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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 757 records · Page 42
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Radiative strength functions from the energy-localized Brink-Axel hypothesis

Radiative strength functions (RSFs) model the bulk electromagnetic response of highly excited nuclei and are critical inputs for statistical reaction codes. In this paper, we present a definition of the RSF that is consistent with Hauser-Feshbach reaction codes and that can be efficiently computed with the shell model using the Lanczos strength-function (LSF) method. Here, we introduce a variant of the shell-model LSF method that exploits the energy-localized Brink-Axel hypothesis, which makes it possible to compute both electric and magnetic RSFs across all energies relevant to capture reactions. We verify agreement with the conventional definition of RSFs with benchmark calculations of 24 Mg and then present novel results for 56 Fe. For 56 Fe we find that (i) the 𝑀⁢1 RSF shape evolves smoothly with excitation energy, consistent with the energy-localized Brink-Axel hypothesis; (ii) both 𝑀⁢1 and 𝐸⁢1 transitions contribute significantly to the radiative strength below the photoabsorption threshold; and (iii) within the sdpf model space, the strength below 3 MeV observed in Oslo-type experiments cannot be fully reproduced. These results pave the way for a coherent microscopic description of RSFs and further motivate the use of energy-dependent RSFs in modern reaction codes.

Physics - Nuclear physics and radiation physics↗
DOE OSTI2022

Mechanical behavior of bimetallic stainless steel and gray cast iron repairs via directed energy deposition additive manufacturing

The utility of gray cast iron in engine components remains tied to the mechanical performance and cost. Repair and remanufacturing of castings offer economical and sustainable benefits; however, high thermal input from traditional fusion-based welding is unable to restore the original mechanical quality owing to brittle microstructures and porosity formed in situ. Directed energy deposition (DED) is an additive manufacturing method that has received considerable interest for repairs owing to the highly controllable nature of the process. Despite this, few works have connected the effect of DED parameters on actual interfacial strength. Consequently, distinct DED parameter combinations were identified to maximize the strength and fatigue life of the repaired cast iron. Further, high speed melt pool imaging and residual stress measurements are provided to aid in the understanding of the metallurgical quality and strength seen in these structures. In general, higher scanning speeds and lower thermal gradients promoted comparable tensile strength to that of the original gray cast iron. The results presented here provide a foundation to tune in the DED process to generate the required mechanical quality as a starting point for future process advancements.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Achievable Rate and Energy Efficiency Analysis of Multiuser Relay-Aided Massive MIMO Downlink

In this article, the achievable sum rate and the energy efficiency (EE) are investigated for a multiuser relay-aided massive multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) downlink. Low-resolution digital-to-analog converters (DACs) are equipped at both the base station (BS) and the relay station (RS), and the amplify-and-forward protocol is adopted at the RS. Under the Rician fading channel, closed-form approximate expressions for the achievable sum rate are derived with perfect and imperfect channel state information. Furthermore, a more general power law is extracted to save transmit power without reducing the achievable sum rate, and a local optimal power allocation scheme is proposed to improve the channel capacity of active users. Then, the tradeoff between the achievable sum rate and the EE is discussed. The numerical results show that, due to the quantization noise, the transmit power has a limited increase in the achievable rate. In addition, it is more valuable to improve the DAC quantization bit at the RS when the number of BS antennas is larger than that of RS antennas. In addition, under strong line-of-sight channels or high pilot transmit power conditions, the channel estimation accuracy is higher, and the best tradeoff between the achievable sum rate and the EE can be obtained when the DAC quantization bit is 4.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Data and Scripts Associated with "Modeling Ecohydrological Responses of Vegetation to Urban Microclimates Using the E3SM Land Model"

This dataset supports the study of vegetation ecohydrological responses to urban microclimates using the land component of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (ELM) at four urban sites in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. It includes the model inputs, simulation outputs, and associated scripts for running ELM simulations and analyzing the resulting data. The Model_Inputs folder includes static surface data, satellite-derived phenology (i.e., leaf area index), and atmospheric forcing data used to drive ELM simulations. Detailed descriptions of these datasets are provided in Section 2.3.2 of the associated manuscript. The Model_Outputs folder contains simulation results for the baseline, treatment, and ensemble experiments. Outputs from the baseline and treatment simulations are provided as raw ELM NetCDF files. Because the raw outputs from the 4,000-member ensemble are prohibitively large, the ensemble results are provided as summarized CSV files, which also serve as the source data for Figure 5 of the associated manuscript. The Scripts folder contains three components: E3SM, the core codebase of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM); elm-olmt, the Offline Land Model Testbed (OLMT) used to perform the simulations; and knoxville_elm, which contains the analysis scripts used to process model outputs and generate the figures and results presented in the associated manuscript. Additional information is provided in Scripts_readme.txt within the Scripts directory.

