Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Simulation”

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 1,009 records · Page 56

A Runtime Verification Framework for Control System Simulation

n a standard workflow for the validation of a control system, the control system is implemented as an extension to a simulator. Such simulators are complex software systems, and engineers may unknowingly violate constraints a simulator places on extensions. As such, errors may be introduced in the implementation of either the control system or the simulator leading to invalid simulation results. This paper presents a novel runtime verification approach for verifying control system implementations within simulators. The major contribution of the approach is the two-tier specification process. In the first tier, engineers model constraints using a domain-specific language tailored to modeling a controller’s response to changes in its input. The language is high-level and effectively hides the implementation details of the simulator, allowing engineers to specify design-level constraints independent of low-level simulator interfaces. In the second tier, simulator developers provide mapping rules for mapping design-level constraints to the implementation of the simulator. Using the rules, an automated tool transforms the design-level specifications into simulator-specific runtime verification specifications and generates monitoring code which is injected into the implementation of the simulator. During simulation, these monitors observe the input and output variables of the control system and report changes to the verifier. The verifier checks whether these changes follow the constraints of the control system. We describe application of this approach to the verification of the constraints of an HVAC control system implemented with the power grid simulator GridLAB-D.

control system↗

Simulation of Coupled Processes of Flow, Transport, and Storage of CO 2 in Saline Aquifers

This report is the final scientific one for the award DE- FE0000988 entitled “Simulation of Coupled Processes of Flow, Transport, and Storage of CO 2 in Saline Aquifers.” The work has been divided into six tasks. In task, “Development of a Three-Phase Non-Isothermal CO 2 Flow Module,” we developed a fluid property module for brine-CO 2 mixtures designed to handle all possible phase combinations of aqueous phase, sub-critical liquid and gaseous CO 2 , supercritical CO 2 , and solid salt. The thermodynamic and thermophysical properties of brine-CO 2 mixtures (density, viscosity, and specific enthalpy of fluid phases; partitioning of mass components among the different phases) use the same correlations as an earlier fluid property module that does not distinguish between gaseous and liquid CO 2 -rich phases. We verified the fluid property module using two leakage scenarios, one that involves CO 2 migration up a blind fault and subsequent accumulation in a secondary “parasitic” reservoir at shallower depth, and another investigating leakage of CO 2 from a deep storage reservoir along a vertical fault zone. In task, “Development of a Rock Mechanical Module,” we developed a massively parallel reservoir simulator for modeling THM processes in porous media brine aquifers. We derived, from the fundamental equations describing deformation of porous elastic media, a momentum conservation equation relating mean stress, pressure, and temperature, and incorporated it alongside the mass and energy conservation equations from the TOUGH2 formulation, the starting point for the simulator. In addition, rock properties, namely permeability and porosity, are functions of effective stress and other variables that are obtained from the literature. We verified the simulator formulation and numerical implementation using analytical solutions and example problems from the literature. For the former, we matched a one-dimensional consolidation problem and a two-dimensional simulation of the Mandel-Cryer effect. For the latter, we obtained a good match of temperature and gas saturation profiles, and surface uplift, after injection of hot fluid into a model of a caldera structure. In task, “Incorporation of Geochemical Reactions of Selected Important Species,” we developed a novel mathematical model of THMC processes in porous and fractured saline aquifers, simulating geo-chemical reactions associated with CO 2 sequestration in saline aquifers. Two computational frameworks, sequentially coupled and fully coupled, were used to simulate the reactions and transport. We verified capabilities of the THMC model to treat complex THMC processes during CO 2 sequestration by analytical solutions and we constructed reactive transport models to analyze the THMC process quantitatively. Three of these are 1D reactive transport under chemical equilibrium, a batch reaction model with equilibrium chemical reactions, and a THMC model with CO 2 dissolution. In task “Study of Instability in CO 2 Dissolution-Diffusion-Convection Processes,” We reviewed literature related to the study of density driven convective flows and on the instability of CO 2 dissolution-diffusion-convection processes. We ran simulations that model the density-driven flow instability that would occur during CO 2 sequestration. CO 2 diffused through the top of the system and dissolved in the aqueous phase there, increasing its density. Density fingers formed along the top boundary, and coalesced into a few prominent ones, causing convective flow that forced the fluid to the system bottom. These simulations were in two and three dimensions. We ran additional simulations of convective mixing with density contrast caused by variable dissolved CO 2 concentration in saline water, modeled after laboratory experiments in which supercritical CO2 was circulated in the headspace above a brine saturated packed sand in a pressure vessel. As CO 2 dissolved into the upper part of the saturated sand, liquid phase density increases causing instability and setting off convective mixing. We obtained good agreement with the laboratory experiments, which were characterized by finger development and associated mixing of dissolved CO 2 into the system. We then varied a wide range of parameters and conceptual models in order to analyze the possibility of convective mixing under different conditions, such as various boundary conditions, and chemical reaction conditions. The CO 2 fingers from different simulations showed great differences as time progressed, caused by permeability heterogeneity. The early time diffusive phenomenon was captured by fine grid resolution, and the permeability heterogeneity affected the pattern of the CO 2 fingers. In addition, the fingers from three-dimensional simulations tended to be larger and flatter than the two-dimensional ones. In task “Implementation of Efficient Parallel Computing Technologies,” we made enhancements and modifications to our code in order to substantially increase the grid size that could be run. We installed and ran it on various platforms, including a multi-core PC and a cluster, and verified the numerical implementation and parallel code using an example problem from the literature. This problem, with a grid size of sixty million, utilized the cluster’s entire memory and all of its processors. In task “Implementation of General Fracture Conceptual Models,” we used the MINC approach, a generalization of the double-porosity concept, to model flow through porous and fractured media. In this approach, flow within the matrix is described by subdividing the matrix into nested volumes, with flow occurring between adjacent nested matrix volumes as well as between the fractures and the outer matrix volume. We generalized Hooke’s law to a thermo-multi- poroelastic medium, and derived from the fundamental equations describing deformation of porous and fractured elastic media a momentum conservation equation for thermo-multi- poroelastic media. This equation is a generalization to multi-poroelastic media of the one derived in Task 3.0 for single porosity media. We describe two simulations to provide model verification and application examples. The first, one-dimensional consolidation of a double-porosity medium, is compared to an analytical solution. The second is a match of published results from the literature, a simulation of CO 2 injection into hypothetical aquifer-caprock systems.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

