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At least 541 records · Page 30

Empirical Analysis of the Subjective Impressions and Objective Measures of Domain Scientists’ Visual Analytic Judgments

Scientists often use specific data analysis and presentation methods familiar within their domain. But does high familiarity drive better analytical judgment? This question is especially relevant when familiar methods themselves can have shortcomings: many visualizations used conventionally for scientific data analysis and presentation do not follow established best practices. This necessitates new methods that might be unfamiliar yet prove to be more effective. But there is little empirical understanding of the relationships between scientists’ subjective impressions about familiar and unfamiliar visualizations and objective measures of their visual analytic judgments. To address this gap and to study these factors, we focus on visualizations used for comparison of climate model performance. We report on a comprehensive survey-based user study with 47 climate scientists and present an analysis of : i) relationships among scientists’ familiarity, their perceived lev- els of comfort, confidence, accuracy, and objective measures of accuracy, and ii) relationships among domain experience, visualization familiarity, and post-study preference.

Dasgupta, Aritra↗

Design and implementation of HuREX analysis supporting interface - 171

Human error is recognized as one of the main causes to affect to the socio-technical system including nuclear power plant. Therefore, reducing human error through human reliability analysis (HRA) is a critical issue. Moreover, sufficient and reliable human performance data collection is a prerequisite for ensuring the safety of nuclear power plants. Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute developed the HuREX (Human Reliability data Extraction) framework to collect and analyze the responses of human operators from simulator training records of nuclear power plant. Thus, the development and computer software interfaces of the database are essential to efficiently support human reliability analysis. In this study, OPERA database was developed in accordance with the following process. First, the essential data required for the HRA analysis (e.g., plant data, procedures, system and equipment info, operating crews, results of simulator experiments, and so forth) was stored in the database. In addition, standardized procedures and related items were stored in the database to support HRA quantification. A data structure was developed to store crew responses conducted by operators to cope with an emergency situation during simulator experiments. In addition, various interfaces that escalate efficiency of the HuREX applications were developed. The HuREX analysis support interface was developed with HuREX Video Analyzer for observation of simulator collection data (e.g., audio-visual records, plant parameters, operator's action logs) and HuREX Data Analyzer for analysis of operator's conducted task. By using the OPERA database and HuREX analysis support interface developed through this research, maximizing the efficiency of human reliability analysis based on simulator training data. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

A scalable multidimensional fully implicit solver for Hall magnetohydrodynamics

We propose an optimally performant fully implicit algorithm for the Hall magnetohydrodynamics (HMHD) equations based on multigrid-preconditioned Jacobian-free Newton-Krylov methods. HMHD is a challenging system to solve numerically because it supports stiff fast dispersive waves. The preconditioner is formulated using an operator-split approximate block factorization (Schur complement), informed by physics insight. We use a vector-potential formulation (instead of a magnetic field one) to allow a clean segregation of the problematic $\nabla$ x $\nabla$ x operator in the electron Ohm's law subsystem. This segregation allows the formulation of an effective damped block-Jacobi smoother for multigrid. We demonstrate by analysis that our proposed block-Jacobi iteration is convergent and has the smoothing property. The resulting HMHD solver is verified linearly with wave propagation examples, and nonlinearly with the GEM challenge reconnection problem by comparison against another HMHD code. We demonstrate the excellent algorithmic and parallel performance of the algorithm up to 16384 MPI tasks in two dimensions.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

The Role of Nuclear Data Sensitivities in Prompt α-Eigenvalue Predictions of Delayed Critical Benchmarks