Lu, Xiaoman [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000306698780)↗
DOE OSTI2022

Methods and system for siting advanced nuclear reactors and evaluating energy policy concerns

There is a growing sociopolitical desire to develop cleaner energy sources in the United States and maintain energy security. Regardless of politics, many coal-fired electric plants have already been shut down and many utilities are vowing to retire their current coal-fired assets within the next two decades. Replacement power assets require consideration of appropriate siting. A geographic information system (GIS)-based multicriteria decision analysis approach is useful to assist utility and energy companies, as well as policymakers, to evaluate potential areas for siting new plants in the contiguous United States. A GIS-based framework is simply a database of location information that allows for mapping, querying, modeling, and analyzing data based on location. The spatial output can be structured to be visual, allowing for easier analysis of location data. The need to site additional power assets, including renewable resources and clean power sources, such as nuclear, led to the development of the Oak Ridge Siting Analysis for power Generation Expansion (OR-SAGE) tool discussed in this paper. The tool takes inputs such as population growth, water availability, environmental indicators, and tectonic and geological hazards to provide an in-depth visual analysis for siting options. Energy companies and other stakeholders can use OR-SAGE to procure feedback quickly and effectively on land suitability based on technology specific inputs. Policymakers can use OR-SAGE to analyze the impacts of future energy technology decisions, while balancing competing resource use. Overall, this paper discusses the recent use of OR-SAGE for these purposes and plans for future development.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Physics augmented machine learning discovery of composition-dependent constitutive laws for 3D printed digital materials

Multi-material 3D printing, particularly through polymer jetting, enables the fabrication of digital materials by mixing distinct photopolymers at the micron scale within a single build to create a composite with tunable mechanical properties. Here, this work presents an integrated experimental and computational investigation into the composition-dependent mechanical behavior of 3D printed digital materials. We experimentally characterize five formulations, combining soft and rigid UV-cured polymers under uniaxial tension and torsion across three strain and twist rates. The results reveal nonlinear and rate-dependent responses that strongly depend on composition. To model this behavior, we develop a physics-augmented neural network (PANN) that combines a partially input convex neural network (pICNN) for learning the composition-dependent hyperelastic strain energy function with a quasi-linear viscoelastic (QLV) formulation for time-dependent response. The pICNN ensures convexity with respect to strain invariants while allowing non-convex dependence on composition. To enhance interpretability, we apply $L_0$ sparsification. For the time-dependent response, we introduce a multilayer perceptron (MLP) to predict viscoelastic relaxation parameters from composition. The proposed model accurately captures the nonlinear, rate-dependent behavior of 3D printed digital materials in both uniaxial tension and torsion, achieving high predictive accuracy for interpolated material compositions. This approach provides a scalable framework for automated, composition-aware constitutive model discovery for multi-material 3D printing.

Constitutive modeling↗
DOE OSTI2025

Anisotropic Flow in Fixed-Target 208 Pb + 20 Ne Collisions as a Probe of Quark-Gluon Plasma

The System for Measuring Overlap with Gas (SMOG2) at the LHCb detector enables the study of fixed-target ion-ion collisions at relativistic energies ($\sqrt{𝑠_{NN}}$ ∼ 100 GeV in the center of mass). Here, with input from ab initio calculations of the structure of 16 O and 20 Ne , we compute 3+1⁢D hydrodynamic predictions for the anisotropic flow of Pb+Ne and Pb+O collisions to be tested with upcoming LHCb data. This will allow the detailed study of quark-gluon plasma formation as well as experimental tests of the predicted nuclear shapes. Elliptic flow (𝑣 2 ) in Pb + Ne collisions is greatly enhanced compared to the Pb + O baseline due to the shape of 20 Ne , which is deformed in a bowling-pin geometry. Owing to the large 208 Pb radius, this effect is seen in a broad centrality range, a unique feature of this collision configuration. Larger elliptic flow further enhances the quadrangular flow (𝑣 4 ) of Pb + Ne collisions via nonlinear coupling, and impacts the sign of the kurtosis of the elliptic flow vector distribution (𝑐 2 ⁡{4}). Exploiting the shape of 20 Ne proves thus an ideal method to investigate the formation of quark-gluon plasma in fixed-target experiments at LHCb, and demonstrates the power of System for Measuring Overlap with Gas as a tool to image nuclear ground states.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Optimization of key energy and performance metrics for drug product manufacturing