ATOMIC Simulations and Experimental Data for CaCO3 Mixtures

This data consists of simulations and experimental measurements of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). The simulations are produced by ATOMIC, a general purpose plasma modeling and kinetics code that has been designed to compute emission (or absorption) spectra from plasmas [1] and are used to develop a statistical characterization of matrix effects. Our overall suite of simulations includes contains several sets of simulations: training and validation sets of simulations for three and four element mixtures of calcium, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen (included to account for atmosphere) along with simulations of the individual elements. The 4-element simulations include the mixture of all four elements mentioned and for each of the four individual elements. The 3-element simulations include output for the mixture of calcium, carbon, oxygen and for these three individual elements. The training data were produced using a 600-run design, shown in Figure 1, that varies input parameters temperature (T), electron density (Ne), and proportion of the elements calcium, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen (Ca; C; O; N) for the 4 element output. The 3-element output includes all parameters except for the proportion of nitrogen. The element proportions (all the variables but T and Ne) sum to one and are unused in the single-element simulations. The validation data was produced with a 80-run design shown in Figure 2. The training and validation simulation outputs for the 4-element simulations for the mixture and for the single element calcium are shown as sample simulations in Figures 3 and 4 respectively. The simulations produce spectra over a range of 190nm - 950nm that roughly mimics the range collected by the SciAps Z-300 LIBS instrument that was used for the experimental data. The measured spectra for a CaCO3 (which may include contribution from Earth's atmosphere) in the experiment is shown in in Figure 5. All files are kept in directories whose names indicate the elemental composition (CaCO3, Ca, C, O, or N), number of elements (3 or 4), and purpose (training, which is not labeled in the file name, or validation) with file names numbered to indicate the line in the design files used to produce the simulation. The designs are provided as text files with names indicating their purpose. The experimental data is provided as a CSV file. [1] J Colgan, EJ Judge, DP Kilcrease, and JE Barefield II. Ab-initio modeling of an iron laser-induced plasma: Comparison between theoretical and experimental atomic emission spectra. Spectrochimica Acta Part B: Atomic Spectroscopy, 97:65{73}, 2014.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Spatiotemporal video-domain high-fidelity simulation and realistic visualization of full-field dynamic responses of structures by a combination of high-spatial-resolution modal model and video motion manipulations

