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At least 1,171 records · Page 65

Leveraging machine learning to improve understanding and predictability of weather/climate extremes and the resilience of human systems

Focal Area(s): Developing hybrid models for predicting weather/climate extremes at the intersection of the urban environment (focal area #2). Science Challenge: Limited by many sources of uncertainty, numerical models are unable to accurately simulate weather and climate processes and this problem is particularly acute for modeling extreme events, including hurricanes. Moreover, computational limits within these numerical models bound our ability to develop large ensembles to explore this uncertainty and the implications relative to characterization of risk and resilience within the human systems that are impacted by changes in extremes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Radiation Detection Data Competition Report

In FY2018 through FY2020, NA-22, the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development Program, funded a Data Science project to develop and implement statistical methodology to effectively host data competitions with the goal of leveraging the opportunity provided by crowdsourcing. By accessing and engaging expertise from a broader research community, there is an opportunity to attract innovative solutions from a variety of different research disciplines to advance the ability to solve important non-proliferation problems. This report summarizes the key results of this project after hosting two data competitions focused on urban radiation detection. The first competition was focused on attracting participants from the U.S. national laboratories, while the second, hosted by TopCoder, was open to the broader international community and awarded prize money to the top 10 competitors. At the start of the project, there was strong interest from NA-22 to explore and develop the capability to host data competitions as a means of leveraging the broader community to solve important nuclear nonproliferation problems. Having a standard data set on which to compare different approaches based on clearly defined criteria was desirable to be able to evaluate the state of solutions for important problems. Initially, it was not clear that it would even be possible logistically and bureaucratically to host a competition with an international field of competitors and to award the prize money needed to attract solutions from top competitors. Happily, a path to host the competitions was ultimately found that allowed this powerful accelerator of improvements to be leveraged.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

A physics-informed data-driven low order model for the wind velocity deficit at the wake of isolated buildings

Detailed simulations of the Atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) provides information on wind velocity, direction and turbulence for optimizing the design of wind turbines and wind farms and their operations. Distributed wind turbines have been considered for use in urban or suburban areas for covering energy needs using a sustainable energy solution. Simulations of high Reynolds number turbulent ABL flows past obstacles can be used for the prediction of the velocity deficit and turbulence characteristics in the leeward side of building-like obstacles, allowing for the estimation of power losses and fatigue loads in wind turbines. However, fully three-dimensional simulations of high Reynolds number ABL flows using Large Eddy Simulation (LES) or Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes Simulations (RANS) continue to require large computational/ execution times. As a result, these 3D simulations may not be ideal tools for the rapid assessment of wind energy potential. In the present study, 3D numerical results from wall resolved RANS simulations were used for the development of a low order model that allows the rapid assessment of wind velocity and turbulence in the leeward side of an isolated building.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Global Market Analysis of Microreactors

Microreactors are smaller and simplified versions of nuclear power plants using current generation and advanced nuclear technology designs. The purpose of this report is to assesses the unique capabilities of microreactors and assess potential deployment in specific global markets in the 2030-2050 timeframe, with consideration for regulatory limits. The methods include developing unique microreactor deployment indicators and matching use cases to define future profile markets. Top-down and bottom-up analysis techniques were used to evaluate emerging market trends, derive a range of possible demands, and rank potential markets in 63 countries including current nuclear users and newcomer countries. Deployment is considered from regulatory and planning perspectives. Results indicate significant potential for global deployment of microreactors, but also significant challenges in achieving the technical capacities, meeting regulatory requirements and international accords, achieving competitive costs, and for gaining public acceptance. Profile microreactor markets were identified that include isolated operations, distributed energy, resilient urban applications, marine propulsion, and disaster relief. Market demands could be strong in Western Europe and possibly even the U.S., but particularly strong across Asia and Eastern Europe in isolated operations and distributed energy applications. Build rates in the hundreds of units by 2040 and thousands by 2050 would be needed to attain market penetration at scale.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Advanced Computing, Data Science, and Artificial Intelligence Research Opportunities for Energy-Focused Transportation Science

