Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “accelerator design”

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 1,369 records · Page 76
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Horizontal Splitter Design For FFA@CEBAF Energy Upgrade: Current Status

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) is currently studying the feasibility of an energy upgrade based upon Fixed-Field Alternating Gradient (FFA) permanent magnet technology. The current plan is to replace the highest-energy recirculation arcs with FFA arcs, increasing the total number of beam recirculations, thus the energy. In order to accommodate multiple passes in the FFA arcs, horizontal splitters are being designed to control the beam parameters entering the FFA arcs, as well as the time of flight and R_56. In the current design, six passes will recirculate through the FFA arcs, necessitating the design of six independent beamlines to control the optics and beam dynamics matching into the arcs. These beamlines must fit into the current CEBAF tunnel, while allowing for personnel and equipment access. They must also be flexible enough to accommodate the beam under realistic operational conditions and fluctuations. The constraints on the system are highly restrictive, complicating the design. This document will describe the current state of the design, and indicate the work remaining for a complete conceptual design.

Benesch, Jay↗
DOE OSTI2022

Flow Measurements in Pressurized Helium Gas Cooling Channels

Production of metastable Technetium-99 (Tc-99m) is vital to the medical imaging community. It is a radioactive tracer that emits gamma rays as it decays and it is these gamma rays that are then detected through imaging. Tc-99m is extracted from the decay of Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) which has a half-life of about 2-3 days. One method of generating Mo-99 is using accelerator based technology, through the irradiation of Mo-100 using an electron beam. This is part of the NNSA’s mission to produce Mo-99 commercially, within the US, without the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU) in support of nonproliferation and global security. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is working with NorthStar medical Radioisotopes (NMR) on their efforts to produce Mo-99 from the irradiation of Mo-100 targets. The NMR target consists of an Inconel window that allows the electron beam to penetrate and irradiate a stack of Mo-100 discs. The irradiation process generates large amounts of heat and requires extensive cooling of the Mo-100 targets and target housing using pressurized helium gas. Before beam on target, the design of the target stack and target housing is tested at LANL using laser based diagnostics experiments. We quantify the velocity field of the helium gas around the target housing to estimate whether the cooling provided is sufficient for the design and to validate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. Fiber optic imaging is also developed for use during cold testing (without beam on target) as well as during irradiation, to obtain real time information on disc performance.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

TBIRD, a rapid prototyping approach for design, assembly, and test of a LEO-to-ground lasercom CubeSat

The TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) system is a 3U payload on a 6U CubeSat launched in May 2022 which has now demonstrated space to ground links of >1 Terabyte (TB) per pass at a max data rate of 200Gbps. As a CubeSat mission, the development of the TBIRD payload was focused on low SWaP and a “rapid prototyping” approach which accepted higher risks to accelerate the schedule and reduce costs. The optomechanical design process followed standard in-house processes to develop a system that would be robust to LEO environmental loads, with a focus on the stability of the transmit (Tx) and receive (Rx) channel performance metrics. The driving requirement of maintaining 20μrad pointing error between the TX and Rx channels forced specific attention to thermal and mechanical load changes over operational conditions, which drove major design decisions. This paper describes some of engineering challenges overcome and approaches used to make TBIRD a successful program, as well as some of the tradeoffs of rapid prototyping precision optical payloads. TBIRD successfully met and exceeded the total downlink requirements listed above, with a bandwidth of 200Gbps and a total downlink of 4.8TB of information in a single pass.

