Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Audit”

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 109 records · Page 6
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Automated Defect Identification for Tri-structural Isotropic Fuels (AUDIT)

During the manufacture of tri-structural isotropic (TRISO)-coated nuclear fuel particles, the potential exists for the formation of internal fissure defects in the uranium oxycarbide (UCO) kernels. These fissures result in a defective fuel particle that can fracture during subsequent fuel processing. Therefore, it is necessary to detect the presence of fissured kernels in a batch to determine if the batch meets specification prior to blending with other batches and upgrading processes. Previous attempts at identifying fissures involved manual inspection of micrographs of UCO fuel kernel cross-sections. This process is tedious, time-consuming and may introduce counting errors making it a good candidate for automation. This work presents a method for the automated detection of fissures in UCO kernels. Image segmentation is used for the extraction of relevant features in the micrographs which then serve as the input to a convolutional neural network used to automatically distinguish between fissured and non-fissured kernels.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2015

TU-G-BRD-06: The Imaging and Radiation Oncology Core Houston (IROC Houston) QA Center International Activities Outside North America

Purpose: To describe the extent of IROC Houston’s (formerly the RPC) QA activities and audit results for radiotherapy institutions outside of North America (NA). Methods: The IROC Houston’s QA program components were designed to audit the radiation dose calculation chain from the NIST traceable reference beam calibration, to inclusion of dosimetry parameters used to calculate tumor doses, to the delivery of the radiation dose. The QA program provided to international institutions includes: 1) remote TLD/OSLD audit of machine output, 2) credentialing for advanced technologies, and 3) review of patient treatment records. IROC Houston uses the same standards and acceptance criteria for all of its audits whether for North American or international sites. Results: IROC Houston’s QA program has reached out to radiotherapy sites in 43 different countries since 2013 through their participation in clinical trials. In the past two years, 2,778 international megavoltage beam outputs were audited with OSLD/TLD. While the average IROC/Inst ratio is near unity for all sites monitored, there are international regions whose results are significantly different from the NA region. In the past 2 years, 477 and 87 IMRT H&N phantoms were irradiated at NA and international sites, respectively. Regardless of the OSLD beam audit results, the overall pass rate (87 percent) for all international sites (no region separation) is equal to the NA sites. Of the 182 international patient charts reviewed, 10.7 percent of the dose calculation points did not meet our acceptance criterion as compared to 13.6 percent for NA sites. The lower pass rate for NA sites results from a much larger brachytherapy component which has been shown to be more error prone. Conclusion: IROC Houston has expanded its QA services worldwide and continues a long history of improving radiotherapy dose delivery in many countries. Funding received for QA audit services from the Korean GOG, DAHANCA, EORTC, ICON and CMIC Group.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Web-Based Weatherization Assistant Getting Started Guide

This guide provides introductory information on how to get started in using the web-based Weatherization Assistant audit tool and running the National Energy Audit Tool, Manufactured Home Energy Audit, Multifamily Tool for Energy Audits, and Health and Safety Audit. For new users, this guideline also outlines how you can create a client and start an audit for that client. The Weatherization Assistant is a family of advanced audit tools designed specifically to help states and local weatherization agencies implement the US Department of Energy (DOE) Weatherization Assistance Program. The Weatherization Assistant is developed and maintained by DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). It applies engineering and economic calculations to assist states and agencies in selecting energy-efficient retrofit measures that meet government criteria for cost effectiveness and that can be installed in homes of low-income families enrolled in the program. The Weatherization Assistant can be used to select and rank measures for individual houses, or to establish a priority list of weatherization measures for nearly identical housing types.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2018

BuildingSync (R) in Action: Example Implementations

Interoperability is a particular challenge in building energy auditing, in which tools and data requirements may vary widely depending upon locale or intended use of the audit result. There are, however, many reasons to represent the data in a common format. BuildingSync (R) is such an effort to develop a standardized language to flexibly represent and exchange building energy auditing data between software tools. The schema has been developed with extensive collaboration between the United States Department of Energy (DOE) and industry experts. BuildingSync facilitates a consistent history of energy audit data across the life of a building or a group of buildings, and thus enables lower costs and higher energy performance results. It also facilitates easier aggregation and analysis of audits conducted by different companies using different software. This paper presents two examples of building energy analysis efforts that are utilizing BuildingSync - (1) BayREN Integrated Commercial Retrofits (BRICR), a utility custom incentive program at the Bay Area Regional Energy Network (BayREN) that uses BuildingSync to exchange building data, and (2) New York City's ordinance on benchmarking and auditing data. These efforts utilize BuildingSync in conjunction with other DOE-sponsored tools, such as the Asset Score Reporting Platform, SEED Platform, and OpenStudio. Using the lessons learned from these efforts, the paper also makes recommendations for applicability to future projects that may benefit from BuildingSync.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2015

