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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2017

Impact of Active Climate Control Seats on Energy Use, Fuel Use, and CO2 Emissions

A project was developed through collaboration between Gentherm and NREL to determine the impact of climate control seats for light-duty vehicles in the United States. The project used a combination of experimentation and analysis, with experimental results providing critical input to the analysis process. First, outdoor stationary vehicle testing was performed at NREL's facility in Golden, CO using multiple occupants. Two pre-production Ford Focus electric vehicles were used for testing; one containing a standard inactive seat and the second vehicle containing a Gentherm climate control seat. Multiple maximum cool-down and steady-state cooling tests were performed in late summer conditions. The two vehicles were used to determine the increase in cabin temperature when using the climate control seat in comparison to the baseline vehicle cabin temperature with a standard seat at the equivalent occupant whole-body sensation. The experiments estimated that on average, the climate control seats allowed for a 2.61 degrees Celsius increase in vehicle cabin temperature at equivalent occupant body sensation compared to the baseline vehicle. The increased cabin air temperature along with their measured energy usage were then used as inputs to the national analysis process. The national analysis process was constructed from full vehicle cabin, HVAC, and propulsion models previously developed by NREL. In addition, three representative vehicle platforms, vehicle usage patterns, and vehicle registration weighted environmental data were integrated into the analysis process. Both the baseline vehicle and the vehicle with climate control seats were simulated, using the experimentally determined cabin temperature offset of 2.61degrees Celsius and added seat energy as inputs to the climate control seat vehicle model. The U.S. composite annual fuel use savings for the climate control seats over the baseline A/C system was determined to be 5.1 gallons of gasoline per year per vehicle, corresponding to 4.0 grams of CO2/mile savings. Finally, the potential impact of 100 percent adoption of climate control seats on U.S. light-duty fleet A/C fuel use was calculated to be 1.3 billion gallons of gasoline annually with a corresponding CO2 emissions reduction of 12.7 million tons. Direct comparison of the impact of the CCS to the ventilated seat off-cycle credit was not possible because the NREL analysis calculated a combined car/truck savings and the baseline A/C CO2 emissions were higher than EPA. To enable comparison, the CCS national A/C CO2 emissions were split into car/truck components and the ventilated seat credit was scaled up. The split CO2 emissions savings due to the CCS were 3.5 g/mi for a car and 4.4 g/mi for a truck. The CCS saved an additional 2.0 g/mi and 2.5 g/mi over the adjusted ventilated seat credit for a car and truck, respectively.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Decarbonization Scenarios in the United States: Comparing Biofuels Growth in Two Models - GCAM and BSM

