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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 955 records · Page 53
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

MICROREACTOR APPLICATIONS, RESEARCH, VALIDATION, AND EVALUATION (MARVEL) REACTOR ? STATUS, CONSTRUCTION, AND TESTING

The paper presents the current status of the Microreactor Applications, Research, Validation, and Evaluation (MARVEL) microreactor design, qualification testing, fabrication, and high-level construction schedule. An overview of initial criticality, low power physics testing, and start-up testing is included, as well as an overview of the envisioned processes in which end-users can engage the project for access to operational data or specific demonstrations. Designed by the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) under the auspices of the US Department of Energy’s Microreactor Program for construction and operation at the INL, MARVEL is a small, fully functional advanced reactor with UZrH fuel and thermal output of 85 kW. It offers a unique opportunity for scaled demonstrations that can dramatically accelerate the design, licensing, and deployment of commercial microreactors for power production or process heat applications. MARVEL’s objective is to build a small liquid-metal thermal reactor at the INL to demonstrate design and operating processes for microreactors, microgrid integration, and process heat applications. MARVEL finished 90%-final-design in September 2023 and completed an independent project assessment in early 2024. Fabrication of long-lead components and fuel, safety analysis review, and procurement for construction are underway. MARVEL assembly and construction will start in 2025 and fuel loading is expected in mid- 2027. Initial criticality will be performed in a dry condition in late 2027, followed by loading of NaK coolant and start-up testing. Approximately six months later, release for unrestricted operations will enable subsequent testing of microreactor characteristics, microgrid integration and select heat extraction applications.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Active High Assurance Authentication Protocol (AHAAP)

The AHAAP Maturation Project involves maturation and evaluation of a patented zero-trust tamper-resistant high-assurance session-less dynamic and active device authentication protocol that simultaneously authenticates identity and provides integrity verification in a single step, substantially reducing the risk of cyberattack, and eliminating the need for costly and complex conventional communication security systems requirements (i.e., cryptography, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), and key management). These cybersecurity attributes of the technology must be preserved when applying the technology to different cybersecurity solutions, including Command & Control (C&C), Over-the-Air (OTA) update, Common Access Card (CAC), and distributed energy resource (DER) implementations, among others. The technology research objective is to test and verify that the cybersecurity attributes of the technology are not degraded in different cybersecurity applications. The primary technology development objective is to build minimum viable products to demonstrate the technology addresses today’s cybersecurity threats so that prospective investors, strategic partners, regulatory agencies, and commercial customers can interact with and assess the protection assured by the technology. The AHAAP Maturation Project goal is to develop, test, and validate one or more AHAAP implementations. The AHAAP Maturation Project tasks are: (i) engineer AHAAP implementation software, (ii) build a functional prototype that implements the AHAAP software for demonstration, testing, analysis, and evaluation purposes, and (iii) generate a report detailing the results of the AHAAP C&C software and hardware implementation. The final project deliverables are: (i) AHAAP software implementation and prototype, (ii) a report from Sandia National Laboratories detailing the results of the AHAAP implementations.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Street context of various demographic groups in their daily mobility

Abstract We present an urban science framework to characterize phone users’ exposure to different street context types based on network science, geographical information systems (GIS), daily individual trajectories, and street imagery. We consider street context as the inferred usage of the street, based on its buildings and construction, categorized in nine possible labels. The labels define whether the street is residential, commercial or downtown, throughway or not, and other special categories. We apply the analysis to the City of Boston, considering daily trajectories synthetically generated with a model based on call detail records (CDR) and images from Google Street View. Images are categorized both manually and using artificial intelligence (AI). We focus on the city’s four main racial/ethnic demographic groups (White, Black, Hispanic and Asian), aiming to characterize the differences in what these groups of people see during their daily activities. Based on daily trajectories, we reconstruct most common paths over the street network. We use street demand (number of times a street is included in a trajectory) to detect each group’s most relevant streets and regions. Based on their street demand, we measure the street context distribution for each group. The inclusion of images allows us to quantitatively measure the prevalence of each context and points to qualitative differences on where that context takes place. Other AI methodologies can further exploit these differences. This approach presents the building blocks to further studies that relate mobile devices’ dynamic records with the differences in urban exposure by demographic groups. The addition of AI-based image analysis to street demand can power up the capabilities of urban planning methodologies, compare multiple cities under a unified framework, and reduce the crudeness of GIS-only mobility analysis. Shortening the gap between big data-driven analysis and traditional human classification analysis can help build smarter and more equal cities while reducing the efforts necessary to study a city’s characteristics.