Alpha (α) eigenvalues, which describe the logarithmic time derivative of the neutron population in a multiplying system, are integral to time-dependent behavior and diagnostic applications. However, uncertainties in the evaluated nuclear data can significantly impact the accuracy of transport simulations for such quantities. This work explores the use of machine learning models to predict two key outputs, α-eigenvalues and keff bias, using input features derived from α-eigenvalue sensitivities to nuclear data. The criticality safety benchmark models used in this study come from the International Handbook of Evaluated Criticality Safety Benchmark Experiments. Three models, random forest, XGBoost, and NGBoost, are trained on both energy-resolved and energy-summed α sensitivities. For the α-eigenvalue bias prediction, NGBoost achieved the highest R 2 (0.9476) using energy-resolved features, while XGBoost performed best using summed sensitivities. In contrast, when predicting the keff bias, all the models showed moderate predictive capability (best R 2 ≈ 0.72), as the mapping from the static α-sensitivities to the static keff bias was less direct. SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) analysis was used to interpret the model predictions. Across both prediction tasks, the features associated with neutron capture [H-1 (n, γ)], uranium scattering reactions (such as 235 U elastic/inelastic), and actinide capture/fission reactions (such as 239 Pu and 234 U) were consistently identified as the most impactful. This highlights the key role of specific nuclear reactions and energy ranges in shaping both time-dependent and steady-state criticality behavior. These results demonstrated that α-sensitivities, despite being computed for time-dependent metrics, can provide valuable insights for predicting both α-eigenvalues and the keff bias. Moreover, machine learning models offer a promising pathway for uncovering important nuclear data dependencies and guiding future data evaluation efforts.

Nuclear data↗

Compiler and Runtime Approaches to Enable Large-Scale Irregular Programs. Final report, July 2013 - July 2019

While regular algorithms, characterized by operations on dense matrices and arrays, have long been the mainstay of scientific, high-performance computing, irregular algorithms, which feature unpredictable accesses to pointer-based data structures, are becoming increasingly common in high performance computing, arising in graph analysis, data mining and visualization, among other domains. Unfortunately, the defining characteristics of irregular applications, their dynamic, unpredictable, data-dependent access patterns and data layouts, make achieving high performance on large scale systems difficult. Scaling applications to peta- and exa-scale requires carefully controlling communication and data movement and placement, an inherently difficult task when access patterns and data layouts are unpredictable! Most irregular applications that attain high performance must be painstakingly hand-written and hand-tuned, with few common principles or paradigms uniting various implementations and easing future development. Despite the increasing importance of irregular applications, there is little programmer knowledge, and even less compiler ability, devoted to optimizing them. This project aims to solve these problems. By allowing programmers to write irregular applications in high level forms, with at most a few annotations highlighting key structural properties, programmers can focus on developing their algorithms and methods. The compiler and run-time system can take on the tedious task of optimizing the application for execution at large scales, and can automatically provide efficient implementations. This will provide portability and ease maintenance for existing irregular applications, but, more importantly, open up whole new domains of computational science to large-scale, high-performance simulation codes.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Digital engineering implementation in nuclear demonstration and nonproliferation projects at Idaho National Laboratory

Digital engineering and digital twins are increasingly being used in nuclear energy projects with important impacts. At Idaho National Laboratory, these approaches have been applied in a variety of nuclear energy research, development, and demonstration projects, with key lessons and evolutions occurring for each. In this paper, we describe the use of digital engineering and digital twins in the Versatile Test Reactor design, National Reactor Innovation Center test beds, and nonproliferation analysis of the AGN-201 reactor design. We share key lessons learned for these projects related to tool selection, adoption and training, and working with existing assets versus beginning at the design phase. We also share highlights of future potential uses of digital twins and digital engineering, including using artificial intelligence to perform repetitive design tasks and digital twins to move towards semiautonomous nuclear power plant operations.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗

Task 3.1: Research and Development Guiding Technoeconomic Analysis and Life-Cycle Assessment

Technologies under development aim to increase yields of desired end products, reduce overall raw material costs, and/or develop more energy-efficient strategies for product recovery. Techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life-cycle assessments (LCA) help assure that economic and sustainability predictions of the technologies are unbiased and compelling and provide guidance to experimentalists on areas that need focus. Building on previous work, the performance-advantaged bioproducts and bioprocessing separations project (SepCon) continues to use the integrated TEA and LCA to evaluate and guide technologies under development and target challenges relevant to the industry and the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) priority pathways. The analysis team aims to provide credible, unbiased assessments for each technology under development, with ongoing assessments to guide experimental teams. Additionally, the team also supports journal publications highlighting key findings.