Structures with complex geometries, material properties, and boundary conditions exhibit spatially local dynamic behaviors. A high-spatial-resolution model of the structure is thus required for high-fidelity analysis, assessment, and prediction of the dynamic phenomena of the structure. The traditional approach is to build a highly refined finite element computer model for simulating and analyzing the structural dynamic phenomena based on detailed knowledge and explicit modeling of the structural physics such as geometries, materials properties, and boundary conditions. These physics information of the structure may not be available or accurately modeled in many cases, however. In addition, the simulation on the high-spatial-resolution structural model, with a massive number of degrees of freedom and system parameters, is computationally demanding. Here this study, on a proof-of-principle basis, proposes a novel alternative approach for spatiotemporal video-domain high-fidelity simulation and realistic visualization of full-field structural dynamics by an innovative combination of the fundamentals of structural dynamic modeling and the advanced video motion manipulation techniques. Specifically, a low-modal-dimensional yet high-spatial (pixel)-resolution (as many spatial points as the pixel number on the structure in the video frame) modal model is established in the spatiotemporal video domain with full-field modal parameters first estimated from line-of-sight video measurements of the operating structure. Then in order to simulate new dynamic response of the structure subject to a new force, the force is projected onto each modal domain, and the modal response is computed by solving each individual single-degree-of-freedom system in the modal domain. The simulated modal responses are then synthesized by the full-field mode shapes using modal superposition to obtain the simulated full-field structural dynamic response. Finally, the simulated structural dynamic response is embedded into the original video, replacing the original motion of the video, thus generating a new photo-realistic, physically accurate video that enables a realistic, high-fidelity visualization/animation of the simulated full-field vibration of the structure. Laboratory experiments are conducted to validate the proposed method, and the error sources and limitations in practical implementations are also discussed. Compared with high-fidelity finite element computer model simulations of structural dynamics, the video-based simulation method removes the need to explicitly model the structure's physics. In addition, the photo-realistic, physically accurate simulated video provides a realistic visualization/animation of the full-field structural dynamic response, which was not traditionally available. Lastly, these features of the proposed method should enable a new alternative to the traditional computer-aided finite element model simulation for high-fidelity simulating and realistically visualizing full-field structural dynamics in a relatively efficient and user-friendly manner.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Study on efficiency of time computation in x-ray imaging simulation base on Monte Carlo algorithm using graphics processing unit

Monte Carlo (MC) is one of the powerful techniques for simulation in x-ray imaging. MC method can simulate the radiation transport within matter with high accuracy and provides a natural way to simulate radiation transport in complex systems. One of the codes based on MC algorithm that are widely used for radiographic images simulation is MC-GPU, a codes developed by Andrea Basal. This study was aimed to investigate the time computation of x-ray imaging simulation in GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) compared to a standard CPU (Central Processing Unit). Furthermore, the effect of physical parameters to the quality of radiographic images and the comparison of image quality resulted from simulation in the GPU and CPU are evaluated in this paper. The simulations were run in CPU which was simulated in serial condition, and in two GPU with 384 cores and 2304 cores. In simulation using GPU, each cores calculates one photon, so, a large number of photon were calculated simultaneously. Results show that the time simulations on GPU were significantly accelerated compared to CPU. The simulations on the 2304 core of GPU were performed about 64 -114 times faster than on CPU, while the simulation on the 384 core of GPU were performed about 20 – 31 times faster than in a single core of CPU. Another result shows that optimum quality of images from the simulation was gained at the history start from 10{sup 8} and the energy from 60 Kev to 90 Kev. Analyzed by statistical approach, the quality of GPU and CPU images are relatively the same.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

High Fidelity, “Faster than Real-Time” Simulator for Predicting Power System Dynamic Behavior - Final Technical Report

