Performance Factor Analysis for Performance Assessment – 24561
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In this article, the performance analysis of a 22.5% efficient polysilicon on silicon oxide (poly-Si/SiOx) passivated contact solar cells with deliberately introduced pinholes using metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) has been performed with the help of optical analysis using Sunsolve and electrical analysis using Quokka3. The power loss is maximum due to recombination and resistive losses in the bulk (~0.76 mW/cm2 ) followed by power loss due to rear contact recombination (~0.35 mW/cm2 ). Recombination at the front surface also contributes to 0.24 mW/cm2. The effect of improving the bulk lifetime and lowering the recombination current density at the rear side on Voc, FF and efficiency has been investigated.
Benchmark Study conducted focusing on CPU and program performance analysis. Performance data gathered using 2 different programs and comparisons made based on performance. After comparisons are made, conclusions can be drawn and improvements are made upon hardware and software.
Call graph or caller-callee relationships have been used for various kinds of static program analysis, performance analysis and profiling, and for program safety or security analysis such as detecting anomalies of program execution or code injection attacks. However, different tools generate call graphs in different formats, which prevents efficient reuse of call graph results. In this paper, we present an approach of using ontology and resource description framework (RDF) to create knowledge graphs for specifying call graphs to facilitate the construction of full-fledged and complex call graphs of computer programs, realizing more interoperable and scalable program analyses than conventional approaches. We create a formal ontology-based specification of call graph information to capture concepts and properties of both static and dynamic call graphs so different tools can collaboratively contribute to more comprehensive analysis results. Our experiments show that ontology enables merging of call graphs generated from different tools and flexible queries using a standard query interface. Index Terms—Callgraph, ontology, knowl
Nuclear fuel vendors around the world are pursuing approaches to sustain the existing nuclear reactor fleet consisting primarily of pressurized-water reactors (PWRs) and boiling-water reactors (BWRs). To support the industry's efforts, advanced modeling and simulation tools need to be capable of analyzing both legacy reactor concepts. BWR fuel rods are significantly different than those used in PWRs, which can affect fuel performance analysis. BWR fuel rods include: (1) an extensive use of gadolinia dopant as a burnable absorber, (2) an axial variation in fuel enrichment and gadolinia content, (3) the inclusion of a liner on the inner cladding surface to mitigate the impact of pellet-clad mechanical interaction (which impacts hydrogen and hydride distribution), (4) a lower initial fill gas pressure, (5) bottom-entry control rods, and (6) a lower coolant pressure that results in the two-phase flow boiling phenomenon. Although the primary focus of BISON has been in the area of PWR and advanced reactor fuel analyses, this paper presents the developments in BISON to support BWR fuel performance analysis. An overview of the models that account for the effects of gadolinia is highlighted. Internal mesh generation capabilities to include a liner is presented. Normal operating and transient (reactivity insertion accident) demonstration problems are presented to illustrate the impact of gadolinia, the hydrogen and hydride evolution due to the presence of the liner, and BISON's ability to simulate axially varying enrichments and dopant concentration. Bottom-entry control effects are captured by the axial power peaking factors present in the demonstration cases. Comparisons to integral experiments from the Halden IFA-681 experiments are discussed as initial validation. Reasonable comparisons are obtained for fuel centerline temperature and rod internal pressure as a function of time. In conclusion, simulations of additional experiments containing Gd 2 O 3 -bearing fuel are necessary to completely validate the code for BWR applications.
Due to the sheer volume of data it is typically impractical to analyze the detailed performance of an HPC application running at-scale. While conventional small-scale benchmarking and scaling studies are often sufficient for simple applications, many modern workflow-based applications couple multiple elements with competing resource demands and complex inter-communication patterns for which performance cannot easily be studied in isolation and at small scale. This work discusses Chimbuko, a performance analysis framework that provides real-time, in situ anomaly detection. By focusing specifically on performance anomalies and their origin (aka provenance), data volumes are dramatically reduced without losing necessary details. To the best of our knowledge, Chimbuko is the first online, distributed, and scalable workflow-level performance trace analysis framework. We demonstrate the tool's usefulness on Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Summit system.
