SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “USER FACILITY”

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.

SourceResearch connectionFrom yearThrough year

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

At least 1,315 records · Page 73

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

DOE OSTI2020

A Conceptual Design for a Desktop Application to Support Inventory Reconciliation Activities

This paper describes desktop software being developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to empower users to reconcile observations about items at nuclear facilities more accurately, reliably, and quickly. Inventory activities at nuclear facilities are often conducted using pen and paper, which can be time-consuming, tedious, and susceptible to reading or transcription errors. The proposed inventory assistant would be a replacement for the paper-based process that could be used by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, nuclear facility operators, or treaty verification monitors to conduct an inventory of nuclear and non-nuclear items in a more timely and accurate manner. Garner, McGirl, and Whitaker previously reported their work about a conceptual design for a mobile app to assist users in the field. In general, the inventory assistant would ingest an inventory list, distribute assigned items from the inventory list to one or more mobile devices, enable inventory teams to record their observations in the field, and then enable an inventory lead to integrate and reconcile the observations to produce a final report. The assistant consists of two software components - one for the inventory teams to record observations in the field (In-Field Observations App [IFOA]) and one for the inventory lead to (1) distribute the inventory list to each team, (2) integrate the observations from each team, and (3) reconcile the inventory list with observations (Distribution, Integration, and Reconciliation Application [DIRA]). This paper reviews the inventory assistant workflow and describes the DIRA user experience in more detail. As an example, the authors have chosen to follow the use case of IAEA inspectors conducting item counting and tag checking activities of UF 6 cylinders at a gas centrifuge enrichment plant with a large number of UF 6 cylinders (e.g., thousands). These activities can currently require 30 - 40 person-days of inspection to complete. The authors believe an inventory assistant could allow the IAEA to complete item counting and tag checking using the global identifier or the operator’s barcode in 8 - 10 person-days of inspection. We would expect other users (e.g., facility operators or treaty verification monitors) to also benefit from significant time savings.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2021

DARPA beyond CMOS RFI

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Center for Micro and Nanotechnology (CMNT) is located on the LLNL campus in Livermore, CA. LLNL employs over 7000 employees with a broad range of science and engineering backgrounds with an administrative structure that encourages multidisciplinary teaming, a key ingredient in our ability to address diverse technical problems. Our CMNT facility houses a 6,400 ft 2 class 100 cleanroom (class 10 capable) with an additional 1,000 ft 2 Class 1000 space, and 6000 ft 2 of other laboratories. Most equipment can accommodate 6” wafers, although some is limited to 4”. The CMNT is a multi-user, multi-programmatic facility that offers a broad set of instruments for microfabrication to invent, develop, and apply microscale and nanoscale technologies to support national security missions in Stockpile Stewardship, Homeland Security, Directed Energy, Nonproliferation, biomedical research, and more. The research and capabilities of the Center cover materials, devices, instruments, and systems that require microfabricated components, including microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), electronics, photonics, micro- and nanostructures, bio-implantable devices, and micro- and nanoactuators.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2018

Fully Robotic Hot Cell Crane for Target Hall Operations at Isotope Research Facility - 18329

There are many types of equipment used in high radiation environments, but the super-sized and high precision lifting requirements for an isotope research facility in the USA called for one of the largest fully robotic cranes in the US. The 20 Ton Remote Handling Bridge Crane provided by PaR Systems met many challenging requirements for accuracy, repeatability and unique lifting motions in the radiation-shielded target hall of this facility. This robotic system was designed to address four main issues. The first is that the crane needed to be operated remotely due to high radioactivity during the time when it is needed most. Second is that high precision is needed due to the complex fit of multiple heavy shielding blocks. Third problem is that automated routines and exclusion areas were needed due to the remote operation of the system around high capital cost equipment. Lastly is the survivability of the equipment due to the high radiation environment. The facility robotic crane is an overhead top running multiple girder hot cell bridge crane (hereafter referred to as the system). The system is intended to be used in either manually operated or automated operation under computer control. Under automated control, the system provides highly accurate motion control in three linear axes as well as hook rotation. Using motion control programming, this highly accurate system ensures safe, remote movement of in-cell components. The system was designed to be remotely operated by a technician from the remote handling control room in the facility. This is facilitated by computer control using the System Graphical User Interface with feedback from a facility supplied video system. It can also be operated using a wireless hand held controller. The system will be used to place sensitive components with high precision in locations that will be difficult to observe directly. In order to accomplish this, it is critical that the system be capable of moving its payload with minimal swing, and with high accuracy, repeatability and reliability. The system will be operating in an environment where it will be exposed to both high energy neutrons and gamma radiation. Under beam-off conditions, the target hall will be hands-on accessible to accommodate crane maintenance. The system was installed and tested in early 2017 in advance of the live operations of the facility. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

