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At least 559 records · Page 31

Mechanisms of Polyethylene Terephthalate Pellet Fragmentation into Nanoplastics and Assimilable Carbons by Wastewater Comamonas

Comamonadaceae bacteria are enriched on poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) microplastics in wastewaters and urban rivers, but the PET-degrading mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we investigated these mechanisms with Comamonas testosteroniKF-1, a wastewater isolate, by combining microscopy, spectroscopy, proteomics, protein modeling, and genetic engineering. Compared to minor dents on PET films, scanning electron microscopy revealed significant fragmentation of PET pellets, resulting in a 3.5-fold increase in the abundance of small nanoparticles (<100 nm) during 30-day cultivation. Infrared spectroscopy captured primarily hydrolytic cleavage in the fragmented pellet particles. Solution analysis further demonstrated double hydrolysis of a PET oligomer, bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate, to the bioavailable monomer terephthalate. Supplementation with acetate, a common wastewater co-substrate, promoted cell growth and PET fragmentation. Of the multiple hydrolases encoded in the genome, intracellular proteomics detected only one, which was found in both acetate-only and PET-only conditions. Homology modeling of this hydrolase structure illustrated substrate binding analogous to reported PET hydrolases, despite dissimilar sequences. Mutants lacking this hydrolase gene were incapable of PET oligomer hydrolysis and had a 21% decrease in PET fragmentation; re-insertion of the gene restored both functions. Thus, we have identified constitutive production of a key PET-degrading hydrolase in wastewater Comamonas, which could be exploited for plastic bioconversion.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Protection of Inverter-Dependent Transmission Systems (PROTECT-IT)

This presentation highlights the overall objectives of the SETO funded protection project. The main technical approaches are also highlighted. This high impact project produces multiple innovative outcomes, including comprehensive impact study of how IBR affects protection elements, simplified low-order IBR model for protection engineers, enhanced and data-driven protection design, co-design concept for coordination protection and IBRs.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Flow visualisation in real-size optical injectors of conventional, additised, and renewable gasoline blends

Research on renewable and alternative fuels is crucial for improving the energy and environmental efficiency of modern gasoline internal combustion engines. To highlight the influence of fuel rheological and thermodynamic properties on phase change and atomisation processes, three types of gasoline blends were tested. More specifically, the campaign comprised a reference gasoline, an ethanol/gasoline blend (10% v/v) representative of renewable fuels, and an additised gasoline sample treated with viscoelasticity-inducing agents. High-speed imaging of the transient two-phase flow field arising in the internal geometry and the near-nozzle spray region of gasoline injectors was performed employing Diffuse Backlight Illumination. The metallic body of a commercial injector was modified to fit transparent tips realising two nozzle layouts, namely a two-hole real size model resembling the Engine Combustion Network spray G injector and an enraged replica with an offset hole. Experiments were conducted at realistic operating conditions comprising an injection pressure of 100 bar and ambient pressures in the range of 0.1–6.0 bar to cover the entire range of chamber pressures prevailing in Gasoline Direct Injection engines. The action of viscoelastic additives was verified to have a suppressive effect on in-nozzle cavitation (6% reduction in cavitation extent) , while also enhancing spray atomisation at flash-boing conditions, in a manner resembling the more volatile gasoline/ethanol blends. Finally, persisting liquid ligaments were found to form after the end of injection for the additised sample, owing to the surfactant nature of the additives.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗

AtomSets as a hierarchical transfer learning framework for small and large materials datasets

Abstract Predicting properties from a material’s composition or structure is of great interest for materials design. Deep learning has recently garnered considerable interest in materials predictive tasks with low model errors when dealing with large materials data. However, deep learning models suffer in the small data regime that is common in materials science. Here we develop the AtomSets framework, which utilizes universal compositional and structural descriptors extracted from pre-trained graph network deep learning models with standard multi-layer perceptrons to achieve consistently high model accuracy for both small compositional data (<400) and large structural data (>130,000). The AtomSets models show lower errors than the graph network models at small data limits and other non-deep-learning models at large data limits. They also transfer better in a simulated materials discovery process where the targeted materials have property values out of the training data limits. The models require minimal domain knowledge inputs and are free from feature engineering. The presented AtomSets model framework can potentially accelerate machine learning-assisted materials design and discovery with less data restriction.

