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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 OSTI2023

A sensitivity analysis of twinning crystal plasticity finite element model using single crystal and poly crystal Zircaloy

The popularity of crystal plasticity finite element method (CPFEM) models is increasing due to their ability to predict the mechanical response of crystalline materials such as metals and metal alloys more accurately than traditional continuum mechanics models. This is since the crystal plasticity models consider the effect of atomic structure, microstructural morphology, and properties of individual grains. These CPFEM models use a large number of material parameters in order to capture the mesoscale physics which comes with the downside of the tedious calibration process. In this paper, a CPFEM code was developed to include the twinning induced grain reorientation and subsequent crystallographic slip for HPC material. The developed code is incorporated in a large-scale, parallelized nonlinear solver WARP3D. Further, a sensitivity analysis with respect to 22 material parameters was then conducted using single crystal and polycrystal representative volume element (RVE) of Zircaloy material. Loading was applied along five different crystallographic orientations for single crystal RVE and along three directions namely, rolling (RD), transverse (TD), and normal (ND) direction for polycrystal RVE. Results obtained from the sensitivity analysis were used for the calibration of material parameters for Zircaloy. Finally, developed code along with calibrated material parameters was used to investigate the effect of the hydride phase formation in Zircaloy which is a typical case observed for nuclear applications. It was found that the volume fraction of the hydride phase has a significant impact on the mechanical properties of Zircaloy.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2016

Three dimensional (3D) microstructure-based finite element modeling of Al-SiC nanolaminates using focused ion beam (FIB) tomography

Al-SiC nanolaminate composites show promise as high performance coating materials due to their combination of strength and toughness. Although a significant amount of modeling effort has been focused on materials with an idealized flat nanostructure, experimentally these materials exhibit complex undulating layer geometries. This work utilizes FIB tomography to characterize this nanostructure in 3D and finite element modeling to determine the effect that this complex structure has on the mechanical behavior of these materials. A sufficiently large volume was characterized such that a 1 × 2 μm micropillar could be generated from the dataset and compared directly to experimental results. The mechanical response from this nanostructure was then compared to pillar models using simplified structures with perfectly flat layers, layers with sinusoidal waviness, and layers with arc segment waviness. The arc segment based layer geometry showed the best agreement with the experimentally determined structure, indicating it would be the most appropriate geometry for future modeling efforts. - Highlights: •FIB tomography was used to determine the structure of an Al-SiC nanolaminate in 3D. •FEM was used to compare the deformation of the nanostructure to experimental results. •Idealized structures from literature were compared to the FIB determined structure. •Arc segment based structures approximated the FIB determined structure most closely.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2017

An Advanced One-Dimensional Finite Element Model for Incompressible Thermally Expandable Flow

Here, this paper provides an overview of a new one-dimensional finite element flow model for incompressible but thermally expandable flow. The flow model was developed for use in system analysis tools for whole-plant safety analysis of sodium fast reactors. Although the pressure-based formulation was implemented, the use of integral equations in the conservative form ensured the conservation laws of the fluid. A stabilization scheme based on streamline-upwind/Petrov-Galerkin and pressure-stabilizing/Petrov-Galerkin formulations is also introduced. The flow model and its implementation have been verified by many test problems, including density wave propagation, steep gradient problems, discharging between tanks, and the conjugate heat transfer in a heat exchanger.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2012

Electrical and Thermal Finite Element Modeling of Arc Faults in Photovoltaic Bypass Diodes

Arc faults in photovoltaic (PV) modules have caused multiple rooftop fires. The arc generates a high-temperature plasma that ignites surrounding materials and subsequently spreads the fire to the building structure. While there are many possible locations in PV systems and PV modules where arcs could initiate, bypass diodes have been suspected of triggering arc faults in some modules. In order to understand the electrical and thermal phenomena associated with these events, a finite element model of a busbar and diode was created. Thermoelectrical simulations found Joule and internal diode heating from normal operation would not normally cause bypass diode or solder failures. However, if corrosion increased the contact resistance in the solder connection between the busbar and the diode leads, enough voltage potentially would be established to arc across micron-scale electrode gaps. Lastly, an analytical arc radiation model based on observed data was employed to predicted polymer ignition times. The model predicted polymer materials in the adjacent area of the diode and junction box ignite in less than 0.1 seconds.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Mechanical Properties of Uranium Silicides by Nanoindentation and Finite Elements Modeling

