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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 973 records · Page 54
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2019

Numerical simulation and analysis of femtosecond pulse evolution in liquid-core photonic crystal fiber based on adaptive step-size methods

The adaptive step-size methods including conservation quantity error method (CQEM) and local error method (LEM) are described and used to investigate the femtosecond pulse evolution in liquid-core photonic crystal fibers. The efficiency and accuracy of the numerical results obtained from CQEM and LEM in frequency domain (FD) and time domain (TD) are compared and discussed under the fixed numerical parameters respectively. The numerical results represent that LEM has the higher accuracy due to the integration of nonlinear operator that is more efficient than CQEM. The femtosecond pulse evolution in liquid-core photonic crystal fiber is described and analyzed using LEM. Moreover, the influences of the peak power of pulse and length of liquid-core photonic crystal fibers on the supercontinuum generation are also obtained based on LEM-FD. This study is helpful optimizing the numerical process in ultra-short pulse evolution based on adaptive step-size methods.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

The field of human building interaction for convergent research and innovation for intelligent built environments

Human-Building Interaction (HBI) is a convergent field that represents the growing complexities of the dynamic interplay between human experience and intelligence within built environments. This paper provides core definitions, research dimensions, and an overall vision for the future of HBI as developed through consensus among 25 interdisciplinary experts in a series of facilitated workshops. Three primary areas contribute to and require attention in HBI research: humans (human experiences, performance, and well-being), buildings (building design and operations), and technologies (sensing, inference, and awareness). Three critical interdisciplinary research domains intersect these areas: control systems and decision making, trust and collaboration, and modeling and simulation. Finally, at the core, it is vital for HBI research to center on and support equity, privacy, and sustainability. Compelling research questions are posed for each primary area, research domain, and core principle. State-of-the-art methods used in HBI studies are discussed, and examples of original research are offered to illustrate opportunities for the advancement of HBI research.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Thermal Design and Optimization of High- Power Wireless Charging System

In this paper, the thermal design and optimization of a high-power wireless charging system (WCS) is proposed. An integrated electromagnetic and thermal co-optimization is essential to design a high power-density WCS pad. This study presents the thermal analysis and the potential optimization scopes for a polyphase WCS pad. The coil and core causes most of the power losses of a WCS pad and causes thermal hotspot in the pad. In this paper, the thermally conductive epoxy is introduced to balance the effective volumetric loss density in the pad and mitigate the thermal hotspots in the coil and core. The proposed design is simulated through finite element analysis (FEA) and tested experimentally for a 50 kW three-phase WCS. Simulation and experimental results show that the conventional design has localized hotspots in the coil and core. The proposed thermal design mitigates the thermal hotspots without increasing the coil or core volume.

Mohammad, Mostak↗
NASA NTRS1971

A progress report - Induction plasma simulation of the GCNR.

Significant progress has been made in the design, construction and operation of induction coupled devices which simulate the open cycle Gas Core Nuclear Rocket. These devices incorporate solid feed of the plasma forming material (uranium and uranium simulating materials), permeable walls, seeding of the propellant, and transpiration cooled, choked flow nozzles. Operating parameters and performance data of devices employing these design features are discussed. A uranium plasma experiment is included. In addition, operating data of several devices which compare theoretical and actual performance at a variety of powers, pressures, frequencies, and sizes are discussed.

Vogel, C. E.↗
DOE OSTI2015

Optimizing legacy molecular dynamics software with directive-based offload

The directive-based programming models are one solution for exploiting many-core coprocessors to increase simulation rates in molecular dynamics. They offer the potential to reduce code complexity with offload models that can selectively target computations to run on the CPU, the coprocessor, or both. In our paper, we describe modifications to the LAMMPS molecular dynamics code to enable concurrent calculations on a CPU and coprocessor. We also demonstrate that standard molecular dynamics algorithms can run efficiently on both the CPU and an x86-based coprocessor using the same subroutines. As a consequence, we demonstrate that code optimizations for the coprocessor also result in speedups on the CPU; in extreme cases up to 4.7X. We provide results for LAMMAS benchmarks and for production molecular dynamics simulations using the Stampede hybrid supercomputer with both Intel (R) Xeon Phi (TM) coprocessors and NVIDIA GPUs: The optimizations presented have increased simulation rates by over 2X for organic molecules and over 7X for liquid crystals on Stampede. The optimizations are available as part of the "Intel package" supplied with LAMMPS. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2012