NASA NTRS2021

Developing a Sustainable, User-Friendly Literature Database to Support the Microgravity Simulation Support Facility (MSSF) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC)

Established in 2017, the Microgravity Simulation Support Facility (MSSF) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is the only centralized, dedicated facility supporting ground microgravity research in the United States. The MSSF offers the research community the ability to conduct simulated microgravity research with experimental conditions functionally resembling those aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and in other flight-based experimental environments. Since its inception, the MSSF has supported numerous studies and has since collected an extensive library of relevant and pertinent literature. The goal of our research was to develop and implement a sustainable, user-friendly literature database to better house this literature at the MSSF. To achieve this, our team focused on sorting, optimizing, and analyzing preexisting literature libraries to determine a best suitable and sustainable platform for the MSSF. After establishing initial database platforms, the team worked to develop descriptive and structural metadata categories to best sort the literature, which was followed by rigorous testing and optimization of the database as it was implemented. The MSSF has now been outfitted with a reliable, accessible database that effectively houses literature and provides diverse analysis to the user. Our team is continuing to test and update our platform and parameters as we aim for the formal implementation, expansion, and evolution of our database to better sustain future research ventures at the MSSF and beyond.

Database Development↗

DOE OSTI2018

A Job Sizing Strategy for High-Throughput Scientific Workflows

The user of a computing facility must make a critical decision when submitting jobs for execution: how many resources (such as cores, memory, and disk) should be requested for each job? If the request is too small, the job may fail due to resource exhaustion; if the request is too big, the job may succeed, but resources will be wasted. This decision is especially important when running hundreds of thousands of jobs in a high throughput workflow, which may exhibit complex, long tailed distributions of resource consumption. In this paper, we present a strategy for solving the job sizing problem: (1) applications are monitored and measured in user-space as they run; (2) the resource usage is collected into an online archive; and (3) jobs are automatically sized according to historical data in order to maximize throughput or minimize waste. We evaluate the solution analytically, and present case studies of applying the technique to high throughput physics and bioinformatics workflows consisting of hundreds of thousands of jobs, demonstrating an increase in throughput of 10-400 percent compared to naive approaches.

Tovar, Benjamin (ORCID:0000000252942281)↗

DOE OSTI2019

Facility Informatics with GeoVisipedia (Final Report)

Characterization and understanding of nuclear fuel cycle facilities is of considerable interest to DNN R&D and the nonproliferation community due to their importance in nuclear weapons manufacture. Satellite imagery is a key source of information about these facilities, particularly in denied areas. Such imagery can be useful in its own right but annotations applied to the imagery vastly expand the value of the imagery and its usefulness by providing object descriptions, context and potentially linkages to other relevant information. GeoVisipedia (Geospatial Visual Wikipedia) is a new and novel approach to collecting, organizing, sharing and preserving knowledge about nuclear facilities to support nonproliferation efforts. Our approach is unique in that it emphasizes geospatial visual information about nuclear facilities rather than focusing exclusively on textual information. GeoVisipedia users, such as all-source analysts and decision makers, have access to richly annotated nuclear facility imagery with hyperlinks to visual and textual information that provides users with details and context about the facility. A major accomplishment of this project was to develop technology that allows annotations from one satellite image of a facility to be propagated to other satellite imagery of the facility. New satellite imagery of the facility is automatically populated with all previous annotations of the facility. This technology breakthrough provides users with the annotations, and hence knowledge and insight, from all the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who have previously annotated imagery of the facility. This capability was demonstrated in a GeoVisipedia prototype, awarded a patent and is described in several publications. In the latter part of the project an informal collaboration was established with the DNN R&D Multi Informatics for Nuclear Operations Scenarios (MINOS) venture. A second prototype of GeoVisipedia was developed that directly supports the MINOS venture. This prototype is called the Nuclear Facility Information Explorer (NFIX) and is tailored to the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) facility, a testbed for the MINOS venture. NFIX downloads sensor metadata and operator logs, parses and displays this information. NFIX has been licensed and deployed to several laboratories participating in the MINOS venture.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2013

