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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 865 records · Page 48
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Effects of transient fission gas release on rod balloon burst behavior during a loss-of-coolant accident

The US nuclear energy industry is investigating strategies to increase the reactor operating cycle to 24 months, which would result in rod average burnups exceeding the current limit of 62 GWd/tU. To support this goal, multiphysics simulations tools and methodologies are being developed to predict the effects of this change during transient events such as loss-of-coolant accidents (LOCAs). In this work, two cladding burst correlations were used to predict cladding failure. Here, these were coupled with three transient fission gas release (tFGR) models and were implemented in the BISON fuel performance code to quantify any changes in cladding burst behavior during a large-break LOCA. First, a simple linear model was used to perform a sensitivity analysis of a single fuel rod. Second, a tFGR model available in BISON was applied to 281 fuel rods throughout the core. The third model examined was an empirical correlation based on data from the literature.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Hyperfusogenic Mutations Destabilize the Postfusion Six-Helix Bundle of the Measles Virus Fusion Glycoprotein

Fusion of the host membrane and viral envelope by class I viral fusion proteins is driven by the assembly of a postfusion six-helix bundle formed through antiparallel interactions between N-terminal (HR1) and C-terminal (HR2) heptad-repeat regions. Although mutations in these regions of the measles virus (MeV) fusion (F) glycoprotein are known to promote neuropathogenic and hyperfusogenic phenotypes, their effects on postfusion core stability have not been systematically examined. Here, we combine peptide biophysics and X-ray crystallography to interrogate how mutations within the HR2 domain, present in native neuropathogenic MeV isolates (e.g., L454W and N462K) and laboratory-generated hyperfusogenic variants (e.g., L454M and T461A), influence postfusion 6HB assembly. Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy reveals that, with few exceptions, these mutations decrease postfusion core stability, despite their association with enhanced fusion activity. We also report the first crystal structure of the wild-type MeV postfusion core as well as structures of six hyperfusogenic variants, enabling high-resolution comparison of the molecular basis of destabilization. Structural analysis shows that these effects arise from localized perturbations to steric packing, hydrogen bonding networks, and helix-stabilizing interactions within HR2, while the overall 6HB architecture remains conserved. Together, these results indicate that hyperfusogenic mutations are not associated with stabilization of the postfusion state and are instead consistent with models in which hyperfusogenicity arises from a reduction in the energetic barrier to fusion, potentially through effects on prefusion stability or triggering efficiency. These findings establish key sequence-structure–stability relationships governing coiled-coil assembly and provide a framework for the design of HR1- and HR2-based fusion inhibitors.

Genetics↗
DOE OSTI2026

Human Coronavirus 229E Infection Alters Histone Proteoforms

Viruses rely on host machinery to replicate, and growing evidence demonstrates that they utilize host epigenetic regulation, including histone modification, to modulate host gene expression for their benefit. Herein, we employed top-down proteomics to quantify histone proteoforms in a model human lung cell line following human coronavirus 229E (HCoV-229E) infection and compared them to mock-infected controls. A total of 572 proteoforms from mock-infected and HCoV-229E infected human lung fibroblast (MRC5) cells (N = 5 per condition) were identified; this included 461 histone proteoforms that were assigned to H2A, H2B, H3, or H4. 200 histone proteoforms were quantifiable, and differential abundance analysis revealed several statistically significant changes in both reversible post-translational modifications (e.g. phosphorylation, acetylation) and the truncation states of core histones. Notably, we found decreased abundance of C-terminally truncated histone H2A and N-terminally truncated histone H3 in HCoV-229E-infected samples. These findings underscore the power of top-down proteomics to resolve unique truncation states of proteoforms and support the hypothesis that viruses alter histone length (removing regulatory sites) to influence host gene expression.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Use of Shallow Ice Core Measurements to Evaluate and Constrain 1980–1990 Global Reanalyses of Ice Sheet Precipitation Rates

