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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Evaluation of Nuclear Spent Fuel Disposal in Clay-Bearing Rock - Process Model Development and Experimental Studies

This report represents the milestone deliverable M2SF-23SN010301072 “Evaluation of Nuclear Spent Fuel Disposal in Clay-Bearing Rock - Process Model Development and Experimental Studies” The report provides a status update of FY23 activities for the work package Argillite Disposal work packages for the DOE-NE Spent Fuel Waste Form Science and Technology (SFWST) Program. Clay-rich geological media (often referred as shale or argillite) are among the most abundant type of sedimentary rock near the Earth’s surface. Argillaceous rock formations have the following advantageous attributes for deep geological nuclear waste disposal: widespread geologic occurrence, found in stable geologic settings, low permeability, self-sealing properties, low effective diffusion coefficient, high sorption capacity, and have the appropriate depth and thickness to host nuclear waste repository concepts. The DOE R&D program under the Spent Fuel Waste Science Technology (SFWST) campaign has made key progress (through experiment, modeling, and testing) in the study of chemical and physical phenomena that could impact the long-term safety assessment of heat-generating nuclear waste disposition in clay/shale/argillaceous rock. International collaboration activities comprising field-scale heater tests, field data monitoring, and laboratory-scale experiments provide key information on changes to the engineered barrier system (EBS) material exposed high thermal loads. Moreover, consideration of direct disposal of large capacity dual-purpose canisters (DPCs) as part of the back-end SNF waste disposition strategy has generated interest in improving our understanding of the effects of elevated temperatures on the engineered barrier system (EBS) design concepts. Chemical and structural analyses of sampled bentonite material from laboratory tests at elevated temperatures are key to the characterization of thermal effects affecting bentonite clay barrier performance. The knowledge provided by these experiments is crucial to constrain the extent of sacrificial zones in the EBS design during the thermal period. Thermal, hydrologic, mechanical, and chemical (THMC) data collected from heater tests and laboratory experiments have been used in the development, validation, and calibration of THMC simulators to model near-field coupled processes. This information leads to the development of simulation approaches to assess issues on coupled processes involving porous media flow, transport, geomechanical phenomena, chemical interactions with barrier/geologic materials, and the development of EBS concepts. These lines of knowledge are central to the design of deep geological backfilled repository concepts where temperature plays a key role in the EBS behavior, potential interactions with host rock, and long-term performance in the safety assessment.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Wide Bandgap Generation (WBGen): Developing the Future Wide Bandgap Power Electronics Engineering Workforce

