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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 721 records · Page 40
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2010

Improving Natural Uranium Utilization By Using Thorium in Low Moderation PWRs - A Preliminary Neutronic Scoping Study

The Th-U fuel cycle is not quite self-sustainable when used in water-cooled reactors and with fuel burnups higher than a few thousand of MWd/t characteristic of CANDU reactors operating with a continuous refueling. For the other industrially mature water-cooled reactors (i.e. PWRs and BWRs) it is economically necessary that the fuel has enough reactivity to reach fuel burnups of the order of a few tens of thousand of MWd/t. In this particular case, an additional input of fissile material is necessary to complement the bred fissile U-233. This additional fissile material could be included in the form of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) at the fabrication of the Th-U fuel. The objective of this preliminary neutronic scoping study is to determine (1) how much HEU and, consequently, how much natural uranium is necessary in such Th-U fuel cycle with U recycling and (2) how much TRansUranics (TRU=Pu, Np, Am and Cm) are produced. These numbers are then compared with those of a standard UO2 PWR. The thorium reactors considered have a homogeneous hexagonal lattice made up of the same (Th-U)O2 pins. Furthermore, at this point, we are not considering the use of blankets inside or outside the core. The lattice pitch has been varied to estimate the effect of the water-to-fuel volume ratio, and light water as well as heavy water have been considered. For most cases, an average burnup at discharge of 45,000 MWd/t has been considered.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Coastal inundation regime moderates the short-term effects of sediment and soil additions on seawater oxygen and greenhouse gas dynamics: a microcosm experiment

The frequency and persistence of tidal inundation varies along the coastal terrestrial-aquatic interface, from frequently inundated wetlands to rarely inundated upland forests. This inundation gradient controls soil and sediment biogeochemistry and influence the exchange of soils and sediments from terrestrial to aquatic domains. Although a rich literature exist on studies of the influence of tidal waters on the biogeochemistry of coastal ecosystem soils, few studies have experimentally addressed the reverse question: How do soils (or sediments) from different coastal ecosystems influence the biogeochemistry of the tidal waters that inundate them? To better understand initial responses of coastal waters that flood coastal wetlands and uplands, we conducted short-term laboratory experiments where seawater was amended with sediments and soils collected across regional gradients of inundation exposure (i.e., frequently to rarely inundated) for 14 sites across the Mid-Atlantic, USA. Measured changes in dissolved oxygen and greenhouse gas concentrations were used to calculate gas consumption or production rates occurring during seawater exposure to terrestrial materials. We also measured soil and water physical and chemical properties to explore potential drivers. We observed higher oxygen consumption rates for seawater incubated with soils/sediments from frequently inundated locations and higher carbon dioxide production for seawater incubated with soils from rarely inundated transect locations. Incubations with soil from rarely inundated sites produced the highest global warming potential, primarily driven by carbon dioxide and secondarily by nitrous oxide. We also found environmental drivers of gas rates varied notably between transect locations. Our findings indicate that seawater responses to soil and sediment inputs across coastal terrestrial-aquatic interfaces exhibit some consistent patterns and high intra- and inter-site variability, suggesting potential biogeochemical feedback loops as inundation regimes shift inland.

coastal inundation↗
DOE OSTI2021

Elioraea tepida , sp. nov., a Moderately Thermophilic Aerobic Anoxygenic Phototrophic Bacterium Isolated from the Mat Community of an Alkaline Siliceous Hot Spring in Yellowstone National Park, WY, USA

Strain MS-P2 T was isolated from microbial mats associated with Mushroom Spring, an alkaline siliceous hot spring in Yellowstone National Park, WY, USA. The isolate grows chemoheterotrophically by oxygen-dependent respiration, and light stimulates photoheterotrophic growth under strictly oxic conditions. Strain MS-P2 T synthesizes bacteriochlorophyll a and the carotenoid spirilloxanthin. However, photoautotrophic growth did not occur under oxic or anoxic conditions, suggesting that this strain should be classified as an aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic bacterium. Strain MS-P2 T cells are motile, curved rods about 0.5 to 1.0 μm wide and 1.0 to 1.5 μm long. The optimum growth temperature is 45–50 °C, and the optimum pH for growth is circum-neutral (pH 7.0–7.5). Sequence analysis of the 16S rRNA gene revealed that strain MS-P2 T is closely related to Elioraea species, members of the class Alphaproteobacteria, with a sequence identity of 96.58 to 98%. The genome of strain MS-P2 T is a single circular DNA molecule of 3,367,643 bp with a mol% guanine-plus-cytosine content of 70.6%. Based on phylogenetic, physiological, biochemical, and genomic characteristics, we propose this bacteriochlorophyll a-containing isolate is a new species belonging to the genus Elioraea, with the suggested name Elioraeatepida. The type-strain is strain MS-P2 T (= JCM33060 T = ATCC TSD-174 T ).

