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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 OSTI2026

Will cities keep getting hotter? The interplay of urban expansion and greening reshapes future urban heat trajectories

Urban heat islands (UHIs) pose growing risks to public health, infrastructure, and resilience. While often assumed to intensify with urban growth, dynamic changes in urban expansion and vegetation greenness complicate UHI trajectories, which remain poorly understood. This study investigated the interplay of urban expansion and greenness change on UHI spatial profile across 36 Chinese megacities during 2003–2018 using multiple satellite products. We introduce a framework that classifies urban areas into four dynamic development pathways based on impervious surface area (ISA) and enhanced vegetation index (EVI) trends: urbanized-greening, urbanized-browning, urbanizing-greening (UingG), and urbanizing-browning (UingB). While most urbanized centers exhibited greening driven by targeted initiatives and urbanizing suburbs showed browning due to vegetation loss, about 30% urban areas showed the reverse pattern, revealing overlooked complexity in urban development. Urban expansion and browning strengthened UHI in suburban areas, whereas greening initiatives mitigated UHI in urban center and mitigated UHI enhancement in suburban areas. Slowed warming in urban centers together with accelerated warming in suburban areas flattened the temperature gradient between urban centers and suburbs. This dynamic expanded the spatial extent of elevated temperatures and reshaped the classic urban-to-rural UHI profile into a flatter form. In UingB areas, UHI intensification was jointly driven by increase in ISA, vegetation loss, and their interaction, while in UingG areas, EVI increases and a negative interaction together offset over half of the warming driven by urban expansion. These findings reveal that UHI evolution is not unidirectional but depends on localized urbanization and greening dynamics, offering pathways for strategic heat mitigation.

greening initiative↗
DOE OSTI2024

Blockchain-Enabled Secure Device-to-Device Communication in Software-Defined Networking

The Internet of Things (IoT) continues to increase the demand for seamless communication among IoT devices. The rapid growth of IoT devices has led to an exponential increase in device-to-device (D2D) communication within the Software-Defined Networking (SDN), though it enables a flexible archi-tecture for managing network resources. However, traditional security models face challenges (e.g., Security, privacy, and trust) in addressing the dynamic and decentralized nature of these communications. Despite of these challenges, this paper proposes a novel approach that leverages blockchain technology to enhance the security, privacy, and trustworthiness of D2D communication within an SDN environment. The proposed approach integrates blockchain nodes in sDN components to establish a decentralized ledger for transparent and verifiable records. Smart contracts enforce authentication rules to ensure that only authenticated devices can access the network and engage in transactions securely. It also automates the security policies to ensure temper resistance execution using the cryptographic mechanism for data integrity and authentic communication. The Implementation of the proposed algorithms validates the resilience of the proposed approach against cyberattacks. Overall, the proposed approach enables efficient and secure D2D communication for resilient SDN infrastructure in IoT ecosystems.

Das, Debashis↗
DOE OSTI2022

Electric Grid Supply Chain Review: Large Power Transformers and High Voltage Direct Current Systems

The report “America’s Strategy to Secure the Supply Chain for a Robust Clean Energy Transition” lays out the challenges and opportunities faced by the United States in the energy supply chain as well as the federal government plans to address these challenges and opportunities. It is accompanied by several issue-specific deep dive assessments, including this one, in response to Executive Order 14017 “America’s Supply Chains,” which directs the Secretary of Energy to submit a report on supply chains for the energy sector industrial base. The Executive Order is helping the federal government to build more secure and diverse U.S. supply chains, including energy supply chains. The need to modernize and increase the capacity of the U.S. power grid is increasing due to growing population, aging infrastructure, grid resilience requirements, operational flexibility needs, and a growing portfolio of renewable energy. As part of the Paris Climate Agreement the United States has committed to reducing its net greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels in 2030 and has set a goal of 100 percent carbon pollution free electricity by 2035 (The United States of America Nationally Determined Contribution, 2021). Meeting these targets will require a significant expansion of the power system to integrate a large amount of new renewable resources (United States Department of State & United States Executive Office of the President, 2021). However, many critical components supporting the power grid have limited to no domestic manufacturing capacity and face complex challenges in supporting a rapid expansion of the grid to meet multiple objectives, including decarbonization goals. This report focuses on two key grid components: large power transformers (LPTs) and high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission.

