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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 811 records · Page 45
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

TU-AB-BRC-06: Dose Calculation in Curved Space

Purpose: Microbeam Radiation Therapy is a preclinical method in radiation oncology that modulates radiation fields on a micrometre scale. Dose calculation is challenging due to arising dose gradients and therapeutically important dose ranges. Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, often used as gold standard, are computationally expensive and hence too slow for the optimisation of treatment parameters in future clinical applications. On the other hand, conventional kernel based dose calculation leads to inaccurate results close to material interfaces. The purpose of this work is to overcome these inaccuracies while keeping computation times low. Methods: A point kernel superposition algorithm is modified to account for tissue inhomogeneities. Instead of conventional ray tracing approaches, methods from differential geometry are applied and the space around the primary photon interaction is locally warped. The performance of this approach is compared to MC simulations and a simple convolution algorithm (CA) for two different phantoms and photon spectra. Results: While peak doses of all dose calculation methods agreed within less than 4% deviations, the proposed approach surpassed a simple convolution algorithm in accuracy by a factor of up to 3 in the scatter dose. In a treatment geometry similar to possible future clinical situations differences between Monte Carlo and the differential geometry algorithm were less than 3%. At the same time the calculation time did not exceed 15 minutes. Conclusion: With the developed method it was possible to improve the dose calculation based on the CA method with respect to accuracy especially at sharp tissue boundaries. While the calculation is more extensive than for the CA method and depends on field size, the typical calculation time for a 20×20 mm{sup 2} field on a 3.4 GHz and 8 GByte RAM processor remained below 15 minutes. Parallelisation and optimisation of the algorithm could lead to further significant calculation time reductions.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

TU-H-BRC-08: Use and Validation of Flexible 3D Printed Tissue Compensators for Post-Mastectomy Radiation Therapy

Purpose: Patient-specific tissue equivalent compensators can be used for post-mastectomy radiation therapy (PMRT) to achieve homogenous dose distributions with single-field treatments. However, current fabrication methods are time consuming and expensive. 3D-printing technology could overcome these limitations. The purposes of this study were to [1] evaluate materials for 3D-printed compensators [2] design and print a compensator to achieve a uniform thickness to a clinical target volume (CTV), and [3] demonstrate that a single-field electron compensator plan is a clinically feasible treatment option for PMRT. Methods: Blocks were printed with three materials; print accuracy, density, Hounsfield units (HU), and percent depth doses (PDD) were evaluated. For a CT scan of an anthropomorphic phantom, we used a ray-tracing method to design a compensator that achieved uniform thickness from compensator surface to CTV. The compensator was printed with flexible tissue equivalent material whose physical and radiological properties were most similar to soft tissue. A single-field electron compensator plan was designed and compared with two standard-of-care techniques. The compensator plan was validated with thermoluminescent dosimeter (TLD) measurements. Results: We identified an appropriate material for 3D-printed compensators that had high print accuracy (99.6%) and was similar to soft tissue; density was 1.04, HU was - 45 ± 43, and PDD curves agreed with clinical curves within 3 mm. We designed and printed a compensator that conformed well to the phantom surface and created a uniform thickness to the CTV. In-house fabrication was simple and inexpensive (<$75). Compared with the two standard plans, the compensator plan resulted in overall more homogeneous dose distributions and performed similarly in terms of lung/heart doses and 90% isodose coverage of the CTV. TLD measurements agreed well with planned doses (within 5 %). Conclusions: We have demonstrated that 3D-printed compensators make single-field electron therapy a clinically feasible treatment option for PMRT.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

TH-EF-207A-01: Respiratory Motion Correction in 4D-Multi Pinhole Small Animal SPECT