TBIRD↗
DOE OSTI2022

Non-Powered Dam Retrofit Exemplary Design for Hydropower Applications

Non-powered dams (NPDs) represent complex systems, situated at the intersection of natural stream environments and the built environment. The presence and operations of NPDs affect stream constituents (e.g., fish, recreational craft, sediment, water) and serve one or more engineered purposes (e.g., recreation, flood control, water supply, irrigation, tailings and debris control, navigation). By definition, NPDs do not provide hydropower generation. However, every NPD contains some untapped hydropower resource potential, represented by the pre-existing hydraulic head created by the dam and presence of flowing water. Adding power generation to an NPD requires retrofitting the NPD, which could involve the addition of any new component or function beyond that currently installed. Because this research is funded by the US Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office, adding hydropower to NPDs is among the primary objectives for research investment. However, NPD retrofitting extends beyond the purview of hydropower additions. This report provides background information regarding NPD development in the United States, including an overview of the US NPD population, development potential, and recent development. It also summarizes challenges and opportunities facing NPD retrofit development, highlights the importance of maintaining or improving stream and dam functionality, notes key NPD characteristics, describes NPD retrofit methods, and identifies innovation areas for spurring future NPD retrofit development. Section 4 describes retrofit exemplary design principles and concepts that could apply to a wide range of NPD projects. These principles and concepts inform an NPD Retrofit Exemplary Design Specification (REDS), as included in Appendix A. The NPD REDS is heavily influenced by prior work under the standard modular hydropower technology acceleration research initiative, especially the work documented in the Exemplary Design Envelope Specification for Standard Modular Hydropower Technology (Witt et al., 2017). Whereas this prior work focuses on a particular technology class that applies most intentionally for new stream-reach development (i.e., greenfield sites), the NPD REDS contained herein applies more broadly to the NPD resource class and is technology-agnostic (i.e., the specific technologies intended to be described are not explicitly prescribed). This report serves as a part of early-phase research on NPD retrofit development, aimed toward spurring additional, follow-on efforts to specifically address development challenges, capitalize on development opportunities, and inspire innovation. As documented in the landmark “Hydropower Vision” report (DOE 2016), “transformative technical innovations able to meet the co-objectives of environmental sustainability and low-carbon energy will be critical to enabling additional hydropower growth.” This report serves as an important step in steering transformation of US non-powered dam infrastructure.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Development and Performance of RFD Crab Cavity Prototypes for HL-LHC AUP

The US will be contributing to the HL-LHC upgrade at CERN with the fabrication and qualification of RFD crabbing cavities in the framework of the HL-LHC Accelerator Upgrade Project (AUP) managed by Fermilab. AUP received Critical Decision 3 (CD-3) approval by DOE in December 2020 launching the project into the production phase. The electro-magnetic design of the cavity was inherited from the LHC Accelerator Research Program (LARP) but needed to be revised to meet new project requirements and to prevent issues encountered during beam tests performed at CERN in the R&D phase. Two prototype cavities were manufactured in industry and cold tested. Challenges specific to the RFD cavity were the stringent interface tolerances, the pole symmetry, and the higher-order-mode impedance spectrum. Chemical pro-cessing and heat treatments were performed initially at FNAL/ANL and are now being transferred to industry for the production phase. HOM dampers are manufactured and validated by JLAB. A summary of cold test results with and without HOM dampers is presented.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Development and Performance of RFD Crab Cavity Prototypes for HL-LHC AUP

The US will be contributing to the HL-LHC upgrade at CERN with the fabrication and qualification of RFD crabbing cavities in the framework of the HL-LHC Accelerator Upgrade Project (AUP) managed by Fermilab. AUP received Critical Decision 3 (CD-3) approval by DOE in December 2020 launching the project into the production phase. The electro-magnetic design of the cavity was inherited from the LHC Accelerator Research Program (LARP) but needed to be revised to meet new project requirements and to prevent issues encountered during beam tests performed at CERN in the R&D phase. Two prototype cavities were manufactured in industry and cold tested. Challenges specific to the RFD cavity were the stringent interface tolerances, the pole symmetry, and the higher-order-mode impedance spectrum. Chemical processing and heat treatments were performed initially at FNAL/ANL and are now being transferred to industry for the production phase. HOM dampers are manufactured and validated by JLAB. A summary of cold test results with and without HOM dampers is presented.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Design update on the transition beamline for the CEBAF Energy Upgrade

For Jefferson Lab’s 22GeV upgrade, two new permanent-magnet Fixed-Field Alternating Gradient (FFA) arcs will be integrated to serve the accelerator’s six highest-energy recirculation passes. Connecting these FFA arcs to the existing linear accelerator (linac) requires a carefully engineered transition section. The current design has two parts where the first part adiabatically matches the beam dispersion and orbit trajectories, while the second part aligns the Twiss parameters (alpha and beta functions) with those at the linac entrance. Given the tight spatial constraints and multiple matching requirements, a genetic algorithm is being explored to optimize the beam optics matching. This paper presents the current progress in developing and optimizing this transition.

