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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 703 records · Page 39
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2017

International Approaches for Nuclear Waste Disposal in Geological Formations: Geological Challenges in Radioactive Waste Isolation—Fifth Worldwide Review

The overall objective of the Fifth Worldwide Review (WWR-5) is to document the current state-of-the-art of major developments in a number of nations throughout the World pursuing geological disposal programs, and to summarize challenging problems and experience that have been obtained in siting, preparing and reviewing cases for the operational and long-term safety of proposed and operating nuclear waste repositories. The scope of the Review is to address current specific technical issues and challenges in safety case development along with the interplay of technical feasibility, siting, engineering design issues, and operational and post-closure safety. In particular, the chapters included in the report present the following types of information: the current status of the deep geological repository programs for high level nuclear waste and low- and intermediate level nuclear waste in each country, concepts of siting and radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel management in different countries (with the emphasis of nuclear waste disposal under different climatic conditions and different geological formations), progress in repository site selection and site characterization, technology development, buffer/backfill materials studies and testing, support activities, programs, and projects, international cooperation, and future plans, as well as regulatory issues and transboundary problems.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2017

Pressure Safety Orientation Live #769

Pressure Safety Orientation (course #769) introduces workers at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to the Laboratory Pressure Safety Program and to pressure-related hazards. This course also affords a hands-on exercise involving the assembly of a simple pressure system. This course is required for all LANL personnel who work on or near pressure systems and are exposed to pressure-related hazards. These personnel include pressure-system engineers, designers, fabricators, installers, operators, inspectors, maintainers, and others who work with pressurized fluids and may be exposed to pressure-related hazards.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Thayer Lake Hydropower Development -- Final Report

The Thayer Lake Hydropower Development (THLD) has been under study since the late 1970’s as Angoon explored opportunities to provide lower cost renewable power to the Community and avoid the high cost of diesel generation. Kootznoowoo Inc. (Kootznoowoo), the tribal corporation for Angoon’s current and past residents, was provided the rights by Congress to develop a hydropower project within the Admiralty Island National Monument. This grant (DE-EE0002504) by the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Indian Energy and a matching grant from the Alaska Energy Authority (AEA) were provided to Kootznoowoo to enable the design, engineering and permitting of this hydropower project on Thayer Creek. Prior to the grant, the USFS had performed a final environmental impact statement (FEIS) and issued a Record of Decision (ROD) in 2009 for a 1.2 MW hydropower project on Thayer Creek that would Angoon’s needs with substantial excess capacity for growth. Kootznoowoo hired Alaska Power & Telephone (AP&T) in 2013 to manage this project and oversee its development. AP&T and its subcontractors under Kootznoowoo’s guidance performed several activities, aligned with the task plan defined in the grant.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Uncertainty Quantification Analysis of Both Experimental and CFD Simulation Data of a Bench-scale Fluidized Bed Gasifier