Purpose: Respiration causes lesion smearing, image blurring and quality degradation, affecting lesion contrast and the ability to define correct lesion size. The spatial resolution of current multi pinhole SPECT (MPHS) scanners is sub-millimeter. Therefore, the effect of motion is more noticeable in comparison to conventional SPECT scanner. Gated imaging aims to reduce motion artifacts. A major issue in gating is the lack of statistics and individual reconstructed frames are noisy. The increased noise in each frame, deteriorates the quantitative accuracy of the MPHS Images. The objective of this work, is to enhance the image quality in 4D-MPHS imaging, by 4D image reconstruction. Methods: The new algorithm requires deformation vector fields (DVFs) that are calculated by non-rigid Demons registration. The algorithm is based on the motion-incorporated version of ordered subset expectation maximization (OSEM) algorithm. This iterative algorithm is capable to make full use of all projections to reconstruct each individual frame. To evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm a simulation study was conducted. A fast ray tracing method was used to generate MPHS projections of a 4D digital mouse phantom with a small tumor in liver in eight different respiratory phases. To evaluate the 4D-OSEM algorithm potential, tumor to liver activity ratio was compared with other image reconstruction methods including 3D-MPHS and post reconstruction registered with Demons-derived DVFs. Results: Image quality of 4D-MPHS is greatly improved by the 4D-OSEM algorithm. When all projections are used to reconstruct a 3D-MPHS, motion blurring artifacts are present, leading to overestimation of the tumor size and 24% tumor contrast underestimation. This error reduced to 16% and 10% for post reconstruction registration methods and 4D-OSEM respectively. Conclusion: 4D-OSEM method can be used for motion correction in 4D-MPHS. The statistics and quantification are improved since all projection data are combined together to update the image.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

TH-EF-207A-05: Feasibility of Applying SMEIR Method On Small Animal 4D Cone Beam CT Imaging

Purpose: Small animal cone beam CT imaging has been widely used in preclinical research. Due to the higher respiratory rate and heat beats of small animals, motion blurring is inevitable and needs to be corrected in the reconstruction. Simultaneous motion estimation and image reconstruction (SMEIR) method, which uses projection images of all phases, proved to be effective in motion model estimation and able to reconstruct motion-compensated images. We demonstrate the application of SMEIR for small animal 4D cone beam CT imaging by computer simulations on a digital rat model. Methods: The small animal CBCT imaging system was simulated with the source-to-detector distance of 300 mm and the source-to-object distance of 200 mm. A sequence of rat phantom were generated with 0.4 mm{sup 3} voxel size. The respiratory cycle was taken as 1.0 second and the motions were simulated with a diaphragm motion of 2.4mm and an anterior-posterior expansion of 1.6 mm. The projection images were calculated using a ray-tracing method, and 4D-CBCT were reconstructed using SMEIR and FDK methods. The SMEIR method iterates over two alternating steps: 1) motion-compensated iterative image reconstruction by using projections from all respiration phases and 2) motion model estimation from projections directly through a 2D-3D deformable registration of the image obtained in the first step to projection images of other phases. Results: The images reconstructed using SMEIR method reproduced the features in the original phantom. Projections from the same phase were also reconstructed using FDK method. Compared with the FDK results, the images from SMEIR method substantially improve the image quality with minimum artifacts. Conclusion: We demonstrate that it is viable to apply SMEIR method to reconstruct small animal 4D-CBCT images.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

Modeling infrasonic propagation through a spherical atmospheric layer—Analysis of the stratospheric pair

Methods are developed to calculate acoustic propagation paths through an atmospheric layer surrounding a spherical globe in order to more accurately model the propagation of infrasonic signals, which are often observed after propagating hundreds or thousands of kilometers. A generalized curvilinear coordinate system is used to define the ray tracing equations from the eikonal equation for a moving, inhomogeneous atmosphere, and the specific case of spherical coordinates is applied to obtain a system of coupled equations describing geometric propagation paths in an atmospheric layer surrounding a globe. Comparison with propagation predictions using a Cartesian geometry shows that even for relatively short infrasonic propagation distances of a few hundred kilometers, differences introduced by the change in geometry are significant. Characteristics of the stratospheric pair are considered, and it is found that differences in the upward and downward legs of the propagation paths corresponding to the fast and slow stratospheric arrivals are changed such that spherical coordinate geometry predicts a decrease in the relative arrival time between the two. Analysis of regional infrasonic signals produced by a series of surface explosions shows that predictions obtained using spherical geometry are more accurate in cases where the tropospheric and stratospheric waveguides are accurately characterized.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Near-field acoustical holography and acoustic power analysis of a simulated, highly heated supersonic jet

