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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 1,081 records · Page 60
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

Generation of Homogeneous and Patterned Electron Beams using a Microlens Array Laser-Shaping Technique

In photocathodes the achievable electron-beam parameters are controlled by the laser used to trigger the photoemission process. Non-ideal laser distribution hampers the final beam quality. Laser inhomogeneities, for instance, can be "amplified" by space-charge force and result in fragmented electron beams. To overcome this limitation laser shaping methods are routinely employed. In the present paper we demonstrate the use of simple microlens arrays to dramatically improve the transverse uniformity. We also show that this arrangement can be used to produce transversely-patterned electron beams. Our experiments are carried out at the Argonne Wakefield Accelerator facility.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Numerical Homogenization on Approach for Stokesian Suspensions

In this technical report we investigate efficient methods for numerical simulation of active suspensions. The prototypical system is a suspension of swimming bacteria in a Newtonian fluid. Rheological and other macroscopic properties of such suspensions can differ dramatically from the same properties of the suspending fluid alone or of suspensions of similar but inactive particles. Elongated bacteria, such as E. coli or B. subtilis, swim along their principal axis, propelling themselves with the help of flagella, attached at the anterior of the organism and pushing it forward in the manner of a propeller. They interact hydrodynamically with the surrounding fluid and, because of their asymmetrical shape, have the propensity to align with the local flow. This, along with the dipolar nature of bacteria (the two forces a bacterium exerts on a fluid - one due to self-propulsion and the other opposing drag - have equal magnitude and point in opposite directions), causes nearby bacteria to tend to align, resulting in a intermittent local ordering on the mesoscopic scale, which is between the microscopic scale of an individual bacterium and the macroscopic scale of the suspension (e.g., its container). The local ordering is sometimes called a collective mode or collective swimming. Thanks to self-propulsion, collective modes inject momentum into the fluid in a coherent way. This enhances the local strain rate without changing the macroscopic stress applied at the boundary of the container. The macroscopic effective viscosity of the suspension is defined roughly as the ratio of the applied stress to the bulk strain rate. If local alignment and therefore local strain-rate enhancement, are significant, the effective viscosity can be appreciably lower than that of the corresponding passive suspension or even of the surrounding fluid alone. Indeed, a sevenfold decrease in the effective viscosity was observed in experiments with B. subtilis. More generally, local collective swimming resulting from bacterial alignment can significantly alter other macroscopic properties of the suspension, such as the oxygen diffusivity and mixing rates. In order to understand the unique macroscopic properties of active suspensions the connection between microscopic swimming and alignment dynamics and the mesoscopic pattern formation must be clarified. This is difficult to do analytically in the fully general setting of moderately dense suspensions, because of the large number of bacteria involved (approx. 10 10 cm -3 in experiments) and the complex, time-dependent geometry of the system. Many reduced analytical models of bacterial have been proposed, but all of them require validation. While comparison with experiment is the ultimate test of a model's fidelity, it is difficult to conduct experiments matched to these models assumptions. Numerical simulation of the microscopic dynamics is an acceptable substitute, but it runs into the problem of having to discretize the fluid domain with a fine-grained boundary (the bacteria) and update the discretization as the domain evolves (bacteria move). This leads to a prohibitively high number of degrees of freedom and prohibitively high setup costs per timestep of simulation. In this technical report we propose numerical methods designed to alleviate these two difficulties. We indicate how to (1) construct an optimal discretization in terms of the number of degrees of freedom per digit of accuracy and (2) optimally update the discretization as the simulation evolves. The technical tool here is the derivation of rigorous error bounds on the error in the numerical solution when using our proposed discretization at the initial time as well as after a given elapsed simulation time. These error bounds should guide the construction of practical discretization schemes and update strategies. Our initial construction is carried out by using a theoretically convenient, but practically prohibitive spectral basis, which is a Galerkin basis of functions with global support. At the end of this report we propose localization techniques while maintaining acceptable error bounds. No numerical experiments were conducted as part of this study, but we envision that we may undertake such studies and further development of the method, jointly or individually.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2012

Homogenous BSCCO-2212 Round Wires for Very High Field Magnets

The performance demands on modern particle accelerators generate a relentless push towards higher field magnets. In turn, advanced high field magnet development places increased demands on superconducting materials. Nb 3 Sn conductors have been used to achieve 16 T in a prototype dipole magnet and are thought to have the capability for ~18 T for accelerator magnets (primarily dipoles but also higher order multipole magnets).

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Spatial Instabilities, Homogeneities and Proximity Effects: Highly Correlated Metals

We have developed a superconducting scanning tunneling microscope (S-STM) which is a direct and local probe of the pair wave function of superconducting materials via the Josephson effect and quasiparticle spectra via scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS). The novel feature of this device is a superconducting tip (Pb with an Ag capping layer) in close proximity to a superconducting sample to form a superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) tunnel junction. The operation of this S-STM has been verified in the observation of Josephson tunneling between the tip and different sample systems including Pb films and NbSe 2 . At the experimental base temperature (T=2.1K) and large junction normal resistance (R N > 10 4 Ω) the phase is not locked in the washboard potential, but is excited thermally to be diffusive.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2013

Report on the Implementation of Homogeneous Nucleation Scheme in MARMOT-based Phase Field Simulation

