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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 OSTI2015

Moisture Monitoring at Area G, Technical Area 54, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Hydrological characterization and moisture monitoring activities provide data required for evaluating the transport of subsurface contaminants in the unsaturated and saturated zones beneath Area G, and for the Area G Performance Assessment and Composite Analysis. These activities have been ongoing at Area G, Technical Area 54 of the Los Alamos National Laboratory since waste disposal operations began in 1957. This report summarizes the hydrological characterization and moisture monitoring activities conducted at Area G. It includes moisture monitoring data collected from 1986 through 2014 from numerous boreholes and access tubes with neutron moisture meters, as well as data collected by automated dataloggers for water content measurement sensors installed in a waste disposal pit cover, and buried beneath the floor of a waste disposal pit. This report is an update of the Jennings and French (2009) moisture monitoring report and includes all data from Jennings and French (2009) and the Draft 2010 Addendum moisture monitoring report (Jennings and French, 2010). For this updated report, all neutron logging data, including neutron probe calibrations, were investigated for quality and pedigree. Some data have been recalculated using more defensible calibration data. Therefore, some water content profiles are different from those in the Jennings and French (2009) report. Monitoring and characterization data generally indicate that some areas of the Area G vadose zone are consistent with undisturbed conditions, with water contents of less than five percent by volume in the top two layers of the Bandelier tuff at Area G. These data also indicate that other areas of the vadose zone are affected by waste disposal activities that have been ongoing at Area G since 1957, a period of nearly 60 years. In some areas, water content profiles indicate increases in water content to depths of tens of meters, especially in areas covered by asphalt and structures.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2013

Hybrid Wall Evaluation for Ten New Construction Homes in Wyandotte, Michigan

The Wyandotte NSP2 project aims to build 20 new houses and retrofit 20 existing houses in Wyandotte, MI. This report details the design and construction of 10 new houses in the program. Wyandotte is part of a Michigan State Housing Development Authority-lead consortium that is funded by HUD under the NSP2 program. The City of Wyandotte has also been awarded DOE EE&CBG funds that are being used to develop a district GSHP system to service the project. This draft report examines the energy efficiency recommendations for new construction at these homes.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2014

Addressing Kitchen Contaminants for Healthy, Low-Energy Homes

Cooking and cooking burners emit pollutants that can adversely affect indoor air quality in residences and significantly impact occupant health. Effective kitchen exhaust ventilation can reduce exposure to cooking-related air pollutants as an enabling step to healthier, low-energy homes. This report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory identifies barriers to the widespread adoption of kitchen exhaust ventilation technologies and practice and proposes a suite of strategies to overcome these barriers. The recommendations have been vetted by a group of industry, regulatory, health, and research experts and stakeholders who convened for two meetings and provided input and feedback to early drafts of this document. The most fundamental barriers are (1) the common misconception, based on a sensory perception of risk, that kitchen exhaust when cooking is unnecessary and (2) the lack of a code requirement for kitchen ventilation in most U.S. locations. Highest priority objectives include the following: (1) Raise awareness among the public and the building industry of the need to install and routinely use kitchen ventilation; (2) Incorporate kitchen exhaust ventilation as a requirement of building codes and improve the mechanisms for code enforcement; (3) Provide best practice product and use-behavior guidance to ventilation equipment purchasers and installers, and; (4) Develop test methods and performance targets to advance development of high performance products. A specific, urgent need is the development of an over-the-range microwave that meets the airflow and sound requirements of ASHRAE Standard 62.2.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2015

Laboratory Evaluation of Air Flow Measurement Methods for Residential HVAC Returns

This project improved the accuracy of air flow measurements used in commissioning California heating and air conditioning systems in Title 24 (Building and Appliance Efficiency Standards), thereby improving system performance and efficiency of California residences. The research team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addressed the issue that typical tools used by contractors in the field to test air flows may not be accurate enough to measure return flows used in Title 24 applications. The team developed guidance on performance of current diagnostics as well as a draft test method for use in future evaluations. The series of tests performed measured air flow using a range of techniques and devices. The measured air flows were compared to reference air flow measurements using inline air flow meters built into the test apparatus. The experimental results showed that some devices had reasonable results (typical errors of 5 percent or less) but others had much bigger errors (up to 25 percent).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2014

Geothermal Exploration Policy Mechanisms: Lessons for the United States from International Applications