This Final Technical Report (FTR) summarizes the work conducted at the Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES) under the Wide-Bandgap Generation (WBGen) fellowship and traineeship program established by the Advanced Manufacturing and Technologies Office (AMMTO) of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) at Virginia Tech, which had as main objective to train the next generation of U.S. citizen power engineers with wide-bandgap (WBG) power semiconductor expertise, with the intent to aid in fulfilling the future workforce needs in this field. The latter was deemed of strategic importance given the fast-paced growth observed—and predicted—in the demand of this technical expertise, whose practitioners have become the enablers and executioners of the electrification transformation process that not just the U.S., but the whole world, is currently undergoing as it seeks for more effective and efficient ways to use energy. As such, the WBGen program set forth to achieve its educational goals, which in addition sought to broaden the range of WBG-based power electronics by conducting research and development on high-efficiency grid apparatus and high-efficiency electrical power systems, and to also enhance the power engineering curriculum by formalizing WBG-oriented design procedures replacing existent yet now obsolete design procedures developed for Silicon (Si) based power electronics. This effort led CPES to spearhead the development of a new major within The Bradley Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at Virginia Tech, namely Electronic Power and Energy Systems (EPES), which coalesced power electronics and power systems courses to provide undergraduate students with a strong formation in the power engineering field, while creating a pipeline of graduate students that could pursue the WBG-based curriculum and conduct research at CPES. In all, in what is considered a true success, eight of the twenty WBGen fellows that graduated program were recruited from the ECE department undergraduate cohort. The traineeship emphasized as well, from its beginning, the partnership with industry and national laboratories, which took advantage of the successful industry consortium at CPES that has historically been formed by 80–90 power and energy companies working in close collaboration with the center. This gave WBGen fellows the accessibility and possibility to conduct internships at partner facilities during the summer months, focused solely on the evaluation, testing, and adoption of WBG devices, which were many times tightly related to their respective research work and plans. In addition, WBGen fellows conducted their main research work within the confines of research programs at CPES conducted with these industry partners, providing them with a unique opportunity to develop not just their technical expertise—while advancing their knowledge, but to also learn and practice a slew of skills needed for their professional growth. As such, the fellows tackled a variety of WBG-related research topics, from device reliability and capability aspects as well as packaging and integration, encompassing the use of advanced materials and new structures, current sharing challenges, and insulation systems, to advanced gate-drivers with integrated sensors and protection mechanisms and active current- and voltage-based control, to optimized layouts seeking to maximize the switching and power processing performance of these devices, to power processing solutions adopting Gallium-Nitride (GaN) and Silicon-Carbide (SiC) power semiconductors for a variety of applications; including radiation-hardened converters for space dc distribution systems, direct three-phase ac-to-ac power converters for aerospace systems, dc-ac inverters for automotive traction drives, high-frequency isolated dc-dc battery chargers also for heavy transportation systems, and medium-voltage dc-dc and dc-ac converters for distribution systems and future power grids. The WBGen program ultimately graduated a total of 20 power engineers, all experts on WBG-based power electronics, awarding 18 M.S. and 2 PhD degrees in the process. These fellows, all U.S. citizens, allowed CPES to increase the number of citizens students to 33 % at the peak of the program, as the traineeship made possible the recruitment of talent with more attractive graduate research assistantship (GRA) contracts. Unfortunately, the present U.S. citizen enrollment at CPES has declined back to historic levels—approximately 10 %, as the regular GRA rates are not competitive enough when compared with entry-level industry jobs. In all, WBGen fellows published a total of 7 peer-reviewed journal articles, 44 papers at international technical conferences, made 42 presentations at international technical conferences, and filed 4 invention disclosures and patent applications, which have since then been granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Their contribution to CPES, Virginia Tech, the United States, and the world, has been significant, and continues to yield results thanks to the exemplary career that the fellows have initiated at many of the partners of the program, which include Wolfspeed, Raytheon Technologies, Infineon, Lockheed Martin, Dominion Energy, Northrop Grumman, Rivian, Aerospace Corporation, Sandia National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, John Hopkins University, and Virginia Tech.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Developing and Evaluating a Smart Curtailment Strategy Integrated with a Wind Turbine Manufacturer Platform

The Renewable Energy Wildlife Institute lead a team of scientists, wind developers, and turbine manufacturers in a study to develop and test a “smart curtailment” system intended to help reduce bat collisions with wind turbines. The Vestas Bat Protection System (VBPS) is a newly developed software module within the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system of Vestas turbines. The VBPS combines data from commercially available environmental sensors and the turbine’s built-in sensors with the Vestas SCADA system. VBPS is designed to receive environmental data from sensors on the turbine such as temperature, wind speed, wind direction, time of day, and time of year, relays that information to the SCADA system to determine whether to execute turbine curtailments at any given time. The goals of this study were to 1) develop a bat fatality risk model based on bat activity data and environmental data collected in year 1, and to 2) evaluate the VBPS, using the bat fatality risk model to implement curtailment, in comparison to “blanket curtailment” (turbines curtailed when wind speed is below 5.0 meters per second (m/s)) and “control” (normally operating, feathered below 3.0 m/s) turbines in year 2. The field study took place at a wind energy facility in Iowa during the fall bat migration seasons (July – October) in 2021 and 2022. For VBPS to succeed as a viable strategy for the minimization of bat fatalities, it should meet or exceed the performance of blanket curtailment. Specifically, the VBPS should meet the following performance targets to demonstrate whether it an effective, practical risk reduction measure: (1) Turbines operating VBPS should have equal or fewer bat fatalities compared to turbines operating with blanket curtailment, and significantly fewer bat fatalities compared to control turbines; and (2) Turbines operating VBPS should have greater power production compared to turbines operating with blanket curtailment. The study was completed in accordance with the Statement of Project Objectives and within the terms of the Budget Justification. This Final Report describes the progress, challenges, and outcomes of the study.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Community Planning for Solar: Defining Realistic Solar Development Options

