SEARCH · Engineering Papers
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.
The OWL GroundAware GA1360 2D radar system with advertised capability of advanced digital beam-forming radar technology, classification intelligence, reconfigurability, and easy integration with other security systems to bring 360° of real-time, all-weather situational awareness for the physical security of perimeters and other sensitive areas for critical infrastructure.
The SpotterRF CK5 is a low-power draw doppler radar, approximately the size of a book (7” x 9”, see Figure 1). It is intended to provide coverage over short ranges (125 m). The SpotterRF CK5B radar was tested in a two-fence perimeter environment and followed the vendor-recommended configuration (Figure 2), with the exception of rotating the radar 90 degrees about the horizontal axis. The radar is advertised to take approximately 10 minutes to set up.
The evolving landscape of cybersecurity necessitates a paradigm shift to a Zero Trust (ZT) model, which assumes breaches and continuously verifies trust. This approach reshapes how trust boundaries are established, focusing on identities, devices, networks, applications, and data, rather than solely relying on perimeter defenses such as firewalls. Central to this transformation is the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) Special Publication 800-207, outlining the Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), along with Executive Order 14028, which mandates federal agencies to adopt ZT principles. Complementary to these efforts, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) developed the Zero Trust Maturity Model (ZTMM), providing a framework with five pillars and three cross-cutting capabilities to guide agencies toward enhanced cybersecurity maturity. In support of these initiatives, the DHS Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office (CWMD) is applying ZT principles to secure Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) detection systems. Recognizing the diverse deployment models and network connectivity of these systems—from stationary, non-networked units to mobile, cloud-connected devices—the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is developing cybersecurity scenarios specifically for CBRN environments. These scenarios examine various configurations and technological capabilities, offering insights into the application of ZTMM pillars in enhancing the security postures of CBRN devices. The cybersecurity scenarios presented by PNNL are hypothetical, crafted to explore theoretical situations and stimulate discussion on the potential use or compromise of CBRN detection systems in varied contexts. These narratives are illustrative and do not reference any real events or actual networks. Instead, they employ generalized reference models to highlight concepts and potential issues within CBRN security, focusing on how Zero Trust strategies can be adapted to address these challenges effectively.
Portal monitoring is one method in a suite of options for treaty verification and can assist in verification of treaty accountable items (TAIs). Portal monitor technology spans a wide range of sensors, including radiation detectors, break-beams, or weight sensors. For radiation-detecting portal monitors, they are able to confirm absence / presence of a radiological signature and to track TAI direction of motion. Portal monitoring uses measurements from strategically placed sensors (e.g., radiation detectors) to record the entry or egress of TAIs. The implementation of portal monitoring relies on three key elements: perimeter definition, portal locations, and sensor technology, and can be implemented in either time-bound or continuous operations depending on what is permitted by the Treaty.
SiC-SiC f composites, consisting of silicon carbide fibers embedded in a silicon carbide matrix, are advanced materials with high thermal conductivity, temperature stability, and resistance to radiation damage. Traditional methods for quality control of fabricated SiC-SiC f composites involve nondestructive evaluation (NDE) with X-ray computed tomography (XCT). However, XCT imaging of typical SiC-SiC f structures for cladding applications can involve several hours. In this project, we investigate an alternative approach to NDE of SiC-SiC f composites that involves rapid (on the order of seconds) imaging with Pulsed infrared thermography (PIT). PIT images of a planar SiC-SiC f specimen show the structure of the surface monolith layer and internal SiC f structures. The capability of PIT imaging in visualizing SiC f structures is qualitatively confirmed by observing similarity in the PIT and X-ray transmission images of the same specimen. Computer vision analysis of defects in the PIT image of the monolith was performed with thresholding followed by topological structural analysis that computed geometric descriptors, including major/minor axes of fitted ellipses, area, perimeter, Feret diameter, circularity, roundness, and solidity.
The Advanced Reactor Safeguards and Security (ARSS) program in the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) seeks to identify new technology solutions for safeguards and security challenges associated with domestic deployment of advanced nuclear reactors. Research in the ARSS program is investigating alternative physical protection system (PPS) approaches that leverage new detection technologies. This report shows test results from a new form of artificial intelligence (AI) that is called deliberate motion analytics (DMA) when used to spatially and temporally fuse active radar and passive radio frequency (RF) detection that significantly improves detection of uncrewed aircraft systems (UASs). DMA is designed to filter out false positive alarms yet provide highly reliable intrusion detection at nuclear power plants (NPPs) and advanced small modular reactor (ASMR) perimeters. This form of AI is considered to be an enabling technology for security of the future and supports the ARSS investigation of alternative PPSs.
