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At least 73 records · Page 4

DOE OE Energy Storage Systems Safety Roadmap Focus on Codes and Standards - February 2018

The goal of the DOE OE ESS Safety Roadmap1 is to foster confidence in the safety and reliability of energy storage systems. There are three interrelated objectives to support the realization of that goal: research, codes and standards and communication/coordination. The objective focused on codes and standards is: To apply research and development to support efforts that are focused on ensuring that codes and standards are available to enable the safe implementation of energy storage systems in a comprehensive, non-discriminatory and science-based manner. The following activities support that objective and realization of the goal: a. Review and assess codes and standards which affect the design, installation, and operation of ESS systems. b. Identify gaps in knowledge that require research and analysis that can serve as a basis for criteria in those codes and standards. c. Identify areas in codes and standards that are potentially in need of revision or enhancement and can benefit from activities conducted under research and development. d. Develop input for new or revisions to existing codes and standards through individual stakeholders, facilitated task forces, or through laboratory staff supporting these efforts. The purpose of this document is to support the above activities by providing information on current and upcoming efforts being conducted by U.S. standards developing organizations (SDOs) and other entities that are focused on energy storage system safety.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

DOE OE Energy Storage Systems Safety Roadmap Focus on Codes and Standards - July 2017

The goal of the DOE OE ESS Safety Roadmap1 is to foster confidence in the safety and reliability of energy storage systems. There are three interrelated objectives to support the realization of that goal: research, codes and standards and communication/coordination. The objective focused on codes and standards is To apply research and development to support efforts that are focused on ensuring that codes and standards are available to enable the safe implementation of energy storage systems in a comprehensive, non-discriminatory and science-based manner. The following activities are intended to support that objective and realization of the goal: a. Review and assess codes and standards which affect the design, installation, and operation of ESS systems. b. Identify gaps in knowledge that require research and analysis that can serve as a basis for criteria in those codes and standards. c. Identify areas in codes and standards that are potentially in need of revision or enhancement and can benefit from activities conducted under research and development. d. Develop input for new or revisions to existing codes and standards through individual stakeholders, facilitated task forces, or through laboratory staff supporting these efforts. The purpose of this document is to support the above activities by providing information on current and upcoming efforts being conducted by U.S. standards developing organizations (SDOs) and other entities that are focused on energy storage system safety.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Energy Storage System Safety: Plan Review and Inspection Checklist

Codes, standards, and regulations (CSR) governing the design, construction, installation, commissioning, and operation of the built environment are intended to protect the public health, safety, and welfare. While these documents change over time to address new technology and new safety challenges, there is generally some lag time between the introduction of a technology into the market and the time it is specifically covered in model codes and standards developed in the voluntary sector. After their development, there is also a timeframe of at least a year or two until the codes and standards are adopted. Until existing model codes and standards are updated or new ones are developed and then adopted, one seeking to deploy energy storage technologies or needing to verify the safety of an installation may be challenged in trying to apply currently implemented CSRs to an energy storage system (ESS). The Energy Storage System Guide for Compliance with Safety Codes and Standards1 (CG), developed in June 2016, is intended to help address the acceptability of the design and construction of stationary ESSs, their component parts, and the siting, installation, commissioning, operations, maintenance, and repair/renovation of ESS within the built environment.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) for fluid mechanics: a review

Despite the significant progress over the last 50 years in simulating flow problems using numerical discretization of the Navier–Stokes equations (NSE), we still cannot incorporate seamlessly noisy data into existing algorithms, mesh-generation is complex, and we cannot tackle high-dimensional problems governed by parametrized NSE. Moreover, solving inverse flow problems is often prohibitively expensive and requires complex and expensive formulations and new computer codes. Here, we review flow physics-informed learning, integrating seamlessly data and mathematical models, and implement them using physics-informed neural networks (PINNs). Here, we demonstrate the effectiveness of PINNs for inverse problems related to three-dimensional wake flows, supersonic flows, and biomedical flows.