The “High Fidelity, Faster than Real­Time Simulator for Predicting Power System Dynamic Behavior” was designed and developed by Illinois Institute of Technology with critical contributions from Electrocon International, Argonne National Laboratory, Alstom Grid and McCoy Energy. Also essential to the project were our two utility partners: Commonwealth Edison and AltaLink. The project was a success due to several major breakthroughs in the area of large­scale power system dynamics simulation, including (1) a validated faster than real­ time simulation of both stable and unstable transient dynamics in a large­scale positive sequence transmission grid model, (2) a three­phase unbalanced simulation platform for modeling new grid devices, such as independently controlled single­phase static var compensators (SVCs), (3) the world’s first high fidelity three­phase unbalanced dynamics and protection simulator based on Electrocon’s CAPE program, and (4) a first­of­its­ kind implementation of a single­phase induction motor model with stall capability. The simulator results will aid power grid operators in their true time of need, when there is a significant risk of cascading outages. The simulator will accelerate performance and enhance accuracy of dynamics simulations, enabling operators to maintain reliability and steer clear of blackouts. In the long­term, the simulator will form the backbone of the newly conceived hybrid real­time protection and control architecture that will coordinate local controls, wide­area measurements, wide­area controls and advanced real­time prediction capabilities. The nation’s citizens will benefit in several ways, including (1) less down time from power outages due to the faster­than­real­time simulator’s predictive capability, (2) higher levels of reliability due to the detailed dynamics plus protection simulation capability, and (3) more resiliency due to the three­ phase unbalanced simulator’s ability to model three­phase and single­ phase networks and devices.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

An agent-based stochastic Occupancy Simulator

Occupancy has significant impacts on building performance. However, in current building performance simulation programs, occupancy inputs are static and lack diversity, contributing to discrepancies between the simulated and actual building performance. This work presents an Occupancy Simulator that simulates the stochastic behavior of occupant presence and movement in buildings, capturing the spatial and temporal occupancy diversity. Each occupant and each space in the building are explicitly simulated as an agent with their profiles of stochastic behaviors. The occupancy behaviors are represented with three types of models: (1) the status transition events (e.g., first arrival in office) simulated with probability distribution model, (2) the random moving events (e.g., from one office to another) simulated with a homogeneous Markov chain model, and (3) the meeting events simulated with a new stochastic model. A hierarchical data model was developed for the Occupancy Simulator, which reduces the amount of data input by using the concepts of occupant types and space types. Finally, a case study of a small office building is presented to demonstrate the use of the Simulator to generate detailed annual sub-hourly occupant schedules for individual spaces and the whole building. The Simulator is a web application freely available to the public and capable of performing a detailed stochastic simulation of occupant presence and movement in buildings. Future work includes enhancements in the meeting event model, consideration of personal absent days, verification and validation of the simulated occupancy results, and expansion for use with residential buildings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

BEYONDPLANCK IV. On end-to-end simulations in CMB analysis — Bayesian versus frequentist statistics

End-to-end simulations play a key role in the analysis of any high-sensitivity cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiment, providing high-fidelity systematic error propagation capabilities that are unmatched by any other means. In this paper, we address an important issue regarding such simulations, namely, how to define the inputs in terms of sky model and instrument parameters. These may either be taken as a constrained realization derived from the data or as a random realization independent from the data. We refer to these as posterior and prior simulations, respectively. We show that the two options lead to significantly different correlation structures, as prior simulations (contrary to posterior simulations) effectively include cosmic variance, but they exclude realization-specific correlations from non-linear degeneracies. Consequently, they quantify fundamentally different types of uncertainties. We argue that as a result, they also have different and complementary scientific uses, even if this dichotomy is not absolute. In particular, posterior simulations are in general more convenient for parameter estimation studies, while prior simulations are generally more convenient for model testing. Before BEYONDPLANCK, most pipelines used a mix of constrained and random inputs and applied the same hybrid simulations for all applications, even though the statistical justification for this is not always evident. BEYONDPLANCK represents the first end-to-end CMB simulation framework that is able to generate both types of simulations and these new capabilities have brought this topic to the forefront. The BEYONDPLANCK posterior simulations and their uses are described extensively in a suite of companion papers. In this work, we consider one important applications of the corresponding prior simulations, namely, code validation. Specifically, we generated a set of one-year LFI 30 GHz prior simulations with known inputs and we used these to validate the core low-level BEYONDPLANCK algorithms dealing with gain estimation, correlated noise estimation, and mapmaking.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Scalable Deep Learning-Based Microarchitecture Simulation on GPUs

