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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 1,027 records · Page 57
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Accelerating the Adoption of the Solid Panel Structural System

This report, "Accelerating the Adoption of the Solid Panel Structural System", explores the structural properties, capabilities, and applications for an innovative “studless” building system that uses a plate-like approach and “Perfect Wall” principles for an efficient, durable, and robust wall system. A comprehensive testing regime was completed to fully characterize the structural behavior of the Solid Panel Structural system. These results were used to develop an engineering guide that can be used by architects and engineers for design and code approval.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2024

Sustainable production of 2,3,5,6-Tetramethylpyrazine at high titer in engineered Corynebacterium glutamicum

The industrial amino acid production workhorse, Corynebacterium glutamicum naturally produces low levels of 2,3,5,6-tetramethylpyrazine (TMP), a valuable flavor, fragrance, and commodity chemical. Here, we demonstrate TMP production (~0.8 g L –1 ) in C. glutamicum type strain ATCC13032 via overexpression of acetolactate synthase and/or α-acetolactate decarboxylase from Lactococcus lactis in CGXII minimal medium supplemented with 40 g L –1 glucose. This engineered strain also demonstrated growth and TMP production when the minimal medium was supplemented with up to 40% (v v –1 ) hydrolysates derived from ionic liquid-pretreated sorghum biomass. Further, a key objective was to take the fully engineered strain developed in this study and interrogate medium parameters that influence the production of TMP, a critical post-strain engineering optimization. Design of experiments in a high-throughput plate format identified glucose, urea, and their ratio as significant components affecting TMP production. These two components were further optimized using response surface methodology. In the optimized CGXII medium, the engineered strain could produce up to 3.56 g L –1 TMP (4-fold enhancement in titers and 2-fold enhancement in yield, mol mol –1 ) from 80 g L –1 glucose and 11.9 g L –1 urea in shake flask batch cultivation.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2013

Texas Clean Energy Project: Decision Point Application, Section 2: Topical Report - Phase 1, February 2010-October 2013

Summit Texas Clean Energy, LLC (STCE) is developing the Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP or the Project) to be located near Penwell, Texas. The TCEP will include an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plant with a nameplate capacity of 400 megawatts electric (MWe), combined with the production of urea fertilizer and the capture, utilization and storage of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) sold commercially for regional use in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the Permian Basin of west Texas. The TCEP will utilize coal gasification technology to convert Powder River Basin subbituminous coal delivered by rail from Wyoming into a synthetic gas (syngas) that will be cleaned and further treated so that at least 90 percent of the overall carbon entering the IGCC facility will be captured. The clean syngas will then be divided into two highhydrogen (H 2 ) concentration streams, one of which will be combusted as a fuel in a combined cycle power block for power generation and the other converted into urea fertilizer for commercial sale. The captured CO 2 will be divided into two streams: one will be used in producing the urea fertilizer and the other will be compressed for transport by pipeline for offsite use in EOR and permanent underground sequestration. The TCEP was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy (FE) for cost-shared co-funded financial assistance under Round 3 of its Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI). A portion of this financial assistance was budgeted and provided for initial development, permitting and design activities. STCE and the DOE executed a Cooperative Agreement dated January 29, 2010, which defined the objectives of the Project for all phases. During Phase 1, STCE conducted and completed all objectives defined in the initial development, permitting and design portions of the Cooperative Agreement. This topical report summarizes all work associated with the project objectives, and additional work required to complete the financing of the Project. In general, STCE completed project definition, a front-end, engineering and design study (FEED), applied for and received its Record of Decision (ROD) associated with the NEPA requirements summarized in a detailed Environmental Impact Statement. A topical report covering the results of the FEED is the subject of a separate report submitted to the DOE on January 26, 2012. References to the FEED report are contained herein. In August 2013, STCE executed fixed-price turnkey EPC contracts and previously, in December 2011 a long-term O&M agreement, with industry-leading contractors. Other work completed during Phase 1 includes execution of all commercial input and offtake agreements required for project financing. STCE negotiated long-term agreements for power, CO 2 and urea offtake. A contract for the purchase of coal feedstock from Cloud Peak Energy’s Cordero Rojo mine was executed, as well as necessary agreements (supplementing the tariff) with the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) for delivery of the coal to the TCEP site. STCE executed firm agreements for natural gas transportation with ONEOK for long-term water supply with a private landowner. In addition, STCE secured options for critical easements and rights-of-way, completed and updated a transmission study, executed an interconnection agreement and has agreed a target October 31, 2013 financial closing date with debt and conventional and tax equity.

