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DOE OSTI2022

The quest to understand the fundamental structure of nuclear matter – outlook to QCD and the Electron-Ion Collider

Nuclear matter is made of quarks that are bound by gluons that also bind themselves. Unlike with the more familiar atomic and molecular matter, the interactions and structures in nuclear matter are inextricably mixed up, and observed properties of nucleons and nuclei, such as mass and spin, emerge out of this complex system. Ongoing and future QCD research offers the exciting prospect to obtain a multi-dimensional picture of the inner quark-gluon structure of protons and atomic nuclei and to inform us how the properties and structure of nuclear matter have emerged from the dynamics of QCD. This program is initiated at the 12-GeV Upgraded Jefferson Lab, concentrating on imaging the region in nucleon and nuclear structure where quarks prevail. A future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) is planned at Brookhaven National Lab, in partnership with Jefferson Lab. The EIC will have a versatile range of beam energies, polarizations, and ion species, as well as high luminosity, to precisely image quarks, gluons, and their interactions in protons and complex atomic nuclei. The goal is an understanding of the internal structure of nuclear matter comparable to our knowledge of the electronic structure of atoms. The present status of the EIC will also be presented.

Ent, Rolf↗

DOE OSTI2026

Controversy and consensus: common ground and best practices for life cycle assessment of emerging technologies

This manuscript explores six controversial topics regarding LCA of emerging technologies: (1) appropriate use of LCA, (2) uncertainty assessment, (3) comparison with incumbents, (4) adopting standards, (5) system scale-up, and (6) stakeholder engagement. These topics encompass key issues vigorously debated during a series of workshop-style discussions convened by the LCA of Emerging Technologies Research Network (currently hosted by ACLCA). This paper represents the main points of support and opposition for a declarative resolution representing each topic, along with points of consensus, held amongst research network of LCA practitioners and experts. These debates and associated open questions are intended to build awareness amongst practitioners and decision-makers of the common challenges associated with assessing emerging technologies, while fostering evidence-based and context-informed discussions that are both transparent and impactful for the broader community.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2024

Leveraging generative AI for urban digital twins: a scoping review on the autonomous generation of urban data, scenarios, designs, and 3D city models for smart city advancement

The digital transformation of modern cities by integrating advanced information, communication, and computing technologies has marked the epoch of data-driven smart city applications for efficient and sustainable urban management. Despite their effectiveness, these applications often rely on massive amounts of high-dimensional and multi-domain data for monitoring and characterizing different urban sub-systems, presenting challenges in application areas that are limited by data quality and availability, as well as costly efforts for generating urban scenarios and design alternatives. As an emerging research area in deep learning, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) models have demonstrated their unique values in content generation. This paper aims to explore the innovative integration of GenAI techniques and urban digital twins to address challenges in the planning and management of built environments with focuses on various urban sub-systems, such as transportation, energy, water, and building and infrastructure. The survey starts with the introduction of cutting-edge generative AI models, such as the Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN), Variational Autoencoders (VAEs), Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT), followed by a scoping review of the existing urban science applications that leverage the intelligent and autonomous capability of these techniques to facilitate the research, operations, and management of critical urban subsystems, as well as the holistic planning and design of the built environment. Based on the review, we discuss potential opportunities and technical strategies that integrate GenAI models into the next-generation urban digital twins for more intelligent, scalable, and automated smart city development and management.

3D city modeling↗

DOE OSTI2022

Supply sunspots and shadows: Business siting patterns and inequitable rooftop solar adoption in the United States

Entrepreneurs in certain industries tend to locate new businesses in relatively affluent areas. Preferences to site businesses in affluent areas can reduce low-income household access to certain products. Some argue that business siting patterns could explain inequitable consumption patterns, though such causal claims are often empirically weak. Here, we explore whether business siting patterns partly explain inequitable adoption of rooftop solar photovoltaics in California. We show that solar business formation drives an immediate and sustained increase in local solar adoption, including in low-income areas. However, solar business siting patterns have only weak impacts on solar adoption equity. The data show how solar businesses headquartered in low-income areas nonetheless install solar for relatively affluent customers. Customer-level adoption inequity partly offsets the potential equity gains of siting more businesses in low-income areas. We discuss how the emergent nature and unique business model of rooftop solar help explain these nuanced results.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2020

Collaborative Research: Improved Efficiency and Coupling of the Radiation Code in the ACME Earth System Model. Final Report