The Energy Efficient Mobility Systems (EEMS) technology landscape is complex and rapidly evolving, which provides both tremendous opportunities and formidable challenges. Significant alterations to the mobility landscape are underway due to the advent of vehicle and infrastructure connectivity, autonomous driving, and rapid passenger- and freight-vehicle electrification. Advanced computing will play an increasingly important role in enabling the EEMS program to understand and identify the most important levers to improve the energy productivity of future integrated mobility systems. It is also driving new approaches to mobility and the research to unlock an affordable, efficient, safe, and accessible transportation future. Driving much of this change is the collection, analysis, and strategic use of massive amounts of diverse, complex data from infrastructure and vehicles with on-board sensors and data storage and transmission capabilities. Diverse and representative data are key to implementing approaches to maximize mobility energy productivity. While high-fidelity modeling of integrated transportation networks has strengthened our understanding of dynamic movement and behavior patterns, existing tools must be expanded beyond their current focus. This work necessitates data infrastructure investments (e.g., secure-streaming data platforms driven by ubiquitous sensors and video analytics) as well as investments in critical capabilities for large-scale automated analysis and organization using modern machine learning, statistics, and artificial intelligence. Other chief needs include agile, large-scale storage that can be quickly searched and queried for relevant data to support validation and model development, data-sharing agreements, and formatting standards for key data types. The future of public transit must be explored in greater detail, research must inform design, and opportunities must be identified for improving the mobility productivity of public transit in both urban and rural America.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Breakthrough MEG Technology [Slides]

LANL technology is a disruptive innovation to change market dynamics. For medical imaging experts who want to rapidly diagnose brain disorders, our LANL breakthrough MEG solution delivers faster and easier brain imaging without having to go to major urban medical centers.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Magnetic Navigation for GPS-Denied Airborne Applications

Most current flight systems are dependent on GPS for navigation. Recently, however, navigation in GPS-denied environments has become an area of intensive research. Additional navigation sensor data can be obtained from visual observations (stars or terrain), inertial measurement units, radar, measurements of the local magnetic field, or perhaps even gravity. Absolute and relative positioning via magnetic field measurements have been shown to be viable in many applications including ground navigation, low altitude aircraft flight, and spaceflight. There is greater variability in the magnetic field over shorter distances when flying at low altitude and in ground applications, leading to more accurate positioning. However, ground-based magnetic navigation is often heavily influenced by man-made structures, especially in urban environments. This is not the case for airborne magnetic navigation since the influence of buildings, roads, etc. is negligible for typical aircraft altitudes. For absolute magnetic navigation, the positioning accuracy decreases as altitude increases for a given vehicle velocity, but the observed time variability in the field can be reclaimed by traveling faster through the field. Thus, navigation accuracy becomes a balance of speed and altitude since the higher altitude can be counterbalanced by higher velocity. To understand these effects quantitatively, we explored various techniques to aid a simulated inertial measurement unit with magnetic information. Using a technique known as two-dimensional magnetic map matching, we simulated the performance of airborne magnetic navigation at fixed speed while varying the altitude, flight direction, magnetometer data collection time, reference magnetic map bias error, and type of trajectory (over land or over ocean).

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Oregon Roadway CSZ Liquefaction and Landslide Impact Screening Analysis