Three methods were used to measure the mechanical properties of U 3 Si, U 3 Si 2 , and USi. Quasi-static and continuous stiffness measurement nanoindentation were used to determine hardness and Young’s modulus, and microindentation was used to evaluate the bulk hardness. Hardness and Young’s modulus of the three U-Si compounds were both observed to increase with Si content. In conclusion, finite elements modelling was used to validate the nanoindentation data calculated for U 3 Si 2 and estimate its yield strength.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2015

Evaluation of Test Methods for Triaxially Braided Composites using a Meso-Scale Finite Element Model

The characterization of triaxially braided composite is complicate due to the nonuniformity of deformation within the unit cell as well as the possibility of the freeedge effect related to the large size of the unit cell. Extensive experimental investigation has been conducted to develop more accurate test approaches in characterizing the actual mechanical properties of the material we are studying. In this work, a meso-scale finite element model is utilized to simulate two complex specimens: notched tensile specimen and tube tensile specimen, which are designed to avoid the free-edge effect and free-edge effect induced premature edge damage. The full field strain data is predicted numerically and compared with experimental data obtained by Digit Image Correlation. The numerically predicted tensile strength values are compared with experimentally measured results. The discrepancy between numerically predicted and experimentally measured data, the capability of different test approaches are analyzed and discussed. The presented numerical model could serve as assistance to the evaluation of different test methods, and is especially useful in identifying potential local damage events.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2012

Surface Photovoltage Measurements and Finite Element Modeling of SAW Devices

Over the course of a Summer 2011 internship with the MEMS department of Sandia National Laboratories, work was completed on two major projects. The first and main project of the summer involved taking surface photovoltage measurements for silicon samples, and using these measurements to determine surface recombination velocities and minority carrier diffusion lengths of the materials. The SPV method was used to fill gaps in the knowledge of material parameters that had not been determined successfully by other characterization methods. The second project involved creating a 2D finite element model of a surface acoustic wave device. A basic form of the model with the expected impedance response curve was completed, and the model is ready to be further developed for analysis of MEMS photonic resonator devices.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Finite Element Modeling of the Phase Change in Thermally-Grown SiO 2 in SiC Systems for Gas Turbines

The operating lifetimes of SiC-based components in combustion environments are directly linked to the adhesion of the protective environmental barrier coating (EBC) layer. One of the major known failure modes for EBCs is the formation of a thick SiO 2 thermally grown oxide (TGO), which decreases coating adhesion and encourages eventual coating spallation. The effect of the TGO thickness under Yb 2 Si 2 O 7 EBCs on silicon carbide was investigated using finite element models (FEMs) with various interfacial architectures and SiO 2 TGO thicknesses. Further, the FEMs incorporated a user-defined material to simulate the volume contraction of the TGO during the silica phase transformation from β-cristobalite to α-cristobalite upon cooling from the stress-free state at 1350°C to room temperature. Systems with and without a silicon bond coating intermediary layer were assessed. It was shown that the TGO phase transformation stress (1.6–1.7 GPa) dominated the increase in stress in the TGO and EBC layers. Furthermore, it was found that stress increase in the TGO was independent of TGO thickness and interface geometry. These results indicate that stabilization of the TGO to mitigate the phase transformation could dramatically improve the performance of SiC-base components with EBCs.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2018

Cohesive finite element modeling of the delamination of HTPB binder and HMX crystals under tensile loading

Accurately modeling the mechanical behavior of the polymer binders and the degradation of interfaces between binder and crystal is important to science-based understanding of the macro-scale response of polymer bonded explosives. The paper presents a description of relatively a simple bi-crystal HMX-HTPB specimen and associated tensile loading experiment including computed tomography imaging, the pertinent constitutive theory, and details of numerical simulations used to infer the behavior of the material during the delamination process. Within this work, mechanical testing and direct numerical simulation of this relatively simple bi-crystal system enabled reasonable isolation of binder-crystal interface delamination, in which the effects of the complicated thermomechanical response of explosive crystals were minimized. Cohesive finite element modeling of the degradation and delamination of the interface between a modified HTPB binder and HMX crystals was used to reproduce observed results from tensile loading experiments on bi-crystal specimens. Several comparisons are made with experimental measurements in order to identify appropriate constitutive behavior of the binder and appropriate parameters for the cohesive traction-separation behavior of the crystal-binder interface. This research demonstrates the utility of directly modeling the delamination between binder and crystal within crystal-binder-crystal tensile specimen towards characterizing the behavior of these interfaces in a manner amenable to larger scale simulation of polycrystalline PBX materials. One critical aspect of this approach is micro computed tomography imaging conducted during the experiments, which enabled comparison of delamination patterns between the direct numerical simulation and actual specimen. In addition to optimizing the cohesive interface parameters, one important finding from this investigation is that understanding and representing the strain-hardening plasticity of HTPB binder is important within the context of using a cohesive traction-separation model for the delamination of a crystal-binder system.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Prediction of Substrate Distortion in Powder DED Using Finite Element Model

