Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “school”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 991 records · Page 55

Experimental particle physics research at Texas Tech University

The high energy physics group at Texas Tech University (TTU) concentrates its research efforts on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and on generic detector R&D for future applications. Our research programs have been continuously supported by the US Department of Energy for over two decades, and this final report summarizes our achievements during the last grant period from May 1, 2012 to March 31, 2016. After having completed the Run 1 data analyses from the CMS detector, including the discovery of the Higgs boson in July 2012, we concentrated on commissioning the CMS hadron calorimeter (HCAL) for Run 2, performing analyses of Run 2 data, and making initial studies and plans for the second phase of upgrades in CMS. Our research has primarily focused on searches for Beyond Standard Model (BSM) physics via dijets, monophotons, and monojets. We also made significant contributions to the analyses of the semileptonic Higgs decays and Standard Model (SM) measurements in Run 1. Our work on the operations of the CMS detector, especially the performance monitoring of the HCAL in Run 1, was indispensable to the experiment. Our team members, holding leadership positions in HCAL, have played key roles in the R&D, construction, and commissioning of these detectors in the last decade. We also maintained an active program in jet studies that builds on our expertise in calorimetry and algorithm development. In Run 2, we extended some of our analyses at 8 TeV to 13 TeV, and we also started to investigate new territory, e.g., dark matter searches with unexplored signatures. The objective of dual-readout calorimetry R&D was intended to explore (and, if possible, eliminate) the obstacles that prevent calorimetric detection of hadrons and jets with a comparable level of precision as we have grown accustomed to for electrons and photons. The initial prototype detector was successfully tested at the SPS/CERN in 2003-2004 and evolved over the last decade. In 2012-2015, several other prototypes were built to further reduce leakage fluctuations, improve Cherenkov light yield, increase fiber attenuation length, and other related phenomena. During this grant period, we graduated two students with Ph.D. degrees, and five undergraduate students from our labs went on to prestigious graduate programs in the US and Europe. Also, the TTU HEP team has participated in the QuarkNet program every year since 2001. We are dedicated to working with area teachers and students at all levels and to training the next generation of scientists. Over 20 high school teachers have participated in our program since its inception.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Fundamentals of Monte Carlo

This is a powerpoint presentation which serves as lecture material for the Parallel Computing summer school. It goes over the fundamentals of the Monte Carlo calculation method. The material is presented according to the following outline: Introduction (background, a simple example: estimating π), Why does this even work? (The Law of Large Numbers, The Central Limit Theorem), How to sample (inverse transform sampling, rejection), and An example from particle transport.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

New York Solar Smart DG Hub-Resilient Solar Project: Economic and Resiliency Impact of PV and Storage on New York Critical Infrastructure

Resilient PV, which is solar paired with storage ('solar-plus-storage'), provides value both during normal grid operation and power outages as opposed to traditional solar PV, which functions only when the electric grid is operating. During normal grid operations, resilient PV systems help host sites generate revenue and/or reduce electricity bill charges. During grid outages, resilient PV provides critical emergency power that can help people in need and ease demand on emergency fuel supplies. The combination of grid interruptions during recent storms, the proliferation of solar PV, and the growing deployment of battery storage technologies has generated significant interest in using these assets for both economic and resiliency benefits. This report analyzes the technical and economic viability for resilient PV on three critical infrastructure sites in New York City (NYC): a school that is part of a coastal storm shelter system, a fire station, and a NYCHA senior center that serves as a cooling center during heat emergencies. This analysis differs from previous solar-plus-storage studies by placing a monetary value on resiliency and thus, in essence, modeling a new revenue stream for the avoided cost of a power outage. Analysis results show that resilient PV is economically viable for NYC's critical infrastructure and that it may be similarly beneficial to other commercial buildings across the city. This report will help city building owners, managers, and policymakers better understand the economic and resiliency benefits of resilient PV. As NYC fortifies its building stock against future storms of increasing severity, resilient PV can play an important role in disaster response and recovery while also supporting city greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and relieving stress to the electric grid from growing power demands.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Video Analysis in Multi-Intelligence