During the development of pharmaceutical manufacturing processes, detailed systems-based analysis and optimization are required to control and regulate critical quality attributes within specific ranges, to maintain product performance. As discussions on carbon footprint, sustainability, and energy efficiency are gaining prominence, the development and utilization of these concepts in pharmaceutical manufacturing are seldom reported, which limits the potential of pharmaceutical industry in maximizing key energy and performance metrics. Based on an integrated modeling and techno-economic analysis framework previously developed by the authors, this study presents the development of a combined sensitivity analysis and optimization approach to minimize energy consumption while maintaining product quality and meeting operational constraints in a pharmaceutical process. The optimal input process conditions identified were validated against experiments and good agreement resulted between simulated and experimental data. Here, the results also allowed for a comparison of the capital and operational costs for batch and continuous manufacturing schemes under nominal and optimized conditions. Using the nominal batch operations as a basis, the optimized batch operation results in a 71.7% reduction of energy consumption, whereas the optimized continuous case results in an energy saving of 83.3%.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

HYPSTAT (Hydrogen Production, Storage, and Transmission Analysis Tool) [SWR-23-04]

The Hydrogen Production, Storage, and Transmission Analysis Tool (HYPSTAT) is a modeling framework developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to support the analysis of hydrogen systems. HYPSTAT focuses on key components of hydrogen infrastructure, particularly electrolytic hydrogen production, hydrogen storage, and hydrogen transmission, as part of the transition to decarbonized energy systems HYPSTAT operates as a supply-to-demand model, taking a fixed exogenous demand as input and optimizing the design and operation of the hydrogen system to meet that demand. It determines cost-optimal configurations based on specified technology options and system constraints.

Brauch, Joseph [National Renewable Energy Laborato↗
DOE OSTI2024

Investigating stainless steel/aluminum bimetallic structures fabricated by cold metal transfer (CMT)-based wire-arc directed energy deposition

Here, this study investigated the process of fabricating a bimetallic structure of 316L stainless steel (SS) and 4043 aluminum (Al) using wire-arc directed energy deposition (DED) based on the cold metal transfer (CMT) process. The impact of heat input on the fabricated structure’s geometry, porosity, and microstructures at the interface, with a specific emphasis on the intermetallic compound (IMC) formation, and the subsequent impact on the joint strength of the structure, were studied. The IMC layer at the interface was predominantly comprised of FeAl 2 Si. For the various heat input conditions studied, the IMC layer's thickness varied from 5 µm to 18 µm. The tensile strength reached up to approximately 130 MPa, which is among the highest reported in the literature for steel/Al bimetallic structures. The specimens fabricated with high heat input conditions had a thicker IMC layer at the steel/Al interface, resulting in a more brittle interface and degradation of the mechanical properties.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Solar Receiver with Integrated Thermal Storage for a Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Power Cycle

This project endeavors to design and demonstrate an integrated CSP system that meets the Department of Energy’s 6¢/kW-hr LCOE goal [1]. This design is based on the 10 MWe Supercritical Transformational Electric Power (STEP) engine specifications, but adaptable to any sCO 2 power module up to 10 MW e . The enabling technology to be tested is a new class of metal hydride based thermal energy storage materials which can store thermal energy in the hydrogen bonds between the metal hydride and hydrogen. This thermochemical energy storage solution provides a much greater energy density than sensible and latent energy storage enabling an integrated system design that closely linked the metal hydride to the power block. This allows the entire system to be mounted up tower to provide cost reductions. A novel metal hydride, capable of operating above 760 °C, was developed during the course of this project and thoroughly tested at a lab scale. The material’s hydrogen capacity, reaction enthalpy, thermal conductivity, and cyclic stability were measured. A demonstration test article was built that can store 2kWh of thermal energy and was coupled to Brayton Energy’s CO 2 loop where the performance of the metal hydride under commercial conditions was measured. An integrated model was created that uses the inputs from all the different sub-models in order to return an overall system LCOE using SAM. This project greatly advanced metal hydride based thermochemical energy storage technology and demonstrated its use. Previously there were no metal hydrides which were capable of operating at the proposed temperature limits (760°C), there is now a high temperature metal hydride with documented performance/stability and a path for low-cost production. Additionally, the metal hydride was tested at a scale >650x larger than what had previously been done in the lab. While not at commercial scale, it was an excellent demonstration of the technology and provided knowledge that can be leveraged for other applications.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2022