This final report details all work performed on the project by both project partners. This project provided support to properly couple RTE+RRTMGP, a high-performance broadband radiation code, within DOE’s Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM). RTE+RRTMGP is a successor to the RRTMG radiation code, which has been widely accepted for its speed and accuracy by the global modeling community, and has been in use in the NCAR CESM for many years and was implemented in the initial version of E3SM. However, the computational cost of RRTMG remains high relative to other components in part due to its complexity and to its inefficient use of modern optimization strategies, issues that were rectified by the development of RTE+RRTMGP. Many of the accomplishment in this project necessitated significant collaboration with the E3SM development team. One focus of the project was to enhance the code’s optimization on the limited number of emerging computing systems on which the model is expected be used, including Many Integrated Core (MIC) architectures and Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) hardware. We also developed additional capabilities for RTE+RRTMGP that E3SM scientists identified as important for the planned applications of the model. The result of our project was optimization of a key physical component (radiative transfer calculations) of E3SM, directly supporting E3SM’s overarching global modeling objectives. More broadly, this project provided overall advancements in the use of radiative transfer calculations in atmospheric modeling and simulation, particularly for climate.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2023

The Present and Future of QCD: QCD Town Meeting White Paper – An Input to the 2023 NSAC Long Range Plan

It is currently understood that there are four fundamental forces in nature: gravitational, electromagnetic, weak and strong forces. The strong force governs the interactions between quarks and gluons, elementary particles whose interactions give rise to the vast majority of visible mass in the universe. The mathematical description of the strong force is provided by the non-Abelian gauge theory Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). While QCD is an exquisite theory, constructing the nucleons and nuclei from quarks, and furthermore explaining the behavior of quarks and gluons at all energies, remain to be complex and challenging problems. Such challenges, along with the desire to understand all visible matter at the most fundamental level, position the study of QCD as a central thrust of research in nuclear science. Experimental insight into the strong force can be gained using large particle accelerator facilities, which are necessary to probe the very short distance scales over which quarks and gluons interact. The Long Range Plans (LRPs) exercise of 1989 and 1996 led directly to the construction of two world-class facilities: the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) at Jefferson Lab (JLab) that is focused on studying how the structure of hadrons emerges from QCD (cold QCD research), and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Lab (BNL) that aims at the discovery and study of a new state of matter, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), at extremely high temperatures (hot QCD research). These past investments have produced major advances. Nucleons and nuclei are being studied with increasing precision with a unified description of the partonic structure utilizing multi-dimensional imaging. Significant progress has been made, paving the way towards a complete picture of how quarks and gluons give rise to the mass, spin, and momentum of the nucleon. In hot QCD, the QGP is created in the collisions of nuclei at RHIC and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and is observed to behave like a fluid with very low specific shear viscosity; the current goals are to understand how the fluid behavior emerges from QCD and to characterize the temperature (and chemical potential) dependence of the properties of the QGP. As this White Paper is written, current experimental programs at CEBAF, RHIC and the LHC continue to provide exciting near term opportunities to capitalize on the investments in experimental equipment and accelerator operations. Most importantly, the QCD community looks forward to the construction of the Electron Ion Collider (EIC) as a major new facility to push forward QCD research in the next decades, with significant focus on exploring the properties of gluons, the mediators of the strong force.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Addressing Regulatory Challenges to Tribal Solar Deployment

This project, Addressing Regulatory Challenges to Tribal Solar Deployment, seeks to unlock some of this potential by bringing Tribal, regulatory, utility, and other stakeholders together to articulate key barriers to Tribal solar adoption and develop replicable solutions. By increasing institutional capacity and developing frameworks, trainings, and a technical document repository for regulatory bodies, utilities, and Tribes, this project can help expand an emerging market.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2025

Shared and Ownership Mobility Technologies in the US: Data Availability and Usage Trends