Mattes, Karl↗
DOE OSTI2012

Texas Clean Energy Project: Topical Report, Phase 1 - February 2010-December 2012

Summit Texas Clean Energy, LLC (STCE) is developing the Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP or the project) to be located near Penwell, Texas. The TCEP will include an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plant with a nameplate capacity of 400 megawatts electric (MWe), combined with the production of urea fertilizer and the capture, utilization and storage of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) sold commercially for regional use in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the Permian Basin of west Texas. The TCEP will utilize coal gasification technology to convert Powder River Basin subbituminous coal delivered by rail from Wyoming into a synthetic gas (syngas) which will be cleaned and further treated so that at least 90 percent of the overall carbon entering the facility will be captured. The clean syngas will then be divided into two high-hydrogen (H 2 ) concentration streams, one of which will be combusted as a fuel in a combined cycle power block for power generation and the other converted into urea fertilizer for commercial sale. The captured CO 2 will be divided into two streams: one will be used in producing the urea fertilizer and the other will be compressed for transport by pipeline for offsite use in EOR and permanent underground sequestration. The TCEP was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy (FE) for cost-shared co-funded financial assistance under Round 3 of its Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI). A portion of this financial assistance was budgeted and provided for initial development, permitting and design activities. STCE and the DOE executed a Cooperative Agreement dated January 29, 2010, which defined the objectives of the project for all phases. During Phase 1, STCE conducted and completed all objectives defined in the initial development, permitting and design portions of the Cooperative Agreement. This topical report summarizes all work associated with the project objectives, and additional work required to complete the financing of the project. In general, STCE completed project definition, a front-end, engineering and design study (FEED), applied for and received its Record of Decision (ROD) associated with the NEPA requirements summarized in a detailed Environmental Impact Statement. A topical report covering the results of the FEED is the subject of a separate report submitted to the DOE on January 26, 2012. References to the FEED report are contained herein. In December 2011, STCE executed fixed-price turnkey EPC contracts and a long-term O&M agreement with industry-leading contractors.. Other work completed during Phase 1 includes execution of all major commercial input and offtake agreements. STCE negotiated long-term agreements for power, CO 2 and urea offtake. A contract for the purchase of coal feedstock from Cloud Peak Energy’s Cordero Rojo mine was executed, as well as a memorandum of understanding with the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) for delivery of the coal to the TCEP site. An MOU for natural gas supply was completed with ONEOK, and a long-term water supply agreement was completed with a private landowner. In addition, STCE secured options for easements and rights-of-way, completed a transmission study, executed an interconnection agreement and devoted substantial effort to debt and conventional and tax equity structuring to position the Project for project financing, currently scheduled for closing on December 31, 2012.

Mattes, Karl↗
DOE OSTI2019

Supporting Simulation Families in Nuclear Reactor Workflows SBIR Phase I. Final Scientific/Technical Report

The US Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) Toolkit has accelerated both the solutions to existing problems and deployment of new designs for current and advanced reactors. Within the toolkit, there exist various families of simulation tools that target specific aspects of a multi-physics simulation for a nuclear reactor. Tools within a specific family vary in both complexity and fidelity as well as the types of resources they require. To complement the NEAMS effort, the Computational Model Builder (CMB) has been designed to provide a graphical user interface to design and execute nuclear reactor workflows. Previously, we had designed a workflow in CMB to design and prepare for execution a neutronics simulation using DIF3D, a diffusion and transport solver developed at Argonne National Laboratory. For this Phase I effort, we extended CMB’s reactor modeling tools to design and execute a workflow using Proteus-SN, a higher-fidelity transport solver developed at Argonne with more preparatory requirements from the workflow. Furthermore, this workflow was designed to maximize the common features of the two workflows, describing the analogous tasks between the workflows as belonging to a “simulation family”. This perspective facilitates the abstraction of the neutronics simulations to a single bifurcated workflow, allowing the engineer to design a reactor and then choose the appropriate simulation according to his or her needs for fidelity and computational cost.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Design of grinding plates for a universal grinding machine