Scenarios for deep decarbonization rely on biomass for biofuels, biopower, and bioproducts, often including negative emissions via carbon capture and storage or utilization. Despite the prominence of biomass in many deep decarbonization pathways, critical questions remain about biomass allocation, effects of transportation electrification, the pace of growth, and implications for agriculture and land use. We address these questions through a unique comparison of carbon pricing effects on the growth of biomass utilization and its effects on land use in the United States by comparing results from a multisectoral integrated assessment model, the Global Change Analysis Model [GCAM], with results from a biomass-to-biofuels system dynamics model, the Biomass Scenario Model [BSM]. We contribute to model comparison efforts by analyzing the biomass deployment needed for a scenario consistent with a "Middle of the Road" Shared Socioeconomic Pathway [SSP2] and a representative concentration pathway of 2.6 W/m2. The GCAM scenarios solve for global equilibrium conditions that are consistent with this pathway, including demands for biomass across all economic sectors and representing bioenergy with carbon capture and storage as a technology option. The BSM scenarios assess those biomass and biofuel results for the United States and identify challenges associated with that pace and amount of expansion. In the scenario analysis, we harmonize key factors such as carbon price trajectory, domestic ethanol fuel demand, ethanol blending, and arable land availability, and vary them in both models. In GCAM, we vary the carbon price, transportation electrification, ethanol blending constraints, and arable land availability inputs and the value of the carbon in land; in BSM, in addition to directly inputting certain GCAM results, we vary the maximum rate of biorefinery construction, flexibility of feedstock types across conversion processes, and policy incentives such as tax credits and renewable identification number payments. The selected carbon price trajectory results in a rapid increase in biofuel production in the United States, reaching about 9.4 EJ/year in 2060 in the highest scenario analyzed in GCAM. Results differ between the two models in timing and ultimate quantity of biomass and biofuel production. GCAM biofuel quantities generally exceed BSM amounts because CCS is applied to biofuel pathways in GCAM, and because of differences in capacity expansion and related dynamics of land allocation, biomass production, and price dynamics. These dynamics include rapid biorefinery capacity expansion in high demand cases. To satisfy this biomass demand, GCAM rapidly equilibrates land allocation, but the BSM limits the rate at which this re-allocation can occur. A further contrast with the equilibrium approach in GCAM is that the BSM represents a delay between planting and harvesting woody biomass resources. As a result of these model contrasts, feedstock costs in BSM increase more than in GCAM, and the absence of CCS in the BSM also reduces the relative economic attractiveness of biofuels production. The bottlenecks, lags, and price increases also lead to potential for volatility in feedstock price and land allocation to biomass in the BSM. GCAM has more biomass production than BSM in all scenarios, partly because of the broader, economy-wide coverage of GCAM, in contrast to BSM's exclusive focus on biofuels. In both models, trends like those of biofuels production were observed for biomass production: minimal growth without a carbon price and policy incentives, and increases with a carbon price, particularly with carbon capture and storage, because the inputs assume that biopower and biofuels decrease greenhouse gas emissions. In high policy scenarios, biomass demand is high, and the consequent high biomass prices due to the land re-allocation bottleneck in the BSM limit biofuel production even if the biorefinery capacity is expanded. However, because biomass prices do not increase as much in the low policy scenario, growth is slower and the land-reallocation bottleneck no longer dominates, such that the effect of increased capacity can be seen. Across both the models, a change in assumptions from less to more land availability increases biofuel production in both GCAM and BSM, as the upward pressure on feedstock price and volatility are both reduced.

biofuels↗
DOE OSTI2019

Keep It Smart and Simple - Henriette - The Advanced Designed Drum Gripper for Remote Handling Tasks - 19327

A power manipulator has many applications in the handling, treatment and packaging of radioactive waste. In high radiation environments, where humans cannot work safely, a power manipulator is essential to perform difficult and heavy tasks. For more than 40 years, Waelischmiller has provided power manipulators to the nuclear market. Specifically in a high radiation nuclear environment, electrical driven manipulators are preferred. The basic design of a power manipulator is divided into the following parts: Bridge, carriage, telescopic mast and manipulator arm. All parts are customizable in length, width and capacity. The standard power manipulator version is equipped with a manipulator arm. For the nuclear waste disposal industry, there is a special need for a drum gripper. Drums are used for packing low, medium or high activated material and for storage. After packing, the drums must be handled remotely. For both tasks, a power manipulator with a drum gripper is needed. For this project KTE (Kerntechnische Entsorgung Karlsruhe GmbH) required a total refurbishment of equipment in a cell used for handling, sorting and packaging radioactive waste drums. The power manipulator was obsolete and provided low availability and through put. This cell was an essential asset in their decommissioning process and was impacting KTE's ability to meet their volume objectives. Our challenge was to develop a new system with few details from the original cell construction. The new manipulator must meet all capabilities of the old system and in addition have the ability to achieve 180 degree tilting of the drums. An additional challenge was the requirement to use the existing rails in the cell which were very close to the roof structure which required a special design. Our project, named internally Henriette, is the first of its kind. The drum gripper is based on the power manipulator A1000 series. The biggest challenges in this project were to adapt the standard components of the power manipulator to the non-standard type of gripper to have 180 deg. tilting of the drum and a handling capacity of 1200 kg in the whole working range. The new manipulator fits to the old rails and is mountable in a hot cell with restricted access and can operate with the other A1000 manipulator which is located in the cell. The result is a system with no external wiring, maintenance-free and easy to decontaminate. Other features include a 5 t auxiliary hoist on additional and parallel carriages, emergency drives for bridge and carriage, emergency drive for telescope turn movement and emergency lifting unit for telescope. A tilt and pan holder for camera on the telescope and external mechanical emergency drives on the gripper were also essential. This paper will address the complexity, challenges and engineering ingenuity required to replace very old and obsolete equipment with a state-of-the-art system within very limited physical space and within a high radiation environment. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2026

