Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “storage performance”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 667 records · Page 37
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Spent Nuclear Fuel Receipt Rate Analysis within an Integrated Waste Manage-ment System Architecture that Includes Consolidated Interim Storage

A key parameter in analyzing the performance of an integrated waste management system (IWMS) architecture for the disposition of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is the SNF receipt rate from reactor and other custodian sites. The introduction of one or more federal consolidated interim storage facilities (CISFs) into the IWMS architecture can enable the receipt rate profile as a function of time to be accelerated relative to system architectures without a CISF. The question then arises as to what an optimal SNF receipt rate profile for an IWMS architecture might be in view of practical constraints and desired system performance attributes and associated metrics. This paper describes a sensitivity study on SNF receipt rates and the associated results for a selected set of IWMS scenarios aimed an in-forming near-term planning for interim storage capabilities and transportation assets. Two different strategies are compared, one that fills an initial CISF quickly and then idles the transportation system while a disposal system is prepared, and a second strategy that aims to provide a more continuous use of transportation assets and receipt capabilities at the IWMS while the disposal system is readied for SNF receipt. Cost considerations and other factors such as impact on timing of clearing reactor sites of SNF, efficient use of capital assets, and other metrics, including those which may be important to a CISF host community, are examined. Based on the analysis, an initial approach is presented targeting a continuous receipt strategy while having the flexibility to step up receipt capabilities to a reasonable degree when needed and beneficial within overall system constraints.

11 - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
NASA NTRS1996

Mass Storage and Retrieval at Rome Laboratory

As the speed and power of modern digital computers continues to advance, the demands on secondary mass storage systems grow. In many cases, the limitations of existing mass storage reduce the overall effectiveness of the computing system. Image storage and retrieval is one important area where improved storage technologies are required. Three dimensional optical memories offer the advantage of large data density, on the order of 1 Tb/cm(exp 3), and faster transfer rates because of the parallel nature of optical recording. Such a system allows for the storage of multiple-Gbit sized images, which can be recorded and accessed at reasonable rates. Rome Laboratory is currently investigating several techniques to perform three-dimensional optical storage including holographic recording, two-photon recording, persistent spectral-hole burning, multi-wavelength DNA recording, and the use of bacteriorhodopsin as a recording material. In this paper, the current status of each of these on-going efforts is discussed. In particular, the potential payoffs as well as possible limitations are addressed.

Kann, Joshua L.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Spacecraft attitude impacts on COLD-SAT non-vacuum jacketed LH2 supply tank thermal performance

The Cryogenic On-Orbit Liquid Depot - Storage, Acquisition and Transfer (COLD-SAT) spacecraft will be launched into low earth orbit to perform fluid management experiments on the behavior of subcritical liquid hydrogen (LH2). For determining the optimum on-orbit attitude for the COLD-SAT satellite, a comparative analytical study was performed to determine the thermal impacts of spacecraft attitude on the performance of the COLD-SAT non-vacuum jacketed LH2 supply tank. Tank thermal performance was quantified by total conductive and radiative heat leakage into the pressure vessel due to the absorbed solar, earth albedo and infra-red on-orbit fluxes, and also by the uniformity of the variation of this leakage on the vessel surface area. Geometric and thermal analysis math models were developed for the spacecraft and the tank as part of this analysis, based on their individual thermal/structural designs. Two quasi-inertial spacecraft attitudes were investigated and their effects on the tank performance compared. The results are one of the criteria by which the spacecraft orientation in orbit was selected for the in-house NASA Lewis Research Center design.

Arif, Hugh↗
NASA NTRS1990

Spacecraft attitude impacts on COLD-SAT non-vacuum jacketed LH2 supply tank thermal performance

The Cryogenic On-Orbit Liquid Depot - Storage, Acquisition and Transfer (COLD-SAT) spacecraft will be launched into low earth orbit to perform fluid management experiments on the behavior of subcritical liquid hydrogen (LH2). For determining the optimum on-orbit attitude for the COLD-SAT satellite, a comparative analytical study was performed to determine the thermal impacts of spacecraft attitude on the performance of the COLD-SAT non-vacuum jacketed LH2 supply tank. Tank thermal performance was quantitied by total conductive and radiative heat leakage into the pressure vessel due to the absorbed solar, earth albedo and infra-red on-orbit fluxes, and also by the uniformity of the variation of this leakage on the vessel surface area. Geometric and thermal analysis math models were developed for the spacecraft and the tank as part of this analysis, based on their individual thermal/structural designs. Two quasi-inertial spacecraft attitudes were investigated and their effects on the tank performance compared. The results are one of the criteria by which the spacecraft orientation in orbit was selected for the in-house NASA Lewis Research Center design.