New designs of cover plates and grinding plates for a universal grinding machine are developed. These designs greatly expand the functional capabilities of the machine. The plates are durable and their operating costs are low.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2012

Super Boiler 2 nd Generation Technology for Watertube Boilers

This report describes Phase I of a proposed two phase project to develop and demonstrate an advanced industrial watertube boiler system with the capability of reaching 94% (HHV) fuel-to-steam efficiency and emissions below 2 ppmv NO x , 2 ppmv CO, and 1 ppmv VOC on natural gas fuel. The boiler design would have the capability to produce >1500°F, >1500 psig superheated steam, burn multiple fuels, and will be 50% smaller/lighter than currently available watertube boilers of similar capacity. This project is built upon the successful Super Boiler project at GTI. In that project that employed a unique two-staged intercooled combustion system and an innovative heat recovery system to reduce NO x to below 5 ppmv and demonstrated fuel-to-steam efficiency of 94% (HHV). This project was carried out under the leadership of GTI with project partners Cleaver-Brooks, Inc., Nebraska Boiler, a Division of Cleaver-Brooks, and Media and Process Technology Inc., and project advisors Georgia Institute of Technology, Alstom Power Inc., Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Phase I of efforts focused on developing 2 nd generation boiler concepts and performance modeling; incorporating multi-fuel (natural gas and oil) capabilities; assessing heat recovery, heat transfer and steam superheating approaches; and developing the overall conceptual engineering boiler design. Based on our analysis, the 2 nd generation Industrial Watertube Boiler when developed and commercialized, could potentially save 265 trillion Btu and $1.6 billion in fuel costs across U.S. industry through increased efficiency. Its ultra-clean combustion could eliminate 57,000 tons of NO x , 460,000 tons of CO, and 8.8 million tons of CO 2 annually from the atmosphere. Reduction in boiler size will bring cost-effective package boilers into a size range previously dominated by more expensive field-erected boilers, benefiting manufacturers and end users through lower capital costs.

03 NATURAL GAS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Global optimization of multicomponent distillation configurations: Global minimization of total cost for multicomponent mixture separations

We introduce a global optimization framework for determining the minimum cost required to distill any ideal or near-ideal multicomponent mixture into its individual constituents using a sequence of columns. This new framework extends the Global Minimization Algorithm (GMA) previously introduced by Nallasivam et al. (2016); and we refer to the new framework as the Global Minimization Algorithm for Cost (GMAC). GMAC guarantees global optimality by formulating a nonlinear program (NLP) for each and every distillation configuration in the search space and solving it using global optimization solvers. In conclusion, the case study presented in this work not only demonstrates the need for developing such an algorithm, but also shows the flexibility and effectiveness of GMAC, which enables process engineers to design and retrofit energy efficient and cost-effective distillation configurations.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2018

Experimental Investigation of Hydrodynamic Response of an Ocean Uranium Extraction Machine Attached to a Floating Wind Turbine

With conventional sources of uranium forecasted to be depleted within a century, developing methods to cost-effectively harvest uranium from seawater, which is estimated to contain 1000 times more uranium than on land, are crucial to the continued viability of nuclear power generation. Studies have shown that coupling a uranium harvester system with an existing offshore structure, such as a floating wind turbine (FWT), could greatly reduce the cost of harvesting uranium from seawater as it eliminates the need for dedicated moorings and increases the overall energy-gathering ability of the offshore wind farm. This study explores the hydrodynamic effects of adding a uranium harvester to an offshore floating wind turbine. The experimentally determined hydrodynamic responses of two designs of a Symbiotic Machine for Ocean uRanium Extraction (SMORE) are compared with that of an unmodified FWT. Both SMORE designs utilize adsorbent filament that is enclosed in a hard permeable shell to decouple the mechanical and chemical requirements of the device. In this work, it was found that both SMORE designs do not significantly shift the resonant peaks of the FWT.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2012

AGC-1 PIE Experimental Plan

Here we report the Post-Irradiation Examination planned for the AGC-1 creep samples. The key data obtained for each grade of graphite included in the AGC-1capsule are dimension, volume, mass and density changes, creep strain, electrical resistivity, Elastic constants (E, G, υ) from sonic velocity, dynamic modulus (from fundamental frequency of vibration), coefficient of thermal expansion, microstructural characterization, and fracture strength. The effect of creep strain on the above properties will be determined. These data are critical to the design of the Next Generation Nuclear Plant. Moreover, the data supports ongoing work in the area of model development, e.g., irradiation effects models such as dimensional change. The data will be used to help underpin the existing American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) design code for graphite core components.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2013