Peering down the barrel with DESI DR2: 10 000+ inflows at $z$ < 0.6 reveal how galaxies accrete cold gas

Direct observational constraints on how galaxies acquire their gas remain remarkably limited, hindering our understanding of the baryon cycle. We present a search for down-the-barrel NaI D absorption towards 15.6 million galaxies at $z < 0.6$ in DESI Data Release 2. We use Bayesian evidence ratios to assess whether the absorption requires additional components tracing interstellar gas distinct from the systemic component of the galaxy. We construct a catalogue of 50 088 (27 420) galaxies with moderate (strong) evidence for down-the-barrel absorption. The inferred absorption components are broadly distributed in velocity, with approximately 50% at $v_{\rm flow} < -50$ km/s, 30% within 50 km/s of the systemic velocity and the remaining 20% at $v_{\rm flow} > 50$ km/s. We find strong evidence for a large population of low-velocity, infalling absorbers with velocities $\sim$20 km/s in edge-on galaxies, consistent with radial inflows predicted in simulations. The stronger correlation in early-type galaxies between inflow velocity and stellar velocity dispersion, compared to that with stellar mass, suggests that a portion of these inflows may be associated with accreting satellites. These results reveal the multiple pathways in which galaxies accrete gas at redshift $z < 0.6$ for the first time in a statistically significant sample.

Weng, S. [Marseille, Lab. Astrophys.]↗
DOE OSTI2013

Technical Support Document: Development of the Advanced Energy Design Guide for Large Hospitals - 50% Energy Savings

This Technical Support Document describes the process and methodology for the development of the Advanced Energy Design Guide for Large Hospitals: Achieving 50% Energy Savings Toward a Net Zero Energy Building (AEDG-LH) ASHRAE et al. (2011b). The AEDG-LH is intended to provide recommendations for achieving 50% whole-building energy savings in large hospitals over levels achieved by following Standard 90.1-2004. The AEDG-LH was created for a 'standard' mid- to large-size hospital, typically at least 100,000 ft2, but the strategies apply to all sizes and classifications of new construction hospital buildings. Its primary focus is new construction, but recommendations may be applicable to facilities undergoing total renovation, and in part to many other hospital renovation, addition, remodeling, and modernization projects (including changes to one or more systems in existing buildings).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2023

U.S. Offshore Wind Energy Noise Reduction Associated with Installation of Fixed-Bottom Foundations: Workshop Report

