Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Diffusion problems”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,207 records · Page 67
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Partitioned exponential methods for coupled multiphysics systems

Multiphysics problems involving two or more coupled physical phenomena are ubiquitous in science and engineering. This work develops a new partitioned exponential approach for the time integration of multiphysics problems. After a possible semi-discretization in space, the class of problems under consideration is modeled by a system of ordinary differential equations where the right-hand side is a summation of two component functions, each corresponding to a given set of physical processes. The partitioned-exponential methods proposed herein evolve each component of the system via an exponential integrator, and information between partitions is exchanged via coupling terms. Here, the traditional approach to constructing exponential methods, based on the variation-of-constants formula, is not directly applicable to partitioned systems. Rather, our approach to developing new partitioned-exponential families is based on a general-structure additive formulation of the schemes. Two method formulations are considered, one based on a linear-nonlinear splitting of the right hand component functions, and another based on approximate Jacobians. The paper develops classical (non-stiff) order conditions theory for partitioned exponential schemes based on particular families of T-trees and B-series theory. Several practical methods of third order are constructed that extend the Rosenbrock-type and EPIRK families of exponential integrators. Several implementation optimizations specific to the application of these methods to reaction-diffusion systems are also discussed. Numerical experiments reveal that the new partitioned-exponential methods can perform better than traditional unpartitioned exponential methods on some problems.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Asymptotic analysis of discrete schemes for non-equilibrium radiation diffusion

Motivated by providing well-behaved fully discrete schemes in practice, this paper extends the asymptotic analysis on time integration methods for non-equilibrium radiation diffusion in [2] to space discretizations. Therein studies were carried out on a two-temperature model with Larsen's flux-limited diffusion operator, both the implicitly balanced (IB) and linearly implicit (LI) methods were shown asymptotic-preserving. In this paper, we focus on asymptotic analysis for space discrete schemes in dimensions one and two. First, in construction of the schemes, in contrast to traditional first-order approximations, asymmetric second-order accurate spatial approximations are devised for flux-limiters on boundary, and discrete schemes with second-order accuracy on global spatial domain are acquired consequently. Then by employing formal asymptotic analysis, the first-order asymptotic-preserving property for these schemes and furthermore for the fully discrete schemes is shown. Finally, with the help of manufactured solutions, numerical tests are performed, which demonstrate quantitatively the fully discrete schemes with IB time evolution indeed have the accuracy and asymptotic convergence as theory predicts, hence are well qualified for both non-equilibrium and equilibrium radiation diffusion. - Highlights: • Provide AP fully discrete schemes for non-equilibrium radiation diffusion. • Propose second order accurate schemes by asymmetric approach for boundary flux-limiter. • Show first order AP property of spatially and fully discrete schemes with IB evolution. • Devise subtle artificial solutions; verify accuracy and AP property quantitatively. • Ideas can be generalized to 3-dimensional problems and higher order implicit schemes.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

A Study on Reconstruction of Intra-Pin Information in Pin-Wise Reactor Analysis

Along with nodal calculation, accurate pin-wise calculations with parallel computational platforms have been recently developed as alternative tools to nodal methods to maximize core performance and minimize uncertainties used in reactor safety analysis. Therefore, it is necessary to have a method for accurately reconstructing intra-pin information comparable to whole-core transport calculation while being significantly more computationally efficient. In this study, a method to reconstruct intra-pin information (intra-pin reconstruction) is proposed. This method is based on combining the local intra-pin form function with the global homogeneous distribution. The form functions are generated from a single pin calculation with reflective boundary conditions using Serpent 2, a Monte Carlo neutron transport code. The global homogeneous flux was reconstructed using the analytical solution of the diffusion equation due to its superior accuracy and speed compared to other methods. The study here is limited to a two-dimensional two-group problem of rectangular geometric fuel pin element. The pin-wise boundary constraints (BCs) and reference intra-pin power used for reconstruction and comparison were obtained from the Serpent 2 reference calculation. From our study, it is indicated that maximum relative error (MRE) between reconstructed and reference values is within 5%. In addition, a sensitivity study was also performed to assess the feasibility of the method when the proposed method is coupled with a pin-wise calculation. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
NASA NTRS1992

Problem footprints in Magellan altimetry data

The intensity, time-delay, and frequency content of radar echoes from the Magellan altimetry system are reduced to several parameters that are of great use in addressing many geological issues of the surface of Venus. These parameters include planetary radius, power reflection coefficient (reflectivity, both uncorrected and corrected for diffuse scattering), rms slope, and scattering functions (the behavior of backscatter as a function of incidence angle). Because the surface of Venus often reflects radio energy in unpredictable ways, models of radar scattering and their associated algorithms occasionally fail to accurately solve for the above surface parameters. Methods for identifying possible 'problem' altimetry data footprints, and techniques for resolving some key ambiguities are presented.