42 ENGINEERING↗

TRANSP integrated modeling code for interpretive and predictive analysis of tokamak plasmas

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the TRANSP code, a sophisticated tool for interpretive and predictive analysis of tokamak plasmas, detailing its major capabilities and features. It describes the equations for particle, power, and momentum balance analysis, as well as the poloidal field diffusion equations. The paper outlines the spatial and time grids used in TRANSP and details the equilibrium assumptions and solvers. Various models for heating and current drive and radiation, including updates to the NUBEAM model, are discussed. The handling of large-scale events such as sawtooth crashes and pellet injections is examined, along with the predictive capabilities for advancing plasma profiles. The integration of TRANSP with the ITER Integrated Modeling and Analysis Suite (IMAS) is highlighted, demonstrating enhanced data access and analysis capabilities. Additionally, the paper discusses best practices and continuous integration techniques to enhance TRANSP's robustness. The suite of TRANSP tools, designed for efficient data analysis and simulation, further supports the optimization of tokamak operations and coupling with other tokamak codes. Continuous development and support ensure that TRANSP remains a major code for the analysis of experimental data for controlled thermonuclear fusion, maintaining its critical role in supporting the optimization of tokamak operations and advancing fusion research.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Software Quality Assurance for EBR-II Fuels Irradiation and Physics Database (FIPD)

The Fuels Irradiation and Physics Database (FIPD) is an ongoing DOE project on archival of the EBR-II metal-alloy fuel irradiation experiments. As part of its use in support of license applications, the Quality Assurance Program Plan (QAPP) was drafted and endorsed by NRC in an effort to demonstrate its compliance with regulatory expectations. Software Quality Assurance (SQA) for the physics portion of FIPD is intended to qualify the calculated quantities such as fuel and cladding temperatures, neutron fluence and axially varying burnup estimates for irradiated fuel elements. This report covers the initial evaluation of SQA status of three neutron physics and thermo-fluid codes (REBUS, RCT and SE2RCT) that form the basis of calculated quantities for as-irradiated characteristics of the tested metallic fuel elements. The report also introduces an SQA plan to address the identified deficiencies. The REBUS, RCT, and SE2RCT codes are all part of the Argonne Reactor Code (ARC) code system. There is considerable knowledge and experience on REBUS and RCT but relatively less on SE2RCT. During FY2021, efforts focused on an assessment of how the data in the EBR-II Physics and Analysis DataBase (PADB) is generated with SE2RCT and used in FIPD. Additional tasks included considerations of uncertainties for power estimates in REBUS and RCT calculations and their impact on the combined RCT methodology. The RCT software usage in FIPD was assessed this year and the input/output details studied. A “requirements” document was created that identifies the key features of the RCT software being used in FIPD that need to have SQA documentation. A brief discussion on the history of RCT and its input is included in this report along with the basic SQA roadmap laid out in the requirements document. The SE2RCT software usage in FIPD is still being studied noting that there is no current manual. As part of the work done this year, two bugs were identified in the SE2RCT software which have a minor impact on the accuracy of the results it produces. No requirements document has been created, but one identified feature of SE2RCT being used that needs verification was its fuel pin temperature calculation. The work completed this year confirms that the approximations which will be included in the software verification report for SE2RCT are accurate. In addition to software quality assurance work for RCT and SE2RCT, an automated verification framework is proposed to simplify the software quality assurance process. The purpose of this framework is to streamline code verification and documentation while minimizing repetitive tasks for code developers and reviewers. The reduction of repeated input (between reference solution, software, and documentation input) throughout the SQA process reduces potential for human errors during the preparation of the supporting software quality records. The automation of the verification and documentation process proposed for this project leverages the existing verification structure already in place for the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Review of Grey Box/Black Box Data Contamination Metrics on Open and Commercial Models

Dataset contamination is a problem where benchmarks and tasks used to evaluate the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) have been incorporated into the training dataset of the models. This gives a false sense of performance that can overestimate how these models will function on truly unseen data. This problem becomes worse with commercial LLMs with larger and non-accessible training data, so techniques have been developed to try to measure the degree to which a model is contaminated with a benchmark’s data. To understand the effectiveness of these techniques, particularly when evaluating contamination on coding tasks, we review trends and categorize techniques by the degree of access to the model that is required. The research literature on this topic has reported mixed effectiveness of these techniques, so we select a set of black box (text access only) and grey box (access to model loss/probabilities required) techniques and apply them to both commercial and non-commercial models. We implement these metrics as part of a framework to test the contamination of Python code in LLMs to see to what extent we can replicate the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of these contamination detection techniques. Though we find mixed results in the capabilities of these metrics to identify contamination, we do observe evidence that they can identify contamination (broadly) in fine-tuned models when both a baseline and fine-tuned model is present. Additionally, similarity metrics were able to identify between contaminated and uncontaminated data even in situations where the data is distributionally similar (e.g., drawn from the same set of code projects).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