This is a project which was performed by a graduated high school student at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The goal of the Multi-intelligence (MINT) project is to determine the state of a facility from multiple data streams. The data streams are indirect observations. The researcher is using DARHT (Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility) as a proof of concept. In summary, videos from the DARHT facility contain a rich amount of information. Distribution of car activity can inform us about the state of the facility. Counting large vehicles shows promise as another feature for identifying the state of operations. Signal processing techniques are limited by the low resolution and compression of the videos. We are working on integrating these features with features obtained from other data streams to contribute to the MINT project. Future work can pursue other observations, such as when the gate is functioning or non-functioning.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Two 175 ton geothermal chiller heat pumps for leed platinum building technology demonstration project. Operation data, data collection and marketing

The activities funded by this grant helped educate and inform approximately six thousand individuals who participated in guided tours of the geothermal chiller plant at Johnson Controls Corporate Headquarters in Glendale, Wisconsin over the three year term of the project. In addition to those who took the formal tour, thousands more were exposed to hands-on learning at the self-service video kiosks located in the headquarters building and augmented reality tablet app that allowed for self-guided tours. The tours, video, and app focused on the advantages of geothermal heat pump chillers, including energy savings and environmental impact. The overall tour and collateral also demonstrated the practical application of this technology and how it can be designed into a system that includes many other sustainable technologies without sacrificing comfort or health of building occupants Among tour participants were nearly 1,000 individuals, representing 130 organizations identified as potential purchasers of geothermal heat pump chillers. In addition to these commercial clients, tours were well attended by engineering, facilities, and business trade groups. This has also been a popular tour for groups from Universities around the Midwest and K-12 schools from Wisconsin and Northern Illinois A sequence of operations was put into place to control the chillers and they have been tuned and maintained to optimize the benefit from the geothermal water loop. Data on incoming and outgoing water temperature and flow from the geothermal field was logged and sent to DOE monthly during the grant period to demonstrate energy savings.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Final Report: Self-Consolidating Concrete Construction for Modular Units

This report focuses on work completed on DE-NE0000667, Self-Consolidating Concrete for Modular Units, in connection with the Department of Energy Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (DOE-NEET) program. This project was completed in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, with Westinghouse Corporation as the industrial partner. The primary objective of this project was to develop self-consolidating concrete (also termed “self-compacting concrete” or SCC) mixtures so that concrete placement can be made into steel plate composite (SC) modular structures without the need for continuous concrete placement. As part of the research, SCC mixtures were developed and validated to ensure sufficient shear capacity across cold-joints, while minimizing shrinkage and temperature increase during curing to enhance concrete bonding with the steel plate construction found in modular units. The SCC mixtures developed were able to carry shearing forces across the cold-joint boundaries. This “self-roughening” was achieved by adding a tailored fraction of lightweight aggregate (LWA) to the concrete mix, some of which raised to the surface during curing, forming a rough surface on which subsequent concrete placements were made. The self-roughening behavior was validated through three sets of structural tests. Shear friction on small-scale specimens with cold joints was assessed using varying fractions of LWA and with varying amounts of external steel plate reinforcement. The results show that the shear friction coefficient, to be used with the provisions of ACI 318-14, Section 22.9, can be taken as 1.35. Mid-scale beam tests were completed to assess the cold-joint capacity in both in-plane and out-of-plane bending. The results showed that the self-roughened joints performed as well as monolithic joints. The final assessment was a full-scale test using a steel composite module supplied by Westinghouse and similar in construction to the steel composite modules being assembled at the Vogtle and V.C. Summer plant expansions. The final test showed that the roughened cold-joint showed excellent shear and flexural capacity, and substantial ductility, when used in conjunction with steel composite construction.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Programming Models in HPC

These are the slides for a presentation on programming models in HPC, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory's Parallel Computing Summer School. The following topics are covered: Flynn's Taxonomy of computer architectures; single instruction single data; single instruction multiple data; multiple instruction multiple data; address space organization; definition of Trinity (Intel Xeon-Phi is a MIMD architecture); single program multiple data; multiple program multiple data; ExMatEx workflow overview; definition of a programming model, programming languages, runtime systems; programming model and environments; MPI (Message Passing Interface); OpenMP; Kokkos (Performance Portable Thread-Parallel Programming Model); Kokkos abstractions, patterns, policies, and spaces; RAJA, a systematic approach to node-level portability and tuning; overview of the Legion Programming Model; mapping tasks and data to hardware resources; interoperability: supporting task-level models; Legion S3D execution and performance details; workflow, integration of external resources into the programming model.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Investigating the Role of Ferromagnetic Materials on the Casimir Force & Investigation of the Van Der Waals/Casimir Force with Graphene

