Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Software Tools”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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

At least 1,279 records · Page 71

Validation of a FAST Model of the SWAY Prototype Floating Wind Turbine

As part of a collaboration of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and SWAY AS, NREL installed scientific wind, wave, and motion measurement equipment on the spar-type 1/6.5th-scale prototype SWAY floating offshore wind system. The equipment enhanced SWAY's data collection and allowed SWAY to verify the concept and NREL to validate a FAST model of the SWAY design in an open-water condition. Nanyang Technological University (NTU), in collaboration with NREL, assisted with the validation. This final report gives an overview of the SWAY prototype and NREL and NTU's efforts to validate a model of the system. The report provides a summary of the different software tools used in the study, the modeling strategies, and the development of a FAST model of the SWAY prototype wind turbine, including justification of the modeling assumptions. Because of uncertainty in system parameters and modeling assumptions due to the complexity of the design, several system properties were tuned to better represent the system and improve the accuracy of the simulations. Calibration was performed using data from a static equilibrium test and free-decay tests.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

“Exploring High Energy Interactions with CMS at the LHC”

This High Energy Physics research project achieved its goal of exploring high-energy interactions with 7, 8 and 13 TeV data accumulated by CMS at the Energy Frontier. For the original hadron calorimeter (HCAL) and for its upgrade during Long Shutdown 1 (LS1), the PI helped propose and implement the upgrading the phototubes, new electronics, and fast timing of the hadronic forward (HF) and hadronic outer (HO) calorimeters of CMS, projects which he had forcefully advocated since the inception of CMS. The PI and his colleagues Prof. J. Rohlf and chief electronics engineer E. Hazen, his post-docs A. Heister and S. Girgis, and his graduate students (P. Lawson and D. Arcaro) contributed software tools used in perfecting of μTCA and Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC13) electronics, the PC board that provides clock, timing and DAQ service for HCAL (and now many other subdetectors and central systems in the upgraded CMS detector). This Task reaped the benefits of these hardware contributions 1) to hermiticity for missing energy searches, and 2) to forward tagging jets for Vector Boson Fusion processes by analyzing and publishing early data, including that for the Higgs discovery and for exotic and supersymmetric searches.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Moving Toward an Optimal and Automated Geospatial Network for CCUS Infrastructure

Modifications in the global climate are being driven by the anthropogenic release of greenhouse gases (GHG) including carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) (Middleton et al. 2014). CO 2 emissions have, for example, been directly linked to an increase in total global temperature (Seneviratne et al. 2016). Strategies that limit CO 2 emissions—like CO 2 capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology—can greatly reduce emissions by capturing CO 2 before it is released to the atmosphere. However, to date CCUS technology has not been developed at a large commercial scale despite several promising high profile demonstration projects (Middleton et al. 2015). Current CCUS research has often focused on capturing CO 2 emissions from coal-fired power plants, but recent research at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) suggests focusing CCUS CO 2 capture research upon industrial sources might better encourage CCUS deployment. To further promote industrial CCUS deployment, this project builds off current LANL research by continuing the development of a software tool called SimCCS, which estimates a regional system of transport to inject CO 2 into sedimentary basins. The goal of SimCCS, which was first developed by Middleton and Bielicki (2009), is to output an automated and optimal geospatial industrial CCUS pipeline that accounts for industrial source and sink locations by estimating a Delaunay triangle network which also minimizes topographic and social costs (Middleton and Bielicki 2009). Current development of SimCCS is focused on creating a new version that accounts for spatial arrangements that were not available in the previous version. This project specifically addresses the issue of non-unique Delaunay triangles by adding additional triangles to the network, which can affect how the CCUS network is calculated.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Automated metadata--final project report

This report summarizes the work of the Automated Metadata, Provenance Cataloging, and Navigable Interfaces: Ensuring the Usefulness of Extreme-Scale Data Project (MPO Project) funded by the United States Department of Energy (DOE), Offices of Advanced Scientific Computing Research and Fusion Energy Sciences. Initially funded for three years starting in 2012, it was extended for 6 months with additional funding. The project was a collaboration between scientists at General Atomics, Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (LBNL), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The group leveraged existing computer science technology where possible, and extended or created new capabilities where required. The MPO project was able to successfully create a suite of software tools that can be used by a scientific community to automatically document their scientific workflows. These tools were integrated into workflows for fusion energy and climate research illustrating the general applicability of the project’s toolkit. Feedback was very positive on the project’s toolkit and the value of such automatic workflow documentation to the scientific endeavor.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗

