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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 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Alabama A&M University Senior Project Cont'd

This entry is being conducted in order to review documents (drawings and pictures) necessary for senior students of Alabama A&M to conduct their senior project. This project will include helping design an upgraded operating system for the TREAT core clamping units. A previous has been completed for the project per STI # INL/MIS-22-69603 Rev:000, these additional items will further assist the students in there work.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2021

INBOUND APPOINTEE PUBLICATION Importance of Substrate-Particle Repulsion for Protein-Templated Assembly of Metal Nanoparticles

We study the protein-directed assembly of colloidal gold nanoparticles on de novo designed protein nanofiber templates. Using sequential assembly on glass substrates, we attach of positively-charged gold nanoparticles to protein nanofibers engineered to have a high density of negatively-charged surface residues. Using a combination of electron and optical microscopy, we measure the density of particle attachment and characterize binding specificity. By varying nanoparticle size and pH of the solution, we explore the importance of charge-dependent particle-fiber and particle-substrate interactions. We find an inverse correlation between particle size and attachment density to the protein nanofibers, attributed to the balance between size-dependent electrostatic particle-fiber attraction and particle-substrate repulsion. We show pH-dependent particle attachment density and binding specificity in relation to the protonation fraction of each assembly layer. Finally, we employ hyperspectral scattering microscopy to draw conclusions about particle density and interparticle spacings of optically-observable particle assemblies.

Guye, Kathryn N.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Immersive Analytics in Critical Spatial Domains: From Materials to Energy Systems

Immersive analytics (IA) leverages virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality to transform how users interact with complex datasets across domains such as science, industry, and education. These immersive technologies offer spatial and multimodal environments that foster intuitive exploration, but they also introduce challenges related to cognitive load, interface design, and system performance. Here, this article presents a comprehensive review of visualization techniques, interaction models, and multimodal inputs utilized in IA. Drawing on case studies in scientific visualization, industrial training, and educational communication, we examine both the potential and limitations of current systems. Finally, we propose future research directions, focusing on real‐time collaboration, adaptive user interfaces, and scalable data exploration strategies to advance the field.

99 - GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Accelerating Lossy and Lossless Compression on Emerging BlueField DPU Architectures

Data compression has become a crucial technique in addressing performance bottlenecks caused by increasing data volumes in High-Performance Computing (HPC), Big Data, and Deep Learning (DL). Despite its potential to boost system performance, recent studies have identified significant challenges with existing compression methods, mainly due to their high computational demands amidst continuously growing data sizes. Concurrently, the advent of Data Processing Units (DPUs), equipped with programmable System-on-Chip (SoC) and specialized compression accelerators, offers a promising opportunity to alter the landscape of data compression. This paper explores the complexities and potential of leveraging NVIDIA BlueField DPUs to accelerate lossy and lossless compression. Towards this, we introduce PEDAL, an innovative library that leverages the hardware capabilities of DPUs to unify and optimize data compression designs. Moreover, we seamlessly co-design PEDAL with the popular MPICH MPI library, demonstrating up to 101x speedup in compression time and 88x decrease in communication latency. Drawing on these achievements, we share our experience with various research communities about accelerating data compression on DPUs in communication-oriented HPC scenarios.

Li, Yuke↗
DOE OSTI2025

Managing technical debt across large-scale control systems

This presentation provides a comprehensive overview of technical debt in the context of control systems for large-scale physics facilities. We will explore its various forms, common causes, and potential consequences on system reliability, maintainability, and upgradability. Drawing on experiences from multiple projects, we will present a range of strategies for proactively managing technical debt, including best practices in design, development, testing, and documentation, as well as reactive approaches for identifying and mitigating existing issues. The presentation will also emphasize the importance of a collaborative approach and the use of modern tools, like fault tracking systems, to ensure the long-term health and success of control systems in our field.