Abstract Sea‐level rise (SLR) projections by Earth System Models (ESMs) depend on ice sheet surface mass balances. Accurate, global atmosphere reanalyses would be ideal for providing equilibrated ice sheet model initial conditions in fully coupled ESM simulations. Here we present the first evaluation of 1980–1990 global reanalysis precipitation over Greenland and Antarctica that uses independent observations of net accumulation rates derived from shallow ice cores. Precipitation distributions from both the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecast's Reanalysis (ERA5) and the Modern‐Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA‐2) are highly correlated with contemporaneous co‐located net accumulation rates from Greenland ( r 2 > 0.95) and West Antarctica ( r 2 > 0.7). Three other commonly used reanalyses (WFDE5, CRUNCEP, and GSWP3) exhibit significantly weaker correlations on one or both ice sheets. Our findings imply that ESMs should use ERA5 or MERRA‐2 in data‐forced simulations to validate ice sheet model dynamics and precondition firn for SLR projections.

Schneider, Adam↗
DOE OSTI2022

Cited Reference Analysis in a National Laboratory to Assess Journal Usage

Librarians at a large, federally funded, multidisciplinary research organization sought to assess the value provided by the library’s collections. One method for capturing this value includes determining how well their library’s collections meet researcher needs, as expressed by the materials those researchers choose to cite in the production of new scholarly communications. A cited reference analysis was performed on the publications originating from the institution to provide the necessary data for the assessment, as well as to aid in the creation of a core list of journals which will inform future collection development efforts. Overall, this paper fills a gap in the library and information science literature by addressing the citation behaviors of researchers at a large multidisciplinary government research facility, a setting that has not been examined previously.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Distributed Many-to-Many Protein Sequence Alignment using Sparse Matrices

Identifying similar protein sequences is a core step in many computational biology pipelines such as detection of homologous protein sequences, generation of similarity protein graphs for downstream analysis, functional annotation, and gene location. Performance and scalability of protein similarity search have proven to be a bottleneck in many bioinformatics pipelines due to increase in cheap and abundant sequencing data. This work presents a new distributed-memory software PASTIS. PASTIS relies on sparse matrix computations for efficient identification of possibly similar proteins. We use distributed sparse matrices for scalability and show that the sparse matrix infrastructure is a great fit for protein similarity search when coupled with a fully-distributed dictionary of sequences that allow remote sequence requests to be fulfilled. Our algorithm incorporates the unique bias in amino acid sequence substitution in search without altering basic sparse matrix model, and in turn, achieves ideal scaling up to millions of protein sequences.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Model Development and Analysis of a High-Fidelity Neutron Transport Sensor: The Quadrupole Detector Concept for Measurement of the Neutron Flux Gradient

Accurate reconstruction of the neutron flux distribution within a reactor core is essential for safe and efficient reactor operation. Traditional power shape synthesis in Light Water Reactors relies on hundreds of in-core detectors. However, this approach becomes impractical for Advanced Reactors and Microreactors due to limited space and harsh environments. To address this challenge, we propose a data-driven methodology that combines high-fidelity modeling with real-time ex-core sensor measurements, enabling the reconstruction of core power distribution while minimizing the reliance on intrusive in-core instrumentation. This project began in FY24 and achieved two initial milestones: (1) the definition of a three-year development plan for a Digital Twin framework and (2) the development of high-fidelity neutronics models of the Purdue University Reactor One (PUR-1) using both MCNP6 and OpenMC. The PUR-1 reactor, a zero-power facility, was selected due to its suitability for neutronics-focused modeling and the availability of experimental data for validation. Both models were benchmarked using neutron flux measurements obtained from irradiated gold foils, which were strategically placed within the core during a dedicated campaign in July 2024. This report marks the continuation and completion of those foundational tasks. The OpenMC model has been refined (improved geometric accuracy, expanded cross-section libraries, and refined sampling) and validated using additional experimental data. An updated sensor design—based on quadrupole configuration—was designed to measure both ex-core flux and its spatial gradient. These measurements will serve as inputs to a neural network-based reconstruction algorithm. Finally, the methodology was demonstrated on a two-dimensional test case representative of the heterogeneous material composition of the PUR-1 reactor core. A neural network implementation of the Kirchhoff-Helmholtz integral equation was employed to solve the boundary value problem using peripheral sensor measurements. The preliminary results confirm the strong potential of the proposed approach for accurate and minimally invasive neutron flux reconstruction.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Petrographic and Advanced Geologic Characterization Report on One Earth Energy #1 (API# 1211325373)