Although near-field acoustical holography (NAH) and acoustic intensity analysis have previously been used to investigate the apparent jet noise sources produced by military aircraft, explicit connections to supersonic jet characteristics cannot be made due to a lack of information about the exhaust plume. Here, to begin to bridge this gap and better understand the source information yielded by NAH, the current study instead applies NAH to a virtual measurement of the near-field pressures of a highly heated laboratory-scale supersonic jet generated by large-eddy simulation (LES). The holographic reconstructions of the pressure, particle velocity, and acoustic intensity are found to match the LES-generated acoustic field well and are used to calculate the acoustic power of the jet. The jet's calculated overall acoustic power is compared to the free-stream mechanical power, resulting in an acoustic efficiency of 1.5%. Ray-tracing of the acoustic intensity to the jet centerline generates an axial distribution of the acoustic power origin, showing that almost all the power originates from the supersonic portion of the flow and with the distribution peak upstream of the potential core tip. Holographic reconstruction of the pressures along the nozzle lipline captures the general spectral shape of the LES-generated pressures, though it underestimates the amplitude.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2025

The ArborX Library: Version 2.0

This article provides an overview of the 2.0 release of the ArborX library, a performance portable geometric search library based on Kokkos. We describe the major changes in ArborX 2.0 including a new interface for the library to support a wider range of user problems, new search data structures (brute force and distributed), support for user functions to be executed on the results (callbacks), and an expanded set of the supported algorithms (ray tracing and clustering).

GPU↗
DOE OSTI2019

Quasioptical modeling of wave beams with and without mode conversion: II. Numerical simulations of single-mode beams

This work continues a series of papers where we propose an algorithm for quasioptical modeling of electromagnetic beams with and without mode conversion. The general theory was reported in the first paper of this series, where a parabolic partial differential equation was derived for the field envelope that may contain one or multiple modes with close group velocities. Here, we present a corresponding code PARADE (PAraxial RAy DEscription) and its test applications to single-mode beams in vacuum and also in inhomogeneous magnetized plasma. The numerical results are compared, respectively, with analytic formulas from Gaussian-beam optics and also with cold-plasma ray tracing. Quasioptical simulations of mode-converting beams are reported in the next, third paper of this series.

ECRH↗
DOE OSTI2025

ArborX 2.0

ArborX library tackles a problem of efficiently finding geometric objects that are close in space. Variations of this problem, such as finding the nearest neighbors of a point, or finding all objects within a certain distance, are inherent components of applications in many fields. The data may be large so that solving the problem efficiently may require significant computational resources, such as multiple processors or accelerators such as general purpose GPUs. ArborX' main advantage in its ability to solve large problems efficiently utilizing a combination of distributed and on-node parallelism. ArborX can be run efficiently on a wide variety of hardware, including GPUs from different vendors, which distinguishes it from other available libraries which typically choose only few of these. The other advantage is that it supports both types of user problems: spatial problems (useful for intersections and finding objects within certain distance), and nearest neighbor problems. ArborX also supports flexible interface in its interaction with a user. Particularly, it allows a user to call user's own function on a positive match, a functionality not rarely available in other libraries. ArborX implements construction and traversal algorithms using efficient tree structures, such as bounding volume hierarchy (BVH). At its core, ArborX uses linear BVH for its low construction cost and sufficient quality. ArborX implements both spatial and nearest-neighbor traversal algorithms. ArborX also provides several clustering algorithms (minimum spanning tree, DBSCAN, HDBSCAN*), interpolation using minimum least squares and ray tracing. ArborX is written using C++, and is parallelized using the message passing interface (MPI) for the distributed communication, and the Kokkos library for on-node parallelism. This approach allows ArborX to be run on a wide variety of hardware, from common laptops and desktops to supercomputers while using the same codebase.

