Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “NEUTRON SCIENCE”

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.

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

At least 757 records · Page 42
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

ToF-SIMS spectral analysis of pristine and neutron irradiated single crystal tungsten

Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) has many promising features in studying materials including high spatial resolution and high mass accuracy of elements, molecules, and isotopes. Its ability to resolve isotopes is especially attractive in studying transmutation products of single crystal tungsten (SCW) post neutron irradiation. Tungsten (W) is a contender of plasma facing materials (PFMs) due to its high thermal and radiological stability. PFMs to be used in the construction of fusion vessels are subject to high temperature and neutron irradiation, resulting in changes to materials including transmutation, which ultimately impact material mechanical and thermal properties. We used IONTOF TOF.SIMS V instrument equipped with a 30 keV Bi 3 + primary ion beam to study pristine SCW and irradiated SCW speciemens. Scanning electron microscope coupled with focused ion beam (SEM-FIB) was used to reduce the dosage of neutron irradiated tungsten and prepare for specimens for SIMS analysis. Static ToF-SIMS spectra were obtained, and transmutation product peak identification was presented in this work. Identified molecules and molecular fragments were compared against isotope theoretical mass to charge ratios of tungsten, rhenium, osmium, and other relevant products. Our results show that ToF-SIMS provides a viable means to study transmutation products of W post neutron irradiation. Such applications are suitable to investigate transmutation effects on materials that are being considered and developed for fusion pilot plants.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Texture measurements on quartz single crystals to validate coordinate systems for neutron time-of-flight texture analysis

In crystallographic texture analysis, ensuring that sample directions are preserved from experiment to the resulting orientation distribution is crucial to obtain physical meaning from diffraction data. This work details a procedure to ensure instrument and sample coordinates are consistent when analyzing diffraction data with a Rietveld refinement using the texture analysis software MAUD . A quartz crystal is measured on the HIPPO diffractometer at Los Alamos National Laboratory for this purpose. The methods described here can be applied to any diffraction instrument measuring orientation distributions in polycrystalline materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2019

Measurement and prediction of through-section residual stresses in the manufacturing sequence of bearing components

Through-section residual stresses in an asymmetric, thin-walled tapered bearing component were non-destructively studied via neutron diffraction after soft machining, heat treatment and hard turning. Two-dimensional area maps revealed non-uniform distributions of stress fields in both the thinnest and thickest sections of the component, indicating that the entire processing sequence plays a vital role — not only in distortion, but in the final stress state as well. Here, a computational model was developed to further understand the extent of the distortion induced in bearing components as a result of process variables in the manufacturing sequence.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Challenges and design solutions of the liquid hydrogen circuit at the European Spallation Source

The European Spallation Source (ESS), Lund, Sweden will be a 5MW long-pulse neutron spallation research facility and will enable new opportunities for researchers in the fields of life sciences, energy, environmental technology, cultural heritage and fundamental physics. Neutrons are produced by accelerating a high-energy proton beam into a rotating helium-cooled tungsten target. These neutrons pass through moderators to reduce their energy to an appropriate range (< 5 meV for cold neutrons); two of which will use liquid hydrogen at 17 K as the moderating and cooling medium. There are several technical challenges to overcome in the design of a robust system that will operate under such conditions, not least the 20 kW of deposited heat. These challenges and the associated design solutions will be detailed in this paper.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2025

Development of the detector array for photons, protons, and exotic residues

Accurate neutron capture predictions are needed in fundamental and applied science. Empirical models are constrained largely for stable nuclei, but predictions far from stability are needed. Neutron transfer in (d,p) reactions in inverse kinematics with rare isotope beams offer a means to access key aspects of the capture process. To this end, the detector array for photons, protons, and exotic residues (DAPPER) has been designed, built, tested, and used for measurement at Texas A&M University.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Capturing dynamical correlations using implicit neural representations

Abstract Understanding the nature and origin of collective excitations in materials is of fundamental importance for unraveling the underlying physics of a many-body system. Excitation spectra are usually obtained by measuring the dynamical structure factor, S ( Q , ω ), using inelastic neutron or x-ray scattering techniques and are analyzed by comparing the experimental results against calculated predictions. We introduce a data-driven analysis tool which leverages ‘neural implicit representations’ that are specifically tailored for handling spectrographic measurements and are able to efficiently obtain unknown parameters from experimental data via automatic differentiation. In this work, we employ linear spin wave theory simulations to train a machine learning platform, enabling precise exchange parameter extraction from inelastic neutron scattering data on the square-lattice spin-1 antiferromagnet La 2 NiO 4 , showcasing a viable pathway towards automatic refinement of advanced models for ordered magnetic systems.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2016

Characterization of the scintillation anisotropy in crystalline stilbene scintillator detectors

