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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 1,351 records · Page 75

Electrochemistry-based Battery Modeling for Prognostics

Batteries are used in a wide variety of applications. In recent years, they have become popular as a source of power for electric vehicles such as cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and commericial passenger aircraft. In such application domains, it becomes crucial to both monitor battery health and performance and to predict end of discharge (EOD) and end of useful life (EOL) events. To implement such technologies, it is crucial to understand how batteries work and to capture that knowledge in the form of models that can be used by monitoring, diagnosis, and prognosis algorithms. In this work, we develop electrochemistry-based models of lithium-ion batteries that capture the significant electrochemical processes, are computationally efficient, capture the effects of aging, and are of suitable accuracy for reliable EOD prediction in a variety of usage profiles. This paper reports on the progress of such a model, with results demonstrating the model validity and accurate EOD predictions.

battery↗

Application of On-Line Monitoring and Real-Time Characterization of Low Level Waste Samples from Hanford Tanks

Waste and treatment stream characterization is an essential part of safe, efficient, and cost-effective processing of Hanford materials. The demand for materials characterization, including chemical, radionuclide, and physical attributes during waste management, transfer, and staging operations in the Hanford tank farms, is expected to significantly increase as the U.S. Department of Energy Office of River Protection (ORP) progresses toward Hanford waste treatment and immobilization. The application of on-line monitoring can greatly improve operation timeframes and reduce costs by providing real-time data and supporting the reduction of necessary grab sample collection. Recently, our team applied Raman online monitoring and chemometric modeling to the supernate of Hanford tank 241-AP-105, and demonstrated the quantitative measurement of nine analytes within this waste. Application of this method has been expanded to additional Hanford tank wastes, AW-102 and AP-107. The performance of the process monitoring instruments and the accuracy of the chemometric models will be assessed. On-line monitoring results will be compared to anion results determined from the current standard, ion-chromatographic and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry methods. Comparisons of both determined values and uncertainties of results will be presented. Results will be shared with personnel working on flowsheet interfaces for the Direct-Feed Low Activity Waste mission at Hanford.

Lines, Amanda M.↗

Application of On-Line Monitoring and Real-Time Characterization of Low Level Waste Samples from Hanford Tanks - 20380

Waste and treatment stream characterization is an essential part of safe, efficient, and cost-effective processing of Hanford materials. The demand for materials characterization, including chemical, radionuclide, and physical attributes during waste management, transfer, and staging operations in the Hanford tank farms, is expected to significantly increase as the U.S. Department of Energy Office of River Protection (ORP) progresses toward Hanford waste treatment and immobilization. The application of on-line monitoring can greatly improve operation time frames and reduce costs by providing real-time data and supporting the reduction of necessary grab sample collection. Recently, our team applied Raman online monitoring and chemometric modeling to the supernate of Hanford tank 241-AP-105, and demonstrated the quantitative measurement of nine analytes within this waste. Application of this method has been expanded to additional Hanford tank wastes, AW-102 and AP-107. The performance of the process monitoring instruments and the accuracy of the chemometric models will be assessed. On-line monitoring results will be compared to anion results determined from the current standard, ion-chromatographic and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry methods. Comparisons of both determined values and uncertainties of results will be presented. Results will be shared with personnel working on flowsheet interfaces for the Direct-Feed Low Activity Waste mission at Hanford. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Linear models to perform treaty verification tasks for enhanced information security

Linear mathematical models were applied to binary-discrimination tasks relevant to arms control verification measurements in which a host party wishes to convince a monitoring party that an item is or is not treaty accountable. These models process data in list-mode format and can compensate for the presence of variability in the source, such as uncertain object orientation and location. The Hotelling observer applies an optimal set of weights to binned detector data, yielding a test statistic that is thresholded to make a decision. The channelized Hotelling observer applies a channelizing matrix to the vectorized data, resulting in a lower dimensional vector available to the monitor to make decisions. We demonstrate how incorporating additional terms in this channelizing-matrix optimization offers benefits for treaty verification. We present two methods to increase shared information and trust between the host and monitor. The first method penalizes individual channel performance in order to maximize the information available to the monitor while maintaining optimal performance. Second, we present a method that penalizes predefined sensitive information while maintaining the capability to discriminate between binary choices. Data used in this study was generated using Monte Carlo simulations for fission neutrons, accomplished with the GEANT4 toolkit. Custom models for plutonium inspection objects were measured in simulation by a radiation imaging system. Model performance was evaluated and presented using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Are low-cost sensors good enough for IAQ controls?