Watts, Adam [Fermilab]↗
DOE OSTI2023

Simulating noise on a quantum processor: interactions between a qubit and resonant two-level system bath

Material defects fundamentally limit the coherence times of superconducting qubits, and manufacturing completely defect-free devices is not yet possible. Therefore, understanding the interactions between defects and a qubit in a real quantum processor design is essential. We build a model that incorporates the standard tunneling model, the electric field distributions in the qubit, and open quantum system dynamics, and draws from the current understanding of two-level system (TLS) theory. Specifically, we start with one million TLSs distributed on the surface of a qubit and pick the 200 systems that are most strongly coupled to the qubit. We then perform a full Lindbladian simulation that explicitly includes the coherent coupling between the qubit and the TLS bath to model the time dependent density matrix of resonant TLS defects and the qubit. We find that the 200 most strongly coupled TLSs can accurately describe the qubit energy relaxation time. This work confirms that resonant TLSs located in areas where the electric field is strong can significantly affect the qubit relaxation time, even if they are located far from the Josephson junction (JJ). Similarly, a strongly-coupled resonant TLS located in the JJ does not guarantee a reduced qubit relaxation time if a more strongly coupled TLS is far from the JJ. In addition to the coupling strengths between TLSs and the qubit, the model predicts that the geometry of the device and the TLS relaxation time play a significant role in qubit dynamics. Our work can provide guidance for future quantum processor designs with improved qubit coherence times.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2020

Variable Renewable Energy Grid Integration Studies: A Guidebook for Practitioners

This guidebook provides power system planners with a brief but comprehensive summary of the strategies, best practices, and terminology associated with conducting a high-impact grid integration study. The objective is to provide practical guidance to teams that are in the initial stages of designing a grid integration study effort. Though this guidance is broadly applicable to most power systems, it emphasizes considerations relevant to developing economies, drawing on experiences from efforts by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to support this type of analysis with its partner countries.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Biodiversity and disease risk in an algal biofuel system: An experimental test in outdoor ponds using a before-after-control-impact (BACI) design

For outdoor cultivation of algal feedstocks to become a commercially viable and sustainable option for biofuel production, algal cultivation must maintain high yields and temporal stability in environmentally variable outdoor ponds. One of the main challenges is mitigating disease outbreaks that leads to culture crashes. Drawing on predictions from the ‘dilution effect’ hypothesis, in which increased biodiversity is thought to reduce disease risk in a community, a teste of whether algal polycultures would reduce disease risk and improve feedstock production efficiencies compared to monocultures was performed. While the positive benefits of biodiversity on disease risk have been demonstrated in various systems, to the best of our knowledge this is the first test in an algal biofuel system. Here, the results a before-after-control-impact (BACI) experimental design to compare mean monoculture (control) and polyculture (impact) yield, stability, and productivity before and after fungal infection when grown in 400-L outdoor raceway ponds are presented. It has been found that polycultures did not experience a reduction in disease risk compared to monocultures or differ in production efficiencies throughout the course of the 43-day experiment. These results show that polyculture feedstocks can maintain similar levels of productivity, stability, and disease resistance to that of a monoculture. Determining whether these results are generalizable or represent one case study requires additional outdoor experiments using a larger variety of host and pathogen species.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Roadmap on Atomtronics: State of the art and perspective

Atomtronics deals with matter-wave circuits of ultracold atoms manipulated through magnetic or laser-generated guides with different shapes and intensities. In this way, new types of quantum networks can be constructed in which coherent fluids are controlled with the know-how developed in the atomic and molecular physics community. In particular, quantum devices with enhanced precision, control, and flexibility of their operating conditions can be accessed. Concomitantly, new quantum simulators and emulators harnessing on the coherent current flows can also be developed. Here, the authors survey the landscape of atomtronics-enabled quantum technology and draw a roadmap for the field in the near future. The authors review some of the latest progress achieved in matter-wave circuits' design and atom-chips. Atomtronic networks are deployed as promising platforms for probing many-body physics with a new angle and a new twist. The latter can be done at the level of both equilibrium and nonequilibrium situations. Numerous relevant problems in mesoscopic physics, such as persistent currents and quantum transport in circuits of fermionic or bosonic atoms, are studied through a new lens. The authors summarize some of the atomtronics quantum devices and sensors. Finally, the authors discuss alkali-earth and Rydberg atoms as potential platforms for the realization of atomtronic circuits with special features.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

An Analysis of System Balance and Architectural Trends Based on Top500 Supercomputers

Supercomputer design is a complex, multi-dimensional optimization process, wherein several subsystems need to be reconciled to meet a desired figure of merit performance for a portfolio of applications and a budget constraint. However, overall, the HPC community has been gravitating towards ever more FLOPS, at the expense of many other subsystems. To draw attention to overall system balance, in this paper, we analyze balance ratios and architectural trends in the world's most powerful supercomputers. Specifically, we have collected performance characteristics of systems between1993 and 2018 based on the Top500 lists, and then analyzed their architectures from diverse system design perspectives. Notably, our analysis studies the performance balance of the machines, across a variety of subsystems such as compute, memory, I/O, interconnect, intra-node connectivity and power. Our analysis reveals that balance ratios of the various subsystems need to be considered carefully alongside the application workload portfolio to provision the subsystem capacity and bandwidth specifications, which can help achieve optimal performance.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Abrasion wear at high temperature in particle receiver type Concentrating Solar Power Systems