Salgado, Ariel (ORCID:0000000177015372)↗
DOE OSTI2024

Self-Assembling Microgrids for Resilient Distribution Systems of the Future: Implementation in a Commercial DERMS Platform

Microgrids have long provided resilience to critical facilities such as hospitals and military installations, and they are now increasingly being looked at as a building block for future grids to support the energy resilience needs of the grid of the future. State-of-the-art technologies, such as blackstart algorithms using renewable distributed energy resources (DERs) to effectively and seamlessly form microgrids, have been produced by national labs over the years. Their adoption by the utility industry would be critical to reap the most benefits toward energy and climate resilience, and the pathway is via commercialization of these self-assembling microgrid algorithms by integrating them in a commercial product platform. This project brings a national labs team (LLNL, LANL) together with a vendor (Smarter Grid Solutions) to perform proof-of-concept integration of the algorithms into the vendor’s commercial Distributed Energy Resources Management System (DERMS). The project provides a strong pathway to commercialization of the algorithms thereby promoting adoption of resilient microgrid technology by utilities to offer resilience benefits to all customers and especially to disadvantaged and underserved communities.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

SPLENDAQ: A Detector-Agnostic Data Acquisition System for Small-Scale Physics Experiments

Many scientific applications from rare-event searches to condensed matter system characterization to high-rate nuclear experiments require time-domain triggering on a raw stream of data, where the triggering is generally threshold-based or randomly acquired. When carrying out detector R &D, there is a need for a general data acquisition (DAQ) system to quickly and efficiently process such data. In the SPLENDOR collaboration, we are developing the Python-based SPLENDAQ package for this exact purpose—it offers two main features for offline analysis of continuous data: a threshold triggering algorithm based on the time-domain optimal filter formalism and an algorithm for randomly choosing nonoverlapping segments for noise measurements. Further, combined with the commercially available Moku platform, developed by Liquid Instruments, we have a full pipeline of event building off raw data with minimal setup. Here, we review the underlying principles of this detector-agnostic DAQ package and give concrete examples of its utility in various applications.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2024

Ground Source Heat Pump Screening Tool and Related Resources

This archive contains both a link to Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) Screening Tool and related resources documenting its development, technical features, and applications. The web-based screening tool is a techno-economic analysis resource designed to evaluate the feasibility, costs, and benefits of implementing GSHP systems in buildings across various U.S. climate zones. It is intended for use by building owners, HVAC system designers, and installers to support decision-making in residential and commercial applications, incorporating advanced modeling capabilities such as ground heat exchanger design. The included resources detail the tool's creation and use, covering topics such as innovative ground heat exchanger design methodologies, the development of an open library of g-functions for borehole configurations, and studies on GSHP performance and economic viability in retrofitting single-family homes.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Capturing the full benefits of bifacial modules to approach an LCOE of 3c/kWh through a regional optimization of the electrical architecture (Final Technical Report)

This is the final technical report for the Cypress Creek Renewables project focused on bifacial plant performance. The project consisted of building a heavily instrumented Bifacial test sites with several cell technologies; instrumenting >1 MW scale commercial sites with both monofacial and bifacial arrays in order to understand real-world differences; and to engage with the performance modeling and financial stakeholder community to improve accuracy and increase investor confidence. The data from the test and commercial sites has been used to validate and improve the accuracy of both physics-based and reduced order modeling software. The heavily instrumented nature has been used to understand how light contributions from the sky and reflected from the ground impact different portions of the module and array while the data from the commercial sites has directly impacted how independent engineers model production from bifacial systems. The latter point has led to an increase in over 2% compared to earlier predictions. Even this modest increase has had significant downward pressure on project LCOE. As the data and results are both public, this refined modeling and empirical evidence for a higher bifacial gain than modeled, the benefits to the broader US solar community are assured.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Summary of Vendor Irradiation Capsule Workshop Hosted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, October 3-4, 2022