The research focuses on the critical need for enhanced cybersecurity within the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) Office, specifically targeting Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear devices. Traditional perimeter-based security models are insufficient against modern cyber threats, prompting a shift toward Zero Trust principles (ZTP) that emphasize continuous verification and stringent security for all devices. Federal directives mandate the adoption of Zero Trust (ZT) across agencies, supported by guidelines from National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and National Security Agency (NSA). The research involved mapping ZT guidance from these agencies to develop tailored CWMD ZTP. The study identified gaps and areas for improvement, including clear transitional guidance from traditional to ZT architectures and the focus on explicit cross cutting capabilities. Design improvements are recommended to ensure increased comprehensive protection and resilience against sophisticated cyber threats for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) devices. Collaborative efforts among federal agencies are essential for the successful deployment of an optimized ZT guidance.
This is the final report for Exotic Uses of Neutrons an X-rays as Probes for Chiral Magnets, an Early Career award to Prof. Dustin Gilbert, University of Tennessee, running 09/01/2020 - 08/31/2025. This project used neutron scattering as a unique tool to investigate magnetic chiral structures. Neutron scattering is a powerful technique in which the neutron wavepacket scatters from nuclear or magnetic structures, providing insight into the structure of a material and its magnetic features. In this work, we focused on chiral magnetic structures. Most magnetic materials are colinear ferro- or antiferromagnets, where the spin moments align parallel or anti-parallel with their neighbors. In some materials, the magnetic moments instead curl and can form closed loops. These structures, with the additional feature that the core and perimeter are oriented in opposite out-of-plane directions, exhibit a property called topology; these structures are known as skyrmions. Topology is a broadly used term, but here it refers to a magnetic configuration that cannot be created or destroyed through any continuous transformation. For these looped structures, the closed loop cannot be destroyed continuously, giving rise to unique properties such as collective dynamics and particle-like behavior. This also raises fundamental questions about how such structures form and evolve.
On May 31 st , 2025, at approximately 14:40:00 UTC, the former Submarine First Westinghouse (SW1) structure housing a large crane was demolished at the Naval Reactors Facility (NRF) located within the perimeter of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Several targeted explosives were used to facilitate this demolition. The INL Seismic Monitoring Program (SMP) installed four temporary seismic instrument suites around the site of the demolition in order to monitor ground motion including measuring peak ground acceleration (PGA), peak ground velocity (PGV), and to calculate peak ground displacement (PGD). The demolition produced three types of waves: body waves, surface waves, and acoustic waves. The acoustic wave represents the largest signal received. The PGA, measured on the eastern component of the instrument located approximately 95m away from the demolition site, was 0.187g. The PGV measured was 0.0004 m/s, and the PGD was approximately 0.000006m. Rayleigh waves incident on an instrument located at the Advanced Test Reactor, about 7.6km away, were used to estimate a magnitude of 0.3 at the ATR, representing a yield of energy equivalent to approximately 3 grams of TNT.
Residential buildings are one of the prime candidates in the United States for reducing energy consumption. Continuous exterior insulation (CEI) is being used increasingly often in residential buildings to improve energy efficiency. Windows constitute 15–40% of a building envelope and are the weakest component in energy performance. The installation of windows in walls with CEI has not been well evaluated. We identified four cases of installing windows in walls with CEI of 25–76 mm (1–3 in.) thickness and analyzed the energy loss between the window and wall interface (flanking loss), structural issues, air leakage, and moisture penetration. Thermal analysis showed that the insulation value (RSI) of the 305 mm (12 in.) perimeter wall surrounding a window decreased by 7.6–34.5% in the four cases when compared with the RSI of the wall without the window. A window installation method is proposed to address the issues likely to occur with installation methods currently being used in the field. An out-of-the-box installation system was also designed to achieve a better thermal performance, cost effectiveness, and structural performance in high-performance residential buildings.
