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At least 667 records · Page 37

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NASA NTRS1991

Integrity and security in an Ada runtime environment

A review is provided of the Formal Methods group discussions. It was stated that integrity is not a pure mathematical dual of security. The input data is part of the integrity domain. The group provided a roadmap for research. One item of the roadmap and the final position statement are closely related to the space shuttle and space station. The group's position is to use a safe subset of Ada. Examples of safe sets include the Army Secure Operating System and the Penelope Ada verification tool. It is recommended that a conservative attitude is required when writing Ada code for life and property critical systems.

Bown, Rodney L.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Development of deterministic transport methods for low energy neutrons for shielding in space

Transport of low energy neutrons associated with the galactic cosmic ray cascade is analyzed in this dissertation. A benchmark quality analytical algorithm is demonstrated for use with BRYNTRN, a computer program written by the High Energy Physics Division of NASA Langley Research Center, which is used to design and analyze shielding against the radiation created by the cascade. BRYNTRN uses numerical methods to solve the integral transport equations for baryons with the straight-ahead approximation, and numerical and empirical methods to generate the interaction probabilities. The straight-ahead approximation is adequate for charged particles, but not for neutrons. As NASA Langley improves BRYNTRN to include low energy neutrons, a benchmark quality solution is needed for comparison. The neutron transport algorithm demonstrated in this dissertation uses the closed-form Green's function solution to the galactic cosmic ray cascade transport equations to generate a source of neutrons. A basis function expansion for finite heterogeneous and semi-infinite homogeneous slabs with multiple energy groups and isotropic scattering is used to generate neutron fluxes resulting from the cascade. This method, called the FN method, is used to solve the neutral particle linear Boltzmann transport equation. As a demonstration of the algorithm coded in the programs MGSLAB and MGSEMI, neutron and ion fluxes are shown for a beam of fluorine ions at 1000 MeV per nucleon incident on semi-infinite and finite aluminum slabs. Also, to demonstrate that the shielding effectiveness against the radiation from the galactic cosmic ray cascade is not directly proportional to shield thickness, a graph of transmitted total neutron scalar flux versus slab thickness is shown. A simple model based on the nuclear liquid drop assumption is used to generate cross sections for the galactic cosmic ray cascade. The ENDF/B V database is used to generate the total and scattering cross sections for neutrons in aluminum. As an external verification, the results from MGSLAB and MGSEMI were compared to ANISN/PC, a routinely used neutron transport code, showing excellent agreement. In an application to an aluminum shield, the FN method seems to generate reasonable results.

Ganapol, Barry↗

NASA NTRS1997

Dynamics of Superfluid Helium in Low-Gravity

This report summarizes the work performed under a contract entitled 'Dynamics of Superfluid Helium in Low Gravity'. This project performed verification tests, over a wide range of accelerations of two Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes of which one incorporates the two-fluid model of superfluid helium (SFHe). Helium was first liquefied in 1908 and not until the 1930s were the properties of helium below 2.2 K observed sufficiently to realize that it did not obey the ordinary physical laws of physics as applied to ordinary liquids. The term superfluidity became associated with these unique observations. The low temperature of SFHe and it's temperature unifonrmity have made it a significant cryogenic coolant for use in space applications in astronomical observations with infrared sensors and in low temperature physics. Superfluid helium has been used in instruments such as the Shuttle Infrared Astronomy Telescope (IRT), the Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS), the Cosmic Background Observatory (COBE), and the Infrared Satellite Observatory (ISO). It is also used in the Space Infrared Telescope (SIRTF), Relativity Mission Satellite formally called Gravity Probe-B (GP-B), and the Test of the Equivalence Principle (STEP) presently under development. For GP-B and STEP, the use of SFHE is used to cool Superconducting Quantum Interference Detectors (SQUIDS) among other parts of the instruments. The Superfluid Helium On-Orbit Transfer (SHOOT) experiment flown in the Shuttle studied the behavior of SFHE. This experiment attempted to get low-gravity slosh data, however, the main emphasis was to study the low-gravity transfer of SFHE from tank to tank. These instruments carried tanks of SFHE of a few hundred liters to 2500 liters. The capability of modeling the behavior of SFHE is important to spacecraft control engineers who must design systems that can overcome disturbances created by the movement of the fluid. In addition instruments such as GP-B and STEP are very sensitive to quasi-steady changes in the mass distribution of the liquid. The CFD codes were used to model the fluid's dynamic motion. Tests in one-g were performed with the main emphasis on being able to compute the actual damping of the fluid. A series of flights on the NASA Lewis reduced gravity DC-9 aircraft were performed with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Low Temperature Flight Facility and a superfluid Test Cell. The data at approximately 0.04g, lg and 2g were used to determine if correct fundamental frequencies can be predicted based on the acceleration field. Tests in zero gravity were performed to evaluate zero gravity motion.