Duration of award was from 4/15/10-4/14/15. In this grant period our contributions to the field of VdW/Casimir forces are 24 refereed publications in journals such as Physical Review Letters (4) [1-4], Physical Review B (10) [5-14], Physical Review D (2) [15,16], Applied Physics Letters (1) [17], Review of Scientific Instruments (1) [18] and the International Journal of Modern Physics A (5) [19-23] and B(1) (invited review article [24]). We presented 2 plenary conference talks, 3 lectures at the Pan American School on Frontiers in Casimir Physics, 2 conferences, 1 colloquium and 11 APS talks. If publications are restricted to only those with direct connection to the aims proposed in the prior grant period, then it will be a total of 12: Physical Review Letters (3) [2-4], Physical Review B (6) [6-8,12,13,25], Review of Scientific Instruments (1) [18], International Journal of Modern Physics A (1) [19] and B(1) [169]. A brief aggregated description of the directly connected accomplishments is below. The following topics are detailed: dispersion force measurements with graphene, dispersion force from ferromagnetic metals, conclusion on role of electrostatic patches, UV radiation induced modification of the Casimir force, low temperature measurement of the Casimir force, and Casimir force from thin fluctuating membranes.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Challenges of Monte Carlo Transport

These are slides from a presentation for Parallel Summer School at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Solving discretized partial differential equations (PDEs) of interest can require a large number of computations. We can identify concurrency to allow parallel solution of discrete PDEs. Simulated particles histories can be used to solve the Boltzmann transport equation. Particle histories are independent in neutral particle transport, making them amenable to parallel computation. Physical parameters and method type determine the data dependencies of particle histories. Data requirements shape parallel algorithms for Monte Carlo. Then, Parallel Computational Physics and Parallel Monte Carlo are discussed and, finally, the results are given. The mesh passing method greatly simplifies the IMC implementation and allows simple load-balancing. Using MPI windows and passive, one-sided RMA further simplifies the implementation by removing target synchronization. The author is very interested in implementations of PGAS that may allow further optimization for one-sided, read-only memory access (e.g. Open SHMEM). The MPICH_RMA_OVER_DMAPP option and library is required to make one-sided messaging scale on Trinitite - Moonlight scales poorly. Interconnect specific libraries or functions are likely necessary to ensure performance. BRANSON has been used to directly compare the current standard method to a proposed method on idealized problems. The mesh passing algorithm performs well on problems that are designed to show the scalability of the particle passing method. BRANSON can now run load-imbalanced, dynamic problems. Potential avenues of improvement in the mesh passing algorithm will be implemented and explored. A suite of test problems that stress DD methods will elucidate a possible path forward for production codes.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

CMCSN: Structure and dynamics of water and aqueous solutions in materials science

This award has contributed to build a network of scientists interested in the structure and dynamics of water. Such network extends well beyond the PI and the co-PIs and includes both theoreticians and experimentalists. Scientific interactions within this community have been fostered by three workshops supported by the grant. The first workshop was held at Princeton University on December 6-8, 2010. The second workshop was held at the Talaris Conference Center in Seattle on February 10-12, 2012. The third workshop was held at UC Davis on June 19-22, 2013. Each workshop had 40-50 participants and about 20 speakers. The workshops have been very successful and stimulated ongoing discussions within the water community. This debate is lasting beyond the time frame set by the grant. The following events are just a few examples: (i) the month long activity on "Water: the most anomalous liquid" organized at NORDITA (Stockholm) in October- November 2014 by A. Nilsson and L. Petterson who participated in all the three CMCSN sponsored workshops; (ii) the workshop on "ice nucleation" organized by R. Car, P. Debenedetti and F. Stillinger at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science in April 23- 24 2015; (iii) the 10 days workshop on water organized by R. Car and F. Mallamace at the E. Maiorana Centre in Erice (Sicily) in July 2016, an activity that will morph into a regular summer school of the E. Maiorana Centre in the years to come under the directorship of R. Car, F. Mallamace (U. Messina), A. Nilsson (U. Stockholm) and L. Xu (Beijing U.). All these activities were stimulated by the scientific discussions within the network initiated by this CMCSN grant.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A journey from nuclear criticality methods to high energy density radflow experiments

