signals are processed by the XGBoost model for prediction. From each system scan, we obtain 15 predictions. The median prediction value is used as the final prediction. The True Acceptance Rate for the method is over 99%.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Paper 14: An analysis of the technical communications practices reported by Israeli and US aerospace engineers and scientists

As part of Phase 4 of the NASA/DoD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project, two pilot studies were conducted that investigated the technical communications practices of Israeli and U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists. Both studies had the same five objectives: first, to solicit the opinions of aerospace engineers and scientists regarding the importance of technical communications to their profession; second, to determine the use and production of technical communications by aerospace engineers and scientists; third, to seek their view about the appropriate content of an undergraduate course in technical communications; fourth, to determine aerospace engineers' and scientists' use of libraries, technical information centers, and on-line databases; and fifth, to determine the use and importance of computer and information technology to them. A self-administered questionnaire was mailed to randomly selected U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists who are working in cryogenics, adaptive walls, and magnetic suspension. A slightly modified version was sent to Israeli aerospace engineers and scientists working at Israel Aircraft Industries, LTD. Responses of the Israeli and U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists to selected questions are presented in this paper.

Barclay, Rebecca O.↗

Nastic curvatures of wheat coleoptiles that develop in true microgravity

Dark-grown wheat coleoptiles developed strong curvatures within 5 h of being transferred in orbit from a 1 g centrifuge to microgravity during an experiment flown on the IML-1 shuttle mission. The curving tendency was strongest in seedlings that were immature, with coleoptiles shorter than 10 mm at the time of transfer. The curvature direction was non-random, and directed away from the caryopsis (the coleptile face adjacent to the caryopsis becoming convex). The curvatures were most marked in the basal third of the coleoptiles, contrasting with phototropic responses, which occur in the apical third. We interpret these curvatures as being nastic, and related to the curvatures commonly reported to occur during clinostat rotation treatments.

manned↗

Microbial Factories for Solar System Exploration

As humans venture deeper into space for longer duration missions, resupply missions become far more difficult and costly. To address this, alternative methods of in situ biomanufacturing can be developed to provide a reliable source of required nutrients. BioNutrients is an ongoing project including three separate flight experiments that aims to provide on-demand nutrient production through 5-year shelf stable microbial factories for astronauts on long-duration missions. The BioNutrients-3 (BN-3) flight experiment aims to demonstrate on-orbit food safety, user-friendly production pack design, and multi-compound production capability. This current study seeks to support the multiple compound production element of BN-3 by investigating the production of multiple compounds via multiple pathways in one organism. An experiment has been designed to modify an existing strain of Saccharomyces boulardii designed by the BioNutrients team to efficiently produce β-carotene to also efficiently produce a second nutrient, riboflavin. This experiment entails the random shuffling and recombination of gene elements including promoters and terminators of various strengths to identify optimal combinations for the upregulation of the riboflavin production pathway. Implementation of this experiment would provide insight into the efficiency of the multiple pathways production method and pave the way for additional fine tuning of the riboflavin production pathway and additional nutrient production pathways in S. boulardii.

Biomanufacturing↗

Effects of Ice-Crystal Structure on Halo Formation: Cirrus Cloud Experimental and Ray-Tracing Modeling Studies

During the 1986 Project FIRE (First International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project Regional Experiment) field campaign, four 22 deg halo-producing cirrus clouds were studied jointly from a ground-based polarization lidar and an instrumented aircraft. The lidar data show the vertical cloud structure and the relative position of the aircraft, which collected a total of 84 slides by impaction, preserving the ice crystals for later microscopic examination. Although many particles were too fragile to survive impaction intact, a large fraction of the identifiable crystals were columns and radial bullet rosettes, with both displaying internal cavitations and radial plate-column combinations. Particles that were solid or displayed only a slight amount of internal structure were relatively rare, which shows that the usual model postulated by halo theorists, i.e., the randomly oriented, solid hexagonal crystal, is inappropriate for typical cirrus clouds. With the aid of new ray-tracing simulations for hexagonal hollow-ended column and bullet-rosette models, we evaluate the effects of more realistic ice-crystal structures on halo formation and lidar depolarization and consider why the common halo is not more common in cirrus clouds.