Arif, Hugh↗
DOE OSTI2025

Reducing the Risk of Airborne Contamination through Intelligent Container Surveillance

DOE Manual 441.1-1 provides a set of performance criteria that nuclear material storage containers must achieve to provide protection to the worker, public, and environment. At Los Alamos National Laboratory, the SAVY-4000 is the container of choice for nuclear material storage, meeting all Manual requirements. At the outset, polymer components of the SAVY 4000 were considered to be life-limiting components due to their performance degradation resulting from radiation exposure. However, recent annual surveillance results revealed another life-limiting phenomenon for the container: a deterioration of the package integrity through corrosion of the stainless steel components, primarily the body. Container surveillance remains the choice method of observing, measuring, and tracking container health in service.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2025

Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Control of Energy Storage for Interarea Oscillation Damping

With the increasing electricity consumption and lack of transmission investment, today's power systems are operated much closer to their limits, raising concerns of inter-area oscillations that deteriorate the system stability. Here, this article presents a novel energy storage placement and control approach for enhanced damping of interarea oscillations. Combining the residual analysis and dominant mode analysis, we are able to identify the advantageous locations for placing energy storage that achieve improved damping performance. To overcome the challenges, such as fixed control parameters and insufficient damping, we propose to use a deep reinforcement learning-based approach for energy storage control. A state-of-the-art guided surrogate-gradient-based evolutionary strategy is used to train a learning agent in a robust, efficient, and reproducible manner. Parallel computing is also adopted to speed up the training process. The proposed strategy has been tested on both medium and large-scale systems. The proposed methods have demonstrated their effectiveness in mitigating various interarea oscillations within a timeframe of 20 s, thereby averting system collapse and enhancing power grid stability effectively.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Thermal Modeling of Advanced Test Reactor Fuel in a Generalized Dry Storage System Under Hypothetical Accident Conditions

Work was performed to investigate the thermal behavior of a sealed aluminum-clad spent nuclear fuel (ASNF) dry storage configuration under hypothetical accident conditions during long-term storage. The considered system consists of a concrete dry storage overpack; a welded over canister, backfilled with argon; and nine Department of Energy (DOE) standardized canisters (DOESCs) loaded with ASNF, backfilled with helium gas. One technical concern associated with the long-term storage of ASNF includes radiolytic hydrogen generation. The yield of large quantities of hydrogen could lead to DOESC over pressurization or a flammable internal atmosphere. While flammability concerns can be resolved by preventing the ingress of oxygen, the canister pressure is partially controlled by the atmosphere temperature. This memorandum summarizes the results of modeling and simulation (M&S) work completed with Star CCM+ (a computational fluid dynamics [CFD] software) considering the thermal effects of a fully engulfing flame and another scenario with the vent ports of the concrete dry storage overpack completely blocked. The goal was to determine the bounding maximum temperature of the DOESC internal atmosphere to evaluate a worst-case pressure scenario, as well as the critical vent port blockage durations.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Privateer

Privateer is a general-purpose data store that optimizes the tradeoff between storage space utilization and I/O performance. Privateer uses memory-mapped I/O with private mapping and an optimized writeback mechanism to maximize write parallelism and eliminate redundant writes; it also uses contentaddressable storage to optimize storage space via de-duplication.