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DOE OSTI2022

ComEd Climate Risk and Adaptation Outlook, Phase 1: Temperature, Heat Index, and Average Wind

This Climate Risk and Adaptation Outlook report presents the research and findings of a joint venture between Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) and Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) to evaluate future climate risks to ComEd’s infrastructure and operations. ComEd recognizes that its position as the state of Illinois’ largest electric utility, serving roughly 70% of the state’s population, underscores the importance for communities across Illinois to consider climate risk as they plan for future conditions. Climate impacts, such as more severe heatwaves or more frequent flood events, can disrupt the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity and create public health challenges. Taking a proactive approach to adapt to climate risks will help ensure that ComEd continues to serve its growing customer-base reliably and efficiently. This Climate Risk and Adaptation Outlook serves as an important first step to inform ComEd’s grid planning efforts, but Argonne and ComEd recognize that additional research beyond this report will be necessary to characterize future climate conditions more comprehensively throughout northern Illinois, to assess their impacts to grid assets and system operations, and to index effective adaptation options at an asset-level.

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DOE OSTI2023

The Value of Sharing and Consolidating Critical Community, Electricity, and Natural Hazard Information

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) sought support for the development of database schema specifications for a bi-directional data portal that would foster cross-jurisdictional collaboration necessary to improve resilient energy infrastructure planning processes. This technical assistance activity involved Berkeley Lab researchers reviewing 34 local/tribal government hazard mitigation plans to assess (1) the natural hazards that communities are most concerned about; (2) the variety of–and terminology used to describe–critical community infrastructure; and (3) the availability of GIS information that could be incorporated into CPUC-mandated "Microgrid Planning Portals". In addition, we develop a common, but generic data taxonomy showing what fields to collect to encourage consolidating and sharing of this information in the future. Finally, we partnered with the Bishop Paiute tribal government to demonstrate the value of combining electricity infrastructure, natural hazard layers, and critical community infrastructure into a series of maps. The project demonstrated that a single system containing both electric utility and community infrastructure data—as well as information about natural hazards—will help the state of California, the IOUs, first responders, and long-term planners better prepare for—and thus lower their exposure to these ongoing and emerging hazards. The project also identified a number of challenges that will need to be overcome before it is possible to stand up a single system to display this information.

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DOE OSTI2026

Communications Reliability for Vehicle Grid Integration

Electric Vehicles (EVs) adoption rate has been steadily increasing in the US leading to a growing number of charging stations including faster DC (Direct Current) chargers and slower Level 1 and Level 2 AC (Alternating Current) chargers. This increase in demand for electricity is further exacerbated by recent developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, advanced manufacturing, and digitization. These factors will require electric utilities to upgrade their infrastructure to keep up with the increasing electrical demand (especially during peak hours). An easy way to counteract the need for these upgrades is to shift a major chunk of active charge sessions (durations where there is energy transfer from charger to EV's propulsion battery) to off-peak hours thereby flattening the load curve and making the infrastructure more resilient. This concept is known as Smart Charge Management (SCM). EV owners also benefit from SCM since it lowers their charging costs and consequently their transportation costs by prioritizing charging during off-peak hours. SCM takes advantage of EV's capability to act as a controllable load or DER (Distributed Energy Resource). This report summarizes the reliability analysis performed on the communication required for two of these SCM use-cases. This analysis only focuses on SCM strategies for unidirectional charging (energy transfer from EVSE to EV or V1G) and not bidirectional charging.