Sassen, Kenneth↗

Six Machine-Learning Methods for Predicting Hospital-Stay Duration for Patients with Sepsis: A Comparative Study

Sepsis is a life-threatening medical condition that, if not treated promptly, can result in tissue damage, organ failure, and death. According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 270,000 individuals die of sepsis in the US each year. Further, sepsis expenditures accounted for 13% of total US hospital costs in 2013, totaling more than $24 billion. Our project objectives were to determine if Machine Learning algorithms could reliably predict hospital stay duration for patients with sepsis. The data set we used has been de-identified and is freely available through the BupaR package. The data includes 1050 cases, 15214 events, and 16 types of actions related to sepsis patient care. First, we used process mining to determine how long each patient was in the hospital. Using BupaR’s functions, we created several process model graphs. These process models depict the movement of patients at a hospital and provide duration data for each patent case. Second, we identified outlier data and created two dataset versions: one with and one without outliers. We then applied the following analysis methods: Linear Regression, Random Forest, K-Nearest Neighbors, Neural Networks, XGBoost, and lightGBM. We compared the model validations for the six machine learning models using the same data-splitting method. We found that the XGBoost model had the best prediction accuracy of 73.9 percent for cases with outliers, and 79 percent for cases without outliers. We also found that the lightGBM model had the lowest mean absolute error between prediction and actual duration in days with 3.66 days for the case with outliers, and 2.4 days for the case without outliers. These two models outperformed the other four models. This work will be enhanced in the future by exploring new prediction algorithms and comparing them with the results of this study.

Chen, Lingtao↗

Spectrally Consistent Scattering, Absorption, and Polarization Properties of Atmospheric Ice Crystals at Wavelengths from 0.2 to 100 um

A data library is developed containing the scattering, absorption, and polarization properties of ice particles in the spectral range from 0.2 to 100 microns. The properties are computed based on a combination of the Amsterdam discrete dipole approximation (ADDA), the T-matrix method, and the improved geometric optics method (IGOM). The electromagnetic edge effect is incorporated into the extinction and absorption efficiencies computed from the IGOM. A full set of single-scattering properties is provided by considering three-dimensional random orientations for 11 ice crystal habits: droxtals, prolate spheroids, oblate spheroids, solid and hollow columns, compact aggregates composed of eight solid columns, hexagonal plates, small spatial aggregates composed of 5 plates, large spatial aggregates composed of 10 plates, and solid and hollow bullet rosettes. The maximum dimension of each habit ranges from 2 to 10,000 microns in 189 discrete sizes. For each ice crystal habit, three surface roughness conditions (i.e., smooth, moderately roughened, and severely roughened) are considered to account for the surface texture of large particles in the IGOM applicable domain. The data library contains the extinction efficiency, single-scattering albedo, asymmetry parameter, six independent nonzero elements of the phase matrix (P11, P12, P22, P33, P43, and P44), particle projected area, and particle volume to provide the basic single-scattering properties for remote sensing applications and radiative transfer simulations involving ice clouds. Furthermore, a comparison of satellite observations and theoretical simulations for the polarization characteristics of ice clouds demonstrates that ice cloud optical models assuming severely roughened ice crystals significantly outperform their counterparts assuming smooth ice crystals.

Optical properties↗

Flow Redirection and Induction in Steady State (FLORIS) Wind Plant Power Production Data Sets

