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81 records · Page 5

Does the Hall Effect Solve the Flux Pileup Saturation Problem?

It is well known that magnetic flux pileup can significantly speed up the rate of magnetic reconnection in high Lundquist number resistive MHD,allowing reconnection to proceed at a rate which is insensitive to the plasma resistivity over a wide range of Lundquist number. Hence, pileup is a possible solution to the Sweet-Parker time scale problem. Unfortunately, pileup tends to saturate above a critical value of the Lundquist number, S_c, where the value ofS_c depends on initial and boundary conditions, with Sweet-Parker scaling returning above S_c. It has been argued (see Dorelli and Bim [2003] and Dorelli [2003]) that the Hall effect can allow flux pileup to saturate (when the scale of the current sheet approaches ion inertial scale, di) before the reconnection rate begins to stall. However, the resulting saturated reconnection rate, while insensitive to the plasma resistivity, was found to depend strongly on the di. In this presentation, we revisit the problem of magnetic island coalescence (which is a well known example of flux pileup reconnection), addressing the dependence of the maximum coalescence rate on the ratio of di in the "large island" limit in which the following inequality is always satisfied: l_eta di lambda, where I_eta is the resistive diffusion length and lambda is the island wavelength.

Dorelli, John C.↗

NASA Centennial Challenge: 3D Printed Habitat, Phase 3 Final Results

NASA's Centennial Challenges program uses prize competitions with the goal of accelerating innovation in the aerospace industry. Competitions in the Centennial Challenges portfolio have previously focused on advancements in space robotics, regolith excavation, bio-printing, astronaut suit design, small satellites, and solar-powered vehicles. NASA's Three Dimensional (3D) Printed Habitat Centennial Challenge represents a partnership between NASA and the non-profit partner: Bradley University, with co-sponsors Caterpillar, Bechtel, Brick and Mortar Ventures, the American Concrete Institute, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) to spur development in automated additive construction technologies. The challenge asks teams to design and construct a scaled and simulated Martian habitat using indigenous materials and large scale 3D automated printing systems. Phase 1 of the competition, held in 2015, was an architectural design competition for habitat concepts that could be 3D printed. Phase 2, completed in 2017, asked teams to develop feedstocks from indigenous materials and hydrocarbon polymer recyclables, and demonstrate automated printing systems to manufacture these feedstocks into test specimens to assess mechanical strength. This paper will discuss the Phase 3 competition, focusing on technology outcomes that can potentially be infused into both terrestrial and planetary construction applications. The Phase 3 competition was divided into two sub-competitions: 1) virtual construction, where teams created a high fidelity building information model (BIM) of their 3D-printed habitat design and 2) the construction competition, which required teams to 3D print a structural foundation and subject materials samples to freeze/thaw testing and impact testing (level 1), produce a habitat element and complete a hydrostatic test (level 2), and additively manufacture a 1:3 scale habitat onsite in a head to head competition at Caterpillar, inc.'s Edwards Demonstration & Learning Center near Peoria, Illinois over the course of three days (level 3). While the Phase 2 competition focused primarily on the development of novel feedstocks and robotic printing systems, Phase 3 emphasized the scale-up of these systems and autonomous operation (demonstrating the capability to operate systems on precursor missions prior to the arrival of crew, or terrestrially in field operation settings where human tending of a manufacturing system may be limited). The Phase 3 virtual construction levels yielded a number of novel habitat designs, including both modular habitats and vertically-oriented habitat concepts. The Phase 3 construction competition also challenged teams to autonomously place penetrations and interfacing elements in additively manufactured structures. The paper will emphasize potential applications for the new materials and technologies developed under the umbrella of the competition within NASA's portfolio and in Earth-based applications such as disaster response and infrastructure improvement.

