SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Validation”

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.

SourceResearch connectionFrom yearThrough year

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 739 records · Page 41

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

DOE OSTI2016

Verification and Validation of Multisegmented Mooring Capabilities in FAST v8: Preprint

The quasi-static and dynamic mooring modules of the open-source aero-hydro-servo-elastic wind turbine simulation software, FAST v8, have previously been verified and validated, but only for mooring arrangements consisting of single lines connecting each fairlead and anchor. This paper extends the previous verification and validation efforts to focus on the multisegmented mooring capability of the FAST v8 modules: MAP++, MoorDyn, and the OrcaFlex interface. The OC3-Hywind spar buoy system tested by the DeepCwind consortium at the MARIN ocean basin, which includes a multisegmented bridle layout of the mooring system, was used for the verification and validation activities.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2016

Verification and Validation of Multisegmented Mooring Capabilities in FAST v8

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2016

Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling of Bubbling in a Viscous Fluid for Validation of Waste Glass Melter Modeling

At the Hanford site, radioactive waste stored in underground tanks is slated for vitrification for final disposal. A comprehensive knowledge of the glass batch melting process will be useful in optimizing the process, which could potentially reduce the cost and duration of this multi-billion dollar cleanup effort. We are developing a high-fidelity heat transfer model of a Joule-heated ceramic lined melter to improve the understanding of the complex, inter-related processes occurring with the melter. The glass conversion rates in the cold cap layer are dependent on promoting efficient heat transfer. In practice, heat transfer is augmented by inserting air bubblers into the molten glass. However, the computational simulations must be validated to provide confidence in the solutions. As part of a larger validation procedure, it is beneficial to split the physics of the melter into smaller systems to validate individually. The substitution of molten glass for a simulant liquid with similar density and viscosity at room temperature provides a way to study mixing through bubbling as an isolated effect without considering the heat transfer dynamics. The simulation results are compared to experimental data obtained by the Vitreous State Laboratory at the Catholic University of America using bubblers placed within a large acrylic tank that is similar in scale to a pilot glass waste melter. Comparisons are made for surface area of the rising air bubbles between experiments and CFD simulations for a variety of air flow rates and bubble injection depths. Also, computed bubble rise velocity is compared to a well-accepted expression for bubble terminal velocity.

bubbling↗

DOE OSTI2017

Validation and Bias Quantification of Criticality Safety Codes for SRNS Operations

The validation and bias quantification methods employed by the Criticality Safety Engineering group at Savannah River Nuclear Solutions are discussed. Both SCALE and MCNP are validated against benchmark experiments, where these benchmark models have been divided into subgroups representative of the types of fissile material operations at SRNS. A quantification of the bias is made for each subgroup for each code and the three methods employed for quantification are discussed. The bias information is employed directly in the establishment of the Upper Safety Limit (USL) value of the neutron multiplication factor when using standardized documented SRNS methods. A simple example of validation and bias quantification is given and the procedure for setting the USL using the derived bias information is also presented.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2017

BISON Validation for LOCA and PCMI Behaviour Using Measurements From the Halden Reactor Project

BISON is a finite element-based nuclear fuel performance code that has been under development at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) since 2009. The code is applicable to both steady and transient fuel behavior and has been used to analyze a variety of fuel forms in 1D spherical, 1.5D and 2D axisymmetric, or 3D geometries. Efforts are underway to validate BISON for application to Light Water Reactor fuels using, to a large extent, experimental data from the Halden Reactor Project. Recent validation activities have included both Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) and Pellet Clad Mechanical Interaction (PCMI) experiments. Two such validation cases, the IFA-650.10 LOCA test and the IFA-629.4 power ramp test (PCMI), are summarized in this paper.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2019

Structural Validation at the NWTC Helps Improve Component Design and Increase System Reliability

Since 1990, the National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has validated more than 150 wind turbine blades, as well as blades and components for marine energy devices. Researchers at the NWTC can experimentally validate full-scale and subcomponent articles, conduct data analyses, and provide engineering expertise to optimize design practices. Structural evaluation of turbine blades enables designers, manufacturers, and owner operators t o assess designs and structural performance under specific extreme loading and dynamic conditions. Rigorous structural validation can reveal design and manufacturing problems at an early state of development that lead to improvements in component design and increase system reliability.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2019