Over the past few years there have been advances in sensing of some pollutants, primarily particles, that might lead to ventilation controls based on direct sensing of pollutants – particularly those relating to health. In this study we evaluated low-cost (about $200 US) IAQ monitors that measured PM2.5 - the most important health-related pollutant in indoor air. Controlled laboratory tests were carried out with known sources of particles (cooking, cleaning, candles, cigarettes) and by comparing the IAQ monitors response to research-grade and reference measurement methods. The results show a wide range of performance with the better IAQ monitors able to detect most particle sources/events and the worst ones detecting almost none. The best devices perform well enough to reliably operate a ventilation or filtration system but do not always report the correct magnitude of PM2.5 so there are restrictions on their use for calculating health effects.

Walker, Iain↗

Future SDN-HPON Control Plane Architecture and Protocol for On-Demand Terabit End-to-End Extreme-Scale Science Applications

The UC Davis team conducted architecture, algorithm and experimental studies for next generation ultra-high-bandwidth optical networks in support of extreme-scale science applications. In particular, over the course of this 3-year project, the UC Davis team achieved the following main accomplishments: Designed a network architecture for automated multi-domain service provisioning: Designed information exchange schemes between autonomous systems (domains) Designed application programming interfaces to orchestrate resource reservation in data centers, high performance computation facilities, and communication networks belonging to different autonomous systems Experimentally assessed the multi-domain network architecture in a distributed field trial set-up connecting premises in three continents Designed a broker-based orchestrated multi-domain optical networking framework supporting observe-analyze-act cycle based cognitive inter-domain service provisioning: Designed an inter-domain operation mechanism, e.g., topology abstraction, for the broker plane and domain managers to collaboratively accomplish inter-domain service provisioning while respecting the autonomy of each administrative domain Designed an alien wavelength monitoring scheme and an artificial neural network based optical signal-to-noise ratio estimator for quality-of-transmission aware inter-domain service provisioning Developed a deep neural network based multi-domain traffic predictor and a cognitive routing and spectrum assignment algorithm to realize knowledge-based autonomous traffic engineering in multi-domain networks Implemented an optical signal-to-noise ratio estimator and traffic predictor with Google’s Tensor flow and assessed their performance using experimental and synthetic data Demonstrated the benefits of the proposed cognitive schemes with experiments ona two-domain elastic optical network testbed and evaluations on a six-domain simulation framework Built a two-domain software-defined networking control plane testbed using the ONOS platform and demonstrated the workflow of broker and domain manager cooperation, including hierarchical performance monitoring, topology abstraction and cognitive resource allocation. Designed self-learning cognitive service provisioning schemes using advanced machine learning technologies: Designed a self-taught anomaly detection framework for optical networks, including an unsupervised data clustering module for pattern recognition, a supervised data regression and classification module for online anomaly detection, and the system operation principle Experimentally validated the effectiveness of the self-taught anomaly detection framework with various failure/anomaly scenarios. Designed a self-learning autonomic routing, modulation and spectrum assignment (RMSA) provisioning framework for elastic optical networks with deep reinforcement learning. Designed effective modeling and training mechanisms for the self-learning RMSA framework Conducted extensive numerical simulations with various traffic patterns and topologies to verify the advantage of the self-learning RMSA framework.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Software and System Health Management with R2U2

R2U2 (Realizable, Responsive, Unobtrusive Unit) is a hardware-supported tool and framework for the real-time system and software health management of cyber-physical systems. R2U2 continuously monitors properties about safety, performance, and security of the vehicle and can perform diagnostic reasoning. Efficient observers for past-time and future-time Metric Temporal Logic, reasoners for Bayesian Networks, and model-based prognostics algorithms are major components of R2U2. Their combination makes it possible to design powerful models for system runtime monitoring, diagnostics, software health management, prognostics, and security monitoring. The R2U2 monitoring engine is designed for minimal runtime overhead and is available as Simulink block or as a software component for integration into the flight software stack, and enables R2U2 to monitor complex cyber-physical systems without any instrumentation of the flight software. In this presentation, we give an overview of R2U2 architecture and reasoning algorithms, present its features, and give a life demo of the tool.