Severe accident modeling of a PWR core with different cladding materials

The MAAP v.4 software has been used to model two severe accident scenarios in nuclear power reactors with three different materials as fuel cladding. The TMI-2 severe accident was modeled with Zircaloy-2 and SiC as clad material and a SBO accident in a Zion-like, 4-loop, Westinghouse PWR was modeled with Zircaloy-2, SiC, and 304 stainless steel as clad material. TMI-2 modeling results indicate that lower peak core temperatures, less H 2 (g) produced, and a smaller mass of molten material would result if SiC was substituted for Zircaloy-2 as cladding. SBO modeling results indicate that the calculated time to RCS rupture would increase by approximately 20 minutes if SiC was substituted for Zircaloy-2. Additionally, when an extended SBO accident (RCS creep rupture failure disabled) was modeled, significantly lower peak core temperatures, less H 2 (g) produced, and a smaller mass of molten material would be generated by substituting SiC for Zircaloy-2 or stainless steel cladding. Because the rate of SiC oxidation reaction with elevated temperature H{sub 2}O (g) was set to 0 for this work, these results should be considered preliminary. However, the benefits of SiC as a more accident tolerant clad material have been shown and additional investigation of SiC as an LWR core material are warranted, specifically investigations of the oxidation kinetics of SiC in H{sub 2}O (g) over the range of temperatures and pressures relevant to severe accidents in LWR 's. (authors)

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance

The project proposed to provide a Predictive Maturity Framework with its companion metrics that (1) introduce a formalized, quantitative means to communicate information between interested parties, (2) provide scientifically dependable means to claim completion of Validation and Uncertainty Quantification (VU) activities, and (3) guide the decision makers in the allocation of Nuclear Energy’s resources for code development and physical experiments. The project team proposed to develop this framework based on two complimentary criteria: (1) the extent of experimental evidence available for the calibration of simulation models and (2) the sophistication of the physics incorporated in simulation models. The proposed framework is capable of quantifying the interaction between the required number of physical experiments and degree of physics sophistication. The project team has developed this framework and implemented it with a multi-scale model for simulating creep of a core reactor cladding. The multi-scale model is composed of the viscoplastic self-consistent (VPSC) code at the meso-scale, which represents the visco-plastic behavior and changing properties of a highly anisotropic material and a Finite Element (FE) code at the macro-scale to represent the elastic behavior and apply the loading. The framework developed takes advantage of the transparency provided by partitioned analysis, where independent constituent codes are coupled in an iterative manner. This transparency allows model developers to better understand and remedy the source of biases and uncertainties, whether they stem from the constituents or the coupling interface by exploiting separate-effect experiments conducted within the constituent domain and integral-effect experiments conducted within the full-system domain. The project team has implemented this procedure with the multi- scale VPSC-FE model and demonstrated its ability to improve the predictive capability of the model. Within this framework, the project team has focused on optimizing resource allocation for improving numerical models through further code development and experimentation. Related to further code development, we have developed a code prioritization index (CPI) for coupled numerical models. CPI is implemented to effectively improve the predictive capability of the coupled model by increasing the sophistication of constituent codes. In relation to designing new experiments, we investigated the information gained by the addition of each new experiment used for calibration and bias correction of a simulation model. Additionally, the variability of ‘information gain’ through the design domain has been investigated in order to identify the experiment settings where maximum information gain occurs and thus guide the experimenters in the selection of the experiment settings. This idea was extended to evaluate the information gain from each experiment can be improved by intelligently selecting the experiments, leading to the development of the Batch Sequential Design (BSD) technique. Additionally, we evaluated the importance of sufficiently exploring the domain of applicability in experiment-based validation of high-consequence modeling and simulation by developing a new metric to quantify coverage. This metric has also been incorporated into the design of new experiments. Finally, we have proposed a data-aware calibration approach for the calibration of numerical models. This new method considers the complexity of a numerical model (the number of parameters to be calibrated, parameter uncertainty, and form of the model) and seeks to identify the number of experiments necessary to calibrate the model based on the level of sophistication of the physics. The final component in the project team’s work to improve model calibration and validation methods is the incorporation of robustness to non-probabilistic uncertainty in the input parameters. This is an improvement to model validation and uncertainty quantification stemming beyond the originally proposed scope of the project. We have introduced a new metric for incorporating the concept of robustness into experiment-based validation of numerical models. This project has accounted for the graduation of two Ph.D. students (Kendra Van Buren and Josh Hegenderfer) and two M.S. students (Matthew Egeberg and Parker Shields). One of the doctoral students is now working in the nuclear engineering field and the other one is a post-doctoral fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Additionally, two more Ph.D. students (Garrison Stevens and Tunc Kulaksiz) who are working towards graduation have been supported by this project.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2017