Cycle-accurate microarchitecture simulators are essential tools for designers to architect, estimate, optimize, and manufacture new processors that meet specific design expectations. However, conventional simulators based on discrete-event methods often require an exceedingly long time-to-solution for the simulation of applications and architectures at full complexity and scale. Given the excitement around wielding the machine learning (ML) hammer to tackle various architecture problems, there have been attempts to employ ML to perform architecture simulations, such as Ithemal and SimNet. However, the direct application of existing ML approaches to architecture simulation may be even slower due to overwhelming memory traffic and stringent sequential computation logic. This work proposes the first graphics processing unit (GPU)-based microarchitecture simulator that fully unleashes the potential of GPUs to accelerate state-of-the-art ML-based simulators. First, considering the application traces are loaded from central processing unit (CPU) to GPU for simulation, we introduce various designs to reduce the data movement cost between CPUs and GPUs. Second, we propose a parallel simulation paradigm that partitions the application trace into sub-traces to simulate them in parallel with rigorous error analysis and effective error correction mechanisms. Combined, this scalable GPU-based simulator outperforms by orders of magnitude the traditional CPU-based simulators and the state-of-the-art ML-based simulators, i.e., SimNet and Ithemal.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Interactive Web Application for Traffic Simulation Data Management and Visualization

As traffic simulation software becomes more effective for realistically simulating and analyzing traffic dynamics and vehicle interactions on the mesoscopic and microscopic level, the management, dissemination, and collaborative visualization of traffic simulation results produced by individual transportation planners presents a significant challenge. Existing online content management systems have a very limited capability in allowing users to query specific traffic simulation scenarios and geospatially visualize simulation results through shareable and interactive web interfaces. This paper presents a web-based application for promoting the archiving, sharing, and visualization of large-scale traffic simulation outputs. The application is developed to enhance cyber-physical controls, communications, and public education for collaborative transportation planning. Unique features of the web application include: (a) allowing users to upload their new traffic simulation scenarios (parameters and outputs), as well as search existing scenarios using easily accessible interfaces; (b) optimizing simulation output files with heterogeneous data formats and projected coordinate systems for web-based storage and management using a scalable and searchable data/metadata standard; (c) standardizing user-uploaded simulation outputs using web interfaces and data processing libraries with parallel computing capacity; and (d) providing shareable web visual interfaces for visualizing the traffic flow and signal information stored in simulation outputs (e.g., regional traffic patterns and individual vehicle interactions) and visually comparing multiple simulation outputs both spatially and temporally. Furthermore, the paper presents the conceptual design and implementation of this application, and demonstrates the application’s performance for sharing, comparing, and visualizing simulation outputs from VISSIM and SUMO, two commonly used traffic simulation software programs.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗

Further improvement and evaluation of nudging in the E3SM Atmosphere Model version 1 (EAMv1): simulations of the mean climate, weather events, and anthropogenic aerosol effects

Abstract. A previous study on the use of nudging in E3SM Atmosphere Model version 1 (EAMv1) had an unresolved issue; i.e., a simulation nudged to EAMv1's own meteorology showed non-negligible deviations from the free-running baseline simulation over some of the subtropical marine stratocumulus and trade cumulus regions. Here, we demonstrate that the deviations can be substantially reduced by (1) changing where the nudging tendency is calculated in the time integration loop of a nudged EAM simulation so as to improve consistency with the free-running baseline and (2) increasing the frequency of the constraining data so as to better capture strong sub-diurnal variations. The fact that modification (2) improves the climate representativeness of the nudged simulations has motivated us to investigate whether the use of newer reanalysis products with higher data frequency can help improve nudged hindcast simulations by better capturing the observed weather events. To answer this question, we present simulations conducted at EAMv1's standard horizontal resolution (approximately 1∘) with nudging towards 6-hourly ERA-Interim reanalysis or 6-hourly, 3-hourly, or hourly ERA5 reanalysis. These simulations are evaluated against the climatology of free-running EAMv1 simulations as well as reanalyses, satellite retrievals, and in situ measurements from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement user facility. For the 1∘ EAMv1 simulations, we recommend using the relocated nudging tendency calculation and the ERA5 reanalysis at 3-hourly or higher frequency. Simulations used for estimating the anthropogenic aerosol effects often use nudging to help discern signal from noise. The sensitivity of such estimates to the configuration of nudging is investigated in EAMv1, again using the standard 1∘ horizontal resolution. We find that, when estimating the global mean effects, the frequency of constraining data has relatively small impacts, while the choice of nudged variables can change the results substantially. The nudging of air temperature (in addition to horizontal winds) has two non-negligible effects. First, when the constraining data come from reanalysis, the nudging-induced mean bias correction can cause significant changes in the simulated clouds and hence substantially different estimates of the aerosol effects. The impact of the mean bias correction on ice cloud formation has been noted in previous studies and is also seen in EAMv1. For applications like ours, where the preferred configurations of nudging are those capable of providing results consistent with the multi-year free-running simulations, the consequence of the mean bias correction is undesirable. The second important impact of temperature nudging is a significant suppression of adjustments to aerosol forcing, which also causes changes in the estimated aerosol effects. This effect can be seen in simulations nudged to either reanalysis or EAM's own meteorology. These results suggest that nudging horizontal winds but not temperature is a better choice for estimating the anthropogenic aerosol effects.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Simulated meteorological impacts of offshore wind turbines and sensitivity to the amount of added turbulence kinetic energy