This guide is designed to aid in assessing community preferences for solar development and financing alternatives. To evaluate community preferences regarding solar, it is necessary to define the range of realistic options for solar development possible in a community, including potential future targets for solar capacity, the mixes of development possible based on the solar resources available, and potential community benefits and solar ownership structures. This guide can help community officials, volunteers, and regional planning agency staff in constructing a realistic suite of options for solar development, based on existing state and local laws, available solar resources and infrastructure, and economic and financial considerations.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Assessing Community Preferences Regarding Solar Development

Preparing a plan regarding solar development in your community requires bringing together people from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, who often have strong feelings and preferences about the amount and location of local solar PV projects developed in their community. The planning process should be designed in an inclusive way, where meaningful community engagement is prioritized. With a topic such as solar development, which can elicit strong reactions among community members, proactive community engagement that is perceived as fair will likely lead to more favorable outcomes. Whether your community hosts large tracts of forest, brownfields, residential neighborhoods, and/or large buildings and parking lots, there are a variety of ways community members might envision growth of solar energy. The engagement process can help clarify how and where solar is preferred, so that local government can respond to future solar development requests or to initiate solar projects that are preferred by the community.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Development of High-Fidelity and Efficient Modeling Capabilities for Enabling Co-Optimization of Fuels and Multi-Mode Engines

The objective of this closely coordinated research project is to develop improved physical sub-models and innovative numerical algorithms to enable accurate and efficient predictions of multi-mode combustion to support EERE’s Co-Optima program. To this end, a research pro-gram is proposed that seeks • to develop accurate submodels for predicting multi-mode combustion regimes, wall-heat transfer, non-equilibrium plasma ignition, and combustion-mode transition, • to develop dynamic load-rebalancing algorithms and efficient semi-implicit time-integration schemes for enabling exascale computing, • to validate the computational submodels against experiments and direct numerical simulation (DNS) data in conjunction with sensitivity analysis, and • to support the direct transition of the resulting sub-models into other engine-simulation tools through the development of self-contained modules. All sub-models will be integrated into the open-source exascale engine-simulation platform Nek5000.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2024

Developing an intrinsically secure information barrier for arms control verification through machine learning

Near-term solutions are needed to allow for flexible engagement in future nuclear arms control discussions. This project developed a method for implementing an information barrier (IB) on commercial systems, shortening the research and development lifecycle for warhead verification technologies while offering improved and inherently flexible capabilities. The crux of the verification challenge remains the difficulty in developing an authenticatable IB which prevents sensitive host country information from inadvertent transmission to an inspector. Many concepts for IB’s rely on dedicated “trusted” processor modules developed with dedicated custom radiation detection systems and associated algorithms. Without a priori knowledge of the treaty item, the parameter space for measurements can be nearly infinite and robustness against spoofing without the ability to view sensitive data is key. This project has produced an unclassified framework capable of ingesting data from common gamma detectors and identifying the presence of weapons grade nuclear material at over 90% accuracy.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2023

Advanced Reactor Cyber Analysis and Development Environment (ARCADE) for System-Level Design Analysis

