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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 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2015

Probing the failure mechanism of nanoscale LiFePO{sub 4} for Li-ion batteries

LiFePO{sub 4} is a high power rate cathode material for lithium ion battery and shows remarkable capacity retention, featuring a 91% capacity retention after 3300 cycles. In this work, we use high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy to study the gradual capacity fading mechanism of LiFePO{sub 4} materials. We found that upon prolonged electrochemical cycling of the battery, the LiFePO{sub 4} cathode shows surface amorphization and loss of oxygen species, which directly contribute to the gradual capacity fading of the battery. The finding can guide the design and improvement of LiFePO{sub 4} cathode for high-energy and high-power rechargeable battery for electric transportation.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2014

Failure of cap-rock seals as determined from mechanical stratigraphy, stress history, and tensile-failure analysis of exhumed analogs

In this study, the sedimentologic and tectonic histories of clastic cap rocks and their inherent mechanical properties control the nature of permeable fractures within them. The migration of fluid through mm- to cm-scale fracture networks can result in focused fluid flow allowing hydrocarbon production from unconventional reservoirs or compromising the seal integrity of fluid traps. To understand the nature and distribution of subsurface fluid-flow pathways through fracture networks in cap-rock seals we examine four exhumed Paleozoic and Mesozoic seal analogs in Utah. We combine these outcrop analyses with subsidence analysis, paleoloading histories, and rock-strength testing data in modified Mohr–Coulomb–Griffith analyses to evaluate the effects of differential stress and rock type on fracture mode.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2014

Failure Patterns After Hemithoracic Pleural Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy for Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma

Purpose: We previously reported our technique for delivering intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) to the entire pleura while attempting to spare the lung in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). Herein, we report a detailed pattern-of-failure analysis in patients with MPM who were unresectable or underwent pleurectomy/decortication (P/D), uniformly treated with hemithoracic pleural IMRT. Methods and Materials: Sixty-seven patients with MPM were treated with definitive or adjuvant hemithoracic pleural IMRT between November 2004 and May 2013. Pretreatment imaging, treatment plans, and posttreatment imaging were retrospectively reviewed to determine failure location(s). Failures were categorized as in-field (within the 90% isodose line), marginal (<90% and ≥50% isodose lines), out-of-field (outside the 50% isodose line), or distant. Results: The median follow-up was 24 months from diagnosis and the median time to in-field local failure from the end of RT was 10 months. Forty-three in-field local failures (64%) were found with a 1- and 2-year actuarial failure rate of 56% and 74%, respectively. For patients who underwent P/D versus those who received a partial pleurectomy or were deemed unresectable, the median time to in-field local failure was 14 months versus 6 months, respectively, with 1- and 2-year actuarial in-field local failure rates of 43% and 60% versus 66% and 83%, respectively (P=.03). There were 13 marginal failures (19%). Five of the marginal failures (38%) were located within the costomediastinal recess. Marginal failures decreased with increasing institutional experience (P=.04). Twenty-five patients (37%) had out-of-field failures. Distant failures occurred in 32 patients (48%). Conclusions: After hemithoracic pleural IMRT, local failure remains the dominant form of failure pattern. Patients treated with adjuvant hemithoracic pleural IMRT after P/D experience a significantly longer time to local and distant failure than patients treated with definitive pleural IMRT. Increasing experience and improvement in target delineation minimize the incidence of avoidable marginal failures.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗
DOE OSTI2012

Metabolic Response on Post-therapy FDG-PET Predicts Patterns of Failure After Radiotherapy for Cervical Cancer