In Situ Visualization of Radiation Transport Geometry

The ultimate goal for radiation transport is to perform full-core reactor modelling and simulation. Advances in computational simulation bring this goal close to reality and the newest Monte Carlo transport codes have begun to shift to using accelerators that have become a stalwart in the supercomputing and HPC space. Within the reactor modelling and simulation community, Monte Carlo transport simulations are considered the gold standard for simulation. Through the use of "combinatorial geometry" (constructive solid geomtry), complex models can be used with fewer approximation compromises while at the same time scale to run on some of the largest supercomputers in the world.Unfortunately, the state-of-the-art for "combinatorial geometry" visualization is to decompose the geometry into a mesh. This approach could require a significant amount of memory which is antithetical to in situ visualization. To address this issue, we introduce a ray caster for visualizing combinatorial geometry in radiation transport code. By only using the accelerators for the radiation transport code and leaving the CPU cores idle, there is an opportunity to conduct on node in situ visualization with the idle CPU cores, something domain experts have up to this point been unable to do. By utilizing VTK-m, the visualization can be run on the CPU as this particular application demands, but also run on any architecture that is supported by VTK-m, enabling future re-use across different platforms.

Kim, Mark B.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Multiphysics Running-In Simulations for Pebble-Bed Reactors with Griffin

Griffin, a Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE)–based application targeting transient modeling of advanced reactors, has been used recently to model pebble-bed reactors (PBRs). The modeling effort has focused thus far on equilibrium core calculations. A new capability to simulate the running-in phase of PBR operation has been added to Griffin. This work demonstrates the new capability with a coupled multiphysics running-in simulation. Griffin computes power densities in the core at each time step of the running-in simulation and passes these to Pronghorn, which models fluid flow and heat transfer to calculate pebble surface temperatures. These surface temperatures are used along with the power densities in a heat conduction model to compute average fuel and moderator temperatures, which are passed back to Griffin and accounted for with temperature-dependent cross sections. This work also describes a novel methodology for determining appropriate pebble feed rates and control rod positioning during the running-in simulation. Furthermore, the RZ-geometry model used in this work requires minimal computational resources and can be used for optimization and uncertainty studies in future works.

Griffin↗
DOE OSTI2022

Chemical characterisation of degraded nuclear fuel analogues simulating the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident

The Fukushima Daiichi accident generated degraded nuclear fuel material, mixed with other reactor components, known as molten core-concrete interaction (MCCI) material. Simulant MCCI material was synthesised, excluding highly radioactive fission products, containing depleted U, and incorporating Ce as a surrogate for Pu. Multi-modal µ-focus X-ray analysis revealed the presence of the expected suite of U-Zr-O containing minerals, in addition to crystalline silicate phases CaSiO 3 , SiO 2 -cristobalite and Ce-bearing percleveite, (Ce,Nd) 2 Si 2 O 7 . The formation of perclevite resulted from reaction between the U-Zr-O-depleted Ce-Nd-O melt and the silicate (SiO 2 ) melt. It was determined that the majority of U was present as U 4 , whereas Ce was observed to be present as Ce 3+ , consistent with the highly reducing synthesis conditions. A range of Fe-containing phases characterised by different average oxidation states were identified, and it is hypothesised that their formation induced heterogeneity in the local oxygen potential, influencing the oxidation state of Ce.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2016

No double detonations but core carbon ignitions in high-resolution, grid-based simulations of binary white dwarf mergers