Schumann, Johann↗

A Meta-Analytic Approach to Investigating the Relationship Between Human-Automation Trust and Attention Allocation

Trust and attention allocation are pivotal determinants in human-automation interaction. However, there are scarce empirical findings regarding the relationship between trust and attention allocation. Observations from our previous work suggested there may be a negative correlation between trust in automation and eye movement towards automation, though no formal analysis of these data had been conducted to quantify this relationship. The present meta-analysis examined the relationship between three dimensions of trust in automation (performance, process, and purpose) and visual attention allocation to the automation. Specifically, we applied Cumming’s (2014) meta-analysis technique to combine evidence across three experiments. Results indicated a negative correlation between trust in automation and visual sampling of the automated system monitoring task for performance-based trust, but not for process- or purpose-based trust. These findings suggest that operators scanned the automation’s behavior less frequently when indicating higher performance-based trust towards the automation.

Human-Autonomy Teaming (HAT)↗

Performance Management: Should We Manage to a Single Data Point? A NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Perspective

With today's changing environment, meeting project commitments can be challenging. The Flight Projects Directorate at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has a portfolio of over 60 missions in various stages of the space flight life cycle. Numerous methods and approaches are used to monitor and track project performance and utilization of tools can provide valuable information to help manage missions. However, challenges can arise when these approaches are viewed as the sole data point for assessing the project status. At GSFC, performance management metric-based tools have provided insightful information for evaluating the programmatic health of space projects. These tools have provided the awareness and foresight desired to effectively manage and meet commitments, which is tremendously beneficial on the road to achieving mission success.

Peters, Wanda↗

Robotics for Nuclear Monitoring and Inspection - 18029

As a greater number of the world's nuclear facilities approach the end of their planned lifetime and enter the decommissioning and dismantling phase, a greater impetus than ever is being placed on the use of novel technologies to assist in this otherwise extremely lengthy, complicated and costly process. Being host to numerous first-generation plants, as well as the Sellafield Limited nuclear reprocessing facility, the UK is now requiring the use of a range of robotic systems and is well-placed to act as a test-bed for the deployment of these platforms. Presented in this work is the overview of the wide range of robotic research that is occurring at the University of Bristol. Not limited to ground-based platforms - those developed at the University Bristol,UK, include; airborne, underwater as well as pipeline network monitoring systems. Through the application of each of these robotic systems, not only is the dose-rate otherwise experienced by the operator removed, but the costs associated with the work are also significantly reduced, as well as the speed at which it is performed dramatically increased. All the systems descried in this work have been successfully deployed at one (or multiple) nuclear sites, with the results used to inform further decommissioning - typically within environments previously uncharacterised due either to their inaccessibility or high levels of radioactivity. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

MOPITT Mechanisms 16 Years In-Orbit Operation on TERRA

The 16th anniversary of the launch of NASA's Terra Spacecraft was marked on December 18, 2015, with the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument being a successful contributor to the NASA EOS flagship. MOPITT has been enabled by a large suite of mechanisms, allowing the instrument to perform long-duration monitoring of atmospheric carbon monoxide, providing global measurements of this important greenhouse gas for 16 years. Mechanisms have been successfully employed for scanning, cooling of detectors, and to optically modulate the gas path length within the instrument by means of pressure and gas cell length variation. The instrument utilizes these devices to perform correlation spectroscopy, enabling measurements with vertical resolution from the nadir view, and has thereby furthered understanding of source and global transport effects of carbon monoxide. Given the design requirement for a 5.25-year lifetime, the stability and performance of the majority of mechanisms have far surpassed design goals. With 16 continuously operating mechanisms in service on MOPITT, including 12 rotating mechanisms and 4 with linear drive elements, the instrument was an ambitious undertaking. The long life requirements combined with demands for cleanliness and optical stability made for difficult design choices including that of the selection of new lubrication processes. Observations and lessons learned with regards to many aspects of the mechanisms and associated monitoring devices are discussed here. Mechanism behaviors are described, including anomalies, long-term drive current/power, fill pressure, vibration and cold-tip temperature trends. The effectiveness of particular lubrication formulations and the screening method implemented is discussed in relation to continuous rotating mechanisms and stepper motors, which have exceeded 15 billon rotations and 2.5 billion steps respectively. Aspects of gas cell hermeticity, optical cleanliness, heater problems and SEU effects on accelerometers are also discussed.