Validation of RELAP5-3D He-FUS3 Data

The RELAP5-3D computer code was validated using data from the HE FUS3 experimental facility. HE FUS3 is a helium-cooled, electrically-heated experimental facility that was used to generate experimental data for a benchmark exercise aimed at the validation of system transient analysis codes for very-high-temperature gas reactor applications. RELAP5-3D was validated using results from seven steady-state tests and one transient that simulated a loss-of-flow accident.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2019

Validation Studies using ELK and the Open-Source MOOSE Framework Application Zapdos for Electromagnetic Coupled Plasma Simulation

An open source simulation platform that captures electromagnetics, plasma chemistry, and fluid treatment of the plasma domain would be a powerful tool for studying low temperature plasma (LTP) phenomena. Within the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) open source framework, ELK, CRANE, and Zapdos are combined to provide open source simulation capability for the LTP community. This talk presents continued validation of the general electromagnetic (EM) simulation tool ELK (Electromagnetic Library for Kinetics & fluids). Previous validation efforts focused on simulating standard waveguide and antenna benchmarks in vacuum and linear dielectrics, but ELK has since been coupled with the MOOSE-based plasma fluid application Zapdos [Lindsay et al 2016 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 49 235204] to perform radio-frequency (rf) capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) system simulation. Plasma validation efforts initially focused on electrostatic benchmarks to demonstrate ELK-Zapdos code coupling and then moved to electromagnetic benchmarks based on interesting geometries and conditions (VHF effects in a CCP reactor, microwave heating, etc.). Results and progress in these efforts will be summarized and discussed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2021

Validation of Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility Experiments Using Pronghorn

The OSU High Temperature Test Facility is a quarter-scale diameter, 1/64 scale volume test facility meant to replicate thermophysical phenomena in the prototypical General Atomics Modular High Temperature Gas Reactor. Tests pertaining to conduction cooldown events were performed from 2016-2019, providing a large database by which computational methods that are applicable to different length scales can be validated. One of these codes is Pronghorn, which is a coarse-meshed, porous-based subchannel thermal hydraulics code based on the MOOSE application, with the intention of better capturing the physics of both conduction and convection heat transfer within the OSU HTTF core. The goal of this summer project is to develop the framework by which Pronghorn can perform validation exercises of the HTTF core for benchmarking, by generating a mesh appropriate to the geometry of the HTTF core, developing input decks that accurately capture the initial and boundary conditions, materials, and relevant equations to the physics seen in the HTTF core, and using a postprocessor to compare simulation results to various experimental data. While validation of codes is a multi-year project, a mesh has been generated and tested in Pronghorn that meets mass conservation and basic heat transfer principles. The next step is to accurate depict the fluid inlet and outlet boundary conditions, which will be performed using computational fluid dynamics software.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Conducting Field Validations of Commercial Energy Efficiency Technologies with Underserved Communities: Preprint

Underserved communities in the United States often experience the negative impacts of climate change and environmental degradation but enjoy few of the benefits of technological and environmental advances. The White House has addressed this inequity through the Justice40 initiative, which requires 40% of the benefits of select federal investments to be directed to underserved communities (The White House, 2022). Clean energy and energy efficiency are two highlighted investment categories, so the U.S. Department of Energy will guide implementation of the Justice40 initiative by, among other things, decreasing energy burdens, increasing parity in clean energy technology access and adoption, and increasing energy resiliency. A strategy for reaching these goals is to evaluate and validate new energy efficiency technologies in commercial buildings in underserved communities, where buildings may be older, smaller, and have deferred maintenance due to historical underinvestment. This paper assesses the proficiency of the technologies under these conditions and increases awareness of the benefits to the communities. In addition, historical redlining and past negative experiences with government and large institutions may make residents wary of participating in these field validations. Researchers, therefore, may need to spend more time building relationships and matching technologies to buildings. In this paper, we analyzed technical reports to identify common required and desired field validation building characteristics, and conducted semi-structured expert conversations to identify key stages and major themes of engaging underserved communities. Our results indicate that the benefits to both the community and energy efficiency research justify the effort. The White House. (2022). Justice40. https://www.whitehouse.gov/environmentaljustice/justice40/

ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION↗

DOE OSTI2017

Validation testing of radioactive Cesium measurement in Decontaminated waste with the Scattering Gamma Equivalent Method - 17238

