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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
NASA NTRS2012

Subscale Flight Testing for Aircraft Loss of Control: Accomplishments and Future Directions

Subscale flight-testing provides a means to validate both dynamic models and mitigation technologies in the high-risk flight conditions associated with aircraft loss of control. The Airborne Subscale Transport Aircraft Research (AirSTAR) facility was designed to be a flexible and efficient research facility to address this type of flight-testing. Over the last several years (2009-2011) it has been used to perform 58 research flights with an unmanned, remotely-piloted, dynamically-scaled airplane. This paper will present an overview of the facility and its architecture and summarize the experimental data collected. All flights to date have been conducted within visual range of a safety observer. Current plans for the facility include expanding the test volume to altitudes and distances well beyond visual range. The architecture and instrumentation changes associated with this upgrade will also be presented.

Cox, David E.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Initial dynamic photoactive materials testing of an atmospheric chamber intended for radioactive and hazardous gases

Radioisotopes and hazardous gases can have undetermined environmental pathways. Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory constructed a chamber that complies with the requirements needed for an atmospheric reaction platform and the safety principles of interacting with hazardous dispersible sources to enable the environmental testing of these gases. Initial dynamic testing showed inter-chamber mixing completed from minutes to 1.5 hours. The photooxidation of butyl iodine showed the presence of signals from reaction products, and intermediaries for up to 50 hours. Current detection limits of the chamber and analytical collection and testing approach were shown to be in the single-digit parts per billion levels. In conclusion, the comparisons between the measured oxidation trends and literature show the utility of performing laboratory experiments to validate the results of modeling for larger-scale scenarios.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2000

Physiological response of rats to delivery of helium and xenon: implications for hyperpolarized noble gas imaging

The physiological effects of various hyperpolarized helium and xenon MRI-compatible breathing protocols were investigated in 17 Sprague-Dawley rats, by continuous monitoring of blood oxygen saturation, heart rate, EKG, temperature and endotracheal pressure. The protocols included alternating breaths of pure noble gas and oxygen, continuous breaths of pure noble gas, breath-holds of pure noble gas for varying durations, and helium breath-holds preceded by two helium rinses. Alternate-breath protocols up to 128 breaths caused a decrease in oxygen saturation level of less than 5% for either helium or xenon, whereas 16 continuous-breaths caused a 31.5% +/- 2.3% decrease in oxygen saturation for helium and a 30.7% +/- 1. 3% decrease for xenon. Breath-hold protocols up to 25 s did not cause the oxygen saturation to fall below 90% for either of the noble gases. Oxygen saturation values below 90% are considered pathological. At 30 s of breath-hold, the blood oxygen saturation dropped precipitously to 82% +/- 0.6% for helium, and to 76.5% +/- 7. 4% for xenon. Breath-holds longer than 10 s preceded by pre-rinses caused oxygen saturation to drop below 90%. These findings demonstrate the need for standardized noble gas inhalation procedures that have been carefully tested, and for continuous physiological monitoring to ensure the safety of the subject. We find short breath-hold and alternate-breath protocols to be safe procedures for use in hyperpolarized noble gas MRI experiments. Copyright 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

NASA Discipline Life Sciences Technologies↗
DOE OSTI2021

Data‐Driven Safety Risk Prediction of Lithium‐Ion Battery

Abstract Inevitable safety issues have pushed battery engineers to become more conservative in battery system design; however, battery‐involved accidents still frequently are reported in headlines. Identifying, understanding, and predicting safety risks have become priorities to further accelerate technology and industry development. However, diverse loading scenarios, significantly varied stress‐induced short circuit mechanisms, and highly coupled mechanical–electrochemical safety behaviors have remained grand challenges. Herein, the safety risk is termed as the probability of the mechanical triggering of an internal short circuit, to reflect the safety related behaviors of lithium‐ion batteries. Based on a mechanical model and experimental results, a sufficient dataset is generated consisting of strain states and their corresponding safety risks, covering both cylindrical and pouch cells, various states of charges, and loading conditions. Machine‐learning tools combined with the established finite element mechanical model are applied to predict the safety risks of the cells. The results achieve a high level of accuracy on the test data (the relative error of the average short circuit prediction deviation is less than 6.2%.). This work underpins the safety risk concept and highlights the promise of physics combined with data‐driven modeling methodology to predict the safety behaviors of energy storage systems.