Frank, David J.↗

NASA NTRS2008

Benchmark Analysis of Pion Contribution from Galactic Cosmic Rays

Shielding strategies for extended stays in space must include a comprehensive resolution of the secondary radiation environment inside the spacecraft induced by the primary, external radiation. The distribution of absorbed dose and dose equivalent is a function of the type, energy and population of these secondary products. A systematic verification and validation effort is underway for HZETRN, which is a space radiation transport code currently used by NASA. It performs neutron, proton and heavy ion transport explicitly, but it does not take into account the production and transport of mesons, photons and leptons. The question naturally arises as to what is the contribution of these particles to space radiation. The pion has a production kinetic energy threshold of about 280 MeV. The Galactic cosmic ray (GCR) spectra, coincidentally, reaches flux maxima in the hundreds of MeV range, corresponding to the pion production threshold. We present results from the Monte Carlo code MCNPX, showing the effect of lepton and meson physics when produced and transported explicitly in a GCR environment.

Aghara, Sukesh K.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Adaptive Immersed Boundary Simulations for the Launch Environment

A high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics simulation of a next generation heavy lift space vehicle during launch is presented. The purpose of the simulation is to evaluate the acoustic overpressures during ignition to permit re-design of the launch site to safely handle heavy lift vehicles. The simulation is performed using the Launch, Ascent, and Vehicle Aerodynamics (LAVA) code, an immersed boundary block-structured Cartesian adaptive mesh refinement based solver. A verification and validation study of LAVA in the launch environment context is also performed, comparing to flight data and previous simulations of a Space Shuttle launch

Barad, Michael F.↗

DOE OSTI2022

CODE-TO-CODE BENCHMARK STUDY FOR THERMAL STRESS MODELING AND PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF THE HIGH-TEMPERATURE SINGLE HEAT PIPE EXPERIMENT

Microreactors are very small nuclear reactors with typical thermal-energy output of up to 20 MWth. The microreactor concept is gaining more and more attention for safe, robust, and reliable supply of electricity for remote locations and to meet industrial process heat needs. Heat-pipe-cooled microreactor is one of the microreactors being investigated at Idaho National Laboratory. In the heat-pipe-cooled microreactor, heat pipes remove heat from the reactor core as a passive heat-transfer device, so the fluid circulation is not required for cooling, which can substantially simplify the overall reactor design. However, given the extremely high temperatures in the core region and potentially large temperature gradients across the structure materials, thermal stresses need to be well-analyzed to ensure structural integrity during normal operations and accident scenarios for the heat-pipe-cooled microreactor designs. This paper discusses finite element method-based thermal-stress analysis for the high-temperature single heat-pipe test article in the Single Primary Heat Extraction and Removal Emulator (SPHERE) facility at Idaho National Laboratory, using two commercial software packages, Abaqus and STAR-CCM+. A code-to-code benchmark study was performed to crosscheck the model setup and capability of each code and to gain insights into the potential thermal stress concerns from the current experimental setup. It is observed the significant thermal stresses happen at the locations where the largest temperature gradients appeared between heat pipe and electric heater. The temperature fields have good agreements between Abaqus and STAR-CCM+, while the induced thermal stresses show modest deviations probably due to differences of meshing engines used in these two codes.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Axial Gas Communication Modeling in the BISON Fuel Performance Code