Plaut, Jeffrey J.↗
DOE OSTI2015

Second-order accurate interface- and discontinuity-aware diffusion solvers in two and three dimensions

A numerical scheme is developed for two- and three-dimensional time-dependent diffusion equations in numerical simulations involving mixed cells. The focus of the development is on the formulations for both transient and steady states, the property for large time steps, second-order accuracy in both space and time, the correct treatment of the discontinuity in material properties, and the handling of mixed cells. For a mixed cell, interfaces between materials are reconstructed within the cell so that each of resulting sub-cells contains only one material and the material properties of each sub-cell are known. Diffusion equations are solved on the resulting polyhedral mesh even if the original mesh is structured. The discontinuity of material properties between different materials is correctly treated based on governing physics principles. The treatment is exact for arbitrarily strong discontinuity. The formulae for effective diffusion coefficients across interfaces between materials are derived for general polyhedral meshes. The scheme is general in two and three dimensions. Since the scheme to be developed in this paper is intended for multi-physics code with adaptive mesh refinement (AMR), we present the scheme on mesh generated from AMR. The correctness and features of the scheme are demonstrated for transient problems and steady states in one-, two-, and three-dimensional simulations for heat conduction and radiation heat transfer. The test problems involve dramatically different materials.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

Towards efficient backward-in-time adjoint computations using data compression techniques

In the context of a posteriori error estimation for nonlinear time-dependent partial differential equations, the state-of-the-practice is to use adjoint approaches which require the solution of a backward-in-time problem defined by a linearization of the forward problem. One of the major obstacles in the practical application of these approaches, we found, is the need to store, or recompute, the forward solution to define the adjoint problem and to evaluate the error representation. Our study considers the use of data compression techniques to approximate forward solutions employed in the backward-in-time integration. The development derives an error representation that accounts for the difference between the standard-approach and the compressed approximation of the forward solution. This representation is algorithmically similar to the standard representation and only requires the computation of the quantity of interest for the forward solution and the data-compressed reconstructed solution (i.e. scalar quantities that can be evaluated as the forward problem is integrated). This approach is then compared with existing techniques, such as checkpointing and time-averaged adjoints. Lastly, we provide numerical results indicating the potential efficiency of our approach on a transient diffusion–reaction equation and on the Navier–Stokes equations. These results demonstrate memory compression ratios up to 450×450× while maintaining reasonable accuracy in the error-estimates.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS2007

Simulation of Stagnation Region Heating in Hypersonic Flow on Tetrahedral Grids

Hypersonic flow simulations using the node based, unstructured grid code FUN3D are presented. Applications include simple (cylinder) and complex (towed ballute) configurations. Emphasis throughout is on computation of stagnation region heating in hypersonic flow on tetrahedral grids. Hypersonic flow over a cylinder provides a simple test problem for exposing any flaws in a simulation algorithm with regard to its ability to compute accurate heating on such grids. Such flaws predominantly derive from the quality of the captured shock. The importance of pure tetrahedral formulations are discussed. Algorithm adjustments for the baseline Roe / Symmetric, Total-Variation-Diminishing (STVD) formulation to deal with simulation accuracy are presented. Formulations of surface normal gradients to compute heating and diffusion to the surface as needed for a radiative equilibrium wall boundary condition and finite catalytic wall boundary in the node-based unstructured environment are developed. A satisfactory resolution of the heating problem on tetrahedral grids is not realized here; however, a definition of a test problem, and discussion of observed algorithm behaviors to date are presented in order to promote further research on this important problem.

Gnoffo, Peter A.↗
DOE OSTI2017

A sensitive search for unknown spectral emission lines in the diffuse X-ray background with XMM-Newton

The Standard Model of particle physics can be extended to include sterile (right-handed) neutrinos or axions to solve the dark matter problem. Depending upon the mixing angle between active and sterile neutrinos, the latter have the possibility to decay into monoenergetic active neutrinos and photons in the keV-range while axions can couple to two photons. We have used data taken with the X-ray telescope XMM-Newton for the search of line emissions. We used pointings with high exposures and expected dark matter column densities with respect to the dark matter halo of the Milky Way. The posterior predictive p-value analysis has been applied to locate parameter space regions which favour additional emission lines. In addition, upper limits of the parameter space of the models have been generated such that the preexisting limits have been significantly improved.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Many-body electronic structure of LaScO 3 by real-space quantum Monte Carlo