Prokopenko, Andrey [Oak Ridge National Laboratory ↗
DOE OSTI2018

SolarPILOT™

SolarPILOT™advances the analytical flux image Hermite series approximation used in DELSOL3 by applying it to individual heliostat images rather than "zones", allowing characterization of a wide variety of heliostat field layouts. SolarPILOT also integrates the SolTrace Monte-Carlo ray tracing engine, providing improved receiver optical modeling capability, a user-friendly front end for geometry definition, and side-by-side validation of the analytical algorithms. The tool and source code are publicly available and are designed for third-party modification and extendability. The software is intended as a replacement for the more antiquated DELSOL3 algorithm originally developed at Sandia National Laboratory. The software will be used at NREL for power tower component design analysis and may be used at other laboratories, in academia, or as a third-party validation tool by some industry groups.

Wagner, Michael↗
DOE OSTI2017

Kip, Version 1.0

This high-performance ray tracing library provides very fast rendering, compact code, type flexibility via C++ 'generic programming' techniques, and ease of use through an application programming interface (API) that functions independently of any GUI, on-screen display, or other enclosing application. Kip supports constructive solid geometry models based on any of several built-in shapes and operators and allows for new, user-defined shapes and operators. Additional features include basic texturing, input/output of models using a simple human-readable file format with full error checking and detailed diagnostics, and support for shared data parallelism. Kip is written in pure, ANSI Standard C++, is entirely platform independent, and is very easy to use, as it requires no build system, configuration or installation scripts, wizards, special preprocessing, makefiles, or external libraries.

Staley, Martin↗
DOE OSTI2018

Sandia Optical Fringe Analysis Slope Tool (SOFAST) v. 2018.11.20

SOFAST is used to characterize the surface slope of reflective mirrors for solar applications. SOFAST uses a large monitor or projection screen to display fringe patterns, and a machine vision camera to image the reflection of these patterns in the subject mirror. From these images, a detailed map of surface normals can be generated and compared to design or fitted mirror shapes. SOFAST uses standard Fringe Reflection (Deflectometry) approaches to measure the mirror surface normals. SOFAST uses an extrinsic analysis of key points on the facet to locate the camera and monitor relative to the facet coordinate system. It then refines this position based on the measured surface slope and integrated shape of the mirror facet. The facet is placed into a reference frame such that key points on the facet match the design facet in orientation and position. This is key to evaluating a facet as suitable for a specific solar application. SOFAST reports the measurements of the facet as detailed surface normal location in a format suitable for ray tracing optical analysis codes. SOFAST also reports summary information as to the facet fitted shape (monomial) and error parameters. Useful plots of the error distribution are also presented.

Yellowhair, Julius↗
DOE OSTI2021

Gravitation and Mesh Adaption

The Gravitation and Mesh Adaptation (GaMA) toolbox consists of a set of Matlab classes for modeling the environment around asteroids and comets. A variety of gravitational models and supporting algorithms from are consolidated alongside a custom meshing utility tailored for the application. This allows the user to work within a single streamlined environment to import and manipulate surface definitions, probe the dynamical environment, integrate trajectories, and post-process results. For other applications, modified surface meshes can be exported. Gravity Models: 1) Werner's analytic polyhedron model 2) Mascon model 3) Gottlieb's spherical harmonic model 4) Approximate polyhedron models 5) Curvilinear surface models 6) Custom composite models Meshing Features: 1) Array-based half-edge data structure 2) Supports curvilinear surface definitions up to degree 4 3) Ray-tracing 4) Coarsening 5) Feature-based refinement 6) Projection 7) Smoothing 8) Mesh quality validity tests 9) Mesh repair Additional Features: 1) Solar radiation pressure model 2) Distant 3rd body model 3) Collision detection 4) Trajectory integration and post-processing 5) Visualization of surface fields