Why accredit ISO/CEI 17025 a nuclear waste management laboratory? - 15112

When there is no storage, nor repository, available on a site, the entity in charge of nuclear waste management should find outlets in order to evacuate outside the site. Each outlet has his rules and waste acceptance criteria (packaging rules, physical/chemical/radiological criteria for example). Before you are able to evacuate your waste, an acceptance's process (or contract review) takes place. This process scans the entire measures implemented by the site in order to satisfy outlet's criteria. When the acceptance is obtained, shipments could be organized, and the process gets into an observation's phase. During this phase, the outlet could choose to inspect a finished nuclear waste package or to audit regularly the waste management process. In this last case, the outlet re-scans the entire documents and implemented measures. This audit lasts from one to several days. A way to tackle/approach the audit is to acknowledge, by a trusted third party (i.e. independent from the outlet), all or part of waste management system, in order to base one's reputation on this organism and win outlet's trust. For this purpose, the entity could choose certification or accreditation. Certification (ISO 9001 as often as not) aims at evaluating a system for managing the quality of one product or service. Accreditation (ISO 17025, for example) provides formal recognition for technical skills within a quality management system (clauses 5 and 4 of the ISO 17025 standard). In 2006, the LDM laboratory is the first French laboratory accredited, in accordance with ISO 17025 standard, for the characterization by gamma spectrometry on 100 L- and 200 L- radioactive waste drums (accreditation No 1-1712 - scope available on www.cofrac.fr). This accreditation allows the lab: - to update the quality management system, - to compile the entire technical file of the gamma-ray assay (description, evaluation of the uncertainties, calibration, proficiency testing programs, measurement procedures,...), - to pass previous identified constraints on to producers and nuclear waste package production, - to maintain permanent quality improvement loop, - to lighten the programs of outlets audits, through the acknowledgement of the technical competence of the laboratory to evaluate by gamma spectrometry the activity contained in our nuclear waste drums. On the other hand, the lab is re-evaluated periodically to ensure its continued compliance with requirements: within a 12 month's interval for an internal audit, with a 18 month's period for COFRAC (French sole official national accreditation body). Since 2006, the lab is accredited. His accreditation renewed in 2010. A new entire renewal audit is planned in 2015. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2026

Two-stage formation-energy correction (NbZr, TaZr, VZr)

This bundle contains the scripts, the raw and corrected per-structure data, and the manuscript plots for the NbZr / TaZr / VZr BCC binary formation energies and the associated RMSDs. Why a two-stage correction is necessary: The "raw" formation energy of every relaxed VASP configuration is computed in the usual way, FE_raw(c) = E_alloy(c) - sum_i x_i * E_pure_i , where E_pure_i are the per-atom total energies of the pure-element reference structures (Nb, Ta, V, Zr in the same BCC supercell, with identical INCAR / KPOINTS / PAW choices). With perfectly consistent reference runs the raw FE should vanish at the two pure-element endpoints (x = 0 and x = 1) by construction. In practice this does not hold for two reasons that are present in our dataset: 1. Reference-energy inconsistency (composition-dependent bias). Even with identical input parameters, the pure-element runs (stored in `corrected_DFT_pure_element_runs/`) differ slightly from the values that would be implied by the alloy runs at near-pure compositions (a few meV/atom). This bias is approximately linear in concentration, because the residual error in E_pure_Nb (or E_pure_Ta / E_pure_V) propagates into FE_raw(c) as (1 - x) * dE_pure_1, and the corresponding error in E_pure_Zr propagates as x * dE_pure_2. Left uncorrected, this produces a non-physical "tilt" of FE_raw(x) and shifts the entire FE-vs-x cloud away from zero at the endpoints. 2. Endpoint anchoring against the audited true endpoints. The strict endpoint values (FE_x0_meVatom, FE_x1_meVatom in `corrected_fe_strict_endpoints_20260518/strict_endpoint_check_20260518.csv`) were re-derived from an independent cross-check of the pure-element runs. After stage 1 removes the linear bias, the near-pure compositions in the alloy dataset still extrapolate to values that differ slightly from these audited endpoints — because stage 1 is fit from a few near-end alloy bins, not from the audited pure-element references themselves. The README.txt file discusses how these issues are addressed by the two-stage correction, and describes folder layout, pipeline summary, and how to re-run.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Clean Energy to Communities: Technical Assistance for Region Five, MN