This study reports a series of measurements that characterize the directional dependence of the scintillation response of crystalline melt-grown and solution-grown trans-stilbene to incident DT and DD neutrons. These measurements give the amplitude and pulse shape dependence on the proton recoil direction over one hemisphere of the crystal, confirming and extending previous results in the literature for melt-grown stilbene and providing the first measurements for solution-grown stilbene. In similar measurements of liquid and plastic detectors, no directional dependence was observed, confirming the hypothesis that the anisotropy in stilbene and other organic crystal scintillators is a result of internal effects due to the molecular or crystal structure and not an external effect on the measurement system.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2024

Uniaxial strain tuning of charge modulation and singularity in a kagome superconductor

Tunable quantum materials hold great potential for applications. Of special interest are materials in which small lattice strain induces giant electronic responses. The kagome compounds AV 3 Sb 5 (A = K, Rb, Cs) provide a testbed for electronic tunable states. In this study, through angle-resolved photo- emission spectroscopy, we provide comprehensive spectroscopic measure- ments of the electronic responses induced by compressive and tensile strains on the charge-density-wave (CDW) and van Hove singularity (VHS) in CsV 3 Sb 5 . We observe a tripling of the CDW gap magnitudes with ~ 1% strain. Simulta- neously, changes of both energy and mass of the VHS are observed. Combined, this reveals an anticorrelation between the unconventional CDW order para- meter and the mass of the VHS, and highlight the role of the latter in the superconducting pairing. The substantial electronic responses uncover a rich strain tunability of the versatile kagome system in studying quantum inter- plays under lattice variations.

electronic properties and materials↗
DOE OSTI2016

Fission-neutrons source with fast neutron-emission timing

A neutron source with fast timing has been built to help with detector-response measurements. The source is based on the neutron emission from the spontaneous fission of 252 Cf. The time is provided by registering the fission fragments in a layer of a thin scintillation film with a signal rise time of 1 ns. The scintillation light output is measured by two silicon photomultipliers with rise time of 0.5 ns. Overall time resolution of the source is 0.3 ns. Design of the source and test measurements using it are described. An example application of the source for determining the neutron/gamma pulse-shape discrimination by a stilbene crystal is also given.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2018

Radioactivity Calculator for Research and Test Reactor Neutron-Activated Materials

The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Nuclear Science User Facility (NSUF) supports nuclear energy-relevant research into the effects of radiation on nuclear fuels and structural materials. The NSUF provides access, at no cost to the researcher, to the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), the High-Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), and other university and national laboratory research and test reactors for radiation effects experiments. Post-irradiation examination of materials poses some difficulties when studying neutron-irradiated materials due to the radioactivity levels of the materials. Inside a test reactor, under high neutron flux, stable materials can activate (capture a neutron) and become unstable or radioactive. These newly created radioactive materials decay, based on their respective half-lives, and emit energetic radiation. Nuclides with short half-lives are able to decay to sufficiently low radiation levels prior to the sample being removed from the reactor. However, nuclides with longer half-lives present a challenge since they must be handled with extreme caution and stored until their radioactivity levels decrease. If immediate examination is required, the examination may take place in a hot cell, which can dramatically increase the cost of the project. The NSUF has access to a variety of hot cells and characterization capabilities at national laboratories, universities, and industrial sites across the United States. In order to estimate the post-irradiation radioactivity levels of materials early in the experiment cycle, we created a radioactivity calculator, hosted on the NSUF web site (nsuf.inl.gov), which will consider three stages of neutron activations and decays for sample materials.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Optimization of a superconducting adiabatic radio frequency neutron resonant spin flipper

The neutron radio frequency (RF) spin flipper is one of the key components to implement neutron resonance spin echo (NRSE) for high resolution measurements of dynamics in materials. Various types of RF flippers have been built and implemented including adiabatic and non-adiabatic RF flippers. For a pulsed neutron source, adiabatic RF flipper is more favorable due to its wide operation bandwidth. However, the optimization criteria of an adiabatic RF flipper is still lacking. Also they are difficult to be operated in bootstrap mode, which can be use to minimize the phase aberration and increase the achievable resolution. In the report by Dadisman et al. (2019), an adiabatic RF flipper has been built for the first time with superconducting technologies, which allows bootstrap mode. Here in this article, the method of optimizing the device and the detailed design will be discussed for each component of the device.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2014

Neutron measurements of stresses in a test artifact produced by laser-based additive manufacturing

A stainless steel test artifact produced by Direct Metal Laser Sintering and similar to a proposed standardized test artifact was examined using neutron diffraction. The artifact contained a number of structures with different aspect ratios pertaining to wall thickness, height above base plate, and side length. Through spatial resolutions of the order of one millimeter the volumetric distribution of stresses in several was measured. It was found that the stresses peak in the tensile region around 500 MPa near the top surface, with balancing compressive stresses in the interior. The presence of a support structure (a one millimeter high, thin walled, hence weaker, lattice structure deposited on the base plate, followed by a fully dense AM structure) has only minor effects on the stresses.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2016