Accelerator Physics↗
DOE OSTI2022

Design, Construction, and Testing of 0.5-m, 18-mm Period Nb 3 Sn Superconducting Undulator Magnets

We report design and fabrication of a new Nb 3 Sn-based superconducting undulator (SCU) are underway at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) of Argonne National Laboratory in collaboration with Fermilab and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. To develop a robust and reliable fabrication process, the magnet development consists of several steps. First, magnetic and mechanical simulations were performed to optimize the magnet design; then, the design matured further by fabricating and testing a series of very short prototypes, ~8 cm long with a period length of 18 mm. These short prototype studies were previously reported. Second, the design was scaled to an intermediate length of ~0.5 m. These two steps led to the final design of ~1.1–m-long magnets, which are currently being fabricated. The quench behavior of each 0.5-m-long undulator magnet, as well as undulator assemblies from these magnets, was studied. The first SCU magnet assembly did not meet the design specifications due to the breakdown of the insulation. With an improved design and fabrication process based on lessons learned, the second SCU assembly achieved the design undulator field of 1.2 T. The design was further optimized, and the third set of magnets was fabricated and successfully tested.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

SNOWMASS2021 (AF7): Sub-scale models and infrastructure for accelerator magnet development

The LHC is undoubtfully the most important instrument the HEP community has on its disposal and is widely considered an amazing technological achievement. At the core of this instrument lay accelerator magnets based on NbTi technology – a technology well developed and widely used in the commercial sector too. Yet, a decade after the accelerator started it still did not reach its design collision energy of 14 TeV and it operated for years well below it. The reason for this is simple – magnet training (even though only a subset of the magnets is mostly affected).

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

AI‐Driven Robot Enables Synthesis‐Property Relation Prediction for Metal Halide Perovskites in Humid Atmosphere

Materials Acceleration Platforms (MAPs) – also known as self-driving laboratories– present a new paradigm for materials science and promise an order of magnitude accelerated materials discovery compared to the traditional trial-and-error approach. Metal halide perovskites (MHPs) are an emerging class of materials for optoelectronic applications but are plagued by irreproducible optoelectronic quality, particularly for films fabricated in a humid atmosphere. Here, in this work, a machine learning (ML)-guided closed-loop platform is developed with a multimodal data fusion approach to predict synthesis–property relations for the optical quality of MHP thin films in relative humidities (RHs) ranging from 5–55%. The efficiency of this approach is confirmed by the fast-dropping learning rate to 2% after experimentally sampling less than 1% of the possible 5,000+ combinations. The prediction of synthesis–property relations is done by optical and imaging characterizations. In situ photoluminescence characterization revealed the origin of thin film quality variation at different RH. These insights provide an avenue for controlling the MHP crystallization by fine-tuning the synthesis parameters and RH for a given chemistry, thus lifting the need for stringent atmosphere control. The MAP enables an accelerated screening and understanding of the synthesis design space, facilitating rational synthesis recipe choice for a wide range of materials.

AI-driven robot↗
DOE OSTI2020

Can exascale computing and explainable artificial intelligence applied to plant biology deliver on the United Nations sustainable development goals?