This report focuses on five of the policy types that are most relevant to the U.S. market and political context for the exploration and confirmation of conventional hydrothermal (geothermal) resources in the United States: (1) drilling failure insurance, (2) loan guarantees, (3) subsidized loans, (4) capital subsidies, and (5) government-led exploration. It describes each policy type and its application in other countries and regions. It offers policymakers a guide for drafting future geothermal support mechanisms for the exploration-drilling phase of geothermal development.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Building America Guidance for Identifying and Overcoming Code, Standard, and Rating Method Barriers

This guidance document was prepared using the input from the meeting summarized in the draft CSI Roadmap to provide Building America research teams and partners with specific information and approaches to identifying and overcoming potential barriers to Building America innovations arising in and/or stemming from codes, standards, and rating methods.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2015

Report on FY15 Two-Bar Thermal Ratcheting Test Results

Alloy 617 is a reference structural material for very high temperature components of advanced-gas cooled reactors with outlet temperatures in the range of 900-950°C. In order for designers to be able to use Alloy 617 for these high temperature components, Alloy 617 has to be approved for use in Section III (the nuclear section) of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code. A plan has been developed to submit a draft code for Alloy 617 to ASME Section III by 2015. However, the current rules in Subsection NH* for the evaluation of strain limits and creep-fatigue damage using simplified methods based on elastic analysis have been deemed inappropriate for Alloy 617 at temperatures above 1200°F(650°C). The rationale for this exclusion is that at higher temperatures it is not feasible to decouple plasticity and creep deformation, which is the basis for the current simplified rules. This temperature, 1200°F(650°C), is well below the temperature range of interest for this material in High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor (HTGR) applications. The only current alternative is, thus, a full inelastic analysis which requires sophisticated material models which have been formulated but not yet verified. To address this issue, proposed code rules have been developed which are based on the use of elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methods and which are expected to be applicable to very high temperatures. These newly proposed rules also address a long-term objective to provide an option for more simple, comprehensive and easily applied rules than the current so called “simplified” rules.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Development of ASTM Standard for SiC-SiC Joint Testing Final Scientific/Technical Report

As the nuclear industry moves to advanced ceramic based materials for cladding and core structural materials for a variety of advanced reactors, new standards and test methods are required for material development and licensing purposes. For example, General Atomics (GA) is actively developing silicon carbide (SiC) based composite cladding (SiC-SiC) for its Energy Multiplier Module (EM2), a high efficiency gas cooled fast reactor. Through DOE funding via the advanced reactor concept program, GA developed a new test method for the nominal joint strength of an endplug sealed to advanced ceramic tubes, Fig. 1-1, at ambient and elevated temperatures called the endplug pushout (EPPO) test. This test utilizes widely available universal mechanical testers coupled with clam shell heaters, and specimen size is relatively small, making it a viable post irradiation test method. The culmination of this effort was a draft of an ASTM test standard that will be submitted for approval to the ASTM C28 ceramic committee. Once the standard has been vetted by the ceramics test community, an industry wide standard methodology to test joined tubular ceramic components will be available for the entire nuclear materials community.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Pulse compressor with aberration correction

In this SBIR project, Electron Optica, Inc. (EOI) is developing an electron mirror-based pulse compressor attachment to new and retrofitted dynamic transmission electron microscopes (DTEMs) and ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) cameras for improving the temporal resolution of these instruments from the characteristic range of a few picoseconds to a few nanoseconds and beyond, into the sub-100 femtosecond range. The improvement will enable electron microscopes and diffraction cameras to better resolve the dynamics of reactions in the areas of solid state physics, chemistry, and biology. EOI’s pulse compressor technology utilizes the combination of electron mirror optics and a magnetic beam separator to compress the electron pulse. The design exploits the symmetry inherent in reversing the electron trajectory in the mirror in order to compress the temporally broadened beam. This system also simultaneously corrects the chromatic and spherical aberration of the objective lens for improved spatial resolution. This correction will be found valuable as the source size is reduced with laser-triggered point source emitters. With such emitters, it might be possible to significantly reduce the illuminated area and carry out ultrafast diffraction experiments from small regions of the sample, e.g. from individual grains or nanoparticles. During phase I, EOI drafted a set of candidate pulse compressor architectures and evaluated the trade-offs between temporal resolution and electron bunch size to achieve the optimum design for two particular applications with market potential: increasing the temporal and spatial resolution of UEDs, and increasing the temporal and spatial resolution of DTEMs. Specialized software packages that have been developed by MEBS, Ltd. were used to calculate the electron optical properties of the key pulse compressor components: namely, the magnetic prism, the electron mirror, and the electron lenses. In the final step, these results were folded into a model describing the key electron-optical parameters of the complete pulse compressor. The simulations reveal that the mirror pulse compressor can reduce the temporal spread of UEDs and DTEMs to the sub-100 femtosecond level for practical electron bunch sizes. EOI’s pulse compressors can be designed and built to attach to different types of UEDs and DTEMs, thus making them suitable for enhancing the study of the structure, composition, and bonding states of new materials at ultrafast time scales to advance material science research in the field of nanotechnology as well as biomedical research.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2015

IDC Re-Engineering Phase 2 Architecture Document.