In this report, we summarized our effort in developing mesoscale phase field models for predicting precipitation kinetics in alloys during thermal aging and/or under irradiation in nuclear reactors. The first part focused on developing a method to predict the thermodynamic properties of critical nuclei such as the sizes and concentration profiles of critical nuclei, and nucleation barrier. These properties are crucial for quantitative simulations of precipitate evolution kinetics with phase field models. Fe-Cr alloy was chosen as a model alloy because it has valid thermodynamic and kinetic data as well as it is an important structural material in nuclear reactors. A constrained shrinking dimer dynamics (CSDD) method was developed to search for the energy minimum path during nucleation. With the method we are able to predict the concentration profiles of the critical nuclei of Cr-rich precipitates and nucleation energy barriers. Simulations showed that Cr concentration distribution in the critical nucleus strongly depends on the overall Cr concentration as well as temperature. The Cr concentration inside the critical nucleus is much smaller than the equilibrium concentration calculated by the equilibrium phase diagram. This implies that a non-classical nucleation theory should be used to deal with the nucleation of Cr precipitates in Fe-Cr alloys. The growth kinetics of both classical and non-classical nuclei was investigated by the phase field approach. A number of interesting phenomena were observed from the simulations: 1) a critical classical nucleus first shrinks toward its non-classical nucleus and then grows; 2) a non-classical nucleus has much slower growth kinetics at its earlier growth stage compared to the diffusion-controlled growth kinetics. 3) a critical classical nucleus grows faster at the earlier growth stage than the non-classical nucleus. All of these results demonstrated that it is critical to introduce the correct critical nuclei into phase field modeling in order to correctly capture the kinetics of precipitation. In most alloys the matrix phase and precipitate phase have different concentrations as well as different crystal structures. For example, Cu precipitates in FeCu alloys have fcc crystal structure while the matrix Fe-Cu solid solution has bcc structure at low temperature. The WBM model and KimS model, where both concentrations and order parameters are chosen to describe the microstructures, are commonly used to model precipitations in such alloys. The WBM and KimS models have not been implemented into Marmot yet. In the second part of this report, we focused on implementing the WBM and KimS models into Marmot. The Fe-Cu alloys, which are important structure materials in nuclear reactors, was taken as the model alloys to test the models.

Fe Alloys↗
DOE OSTI2013

Search for lightly ionizing particles using CDMS-II data and fabrication of CDMS detectors with improved homogeneity in properties

Fundamental particles are always observed to carry charges which are integral multiples of one-third charge of electron, e/3. While this is a well established experimental fact, the theoretical understanding for the charge quantization phenomenon is lacking. On the other hand, there exist numerous theoretical models that naturally allow for existence of particles with fractional electromagnetic charge. These particles, if existing, hint towards existence of physics beyond the standard model. Multiple high energy, optical, cosmological and astrophysical considerations restrict the allowable mass-charge parameter space for these fractional charges. Still, a huge unexplored region remains. The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS-II), located at Soudan mines in northern Minnesota, employs germanium and silicon crystals to perform direct searches for a leading candidate to dark matter called Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). Alternately, the low detection threshold allows search for fractional electromagnetic-charged particles, or Lightly Ionizing Particles (LIPs), moving at relativistic speed. Background rejection is obtained by requiring that the magnitude and location of energy deposited in each detector be consistent with corresponding \signatures" resulting from the passage of a fractionally charged particle. In this dissertation, the CDMS-II data is analyzed to search for LIPs, with an expected background of 0.078 0.078 events. No candidate events are observed, allowing exclusion of new parameter space for charges between e/6 and e/200.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2015

Kinetic Physics of Homogeneous Turbulence in Collisionless Plasmas

We present results of large scale, fully kinetic 3D simulations of decaying plasma turbulence that span a range of scales from tens of ion gyroradii to the electron Debye length. A significant fraction of the dissipated energy is transferred to ions, in contrast to the scenario where the dominant dissipation is due to Landau damping of wave-like fluctuations. Intense current sheets are formed in the simulation with thicknesses over a range of scales approximately between electron and ion inertial scales. The rate of ion heating is well correlated with intermittency level. Geometrical analysis of the current sheets suggest that magnetic reconnection is active in the present simulation.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Novel Homogeneous Electrocatalysts for the Nitrogen Reduction Reaction

This project funded a broad range of fundamental studies in the research labs of Prof. John Berry at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. The overall goals of this research are to identify and explore promising new fundamental chemistry of metal-metal bonded coordination compounds in catalysis, with a particular focus on exploring the technologies needed for the transition to a nitrogen economy. We focus on two key technologies for this overall goal: Electrochemical synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and water, and Electrochemical ammonia oxidation to produce nitrogen. Ammonia is the most hydrogen-rich material known aside from hydrogen itself, and is therefore an ideal fuel unit. Currently, ammonia synthesis uses significant fossil fuel inputs, has a large carbon footprint, and is performed in large, centralized facilities, mandating the exploration of carbon-neutral approaches that can be done in a distributable manner so that ammonia transportation does not pose a bottleneck. Our work towards these goals is organized as follows: Goal 1: Synthesis and characterization of new catalysts and N2RR intermediates; Goal 2: Thermodynamic investigations of all catalysts and intermediates; Goal 3: Exploration of the electrocatalytic N¬2RR using new catalysts. We additionally made progress toward a related Goal 4: Exploration of new types of catalysts with other, cheaper transition metals. We had a major setback in year 1 of the grant due to the student driving this project (Tristan Brown) contracting an incurable disease that made it impossible for him to perform lab work. Tristan transitioned to a computational chemistry project and was subsequently able to complete his PhD.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2024

Theories of homogeneous and electrochemical electron transfer in complex media and interfaces (Final Technical Report)

This project makes the next step in establishing practical theories of charge transfer in complex media. The development of formal models is supported by extensive atomistic simulations, quantum calculations of force-field parameters, and direct measurements of charge-transfer spectra. All theory development is supported by experiment, extensive numerical simulations, and through external collaborations.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