Los Alamos National Laboratory is a nuclear weapons laboratory supporting our nation's defense. In support of this mission is a high energy-density physics program in which we design and execute experiments to study radiationhydrodynamics phenomena and improve the predictive capability of our largescale multi-physics software codes on our big-iron computers. The Radflow project’s main experimental effort now is to understand why we haven't been able to predict opacities on Sandia National Laboratory's Z-machine. We are modeling an increasing fraction of the Z-machine's dynamic hohlraum to find multi-physics explanations for the experimental results. Further, we are building an entirely different opacity platform on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF), which is set to get results early 2017. Will the results match our predictions, match the Z-machine, or give us something entirely different? The new platform brings new challenges such as designing hohlraums and spectrometers. The speaker will recount his history, starting with one-dimensional Monte Carlo nuclear criticality methods in graduate school, radiative transfer methods research and software development for his first 16 years at LANL, and, now, radflow technology and experiments. Who knew that the real world was more than just radiation transport? Experiments aren't easy and they are as saturated with politics as a presidential election, but they sure are fun.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

Final Scientific/Technical Report from Hofstra University on DE-SC0001985

The U.S. Department of Energy award DE-SC0001985 funded the Hofstra University Center for Climate Study (HUCCS) from 29 September 2009 through 1 October 2016. This support enabled several activities over the period of the grant, including 1) the pursuit of several research projects, including sediment coring of coastal marshes, analysis of habitat impact due to climate change, and effects of raindrops of CO2 transfer; 2) support for multiple graduate and undergraduate students, and sponsorship of research projects that involved high school students; 3) fostering mentoring relationships and networking; 4) the design, creation, and installation of an exhibit on climate change at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, NY as an effort of public outreach. A total of 11 presentations at conferences, one book, and one peer-reviewed journal article resulted from these activities.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Girls In STEM White Coat Ceremony 2017

Like working with children? Who doesn’t? Girls in STEM has myriad opportunities for you to help local Title 1 students in the classroom. You can choose to volunteer from the Lab, from the Bradbury Science Museum, or to travel to Abiquiu Elementary School (car provided) to do a science demonstration. The best part is that you can use the Community Outreach Partnership Code.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

International symposium on clusters and nanomaterials (energy and life-sciences applications)

The International Symposium on Clusters and Nanomaterials was held in Richmond, Virginia during October 26-29, 2015. The symposium focused on the roles clusters and nanostructures play in solving outstanding problems in clean and sustainable energy and life sciences applications; two of the most important issues facing science and society. Many of the materials issues in renewable energies, environmental impacts of energy technologies as well as beneficial and toxicity issues of nanoparticles in health are intertwined. Realizing that both fundamental and applied materials issues require a multidisciplinary approach the symposium provided a forum by bringing researchers from physics, chemistry, materials science, and engineering fields to share their ideas and results, identify outstanding problems, and develop new collaborations. Clean and sustainable energy sessions addressed challenges in production, storage, conversion, and efficiency of renewable energies such as solar, wind, bio, thermo-electric, and hydrogen. Environmental issues dealt with air- and water-pollution and conservation, environmental remediation and hydrocarbon processing. Topics in life sciences included therapeutic and diagnostic methods as well as health hazards attributed to nanoparticles. Cross-cutting topics such as reactions, catalysis, electronic, optical, and magnetic properties were also covered. The symposium attracted 132 participants from 24 countries in the world. It featured 39 invited speakers in 14 plenary sessions, in addition to one key-note session. Eighty-five contributed papers were presented in two poster sessions and 14 papers from this list were selected to be presented orally at the end of each session to highlight hot topics. Papers presented at the symposium were reviewed and published in SPIE so that these can reach a wide audience. The symposium was highly interactive with ample time allotted for discussions and making new collaborations. The participants’ response was that this was a high quality conference and covered topics at the cutting edge of science and technology. The symposium was endorsed by the American Physical Society, The Materials Research Society, SPIE, The Metallurgical Society, and the American Vacuum Society. The symposium was supported by external grants from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy as well as by internal grants from Virginia Commonwealth University (Offices of the President, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs, Vice President of Research, Vice Provost for Life Sciences, Dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences, and the Dean of the School of Engineering). The funding from DOE was used to support partial expenses of invited speakers, students and postdoctoral fellows.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Compact Ceramic Microchannel Heat Exchangers

