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

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At least 667 records · Page 37
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Modeling Approach for the Aluminum-clad Dry Storage Pilot using HFIR Fuel

To confirm that the dry storage of aluminum-clad research reactor spent nuclear fuel (ASNF) will remain within the safety envelope after applied drying schemes and that the resulting evolution of the gas space composition, temperature, and pressure conditions are understood, a dry storage pilot project is being established. The pilot will incorporate an instrumented lid for discrete interval or for on-demand gas composition and temperature monitoring of two DOE Standard Canisters (DSCs) loaded with three High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) inner cores per DSC. Each DSC would be subjected to a separate alternative candidate drying scheme. Canisters will undergo 1 to 5 years of monitoring, including internal temperature and gas sampling to track pressure and composition changes. This report outlines the approach for modeling the ASNF-in-canister behavior in terms of evolving gas space conditions for the ASNF dry storage pilot using HFIR fuel. The ASNF has an adherent surface oxyhydroxide layer comprised of boehmite/bayerite that generates hydrogen when subjected to irradiation. Three-dimensional multi-physics computational fluid dynamics simulations will be executed to compute the thermal field within the DSC and provide inputs to a chemical model employed to compute pressure buildup as hydrogen is generated in the system. Implemented in Cantera, the chemical model solves gas phase and aluminum oxyhydroxide surface-mediated radiolysis reactions. Gas phase reactions are sourced from Wittman and Hanson (2015), whereas surface-mediated reactions are incorporated by fitting experimental data using an optimization algorithm (Abboud, 2023). Water radiolysis reactions from Wren and Ball (2001) are adopted with modifications as described in Abboud (2023c). Understanding the effect of the hydrogen buildup over time is important for long-term storage safety considerations. Modeling results will include the canister pressure, temperature, and composition evolution from the initial helium backfill with the addition of radiolytically-evolved chemical species (e.g., hydrogen and oxygen). The specific HFIR cores for the pilot program have not yet been selected, and the overall design is still in development. The CFD-chemical model used for this work will be based on prior models with necessary updates to allow for improved accuracy and efficiency. The experimental data obtained from the HFIR demonstration will be used to improve and validate the computational models to predict the ASNF-in-canister behavior.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2024

The Simons Observatory: Cryogenic half wave plate rotation mechanism for the small aperture telescopes

We present the requirements, design, and evaluation of the cryogenic continuously rotating half-wave plate (CHWP) for the Simons Observatory (SO). SO is a cosmic microwave background polarization experiment at Parque Astronómico de Atacama in northern Chile that covers a wide range of angular scales using both small (Ø0.42 m) and large (Ø6 m) aperture telescopes. In particular, the small aperture telescopes (SATs) focus on large angular scales for primordial B-mode polarization. To this end, the SATs employ a CHWP to modulate the polarization of the incident light at 8 Hz, suppressing atmospheric 1/f noise and mitigating systematic uncertainties that would otherwise arise due to the differential response of detectors sensitive to orthogonal polarizations. The CHWP consists of a 505 mm diameter achromatic sapphire HWP and a cryogenic rotation mechanism, both of which are cooled down to ~50 K to reduce detector thermal loading. Under normal operation, the HWP is suspended by a superconducting magnetic bearing and rotates with a constant 2 Hz frequency, controlled by an electromagnetic synchronous motor. We find that the number of superconductors and the number of magnets that make up the superconducting magnetic bearing are important design parameters, especially for the rotation mechanism’s vibration performance. The rotation angle is detected through an angular encoder with a noise level of 0.07 μrad √ $\overline{s}$. During a cooldown process, the rotor is held in place by a grip-and-release mechanism that serves as both an alignment device and a thermal path. In this paper, we provide an overview of the SO SAT CHWP: its requirements, hardware design, and laboratory performance.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2020