Canberra Industries, Inc. [CI], Now Mirion Technologies (Canberra) Inc. [MTC], has developed and validated a new Flexible Container Bag or Feed Roll Assay System 'FRAS' for Interim Storage Facilities [ISF] etc. There is an estimated 22 million cubic meters of soil and vegetation from the decontamination efforts around Fukushima. Removed soil and vegetation waste was put into flexible containers called Super Sacks [SS]. These SSs will be transported to ISF by trucks. These SSs will be divided into three categories according to total Cs radioactivity level (RL). This level is 'higher than 100,000 Bq/kg', '100,000>RL>8,000 Bq/kg' and '8,000 > RL >3,000 Bq/kg', respectively. The main uncertainty for SS measuring is internal inhomogeneity and heterogeneous source distribution. Japan Atomic Energy Agency [JAEA] has developed the Scattering Gamma Equivalent Model [SGE model] for decreasing uncertainty derived from these factors. This method was validated by Mirion Technologies (Canberra) KK [MCKK] and JAEA. According to the validation test, the SGE model can reduce the uncertainty of SS measurement from ± 25% to ± less than 15%. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

DOE OSTI2017

Validation and bias quantification of criticality safety codes for SRNS operations

The validation and bias quantification methods employed by the Criticality Safety Engineering group at Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) are discussed. Both SCALE and MCNP are validated against benchmark experiments, where these benchmark models have been divided into subgroups representative of the types of fissile material operations at SRNS. A quantification of the bias is made for each subgroup for each code and the three methods employed for quantification are discussed. The bias information is employed directly in the establishment of the Upper Safety Limit (USL) value of the neutron multiplication factor when using standardized documented SRNS methods. A simple example of validation and bias quantification is given and the procedure for setting the USL using the derived bias information is also presented. (authors)

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2016

Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling of Bubbling in a Viscous Fluid for Validation of Waste Glass Melter Modeling

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

DOE OSTI2016

Application of PCM Validation to BFBT Experiments

In support of model validation, this summary applies a recently proposed methodology, denoted hereinafter by physics-guided coverage mapping (PCM), to the estimation of void fraction in heated channels using the OECD/NEA full size fine mesh bundle test (BFBT) data. PCM here is developed as a quantitative approach that allows for a rigorous scaling of experimental biases to the application domain, i.e., the range of the conditions intended for model application. PCM aims to address some of the conceptual and computational difficulties associated with model validation exercises where it is essential to establish with a certain confidence that the available experiments provide enough evidence to support the use of the model for its intended range of application. To our knowledge, this methodology represents a first-of-a-kind application of physics models to support validation, in a manner that precludes parameters calibration, and avoids the introduction of expert-based scale-distortion uncertainties. (authors)

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2017

LANL-SNL Collaboration on NCS Validation

During 2016, nuclear criticality safety (NCS) practitioners from SNL and code developers from LANL collaborated in several areas of interest to the DOE/NNSA Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP). This collaboration involved: - Testing of the preliminary release of the MCNP6- Whisper methodology, with feedback to the developers, - Sharing of the benchmark catalogs (the collection of MCNP input files and benchmark results), with 1101 cases from LANL and 866 cases from SNL, - Comparison and analysis of 357 benchmarks common to both catalogs, - Investigation of the impact of the different benchmark catalogs on sensitivity-uncertainty based NCS validation results from MCNP6-Whisper, - Investigation of the impact of randomized selections from the benchmark catalog on sensitivity-uncertainty based validation results from MCNP6-Whisper. - Investigation of the use of MCNP6-Whisper in selecting benchmarks for use in NCS validation for unique, nonstandard, legacy fuel applications. This paper summarizes the collaboration work and initial results. It must be noted that the results described herein are preliminary and need further research and detailed analysis. However, the initial results are very interesting, and it is important to share them with the NCSP community.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2017

