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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 1,189 records · Page 66
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

{phi} Meson Photoproduction on the Nucleon and 4He Targets

We study the reaction mechanism of phi-meson photoproduction on the nucleon and He-4 targets by using a dynamical model based on a Hamiltonian. In addition to the dominant contribution of the Pomeron exchange, various meson exchanges are considered in the t channel to describe the CLAS data in the low energy region root s =(1.97-2.84) GeV. The direct phi radiations are taken into account in the s- and u-channels. The backward structures at root s approximate to 2.1 and 2.3 GeV are well reproduced by the inclusion of the s-channel N(2000,5/2(+)) and N(2300,1/2(+))resonances, respectively. We also consider the final phi N interactions by the gluon exchange, the direct phi N interactions, and the box diagrams arising from the couplings with the pi N, rho N, K Lambda, and K Sigma channels. The effects of the final state interactions are found to be very weak. Then the resulting Hamiltonian is used to study the coherent gamma He-4 -> phi He-4 reaction within the distorted-weave impulse approximation. The calculated differential cross sections account for the LEPS data quite well.

Kim, Sang-Ho↗
DOE OSTI2021

Investigation of main bearing operating conditions in a three-Point mount wind turbine drivetrain

Wear-related failures of spherical roller bearings in the main bearing position of three-point mount wind turbines have been higher than expected and can contribute to higher than anticipated operation-and-maintenance costs. In this paper, the operational conditions of such a main bearing—including measured axial displacement and velocity subject to the estimated axial loads—are described for an instrumented, commercial wind turbine. The field measurements suggest a maximum axial speed between the bearing rings that is less than 2 millimeters per second. It is estimated that the axial speed between the ring and rollers is approximately 25% of this value. When compared to a speed of rolling from approximately 200–352 millimeters per second, the measured axial sliding is therefore significantly less than 1% of the speed of rolling. Previous numerical studies of lubricant film formation in rolling contacts have shown that the effect of axial sliding starts to be noticeable only when this ratio exceeds 10%; therefore, the axial velocity represents only a small disturbance to the nominal pure rolling case, and the influence on oil film building can be neglected. A simple analytic model of the main bearing motion was also developed and demonstrated similar displacement and velocity characteristics.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Multistage distributionally robust mixed-integer programming with decision-dependent moment-based ambiguity sets

We study multistage distributionally robust mixed-integer programs under endogenous uncertainty, where the probability distribution of stage-wise uncertainty depends on the decisions made in previous stages. We first consider two ambiguity sets defined by decision-dependent bounds on the first and second moments of uncertain parameters and by mean and covariance matrix that exactly match decision-dependent empirical ones, respectively. For both sets, we show that the subproblem in each stage can be recast as a mixed-integer linear program (MILP). Moreover, we extend the general moment-based ambiguity set in to the multistage decision-dependent setting, and derive mixed-integer semidefinite programming (MISDP) reformulations of stage-wise subproblems. We develop methods for attaining lower and upper bounds of the optimal objective value of the multistage MISDPs, and approximate them using a series of MILPs. We deploy the Stochastic Dual Dynamic integer Programming (SDDiP) method for solving the problem under the three ambiguity sets with risk-neutral or risk-averse objective functions, and conduct numerical studies on multistage facility-location instances having diverse sizes under different parameter and uncertainty settings. Furthermore, our results show that the SDDiP quickly finds optimal solutions for moderate-sized instances under the first two ambiguity sets, and also finds good approximate bounds for the multistage MISDPs derived under the third ambiguity set. We also demonstrate the efficacy of incorporating decision-dependent distributional ambiguity in multistage decision-making processes.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2024

A Particle Method for the Multispecies Landau Equation

Abstract The multispecies Landau collision operator describes the two-particle, small scattering angle or grazing collisions in a plasma made up of different species of particles such as electrons and ions. Recently, a structure preserving deterministic particle method (Carrillo et al. in J. Comput. Phys. 7:100066, 2020) has been developed for the single species spatially homogeneous Landau equation. This method relies on a regularization of the Landau collision operator so that an approximate solution, which is a linear combination of Dirac delta distributions, is well-defined. Based on a weak form of the regularized Landau equation, the time dependent locations of the Dirac delta functions satisfy a system of ordinary differential equations. In this work, we extend this particle method to the multispecies case, and examine its conservation of mass, momentum, and energy, and decay of entropy properties. We show that the equilibrium distribution of the regularized multispecies Landau equation is a Maxwellian distribution, and state a critical condition on the regularization parameters that guarantees a species independent equilibrium temperature. A convergence study comparing an exact multispecies Bobylev-Krook-Wu (BKW) solution to the particle solution shows approximately 2nd order accuracy. Important physical properties such as conservation, decay of entropy, and equilibrium distribution of the particle method are demonstrated with several numerical examples.