The roadway transportation routes and the surrounding environments in Oregon will be subject to ground acceleration and potential associated deformation due to the propagation of waves of energy during a Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) earthquake. Linear features such as highways may be subject to partial or complete disruption of their function resulting from ground deformations at and along the roadway. A potential source of these disruptions associated with a CSZ event are landslides and liquefaction in the soils along and beneath the highways and local roadways. The construction of the Oregon roadway system and urban development have occurred largely along the banks of the rivers—those along the Pacific coast, and along the valleys throughout the Oregon Coast Range and Cascade Mountains. These locations also represent areas where landslides and liquefaction have occurred historically, or may potentially occur in the future, presenting a significant vulnerability for the roadway system and dependent post-CSZ earthquake emergency response and recovery effort. Many of the Oregon areas with landslide- and liquefaction-prone soils have the potential to impact roadway transportation routes after a major earthquake causing delays in establishing routes to transport emergency response personnel and resources to impacted areas and communities. This report presents methods used to project the impacts that CSZ earthquake-induced landslides and liquefaction may have on roadways across Oregon. First, this report presents an approach for estimating the risk of landslides to Oregon roadways, and determining approximate reopening times. Second, this report presents a similar approach for estimating the risk of liquefaction-induced ground displacements to roadway pavements, also resulting in approximate reopening times for roadway segments. The outcomes of these two ground failure analyses serve as inputs to a broader analysis of CSZ earthquake impacts to Oregon’s surface transportation system and its ability to support post-disaster response and recovery activities, as part of the Oregon Transportation Systems Regional Resiliency Assessment Program project (CISA 2021).

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

The Transportation Energy and Mobility Pathway Options (TEMPO) Model: Overview and Validation of V1.0 [Slides]

This presentation documents the approaches and methods used in the Transportation Energy & Mobility Pathway Options™ (TEMPO) model to evaluate passenger and freight demand for transportation and mobility services, project vehicle ownership and technology adoption decisions, and determine transport mode choices to derive scenarios of future energy use and emissions. TEMPO is an all-inclusive transportation demand model that covers the entire United States, with an implicit spatial resolution and an hourly temporal resolution that allows for generating time-resolved energy use profiles to assess multisectoral integration aspects. Key features of the TEMPO model include the ability to perform endogenous out-of-sample forecasting to extrapolate recent emerging trends and analyze impacts of disruptive technological breakthroughs and behavioral changes. TEMPO employs an innovative representation of passenger mobility demand stemming from household-level decisions that determine vehicle adoption, ownership, and use based on sociodemographics (e.g., income, household composition), technology attributes (e.g., travel cost, time), geography (e.g., urban, suburban, rural) and population-specific multiday mobility and travel requirements. This representation enables a more forward-looking perspective on the use of new mobility options and the adoption of alternative fuel vehicles, as well as a more accurate representation of their energy usage profiles than previous modeling approaches. A comparison with the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook showcases the ability of TEMPO to accurately replicate widely accepted projections by representing the key elements of the entire transportation sector at the appropriate level of resolution. TEMPO is intended to generate future scenarios of technology adoption, energy use, and emissions in the transportation sector to compare alternatives, inform decision makers, and assess integration with energy infrastructure and supply systems at an appropriate spatiotemporal resolution.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

High-Dimensional Data-Driven Energy Optimization for MultiModal Transit Agencies

Transportation accounts for 28% of the total energy use in the United States and as such, it is responsible for immense environmental impact, including urban air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and may pose a severe threat to energy security. As we encourage mode shift from personal vehicles to public transit, it is important to consider that public transit systems still require substantial amounts of energy; for example, public bus transit services in the U.S. are responsible for at least 19.7 million metric tons of CO 2 emission annually. As such it is absolutely crucial that we study the bottlenecks to energy efficiency in public transit and develop new algorithms that can help the public transit agencies, especially those that are still operating mixed fleets, which may consist of Electric vehicles (EVs), hybrids (HEVs), and internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), optimize the operations by deciding which vehicles are assigned to serving which transit trips.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

