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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 541 records · Page 30

Evolution of the ATLAS analysis model for Run-3 and prospects for HL-LHC

With an increased dataset obtained during the Run-2 of the LHC at CERN, the even larger forthcoming Run-3 data and the expected increase of the dataset by more than one order of magnitude for the HL-LHC, the AT-LAS experiment is reaching the limits of the current data production model in terms of disk storage resources. The anticipated availability of an improved fast simulation will enable ATLAS to produce significantly larger Monte Carlo samples with the available CPU, which will then be limited by insufficient disk resources. The ATLAS Analysis Model Study Group for Run-3 was setup at the end of Run-2. Its tasks have been to analyse the efficiency and suitability of the current analysis model and to propose significant improvements. The group has considered options allowing ATLAS to save, for the same sample of data and simulated events, at least 30% disk space overall, and has given recommendations on how significantly larger savings could be realised for the HL-LHC. Furthermore, suggestions were made to harmonise the current stage of analysis across the collaboration. The group has now completed its work: key recommendations will be the new small sized analysis formats DAOD_PHYS and DAOD_PHYSLITE and the increased usage of a tape carousel mode in the centralised production of these formats. This proceeding reviews the recommended ATLAS analysis model for Run-3 and the status of its implementation. It also provides an outlook to the HL-LHC analysis.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Visual Resource Analysis for Solar Energy Zones in the San Luis Valley

This report summarizes the results of a study conducted by Argonne National Laboratory’s (Argonne’s) Environmental Science Division for the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The study analyzed the regional effects of potential visual impacts of solar energy development on three BLM-designated solar energy zones (SEZs) in the San Luis Valley (SLV) in Colorado, and, based on the analysis, made recommendations for or against regional compensatory mitigation to compensate residents and other stakeholders for the potential visual impacts to the SEZs. The analysis was conducted as part of the solar regional mitigation strategy (SRMS) task conducted by BLM Colorado with assistance from Argonne. Two separate analyses were performed. The first analysis, referred to as the VSA Analysis, analyzed the potential visual impacts of solar energy development in the SEZs on nearby visually sensitive areas (VSAs), and, based on the impact analyses, made recommendations for or against regional compensatory mitigation. VSAs are locations for which some type of visual sensitivity has been identified, either because the location is an area of high scenic value or because it is a location from which people view the surrounding landscape and attach some level of importance or sensitivity to what is seen from the location. The VSA analysis included both BLM-administered lands in Colorado and in the Taos FO in New Mexico. The second analysis, referred to as the SEZ Analysis, used BLM visual resource inventory (VRI) and other data on visual resources in the former Saguache and La Jara Field Offices (FOs), now contained within the San Luis Valley FO (SLFO), to determine whether the changes in scenic values that would result from the development of utility-scale solar energy facilities in the SEZs would affect the quality and quantity of valued scenic resources in the SLV region as a whole. If the regional effects were judged to be significant, regional compensatory mitigation was recommended. VRI data was not available for the Taos FO and it was not included in the SEZ analysis; the SEZ analysis includes BLM-administered lands in Colorado only.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Revisiting Theoretical Limits for One Degree-of-Freedom Wave Energy Converters

This work revisits the theoretical limits of one degree-of-freedom wave energy converters (WECs). This work considers the floating sphere used in the OES Task 10 WEC modeling and verification effort for analysis. Analytical equations are derived to determine bounds on displacement amplitude, time-averaged power (TAP), and power-take-off (PTO) force. A unique result found shows that the TAP absorbed by a WEC can be defined solely by the inertial properties and radiation hydrodynamic coefficients. In addition, a unique expression for the PTO force was derived that provides lower and upper bounds when resistive control is used to maximize power generation. For complex conjugate control, this same expression only provides a lower bound, as there is theoretically no upper bound. These bounds assist in comparing the performance of the floating sphere if it were to extract energy using surge or heave motion. The analysis shows because of differences in hydrodynamic coefficients for each oscillating mode, there are different frequency ranges that provide better power capture efficiency. The influence of a motion constraint on TAP while utilizing a nonideal power take-off is examined and found to reduce the losses associated with bidirectional energy flow. The expression to calculate TAP with a nonideal PTO is modified by the electrical conversion efficiency and the ratio of the PTO spring and damping coefficients. Furthermore, the PTO spring and damping coefficients were separated in the expression, allowing for limits to be set on the PTO coefficients to ensure net power generation.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