biofuels↗

RADAR: Runtime Asymmetric Data-access Driven Scientific Data Replication

Efficient I/O on large-scale spatiotemporal scientific data requires scrutiny of both the logical layout of the data (e.g., row-major vs. column-major) and the physical layout (e.g., distribution on parallel filesystems). For increasingly complex datasets, hand optimization is a difficult matter prone to error and not scalable to the increasing heterogeneity of analysis workloads. Given these factors, we present a partial data replication system called RADAR. We capture datatype- and collective-aware I/O access patterns (indicating logical access) via MPI-IO tracing and use a combination of coarse-grained and fine-grained performance modeling to evaluate and select optimized physical data distributions for the task at hand. Unlike conventional methods, we store all replica data and metadata, along with the original untouched data, under a single file container using the object abstraction in parallel filesystems. Our system results in manyfold improvements in some commonly used subvolume decomposition access patterns.Moreover, the modeling approach can determine whether such optimizations should be undertaken in the first place.

access pattern↗

Early Experiences Porting the NAMD and VMD Molecular Simulation and Analysis Software to GPU-Accelerated OpenPOWER Platforms, In: ISC High Performance 2016: High Performance Computing

All-atom molecular dynamics simulations of biomolecules provide a powerful tool for exploring the structure and dynamics of large protein complexes within realistic cellular environments. Unfortunately, such simulations are extremely demanding in terms of their computational requirements, and they present many challenges in terms of preparation, simulation methodology, and analysis and visualization of results. We describe our early experiences porting the popular molecular dynamics simulation program NAMD and the simulation preparation, analysis, and visualization tool VMD to GPU-accelerated OpenPOWER hardware platforms. We report our experiences with compiler-provided autovectorization and compare with hand-coded vector intrinsics for the POWER8 CPU. We explore the performance benefits obtained from unique POWER8 architectural features such as 8-way SMT and its value for particular molecular modeling tasks. Finally, we evaluate the performance of several GPU-accelerated molecular modeling kernels and relate them to other hardware platforms.

Computer Science↗

Savannah River Site H-Canyon Collaborative Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD) Program Review - 19499

The purpose of the Department of Energy-Environmental Management Office of Technology Development's (DOE-EM TD) Science of Safety (SOS) Robotics Initiative is to pull innovative commercial off the shelf (COTS) and near ready technologies to the field to expedite remaining EM mission clean up and enhance worker safety. A goal of this program is to demonstrate to DOE facilities the value of these available new technologies and their potential uses to solve difficult problems. In support of this goal, the Savannah River Site (SRS) H-Canyon Air Exhaust (HCAEX) tunnel biannual inspection task has been selected to demonstrate and evaluate the benefit of pulling advanced technology solutions to EM facilities. This is a highly collaborative task facilitated by SRNL and engaging SRS H-Canyon facility stakeholders, National Laboratory robotic and concrete inspection SMEs and university robotic and sensor researchers. Presently, the SRS HCAEX tunnel inspection consists of a visual examination to evaluate the structural integrity of the tunnel. Personal access is prohibited in the tunnel due to extreme conditions, thus the examination is accomplished remotely by deploying cameras mounted on a robotic crawler deployed into the tunnel. While the ability to see inside the tunnel in recent years has been highly valuable, it is desirable to have a better understanding of the environment to support a more thorough structural analysis and for long term planning purposes. This higher order of understanding can be accomplished through advanced COTS sensors and tools and those currently in development and near ready. The advanced technologies selected for demonstration will be evaluated for hosting on the FY19 HCAEX tunnel inspection crawler platform. The HCAEX ATD task is expected to be performed over a two-year period with year one now concluding. At WM2018, we presented the H-Canyon stakeholder's high priority inspection and remote handling needs, the collaboration team and the planned process of developing an integrated solution. This presentation will review the initial scope and inspection needs, then discuss the past year's progress to address these needs. The discussion includes the results of the Concrete Integrated Product Team (CIPT) formed to evaluate promising concrete NDE inspection technologies and a Lidar based tunnel mapping sensor suite solution. Highlighted in the discussion will be the engagement and pulling of university developed research and development to include student engagement through the formation and hosting of the SRNL Robotics and Sensors Intern team and collaboration with MSIPP funded Robotic Arm Concrete NDT Inspection University researchers. Lastly, the path forward to complete the demonstration will be presented. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Utilizing the SACADA system to collect simulator training data to inform human reliability analyses - 169