LANL Summer 2016 Report

The Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) transport code developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) utilizes nuclear cross-section data in a compact ENDF (ACE) format. The accuracy of MCNP calculations depends on the accuracy of nuclear ACE data tables, which depends on the accuracy of the original ENDF files. There are some noticeable differences in ENDF files from one generation to the next, even among the more common fissile materials. As the next generation of ENDF files is being prepared, several software tools were developed to simulate a large number of benchmarks in MCNP (over 1000), collect data from these simulations, and visually represent the results.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Turbine Aeration Design Software for Mitigating Adverse Environmental Impacts Resulting From Conventional Hydropower Turbines

Conventional hydropower turbine aeration test-bed for computational routines and software tools for improving environmental mitigation technologies for conventional hydropower systems. In achieving this goal, we have partnered with Alstom, a global leader in energy technology development and United States power generation, with additional funding from the Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment (IREE) and the College of Science and Engineering (CSE) at the UMN

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

Assessment of SFR Wire Wrap Simulation Uncertainties

Predictive modeling and simulation of nuclear reactor performance and fuel are challenging due to the large number of coupled physical phenomena that must be addressed. Models that will be used for design or operational decisions must be analyzed for uncertainty to ascertain impacts to safety or performance. Rigorous, structured uncertainty analyses are performed by characterizing the model’s input uncertainties and then propagating the uncertainties through the model to estimate output uncertainty. This project is part of the ongoing effort to assess modeling uncertainty in Nek5000 simulations of flow configurations relevant to the advanced reactor applications of the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program. Three geometries are under investigation in these preliminary assessments: a 3-D pipe, a 3-D 7-pin bundle, and a single pin from the Thermal-Hydraulic Out-of-Reactor Safety (THORS) facility. Initial efforts have focused on gaining an understanding of Nek5000 modeling options and integrating Nek5000 with Dakota. These tasks are being accomplished by demonstrating the use of Dakota to assess parametric uncertainties in a simple pipe flow problem. This problem is used to optimize performance of the uncertainty quantification strategy and to estimate computational requirements for assessments of complex geometries. A sensitivity analysis to three turbulent models was conducted for a turbulent flow in a single wire wrapped pin (THOR) geometry. Section 2 briefly describes the software tools used in this study and provides appropriate references. Section 3 presents the coupling interface between Dakota and a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) code (Nek5000 or STARCCM+), with details on the workflow, the scripts used for setting up the run, and the scripts used for post-processing the output files. In Section 4, the meshing methods used to generate the THORS and 7-pin bundle meshes are explained. Sections 5, 6 and 7 present numerical results for the 3-D pipe, the single pin THORS mesh, and the 7-pin bundle mesh, respectively.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

ALE3D: An Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian Multi-Physics Code

ALE3D is a multi-physics numerical simulation software tool utilizing arbitrary-Lagrangian- Eulerian (ALE) techniques. The code is written to address both two-dimensional (2D plane and axisymmetric) and three-dimensional (3D) physics and engineering problems using a hybrid finite element and finite volume formulation to model fluid and elastic-plastic response of materials on an unstructured grid. As shown in Figure 1, ALE3D is a single code that integrates many physical phenomena.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Code Verification Capabilities and Assessments in Support of ASC V&V Level 2 Milestone #6035

This document provides a summary of the code verification activities supporting the FY17 Level 2 V&V milestone entitled “Deliver a Capability for V&V Assessments of Code Implementations of Physics Models and Numerical Algorithms in Support of Future Predictive Capability Framework Pegposts.” The physics validation activities supporting this milestone are documented separately. The objectives of this portion of the milestone are: 1) Develop software tools to support code verification analysis; 2) Document standard definitions of code verification test problems; and 3) Perform code verification assessments (focusing on error behavior of algorithms). This report and a set of additional standalone documents serve as the compilation of results demonstrating accomplishment of these objectives.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Scientific Computation Application Partnerships in Materials and Chemical Sciences, Charge Transfer and Charge Transport in Photoactivated Systems, Developing Electron-Correlated Methods for Excited State Structure and Dynamics in the NWChem Software Suite

Charge transfer and charge transport in photoactivated systems are fundamental processes that underlie solar energy capture, solar energy conversion, and photoactivated catalysis, both organometallic and enzymatic. We developed methods, algorithms, and software tools needed for reliable treatment of the underlying physics for charge transfer and charge transport, an undertaking with broad applicability to the goals of the fundamental-interaction component of the Department of Energy Office of Basic Energy Sciences and the exascale initiative of the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Institutional Transformation (IX) 2.5 Building Module Help Manual

The Institutional Transformation (IX) building module is a software tool developed at Sandia National Laboratories to evaluate energy conservation measures (ECMs) on hundreds of DOE-2 building energy models simultaneously. In IX, ECMs can be designed through parameterizing DOE-2 building models and doing further processing via visual basic for applications subroutines. IX provides the functionality to handle multiple building models for different years, which enables incrementally changing a site of hundreds of buildings over time. It also enables evaluation of the effects of changing climate, comparisons between data and modeling results, and energy use of centralized utility buildings (CUBs). IX consists of a Microsoft Excel® user interface, Microsoft Access® database, and Microsoft Excel® CUB build utility whose functionalities are described in detail in this report. In addition to descriptions of the user interfaces, descriptions of every ECM already designed in IX is included.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Nebraska Integrated Carbon Capture and Storage Pre-Feasibility Study

