Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “mesh data”

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 685 records · Page 38

An investigation of gear mesh failure prediction techniques

A study was performed in which several gear failure prediction methods were investigated and applied to experimental data from a gear fatigue test apparatus. The primary objective was to provide a baseline understanding of the prediction methods and to evaluate their diagnostic capabilities. The methods investigated use the signal average in both the time and frequency domain to detect gear failure. Data from eleven gear fatigue tests were recorded at periodic time intervals as the gears were run from initiation to failure. Four major failure modes, consisting of heavy wear, tooth breakage, single pits, and distributed pitting were observed among the failed gears. Results show that the prediction methods were able to detect only those gear failures which involved heavy wear or distributed pitting. None of the methods could predict fatigue cracks, which resulted in tooth breakage, or single pits. It is suspected that the fatigue cracks were not detected because of limitations in data acquisition rather than in methodology. Additionally, the frequency response between the gear shaft and the transducer was found to significantly affect the vibration signal. The specific frequencies affected were filtered out of the signal average prior to application of the methods.

Zakrajsek, James J.↗

A 3D finite element multigrid solver for the Euler equations

A low storage, computationally efficient algorithm for the solution of the compressible Euler equations on unstructured tetrahedral meshes is developed. The algorithm takes the form of a centered scheme with the explicit addition of a high accuracy artificial viscosity and the solution is advanced to steady state by means of a multistage timestepping method. The side-based data structure which is employed enables a clear connection to be established between the proposed algorithm and upwind cell vertex schemes for unstructured meshes. The computational efficiency of the procedure is improved by incorporating an unstructured multigrid acceleration procedure. A number of flows of practical interest are analyzed to demonstrate the numerical performance of the proposed approach.

Peraire, J.↗

Improving I/O Performance for Exascale Applications through Online Data Layout Reorganization

The applications being developed within the U.S. Exascale Computing Project (ECP) to run on imminent Exascale computers will generate scientific results with unprecedented fidelity and record turn-around time. Many of these codes are based on particle-mesh methods and use advanced algorithms, especially dynamic load-balancing and mesh-refinement, to achieve high performance on Exascale machines. Yet, as such algorithms improve parallel application efficiency, they raise new challenges for I/O logic due to their irregular and dynamic data distributions. Thus, while the enormous data rates of Exascale simulations already challenge existing file system write strategies, the need for efficient read and processing of generated data introduces additional constraints on the data layout strategies that can be used when writing data to secondary storage. We review these I/O challenges and introduce two online data layout reorganization approaches for achieving good tradeoffs between read and write performance. We demonstrate the benefits of using these two approaches for the ECP particle-in-cell simulation WarpX, which serves as a motif for a large class of important Exascale applications. Here, we show that by understanding application I/O patterns and carefully designing data layouts we can increase read performance by more than 80 percent.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

In‐memory integration of existing software components for parallel adaptive unstructured mesh workflows

Summary Reliable mesh‐based simulations are needed to solve complex engineering problems. Mesh adaptivity can increase reliability by reducing discretization errors but requires multiple software components to exchange information. Often, components exchange information by reading and writing a common file format. This file‐based approach becomes a problem on massively parallel computers where filesystem bandwidth is a critical performance bottleneck. Our approach using data streams and component interfaces avoids the filesystem bottleneck. In this paper, we present these techniques and their use for coupling mesh adaptivity to the PHASTA computational fluid dynamics solver, the Albany multi‐physics framework, and the Omega3P linear accelerator frequency analysis applications. Performance results are reported on up to 16,384 cores of an Intel Knights Landing‐based system.

Smith, Cameron W.↗

Identifying finite-time coherent sets from limited quantities of Lagrangian data

A data-driven procedure for identifying the dominant transport barriers in a time-varying flow from limited quantities of Lagrangian data is presented. Our approach partitions state space into coherent pairs, which are sets of initial conditions chosen to minimize the number of trajectories that “leak” from one set to the other under the influence of a stochastic flow field during a pre-specified interval in time. In practice, this partition is computed by solving an optimization problem to obtain a pair of functions whose signs determine set membership. From prior experience with synthetic, “data rich” test problems, and conceptually related methods based on approximations of the Perron-Frobenius operator, we observe that the functions of interest typically appear to be smooth. We exploit this property by using the basis sets associated with spectral or “mesh-free” methods, and as a result, our approach has the potential to more accurately approximate these functions given a fixed amount of data. In practice, this could enable better approximations of the coherent pairs in problems with relatively limited quantities of Lagrangian data, which is usually the case with experimental geophysical data. We apply this method to three examples of increasing complexity: The first is the double gyre, the second is the Bickley Jet, and the third is data from numerically simulated drifters in the Sulu Sea.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