Abstract Leveraging the capabilities of both additive and subtractive manufacturing to repair tooling and other high value items can result in significant cost and time saving opportunities. However, when dimensional accuracy of the repaired component must be held within a specified tolerance, distortion of the component induced during repair can lead to an out of specification final component. This work presents simulation of a novel method to mitigate part distortion using sacrificial support structures. A blown powder directed energy deposition system was utilized for deposition of sacrificial support structures and clad surface depositions. Sacrificial support structures were deposited on the underside of the substrate with varying geometries prior to clad surface depositions. A finite element model was developed and verified using experimental results. The simulation and experimental control results were found to match within 6%. It has been shown that simulation can be used to predict effects of sacrificial support structures on substrate distortion in a blown powder directed energy deposition process.

Burl, Alan G.↗
DOE OSTI2023

ALEGRA: Finite element modeling for shock hydrodynamics and multiphysics

ALEGRA is a multiphysics finite-element shock hydrodynamics code, under development at Sandia National Laboratories since 1990. Fully coupled multiphysics capabilities include transient magnetics, magnetohydrodynamics, electromechanics, and radiation transport. Importantly, ALEGRA is used to study hypervelocity impact, pulsed power devices, and radiation effects. The breadth of physics represented in ALEGRA is outlined here, along with simulated results for a selected hypervelocity impact experiment.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2017

Finite-element modelling of multilayer X-ray optics

Multilayer optical elements for hard X-rays are an attractive alternative to crystals whenever high photon flux and moderate energy resolution are required. Prediction of the temperature, strain and stress distribution in the multilayer optics is essential in designing the cooling scheme and optimizing geometrical parameters for multilayer optics. The finite-element analysis (FEA) model of the multilayer optics is a well established tool for doing so. Multilayers used in X-ray optics typically consist of hundreds of periods of two types of materials. The thickness of one period is a few nanometers. Most multilayers are coated on silicon substrates of typical size 60 mm × 60 mm × 100–300 mm. The high aspect ratio between the size of the optics and the thickness of the multilayer (10 7 ) can lead to a huge number of elements for the finite-element model. For instance, meshing by the size of the layers will require more than 10 16 elements, which is an impossible task for present-day computers. Conversely, meshing by the size of the substrate will produce a too high element shape ratio (element geometry width/height > 10 6 ), which causes low solution accuracy; and the number of elements is still very large (10 6 ). In this work, by use of ANSYS layer-functioned elements, a thermal-structural FEA model has been implemented for multilayer X-ray optics. The possible number of layers that can be computed by presently available computers is increased considerably.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2015

A finite element model investigation of ultrasonic array performance for inspecting polycrystalline materials

Microstructural noise has long hindered ultrasonic NDE of polycrystalline materials. In recent years however, arrays have enabled new possibilities to advance ultrasonic inspection of these materials. A Finite Element (FE) model is used to explore the different phenomena caused by grain scattering which may hinder detection of defects by an array. These include multiple scattering and beam deviation due to anisotropy; two aspects of the physics which are often required to be ignored in analytical models due to theoretical assumptions or computational limitations. We rely on a GPU based FE solver, Pogo, to provide fast computation and thereby enable parametric studies. The impact on array detection performance when varying center-frequency and aperture size is investigated. Preliminary results show that there exists an optimum for both the array aperture and frequency for inspection of these materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2016

Finite element model for brittle fracture and fragmentation

A new computational model for brittle fracture and fragmentation has been developed based on finite element analysis of non-linear elasticity equations. The proposed model propagates the cracks by splitting the mesh nodes alongside the most over-strained edges based on the principal direction of strain tensor. To prevent elements from overlapping and folding under large deformations, robust geometrical constraints using the method of Lagrange multipliers have been incorporated. In conclusion, the model has been applied to 2D simulations of the formation and propagation of cracks in brittle materials, and the fracture and fragmentation of stretched and compressed materials.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2014