Iwabuchi, Keita↗
DOE OSTI2021

Storage Futures Study: Economic Potential of Diurnal Storage in the U.S. Power Sector

We model the evolution of the U.S. electricity sector from 2020 through 2050 and find significant market potential (>125 GW) for diurnal energy storage across all 19 scenarios considered. Most of this storage has 4-6 hours of duration. We find that storage deployment is driven primarily by the combination of capacity value and energy time-shifting value, and that the combination of these value streams is needed for optimal storage deployment to be realized. We also find a strong correlation of PV penetration and storage market potential. Cost and performance metrics in this study focus on Li-ion batteries because the technology has more market maturity than other emerging technologies but results from this study can be generalized to any technologies that meet the cost and performance projections assumed.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Performance and Cost Potential for Direct-Fired Supercritical CO2 Natural Gas Power Plants

Direct-fired supercritical CO2 (sCO2) power cycles are being explored as an attractive alternative to natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS). Therefore, understanding their performance and cost potential is important for the commercialization of the technology. This study presents the techno-economic optimization results of natural gas-fired, utility-scale power plants based on the direct sCO2 power cycle, which are lacking in public literature. To identify the optimum plant configuration, the study considered multiple cases with varying levels of thermal integration with the plant air separation unit (ASU). Several design variables for each power cycle configuration were identified and optimized to minimize the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for each case. The optimization design variables include the sCO2 cooler outlet temperatures, recuperator approach temperatures, and pressure drops. High fidelity models for recuperators, coolers, and turbines were developed and used to capture the impact of design variables on plant efficiency and capital costs. The optimization was conducted using a combination of manual sensitivity analyses and automated derivative-free optimization algorithms available under NETL’s Framework for Optimization and Quantification of Uncertainty and Sensitivity platform. The optimized direct sCO2 power plants offered similar or slightly higher plant efficiencies than the reference NGCC plants based on the F-class gas turbine with CCS. The LCOE of the optimized direct sCO2 plants is 13 to 17% higher than the reference NGCC plants with CCS due to high capital costs associated with the ASU and sCO2 power block, though there is significant room for improvement due to the high uncertainty in component capital costs for these new plants. Recuperators make up over 50% of the sCO2 power block costs. Consequently, any research and development efforts to reduce the recuperator capital costs will benefit the technology’s commercialization. The study also presents preliminary results showing the impact of co-firing landfill gas and natural gas on plant efficiency, LCOE, and CO2 emissions.

Pidaparti, Sandeep↗
DOE OSTI2023

Performance and Cost Potential for Direct-Fired Supercritical CO2 Natural Gas Power Plants

Direct-fired supercritical CO2 (sCO2) power cycles are being explored as an attractive alternative to natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS). Therefore, understanding their performance and cost potential is important for the commercialization of the technology. This study presents the techno-economic optimization results of natural gas-fired, utility-scale power plants based on the direct sCO2 power cycle, which are lacking in public literature. To identify the optimum plant configuration, the study considered multiple cases with varying levels of thermal integration with the plant air separation unit (ASU). Several design variables for each power cycle configuration were identified and optimized to minimize the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for each case. The optimization design variables include the sCO2 cooler outlet temperatures, recuperator approach temperatures, and pressure drops. High fidelity models for recuperators, coolers, and turbines were developed and used to capture the impact of design variables on plant efficiency and capital costs. The optimization was conducted using a combination of manual sensitivity analyses and automated derivative-free optimization algorithms available under NETL’s Framework for Optimization and Quantification of Uncertainty and Sensitivity platform. The optimized direct sCO2 power plants offered similar or slightly higher plant efficiencies than the reference NGCC plants based on the F-class gas turbine with CCS. The LCOE of the optimized direct sCO2 plants is 13 to 17% higher than the reference NGCC plants with CCS due to high capital costs associated with the ASU and sCO2 power block, though there is significant room for improvement due to the high uncertainty in component capital costs for these new plants. Recuperators make up over 50% of the sCO2 power block costs. Consequently, any research and development efforts to reduce the recuperator capital costs will benefit the technology’s commercialization. The study also presents preliminary results showing the impact of co-firing landfill gas and natural gas on plant efficiency, LCOE, and CO2 emissions.