The One Earth Energy #1 (OEE1, API 1211325373) well was drilled to a depth of 7,099 feet from the Pennsylvanian bedrock to the Precambrian granite. In total, 99 thin sections were taken from Rotary Sidewall Core (RSWC) from 2,275 feet to 6,903 feet; 59 thin sections were taken from Whole Core (WC) from 4,311.5 to 6,519.2 feet for this report. This report details specifically thin section point-counting analysis that includes mineralogical and pore space analysis, including grain size analysis annotated thin section photomicrographs, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and statistics of grain size analysis on Mount Simon thin sections from OEE1. Characterized units include the St. Peter Sandstone, Eminence Formation, Potosi Dolomite, Franconia Formation, Davis Member, Ironton Sandstone, Galesville Sandstone, Eau Claire Formation, Elmhurst Sandstone, Mt. Simon Sandstone, and Argenta Formation.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2026

A Mountain Glacier Perspective on the Bipolar Seesaw

A global record of mountain glacier terminations during the last deglaciation (∼19–11 ka) dated by a large, uncurated data set of cosmogenic-nuclide exposure ages highlights a statistically significant asynchrony in termination ages between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This interhemispheric offset in the timing of glacier terminations is consistent with previously correlated ice core records that show a systematic interhemispheric lag in the timing of abrupt climate events, with the Southern Hemisphere leading the Northern Hemisphere by ∼300–3,500 years. Our analysis (a) aggregates cosmogenic-nuclide exposure ages from a global data set of moraines to discern climatically driven peaks in moraine emplacement events, and (b) utilizes a Monte Carlo simulation based on a null hypothesis that moraine emplacement is interhemispherically synchronous to estimate the statistical significance of the observed offset. The observed lag of Northern Hemisphere emplacement events compared to the Southern Hemisphere is statistically significant and is consistent with the “bipolar seesaw” pattern observed in ice core records.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Assessing mean climate change signals in the global CORDEX-CORE ensemble

The new Coordinated Output for Regional Evaluations (CORDEX-CORE) ensemble provides high-resolution, consistent regional climate change projections for the major inhabited areas of the world. It serves as a solid scientific basis for further research related to vulnerability, impact, adaptation and climate services in addition to existing CORDEX simulations. The aim of this study is to investigate and document the climate change information provided by the CORDEX-CORE simulation ensemble, as a part of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) CORDEX community. An overview of the annual and monthly mean climate change information in selected regions in different CORDEX domains is presented for temperature and precipitation, providing the foundation for detailed follow-up studies and applications. Initially, two regional climate models (RCMs), REMO and RegCM were used to downscale global climate model output. The driving simulations by AR5 global climate models (AR5-GCMs) were selected to cover the spread of high, medium, and low equilibrium climate sensitivity at a global scale. The CORDEX-CORE ensemble has doubled the spatial resolution compared to the previously existing CORDEX simulations in most of the regions (25 $\,\mathrm {km}$ (0.22 $^{\circ }$ /jats:inline-formula>) versus 50 $\,\mathrm {km}$ (0.44 $^{\circ }$ )) leading to a potentially improved representation of, e.g., physical processes in the RCMs. The analysis focuses on changes in the IPCC physical climate reference regions. The results show a general reasonable representation of the spread of the temperature and precipitation climate change signals of the AR5-GCMs by the CORDEX-CORE simulations in the investigated regions in all CORDEX domains by mostly covering the AR5 interquartile range of climate change signals. The simulated CORDEX-CORE monthly climate change signals mostly follow the AR5-GCMs, although for specific regions they show a different change in the course of the year compared to the AR5-GCMs, especially for RCP8.5, which needs to be investigated further in region specific process studies.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
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 OSTI2020