Iron redistribution in the intestine after total body irradiation is an established phenomenon. However, in the literature, there are no reports about the use of X-ray fluorescence microscopy or equivalent techniques to generate semi-quantitative 2D maps of iron in sectioned intestine samples from irradiated mice. In this work, we used X-ray fluorescence microscopy (XFM) to map the elemental content of iron as well as phosphorus, sulfur, calcium, copper and zinc in tissue sections of the small intestine from eight-week-old BALB/c male mice that developed gastrointestinal acute radiation syndrome (GI-ARS) in response to exposure to 8 Gray of gamma rays. Seven days after irradiation, we found that the majority of the iron is localized as hot spots in the intercellular regions of the area surrounding crypts and stretching between the outer perimeter of the intestine and the surface cell layer of villi. In addition, this study represents our current efforts to develop elemental cell classifiers that could be used for the automated generation of regions of interest for analyses of X-ray fluorescence maps. Once developed, such a tool will be instrumental for studies of effects of radiation and other toxicants on the elemental content in cells and tissues. While XFM studies cannot be conducted on living organisms, it is possible to envision future scenarios where XFM imaging of single cells sloughed from the human (or rodent) intestine could be used to follow up on the progression of GI-ARS.
The Antarctic photopsychrophile, Chlamydomonas priscui UWO241, is adapted to extreme environmental conditions, including permanent low temperatures, high salt, and shade. During long-term exposure to this extreme habitat, UWO241 appears to have lost several short-term mechanisms in favor of constitutive protection against environmental stress. This study investigated the physiological and growth responses of UWO241 to high-light conditions, evaluating the impacts of long-term acclimation to high light, low temperature, and high salinity on its ability to manage short-term photoinhibition. We found that UWO241 significantly increased its growth rate and photosynthetic activity at growth irradiances far exceeding native light conditions. Furthermore, UWO241 exhibited robust protection against short-term photoinhibition, particularly in photosystem I. Lastly, pre-acclimation to high light or low temperatures, but not high salinity, enhanced photoinhibition tolerance. These findings extend our understanding of stress tolerance in extremophilic algae. In the past 2 decades, climate change-related increasing glacial stream flow has perturbed long-term stable conditions, which has been associated with lake level rise, the thinning of ice covers, and the expansion of ice-free perimeters, leading to perturbations in light and salinity conditions. Our findings have implications for phytoplankton survival and the response to change scenarios in the light-limited environment of Antarctic ice-covered lakes.
TRistructural ISOtropic (TRISO) particle fuel is a type of nuclear fuel known for its high-temperature and high-burnup performance. Each sub-millimeter diameter TRISO particle consists of uranium-oxycarbide (UCO) or UO2 fuel kernel, coated with buffer, inner pyrolytic carbon (IPyC), silicon carbide (SiC), and outer pyrolytic carbon (OPyC) layers. The SiC layer acts as the main containment barrier for the TRISO particle to retain the fission products, while the IPyC and OPyC layers provide additional barriers to the release of fission products, especially fission gases. During irradiation, phenomena like kernel swelling, buffer densification, and IPyC fracture may impact fuel performance. Post-irradiation microscopy on entire compact cross sections or samples of individual particles deconsolidated from compacts is often used to identify these irradiation-induced changes in morphology. However, each fuel compact generally contains thousands of TRISO particles. To get statistical information on these phenomena, it is cumbersome work if done manually. For example, to get information about swelling/densification behaviors of different layers or kernels after irradiation, researchers previously manually measured the perimeter of each TRISO layer in hundreds of particles after four rounds of iterative grinding and polishing encompassing more than 2000 cross-section images for a total of four fuel compacts. To attempt to reduce the subjectivity inherent in that process and accelerate data analysis, we conducted a study on the automatic TRISO layer segmentation on cross-sectional microscopic images using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). CNNs are a class of machine learning algorithms specifically designed for processing structured grid data that have gained popularity in recent years due to their remarkable performance in various computer vision tasks, including image classification, object detection, and image segmentation. In this research, we have generated the large irradiated TRISO layer dataset with more than 2000 cross-section TRISO microscopic images and the corresponding annotated images. Based on these annotated images, we have employed different CNNs for automatic segmentation of different TRISO layers. These include RU-Net (developed in this study), as well as three existing architectures: U-Net, Residual Network (ResNet), and Attention U-Net. The preliminary results show that the model based on RU-Net has the best performance in terms of intersection-over-union (IoU). Through the aid of these CNN models, we can expedite the analysis of TRISO particle cross-sections, significantly reducing the manual labor involved and improving the objectivity of the segmentation results.