Cybersecurity is a persistent concern to the safety and security of Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs), but has lacked data-driven, evidence-based research. Rigorous cybersecurity analysis is critical for the licensing of advanced reactors using a performance-based approach. One tool that enables cybersecurity analysis is modeling and simulation. The nuclear industry makes extensive use of modeling and simulation throughout the decision process but lacks a method to incorporate cybersecurity analysis with existing models. To meet this need, the Advanced Reactor Cyber Analysis and Development Environment (ARCADE) was developed. ARCADE is a suite of publicly available tools that can be used to develop emulations of industrial control system devices and networks and integrate those emulations with physics simulators. This integration of cyber emulations and physics models enables rigorous cyber-physical analysis of cyber-attacks on NPP systems. This report provides an overview of key considerations for using ARCADE with existing physics models and demonstrates ARCADE’s capabilities for cybersecurity analysis. Using a model of the Small Modular Advanced High Temperature Reactor (SmAHTR), ARCADE was able to determine the sensitivity of the primary heat exchangers (PHX) to coordinated cyber-attacks. The analysis determined that while the PHX’s failures cause disruption to the reactor, they did not cause any safety limits to be exceeded because of the plant design, including passive safety features. Further development of ARCADE will enable rigorous, repeatable, and automated cyber-physical analysis of advanced reactor control systems. These efforts will also help reduce regulatory uncertainty by presenting similar types of cybersecurity analyses in a common format, driving standard approaches and reporting.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Microstructural Engineering and Accelerated Test Method Development to Achieve Low Cost, High Performance Solutions for Hydrogen Storage and Delivery

This project made advancements in developing lower cost steel alloys with novel microstructural design for use in hydrogen refueling infrastructure such as storage, compressors, and dispensing components, and utilizing accelerated test methods to efficiently evaluate variations in alloy and microstructure design. The project specifically sought to design alloys with lower nickel contents to reduce alloy cost, which was accomplished through substituting manganese for nickel along with other alloy additions to control deformation characteristics known to be important for hydrogen embrittlement resistance. Through Mn substitutions for nickel, austenitic and duplex austenite-ferrite steels were successfully developed with lower cost than currently available commercial stainless steel products that are employed for hydrogen refueling infrastructure. The steels were processed to achieve comparable strength and toughness in hydrogen environments as the commercially available steels containing high Ni contents. To evaluate mechanical performance in hydrogen, a testing methodology was employed to compare ubiquitous laboratory testing using electrochemical hydrogen charging in a liquid electrolyte to less accessible high pressure gaseous testing. While the application of these steels is in high pressure gaseous environments, the electrochemical hydrogen charging tests produced comparable results. Additionally, the Los Alamos Neutron Scatting Center enabled characterization of deformation mechanisms of the steel alloys in the presence of hydrogen, which has been associated with steel alloy characteristics associated with hydrogen embrittlement. Finally, a fracture mechanics based test bed model was developed to predict the influence of hydrogen gas pressure and fatigue conditions on fatigue lifetimes of pressure vessel steels. Together, these developments can be employed to enable lower cost hydrogen fueling infrastructure and more reliable prediction of steel alloy components in hydrogen service conditions. In particular, the newly alloys have the potential to replace stainless steels, having demonstrated comparable performance at substantially reduced cost.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2025

Applying deep learning methods to develop new models of molecular charge transfer, nonadiabatic dynamics, and nonlinear spectroscopy in the condensed phase

Photon- and field-induced charge transfer has central importance in the generation and storage of electricity, the novel properties of materials, photo-induced catalysis, and electro-optic activity (e.g., photovoltaic cells, fuel cells, and organic chromophores for use in optical fibers and light-emission diodes). These non-equilibrium electronic and chemical transformations are probed by ultrafast, nonlinear spectroscopies. Accurate simulations play a crucial role in our ability to understand, optimize, and control these transformations. This project applies modern deep learning and machine learning (ML) methods to dramatically improve models of electronic dynamics, electronic-nuclear dynamics, and spectroscopic measurements for improved simulations of chemistry in complex environments, far from equilibrium phenomena, and processes in extreme environments, such as materials exposed to strong or resonant fields. This project develops accurate neural net models that go beyond predictive capability to also provide new insight into the fundamental physics underlying electron and nuclear dynamics. To achieve its objectives, this project explores and develops customized versions of high-capacity deep learning algorithms/models. These techniques are developed with an emphasis on fundamental chemical insight, not just predictive accuracy, to assist the development of the next generation of quantum simulation methods.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2024