Validation of Methodology to Simulate Gamma Doses from Historical Weapons Tests

The United States tested nuclear weapons in the atmosphere (aboveground) from 1945 until 1963, when the nation became a signatory to the Partial Test Ban Treaty. During those tests, gamma doses were often measured within kilometers of the point of detonation. Additional gamma dose measurements were made in and around the location of any personnel conducting the test, possibly with personal dosimeters. These gamma dose measurements have been declassified to provide the personnel involved with an estimate of the total dose they received while involved with the aboveground testing program. Several years ago, interest in these gamma doses was renewed by organizations that would need to provide the public with dose estimates in the event of a radiological or nuclear weapon terrorist attack on the United States. This work provides an initial validation of the computational methods used to simulate dose from a radiological or nuclear weapon. This initial work will focus on dose from gamma rays. The sources of gamma rays from a nuclear weapon include prompt fission gammas, gammas generated via neutron interactions (capture, inelastic scattering, and activation), and gammas produced by the decay of fission products. All of these gamma ray sources for a nuclear weapon are also potential sources of gammas from a radiological weapon. However, the sources of gamma rays from a radiological weapon depend on the material present in the device, and prompt fission gammas will mostly come from spontaneous fission instead of induced fission. This paper focuses on validation using gamma ray dose measurements from nuclear detonations, which is adequate to validate the requisite transport methodologies, source term generation, and cross sections needed to model gamma doses delivered by most radiological weapons. The 1961 report on Operation Plumbbob provides an overview of how the total gamma dose delivered by a nuclear weapon is broken down by the different sources specified above. The prompt fission gamma rays contribute about 5% of the total gamma dose. The gamma rays produced by neutron interactions usually deliver the largest portion of the total gamma dose, which is typically between 55% and 85% of the total. The remainder of the total gamma ray dose is attributed to decay of fission products.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

DOE OSTI2017

Examples of Use of SINBAD Database for Nuclear Data and Code Validation

Benchmark experiments can serve several purposes and the availability of suitable experimental data is fundamental to ensure that modelling tools meet the requirements of nuclear industry and licensing needs. Essentially, they are used for: - validation of nuclear cross-section data, - validation of nuclear codes and models used, - qualification and training of users through benchmarking and code comparison exercises. The Shielding Integral Benchmark Archive and Database (SINBAD) project was started in the early 1990's at the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency Data Bank (NEA DB) and the Radiation Safety Information Computational Center (RSICC) as a collection of quality experiments for validating and benchmarking computer codes and data for radiation transport and shielding applications. Currently, the SINBAD database comprises over 100 benchmark compilations and evaluations of relevance to: - reactor shielding, pressure vessel dosimetry (48); - fusion blanket neutronics (31); - accelerator shielding (23). In order to facilitate their use, the data are organized in the standardized format structure. The index and the master document (called abstract) use the Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) format with links to text files, figures, Portable Document Format (pdf) documents and computer code inputs. The format allows easy access and forward/backward navigation among the data and has proved to be suitable, general enough and above all easy (and low-cost) to maintain. In addition to the characterization of the radiation source, description of the shielding set-up, the instrumentation and the relevant detector measurements, most sets in SINBAD contain also the deterministic or Monte Carlo radiation transport computer model used for the interpretation of the experiment and, where available, results from uncertainty analysis. The set of primary documents used for the benchmark compilation and evaluation are provided in computer readable form. The database is intended for different types of users, including nuclear data evaluators, computer code developers, experiment designers and university students. SINBAD is available from the NEA Data Bank and RSICC (see https://www.oecdnea.org/science/wprs/shielding/sinbad/). Up to now several hundreds of SINBAD packages were distributed from the NEA DB and RSICC. Since 2011 the maintenance and further development of the database is coordinated in the scope of the OECD NEA Nuclear Science Committee (NSC) Working Party on Scientific Issues of Reactor Systems (WPRS) Expert Group on Radiation Transport and Shielding (EGRTS). A key objective of the group is to identify, evaluate and preserve experimental data on shielding benchmarks. The Expert Group maintains close links with the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation (IRPhE) and International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation (ICSBEP) projects, as well as in co-ordination with the JEFF and EFF NEA Data Bank projects and with the SATIF community of accelerator shielding specialists. In the last years, much effort was devoted to the quality review of the available benchmark information.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2017

The International Experimental Thermal-Hydraulic Systems Database TIETHYS: a new NEA Validation Tool

Recent advances in multi-physics modeling and simulation tools and their necessary validation, has reinvigorated interest in fundamental thermal-hydraulics validation data for appropriate test scenarios and associated physical phenomena. The OECD-NEA has a well-established collection of such references known as the CCVM. However common problems encountered with accessibility of this data have prompted work on a new search and access database tool to allow more efficient and comprehensive use of these data. This will complement the existing tools for neutronics validation, as well as other NEA references resources. As well as acting as a means to better access and preserve this valuable information, it also creates an extendable platform for inclusion of new experimental systems, including eventually those for non-water coolants and high fidelity data focused towards novel CFD simulations.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