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At least 1,261 records · Page 70

Porting the Kitten Lightweight Kernel Operating System to RISC-V

Hardware design in high-performance computing (HPC) is often highly experimental. Exploring new designs is difficult and time-consuming, requiring lengthy vendor cooperation. RISC-V is an open-source processor ISA that improves the accessibility of chip design, including the ability to do hardware/software co-design using open-source hardware and tools. Co-design allows design decisions to easily flow across the hardware/software boundary and influence future design ideas. However, new hardware designs require corresponding software to drive and test them. Conventional operating systems like Linux are massively complex and modification is time-prohibitive. In this paper, we describe our port of the Kitten lightweight kernel operating system to RISC-V in order to provide an alternative to Linux for conducting co-design research. Kitten's small code base and simple resource management policies are well matched for quickly exploring new hardware ideas that may require radical operating system modifications and restructuring. Our evaluation shows that Kitten on RISC-V is functional and provides similar performance to Linux for single-core benchmarks. This provides a solid foundation for using Kitten in future co-design research involving RISC-V.

Gordon, Nick↗

SpacelyProject/spacely-docs

Spacely is an open-source framework for the post-silicon validation of analog, digital, and mixed-signal ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits) which maximizes the reuse of hardware and software, reducing the time taken to achieve meaningful test results. Spacely specifically addresses the needs of small, flexible ASIC design teams commonly found in academia or research institutions. Spacely was originally developed at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Quinn, Adam [Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory↗

An Open-Source Framework for Rapid Validation of Scientific ASICs

Spacely is an open-source framework for the post-silicon validation of analog, digital, and mixed-signal ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits) which maximizes the reuse of hardware and software, reducing the time taken to achieve meaningful test results. Spacely specifically addresses the needs of small, flexible ASIC design teams commonly found in academia or research institutions which benefit most from sharing the overhead of test stand creation between many unique ASIC designs. Spacely is a set of software, firmware, and design practices. It targets two primary hardware platforms (NI-PXI and Caribou) as well as offering extensible support for bench instruments. Spacely provides a high-level Python interface to all test hardware for accessibility, while also giving more sophisticated teams the opportunity to integrate custom test firmware. The design principles of Spacely are presented in brief. Current documentation is available at https://github.com/SpacelyProject/spacely-docs.

Quinn, Adam [Fermilab]↗

Full 3D visualization tool-kit for Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes

We propose a package of tools capable of translating the geometric inputs and outputs of many Monte Carlo and deterministic radiation transport codes into open source file formats. These tools are aimed at bridging the gap between trusted, widely-used radiation analysis codes and very powerful, more recent and commonly used visualization software, thus supporting the design process and helping with shielding optimization. Three main lines of development were followed: mesh-based analysis of Monte Carlo codes, mesh-based analysis of deterministic codes and Monte Carlo surface meshing. The developed kit is considered a powerful and cost-effective tool in the computer-aided design for radiation transport code users of the nuclear world, and in particular in the fields of core design and radiation analysis. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

An Open-Source Framework for Rapid Validation of Scientific ASICs

Spacely is an open-source framework for the post-silicon validation of analog, digital, and mixed-signal ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits) which maximizes the reuse of hardware and software, reducing the time taken to achieve meaningful test results. Spacely specifically addresses the needs of small, flexible ASIC design teams commonly found in academia or research institutions which benefit most from sharing the overhead of test stand creation between many unique ASIC designs. Spacely is a set of software, firmware, and design practices. It targets two primary hardware platforms (NI-PXI and Caribou) as well as offering extensible support for bench instruments. Spacely provides a high-level Python interface to all test hardware for accessibility, while also giving more sophisticated teams the opportunity to integrate custom test firmware. The design principles of Spacely are presented, along with a demonstrative example of using Spacely to test a pixel detector readout ASIC.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Sampling electronic structure quadratic unconstrained binary optimization problems (QUBOs) with Ocean and Mukai solvers