Pidaparti, Sandeep↗
DOE OSTI2020

Rational Designed Mixed-Conductive Sulfur Cathodes for All-Solid-State Lithium Batteries

All-solid-state lithium–sulfur batteries (ASSLSBs) hold great promise for safe and high-energy-density energy storage. However, developing high-performance sulfur cathodes has been proven difficult due to low electronic and ionic conductivities and large volume change of sulfur during charge and discharge. Here, we reported an approach to synthesize sulfur cathodes with a mixed electronic and ionic conductivity by infiltrating a solution consisting of Li 3 PS 4 (LPS) solid electrolyte and S active material into a mesoporous carbon (CMK-3). This approach leads to a uniform dispersion of amorphous Li 3 PS 7 (L 3 PS) catholyte in an electronically conductive carbon matrix, enabling high and balanced electronic/ionic conductivities in the cathode composite. The inherent porous structure of CMK-3 also helps to accommodate the strain/stress generated during the expansion and shrinkage of the active material. In sulfide-based all-solid-state batteries with Li metal as the anode, this cathode composite delivered a high capacity of 1025 mAh g –1 after 50 cycles at 60 °C at 1/8C. This work highlights the important role of high and balanced electronic and ionic conductivities in developing high-performance sulfur cathodes for ASSLSBs.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
NASA NTRS2014

Printable Spacecraft: Flexible Electronic Platforms for NASA Missions

Why printed electronics? Why should NASA use printed electronics to make a spacecraft? Three words provide the answer: universal, impactful, progressive. The technology is universal because the applications it can affect are broad and diverse from simple sensors to fully functional spacecraft. The impact of flexible, printed electronics range from straightforward mass, volume and cost savings all the way to enabling new mission concepts. The benefits of the technology will become progressively larger from what is achievable today so that investments will pay dividends tomorrow, next year and next decade. We started off three years ago asking the question can you build an entire spacecraft out of printed electronics? In other words, can you design and fabricate a fully integrated, electronic system that performs the same end-to-end functions of a spacecraft - take scientific measurements, perform data processing, provide data storage, transmit the data, powers itself, orients and propels itself - all out of thin flexible sheets of printed electronics? This "Printable Spacecraft" pushes the limits of printed flexible electronics performance. So the answer is yes, more or less. In our studies for the NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) program, we have explored this question further, to explain more completely what "more or less" means and to outline what is needed to make the answer a definitive "yes". Despite its appealing "Flat Stanley"-like (a book series by Jeff Brown) qualities, making a Printable Spacecraft is not as easy as flattening the Cassini spacecraft with a bulletin board, as was Stanley Lamchop's fate. But, if NASA invests in the design challenges, the materials challenges, the performance challenges of printed electronics, it might find itself with a spacecraft that can enable as many adventures and advantages as Flat Stanley including putting it in an envelope and mailing it to the planet of your choice. You just have to let your imagination take over. In this report we document the work of the Phase 2 Printable Spacecraft task conducted under the guidance and leadership of the NIAC program. In Phase One of the NIAC task entitled "Printable Spacecraft", we investigated the viability of printed electronics technologies for creating multi-functional spacecraft platforms. Mission concepts and architectures that could be enhanced or enabled with this technology were explored. In Phase 2 we tried to answer the more practical questions such as can you really build a multi-functional printed electronic spacecraft system? If you do, can it survive the space environment? Even if it can, what benefit does a printable system provide over a traditional implementation of a spacecraft?

Materials↗
DOE OSTI2025

Spent nuclear fuel receipt rate analysis within an integrated waste management system (IWMS) architecture that includes consolidated storage

A key parameter in analyzing the performance of an integrated waste management system (IWMS) architecture for the disposition of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is the SNF receipt rate from reactor and other custodian sites. Receipt rate in this paper means how much SNF is accepted per year for transport in the IWMS from such sites. Introducing one or more federal consolidated interim storage facilities (CISFs) into the IWMS architecture can potentially accelerate the receipt rate profile over time relative to system architectures without a CISF. This raises the question of what an optimal SNF receipt rate profile for an IWMS architecture might be in view of practical constraints and desired system performance attributes and associated metrics. This paper describes a sensitivity study on SNF receipt rates and the associated results for a selected set of IWMS scenarios aimed at informing near-term planning for interim storage capabilities and transportation assets. Two different strategies for CISF operation while awaiting availability of a disposal system to receive SNF are compared: one that relatively quickly fills an initial CISF and then idles the transportation system; and another that aims for more continuous use of transportation assets and receipt capabilities at the CISF. This study examines cost considerations and other factors, such as the timing of clearing reactor sites of SNF, efficient use of capital assets, and some other metrics that might be important to a CISF host community. Based on the analysis, an initial approach is presented that targets a continuous receipt strategy while maintaining the flexibility to step up receipt capabilities to a reasonable degree when needed and beneficial, within overall system constraints.