Reduced Order Models Generation for HTGRs Pebble Shuffling Procedure Optimization Studies

This report provides an initial study for producing reduced-order models (ROMs) of pebble-bed high temperature gas reactor (HTGR) models for the purposes of design optimization. As an initial study, this work is meant to be exploratory---identifying useful workflows and methods for ROM generation---and not meant to be a catch-all analysis of HTGR ROM generation and usage for optimization. This report summarizes three tasks performed in Fiscal Year 2022: 1) the creation of HTGR model, 2) the sensitivity analysis of model design parameters, and 3) an introduction to ROM generation techniques. The representative HTGR model created in this work is a multiphysics equilibrium-core using the BlueCRAB (comprehensive reactor analysis bundle) reactor analysis application, coupling four physical phenomena: neutronics, streamline depletion, porous flow thermal hydraulics, and pebble heat conduction. Part of the model creation was identifying some design parameters and quantities of interest that are relevant in an optimization analysis and adjustable in the model. The sensitivity analysis utilized a polynomial chaos expansion methodology to compute global sensitivity metrics. This analysis showed that thermal hydraulics parameters and quantities of interest had a relatively small impact on simulation results. Finally, the ROM generation work involved exploring three different ROM methodologies: polynomial regression, a Gaussian process, and artificial neural networks. Using a cross-validation technique to characterize ROM performance, the Gaussian process and single-layer artificial neural networks showed the most promising results. Overall, this study was insightful and the lessons learned will be invaluable for the eventual development of an HTGR design optimization workflow.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Fast Multiresolution Reads of Massive Simulation Datasets

Today’s massively parallel simulation codes can produce output ranging up to many terabytes of data. Utilizing this data to support scientific inquiry requires analysis and visualization, yet the sheer size of the data makes it cumbersome or impossible to read without computational resources similar to the original simulation. We identify two broad classes of problems for reading data and present effective solutions for both. The first class of data reads depends on user requirements and available resources. Tasks such as visualization and user-guided analysis may be accomplished using only a subset of variables with a restricted spatial extent at a reduced resolution. The other class of reads requires full resolution multivariate data to be loaded, for example to restart a simulation. We show that utilizing the hierarchical multiresolution IDX data format enables scalable and efficient serial and parallel read access on a variety of hardware from supercomputers down to portable devices. Here, we demonstrate interactive view-dependent visualization and analysis of massive scientific datasets using low-power commodity hardware, and we compare read performance with other parallel file formats for both full and partial resolution data.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Statistical Evaluation of Tank 12 Sampling Options

Savannah River Remediation (SRR) is preparing Tank 12 for removal from service and has issued a scope of work to the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) under a Task Technical Request (TTR) G-TTR-H-00007 (Savannah River Remediation, 2014) to provide statistical support for the Sample Location Determination Report (SLDR) and the Tank-Specific Sampling and Analysis Plan (TSAP). In response SRNL has issued a Task Technical and Quality Assurance Plan (TTQAP) (Shine, 2014) outlining the strategy for assessing sampling options.

Shine, G.↗

A deep learning approach for semantic segmentation of unbalanced data in electron tomography of catalytic materials

In computed TEM tomography, image segmentation represents one of the most basic tasks with implications not only for 3D volume visualization, but more importantly for quantitative 3D analysis. In case of large and complex 3D data sets, segmentation can be an extremely difficult and laborious task, and thus has been one of the biggest hurdles for comprehensive 3D analysis. Heterogeneous catalysts have complex surface and bulk structures, and often sparse distribution of catalytic particles with relatively poor intrinsic contrast, which possess a unique challenge for image segmentation, including the current state-of-the-art deep learning methods. To tackle this problem, we apply a deep learning-based approach for the multi-class semantic segmentation of a γ-Alumina/Pt catalytic material in a class imbalance situation. Specifically, we used the weighted focal loss as a loss function and attached it to the U-Net’s fully convolutional network architecture. We assessed the accuracy of our results using Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), recall, precision, and Hausdorff distance (HD) metrics on the overlap between the ground-truth and predicted segmentations. Our adopted U-Net model with the weighted focal loss function achieved an average DSC score of 0.96 ± 0.003 in the γ-Alumina support material and 0.84 ± 0.03 in the Pt NPs segmentation tasks. We report an average boundary-overlap error of less than 2 nm at the 90th percentile of HD for γ-Alumina and Pt NPs segmentations. The complex surface morphology of γ-Alumina and its relation to the Pt NPs were visualized in 3D by the deep learning-assisted automatic segmentation of a large data set of high-angle annular dark-field (HAADF) scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) tomography reconstructions.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Evolution of CMS Workload Management Towards Multicore Job Support