The Cost of Enforcing Building Energy Codes: Phase 1

The purpose of this literature review is to summarize key findings regarding the costs associated with enforcing building energy code compliance—primarily focusing on costs borne by local government. The review takes into consideration over 150 documents that discuss, to some extent, code enforcement. This review emphasizes those documents that specifically focus on costs associated with energy code enforcement. Given the low rates of building energy code compliance that have been reported in existing studies, as well as the many barriers to both energy code compliance and enforcement, this study seeks to identify the costs of initiatives to improve compliance and enforcement. Costs are reported primarily as presented in the original source. Some costs are given on a per home or per building basis, and others are provided for jurisdictions of a certain size. This literature review gives an overview of state-based compliance rates, barriers to code enforcement, and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and key stakeholder involvement in improving compliance with building energy codes. In addition, the processes and costs associated with compliance and enforcement of building energy codes are presented. The second phase of this study, which will be presented in a different report, will consist of surveying 34 experts in the building industry at the national and state or local levels in order to obtain additional cost information, building on the findings from the first phase, as well as recommendations for where to most effectively spend money on compliance and enforcement.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Effect of Light Water Reactor Water Environments on the Fatigue Life of Reactor Materials

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (Code) provides rules for the design of Class 1 components of nuclear power plants. Figures I-9.1 through I-9.6 of Appendix I to Section III of the Code specify fatigue design curves for applicable structural materials. However, the Code design curves do not explicitly address the effects of light water reactor (LWR) water environments. Existing fatigue strain-vs.-life (ε-N) laboratory data illustrate potentially significant effects of LWR water environments on the fatigue resistance of pressure vessel and piping steels. Extensive studies have been conducted at Argonne National Laboratory and elsewhere since 1990 to investigate the effects of LWR environments on the fatigue life of piping and pressure vessel steels. This article summarizes the results of these studies. Existing fatigue ε-N data were evaluated to identify the various material, environmental, and loading conditions that influence fatigue crack initiation; a methodology for estimating fatigue lives as a function of these parameters was developed. The effects were incorporated into the ASME Code Section III fatigue evaluations in terms of an environmental correction factor, F en , which is defined as the ratio of fatigue life in air at room temperature to the fatigue life in the LWR water environment at reactor operating temperatures. Available fatigue data were used to develop fatigue design curves for carbon and low-alloy steels, austenitic stainless steels, and nickel-chromium-iron (NiCr-Fe) alloys and their weld metals in air at room temperature. A review of the Code Section III fatigue adjustment factors of 2 on strain and 20 on life is also presented and the possible conservatism inherent in the choice of these adjustment factors is evaluated. A brief description of potential effects of neutron irradiation on fatigue crack initiation for these structural materials is also presented.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Status Report on ASME Code Development for Nonmetallic Core Components in 2020

The purpose of this report is to provide a status update on the progress and ongoing activities of the current ASME Boiler Pressure Vessel (BPV) Code Section III, Division 5, on nonmetallic core components and assemblies which includes the design rules for graphite and ceramic composite materials. Section III is concerned with the design and construction of nuclear reactor components and Division 5 focuses on high temperature reactors (HTR). The ASME Section III Committee’s function for nuclear items other than pressure-retaining components, is to establish rules of safety related to structural integrity. The term “construction” refers to the all-inclusive effort comprising of materials, design, fabrication, examination, inspection, testing, certification, and pressure relief. The Department of Energy (DOE) supports industry codes and standards development through focused research providing the technical basis for new or modified codes and standards and the participation of subject matter experts in codes and standards committees. The activities for the nonmetallic core components and assemblies committees are the pursuit of two working groups that meet quarterly during ASME BPV Code Week meetings. The two working groups are General Requirements for Graphite and Ceramic Composite Core Components and Assemblies (GR GCCCCA) and Nonmetallic Design and Materials (NDM). The rules on general requirements for nonmetallic core components are discussed in the articles of Subsection HA subpart B. Ceramic composites were recently incorporated within the rules, and the GR GCCCCA working group is now in the process of aligning the requirements with the subsections and articles of ASME BPV Code Section III NCA, the general requirements for Division 1 and 2 of the code. The NDM working group is concerned with the design rules for graphite and composite materials for core components and assemblies discussed in Subsection HH (Class SN Nonmetallic Core Components) subpart A and subpart B which reference graphite and composite materials respectively. The bulk of the progress and work is done within this working group. A significant undertaking, with discussion that started in 2015, is to gain endorsement of ASME Section III, Division 5, by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). In June 2018, ASME formally recommended endorsement to the NRC. The NRC has since initiated the endorsement review process, which is to be concluded early in 2021. ASME task groups on metallic structures and components, as well as non-metallic core support structures, have been formed to define potential pathways and schedules for NRC endorsement of Division 5. NRC determined to perform a review on the 2017 edition of Section III Division 5 as a baseline. As a result, the use of graphite as nonmetallic core components formed part of the review, but it excluded composite materials (which were first introduced in the 2019 edition). This report documents progress in FY 2020 directed toward ASME’s efforts to develop design codes for graphite and composites. Progress includes a major code review by NRC, the first code enquiry, and its solution, an overhaul of the treatment of Weibull Statistics, and the addition of Nonmandatory Appendices to the composites code relating to carbon-carbon composite materials.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Unconventional genetic code systems in archaea