The use of solid particles as a heat transfer fluid in receivers for concentrating solar powerplants has garnered much attention in the past decade. Particles are not only stable at temperatures above 700 °C but are also able to absorb solar energy directly, which gives them a distinct advantage over conventional molten salts. The use of particles can, however, cause material degradation from the flow of hot or cold particles through discharge hoppers or along the inner receiver surfaces and other system components (e.g. tubes, valves etc.), depending on operating mode of the receiver. Stainless steel alloy 316, nickel-based alloy Inconel® 740H®, Haynes 230, and a 60% alumina, low-cement refractory castable from Allied Mineral Products were tested for wear from first-of-a-kind high-temperature low-velocity abrasion-erosion experiments. The tests are designed to simulate potential conditions in Generation 3 falling particle Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems. Simultaneous experiments were conducted at room temperature as well to draw comparison on the role of temperature on abrasion wear rates. It was noted that the abrasion wear rate in candidate materials was driven by the oxidation resistance of the material. The findings from these experiments will be used to determine life-time of critical components in particle receiver concentrated solar powerplants.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

An Analysis of System Balance and Architectural Trends Based on Top500 Supercomputers

Supercomputer design is a complex, multi-dimensional optimization process, wherein several subsystems need to be reconciled to meet a desired figure of merit performance for a portfolio of applications and a budget constraint. However, overall, the HPC community has been gravitating towards ever more Flops, at the expense of many other subsystems. To draw attention to overall system balance, in this paper, we analyze balance ratios and architectural trends in the world’s most powerful supercomputers. Specifically, we have collected the performance characteristics of systems between 1993 and 2019 based on the Top500 lists and then analyzed their architectures from diverse system design perspectives. Notably, our analysis studies the performance balance of the machines, across a variety of subsystems such as compute, memory, I/O, interconnect, intra-node connectivity and power. Our analysis reveals that balance ratios of the various subsystems need to be considered carefully alongside the application workload portfolio to provision the subsystem capacity and bandwidth specifications, which can help achieve optimal performance.

Khan, Awais↗
DOE OSTI2020

Collective mode Brownian dynamics: A method for fast relaxation of statistical ensembles

Sampling equilibrium configurations of correlated systems of particles with long relaxation times (e.g., polymeric solutions) using conventional molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo methods can be challenging. This is especially true for systems with complicated, extended bond network topologies and other interactions that make the use and design of specialized relaxation protocols infeasible. We introduce a method based on Brownian dynamics simulations that can reduce the computational time it takes to reach equilibrium and draw decorrelated samples. Importantly, the method is completely agnostic to the particle configuration and the specifics of interparticle forces. In particular, we develop a mobility matrix that excites non-local, collective motion of N particles and can be computed efficiently in $\mathcal{O}(N)$ time. Particle motion in this scheme is computed by integrating the overdamped Langevin equation with an Euler–Maruyama scheme, in which Brownian displacements are drawn efficiently using a low-rank representation of the mobility matrix in position and wave space. We demonstrate the efficacy of the method with various examples from the realm of soft condensed matter and release a massively parallel implementation of the code as a plugin for the open-source package HOOMD-blue [J. A. Anderson et al., J. Comput. Phys. 227, 5342 (2008) and J. Glaser et al., Comput. Phys. Commun. 192, 97 (2015)] which runs on graphics processing units

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2021

An Open-Source Virtual Testbed for a Real Net-Zero Energy Community

Net zero energy communities (NZECs) are critical to ensure sustainability and resilience of modernized power systems. System modeling helps overcome technical challenges in designing and operating NZECs. In this paper, we present the modeling work based on a real NZEC. Two sets of models are developed: higher-fidelity physics-based models considering the interaction between subsystems of the studied NZEC and capturing fast-dynamics; and lower-fidelity data-driven models requiring less resource to establish and/or run. All models are validated against measurements from this real NZEC. In addition, we create a simulation framework which streamlines the processes for simulation and thus allows using developed models to form a virtual testbed. To demonstrate the usage of the virtual testbed, a case study is conducted where a building-to-grid integration control is evaluated via simulation. The evaluation results suggest that the tested control significantly smooths the power draw of the studied community and doesn’t sacrifice the thermal comfort to a great extent.