A Practical Assessment of the Effect of Water Interspersed with Plutonium Metal Hemishells - Summary

Operations with fissile materials can be performed safely by complying with any of the listed single-parameter subcritical limits in ANS-8.1. For metallic units, the single-parameter subcritical limits apply to a single piece having no concave surfaces. They may be extended to an assembly of pieces, provided that there is no neutron moderating material interspersed with the pieces. An MCNP6.1 study was undertaken at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to investigate the effect that interspersed water has on plutonium-metal hemishells. At LANL, it is common to have more than one hemishell at any given location, which obviously have concave surfaces. The intent of this paper is to present a high-level summary of the effect of having multiple concave shells, interspersed with water, as well as to discuss the methodology we used to determine the Upper Subcritical Limits (USL's) associated with the results. (authors)

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Nuclear quantum effect with pure anharmonicity and the anomalous thermal expansion of silicon

Significance Silicon has a peculiar negative thermal expansion at low temperature. This behavior has been understood with a “quasiharmonic” theory where low-energy phonons decrease in frequency with volume contraction. We report inelastic neutron scattering measurements of phonon dispersions over a wide range of temperatures. These measurements cast doubt upon quasiharmonic theory, which predicts the wrong sign for most phonon shifts with temperature. Fully anharmonic ab initio calculations correctly predict the phonon shifts and thermal expansion. Crystal structure, anharmonicity, and nuclear quantum effects all play important roles in the thermal expansion of silicon, and a simple mechanical explanation is inappropriate. The quantum effect of nuclear vibrations is also expected to be important for thermophysical properties of many materials.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Volume 4: Detection Systems and Ultra-Cold Neutrons

As part of the Sustaining and Enhancing Nuclear Science (SENSe) initiative at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the prospect of adding new detection systems to support High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) operations and to advance scientific research has prompted many ideas and discussions regarding potential features, configurations, locations, and applications. A working group of ORNL staff members was organized to further develop the concepts and recommending one or more configurations to best support future HFIR operations and scientific capacities and to provide order-of-magnitude cost estimates and timing. The areas of investigation included fast access detection systems, non-scattering beamline instruments, shielded detection instruments, and an ultracold neutron source. In each case, the focus was to develop world leading capabilities that would be unmatched by any other facility.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2016

Modulation of hemoglobin dynamics by an allosteric effector

Hemoglobin (Hb) is an extensively studied paradigm of proteins that alter their function in response to allosteric effectors. Models of its action have been used as prototypes for structure-function relationships in many proteins, and models for the molecular basis of its function have been deeply studied and extensively argued. Recent reports suggest that dynamics may play an important role in its function. Relatively little is known about the slow, correlated motions of hemoglobin subunits in various structural states because experimental and computational strategies for their characterization are challenging. Allosteric effectors such as inositol hexaphosphate (IHP) bind to both deoxy-Hb and HbCO, albeit at different sites, leading to a lowered oxygen affinity. The manner in which these effectors impact oxygen binding is unclear and may involve changes in structure, dynamics or both. Here we use neutron spin echo (NSE) measurements accompanied by wideangle x-ray scattering (WAXS) to show that binding of IHP to HbCO results in an increase in the rate of coordinated motions of Hb subunits relative to one another with little if any change in large scale structure. This increase of large-scale dynamics seems to be coupled with a decrease in the average magnitude of higher frequency modes of individual residues. Furthermore, these observations indicate that enhanced dynamic motions contribute to the functional changes induced by IHP and suggest that they may be responsible for the lowered oxygen affinity triggered by these effectors.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

Raman spectroscopy of neutron irradiated silicon carbide: Correlation among Raman spectra, swelling, and irradiation temperature

The effects of neutron irradiation on microstructural evolution and the resultant changes in physical and mechanical properties are of critical importance for the development of silicon carbide (SiC) materials for nuclear applications. This study neutron–irradiated β–SiC under a wide range of conditions at temperatures between 235 and 750°C and neutron doses of 0.01–11.8 displacements per atom, and then evaluated the effects on the SiC structure using Raman spectroscopy. The SiC optical phonon lines were shifted to lower wavenumbers by irradiation. Correlations were found among the wavenumber of the longitudinal optical phonon line, irradiation–induced swelling, and irradiation temperature. The peak shift also correlated indirectly with decreasing thermal conductivity of irradiated SiC. The irradiation–induced peak shift is explained by combinations of lattice strain, reduction of the elastic modulus, and other factors including decreasing coherent domain size. Lastly, these findings bridge irradiation–induced microstructural changes and property changes and illustrate how Raman spectroscopy is a useful tool for nondestructively assessing irradiated SiC materials for nuclear applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