Construction↗

Nasa Centennial Challenge: Three Dimensional (3d) Printed Habitat, Phase 3

NASA's Centennial Challenges program uses prize competitions with the goal of accelerating innovation in the aerospace industry. Competitions in the Centennial Challenges portfolio have previously focused on advancements in space robotics, regolith excavation, bio-printing, astronaut suit design, small satellites, and solar-powered vehicles. NASA's Three Dimensional (3D) Printed Habitat Centennial Challenge represents a partnership between NASA and the non-profit partner: Bradley University, with co-sponsors Caterpillar, Bechtel, Brick and Mortar Ventures, the American Concrete Institute, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) to spur development in automated additive construction technologies. The challenge asks teams to design and construct a scaled and simulated Martian habitat using indigenous materials and large scale 3D automated printing systems. Phase 1 of the competition, held in 2015, was an architectural design competition for habitat concepts that could be 3D printed. Phase 2, completed in 2017, asked teams to develop feedstocks from indigenous materials and hydrocarbon polymer recyclables, and demonstrate automated printing systems to manufacture these feedstocks into test specimens to assess mechanical strength. This paper will discuss the Phase 3 competition, focusing on technology outcomes that can potentially be infused into both terrestrial and planetary construction applications. The Phase 3 competition was divided into two sub-competitions: 1) virtual construction, where teams created a high fidelity building information model (BIM) of their 3D-printed habitat design and 2) the construction competition, which required teams to 3D print a structural foundation and subject materials samples to freeze/thaw testing and impact testing (level 1), produce a habitat element and complete a hydrostatic test (level 2), and additively manufacture a 1:3 scale habitat onsite in a head to head competition at Caterpillar, inc.'s Edwards Demonstration & Learning Center near Peoria, Illinois over the course of three days (level 3). While the Phase 2 competition focused primarily on the development of novel feedstocks and robotic printing systems, Phase 3 emphasized the scale-up of these systems and autonomous operation (demonstrating the capability to operate systems on precursor missions prior to the arrival of crew, or terrestrially in field operation settings where human tending of a manufacturing system may be limited). The Phase 3 virtual construction levels yielded a number of novel habitat designs, including both modular habitats and vertically-oriented habitat concepts. The Phase 3 construction competition also challenged teams to autonomously place penetrations and interfacing elements in additively manufactured structures. The paper will emphasize potential applications for the new materials and technologies developed under the umbrella of the competition within NASA's portfolio and in Earth-based applications such as disaster response and infrastructure improvement.

Centennial challenge↗

Emerging Technologies in the Built Environment: Geographic Information Science (GIS), 3D Printing, and Additive Manufacturing

Abstract 1: Geographic information systems emerged as a computer application in the late 1960s, led in part by projects at ORNL. The concept of a GIS has shifted through time in response to new applications and new technologies, and is now part of a much larger world of geospatial technology. This presentation discusses the relationship of GIS and estimating hourly and seasonal energy consumption profiles in the building sector at spatial scales down to the individual parcel. The method combines annual building energy simulations for city-specific prototypical buildings and commonly available geospatial data in a GIS framework. Abstract 2: This presentation focuses on 3D printing technologies and how they have rapidly evolved over the past couple of years. At a basic level, 3D printing produces physical models quickly and easily from 3D CAD, BIM (Building Information Models), and other digital data. Many AEC firms have adopted 3D printing as part of commercial building design development and project delivery. This presentation includes an overview of 3D printing, discusses its current use in building design, and talks about its future in relation to the HVAC industry. Abstract 3: This presentation discusses additive manufacturing and how it is revolutionizing the design of commercial and residential facilities. Additive manufacturing utilizes a broad range of direct manufacturing technologies, including electron beam melting, ultrasonic, extrusion, and laser metal deposition for rapid prototyping. While there is some overlap with the 3D printing talk, this presentation focuses on the materials aspect of additive manufacturing and also some of the more advanced technologies involved with rapid prototyping. These technologies include design of carbon fiber composites, lightweight metals processing, transient field processing, and more.