Mathematics↗
DOE OSTI2024

Numerical analysis of a time discretized method for nonlinear filtering problem with Lévy process observations

Abstract In this paper, we consider a nonlinear filtering model with observations driven by correlated Wiener processes and point processes. We first derive a Zakai equation whose solution is an unnormalized probability density function of the filter solution. Then, we apply a splitting-up technique to decompose the Zakai equation into three stochastic differential equations, based on which we construct a splitting-up approximate solution and prove its half-order convergence. Furthermore, we apply a finite difference method to construct a time semi-discrete approximate solution to the splitting-up system and prove its half-order convergence to the exact solution of the Zakai equation. Finally, we present some numerical experiments to demonstrate the theoretical analysis.

Mathematics↗
DOE OSTI2024

On the Departure from Monin–Obukhov Surface Similarity and Transition to the Convective Mixed Layer

Large-eddy simulations are used to evaluate mean profile similarity in the convective boundary layer (CBL). Particular care is taken regarding the grid sensitivity of the profiles and the mitigation of inertial oscillations in the simulation spin-up. The nondimensional gradients Φ for wind speed and air temperature generally align with Monin–Obukhov similarity across cases but have a steeper slope than predicted within each profile. The same trend has been noted in several other recent studies. The Businger-Dyer relations are modified here with an exponential cutoff term to account for the decay in Φ to first-order approximation, yielding improved similarity from approximately 0.05z i to above 0.3z i , where z i is the CBL depth. The necessity for the exponential correction is attributed to an extended transition from surface scaling to zero gradient in the mixed layer, where the departure from Monin–Obukhov similarity may be negligible at the surface but becomes substantial well below the conventional surface layer height of 0.1 z i .

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Developing a Control Strategy for Minimum Airflow Setting Considering CO2 Level and Energy Consumption in a Variable Air Volume System

In an office building equipped with a Variable Air Volume (VAV) system, this paper introduces a novel method for controlling the minimum supply airflow fraction in each zone’s VAV box, having a capability to consider indoor CO2 level and energy consumption. The EnergyPlus simulation using the medium office prototype model was employed, which evaluated the performance of the energy and CO2 concentration for five VAV box airflow control strategies. The paper focuses on CO2 concentration-based airflow control method and compares it with other four methods including conventional single-max, reduced minimum single-max, demand-controlled ventilation(DCV), and dualmax control methods according to guidelines and common practices. The newly proposed control strategy directly correlates the minimum airflow fraction to CO2 concentration. A general trend emerged when comparing CO2 concentrations—lower minimum airflow fractions were associated with higher concentrations. The proposed control method effectively maintained low CO2 concentrations and enabled a lower airflow fraction contributing to energy consumption reduction. It was confirmed that heating energy consumption in climate zone 4A, 5B, and 6A showed a maximum saving of approximately 30% compared to the conventional single-max and dual max control strategies. It was found that cooling energy consumption in climate zone 4A and 6A can achieve a maximum saving of approximately 10% compared to the conventional control strategies. The proposed CO2 concentration-based control logic is promising as it not only improves the indoor air quality lowering the CO2 concentration in the occupied spaces, but also contributes to HVAC energy savings.

Lee, Jong Man↗
DOE OSTI2022

Virtual diffraction simulations using the quasi-coarse-grained dynamics method to understand and interpret plasticity contributions during in situ shock experiments

The dynamic deformation response of metallic materials has contributions from dislocations, deformation twinning, and plastic deformation. The current state-of-art techniques can detail the complex mechanistic history of deformation modes under shock loading in real-time using in situ X-ray diffraction (XRD). However, the capability of these experiments to unravel plasticity contributions is challenging due to limitations in interpreting results and the lack of validation from atomistic simulations. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations can successfully capture various deformation modes in metals and complement experiments using simulated diffractograms at various stages of evolution. However, the difference in length and time scales of MD simulations and experiments is a substantial obstacle in completing and interpreting in situ diffractograms. Therefore, the existing modeling methods require various approximations to model defect evolution and interaction at the mesoscales. However, while using approximations to correlate the peak broadening behavior to the density of dislocations or the shifts/splitting due to the presence of twins, the interpretations of the plasticity contributions from diffractograms are non-trivial, especially when multiple modes of deformation may be operating. This viewpoint discusses combining a mesoscale modeling method called quasi-coarse-grained dynamics and virtual XRD to characterize the plasticity contributions in BCC metals from slip, twinning, and phase transformation behavior. Furthermore, the combined approach shows promise in bridging the mesoscale gap between the capabilities of atomic-scale simulations and in situ experiments to characterize the dynamic deformation of materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Large-scale harmonic balance simulations with Krylov subspace and preconditioner recycling