A Parallel Computing Infrastructure for Building Energy Simulation

In order to study grid-interactive efficient buildings, Pacific Northwest National Laboratories (PNNL) needs an infrastructure for urban-scale building energy modeling. Such an infrastructure should be fast, scalable, and easy-to-use. Given a set of data from the Energy Information Administration’s Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) and tool to translate survey data into simulation inputs, this project aimed to conduct the simulation of the entire dataset in parallel. Before running the simulations, the necessary software was bundled into a container for use on the PNNL supercomputing network. Then, the parallel simulation workflow was designed using GNU Make, a file creation software, and submitted to a supercomputing partition which could run hundreds of simulations simultaneously. The EnergyPlus simulations output hourly electric meter data for each CBECS sample, which represents the electricity consumption of similar commercial buildings across the United States. Analyzing and visualizing the meter data is important to the future of the work, and this project wrote code to make common analysis methods simple, fast, and accessible. Moving forwards, the model will need to be expanded to include data from other sources and its accuracy will need to be improved and eventually validated.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

High-dimensional Data-driven Energy optimization for Multi-Modal Transit Agencies (HD-EMMA) (Final Technical Report)

Public bus transit services in the U.S. are responsible for at least 19.7 million metric tons of CO 2 emission annually. Electric vehicles (EVs) can have a much lower environmental impact than comparable internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), especially in urban areas. Unfortunately, EVs are also much more expensive than ICEVs. As a result, many public transit agencies can afford only mixed fleets of transit vehicles, consisting of EVs, hybrids (HEVs), and ICEVs. Transit agencies that operate such mixed fleets of vehicles face a challenging optimization problem: these agencies need to decide which vehicles are assigned to serving which transit trips. Since the advantage of EVs over ICEVs varies depending on the route and time of day (e.g., the benefit of EVs is higher in slower traffic with frequent stops and lower on highways), the assignment can have a significant effect on energy use and, hence, environmental impact. Through this project, we have developed reference data about energy collections and constructed a set of machine learning models that can accurately predict the energy consumption for the whole fleet at the level of each trip. We have used these models to develop a scheduling and assignment strategy that can rotate the different vehicle types across the transit agencies’ routes. The optimization algorithm ensures that the vehicles are matched to trips considering weather patterns, expected congestion, and road gradients to minimize the overall energy usage. We list the key observations from our project for other practitioners below. Details are available in the report, and the list of source code and our publications are included in the appendix. 1. We have demonstrated the feasibility of collecting, merging and analyzing large volumes of high-resolution real-world telemetry data from a mixed vehicle fleet. To mitigate the inherent noise of the recorded GPS points, the team developed an algorithm that filters data and maps the points onto a street. The algorithm considers previous and subsequent location measurements and different characteristics of nearby streets to determine how likely the vehicle travels on them. Then, the team segmented the time series into disjoint contiguous samples based on adjacent road segments and repeated the outlier detection and removal. For each data point, the team added features corresponding to elevation changes within the samples, weather features, such as temperature, and traffic data, such as speed ratio between actual speed and free-flow speed. 2. We have developed two forms of machine learning models that be used to understand and analyze the energy operations of a mixed vehicle transit fleet. The micro prediction model provides estimates of instantaneous energy prediction for all types of buses (diesel, hybrid, and electric). Such a model is important in evaluating the energy impacts of real-time bus operation strategies, but it is challenging due to diversified driving cycles of transit buses. The model can help the drivers understand the impact of their driving behaviors and short-term congestions. The macro prediction models estimate average energy consumption across the whole trip considering the features: distance traveled, various road-type features, elevation change, day of the week, time of day, various weather features (temperature, humidity, etc.), and traffic features (speed ratio and jam factor). 3. We have demonstrated that it is possible to transfer the machine learning models we have developed in this project to other teams and cities by using inductive transfer learning. We also showed that the performance of the macro energy prediction models can be improved using a multi-task learning approach where the learning parameters are shared between the models being developed for different vehicle types. The advantage of this approach is improved learning performance as the models can exploit common spatio-temporal and environmental characteristics. 4. Finally, we have developed trip and vehicle assignment and scheduling algorithms that use the energy prediction models and develop a trip to vehicle type (diesel, electric, hybrid) assignment for the whole operation to reduce overall emissions and cost. We have shown through simulations that the proposed algorithms can save $\$$ 48,910 in energy costs and 175 metric tons of CO 2 emission annually for CARTA.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Autonomous Ride-Share Fleet to Reduce Traffic Congestion for Suburban Commuters