As offshore wind energy development grows in the United States, solutions are needed to reduce the underwater noise and substrate vibration generated during fixed-bottom turbine installation to help protect marine life. Monopiles are currently the main turbine foundation type installed globally and impact pile driving, the primary installation method, can be a major source of noise and vibration generation during wind farm construction. Opportunities exist to reduce the amount of noise and vibration produced during future offshore wind farm development. The use of alternative foundation types and installation methods, as well as innovative noise abatement technologies, would help reduce the potential detrimental effects on sensitive marine species. To explore these opportunities, the Department of Energy’s Wind Energy Technologies Office, in collaboration with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, funded the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to organize, host, and facilitate a virtual workshop in December 2022. The goal of the workshop was to gather input from the offshore wind energy community on noise reduction strategies for the installation of fixed-bottom offshore wind turbines in U.S. waters across multiple regions, including the U.S. Atlantic Coast, Gulf of Mexico, and Great Lakes to inform recommendations on future research. The joint lab team convened industry representatives, subject matter experts, and regulators to discuss potential pathways to reduce noise and vibration associated with fixed-bottom turbine installation, including the practicality of using alternative foundations and installation methods, the effectiveness of noise abatement technologies, as well as research and monitoring needs. In preparation for the workshop, the team invited experts to be part of a steering committee and worked with its members to help focus activities to meet the workshop goals. Additional pre-workshop activities included developing the invitee list and workshop agenda, reviewing existing Construction and Operations Plans (COP) for proposed offshore wind projects, distributing a brief questionnaire to industry representatives, and drafting the workshop discussion questions and Mural boards. In total, 128 workshop participants provided over 600 comments in response to the 17 group discussion questions used over two workshop sessions. Overarching recommendations highlighted across themes included future investments to provide data sharing, consistency, transparency, and opportunities for sharing best available science, knowledge, and expertise. The joint lab team synthesized the comments and identified four key research and development themes that could help advance the successful implementation of noise and vibration reduction strategies (see report). This report provides an overview of the workshop goals and scope, reviews the pre-workshop activities, presents brief summaries of participant feedback, and concludes with detailed research themes and recommendations for future investments. Appendix A includes the group discussion questions, Appendix B includes the results of the COP review, and Appendix C includes the results of the industry questionnaire. Overall, there was a high level of interest and engagement in the workshop. The sessions provided an opportunity for significant exchange of information between workshop participants from across sectors. Participants identified a variety of opportunities for next steps towards the noise reduction of offshore wind turbine installation in U.S. waters, including recommendations for future investments to provide certainty in the use of new technologies associated with alternative foundation types, noise abatement systems, and efficacy monitoring.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Methods for Assessing Opportunities for Ring Dam Pumped Storage Hydropower

There is growing interest in new pumped storage hydropower (PSH) deployment to provide a range of grid flexibility, reliability, and resiliency services under an evolving and uncertain future power sector. The National Laboratory of the Rockies develops open PSH resource assessment and cost modeling tools to help evaluate PSH deployment opportunities, and this report describes expansions to those tools to consider an additional PSH system configuration - ring-dam reservoirs built on flat topographical features that are constructed from roller-compacted concrete material. This reservoir type is common among current PSH proposals and requires new methods to identify sites with this reservoir geometry throughout the United States and characterize the associated dam cost. Cost characterization for ring dam reservoirs required collecting historical dam cost data for earthen, rockfill, and roller-compacted concrete dams and regressing equations that relate costs between alternative materials. The ring dam site identification algorithm follows a 5-step procedure to identify circular geometry reservoirs. Once ring dam reservoirs are identified, they are then paired with potential dry-gully reservoirs, and the full set of potential paired reservoirs is cost-optimized to produce a least-cost set of potential PSH sites with no overlapping reservoirs. The resulting analysis found 1,663 ring-dam to dry-gully systems in the contiguous United States that are lower cost than any overlapping dry-gully to dry-gully systems, 29 in Alaska, and none in Hawaii or Puerto Rico. These systems constitute 1.5 TW of capacity in the contiguous United States and nearly 29 GW in Alaska, demonstrating that under suitable topography and head, ring-dam systems can provide cost-effective PSH opportunities. The greatest density of these opportunities are found in the intermountain west where there are mesas and flat land at bases of mountain ranges, but continued work could incorporate additional site characteristics or consider more complex reservoir shapes to find additional PSH deployment opportunities.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Web-Based Computational Model Builder For Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (Final Report)