ABSTRACT Due to the sheer volume of data it is typically impractical to analyze the detailed performance of an HPC application running at-scale. While conventional small-scale benchmarking and scaling studies are often sufficient for simple applications, many modern workflow-based applications couple multiple elements with competing resource demands and complex inter-communication patterns for which performance cannot easily be studied in isolation and at small scale. This work discusses Chimbuko, a performance analysis framework that provides real-time, in situ anomaly detection. By focusing specifically on performance anomalies and their origin (aka provenance), data volumes are dramatically reduced without losing necessary details. To the best of our knowledge, Chimbuko is the first online, distributed, and scalable workflow-level performance trace analysis framework. We demonstrate the tool's usefulness on Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Summit system.
As perovskite photovoltaics (PV) advance from the laboratory to commercial prototypes, their accurate and reliable performance testing is becoming increasingly important. The well-documented dynamic response of perovskite solar cells to an external applied voltage has led to the development of steady-state performance measurement methods; however, these methods have not been widely adopted by the perovskite PV community. A key reason for this is that steady-state measurement methods take tens of minutes to complete, as opposed to conventional "fast" current-voltage (I-V) measurements usually lasting a few seconds. Fast I-Vs arise from a snapshot, almost always not a steady-state condition of the device; however, given their widespread use, the question arises: how do performance parameters of perovskite PV compare when measured with fast I-V and with a steady-state method? Results compiled from approximately 200 perovskite PV cells, including single junction, and two-terminal perovskite-perovskite and perovskite-Si tandems, show that fast I-Vs can provide a useful measure of the open-circuit voltage of the devices, while the short-circuit current and the overall efficiency can be widely misestimated. Here, the implications of these findings on performance testing protocols are discussed and possible options for fast and accurate testing of perovskite PV are proposed.
Advanced nuclear reactors are crucial to the future of energy both in the United States and around the globe. In contrast to the current operating fleet, they are characterized as being deployable in remote locations and able to operate in semi-autonomous or autonomous fashion. This leap forward necessitates a new reactor control paradigm. Because advanced nuclear reactors are still under development in the United States, the creation of new control methods to achieve autonomous operations has been based on systems modeling and simulation. However, an important factor in successfully deploying these new control methods is the ability to seamlessly transition from simulation environments to real-world settings. Control methods tested in both simulation and experimental settings need to be investigated in the context of advanced reactor applications. This work developed a series of simple controllers for Idaho National Laboratory (INL)’s Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation (MARVEL) microreactor operating in load-following scenarios. These controllers were tested in both simulation and experimental settings, and a comparative performance analysis was performed. The simulation tests leveraged the Control and Optimization Modular Modeling Application for Nuclear Deployment (COMMAND) software developed in a previous stage of the current effort, along with the MARVEL Reactor Excursion and Leak Analysis Program (RELAP5-3D) and Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) models. The experimental tests leveraged the COMMAND software, MARVEL models, and the U.S. Department of Energy Microreactor Program’s Microreactor Automated Control System (MACS). MACS was developed to serve as a control method testbed. It was customized to mirror the MARVEL microreactor, and COMMAND enabled MACS to emulate the physics of MARVEL. The load-following controller was developed using the simulation platform, with efforts to emulate real systems by introducing actuator saturation and noise. These factors were incrementally accounted for in the controller design. After finalizing the controller design, it was implemented with the experimental setup. The experimental conditions tested included an initial test under conditions similar to the final simulation test, and two additional scenarios. The first scenario introduced additional actuator saturation to account for equipment aging over time, which was unknown to the controller. The second scenario introduced sensor delay, a phenomenon anticipated with the use of remote operations or wireless communication in advanced reactors. These tests revealed several notable differences. While the controller performed well in simulation, it exhibited several limitations when transitioning to hardware. The main challenges involved maintaining the steady-state target power, as evidenced by larger error values between the true reactor power and setpoint power, as well as persistent oscillations in controlled reactor power. These issues could lead to unacceptable transient conditions in real reactor testing. Introducing actuator aging and stochastic delays in the experimental setup significantly impacted controller performance, resulting in increased overshoot and undershoot, and exacerbated error and oscillations previously mentioned. These findings underscore the importance of experimental testbeds for testing and validating control methods, as controllers developed using only theory and/or simulation may perform unexpectedly when applied to actual hardware. This research emphasizes the need for an experimental testbed for achieving such validation.