The Department of Energy office of Nuclear Energy, Advanced Reactor Technology office tasked Idaho National Laboratory (INL), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) with hosting a set of two workshops. The primary purpose of these workshops was to convince the commercial high temperature reactor community, specifically the graphite and composite experts, to collaborate with the building and operation of a graphite/ceramic composite irradiation capsule(s). The workshops were designed to first instruct the attendees on the technical and scheduling challenges in conducting such an experiment by providing information on different technical areas in scheduling, designing, building, operating, and disassembling such irradiation capsules. A secondary purpose was to determine the individual irradiation requirements (including the desired irradiated material properties) to understand what the remaining technical needs for gas-cooled and salt-cooled advanced nuclear reactors. The first workshop was held at ORNL October 3-4, 2022. This report summarizes the discussions held during this workshop. The second workshop was hosted at INL April 4-6, 2023 and will have a separate summary report.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Supplement Analysis for the Proposed Shipment of High Burnup Research Cask to Idaho National Laboratory for Research and Development Purposes

DOE needs to continue with the HBUSFDP and transfer the HBURC to a facility capable of examination and testing of HBU SNF. These types of facilities do not exist at NAPS but are available at DOE national laboratories. The removal and eventual opening of the TN-32B research cask will provide DOE with the opportunity to gather data that will support continued safe storage of SNF at existing nuclear power plants, or a future federal consolidated storage facility. This effort will also help build public trust and confidence by demonstrating DOE’s ability to safely and securely transport commercial SNF using the certified Atlas rail consist.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2026

Robust and High Throughput Tools for Characterization of Wet Cellulosic Biogas Feedstocks and Co-Products: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-21-21472

This project will develop standardized analytical procedures to support understanding of the chemical composition of wet manure feedstocks, and the digestate formed following anaerobic digestion of organic waste to produce renewable natural gas (RNG). The developed methods will be validated to improve component mass closure, eliminate ambiguities around key constituents, and document the precision and accuracy of the methods. Following validation of the analytical laboratory methods for characterization of wet organic waste feedstocks and digestate, NLR will use the same samples to build and validate near-infrared (NIR) models for high throughput analysis, potentially deployable at commercial facilities, enabling increased production of low carbon intensity RNG from wet organic wastes.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Low-cost fin-tube heat exchanger design for building thermal energy storage using phase change material

Heat transfer in phase change materials (PCMs) is complex because the melting and freezing fronts change as functions of stored or released heat. In prior attempts to optimize heat exchangers (HXs) in one or two dimensions, complex geometry has often been used to maximize the melt and freeze front area. This complex geometry is difficult and hence expensive to construct. This paper proposes a multiple-scale 3D finite element modeling approach to design fin-tube HXs for low-cost latent thermal energy storage applications. Further, the optimal fin and tube designs were determined at three scales (unit-scale, medium-scale, and large-scale) by modeling the melt and freeze front in three dimensions and using measured bulk thermal properties. The finite element model was validated by comparing it with the experimental data for a referenced design of a similar type. The results indicate that commercially available organic PCMs with low conductivity (<0.3 W/m·K) can have charge and discharge times appropriate for building thermal energy storage (i.e., 4–5 h) with fin-tube HX designs at costs <$26/kWh, even when the temperature difference (5.56°C) between the heat transfer fluid and the PCM phase change temperature is small. However, as the HX increases in length, the temperature reduction along the tube limits some larger-scale designs.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2025

Enhancing EnergyPlus capabilities to model dynamic building envelopes using python plugin

Nearly half of the energy consumption in the United States is related to buildings, resulting in an urgent need to develop innovative technologies to improve building energy efficiency. Dynamic building envelopes, comprising switchable insulation and thermal energy storage materials, have been proposed recently as a promising solution to reduce buildings' heating and cooling loads by thermally coupling the indoor environment with the ambient environment when beneficial while decoupling them when outdoor conditions are not favorable. Although various related technologies are still underway, the whole-building energy modeling tools, like EnergyPlus, do not have the capability to simulate the transient and dynamic nature of dynamic envelope materials and components to accurately predict their impact on building energy use. The objective of this study is to formulate a method in EnergyPlus simulation engine to model multilayer envelopes, comprising dynamic building materials with variable thermophysical properties, and discuss the changes made to the program using a Python plugin. Furthermore, the thermal performance of the dynamic envelopes using the proposed method is compared and verified with the results from a well-established commercial code, COMSOL Multiphysics. A parametric assessment is also conducted to evaluate the energy efficiency benefits of dynamic envelopes in a single-family residential building, demonstrating total annual energy savings up to 11.6 %, when a dynamic envelope operates alone, and up to 18.2 % when it is combined with a thin layer of phase change material as a thermal storage medium. Finally, a United States wide energy efficiency assessment is presented to showcase the geographical spread of the energy savings. The method designed and implemented in this study provides the researchers with the ability to implement their dynamic insulation methods in EnergyPlus and evaluate the whole building energy impact.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2025