This document contains a description of the system architecture for the IDC Re-Engineering Phase 2 project. This is a draft version that primarily provides background information for understanding delivered Use Case Realizations.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2016

IDC Re-Engineering Phase 2 Data Model to IDC Schema Mapping.

This initial draft document contains formative data model content for select areas of Re-Engineering Phase 2 IDC System. The purpose of this document is to facilitate discussion among the stakeholders. It is not intended as a definitive proposal.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2015

Buildings Interoperability Landscape

Through its Building Technologies Office (BTO), the United States Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DOE-EERE) is sponsoring an effort to advance interoperability for the integration of intelligent buildings equipment and automation systems, understanding the importance of integration frameworks and product ecosystems to this cause. This is important to BTO’s mission to enhance energy efficiency and save energy for economic and environmental purposes. For connected buildings ecosystems of products and services from various manufacturers to flourish, the ICT aspects of the equipment need to integrate and operate simply and reliably. Within the concepts of interoperability lie the specification, development, and certification of equipment with standards-based interfaces that connect and work. Beyond this, a healthy community of stakeholders that contribute to and use interoperability work products must be developed. On May 1, 2014, the DOE convened a technical meeting to take stock of the current state of interoperability of connected equipment and systems in buildings. Several insights from that meeting helped facilitate a draft description of the landscape of interoperability for connected buildings, which focuses mainly on small and medium commercial buildings. This document revises the February 2015 landscape document to address reviewer comments, incorporate important insights from the Buildings Interoperability Vision technical meeting, and capture thoughts from that meeting about the topics to be addressed in a buildings interoperability vision. In particular, greater attention is paid to the state of information modeling in buildings and the great potential for near-term benefits in this area from progress and community alignment.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2014

Strategy for Fuel Rod Receipt, Characterization, Sample Allocation for the Demonstration Sister Rods

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE), Office of Fuel Cycle Technology, has established the Used Fuel Disposition Campaign (UFDC) to conduct the research and development activities related to storage, transportation, and disposal of used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The mission of the UFDC is to identify alternatives and conduct scientific research and technology development to enable storage, transportation and disposal of used nuclear fuel (UNF) and wastes generated by existing and future nuclear fuel cycles. The UFDC Storage and Transportation staffs are responsible for addressing issues regarding the extended or long-term storage of UNF and its subsequent transportation. The near-term objectives of the Storage and Transportation task are to use a science-based approach to develop the technical bases to support the continued safe and secure storage of UNF for extended periods, subsequent retrieval, and transportation. While low burnup fuel [that characterized as having a burnup of less than 45 gigawatt days per metric tonne uranium (GWD/MTU)] has been stored for nearly three decades, the storage of high burnup used fuels is more recent. The DOE has funded a demonstration project to confirm the behavior of used high burnup fuel under prototypic conditions. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) is leading a project team to develop and implement the Test Plan to collect this data from a UNF dry storage system containing high burnup fuel. The Draft Test Plan for the demonstration outlines the data to be collected; the high burnup fuel to be included; the technical data gaps the data will address; and the storage system design, procedures, and licensing necessary to implement the Test Plan. To provide data that is most relevant to high burnup fuel in dry storage, the design of the test storage system must closely mimic real conditions high burnup SNF experiences during all stages of dry storage: loading, cask drying, inert gas backfilling, and transfer to an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) for multi-year storage. To document the initial condition of the used fuel prior to emplacement in a storage system, “sister ” fuel rods will be harvested and sent to a national laboratory for characterization and archival purposes. This report supports the demonstration by describing how sister rods will be shipped and received at a national laboratory, and recommending basic nondestructive and destructive analyses to assure the fuel rods are adequately characterized for UFDC work. For this report, a hub-and-spoke model is proposed, with one location serving as the hub for fuel rod receipt and characterization. In this model, fuel and/or clad would be sent to other locations when capabilities at the hub were inadequate or nonexistent. This model has been proposed to reduce DOE-NE’s obligation for waste cleanup and decontamination of equipment.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Application of Combined Sustained and Cyclic Loading Test Results to Alloy 617 Elevated Temperature Design Criteria