Jia, Yikai↗
NASA NTRS2000

Manufacturing and NDE of Large Composite Structures for Space Transportation at MSFC

This paper presents the Marshall Space Flight Center's (MSFC's) vision to manufacture, increase safety and reduce the cost of launch vehicles. Nondestructive evaluations of large composite structures are tested for space transportation at MSFC. The topics include: 1) 6 1/2 Generations of Airplanes in a Century; 2) Shuttle Safety Upgrades; 3) Generations of Reusable Launch Vehicles; 4) RLV Technology Demonstration Path; 5) Second Generation; 6) Key NASA Requirements; 7) X-33 Elements; 8) Future-X Pathfinder Projects and Experiments; 9) Focus Area Technical Goals; 10) X-34 Expanded View; 11) X-38 Spacecraft with De-Orbit Propulsion Stage (DPS); 12) Deorbit Module (DM) Critical Design Review (CDR) Design; 13) Forward Structural Adapter (FSA) CDR Design; 14) X-38 DPS CDR Design; 15) RLV Focused Propulsion Technologies; and 16) Challenges in Technology. This paper is presented in viewgraph form.

McGill, Preston↗
NASA NTRS2015

Formal Foundations for Hierarchical Safety Cases

Safety cases are increasingly being required in many safety-critical domains to assure, using structured argumentation and evidence, that a system is acceptably safe. However, comprehensive system-wide safety arguments present appreciable challenges to develop, understand, evaluate, and manage, partly due to the volume of information that they aggregate, such as the results of hazard analysis, requirements analysis, testing, formal verification, and other engineering activities. Previously, we have proposed hierarchical safety cases, hicases, to aid the comprehension of safety case argument structures. In this paper, we build on a formal notion of safety case to formalise the use of hierarchy as a structuring technique, and show that hicases satisfy several desirable properties. Our aim is to provide a formal, theoretical foundation for safety cases. In particular, we believe that tools for high assurance systems should be granted similar assurance to the systems to which they are applied. To this end, we formally specify and prove the correctness of key operations for constructing and managing hicases, which gives the specification for implementing hicases in AdvoCATE, our toolset for safety case automation. We motivate and explain the theory with the help of a simple running example, extracted from a real safety case and developed using AdvoCATE.

Hierarchy↗
DOE OSTI2025

Forced flow transient safety analysis of irradiation device with adjustable orifice for research reactor fuel assemblies

The Belgium Reactor 2 (BR2) of the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK CEN) has several irradiation devices or rigs that are dedicated to the fuel performance and qualification demonstration testing of research reactor fuels. In support of the U.S. High Performance Research Reactor (USHPRR) LEU conversion project, a new flexible irradiation apparatus, MUSTANG-R, has been constructed. SCK CEN has completed the design and safety study, in cooperation with Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), to allow for the irradiation testing of a full-size fuel assembly in a 200 mm diameter channel in the BR2 reactor. The moveable valve is a key design feature of the device and acts like an adjustable orifice enhancing or restricting the flow through a coolant channel inlet located in the BR2 upper plenum. This moveable valve allows the flow through the device to be adjusted prior to each BR2 cycle to obtain the necessary conditions for the fuel qualification test. This ensures accurate and representative thermal-hydraulic conditions of the fuel design are achieved. The device was designed and qualified as passively safe, implying verification by a combination of mechanical and thermal-hydraulic analysis and testing. This includes characterization of the safety margin required for a scenario where the moveable valve is assumed to be erroneously closed during irradiation. A simplified and conservative method is proposed for analyzing the corresponding forced flow transient using a critical heat flux criterion. In conclusion, this allows the required minimum valve opening to be determined for the experiments' design and safety studies.

11 - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Rapid Electrochemical Diagnosis of Battery Health and Safety from Cells to Modules

Rapid electrochemical diagnosis of battery health and failure is critical for ensuring reliable battery performance and battery safety. Traditional battery health diagnostics such as capacity measurements and DC pulse tests are reliable and well-understood, however, these measurements of battery capacity and resistance do not capture all aspects of battery degradation. Other aspects of degradation, such as electrolyte decomposition, lithium-plating, and particle cracking are difficult to detect electrochemically but are crucial to measure to get a full picture of battery safety and flag out potential failures. In this work, lab- and field-aged commercial lithium-ion batteries and modules of various chemistries and formats are tested using a variety of traditional electrochemical characterization methods as well as using 2-minute pseudo-random DC pulse sequences at rest and during charge/discharge. The electrochemical measurements are compared to physical cell measurements, cell efficiency, drive cycle performance, physical and thermal heterogeneity, and qualitative safety metrics using statistical and machine-learning methods to discover if a comprehensive "battery health map" can be accurately identified using only rapid DC measurements.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY STORAGE↗
NASA NTRS2016