A Recipe for ABC Multifamily Retrofits: Technologies, Financing, and Project Delivery

This report documents the final technical accomplishments and outcomes of Rocky Mountain Institute’s project under the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Award DE-EE0009064. The project aimed to develop, validate, and scale whole building retrofit solutions for multifamily buildings, including two configurations of Integrated Mechanical System Pods (IMSP-C and IMSP-U), in alignment with DOE Advanced Building Construction (ABC) initiative's decarbonization and energy efficiency goals. While the project made significant progress in Budget Period 1 (Phase 1) and throughout Budget Period 2 (Phase 2), activities were discontinued as of March 26, 2025, following a Stop Work Order issued by DOE. As such, this report reflects all completed work through that date. The project did not enter Budget Periods 3 and 4 (Phase 2), and demonstration site implementation, field M&V, and final commercialization execution were not conducted.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Multiscale characterization of phase change materials for building thermal energy storage applications

Phase change materials (PCMs) store and release large amounts of thermal energy because of their high latent energy storage capacity. However, long-term cyclic stability, supercooling and performance-scalability are some of the major challenges for their use in building thermal energy storage (TES) applications. Here, in this study, we present a comprehensive multiscale characterization of two commercially available organic PCMs, Puretemp 18 and Puretemp 23. At the microscale, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was used to characterize phase change temperature, specific heat, and latent heat. At the mesoscale, a heat flow meter apparatus (HFMA), following the ASTM C1784 standard, was employed to measure the phase change temperature, specific heat, and latent heat properties. A comparative analysis of latent heat as a function of temperature was conducted by integrating the DSC and HFMA results. At the macroscale, the thermal performance and cyclic stability of the TES system was evaluated using Puretemp 23. The TES system consisted of a finned tube heat exchanger with a storage volume of 0.0189 m 3 (5 gal), which represents a compact, real-world TES solution suitable for building energy storage. The results showed consistent thermal stability of the PCM over 200 cycles, and the supercooling temperature remained within 0.2 °C, which was not detected in smaller-scale characterization methods. Additionally, the macroscale testing methodology of the PCM revealed that the TES is able to charge and discharge stored latent energy within 2 h under a temperature differential of 16.67 °C measured between the inlet water temperature and the phase transition temperature of the PCM. The proposed multiscale PCM characterization method provides a systematic basis for comparing important thermal storage properties while also investigating the scalability, reliability and integration challenges in large scale TES applications.

Latent heat↗
DOE OSTI2022

Competitiveness and Commercialization of Energy Technologies: Supply Chain Deep Dive Assessment

The report “America’s Strategy to Secure the Supply Chain for a Robust Clean Energy Transition” lays out the challenges and opportunities faced by the United States in the energy supply chain as well as the federal government plans to address these challenges and opportunities. It is accompanied by several issue-specific deep dive assessments, including this one, in response to Executive Order 14017 “America’s Supply Chains,” which directs the Secretary of Energy to submit a report on supply chains for the energy sector industrial base. The Executive Order is helping the federal government to build more secure and diverse U.S. supply chains, including energy supply chains. Competitive U.S.-based clean energy manufacturers and rapid commercialization of U.S.-developed technologies are critical to secure energy supply chains, generate high quality jobs, and meet the United States’ national security, energy and climate objectives. The February 2021 “Executive Order on America’s Supply Chains” (E.O. 14017) directs the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to evaluate supply chains that encompass the energy industrial base, focusing on technologies that are critical to meet U.S. decarbonization goals by 2050. Understanding and analyzing the end-to-end supply chain through economic analysis is crucial to mitigating risks and identifying opportunities to enhance U.S. competitiveness in the clean energy industry. This insight will allow the Department of Energy (DOE) to leverage its research, development, demonstration and deployment (RDD&D) capabilities to most fully realize the objectives of E.O. 14017.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Long term performance of vacuum insulation panels integrated into building components