Alloy 617 is a reference structural material for very high temperature components of advanced-gas cooled reactors with outlet temperatures in the range of 900-950°C . In order for designers to be able to use Alloy 617 for these high temperature components, Alloy 617 has to be approved for use in Section III (the nuclear section) of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code. A plan has been developed to submit a draft code for Alloy 617 to ASME Section III by 2015. However, the current rules in Subsection NH for the evaluation of strain limits and creep-fatigue damage using simplified methods based on elastic analysis have been deemed inappropriate for Alloy 617 at temperatures above 1200°F (650°C). The rationale for this exclusion is that at higher temperatures it is not feasible to decouple plasticity and creep deformation, which is the basis for the current simplified rules. This temperature, 1200 °F, is well below the temperature range of interest for this material in High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor (HTGR) applications. The only current alternative is, thus, a full inelastic analysis which requires sophisticated material models which have been formulated but not yet verified. To address this issue, proposed code rules have been developed which are based on the use of elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methods and which are expected to be applicable to very high temperatures.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Phased Retrofits in Existing Homes in Florida Phase II: Shallow Plus Retrofits

The BAPIRC team and Florida Power and Light (FPL) electric utility pursued a pilot phased energy-efficiency retrofit program in Florida by creating detailed data on the energy and economic performance of two levels of retrofit - simple and deep. For this Phased Deep Retrofit (PDR) project, a total of 56 homes spread across the utility partner's territory in east central Florida, southeast Florida, and southwest Florida were instrumented between August 2012 and January 2013, and received simple pass-through retrofit measures during the period of March 2013 - June 2013. Ten of these homes received a deeper package of retrofits during August 2013 - December 2013. A full account of Phase I of this project, including detailed home details and characterization, is found in Parker et al, 2015 (currently in draft). Phase II of this project, which is the focus of this report, applied the following additional retrofit measures to select homes that received a shallow retrofit in Phase I: a) Supplemental mini-split heat pump (MSHP) (6 homes); b) Ducted and space coupled Heat Pump Water Heater (8 homes); c) Exterior insulation finish system (EIFS) (1 homes); d) Window retrofit (3 homes); e) Smart thermostat (21 homes: 19 NESTs; 2 Lyrics); f) Heat pump clothes dryer (8 homes); g) Variable speed pool pump (5 homes).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2016

Field Demonstration of Ground-Source Integrated Heat Pump Part I. Technology and Field Demo System/Site Descriptions, and Preliminary Summer/Fall Performance Analysis for One Site

The field study is planned to continue through the 2016 cooling season with the draft final project report due by September 30, 2016. This report provides a description of both installations and preliminary 2015 cooling and fall season performance results for the Knoxville site. For the August 18 through December 14 period, the Knoxville site GS-IHP provided 53.6% total source energy savings compared to a baseline electric RTU/heat pump and electric WH. Peak demand savings ranged from 33% to 59% per month. Energy cost savings of 53.1% have been achieved to date with more than half of that coming from reduced demand charges. Data on installation and maintenance costs are being collected and will be combined with total test period energy savings data for a payback analysis to be included in the project final report. The GS-IHP also saved a significant amount of carbon emissions. The total emission savings for the Knoxville site for the August-December 2015 period were ~0.8 metric tons. If trading for carbon credits ever becomes a reality, additional cost savings would be realized.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Performance and Costs of Ductless Heat Pumps in Marine-Climate High-Performance Homes -- Habitat for Humanity The Woods

The Woods is a Habitat for Humanity (HFH) community of ENERGY STAR Homes Northwest (ESHNW)-certified homes located in the marine climate of Tacoma/Pierce County, Washington. This research report builds on an earlier preliminary draft 2014 BA report, and includes significant billing analysis and cost effectiveness research from a collaborative, ongoing Ductless Heat Pump (DHP)research effort for Tacoma Public Utilities (TPU) and Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). This report focuses on the results of field testing, modeling, and monitoring of ductless mini-split heat pump hybrid heating systems in seven homes built and first occupied at various times between September 2013 and October 2014. The report also provides WSU documentation of high-performance home observations, lessons learned, and stakeholder recommendations for builders of affordable high-performance housing such as HFH. Tacoma Public Utilities (TPU) and Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). This report focuses on the results of field testing, modeling, and monitoring of ductless mini-split heat pump hybrid heating systems in seven homes built and first occupied at various times between September 2013 and October 2014. The report also provides WSU documentation of high-performance home observations, lessons learned, and stakeholder recommendations for builders of affordable high-performance housing such as HFH.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