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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Wyoming CarbonSAFE: Advancing Commercialization of Low-Carbon Energy Technologies in Fossil-Rich Wyoming

Wyoming’s Powder River Basin (PRB) is the most prolific coal producer and exporter in the United States and the State of Wyoming’s largest oil-producing basin. In addition to being a leading energy producer, the PRB is the site of research programs whose aim is to develop and integrate low-carbon technologies into existing fossil fuel energy industries. Much of the PRB’s low-carbon research is focused around Dry Fork Station (DFS), which is the newest coal-fired power station in the western US. Currently, DFS hosts five carbon capture projects, including pilot-scale capture projects that utilize different capture technologies and a full front-end engineering and design (FEED) study, a commercial CO 2 pipeline for nearby CO 2 -enhanced oil recovery industry, and is also co-located with the Wyoming Integrated Test Center, which is a host facility for unconventional carbon utilization research (i.e. flue gas carbon-to-products innovations). DFS is also the host site for the Wyoming CarbonSAFE project. Wyoming CarbonSAFE, funded by the Department of Energy/National Energy Technology Laboratory, is a multi-phased program (currently in Phase II) whose core objective is developing and validating storage sites within a complex capable of storing 50 million metric tonnes of CO 2 over a 30 year project period using carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS). This paper will provide an overview of the project to-date, showing that CarbonSAFE goals are achievable with respect to geologic, environmental, regulatory, CO 2 source and economic conditions, and why the State of Wyoming offers one of the more favorable environments to advance the commercialization studies. In 2019, the project team designed and completed a ~10,000 foot stratigraphic test well just south of DFS. From this well, the team collected over 600 feet of core, fluid samples from target injection zones, and a full petrophysical log suite. In addition, legacy 2D seismic lines were acquired and a 3D seismic survey was acquired in the fall of 2020. The objective of these field activities has been to identify and characterize target storage reservoirs and associated caprock. This complex has several reservoirs that could meet commercial injection goals, and over 4000 feet of associated caprock. Simulations of site performance suggest that stacked injection provides the most effective storage strategy, and would necessitate several sites within the greater complex to meet final project injection goals. Other work within this project includes the development of a business-case around proximal fields with CO 2 -enhanced oil recovery potential and existing tax credits, assessment of regulatory conditions, including pore space ownership and Class VI injection well permitting requirements, implementation of a robust public outreach Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3821220 GHGT-15 McLaughlin 2 program, and surface site characterization activities that have focused on environmental factors. In the PRB and at DFS, the State of Wyoming and other entities have made carbon management a priority of its future energy industry by providing a regulatory and business framework that is favorable to advancing these technologies. These endeavors will become more realistic with the successful implementation of Wyoming CarbonSAFE, and its ability to secure and validate commercial-scale CCUS at the center of Wyoming’s premier low-carbon research efforts.

McLaughlin, Fred↗
DOE OSTI2024

Assessing decision boundaries under uncertainty

In order to make design decisions, engineers may seek to identify regions of the design domain that are acceptable in a computationally efficient manner. A design is typically considered acceptable if its reliability with respect to parametric uncertainty exceeds the designer’s desired level of confidence. Despite major advancements in reliability estimation and in design classification via decision boundary estimation, the current literature still lacks a design classification strategy that incorporates parametric uncertainty and desired design confidence. To address this gap, this paper offers a novel interpretation of the acceptance region by defining the decision boundary as the hypersurface which isolates the designs that exceed a user-defined level of confidence given parametric uncertainty. This work addresses the construction of this novel decision boundary using computationally efficient algorithms that were developed for reliability analysis and decision boundary estimation. The approach proposed in this paper is verified on two physical examples from structural and thermal analysis using Support Vector Machines and Efficient Global Optimization-based contour estimation.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Process Systems Engineering Perspective on the Design of Materials and Molecules

This paper aims to provide an overview of the current state of the art in molecule and material design and a perspective on open questions. First, we discuss the interplay between process design and the design of molecules and materials and then present the basic trade-offs and interdependencies that need to be considered in this integrated design problem. Second, we introduce methods and open questions in the area of processing materials, with special emphasis placed on heterogeneous catalysts due to their importance in the chemical industry. Finally, we discuss materials for photovoltaic cells as one example of a chemical product that is likely to help supply sustainable energy and address climate change concerns. This information presented here is based on presentations and discussions during the FIPSE-4 meeting in June 2018 (https://www.fi-in-pse.org/fipse-4- 2018).