Human population growth and accelerated climate change necessitate agricultural improvements using designer crop ideotypes (idealized plants that can grow in niche environments). Diverse and highly skilled research groups must integrate efforts to bridge the gaps needed to achieve international goals toward sustainable agriculture. Given the scale of global agricultural needs and the breadth of multiple types of omics data needed to optimize these efforts, explainable artificial intelligence (AI with a decipherable decision making process that provides a meaningful explanation to humans) and exascale computing (computers that can perform 1018 floating-point operations per second, or exaflops) are crucial. Accurate phenotyping and daily-resolution climatype associations are equally important for refining ideotype production to specific environments at various levels of granularity. In this article, we review advances toward tackling technological hurdles to solve multiple United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and discuss a vision to overcome gaps between research and policy.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Toward performance-portable PETSc for GPU-based exascale systems

The Portable Extensible Toolkit for Scientific computation (PETSc) library delivers scalable solvers for nonlinear time-dependent differential and algebraic equations and for numerical optimization. The PETSc design for performance portability addresses fundamental GPU accelerator challenges and stresses flexibility and extensibility by separating the programming model used by the application from that used by the library, and it enables application developers to use their preferred programming model, such as Kokkos, RAJA, SYCL, HIP, CUDA, or OpenCL, on upcoming exascale systems. Furthermore, a blueprint for using GPUs from PETSc-based codes is provided, and case studies emphasize the flexibility and high performance achieved on current GPU-based systems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Nano-Engineered Interfaces in Dual-Layer Electrodes for Protonic Ceramic Cells with Enhanced Stability and Kinetics

Enhancing interfacial stability and charge transfer in protonic ceramic cells (PCCs) remains a critical challenge, as structural degradation and interfacial resistance often compromise durability and efficiency. Here, we report a nanoengineered dual-layer oxygen electrode architecture designed to address these limitations by introducing a fine-grained nanoparticle interfacial contact layer beneath a porous catalytic backbone. The nanoscale powders, through enhanced sintering activity, densify into a robust interfacial layer that promotes strong chemical bonding, uniform adhesion, and continuous ionic/electronic pathways with the BCZYYb electrolyte. This hierarchical architecture mitigates delamination, redistributes mechanical stress, and establishes efficient charge and mass transport channels without relying on corrosive surface treatments. Electrochemical evaluation demonstrates that the dual-layer design markedly reduces interfacial polarization resistance and accelerates electrode kinetics. Compared to the single-layer counterpart, the architecture achieves a peel strength of 44.53 N/cm 2 , a 40% improvement in peak power density (0.96 W cm –2 at 600 °C), and a 130% enhancement in electrolysis current density (4.78 A cm –2 at 1.57 V). Faradaic efficiency remains as high as 88% under high steam concentrations, underscoring minimal charge loss during practical operation. Notably, the electrode retains stability across 450–600 °C and under transient voltage cycling, with impedance spectra confirming suppressed interfacial resistance growth over prolonged use. These results highlight nanoscale interface engineering as a powerful route to enhance both mechanical robustness and electrochemical kinetics in PCCs. The demonstrated scalability and durability of this architecture provide a versatile platform for advancing solid-state electrochemical systems, including reversible fuel cells and high-efficiency hydrogen production technologies.

Faradaic efficiency↗
DOE OSTI2025

Accelerating magnonic simulations with the pseudospectral Landau-Lifshitz equation

The pseudospectral Landau-Lifshitz (PS-LL) model can describe atomic-scale magnetic exchange interactions within a continuum framework. This is achieved by employing a convolution kernel that models the nonlocal interaction in a grid-independent manner. Even though the PS-LL was originally introduced to address atomic exchange, any nonlocal kernel can be modeled. In the field of magnonics, the dipole field is fundamental to describe the dispersion relation of magnons, the quasiparticle representation of angular momentum. Because dipole-dipole interactions are long-range, numerical approaches typically rely on convolutions. Here, we demonstrate that the PS-LL model can be used to perform magnonic simulations with a single convolution kernel derived from analytical solutions. We demonstrate a twofold increase in computational speed compared with the full dipole calculation. This approach is valid insofar as the excitations are linear, which is typically the case for magnons. Our results have the potential to accelerate magnonic research, particularly for the inverse design method, where several simulations must be performed to achieve the desired outcome.