We present real space quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations of the scandate LaSc0 3 that proved to be challenging for traditional electronic structure approaches due to strong correlation effects resulting in inaccurate band gaps from DFT and GW methods when compared with existing experimental data. Besides calculating an accurate QMC band gap corrected for supercell size biases and in agreement with numerous experiments, we also predict the cohesive energy of the crystal using the standard fixed-node QMC without any empirical or non-variational parameters. We show that promotion (optical) gap and fundamental gap agree with each other illustrating a clear absence of significant excitonic effects in the ideal crystal. We obtained these results in perfect consistency in two independent tracks that employ different basis sets (plane wave vs. localized gaussians), different codes for generating orbitals (QUANTUM ESPRESSO vs. CRYSTAL), different QMC codes (QMCPACK vs. QWALK) and different high-accuracy pseudopotentials (ccECPs vs. Troullier-Martins) presenting the maturity and consistency of QMC methodology and tools for studies of strongly correlated problems.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2017

Composite Boson Description of a Low-Density Gas of Excitons

Ground-state properties of a fermionic Coulomb gas are calculated using the fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo method. The validity of the composite boson description is tested for different densities. We extract the exciton–exciton s-wave scattering length by solving the four-body problem in a harmonic trap and mapping the energy to that of two trapped bosons. The equation of state is consistent with the Bogoliubov theory for composite bosons interacting with the obtained s-wave scattering length. The perturbative expansion at low density has contributions physically coming from (a) exciton binding energy, (b) mean-field Gross–Pitaevskii interaction between excitons, and (c) quantum depletion of the excitonic condensate (Lee–Huang–Yang terms for composite bosons). In addition, for low densities we find a good agreement with the Bogoliubov bosonic theory for the condensate fraction of excitons. The equation of state in the opposite limit of large density is found to be well described by the perturbative theory including (a) mixture of two ideal Fermi gases and (b) exchange energy. We find that for low densities both energetic and coherent properties are correctly described by the picture of composite bosons (excitons).

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
NASA NTRS2004

Challenging Issues for On-orbit Calibration in the VIS and NIR

On-orbit calibration of Earth-observing sensors in the VIS and NIR spectral regions is usually performed using the sensors on-board devices such as internal lamp(s) or solar diffuser plate(s) to provide calibration parameters. For sensors with no (or with less reliable) on-board calibrators, lunar calibration or ground validation approaches are often used. Each of these has its own set of problems that need to be fully addressed in order to support high quality on-orbit calibration and characterization. Some science products, such as Ocean color, may impose more stringent requirements that demand greater calibration precision. This paper uses MODIS as an example to illustrate challenging issues involved in VIS and NIR on-orbit calibration. It focuses on the solar diffuser (SD) calibration approach, including the effects due to SD BRF, SD attenuation screen(s), and earthshine. The impact of optics (solar diffuser and scan mirror) on-orbit degradation, including changes in the sensor s response versus scan angle (RVS), on the calibration and subsequent data quality is also discussed.

Xiong, X.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Analytical closure to the spatially-filtered Euler equations for shock-dominated flows

To ensure numerical stability in the vicinity of shocks, a variety of methods have been used, including shock-capturing schemes such as weighted essentially non-oscillatory schemes, as well as the addition of artificial diffusivities to the governing equations. Centered finite difference schemes are often avoided near discontinuities due to the tendency for significant oscillations. However, such schemes have desirable conservation properties compared to many shock-capturing schemes. The objective of this work is to derive all necessary viscous/diffusion terms from first principles and then demonstrate the performance of these analytical terms within a centered differencing framework. The physical Euler equations are spatially-filtered with a Gaussian-like filter. Sub-filter scale (SFS) terms arise in the momentum and energy equations. Analytical closure is provided for each of them by leveraging the jump conditions for a shock. No SFS terms are present in the continuity or species equations. Here, this approach is tested for several problems involving shocks in one and two dimensions. Implemented within a centered difference code, the SFS terms perform well for a range of flow conditions without introducing excessive diffusion.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Comparison of vapour pressure osmometry, freezing point osmometry and direct membrane osmometry for determining the osmotic pressure of concentrated solutions