According to the World Nuclear Association, the U.S. is the largest producer of nuclear power worldwide. In fact, the U.S. provides over 30 percent of the world's nuclear generation of electricity. Although few new reactors have been built in the past 30 years, the association anticipates that four to six reactors may be built by 2020. The first of the reactors will be built in response to 16 license applications, which have been completed since 2007, to build 24 additional nuclear reactors. Currently, both government and industry are working to accelerate approval for the construction and design of new nuclear energy plants. The U.S. nuclear industry has already achieved significant developments in the implementation of nuclear power plants due to advancements in refueling, maintenance, and safety systems at current power plants. Meanwhile, changes in government policy, which have occurred since the late 1990s, have provided for noteworthy expansion in nuclear capacity. For example, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 evoked investment in electricity infrastructure such as nuclear power. To design future systems and continue operational improvements at existing U.S. plants, advanced modeling and simulation of nuclear reactors are crucial. We developed a Cloud/Web-based tool, HPCCloud, that enables nuclear energy firms, or other manufacturing and engineering companies, to innovate using advanced modeling and simulation. Through the Web-Based Computational Model Builder for Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation grant, we develop HPCCloud to simplify and democratize advanced modeling and simulation in the nuclear energy industry on a range of nuclear engineering applications. It leverages millions of investment dollars from the Department of Energy's Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) and the Office of Nuclear Energy's research and development in Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS). Our approach simplifies the workflow, alleviates the need for in-house computational science and engineering experts, and lowers the capital investments required for advanced modeling and simulation. The Cloud/Web-based simulation environment guides end-users and developers through the advanced modeling and simulation lifecycle. In addition to providing significantly improved, intuitive software, the environment offers reproducible workflows where one can save, share, and even publish the full path of data from input to final analyzed results. HPCCloud addresses identified challenges to the nuclear energy industry's use of advanced modeling and simulation. With this unique Cloud/Web-based environment, we enable an ecosystem of synergistic activities, fueling new research and development for nuclear energy. HPCCloud lays the groundwork for commercialization, through customization, technology integration, and advanced research and development services.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Application of New CERCLA Five-Year Review Guidance at Hanford - 16403

Under CERCLA, the implementation of remedial actions established in records of decision (ROD) are required to be reviewed every five years to evaluate their effectiveness in protecting human health and the environment. Past reviews have included evaluation of actions that were not implemented under existing RODs and, therefore, not subject to the requirement. While commendable for its transparency, discussing these out-of-scope actions created confusion and elicited comments that required time and effort to resolve. The fourth CERCLA Five Year Review (FYR) at the Hanford Site embraces the EPA guidance designed to streamline the process and focuses on the specific objectives of the review. This guidance and the training materials developed jointly by multiple federal agencies including EPA, DOE, DOD, and Department of the Interior (DOI), demonstrate a focused approach to the FYR process and offer real-world examples for streamlining this important document. This paper discusses the focused approach and process changes implemented at the Hanford Site that reduced the size and complexity of the document and provided the DOE, Richland Operations Office, with an efficient, effective template for preparing subsequent reviews. One key change was a thorough evaluation of what operable units were discussed and what operable units were not discussed in the five-year review. This process resulted in a reduction of 14 operable unit discussions. Additionally, extensive referencing of previously published CERCLA documents including closure reports and periodic groundwater monitoring reports minimized the amount of analytical data tables necessary to support the discussion. The Hanford five year review made good use of technology and provided internet links to existing documents where detailed information and voluminous analytical data reside. This eliminated the use of extensive data tables and summaries. The resulting five protectiveness determinations include: 1) 'Protective' which is used when there is sufficient data to conclude that the remedy is functioning as intended; 2) 'Protective in the short term' which is used when the data and/or documentation review raises issues that could affect future protectiveness; 3) 'Will be protective' which is used when the remedy under construction is anticipated to be protective on completion; 4) 'Protectiveness deferred' which is typically used when additional information is needed; and 5) 'Not protective' which is used when risks are not under control. Reviewing only on the appropriate operable units, and supporting the analysis of remedy performance with focused data, the resulting protectiveness determinations and overall effectiveness of the document were significantly improved. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2022

A Simulation-based Method for Correcting Mode Coupling in CMB Angular Power Spectra