Vacuum insulation panels provide much greater resistance to heat transfer than conventional insulation materials, making them ideal for building applications, especially where space is a constraint. Of particular interest is energy retrofits where high insulation values are required with very little or no modifications to existing building envelope elements such as fenestrations and service penetrations. To facilitate the use of vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) in residential and commercial construction, this study investigates the performance of VIPs integrated into polyisocyanurate foam board and vinyl siding after several years of service. Vacuum insulation panels integrated with polyisocyanurate boards were studied in mixed humid and cold climates. The integration of VIPs with vinyl siding was investigated in a mixed humid climate. Periods of service were between two and five years. In all cases, the integrated building components outperformed conventional materials by almost 40 percent during heating and cooling periods. However, the percent reduction in heat gains and losses of the integrated building components decreased with time at a rate between approximately 4% and 10% per year during the service period. In some cases, the rate seems to converge to a steady -state value. Measurements are ongoing to determine if a steady-state value is attained or the panel's insulation value continues to decrease with time. This study is critical in addressing the service life and durability of the building envelope with VIP integrated building components. The effect of these changes will be reviewed in the context of an exterior retrofit.

Aldykiewicz Jr, Antonio↗
DOE OSTI2022

ROAM: A Remotely Operated Accelerator Monitor

Monitoring accelerators in operation is a well known challenge due to the radiation environment. However, there are significant benefits in being able to deploy particular sensors in specific locations of accelerator enclosures for monitoring or troubleshooting purposes. Learning from experience at other labs, we used Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) components and an open source robot control software framework (ROS) to build a remotely controlled robot platform including a standard suite of instruments such as cameras, LIDAR, and ultrasound, with the ability to incorporate other ad-hoc sensors for specific measurements, such as a Gamma radiation monitor. Special attention was given to the robot's ability to maintain safety in the high risk environment of an accelerator, with multiple failure contingencies in place to ensure collision free operation. Testing was performed to prove the platform's viability and showcase its capability for accelerator monitoring.

Thayer, Thomas C.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Real Time - Optimal Power Flow Based Distributed Energy Resources Management System (DERMS) (CRADA Number CRD-20-16909 Final Report)

The integration of behind-the-meter distributed energy resources (DERs) into distribution systems brings transformative changes to power systems. This requires operators and planners to find solutions to modernize electric grids and to effectively manage DERs for grid services. NREL developed novel DER management algorithms (referred to as Real-Time Optimal Power Flow, RT-OPF) through U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-funded efforts, including Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) Network Optimized Distributed Energy Systems (NODES) funding. This cutting-edge control technology aims to modernize distribution systems with large amounts of DER integration, which will help utilities solve issues brought by renewable integration and build resilient and renewable-based electric grids nationwide. Utilidata worked with NREL to investigate the commercialization opportunity of this RT-OPF-based distributed energy resource management system (DERMS). In this project, NREL performs the technology transfer of the RT-OPF to Utilidata to help them fully understand the RT-OPF solution, to identify potential engineering hurdles, and to assess the expected commercial value of various RT-OPF use cases and deployment. The technology transfer work includes two major tasks. First, NREL performs an in-depth knowledge transfer of the entire RT-OPF solution to Utilidata to help them gain an extensive and detailed understanding of the complete RT-OPF solution. In this task, NREL provides exhaustive information (e.g., documentation, code packages, laboratory and field trial data, performance results) while conducting in-depth training sessions to provide a thorough explanation of the entire solution. NREL hosts meetings to present different topics related to the RT-OPF solution, and question-and-answer sessions are included in each meeting to better explain the RT-OPF-related work. Second, the RT-OPF simulations are performed in a laboratory environment. The main objectives of this task are to walk through with Utilidata engineers how to set up a simulation of RT-OPF, identifying each RT-OPF code block/component in operation, learning how these components interact with each other, and eventually running RT-OPF simulations under various system conditions. This task helps Utilidata engineers understand performance limitations and constraints while also quantifying the commercial value of the RT-OPF for different use cases. Based on these two tasks, Utilidata engineers should be able to define and prioritize the next steps of RT-OPF implementation with an eye toward commercial success and scalability of the solution. The next steps are expected to be part of a new project following the conclusion of this project.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