Gibson, Andrew S.↗

Time-Lapse Electrical Geophysical Monitoring of Amendment-Based Biostimulation

Biostimulation is increasingly used to accelerate microbial remediation of recalcitrant groundwater contaminants. Effective application of biostimulation requires successful emplacement of amendment in the contaminant target zone. Verification of remediation performance requires postemplacement assessment and contaminant monitoring. Sampling based approaches are expensive and provide low-density spatial and temporal information. Time-lapse electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) is an effective geophysical method for determining temporal changes in subsurface electrical conductivity. Because remedial amendments and biostimulation-related biogeochemical processes often change subsurface electrical conductivity, ERT can complement and enhance sampling-based approaches for assessing emplacement and monitoring biostimulation-based remediation. Field studies demonstrating the ability of time-lapse ERT to monitor amendment emplacement and behavior were performed during a biostimulation remediation effort conducted at the Department of Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office (DRMO) Yard, in Brandywine, Maryland, United States. Geochemical fluid sampling was used to calibrate a petrophysical relation in order to predict groundwater indicators of amendment distribution. The petrophysical relations were field validated by comparing predictions to sequestered fluid sample results, thus demonstrating the potential of electrical geophysics for quantitative assessment of amendment-related geochemical properties. Crosshole radar zero-offset profile and borehole geophysical logging were also performed to augment the data set and validate interpretation. In addition to delineating amendment transport in the first 10 months after emplacement, the time-lapse ERT results show later changes in bulk electrical properties interpreted as mineral precipitation. Results support the use of more cost-effective surfacebased ERT in conjunction with limited field sampling to improve spatial and temporal monitoring of amendment emplacement and remediation performance.

amendment↗

Several Small or Single Large? Quantifying the Catchment-Wide Performance of On-Site Wastewater Treatment Plants with Inaccurate Sensors

On-site wastewater treatment plants (OSTs) often lack monitoring, resulting in unreliable treatment performance. They thus appear to be a stopgap solution despite their potential contribution to circular water management. Low-maintenance but inaccurate soft sensors are emerging that address this concern. However, how their inaccuracy impacts the catchment-wide treatment performance of a system of many OSTs has not been quantified. Here, we develop a stochastic model to estimate catchment-wide OST performances with a Monte Carlo simulation. In our study, soft sensors with a 70% accuracy improved the treatment performance from 66% of the time functional to 98%. Soft sensors optimized for specificity, indicating the true negative rate, improve the system performance, while sensors optimized for sensitivity, indicating the true positive rate, quantify the treatment performance more accurately. This new insight leads us to suggest programming two soft sensors in practical settings with the same hardware sensor data as input: one soft sensor geared to high specificity for maintenance scheduling and one geared to high sensitivity for performance quantification. Our findings suggest that a maintenance strategy combining inaccurate sensors with appropriate alarm management can vastly improve the mean catchment-wide treatment performance of a system of OSTs.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Electrical Resistivity Tomography based monitoring of stress perturbations to optimize placement of high-precision strain meters

The Center for Understanding Subsurface Signals and Permeability is a new U.S. Department of Energy Earthshot Center focused on understanding and predicting the long-term evolution of permeability in enhanced geothermal systems. The center will use a highly instrumented testbed within the Sanford Underground Research Facility to conduct field scale experiments that elucidate and test capabilities to simulate geochemical-geomechanical interactions and permeability evolution. Here we demonstrate initial developments using previously collected electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) monitoring data with high-performance multi-physics modelling advancements to inform the optimal location of two new monitoring boreholes. Specifically, ERT monitoring data collected during shear stimulation testing shows marked responses to changes in stress during borehole pressurization. We demonstrate how the same response is being simulated, ultimately to train a machine-learning algorithm to estimate rock properties and enable enhanced prediction of stress and strain responses anticipated during future testing campaigns.