Design Tools to Assess Hydro-Turbine Biological Performance: Priest Rapids Dam Turbine Replacement Project

Over the past two decades, there have been many studies describing injury mechanisms associated with turbine passage, the response of various fish species to these mechanisms, and the probability of survival through dams. Although developing tools to design turbines that improve passage survival has been difficult and slow, a more robust quantification of the turbine environment has emerged through integrating physical model data, fish survival data, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) studies. Grant County Public Utility District (GCPUD) operates the Priest Rapids Dam (PRD), a hydroelectric facility on the Columbia River in Washington State. The dam contains 10 Kaplan-type turbine units that are now almost 50 years old. The Utility District plans to refit all of these aging turbines with new turbines. The Columbia River at PRD is a migratory pathway for several species of juvenile and adult salmonids, so passage of fish through the dam is a major consideration when replacing the turbines. In this presentation, a method for turbine biological performance assessment (BioPA) is introduced. Using this method, a suite of biological performance indicators is computed based on simulated data from a CFD model of a proposed turbine design. Each performance indicator is a measure of the probability of exposure to a certain dose of an injury mechanism. Using known relationships between the dose of an injury mechanism and frequency of injury (dose–response) from laboratory or field studies, the likelihood of fish injury for a turbine design can be computed from the performance indicator. By comparing the values of the indicators from proposed designs, the engineer can identify the more-promising alternatives. We will present application of the BioPA method for baseline risk assessment calculations for the existing Kaplan turbines at PRD that will be used as the minimum biological performance that a proposed new design must achieve.

CFD↗
DOE OSTI2014

Computational Tools to Assess Turbine Biological Performance

Public Utility District No. 2 of Grant County (GCPUD) operates the Priest Rapids Dam (PRD), a hydroelectric facility on the Columbia River in Washington State. The dam contains 10 Kaplan-type turbine units that are now more than 50 years old. Plans are underway to refit these aging turbines with new runners. The Columbia River at PRD is a migratory pathway for several species of juvenile and adult salmonids, so passage of fish through the dam is a major consideration when upgrading the turbines. In this paper, a method for turbine biological performance assessment (BioPA) is demonstrated. Using this method, a suite of biological performance indicators is computed based on simulated data from a CFD model of a proposed turbine design. Each performance indicator is a measure of the probability of exposure to a certain dose of an injury mechanism. Using known relationships between the dose of an injury mechanism and frequency of injury (dose–response) from laboratory or field studies, the likelihood of fish injury for a turbine design can be computed from the performance indicator. By comparing the values of the indicators from proposed designs, the engineer can identify the more-promising alternatives. We present an application of the BioPA method for baseline risk assessment calculations for the existing Kaplan turbines at PRD that will be used as the minimum biological performance that a proposed new design must achieve.

hydropower, turbine, fish, CFD, Columbia River, pr↗
DOE OSTI2025

Success Path Method: Conformance with Safety Management Systems

All industrial facilities deal with safety hazards such as equipment failures, chemical and toxic releases, and fires and explosions just to name a few. A disciplined framework for managing the integrity of operating systems and processes that handle hazardous substances by applying good design principles, engineering, and operating practices is called process safety. The goal of such framewoks is to prevent the release of energy or material that could cause harm to people or damage to equipment and/or environment. Process safety covers all aspects of facility operation also including design, maintenance, and human and organizational factors that could possibly have effect on process safety. As it will be seen from the discussion below, process safety is just one of the pieces of the much bigger matter, a safety culture. Many industries have long recognized the importance of safety culture in their day-to-day operation. Although the definition of safety culture can slightly differ from organization to organization, in general, a safety culture is how things are done to demonstrate a commitment to safety by everyone involved. An organization acquires safety culture over time as the product of individual and group values, actions, and behaviors toward overall safety. It is important to note that safety culture should not be viewed as some static state that an organization wants to reach. It is more like a constantly evolving level of “how things are done when nobody is watching.” Safety culture is an inherent characteristic of an organization, it is always present, but the level can range on a continuum from undesirable to desirable or more commonly used, from negative to positive. An example for an undesirable, negative safety culture would be a company in which accidents resulting in harm (physical and/or emotional) of its employees, equipment or surrounding environment and community occur frequently. At the other end of the spectrum would be a company in which such accidents are rare or do not occur at all (desired or positive safety culture). Every company/industry exists somewhere within this spectrum.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Flexible Fuel Electric Hybrid Glass Furnace Demonstration