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2012

Boreal lakes moderate seasonal and diurnal temperature variation and perturb atmospheric circulation: Analyses in the Community Earth System Model 1 (CESM1)

We used a lake thermal physics model recently coupled into the Community Earth System Model 1 (CESM1) to study the effects of lake distribution in present and future climate. Under present climate, correcting the large underestimation of lake area in CESM1 (denoted CCSM4 in the configuration used here) caused 1 °C spring decreases and fall increases in surface air temperature throughout large areas of Canada and the US. Simulated summer surface diurnal air temperature range decreased by up to 4 °C, reducing CCSM4 biases. These changes were much larger than those resulting from prescribed lake disappearance in some present-day permafrost regions under doubled-CO 2 conditions. Correcting the underestimation of lake area in present climate caused widespread high-latitude summer cooling at 850 hPa. Significant remote changes included decreases in the strength of fall Southern Ocean westerlies. We found significantly different winter responses when separately analysing 45-yr subperiods, indicating that relatively long simulations are required to discern the impacts of surface changes on remote conditions. We also investigated the surface forcing of lakes using idealised aqua-planet experiments which showed that surface changes of 2 °C in the Northern Hemisphere extra-tropics could cause substantial changes in precipitation and winds in the tropics and Southern Hemisphere. Shifts in the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone were opposite in sign to those predicted by some previous studies. Zonal mean circulation changes were consistent in character but much larger than those occurring in the lake distribution experiments, due to the larger magnitude and more uniform surface forcing in the idealised aqua-planet experiments.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

THERMAL INFRARED IMAGING AND ATMOSPHERIC MODELING OF VHS J125601.92-125723.9 b: EVIDENCE FOR MODERATELY THICK CLOUDS AND EQUILIBRIUM CARBON CHEMISTRY IN A HIERARCHICAL TRIPLE SYSTEM

We present and analyze Subaru/IRCS L ′ and M ′ images of the nearby M dwarf VHS J125601.92-125723.9 (VHS 1256), which was recently claimed to have an ∼11 M {sub J} companion (VHS 1256 b) at ∼102 au separation. Our adaptive optics images partially resolve the central star into a binary, whose components are nearly equal in brightness and separated by 0.″106 ± 0.″001. VHS 1256 b occupies nearly the same near-infrared position in the color–magnitude diagram as HR 8799 bcde and has a comparable L ′ brightness. However, it has a substantially redder H – M ′ color, implying a relatively brighter M ′ flux density than for the planets of HR 8799 and suggesting that non-equilibrium carbon chemistry may be less significant in VHS 1256 b. We successfully match the entire spectral energy distribution (optical through thermal infrared) for VHS 1256 b to atmospheric models assuming chemical equilibrium, models that failed to reproduce HR 8799 b at 5 μ m. Our modeling favors slightly thick clouds in the companion's atmosphere, although perhaps not quite as thick as those favored recently for HR 8799 bcde. Combined with the non-detection of lithium in the primary, we estimate that the system is at least 200 Myr old and the masses of the stars comprising the central binary are at least 58 M {sub J} each. Moreover, we find that some of the properties of VHS 1256 are inconsistent with the recent suggestion that it is a member of the AB Dor moving group. Given the possible range in distance (12.7 pc versus 17.1 pc), the lower mass limit for VHS 1256 b ranges from 10.5 M {sub J} to 26.2 M {sub J} . Our detection limits rule out companions more massive than VHS 1256 b exterior to 6–8 au, placing significant limits on and providing some evidence against a second, more massive companion that may have scattered the wide-separation companion to its current location. VHS 1256 is most likely a very low-mass hierarchical triple system and could be the third such system in which all components reside in the mass regime of brown dwarfs.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Earth as an Exoplanet. I. Time Variable Thermal Emission Using Spatially Resolved Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer Data