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DOE OSTI2026

Performance contracting centers of expertise: a framework for federal implementation

This report examines the establishment and operation of Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) Centers of Expertise (COEs) within the federal government. EPCs, including Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPCs) and Utility Energy Service Contracts (UESCs), are critical mechanisms for advancing energy efficiency, resilience, and infrastructure modernization without the need for significant upfront appropriations. However, EPCs require specialized knowledge in project development, contracting, financing, legal parameters and technical project oversight. Currently federal agencies have varying levels of expertise and institutionalized policy to effectively and consistently use congressionally authorized EPCs which have decades of proven and impactful use. To address these challenges, several federal agencies have created COEs to centralize expertise, standardize practices, and streamline implementation. This report reviews statutory and policy drivers, highlights the benefits and challenges and presents case studies from the General Services Administration (GSA), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center Huntsville (HNC). Recommendations are also provided for agencies considering the establishment of EPC COEs, which will bring much needed structure, consistency and lead to implementation of these energy and infrastructure building projects to save costs for U.S. taxpayers.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

PR100: Puerto Rico Grid Resilience and Transition to 100% Renewable Energy

The Puerto Rico Grid Resilience and Transitions to 100% Renewable Energy Study (PR100) comprehensively analyzes possible pathways for Puerto Rico to achieve its renewable energy goals while incorporating stakeholder perspectives and advancing energy resilience for all Puerto Ricans. PR100 is a wide-ranging and in-depth examination of Puerto Rico's energy system investment options. The findings are the culmination of two years of stakeholder engagement, scenario modeling, and impact analysis. The PR100 report and Implementation Roadmap contain a range of results and actions that reflect Puerto Rico's priorities around energy justice, resilience, and reliability. Led by the U.S. Department of Energy's Grid Deployment Office with funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the PR100 study leveraged and integrated dozens of best-in-class models and in-depth analyses from researchers across six national laboratories: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (which led the study), along with Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories (which conducted the study). For more information, please see the "PR100 Project Website" resource below.

Array↗
DOE OSTI2024

Pulse Electrodeposition for Carbonate-Rich Deposits from Seawater

Seawater electrodeposition is gaining renewed interest in the context of sustainable development, both to build climate-resilient coastal infrastructure and for ocean-based decarbonization applications. Most of the applications benefit from CaCO 3 -rich deposits, but constant-voltage electrodeposition results in a mixture of CaCO 3 and Mg(OH) 2 , especially at higher voltages where precipitation rates are more desirable. The use of pulse voltages can help control interfacial pH that dictates the precipitation reactions. Here, we explore the use of pulse electrodeposition as a function of pulse frequency and duty cycle to control deposit composition. The most CaCO 3 -rich deposits were obtained under 10 Hz frequency and 10% duty cycle conditions for the voltage window investigated (-0.8 V to -1.2 V vs. SCE). While pulsing the voltage increases the amount of CaCO 3 deposited, the energy required per gram of CaCO 3 is significantly higher (14.5×) when compared to the base case of applying a constant voltage of -0.8 V vs. SCE. Further optimization of pulse conditions, electrode materials, and system configuration could lead to finding parameters that result in exclusively carbonate deposits without compromising precipitation rates, which may prove to be more useful for corrosion protection, coastal infrastructure, and other applications in sustainable development.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

A Mathematical Framework for Representing Cyber-Physical System Interdependencies and Resilience

U.S. critical infrastructure is increasingly composed of integrated cyber-physical systems (CPS) whose components are operationally interdependent. These interdependencies can create additional vulnerabilities beyond those that are typically evaluated through independent physical and cyber risk assessments. These additional vulnerabilities, previously undetected at the sub-system and/or component level, could cause cascading effects across both the physical and cyber domains that could lead to infrastructure disruption or failure. This paper will review an initial mathematical framework developed to help understand the dynamics of these interfacing physical and cyber components at a holistic system level. The resulting framework also provides a method for modeling and assessing the resilience of CPS in complex and adaptive systems. It frames the system in terms of mission performance and the potential effects to performance caused by attacks that are cyber, physical, or blended in nature. The framework utilizes a systems-based, state-space modeling approach to reason about risk, resilience, and interdependencies in CPS. Probabilities are applied to each CPS component regarding a threat (both man-made and natural) and the likelihood of that particular component being impacted, along with indirect impact to other interdependent components. These component-level impacts from threats then translate into mission-level impact and systemic state change.