Using Hardware-In-The-Loop Methodology to Develop Test Systems

Hardware in the Loop (HIL) testing methodologies have become widespread in industry. Typically, they focus on developing control algorithms for systems such as autonomous vehicles or aircraft. An oft overlooked aspect of product development is the design and fabrication of a test system for validating that the product meets requirements. Abstractly, a test system differs little from a control system—testers provide signals to the unit, monitor feedback, and base decisions on the results. While the time scales may differ, the functionalities are conceptually similar. Viewed in this light, it becomes natural to extend HIL approaches to tester development. By replacing a physical unit with a proxy model deployed to a real-time or pseudo real-time target, test systems can be developed in parallel with the design and fabrication of a first production unit. This saves considerable time in the life cycle from conceptual design to realized product. This manuscript demonstrates the process flow using a capacitive discharge unit as an exemplar.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Design of Novel Hot Gas Component for Gas Turbine Engines Enabled by Materials and Additive Manufacturing Process Development

This CRADA project was the result of a project award under FOA-DOE-0001980. The overarching FOA project team consisted of researchers from Carpenter Technology Corporation (CTC), Solar Turbines Incorporated (Solar), Pennsylvania State University (PSU), University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Evaluations were conducted on two high-γ’ superalloys that were designed by CTC and the UCSB. One alloy named GammaPrint-700 (GP-700) is a cobalt-base superalloy. The other alloy named GammaPrint-1100 (GP-1100) is a nickel-base (Ni-base) superalloy. PSU provided expertise and experimental testing of the thermal performance of AM micro-cooling architectures. ORNL provided expertise with the AM superalloy materials characterization and AM processing science. Solar provided turbine component design expertise. The focus of this CRADA report is to document the efforts between ORNL and CTC towards the development of superalloys designed for AM. The project goal was to use an AM processable high-temperature superalloy and design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) techniques to design an efficient turbine component (i.e. a turbine tip shoe) with enhanced cooling features that can only be fabricated through additive manufacturing (AM). The efficiencies of existing combined heat and power (CHP) engines are capped by both component design and materials limitations. However, AM of a tip shoe component from a γ’strengthened superalloy offers the design flexibility to increase the efficiency and power of an industrial gas turbine. This project brought about advancements in the DfAM tip shoe design space and in the area of high temperature superalloys processable through laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) AM. State of art computation design tools were utilized to optimize unique cooling features into a tip shoe component design. A two-prong materials development approach was taken to support development of the AM tip shoe geometry. The first approach centered on investigating the processability and the appropriate process science for the industry standard high-γ’ nickel-base (Ni-base) superalloy Mar-M247. This superalloy is typically cast and considered non-weldable by traditional welding standards. In the course of this work, the alloy was not deemed feasible for process scale-up due to significant cracking issues during printing. The second approach focused on the development and evaluation of a novel cobalt-base superalloy, GammaPrint™-700 (GP-700 and a Ni-base superalloy, GammaPrint™-1100 (GP-1100) designed to mitigate the significant AM processing issues with Mar-M247. The processability of these two alloys were investigated through electron beam melting (EBM) binder-jet AM (BJAM), and LPBF as a risk mitigation for manufacturability. To be considered a candidate material for down-selection to proceed to full-scale AM tip shoe engine testing trials, the high temperature creep rupture strength was required to achieve at a minimum, a Larsen Miller Parameter (LMP) increase of 10.9% over the baseline material LPBF AM Hastelloy X.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Development of an Energy Services Interface for the EGoT