ENG 572 Final Report

Thermo-electric coolers (TECs) provide an essential function in many high-powered applications by diverting heat away from a temperature-sensitive load. This summer I have worked with Sandia National Laboratories in exploring the failure mechanisms behind said devices. I have been tasked with determining a plan of action for two TECs manufactured by two different companies labeled A and B respectively. Prior to my involvement in the project, the former has displayed failures during normal operation within its packaging. The latter was subsequently chosen to resolve these issues. Thermal cycling between the extreme expected operating temperatures (-40°C to 80°C) was applied to 5 unmounted TECAs over a period of 5 hours with 1-hour soaks at each extreme. The unmounted TECBs are currently undergoing the same process, and the task is expected to be completed over the next few weeks. The results of the TECA characterization have indicated no failure has occurred, which indicates that failure will need to be induced through either higher temperature extremes or additional mechanical stress.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Neutron Characterization of 3D Printed Gas Turbine Alloy With Internal Cooling Structure

The objective of this research work is to investigate the residual strains induced by the presence of a exit hole and internal hollow geometry present in a 3D printed IN718 similar to that seen in a gas turbine blade. The specimens were manufactured with an internal hollow structure that ended with an exit hole, and fabricated by direct metal laser sintering additive manufacturing technique. Using this technique, metal powder was melted by a laser source and rapidly cooled to form the part layer by layer. Rapid heating and cooling generate large thermal gradients and residual stresses in the 3D printed material. To be aligned with industry standards, specimens were heat-treated to relieve most of the residual stresses as well as to investigate whether IN718 still preserved a nonhomogeneous stress state after the thermal treatment. Roughness and microstructure analysis was performed to understand the heat-treated sample properties. To investigate the volumetric residual strain, the neutron diffraction technique was used with a definite neutron wavelength. Bragg’s law was used to determine lattice spacing. Interplanar lattice spacing and stress-free state lattice spacings were measured to calculate the strains. Residual strains were measured in the x and y direction to understand the impact of the presence of a exit hole and internal hollow geometry. The results of volumetric residual strain in the x and y directions showed no significant variations in the distribution of the strain due to the presence of a hollow structure as well as the exit hole. Overall, no significant stress concentration was observed in the heat treated sample. Sample geometry, instrumentation for neutron diffraction, and material properties are discussed in detail in this paper.

Raju, Nandhini↗
DOE OSTI2025

Status Report on Design of In-situ Thermomechanical Testing at LANSCE

Nuclear fuel encounters severe thermomechanical environments in which its mechanical response is determined by its microstructure, temperature and stress level histories. Simulating the response of such microstructures is crucial for predicting both performance and transient fuel mechanical responses and experimental verification of such predictions is therefore of great interest. While most of the deformation in a nuclear fuel rod occurs in the cladding, deformation of the fuel itself is still of interest with deformation mechanisms at operating temperature and above including creep, swelling, cracking as well as pellet-clad interaction. Characterization of these properties and understanding of the underlying deformation phenomena at operating or excursion temperatures is therefore of great importance for development and ultimately licensing of improved and novel nuclear fuel forms. Diffraction techniques offer unique insight on the atomistic (e.g. crystal structure) and microstructure (e.g. phase transformations, texture, defects) length scales and have a long history of providing unique data to inform relevant deformation models that enable the required predictive capabilities. For example, dislocations lead to diffraction peak broadening that can be characterized to estimate the dislocation density and study the role of dislocations on the deformation while measuring lattice strains allows to studie load sharing in two phase materials. In this report the requirements for a sample environment for high temperature deformation of nuclear fuels are defined. The HIPPO neutron time-of-flight diffractometer at LANSCE will host this sample environment and is also described. This instrument covers diffraction angles from 140° to 40° and is also equipped with an event-mode neutron imaging detector system, enabling energy-resolved neutron imaging in parallel with the diffraction that could measure sample temperature from Doppler broadening of neutron absorption resonances or measure pore densities from changes in the attenuation. Designs of devices to characterize thermomechanical properties of nuclear fuel without diffraction are also considered to guide the design. While this report is focused on applications for nuclear fuels, the device can also characterize cladding, moderator or structural materials and therefore contribute to other fields of research and development for advanced reactors. The temperatures planned to be reached are above 2000℃, thus enabling characterization of LWR reactor fuels under accident scenarios but also reaching temperatures of fuels developed for nuclear thermal propulsion and providing opportunities to characterize those. In conjunction with the energy-resolved neutron imaging detector, this setup would allow to measure neutron cross-sections at high temperatures, filling a gap towards development of reactors operating at high temperatures.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Radiative Cooling Paints: Application on Warehouses and Integration with Phase Change Materials