Archaea constitute the third domain of life, distinct from bacteria and eukaryotes given their ability to tolerate extreme environments. To survive these harsh conditions, certain archaeal lineages possess unique genetic code systems to encode either selenocysteine or pyrrolysine, rare amino acids not found in all organisms. Furthermore, archaea utilize alternate tRNA-dependent pathways to biosynthesize and incorporate members of the 20 canonical amino acids. Recent discoveries of new archaeal species have revealed the co-occurrence of these genetic code systems within a single lineage. This review discusses the diverse genetic code systems of archaea, while detailing the associated biochemical elements and molecular mechanisms.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Calibration and Validation of NRC Fuel Performance Models

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory maintains steady-state and transient fuel performance codes for the U.S Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The NRC uses these codes in performing confirmatory calculations of licensee fuel performance codes and safety analysis methods during the review and approval of these codes and methods. The NRC also uses these codes to perform calculations to direct regulatory research and to assist in the development of new regulations and regulatory guides. Because of the safety-related uses for these codes, it is critically important that the codes are capable of accurately modeling modern fuel and operations and that the models and code predictions are well validated using data collected from conditions relevant to in-reactor conditions. FRAPCON and FRAPTRAN have an extensive database of separate effects data used to validate individual material property and fuel performance models and an integral effects database used to assess the overall code prediction within the full range of fuel operations. The key code predictions that are of regulatory interest as they relate to various specified acceptable design limits are; fuel and cladding temperature, rod internal pressure, cladding hoop strain, cladding corrosion and hydriding, and fission gas release. To assess the ability of the code to accurately predict these values, the integral assessment database consists of measurements of fuel centerline temperature, fission gas release, void volume, cladding corrosion, and cladding hoop strain. This paper will discuss the activities that are performed to ensure that FRAPCON and FRAPTRAN represent the state of the industry and will describe the separate effect and integral effect databases that are used to validate the models and are continually being expanded to ensure validation over the full range of fuel operations.

Geelhood, Kenneth J.↗

Calibration and validation of NRC fuel performance models

FRAPCON and FRAPTRAN are the steady-state and transient fuel performance codes, respectively, that are used by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in performing confirmatory calculations of licensee fuel performance codes and safety analysis methods during the review and approval of these codes and methods for light-water reactors. The NRC also uses these codes to perform calculations to direct regulatory research and to assist in the development of new regulations and regulatory guides. FRAPCON and FRAPTRAN are well-validated fuel performance codes that are kept in a constant state of maintenance. FRAPCON and FRAPTRAN have an extensive database of separate effects data used to validate individual material property and fuel performance models and an integral effects database used to assess the overall code prediction within the full range of fuel operations. The key code predictions that are of regulatory interest as they relate to various specified acceptable design limits are: fuel and cladding temperature, rod internal pressure, cladding hoop strain, cladding corrosion and hydriding, and fission gas release. To assess the ability of the code to accurately predict these values, the integral assessment database consists of measurements of fuel centerline temperature, fission gas release, void volume, cladding corrosion, and cladding hoop strain. This paper will discuss the activities that are performed to ensure that FRAPCON and FRAPTRAN represent the state of the industry and will describe the separate effect and integral effect databases that are used to validate the models and are continually being expanded to ensure validation over the full range of fuel operations.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

A Dose-Volume Analysis of Radiation Pneumonitis in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients Treated With Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy

Purpose: To examine the rates and risk factors of radiation pneumonitis (RP) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients treated with stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT). Methods and Materials: Dosimetry records for 251 patients with lymph node-negative Stage I-IIB NSCLC and no prior chest radiation therapy (RT) treated with SBRT were reviewed. Patients were coded on the basis of the presence of at least Grade (G) 2 RP using the Common Toxicity Criteria version 2 criteria. Radiation doses, V5, V10, V20, and mean lung dose (MLD) data points were extracted from the dose-volume histogram (DVH). Results: Median PTV volume was 48 cc. Median prescribed radiation dose was 60 Gy delivered in three fractions to the 80% isodose line. Median age at treatment was 74 years. Median follow-up was 17 months. RP was reported after treatment of 42 lesions: G1 in 19 (8%), G2 in 17 (7%), G3 in 5 (2%), and G4 in 1 (0.4%). Total lung DVHs were available for 143 patients. For evaluable patients, median MLD, V5, V10, and V20 were 4.1 Gy, 20%, 12%, and 4%, respectively. Median MLDs were 4 Gy and 5 Gy for G0-1 and G2-4 groups, respectively (p = 0.14); median V5 was 20% for G0-1 and 24% for G2-4 (p = 0.70); median V10 was 12% in G0-1 and 16% in G2-4 (p = 0.08), and median V20 was 4% in G0-1 and 6.6% in G2-4 (p = 0.05). G2-4 RP was noted in 4.3% of patients with MLD {<=}4 Gy compared with 17.6% of patients with MLD >4 Gy (p = 0.02), and in 4.3% of patients with V20 {<=}4% compared with 16.4% of patients with V20 >4% (p = 0.03). Conclusion: Overall rate of G2-4 RP in our population treated with SBRT was 9.4%. Development of symptomatic RP in this series correlated with MLD and V20.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Advances in Clayff Molecular Simulation of Layered and Nanoporous Materials and Their Aqueous Interfaces

As a general-purpose force field for molecular simulations of layered materials and their fluid interfaces, Clayff continues to see broad usage in atomistic computational modeling for numerous geoscience and materials science applications due to its (1) success in predicting properties of bulk nanoporous materials and their interfaces, (2) transferability to a range of layered and nanoporous materials, and (3) simple functional form which facilitates incorporation into a variety of simulation codes. Here, we review applications of Clayff to model bulk phases and interfaces not included in the original parameter set and recent modifications for modeling surface terminations such as hydroxylated nanoparticle edges. Overall, we conclude with a discussion of expectations for future developments.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

The intrinsic matter bispectrum in ΛCDM

We present a fully relativistic calculation of the matter bispectrum at second order in cosmological perturbation theory assuming a Gaussian primordial curvature perturbation. For the first time we perform a full numerical integration of the bispectrum for both baryons and cold dark matter using the second-order Einstein-Boltzmann code, SONG. We review previous analytical results and provide an improved analytic approximation for the second-order kernel in Poisson gauge which incorporates Newtonian nonlinear evolution, relativistic initial conditions, the effect of radiation at early times and the cosmological constant at late times. Our improved kernel provides a percent level fit to the full numerical result at late times for most configurations, including both equilateral shapes and the squeezed limit. We show that baryon acoustic oscillations leave an imprint in the matter bispectrum, making a significant impact on squeezed shapes.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Natural Language Processing-Enhanced Nuclear Industry Operating Experience Data Analysis: Aggregation and Interpretation of Multi-Report Analysis Results

Industry-wide operating experience is a critical source of raw data for reliability and risk model parameter estimations for nuclear power plants. A large portion of operating experience data are failure events stored as reports that contain unstructured data, such as narratives. In current practice, a failure report is usually reviewed and manually coded by analysts. The coding is based on extracting several event characteristics such as system name, component type, sub-part type, failure mode, and failure cause. Event narratives are mostly used to help understand events and extract their characteristics. In this line of research, we aim to maximize the usage of event narratives by leveraging natural language processing (NLP) methods to automatically convert an event narrative to a causal graph. This research has promise to improve physical understanding of failure initiation and propagation and to facilitate use of non-failure data (e.g., near-misses and degradations) to complement the limited data pool of failures. In our previous work, we developed an NLP tool and applied it to analyze a number of licensee event reports submitted by U.S. nuclear power plants to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In this paper, we will report our recent research progress in aggregating the results of multiple reports, developing network model(s), and drawing statistical insights.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