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2017

Interface engineering for a rational design of poison-free bimetallic CO oxidation catalysts

We use density functional theory calculations of Pt@Cu core@shell nanoparticles (NPs) to design bifunctional poison-free CO oxidation catalysts. By calculating the adsorption chemistry under CO oxidation conditions, we find that the Pt@Cu NPs will be active for CO oxidation with resistance to CO-poisoning. The CO oxidation pathway at the Pt–Cu interface is determined on the Pt NP covered with a full- and partial-shell of Cu. The exposed portion of the Pt core preferentially binds CO and the Cu shell binds O2, supplying oxygen for the reaction. The Pt–Cu interface provides CO-oxidation sites that are not poisoned by either CO or O2. Additional computational screening shows that this separation of reactant binding sites is possible for several other core@shell NPs. Our results indicate that the metal–metal interface within a single NP can be optimized for design of bifunctional catalytic systems with improved performance.

Shin, Kihyun↗
DOE OSTI2021

A software package for plasma facing component analysis and design: the Heat flux Engineering Analysis Toolkit (HEAT)

The engineering limits of plasma facing components (PFCs) constrain the allowable operational space of tokamaks. Poorly managed heat fluxes that push the PFCs beyond their limits not only degrade core plasma performance via elevated impurities, but can also result in PFC failure due to thermal stresses or melting. Simple axisymmetric assumptions fail to capture the complex interaction between 3D PFC geometry and 2D or 3D plasmas. This results in fusion systems that must either operate with increased risk or reduce PFC loads, potentially through lower core plasma performance, to maintain a nominal safety factor. High precision 3D heat flux predictions are necessary to accurately ascertain the state of a PFC given the evolution of the magnetic equilibrium. A new code, the Heat flux Engineering Analysis Toolkit (HEAT), has been developed to provide high precision 3D predictions and analysis for PFCs. HEAT couples many otherwise disparate computational tools together into a single open source python package. Magnetic equilibrium, engineering CAD, finite volume solvers, scrape off layer plasma physics, visualization, high performace computing, and more, are connected in a single web-based user interface. Linux users may use HEAT without any software prerequisites via an appImage. This manuscript introduces HEAT, discusses the software architecture, presents first HEAT results, and outlines physics modules in development.

divertor physics↗
DOE OSTI2020

Commercial Off-the-Shelf Flexible Contact Stress Sensor System: Design Thinking and Systems Engineering Assignment

NNSA has a need to measure the contact stress over long-term durations with minimal impact on the element of interest. The sensor and package should have a small footprint, thin, flexible, modular, and preferably commercially available. There exists an opportunity to leverage expertise within LLNL in sensor development to provide a minimally invasive contact stress sensing solution for NNSA and potentially external customers.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Target Diagnostic Menu Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory SYSM-5620: Design Thinking and Systems Engineering

Target Diagnostic’s Engineering Science (TDES) currently supports over 80 diagnostic systems, all of which draw from a fixed budget that covers staff time and procurement. As the division continues to add new diagnostics, demand on these limited resources increases, yet the budget remains unchanged. Shot Responsible Individuals (RIs) have unrestricted freedom to select any number or type of diagnostics for each experiment, often by copying previous shot configurations with only minor modifications. This practice makes it easy to generate new shots but does not encourage critical evaluation of diagnostic necessity. As a result, many diagnostics are routinely included in a shot without a clear justification, and in practice, much of the data collected is not analyzed. The ever-growing arsenal of diagnostics also increases the burden on TDES personnel, requiring more staff for support, maintenance, and service. This environment creates challenges in focusing resources on diagnostics that provide the greatest value to the NIF mission and raises concerns about the continued justification for maintaining all existing systems. The static TDES budget cannot sustain the ongoing growth in demand for new diagnostic systems. Shot RIs currently face no constraints on the number or type of diagnostics they assign to each experiment, often defaulting to previous configurations without critically assessing the necessity of each diagnostic. This results in the routine inclusion of diagnostics whose data may not be analyzed or may no longer directly support the NIF mission. Consequently, TDES is required to maintain and support an expanding set of diagnostics, straining limited resources and risking inefficient use of staff and funding. There is a need for TDES to efficiently allocate limited resources by establishing a process that requires shot RIs to critically evaluate and justify the inclusion of each diagnostic in their experiments. This process should discourage the routine, unexamined inclusion of diagnostics, support the identification of underutilized or obsolete systems, and ensure that only those diagnostics providing the greatest value to the NIF mission are maintained and supported. Ultimately, this approach must enable TDES to operate within budget constraints while maximizing scientific impact and operational efficiency.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Preliminary critical experiments validation of a lattice physic code LATC - 14415