The Thermal Plumbing System of Stromboli Volcano, Aeolian Islands (Italy) Inferred From Electrical Conductivity and Induced Polarization Tomography

Abstract We performed the first 3D island‐scale tomography of the electrical conductivity of Stromboli volcano (Aeolian Islands, Italy) using 2D acquisition lines (37.2 km) and a total of 18,880 measurements and 2,402 unique electrode locations. This 3D data set was inverted using a Gauss‐Newton algorithm, parallel‐processing on an unstructured tetrahedral mesh containing 678,420 finite‐element nodes and 3,580,145 elements to account for the topography of the volcanic island. The tomogram exhibits a conductive body (10 −2 –1.0 S m −1 ) consistent with the location of CO 2 and temperature anomalies observed at the ground surface. It corresponds to the hydrothermal system with high electrical conductivity associated with alteration. In order to confirm this interpretation, a 2.5D large‐scale induced polarization tomography was performed crossing the volcano. The joint interpretation of the conductivity and normalized chargeability is done with a petrophysical model previously tested and verified at both shield‐ and strato‐volcanoes. This model implies that alteration (through the effect of the cation exchange capacity associated with clay minerals and zeolites) plays a strong role in both controlling the electrical conductivity and normalized chargeability at Stromboli volcano. A temperature tomogram, derived from the geoelectrical measurements, is consistent with surface temperature anomalies and the Very Long Period (VLP) seismicity related to the mild‐explosive activity. This survey displays at 600 m a.s.l. a lateral shift in the highest temperature location, also corresponding to the source of VLP seismicity. Structural boundaries have a major role in the hottest hydrothermal fluids rising below the active crater terrace of Stromboli volcano.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

3D ADAPTIVE MESH REFINEMENT SIMULATIONS OF THE GAS CLOUD G2 BORN WITHIN THE DISKS OF YOUNG STARS IN THE GALACTIC CENTER

The dusty, ionized gas cloud G2 is currently passing the massive black hole in the Galactic Center at a distance of roughly 2400 Schwarzschild radii. We explore the possibility of a starting point of the cloud within the disks of young stars. We make use of the large amount of new observations in order to put constraints on G2's origin. Interpreting the observations as a diffuse cloud of gas, we employ three-dimensional hydrodynamical adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) simulations with the PLUTO code and do a detailed comparison with observational data. The simulations presented in this work update our previously obtained results in multiple ways: (1) high resolution three-dimensional hydrodynamical AMR simulations are used, (2) the cloud follows the updated orbit based on the Brackett-γ data, (3) a detailed comparison to the observed high-quality position–velocity (PV) diagrams and the evolution of the total Brackett-γ luminosity is done. We concentrate on two unsolved problems of the diffuse cloud scenario: the unphysical formation epoch only shortly before the first detection and the too steep Brackett-γ light curve obtained in simulations, whereas the observations indicate a constant Brackett-γ luminosity between 2004 and 2013. For a given atmosphere and cloud mass, we find a consistent model that can explain both, the observed Brackett-γ light curve and the PV diagrams of all epochs. Assuming initial pressure equilibrium with the atmosphere, this can be reached for a starting date earlier than roughly 1900, which is close to apo-center and well within the disks of young stars.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A Comparative Study of the Perceptual Sensitivity of Topological Visualizations to Feature Variations

Color maps are a commonly used visualization technique in which data are mapped to optical properties, e.g., color or opacity. Color maps, however, do not explicitly convey structures (e.g., positions and scale of features) within data. Topology-based visualizations reveal and explicitly communicate structures underlying data. Although our understanding of what types of features are captured by topological visualizations is good, our understanding of people's perception of those features is not. Further, this paper evaluates the sensitivity of topology-based isocontour, Reeb graph, and persistence diagram visualizations compared to a reference color map visualization for synthetically generated scalar fields on 2-manifold triangular meshes embedded in 3D. In particular, we built and ran a human-subject study that evaluated the perception of data features characterized by Gaussian signals and measured how effectively each visualization technique portrays variations of data features arising from the position and amplitude variation of a mixture of Gaussians. For positional feature variations, the results showed that only the Reeb graph visualization had high sensitivity. For amplitude feature variations, persistence diagrams and color maps demonstrated the highest sensitivity, whereas isocontours showed only weak sensitivity. These results take an important step toward understanding which topology-based tools are best for various data and task scenarios and their effectiveness in conveying topological variations as compared to conventional color mapping.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Axom

