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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 1,009 records · Page 56

Improving Non-Destructive Detection Technology Through SAVY Feature Detection

Surveillance of special nuclear material (SNM) storage containers is required by the DOE to assess their integrity across the Complex. This work aims to improve the task of container inspections by leveraging automation through machine learning (ML) tools to reduce the human-intensive effort and expert-level knowledge needed to assess container status. A field-deployable, non-destructive technology was designed using off-the-shelf components to collect multiple images from different perspectives of containers in storage to detect both spatial features of interest and anomalies of concern. Nine ML models were generated using unique training datasets and parameters. Learned features include SAVY surface regions including the body side wall, collar, lid, filter, and printed/etched information. Average Precision (AP) is used to calculate detection performance when both viewing previously seen environments and previously unseen environments. The application of image transformations and resolution scaling while training greatly improved the detection performance in unseen environments, and significantly increasing the number of computation iterations improved detection performance on previously seen environments. Additional capabilities were developed including the novel detection of procedural non-compliance and the ability to localize anomalies relative to SAVY surface features.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

The Power of Priors: Improved Enrichment Safeguards

International safeguards currently rely on material accountancy to verify that declared nuclear material is present and unmodified. Although effective, material accountancy for large bulk facilities can be expensive to implement due to the high precision instrumentation required to meet regulatory targets. Process monitoring has long been considered to improve material accountancy. However, effective integration of process monitoring has been met with mixed results. Given the large successes in other domains, machine learning may present a solution for process monitoring integration. Past work has shown that unsupervised approaches struggle due to measurement error. Although not studied in depth for a safeguards context, supervised approaches often have poor generalization for unseen classes of data (e.g., unseen material loss patterns). This work shows that engineered datasets, when used for training, can improve the generalization of supervised approaches. Further, the underlying models needed to generate these datasets need only accurately model certain high importance features.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Evaluating a Semi-Quantitative, Spectrophotometric Method for the Rapid Determination of Total Rare Earth Element Concentrations in Citrate Leaching Solutions

Quick, reliable methods to measure the rare earth elements (REEs) in process streams are needed to support real-time parameterization and monitoring for a burgeoning number of REE extraction schemes. Such methods would ideally be fast, reproducible, and field-deployable. This study evaluates the feasibility of using a chromogenic indicator, arsenazo(III) (hereafter abbreviated as Arsz(III)) to detect the concentration of REEs in complex citrate leaching solutions using a spectrophotometer. Arsz(III) forms a chromogenic complex with the lanthanide elements that produces a blue/purple color detectable in the visible light range. Matrices of solutions containing varied concentrations of calcium, iron, and lanthanum were scanned in the presence of an Arsz(III) indicator to generate a modeled relationship that could be used to back calculate REE concentrations. While relatively quick (scan times on the order of seconds), the results indicated that the calcium and iron concentrations of typical mining solutions overwhelm the signal of the REEs, to the extent that sensitivity of the method is no less than 50 µM REEs. These results demonstrate the difficulties of accurately measuring trace metals in complex solutions, although the method may still hold utility for processes with significantly lower calcium and iron concentrations or REE concentrations much greater than 50 µM.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Management and International Sorption Model Collaboration (M4SF-23LL010302062-NEA-TDB)