The furnace contractor completed General Arrangement (GA) layouts and Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&ID) for both furnaces during this reporting period. Preliminary equipment lists accompanied this work. Control system architecture in progress. Key furnace design elements and deliverables on track to be complete by end of phase. The facilities design and integration contractor completed a 3D scan and modeling of the facility. The work during this period focused on preliminary design with a focus on overall project scope and feasibility. This key work supports the overall project deliverables for 30% preliminary engineering and Preliminary Design Report (PDR) which are on track to be complete by the end of the phase. These deliverables are approximately 50% complete through the end of this reporting period. The batch house operations design contractor continues development of site plan and General Arrangement (GA) layout to support the 30% preliminary engineering and design package. This work is 60% complete by the end of this reporting period and is on track to be complete by the end of the phase.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2020

The Role of Machine Learning in the Understanding and Design of Materials

Developing algorithmic approaches for the rational design and discovery of materials can enable us to systematically find novel materials, which can have huge technological and social impact. However, such rational design requires a holistic perspective over the full multistage design process, which involves exploring immense materials spaces, their properties, and process design and engineering as well as a techno-economic assessment. The complexity of exploring all of these options using conventional scientific approaches seems intractable. Instead, novel tools from the field of machine learning can potentially solve some of our challenges on the way to rational materials design. Here we review some of the chief advancements of these methods and their applications in rational materials design, followed by a discussion on some of the main challenges and opportunities we currently face together with our perspective on the future of rational materials design and discovery.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2012

Leak Detection and H 2 Sensor Development

Low-cost, durable, and reliable Hydrogen safety sensor for vehicle, stationary, and infrastructure applications. A new zirconia, electrochemical-based sensor technology is being transitioned out of the laboratory and into an advanced testing phase for vehicular and stationary H 2 safety applications. Mixed potential sensors are a class of electrochemical devices that develop an open-circuit electromotive force due to the difference in the kinetics of the redox reactions of various gaseous species at each electrode/electrolyte/gas interface, referred to as the triple phase boundary (TPB). Therefore, these sensors have been considered for the sensing of various reducible or oxidizable gas species in the presence of oxygen. Based on this principle, a unique sensor design was developed by LANL and LLNL. The uniqueness of this sensor derives from minimizing heterogeneous catalysis (detrimental to sensor response) by avoiding gas diffusion through a catalytically active material and minimizing diffusion path to the TPB. Unlike the conventional design of these devices that use a dense solid electrolyte and porous thin film electrodes (similar to the current state-of-the-art zirconia-based sensors and fuel cells), the design of this sensor uses dense electrodes and porous electrolytes. Such a sensor design facilitates a stable and reproducible device response, since dense electrode morphologies are easy to reproduce and are significantly more stable than the conventional porous morphologies. Moreover, these sensors develop higher mixed potentials since the gas diffusion is through the less catalytically active electrolyte than the electrode. Lastly, the choice of electrodes is primarily based on their O2 reduction kinetics and catalytic properties vis-a-vis the target gas of interest.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2025

Recent Progress in Solid‐State Lithium Batteries through Cathode Microstructure Engineering

A high‐performance cathode is necessary to realize the great potentials of solid‐state batteries such as high energy density and long cycle life. It is also needed to validate electrolyte performance, which is lacking. Currently, cathodes for solid‐state batteries are thinner and have lower cathode active material content than their lithium‐ion battery counterpart, resulting from insufficient conductivity and limiting the battery energy density. This review article provides an overview of recent development in cathode microstructures and their impact on battery properties, including compatibility between cathode and electrolyte, cathode architecture design, interface engineering, correlation between material properties, cathode processing approaches, and performance, as well as the advanced characterization methods used to understand the above correlations . Some perspectives on future development are shared including utilizing in situ and operando characterization tools to better understand dynamic evolution of the cathode/electrolyte interface, adapting artificial intelligence and machine learning to design and optimize cathode structures. The article is aimed to promote research interest on cathode development and advance solid‐state battery technologies.

cathode engineering↗