Axom is an open-source library of "building block" software components that provide core infrastructure capabilities for HPC applications. Such capabilities include: input file parsing and verification for various file formats, format specification for material shape input to multi-material simulations and tools for placing those shapes on meshes, parallel distributed coordination of diagnostic messages, geometric primitives, spatial queries and spatial search acceleration data structures, in memory key-value data store for managing simulation data and parallel file I/O. Axom components are used widely across LLNL Advanced Simulation and Computing program applications. It is also part of the LLNL institutionally-supported RADIUSS project, which promotes and funds its adoption by projects across LLNL.

Zagaris, George↗

PeleLMeX: an AMR Low Mach Number Reactive Flow Simulation Code without level sub-cycling

PeleLMeX simulates chemically reacting low Mach number flows with block-structured adaptive mesh refinement (AMR). The code is built upon the AMReX library, which provides the underlying data structures and tools to manage and operate on them across massively parallel computing architectures. PeleLMeX algorithmic features are inherited from its predecessor PeleLM but key improvements allow representation of more complex physical processes. Together with its compressible flow counterpart PeleC, the thermo-chemistry library PelePhysics and the multi-physics library PeleMP, it forms the Pele suite of open-source reactive flow simulation codes.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Proof-of-Concept Study for Uncertainty Quantification and Sensitivity Analysis using the BRL Shaped-Charge Example

These are the slides for a graduate presentation at Mississippi State University. It covers the following: the BRL Shaped-Charge Geometry in PAGOSA, mesh refinement study, surrogate modeling using a radial basis function network (RBFN), ruling out parameters using sensitivity analysis (equation of state study), uncertainty quantification (UQ) methodology, and sensitivity analysis (SA) methodology. In summary, a mesh convergence study was used to ensure that solutions were numerically stable by comparing PDV data between simulations. A Design of Experiments (DOE) method was used to reduce the simulation space to study the effects of the Jones-Wilkins-Lee (JWL) Parameters for the Composition B main charge. Uncertainty was quantified by computing the 95% data range about the median of simulation output using a brute force Monte Carlo (MC) random sampling method. Parameter sensitivities were quantified using the Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Test (FAST) spectral analysis method where it was determined that detonation velocity, initial density, C1, and B1 controlled jet tip velocity.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

CTF Preprocessor User's Manual

This document describes how a user should go about using the CTF pre- processor tool to create an input deck for modeling rod-bundle geometry in CTF. The tool was designed to generate input decks in a quick and less error-prone manner for CTF. The pre-processor is a completely independent utility, written in Fortran, that takes a reduced amount of input from the user. The information that the user must supply is basic information on bundle geometry, such as rod pitch, clad thickness, and axial location of spacer grids--the pre-processor takes this basic information and determines channel placement and connection information to be written to the input deck, which is the most time-consuming and error-prone segment of creating a deck. Creation of the model is also more intuitive, as the user can specify assembly and water-tube placement using visual maps instead of having to place them by determining channel/channel and rod/channel connections. As an example of the benefit of the pre-processor, a quarter-core model that contains 500,000 scalar-mesh cells was read into CTF from an input deck containing 200,000 lines of data. This 200,000 line input deck was produced automatically from a set of pre-processor decks that contained only 300 lines of data.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

CogSim: Integrate ML-based Library (LAGER) into Multi-Physics Simulation Code

In LAGER, the Mesh and Simulation History Extract (MASHExtract) package has been used for extracting various types of data from Kull runs. The package itself was written in python and completely enmeshed in the Kull codebase, making it impossible to use with other simulations. Having a version that extends to the Ale3d codebase would necessitate a complete re-write of the package, including a conversion to the C++ language. Extending the MASHExtract package to Ale3d requires a level of simulation independence, much of which would come from handling user requests, data management, and exporting. However, there is still a section of code that would need to be able to handle extracting data from the target codebase. Because of the often insurmountable differences between simulation codebases, the MASHExtract package would need a specific layer to be implemented for each codebase that handles this process of collecting and organizing the requested data. Furthermore, different simulation codebases also have different requirements for various enhancements they rely on—user interface, multi processor distribution, gpu acceleration, etc—all of which would also need to be handled by this layer. In regards to Kull and Ale3d specifically, the Kull implementation (KullMASHExtract) will need to be wrapped in Python, and Ale3d (Ale3dMASHExtract) will need to be wrapped in RAJA. Since Kull is primarily wrapped in SWIG, we should also use this library for our own wrapping to maintain consistency. There are also differences between what metrics are available for extraction. In particular, Kull has a wide array of physics metrics that may not be available in Ale3d, and these differences will need to be accounted for when re-writing MASHExtract.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