The Energy Services Interface (ESI) is a set of rules that ensure private, secure, and trustworthy information exchange between Grid Service Providers (GSPs) and utility customers. Large-scale adoption of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) will be necessary for GSPs to dispatch effective grid services, and to stimulate technological innovations in DER and DERMS (DER Management Systems) technologies, as well as novel grid service programs. The ESI promotes these objectives by advancing a set of rules and interoperability requirements that define bi-directional, service-oriented, logical interfaces between GSPs and customers’ DERs, with expectations for privacy, security, and trust. The ESI rules and interoperability requirements establish boundaries between customers and GSPs that delineate the functions and responsibilities that must be implemented by the developers of Energy Grid of Things (EGoT) ecosystem products. These rules impose constraints on the implementation of a DERMS. The ESI interoperability requirements are based on the Interoperability Maturity Model (IMM), developed by the Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium. By emphasizing private, secure, and trustworthy information exchange, and by mandating a service-oriented and interoperable architecture, the ESI promotes the development of an EGoT ecosystem that motivates customer participation and technological innovation. Interoperability will encourage innovation by reducing barriers to entry and increasing confidence of stakeholders. Customers will be willing to participate in DER service programs that establish trust and emphasize customer choice. Large-scale customer participation ensures GSPs have ample DER resources to provide grid services that have significant impact on grid reliability and reduce electricity cost for consumers. This in turn signals economic opportunities that encourage innovation, resulting in the development of a robust EGoT ecosystem.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Enabling Low-Temperature (LTP) Ignition Technologies for Multi-Mode Engines through the Development of a Validated High-Fidelity LTP Model for Predicative Simulations Tools

The goal of multi-mode engine architectures is to extend current lean-burn dilution limits with renewable fuels, which requires spark plugs to deposit high energies (hundreds of mJ) in order to initiate ignition and complete combustion. At elevated energy deposition rates, spark plugs experience increased electrode erosion and thermal losses, which ultimately shortens the spark-plug lifetime and lowers ignition efficiency. As such, in order to safeguard the efficiency gains of multi-mode concepts, new and improved ignition technologies are required. Recently, non-equilibrium low-temperature plasmas (LTP) have been shown to promote energy-efficient ignition via quenching and transport of electronically excited atoms and molecules, selective radical production and fast heating of hydrocarbon/air mixtures [1-2]. Thus, LTP is seen as a technology that can potentially improve the energy extraction efficiency of fuels, while enabling kinetically controlled combustion modes towards fuel leaner conditions to realize current DOE VTO goals of improving the sustainability of future mobility [3]. Although many previous studies have demonstrated the efficacy of plasma-assisted ignition to enhance combustion, the detailed enhancement mechanisms remain largely unknown, especially for oxygenated fuels and at elevated pressures that are most relevant to practical engine conditions. These barriers hinder the development of accurate and comprehensive numerical models that seek to describe LTP-based ignition in existing engine design software tools and methods. Current state-of-the-art simulation capabilities for LTP ignition systems are in need of improvements since they deliver qualitative results only due to important limitations of existing approaches. Firstly, validated kinetic models with elementary steps for plasma discharges in oxygenated fuel/air mixtures of relevance to the transportation sector are required. Such kinetic models do not exist at present and will be developed and validated within this project. Secondly, plasma discharges and reactive mixture ignition are multi-scale, unsteady processes requiring high-performance numerical methods and software that execute efficiently on DOE supercomputers. Such software does not exist at present and will be developed and applied to practical LTP ignition scenarios as part of this project. Thirdly, experimental databases that are tailored to serve as benchmark in support of the development of predictive computational models of LTP ignition do not exist and will be part of this project.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Design of Novel Hot Gas Component for Gas Turbine Engines Enabled by Materials and Additive Manufacturing Process Development