This work investigates nuclear reactor performance and safety characteristics of UO 2 with high thermal conductivity Mo insert structures by using multiphysics modeling techniques. Additionally, the purpose of this study is to use scoping analyses to quantify the impact of using Mo inserts from neutronic and heat transfer standpoints. Attention is given to reactor performance parameters, such as cycle length, maximum fuel temperature, temperature gradients in the fuel, and stored energy in the fuel. The finite-element code BISON and the Monte Carlo particle transport code Serpent were used to perform sensitivity analyses on the Mo insert geometry to optimize the insert design and inform larger scale modeling that required the homogenization of the UO 2 and Mo. Although BISON is often used as a fuel performance analysis tool, it is used in this context for heat transfer analysis only. Fuel performance optimization is outside the scope of the current study, but would be important for future work focused on this concept. The results showed that the insert had little impact on neutronic performance and that homogenizing the UO 2 and Mo was acceptable for reactor physics calculations. Reactivity temperature coefficients calculated using homogeneous UO 2 -Mo were shown to be relatively similar to UO 2 , but higher Mo content and 235 U enrichment can reduce the worth of soluble boron and control rods. The effect of insert geometry on heat transfer was much greater, and an approximately 15–20% difference in maximum fuel temperature was predicted between the best and worst performing heat transfer geometries. Furthermore, thermal conductivity calibration based on the finite element analysis results was performed to improve the accuracy of temperature predictions in reactor analysis models that homogenized the UO 2 -Mo fuel. Compared with UO 2 in a pressurized water reactor (PWR), the optimized UO 2 -Mo design increased the margin to fuel melt by 13–32% across the fuel cycle, but it requires the 235U enrichment to exceed 5% to match the cycle length of conventional UO 2 .
Here this manuscript presents the fuel performance analysis results of the General Atomics Fast Modular Reactor (FMR) based on an axi-symmetric (2D-RZ) geometry. Three fuel performance model sets that fit the FMR fuel specifications best, i.e., a BISON baseline model set, a BISON diffusion enhancement model set, and a BISON-FASTGRASS model set, were identified and evaluated against a series of relevant experimental cases featuring high burnup and low irradiation temperature conditions. The three BISON-based model sets were then utilized to conduct a comprehensive fuel performance analysis of the FMR fuel under normal operation including the shutdown/restarting periods for refueling. The evaluation of the fuel performance parameters, represented by temperature, internal pressure, stress, and strain, shows that the FMR fuel maintains its thermal and mechanical integrity during normal operation. Technology gaps and limitations are also discussed to guide future efforts for extending the performance analysis to transient scenarios as well as improving the fuel performance evaluation through experiments.