S&MA Internship to Support Orion and the European Service Module

As a University Space Research Association (USRA) intern for NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) during the summer 2016 work term, I worked on three main projects for the Space Exploration Division (NC) of the Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA) Directorate. I worked on all three projects concurrently. One of the projects involved facilitating the status and closure of technical actions that were created during European Service Module (ESM) safety reviews by the MPCV Safety & Engineering Review Panel (MSERP). The two main duties included accurately collecting and summarizing qualitative data, and communicating that information to the European Space Agency (ESA) and Airbus (ESA's prime contractor) in a clear, succinct and precise manner. This project also required that I create a report on the challenges and opportunities of international S&MA. With its heavy emphasis on soft skills, this project taught me how to communicate better, by showing me how to present and share information in an easy-to-read and understandable format, and by showing me how to cooperate with and culturally respect international partners on a technical project. The second project involved working with the Orion Thermal Protection System (TPS) Process Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (PFMEA) Working Group to create the first full version of the Orion TPS PFMEA. The Orion TPS PFMEA Working Group met twice a week to analyze the Avcoat block installation process for failure modes, the failure modes effects, and how such failure modes could be controlled. I was in charge of implementing changes that were discussed in meeting, but were not implemented real time. Another major task included creating a significant portion of the content alongside another team member outside the two weekly meetings. This project caused me to become knowledgeable about TPS, heatshields, space-rated manufacturing, and non-destructive evaluation (NDE). The project also helped me to become better at working with a small team and helped improved my technical communication skills. My main duty for the third project was creating a Safety Verification Tracking Log (SVTL) for the Orbital Maneuvering System Engine (OMS-E), and contacting subject matter experts to close Hazard Report (HR) control verifications. This project also required me to support other OMS-E safety process tasks, like monitoring OMS-E vibration testing for Quality Assurance (QA) purposes. This project helped me become even more proficient in Excel. Throughout the project, I gained knowledge about the OMS-E system and improved my understanding of pressure systems and propellant systems. In terms of education goals, this work term has affirmed my desire to take a few more space-related courses, like orbital mechanics, so that I can have a better understanding of human spaceflight and the industry surrounding it. However, the work term did not persuade me to pursue a master's degree. In terms of career goals, this work term has helped me clarify the direction I would like to head in the future. The perspective of three summer terms working for NASA in S&MA has allowed me to observe that most S&MA employees joined S&MA after working in other NASA directorates, such as Engineering or Flight Operations. It is my belief that it would be advantageous for both NASA and I for me to broaden my knowledge base and technical skill set by completing hands-on technical work on human spaceflight projects, and for me to integrate my safety experience directly into technical work in other directorates. The other significant advantage to this proposed situation is that if I were to eventually return to S&MA, I would be returning with a substantial set of hands-on technical experience and knowledge, which would be a significant resource for S&MA tasks and projects.

Hutcheson, Connor↗
DOE OSTI2024

Uncertainty Propagation from Experiment Measurements to Modeling Approaches: A Case for SMR Steam Entrainment Testing

To license new and advanced reactor designs, regulators must be convinced that their unique safety cases—relative to existing large scale reactors—have been adequately addressed by the designed reactor protection systems. In water cooled small modular reactors (SMRs), droplet entrainment in steam flow has significant implications on the progression of accident scenarios due to its compact design features, which requires representative test data applicable to SMR designs. Computer code, modeling and simulation (M&S) tools and models require adequate verification, assessment, and qualification. This includes M&S results validation against scaled empirical data within allowable uncertainty bands to gain regulatory approvals during the various stages of reactor system design, demonstration, and commercialization. However, measurement uncertainty within the empirical datasets and test data applicability ranges requires careful consideration of M&S inputs (i.e., boundary conditions, and initial conditions), and verification and validation efforts. This study focuses on uncertainty quantification in designing scaled test facilities for SMR applications with appropriate measurements and a standard data-reduction method to estimate thermal hydraulics characteristics parameters that incorporate physics phenomena of interest. In addition, this study supports the evaluation model development and assessment process using M&S that interfaces with advanced computing tools and digital twin capabilities. This will allow synchronization between experiment and modeling approaches for droplet entrainment testing and analysis, improving diagnostics, prognostics, and decision-making to accelerate regulatory approval.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The NASA JSC Hypervelocity Impact Technology (HVIT) Office