The successful exploitation of multicore processor architectures is a key element of the LHC distributed computing system in the coming era of the LHC Run 2. High-pileup complex-collision events represent a challenge for the traditional sequential programming in terms of memory and processing time budget. The CMS data production and processing framework is introducing the parallel execution of the reconstruction and simulation algorithms to overcome these limitations. CMS plans to execute multicore jobs while still supporting singlecore processing for other tasks difficult to parallelize, such as user analysis. The CMS strategy for job management thus aims at integrating single and multicore job scheduling across the Grid. This is accomplished by employing multicore pilots with internal dynamic partitioning of the allocated resources, capable of running payloads of various core counts simultaneously. An extensive test programme has been conducted to enable multicore scheduling with the various local batch systems available at CMS sites, with the focus on the Tier-0 and Tier-1s, responsible during 2015 of the prompt data reconstruction. Scale tests have been run to analyse the performance of this scheduling strategy and ensure an efficient use of the distributed resources. This paper presents the evolution of the CMS job management and resource provisioning systems in order to support this hybrid scheduling model, as well as its deployment and performance tests, which will enable CMS to transition to a multicore production model for the second LHC run.

Perez-Calero Yzquierdo, A.↗

Modeling a Million-Node Slim Fly Network Using Parallel Discrete-Event Simulation

As supercomputers close in on exascale performance, the increased number of processors and processing power translates to an increased demand on the underlying network interconnect. The Slim Fly network topology, a new lowdiameter and low-latency interconnection network, is gaining interest as one possible solution for next-generation supercomputing interconnect systems. In this paper, we present a high-fidelity Slim Fly it-level model leveraging the Rensselaer Optimistic Simulation System (ROSS) and Co-Design of Exascale Storage (CODES) frameworks. We validate our Slim Fly model with the Kathareios et al. Slim Fly model results provided at moderately sized network scales. We further scale the model size up to n unprecedented 1 million compute nodes; and through visualization of network simulation metrics such as link bandwidth, packet latency, and port occupancy, we get an insight into the network behavior at the million-node scale. We also show linear strong scaling of the Slim Fly model on an Intel cluster achieving a peak event rate of 36 million events per second using 128 MPI tasks to process 7 billion events. Detailed analysis of the underlying discrete-event simulation performance shows that a million-node Slim Fly model simulation can execute in 198 seconds on the Intel cluster.

interconnection networks↗

Low-Cost High-Concentration Photovoltaic Systems for Utility Power Generation

Under DOE's Technology Pathway Partnership (TPP) program, Amonix, Inc. developed a new generation of high-concentration photovoltaic systems using multijunction technology and established the manufacturing capacity needed to supply multi-megawatt power plants built using the new Amonix 7700-series solar energy systems. For this effort, Amonix Collaborated with a variety of suppliers and partners to complete project tasks. Subcontractors included: Evonik/Cyro; Hitek; the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL); Raytech; Spectrolab; UL; University of Nevada, Las Vegas; and TUV Rheinland PTL. The Amonix TPP tasks included: Task 1: Multijunction Cell Optimization for Field Operation, Task 2: Fresnel Lens R&D, Task 3: Cell Package Design & Production, Task 4: Standards Compliance and Reliability Testing, Task 5: Receiver Plate Production, Task 6: MegaModule Performance, Task 7: MegaModule Cost Reduction, Task 8: Factory Setup and MegaModule Production, Task 9: Tracker and Tracking Controller, Task 10: Installation and Balance of System (BOS), Task 11: Field Testing, and Task 12: Solar Advisor Modeling and Market Analysis. Amonix's TPP addressed nearly the complete PV value chain from epitaxial layer design and wafer processing through system design, manufacturing, deployment and O&M. Amonix has made progress toward achieving these reduced costs through the development of its 28%+ efficient MegaModule, reduced manufacturing and installation cost through design for manufacturing and assembly, automated manufacturing processes, and reduced O&M costs. Program highlights include: (1) Optimized multijunction cell and cell package design to improve performance by > 10%; (2) Updated lens design provided 7% increased performance and higher concentration; (3) 28.7% DC STC MegaModule efficiency achieved in Phase II exceeded Phase III performance goal; (4) New 16' focal length MegaModule achieved target materials and manufacturing cost reduction; (5) Designed and placed into production 25 MW/yr manufacturing capacity for complete MegaModules, including cell packages, receiver plates, and structures with lenses; (6) Designed and deployed Amonix 7700 series systems rated at 63 kW PTC ac and higher. Based on an LCOE assessment using NREL's Solar Advisor Model, Amonix met DOE's LCOE targets: Amonix 2011 LCOE 12.8 cents/kWh (2010 DOE goal 10-15); 2015 LCOE 6.4 cents/kWh (2015 goal 5-7) Amonix and TPP participants would like to thank the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technology Program for funding received under this program through Agreement No. DE-FC36-07GO17042.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