Core and System Integrated Engine for design and analysis (COSINE) is an integrated nuclear engineering code package, which is being developed by State Nuclear Power Software Development Center (SNPSDC) in China. A lattice physics code named LATC is included in COSINE.LATC is a 2D, steady-state code for modeling PWR fuel. A WIMS-D 69 group micro library based on ENDF/B-VI is used and there are two transportation methods in LATC, such as two steps method (collision probability method for cell homogenization, discrete coordinate method for assembly homogenization) and one step method (MOC). The UO{sub 2} fuel assembly, which may contain guide tubes, burnable poisons such as Integral Fuel Burnable Absorbers (IFBA) / Wet Annular Burnable Absorbers (WABA)/ Pyrexes or control rods etc, can be calculated in LATC. LATC provides the required cross-section data for the core physics simulator analysis code in COSINE. In order to evaluate the quality of the LATC, a strategy of validation is researched and applied to the LATC. Firstly, a validation requirement analysis is performed, and the corresponding critical experiments are collected, and then a critical experimental matrix considering the variety of fuel enrichments, fuel pitch and water to uranium ratio is generated. Finally, a comparison of results between LATC using collision probability and discrete coordinate method and critical experiments are made to make sure that the code works well. According to the validation strategy discussed above, the preliminary validation is carried out and critical experiments are calculated according to the critical experimental matrix and results from LATC code are compared with reference results. The result shows that the calculated results agree well with critical experiments, and do not indicate any significant trends with respect to the various conditions considered. (authors)

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2018

New Single Piece Blast Hardware design

W, Q and PF engineers and machinists designed and fabricated, on the new Mazak i300, the first Single Piece Blast Hardware (unclassified design shown) reducing fabrication and inspection time by over 50%. The first DU Single Piece is completed and will be used for Hydro Test 3680. Past hydro tests used a twopiece assembly due to a lack of equipment capable of machining the complex saddle shape in a single piece. The i300 provides turning and milling 5-axis machining on one machine. The milling head on the i300 can machine past 90 relative to the spindle axis. This makes it possible to machine the complex saddle surface on a single piece. Going to a single piece eliminates tolerance problems, such as tilting and eccentricity, that typically occurred when assembling the two pieces together

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2019

Enterprise: a reduced-scale, flexible fuel, single-cylinder crosshead marine diesel research engine