Desalinating a Real Hyper-Saline Pre-Treated Produced Water via Direct-Heat Vacuum Membrane Distillation

Membrane distillation (MD) is an emerging thermal desalination technology capable of desalinating waters of any salinity. During typical MD processes, the saline feedwater is heated and acts as the thermal energy carrier; however, temperature polarization (as well as thermal energy loss) contributes to low distillate fluxes, low single-pass water recovery and poor thermal efficiency. An alternative approach is to integrate an extra thermal energy carrier as part of the membrane and/or module assembly, which can channel externally provided heat directly to the membrane-feedwater interface and/or along the feed channel length. This direct-heat delivery has been demonstrated to increase single-pass water recovery and enhance the overall thermal efficiency. We developed a bench-scale direct-heated vacuum MD (DHVMD) process to desalinate pre-treated oil and gas "produced water" with an initial total dissolved solids of 115,500 ppm at a feed temperature ranging between 24 and 32 degrees C. We evaluated both water flux and specific energy consumption (SEC) as a function of water recovery. The system achieved a 50% water recovery without significant scaling, with an average flux >6 kg m-2 hr-1 and a SEC as low as 2,530 kJ kg-1. The major species of mineral scales (i.e., NaCl, CaSO4, and SrSO4) that limited the water recovery to 68% were modeled in terms of thermodynamics and identified by scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. In addition, we further developed and employed a physics-based process model to estimate temperature, salinity, water transport and energy flows for full-scale vacuum MD and DHVMD modules. Model results show that a direct-heat input rate of 3,600 W can increase single-pass water recovery from 2.1% to 3.1% while lowering the thermal SEC from 7,800 kJ kg-1 to 6,517 kJ kg-1 in an unoptimized module. Finally, the scaling up potential of DHVMD process is briefly discussed.

brine↗
DOE OSTI2022

Design for Carbon Conversion Product Pathways with Nuclear Power Plant Integration (PCC)

Coal is a globally abundant resource that historically has been used for power generation via combustion. As the power industry replaces coal with cleaner methods of generation, energy rich coal could be used in other chemical and fuel applications. This study presents a coal utilization option in which coal combustion is replaced with a carbon-free nuclear power plant and the coal is upgraded to valuable products for a variety of markets. Coal is prepared for conversion first by the pyrolysis process, which will optimize solid, liquid, and gaseous products based on the market size and potential product value, maximizing the monetary value of coal. This process is designed using bituminous coal from the Appalachian region as a basis to provide a pathway to preserve or transition coal-related jobs and create new jobs associated with the clean energy transition. Process modeling will be used to determine each component’s sensitivities, costs, inputs, and outputs Advanced and light-water reactors are considerations to supply the heat, steam, and electricity to the process. This paper focuses on the technical and market analysis used to determine the optimal processes and product pathways for the carbon refinery. Product pathways are on activated carbon, formic acid synthesis, and methanol synthesis for further upgrading to marketable chemical and polymer products.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2026

Strategic Energy Plan, Town of Cranberry Isles

This report details the strategic energy plan for the Town of Cranberry Isles, Maine. This project was spearheaded by the Cranberry Isles Community Solar Association (CICSA), and supported by Island Institute and Sandia National Laboratories, in partnership with the National Laboratory of the Rockies and Versant Power. The plan details the energy vision, goals, and focus areas for the community, provides technical analysis of the current energy system, and outlines potential projects to support community energy. Throughout the energy planning process, the project team engaged with members of the community to gather input and ideas to shape the plan. The project team and Versant also completed an extensive data collection to better inform the project. Sandia National Laboratories completed baseline technical assessments and feasibility studies to better understand potential feasible options for future projects. These potential projects, high-level costs, and next steps are a key output of this report.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Simulating Long–Term Dynamics of Radiation Belt Electrons Using DREAM3D Model