Westinghouse Waste Simulation and Optimization Software Tool - 13493

Radioactive waste is produced during NPP operation and NPP D and D. Different kinds of waste with different volumes and properties have to be treated. Finding a technically and commercially optimized waste treatment concept is a difficult and time consuming process. The Westinghouse waste simulation and optimization software tool is an approach to study the total life cycle cost of any waste management facility. The tool enables the user of the simulation and optimization software to plan processes and storage buildings and to identify bottlenecks in the overall waste management design before starting detailed planning activities. Furthermore, application of the software enables the user to optimize the number of treatment systems, to determine the minimum design capacity for onsite storage facilities, to identify bottlenecks in the overall design and to identify the most cost-effective treatment paths by maintaining optimal waste treatment technologies. In combination with proven waste treatment equipment and integrated waste management solutions, the waste simulation and optimization software provides reliable qualitative results that lead to an effective planning and minimization of the total project planning risk of any waste management activity. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

DOE OSTI2023

Plan for a Data Base Approach to Evaluating LWR Plant Integration with Hydrogen and Industrial Facilities

The purpose of this report is to provide an outline and scope of a database tool that could be used to identify the most beneficial locations to site a hydrogen, chemical facility or other industrial facility that would be powered by nuclear energy. This energy may be in the form of electricity produced by the plant, heat in the form of steam or both. In addition, this siting tool should consider factors such as economics, geography, industries, residences, geological hydrogen storage, and key infrastructure. The infrastructure to be considered could include pipelines or other storage and transportation facilities to carry the created products from the production facility to the end user. Also considered should be infrastructure that could deliver needed chemicals or gasses to allow the production of desired products such as ammonia or biofuels. This data base tool should allow a screening study of all U.S. nuclear plants to identify opportunities and barriers to creating hydrogen hubs around nuclear power plants. For this effort, it has been decided that the Siting Tool for Advanced Nuclear Development (STAND) would be used to conduct this screening study which is a follow-on research project to this present effort. Currently, plans are being developed to modify the STAND tool to provide the capability necessary to perform screening of each US commercial nuclear plant to identify the best locations to site hydrogen or chemical production facilities. Many features of the current STAND tool will be employed to meet this objective, but additional infrastructure data (such as the location of pipelines) may need to be added to allow these locations to be fully vetted. In addition, new analysis capabilities may need to be added so economic considerations can be understood