Lack of appropriate human performance data for the development of human reliability analysis (HRA) methods has been identified as a key issue contributing to the method-to-method variability among the HRA methods. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) worked with domain experts to develop the Scenario Authoring, Characterization, and Debriefing Application (SACADA) system to collect nuclear power plants' licensed operator simulator training and examination data to inform HRA. In the past two decades, significant improvements in understanding and modelling human performance in HRA have affected the perspectives of the types of data to be collected for HRA. A significant change is that human performance is strongly dependent on the context of the tasks to be performed. To incorporate this understanding, the SACADA data taxonomy collects the context and actual performance information of the training objective elements (TOEs) in nuclear plant operator simulator training. This provides a framework consistent with HRA to use context to estimate human error probabilities. It is recognized that measuring crew performance is equally important as improving operator training. SACADA is designed to support the nuclear trainers in capturing this important information that is used to identify training weaknesses and drive continuous improvement. This paper discusses the SACADA taxonomy, the SACADA system's functions, and the supporting software design to enable the SACADA system to be practically implemented in the nuclear power plants' operator simulator training program to collect data for tracking operator performance and HRA analysis. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

MO-DE-BRA-05: Developing Effective Medical Physics Knowledge Structures: Models and Methods

Purpose: Develop a method and supporting online resources to be used by medical physics educators for teaching medical imaging professionals and trainees so they develop highly-effective physics knowledge structures that can contribute to improved diagnostic image quality on a global basis. Methods: The different types of mental knowledge structures were analyzed and modeled with respect to both the learning and teaching process for their development and the functions or tasks that can be performed with the knowledge. While symbolic verbal and mathematical knowledge structures are very important in medical physics for many purposes, the tasks of applying physics in clinical imaging--especially to optimize image quality and diagnostic accuracy--requires a sensory conceptual knowledge structure, specifically, an interconnected network of visually based concepts. This type of knowledge supports tasks such as analysis, evaluation, problem solving, interacting, and creating solutions. Traditional educational methods including lectures, online modules, and many texts are serial procedures and limited with respect to developing interconnected conceptual networks. A method consisting of the synergistic combination of on-site medical physics teachers and the online resource, CONET (Concept network developer), has been developed and made available for the topic Radiographic Image Quality. This was selected as the inaugural topic, others to follow, because it can be used by medical physicists teaching the large population of medical imaging professionals, such as radiology residents, who can apply the knowledge. Results: Tutorials for medical physics educators on developing effective knowledge structures are being presented and published and CONET is available with open access for all to use. Conclusion: An adjunct to traditional medical physics educational methods with the added focus on sensory concept development provides opportunities for medical physics teachers to share their knowledge and experience at a higher cognitive level and produce medical professionals with the enhanced ability to apply physics to clinical procedures.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

SRF Cavity Instability Detection with Machine Learning at CEBAF

During the operation of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF), one or more unstable superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities often cause beam loss trips while the unstable cavities themselves do not necessarily trip off. The present RF controls for the legacy cavities report at only 1 Hz, which is too slow to detect fast transient instabilities during these trip events. These challenges make the identification of an unstable cavity out of the hundreds installed at CEBAF a difficult and time-consuming task. To tackle these issues, a fast data acquisition system (DAQ) for the legacy SRF cavities has been developed, which records the sample at 5 kHz. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) approach is being developed to identify anomalous SRF cavity behavior. We will discuss the present status of the DAQ system and PCA model, along with initial performance metrics. Overall, our method offers a practical solution for identifying unstable SRF cavities, contributing to increased beam availability and machine reliability.

