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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 1,405 records · Page 78
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Advanced Autonomous Welding for Refabrication and Follow-On Testing of Previously Irradiated Nuclear Fuel

The performance of follow-on experiments using irradiated nuclear fuel at any point in its lifecycle is a critical step in understanding phenomena and behavior. Transient experiments with high-burnup fuel can deepen the understanding of fuel fragmentation, relocations, and dispersal under loss-of-coolant accidents. An advanced autonomous welding process to refabricate commercial fuel rods inside a hot cell was created and tested to enable flexible experiment approaches on fuels irradiated in commercial and test reactors. Irradiated light water reactor fuel test pins from experiments performed at the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at Idaho National Laboratory were used to demonstrate the refabrication process. The welding process was found to be sensitive to welding parameters but flexible such that multiple passes could be performed on the same location until a hermetic weld was obtained. The refabrication of rodlets and successful welds was also found to be sensitive to the preparation of the irradiated cladding and endcaps. Thorough defueling of the fuel at the weld location and proper sizing of the endcaps and backing material mitigated these issues. The use of strategically located heat sinks in contact with the cladding and endcap materials also increased welding and refabrication success. For this work, the test pins were sectioned to remove the original endcaps and fuel was removed from both ends of each rodlet. The reassembly of the rodlets was then completed in four steps, which included the press fitting of new endcaps, the circumferential welding of rodlet endcaps to the cladding, rodlet pressurization in a pressure chamber, and seal welding the rodlet under pressure. The integrity of the refabricated rodlets was then verified via helium leak checking inside a vacuum chamber. The advanced welding system is capable of refabricating rodlets up to 380 mm in length, and repressurizing them up to 15 500 kPa. The refabricated lengths of the rodlets used in this work ranged from 149 to 165 mm and the refabricated fuel stack heights ranged from 70.4 to 79.8 mm. Here, the rodlets were pressurized with argon to an average pressure of 3617 kPa, and the average leak rate after refabrication was 6.7 • 10 -8 cm 3 • s -1 .

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2023

The Random Ray Method Versus Multigroup Monte Carlo: The Method of Characteristics in OpenMC and SCONE

The Random Ray Method (TRRM) is a recently developed approach to solving neutral particle transport problems based on the Method of Characteristics. While the method previously has been implemented only in closed-source or limited-functionality codes, this work describes its implementation in two open-source Monte Carlo codes: OpenMC and SCONE. The random ray implementations required small modifications to the existing Multigroup Monte Carlo (MGMC) solvers, offering a rare venue for redundant, fine-grained, "apples-to-apples" speed and accuracy comparisons between transport methods. To this end, TRRM and MGMC solvers are evaluated against each other using each code's native capabilities on reactor eigenvalue problems with different degrees of energy discretization. On the C5G7 benchmark (featuring only seven energy groups), TRRM achieves a maximum pin power error comparable to or lower than that of MGMC for a given run time. On a problem with 69 energy groups, MGMC is found to scale more efficiently, obtaining a lower pin power error for a given run time. However, the defining difference between the two transport methods is found to be their vastly different uncertainty distributions. Specifically, TRRM is found to maintain similar levels of accuracy and uncertainty throughout the simulation domain whereas MGMC can exhibit orders-of-magnitude greater errors in areas of the problem that feature low neutron flux. For instance, TRRM provided an up to 373 times speed advantage compared with MGMC for computing the flux in low-flux regions in the moderator surrounding the C5G7 core.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Detection of Diversion in a Realistic Heat Pipe Microreactor Using Supervised Machine Learning

Microreactors (MRs) pose new challenges for international safeguards. Here, their small size and mass reproducibility make them ideal for deployment in greater numbers and in remote locations, making the job of safeguards inspectors more challenging. Machine learning (ML) is currently being applied to many fields to augment human performance and increase automation; in particular, ML could be used to provide insight for international inspectors to help detect the diversion of nuclear fuel from MR cores. Four ML model types (k-nearest neighbors, decision tree, random forest, and histogram-based gradient boosted ensemble) were trained on integrated flux and critical control drum angle data generated with Serpent 2 for a realistic heat pipe MR design, achieving nearly 100% binary classification accuracy of nominal and diversion core configurations by the end of 1 full power year for three of the four model types. Regression model variants were also trained, using the same input data, for predicting the number of fuel pins diverted. Root-mean-square errors below 5% of the total number of fuel pins were achieved by the 1 full power year mark for all models.