Offshore wind energy projects are currently in development off the east coast of the United States and may influence the local meteorology of the region. Wind power production and other commercial uses in this area are related to atmospheric conditions, and so it is important to understand how future wind plants may change the local meteorology. In the absence of measurements of potential wind plant impacts on meteorology, simulations offer the next-best possible insight into wake effects on boundary layer height, temperature, fluxes, and wind speeds. However, simulation tools that capture these effects offer multiple options for representing the amount of turbine-added turbulence that may impact assessments of micrometeorological effects. To explore this sensitivity, we compare 1 year of simulations from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with and without wind plants incorporated, focusing on the lease area south of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The simulations with wind plants are repeated to include both the maximum and minimum amounts of added turbulence to provide bounds on the potential impacts. We assess changes in wind speeds, 2 m temperature, surface heat flux, turbulence kinetic energy (TKE), and boundary layer height during different stability classifications and ambient wind speeds over the entire year and compare results for the degree of added turbulence in the wind plant simulations. Because the wake behavior may be a function of boundary layer stability, in this paper, we also present a machine learning algorithm to quantify the area and distance of the wake generated by the wind plant. This analysis enables us to identify the relationship between wake extent and boundary layer height. We find that hub-height wind speed is reduced within and downwind of the wind plant, with the strongest impacts occurring during stable conditions and faster wind speeds in region 3 of the turbine power curve, although impacts lessen as wind speeds increase past 15 m s−1. In contrast, wind speeds near the surface decrease when no turbine-added turbulence is included but can increase for stably stratified conditions when 100 % of possible TKE is included in the simulations. TKE increases at hub height in the simulations with added TKE for all stability classes, suggesting that atmospheric stability does not immediately modify the TKE generated by turbines. Negligible changes in hub-height TKE manifest in the simulations without the added TKE. At the surface, TKE increases in the simulations with maximum added turbulence only for unstable conditions. In the no-added-turbulence simulations, surface TKE decreases slightly in neutral and unstable simulations. Differences in 2 m temperatures and surface heat fluxes are small but vary considerably with atmospheric stability and the amount of added TKE. Boundary layer heights increase within the wind plant when turbine-added turbulence is included and decrease slightly downwind during stable conditions. In contrast, with no added turbulence, the boundary layer height is in general reduced in stable conditions with wind speeds less than 15 m s −1 and slightly increased in neutral conditions. Finally, shallower upwind boundary layer heights tend to correlate with larger wake areas and distances, though other factors likely also play a role in determining the extent of the wind plant wake. These simulation-based results provide a bound for micrometeorological impacts of wind plant wakes: simulations that couple the atmosphere to the ocean may reduce these impacts, and we await observational verification.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Voronoi Meshing to Accurately Capture Geological Structure in Subsurface Simulations

Mesh generation lies at the interface of geological modeling and reservoir simulation. Highly skewed or very small grid cells may be necessary to accurately capture the geometry of geological features, but the resulting poorly scaled or small grid cells can have a substantial negative impact on simulator accuracy and speed. One way to minimize numerical errors caused by gridding complex structures is to simulate on high-quality Voronoi meshes, which reduce grid orientation effects in fluid flow. This work presents a complete methodology to create Voronoi simulation grids, model fluid flow in complex geological systems, and visualize the results. A recently developed Voronoi meshing method that can automatically generate provably good unstructured meshes that conform to input surfaces creating closed volumes is used. Initially an analytical benchmark simulation is presented to validate the quality of the meshes and simulation results and demonstrate the superiority of simulation results using Voronoi meshes over flexed-hexahedral meshes on a domain with internal features. Next, meshes are created for test structures representing four of the most common geological features in the subsurface: layering, pinch-out, an interior lens that tapers to zero thickness on all sides and a fault with offset. Two benchmark flow simulations are run for each test structure. Finally, a realistic geological example for CO 2 injection into an anticline is simulated. Three realizations of the Voronoi mesh at the same resolution are generated for the simulations. Each mesh is highly refined near the injection wells and coarse in areas of less interest. These three meshes are used to model the CO 2 plume in the subsurface as it migrates to the top of the structure and then fills downward. Simulations on the meshes with randomly generated elements inside the input volumes each give slightly different fingering patterns for the viscous-unstable buoyant gas flow. The results presented in this work show a promising step towards utilizing fully automated Voronoi meshing for subsurface flow simulations in complex geology.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