Heterojunction Si solar cells exhibit notable performance degradation. Here, we modeled this degradation by electronic defects getting generated by thermal activation across energy barriers over time. To analyze the physics of this degradation, we developed the SolDeg platform to simulate the dynamics of electronic defect generation. First, femtosecond molecular dynamics simulations were performed to create a-Si/c-Si stacks, using the machine learning-based Gaussian approximation potential. Second, we created shocked clusters by a cluster blaster method. Third, the shocked clusters were analyzed to identify which of them supported electronic defects. Fourth, the distribution of energy barriers that control the generation of these electronic defects was determined. Fifth, an accelerated Monte Carlo method was developed to simulate the thermally activated time-dependent defect generation across the barriers. Our main conclusions are as follows. (1) The degradation of a-Si/c-Si heterojunction solar cells via defect generation is controlled by a broad distribution of energy barriers. (2) We developed the SolDeg platform to track the microscopic dynamics of defect generation across this wide barrier distribution and determined the time-dependent defect density N(t) from femtoseconds to gigaseconds, over 24 orders of magnitude in time. (3) We have shown that a stretched exponential analytical form can successfully describe the defect generation N(t) over at least 10 orders of magnitude in time. (4) We found that in relative terms, Voc degrades at a rate of 0.2%/year over the first year, slowing with advancing time. (5) We developed the time correspondence curve to calibrate and validate the accelerated testing of solar cells. We found a compellingly simple scaling relationship between accelerated and normal times t normal ∝ t accel T(accel)/T(normal) . (6) We also carried out experimental studies of defect generation in a-Si:H/c-Si stacks. We found a relatively high degradation rate at early times that slowed considerably at longer time scales.
Big data transfer in large-scale scientific and business applications is increasingly carried out over connections with guaranteed bandwidth provisioned in High-performance Networks (HPNs) via advance bandwidth reservation. Provisioning agents need to carefully schedule data transfer requests, compute network paths, and allocate appropriate bandwidths. Such reserved bandwidths, if not fully utilized, could be simply wasted due to the exclusive access during the approved time window, and cause extra overhead and complexity for resource management. This calls for accurate performance prediction to reserve bandwidths that match actual needs and avoid over-provisioning. We employ machine learning algorithms to predict big data transfer performance based on extensive performance measurements collected in the past several years from data transfer tests using different protocols and toolkits between various end sites on several real-life physical or emulated testbeds. We first analyze the performance patterns in response to a comprehensive list of parameters in end-host systems, network connections, and data transfer applications, which motivate the use of machine learning and also help us identify the effects of latent factors. We then propose threshold- and clustering-based methods to eliminate negative effects of latent factors in data preprocessing and build a robust performance predictor based on customized domain-oriented loss functions. The performance of the proposed methods is verified by extensive experiments using SVR and RFR as well as theoretical analysis of the general performance bound.
Modern network devices collect a large amount of data that can be analyzed to identify bottlenecks, anomalies, cyber-attacks, etc. Therefore, there is often a need to analyze such collections of network data quite often by an external expert or by the research community. However, these collections of data contain sensitive, proprietary information. In order for the network data to be shared, it must first be anonymized. The overall objective of this project is to develop an innovative privacy management tool to anonymize network data and achieve sufficient privacy, acceptable data utility, and efficient data analysis at the same time. No existing anonymization methods can achieve all of these at the same time. The core of this technology is a differential private clustering algorithm that provides strong privacy protection, preserves data properties important for subsequent analysis, and allows the party receiving the anonymized data to conduct analysis directly on anonymized data without the need of decryption or any extra processing. The research carried out was to design, implement and verify a solution to this problem by completing the following tasks: 1) developing the core technology; 2) developing a context based method that automatically recommends fields that must be anonymized; 3) conducted experiments showing superior results using our approach compared to existing tools, and 4) developed an intuitive but basic user interface. The research that was conducted generated novel algorithmic techniques that utilize state-of-the-art methods such as condensation, differential privacy preservation, clustering, automated tuning based on contextual awareness, and recommendation techniques to specify columns to users for anonymization leading to optimal privacy that allows research analysis on the dataset. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the efficacy of these novel algorithmic techniques by performing analysis on original non-anonymized datasets, then conducting analysis on the same yet anonymized datasets and comparing the results of the analyses. Overall, the anonymized analysis results were within 1% of the original results, verifying that the generated technology not only guarantees a high level of privacy but also enables research analysis as if it were conducted on the original dataset. Potential applications of this technology include anonymization of any type of structured network datasets that contain sensitive identifiers, such as IP addresses, that can be used in multiple applications. For example, to create an AI or machine learning model for cyber security, e.g., to detect attacks, or for performance analysis, e.g., identify bottlenecks or predict performance. In addition, a market analysis that was conducted for potential applications of this technology identified a broader range of applications of our anonymization technology beyond the network sector that includes healthcare, banking, insurance, securities, finance (FISB), data brokering, cloud services, ad sales, and government.