The Hypervelocity Impact Technology (HVIT) office at the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) Johnson Space Center (JSC) is dedicated to support NASA flight programs in meeting their meteoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) protection requirements both efficiently and effectively, with a minimum of shielding mass, volume, and cost. This paper provides an overview of HVIT capabilities in providing hypervelocity tests, analyses, MMOD risk assessments and shielding expertise. HVIT personnel work closely with NASA program and safety/mission assurance personnel to develop program-specific MMOD protection requirements which are both achievable based on initial risk assessments and will meet overall safety and mission success requirements. HVIT then proceeds with hypervelocity impact testing and hydrocode assessments to update and verify ballistic limit equations used in the MMOD risk assessment. Hypervelocity impact tests are primarily performed at the NASA WSTF Remote Hypervelocity Test Laboratory (RHTL). Other hypervelocity facilities that provide complementary test capabilities are called on when necessary to fill data gaps. The goal of the final pre-flight MMOD risk assessment is to show compliance with MMOD requirements prior to flight. This final assessment will also incorporate changes in the MMOD environment from meteoroid showers and orbital debris breakups. After the mission is flown, post-flight inspections are performed by HVIT to document and trend MMOD damage to returned spacecraft surfaces and hardware. HVIT accomplishments in NASA mission support are described. In addition, current HVIT activities to aid on-going NASA crewed missions and science missions are presented.

Meteoroid↗
NASA NTRS2006

Large-Scale Hybrid Motor Testing

Hybrid rocket motors can be successfully demonstrated at a small scale virtually anywhere. There have been many suitcase sized portable test stands assembled for demonstration of hybrids. They show the safety of hybrid rockets to the audiences. These small show motors and small laboratory scale motors can give comparative burn rate data for development of different fuel/oxidizer combinations, however questions that are always asked when hybrids are mentioned for large scale applications are - how do they scale and has it been shown in a large motor? To answer those questions, large scale motor testing is required to verify the hybrid motor at its true size. The necessity to conduct large-scale hybrid rocket motor tests to validate the burn rate from the small motors to application size has been documented in several place^'^^.^. Comparison of small scale hybrid data to that of larger scale data indicates that the fuel burn rate goes down with increasing port size, even with the same oxidizer flux. This trend holds for conventional hybrid motors with forward oxidizer injection and HTPB based fuels. While the reason this is occurring would make a great paper or study or thesis, it is not thoroughly understood at this time. Potential causes include the fact that since hybrid combustion is boundary layer driven, the larger port sizes reduce the interaction (radiation, mixing and heat transfer) from the core region of the port. This chapter focuses on some of the large, prototype sized testing of hybrid motors. The largest motors tested have been AMROC s 250K-lbf thrust motor at Edwards Air Force Base and the Hybrid Propulsion Demonstration Program s 250K-lbf thrust motor at Stennis Space Center. Numerous smaller tests were performed to support the burn rate, stability and scaling concepts that went into the development of those large motors.

Story, George↗
NASA NTRS1976

Zero-G flight test of a gauging system. Volume 1: Summary

The capability of a nucleonic gauging system to gauge the content of a reduced-scale storable liquid tank in a zero-g environment as provided by a KC-135 Zero-G Aircraft was demonstrated. Although the propellant-ullage interface never achieved the stable, zero-g equilibrium configuration, the gauging system gauged liquid quantity over all tank loadings to a total system accuracy the order of two percent. It was also determined that the gauging system presented no undue safety hazard to operating personnel in either ground and/or flight testing.