Chen, Chi (ORCID:0000000180087043)↗

An Experimental and Numerical Investigation to Characterize the Low-Temperature Heat Release in Stoichiometric and Lean Combustion

This work reports on an experimental and modeling study on the low-temperature heat release (LTHR) characteristics for three RON 90 binary blends (n-heptane blended with isooctane, toluene and ethanol) in a Cooperative Fuel Research (CFR) engine at lean and stoichiometric conditions that are representative of homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) and spark-ignition (SI) end-gas combustion conditions, respectively. An analysis of the end-gas temperature-pressure (T-P) trajectories was performed to identify the intake conditions leading to similar T-P trajectories between the two lambdas for each fuel blend. A heat release analysis was then conducted for the identified cases, where fuel-to-fuel differences in LTHR were identified and found to be sensitive to the operating condition. Simulations were conducted for these cases using a recently updated chemical kinetic model and a 0-D engine model, where good qualitative and reasonable quantitative agreements in LTHR were obtained. Sensitivity analysis was also performed directly on the rates of LTHR, to understand the controlling chemical reactions of LTHR, providing further insights into the fuel-to-fuel differences. The results demonstrate the significant promoting effect of n-heptane on LTHR rates, while inhibiting effects were seen for ethanol and toluene. Also highlighted was the importance of H atom abstraction reactions from the chemistry of each fuel component, which could lead to contradictory fuel behavior depending on the locations of the H site of the abstraction reaction due to the different ensuing pathways for the primary fuel radicals.

LTHR, RON 90 binary blends, sensitivity analysis↗

A Transported Livengood–Wu Integral Model for Knock Prediction in Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation

This work describes the development of a transported Livengood–Wu (L–W) integral model for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation to predict autoignition and engine knock tendency. The currently employed L–W integral model considers both single-stage and two-stage ignition processes, thus can be generally applied to different fuels such as paraffin, olefin, aromatics, and alcohol. The model implementation is first validated in simulations of homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion for three different fuels, showing good accuracy in prediction of autoignition timing for fuels with either single-stage or two-stage ignition characteristics. Then, the L–W integral model is coupled with G-equation model to indicate end-gas autoignition and knock tendency in CFD simulations of a direct-injection spark-ignition engine. This modeling approach is about 10 times more efficient than the ones that based on detailed chemistry calculation and pressure oscillation analysis. Two fuels with same Research Octane Number (RON) but different octane sensitivity are studied, namely, Co-Optima alkylate and Co-Optima E30. Feed-forward neural network model in conjunction with multivariable minimization technique is used to generate fuel surrogates with targets of matched RON, octane sensitivity, and ethanol content. The CFD model is validated against experimental data in terms of pressure traces and heat release rate for both fuels under a wide range of operating conditions. The knock tendency—indicated by the fuel energy contained in the autoignited region—of the two fuels at different load conditions correlates well with the experimental results and the fuel octane sensitivity, implying the current knock modeling approach can capture the octane sensitivity effect and can be applied to further investigation on composition of octane sensitivity.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

A Prospective Design Method for Nuclear Power: The Evaluation, Requirements, and Goals Outline for Nuclear (ERGON) Method