This report supports the vision for a more sustainable transportation future by summarizing and analyzing the latest data on new mobility technologies, including ridesharing, shared and privately owned bikes, e-bikes, and scooters that have emerged over the past two decades. Having access to accurate and current data that is representative of new mobility systems and individual usage of these systems across different parts of the country is critical for researchers, city and regional planning professionals, and current and potential industry technology developers to better understand and forecast usage trends both nationwide as well as across different existing and potential future markets across the country. Building on the previous study published in 2022, this report incorporates the latest available market and usage data on new mobility technologies and compares usage by Chicago and New York City demographic characteristics. Moreover, this report includes recent developments and insights on privately owned micromobility technologies. Our analysis found that more downtown areas in Chicago show high per capita usage for all three modes than in the previous study, likely due to the full launch of shared e-scooter systems citywide in 2022. Notably, the majority of high shared mobility usage is concentrated in high-income, densely populated downtown areas in Chicago, which also have good public transit access. In contrast, TNC and bikeshare usage hotspots in central Manhattan are more widely distributed, though also appear to be shaped by the geography of the public transit system. Analysis of privately owned micromobility shows that the greatest energy savings occurred when e-bikes replaced single-occupancy vehicle (SOV) trips (i.e., gasoline-powered cars driven alone). Based on the literature review and analysis results, we also make recommendations for supporting the development of both shared and privately owned micromobility programs.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

NASA NTRS2007

Spaceflight Decompression Sickness Contingency Plan

A viewgraph presentation on the Decompression Sickness (DCS) Contingency Plan for manned spaceflight is shown. The topics include: 1) Approach; 2) DCS Contingency Plan Overview; 3) Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Cuff Classifications; 4) On-orbit Treatment Philosophy; 5) Long Form Malfunction Procedure (MAL); 6) Medical Checklist; 7) Flight Rules; 8) Crew Training; 9) Flight Surgeon / Biomedical Engineer (BME) Training; and 10) DCS Emergency Landing Site.

Dervay, Joseph P.↗

NASA NTRS2018

Satellite Sensor Requirements for Monitoring Essential Biodiversity Variables of Coastal Ecosystems

The biodiversity and high productivity of coastal terrestrial and aquatic habitats are the foundation for important benefits to human societies around the world. These globally distributed habitats need frequent and broad systematic assessments, but field surveys only cover a small fraction of these areas. Satellite-based sensors can repeatedly record the visible and near-infrared reflectance spectra that contain the absorption, scattering, and fluorescence signatures of functional phytoplankton groups, colored dissolved matter, and particulate matter near the surface ocean, and of biologically structured habitats (floating and emergent vegetation, benthic habitats like coral, seagrass, and algae). These measures can be incorporated into Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs), including the distribution, abundance, and traits of groups of species populations, and used to evaluate habitat fragmentation. However, current and planned satellites are not designed to observe the EBVs that change rapidly with extreme tides, salinity, temperatures, storms, pollution, or physical habitat destruction over scales relevant to human activity. Making these observations requires a new generation of satellite sensors able to sample with these combined characteristics: (1) spatial resolution on the order of 30 to 100-m pixels or smaller; (2) spectral resolution on the order of 5 nm in the visible and 10 nm in the short-wave infrared spectrum (or at least two or more bands at 1,030, 1,240, 1,630, 2,125, and/or 2,260 nm) for atmospheric correction and aquatic and vegetation assessments; (3) radiometric quality with signal to noise ratios (SNR) above 800 (relative to signal levels typical of the open ocean), 14-bit digitization, absolute radiometric calibration less than 2%, relative calibration of 0.2%, polarization sensitivity less than 1%, high radiometric stability and linearity, and operations designed to minimize sunglint; and (4) temporal resolution of hours to days. We refer to these combined specifications as H4 imaging. Enabling H4 imaging is vital for the conservation and management of global biodiversity and ecosystem services, including food provisioning and water security. An agile satellite in a 3-d repeat low-Earth orbit could sample 30-km swath images of several hundred coastal habitats daily. Nine H4 satellites would provide weekly coverage of global coastal zones. Such satellite constellations are now feasible and are used in various applications.

aquatic↗

NASA NTRS1994

On-board emergent scheduling of autonomous spacecraft payload operations

This paper describes a behavioral competency level concerned with emergent scheduling of spacecraft payload operations. The level is part of a multi-level subsumption architecture model for autonomous spacecraft, and it functions as an action selection system for processing a spacecraft commands that can be considered as 'plans-as-communication'. Several versions of the selection mechanism are described, and their robustness is qualitatively compared.