New, Joshua Ryan↗

Innovative Hot Lab Concept for Advanced D and D Application - 19175

Hot Labs are used in the nuclear industry for various purposes: maintenance of nuclear reactor, sampling and testing of fuel, inspection activities and decommissioning. Despite their vast use, their current designs and operations do not meet entirely today's needs and requirements of the operations nor tomorrow's. This paper will give an overview of the research and investigations performed around Hot Cells design and concept in order to integrate new operability modes and functions. The overall idea is to bring modularity, flexibility and adaptability to the Hot Lab nuclear industry. Taking the key principles of Model Based System Engineering, an interoperable data model, the most advanced digital technologies (Building Information Modelling - BIM, Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence), and looking at all the life-cycle of such a facility, a concept design of a new type of Hot Lab has been developed. Four mains aspects are implemented during this study: Implement the principles of the Industry 4.0; use modular and flexible solutions; explore the concept of in service maintenance and predictive maintenance; optimise the decommissioning and dismantling process by taking into account the entire life-cycle of the facility. The design was developed as a case study taking several assumptions to adapt to any project. The design developed demonstrates that modularity and flexibility can be brought in without compromising the core safety functions of such a facility. This Hot Lab concept brings the current Hot Lab to the next level as the design has been adapted to meet the current operational needs, implement novel ideas and consider its entire life-cycle. This paper will demonstrate how decommissioning and dismantling operations can become more efficient and safer with such a concept. In addition, the Model Based System Engineering approach used from the beginning of the design phase allows to have an optimum architecture during its entire lifetime. It also allowed to flag new topics to be further developed for the benefit of the nuclear industry as a whole. A first example would be the development of the Control System using digital tools and artificial intelligence to run remotely controlled equipment inside the Hot Lab. Assystem is an international engineering group. As a key participant in the nuclear industry for over 50 years, the Group supports its clients in managing their capital expenditure throughout their asset life-cycles. Assystem can offer support in project management, design, digital engineering, industrial control systems, security and safety and industrial digitalisation. Assystem's Imagine program is an internal program intending to serve as an incubator for the development of innovations. The Innovative Hot Lab project integrates one of the four innovation projects Assystem choose to develop and invest in. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Robotics for HVAC applications: A critical review and future perspectives

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), enhanced computational capabilities, and innovations in sensors and hardware have driven the increasing development and application of robots in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. We selected and reviewed 101 studies published between 2005 and 2025, sourced from IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and the ACM Digital Library. To analyze these works, we developed a five-dimensional analytical framework (morphology, sensing, navigation, task execution, and system integration), inspired by the Springer Handbook of Robotics and tailored specifically for robotic applications in HVAC. Based on the reviewed studies, six distinct tasks spanning the entire HVAC lifecycle have been identified. Among the six tasks, inspection and maintenance dominate (59 %), followed by indoor monitoring and auditing (21 %), whereas leakage detection, comfort support, and installation/retrofit remain less explored. To address the identified gaps, this review proposes future research directions including investigating robot-aware HVAC design principles, developing multimodal HVAC sensing and data fusion techniques, enhancing robot training and hardware capabilities, and expanding robotic applications beyond Maintenance and Operations (M&O). The findings from this review inform future robotics research for HVAC applications and ultimately enhance system affordability, energy efficiency, resilience or reliability, and occupant environmental comfort. Moreover, it seeks to inspire researchers to explore the intersections of robotics, computer science, building science, and HVAC engineering fostering advancements in this multidisciplinary field.

AI↗

Multidisciplinary concurrent optimization framework for multi-phase building design process

Modern day building design projects require multidisciplinary expertise from architects and engineers across various phases of the design (conceptual, preliminary, and detailed) and construction processes. The Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) community has recently shifted gears toward leveraging design optimization techniques to make well-informed decisions in the design of buildings. However, most of the building design optimization efforts are either multidisciplinary optimization confined to just a specific design phase (conceptual/preliminary/detailed) or single disciplinary optimization (structural/thermal/daylighting/energy) spanning across multiple phases. Complexity in changing the optimization setup as the design progresses through subsequent phases, interoperability issues between modeling and physics-based analysis tools used at later stages, and the lack of an appropriate level of design detail to get meaningful results from these sophisticated analysis tools are few challenges that limit multi-phase multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) in the AEC field. Here this paper proposes a computational building design platform leveraging concurrent engineering techniques such as interactive problem structuring, simulation-based optimization using meta models for energy and daylighting (machine learning based) and tradespace visualization. The proposed multi-phase concurrent MDO framework is demonstrated by using it to design and optimize a sample office building for energy and daylighting objectives across multiple phases. Furthermore, limitations of the proposed framework and future avenues of research are listed.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Building Operation Model (Morpheus) for Dallas Fort Worth Airport (CRADA CRD-19-16301 Final Report)

The primary objective of this project was to leverage digital twin technology to enhance the design and operation of DFW Airport terminals and their associated energy systems. To achieve this, Morpheus, a building digital twin, was developed to guide improvements in airport operations, specifically targeting reductions in peak power demand and overall energy consumption.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