This dataset contains turbine- and plant-level power outputs for 252,500 cases of diverse wind plant layouts operating under a wide range of yawing and atmospheric conditions. The power outputs were computed using the Gaussian wake model in NREL's FLOw Redirection and Induction in Steady State (FLORIS) model, version 2.3.0. The 252,500 cases include 500 unique wind plants generated randomly by a specialized Plant Layout Generator (PLayGen) that samples randomized realizations of wind plant layouts from one of four canonical configurations: (i) cluster, (ii) single string, (iii) multiple string, (iv) parallel string. Other wind plant layout parameters were also randomly sampled, including the number of turbines (25-200) and the mean turbine spacing (3D-10D, where D denotes the turbine rotor diameter). For each layout, 500 different sets of atmospheric conditions were randomly sampled. These include wind speed in 0-25 m/s, wind direction in 0 deg.-360 deg., and turbulence intensity chosen from low (6%), medium (8%), and high (10%). For each atmospheric inflow scenario, the individual turbine yaw angles were randomly sampled from a one-sided truncated Gaussian on the interval 0 deg.-30 deg. oriented relative to wind inflow direction. This random data is supplemented with a collection of yaw-optimized samples where FLORIS was used to determine turbine yaw angles that maximize power production for the entire plant. To generate this data, a subset of cases were selected (50 atmospheric conditions from 50 layouts each for a total of additional 2,500 cases) for which FLORIS was re-run with wake steering control optimization. The IEA onshore reference turbine, which has a 130 m rotor diameter, a 110 m hub height, and a rated power capacity of 3.4 MW was used as the turbine for all simulations. The simulations were performed using NREL's Eagle high performance computing system in February 2021 as part of the Spatial Analysis for Wind Technology Development project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office. The data was collected, reformatted, and preprocessed for this OEDI submission in May 2023 under the Foundational AI for Wind Energy project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office. This dataset is intended to serve as a benchmark against which new artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) tools may be tested. Baseline AI/ML methods for analyzing this dataset have been implemented, and a link to their repository containing those models has been provided. The .h5 data file structure can be found in the GitHub repository under explore_wind_plant_data_h5.ipynb.

AI↗

PEM-INST-001: Instructions for Plastic Encapsulated Microcircuit (PEM) Selection, Screening, and Qualification

Potential users of plastic encapsulated microcircuits (PEMs) need to be reminded that unlike the military system of producing robust high-reliability microcircuits that are designed to perform acceptably in a variety of harsh environments, PEMs are primarily designed for use in benign environments where equipment is easily accessed for repair or replacement. The methods of analysis applied to military products to demonstrate high reliability cannot always be applied to PEMs. This makes it difficult for users to characterize PEMs for two reasons: 1. Due to the major differences in design and construction, the standard test practices used to ensure that military devices are robust and have high reliability often cannot be applied to PEMs that have a smaller operating temperature range and are typically more frail and susceptible to moisture absorption. In contrast, high-reliability military microcircuits usually utilize large, robust, high-temperature packages that are hermetically sealed. 2. Unlike the military high-reliability system, users of PEMs have little visibility into commercial manufacturers proprietary design, materials, die traceability, and production processes and procedures. There is no central authority that monitors PEM commercial product for quality, and there are no controls in place that can be imposed across all commercial manufacturers to provide confidence to high-reliability users that a common acceptable level of quality exists for all PEMs manufacturers. Consequently, there is no guaranteed control over the type of reliability that is built into commercial product, and there is no guarantee that different lots from the same manufacturer are equally acceptable. And regarding application, there is no guarantee that commercial products intended for use in benign environments will provide acceptable performance and reliability in harsh space environments. The qualification and screening processes contained in this document are intended to detect poor-quality lots and screen out early random failures from use in space flight hardware. However, since it cannot be guaranteed that quality was designed and built into PEMs that are appropriate for space applications, users cannot screen in quality that may not exist. It must be understood that due to the variety of materials, processes, and technologies used to design and produce PEMs, this test process may not accelerate and detect all failure mechanisms. While the tests herein will increase user confidence that PEMs with otherwise unknown reliability can be used in space environments, such testing may not guarantee the same level of reliability offered by military microcircuits. PEMs should only be used where due to performance needs there are no alternatives in the military high-reliability market, and projects are willing to accept higher risk.

Teverovsky, Alexander↗

On the Prediction of Aerosol-Cloud Interactions Within a Data-Driven Framework

Aerosol-cloud interactions (ACI) pose the largest uncertainty for climate projection. Among many challenges of understanding ACI, the question of whether ACI can be deterministically predicted has not been explicitly answered. Here we attempt to answer this question by predicting cloud droplet number concentration N c from aerosol number concentration N a and ambient conditions using a data-driven framework. We use aerosol properties, vertical velocity fluctuations, and meteorological states from the ACTIVATE field observations (2020–2022) as predictors to estimate N c . We show that the campaign-wide N c can be successfully predicted using machine learning models despite the strongly nonlinear and multi-scale nature of ACI. However, the observation-trained machine learning model fails to predict N c in individual cases while it successfully predicts N c of randomly selected data points that cover a broad spatiotemporal scale. This suggests that, within a data-driven framework, the N c prediction is uncertain at fine spatiotemporal scales.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