As urbanization progresses in areas across the United States, traffic is worsening as more personal vehicles are required to ferry suburban commuters between home and work. Many suburban commuters would prefer public transportation over driving a personal vehicle to use their commute time more efficiently, but existing infrastructure can make conventional public transit inconvenient or impossible. There is a need for a wide-spread system that can safely, conveniently, and cost-effectively transport suburban commuters to and from work. This will decrease congestion on roads, allowing suburban areas to continue growing in population without dramatically increasing commute times. The customer (suburban commuters) needs a system that enables them to commute to and from work more efficiently. This efficiency can be thought of as both the total time spent commuting, as well as the quality of that time spent commuting. The “quality” of the time is subjective, but in general is a metric of the ability of the commuter to focus on things other than traveling during the commute process. The new system should decrease the total time commuting, but increase the quality of the commute time. Collectively Americans spend a total of 55.2 minutes per day commuting, up from 43.4 minutes per day in 1980. Additionally, as of 2013, 76% of Americans get to work by driving alone, up from 64% in 19803. The 40-hour work-week was established in the U.S in 1940 and has not changed since. The result is that Americans spend an increasing amount of time commuting and at a lower quality, but the standard work week has not changed. This decreases the amount of time adults in the U.S have for leisure, friends, and family. A system solution has the potential to improve this, particularly with the advent of new and future technologies. This system is picked specifically for suburban commuters, as they have the highest potential to be helped.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Operation Upshot-Knothole

A thundering boom and sheet of fire announced a dramatic, once in a lifetime event – the firing of a nuclear projectile from a 280 mm cannon. Travelling seven miles downrange, the projectile detonated 500 feet over the Nevada Test Site’s Frenchman Flat with a force of fifteen kilotons. Although the test was successful, the massive cannon, designed for tactical battlefield use, had a critical flaw. It was too large and cumbersome for mobile combat. The cannon test, codenamed Grable, was part of Operation Upshot-Knothole, the fourth test series conducted in Nevada. Beginning with the Annie test on March 17, 1953, and concluding with the Climax test on June 4th, the Operation consisted of three airdrops, seven tower detonations, and the one artillery shot. As with previous Nevada tests, the demarcation between the weapon development series, Upshot, and the DOD effects tests, Knothole, was blurred. All eleven tests generated data in support of weapon development as well as tactical battlefield applications. During Upshot-Knothole, the University of California Radiation Laboratory (UCRL), conducted its first ever tests, Ruth and Ray. Although neither test was successful, these failures, along with another a year later at Operation Castle, provided the new laboratory with design data leading to future successful tests. The Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) participated in a test series with the general goal of preparing for societal recovery from a nuclear attack. Known as Operation Doorstep, the FCDA’s experiments evaluated the effects of a nuclear attack on food supplies, housing and urban structures, and even a copse of trees transplanted from nearby Mt. Charleston. A contingent of the press witnessed test Annie from an outcropping of rocks, subsequently named News Nob. The presence of the news media, along with the FCDA’s participation, marked a fundamental change in the Nevada test program - a change that that now included the general populace, whose survival was, of course, the rationale for testing. The Department of Defense continued and expanded its Desert Rock exercises of troop exercises, helicopter operations, and evaluation of blast damage to military aircraft, tanks, and guns. Annie, Nancy, Badger, Simon, Encore, and Grable involved larger numbers of personnel than the other five shots. Below is an edited and condensed account of Desert Rock activities compiled by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

