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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 739 records · Page 41
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Toward Discovering the Structure and Dynamics of the Sun-Interstellar Medium System (Los Alamos LDRD Report)

We have taken major steps toward developing the tools necessary to explore with unprecedented resolution the plasma structure and dynamics of the Sun-interstellar medium (ISM) interaction region, known as the heliosheath. We have applied a rigorous imaging technique known as Generalized Ridge Regression (GRR) to construct statistically robust sky maps of hydrogen energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) emanating from this region and detected by the Los Alamos-led IBEX-Hi ENA imager [1] on NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission [2]. Our methods go far beyond the map reconstruction process currently applied by the IBEX Science Operations Center (ISOC), opening up the possibility of new discovery science with the IBEX data set and positioning LANL for a lead science role for the upcoming Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission [3] for which LANL is providing two key experiments. We have successfully demonstrated that the new maps are higher resolution and are capable of revealing structures that are not presently resolveable in standard ISOC maps

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Use Attainability Analysis for Upper Sandia Canyon

This document presents a use attainability analysis (UAA) for the perennial segment of Upper Sandia Canyon, which is located within the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) property near Los Alamos, New Mexico.1 This UAA is consistent with 20.6.4.15 New Mexico Administrative Code (NMAC) (New Mexico Environment Department [NMED] 2011c), which describes the perennial segment as “Sandia Canyon from Sigma Canyon upstream to LANL [National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System] NPDES outfall 001.” The perennial segment’s designated uses are coldwater aquatic life, livestock watering, wildlife habitat, and secondary contact. 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) § 131.10(g) permits a state to remove a designated use that is not an existing use (as defined in 40 CFR §131.3), if a UAA demonstrates that naturally occurring pollutant concentrations prevent the attainment of the use or if physical conditions related to the natural features of the water body preclude the attainment of the aquatic life protection use. This UAA considers whether natural physical conditions in Upper Sandia Canyon, specifically air and/or water temperatures, prevent the designated aquatic life use water temperature limits (i.e., coldwater) from being attained in the perennial segment. The weight of evidence presented in this UAA supports the conclusion that, based on air-water temperature modeling and instream thermograph data, the coolwater aquatic life designated use is currently the attainable use. Accordingly, it is recommended that the coolwater aquatic life designated use replace the coldwater aquatic life designated use in the Upper Sandia Canyon assessment unit (AU).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Los Alamos Climatology 2021 Update

The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL or the Laboratory) operates a Meteorological Monitoring (Met) Program to support LANL emergency response, engineering designs, environmental compliance, environmental assessments, safety evaluations, weather forecasting, environmental monitoring, research programs, and environmental restoration. Weather data has been collected in Los Alamos since 1910. A 30-year averaging period is termed by the National Weather Service (NWS) as a climatic normal, and these statistics are updated every 10 years to represent the current climatic normal conditions. Previous climate statistics are provided in Bowen (1990) for the 1961–1990 averaging period and Dewart et al. (2017) for the 1981–2010 averaging period. No climate statistics were developed for the 1971-2000 averaging period. This report provides climate statistics for the current 30-year 1991–2020 averaging period.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

TNSL Overview

Thermal neutron scattering law (TNSL) data describe low-energy neutrons scattering off of bound materials, and can have a significant impact on modeling any system with slow neutrons, including nuclear reactors. Previous work to introduce TNSL data to neutron transport codes at LLNL focused on COG and TART [1], with the limitation that these codes require highly specialized data processing and formatting. We have recently increased efforts to process TNSL data with the central LLNL nuclear data processing code FUDGE, to be stored in the generalized nuclear database structure (GNDS) for use in any general transport code with the ability to read GNDS data. The first step in this effort is to verify that the TNSL processing with FUDGE yields results comparable to results obtained using the LANL nuclear data processing code NJOY. The next step is to verify the transport of thermal neutrons in Mercury (a Monte Carlo code) and Ardra (a deterministic code) against one another, as well as against the LANL Monte Carlo neutron transport code MCNP. This verification step has not been completed, due to a number of discrepancies between results obtained using differently processed data. There is ongoing effort to understand differences between FUDGE and NJOY. Finally, we map out our current capability to validate TNSL data against benchmark systems.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

New accelerator capabilities with the high-gradient C-band [Slides]

LANSCE accelerator upgrades: Applications such as pRad desire higher proton beam energy. Material science at LANL will benefit from powerful directional high repetition rate X-ray sources. As it considers itself to be the NNSA accelerator laboratory, LANL should play role in developing compact accelerators for various national security missions.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Engineering Space Mission Support at Los Alamos National Laboratory [Slides]

This talk focuses on engineering space mission support at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). In many cases, LANL is one of many participants on a particular space mission. There are many other space activities at institutions and government agencies worldwide, some of which are closely related to the ones describe in this talk.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Utilizing the Dynamic Networks Data Processing and Analysis Experiment (DNE18) to Establish Methodologies for the Comparison of Automatic Infrasonic Signal Detectors