Design and Analysis of a Halo-Measurement Diagnostics

A large dynamical-range diagnostics (LDRD) design at Jefferson Lab will be used at the FAST-IOTA injector to measure the transverse distribution of halo associated with a high-charge electron beam. One important aspect of this work is to explore the halo distribution when the beam has significant angular momentum (i.e. is magnetized). The beam distribution is measured by recording radiation produced as the beam impinges a YAG:Ce screen. The optical radiation is split with a fraction directed to a charged-couple device (CCD) camera. The other part of the radiation is reflected by a digital micromirror device (DMD) that masks the core of the beam distribution. Combining the images recorded by the two cameras provides a measurement of the transverse distribution with over a large dynamical range. The design and analysis of the optical system will be discussed including optical simulation using SRW and the result of a mockup experiment to test the performances of the system will be presented.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Detectability of neutrino-signal fluctuations induced by the hadron-quark phase transition in failing core-collapse supernovae

Here we introduce a systematic and quantitative methodology for establishing the presence of neutrino oscillatory signals due to the hadron-quark phase transition (PT) in failing core-collapse supernovae from the observed neutrino event rate in water- or ice-based neutrino detectors. The methodology uses a likelihood ratio in the frequency domain as a test-statistic; it is employed for quantitative analysis of neutrino signals without assuming the frequency, amplitude, starting time, and duration of the PT-induced oscillations present in the neutrino events and thus it is suitable for analyzing neutrino signals from a wide variety of numerical simulations. We test the validity of this method by using a core-collapse simulation of a 17 solar-mass star by Zha et al. [Astrophys. J. 911, 74 (2021) ]. Based on this model, we further report the presence of a PT-induced oscillations quantitatively for a core-collapse supernovae out to a distance of ~10 kpc, ~5 kpc for IceCube and to a distance of ~10 kpc, ~5 kpc, and ~1 kpc for a 0.4 Mt mass water Cherenkov detector. This methodology will aid the investigation of a future galactic supernova and the study of hadron-quark phase in the core of core-collapse supernovae.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Investigating the effect of B T direction on W source-to-core pathways during the SAS-VW campaign on DIII-D

Experiments using the V-shaped closed slot tungsten (W) coated SAS-VW divertor in DIII-D studied the effects of the BT direction on core contamination of eroded tungsten from a closed slot divertor configuration. Core W content is inferred using soft-X ray tomography (SXR) and vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopy (SPRED), while W divertor erosion is inferred from visible spectroscopy of W emission (400.9 nm) measured by in-slot filterscopes (filtered photo-multipliers). Post-mortem analysis from the campaign discovered tile misalignment leading to suspected pronounced leading-edge erosion in the unfavorable BT direction (ion B ⃗×∇B ⃗ drift away from divertor) likely not captured by diagnostics. However, empirical findings show up to ~2-3x larger core contamination in the favorable BT direction even considering no additional W erosion from leading edges. A “source-to-core efficiency factor” is derived to estimate the effects of leading-edge erosion and compare W contamination for two pairs of H-mode discharges in opposite BT directions. While having differing absolute parameters, similar core impurity density gradients suggest comparable core impurity transport. These results show that favorable BT may have stronger source-to-core pathways for W impurities sourced from the outer divertor region. Possible explanations could include the effects of E ⃗×B ⃗ drifts on W transport in the scrape-off-layer (SOL) as well as previously determined fast SOL inner target directed flows in favorable BT.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Ribbon Wrinkling Origin and Its Effect on Tape-Wound Core Shape

Improved understanding of advanced manufacturing techniques is needed to fabricate next- generation soft magnetic tape-wound cores. These utilize metal amorphous nano-composites (MANCs) in the form of long thin ribbons. MANCs exhibit attractive soft magnetic properties for use in high frequency and high power density magnetic components. Of particular interest here, the permeability and hysteresis of MANC ribbons can be tuned in a strain annealing process. An unexpected consequence is that wider ribbons develop longitudinal wrinkle patterns. This can substantially reduce the tape-wound core stacking factor. However, when winding a wrinkled ribbon into a toroidal core, the wrinkles can completely flatten, or crinkle. By this phenomenon, the stacking factor can be recovered. To understand the crinkling effect we have developed analytical and finite element analysis (FEA) models. Experiments with known boundary conditions demonstrate the transition from wrinkled to crinkled versus winding curvature. The models utilize an elastic modulus measured via ribbon tensile testing and a ribbon thickness value measurement made by profilometry. The analytical model provides insight into the crinkling effect but cannot explain the length of the transition region from wrinkling to crinkling. With FEA, we successfully predict the transition region and depending on wrinkling amplitude can determine when a ribbon will wind into a useable core. Such mechanics-based insight provides critical feedback for allowable processing parameters in the strain annealing process.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Physics-Based Real-time Analysis and Control to Achieve Transient-Free Operations for the ITER Era (Final Report)