Modern cosmic microwave background (CMB) analysis pipelines regularly employ complex time-domain filters, beam models, masking, and other techniques during the production of sky maps and their corresponding angular power spectra. However, these processes can generate couplings between multipoles from the same spectrum and from different spectra, in addition to the typical power attenuation. Within the context of pseudo-C ℓ based, MASTER-style analyses, the net effect of the time-domain filtering is commonly approximated by a multiplicative transfer function, F ℓ , that can fail to capture mode mixing and is dependent on the spectrum of the signal. To address these shortcomings, we have developed a simulation-based spectral correction approach that constructs a two-dimensional transfer matrix, ${J}_{{\ell }{\ell }^{\prime} }$, which contains information about mode mixing in addition to mode attenuation. We demonstrate the application of this approach on data from the first flight of the Spider balloon-borne CMB experiment.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

ZTF SN Ia DR2: Improved SN Ia colors through expanded dimensionality with SALT3+

Context. Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are a key probe in modern cosmology, as they can be used to measure luminosity distances at gigaparsec scales. Models of their light curves are used to project heterogeneous observed data onto a common basis for analysis. Aims. The SALT model currently used for SN Ia cosmology describes SNe as having two sources of variability, accounted for by a color parameter c , and a “stretch” parameter x 1 . We extend the model to include an additional parameter we label x 2 , to investigate the cosmological impact of currently unaddressed light-curve variability. Methods. We constructed a new SALT model, that we dub “SALT3+”. This model was trained by an improved version of the SALTshaker code, using training data combining a selection of the second data release of cosmological SNe Ia from the Zwicky Transient Facility and the existing SALT3 training compilation. Results. We find additional, coherent variability in supernova light curves beyond SALT3. Most of this variation can be described as phase-dependent variation in g − r and r − i color curves, correlated with a boost in the height of the secondary maximum in i -band. These behaviors correlate with spectral differences, particularly in line velocity. We find that fits with the existing SALT3 model tend to address this excess variation with the color parameter, leading to less informative measurements of supernova color. We find that neglecting the new parameter in light-curve fits leads to a trend in Hubble residuals with x 2 of 0.039 ± 0.005 mag, representing a potential systematic uncertainty. However, we find no evidence of a bias in current cosmological measurements. Conclusions. We conclude that extended SN Ia light-curve models promise mild improvement in the accuracy of color measurements, and corresponding cosmological precision. However, models with more parameters are unlikely to substantially affect current cosmological results.

Kenworthy, W. D. (ORCID:0000000251535983)↗
DOE OSTI2016

WOW Technology's Innovative Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment - 16128

WOW presents its revolutionary technology and equipment for liquid radioactive waste treatment: outperforming ultimate water decontamination and purification process, enhanced sludge concentration, no secondary waste nor consumables, fully automated, remote controlled and self-decontaminating device. The WOW's technology is based upon a never before observed discovery of fluid dynamics science: the possibility of performing a molecular separation between solute and suspended elements and the solvent. The combination of such a molecular separation process with a standard vacuum evaporation improves the abatement performances by thousands of times, with respect to those of the state of the art vacuum evaporators. In addition to this, no secondary waste is produced during the process, as no filters, membranes, resins or additives are used. WOW equipment, automated and remote controlled, self decontaminates after use and can be designed and constructed either tailored to the application needs or with a modular approach for enhanced transportability and application flexibility. After the preliminary verification by CNR, the Italian National Research Center, WOW Technology's decontamination device was tested c/o LENA, the Laboratory of Applied Nuclear Energy of the University of Pavia, Italy with a simulated solution 6000 times more contaminated than the nuclear reactor's cooling water of Fukushima-Daiichi NPP. In addition to that, WOW's technology was also used in a real case at the Radiochemistry laboratory of the Pavia's University Chemistry department. Both the above mentioned contaminated fluids have been successfully decontaminated without production of additional or secondary waste. WOW's technology has already performed on industrial scale c/o the Nuclear Repository of S.S.M. in Saluggia, Italy: 45000 liters of acid radioactive solution have been successfully decontaminated to a Decontamination Factor (DF) of 335000 for Cs-137 by one single evaporation step and without using any additional tool to control steam. [Performances independently certified by: National Physics Laboratory (UK) and Pavia University Radiochemistry Laboratory, Chemistry Department (Italy)]. The high decontamination factors and the high volume reduction of the sludge make this technology suitable for the ultimate treatment of highly contaminated liquid waste such as the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear reactor's cooling water. The WOW's technology addresses as well to interventions in both, operating and decommissioning nuclear power plants and any other nuclear and radioactive facility whose produced and/or stored radioactive liquid solutions, including acid liquid solutions, can be successfully treated, the waste volume reduced and no secondary waste produced. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2016