Presentation requested by our collaborators on the technology commercialization fund project. This presentation provides an overview of the axial gas communication capabilities in the BISON fuel performance code. A discussion on models that impact gas communication, the theory behind the implementation, verification, and validation cases are presented.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2024

ECAR-7300 Rev 1 Verification and Validation of MCNP6.2 for MARVEL Neutronic Analysis

This report documents the verification and validation (V&V) efforts of the Monte Carlo N-Particle transport code (MCNP) version 6.2 on the Sawtooth supercomputer for the Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation (MARVEL) microreactor required for the preliminary documented safety analysis. This document records V&V for a safety, hazards, analysis, and design software used for design and analysis of safety class structures, system and components (SSC)s.

21 - SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLAN↗

NASA NTRS2010

Proceedings of the Second NASA Formal Methods Symposium

This publication contains the proceedings of the Second NASA Formal Methods Symposium sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and held in Washington D.C. April 13-15, 2010. Topics covered include: Decision Engines for Software Analysis using Satisfiability Modulo Theories Solvers; Verification and Validation of Flight-Critical Systems; Formal Methods at Intel -- An Overview; Automatic Review of Abstract State Machines by Meta Property Verification; Hardware-independent Proofs of Numerical Programs; Slice-based Formal Specification Measures -- Mapping Coupling and Cohesion Measures to Formal Z; How Formal Methods Impels Discovery: A Short History of an Air Traffic Management Project; A Machine-Checked Proof of A State-Space Construction Algorithm; Automated Assume-Guarantee Reasoning for Omega-Regular Systems and Specifications; Modeling Regular Replacement for String Constraint Solving; Using Integer Clocks to Verify the Timing-Sync Sensor Network Protocol; Can Regulatory Bodies Expect Efficient Help from Formal Methods?; Synthesis of Greedy Algorithms Using Dominance Relations; A New Method for Incremental Testing of Finite State Machines; Verification of Faulty Message Passing Systems with Continuous State Space in PVS; Phase Two Feasibility Study for Software Safety Requirements Analysis Using Model Checking; A Prototype Embedding of Bluespec System Verilog in the PVS Theorem Prover; SimCheck: An Expressive Type System for Simulink; Coverage Metrics for Requirements-Based Testing: Evaluation of Effectiveness; Software Model Checking of ARINC-653 Flight Code with MCP; Evaluation of a Guideline by Formal Modelling of Cruise Control System in Event-B; Formal Verification of Large Software Systems; Symbolic Computation of Strongly Connected Components Using Saturation; Towards the Formal Verification of a Distributed Real-Time Automotive System; Slicing AADL Specifications for Model Checking; Model Checking with Edge-valued Decision Diagrams; and Data-flow based Model Analysis.

Munoz, Cesar↗

NASA NTRS2007

Assessment of the National Combustion Code

The advancements made during the last decade in the areas of combustion modeling, numerical simulation, and computing platform have greatly facilitated the use of CFD based tools in the development of combustion technology. Further development of verification, validation and uncertainty quantification will have profound impact on the reliability and utility of these CFD based tools. The objectives of the present effort are to establish baseline for the National Combustion Code (NCC) and experimental data, as well as to document current capabilities and identify gaps for further improvements.

Liu, nan-Suey↗

NASA NTRS2005

Verification, Validation, and Solution Quality in Computational Physics: CFD Methods Applied to Ice Sheet Physics

Procedures and methods for veri.cation of coding algebra and for validations of models and calculations used in the aerospace computational fluid dynamics (CFD) community would be ef.cacious if used by the glacier dynamics modeling community. This paper presents some of those methods, and how they might be applied to uncertainty management supporting code veri.cation and model validation for glacier dynamics. The similarities and differences between their use in CFD analysis and the proposed application of these methods to glacier modeling are discussed. After establishing sources of uncertainty and methods for code veri.cation, the paper looks at a representative sampling of veri.cation and validation efforts that are underway in the glacier modeling community, and establishes a context for these within an overall solution quality assessment. Finally, a vision of a new information architecture and interactive scienti.c interface is introduced and advocated.