In collaboration with the Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD), the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) has conducted a pre-feasibility study for a commercial-scale carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) geologic storage complex in western Nebraska integrated with potential CO 2 capture at Gerald Gentleman Station (GGS). GGS is the largest coal-fired electricity-generating station in Nebraska, emitting 8.5 million metric tons (Mt) of CO 2 annually, and is located near the town of Sutherland. This pre-feasibility (Phase 1) project has been executed as part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) CarbonSAFE program, a multiphase initiative to support the deployment of large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects. Each CarbonSAFE project is required to demonstrate the potential to capture and store at least 50 million tonnes (Mt) of CO 2 over a 25-year operational period. The EERC and NPPD established a coordination team to identify challenges to a potential Nebraska CCS project, comprising local stakeholder organizations, which met twice in Lincoln and via several Webinars, providing feedback and guidance throughout the pre-feasibility study. The EERC also secured the technical support of Schlumberger Carbon Services and Computer Modelling Group Ltd. (CMG). The project comprised four technical themes, all using published information sources. Regional and stakeholder analysis, including identification of sensitive environmental areas, potential resource conflicts, and strategies for public outreach. A review of geographic and socioeconomic characteristics, in combination with geologic characterization in the subbasinal analysis described below, identified an area to the southwest and within a 75-mile radius of GGS as the most prospective for development of a storage site. This area largely avoided lands with protected status such as wetlands. A public outreach plan has also been developed for implementation in any further phases of CCS assessment in western Nebraska, for example a CarbonSAFE Phase 2 feasibility study. Scenario analysis, addressing economic and regulatory factors. GGS is the only single major source of CO 2 emissions capable of satisfying the CarbonSAFE 50-Mt scale requirement within the study region. Chemical absorption using amines was identified as the most viable technology for postcombustion CO 2 capture at GGS. The total cost of a CCS project at GGS was estimated to be between $67/tonne CO 2 for capture and auxiliary boiler to minimize parasitic load and $70/tonne CO 2 avoided cost, using the Carnegie-Mellon University Integrated Environmental Control Model (IECM). The total avoided cost included the capture facility and parasitic load, a flue gas desulfurization plant required for the use of amine solvent technology, transport via pipeline, and dedicated storage infrastructure. Nebraska has no legislation in place to address typical CCS-specific issues, for example pore space ownership for storage. Long-term liability, therefore, falls under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Underground Injection Control (UIC) Class 6 program regulations. Subbasinal analysis, addressing the potential for a dedicated subsurface “container” to store the required 50-Mt quantity of CO 2 . Modeling and simulation studies identified an area to the southwest of GGS with the potential for storage of 50 Mt CO 2 in the Cloverly Formation, comprising sandstones with interbedded and intermingled shales. The area of review (AOR) that would be required for monitoring under a Class VI operating permit was estimated to be as high as 400–700 square miles, due to uncertain pressure effects. The viability of this storage option is subject to significant uncertainty due to the relatively limited amount of existing characterization data available to the pre-feasibility study; for example, dynamic simulation indicated that the proposed storage rate might require as little as two or as many as 14 injection wells. A key uncertainty is the relative proportion and distribution of sandstone and shale within the Cloverly Formation. A preliminary, semiquantitative risk assessment also suggested uncertainty over storage capacity and injectivity constitute the most significant project risks at this pre-feasibility stage. No assessed risks were considered to rule out the possibility of a project moving to deployment. National Risk Assessment Partnership (NRAP) validation, using software tools developed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to assess risks associated with the potential 50-Mt CO 2 storage complex. NRAP tools were used to assess hypothetical leakage scenarios. Results broadly supported the conclusion of the semiquantitative risk analysis – for example, even worst-case analysis of theoretical leakage scenarios found limited migration rates and impacts. In summary, the work undertaken in this Phase 1 pre-feasibility study has shown that western Nebraska has potential to host a commercial-scale CCS project, including a dedicated storage “container” for 50 Mt of CO 2 . However, the following key challenges would need to be overcome: The business case for deploying CCS projects is uncertain; recently announced federal tax credits and sales of CO 2 for enhanced oil recovery may not cover the full costs of a CCS project at GGS, as estimated by this pre-feasibility study. The potential 50-Mt CO 2 dedicated storage container defined in this pre-feasibility study should be regarded as having a relatively low level of readiness to support a CCS project. Public outreach would be a vital element in western Nebraska, where sensitivities around such environmental issues as water resource protection and pipeline construction would need to be carefully addressed.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