Review Team Focused Modeling Analysis of Radial Collector Well Operation on the Hypersaline Groundwater Plume beneath the Turkey Point Site near Homestead, Florida

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory served as members of a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission review team for the Florida Power & Light Company’s application for two combined construction permits and operating licenses (combined licenses or COLs) for two proposed new reactor units—Turkey Point Units 6 and 7. The review team evaluated the environmental impacts of the proposed action based on the October 29, 2014 revision of the COL application, including the Environmental Report, responses to requests for additional information, and supplemental information. As part of this effort, team members tasked with assessing the environmental effects of proposed construction and operation of Units 6 and 7 at the Turkey Point site reviewed two separate modeling studies that analyzed the interaction between surface water and groundwater that would be altered by the operation of radial collector wells (RCWs) at the site. To further confirm their understanding of the groundwater hydrodynamics and to consider whether certain actions, proposed after the two earlier modeling studies were completed, would alter the earlier conclusions documented by the review team in their draft environmental impact statement (EIS; NRC 2015), a third modeling analysis was performed. The third modeling analysis is discussed in this report.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
NASA NTRS2024

Achieving High Efficiency in Reduced Order Modeling for Large Scale Polycrystal Plasticity Simulations

Reduced order models for the nonlinear response of heterogeneous microstructures typically require a construction (or training) stage to build the reduced order basis. In this manuscript, an efficient model construction strategy for the eigenstrain homogenization method (EHM) is presented. The proposed strategy relies on a parallel, element-by-element, conjugate gradient solver. Near linear scaling has been achieved with respect to the number of degrees of freedom used to resolve the microstructure. Linear scaling with respect to the number of pre-analyses required to construct the reduced order model (ROM) follows from the EHM formulation. Furthermore, a parallel implementation for fast evaluation of the constructed ROM has been developed using shared memory parallelization. It has been shown that for large microstructures with ≈ 10,000 grains, the total computational cost of evaluating the nonlinear response of a polycrystal could be reduced by approximately an order of magnitude using 32 cores with respect to serial ROM simulation. The present methodology has been verified using an additively manufactured polycrystalline microstructure of a nickel-based superalloy, Inconel 625. The capability of the developed framework to construct a ROM for such large microstructures, as well as the ability of the ROM to predict average and local quantities of interest has been demonstrated.

microscale↗
DOE OSTI2026

Best Practices for Regulatory Engagement and Relationship Building – 26129

In the initiation of a new project or facility, the management team should begin to engage with appropriate regulators, early and often. However, if this did not occur and new issues arise, new challenges develop, or regulatory impacts become a concern, the regulatory engagement process should be reconsidered and reevaluated. Regulators are key in the siting, construction, and continued operations of a new facility. Municipalities often seek to attract new initiatives, projects, or facilities that will have a significant positive impact on the community. Even though this is typically the goal, there are many hurdles along the path that may cause negative impacts leading to regulatory concerns and hurdles that may delay or stop work. Additionally, early and frequent engagement with regulators can have a significant positive impact on the successful siting, permitting, and construction of a facility, including meeting needed schedules that are important to economic viability. Further, it is essential for ongoing operations for regulators to be effectively and meaningfully engaged throughout the life of the project or facility due to the potential of changing factors during the construction and/or operation. Regular and consistent engagement builds relationships and helps ensure that potential topics of concern are addressed early before they become problems. In this paper, we will discuss best practices in engaging with regulators, how to initiate effective regulatory interactions, and building lasting relationships.

