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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 109 records · Page 6
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

The beam test of the lead tungstate calorimeter prototype with SiPM readout at Jefferson Lab

The lead tungstate crystals (PWO4) are a well-known radiator material for precise homogeneous electromagnetic calorimetry. In nuclear physics experiments, the typical way to read out the crystals is using conventional photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). In the case of the presence of a magnetic field, such a method has some complications and requires a passive PMT shielding design. The recent development of Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) with small pixel pitch sizes and relatively small noise levels opens an opportunity avenue to use such a device as an alternative to conventional PMTs. The SiPM readout method may be beneficial for future nuclear physics and collider experiments. We are presenting the beam test results of the calorimeter prototype instrumented with SiPM readout performed at Jefferson Lab. The SiPM readout performance was compared with PMT readout measured at the same experimental conditions. The prototype was successfully tested using beam of photons in the energy range between 3 GeV and 11 GeV in experimental Hall D. The detector performance was also studied using a secondary beam of positrons provided by Hall D pair spectrometer.

Berdnikov, Vladimir↗
DOE OSTI2024

Complete Demonstration of a Prototype Version of FORCE User Interface and Conduct Analyst Survey Collecting Feedback on Interface Features and Usability

In 2024 the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) Integrated Energy System (IES) program continued to develop the Framework for Optimization of Resources and Economics (FORCE) analysis ecosystem into a more traditional toolset with simplified software installation, automated workflows, and interactive results visualization. The DOE-NE Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) Workbench continued to be leveraged for user input, application workflow and runtime environment, and interactive results visualization capabilities. This report documents the demonstration of a FORCE User Interface (UI) prototype and the results of a survey of analysts’ using the Holistic Energy Resource Optimization Network (HERON) tool in FORCE with the prototype UI.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2024

The ETROC2 prototype for CMS MTD Endcap Timing Layer (ETL) upgrade

The ETROC2 prototype for CMS MTD Endcap Timing Layer (ETL) upgrade 520__ $$aThe Endcap Timing ReadOut Chip (ETROC) is designed to process LGAD signals with time resolution down to about 40-50ps per hit. The ETROC2 is the first full size (16x16) prototype design with the front-end based on and scaled up from the ETROC1 (4x4). The readout designs at pixel and global level and the system interfaces are all new and are compatible with the final chip specifications in terms of functionality. The ETROC2 is intended as a learning chip, as a stepstone to the ETROC3 which is intended as the pre-production design. The ETROC2 design and test results will be presented.

Gong, Datao↗
DOE OSTI2025

Design, Fabrication and Concept for the Surface Treatment of the SRF Cavity Prototype for the CLIC Damping Rings

The Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) Damping Rings (DRs) need to generate ultra-low emittance bunches to achieve high luminosity in CLIC. This requires many wiggler magnets with big energy loss which is compensated by the Radio Frequency (RF) system. The resulting strong beam loading transients lead to a challenging design for the RF system. A novel SRF cavity at 2 GHz with an ultra-low R/Q parameter of below 1 Ω is proposed to minimize the transient beam loading effects below acceptable level. The design and fabrication of the bulk Nb prototype based on turning from a single piece of Nb and EB welding is presented. Moreover, conceptual study of the system for cavity surface treatment to achieve the highest surface magnetic field which is the main goal of the prototype cold test is described as well. To enable excellent performance in this cavity, we plan to apply the 75/120C modified low temperature bake in combination with the cold electropolishing process. This surface treatment approach has been shown to consistently deliver high accelerating gradients and improved quality factors in TESLA-shaped 1.3 GHz SRF cavities. By adapting and implementing this process for the 2 GHz ultra-low R/Q design, we aim to maximize the achievable surface magnetic field while minimizing residual resistance and field emission. This treatment strategy will be critical for demonstrating that the cavity can meet the demanding performance requirements of the CLIC damping ring RF system under high beam loading conditions.