The multi-harmonic balance method combined with numerical continuation provides an efficient framework to compute a family of time-periodic solutions, or response curves, for large-scale, nonlinear mechanical systems. The predictor and corrector steps repeatedly solve a sequence of linear systems that scale by the model size and number of harmonics in the assumed Fourier series approximation. In this paper, a novel Newton–Krylov iterative method is embedded within the multi-harmonic balance and continuation algorithm to efficiently compute the approximate solutions from the sequence of linear systems that arise during the prediction and correction steps. Further, the method recycles, or reuses, both the preconditioner and the Krylov subspace generated by previous linear systems in the solution sequence. A delayed frequency preconditioner refactorizes the preconditioner only when the performance of the iterative solver deteriorates. The GCRO-DR iterative solver recycles a subset of harmonic Ritz vectors to initialize the solution subspace for the next linear system in the sequence. The performance of the iterative solver is demonstrated on two exemplars with contact-type nonlinearities and benchmarked against a direct solver with traditional Newton–Raphson iterations.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

A persistent adjoint method with dynamic time-scaling and an application to mass action kinetics

In this article, we consider an optimization problem where the objective function is evaluated at the fixed-point of a contraction mapping parameterized by a control variable, and optimization takes place over this control variable. Since the derivative of the fixed-point with respect to the parameter can usually not be evaluated exactly, an adjoint dynamical system can be used to estimate gradients. Using this estimation procedure, the optimization algorithm alternates between derivative estimation and an approximate gradient descent step. We analyze a variant of this approach involving dynamic time-scaling, where after each parameter update the adjoint system is iterated until a convergence threshold is passed. Here, we prove that, under certain conditions, the algorithm can find approximate stationary points of the objective function. We demonstrate the approach in the settings of an inverse problem in chemical kinetics, and learning in attractor networks.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Optimizing qubit control pulses for state preparation

In the burgeoning field of quantum computing, the precise design and optimization of quantum pulses are essential for enhancing qubit operation fidelity. This study focuses on refining the pulse engineering techniques for superconducting qubits, employing a detailed analysis of square and Gaussian pulse envelopes under various approximation schemes. We evaluated the effects of coherent errors induced by naive pulse designs. Furthermore, we identified the sources of these errors in the Hamiltonian model’s approximation level. We mitigated these errors through adjustments to the external driving frequency and pulse durations, thus implementing a pulse scheme with stroboscopic error reduction. Our results demonstrate that these refined pulse strategies improve performance and reduce coherent errors. Moreover, the techniques developed herein are applicable across different quantum architectures, such as ion-trap, atomic, and photonic systems.

Chirp modulation↗
DOE OSTI2021

Measuring Gas Transport and Sorption in Large Intact Geologic Specimens via the Piezometric Method

Uptake of noble gases into heterogeneous geologic core samples was measured using a piezometric methodology. In addition to measuring accessible porosity—as with gas pycnometry—by monitoring the rate of pressure decay, this method can also be used to estimate the gas effective diffusivity in the sample. In contrast to previous applications of this method, where milligram quantities of fractured grains are characterized, here approximately kilogram core samples were left intact when tested. In doing so, a more representative sample of the heterogeneous field geology is provided. Additionally, alteration of the pore structure and connectivity during sample preparation is avoided. Furthermore, to scale the piezometric method from milligrams to kilograms, the system was designed to operate at medium vacuum (1 to 100 Pa) to restrict transport in pores less than approximately 60 µm to large Knudsen numbers. To test the system performance, two samples of interest were selected: a rhyolitic welded tuff from Blue Canyon Dome at the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center and a zeolitized non-welded rhyolitic tuff from the Nevada National Security Site. Three noble gases were utilized in this test series; Argon and xenon as they are of direct interest to nuclear monitoring efforts and helium as it is a weakly adsorbing reference standard. Additionally, mercury intrusion porosimetry measurements were made on subsamples of the core to compare the observed porosity by the two methods and to discuss gas transport rates in the context of the measured pore distribution.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Processing Compressed Expanded Natural Graphite for Phase Change Material Composites