Despite extensive research on radiative cooling (RC), researchers are still working to understand its best implementation strategy and potential benefits. Understanding this could be an instrumental part of reducing building energy costs and combating climate change. In this work, we introduce two concepts to achieve this goal and broaden the application of RC paints. While building energy simulations for RC are common, most studies focus on single-layer paints in residential settings. Limited research exists on warehouses, and no literature has conducted multi-climate zone analyses or included RC technologies with >90% reflectance. As RC technology advances in efficiency, versatility, and affordability, large-scale simulations across diverse climates are crucial, particularly for warehouses as a passive indoor temperature control solution. Here, a TRNSYS-modeled single-story warehouse assesses the energy impact of BaSO4-based RC paints. Another under-explored RC application is its integration with phase change materials (PCMs), which provide thermal regulation via latent heat storage. Though RC and PCMs have been combined by placing PCMs atop, beneath, or within RC layers, studies focus on either experiments or modeling, with no validation between the two. Here, we develop a simple RC+PCM experimental and modeling setup, placing RC paint atop an aluminum cell filled with a Rubitherm PCM.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2020

Thermionic microwave gun for terahertz and synchrotron light sources

Conventional thermionic microwave and radiofrequency (RF) guns can offer high average beam current, which is important for synchrotron light and terahertz (THz) radiation source facilities, as well as for industrial applications. For example, the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory is a national synchrotron radiation light source research facility that utilizes thermionic RF guns. Yet, these existing thermionic guns are bulky, difficult to handle and install, easily detuned, very sensitive to thermal expansion, and are due for a major upgrade and replacement. Here, we present the design of a new, more stable and reliable gun with optimized electromagnetic performance, improved thermal engineering and a more robust cathode mounting technique, which is a critical step to improve the performance of existing and future light sources, industrial accelerators, and electron beam-driven terahertz sources. We will also present a fabricated gun prototype and show results of high-power and beam tests.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Boron-Based Neutron Scintillator Screens for Neutron Imaging

In digital neutron imaging, the neutron scintillator screen is a limiting factor of spatial resolution and neutron capture efficiency and must be improved to enhance the capabilities of digital neutron imaging systems. Commonly used neutron scintillators are based on 6 LiF and gadolinium oxysulfide neutron converters. This work explores boron-based neutron scintillators because 10 B has a neutron absorption cross-section four times greater than 6Li, less energetic daughter products than Gd and 6 Li, and lower γ-ray sensitivity than Gd. These factors all suggest that, although borated neutron scintillators may not produce as much light as 6 Li-based screens, they may offer improved neutron statistics and spatial resolution. This work conducts a parametric study to determine the effects of various boron neutron converters, scintillator and converter particle sizes, converter-to-scintillator mix ratio, substrate materials, and sensor construction on image quality. The best performing boron-based scintillator screens demonstrated an improvement in neutron detection efficiency when compared with a common 6 LiF/ZnS scintillator, with a 125% increase in thermal neutron detection efficiency and 67% increase in epithermal neutron detection efficiency. The spatial resolution of high-resolution borated scintillators was measured, and the neutron tomography of a test object was successfully performed using some of the boron-based screens that exhibited the highest spatial resolution. For some applications, boron-based scintillators can be utilized to increase the performance of a digital neutron imaging system by reducing acquisition times and improving neutron statistics.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2026

Spectral deconvolution without the deconvolution: Extracting temperature from x-ray Thomson scattering spectra without the source-and-instrument function

X-ray Thomson scattering (XRTS) probes the dynamic structure factor of the system, but the measured spectrum is broadened by the combined source-and-instrument function (SIF) of the setup. In order to extract properties such as temperature from an XRTS spectrum, the broadening by the SIF needs to be removed. Recent work [Dornheim et al. Nat. Commun. 13 , 7911 (2022)] has suggested that the SIF may be deconvolved using the two-sided Laplace transform. However, the extracted information can depend strongly on the shape of the input SIF, and the SIF is in practice challenging to measure accurately. Here, we propose an alternative approach: we demonstrate that considering ratios of Laplace-transformed XRTS spectra collected at different scattering angles is equivalent to performing the deconvolution, but without the need for explicit knowledge of the SIF. From these ratios, it is possible to directly extract the temperature from the scattering spectra, when the system is in thermal equilibrium. We find the method to be generally robust to spectral noise and physical differences between the spectrometers, and we explore situations in which the method breaks down. Furthermore, the fact that consistent temperatures can be extracted for systems in thermal equilibrium indicates that non-equilibrium effects could be identified by inconsistent temperatures of a few eV between the ratios of three or more scattering angles.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