CTF User's Manual (V.4.2)

This document describes how a user should go about using the CTF pre-processor tool to create an input deck for modeling rod-bundle geometry in CTF. The tool was designed to generate input decks in a quick and less error-prone manner for CTF. The pre-processor is a completely independent utility, written in Fortran, that takes a reduced amount of input from the user. The information that the user must supply is basic information on bundle geometry, such as rod pitch, clad thickness, and axial location of spacer grids - the pre-processor takes this basic information and determines channel placement and connection information to be written to the input deck, which is the most time-consuming and error-prone segment of creating a deck. Creation of the model is also more intuitive, as the user can specify assembly and water-tube placement using visual maps instead of having to place them by determining channel/channel and rod/channel connections. As an example of the benefit of the pre-processor, a quarter-core model that contains 500,000 scalar-mesh cells was read into CTF from an input deck containing 200,000 lines of data. This 200,000 line input deck was produced automatically from a set of pre-processor decks that contained only 300 lines of data.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Complete Development of Critical Capabilities for TRISO Fission Product Source Term Calculations and Quantify Mechanisms for Pd Penetration of SiC

Overall fission product (FP) release will be an important consideration for the licensing and deployment of advanced reactors utilizing tristructural isotropic (TRISO) fuels. This work focuses on enhancing and applying the BISON models needed to predict FP transport within TRISO particles and particle failure probability, both of which factor directly into release predictions. Specifically, this report details (1) the development of the models needed to predict palladium (Pd) conservation at the engineering scale and the application of those models to characterize Pd fluxes for input into a mechanistic multiscale model for Pd penetration; (2) the refinement of sorption mass transfer models and the development of models for trapping in porous layers, which were applied and compared to particle scans from AGR-2 to provide proof of concept for a method of particle-scale validation that may reduce uncertainties compared to compact-scale validation using data from integral effects tests; (3) the development of a failure-statistics-informed, mesh-independent methodology for applying smeared cracking, enabling further study of the localized multiphysics behaviors associated with cascading particle failure mechanisms; and (4) the preliminary characterization of those coupled multiphysics particle failure behaviors using smeared, nonretentive diffusivities to provide a baseline for future study and to guide ongoing engineering applications.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

System data communication structures for active-control transport aircraft, volume 1

Candidate data communication techniques are identified, including dedicated links, local buses, broadcast buses, multiplex buses, and mesh networks. The design methodology for mesh networks is then discussed, including network topology and node architecture. Several concepts of power distribution are reviewed, including current limiting and mesh networks for power. The technology issues of packaging, transmission media, and lightning are addressed, and, finally, the analysis tools developed to aid in the communication design process are described. There are special tools to analyze the reliability and connectivity of networks and more general reliability analysis tools for all types of systems.

Hopkins, A. L.↗

A flexible grid embedding technique with application to the Euler equations

An automated grid embedding procedure for solution of flows about complex geometries is described. The physical domain is subdivided into regions that can accommodate easily generated grids. The grids are organized in a hierarchical structure, and communication among grids is accomplished by interpolation of the flow variables at mesh boundaries. Algorithms for locating embedded boundaries, special treatment of the embedded grids, and the data structures required for manipulating the solution data are described. The method is demonstrated by solution of the Euler equations for transonic flow about a supercritical airfoil and a flapped airfoil.

Benek, J. A.↗

Quantitative use of satellite SAR imagery of sea ice

An automatic technique to obtain ice motion based on maximizing cross-correlation and employing a strategy of nested calculations has been developed and used to obtain displacements of more than 2000 tie-points on a 2 km mesh grid. The mean displacement error is 250 m and is as low as manual data error of 150 m on rigid pieces. The method allows tie-points to be found on a regular grid in a fully automatic fashion. Full resolution data are not needed to maximize the accuracy of displacement measurements, a result which is significant for SAR images, with their large amounts of data.

Fily, M.↗