We study the violent phase of the merger of massive binary white dwarf systems. Our aim is to characterize the conditions for explosive burning to occur, and identify a possible explosion mechanism of Type Ia supernovae. The primary components of our model systems are carbon–oxygen (C/O) white dwarfs, while the secondaries are made either of C/O or of pure helium. We account for tidal effects in the initial conditions in a self-consistent way, and consider initially well-separated systems with slow inspiral rates. We study the merger evolution using an adaptive mesh refinement, reactive, Eulerian code in three dimensions, assuming symmetry across the orbital plane. We use a corotating reference frame to minimize the effects of numerical diffusion, and solve for self-gravity using a multigrid approach. We find a novel detonation mechanism in C/O mergers with massive primaries. Here, the detonation occurs in the primary's core and relies on the combined action of tidal heating, accretion heating, and self-heating due to nuclear burning. The exploding structure is compositionally stratified, with a reverse shock formed at the surface of the dense ejecta. The existence of such a shock has not been reported elsewhere. The explosion energy (1.6 × 10 51 erg) and 56 Ni mass (0.86 M ⊙ ) are consistent with an SN Ia at the bright end of the luminosity distribution, with an approximated decline rate of Δm 15 (B) ≈ 0.99. Our study does not support double-detonation scenarios in the case of a system with a 0.6 M ⊙ helium secondary and a 0.9 M ⊙ primary. Although the accreted helium detonates, it fails to ignite carbon at the base of the boundary layer or in the primary's core.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

SIMULATING THE FORMATION OF MASSIVE PROTOSTARS. I. RADIATIVE FEEDBACK AND ACCRETION DISKS

We present radiation hydrodynamic simulations of collapsing protostellar cores with initial masses of 30, 100, and 200 M {sub ⊙}. We follow their gravitational collapse and the formation of a massive protostar and protostellar accretion disk. We employ a new hybrid radiative feedback method blending raytracing techniques with flux-limited diffusion for a more accurate treatment of the temperature and radiative force. In each case, the disk that forms becomes Toomre-unstable and develops spiral arms. This occurs between 0.35 and 0.55 freefall times and is accompanied by an increase in the accretion rate by a factor of 2–10. Although the disk becomes unstable, no other stars are formed. In the case of our 100 and 200 M {sub ⊙} simulations, the star becomes highly super-Eddington and begins to drive bipolar outflow cavities that expand outwards. These radiatively driven bubbles appear stable, and appear to be channeling gas back onto the protostellar accretion disk. Accretion proceeds strongly through the disk. After 81.4 kyr of evolution, our 30 M {sub ⊙} simulation shows a star with a mass of 5.48 M {sub ⊙} and a disk of mass 3.3 M {sub ⊙}, while our 100 M {sub ⊙} simulation forms a 28.8 M {sub ⊙} mass star with a 15.8 M {sub ⊙} disk over the course of 41.6 kyr, and our 200 M {sub ⊙} simulation forms a 43.7 M {sub ⊙} star with an 18 M {sub ⊙} disk in 21.9 kyr. In the absence of magnetic fields or other forms of feedback, the masses of the stars in our simulation do not appear to be limited by their own luminosities.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Quantum fluctuations in dense plasma simulations

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are a powerful tool for modeling warm and hot dense matter. Density functional theory (DFT) MD simulations are often preferred in dense plasmas in order to accurately model quantum electronic structure. However, DFT-MD simulations neglect interaction effects due to fluctuations in excited states. In this work, we present an MD approach that uses excited state method pseudoatoms to run dense plasma simulations with many different core-electron configurations at classical MD speeds. We also allow for transitions between different configurations in our simulations and find that these fluctuations are especially important for highly excited states. Our results suggest that finite configuration lifetimes that are comparable to the inverse ion plasma frequency need to be accounted for in order to accurately model ion distributions in dense plasma simulations. We also demonstrate that excited state fluctuations have a direct impact on ion plasma microfields, generate different plasma microfields for different excitation levels, and thereby induce absorption–emission line shape asymmetries even in steady-state plasmas.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Random Variation of ACRR Core Report

The research presented in this paper is to be a contribution to a larger research project. The project was designed to test the safety standards of Sandia National Laboratories' ACRR. The MCNP model of the ACRR core is being used to simulate the environment. To test the safety standards, the dimensions and density of the fuel in the core were varied randomly. Each rod had its own dimension and density assigned to it randomly. Ten different cases of the ACRR core were randomly created. The different cases were studied using 640-group neutron fluxes. The fluxes were compared to see how the variations affected the system.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2012