CIPS Validation Data Plan

This report documents analysis, findings and recommendations resulted from a task 'CIPS Validation Data Plan (VDP)' formulated as an POR4 activity in the CASL VUQ Focus Area (FA), to develop a Validation Data Plan (VDP) for Crud-Induced Power Shift (CIPS) challenge problem, and provide guidance for the CIPS VDP implementation. The main reason and motivation for this task to be carried at this time in the VUQ FA is to bring together (i) knowledge of modern view and capability in VUQ, (ii) knowledge of physical processes that govern the CIPS, and (iii) knowledge of codes, models, and data available, used, potentially accessible, and/or being developed in CASL for CIPS prediction, to devise a practical VDP that effectively supports the CASL's mission in CIPS applications.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Analytical-Numerical Sharp-Interface Model of CO 2 Sequestration and Application to Illinois Basin

Federal funds totaling $\$$849,000 were awarded to NM Tech, Princeton University, Purdue University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Indiana Geological Survey to assess the risk of brine/CO 2 leakage and induced seismicity associated with proposed basin‐scale carbon capture and storage projects within the Illinois Basin using mathematical modeling and field/laboratory analysis. The primary goal of this study (Task 1) was to develop, test, and implement a new, multi‐layer, sharp‐interface carbon sequestration model for the Illinois Basin. Secondary goals of the project included: 1) compile existing porosity, permeability, salinity and pore pressure data for the Illinois Basin (Task 2); 2) characterize the mineralogical and petrophysical properties of the Eau Claire Shale in order to assess seal integrity (Task 3); 3) construct a multi‐layer hydrostratigraphic framework model of the Illinois Basin and calibrate the model using available using available petrophysical, salinity and pressure data (Task 4); 4) use the calibrated model to assess the magnitude and spatial extent of deviatoric pore pressure propagation away from proposed injection wells at the sedimentary basin scale; 5) assess the risk of CO 2 leakage up abandoned oil and gas wells as well as the induced seismicity resulted from anomalous pore pressures (Task5); 6) document the results of our study in a series of papers submitted to peer reviewed journals (Task 6). We have accomplished all of the tasks described above although work continues on these topics beyond the termination date of the grant (Oct 1, 2012). To date, six manuscripts covering results from many of the above topics/tasks have been either submitted to or been published in peer review journals. These manuscripts are included as six appendices at the back of this report.

Person, Mark↗

SISGR -- Domain Microstructures and Mechanisms for Large, Reversible and Anhysteretic Strain Behaviors in Phase Transforming Ferroelectric Materials

This four-year project (including one-year no-cost extension) aimed to advance fundamental understanding of field-induced strain behaviors of phase transforming ferroelectrics. We performed meso-scale phase field modeling and computer simulation to study domain evolutions, mechanisms and engineering techniques, and developed computational techniques for nanodomain diffraction analysis; to further support above originally planned tasks, we also carried out preliminary first-principles density functional theory calculations of point defects and domain walls to complement meso-scale computations as well as performed in-situ high-energy synchrotron X-ray single crystal diffraction experiments to guide theoretical development (both without extra cost to the project thanks to XSEDE supercomputers and DOE user facility Advanced Photon Source).