The Dynamic Networks Experiment 2018 (DNE18) was a collaborative effort between Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) designed to evaluate methodologies for multi-modal data ingestion and processing. One component of this virtual experiment was a quantitative assessment of current capabilities for infrasound data processing, beginning with the establishment of a baseline for infrasound signal detection. To produce such baselines, SNL and LANL exploited a common dataset of infrasound data recorded across a regional network in Utah from December 2010 through February 2011. We utilize two automated signal detectors, the Adaptive F-Detector (AFD) and the Multivariate Adaptive Learning Detector (MALD) to produce automated signal detection catalogs and an analyst-produced catalog. Comparisons indicate that automatic detectors may be able to identify small amplitude, low SNR events that cannot be identified by analyst review. We document detector performance in terms of precision and recall, demonstrating that the AFD is more precise, but the MALD has higher recall. We use a synthetic dataset of signals embedded in pink noise in order to highlight shortcomings in assessing detection algorithms for low signal to noise ratio signals which are commonly of interest to the nuclear monitoring community. For comparisons utilizing the synthetic dataset, the AFD has higher recall while precision is equal for both detectors. These results indicate that both detectors perform well across a variety of background noise environments; however, both detectors fail to identify repetitive, short duration signals arriving from similar backazimuths. These failures represent specific scenarios that could be targeted for further detector development.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

November 2021 Operational Highlights

Completed: 1. the initial tests of document workflows for Titan on the Red, which included standing up a software encryption capability to test data ingestion; 2. a software encryption capability in order to ingest the first data source by the end of the month; 3. a stand-alone computer for classified ontology data entry. Titan on the Red is an artificial intelligence/machine learning system to make digitizing, cataloging, and searching NSRC collections easier and more efficient. Created Online Vault backups, with one copy stored at LANL and one shipped to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The Online Vault is a classified, searchable library of LANL’s nuclear weapons design and test history. Imported new Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) documents based on revised access categories. Bulk ingested nearly 10,000 documents via java-based PowerLoader. This application ingests metadata and content into the Online Vault to meet the requirements for the NSRC collections. Rehoused 300 linear feet of weapons physics documents in archival, acid-free storage folders and boxes.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

233 U(n,$\gamma$) measurements at LANSCE [Slides]

A new measurement at LANSCE combined DANCE and NEUANCE at the end of 2020 and 2021. The 233 U material was provided by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (December 2020).Two samples of 10 mg and 20 mg of 233 U have been prepared at LANL by Evelyn M. Bond (December 2020). The experiment was performed in December 2020 and June/July 2021. Data analysis is ongoing to extract capture data knowing fission. LANL is looking forward to delivering the capture/fission ratio from (1-300) keV by the end of the FY2022.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Fission In R-Process Elements

The goal of the FIRE topical collaboration in nuclear theory was to determine the astrophysical conditions of the rapid neutron capture process (r-process), which is responsible for the formation of heavy elements. This was be achieved by including in r-process simulations the most advanced models of fission (spontaneous, neutron-induced, β-delayed) that have been developed at LLNL and LANL. The collaboration was composed of LLNL (lead) and LANL for fission work, BNL for nuclear data management, and the university of Notre Dame and North Carolina State University for r-process simulations. Under DOE/NNSA agreement, both universities received funds from DOE Office of Science, while national laboratories receive funds directly from NA221.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

High-Resolution 3D Acoustic Borehole Integrity Monitoring (Final Report)

Real-time, in-situ, high spatial resolution (sub-cm) imaging of the near-borehole environment would revolutionize wellbore diagnostics and integrity assessment by direct observation of defects. It is becoming increasingly apparent, that better understanding of the near-wellbore environment is required to meet the safety and operational needs in challenging environments such as those present in subsurface energy extraction (geothermal) and storage (CO2 sequestration) applications. Therefore, it is important to have a more robust ability to image the near-borehole and reliably detect defects. It was proposed to further develop and improve our advanced 3D imaging system to evaluate casing defects (e.g. corrosion) and cement quality in either open- or cased-borehole with the ultimate goal to develop a commercially deployable technology. The system consists of a unique acoustic source (LANL) and advanced inversion techniques for image processing (LANL, ORNL). This system will provide comprehensive borehole integrity monitoring with improved resolution over existing techniques. As an application of this imaging system, we will characterize the effectiveness of next-generation wellbore completion technology (NETL, SNL), and will demonstrate that, unlike current technology, the proposed approach can successfully characterize foamed cements.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Experimental Procedure and Results for Contact Thermal Conductance Measurements performed during FY 2021