The Region Five Development Commission (“R5DC”) serves five counties in Minnesota, USA and received an Energizing Rural Communities Prize through the U.S. Department of Energy. Currently, R5DC is piloting projects in the City of Motley, for which two energy audits have been conducted. R5DC is seeking input regarding which options to pursue based on these two audits, as well a framework for future audits to be as effective and helpful as possible. This report defines a framework for future audits for R5DC, by providing an overview of the requirements for different levels of audits and identifying available resources for conducting energy audits.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Reported Energy and Cost Savings from the DOE ESPC IDIQ Program: FY 2024

Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPCs)are a contractual mechanism that allow a federal agency to procure energy savings and facility improvements without upfront capital costs to reduce costs and resiliency. ESPCs are covered under FAR Part 23.2, and 42 USC § 8287. Section 8287(a)(2)(A) of Title 42 of the U.S. Code requires that each energy savings performance contract (ESPC) undergo an annual energy audit, resulting in a separate audit report for every project. The objective of the present report is to compile and analyze all annual ESPC audit reports issued between October 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024, for projects awarded under Generations 1, 2, and 3 of DOE’s ESPC IDIQ contracts. During this period, 205 measurement and verification (M&V) reports were produced for 200 projects; the total number of reports exceeds the number of projects because some projects generated more than one report(for example, a few projects measure savings twice per year and produce two audit reports annually, each covering a different six-month period). By aggregating the results from these individual audits, the report determines the portfolio-wide realization rate of energy and cost savings for all active ESPC projects awarded under DOE’s IDIQ program. For all 205audit reports, sufficient information was available to compare project-level estimated, reported, and guaranteed cost savings. Reported cost savings accounted for ESCO verified savings per each project’s M&V plan. The total reported cost savings for the period addressed were $\$$647.8million,compared with the total guaranteed cost savings of $\$$601.6million. On average across the reported projects: •ESPC contractors guaranteed 92.8% of the estimated cost savings• projects reported achieving 100.0% of the estimated cost savings• projects reported achieving 107.7% of the guaranteed cost savings. The M&V performed for the period indicated adjustments for government operations and maintenance impacts to savings amount to$\$$43.9millionandcould be restored with the original operational parameters for impacted projects. Accounting for this potential cost savings impact, these projects still realized 100.4% of the guaranteed cost savings. The information on estimated and reported energy savings was collected and compared for all 205of the reports examined. Based on site energy, estimated savings totaled 14.88million MMBtu, and reported savings were 15.33million MMBtu; 3.1% greater than the estimated energy savings. All of the reports examined contained sufficient information to calculate source energy savings. Based on site-adjusted source energy, total estimated energy savings were 20.90 million MMBtu, and reported savings were 21.22million MMBtu, 101.5% of the estimated energy savings. For water savings, the estimated savings were 11,539,055 kGal and the reported savings were 13,315,930 kGal. This means 1,776,875 kGal more water was saved than estimated, which is about 15% higher than the estimate. These results indicate that, overall, the reported energy savings slightly exceeded the estimated values, while estimated water savings significantly exceeded estimated values, suggesting that the projects achieved greater cost savings than originally projected. The total annual expense for the ESCOs to perform annual M&V audits and reporting was $\$$10.02million. Through this effort, $\$$647.8 million in annual cost savings was verified. The M&V results indicated that $\$$43.9 million of these verified savings reflected adjustments due to government operations A-6and maintenance impacts, which could be restored under the original operational parameters for the affected projects. These findings show the value of M&V that only costs 1.7%of the guaranteed cost savings to ensure guarantees are met.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