Lindley, Craig A.↗

NASA NTRS2006

Fusing Quantitative Requirements Analysis with Model-based Systems Engineering

A vision is presented for fusing quantitative requirements analysis with model-based systems engineering. This vision draws upon and combines emergent themes in the engineering milieu. "Requirements engineering" provides means to explicitly represent requirements (both functional and non-functional) as constraints and preferences on acceptable solutions, and emphasizes early-lifecycle review, analysis and verification of design and development plans. "Design by shopping" emphasizes revealing the space of options available from which to choose (without presuming that all selection criteria have previously been elicited), and provides means to make understandable the range of choices and their ramifications. "Model-based engineering" emphasizes the goal of utilizing a formal representation of all aspects of system design, from development through operations, and provides powerful tool suites that support the practical application of these principles. A first step prototype towards this vision is described, embodying the key capabilities. Illustrations, implications, further challenges and opportunities are outlined.

optimization↗

NASA NTRS2011

Cardiovascular Aspects of Space Shuttle Flights: At the Heart of Three Decades of American Spaceflight Experience

The advent of the Space Shuttle era elevated cardiovascular deconditioning from a research topic in gravitational physiology to a concern with operational consequences during critical space mission phases. NASA has identified three primary cardiovascular risks associate with short-duration (less than 18 d) spaceflight: orthostatic intolerance; decreased maximal oxygen uptake; and cardiac arrhythmias. Orthostatic hypotension (OH) was observed postflight in Mercury astronauts, studied in Gemini and Apollo astronauts, and tracked as it developed in-flight during Skylab missions. A putative hypotensive episode in the pilot during an early shuttle landing, and well documented postflight hypotension in a quarter of crewmembers, catalyzed NASA's research effort to understand its mechanisms and develop countermeasures. Shuttle investigations documented the onset of OH, tested mechanistic hypotheses, and demonstrated countermeasures both simple and complex. Similarly, decreased aerobic capacity in-flight threatened both extravehicular activity and post-landing emergency egress. In one study, peak oxygen uptake and peak power were significantly decreased following flights. Other studies tested hardware and protocols for aerobic conditioning that undergird both current practice on long-duration International Space Station (ISS) missions and plans for interplanetary expeditions. Finally, several studies suggest that cardiac arrhythmias are of less concern during short-duration spaceflight than during long-duration spaceflight. Duration of the QT interval was unchanged and the frequency of premature atrial and ventricular contractions was actually shown to decrease during extravehicular activity. These investigations on short-duration Shuttle flights have paved the way for research aboard long-duration ISS missions and beyond. Efforts are already underway to study the effects of exploration class missions to asteroids and Mars.

Charles, John B.↗

NASA NTRS2012

An Overview of the NOAA Drought Task Force

The charge of the NOAA Drought Task Force is to coordinate and facilitate the various MAPP-funded research efforts with the overall goal of achieving significant advances in understanding and in the ability to monitor and predict drought over North America. In order to achieve this, the task force has developed a Drought Test-bed that individual research groups can use to test/evaluate methods and ideas. Central to this is a focus on three high profile North American droughts (1998-2004 western US drought, 2006-2007 SE US drought, 2011- current Tex-Mex drought) to facilitate collaboration among projects, including the development of metrics to assess the quality of monitoring and prediction products, and the development of an experimental drought monitoring and prediction system that incorporates and assesses recent advances. This talk will review the progress and plans of the task force, including efforts to help advance official national drought products, and the development of early warning systems by the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS). Coordination with other relevant national and international efforts such as the emerging NMME capabilities and the international effort to develop a Global Drought Information System (GDIS) will be discussed.

Schubert, S.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Core Noise: Overview of Upcoming LDI Combustor Test

This presentation is a technical summary of and outlook for NASA-internal and NASA-sponsored external research on core (combustor and turbine) noise funded by the Fundamental Aeronautics Program Fixed Wing Project. The presentation covers: the emerging importance of core noise due to turbofan design trends and its relevance to the NASA N+3 noise-reduction goal; the core noise components and the rationale for the current emphasis on combustor noise; and the current and planned research activities in the combustor-noise area. Two NASA-sponsored research programs, with particular emphasis on indirect combustor noise, "Acoustic Database for Core Noise Sources", Honeywell Aerospace (NNC11TA40T) and "Measurement and Modeling of Entropic Noise Sources in a Single-Stage Low-Pressure Turbine", U. Illinois/U. Notre Dame (NNX11AI74A) are briefly described. Recent progress in the development of CMC-based acoustic liners for broadband noise reduction suitable for turbofan-core application is outlined. Combustor-design trends and the potential impacts on combustor acoustics are discussed. A NASA GRC developed nine-point lean-direct-injection (LDI) fuel injector is briefly described. The modification of an upcoming thermo-acoustic instability evaluation of the GRC injector in a combustor rig to also provide acoustic information relevant to community noise is presented. The NASA Fundamental Aeronautics Program has the principal objective of overcoming today's national challenges in air transportation. The reduction of aircraft noise is critical to enabling the anticipated large increase in future air traffic. The Quiet Performance Research Theme of the Fixed Wing Project aims to develop concepts and technologies to dramatically reduce the perceived community noise attributable to aircraft with minimal impact on weight and performance.