An enriched finite element model with q-refinement for radiative boundary layers in glass cooling

Radiative cooling in glass manufacturing is simulated using the partition of unity finite element method. The governing equations consist of a semi-linear transient heat equation for the temperature field and a stationary simplified P{sub 1} approximation for the radiation in non-grey semitransparent media. To integrate the coupled equations in time we consider a linearly implicit scheme in the finite element framework. A class of hyperbolic enrichment functions is proposed to resolve boundary layers near the enclosure walls. Using an industrial electromagnetic spectrum, the proposed method shows an immense reduction in the number of degrees of freedom required to achieve a certain accuracy compared to the conventional h-version finite element method. Furthermore the method shows a stable behaviour in treating the boundary layers which is shown by studying the solution close to the domain boundaries. The time integration choice is essential to implement a q-refinement procedure introduced in the current study. The enrichment is refined with respect to the steepness of the solution gradient near the domain boundary in the first few time steps and is shown to lead to a further significant reduction on top of what is already achieved with the enrichment. The performance of the proposed method is analysed for glass annealing in two enclosures where the simplified P{sub 1} approximation solution with the partition of unity method, the conventional finite element method and the finite difference method are compared to each other and to the full radiative heat transfer as well as the canonical Rosseland model.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2018

Broadband Calibration of Acoustic Emission and Ultrasonic Sensors from Generalized Ray Theory and Finite Element Models

This paper describes a calibration method for acoustic emission and ultrasonic sensors that is effective from 1 kHz to 1 MHz. The method combines generalized ray theory and finite element analysis to model wave propagation at higher and lower frequencies, respectively. A ball impact is used as a calibration source, a thick aluminum plate is used as the test block, and hot glue is used as the couplant. We demonstrate this method on five commercial piezoelectric sensors: Physical Acoustics (PAC) R15a, PAC WSa, Panametrics V101, Panametrics V103, and Valpey-Fisher Pinducer. Our calibration results show that reflections and other wave phases can be more clearly identified with the less-resonant Panametrics sensors. The PAC sensors have the greatest sensitivity and are able to detect surface normal displacements at least down to 1 pm amplitude in the 100s of kHz frequency band. Aperture effect is minimized by the small size of the Pinducer. Our method focuses on the amplitude response of the sensors (phase is ignored) and extends the calibration to a frequency band that is lower than typical analyses. Low frequency information is useful for determining the seismic moment of a seismic source (analogous to the magnitude of an earthquake) and can increase the amount of information acquired in a single recording.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

FINITE ELEMENT MODEL MESH REFINEMENT EFFECTS ON QUALIFICATION OF NUCLEAR GRADE GRAPHITE COMPONENTS

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) provides the full and simplified design-by-analysis probabilistic assessments for determining acceptance of nuclear grade graphite core components. The assessments can be characterized by three parts: (1) a component stress distribution, often determined by a finite element (FE) model; (2) a Weibull probability density function (pdf) that characterizes the experimental tensile strength distribution; and (3) the post-processor, which combines the FE model and the Weibull strength distribution in accordance with the full and simplified assessments to determine component acceptance. It is known that the level of mesh refinement in FE models can affect the modeled component’s calculated stress distribution. Depending on the component geometry, the stress distribution may converge with sufficient refinement. It was previously unknown whether the acceptance decision resulting from the full and simplified assessments might change even with sufficient mesh refinement. This study explores that question using experimental strength results for a dog-bone geometry for two graphite grades, IG-110 and PCEA. The simplified assessment has two criteria that must be met, the first limits the combined membrane stress by the allowable stress and the second limits the peak equivalent stress by the allowable stress scaled by the ratio of flexural to tensile strength. In the application of the simplified assessment, convergence of the peak equivalent stress required extreme mesh refinement, however, the acceptance decision was not affected. It is hypothesized that more complex geometries with stress concentrations may present mesh refinement effects on the simplified assessment acceptance decision. Mesh refinement did affect the acceptance decision in the full assessment for the applied pressure loadings in this study. This work suggests component stress distribution convergence is not a sufficient criteria for POF convergence in the full assessment and that mesh refinement should continue until the POF has converged, especially where the resulting POF is bordering the SRC acceptable POF limit.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