A gradient based method for modeling baryons and matter in halos of fast simulations

Fast N-body PM simulations with a small number of time steps such as FastPM or COLA have been remarkably successful in modeling the galaxy statistics, but their lack of small scale force resolution and long time steps cannot give accurate halo matter profiles or matter power spectrum. High resolution N-body simulations can improve on this, but lack baryonic effects, which can only be properly included in hydro simulations. Here we present a scheme to calibrate the fast simulations to mimic the precision of the hydrodynamic simulations or high resolution N-body simulations. The scheme is based on a gradient descent of either effective gravitational potential, which mimics the short range force, or of effective enthalpy, which mimics gas hydrodynamics and feedback. The scheme is fast and differentiable, and can be incorporated as a post-processing step into any simulation. It gives very good results for the matter power spectrum for several of the baryonic feedback and dark matter simulations, and also gives improved dark matter halo profiles. The scheme is even able to find the large subhalos, and increase the correlation coefficient between the fast simulations and the high resolution N-body or hydro simulations. It can also be used to add baryonic effects to the high resolution N-body simulations. While the method has free parameters that can be calibrated on various simulations, they can also be viewed as astrophysical nuisance parameters describing baryonic effects that can be marginalized over during the data analysis. In this view these parameters can be viewed as an efficient parametrization of baryonic effects.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

SU-D-9A-03: STAMP: Simulator for Texture Analysis in MRI/PET

Purpose: To develop a convenient simulation platform to facilitate PET/MR image analysis with the prospect of gaining a better understanding of the influence of acquisition parameters on PET/MRI textural features. The simulation platform is demonstrated by showing textural variations of a representative case study using different image acquisition parameters. Methods: The simulation platform is composed of MRI simulators JEMRIS and SIMRI to achieve simulations of customized MRI sequences on sample tumor models. The PET simulator GATE is used to get 2D and 3D Monte Carlo acquisitions of voxelized PET sources using a phantom geometry and a customized scanner architecture. The platform incorporates a series of graphical user interfaces written in Matlab. Two GUIs are used to facilitate communication with the simulation executables installed on a computer cluster. A third GUI is used to collect and display the clinical and simulated images, as well as fused PET/MRI images, and perform computation of textural features.To illustrate the capabilities of this platform, one FDG-PET and T1-weighted (T1w) digitized tumor models were generated from clinical images of a soft-tissue sarcoma patient. Numerically simulated MR images were produced using 3 different echo times (TE) and 5 different repetition times (TR). PET 2D images were simulated using an OSEM algorithm with 1 to 32 iterations and a post-reconstruction Gaussian filter of 0, 2, 4 or 6 mm width. Results: STAMP was successfully used to produce numerically simulated FDG-PET and MRI images, and to calculate their corresponding textures. Three typical textures (GLCM-Contrast, GLSZM-ZSV and NGTDM-Coarseness) were found to vary by a range of 45% on average compared to reference scanning conditions in the case of FDG-PET, and by a range of 40% in the case of T1w MRI. Conclusion: We have successfully developed a Matlab-based simulation platform to facilitate PET/MRI texture image analysis for outcome prediction.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Wide-range fission chambers signal simulator - 373

Fission chambers (FC) signal simulators are a useful means to test neutron flux instrumentation channels of the reactors control and protection systems (CPS). Well-known signal simulators do not provide a secondary equipment testing in all modes of measurement. A wide range simulator that simulates a full range of FC signal changes (pulse, fluctuation, current) was designed. The simulator takes into account the statistical nature of neutrons detection in the FC, including the shape of the pulse and the spectrum of the pulse amplitude distribution. The simulator uses the principle of mathematical simulation of the fission chambers signal with realtime calculations using the FPGA. The wide-range simulator reproduces a FC signal in the range of ten orders without switching ranges or playback modes while ensuring very good linearity. It allows to generate both static and dynamic test signals such as: stair-step, linearly and exponential varying signals, exponential varying signals with a linearly changing period or a signal change simulating the response of the nuclear reactor power to a given reactivity response. Continuity of reproduced signals and the ability to playback dynamic effects makes it possible the simulator using to check the algorithms of cross-linking of measuring paths, reactivity and period measuring tools and to monitor the operation of interlocking and alarm CPS functions. This article discusses the simulator's software and hardware, its features and specifications, user interface and example of the simulator using to check the neutron flux monitoring channels. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