Here, we compared the performance of DREAM3D simulations in reproducing the long-term radiation belt dynamics observed by Van Allen Probes over the entire year of 2017 with various boundary conditions (BCs) and model inputs. Specifically, we investigated the effects of three different outer boundary conditions, two different low-energy boundary conditions for seed electrons, four different radial diffusion (RD) coefficients (DLL), four hiss wave models, and two chorus wave models from the literature. Using the outer boundary condition driven by GOES data, our benchmark simulation generally well reproduces the observed radiation belt dynamics inside L* = 6, with a better model performance at lower μ than higher μ, where μ is the first adiabatic invariant. By varying the boundary conditions and inputs, we find that: (a) The data-driven outer boundary condition is critical to the model performance, while adding in the data-driven seed population doesn't further improve the performance. (b) The model shows comparable performance with DLL from Brautigam and Albert (2000, https://doi.org/10.1029/1999ja900344), Ozeke et al. (2014, https://doi.org/10.1002/2013ja019204), and Liu et al. (2016, https://doi.org/10.1002/2015gl067398), while with DLL from Ali et al. (2016, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016ja023002) the model shows less RD compared to data. (c) The model performance is similar with data-based hiss models, but the results show faster loss is still needed inside the plasmasphere. (d) The model performs similarly with the two different chorus models, but better capturing the electron enhancement at higher μ using the Wang et al. (2019, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018ja026183) model due to its stronger wave power, since local heating for higher energy electrons is under-reproduced in the current model.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Preliminary Reversible Solid Oxide System Specification

This report presents the preliminary documentation of a 10 MWe DC reversible solid oxide cell (rSOC) system designed to use both electrical and thermal energy from a nuclear power plant (NPP). The system is designed to consume 10 MWe DC in electrolysis mode while producing hydrogen from demineralized feedwater. In fuel cell mode, the same stacks produce 2.37 MWe DC of electricity by reacting hydrogen and oxygen, while generating water as a byproduct which is recycled to be used later in the electrolysis mode. The system detailed in this specification is a high-temperature steam electrolysis (HTSE) system when operated in the electrolysis mode. HTSE systems have the benefit of producing hydrogen at a higher efficiency than conventional low-temperature electrolysis (LTE) systems. In this report it is assumed that some of the heat required for HTSE operation comes from an NPP. Heat extraction from an NPP for use in electrolysis mode of the rSOC system allows preheating and vaporization of feedwater before recuperators and trim heaters raise the feed temperature to the approximately 800 °C before entering the solid oxide stacks. The purpose of an rSOC system in a utility company setting is to employ energy arbitrage with a dispatchable demand load which can consume excess electricity generation during times of low grid demand / high generation and can produce electricity for the grid during times of high grid demand / low generation. There is a wide range of energy storage technologies that could be used for utility-scale energy arbitrage (utility-scale battery storage is considered the baseline technology), the object of this work is not to compare and contrast rSOC technology with any of these other technologies, but only to present this preliminary design for consideration and for use in future conceptual or front end engineering design (FEED) work. This document is not meant to be a final specification or definitive description of the rSOC system, but it is meant to showcase preliminary process modeling results, provide boundary conditions and interface requirements such as input feed and utility stream flowrates, temperatures, and pressures as well as thermal and electrical energy requirements, and output conditions in both electrolysis mode and fuel cell mode. These results are intended to inform the future development of a conceptual demonstration-scale study to assess the technical and economic feasibility of a future demonstration of an rSOC integrated project at an NPP.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2022

Avista’s Shared Energy Economy Model Pilot: A Techno-economic Assessment

As part of the second round of the Washington Clean Energy Fund, Avista Corp received a $3.5 million matching grant in support of a shared energy economy project to test the integration of energy assets–from rooftop solar and battery storage to building energy management systems–that can be shared and used for multiple purposes. The goal of this project is to demonstrate how both the customer and the utility can benefit from this shared energy economy model and demonstrate that the electric grid can become more reliable, efficient, resilient, and flexible. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory was engaged by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Washington State Department of Commerce to work with Avista in assessing the benefits of the shared energy economy model. This report documents the techno-economic assessment of the shared energy economy model, including the definition of use cases and applications, collection and preparation of data and input parameters, development of modeling and optimization methods, and case studies and analysis results.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Energy Cost Estimate Tool v2.0: Methodology and Usage

Information about home energy costs is essential for appraisers, lenders, and buyers, but reliable data are often unavailable in real estate transactions. To fill this gap, the National Laboratory of the Rockies developed the Energy Cost Estimate (ECE) tool. The tool provides flexible, data-driven estimates of annual household energy use and costs across the contiguous United States, using only a small number of inputs typically found in mortgage appraisals. This report presents the methodology behind version 2.0 of the ECE tool, demonstrates how users can generate estimates through its interface, and discusses its applications and limitations.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