This progress report (Level 4 Milestone Number M4SF-23LL010302062) summarizes research conducted at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) within the Crystalline International Collaborations Activity Number SF-23LL01030206. The activity is focused on our long-term commitment of engaging our partners in international nuclear waste repository research. This includes participation in the Nuclear Energy Agency Thermochemical Database (NEA-TDB) Project and development of methodologies for integrating US and international thermodynamic databases for use in SFWST Generic Disposal System Assessment (GDSA) efforts. A continuing focus for FY23 efforts has been to support the US participation in the NEA-TDB effort (Mavrik Zavarin replaced Cindy Atkins-Duffin on the NEA-TDB Management Board (MB) and Executive Group (EG)) and developing mechanisms for integration of NEA-TDB thermochemical data with LLNL’s SUPCRTNE thermodynamic database that supports the SFWST GDSA activities. This effort is coordinated with the Argillite work package SUPCRTNE database development efforts. The goal is to provide a downloadable database that will be hosted on a LLNL website which integrates NEA-TDB data into the LLNL SUPCRTNE database where appropriate. As part of our international activities, we continue our effort to integrate international sorption databases into L-SCIE (Zavarin et al., 2022b). We presented opportunities to include sorption in the next phase of NEA-TDB efforts at the April 2023 EG meeting in Paris. FY23 efforts focused on ensuring interoperable database development across multiple international database development activities. The overall goal is to produce an open source database that can be shared and integrated with multiple nuclear waste programs internationally and harness modern data science workflows and algorithms to incorporate these new approaches into reactive transport and performance assessment models. In collaboration with our Helmholtz Zentrum Dresden Rossendorf partners, we recently demonstrated the power of FAIR open source databases by fitting iron oxide (hydrous ferric oxide, goethite, hematite, and magnetite) protolysis constants to all available L-SCIE data. The results were submitted as a manuscript to J. Colloid Interface Science. This work will inform future metal sorption studies on a variety of iron oxides in order to discern the most appropriate acidity constants and surface complexation modeling constructs to account for pH-dependent mineral surface charge behavior. This work also explored automated surface complexation model development workflows in order to generate higher throughput model input files for a more facile incorporation into GDSA activities.

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEA↗

“Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda”: Conceptualizing the Differences in Trust Between Human-Human Teaming and Human-Machine Teaming

Intelligent decision support systems (IDSSs) are machine teammates designed to facilitate better human decision-making in high-consequence domains such as health care, power grid operations, and fraud detection. IDSSs identify patterns in datasets and provide intelligent decision-making recommendations to human teammates. However, previous research indicates that humans often trust IDSS recommendations less than the recommendations from their human teammates, even when the machine teammate is more accurate. To conceptualize why trust differs, we review the literature surrounding trust, error, and predictability. Then, we compile and compare participant trust ratings and decision-making in an abridged systematic review of previous studies manipulating teammate type, error rate, and error type. Finally, we conduct a content analysis of participants’ qualitative responses to trust queries from a survey on generative language models. Results suggest that humans may trust IDSS teammates less than other human teammates because of differences in (1) interaction complexity, (2) blame attribution, and (3) swift trust. We conclude that human factors practitioners should collaborate with data scientists and domain experts to build and maintain trust in IDSSs by anthropomorphizing algorithms, matching mental models, and considering individual differences.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

High-throughput, Ultra-fast Laser Sintering of Ceramics and AI Based Prediction on Processing-Microstructure-Property Relationships

We report high-throughput, ultra-fast laser sintering of alumina sample array and characterization of sample units’ microstructure and hardness, as a fast exploration of laser processing parameters, microstructure, and property. These experimental data were used to train machine-learning (ML) models. Accurate ML predictions were demonstrated for the processing-microstructure-property relationship, specifically in (1) prediction of the microstructure of alumina under arbitrary laser power and (2) prediction of the expected microstructure from the desired hardness. An independent neural network was developed and showed that ML-predicted microstructure had less than 10% error from real ones, in terms of projected hardness. To monitor the microstructure during laser sintering, we demonstrated an ML model that can instantaneously predict ceramic’s microstructure at the laser spot, based on the laser spot brightness. The ML model can generate more than 10 predictions per second, and the error in average grain size was less than 5% from the experimental observations.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Towards Unlocking Insights from Logbooks Using AI

Electronic logbooks contain valuable information about activities and events concerning their associated particle accelerator facilities. However, the highly technical nature of logbook entries can hinder their usability and automation. As natural language processing (NLP) continues advancing, it offers opportunities to address various challenges that logbooks present. This work explores jointly testing a tailored Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) model for enhancing the usability of particle accelerator logbooks at institutes like DESY, BESSY, Fermilab, BNL, SLAC, LBNL and CERN. The RAG model uses a corpus built on logbook contributions and aims to unlock insights from these logbooks by leveraging retrieval over facility datasets, including discussion about potential multimodal sources. Our goals are to increase the FAIR-ness (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability) of logbooks by exploiting their information content to streamline everyday use, to enable macro-analysis for root cause analysis, and to facilitate problem-solving automation.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Evaluation of a preliminary regional Earth model through comparison of synthetic and observed waveform data