Human factors researchers at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have worked on projects spanning control room modernization, operator support systems, visualization design, and novel system creation. These projects demonstrated the need for an explicit design method for nuclear power. Human factors teams found a high standard in the Human Factors Engineering Program Review Model (NUREG-0711) and needed a design methodology which could be successful in gaining approval. Previous work has been synthesized as the Evaluation, Requirements, and Goals Outline for Nuclear (ERGON) method here. Design tasks are broken into four phases: Context and Orientation, Human Factors Review, Prototyping and Evaluation, Iteration and Improvement. ERGON is intended as a flexible and direct design method for many applications in nuclear power. ERGON has been vetted through collaborative research and development with nuclear utilities and as such, the ERGON method can assist utilities to achieve approval from a NUREG-0711 summative evaluation for HSI implementations.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Phase-field simulations of fission gas bubble growth and interconnection in U-(Pu)-Zr nuclear fuel

Abstract The growth and interconnection of fission gas bubbles in the hotter central regions of U-(Pu)-Zr nuclear fuel has been simulated with a phase-field model. The Cahn-Hilliard equation was used to represent the two-phase microstructure, with a single defect species. The volume fraction of the bubble phase and surface area of the bubble-matrix interface were determined during growth and interconnection. Surface area increased rapidly during the initial stages of growth, then slowed and finally decreased as bubble interconnection began and coarsening acted to reduce surface area. The fraction of the bubbles vented to a simulation domain boundary, f V , was quantified as a measure of the microstructure’s interconnectivity and plotted as a function of porosity p . The defect species diffusivity was varied; although changes in diffusivity significantly affected the microstructure, the plots of f V vs. p did not change significantly. The percolation threshold p c was calculated to be approximately 0.26, depending on the assumed diffusivity and using an initial bubble number density based on experimental observations. This is slightly smaller than the percolation threshold for continuum percolation of overlapping 3D spheres. The simulation results were used to parameterize two different engineering-scale swelling models for U-(Pu)-Zr in the nuclear fuel performance code BISON.

Aagesen, Larry K. (ORCID:000000034936676X)↗

Soot Formation and Ignition Characteristics of Ethanol/Gasoline Blends in a Rapid Compression Machine

With the ever-increasing demand for sustainable energy, alcohol fuels have garnered interest for use in heavy duty engines. The significant infrastructure for ethanol production and blending of ethanol with gasoline make these fuels/fuel blends desirable candidates. However, development of heavy duty engine technology that is capable of burning alcohol fuels while retaining the advantages of traditional diesel combustion requires an improved understanding of the soot formation for these fuels under conditions relevant to mixing-controlled combustion. This work uses an extinction diagnostic to study the sooting tendency of ethanol and gasoline/ethanol blends ranging from E10 to E98 during ignition in a homogeneous environment. Experiments were conducted in a rapid compression machine (RCM) for compressed conditions of 20 ± 1 bar and an approximately constant temperature (± 10K) which was unique for each fuel. For a given soot volume fraction, a linear relationship was observed between ethanol content and the equivalence ratio in which that soot volume fraction was formed. Accounting for the oxygenated nature of ethanol, E85 and E98 fuels produced similar amounts of soot at a given Φ ox, , suggesting other factors outside of fuel oxygen content, such as fuel morphology, impact soot formation. Ignition delay data is reported for compressed pressures of 20 ± 1 bar and compressed temperatures ranging from 633 – 670 K for E10 and 771 – 789 K for E98. Varying pressures for E10 and E98 at conditions producing similar soot volume fractions demonstrated a linear dependence of soot formation on pressure, regardless of if the pressure considered was at top dead center or peak combustion pressure. Furthermore, the data gleaned from this work will be used to select soot models and chemical kinetic mechanisms for RCM simulations to ultimately model heavy duty engine technology with the studied fuels.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