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Implementation Approach for Plug-in Electric Vehicles at Joint Base Lewis McChord: Task 4

This study focused on Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM), which is located in Washington State. Task 1 consisted of a survey of the non-tactical fleet of vehicles at JBLM to begin the review of vehicle mission assignments and the types of vehicles in service. In Task 2, daily operational characteristics of select vehicles were identified and vehicle movements were recorded in data loggers in order to characterize the vehicles’ missions. In Task 3, the results of the data analysis and observations were provided. Individual observations of the selected vehicles provided the basis for recommendations related to PEV adoption (i.e., whether a battery electric vehicle or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle [collectively referred to as PEVs] can fulfill the mission requirements0, as well as the basis for recommendations related to placement of PEV charging infrastructure. This report focuses on an implementation plan for the near-term adoption of PEVs into the JBLM fleet.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Radiological Operations Support Specialist (ROSS) Pilot Course Summary and Recommendations

In support of the Department of Homeland Security / Science and Technology Directorate’s (DHS/S&T) creation of a new position called the Radiological Operations Support Specialist (ROSS), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Sub-task 1.1 and 1.2 has assisted in the development of the ROSS skills, knowledge, and abilities (SKAs); identified potentially relevant training; cross-mapped the training to the SKAs; and identified gaps in the training related to the SKAs, as well as their respective level of training knowledge - current versus desired. In the follow on task, Sub-task 1.3, a 5 day ROSS Pilot Training course was developed to fill the priority gaps identified in Sub-Task 1.2. Additionally, in Sub-Task 1.5, LLNL has performed a gap analysis of electronic tools, handbooks, and job-aides currently available to the ROSS and developed recommendations for additional and next generation tools to ensure the operational effectiveness of the ROSS position. This document summarizes the feedback received from the instructors and pilot course observers on what worked in the course and what could be improved as well as an assessment of the Pre- and Post-Test administered to the students.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

XPRESS: eXascale PRogramming Environment and System Software, Final Report

The University of Oregon (UO) was a partner in the XPRESS project together with Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Indiana University (IU), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL), Louisiana State University (LSU), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), University of Houston (UH), and University of North Carolina (RENCI). UO's objective in the project was to develop "APEX (Asynchronous Performance Environment for eXascale)": performance measurement, analysis, feedback and control infrastructure to asynchronous tasking runtimes, specifically HPX (LSU) and HPX-5 (IU). During the project period, our efforts focused on the need to measure complex tasking models where the traditional instrumentation methods would not work due to an absent/meaningless call-path context and runtime control of task pre-emption and resumption, usually on a different operating system thread. In addition to the challenges of performance measurement, we developed a framework to provide information from all levels of the stack (hardware, operating system, runtime, application) to a feedback & control mechanism for controlling concurrency, task granularity, networking parameters, and other aspects of execution in order to improve execution performance, throughput and/or efficiency. UO demonstrated these developments on leading edge HPC machines at large scale, including a 2017 Gordon Bell submission in which APEX was used to optimize key bottlenecks in an astrophysics application. The following final report summarizes our accomplishments during the XPRESS project.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Excluding Benchmark Statistical Outliers in Nuclear Criticality Safety Validation: A Comparison Study of Upper Subcritical Limits for Plutonium Systems using Whisper-1.1

Neutron transport methods used to establish subcriticality require validation by comparison to critical experiments considered to be benchmarks. Whisper is a sensitivity/uncertainty analysis tool developed to assist with the task of validation in nuclear criticality safety. Details on the Whisper methodology can be found in References 1-3 on the MCNP® reference collection website at https://mcnp.lanl.gov. During the process of validation there can be cases where a benchmark experiment may be found to be a statistical outlier, in which the calculated k-effective value and the experiment k-effective value differ by an amount atypical for similar experiments. A methodology optionally employed by Whisper is the exclusion of statistical outliers based upon the iterative diagonal chi-squared statistical rejection technique. Alternatively, there is an option to include all benchmarks in the Whisper library collection, even those benchmarks found to be statistical outliers, when computing the bias, bias uncertainty and margin of subcriticality (MOS) leading to establishment of the baseline upper subcritical limit (USL). A comparison study has been done to compute USLs with and without statistical outliers in the Whisper benchmark collection to determine what effect rejection of statistical outliers has on the recommended USL. The results show little overall difference in the recommended baseline USLs developed by Whisper when excluding statistical outliers. Additionally, there does not appear to be a clear trend in predicting whether the baseline USL will be higher or lower when rejecting statistical outliers from the benchmark critical experiment collection used for validation.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