Stress, EGS, CUSSP, 3D Electrical Imaging↗

Engineering Methanogenic Microbiomes to Redirect Flux to Biomass

In this study, we present a method for acquiring and characterizing novel microbial consortia that regulates methanogens and methanotrophs through selective cultivation and metagenomic analysis of indigenous microorganisms in the environment. In addition, we present the work performed as part of this project to model the pathways that act as limiting factors in microbial methane metabolism based on a carbon cycle model. In this report, we describe the methods for selective cultivation of methane-metabolism-related microorganisms from environmental samples, the method for monitoring their methane consumption performance, and the method and results for verifying their functions using quantitative PCR and metagenomics techniques. The microbial consortia containing methanotrophs were obtained through selective cultivation and molecular biological verification, and their methane consumption performance was evaluated. In addition, the potential of the existence of bacteriophages interacting with methane metabolism-related microorganisms was identified through metagenomic sequencing.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Risk Assessment and Management Workflow—An Example of the Southwest Regional Partnership

This paper summarizes the risk assessment and management workflow developed and applied to the Southwest Regional Partnership on Carbon Sequestration (SWP) Phase III Demonstration Project. The risk assessment and management workflow consists of six primary tasks, including management planning, identification, qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis, response planning, and monitoring. Within the workflow, the SWP assembled and iteratively updated a risk registry that identifies risks for all major activities of the project. Risk elements were ranked with respect to the potential impact to the project and the likelihood of occurrence. Both qualitative and quantitative risk analyses were performed. To graphically depict the interactions among risk elements and help building risk scenarios, process influence diagrams were used to represent the interactions. The SWP employed quantitative methods of risk analysis including Response Surface Method (RSM), Polynomial Chaos Expansion (PCE), and the National Risk Assessment Partnership (NRAP) toolset. The SWP also developed risk response planning and performed risk control and monitoring to prevent the risks from affecting the project and ensure the effectiveness of risk management. As part of risk control and monitoring, existing and new risks have been tracked and the response plan was subsequently evaluated. Findings and lessons learned from the SWP’s risk assessment and management efforts will provide valuable information for other commercial geological CO2 storage projects.

Lee, Si-Yong↗

Monitoring Operational States of a Nuclear Reactor Using Seismoacoustic Signatures and Machine Learning

Monitoring nuclear reactors is an important safety and security task with growing requirements. We explore the possibility of using seismic and acoustic data for inferring the power level of an operating reactor. Continuous data recorded at a single seismoacoustic station that is located about 50 m away from a research reactor was visualized and analyzed. The data show a clear correlation between seismoacoustic features and reactor main operational states. We designed a workflow that includes two machine learning (ML) models to classify the reactor operational states (OFF, transition, and ON) and estimate reactor power levels (10%, 30%, 50%, 70%, and 90%). We applied and compared five ML algorithms for the reactor OFF-transition-ON and four approaches for the power level classification. We also compared the performance of ML models trained with seismic-only, acoustic-only, and both types of data. Five-fold cross validations were implemented to assure a thorough evaluation of the model performances. Additionally, the results show the extreme boosting gradient algorithm worked best for the first model, whereas random forests performed best for the second model. Combining seismic and acoustic data leads to better performance than using a single type of data. Seismic data contributed more than acoustic data for both models. We reached an accuracy of 0.98 for reactor OFF and ON. The accuracies for the transition state and power levels are less optimal with a minimum accuracy of 0.66. However, our results suggest seismic and acoustic data contain useful information about the transition state as well as power levels. Seismic and acoustic data could be integrated with other observations to improve monitoring performance.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