Among the more than 4000 exoplanets known today, some terrestrial planets have been detected in the so-called habitable zone of their host stars and their number is expected to increase in the near future, energizing a drive to understand and interpret the eagerly awaited wealth of data to identify signs of life beyond our solar system. So far, Earth remains the best and only example of a habitable (and inhabited) world. Although, it seems extremely unlikely that any other exoplanets will be true Earth twins, it is important to explore and understand the full range of spectral signatures and variability of Earth in order to inform the design of future instruments and missions, and understand their diagnostic power as well as potential limitations. In this work we use Earth observation data collected by the MODIS instrument aboard the Aqua satellite. The complete data set comprises 15 years of thermal emission observations in the 3.66–14.40 μm range for five different locations on Earth (Amazon Rainforest, Antarctica, Arctic, Indian Ocean, and the Sahara Desert). We then determine flux levels and variations as a function of wavelength and surface type (i.e., climate zone and surface thermal properties) and investigate whether periodic signals indicating Earth’s tilted rotation axis can be detected. Our findings suggest that (1) viewing geometry plays an important role when thermal emission data is analyzed as Earth’s spectrum varies by a factor of three and more depending on the dominant surface type underneath; (2) typically strong absorption bands from CO 2 (15 μm) and O 3 (9.65 μm) are significantly less pronounced and partially absent in data from the polar regions implying that estimating correct abundance levels for these molecules might be challenging in these cases; and (3) the time-resolved thermal emission spectrum encodes information about seasons/planetary obliquity, but the significance depends on the viewing geometry and spectral band considered.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Efficacy of a portable, moderate-resolution, fast-scanning differential mobility analyzer for ambient aerosol size distribution measurements

Abstract. Ambient aerosol size distributions obtained with a compact scanning mobility analyzer, the “Spider” differential mobility analyzer (DMA), are compared to those obtained with a conventional mobility analyzer, with specific attention to the effect of mobility resolution on the measured size distribution parameters. The Spider is a 12 cm diameter radial differential mobility analyzer that spans the 10–500 nm size range with 30 s mobility scans. It achieves its compact size by operating at a nominal mobility resolution R=3 (sheath flow = 0.9 L min−1; aerosol flow = 0.3 L min−1) in place of the higher ratio of sheath flow to aerosol flow commonly used. The question addressed here is whether the lower resolution is sufficient to capture key characteristics of ambient aerosol size distributions. The Spider, operated at R=3 with 30 s up- and downscans, was co-located with a TSI 3081 long-column mobility analyzer, operated at R=10 with a 360 s sampling duty cycle. Ambient aerosol data were collected over 26 consecutive days of continuous operation, in Pasadena, CA. Over the 17–500 nm size range, the two instruments exhibit excellent correlation in the total particle number concentrations and geometric mean diameters, with regression slopes of 1.13 and 1.00, respectively. Our results suggest that particle sizing at a lower resolution than typically employed may be sufficient to obtain key properties of ambient size distributions, at least for these two moments of the size distribution. Moreover, it enables better counting statistics, as the wider transfer function for a given aerosol flow rate results in a higher counting rate.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Moderate spectral resolution solar irradiance measurements, aerosol optical depth, and solar transmission, from 360 to 1070 nm, using the refurbished rotating shadow band spectroradiometer (RSS)

Abstract. This paper reports on a third-generation rotating shadow band spectroradiometer (RSS) used to measure global and diffuse horizontal plus direct normal irradiances and transmissions at 1002 wavelengths between 360 and 1070 nm. The prism-dispersed spectral data are from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains site in north-central Oklahoma (36.605∘ N, 97.486∘ W) and cover dates between August 2009 and February 2014. The refurbished RSS isolates the detector in a vacuum chamber with pressures near 10−7 torr. This prevents the deposition of outgassed vapors from the interior of the spectrometer shell on the cooled detector that affected the operation of the first commercial RSS. Methods for (1) ensuring the correct wavelength registration of the data and (2) deriving extraterrestrial responses over the entire spectrum, including throughout strong water vapor and oxygen bands, are described. The resulting data produced are archived as ARM data records and include cloud-screened aerosol optical depths, spectral irradiances and direct normal solar transmission, as well as normalized diffuse and global irradiances.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