Pearl, Jason↗
DOE OSTI2022

ODD (Version 0.X)

The Orthogonal Diffusion Discretizations (ODD) library is a collection of low order (Diffusion, P1, Ray Tracing, and Variable Eddington Factor (VEF)) thermal radiation solvers for orthogonal structured grids driven by an application programing interface (API).

Cleveland, Mathew↗
DOE OSTI2023

Macaw

MaCaw is a MOOSE-based application that enables domain-decomposed neutral particle transport calculations in MOOSE. It leverages the ray tracing MOOSE module for unstructured mesh tracking and OpenMC for collision physics, handling material definitions, and tallying quantities.

Harbour, LoganH.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Direct numerical simulations for hybrid rocket boundary layers: Performance modeling and scaling

This paper presents a comprehensive performance and scaling analysis of direct numerical simulations for reacting boundary layers, focusing on slab burner configurations. Using a PETSc-based finite volume CFD framework, the study evaluates the scalability and computational cost of flow, chemistry, and radiation evaluations across 2D and 3D simulations. Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is the fuel with pure O 2 as the oxidizer, modeled using a detailed chemical kinetics mechanism with 113 species and 660 reactions. A ray-tracing-based radiation solver, designed for distributed memory applications, is implemented to model radiation heat transfer. Parallel scalability is analyzed for the coupled flow, chemistry, and radiation heat transfer processes. Weak and strong scaling studies are conducted on up to 15,000 computational ranks, revealing robust performance when flow cells exceed 200 per rank. Chemistry evaluations dominate the computational cost in large 3D simulations, accounting for approximately 40% of the total runtime, while flow processes contribute around 35%, and radiation solver contributions remain below 10% due to reduced evaluation frequencies. GPU accelerated chemistry evaluation, implemented with Zero-RK, demonstrates significant promise, achieving up to a 4x speedup for workloads exceeding 30,000 cells per GPU. However, diminishing returns are observed for smaller workloads due to CPU-GPU communication overhead. This study identifies key challenges, including memory bottlenecks and the effects of domain partitioning on flow scalability, while highlighting the potential of GPU-accelerated chemistry to reduce computational costs. In conclusion, these findings provide realizable run configurations for 2D, 3D, and GPU-accelerated cases, offering insights for optimizing reactive flow solvers.

CFD Scalability↗
DOE OSTI2023

Sidelobe modeling and mitigation for a three mirror anastigmat cosmic microwave background telescope

Telescopes measuring cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization on large angular scales require exquisite control of systematic errors to ensure the fidelity of the cosmological results. In particular, far-sidelobe contamination from wide angle scattering is a potentially prominent source of systematic error for large aperture microwave telescopes. Here we describe and demonstrate a ray-tracing-based modeling technique to predict far sidelobes for a three mirror anastigmat telescope designed to observe the CMB from the South Pole. Those sidelobes are produced by light scattered in the receiver optics subsequently interacting with the walls of the surrounding telescope enclosure. After comparing simulated sidelobe maps and angular power spectra for different enclosure wall treatments, we propose a highly scattering surface that would provide more than an order of magnitude reduction in the degree-scale far-sidelobe contrast compared to a typical reflective surface. Finally, we conclude by discussing the fabrication of a prototype scattering wall panel and presenting measurements of its angular scattering profile.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2015

Direct measurements of temperature-dependent laser absorptivity of metal powders

Here, a compact system is developed to measure laser absorptivity for a variety of powder materials (metals, ceramics, etc.) with different powder size distributions and thicknesses. The measured results for several metal powders are presented. The results are consistent with those from ray tracing calculations.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