Source record↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Icing Physics Studies Using the 3D SIDRM Test Article: Aerodynamic and Supercooled Liquid Icing Analysis

In-flight icing is an important safety issue and is a factor that affects aircraft design and performance. Newer regulations are driving a need for improvements in airframe and engine icing simulation capability. Experimental data is required for development of icing physics models and simulation validation. To that end, this paper discusses analyzed data from icing tests conducted with a 3D test article in 2022 at the NASA Icing Research Tunnel. The test article, whose geometry is representative of an inter-compressor duct and strut region of a turbofan engine, has been designed and constructed to study the physics of supercooled water icing and ice crystal icing. The surfaces of the Simulated Inter-compressor Duct Research Model (SIDRM) can be heated to simulate the warm surfaces of the turbofan inter-compressor duct. The test article is instrumented with pressure taps, heaters, heat flux gauges, and thermocouples, while a 3D laser scanner, cameras, and a scale to measure ice mass were utilized to characterize the icing behavior. The aim of these tests was to generate ice accretions on the SIDRM test article under well-characterized supercooled liquid icing and ice crystal icing conditions. This paper discusses measurements related to aerodynamic tests and supercooled liquid icing tests that were conducted. Aerodynamic measurements were analyzed and compared to computational simulations and were found to be in good agreement for the range of airspeeds (50 to 230 knots) and angles of attack (0 to 4°) tested. Various parametric sweeps were conducted during the supercooled liquid icing portion of the test entry (cloud median volumetric diameter ranged from 15 to 90 µm, total air temperature from -3 to -17 °C, angle of attack from 0 to 4°, and accretion time from 5 to 20 min). These sweeps were performed to measure that parameter’s impact on ice accretion size, location, characteristics (such as glaze/rime ice and shedding behavior), and test article surface temperature. Analysis of the test data showed that clouds composed of larger drops, colder air temperatures, smaller angles of attack, and longer spray times were the primary parameters that resulted in accretions with greater ice mass. Test article angle of attack and cloud droplet size influenced the location of ice accretion as these two parameters directly impact collection efficiency. With respect to icing characteristics, total air temperature dictated icing type, and smaller cloud drop size along with warmer air temperatures resulted in greater amounts of ice shedding. Surface temperature increased during ice accretion from the release of latent (fusion) heat, where total air temperature and cloud drop size impacted the amount of surface temperature change. The icing measurements collected during the SIDRM tests will be used to develop and validate 3D computational engine icing tools, such as GlennICE, that predictively assesses the onset and growth of ice. One of the goals of the sponsoring NASA project is to develop simulation models and tools that can assist in the design and certification of engines for flight in icing conditions in a cost‑effective way.

supercooled liquid icing↗
DOE OSTI2023

Evaluation of Nuclear Spent Fuel Disposal in Clay-Bearing Rock - Process Model Development and Experimental Studies

This report represents the milestone deliverable M2SF-23SN010301072 “Evaluation of Nuclear Spent Fuel Disposal in Clay-Bearing Rock - Process Model Development and Experimental Studies” The report provides a status update of FY23 activities for the work package Argillite Disposal work packages for the DOE-NE Spent Fuel Waste Form Science and Technology (SFWST) Program. Clay-rich geological media (often referred as shale or argillite) are among the most abundant type of sedimentary rock near the Earth’s surface. Argillaceous rock formations have the following advantageous attributes for deep geological nuclear waste disposal: widespread geologic occurrence, found in stable geologic settings, low permeability, self-sealing properties, low effective diffusion coefficient, high sorption capacity, and have the appropriate depth and thickness to host nuclear waste repository concepts. The DOE R&D program under the Spent Fuel Waste Science Technology (SFWST) campaign has made key progress (through experiment, modeling, and testing) in the study of chemical and physical phenomena that could impact the long-term safety assessment of heat-generating nuclear waste disposition in clay/shale/argillaceous rock. International collaboration activities comprising field-scale heater tests, field data monitoring, and laboratory-scale experiments provide key information on changes to the engineered barrier system (EBS) material exposed high thermal loads. Moreover, consideration of direct disposal of large capacity dual-purpose canisters (DPCs) as part of the back-end SNF waste disposition strategy has generated interest in improving our understanding of the effects of elevated temperatures on the engineered barrier system (EBS) design concepts. Chemical and structural analyses of sampled bentonite material from laboratory tests at elevated temperatures are key to the characterization of thermal effects affecting bentonite clay barrier performance. The knowledge provided by these experiments is crucial to constrain the extent of sacrificial zones in the EBS design during the thermal period. Thermal, hydrologic, mechanical, and chemical (THMC) data collected from heater tests and laboratory experiments have been used in the development, validation, and calibration of THMC simulators to model near-field coupled processes. This information leads to the development of simulation approaches to assess issues on coupled processes involving porous media flow, transport, geomechanical phenomena, chemical interactions with barrier/geologic materials, and the development of EBS concepts. These lines of knowledge are central to the design of deep geological backfilled repository concepts where temperature plays a key role in the EBS behavior, potential interactions with host rock, and long-term performance in the safety assessment.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2022