Adequate assessment of the uncertainties in modeling and simulation is becoming an integral part of the simulation based engineering design. The goal of this study is to demonstrate the application of non-intrusive Bayesian uncertainty quantification (UQ) methodology in multiphase (gas-solid) flows with experimental and simulation data, as part of our research efforts to determine the most suited approach for UQ of a bench scale fluidized bed gasifier. UQ analysis was first performed on the available experimental data. Global sensitivity analysis performed as part of the UQ analysis shows that among the three operating factors, steam to oxygen ratio has the most influence on syngas composition in the bench-scale gasifier experiments. An analysis for forward propagation of uncertainties was performed and results show that an increase in steam to oxygen ratio leads to an increase in H2 mole fraction and a decrease in CO mole fraction. These findings are in agreement with the ANOVA analysis performed in the reference experimental study. Another contribution in addition to the UQ analysis is the optimization-based approach to guide to identify next best set of additional experimental samples, should the possibility arise for additional experiments. Hence, the surrogate models constructed as part of the UQ analysis is employed to improve the information gain and make incremental recommendation, should the possibility to add more experiments arise. In the second step, series of simulations were carried out with the open-source computational fluid dynamics software MFiX to reproduce the experimental conditions, where three operating factors, i.e., coal flow rate, coal particle diameter, and steam-to-oxygen ratio, were systematically varied to understand their effect on the syngas composition. Bayesian UQ analysis was performed on the numerical results. As part of Bayesian UQ analysis, a global sensitivity analysis was performed based on the simulation results, which shows that the predicted syngas composition is strongly affected not only by the steam-to-oxygen ratio (which was observed in experiments as well) but also by variation in the coal flow rate and particle diameter (which was not observed in experiments). The carbon monoxide mole fraction is underpredicted at lower steam-to-oxygen ratios and overpredicted at higher steam-to-oxygen ratios. The opposite trend is observed for the carbon dioxide mole fraction. These discrepancies are attributed to either excessive segregation of the phases that leads to the fuel-rich or -lean regions or alternatively the selection of reaction models, where different reaction models and kinetics can lead to different syngas compositions throughout the gasifier. To improve quality of numerical models used, the effect that uncertainties in reaction models for gasification, char oxidation, carbon monoxide oxidation, and water gas shift will have on the syngas composition at different grid resolution, along with bed temperature were investigated. The global sensitivity analysis showed that among various reaction models employed for water gas shift, gasification, char oxidation, the choice of reaction model for water gas shift has the greatest influence on syngas composition, with gasification reaction model being second. Syngas composition also shows a small sensitivity to temperature of the bed. The hydrodynamic behavior of the bed did not change beyond grid spacing of 18 times the particle diameter. However, the syngas concentration continued to be affected by the grid resolution as low as 9 times the particle diameter. This is due to a better resolution of the phasic interface between the gases and solid that leads to stronger heterogeneous reactions. This report is a compilation of three manuscripts published in peer-reviewed journals for the series of studies mentioned above.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2017

Heavy-Duty Low-Temperature and Diesel Combustion & Heavy-Duty Combustion Modeling

Regulatory drivers and market demands for lower pollutant emissions, lower carbon dioxide emissions, and lower fuel consumption motivate the development of clean and fuel-efficient engine operating strategies. Most current production engines use a combination of both in-cylinder and exhaust emissions-control strategies to achieve these goals. The emissions and efficiency performance of in-cylinder strategies depend strongly on flow and mixing processes associated with fuel injection. Various diesel engine manufacturers have adopted close-coupled post-injection combustion strategies to both reduce pollutant emissions and to increase engine efficiency for heavy-duty applications, as well as for light- and medium-duty applications. Close-coupled post-injections are typically short injections that follow a larger main injection in the same cycle after a short dwell, such that the energy conversion efficiency of the post-injection is typical of diesel combustion. Of the various post-injection schedules that have been reported in the literature, effects on exhaust soot vary by roughly an order of magnitude in either direction of increasing or decreasing emissions relative to single injections (O’Connor et al., 2015). While several hypotheses have been offered in the literature to help explain these observations, no clear consensus has been established. For new engines to take full advantage of the benefits that post-injections can offer, the in-cylinder mechanisms that affect emissions and efficiency must be identified and described to provide guidance for engine design.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Dakota Technical Support Demonstrations and Software Improvements

Caterpillar, Inc. (Caterpillar) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) continued their partnership to improve SNL's open source Dakota software product and effectively deploy it to Caterpillar engineering design and analysis problems. Several new features that are expected to benefit not only Caterpillar but also the entire Dakota user community were introduced. In addition, SNL and Caterpillar cooperated extensively to conduct a demonstration of Dakota's uncertainty quantification capabilities on a computational simulation of relevance to Caterpillar.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2018

Multilayer Foil Manufacturability Final Report CRADA No. TSV-1246-96

The work performed under this CRADA was based on developments in multilayer technology made at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) that enable advanced pyrotechnic material fabrication. We applied our understanding of the performance, composition, and microstructure of these materials to engineering design of application specific structures. The purpose of the project was to assess the feasibility of LLNL’s multilayer technology for application to large scale manufacturing of these advanced pyrotechnic materials for the automobile industry; address any manufacturing limitations; and propose approaches to improve manufacturability. Another purpose was to address issues associated with the design of application-specific materials for their subsequent manufacture, including the establishment of general guidelines for such a manufacturability assessment.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Final report on the MAGARC software consulting support contract (WFO No. 15904) for ITER magnet safety assessment