In this report, we document the process related to developing a regional geologic model of a 605 x 1334 km area centered around Utah and encompassing surrounding states. This model is developed to test the effect that composition of a model has on the generation of synthetic data with the intent of using this information to improve upon full waveform moment tensor inversions. We compare observed data from three seismic events and five stations to the synthetic data generated by a preliminary model derived from a geologic framework model (GFM) developed by the USGS. The synthetic data and observed data comparisons indicate that our preliminary model performs well at smaller offset distances in the northern and central sections of the model. However, the southern stations consistently display synthetic data P- and S-wave arrival times that do not match the observed data arrival times, indicating that the velocity structure of the southern part of the model especially is inaccurate.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Parametric, Frequency-Domain Approach for Clutter Analysis & Rejection in Remote Sensing

A novel approach is presented for parametric analysis of remotely-sensed ground and cloud clutter. A spatial-frequency-domain clutter model is generated from an extensive, one-year database of weather imagery and statistics are given for each spatial frequency. This approach is useful for the analysis and design of spatial and temporal clutter-rejection filters, which can also be analyzed in this domain.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Co-Simulation Meets AI: MCP-Driven Power System Analysis

GridGPT, a fine-tuned Generative AI model is designed for on-premise use in grid control rooms. This presentation will demonstrate how eGridGPT can seamlessly integrate with control room solutions to offer operators, engineers, and corporate users enhanced guidance and decision support. It is to show how this innovative AI solution can improve state estimation, boost variable energy forecasting, and optimize grid operations. By leveraging eGridGPT's unique features, audience will learn to unlock new levels of automation, predictive analytics, and reliability within their power systems, ultimately leading to reduced downtime and improved operational efficiency.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Extending Symmetry-Preserving Attention Networks (SPANet) for Jet Assignment in Fully Hadronic \(t\bar{t}\) Events

Fully hadronic \(t\bar{t}\) reconstruction requires assigning reconstructed jets to the two top-quark decay branches, \(t\bar{t}\to(Wb)(Wb)\to(qqb)(qqb)\). This is a combinatorially large, symmetry-rich, and frequently underconstrained set-assignment problem due to detector effects and partial reconstructability. SPANet provides a strong symmetry-preserving baseline for this task, but its standard inference eagerly commits to a single hypothesis and does not explicitly treat branch-level reconstructability decisions. We present a two-stage extension of the SPANet pipeline for fully hadronic \(t\bar{t}\) events: (i) SPANet is modified into a proposal model that generates a shortlist of candidate jet assignments; (ii) a custom dual-head set transformer is trained to re-rank these candidates and identify reconstructible branches. Our extension gives modest improvements in candidate-selection efficiency, with SPANet achieving \(69.9\%\) and our extension achieving \(71.1\%\). Finally, an oracle study of the generated shortlist shows a substantial upper bound of \(88.5\%\) on the evaluated fully reconstructable subset, suggesting that the shortlist contains significant residual information that is not fully exploited.

Lisondodi Tada, Mateo [Puerto Rico U., Mayaguez] (↗

Regularizing Invertible Neural Networks for Airfoil Design Through Dimension Reduction

This work examines how dimension reduction can improve the performance of invertible neural networks (INN) for airfoil design. Design workflows are typically expensive, relying on many evaluations of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. Furthermore, the inverse design problem is typically ill-posed. That is, multiple valid solutions exist that satisfy the design criteria. Regularization can reduce this inverse design space and simplify the problem. We study the use of subspace-based input dimension reduction to act as a regularizer for the INN model and improve the recovery of new airfoil shapes with desired performance characteristics. We find that the dimension reduction identifies two dominant modes, relating to airfoil thickness and camber, that optimally determine the airfoil's aerodynamics. We demonstrate the capability of the proposed INN model to generate 100 airfoils that satisfy the specific aerodynamic and structural characteristics.

airfoil design↗