Thompson, David E.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Near-Body Mesh Adaption for Transitional Flows Using OVERFLOW

Accurate modeling of boundary-layer transition is an important aspect of developing greener air transport technologies. In that regard, transition models based on auxiliary transport equations offer a robust approach that is easily integrated into the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) solvers. Recent workshops under NATO and AIAA have identified the verification of transport-equations-based transition modeling as a critical aspect of reducing the scatter between the predictions of different CFD codes. Follow-on work has highlighted the need for highly dense grids to achieve an asymptotic convergence of transition related flow metrics. The present work examines the role of automatic near-body mesh adaptation capability in the NASA OVERFLOW CFD solver to enable verification studies in an efficient manner, and for establishing best practices for designing grids for the RANS-based transition models. A sensor function relevant to the Langtry-Menter \gamma-Re_{\theta t}\ transition model has been identified and used for error-based mesh adaptation for canonical configurations comprising a flat plate, and the S809 and NLR-7301 airfoils. The efficacy of the mesh adaptation approach is assessed for flow conditions involving multiple transition scenarios such as natural transition, separation-induced transition, and shock-induced transition. The results from this exploratory study indicate that the meshes adapted using the proposed sensor provide solutions that approach the references solutions obtained with uniformly refined hand-crafted meshes, in terms of the chosen metrics, and yield modest yet significant savings in grid count. We also highlight areas for improvement in the grid adaptation methodology within OVERFLOW.

CFD↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Near-Body Mesh Adaption for Transitional Flows Using OVERFLOW

CFD↗

DOE OSTI2025

MOOSE-based Tritium Migration Analysis Program, Version 8 (TMAP8) for advanced open-source tritium transport and fuel cycle modeling

Tritium management is critical for the safety, sustainability, and economics of fusion energy systems, and advanced and reliable modeling tools help accelerate the development of tritium technologies. This paper presents the Tritium Migration Analysis Program, Version 8 (TMAP8), an open-source, MOOSE-based application developed to provide state-of-the-art tritium transport and fuel cycle modeling capabilities. TMAP8 aims to expand the capabilities of previous versions (i.e., TMAP4 and TMAP7) by leveraging modern computational techniques, ensuring high software quality assurance standards (key to building trust), and enabling multispecies, multiscale, and multiphysics simulations for integrated tritium transport modeling in complex geometries. This paper outlines TMAP8’s scope and rigorous development practices, emphasizing its transparency, accessibility, modularity, and reliability. We present the current suite of verification and validation cases based on those from TMAP4, demonstrating TMAP8’s accuracy and reliability against analytical solutions and experimental data. Additionally, the paper showcases TMAP8’s integrated fuel cycle modeling capabilities, highlighting its applicability at various scales and levels. The TMAP8 code and documentation are openly available, promoting collaborative development and widespread adoption within the fusion community. Future work will soon expand TMAP8’s verification and validation suite to include those from TMAP7 and other recent experimental studies for validation.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Continued Verification of MOOSE Structural Mechanics Tools for Modeling Core Bowing Phenomena in Fast Reactors