Phase change materials (PCMs) are used in various thermal energy storage applications but are limited by their low thermal conductivity. One method to increase conductivity involves impregnating organic PCMs into highly porous conductive matrix materials. Of these materials, compressed expanded natural graphite (CENG) matrices have received the most attention. Despite this attention, the effect that CENG processing has on PCM saturation and overall matrix thermal conductivity has not been fully investigated. Therefore, the effect of the heat treatment process used to expand intercalated graphite flakes is evaluated here. Higher heat treatment temperatures yielded higher saturation rates and overall saturation at similar matrix porosities. For example, increasing temperature from 300 °C to 700 °C resulted in approximately 60%-70% increase in pore saturation after 100 minutes of soaking. The exposure time to heat treatment had less of an effect on PCM saturation. The exposure time had negligible effect above 30 min and above 500 °C heating temperatures. However, because the expanded graphite was found to oxidize around 700 °C, the use of longer exposure time in manufacturing applications can be beneficial if a shortened impregnation time is needed. Heat treatment conditions did not impact thermal conductivity. The composite latent heat of fusion was also reduced approximately proportionally to the PCM mass fraction. A local maximum in axial thermal conductivity was observed at around 83% porosity, which is similar to previous studies. The observed conductivity at this maximum was a factor of 81 times greater than the conductivity of the PCM.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Accumulative Roll Bonding of Alloy 2205 Duplex Steel and the Accompanying Impacts on Microstructure, Texture, and Mechanical Properties

The mechanical and microstructural evolution of Alloy 2205 during severe plastic deformation is examined in this study. A combination of accumulative roll bonding (ARB) and cold rolling results in the successful formation of a nanograined dual-phase microstructure of austenite and ferrite with some transformed martensite. Severe deformation to cumulative reductions of 80.5, 92.5, 95, and 97 pct were performed. Microscopy indicates that grain dimensions in the sheet normal direction is less than 100 nm for reductions ≥ 92.5 pct. Shear banding is observed at reductions ≥ 95 pct while twinning is only observed at reductions < 92.5 pct. Neutron diffraction measurements indicated the presence of martensite for reductions ≥ 95 pct at ~ 8 pct volume fraction. Taken in conjunction, it appears that during initial ARB processing, both slip and twinning are active plastic mechanisms. As twinning becomes exhausted, martensitic transformation, slip, and intermittent shear banding account for the active plasticity mechanisms. Material hardness saturates at 92.5 pct reduction, with a maximum hardness of 45 HRC. Sub-sized tensile testing confirms this approximate hardness with measurements indicating a UTS of ~ 1440 MPa. Texture analysis of crystal orientation distributions in the plate normal direction suggest an approximate Kurdjumov–Sachs orientation relationship at all reductions above 80 pct indicating stability of the orientation relationship at high strains. The intragranular structure develops a fine scale sub-grain content with increasing deformation, resulting in a continual evolution of texture up to and including 97 pct reduction. The final structure presents strong components of Goss and rotated cube texture in both the austenite and ferrite. In this body of work we aim to compare ARB of an industrially relevant FCC/BCC system (Alloy 2205) to historical model FCC/BCC systems such as Cu/Nb.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Creep-Resistant Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Power Plant Applications

Creep-resistant ferritic-martensitic steels are essential materials used in power plants for electricity generation. The efficiency and emissions of the plant are closely related to the operating temperature. Materials used in the hottest sections are one of the main limiting factor for plant operation at 650 °C. This review describes the recent development of creep-resistant ferritic-martensitic steels from a large dataset of in-house research. The findings are tied to available literature for discussion. A first steel, CPJ-7, was developed with an operating temperature approaching 650 °C, and a refined design, JMP, showed the potential to operate at 650 °C. Approximately fifty different ingots, each weighing ~ 7 kg, were vacuum induction melted and processed. Overall, wrought and cast versions of CPJ-7 present superior creep properties when compared to wrought and cast versions of COST alloys for steam turbine and P91/92 for boiler applications. The prolonged creep life was attributed to slowing down the process of the destabilization of the MX and M 23 C 6 precipitates at 650 °C. The cast version of CPJ-7 also revealed superior mechanical performance, above commercially available cast 9% Cr martensitic steel or derivatives. Following the work on CPJ-7, the JMP steels were designed with higher Co for increased solid solution strengthening, Si for oxidation resistance and increased W for matrix strength and stability. The JMP steels showed increases in creep life compared to CPJ-7 between 118 and 150% at 650 °C for testing at various stresses between 138 and 207 MPa. On a Larson–Miller plot, the performance of the JMP steels surpasses that of state-of-the-art MARBN steel. The influence of various elements within the composition of the alloys on the microstructure and mechanical properties is discussed. This review presents approximately 420,000 h of in-house creep testing, the equivalent of almost 50 years of cumulative creep tests.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Genotype-Environment-Management Interactions in Biomass Yield and Feedstock Composition of Photoperiod-Sensitive Energy Sorghum