Brigantic, Robert T.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Mississippi's Strategic Resilience: A multi-systems approach to secure, reliable, and adaptable electric grid infrastructure

Mississippi’s electric grid resilience challenges are linked to an intersection of complex socioeconomic, ecological, technological, historical, and political challenges, exacerbated by increasing severe weather like flooding and tornado events. The state’s legacy of underinvestment in critical energy infrastructure, particularly in rural areas and vulnerable floodplains, have stressed an aging grid, creating long-lasting disruptions in electric service during weather-related outages. Effective emergency management and preparedness is further hampered by a lack of coordination across local, county, and regional scales. Using the TASTI-GRID platform and partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Mississippi is developing a comprehensive regional resilience strategy to overcome energy security and reliability challenges, mitigating the impacts of natural hazards, and positioning Mississippi as a resilient and premier destination for residents, businesses, and economic development.

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DOE OSTI2023

A Transductive Graph Neural Network learning for Grid Resilience Analysis

Power grids are critical infrastructures that require robust resilience analysis to ensure reliable and uninterrupted electricity supply. Traditional simulation-based methods for grid resilience analysis suffer from computational complexity and limited ability to capture the full spectrum of potential disruptions. This paper presents a novel approach to enhance grid resilience by leveraging transductive graph neural network (GNN) learning to identify critical nodes and links. By leveraging the graph structure and system features, GNNs effectively learn resilience metrics and accurately identify critical nodes based on actual grid operational behavior. The efficacy of the proposed approach is demonstrated through case studies on node criticality scoring and critical node/line identification in cascading outage scenarios. The results highlight the advantages of learning-based methods over traditional simulation-based approaches and their potential to revolutionize grid resilience analysis. The contributions of this paper include a graph-based scalable approach for fast cascading analysis, an inductive formulation for training GNN models, and a transfer learning-based approach to scale the model to largescale power systems.

grid resilience, graph neural networks, transducti↗
DOE OSTI2022

Extreme events, energy security and equality through micro- and macro-levels: Concepts, challenges and methods

Low-income households face long-standing challenges of energy insecurity and inequality (EII). During extreme events (e.g., disasters and pandemics) these challenges are especially severe for vulnerable populations reliant on energy for health, education, and well-being. However, many EII studies rarely incorporate the micro- and macro-perspectives of resilience and reliability of energy and internet infrastructure and social-psychological factors. To remedy this gap, we first address the impacts of extreme events on EII among vulnerable populations. Second, we evaluate the driving factors of EII and how they change during disasters. Third, we situate these inequalities within broader energy systems and pinpoint the importance of equitable infrastructure systems by examining infrastructure reliability and resilience and the role of renewable technologies. Then, we consider the factors influencing energy consumption, such as energy practices, socio-psychological factors, and internet access. Finally, we propose interdisciplinary research methods to study these issues during extreme events and provide recommendations.

