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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 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↗
DOE OSTI2025

Organic Direct-Bonded-Copper-Based Rapid Prototyping for Silicon Carbide Power Module Packaging

Silicon carbide (SiC) power devices are playing ever- growing roles in high-power-density power electronics converters by offering benefits such as high voltage rating, fast transients, and high thermal performance. Organic direct-bonded copper (ODBC)-based packaging, due to its ductility and ease of han- dling, allows the possibility of a more flexible layout design that may better tap the potential of SiC benefits. In this work, an ODBC-based prototyping routine is developed that accelerates the iterations of packaging layout design with low cost. The properties of ODBC and its handling are briefly introduced, and tools and fabrication steps are explained. Following this routine, a 1.2-kV SiC half-bridge power module is designed and fabricated with the focus on sub-nanohenry ultra-low loop inductance. Simulation and experimental validation are also conducted.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Hydrogen Detection via a Low-Cost Prototype Fiber-Optic Sensing System

The developed low-cost prototype sensing system successfully detects hydrogen concentrations across a wide range, demonstrating immediate feasibility for commercial deployment. Utilizing fiber-optic technology, the system delivers stable, reproducible performance from parts-per-million levels up to 100% pure H2 environments. Environmental and chemical cross-sensitivity evaluations confirm robust selectivity against methane and temperature changes, establishing its readiness for near-term commercialization.

fiber-optic H2 sensor↗
DOE OSTI2021

Prototype and Codesign of Nascent Flexible Wave Energy Converter Concepts

Prevailing mainstream ocean wave energy converter (WEC) archetypes are often relatively large monolithic rigid bodies with singular means of power take-off (e.g., relative motion between rigid bodies) and solo prime mover mechanisms (e.g. a rotary generator, a hydraulic piston). These mainstream WEC archetypes have existed for decades with some having histories spanning more than a century of significant investments and interests. As an alternative to the domain of mainstream WEC archetypes is the domain of distributed embedded energy converter technologies (also known as DEEC-Tec). Use of DEEC-Tec to create WECs - often called flexWECs - is a nascent domain of research and development that centers itself upon the interconnection of many relatively small energy converters - very small energy transducers - that interconnect and combine to create a much larger, overall, energy converting structure. The DEEC-Tec domain enables promising possibilities such as: direct in situ ocean wave energy harvesting and conversion throughout the volume of an entire flexWEC; inherent broad-banded ocean wave energy capture and conversion arising from near semi-continuous structural degrees of freedom; an innate absence of focusing and concentrating of ocean wave energy into a single prime mover and/or transmission system; and built-in implicit redundancy. As such, the DEEC-Tec domain could revolutionize how we conceptualize ocean wave energy conversion - both in terms of ocean wave energy converter design and what we view as viable environments and circumstances for ocean wave energy conversion. The research and development opportunities for the DEEC-Tec domain, therefore, are vast compared to the prevailing mainstream ocean wave energy converter domain. Correspondingly, there are ample opportunities to invest time and money into the DEEC-Tec domain with an aim to enable a paradigm shift in how ocean waves can be utilized as a more viable form of renewable energy. To that end, two seedling efforts have been enacted providing a very cursory investigation into the DEEC-Tec domain: (1) a preliminary simple fabrication/prototyping effort and (2) a preliminary co-design effort. The prototype seedling centers upon the design of a fabrication and evaluation rig for individual DEEC-Tec transducers; e.g., dielectric elastomer generators. The co-design seedling centers upon the analysis of those methods suitable for DEEC-Tec, ocean wave energy conversion, and fluid-structure interaction co-design efforts.

50 EE - Wind and Water Power Program - Water (EE-4↗
DOE OSTI2023

Bonding and Acidity of the Formal Hydride in the Prototypical Au 9 (PPh 3 ) 8 H 2+ Nanocluster

Abstract The role of hydrogen atoms as surface ligands on metal nanoclusters is of profound importance but remains difficult to directly study. While hydrogen atoms often appear to be incorporated formally as hydrides, evidence suggests that they donate electrons to the cluster's delocalized superatomic orbitals and may consequently behave as acidic protons that play key roles in synthetic or catalytic mechanisms. Here we directly test this assertion for the prototypical Au 9 (PPh 3 ) 8 H 2+ nanocluster, formed by addition of a hydride to the well‐characterized Au 9 (PPh 3 ) 8 3+ . Using gas‐phase infrared spectroscopy, we were able to unambiguously isolate Au 9 (PPh 3 ) 8 H 2+ and Au 9 (PPh 3 ) 8 D 2+ , revealing an Au−H stretching mode at 1528 cm −1 that shifts to 1038 cm −1 upon deuteration. This shift is greater than the maximum expected for a typical harmonic potential, suggesting a potential governing cluster‐H bonding that has some square‐well character consistent with the hydrogen nucleus behaving as a metal atom in the cluster core. Complexing this cluster with very weak bases reveals a redshift of 37 cm −1 in the Au−H vibration, consistent with those typically seen for moderately acidic groups in gas phase molecules and providing an estimate of the acidity of Au 9 (PPh 3 ) 8 H 2+ , at least with regard to its surface reactivity.

Hernández, Hanna Morales↗
DOE OSTI2023

Bonding and Acidity of the Formal Hydride in the Prototypical Au 9 (PPh 3 ) 8 H 2+ Nanocluster

The role of hydrogen atoms as surface ligands on metal nanoclusters is of profound importance but remains difficult to directly study. While hydrogen atoms often appear to be incorporated formally as hydrides, evidence suggests that they donate electrons to the cluster's delocalized superatomic orbitals and may consequently behave as acidic protons that play key roles in synthetic or catalytic mechanisms. Here we directly test this assertion for the prototypical Au 9 (PPh 3 ) 8 H 2+ nanocluster, formed by addition of a hydride to the well-characterized Au 9 (PPh 3 ) 8 3+ . Using gas-phase infrared spectroscopy, we were able to unambiguously isolate Au 9 (PPh 3 ) 8 H 2+ and Au 9 (PPh 3 ) 8 D 2+ , revealing an Au–H stretching mode at 1528 cm –1 that shifts to 1038 cm –1 upon deuteration. This shift is greater than the maximum expected for a typical harmonic potential, suggesting a potential governing cluster-H bonding that has some square-well character consistent with the hydrogen nucleus behaving as a metal atom in the cluster core. Complexing this cluster with very weak bases reveals a redshift of 37 cm –1 in the Au–H vibration, consistent with those typically seen for moderately acidic groups in gas phase molecules and providing an estimate of the acidity of Au 9 (PPh 3 ) 8 H 2+ , at least with regard to its surface reactivity.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2022

Cell-Free Protein Synthesis for High-Throughput Biosynthetic Pathway Prototyping

Biological systems provide a sustainable and complimentary approach to synthesizing useful chemical products. Metabolic engineers seeking to establish economically viable biosynthesis platforms strive to increase product titers, rates, and yields. Despite continued advances in genetic tools and metabolic engineering techniques, cellular workflows remain limited in throughput. It may take months to test dozens of unique pathway designs even in a robust model organism, such as Escherichia coli. In contrast, cell-free protein synthesis enables the rapid generation of enzyme libraries that can be combined to reconstitute metabolic pathways in vitro for biochemical synthesis in days rather than weeks. Cell-free reactions thereby enable comparison of hundreds to thousands of unique combinations of enzyme homologs and concentrations, which can quickly identify the most productive pathway variants to test in vivo or further characterize in vitro. Furthermore, this cell-free pathway prototyping strategy provides a complementary approach to accelerate cellular metabolic engineering efforts toward highly productive strains for metabolite production.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