This CRADA project was the result of a project award under FOA-DOE-0001980. The overarching FOA project team consisted of researchers from Carpenter Technology Corporation (CTC), Solar Turbines Incorporated (Solar), Pennsylvania State University (PSU), University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Evaluations were conducted on two high-γ’ superalloys that were designed by CTC and the UCSB. One alloy named GammaPrint-700 (GP-700) is a cobalt-base superalloy. The other alloy named GammaPrint-1100 (GP-1100) is a nickel-base (Ni-base) superalloy. PSU provided expertise and experimental testing of the thermal performance of AM micro-cooling architectures. ORNL provided expertise with the AM superalloy materials characterization and AM processing science. Solar provided turbine component design expertise. The focus of this CRADA report is to document the efforts between ORNL and CTC towards the development of superalloys designed for AM. The project goal was to use an AM processable high-temperature superalloy and design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) techniques to design an efficient turbine component (i.e. a turbine tip shoe) with enhanced cooling features that can only be fabricated through additive manufacturing (AM). The efficiencies of existing combined heat and power (CHP) engines are capped by both component design and materials limitations. However, AM of a tip shoe component from a γ’strengthened superalloy offers the design flexibility to increase the efficiency and power of an industrial gas turbine. This project brought about advancements in the DfAM tip shoe design space and in the area of high temperature superalloys processable through laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) AM. State of art computation design tools were utilized to optimize unique cooling features into a tip shoe component design. A two-prong materials development approach was taken to support development of the AM tip shoe geometry. The first approach centered on investigating the processability and the appropriate process science for the industry standard high-γ’ nickel-base (Ni-base) superalloy Mar-M247. This superalloy is typically cast and considered non-weldable by traditional welding standards. In the course of this work, the alloy was not deemed feasible for process scale-up due to significant cracking issues during printing. The second approach focused on the development and evaluation of a novel cobalt-base superalloy, GammaPrint™-700 (GP-700 and a Ni-base superalloy, GammaPrint™-1100 (GP-1100) designed to mitigate the significant AM processing issues with Mar-M247. The processability of these two alloys were investigated through electron beam melting (EBM) binder-jet AM (BJAM), and LPBF as a risk mitigation for manufacturability. To be considered a candidate material for down-selection to proceed to fullscale AM tip shoe engine testing trials, the high temperature creep rupture strength was required to achieve at a minimum, a Larsen Miller Parameter (LMP) increase of 10.9% over the baseline material LPBF AM Hastelloy X.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Essence2.0 Development and Deployment (Final Report)

The objective of the project was to take two core technologies that have been developed under the Recipient’s solid laboratory products and integrate them into a single CyberPhysical awareness platform and complete development on current field-tested prototypes that will extend the integrated capability of the platform. During the final development phase, the Recipient development team and its selected industry partners tested and hardened the platform to ensure resilient and secure operation of the integrated platform. The team also executed substantial field testing and established the framework for defining the organization and/or commercial infrastructure needed to sustain operations and provide readiness for a national scale deployment. The focus of the project was (1) the improvement, refinement, and deployment of technology for the detection of cyber-attacks on utility operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) networks and assets, including Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems (SCADA) systems; and (2) support for containment and remediation of adversarial threats and actions against those systems and environments.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Deliverable 6.7-Final Technical Report: Development Summary and Evaluation of the Solar Uncertainty Integrator (SUNI) Software

The Data Quality and Uncertainty Integration Project was a three-year effort to address stakeholder needs for assessing solar radiation resource data quality based on existing tools for estimating radiometer measurement uncertainties and assessing post-measurement data quality. The annual research objectives for the project addressed a logical progression of effort needed to achieve the ultimate project goal of developing the Solar Uncertainty Integrator (SUNI) software. This final technical report summarizes the development process for achieving these key research objectives and addresses the outreach and code development efforts in the final year of the project to develop a new solar irradiance data uncertainty integration software package.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Epitaxial Growth Development: CRADA Final Report

The purpose of this CRADA is to assist Trumpf Photonics in developing a procedure to grow ZnSe epilayers on the (110) facets of AlGaAs/InGaAs laser diodes that will provide high degrees of electronic passivation and performance reliability. Work will be divided into four tasks: 1) characterization of material growth at Trumpf Photonics, 2) development of a highly effective AlGaAs facet cleaning procedure at NREL, 3) development of a ZnSe epitaxy procedure at NREL, and 4) transfer of the procedures developed at NREL to the Trumpf Photonics site. This CRADA is designed to last 3 years total.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