PIPER: Performance Insights for Programmers and Exascale Runtimes

During the lifetime of the project, the PIPER at the University of Utah worked in collaboration with the team from the partner institutions to establish a set of software tools for analyzing and improving the performance parallel computing tools. These activities complement and complete the work performed by the other X-Stack 2 projects with the definition of a common data models and computing infrastructures, which have been a central element in the targeted performance analysis pipeline and new programming models. The University of Utah team have focused mainly on developing data analysis and visualization systems to facilitate exploration, comparison and evaluation of the behavior and performance of complex algorithms in modern HPC infrastructures. This is involved several demonstrations of the performance achieved and presentation of the results in a way that facilitates the users understand bottlenecks and ways to overcome them. One major focus of the University of Utah activities has been the analysis of the performance characteristics of Fat-Tree and Dragonfly topology networks. The work involved the development of practical visualization systems especially in collaboration with the team at LLNL, and published several papers and gave invited talks at prestigious venues such as the Salishan Conference on High-Speed Computing or the International Conference on High Performance Computing, Data, and Analytics. In addition, the university of Utah team has advanced the core activities on analyzing the performance characteristics of I/O and other data movement systems and their practical use for scaling Uintah and other simulation codes poised for use in the exascale computing environments of the future.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Feature Detection From LiDAR Point Cloud and Aerial Imagery Using Distance Dependent Chinese Restaurant Process [Slides]

It is possible to integrate data captured by UAS from multiple data modalities spatially. We can detect features by combining information across images and LiDAR point clouds. Performance issues exist with the current algorithms in place & could be improved. We hope to test it for at least 500 iterations. Post processing of data takes enormous efforts in case of data generated by proprietary software tools…We intend to develop a better framework for seamless integration.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Computational Studies of Solid Stoppers for Generating Intense Exotic Radioactive Ion Beams at FRIB

Low-emittance beams of rare isotopes at low energies (less than 3 MeV/u) are required for many high precision measurements in nuclear science research. Such beams will be produced at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) by first slowing down and thermalizing or stopping fast fragmentation beams, and subsequently reaccelerating them to the required energies for experiments. The use of a solid stopper has the potential to provide high-intensity reaccelerated beams of many species. We performed simulations of the processes critical for generating beams in solid stoppers, including beam heating, external heating, diffusive release, effusive transport, and surface sticking. Using a variety of software tools, we investigated the viability of numerous solid stopper system designs for FRIB. We present our computational approach, the physical processes we modeled, the codes we used, and our results. We conclude with a proof-of-concept solid stopper system that releases ions sufficiently quickly for experiments with unstable reaccelerated beams at FRIB.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Bird-Strike Analysis Using Eulerian Peridynamic Formulation

The purpose of this project between Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and The Boeing Company (Boeing) was to develop an analysis capability for predicting the loads on aircraft structures due to the inflight impact of birds. The main technical accomplishment was the development and delivery to Boeing of a new software tool that predicts the pressure over a structure's surface area, as a function of time and impact conditions, during the impact. The benefit to Boeing, and to government agencies such as NASA and the FAA, is an accurate tool to help design structures to withstand potentially catastrophic damage due to bird strike.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Certification and Rating of Attachments for Fenestration Technologies

In the U.S., windows still represent a significant energy savings opportunity in residential and commercial buildings, and for decades the United States Department of Energy (DOE) has funded fenestration software tools, analysis, studies, and the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC). Despite significant developments in window technology and recognition of efficient products, studies conducted by the U.S. Energy Information Administration and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) found that approximately 64% of U.S. homes currently have inefficient windows. Window attachments (interior and exterior blinds, shades, storm windows, awnings, shutters, etc.) can offer a more cost-effective option to improve the energy performance of residential and commercial windows. In previous years, the window attachment industry attempted to work with the NFRC to generate a window attachment rating program, but was unable to access funding or technical resources necessary to address window attachments, which added many levels of complexity on top of NFRC’s scope of windows and glazing. Starting in 2014, the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) funded the Window Coverings Manufacturing Association (WCMA) to develop the Attachments Energy Rating Council (AERC) along with policies and procedures to deliver an unbiased, credible, comparable, relevant, and cost-effective window attachment energy rating program for the residential and commercial sectors over a four-year period. This project was created because there were no consistent and credible performance rating mechanisms for assessing the energy performance of window attachments. Without a standardized approach, consumers found it difficult to make informed and comparative decisions about the energy performance of window attachments, and utilities faced challenges offering incentives for energy-efficient attachments. The goal of this project was two-fold: to develop procedures to rate and certify the energy performance of window attachments and to create an educational, consumer-facing Certified Products Website (CPW) to help consumers and other stakeholders make more informed window attachments purchasing decisions.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