The most advanced D-Wave Advantage quantum annealer has 5000+ qubits, however, every qubit is connected to a small number of neighbors. As such, implementation of a fully-connected graph results in an order of magnitude reduction in qubit count. To compensate for the reduced number of qubits, one has to rely on special heuristic software such as qbsolv, the purpose of which is to decompose a large quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) problem into smaller pieces that fit onto a quantum annealer. In this work, we compare the performance of the open-source qbsolv which is a part of the D-Wave Ocean tools and a new Mukai QUBO solver from Quantum Computing Inc. (QCI). The comparison is done for solving the electronic structure problem and is implemented in a classical mode (Tabu search techniques). The Quantum Annealer Eigensolver is used to map the electronic structure eigenvalue-eigenvector equation to a QUBO problem, solvable on a D-Wave annealer. We find that the Mukai QUBO solver outperforms the Ocean qbsolv with one to two orders of magnitude more accurate energies for all calculations done in the present work, both the ground and excited state calculations. This work stimulates the further development of software to assist in the utilization of modern quantum annealers.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Package Equivalent Reactor Networks as Reduced Order Models for Use with CAPE-OPEN Compliant Simulation

Engineering simulations of coal gasifiers are typically performed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, where a 3-D representation of the gasifier equipment is used to model the fluid flow in the gasifier and source terms from the coal gasification process are captured using discrete-phase model source terms. Simulations using this approach can be very time consuming, making it difficult to imbed such models into overall system simulations for plant design and optimization. For such system-level designs, process flowsheet software is typically used, such as Aspen Plus®, where each component where each component is modeled using a reduced-order model. For advanced power-generation systems, such as integrated gasifier/gas-turbine combined-cycle systems (IGCC), the critical components determining overall process efficiency and emissions are usually the gasifier and combustor. Providing more accurate and more computationally efficient reduced-order models for these components, then, enables much more effective plant-level design optimization and design for control.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

An Open Source Extensible Smart Energy Framework

Aggregated distributed energy resources are the subject of much interest in the energy industry and are expected to play an important role in meeting our future energy needs by changing how we use, distribute and generate electricity. This energy future includes an increased amount of energy from renewable resources, load management techniques to improve resiliency and reliability, and distributed energy storage and generation capabilities that can be managed to meet the needs of the grid as well as individual customers. These energy assets are commonly referred to as Distributed Energy Resources (DER). DERs rely on a means to communicate information between an energy provider and multitudes of devices. Today DER control systems are typically vendor-specific, using custom hardware and software solutions. As a result, customers are locked into communication transport protocols, applications, tools, and data formats. Today’s systems are often difficult to extend to meet new application requirements, resulting in stranded assets when business requirements or energy management models evolve. By partnering with industry advisors and researchers, an implementation DER research platform was developed called the Smart Energy Framework (SEF). The hypothesis of this research was that an open source Internet of Things (IoT) framework could play a role in creating a commodity-based eco-system for DER assets that would reduce costs and provide interoperable products. SEF is based on the AllJoynTM IoT open source framework. The demonstration system incorporated DER assets, specifically batteries and smart water heaters. To verify the behavior of the distributed system, models of water heaters and batteries were also developed. An IoT interface for communicating between the assets and a control server was defined. This interface supports a series of “events” and telemetry reporting, similar to those defined by current smart grid communication standards. The results of this effort demonstrated the feasibility and application potential of using IoT frameworks for the creation of commodity-based DER systems. All of the identified commodity-based system requirements were met by the AllJoyn framework. By having commodity solutions, small vendors can enter the market and the cost of implementation for all parties is reduced. Utilities and aggregators can choose from multiple interoperable products reducing the risk of stranded assets. Based on this research it is recommended that interfaces based on existing smart grid communication protocol standards be created for these emerging IoT frameworks. These interfaces should be standardized as part of the IoT framework allowing for interoperability testing and certification. Similarly, IoT frameworks are introducing application level security. This type of security is needed for protecting application and platforms and will be important moving forward. Recommendations are that along with DER-based data model interfaces, platform and application security requirements also be prescribed when IoT devices support DER applications.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Open Source Release of NJOY2016 and NJOY21