Bafia, Daniel P. [Fermilab]↗
DOE OSTI2023

140° Line of Sight (LOS) Mounting Fixture Prototype for ZNeutron Time of Flight (Z-NToF)

The 140° Line of Sight (LOS) Mounting Fixture Prototype for the Z-Neutron Time of Flight diagnostic (Z-NToF) is a prototype support structure for the NToF Jac Black that will be fielded at Sandia’s Z-Machine. The Mounting Fixture will allow the detector to be properly positioned and aligned horizontally from the load, with manual horizontal and vertical translation capabilities, and a limited manual rotation capability. It attaches overhead I-beams at Sandia’s Z machine 140° location approximately 18m from the average source location. The assembly (1011219955) is shown in Figure 1 below. It is capable of rotating ±20° about the vertical axis of the Jac Black detector and translating ±37.5mm horizontally along the Mounting Plate. Vertical adjustments of ±76.2mm can be made using the Lead Screw. Coarser adjustments are possible by changing the number of plates between the I-Beam Hanger Assemblies and the 5in and changing the position of the clamps on the I-beams at Z.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Cauer Prototype for Butterworth Filters: Lowpass, Highpass, Bandpass, and Bandstop Transformations

I had a need to develop a real, physical, analog filter with real RLC components. Having spent a career in theory, I had only ever designed filters for signal processing. I needed only the a and b coefficients. But converting a and b coefficients into RLC values was beyond me. Web searches returned nothing useful until I found Dr. Aaron Danner’s Designing Passive Butterworth Filters (10 - Passive Filters), part of an excellent YouTube series which introduced me to the Cauer prototype for Butterworth filters and Cauer topologies. Failing to find documentation on Cauer filter prototypes, I asked Anthropic’s Claude AI for assistance. Claude returned a few errors which I corrected. This is a comprehensive report on what I learned.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2026

Tests of LBNF Beam Monitor Prototypes for the DUNE Experiment

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a long-baseline on-axis neutrino oscillation experiment that will use a beam from the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) to constrain the mixing angle $$\theta_{23}$, the neutrino mass hierarchy, and the CP violating phase $\delta_{CP}$. To ensure the beam remains on-axis, the LBNF beamline will employ two ionization chamber systems: the Hadron Alignment Detection System (HADeS) for primary beam alignment and the Muon Monitoring System (MuMS) for continuous beam monitoring and neutrino flux estimation. We have constructed prototypes for these systems at the University of Texas at Austin based on a design currently used in the NuMI hadron monitor. These prototypes were tested with a radioactive source and in beam tests at Fermilab's Irradiation Test Area. We present the results of these studies and discuss ongoing efforts to optimize the HADeS and MuMS designs.

Murthy, Chinmay↗
DOE OSTI2024

A digital twin solution for floating offshore wind turbines validated using a full-scale prototype

Abstract. In this work, we implement, verify, and validate a physics-based digital twin solution applied to a floating offshore wind turbine. The digital twin is validated using measurement data from the full-scale TetraSpar prototype. We focus on the estimation of the aerodynamic loads, wind speed, and section loads along the tower, with the aim of estimating the fatigue lifetime of the tower. Our digital twin solution integrates (1) a Kalman filter to estimate the structural states based on a linear model of the structure and measurements from the turbine, (2) an aerodynamic estimator, and (3) a physics-based virtual sensing procedure to obtain the loads along the tower. The digital twin relies on a set of measurements that are expected to be available on any existing wind turbine (power, pitch, rotor speed, and tower acceleration) and motion sensors that are likely to be standard measurements for a floating platform (inclinometers and GPS sensors). We explore two different pathways to obtain physics-based models: a suite of dedicated Python tools implemented as part of this work and the OpenFAST linearization feature. In our final version of the digital twin, we use components from both approaches. We perform different numerical experiments to verify the individual models of the digital twin. In this simulation realm, we obtain estimated damage equivalent loads of the tower fore–aft bending moment with an accuracy of approximately 5 % to 10 %. When comparing the digital twin estimations with the measurements from the TetraSpar prototype, the errors increased to 10 %–15 % on average. Overall, the accuracy of the results is promising and demonstrates the possibility of using digital twin solutions to estimate fatigue loads on floating offshore wind turbines. A natural continuation of this work would be to implement the monitoring and diagnostics aspect of the digital twin to inform operation and maintenance decisions. The digital twin solution is provided with examples as part of an open-source repository.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Electron Energy Regression in High-Granularity Calorimeter Prototype

The dataset consists of simulations of calibrated reconstructed hits produced by a positron passing through the HGCAL test beam prototype. For the simulations, Monte Carlo method is used to produce the positrons with energy ranging from 10 to 350 GeV. The dataset contains the coordinates of the calibrated reconstructed hits in the prototype along with the calibrated energy in units of MIP. The HDF5 files can be extracted from the gzip files.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Pion Energy Regression in High-Granularity Calorimeter Prototype

The dataset consists of simulations of calibrated reconstructed hits produced by a pion passing through the HGCAL test beam prototype. For the simulations, Monte Carlo method is used to produce the pions with energy ranging from 10 to as high as 500 GeV. The dataset contains the coordinates of the calibrated reconstructed hits in the prototype along with the calibrated energy in units of MIP. The HDF5 files can be extracted from the gzip files.