he ITER (not an acronym but Latin for "the Way”) International Organization (IO) is building a large-scale scientific experiment that is now under construction in Cadarache, France. The ITER Tokamak fusion reactor aims to demonstrate that it is possible to produce energy from fusion. The ITER’s power output goal is to deliver ten times the power it consumes. During its operational lifetime, ITER will test key technologies necessary for the next step: the demonstration fusion power plant that will prove that it is possible to capture fusion energy for commercial use. General information on the ITER project can be found at http://www.iter.org. The ITER reactor’s superconducting magnet systems create ~41GJ of stored magnetic field energy when fully energized. The consequences of such energy dissipating via electrical arcs under faulted conditions gives rise to safety concerns even though these fault events are extremely unlikely. As part of the ITER licensing procedure, and as a result of such safety concerns, this contract was established to benchmark a developing magnet safety analysis tool at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy against the MAGARC computer code. MAGARC was developed by the U.S. Idaho National Laboratory (INL) under the ITER Engineering Design Activity (EDA) Project and was applied to produce previous analyses, in order to support magnet fault and safety assessment for the ITER design description document. This contract report documents the completion of requested modifications to the MAGARC code by the ITER IO, a time-step size sensitivity analysis with MAGARC during an unmitigated quench event, a comparison of the modeling approaches taken in developing MAGARC and the CCFE analysis package, and the data required for the benchmarking activity for these codes.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Initial Series of Ruthenium Adsorption Optimization Studies

The processing of used nuclear fuel releases volatile and semivolatile radionuclides into the off-gas streams associated with the various processing steps. Ongoing efforts to develop methods to control the release of gaseous radionuclides to the environm ent have identified ruthenium (specifically 106 Ru) as one of the semivolatile nuclides requiring a high degree of abatement. The tritium pretreatment process will release a fraction of the ruthenium as volatile ruthenium tetroxide (RuO 4 ). Tests were conducted to examine the deposition phenomena and provide prelim inary information pertinent to an engineering design of a sorption bed to remove RuO 4 from a gas stream (e.g., approximate length of the mass transfer zone and the loading per unit mass of sorbent).

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Concept of the Complex Bend

Modern synchrotron lattices follow Multi-­Bend Achromat approach and realize low emittance by arranging small horizontal beta-­function and dispersion in the bends. In this paper we propose another optics solution aimed to reach low emittance by using a lattice element that we named as “Complex Bend”. The Complex Bend corresponds to a strong alternate focusing distributed along the bend so to maintain the beta-function and dispersion oscillating at low values. Comprising the ring lattice out of Complex Bends instead of regular dipoles will minimize the Ң-­function and reduce the horizontal emittance while localizing bending to a small fraction of the storage ring circumference. The latter should help to gain more space for Insertion Devices. In the following, we present the concept of Complex Bend, considerations on the choice of its optimal parameters, as well as, thoughts of its practical realization. This paper gives a snapshot where our current studies stand and does not pretend to be a complete description of the Complex Bend engineering design and integration of this element into a specific ring lattice.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2018

Reduced Order Model Improvement and Integration into Topology Optimization

The purpose of this CRADA was to integrate a reduced order model simulation capability into advanced engineering design capabilities. This work contributed to a substantial reduction in the time required to simulate an additive manufacturing process. Shorter simulation time improves the commercial viability and practical utility of the Sunata software and may lead to wider adoption of additive manufacturing processes.

Robbins, Joshua↗
DOE OSTI2019

Top Ten Blendstocks For Turbocharged Gasoline Engines: Bioblendstocks With Potential to Deliver the for Highest Engine Efficiency

More efficient engines enabled by better fuels derived from biomass could increase the fuel economy of the light duty (LD) fleet by 10% over current technology and planned developments. This report identifies top LD boosted spark ignition (BSI) biofuel candidates for further development and commercialization identified using a fuel property basis. The BSI merit function was used to evaluate the performance of candidate bio-blendstocks in improving engine efficiency. This report is aimed at biofuel researchers looking to better understand the efficiency implications of biofuels under development, as well as engine researchers who are interested in future biofuels with properties that enable more efficient engine design and operation.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Initial Radiation of Nuclear Power Plant Components (CRADA NFE-17-06892 Final Report)