This is the final report for the early career award for Prof. Egemen Kolemen that aimed to develop the physics and technical basis of real-time transient – i.e. disruptions and Edge Localized Modes (ELMs) – avoidance and feedback control at the DIII-D nuclear fusion facility for the ITER era. During this project, we reconstructed high quality real-time DIII-D equilibria using kinetic information from the motional Stark effect (MSE), Thomson Scattering (TS), and Charge Exchange Recombination (CER) spectroscopy. These equilibria were analyzed in real-time to determine the low-n ideal MHD stability and the pedestal stability thresholds, and to obtain plasma response models. These calculations were used to understand which physical process evolves to lead to the onset of disruption in ITER-relevant scenarios at DIII-D, and how disruption can be predicted using stability analysis as opposed to the current methods of correlation of various signals, which are descriptive but lack predictive power. In the disruption studies, we focused on tearing modes, since these constitute the vast majority of disruptions in this regime. With this knowledge, real-time disruption avoidance algorithms were developed and tested. The enhanced situation awareness and physics insight were used in advanced real-time feedback control of pedestal and core profiles, which allowed the pursuit and sustainment of transient-free high-confinement regimes that cannot be achieved via feed-forward design based on in-between shot analysis.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Dynamic mode decomposition with core sketch

With the increase in collected data volumes, either from experimental measurements or high fidelity simulations, there is an ever-growing need to develop computationally efficient tools to process, analyze, and interpret these datasets. Modal analysis techniques have gained great interest due to their ability to identify patterns in the data and extract valuable information about the system being considered. Dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) relies on elements of the Koopman approximation theory to compute a set of modes, each associated with a fixed oscillation frequency and a decay/growth rate. Extracting these details from large datasets can be computationally expensive due to the need to implement singular value decomposition of the input data matrix. Sketching algorithms have become popular in numerical linear algebra where statistical theoretic approaches are utilized to reduce the cost of major operations. A sketch of a matrix is another matrix, which is significantly smaller, but still sufficiently approximates the original system. We put forth an efficient DMD framework, SketchyDMD, based on a core sketching algorithm that captures information about the range and corange (their mutual relationship) of input data. The proposed sketching-based framework can accelerate various portions of the DMD routines, compared to classical methods that operate directly on the raw input data. We conduct numerical experiments using the spherical shallow water equations as a prototypical model in the context of geophysical flows. In conclusion, we show that the proposed SketchyDMD is superior to existing randomized DMD methods that are based on capturing only the range of the input data.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

An integrated coupling model for solving multiscale fluid-fluid coupling problems in SAM code

In this study, an integrated coupling method has been developed for solving multiscale fluid-fluid coupling problems in plant-scale safety analysis models in SAM (System Analysis Module) code. In this method, a higher-fidelity multi-dimensional (3D) flow module is used for reactor components of complex flow features (e.g., reactor core) and a lumped parameter one-dimensional (1D) flow module for plant-scale flow loops (e.g., primary loop pipe network), respectively. In this method, the 3D fluid equation/domain and 1D fluid equation/domain are tightly coupled at the residual level and solved simultaneously using the Newton’s method to overcome the convergence issues typically seen in existing approaches like separate domain approach, where the 3D fluid equation and 1D fluid equation are solved separately. Extensive and successful code verifications and demonstrations have been performed for this newly developed method. This new modeling approach significantly simplify the work flow in developing high-fidelity plant-scale safety analysis model, e.g. for pool-type reactors and pebble-bed reactors.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