Huang, Sen↗
DOE OSTI2025

Toward Fullerene-Free PIN Perovskite Solar Cells

We highlight opportunities for a transformative shift in perovskite solar cell design by expanding electron transport layers (ETLs) beyond fullerenes. Fullerenes have known limitations, including constraints on open-circuit voltage, stability, and mechanical integrity. Recently, fullerene-free p-i-n cells with power conversion efficiencies exceeding 25% have been demonstrated via both naphthalene diimide-SnO x bilayers and nonfullerene acceptor-based ETLs. Despite successes, fullerenes remain the de facto ETLs for perovskites. Drawing lessons from organic photovoltaics, where it took decades to transition from fullerenes to more broadly available and efficient materials, we explore pathways to accelerate the development and adoption of fullerene-free ETLs. This requires understanding the similarities and differences between organic and perovskite solar cells, which will necessitate carefully designing fullerene replacements with both, high efficiency and also, critically, durability under operation. Here, we incorporate literature data to facilitate comparisons, and independently conduct fracture energy measurements for alternative ETL configurations to motivate their adoption.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Ecosystems for Scientific Computing in the Age of AI

Scientific computing is at an inflection point. Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how scientific software is developed, how teams collaborate, how projects are governed, and how the next generation is trained. Drawing on insights from a 2025 workshop report, this article argues that the future of discovery will depend on agile, robust ecosystems built through socio-technical co-design—the intentional integration of technical and human systems. This perspective is essential for ensuring that future scientific computing remains trustworthy, sustainable, and scalable. It combines advances in AI, high-performance computing, and software with new models for cross-disciplinary collaboration, education, and workforce development. Key recommendations include building modular, trustworthy AI-enabled software ecosystems; enabling teams to integrate AI into scientific workflows while preserving human creativity, integrity, and rigor; and developing adaptive training pathways that keep pace with rapid technological change. By sharing these perspectives, we hope to stimulate broader community dialogue and encourage coordinated action.

AI↗
DOE OSTI2025

ICALEPCS 2025: Managing Technical Debt Across Large-Scale Control Systems

This presentation provides an overview of technical debt in the context of control systems for large-scale physics facilities. We explore various forms, common causes, and potential consequences on system reliability, maintainability, and extensibility. Drawing on experiences from multiple projects, including the ACORN control system modernization at Fermilab, we present a range of strategies for proactively managing technical debt, including best practices in design, development, testing, and documentation, as well as reactive approaches for identifying and mitigating existing issues.

Watts, Adam [Fermilab]↗
DOE OSTI2020

A critical literature review of the advances in methane dehydroaromatization over multifunctional metal-promoted zeolite catalysts

We report the drastic rise in shale gas production has encouraged the quest for alternative uses of methane as a chemical feedstock in the manufacturing industry. While two-step syngas routes for methane valorization are deployed commercially, direct one-step routes for methane conversion are attracting much attention. As steam cracking installations have shifted from using oil-based naphtha to shale-based natural gas liquids, production of aromatics has dropped. Methane dehydroaromatization (MDA) is a one-step reaction capable of valorizing methane to hydrogen and benzene. Challenges with the MDA reaction are two-fold: the reaction is thermodynamically limited with low one-pass methane conversion and even the best catalytic systems, Mo/zeolites, suffer rapid deactivation from coking. A catalyst design strategy to improve stability is the use of multifunctional Mo-X/zeolite systems where X is a dopant capable of modulating the stability. In this paper we provide a complete overview of the main Mo-X/zeolite systems used in MDA and critically draw connections among the different types of dopants (X) employed, as a function of the role they play in the reaction/deactivation pathway. We have also dedicated a section to emerging trends with non-Mo based catalysts. The goal of this review article is to establish a basis that will facilitate the identification of useful multifunctional catalytic systems, and recognize gaps in the knowledge of these systems that deserve more attention. Improving MDA systems to the point to which they can be commercially deployed requires a multifaceted approach that combines optimization of the designs of both the catalyst and the reactor configuration. We therefore also provide a brief overview of the most recent advances in process intensification strategies employed with different reactor configurations.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