A custom-built 1/10 scale, flexible-fuel, single-cylinder crosshead marine diesel research engine, dubbed the Enterprise, was designed and built as a platform for conducting marine lubricant research. The engine design was focused on maintaining lubricant boundary conditions similar those of full-scale engines. The Enterprise has a rated speed of 625 rpm to match the linear mean piston speed of full-scale marine engines with the reduced stroke and is capable of 18 bar brake mean effective pressure (BMEP). A high-swirl, uniflow-scavenged, two-stroke combustion system was designed to operate on either distillate diesel or heavy fuel oil (HFO). A hydraulic electronic unit injector (HEUI) fuel injection system with two injectors having customized three-hole nozzles provides fueling and is driven by the MAHLE Flexible ECU (MFE). Intake air boost is provided using a variable speed industrial air compressor along with closed-loop electronically controlled pressure regulation. Exhaust backpressure is also controlled electronically using an electro-pneumatic butterfly valve. A customized, miniaturized Hans Jensen Lubetronic cylinder lubrication system, which is capable of delivering 0.88 mg of cylinder oil per lubricator per injection to the ring pack at up to the maximum engine overspeed rating of 656 rpm, was commissioned for the Enterprise. Four independently temperature-controlled cooling zones are used to provide control of the liner temperature profile. The four coolant zones as well as the system oil and cylinder oil supplies are all controlled within 1°C for consistent thermal boundary conditions. The engine is instrumented with an in-cylinder pressure transducer as well as an inline torque transducer and numerous process temperature and pressure measurements to allow for detailed thermodynamic efficiency analysis, and experimental facilities allow for precise measurement of liner wear and characterization of deposits on the piston and rings. A radio telemetry system from IR Telemetrics is used to measure piston crown temperatures during engine operation. Engine design considerations and experimental facilities are described in detail, along with the results of a study investigating the impact of both system oil and cylinder oil viscosity on friction and efficiency. A test matrix was designed to compare base stock chemistries and viscosities for both system and cylinder oils. Experiments were completed using a fuel economy test protocol that was defined, consisting of repeating six speed/load operating conditions. An automated dynamometer control system was implemented to ensure repeatability of the test procedure. Preliminary testing indicated that the coolant, oil, and exhaust temperatures reach a steady state within 5 minutes of changing operating conditions. The system oil viscosity was found to have a significant impact on friction, with a reduction in viscosity from SAE 30 to SAE 20 resulting in over 6% reduction in friction mean effective pressure (FMEP) and over a 2% reduction in brake-specific fuel consumption (BSFC). Chemistry effects were also evident in the system and cylinder oils. Repeatability comparisons between the individual repetitions of each operating condition were used to ensure that results are statistically valid. For the initial cylinder oil viscosity experiments, observed changes were within the established/normal repeatability; ongoing experiments will determine whether improvements in boundary condition control will enable cylinder friction changes of this magnitude to be measured on this engine platform.

Kaul, Brian↗
DOE OSTI2025

Advanced Reactor Designs Security Analysis, Risk, and Recommendations: Risks, Consequences, and Possible by-Design Mitigation Approaches Associated with Select Advanced Reactors

Next-generation advanced reactors (ARs) incorporate enhanced safety systems, have smaller source terms, and feature compact modular designs, which should lessen their collective risk profiles. However, to fully evaluate risk, security needs to be a part of the equation. Without taking security into consideration, safety systems and components in the new ARs may be vulnerable to sabotage. These base attributes, coupled with enhanced security features specific to AR design through sound engineering and security-by-design (SeBD), should provide developers and operators with lower inherent security risk profiles. Building security early into the AR design may remove or passively secure potential critical targets from an adversary’s reach , thereby increasing overall safety and security. An integrated approach and diverse design team that includes engineering, operations, and security experts are fundamental to building security into the design without sacrificing fundamental operational efficiencies and principles. The objective of this project was to evaluate the security and safety interfaces for five classes of reactors, identify potential security vulnerabilities of structures, systems, and components (SSC), and underscore the need to consider security alongside safety in the design o f these concepts. The five reactor classes evaluated in this project and presented in this report are molten-salt reactors (MSR), high temperature gas reactors (HTGR), sodium-fast reactors (SFR), advanced light-water reactors (ALWR), and microreactors. These designs were selected because they reflect the concepts that are closest to market deployment and have received significant resource investments from the public and private sector. This project assesses the inherent security risks posed by common classes of ARs, provides a methodology and framework to assess security along with safety, and offers an analysis of potential mitigation strategies that could be incorporated. For each AR technology, the SSCs that relate to radionuclide source safety functions are discussed to understand the SSC contribution to safety and relative importance in the protective strategy for the design. The assumptions that went into evaluating each reactor concept originated from generic publicly available nonproprietary information and should not directly be used to qualify an absolute risk profile nor to rank specific AR designs. Instead, the purpose of the analysis is to understand and compare the generic inherent security risks of different AR technologies.

98 - NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL↗