Jacobs, Stephanie [Savannah River National Laborat↗
DOE OSTI2025

Multi-physics Topology OPtimization and Additive Manufacturing for High-temperature Heat Exchangers

This research significantly advances the understanding of high-temperature heat exchanger design through an integrated approach that combines topology optimization (TO), triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) structures, additive manufacturing (AM) and thermohydraulic testing. Each of these components contributes uniquely to a unified, high-performance design, fabrication and testing workflow. Topology optimization serves as the foundation of the design methodology by providing a systematic way to determine the most effective material layout for separating hot and cold fluids while maximizing thermal performance. The researchers introduced a novel three-material optimization framework using two density fields to represent hot fluid, cold fluid, and solid domains. This approach enables automated discovery of optimal shapes and flow paths that cannot be intuitively designed, especially under constraints imposed by manufacturing technologies. Furthermore, constraints such as minimal wall thickness and overhang angles were embedded into the optimization process, ensuring that resulting designs are not only thermally efficient but also manufacturable using modern additive techniques. In parallel, the study delves into the use of Gyroid-based TPMS geometries for constructing the core of the heat exchanger. TPMS structures are known for their high surface area, excellent fluid mixing capabilities, and minimal pressure drop characteristics. The researchers applied a data-driven modeling framework using Heteroscedastic Sparse Gaussian Process Regression (HSGPR) combined with genetic algorithms. This allowed for the rapid evaluation and optimization of key geometric parameters such as frequency, iso-value, and phase shift. The result was a set of Gyroid structures tailored for high heat transfer and low flow resistance, demonstrating clear improvements over conventional straight-channel designs. After the designing process, additive manufacturing played a critical role by turning these highly complex, optimized geometries into physical components. Utilizing Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) with Haynes 282, the study demonstrated the feasibility of fabricating these heat exchangers at high precision. Post-processing methods, including dilation-erosion operations, were applied to ensure local features adhered to self-supporting constraints. The fabricated structures were then subjected to thermohydraulic testing under conditions representative of supercritical CO 2 Brayton cycles, validating the predicted performance and confirming the viability of the full design-to-fabrication pipeline. Finally, thermohydraulic testing across the above studies served as a crucial experimental validation of advanced heat exchanger. Under consistent high-temperature and high-pressure conditions using supercritical CO 2 , the testing demonstrated that both TO and Gyroid-based TPMS designs significantly outperformed conventional straight-channel HXs. The TO design achieved a 115% increase in UA and NTU and a 27.6% boost in gravimetric power density, while the data-driven optimized Gyroid design delivered a 166% increase in UA and NTU and improved effectiveness from 68.7% to 86.1%. These results validate the simulation models, confirm the manufacturability of complex geometries under AM constraints, and provide key insights into design-performance trade-offs, thereby advancing the development of high-efficiency, compact heat exchangers for extreme environments.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Vacuum system design, construction, and operation for the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source upgrade

During the summer and fall 2018, the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), underwent an upgrade that recast the facility as primarily a low emittance X-ray source. The upgrade replaced one sixth of the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR) with six double-bend achromats, featuring four novel CHESS Compact Undulator (CCU) insertion devices, and switched CESR to single particle beam operation. At the time of this writing, the upgraded storage ring has achieved the CHESS-U design goal of operating with 200 mA of positron current at 6.0 GeV beam energy. Additionally, seven out of eleven CHESS-U beamlines are currently in X-ray user operation. The construction and the commissioning of the new section of the CESR accelerator required novel solutions to design, fabrication, and vacuum system operations. Significant design considerations and efforts were made to minimize X-ray ‘dark-time’, returning to operation less than 1 year. This paper describes the important milestones of the process, the solutions implemented, and the present status of CHESS-U.

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