NJOY has been the standard for nuclear data processing for many decades. NJOY is a comprehensive computer code used to produce point-wise and multigroup nuclear data application libraries from cross sections and related quantities obtained from evaluated nuclear data in the Evaluated Nuclear Data Format (ENDF). NJOY was first publicly released in 1977 and distributed by what is now the Radiation Safety Information Computational Center (RSICC) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the National Energy Software Center (NESC) at Argonne National Laboratory. From that time until the release of NJOY2012, NJOY has been distributed by RSICC and made available to researchers outside the United States by agreements between RSICC and the NEA Databank. NJOY2012 was distributed by the Feynman Center at Los Alamos National Laboratory which did not have agreements with the NEA Databank, thus making it more difficult for non US citizens to obtain copies of NJOY2012. Furthermore, NJOY has had export control restrictions preventing some researchers from obtaining NJOY at all. Two new versions of NJOY have been released, NJOY2016 and NJOY21, in January of 2017. Both NJOY2016 and NJOY21 have been released with no export control restrictions and are distributed with an open-source license. This is a big departure from previous releases and impacts not only who has access to NJOY, but also how updates are made available to users and how collaboration is facilitated among interested developers. In addition to distributing NJOY2016 and NJOY21 with an open-source license, these two new versions provide new capabilities for NJOY which will maintain NJOY as the standard for nuclear data processing into the foreseeable future. We report in this summary about the changes that come with these two new versions of NJOY and how this impacts the users and long-time contributors to NJOY.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

A Scalable Online Monitoring System Based on Elasticsearch for Distributed Data Acquisition in Cms

The part of the CMS Data Acquisition (DAQ) system responsible for data readout and event building is a complex network of interdependent distributed applications. To ensure successful data taking, these programs have to be constantly monitored in order to facilitate the timeliness of necessary corrections in case of any deviation from specified behaviour. A large number of diverse monitoring data samples are periodically collected from multiple sources across the network. Monitoring data are kept in memory for online operations and optionally stored on disk for post-mortem analysis. We present a generic, reusable solution based on an open source NoSQL database, Elasticsearch, which is fully compatible and non-intrusive with respect to the existing system. The motivation is to benefit from an off the-shelf software to facilitate the development, maintenance and support efforts. Elasticsearch provides failover and data redundancy capabilities as well as a programming language independent JSON-over-HTTP interface. The possibility of horizontal scaling matches the requirements of a DAQ monitoring system. The data load from all sources is balanced by redistribution over an Elasticsearch cluster that can be hosted on a computer cloud. In order to achieve the necessary robustness and to validate the scalability of the approach the above monitoring solution currently runs in parallel with an existing in-house developed DAQ monitoring system.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DEPRECATED AI-Batt-OS (Autonomous Identification of Battery Life Models - Open Source) [SWR 21-17]

DEPRECATED. This repository was archived by the owner on Jun 30, 2026. It is now read-only. Open source implementation of some of the methods utilized by AI-Batt, a battery lifetime modeling and analysis toolkit provided by the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR). This software demonstrates the use of bi-level optimization and symbolic regression techniques to semi-autonomously identify algebraic models predicting the capacity fade of lithium-ion batteries during calendar aging. Modeling the degradation of batteries is a complex task, due to the difficulty in separating the time-dependent and time-independent factors impacting cell level degradation, across multiple data series with different numbers of measurements and/or data quality. Bi-level optimization enables model parameters to be optimized to either the entire data set or to individual data series, allowing statistical disambiguation of global behaviors (data series independent) and local behaviors (data series dependent). Symbolic regression is used to automatically search for optimal low-dimesional models predicting the variation of locally optimized parameters versus time-independent experimental variables from millions of possible models, resulting in a more accurate and repeatable model identification process than is possible by a manual search. The provided tools also implement cross-validation and bootstrap resampling schemes, empowering statistical model comparison/selection and quantification of model uncertainties. An example script replicates the results from the manuscript "Challenging Practices of Algebraic Battery Life Models through Statistical Validation and Model Identification via Machine-Learning", submitted to ECS. All code is written in MATLAB. Requires the Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox. Contact Dr. Paul Gasper at Paul.Gasper@nlr.gov for any questions.