A high efficiency rooftop air conditioning system using multi-speed compressors

This study delineates a meticulous exploration of technologies to enhance the energy efficiency of rooftop air conditioning units, employing the DOE/ORNL heat pump design model for comprehensive engineering design and optimization. A baseline rooftop air conditioning unit, featuring a 13 ton (45.7 kW) cooling capacity and a 17.9 integrated energy efficiency ratio, served as the point of departure for substantive efficiency enhancements. Key modifications included the consolidation of two refrigerant circuits into one, integrating three parallel 2-stage (dual-speed) compressors, fan replacements with high-efficiency substitutes. Notably, a lower global warming potential refrigerant, R452B, was evaluated as a substitute for R-410A, demonstrating better performance in the lab prototype. Further, the achieved measured integrated energy efficiency ratio of 21.4 in the lab prototype surpassed the baseline integrated energy efficiency ratio. Comparative evaluations between R410A and R452B indicated heightened efficiency with the latter, showcasing a lab-demonstrated integrated energy efficiency ratio of 22.4 at the rated capacity of 13.8 ton (48.5 kW) and 23.9 integrated energy efficiency ratio at the rated capacity of 10 ton (35.2 kW). This research underscores the successful development of a rigorous, energy efficient rooftop air conditioning unit prototype with noteworthy environmental and economic implications.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Human-System Interface Design Review Guidelines

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff reviews the human factors engineering (HFE) aspects of nuclear power plants in accordance with the Standard Review Plan (NUREG-0800, Standard Review Plan for the Review of Safety Analysis Reports for Nuclear Power Plants: LWR Edition). The Human Factors Engineering Program Review Model (NUREG-0711, Revision 3, issued November 2012) contains detailed design review procedures. As part of the review process, the interfaces between plant personnel and the plant's systems and components are evaluated for conformance with HFE guidelines. This document, Human-System Interface Design Review Guidelines (NUREG-0700, Revision 3), provides the guidelines necessary to perform this evaluation. The review guidelines address the physical and functional characteristics of human-system interfaces (HSIs). Because these guidelines only address the HFE aspects of design and not other related considerations, such as instrumentation and control and structural design, they are referred to as HFE guidelines. In addition to the review of actual HSIs, the NRC staff can use the NUREG-0700 guidelines to evaluate a design-specific HFE guidelines document or style guide. The HFE guidelines are organized into four basic parts, which are divided into sections. Part I contains guidelines for the basic HSI elements: information displays, user-interface interaction and management, and analog displays and controls. These elements are used as building blocks to develop HSI systems to serve specific functions. Part II contains the guidelines for reviewing the following HSI systems: alarm system, safety parameter display system, group-view display system, soft control system, computer-based procedure system, automation system, and communication system. Part III provides guidelines for the review of workstations and workplaces. Part IV provides guidelines for the review of HSI support (i.e., maintainability of digital systems and degraded HSI and instrumentation and control conditions).

42 ENGINEERING↗

Microbial Curing of Cement for Energy Applications

Rutgers University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the University of Arizona executed this program over 36 months with a 4-Task Program: (M1)-Microbial Engineering (M2)-Microstructure Modelling, (M3) Cement and Concrete Formulation, (M4)-Techno-economic analysis (TEA) and lifecycle assessment (LCA). This program developed a new carbonate cement concrete manufacturing process called microbial curing (MBC). MBC utilizes in-situ microbial production of CO 2 that dissolves into pore-bound water to carbonate a cementitious material creating a bonding matrix of CaCO 3 and SiO 2 that hardens and densifies the material. This is the first work of this type where calcium silicate was used in microbial studies. All other work reported in the literature always used a soluble form of calcium. This final report describes the work done in the final quarter, the best procedures and results, and the final techno-economic and lifecycle analyses. This quarter, we cast and cured twenty-five (4”x8”) cylinder samples. The compressive strength, split tensile, Young’s modulus, chloride permeability, and creep measurements were performed. These measurements demonstrated that MBC of calcium silicate concrete exhibits scaling problems due to the escape of ammonia gas, a product of the microbial reaction to generate CO 2 . As curing proceeds, the ability for the gas to escape from within the cylinder is restricted by the outer cylindrical portions densifying, making the outer portion highly impermeable to gas flow. In contrast, the small samples cured are uniformly cured, forming materials whose mechanical properties are 7x better than the large samples. This problem needs to be solved before this technology can be commercialized. The techno-economic and lifecycle analyses indicate that the technology developed in this program exhibits a significant opportunity to reduce the cost of cement and CO 2 emissions associated with concrete, provided the curing issue associated with larger samples can be addressed.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A Domestic Program for Liquid Metal PFC Research in Fusion