The objective of the proposed work was to demonstrate the feasibility of a step change in power plant efficiency at a commercially viable cost, by obtaining performance data for prototype, compact, ceramic microchannel heat exchangers. By performing the tasks described in the initial proposal, all of the milestones were met. The work performed will advance the technology from Technology Readiness Level 3 (TRL 3) to Technology Readiness Level 4 (TRL 4) and validate the potential of using these heat exchangers for enabling high efficiency solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) or high-temperature turbine-based power plants. The attached report will describe how this objective was met. In collaboration with The Colorado School of Mines (CSM), specifications were developed for a high temperature heat exchanger for three commercial microturbines. Microturbines were selected because they are a more mature commercial technology than SOFC, they are a low-volume and high-value target for market entry of high-temperature heat exchangers, and they are essentially scaled-down versions of turbines used in utility-scale power plants. Using these specifications, microchannel dimensions were selected to meet the performance requirements. Ceramic plates were fabricated with microchannels of these dimensions. The plates were tested at room temperature and elevated temperature. Plates were joined together to make modular, heat exchanger stacks that were tested at a variety of temperatures and flow rates. Although gas flow rates equivalent to those in microturbines could not be achieved in the laboratory environment, the results showed expected efficiencies, robust operation under significant temperature gradients at high temperature, and the ability to cycle the stacks. Details of the methods and results are presented in this final report.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

America Saves! Energizing Main Street's Small Businesses

The America Saves! Energizing Main Street Small Businesses project engaged the 1,200-member National Main Street Center (NMSC) network of downtown organizations and other local, regional, and national partners to test a methodology for sharing customized energy efficiency information with owners of commercial buildings smaller than 50,000 square feet. Led by the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Preservation Green Lab, the project marshalled local staff and volunteers to gather voluntarily-disclosed energy use information from participating businesses. This information was analyzed using a remote auditing tool (validated by the National Renewable Energy Lab) to assess energy savings opportunities and design retrofit strategies targeting seven building types (food service and sales, attached mixed-use, strip mall, retail, office, lodging, and schools). The original project design contemplated extensive leveraging of the Green Button protocol for sharing annualized utility data at a district scale. Due the lack of adoption of Green Button, the project partners developed customized approaches to data collection in each of twelve pilot communities. The project team encountered considerable challenges in gathering standardized annual utility data from local partners. After overcoming these issues, the data was uploaded to a data storehouse. Over 450 properties were benchmarked and the remote auditing tool was tested using full building profiles and utility records for more than 100 commercial properties in three of the pilot communities. The audit tool demonstrated potential for quickly capturing, analyzing, and communicating energy efficiency opportunities in small commercial buildings. However, the project team found that the unique physical characteristics and use patterns (partial vacancy, periodic intensive uses) of small commercial buildings required more trouble-shooting and data correction than was anticipated. In addition, the project revealed that remote technology alone (such as audits) is not sufficient to convince most owners of commercial buildings or businesses to invest in energy efficiency. Additional, one-on-one personal communication is critical. A combination of technology and well-planned direct contact is likely to produce the highest rate of energy efficiency implementation in the small commercial building market sector. Note that only two of the three planned phases of this project were completed. As a result, research and testing were not fully implemented and thus all results and conclusions from the America Saves! Energizing Main Street Small Businesses project should be considered preliminary. In addition to the National Main Street Center, local organizations, and regional utilities, the America Saves! project partners included the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Energy Center of Wisconsin (Seventh Wave), Lend Lease, Building Energy, and Energy RM.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Footprint of Sandia's August 15 2016 Informal Idea Exploration Session on "Towards an Engineering and Applied Science of Research".

On August 15, 2016, Sandia hosted a visit by Professor Venkatesh Narayanamurti. Prof Narayanamurti (Benjamin Peirce Research Professor of Technology and Public Policy at Harvard, Board Member of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, former Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Harvard, former Dean of Engineering at UC Santa Barbara, and former Vice President of Division 1000 at Sandia). During the visit, a small, informal, all-day idea exploration session on "Towards an Engineering and Applied Science of Research" was conducted. This document is a brief synopsis or "footprint" of the presentations and discussions at this Idea Exploration Session. The intent of this document is to stimulate further discussion about pathways Sandia can take to improve its Research practices.

42 ENGINEERING↗