An ultrahigh-resolution E3SM land model simulation framework and its first application to the Seward Peninsula in Alaska

The availability of supercomputers and state-of-science datasets has made it possible to conduct large-scale land simulations at an ultrahigh-resolution. This study reported a computational framework for land surface simulation using the E3SM land model (ELM) at an unprecedented resolution (1 km x 1 km gridcell). The ultrahigh-resolution ELM (uELM) simulation framework includes three parts: (1) high-resolution atmospheric forcing and surface properties dataset generation, (2) massive gridcell-based simulation, and (3) large-scale simulation results analysis. Additionally, we implemented the uELM simulation framework and completed the first 1 km x 1 km terrestrial ecosystem simulation (from 1850 to 2014) over the Seward Peninsula in Alaska (78,000 km 2 ). The experiment contained two phases: a spin-up simulation and a transient simulation, and required five weeks of calculations using 320 cores in a 44-node Linux HPC computer. It created approximately 1.3 TB of data from the transient simulation alone (1850 - present). We selected sample results (monthly and daily simulation outputs) to illustrate the temporal and spatial variations of several variables in high-latitude Arctic ecosystems’ water, energy, and carbon cycles. At last, we summarized the lessons learned and proposed new developments for full-scale uELM simulations over the entire North American continent (approximately 22,000,000 km 2 ).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Direct Dynamics Simulation of Dissociation of the [CH3--I--OH]- Ion-Molecule Complex

Direct dynamics simulations were used to study dissociation of the [CH3--I--OH]- complex ion, which was observed in a previous study of the OH- + CH3I gas phase reaction (J. Phys. Chem. A 2013, 117, 7162). Restricted B97-1 simulations were performed to study dissociation at 65, 75 and 100 kcal/mol and the [CH3--I--OH]- ion dissociated exponentially, in accord with RRKM theory. For these energies the major dissociation products are CH3I + OH-, CH2I- + H2O, and CH3OH + I-. Unrestricted B97-1 and restricted and unrestricted CAM-B3LYP simulations were also performed at 100 kcal/mol to compare with the restricted B97-1 results. The {CH3I + OH-}:{CH2I- + H2O}:{CH3OH + I-} product ratio is 0.72 : 0.15 : 0.13, 0.81 : 0.05 : 0.14, 0.71 : 0.19 : 0.10 , and 0.83 : 0.13 : 0.04 for the restricted B97-1, unrestricted B97-1, restricted CAM-B3LYP, and unrestricted CAM-B3LYP simulations, respectively. Other product channels found are CH2 + I- + H2O, CH2 + I-(H2O), CH4 + IO-, CH3 - + IOH, and CH3 + IOH-. The CH3 - + IOH singlet products are only given by the restricted B97-1 simulation and the lower energy CH3 + IOH- doublet products are only formed by the unrestricted B97-1 simulation. Also studied were the direct and indirect atomic-level mechanisms for forming CH3I + OH-, CH2I- + H2O, and CH3OH + I-. The majority of CH3I + OH- were formed through a direct mechanism. For both CH2I- + H2O and CH3OH + I-, the direct mechanism is overall more important than the indirect mechanisms, with the round-about like mechanism the most important indirect mechanism at high excitation energies. Mechanism comparisons between the B97-1 and CAM-B3LYP simulations showed that formation of the CH3OH---I- complex is favored for the B97-1 simulations, while formation of the HO----HCH2I complex is favored for the CAM-B3LYP simulations. The unrestricted simulations give a higher percentage of indirect mechanisms than the restricted simulations. The possible role of the self-interaction error in the simulations is also discussed. The work presented here gives a detailed picture of the [CH3--I--OH]- dissociation dynamics, and is very important for unraveling the role of [CH3--I--OH]- in the dynamics of the OH-(H2O)n=1,2 + CH3I reactions.

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory↗