While high-Z solid plasma-facing components (PFCs) are the leading candidates for reactors, it is unclear that they can survive the intense plasma material interaction (PMI). Liquid metals (LM) PFCs offer potential solutions since they are not susceptible to the same type of damage, and can be “self-healing”. Following the Fusion Energy System Study on Liquid Metal Plasma Facing Components study that recently was completed by Kessel et al. (Fusion Sci Technnol 75:886, 2019) a domestic LM PFC design program has been initiated to develop reactor-relevant LM PFC concepts. This program seeks to evaluate LM PFC concepts for a Fusion Nuclear Science Facility (FNSF) or a Compact Pilot Plant via engineering design calculations, modeling of PMI and PFC components and laboratory experiments. The latter involves experiments in dedicated test stands and confinement devices and seeks to identify and answer open questions in LM PFC design. The new national LM PFC program is first investigating lithium as the plasma facing material for a flowing divertor PFC concept. Several flow speeds will be evaluated, ranging from ~ cm/s to m/s. The surface temperature will initially be held below the strongly evaporative limit in the first design; higher temperatures with strong evaporation will be considered in future concepts. Other topics of interest include: understanding of the hydrogen and helium interaction with the liquid lithium; single effect experiments on wetting, compatibility and embrittlement; and prototypical experiments for control and characterization of flowing LM. A path to plasma and future tokamak exposure of these concepts will be developed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Deuterium trapping mechanisms in reduced activation ferritic martensitic steels and their correlation with mechanical strengthening

Development of high-strength materials often involves introduction of additional strengthening microstructures that also serve as tritium trapping sites. Such additions in fusion material development could degrade the fuel efficiency in fusion reactors and raise radiological concerns. The contribution of individual microstructure features in hydrogen trapping must be evaluated to ensure fuel efficiency and radiological safety. This study explores the mechanistic origins of deuterium trapping in reduced-activation ferritic–martensitic steels and its correlation to mechanical strengthening. A series of model alloys and engineering steels were fabricated and subjected to different heat treatments to control deuterium trapping site density. Deuterium retention was evaluated using D 2 gas charging and thermal desorption spectroscopy, focusing on the role of grain boundary, dislocation, M 23 C 6 precipitates, and TiC precipitates. Multiscale microstructure characterization and synchrotron X-ray diffraction were performed to characterize microstructure, which was correlated to the deuterium retention property. Results show that TiC precipitates exhibit the highest deuterium trapping capacity, followed by M 23 C 6 precipitates. Dislocation and grain boundary demonstrate the lowest and similar efficiencies. Furthermore, the relationship of trapping quantity and mechanical strengthening of these microstructure features was quantified, demonstrating that TiC precipitates offer highest deuterium trapping per unit of mechanical strengthening.

Retention↗

Machine Learning-Guided Approach for Studying Solvation Environments

Molecular-level understanding and characterization of solvation environments are often needed across chemistry, biology, and engineering. Toward practical modeling of local solvation effects of any solute in any solvent, in this work, we report a static and all-quantum mechanics-based cluster-continuum approach for calculating single-ion solvation free energies. This approach uses a global optimization procedure to identify low-energy molecular clusters with different numbers of explicit solvent molecules and then employs the smooth overlap for atomic positions learning kernel to quantify the similarity between different low-energy solute environments. From these data, we use sketch maps, a nonlinear dimensionality reduction algorithm, to obtain a two-dimensional visual representation of the similarity between solute environments in differently sized microsolvated clusters. After testing this approach on different ions having charges 2+, 1+, 1–, and 2–, we find that the solvation environment around each ion can be seen to usually become more similar in hand with its calculated single-ion solvation free energy. Without needing either dynamics simulations or an a priori knowledge of local solvation structure of the ions, this approach can be used to calculate solvation free energies within 5% of experimental measurements for most cases, and it should be transferable for the study of other systems where dynamics simulations are not easily carried out.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Photometric identification of compact galaxies, stars, and quasars using multiple neural networks