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

NASA NTRS2001

Multi-User Hardware Solutions to Combustion Science ISS Research

In response to the budget environment and to expand on the International Space Station (ISS) Fluids and Combustion Facility (FCF) Combustion Integrated Rack (CIR), common hardware approach, the NASA Combustion Science Program shifted focus in 1999 from single investigator PI (Principal Investigator)-specific hardware to multi-user 'Minifacilities'. These mini-facilities would take the CIR common hardware philosophy to the next level. The approach that was developed re-arranged all the investigations in the program into sub-fields of research. Then common requirements within these subfields were used to develop a common system that would then be complemented by a few PI-specific components. The sub-fields of research selected were droplet combustion, solids and fire safety, and gaseous fuels. From these research areas three mini-facilities have sprung: the Multi-user Droplet Combustion Apparatus (MDCA) for droplet research, Flow Enclosure for Novel Investigations in Combustion of Solids (FEANICS) for solids and fire safety, and the Multi-user Gaseous Fuels Apparatus (MGFA) for gaseous fuels. These mini-facilities will develop common Chamber Insert Assemblies (CIA) and diagnostics for the respective investigators complementing the capability provided by CIR. Presently there are four investigators for MDCA, six for FEANICS, and four for MGFA. The goal of these multi-user facilities is to drive the cost per PI down after the initial development investment is made. Each of these mini-facilities will become a fixture of future Combustion Science NASA Research Announcements (NRAs), enabling investigators to propose against an existing capability. Additionally, an investigation is provided the opportunity to enhance the existing capability to bridge the gap between the capability and their specific science requirements. This multi-user development approach will enable the Combustion Science Program to drive cost per investigation down while drastically reducing the time required to go from selection to space flight.

Otero, Angel M.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Space Chemical Propulsion Test Facilities at NASA Lewis Research Center

The NASA Lewis Research Center, located in Cleveland, Ohio, has a number of space chemical propulsion test facilities which constitute a significant national space testing resource. The purpose of this paper is to make more users aware of these test facilities and to encourage their use through cooperative agreements between the government, industry, and universities. Research which is of interest to the government is especially encouraged and often can be done in a cooperative manner that best uses the resources of all parties. An overview of the Lewis test facilities is presented.

Urasek, Donald C.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Space chemical propulsion test facilities at NASA Lewis Research Center

The NASA Lewis Research Center, located in Cleveland, Ohio has a number of space chemical propulsion test facilities which constitute a significant national space testing resource. The purpose of this paper is to make more users aware of these test facilities and to encourage their use through cooperative agreements between the government, industry, and universities. Research which is of interest to the government is especiallly encouraged and often can be done in a cooperative manner that best uses the resources of all parties. This paper presents an overview of the Lewis test facilities. These facilities are clustered into three test areas: the Rocket Engine Test Facilities (RETF), the Rocket Laboratory (RL), and the Cryogenic Components Laboratory (CCL).

Urasek, Donald C.↗

DOE OSTI2023

Chemical Asset Prioritizer (CAP) v.1.0

SAND2024-08627O The Chemical Asset Prioritizer is a web application designed for facility management on how to safely store chemicals. App users fill out a survey about the facility and the chemicals on the site. The Chemical Asset Prioritizer then determines which chemicals are at the highest priority and provide recommendations on how to secure them. The web application will likely be licensed to a company that will host it for use by numerous federal entities, universities, and other government agencies. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

Johnson II, Alfred↗

DOE OSTI2021

Plant Water Profiler: A Water Balance and True Cost of Water Calculator for Manufacturing Plants

As the uncertainty of a sustained water supply, regulatory constraints, competition among end users, and public scrutiny increases, a growing number of manufacturing sectors are adapting to current and emerging water-related risks by optimizing productivity and reducing waste. As a step toward increasing water use efficiency and making informed business decisions, corporations must make an effort to understand and track their water demands, losses, and costs associated with each subsystem within their facilities. Manufacturers are often unaware of the “true cost of water” (i.e., the total costs associated with procurement, treatment, and consumption of water, and wastewater disposal), which reduces the visibility of the actual impact of water-saving measures. To help manufacturers account for water procurement and use in manufacturing operations, quantify the true cost of water, and identify potential areas for water and associated energy cost savings, an open access tool—Plant Water Profiler (PWP)—was developed. The tool is based on water mass balance analysis and has been adopted as the core analysis tool for plant water use assessments, Water In-Plant Training (Water INPLT), as part of the US Department of Energy’s Better Plants program. During three pilot INPLTs conducted in 2019 at three manufacturing facilities, the PWP tool allowed users to understand water flows within the facilities and provided additional capabilities to analyze their water use. This paper describes the methodology behind the PWP tool and its implementation through pilot Water INPLT trainings delivered in three manufacturing facilities in the United States. The three case studies demonstrate opportunities to improve water efficiency and reduce associated costs and the challenges encountered in three different manufacturing sectors.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2016