FAIR4HEP↗
DOE OSTI2023

Pion-Production Target for Mu2e-II: Design and Prototype

The higher beam intensity available for Mu2e-II will require a substantially different target design. This paper discusses our recent advances in conceptual R&D for a Mu2e-II target station. The design is based on energy deposition and radiation damage simulations as well as thermal and mechanical analyses to estimate the survivability of the system. We considered rotated targets, fixed granular targets and a novel conveyor target with tungsten or carbon spherical elements that are circulated through the beam path. The motion of the spheres can be generated either mechanically or both mechanically and by a He-gas flow. The simulations identified the conveyor target as the preferred approach, and that approach has been developed into a prototype. We describe this first prototype for the Mu2e-II target and report on its mechanical tests performed at Fermilab that indicate the feasibility of the design, discuss its challenges as well as suggest directions for further improvement.

Neuffer, David↗
DOE OSTI2023

2022 Prototype Manufacture and Installation Awardee: Sonsight Wind

The Sonsight Wind 3.5-kilowatt (kW) prototype turbine is designed to compete with solar power, meeting energy needs for a wide range of smaller-scale applications, such as powering individual homes and irrigation systems on farms and ranches in remote areas. The technology's innovative high-torque, low-rotations-per-minute generator permits the use of longer blades that, at moderate wind speed sites, generate the energy of a 5-kW turbine with lower thrust forces than similarly rated turbines. The 3.5-kW turbine is projected to ofer greater durability at a signifcantly lower levelized cost of energy. Sonsight Wind advanced the development of the prototype with a previous Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) funding award.

competitiveness improvement project↗
DOE OSTI2024

Experimental investigation of the small-scale prototype of the dew point water recovery system

The article presents experimental investigation of the Dew Point Water Recovery (DPWR) system designed for clean water recovery using the dew point cooling phenomenon. The technology is a novel distillation process which allows for highly efficient water recovery. It is a first distillation technology which allows for water distillation through direct contact with atmospheric air. The authors designed, built, and tested an original prototype of a laboratory-scale DPWR system to verify its basic operating principles and perform performance analysis. It was shown that on average 10 × 10 −6 m 3 of clean water could be recovered from each cubic meter of the supply air with an average GOR of 1.9. Although the operation of the DPWR system requires electricity to drive fans, pumps and other associated equipment, the actual driving force of the system is thermal energy. The average thermal energy demand of the DPWR system was 370 kWh/m 3 , and more than half of this energy was based on the thermodynamic potential of the supply air. Based on experimental data, the mathematical model of the DPWR system was verified and it was found that the average relative discrepancy in predicting air temperature did not exceed 8%, and in predicting air humidity: 5%. In conclusion, the conducted experiments confirmed that the proposed DPWR system is feasible and has the potential to fill the technological gap in terms of a low-energy and easily accessible water recovery method.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Design and evaluation of large area strip sensor prototypes for the ATLAS Inner Tracker detector

The ATLAS community is facing the last stages prior to the production of the upgraded silicon strip Inner Tracker for the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider. An extensive Market Survey was carried out in order to evaluate the capability of different foundries to fabricate large area silicon strip sensors, satisfying the ATLAS specifications. The semiconductor manufacturing company, Infineon Technologies AG, was one of the two foundries, along with Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., that reached the last stage of the evaluation for the production of the new devices. The full prototype wafer layout for the participation of Infineon, called ATLAS17LS-IFX, was designed using a newly developed Python-based Automatic Layout Generation Tool, able to rapidly design sensors with different characteristics and dimensions based on a few geometrical and technological input parameters. Here we present the layout design process and the results obtained from the evaluation of the new Infineon large area sensors before and after proton and neutron irradiations, up to fluences expected in the inner layers of the future ATLAS detector.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