We present MargNet, a deep learning-based classifier for identifying stars, quasars, and compact galaxies using photometric parameters and images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 16 catalogue. MargNet consists of a combination of convolutional neural network and artificial neural network architectures. Using a carefully curated data set consisting of 240 000 compact objects and an additional 150 000 faint objects, the machine learns classification directly from the data, minimizing the need for human intervention. MargNet is the first classifier focusing exclusively on compact galaxies and performs better than other methods to classify compact galaxies from stars and quasars, even at fainter magnitudes. This model and feature engineering in such deep learning architectures will provide greater success in identifying objects in the ongoing and upcoming surveys, such as Dark Energy Survey and images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Piecewise Linear Optimization for Public EV Charging Depots in Different Utility Environments

With the proliferation of electric vehicles (EVs), EV supply equipment technology is being pushed to increasingly higher power levels, such as extreme fast charging (XFC) at 300kW or more. As more public XFC depots are connected to electric distribution systems, utility operators will mitigate their impact with pricing schemes and programs such as demand response, demand charges, and time-varying prices. In this paper we describe an XFC management system that combines an on-site battery energy storage system and an optimization application that minimizes the cost to operate the depot in light of the utility pricing programs. We have designed the optimizer specially to use fast and simple linear programming so that it can be deployed to low-cost computing platforms. We also describe how several utility pricing schemes are integrated into a single piecewise model, reducing the engineering effort to implement the optimizer in different utility environments.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Fracture Description of the HFTS-2 Slant Core, Delaware Basin, West Texas

Previous work in the Midland Basin Hydraulic Fracture Test Site project (HFTS1) has shown the value of core recovered from a stimulated volume in providing information on the geometry and extent of hydraulic fractures. This project (HFTS2) is in the Wolfcamp Formation of the Delaware Basin. A slant core through the stimulated volume was acquired above and below a stimulated well and the results of the fracture description are presented here. Here, nine, 3-inch-diameter whole cores from the slant well were examined for fractures prior to slabbing, together with a CT scan of the core. We used criteria developed during the HFTS1 project to identify hydraulic, natural, drilling-induced and core-handling fractures. Material collected from a few fracture faces was cleaned, sieved, and examined under a microscope to look for proppant. A total of 1261 fractures, including 500 hydraulic fractures, were described in 948 feet of core. Hydraulic fractures are not evenly distributed through the cores; they tend to occur in clusters. Many are remarkably planar, smooth, and featureless, while others have twist hackles, steps, plumose, and kinks. Natural, subvertical fractures, mostly less than 1 mm in width, sealed with blocky calcite, are oriented NE-SW (Set 1) and WNW-ESE (Set 2). Two Set 1 fractures have drusy cement on parted faces and were possibly open prior to drilling. A few subvertical sealed fractures with different orientations are also present. Bed-parallel natural fractures, most having fibrous cement (beef), and some showing top-to-north bed-parallel shear are present. Faults with normal/oblique movement were found in one part of the core. Drilling induced and core-handling breaks were identified in all cores, and were also noted to have reactivated some natural fractures. The results from this work will allow hydraulic fracture distribution relative to the stimulated well to be assessed. The number of fractures is generally greater than the number of perforations, but these can be compared for different stages and perforation clusters. Surface features provide information about the direction of hydraulic fracture propagation and about segmentation and bifurcation that might increase the number of fracture strands. Reactivation of natural fractures, including bedding-parallel fractures, occurs although the mechanism of parting is mostly unknown. The wider HFTS2 project will make use of this fracture description to improve hydraulic fracture modeling (geomechanics and engineering), to help explain pressure depletion and fiber optics observations (reservoir depletion and frac geometry), to help verify indirect fracture diagnostic techniques such as microseismic monitoring (geophysics), and to help calibrate horizontal well image logs.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