Gasper, Paul↗

Implementation of a High-Fidelity Interface Resolving Method in Nek5000

The development and utilization of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models for large, high-temperature electric melters in the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) in eastern Washington State have proven to be valuable for various purposes. These models allow for a better understanding of the physio-chemical processes occurring within the melter vessels and can contribute to improving operational efficiency, throughput, and addressing operational issues related to vitrification. The CFD models employed for these melter vessels incorporate multiphase fluid flow and heat transfer simulations in different regions, including the plenum, cold cap, and molten glass regions. As the tank waste and glass formers are introduced into the melter, a reacting batch layer known as the cold cap forms on top of the molten glass. To enhance the melt rate, forced convection bubblers located at the bottom of the melters generate convection currents that help homogenize the molten glass and provide heat to the cold cap. As the bubbles rise through the highly viscous glass, they adopt a spherical-cap shape [1]. Meanwhile, the conversion of the batch to glass generates significant amounts of gases (such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and NOx) due to thermal decomposition [2]. These gases become trapped between the cold cap and molten glass, forming a foam layer [3]. For modeling multiphase flow in CFD and heat transfer simulations of waste glass melters at different scales, efforts are underway to augment the capabilities of the Nek5000 [4] and NekRS [5] open-source codes [6]. Nek5000/NekRS is a scalable and efficient spectral element code that has been successfully applied to a wide range of fluid dynamics problems. By leveraging the Nek5000/NekRS software, it becomes possible to model the melter systems more affordably and with lower computational requirements compared to currently utilized commercial CFD software. The specific objectives of this ongoing effort include: 1. Implementation of a level set method in Nek5000/NekRS: The level set method is a numerical technique commonly employed in CFD simulations to track and represent the interface between different phases or materials accurately. By incorporating this method into Nek5000/NekRS, the ability to simulate multiphase flows in waste glass melters at a high level of fidelity can be achieved. 2. Demonstration of capability for air bubbling through molten glass: As part of the development process, a specific case of air bubbling through molten glass will be simulated using the augmented Nek5000/NekRS code. This demonstration aims to showcase the ability of the software to accurately capture and analyze the complex phenomena involved in the multiphase flow within waste glass melters. By achieving these objectives, the improved Nek5000/NekRS code will offer a powerful computational tool for simulating and analyzing waste glass melter systems, enabling better understanding, optimization, and troubleshooting of these vitrification processes. The ability to accurately model and simulate multiphase flows has broad relevance across many industries and scientific domains, and the improved functionality can contribute to advancements in various fields beyond waste glass melter simulations.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

SimCCS: An open-source tool for optimizing CO 2 capture, transport, and storage infrastructure

Commercial-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology will involve deploying infrastructure on a massive and costly scale. This effort will require careful and comprehensive planning to ensure that capture locations, storage sites, and the dedicated CO 2 distribution pipelines are selected in a robust and cost-effective manner. Presented in 2009, SimCCS is an optimization model for integrated system design that enables researchers, stakeholders, and policy makers to design CCS infrastructure networks. SimCCS 2.0 is a complete, ground-up redesign that is now a portable software package, useable and shareable by the CCS research, industrial, policy, and public communities. SimCCS 2.0 integrates multiple new capabilities including a refined optimization model, novel candidate network generation techniques, and optional integration with high-performance computing platforms. Accessing user-provided CO 2 source, sink, and transportation data, SimCCS 2.0 creates candidate transportation routes and formalizes an optimization problem that determines the most cost-effective CCS system design. This optimization problem is further solved either through a high-performance computing interface, or through third-party software on a local desktop computing platform. Finally, SimCCS 2.0 employs an open-access geographic information system framework to enable analysis and visualization capabilities. SimCCS 2.0 is written in Java and is publicly available via GitHub to encourage collaboration, modification, and community development.