SOLUBILITY OF WATER ICE IN METALLIC HYDROGEN: CONSEQUENCES FOR CORE EROSION IN GAS GIANT PLANETS

Using ab initio simulations we investigate whether water ice is stable in the cores of giant planets, or whether it dissolves into the layer of metallic hydrogen above. By Gibbs free energy calculations we find that for pressures between 10 and 40 Mbar the ice-hydrogen interface is thermodynamically unstable at temperatures above approximately 3000 K, far below the temperature of the core-mantle boundaries in Jupiter and Saturn. This implies that the dissolution of core material into the fluid layers of giant planets is thermodynamically favored, and that further modeling of the extent of core erosion is warranted.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

A semi-analytic study of self-interacting dark-matter haloes with baryons

ABSTRACT We combine the isothermal Jeans model and the model of adiabatic halo contraction into a semi-analytic procedure for computing the density profile of self-interacting dark-matter (SIDM) haloes with the gravitational influence from the inhabitant galaxies. The model agrees well with cosmological SIDM simulations over the entire core-forming stage up to the onset of gravothermal core-collapse. Using this model, we show that the halo response to baryons is more diverse in SIDM than in CDM and depends sensitively on galaxy size, a desirable feature in the context of the structural diversity of bright dwarfs. The fast speed of the method facilitates analyses that would be challenging for numerical simulations – notably, we quantify the SIDM halo response as functions of the baryonic properties, on a fine mesh grid spanned by the baryon-to-total-mass ratio, Mb/Mvir, and galaxy compactness, r1/2/Rvir; we show with high statistical precision that for typical Milky-Way-like systems, the SIDM profiles are similar to their CDM counterparts; and we delineate the regime of core-collapse in the Mb/Mvir − r1/2/Rvir space, for a given cross section and concentration. Finally, we compare the isothermal Jeans model with the more sophisticated gravothermal fluid model, and show that the former yields faster core formation and agrees better with cosmological simulations. We attribute the difference to whether the target CDM halo is used as a boundary condition or as the initial condition for the gravothermal evolution, and thus comment on possible improvements of the fluid model. We have made our model publicly available at https://github.com/JiangFangzhou/SIDM.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Stochastic Optimization to Find Optimum Beginning-of-Life Core Configuration of Stable Salt Reactor with Online Refueling

A stochastic optimization method has been developed to find an optimum equilibrium cycle core configuration of the waste-burning stable salt reactor, which is a fast-spectrum molten salt reactor with frequent online refueling. An optimum core configuration was determined with the goal of minimizing radial power peaking. Because of the vast number of potential candidate core configurations, stochastic optimization was applied based on simulated annealing and an additional acceleration method, which screened out unpromising core configurations. It has been demonstrated that the developed stochastic optimization method successfully finds the optimal core configuration regardless of the initial guess and outperforms the gradient descent approach. In addition, it has been observed that the use of a so-called out-in core configuration as the initial guess speeds up convergence of the iterative solution more than five times. Based on the searched optimum equilibrium cycle core configuration, new beginning-of-life (BOL) core configurations have been developed. In conclusion, the new BOL core configurations will be used in developing optimum refueling strategies.

Moltex static salt reactor↗
DOE OSTI2015

Experimental study for subcriticality measurement of fuel debris in the Fukushima Daiichi reactor - 14582

Fuel debris defueling in the Fukushima Daiichi reactors is planned. Furthermore, retrieved fuel debris will be packed and stored in casks for a long time. In these processes, from the viewpoint of criticality safety, the subcriticality of the fuel debris should be confirmed. Although there are some subcriticality measurement methods, the applicability of these methods to the fuel debris must be investigated because the elemental composition and shape of the fuel debris are unknown. In this study, we focus on the exponential experiment method which is able to measure a wide range of subcriticality. Basic experiments to validate the methods were carried out using Toshiba Nuclear Critical Assembly (NCA) and {sup 3}He Position Sensitive Detector (PSD). The decay curves of neutron flux distributions were measured by the PSD detector and fitted to a theoretical formula. The elemental compositions and neutron spectrum of the fuel debris have been estimated with a severe accident code and a Monte Carlo code. In the experiment, the neutron spectrum of the fuel debris was simulated in the NCA core. The porosity of the fuel debris was assumed to be 60%, which corresponds to be H/U=7.5 and Volume Ratio=1.5. In order to evaluate the effect of the uncertainty of the compositions on the measured subcriticality, a homogeneous region and a heterogeneous region were configured in an experimental core. These regions consisted of fuel rods with different UO{sub 2} enrichment zone or different gadolinia concentration zone in the axial direction. The effective multiplication factors deduced by the exponential experiment method were a range of 0.94 to 0.98. (authors)

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