Purpose: To determine the patterns of failure in patients with cervical cancer treated with definitive radiotherapy and evaluated for metabolic response with early posttherapy {sup 18}F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET). Methods and Materials: The records of 238 patients with cervical cancer were reviewed. All patients were treated with a combination of external radiotherapy and intracavitary brachytherapy. Two hundred and nineteen patients (92%) received concurrent chemotherapy. All patients underwent pretreatment FDG-PET, and posttherapy FDG-PET was performed within 8-16 weeks of the completion of radiotherapy. Posttherapy FDG-PET results were categorized as complete metabolic response (CMR), partial metabolic response (PMR), and progressive disease (PD). Failure patterns were categorized as none, isolated local failure (central pelvis {+-} pelvic lymph nodes), distant failure, or combined local plus distant failure. Results: Of the 91 patients (38%) who had a recurrence, 22 had isolated local failures, and 69 had distant failures (49 distant failures and 20 combined local plus distant failures). Of the 173 patients with a CMR, 40 (23%) experienced treatment failure. All 25 patients with PD experienced treatment failure, which was distant in 24 patients (96%). Among the 40 patients with PMR, no failure has been observed for 14 patients (35%). Of the 26 failures within the PMR group, 15 (58%) were limited to the pelvis. Differences in the patterns of failure between the three groups (CMR, PMR, PD) were statistically significant (chi-square test; p < 0.0001). Conclusions: The majority of failures after definitive radiotherapy for cervical cancer include distant failures, even in the setting of concurrent chemotherapy. PMR within the cervix or lymph nodes is more commonly associated with isolated local recurrence.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Rethinking PCMI Failures Under Transient Conditions

Under PCMI conditions, the cladding strain is driven by either pellet swelling during normal operation or pellet thermal expansion in transients. The loading in PCMI is displacement controlled because friction between the pellet and the cladding results in a strain compatibility at the pellet/cladding interface. Failure is known to occur under PCMI loading conditions during operation when normal power changes result in release of iodine (and other fission products) causing stress corrosion cracking where the crack-propagation rate is dependent upon the cladding stress but slow relative to strictly mechanical failures. Failures after normal power changes are often referred to as failure by pellet-cladding interaction or PCI to distinguish it from PCMI. Such failures are considered displacement-controlled failures, as noted above, and occur with limited plastic strain. This is different to what is typically thought of as PCMI failure under transient conditions, either Anticipated Operational Occurrences (AOOs) or Reactivity Insertion Accidents (RIAs), which is generally assumed to occur once the cladding reaches a mechanical strain limit. But there are two features in the typical PCMI failure in an RIA that are not consistent with the PCMI assumptions. The first is the ductile shear failure feature in cross section and the second is a large crack opening post failure (e.g., see OI-11 failure in NSRR program). The ductile feature is indicative of a plastic instability that requires very large local strains, and the large crack opening must be the result of a release of energy, both of which are not expected if stress in the cladding was only driven by thermal expansion in the pellet. It is concluded that there must be a mechanism (likely related to rod internal pressure) that eliminates strain compatibility between the pellet and cladding – allowing strain localization to occur in what are known as PCMI transient failures. In some sense, these PCMI failures may actually be early burst failures that occur when thermal expansion causes uniform strains greater than a defined limit and fission gas pressure eliminate the strain compatibility

Cantonwine, Paul↗
DOE OSTI2022

Sensitivity analysis applied to SiC failure probability in TRISO modeled with BISON