Carpenter, A.↗

Scalable Parallel Methods for Analyzing Metagenomics Data at Extreme Scale

The field of bioinformatics and computational biology is currently experiencing a data revolution. The exciting prospect of making fundamental biological discoveries is fueling the rapid development and deployment of numerous cost-effective, high-throughput next-generation sequencing technologies. The result is that the DNA and protein sequence repositories are being bombarded with new sequence information. Databases are continuing to report a Moore’s law-like growth trajectory in their database sizes, roughly doubling every 18 months. In what seems to be a paradigm-shift, individual projects are now capable of generating billions of raw sequence data that need to be analyzed in the presence of already annotated sequence information. While it is clear that data-driven methods, such as sequencing homology detection, are becoming the mainstay in the field of computational life sciences, the algorithmic advancements essential for implementing complex data analytics at scale have mostly lagged behind. Sequence homology detection is central to a number of bioinformatics applications including genome sequencing and protein family characterization. Given millions of sequences, the goal is to identify all pairs of sequences that are highly similar (or “homologous”) on the basis of alignment criteria. While there are optimal alignment algorithms to compute pairwise homology, their deployment for large-scale is currently not feasible; instead, heuristic methods are used at the expense of quality. In this dissertation, we present the design and evaluation of a parallel implementation for conducting optimal homology detection on distributed memory supercomputers. Our approach uses a combination of techniques from asynchronous load balancing (viz. work stealing, dynamic task counters), data replication, and exact-matching filters to achieve homology detection at scale. Results for a collection of 2.56M sequences show parallel efficiencies of ~75-100% on up to 8K cores, representing a time-to-solution of 33 seconds. We extend this work with a detailed analysis of single-node sequence alignment performance using the latest CPU vector instruction set extensions. Preliminary results reveal that current sequence alignment algorithms are unable to fully utilize widening vector registers.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Multi-Sourced Collaboration for the Production and Refining of Rare Elements and Critical Metals (Final Technical Report)

The project objective was to develop a feasible and cost-effective method for recovering rare earth elements (REEs) and critical materials (CMs) from coal and coal byproducts, resulting in high-purity individually separated REEs and CMs. The targeted REEs included Y, Pr, Nd, Gd, Dy, and Sm, with a purity of over 99.5%, while the CMs included Co, Mn, Ga, Sr, Li, Ni, Zn, and Ge, with a purity of over 90%. The project aimed to design a prototype facility capable of producing 1-3 tonnes/day of high-purity REO mixes. The work was divided into four designated circuits: 1) REE extraction and concentration, 2) REE separation and purification, 3) RE metal production, and 4) CM production. To achieve these goals, the project involved 11 tasks, including technology reviews, research, process flow diagram development, mass balance estimation, and preliminary technical-economic analysis. The project team included researchers from the University of Kentucky, University of Alabama and Virginia Tech as well as process specialists from Argonne National Laboratory. MP Materials provided technical support regarding rare earth markets and processing while Alliance Coal performed resource assessment. The project included a market analysis for Nd/Pr, Tb, Dy, Gd, Y, Co, Mn, Li, Sr, Ga, Ni, Zn, and Ge. These analyses provided insights into the supply and demand trends as well as historic and future projections of market price relative to purity requirements for these elements. Two coal resources were selected for the project: the West Kentucky No. 13 (Baker) Seam and an undisclosed lignite resource in the Illinois coal basin. The estimated quantities of REEs in these resources were calculated based on production samples and drilling data. It was estimated that there is adequate supply for an operation producing one metric ton daily of higher purity mixed rare earth oxides (MREO) for approximately 20 years at a site located in western Kentucky. In Circuit 1, project data was obtained from a pilot heap leach and REE concentration facility. It was concluded that the existing circuit, which generated a MREO concentrate, two types of CM mixed products, and Li- and Sr-containing waters, would be suitable feed for circuits 2-4. Data from the first-of-its-kind coal coarse refuse heap leach pilot pad played a crucial role in estimating reliable elemental concentrations of the pregnant leaching solution (PLS). The average total REE concentration in the PLS was found to be 28.6 ppm. In Circuit 2, several concepts were explored including a novel process referred to as solvent-assisted chromatography (SAC). This concept involved a novel columnar reactor that incorporated multiple mixer/settlers, thereby enabling the operation of counter-flowing aqueous and organic phases. Unfortunately, due to project time constraints, a complete fundamental modeling analysis could not be completed to fully evaluate the technology. Molten salt electrowinning was considered as an alternative for circuit 3 following circuit 2 purification circuit utilizing the novel SAC process. A mass and energy balance of Nd reduction to metal in a fluoride containing molten salt electrolyte was conducted. Comparisons were made with the current state of Asian molten salt electrorefining, and potential improvements in siphoning rare earth metals (REM) from the reactor were presented. A cost estimate was performed for the production of 1 tonne per day, which yielded a total of $2.29 million for the nine electrowinning (EW) cells required. The selected option for circuits 2 and 3 was a plasma distillation process, which initially separates rare earth elements (REEs) from other elements. This is followed by selective electrowinning in various ionic liquids. The selection was made on the basis of thermodynamic modeling and experimental data previously published by a project partner. The combination offers an innovative approach to integrated refining and RE metal production. For Circuit 4, an extensive literature review was conducted for the processing of the CMs. The ultimate decision was to utilize a combined plasma and ionic liquid process as well to produce individual high-purity concentrates of Zn, Ni, Co, Mn, and Mg. A separate flowsheet for Li and Sr was recommended, which would yield carbonates of these elements. Due to the lack of suitable experimental data at this time, a process recommendation could not be provided but several methods have been proposed for consideration. Lastly, a techno-economic analysis (TEA) was conducted to assess the effectiveness of the proposed process for further investigation. The TEA results revealed a capital expense (CapEx) of $737 million and an annual operational expense (OpEx) of $220 million. Due to the selected elements, the hypothetical heap leach pad can produce 1 metric tonne per day of REO equivalent, but a conscious decision was made to only treat targeted REEs, resulting in the production of 0.4 metric tonne of REM. An estimated annual revenue of $90.87 million was projected based on standard market pricing information provided by the funding agency. During the TEA, ten different modules were evaluated for costing purposes. The precipitation circuit was identified as the largest single operational expense, followed by the Mg/Mn process due to the amount of treated metal. In terms of capital expenditures, the heap leach process incurred the highest cost, followed by the Mg/Mn process. The scalability of the plasma process is a crucial consideration since the reactors cannot be scaled beyond the largest demonstrated size due to their reliance on surface area of the slag and vapor phase. The purity estimate for the REEs are generally 98%±2% to produce a metal. The purity level being lower than the project objective was due to the lack of specific experimental data needed to tighten the tolerance of the estimates. Based on literature and previous experience, the CMs are estimated as follows; Ga (95%+, metal), Sr (95%+, carbonate), Li (95%+, carbonate), Ni (98%±2%, metal), Zn (95%+, metal sponge), Ge (95%+, metal), Co (98%±2%, metal), and Mn (98%±2%, metal).