In situ cryogenic characterization of proton damage in thick p-channel skipper CCDs

Skipper charge-coupled devices (CCDs) are an offshoot of standard silicon pixel detectors and are capable of performing repeated non-destructive charge measurements, enabling deeply sub-electron readout noise. This capability has opened the door to single-photon counting from the near-infrared ($\sim$1.1 $μ$m) to the soft X-ray (several keV), making these devices strong candidates for future astronomical instruments operating in the photon-starved limit. Furthermore, the p-channel architecture used to fabricate Skipper CCDs on n-type silicon has been demonstrated to have an increased hardness to the intense radiation environment of space. Building upon previous irradiation campaigns on room-temperature sensors, here we describe the first radiation-hardness tests of p-channel skipper CCDs at their cryogenic operating temperatures. We assess the performance of the floating-gate output stage and global CCD parameters (charge transfer inefficiency, dark current, hot pixels, and charge traps). We find that these devices maintain excellent performance after displacement damage doses equivalent to ${\sim}$10 years at the Earth/Sun L2 Lagrange point, demonstrating for the first time that these sensors remain radiation-hard in realistic deep-space thermal and radiation environments.

Roach, Brandon M. [Chicago U., KICP] (ORCID:000000↗
DOE OSTI2024

Large area position sensitive detector for thermal neutrons

Large area thermal neutron detectors are applied in many fields including industrial imaging, nuclear safeguarding, neutron scattering, and fundamental science. Historically, these detectors were based on 3 He gas proportional counters despite the limitations of 3 He detectors such as high cost, limited supply, non-uniform spatial resolution, and depth of absorption problems. Two alternatives to 3 He detectors are 6 Li-loaded glass scintillators, and powdered ZnS(Ag) scintillators mixed with 6LiF neutron converters. The 6 LiF/ZnS(Ag) scintillator has advantages over 6 Li glass as it is less expensive and can be produced in larger areas, although its self-absorption presents a problem. In this work, we developed a large area thermal neutron detector based on 6 LiF/ZnS(Ag) scintillator coupled with wavelength shifting fibers. The detector uses resistive charge divider-based position encoding. We further modified and improved the method by 2D segmentation of the detector using modular multichannel readout electronics. This segmentation approach allows for a combination of large detector area, improved spatial resolution, and increased count rate. Furthermore, spatial resolution can be variable across the detector area by adjusting the segment size.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2023

Workshop on Addressing Rigor and Reproducibility in Thermal, Heterogeneous Catalysis