42 ENGINEERING↗

A software package for plasma facing component analysis and design: the Heat flux Engineering Analysis Toolkit (HEAT)

The engineering limits of plasma facing components (PFCs) constrain the allowable operational space of tokamaks. Poorly managed heat fluxes that push the PFCs beyond their limits not only degrade core plasma performance via elevated impurities, but can also result in PFC failure due to thermal stresses or melting. Simple axisymmetric assumptions fail to capture the complex interaction between 3D PFC geometry and 2D or 3D plasmas. This results in fusion systems that must either operate with increased risk or reduce PFC loads, potentially through lower core plasma performance, to maintain a nominal safety factor. High precision 3D heat flux predictions are necessary to accurately ascertain the state of a PFC given the evolution of the magnetic equilibrium. A new code, the Heat flux Engineering Analysis Toolkit (HEAT), has been developed to provide high precision 3D predictions and analysis for PFCs. HEAT couples many otherwise disparate computational tools together into a single open source python package. Magnetic equilibrium, engineering CAD, finite volume solvers, scrape off layer plasma physics, visualization, high performace computing, and more, are connected in a single web-based user interface. Linux users may use HEAT without any software prerequisites via an appImage. This manuscript introduces HEAT, discusses the software architecture, presents first HEAT results, and outlines physics modules in development.

divertor physics↗

Managing a Real-Time Embedded Linux Platform with Buildroot

Developers of real-time embedded software often need to build the operating system, kernel, tools and supporting applications from source to work with the differences in their hardware configuration. The first attempts to introduce Linux-based real-time embedded systems into the Fermilab accelerator controls system used this approach but it was found to be time-consuming, difficult to maintain and difficult to adapt to different hardware configurations. Buildroot is an open source build system with a menu-driven configuration tool (similar to the Linux kernel build system) that automates this process. A customized Buildroot [1] system has been developed for use in the Fermilab accelerator controls system that includes several hardware configuration profiles (including Intel, ARM and PowerPC) and packages for Fermilab support software. A bootable image file is produced containing the Linux kernel, shell and supporting software suite that varies from 3 to 20 megabytes large – ideal for network booting. The result is a platform that is easier to maintain and deploy in diverse hardware configurations

Diamond, J.↗

NWChem: a Comprehensive and Scalable Open-Source Solution for Large Scale Molecular Simulations

The NWChem computational chemistry package offers extensive capabilities for large scale simulations of chemical and biological systems. Utilizing a common computational framework, diverse theoretical descriptions can be used to provide the best solution for a given scientific problem. Scalable parallel implementations and modular software design enables efficient utilization of current computational architectures. This paper provides an overview of NWChem focusing primarily on the core theoretical descriptions provided by the code and their parallel performance. In addition, future plans are outlined.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

LK Scripting Language [SWR-16-07]

The LK scripting language is a simple and fast computer programming language designed for easy integration with existing software to enable automation of tasks. The LK language is used by NREL’s System Advisor Model (SAM), the SAM Software Development Kit (SDK), and SolTrace products. LK is easy extensible and adaptable to new software due to its small footprint and is designed to be statically linked into other software. It is written in standard C++, is cross-platform (Windows, Linux, and OSX), and includes optional portions that enable direct integration with graphical user interfaces written in the open source C++ wxWidgets Version 3.0+ toolkit.

Source record↗

Particle learning for probabilistic deterministic finite automata

The plpdfa software is a product of an LDRD project at LLNL entitked "Adaptive Sampling for Very High Throughput Data Streams" (tracking number 11-ERD-035). This software was developed by a graduate student summer intern, Chris Challis, who worked under project PI Dan Merl furing the summer of 2011. The software the source code is implementing is a statistical analysis technique for clustering and classification of text-valued data. The method had been previously published by the PI in the open literature.

Source record↗