Mathematics and computing↗
DOE OSTI2022

A database of refractive indices and dielectric constants auto-generated using ChemDataExtractor

The ability to auto-generate databases of optical properties holds great potential for advancing optical research, especially with regards to the data-driven discovery of optical materials. An optical property database of refractive indices and dielectric constants is presented, which comprises a total of 49,076 refractive index and 60,804 dielectric constant data records on 11,054 unique chemicals. The database was auto-generated using the state-of-the-art natural language processing software, ChemDataExtractor, using a corpus of 388,461 scientific papers. The data repository offers a representative overview of the information on linear optical properties that resides in scientific papers from the past 30 years. Public availability of these data will enable a quick search for the optical property of certain materials. The large size of this repository will accelerate data-driven research on the design and prediction of optical materials and their properties. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first auto-generated database of optical properties from a large number of scientific papers. We provide a web interface to aid the use of our database.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2020

A high efficiency and low vibration liquid nitrogen cooling system for silicon crystal based x-ray optics

A compact low-cost cryocooling system has been designed, constructed, and tested at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The cooling power is provided by natural convection and phase change of the liquid nitrogen. The initial application was to cool silicon crystal optics to the sub-100 K range. A silicon crystal of dimension (width × depth × height) 50 × 50 × 30 mm3 has been used with an electric heater on the top surface in this prototyping test. This system can effectively provide more than 80 W of cooling power to the optics with a consumption of liquid nitrogen less than 2.1 l/h. The vibration of the silicon crystal was monitored during the tests with added electric heater power on the crystal. We note the vibration of the silicon crystal due to liquid nitrogen boiling is negligible.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Involving the new generations in particle physics endeavours

Since 1984 INFN and University of Pisa scientists performing experiments at Fermilab have been running a two-month summer training program for Italian students at the lab. In 1984 the program involved only a few physics students from the University of Pisa, but it was later extended to other INFN groups and to engineering students. Since 2004 the program has been supported in part by the US Department of Energy (DOE) in the frame of an exchange agreement with INFN and has been run by the Cultural Association of Italians at Fermilab (CAIF). In 2007 the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (Pisa) established an agreement with Fermilab to share the cost of four engineering students each year. In the almost 40 years of its history, the program has hosted at Fermilab approximately 550 Italian students from more than 20 Italian universities and from some non-Italian universities. In addition, in the years 2010-2019, with the support of the Italian National Institute of Astrophyics (INAF), the Italian Space Agency (ASI), and CAIF, 30 students were hosted in other US laboratories and universities. The Fermilab training programs spanned from data analysis to design and construction of particle detectors and accelerator components, R/D on superconductive elements, theory of accelerators, and analysis of astrophysical data. At the other US laboratories the offered training was on Space Science. In 2015 the University of Pisa endorsed the program as one of its own Summer Schools. The interns are enrolled as Pisa students for the duration of the internship. They are required to write summary reports published in the Fermilab and University of Pisa web pages. Upon positive evaluation by a University board, students are acknowledged 6 ECTS credits. The entire program is expected to expand further under CAIF management. An agreement has been signed between ASI and CAIF, for ASI to support yearly three two-months fellowships in US space science. In the following we inform on student recruiting, training programs, and final evaluation

Barzi, E.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Novel indium phosphide charged particle detector characterization with a 120 GeV proton beam

Thin film detectors which incorporate semiconductor materials other than silicon have the potential to build upon their unique material properties and offer advantages such as faster response times, operation at room temperature, and radiation hardness. To explore the possibility, promising candidate materials were selected, and particle tracking detectors were fabricated. An indium phosphide detector with a metal-intrinsic-metal structure has been fabricated for particle tracking. The detector was tested using radioactive sources and a high energy proton beam at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. In addition to its simplistic design and fabrication process, the indium phosphide particle detector showed a very fast response time of hundreds of picoseconds for the 120 GeV protons, which are comparable to the ultra-fast silicon detectors. This fast-timing response is attributed to the high electron mobility of indium phosphide. Such material properties can be leveraged to build novel detectors with superlative performance.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