In vitro prototyping of limonene biosynthesis using cell-free protein synthesis

Metabolic engineering of microorganisms to produce sustainable chemicals has emerged as an important part of the global bioeconomy. Unfortunately, efforts to design and engineer microbial cell factories are challenging because design-build-test cycles, iterations of re-engineering organisms to test and optimize new sets of enzymes, are slow. To alleviate this challenge, we demonstrate a cell-free approach termed in vitro Prototyping and Rapid Optimization of Biosynthetic Enzymes (or iPROBE). In iPROBE, a large number of pathway combinations can be rapidly built and optimized. The key idea is to use cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) to manufacture pathway enzymes in separate reactions that are then mixed to modularly assemble multiple, distinct biosynthetic pathways. As a model, we apply our approach to the 9-step heterologous enzyme pathway to limonene in extracts from Escherichia coli. In iterative cycles of design, we studied the impact of 54 enzyme homologs, multiple enzyme levels, and cofactor concentrations on pathway performance. In total, we screened over 150 unique sets of enzymes in 580 unique pathway conditions to increase limonene production in 24 h from 0.2 to 4.5 mM (23–610 mg/L). Finally, to demonstrate the modularity of this pathway, we also synthesized the biofuel precursors pinene and bisabolene. Finally, we anticipate that iPROBE will accelerate design-build-test cycles for metabolic engineering, enabling data-driven multiplexed cell-free methods for testing large combinations of biosynthetic enzymes to inform cellular design.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Design and Beam Test Results for the 2-D Projective sPHENIX Electromagnetic Calorimeter Prototype

sPHENIX is a new experiment under construction for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory which will study the quark-gluon plasma to further the understanding of quantum chromodynamics (QCP) matter and interactions. A prototype of the sPHENIX electromagnetic calorimeter (EMCal) was tested at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility in Spring 2018 as experiment T-1044.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Characterization of a Small-Scale Prototype Detector With Wide Dynamic Range for Time-Resolved High-Energy X-Ray Applications

We present characterization measurements of a fast-framing, wide-dynamic-range x-ray area detector intended for high-energy applications (≥20 keV photons). The MM-PAD-2.1 combines an integrating pixel front-end with a charge-removal mechanism to extend the maximum measurable signal to > 107 20-keV ph/pixel/frame. The charge-removal mechanism is dead-time-less (i.e., incoming signal continues to be integrated by the front-end while charge removal is taking place) up to an incoming photon rate of > 109 20-keV ph/pix/s. A 16×16 pixel prototype was fabricated and characterized using both laboratory and synchrotron x-ray sources, allowing for measurements from single-photon to high-flux conditions. High-flux measurements show linear performance up to ~1010 ph/s in a spot spanning approximately 2×1.5 pixels (FWHM). The onset of temporary radiation damage in the detector was observed during these measurements, manifesting as failure of the digital readout from the detector. These effects were seen to reverse after annealing at 30° C for several hours.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Design and Testing of a Prototype Eddy Current Actuated Valve for the ITER Shattered Pellet Injection System

Reliably mitigating disruptions is essential for ITER to meet its long-term operational research plan without damage to the in-vessel components. Currently, the shattered pellet injection (SPI) technique is the most effective radiator of thermal energy and has been chosen for the baseline disruption mitigation system (DMS) for ITER. The SPI process uses cryogenic temperatures to desublimate material into the barrel of a pipe gun forming a solid cylindrical pellet. Pellets for ITER will initially be hydrogen and hydrogen-neon mixtures. Once formed, pellets are dislodged and accelerated using high-pressure gas (40-60 bar) delivered by a fast-opening valve. The solenoid valves currently used for SPI experiments will not operate in an ITER environment due to the large background magnetic field. An ITER prototype fast-opening valve, called a flyer plate valve (FPV), has been designed and has undergone a wide range of testing. The FPV operates by pulsing current through a pancake coil that is closely coupled with a ``flyer plate.'' The flyer plate is an aluminum plate in which eddy currents are generated creating a repulsive force from the pancake coil. The force generated in the flyer plate rapidly lifts the valve tip off the seat and delivers a pulse of gas to the rear of the pellet, breaking it free from the barrel and accelerating the pellet downstream to its intended target. The design of the valve has been iterated on over the lifetime of this project, as the DMS for ITER shifted from massive gas injection (MGI) to SPI. The most recent design has been tested, and operational ranges have been mapped. The valve must survive 3000+ cycles in an ITER-like magnetic field. The principal functional requirement of this valve is to reliably dislodge and accelerate hydrogen (or H-Ne mixture) pellets into ITER. The valve was mated with an ITER SPI test stand and has been shown to be capable of launching pellets reliably. The valve and power supply design will be discussed in this article, along with the various testing setups used to determine the feasibility of this valve for use on ITER.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