Weapons Test Engineering groups at LANL are responsible for testing and simulating weapon assemblies and subassemblies in support of qualification and certification of nuclear weapon systems. The complex nature of the assemblies themselves coupled with the loading environments, gives rise to low confidence and high uncertainties in the interpretation of both experimental and simulated results. In an effort to reduce these uncertainties, a project was started at LANL to perform focused and systematic experiments combined with simulations to increase confidence in both arenas. A key goal of the work performed under the Delivery Environments (DE) Testbeds to Reduce Uncertainties in Simulations and Tests TRUST program, focuses on identifying and minimizing sources of uncertainty associated with experimental and computational techniques. Specifically, with the above as motivation, a measurement procedure was developed by MST-8 to perform thermal conductivity measurements on cylinders of both similar and dissimilar metallic systems as a function of loading conditions and varying material interface morphologies between these components.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

stochprop Documentation (Release 1.0)

Simulations of infrasonic propagation in the atmosphere typically utilize a single atmospheric specification describing the acoustic sound speed, ambient winds, and density as a function of altitude. Due to the dynamic and sparsely sampled nature of the atmosphere, there is a notable amount of uncertainty in the atmospheric state at a given location and time so that a more robust analysis of infrasonic propagation requires inclusion of this uncertainty. This Python library, stochprop, has been implemented using methods developed jointly by infrasound scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the University of Mississippi’s National Center for Physical Acoustics (NCPA). This software library includes methods to quantify variability in the atmospheric state, identify typical seasonal variability in the atmospheric state and generate suites of representative atmospheric states during a given season, as well as perform uncertainty analysis on a specified atmospheric state given some level of uncertainty. These methods have been designed to interface between propagation modeling capabilities such as InfraGA/GeoAc and NCPAprop and signal analysis methods in the LANL InfraPy tool.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Student Opportunities in 2022 - An XTD-SS Perspective [Slides]

Intended for remote presentations for student recruiting. Los Alamos National Laboratory’s mission is to solve security challenges through simultaneous excellence. It accomplishes this through the shared efforts of a diverse group of people from many backgrounds. A crucial subset of these people are students that make their contributions in mathematics, physics, engineering, and more. In this presentation, I will describe LANL, its student programs, my division XTD, my group XTD-SS, and several relevant topics for students. I conclude with the following statement: LANL is a great place to apply skills learned in academia and time spent here is valuable for wherever your future career may lead you.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Key Pandemic Response R&D Contributions by Los Alamos National Laboratory

New research goals, mitigation successes, and beneficial collaborations burgeoned from the early critical days of 2020 when LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory) pivoted to help respond to the pandemic. By applying its considerable capabilities in the fields of science, technology, and engineering (STE), LANL responded to the coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This report documents representative examples of that response. Through significant investments in COVID-19 mitigations and ongoing research and development (R&D), important advancements were made to address the pandemic that not only benefited the global population affected by the pandemic, but also protected our staff and collaborators as we executed our Lab’s mission.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

FY21 MCNP ® Updates for the Nuclear Criticality Safety Program [Slides]

LANL has devoted a substantial amount effort toward the MCNP6.3 release over the past year by improving many of their processes, infrastructure, and capabilities. Many new resources in support of the MCNP code and DOE NCSP applications are coming online now. LANL is excited to receive feedback on all of the new and improved capabilities that will be packaged with MCNP6.3.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Small Mammal Prey Study for the Mexican Spotted Owl at Two Locations at Los Alamos National Laboratory

In New Mexico, Mexican spotted owls (Strix occidentalis lucida) are typically found in rocky canyons consisting of mixed-conifer forests that have experienced minimal human disturbance. At Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Mexican spotted owls have been found breeding and foraging in habitats consistent with their known biology, but face the impact of human encroachment in the surrounding upland habitat. Little is known about the prey base present within the Laboratory’s vast forests. In anticipation of expanding human development in proximity to known occupied owl habitat, the goal of our study was to evaluate the small mammal prey base available to Mexican spotted owls at the Laboratory and to assess prey availability, diversity and composition. We sampled two study plots within the Laboratory’s forests for small mammals in 2021. Study plots were situated in conifer, deciduous, mixed conifer-deciduous and mixed oak. Our small mammal trapping efforts and SCR modeling revealed site-specific differences in prey base diversity, abundance and density between the unoccupied Pajarito Canyon and nearby occupied Mortandad Canyon site. These results highlight how managing tracts of land for small mammal prey base may overlap with goals set forth by researchers for Mexican spotted owl habitat needs. We recommend further trapping efforts to better understand prey availability in occupied and unoccupied sites at LANL as well as further investigation of prey selection through the dissection of pellets found in the areas surrounding known nesting locations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

High Explosive Testing Capabilities at Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) [Slides]

LANL is a non-profit Federally Funded Research & Development Center (FFRDC). LANL’s Integrated Weapons Experiments (J) Division addresses national security challenges by executing largescale, integrated, focused experiments, and tests of engineered devices and systems. J-NV plans, fields, and executes dynamic high explosive experiments at NNSS. This includes sub-critical experiments involving special nuclear material, as well as small- and largescale non-nuclear experiments. J-NV generates, analyzes, and disseminates unique, high-quality data.

42 ENGINEERING↗