Distances to Prompt Effects for a Nuclear Device

In 2010, nuclear weapon effects experts at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) were asked to provide a quick reference document containing estimated prompt nuclear effects. This report is an update to the 2010 document that includes updated model assumptions. This report addresses only the prompt effects associated with a nuclear detonation (e.g., blast, thermal fluence, and prompt ionizing radiation). The potential medium- and longer-term health effects associated with nuclear fallout are not considered in this report because, in part, of the impracticality of making generic estimates given the high dependency of fallout predictions on the local meteorological conditions at the time of the event. The results included in this report also do not consider the urban environment (e.g., shielding by or collapse of structures) which may affect the extent of prompt effects. It is important to note that any operational recommendations made using the estimates in this report are limited by the generic assumptions considered in the analysis and should not replace analyses made for a specific scenario/device. Furthermore, nuclear effects experts (John Hogan, SNL, and Byron Ristvet, Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)) have indicated that the accuracy of effects predictions below 0.5 kilotons (kT) or 500 tons nuclear yield have greater uncertainty because of the limited data available for the prompt effects in this regime. The Specialized Hazard Assessment Response Capability (SHARC) effects prediction tool was used for these analyses. Specifically, the NUKE model within SHARC 2021 Version 10.2 was used. NUKE models only the prompt effects following a nuclear detonation. The algorithms for predicting range-to-output data contained within the NUKE model are primarily based on nuclear test effects data. Probits have been derived from nuclear test data and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) protective action guides. Probits relate the probability of a hazard (e.g., fatality or injury) caused by a given insult (e.g., overpressure, thermal fluence, dose level). Several probits have been built into SHARC to determine the fatality and injury associated with a given level of insult. Some of these probits differ with varying yield. Such probits were used to develop the tables and plots in this report.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

Affordable Solid Panel "Perfect Wall" System

The SPS is an innovative interpretation of the “perfect wall” concept, in which environmental control layers are located on the exterior side of the structural components, as opposed to traditional cavity insulated, stud-framed walls. The primary objective of this study is to validate the SPS technology in terms of its constructability, cost, and performance. Specifically for this project, we partnered with two affordable housing nonprofits in Minnesota—Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity and Urban Homeworks—to build five new houses using SPS walls, as well as two high-performance stud-framed comparison homes. We also reviewed cost and performance data from 13 SPS homes built prior to this project by MonoPath and Spero Environmental Builders. Reviewing the outcomes of these 20 homes total, we find promising results in terms of constructability, cost, and performance, although more structural performance data are needed before this new technology can see widespread adoption.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Electricity demand in South Asia – data gaps and pathways for research and modeling

South Asia is one of the fastest growing regions - economically and energy-wise in the world. However, there are significant uncertainties in how the energy demand would grow given the rapidly rising incomes, urbanization, industrialization, access to energy, warming climate and technological change. The transition to clean energy in the region is a priority and is critical to limiting emissions in the region and increasing regional energy security. The power sector will play an important role in decarbonization of energy systems, lowering emissions in other sectors through electrification. However, as existing end uses are scaled up more and new end uses are electrified, the temporal and spatial patterns of electricity consumption could change. These changes have implications for the magnitude, shape, and timing of peak demand, which in turn affects the power sector’s investments and operations, and ability to provide reliable power. In this report, we outline key uncertainties in demand growth that South Asian countries would face in the near to medium term, along with summarizing insights from stakeholder consultations we held over the past 6 months.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Studying Cloud and Radiative Impacts Through an Improved Physically Based Representation of Organic Aerosol in a Large-Scale Model (WRF-Chem) (Final Report)

The work performed under this award resulted in the development of a computationally-efficient kinetic model to simulate the chemistry, thermodynamics, and microphysics of organic aerosol. Versions of the kinetic model were used to study a suite of aerosol processes including, multigenerational gas-phase chemistry, phase-state influenced gas/particle partitioning, heterogeneous oxidation, oligomerization reactions, and experimental artifacts. The kinetic model has now been implemented into a regional chemistry-climate model (WRF-Chem) to further study the formation, evolution, properties, and spatiotemporal distribution of organic aerosol at urban, regional, and global scales.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