Recently introduced photoperiod-sensitive (PS) biomass sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) needs to be investigated for their yield potential under different cultivation environments with reasonable nitrogen (N) inputs. The objectives of this study were to (1) evaluate the biomass yield and feedstock quality of four sorghum hybrids with different levels of PS ranging from very PS (VPS) hybrids and to moderate PS (MPS) hybrids, and (2) determine the optimal N inputs (0~168 kg N ha -1 ) under four environments: combinations of both temperate (Urbana, IL) and subtropical (College Station, TX) regions during 2018 and 2019. Compared to TX, the PS sorghums in central IL showed higher yield potential and steady feedstock production with an extended day length and with less precipitation variability, especially for the VPS hybrids. The mean dry matter (DM) yields of VPS hybrids were 20.5 Mg DM ha -1 and 17.7 Mg DM ha -1 in IL and TX, respectively. The highest N use efficiency occurred at a low N rate of 56 kg N ha -1 by improving approximately 33 kg DM ha -1 per 1.0 kg N ha -1 input. Approximately 70% of the PS sorghum biomass can be utilized for biofuel production, consisting of 58-65% of the cell-wall components and 4-11% of the soluble sugar. Finally, this study demonstrated that the rainfed temperate area (e.g., IL) has a great potential for the sustainable cultivation of PS energy sorghum due to their observed high yield potential, stable production, and low N requirements.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Dynamic Strength and Equation of State of Epon 828 and Diethanolamine (DEA) Polymer Epoxy Under Shock Loading

Polymers are increasingly utilized in engineering applications that can experience high loading rates, necessitating increased understanding of their response under such conditions. The tamped Richtmyer-Meshkov Instability (RMI) method was used to characterize the equation of state and dynamic strength of the polymer Epon 828 cured with Diethanolamine (DEA). Plate impact experiments that drove a uniaxial shock compression wave across a sinusoidally corrugated metal-polymer interface were performed to generate shock stresses from 4-12 GPa and strain rates of approximately 1/s in the polymer. X-ray phase contrast imaging recorded the shock motion in the polymer and subsequent interface evolution. Analysis of this data yielded the polymer equation of state and, in conjunction with numerical modeling, the dynamic strength. The equation of state was validated against one-dimensional plate impact experiments from existing literature. The dynamic strength was compared to prior data for Epon 828 and related polymers at lower strain rates and found to exhibit significant strain rate and pressure-hardening effects. The strength of the Epon 828 polymer at 10 6 1/s was found to be approximately 1.5 GPa, suggesting that it is comparable to the strength of high strength metals at these dynamic conditions.

Equation of state↗
DOE OSTI2020

K-Spin Hamiltonian for Quantum-Resolvable Markov Decision Processes

The Markov decision process is the mathematical formalization underlying the modern field of reinforcement learning when transition and reward functions are unknown. We derive a pseudo-Boolean cost function that is equivalent to a K-spin Hamiltonian representation of the discrete, finite, discounted Markov decision process with infinite horizon. This K-spin Hamiltonian furnishes a starting point from which to solve for an optimal policy using heuristic quantum algorithms such as adiabatic quantum annealing and the quantum approximate optimization algorithm on near-term quantum hardware. In arguing that the variational minimization of our Hamiltonian is approximately equivalent to the Bellman optimality condition for a prevalent class of environments we establish an interesting analogy with classical field theory. Along with proof-of-concept calculations to corroborate our formulation by simulated and quantum annealing against classical Q-Learning, we analyze the scaling of physical resources required to solve our Hamiltonian on quantum hardware.

Hamiltonian↗