As advanced reactor concepts are developed, instrumentation and control (I&C) cables and sensors will play a significant role in assuring their operation is well understood, and safety-related process information can be collected reliably over the course of their design life. As a first step to develop acceptance criteria and define the limits of currently available nuclear I&C cable and sensor technology, a collaboration between Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Analysis and Measurement Services (AMS) Corporation was initiated under the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) Program. This collaborative effort focused on providing technical information related to the combined thermal and radiation aging of nuclear power plant (NPP) cables, companion NPP cable insulation samples, and two prototype temperature and two pressure sensors. This work was carried out using the instrumented gamma irradiation system that is part of the High Flux Isotope Reactor Gamma Irradiation Facility (HFIR GIF). This system provided the opportunity for the condition of the prototype sensors to be tracked during the irradiation in order to determine their functional limits with greater granularity when compared to a simple irradiation insertion at the HFIRGIF. Experimental assemblies for sensor irradiation were successfully completed, and sensor irradiation to accumulated dose of 3000 kGy at a rate of approximately 6 kGy/hr was carried out. Two prototype temperature assemblies were continuously monitored during exposure to 3000 kGy and found to have no observable degradation from the irradiation. Two pressure sensors were first irradiated to 1000 kGy. At which point, one of the sensors was found to operate normally; however, a second sensor failed the operability test. The operable pressure sensor output was then continuously monitored from 1000 kGy to 3000 kGy. The sensor output exhibited steady trendable drift versus the accumulated radiation dose. At the conclusion of the irradiation, the four test sensors were released for laboratory calibration checks. The calibration check of the temperature sensors found no significant change after irradiation compared to baseline measurements before irradiation; however, both pressure sensors failed the post-test calibration checks and both sensors were not functioning properly. These results will help inform sensor manufacturers and I&C design engineers of potential limitations of these types of sensors for use in high radiation environments associated with the compact configuration of new Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) such as NuScale’s reactor power module. Irradiations on NPP cables and companion samples were not completed due to programmatic delays, however a path forward that was based on lessons learned from this project was defined to accommodate future, comparable instrumented gamma irradiations at the HFIR GIF.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

10 MWE CDCL Large Pilot Plant – pre-FEED Study (Final Report)

The Following Document is the Final Technical Scientific Report for the project tittle “10 MWE CDCL Large Pilot Plant – pre-FEED Study” performed by The Babcock & Wilcox Company in collaboration with The Ohio State University, Johnson & Matthey, The Electric Power Research Institute, and the Dover Light & Power Municipal Power Plant. The project Team performed a pre-Front End Engineering Design study of a 10 MWe Coal-Direct Chemical Looping power plant to be hosted at the Dover Light & Power Municipal Plant. As part of the pre-FEED study, the project Team performed multiple pilot test campaigns to obtain design and performance information at the 250 kWth CDCL pilot facility at the Babcock & Wilcox Company’s Research Center. The Techno-Economic analysis was updated based on the FEED study and the pilot tests results. The study shows that the CDCL process is a promising carbon-friendly technology capable of producing electricity with a high efficiency with a cost of electricity of $83.3 / MWh, which corresponded to less than 30% increase in cost of electricity compared to the cost of electricity of a base case study of a supercritical PC boiler.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2020

Salts in Hot Water: Developing a Scientific Basis for Supercritical Desalination and Strategic Metal Recovery

Given the steady growth in world population and the ever-increasing fresh water demand, the only sustainable water supply option is desalination. Conceptually, desalination is very simple - just separate dissolved salts from water. While desalination research programs have existed since the 1960s and have resulted in a multitude of approaches, realizing affordable desalination has proven to be a challenge. Our goal is to meet this challenge using low cost heat sources to drive a liquid-discharge-free desalination process that can be co-mingled with the extraction of economically valuable co-products. High temperatures and pressures will be used to manipulate water’s properties, such as the dielectric constant, and hence its ability to solvate ions. Selective precipitation/recovery of valuable metal co-products creates new revenue streams (i.e., cost offsets). We will develop the scientific understanding necessary to control salt precipitation from supercritical seawater, inland brines, and water commonly co-produced with oil and gas. Atomistic simulations will be used to understand at a molecular level the changes in hydrogen bonding and ion solvation that occur as we increase the temperature and/or pressure and change the density and ion concentration. Our simulation results will also aid in the interpretation of experimental data and guide the development of applied thermodynamic models for engineering design calculations.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