IDEAL: Images Across Domains, Experiments, Algorithms and Learning

Research across science domains is increasingly reliant on image-centric data. Software tools are in high demand to uncover relevant, but hidden, information in digital images, such as those coming from faster next generation high-throughput imaging platforms. The challenge is to analyze the data torrent generated by the advanced instruments efficiently, and provide insights such as measurements for decision-making. In this article, we overview work performed by an interdisciplinary team of computational and materials scientists, aimed at designing software applications and coordinating research efforts connecting (1) emerging algorithms for dealing with large and complex datasets; (2) data analysis methods with emphasis in pattern recognition and machine learning; and (3) advances in evolving computer architectures. Engineering tools around these efforts accelerate the analyses of image-based recordings, improve reusability and reproducibility, scale scientific procedures by reducing time between experiments, increase efficiency, and open opportunities for more users of the imaging facilities. This paper describes our algorithms and software tools, showing results across image scales, demonstrating how our framework plays a role in improving image understanding for quality control of existent materials and discovery of new compounds.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2017

NSLS-II Beam Loss Control and Monitoring System

One of the most challenging issues for accelerator operations deals with why and where the beam was lost. This is a major concern for radiation protection at facilities with a large user base, since uncontrolled beam losses could result in high radiation levels to occupied areas. For NSLS-II the tunnel radiation shield wall has increased attenuation over two lattice cells after the injection region, to shield for the possibility of higher injection losses during injection. This raised the concern over exceeding the radiation exposure limits in the lesser shielded region, if similar losses could occur elsewhere. To address this issue a beam loss control system was designed to capture most beam losses in the more heavily shielded (injection) region. A beam loss monitor system was designed to verify the fraction of the beam lost in that region, in order to insure lower levels of exposure around the rest of the ring. The design of these beam loss control and monitoring systems and their operational experience are presented here.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2015

Matter under extreme conditions probed by a seeded free-electron-laser

FERMI is the first user dedicated seeded free-electron-laser (FEL) working in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and soft x-ray range. The EIS-TIMEX experimental end-station was availabe to external users since from the beginning of the user operation of the facility, in Dicember 2012. EIS-TIMEX has been conceived to exploit the unique properties of the FERMI source to study matter under extreme and metastable thermodynamic conditions. We hereby report on its basic parameters and applications, which includes very low jitter (i.e., high time resolution) pump-probe measurements.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2016

At-wavelength metrology facility for soft X-ray reflection optics

A new Optics Beamline coupled to a versatile UHV reflectometer is successfully operating at BESSY-II. It is used to carry out at-wavelength characterization and calibration of in-house produced gratings and novel nano-optical devices as well as mirrors and multilayer systems in the UV and XUV spectral region. This paper presents most recent commissioning data of the beamline and shows their correlation with initial beamline design calculations. Special attention is paid to beamline key parameters which determine the quality of the measurements such as high-order suppression and stray light behavior. The facility is open to user operation.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2016

NSLS-II commissioning and operation

The National Synchrotron Light Source II at Brookhaven National Lab is a third-generation synchrotron radiation facility that has been commissioned in 2014. The facility is based on a 3 GeV electron storage ring, which will circulate 500 mA of beam current at 1 nm rad horizontal emittance. The storage ring is 792 meters in circumference and will accommodate more than 60 beamlines in the final built-out. The beamline sources range from insertion-devices located in straight sections, bending magnets or three-pole-wigglers configured in multiple branches. The NSLS-II storage ring commissioning was successfully completed in July 2014 and the facility delivered the first user light on October 23, 2014. Currently the storage ring reached 300 mA beam current and achieved 1 nm rad of horizontal emittance with 3 sets of Damping Wigglers. At this point six NSLS-II project beamlines are routinely taking photons with beam current at 150 mA. This paper reviews the NSLS-II accelerator design and commissioning experience.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