This work seeks to advance the state of the art in HPC I/O performance analysis and interpretation. In particular, we demonstrate effective techniques to: (1) model output performance in the presence of I/O interference from production loads; (2) build features from write patterns and key parameters of the system architecture and configurations; (3) employ suitable machine learning algorithms to improve model accuracy. We train models with five popular regression algorithms and conduct experiments on two distinct production HPC platforms. We find that the lasso and random forest models predict output performance with high accuracy on both of the target systems. We also explore use of the models to guide adaptation in I/O middleware systems, and show potential for improvements of at least 15% from model-guided adaptation on 70% of samples, and improvements up to 10× on some samples for both of the target systems.
DC electrical distribution systems offer many potential advantages over their AC counterparts. They can facilitate easier integration with distributed energy resources, improve system energy efficiency by eliminating AC/DC converters at end-use devices (e.g., laptop chargers), and reduce installation material, time, and cost. However, DC electrical distribution systems present additional design considerations, largely resulting from potentially greater magnitude and variation in cable losses. Modeling and simulation are rarely used to design such systems. However, the greater dependency of DC system energy efficiency on design choices such as distribution voltages, architecture, and integration of PV and BESS suggests that modeling and simulation may be required. Such system performance analysis is currently not a standard practice, in part due to limited availability and validation of capable software tools. This paper characterizes the accuracy of a Modelica-based Building Electrical Efficiency Analysis Model (BEEAM) toolkit, as a precursor for validating its use to perform system performance analysis and inform design decisions. The study builds upon previous verification research by characterizing complete systems comprised of commercially available equipment, and providing a more detailed analysis of simulation results. Five lighting systems with varying electrical distribution architectures were designed using market-available equipment, installed in a laboratory environment, modeled using BEEAM, and simulated using three Modelica integrated development environments (IDEs). Simulated and measured results were compared to characterize toolkit accuracy. Initial results revealed that simulated performance was mostly within ±5% of measured system-level and device-level performance. While simulation results were not found to be dependent on the IDE, some Modelica compiler interoperability issues were identified. Although the BEEAM toolkit showed promise for the targeted use case, further work is needed to determine whether the demonstrated 5% accuracy is sufficient for making real-world design decisions, and for BEEAM to advance from an interesting research tool to one that can impact real-world building projects.
The commercial building sector consumes over 18% of the total energy in the United States. According to the 2012 Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS), office buildings comprise nearly 16 billion square feet of floor space and consume 253 billion kWh of energy annually. Office buildings represent nearly one-fifth of the energy consumed by commercial buildings, more than any other building type. Therefore, monitoring and reducing energy consumption in office buildings has become an increasingly important focus across the United States. The goal of the ENERGY STAR for Tenants program is to recognize office building tenants who demonstrate commitment to energy efficiency and environmental stewardship. Tenants seeking recognition must complete five major steps: estimate energy use, meter energy use, use efficient lighting, use efficient equipment, and share data. NREL is responsible for the underlying analysis performed for step one, estimating energy use. An online survey was developed for tenants to input information about their office space and its internal loads. NREL performed a parametric analysis across a large parameter space of office buildings. The analysis results were processed to map the user inputs to output energy ranges. The mappings enable the web tool to provide users with instant energy usage estimates based on a limited number of inputs.