Hultgren, Lennart S.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Shields-1, A SmallSat Radiation Shielding Technology Demonstration

The NASA Langley Research Center Shields CubeSat initiative is to develop a configurable platform that would allow lower cost access to Space for materials durability experiments, and to foster a pathway for both emerging and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) radiation shielding technologies to gain spaceflight heritage in a relevant environment. The Shields-1 will be Langleys' first CubeSat platform to carry out this mission. Radiation shielding tests on Shields-1 are planned for the expected severe radiation environment in a geotransfer orbit (GTO), where advertised commercial rideshare opportunities and CubeSat missions exist, such as Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1). To meet this objective, atomic number (Z) graded radiation shields (Zshields) have been developed. The Z-shield properties have been estimated, using the Space Environment Information System (SPENVIS) radiation shielding computational modeling, to have ~30% increased shielding effectiveness of electrons, at half the thickness of a corresponding single layer of aluminum. The Shields-1 research payload will be made with the Z-graded radiation shields of varying thicknesses to create dose-depth curves to be compared with baseline materials. Additionally, Shields-1 demonstrates an engineered Z-grade radiation shielding vault protecting the systems' electronic boards. The radiation shielding materials' performances will be characterized using total ionizing dose sensors. Completion of these experiments is expected to raise the technology readiness levels (TRLs) of the tested atomic number (Z) graded materials. The most significant contribution of the Z-shields for the SmallSat community will be that it enables cost effective shielding for small satellite systems, with significant volume constraints, while increasing the operational lifetime of ionizing radiation sensitive components. These results are anticipated to increase the development of CubeSat hardware design for increased mission lifetimes, and enable out of low earth orbit (LEO) missions by using these tested material concepts as shielding for sensitive components and new spaceflight hardware

Thomsen, D. Laurence, III↗

NASA NTRS2023

Drought and Deluge: the Recurrence of Hydroclimate Extremes During the Past 600 Years in Eastern Australia’s Natural Resource Management (NRM) Clusters

Recent extremes of flood and drought across Australia have raised questions about the recurrence of such rare events and highlighted the importance of understanding multi-decadal climate variability. However, instrumental records over the past century are too short to adequately characterise climate variability on multi-decadal and longer timescales or robustly determine extreme event frequencies and their duration. Palaeoclimate reconstructions can provide much-needed information to help address this problem. Here, we use the 600-year hydroclimate record captured in the eastern Australian and New Zealand Drought Atlas (ANZDA) to analyse drought and pluvial frequency trends for East Australian Natural Resource Management (NRM) clusters. This partitioning of the drought atlas grid points into recognised biophysical areas (i.e. NRM clusters) revealed their differences and similarities in drought intensity and pluvial events over time. We find sustained multi-decadal periods of a wet–dry geographic 'seesaw' between eastern to central and southern NRMs (e.g. 1550–1600 CE and 1700–1750 CE). In contrast, other periods reveal spatially consistent wetting (e.g. 1500–1550 CE) or drying (e.g. 1750–1800 CE). Emerging hot spot analysis further shows that some areas that appear naturally buffered from severe drought during the instrumental period have a greater exposure risk when the longer 600-year record is considered. These findings are particularly relevant to management plans when dealing with the impacts of climate extremes developed at regional scales. Our results demonstrate that integrating and extending instrumental records with palaeoclimate datasets will become increasingly important for developing robust and locally specific extreme event frequency information for managing water resources.

Australian hydroclimate↗

DOE OSTI2024

Sunshine, Wine, and Wool - Agrivoltaics in Texas' Energy Transition

Achieving Texas' renewable energy goals while maintaining land for agriculture requires strategic cross-sector collaboration. In this session, researchers, ranchers, and developers will discuss opportunities and challenges at the energy-agriculture nexus - specifically, emerging trends in agrivoltaics, Texas-relevant considerations, R&D opportunities, and the potential role of agrivoltaics in Texas' energy transition.

agriculture↗