Heterogeneous catalysis has long served as the bedrock of the manufacturing of energy carriers, fuels and chemicals, and various technologies for pollution abatement. The significant complexity and variability spanning the entire breadth of catalyst material properties, synthesis methods, characterization techniques, and evaluation procedures, has focused attention on the need to establish community-accepted best practices for ensuring high-quality, benchmarked, and reproducible data. In addition, increased societal urgency to transition to clean energy and reduce greenhouse gas concentrations has incentivized interdisciplinary, convergent, and translational approaches to catalysis research in recent years. Research engineers and scientists with expertise cutting broadly across materials science, chemical synthesis, interfacial science, spectroscopy, and methods of data science and computational simulation, all bring diverse and important perspectives to catalysis research, but often with little awareness of the complexity of catalytic systems, especially in their working environment. As has already occurred in other scientific fields, there has been growing recognition and consensus in the heterogeneous catalysis research community that mechanisms are needed to improve the rigor and reproducibility (R&R) of experimental measurements, to ensure alignment of the broader research community with a common core of best practices specific to the realization of high-quality catalysis research. Similarly, the field is moving rapidly toward computationally informed and data science-driven catalyst design, but the success of implementing such predictive tools hinges on model training and validation rooted in rigorously obtained and reproducible experimental data that are benchmarked to common specifications. As such, this workshop was convened to prepare a report summarizing best practices for reporting data and performing experiments that researchers can use to benchmark, validate, and reproduce data in specific sub-fields of thermal, heterogeneous catalysis. Additionally, we discussed recommendations for future actions that may improve R&R in this field. The workshop organizers and participants include a diverse range of catalysis researchers from various employment sectors (e.g., academia, industry, national laboratory), institutional mission and resources (e.g., PhD-granting research universities, non-PhD-granting teaching universities), career stage (e.g., early, mid and late-career), technical expertise, and demographic background. This diverse group was involved in the discussion of workshop agenda items, writing this report, and discussing possible future action items for the community to consider, which helped ensure that a broad range of perspectives were captured in the description of the problems at hand and the creation of actionable solutions that may be effectively adopted by the diverse practitioners in catalysis research. Importantly, this group of workshop participants also included very early career researchers (e.g., senior PhD students, postdoctoral scholars) who will become the next generation of scientific leaders in various sectors, thus capturing emerging perspectives of newcomers to the field to shape its future while positively impacting the development of its future workforce. We envision that this effort will help advance the field of catalysis science by improving the rigor and reproducibility of experimental data collected by current researchers and future newcomers to the field, which is of broad importance to health and vitality of any scientific discipline. Therefore, best practices identified in this endeavor for thermal heterogeneous catalysis can be translated to such efforts in other areas of catalysis and other scientific fields involving the study of materials, and vice versa. We also envision this to be an ongoing effort, with future workshops that are convened to discuss issues of rigor and reproducibility on technical topics that were unable to be covered in this workshop due to its scope limitations, and as emerging methods and materials become more prevalent in the research community.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Use of Machine Learning for Signature Development in a Multi-Sensor Environment for Safeguard Applications of Solvent Extraction Processes

Idaho National Laboratory is constructing the Special Nuclear Material test bed (Beartooth) for research and development pertaining to nuclear fuel processing operations using centrifugal contactors. Beartooth will enable give researchers the opportunity to study the dissolution, separation, and conversion of special nuclear materials (e.g., plutonium, enriched uranium, and thorium). As a lead-in to Beartooth, this project constructed a test bed to study the process and equipment behavior with real time series data collection using a variety of non-traditional sensors, in order to identify process failures and label them as either accidental or purposeful, thus enhancing nuclear nonproliferation stewardship. The measurement sources in this test bed include vibration, acoustic, current, flow, colorimetric, and thermal data. These measurements vary in terms of magnitude, frequency, and location. This information will be combined and used within data-driven machine-learning methods to detect operation condition changes that are either intentional (i.e., changes in operating set points) or malicious (i.e., flow diversion) in nature. This presentation covers the data processing and signature development activities necessary for utilizing this heterogeneous dataset to classify process anomalies.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2020

Simons Observatory Microwave SQUID Multiplexing Readout: Cryogenic RF Amplifier and Coaxial Chain Design

The Simons Observatory (SO) is an upcoming polarization-sensitive cosmic microwave background experiment on the Cerro Toco Plateau (Chile) with large overlap with other optical and infrared surveys (e.g., DESI, LSST, HSC). To enable the readout of O(10,000) detectors in each of the four telescopes of SO, we will employ the microwave SQUID multiplexing technology. With a targeted multiplexing factor of O(1000), microwave SQUID multiplexing has never been deployed on the scale needed for SO. Here we present the design of the cryogenic coaxial cable and RF component chain that connects room temperature readout electronics to superconducting resonators that are coupled to transition edge sensor bolometers operating at sub-Kelvin temperatures. We describe design considerations including cryogenic RF component selection, system linearity, noise, and thermal power dissipation.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2020

GeMini: A High-Resolution, Low-Resource, Gamma-Ray Spectrometer for Planetary Science Applications

GeMini is a high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometer designed for planetary-science exploration. GeMini serves as the basis for instruments being flown on three upcoming deep-space missions: NASA’s mission to the M-class asteroid (16) Psyche, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency sample-return mission to the moons of Mars, and NASA’s Dragonfly mission that will land on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. These science missions require high-resolution spectroscopy in a low-power, low-mass, rugged design that can survive in a variety of environments. GeMini addresses these needs by providing a cryogenically cooled crystal of high-purity germanium that can operate with as little as 10 to 20 watts, depending on the implementation and mission, and has a mass of less than 2 kg. GeMini helps determine the elemental composition of planetary bodies by measuring gamma rays emitted from the surface. This paper describes the mechanical, thermal, and electrical design of GeMini as well as its performance. Further, it describes testing that was performed to validate the design with respect to launch loads and radiation damage. Although the basic design of GeMini is common to all three missions, each planetary body has unique environmental conditions and mission specifications. This paper concludes by describing these upcoming missions and how GeMini is customized for each.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Measuring Local Turbulence Along the Optical Path: Multi-Beam Optical Seeing Sensor