Advances in performance and analysis capabilities have accelerated the development of object tracking algorithms for atmospheric research. This has resulted in a growing number of studies using Lagrangian tracking techniques to analyze the evolution of atmospheric phenomena and the underlying processes. However, the increasing complexity and variety of tracking algorithms present a steep learning curve for new users and make it difficult for existing users to compare algorithm performance. We introduce CoCoMET (Community Cloud Model Evaluation Toolkit), an open-source toolkit that addresses these issues. CoCoMET simplifies the process of running multiple tracking algorithms simultaneously and analyzing objects in both model and observational datasets by specifying parameters in a single configuration file. It standardizes input data from different sources into a consistent format and unifies the tracking output across algorithms. CoCoMET enhances the functionality of existing tracking methods by calculating additional properties such as cell growth and dissipation rates, perimeter, surface area, convexity, and irregularity. In addition, CoCoMET includes a novel method for identifying mergers and splits in 2D and 3D tracks and supports the integration of Eulerian/stationary datasets external to the tracking data for process studies. Its potential utility is demonstrated through examples of model intercomparison, model evaluation against observations, and comparisons between tracking algorithms. Designed for open-source environments, CoCoMET will continue to expand with future releases, incorporating more input data types and tracking algorithms.
Building Energy Modeling (BEM) is a versatile tool for designing, retrofitting, ensuring code compliance, obtaining certifications, qualifying for incentives, and enabling real-time building control. However, capturing all the details of building geometry for thermal zoning can be time-consuming, costly, and sometimes computationally challenging. As a result, modelers have been applying zoning simplification based on factors such as space functions and internal loads, as well as relying on their experience and judgment while adhering to zoning rules outlined in industry standards. Despite the prevalence of this common practice, a notable gap exists in the literature regarding studies quantifying the influence of simplified thermal zoning on the evaluation of Energy Efficiency Measures (EEMs). Recognizing this gap, this paper seeks to contribute to the field by enhancing the understanding of how the simplification of thermal zoning influences the evaluation of EEMs against a baseline design. The study utilized a medium office prototype model with a detailed floor plan featuring over 20 zones per floor covering diverse functional spaces with varying internal loads and occupancy schedules. A standard thermal zoning strategy outlined in ASHRAE Standard 90.1 Appendix G was employed as the simplified zoning method. This strategy condenses the zoning into a core zone and four perimeter zones per floor. It was compared with the detailed zoning approach, which involves one zone per space. Common Energy EEMs, such as enhanced envelope, high-efficiency appliances and equipment, and HVAC controls, were individually implemented and evaluated. The results indicate that the performance comparison between the two zoning methods varies depending on the type of measures considered. Basic measures, such as adding wall insulation, demonstrate similar energy impacts, while advanced HVAC control measures, such as static pressure reset, exhibit a more substantial difference that cannot be overlooked.
A volumetric flowmeter which has a small magnet imbedded in the outer perimeter of the turbine wheel or in the bearing permits measurement of liquid flow rates in the presence of wide ranges and violent surges.
Manufacture of the S-IC stage of the Saturn V space vehicle has resulted in new. concepts and innovations in the field of tooling. The structure size (35-ft diameter), the high reliability and accuracy requirements, and the low density or production quantity lead to a greater degree of simplicity, economy, and versatility in fabrication and assembly tooling. There are three specific concepts which should be applicable in industry, local jigging for welding, rotation of structures in vertical assemblies, and the assembly of two structures. The usual weld jigging serves a two-fold purpose: (a) to support the molten weld puddle and (b) to force and maintain alinement of the parts being welded. The extension of this method to large-diameter tanks is expensive and difficult. An alternate procedure used at MSFC is to perform free-state welding and use local jigging (stra1rclamps) and intermittent tack welding. Cylindrical structures can be accurately rotated for routing or welding on a simplified ring turntable. The tool consists of a ring of the structure diameter resting on rollers. Torque is nearly zero since the ring is rotated by friction rollers with the force being applied at the ring perimeter. Two such turntables are used at MSFC. The horizontal mating of two large components, where controlled motions of small magnitude are necessary, can be easily done by positioning units equipped with air-bearings. Such bearings are usable on concrete of minimum surface preparation and require no special air pressure source. This concept is used in assembly of the two S-IC containers.
Photoelectric skylight perimeter for Stokes parameter measurements in plane polarized light