Osmometry is the analytical method of measuring osmotic pressure ($π$) and related colligative properties. Accurately measuring $π$ is essential for applications that use osmosis, including drug delivery systems and water filtration methods such as forward osmosis. The three most common forms of directly or indirectly measuring $π$ are vapour pressure osmometry (VPO), freezing point osmometry (FPO), and direct membrane osmometry (DMO). In this report, the performance of VPO, FPO, and DMO are compared for various aqueous solutions, including small molecule and polymer solutes, and potentially more difficult samples such as concentrated, carbonated, or viscous solutions. Furthermore, potential problems with each of the three methods are examined. Good practices can avoid inaccuracies in DMO due to external concentration polarization and solute diffusion through the membrane. Similarly, it is important to be aware of and avoid weaknesses in VPO and FPO in order to obtain reliable results. Even with care, however, the three methods still give different values of $π$ for concentrated aqueous solutions.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2022

Custom-designed heat treatment simultaneously resolves multiple challenges facing 3D-printed single-crystal superalloys

Single-crystal Ni-based superalloys are currently the material of choice for turbine blade applications, especially with the emerging additive manufacturing (AM) that facilitates the manufacture/repair of these single crystals. This promising AM route, however, comes with a dilemma: in the fusion and heat affected zones after e-beam or laser induced melting, one needs a solutionizing annealing to relieve the residual stresses and homogenize the chemical/microstructure. The super-solvus solutionizing temperature is usually adopted from the protocol for the cast superalloys, which almost always causes recrystallization and stray grain growth, resulting in a polycrystalline microstructure and degrading the high-temperature mechanical performance. Here, in this paper, we demonstrate a custom-designed post-printing heat treatment to replace the conventional super-solvus one. The recovery and relatively low temperature diminish the driving force for recrystallization and the movement of stray grain boundaries, without suffocating the chemical/microstructural homogenization thanks to the narrow dendrite width and short element segregation distance. The optimal duration of the heat treatment is proposed to achieve atomic-diffusion mediated chemical homogenization while limiting γ'-particle coarsening in the interdendritic regions. Our strategy makes it practically feasible to resolve several bottleneck problems with one processing/treatment, removing a seemingly formidable obstacle to effective additive manufacturing of superalloy single crystal products.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Thermal interfaces in dynamic compression experiments

Temperature is a difficult thermodynamic variable to measure in dynamic compression experiments. Optical pyrometry is a general-purpose technique for measuring temperature from a radiant surface, but that surface is often the interface between distinct materials with temperatures that vary spatially along the loading direction. This leads to a fundamental problem: how does the measured interface temperature relate to this temperature profile along the compression axis? Numerical analysis of loading history and thermal diffusion at these interfaces shows that seemingly subtle changes in experiment geometry can lead to very different temperature profiles. We compare these results to laboratory temperature measurements of shock-compressed tin.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2017

Estimating parameters from rotating ring disc electrode measurements

Rotating ring disc electrode (RRDE) experiments are a classic tool for investigating kinetics of electrochemical reactions. Several standardized methods exist for extracting transport parameters and reaction rate constants using RRDE measurements. Here in this work, we compare some approximate solutions to the convective diffusion used popularly in the literature to a rigorous numerical solution of the Nernst-Planck equations coupled to the three dimensional flow problem. In light of these computational advancements, we explore design aspects of the RRDE that will help improve sensitivity of our parameter estimation procedure to experimental data. We use the oxygen reduction in acidic media involving three charge transfer reactions and a chemical reaction as an example, and identify ways to isolate reaction currents for the individual processes in order to accurately estimate the exchange current densities.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Elastic Flow Modeling for Hydropower Digital Twins

This report details the elastic, unsteady, one-dimensional flow equations that are used to model flow through a penstock in a hydropower facility. The elastic flow model is accurate even in cases of fast transients, long penstock length, and high gravitation head. The compressibility of the water and elasticity of the pipe walls are explicitly accounted for in the developed models so that the water hammer phenomena can be accurately captured. The elastic flow model is coupled to a mechanistic turbine model to resolve the dynamic feedbacks between the elastic water column and the turbine rotation rate. A finite volume method is employed to solve the governing equations, and the method is shown to have low numerical diffusion in sharp gradient phenomena, such as those encountered when simulating water hammer. The method is applied to single dimensional linear advection benchmark problem and numerical results are compared with analytic results. This is followed on by an application to a full hydropower system with a coupled turbine. The elastic flow model results are compared against an inelastic model.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1974

Membrane humidity control investigation

The basic performance data on a hollow fiber membrane unit that removes water from a breathing gas loop by diffusion is presented. Using available permeability data for cellulose acetate, a preliminary design was made of a dehumidifier unit that would meet the problem statement.

Elam, J.↗