Chen, CF↗
DOE OSTI2022

Leveraging SETS resilience capabilities for safe-to-fail infrastructure under climate change

As the rehabilitation of infrastructure is outpaced by changes in the profile, frequency, and intensity of extreme weather events, infrastructure’s service disruptions and failures become increasingly likely. Safe-to-fail approaches for infrastructure planning and design improve the capacity of cities to adapt for uncertain climate futures by identifying social, ecological, and technological systems (SETS) capabilities to prepare for potential failure scenarios. In this work, we argue for transforming infrastructure planning and design to effectively utilize safe-to-fail approaches by navigating the opportunities and trade-offs of SETS resilience capabilities. From a technological vantage point, traditional infrastructure planning approaches account for social and ecological domains as external design conditions rather than embedded system characteristics. Safe-to-fail approaches directly challenge the isolation of the technological domain by necessitating a recognition that SETS domains are interconnected and interdependent in infrastructure systems, as such risks and system capabilities for resilience must be managed cohesively.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Assessing Resilience in Lane Detection Methods: Infrastructure-Based Sensors and Traditional Approaches for Autonomous Vehicles

Traditional autonomous vehicle perception subsystems that use onboard sensors have the drawbacks of high computational load and data duplication. Infrastructure-based sensors, which can provide high quality information without the computational burden and data duplication, are an alternative to traditional autonomous vehicle perception subsystems. However, these technologies are still in the early stages of development and have not been extensively evaluated for lane detection system performance. Therefore, there is a lack of quantitative data on their performance relative to traditional perception methods, especially during hazardous scenarios, such as lane line occlusion, sensor failure, and environmental obstructions. We address this need by evaluating the influence of hazards on the resilience of three different lane detection methods in simulation: (1) traditional camera detection using a U-Net algorithm, (2) radar detections using infrastructure-based radar retro-reflectors (RRs), and (3) direct communication of lane line information using chip-enabled raised pavement markers (CERPMs). The performance of each of these methods is assessed using resilience engineering metrics by simulating the individual methods for each sensor technology’s response to related hazards in the CARLA simulator. Using simulation techniques to replicate these methods and hazards acquires extensive datasets without lengthy time investments. Specifically, the resilience triangle was used to quantitatively measure the resilience of the lane detection system to obtain unique insights into each of the three lane detection methods; notably the infrastructure-based CERPMs and RRs had high resistance to hazards and were not as easily affected as the vision-based U-Net. However, while U-Net was able to recover the fastest from the disruption as compared to the other two methods, it also had the most performance loss. Overall, this study demonstrates that while infrastructure-based lane keeping technologies are still in early development, they have great potential as alternatives to traditional ones.

Patil, Pritesh↗
DOE OSTI2023

Quantitative Systems Modeling for Critical Infrastructure Predictions in Climate Change: A National Defense Framework

Any national defense is dependent on the efficacy of the available physical infrastructure. Whatever degrades infrastructure, structurally, physically, architecturally, or esthetically, is of interest to the nation. Climate change is now a major significant factor of interest impinging on national critical infrastructure. The devastating effects of climate change have increasing pervasiveness throughout the world. The impact on critical infrastructure is of particular interest to researchers. In consonance with ASCE-ASME's special issue on critical infrastructure protection and resilience, this paper presents a systems-modeling approach for critical infrastructure and predictions in relation to climate change agreements in COP26. The paper addresses high-level critical systems-based assessment of the social, legal, economic, and technical nuances impinging on the viability of COP26 agreements. The paper was written using a multinational collaboration approach. In conclusion, the specific focus of national defense is used as the backdrop for the methodology of the paper.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Center for Alternate Synchronization and Timing (CAST) PTP Network Monitoring Report

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory Center for Alternative Synchronization and Timing (CAST) performs research, development, testing, and evaluation of alternative terrestrial-based timing and synchronization infrastructure for the US power grid and other critical infrastructures. Alternative timing options reduce reliance on GPS and enhance the overall resilience of critical infrastructures. CAST infrastructure uses Precision Time Protocol (PTP) as the primary conduit for delivery of synchronization packets. CAST deploys PTP over long terrestrial links to synchronize a multitude of remote boundary clocks and downstream power grid components with the authoritative grand master clocks. Network traffic issues can severely degrade PTP accuracy. This report focuses on examining network traffic anomalies and their effects on PTP operation as well as the potential implications to CAST’s high-precision remote synchronization operations.

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