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

SRF Cavity Instability Detection with Machine Learning at CEBAF

During the operation of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF), one or more unstable superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities often cause beam loss trips while the unstable cavities themselves do not necessarily trip off. The present RF controls for the legacy cavities report at only 1 Hz, which is too slow to detect fast transient instabilities during these trip events. These challenges make the identification of an unstable cavity out of the hundreds installed at CEBAF a difficult and time-consuming task. To tackle these issues, a fast data acquisition system (DAQ) for the legacy SRF cavities has been developed, which records the sample at 5 kHz. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) approach is being developed to identify anomalous SRF cavity behavior. We will discuss the present status of the DAQ system and PCA model, along with initial performance metrics. Overall, our method offers a practical solution for identifying unstable SRF cavities, contributing to increased beam availability and machine reliability.

Carpenter, A.↗

A Tool for Performing Link Analysis, Operational Sequence Analysis, and Workload Analysis to Support Nuclear Power Plant Control Room Modernization

Nuclear power continues to have an imperative role for the U.S.’s electricity generation. However, for these nuclear power plants (NPPs) to remain economically viable, new strategies for reducing operations and maintenance costs must be explored. The U.S. Department of Energy Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program is researching how to digitally transform existing analog and hybrid main control rooms into a fully integrated control room that addresses this challenge. The transformation will fundamentally change the conduct of operations for these U.S. NPPs. Human factors engineering has a vital role in this effort, where traditional task analysis methods are important in informing the design of advanced human-system interface displays. This work describes a preliminary tool to support task analysis for the development of these advanced displays. Details on the use of this tool, including the specific task analysis methods offered, are presented in this paper.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

GeoVision Analysis Supporting Task Force Report: Thermal Applications—Geothermal Heat Pumps

Geothermal heat pumps (GHPs), also referred to as ground-source heat pumps or Geo-exchange, have been proven capable of producing large reductions in energy use and associated carbon emissions for space conditioning and water heating in buildings. However, the current adoption rate of GHPs in the United States is still low, and GHPs receive little attention from either the public or policy makers. This report gives an overview of the status of GHP technology and its application in the United States, cost and performance of the state-of-the art GHP systems, barriers preventing wider adoption, and technologies under development that have potential to help overcome these barriers.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