Deflection of light along the optical path is a major source of image degradation for ground-based telescopes. Methods have been developed to measure upper atmospheric seeing based on models of the turbulence in the atmosphere, but due to boundary conditions, transmission within telescope enclosures is more complex. The Multi-beam Optical Seeing Sensor (MOSS) directly measures the component of the image quality degradation from inhomogeneity of the index of refraction within the telescope dome. MOSS outputs four near-parallel beams of light that travel along the optical path and are imaged by the telescope’s detector, landing like starlight on the telescope’s focal plane. By using a strobed light source, we can ‘freeze’ the instantaneous index variations transverse to the optical path. This system captures both ‘dome’ and ‘mirror’ seeing. Through plotting the standard deviation of differential motion between pairs of beams, MOSS enables characterization of the length scale of turbulence within the dome. The temporal coherence of temperature gradients can be probed with different pulse lengths, and the spatial coherence by comparing pairs at different separations across the aperture of the telescope. Optical path turbulence measurements, alongside other telemetry metrics, will guide thermal and airflow management to optimize image quality. A MOSS prototype was installed in the 1.2[Formula: see text]m Auxiliary Telescope (AuxTel) at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, and preliminary data constrain the optical path turbulence with a lower bound of 1.4 arcsec. The optical path turbulence varied throughout the night of observing.

Astronomical seeing↗
DOE OSTI2022

Preliminary Sensitivity Analysis for Sensors Impacts on Building Control Performance

This report describes the preliminary sensitivity analysis for sensor impacts on building control performance through the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Flexible Research Platform (FRP-2) building. The rooftop unit system provides cooling and heating to the building. The main heating coil is a gas heating coil. Each zone is served by a variable air volume box with an electricity reheat coil. The rooftop unit and variable air volume box controls adopted the practical control sequences from ASHRAE Guideline 36-2018: High-Performance Sequences of Operation. For sensors, the incipient (time-changing) sensor errors, including bias sensor error and precision sensor error, are the inputs of interest. The outputs are energy consumption and thermal comfort (e.g., the predicted percentage of dissatisfied occupants). The large-scale simulation (3,600 cases) was conducted on a cloud platform by integrating sensor errors and ASHRAE Guideline 36 control sequences into an emulator based on the EnergyPlus simulation program with Python energy management system feature. The surrogate models were developed based on cloud simulation results. The uncertainty analysis showed that the sensor errors substantially affect building energy consumption and thermal comfort. The sensitivity analysis shows a ranking of sensor error impacts for each interested output item (e.g., cooling energy, reheat coil heating energy, predicted percentage of dissatisfied occupants). In FY 2022, sensor locations, types, and costs will be evaluated. The field test in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Flexible Research Platform building regarding sensor impacts will also be performed. Finally, a comparative analysis will be conducted based on the field test results and emulator results.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2020

CryoTARPOS Vibration Mitigation System for Layered Experiments

The goal of this project is to implement a system that can eliminate or mitigate vibration so that clear images can be taken without bypassing the cryocooler. By allowing for layer characterization and cryocooler operation at the same time, cooling capacity and thermal stability of the target would be improved, and more layer characterization data could be taken. Increased cooling capacity and thermal stability could allow for layering during occasional off normal conditions that would typically result in a loss of temperature control and NIF operational delays ranging from several hours to several days per month. The increased cooling capacity and thermal stability could also allow for layering of new target platforms that have less cooling margin. Additional layer images could be used for better characterization of defects and non-uniformities in the layer and would reduce the likelihood of layer seed loss, which typically adds ~12 hours per week in layering time. Motion blur from vibration due to off normal activity in the NIF Target Bay could also be mitigated that would usually result in NIF operational delays of several hours every month.

42 ENGINEERING↗