Here, a sensitivity analysis on the failure probability of the Silicon Carbide (SiC) layer in tristructural isotropic (TRISO) nuclear fuel during transient conditions predicted by the BISON fuel performance code is performed. The principal goal of the analysis is to understand the most important parameters dictating SiC failure behavior in BISON during Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIAs). SiC brittle fracture probability is modeled using Weibull statistics. A total of seven inputs related to SiC failure has been selected for the analysis, including the Weibull statistics parameters, elastic moduli for SiC and Pyrolitic Carbon (PyC) and SiC stress-free temperature. A 1D TRISO BISON model has been established for various reactivity insertions performed at the Nuclear Safety Research Reactor (NSRR). The principal advantage associated with the 1D TRISO model developed in this work is its computational efficiency. The Sobol variance decomposition method is used, and the sensitivity indices are presented for eight different values of the energy deposition. The results show that the two most important parameters impacting the predicted SiC failure probability are the Weibull modulus and the characteristic stress, and a co-variance amongst these parameters is obtained for low reactivity insertions. An additional new finding of this work is that the relative importance of Weibull parameters depends on the energy deposition, and thus reactivity, regime. For low energy depositions, two parameters are of influence on SiC failure probability, while for high energy depositions only one parameter impacts failure probability results. Moreover, optimization of the Weibull modulus and characteristic stress is performed by minimizing the RMSE between BISON failure probability predictions and experimental failure fractions for each energy deposition. This work also demonstrates the validity of the NSRR tests BISON simulations and of the respective sensitivity analysis results as conservative, yet indicative for slower transients characterized by lower deposited energies. Such verification is achieved through the partial extension of the analysis to a group Control Rod Withdrawal reproduced from a previous study. Another novel result of this analysis is that no single set of Weibull parameters can reproduce all reactivity insertion experimental failure results, which is related to the intrinsic nature of SiC failure properties, and a new range for the parameters is proposed to produce a failure probability envelope that encompasses the experimental fractions. Additionaly, this work proposes a new approach for future failure analysis with BISON, consisting in the use of Weibull parameters ranges, rather than fixed sets, along with failure envelopes generation.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Failure criteria of unidirectional carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites informed by a computational micromechanics model

Failure prediction for carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites has been a longstanding challenge. In this paper, we address this challenge by first applying a well-established computational micromechanics model based on representative volume element to predict the failure envelopes of unidirectional (UD) CFRP composites. Then, these failure envelopes are compared with the classical failure criteria. We have evaluated the performances of these failure criteria and identified the aspects for further improvement in their accuracies for the UD CFRP composites studied herein. Based on the failure mechanisms from computational analyses and the comparisons between predicted failure envelopes and classical failure criteria, a new set of homogenized failure criteria is proposed. Additionally, the newly proposed failure criteria show significant improvement according to our computational and experimental results. Furthermore, we have compared the proposed failure criteria with existing experimental data and computational results available in the literature for different types of composites. Good agreements are generally observed.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Patterns of Failure After Proton Therapy in Medulloblastoma; Linear Energy Transfer Distributions and Relative Biological Effectiveness Associations for Relapses

Purpose: The pattern of failure in medulloblastoma patients treated with proton radiation therapy is unknown. For this increasingly used modality, it is important to ensure that outcomes are comparable to those in modern photon series. It has been suggested this pattern may differ from photons because of variations in linear energy transfer (LET) and relative biological effectiveness (RBE). In addition, the use of matching fields for delivery of craniospinal irradiation (CSI) may influence patterns of relapse. Here we report the patterns of failure after the use of protons, compare it to that in the available photon literature, and determine the LET and RBE values in areas of recurrence. Methods and Materials: Retrospective review of patients with medulloblastoma treated with proton radiation therapy at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) between 2002 and 2011. We documented the locations of first relapse. Discrete failures were contoured on the original planning computed tomography scan. Monte Carlo calculation methods were used to estimate the proton LET distribution. Models were used to estimate RBE values based on the LET distributions. Results: A total of 109 patients were followed for a median of 38.8 months (range, 1.4-119.2 months). Of the patients, 16 experienced relapse. Relapse involved the supratentorial compartment (n=8), spinal compartment (n=11), and posterior fossa (n=5). Eleven failures were isolated to a single compartment; 6 failures in the spine, 4 failures in the supratentorium, and 1 failure in the posterior fossa. The remaining patients had multiple sites of disease. One isolated spinal failure occurred at the spinal junction of 2 fields. None of the 70 patients treated with an involved-field-only boost failed in the posterior fossa outside of the tumor bed. We found no correlation between Monte Carlo-calculated LET distribution and regions of recurrence. Conclusions: The most common site of failure in patients treated with protons for medulloblastoma was outside of the posterior fossa. The most common site for isolated local failure was the spine. We recommend consideration of spinal imaging in follow-up and careful attention to dose distribution in the spinal junction regions. Development of techniques that do not require field matching may be of benefit. We did not identify a direct correlation between lower LET values and recurrence in medulloblastoma patients treated with proton therapy. Patterns of failure do not appear to differ from those in patients treated with photon therapy.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