11 - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
NASA NTRS1978

SIMWEST - A simulation model for wind energy storage systems

This paper describes a comprehensive and efficient computer program for the modeling of wind energy systems with storage. The level of detail of SIMWEST (SImulation Model for Wind Energy STorage) is consistent with evaluating the economic feasibility as well as the general performance of wind energy systems with energy storage options. The software package consists of two basic programs and a library of system, environmental, and control components. The first program is a precompiler which allows the library components to be put together in building block form. The second program performs the technoeconomic system analysis with the required input/output, and the integration of system dynamics. An example of the application of the SIMWEST program to a current 100 kW wind energy storage system is given.

Edsinger, R. W.↗
NASA NTRS2009

A Review of State-of-the-Art Separator Materials for Advanced Lithium-Based Batteries for Future Aerospace Missions

As NASA embarks on a renewed human presence in space, safe, human-rated, electrical energy storage and power generation technologies, which will be capable of demonstrating reliable performance in a variety of unique mission environments, will be required. To address the future performance and safety requirements for the energy storage technologies that will enhance and enable future NASA Constellation Program elements and other future aerospace missions, advanced rechargeable, lithium-ion battery technology development is being pursued with an emphasis on addressing performance technology gaps between state-of-the-art capabilities and critical future mission requirements. The material attributes and related performance of a lithium-ion cell's internal separator component are critical for achieving overall optimal performance, safety and reliability. This review provides an overview of the general types, material properties and the performance and safety characteristics of current separator materials employed in lithium-ion batteries, such as those materials that are being assessed and developed for future aerospace missions.

Bladwin, Richard S.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Hvac: Removing I/O Bottleneck for Large-Scale Deep Learning Applications

Scientific communities are increasingly adopting deep learning (DL) models in their applications to accelerate scientific discovery processes. However, with rapid growth in the computing capabilities of HPC supercomputers, large-scale DL applications have to spend a significant portion of training time performing I/O to a parallel storage system. Previous research works have investigated optimization techniques such as prefetching and caching. Unfortunately, there exist non-trivial challenges to adopting the existing solutions on HPC supercomputers for large-scale DL training applications, which include non-performance and/or failures at extreme scale, lack of portability and generality in design, complex deployment methodology, and being limited to a specific application or dataset. To address these challenges, we propose High-Velocity AI Cache (HVAC), a distributed read-cache layer that targets and fully exploits the node-local storage or near node-local storage technology. HVAC seamlessly accelerates read I/O by aggregating node-local or near node-local storage, avoiding metadata lookups and file locking while preserving portability in the application code. We deploy and evaluate HVAC on 1,024 nodes (with over 6000 NVIDIA V100 GPUS) of the Summit supercomputer. In particular, we evaluate the scalability, efficiency, accuracy, and load distribution of HVAC compared to GPFS and XFS-on-NVMe. With four different DL applications, we observe an average 25 % performance improvement atop GPFS and 9% drop against XFS-on-NVMe, which scale linearly and are considered the performance upper bound. We envision HVAC as an important caching library for upcoming HPC supercomputers such as Frontier.

Khan, Awais↗
NASA NTRS1983

Advanced Control and Power System (ACAPS) Technology Program

The advanced control and power system (ACAPS) program is to establish the technology necessary to satisfy space station and related large space structures requirements for efficient, reliable, and cost effective energy storage and attitude control. Technology advances in the area of integrated flywheel systems capable of performing the dual functions of energy storage and attitude control are outlined.

Keckler, C. R.↗