Under the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy’s Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) Program, an integrated multiphysics approach is being developed to model the core bowing phenomena important to liquid metal-cooled fast reactors. Core bowing is an important passive safety mechanism whereby increased power (which leads to temperature and flux gradients) influences the core to bow into less reactive configurations when the restraint system is properly designed. The phenomenon includes a complex interplay of radiation transport, duct temperature calculations involving fluid flow and heat transfer, and thermo-mechanical responses to the induced temperature and flux gradients. Structural material properties are also important to determining inelastic response to longer term flux gradients which cause irradiation creep and swelling. While core bowing provides a strong negative reactivity feedback when the restraint system is designed properly, it also results in additional forces between assemblies which increase the loads required to extricate them during refueling or control rod movement. Therefore, the restraint system must be designed with these tradeoffs in mind. The first stage of the work, which commenced in FY21 and continues through FY22, assesses thermo-mechanical modeling tools for producing core bowing predictions consistent with conventional tools. The Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) Tensor Mechanics and Contact Modules are employed. This status report describes work on additional thermo-mechanical benchmark verification problems with increased complexity from the examples demonstrated in FY21. Several benchmark verification examples were selected from the IAEA verification and validation report. These examples involve clusters of ducts representative of a sector of a hexagonal reactor core which bow into each other and cause contact and load pad elevations, as well as single ducts subjected to irradiation fields undergoing swelling and subsequent bowing. The MOOSE-based results were compared to both IAEA benchmark participants’ results, analytic equations as available, and NUBOW-3D, a beam model code developed by Argonne National Laboratory. In every case, the MOOSE results agreed with other simulations results, providing additional verification basis of the tools for this particular physics application.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2024

A layered solid finite element formulation with interlaminar enhanced displacements for the modeling of laminated composite structures

Accurate modeling of layered composite structures often requires the use of detailed finite element models which can sufficiently resolve the kinematics and material behavior within each layer of the composite. However, individually discretizing each material layer into finite elements presents a prohibitive computational expensive given the large number of thin layers comprising some laminated composites. To address these challenges, an 8-node layered solid hexahedral finite element is formulated with the aim of striking an appropriate balance between efficiency and fidelity. The element is discretized into an arbitrary number of distinct material layers, and employs reduced in-plane integration within each layer. The chosen reduced integration scheme is supplemented by a novel physical stabilization approach which includes layerwise enhancements to mitigate various forms of locking phenomena. The proposed framework additionally supports the inclusion of interlaminar enhanced displacements to better represent the kinematics of general layered composite materials. Finally, the described element formulation has been implemented in the ParaDyn finite element code, and its efficacy for modeling laminated composite structures is demonstrated on a variety of verification problems.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2021

Detailed analyses of a TRISO-fueled microreactor: Modeling of a Micro-Reactor System using NEAMS Tools

Our analysis provides preliminary confirmation of the feasibility of applying the NEAMS codes for multiphysics simulations to model load following transients and accidental scenarios. Detailed demonstration was performed on a simple unit-cell model to perform transient simulations, while verifying accuracy of the multiphysics solution obtained with the NEAMS codes. Results on the full core focused on showcasing the multiphysics workflow rather than detailed verification of the results, at least for this report.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

NASA NTRS2006

Inspection and Verification of Domain Models with PlanWorks and Aver

When developing a domain model, it seems natural to bring the traditional informal tools of inspection and verification, debuggers and automated test suites, to bear upon the problems that will inevitably arise. Debuggers that allow inspection of registers and memory and stepwise execution have been a staple of software development of all sorts from the very beginning. Automated testing has repeatedly proven its considerable worth, to the extent that an entire design philosophy (Test Driven Development) has been developed around the writing of tests. Unfortunately, while not entirely without their uses, the limitations of these tools and the nature of the complexity of models and the underlying planning systems make the diagnosis of certain classes of problems and the verification of their solutions difficult or impossible. Debuggers provide a good local view of executing code, allowing a fine-grained look at algorithms and data. This view is, however, usually only at the level of the current scope in the implementation language, and the data-inspection capabilities of most debuggers usually consist of on-line print statements. More modem graphical debuggers offer a sort of tree view of data structures, but even this is too low-level and is often inappropriate for the kinds of structures created by planning systems. For instance, god or constraint networks are at best awkward when visualized as trees. Any any non-structural link between data structures, as through a lookup table, isn't captured at all. Further, while debuggers have powerful breakpointing facilities that are suitable for finding specific algorithmic errors, they have little use in the diagnosis of modeling errors.

Bedrax-Weiss, Tania↗