The response of accident tolerant fuel cladding to LOCA burst testing: A comparative study of leading concepts

Accident tolerant fuel claddings seek to improve safety margins during loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) scenarios by reducing cladding steam oxidation rates, hydrogen production, delaying or mitigating cladding burst, and reducing cladding deformation. After rapid and extensive progress in recent years, Cr coated Zr-based alloys, ferritic FeCrAl, and SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) have emerged as the most promising cladding concepts, but there are few studies comparing the accident tolerance of all three concepts simultaneously. Here, in this study, LOCA burst testing has been conducted on Cr high impulse power magnetron sputtered Zry-4 (Cr/Zry-4), C26M (FeCrAl), and SiC/SiC SiGA (CMC). Experimental observations indicate Cr/Zry-4 burst at higher temperatures than Zry-4 however the effectiveness of the coating on mitigating ZrO 2 formation via Cr 2 O 3 formation depended on physical proximity to the burst opening. No dramatic improvement in diametrical strain nor opening geometry was observed. C26M burst at higher temperatures than Zry-4 at lower pressures, exhibiting small amounts of strain and smaller openings, and formed slow-growing Al 2 O 3 regardless of location. The CMCs did not burst or show any macroscopic signs of deformation, all the way up to an internal cladding pressure of 15.2 MPa. High temperature expanding Nb plug testing indicated that CMC room temperature strength may persist up to 1650°C, with an approximately 40% loss of strength at 1900°C. CMC steam oxidation was also compared to reference chemically vapor deposited SiC up to 1700°C, and CMCs were found to oxidize at slightly accelerated rates that were still orders of magnitude lower than bare Zry-4. Projected H 2 generation during LOCA burst testing showed that when accounting for cladding burst exposing inner diameters to steam, Cr coated Zry-4 reduced H 2 generation by a factor of two compared with bare Zry-4, while both C26M and SiC/SiC reduced H 2 generation by orders of magnitude relative to bare Zry-4.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Integral and Separate Effects Test Facilities To Support Water Cooled Small Modular Reactors: A Review

This study reviews previous experimental facilities and test programs relevant to water-cooled reactor system design and analysis to meet regulatory compliances. This study aims to find the best solution for designing the required experiments, obtaining necessary test data, and verifying the developed computer code/models to support the new reactor design and development while minimizing cost and time while leveraging experiences from previous facilities to minimize. Nuclear reactor licensing requires supportive design, analysis, and experimental results to ensure the safety of the full-scale prototype reactor in regular operation, as well as during postulated accident scenarios. These reactor design analyses are generally performed using system codes and other associated simulation tools that require assessment, verification and validation using an appropriate experimental dataset. Experimental facilities used for reactor system safety analysis and system code assessments are categorized into integral effects test (IET) and separate effects test (SET) facilities. Further, these IET and SET experiments and studies use geometrically scaled systems to reproduce the prototype system behavior at a reasonable cost, albeit with some scaling-related distortions. The design challenge of these model facilities is to identify and minimize scaling distortions while reproducing the most important operational phenomena in steady-state operation and in postulated accident scenarios. Lessons learned from previous experimental facilities, models, and correlations can support the development of new multipurpose, scaled, hybrid, integrated, and modular experimental facilities for advanced light water-cooled small modular reactors (SMRs). Successful operation of these facilities can significantly reduce upfront reactor development and demonstration costs and time to deployment.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
NASA NTRS2015

AdvoCATE - User Guide

The basic vision of AdvoCATE is to automate the creation, manipulation, and management of large-scale assurance cases based on a formal theory of argument structures. Its main purposes are for creating and manipulating argument structures for safety assurance cases using the Goal Structuring Notation (GSN), and as a test bed and proof-of-concept for the formal theory of argument structures. AdvoCATE is available for Windows 7, Macintosh OSX, and Linux. Eventually, AdvoCATE will serve as a dashboard for safety related information and provide an infrastructure for safety decisions and management.

Safety Case↗