22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Sensor Reduction for Diversion Detection in a Realistic Heat Pipe Microreactor Using Supervised Machine Learning

Microreactors are designed as a smaller, cheaper, and safer alternative to traditional nuclear power plants. Their non-traditional characteristics and prospect of mass production and deployment will likely require new approaches to nuclear safeguards. The primary proliferation concern with microreactors is the diversion of fuel material. Such diversion may produce measurable defects in key physical attributes like neutron flux, which may in turn be detectable using machine learning models. Preliminary work has demonstrated this ability for modeled nominal and diversion scenarios using large quantities of energy integrated neutron flux data. In practice, the number of available sensors for such measurements will be limited and energy integrated flux information will not be available. This work explores the ability of tree-based gradient boosted ensemble models to classify a given microreactor core is nominal or diversion, and determine the number of fuel pins diverted in the case of diversion with reduced numbers of sensors and more realistic detector responses. Classification accuracy of greater than 98% and regression errors as low as 5% of the total number of fuel pins were achieved with as few as 15 sensors, compared to 99% and 4.1% with a maximum of 240 sensors.

22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2026

ML-Based Pebble Power Reconstruction for Pebble Bed Reactor Analysis

Pebble power reconstruction has been explored to complement the conventional homogenized modeling approach in pebble bed reactor (PBR) analysis, as detailed heterogeneous geometry calculations are computationally expensive. The random distribution of pebble fuels within the core challenges the application of conventional pin power reconstruction methods. To address this, we introduce a machine learning approach based on the transformer model, composed of encoder and decoder layers, to estimate the flux and power form functions for reconstructing individual pebble neutron fluxes and powers. The homogeneous neutron flux distribution within each spectral zone (SZ) is obtained from finite element solutions of global diffusion or transport calculations. Verification tests demonstrate that the trained transformer model accurately predicts power form functions over a range of conditions, including variations in pebble enrichment, location, type, SZ size, and burnup. In particular, verification using a three-dimensional PBR benchmark with burned pebbles shows good agreement in heterogeneous pebble power distributions between Griffin and Serpent. These results highlight the potential of applying conventional pin power reconstruction approaches to PBR cores with randomly distributed pebbles.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Correlation between in-field critical currents in Zr-added (Gd, Y)Ba2Cu3Ox superconducting tapes at 30 and 77 K

Critical current (I-c) values of 1384 Lambda/12 mm, corresponding to a critical current density of 12.47 MA cm(-2) and a pinning force of 374 GN m(-3), have been achieved at 30 K, 3 T in the orientation of field parallel to the c axis (B parallel to c) in (Gd, Y)BaCuO tapes with 15 mol% Zr addition made by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). These tapes show pinning force levels as high as 453 GN m(-3) at 30 K. An analysis of the properties of 24-28 (Gd, Y)BaCuO tapes with 15 mol% Zr addition showed a lack of correlation between their critical currents at 30 K, 3 T (B parallel to c) and I-c values both at 77 K, zero field and at 77 K, 1 T (B parallel to c). However, a strong correlation was found between the critical currents at 30 K, 3 T and at 77 K, 3 T (B parallel to c). It has also been discovered that the minimum critical current (I-c, (min)) value at 77 K, 3 T has no influence on the I-c,I- (min) value at 30 K, 3 T, and it in turn depends on the ratio of the I-c values in the orientations of field parallel and perpendicular to the c axis at 77 K, 3 T.

Selvamanickam, V↗
DOE OSTI2016

Decoupling and tuning competing effects of different types of defects on flux creep in irradiated YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7-δ coated conductors

YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7-δ coated conductors (CCs) have achieved high critical current densities (J c ) that can be further increased through the introduction of additional defects using particle irradiation. However, these gains are accompanied by increases in the flux creep rate, a manifestation of competition between the different types of defects. In this paper, we study this competition to better understand how to design pinning landscapes that simultaneously increase J c and reduce creep. CCs grown by metal organic deposition show non-monotonic changes in the temperature-dependent creep rate, S(T). Notably, in low fields, there is a conspicuous dip to low S as the temperature (T) increases from ~20 to ~65 K. Oxygen-, proton-, and Au-irradiation substantially increase S in this temperature range. Focusing on an oxygen-irradiated CC, we investigate the contribution of different types of irradiation-induced defects to the flux creep rate. Specifically, we study S(T) as we tune the relative density of point defects to larger defects by annealing both an as-grown and an irradiated CC in O 2 at temperatures T A = 250 °C–600 °C. Finally, we observe a steady decrease in S(T > 20 K) with increasing T A , unveiling the role of pre-existing nanoparticle precipitates in creating the dip in S(T) and point defects and clusters in increasing S at intermediate temperatures.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2019

Specific energy cost for nitrogen fixation as NO x using DC glow discharge in air

Abstract We report on factors influencing the specific energy costs of producing NO x from pin-to-pin DC glow discharges in air at atmospheric pressure. Discharge current, gap distance, gas flowrate, exterior tube wall temperature and the presence and position of activated Al 2 O 3 catalyst powder were examined. The presence of heated catalyst adjacent to the plasma zone improved energy efficiency by as much as 20% at low flows, but the most energy efficient conditions were found at the highest flowrates that allowed a stable discharge (about 10–15 l min −1 ). Under these conditions, the catalyst had no effect on efficiency in the present study. The lowest specific energy cost was observed to be between about 200–250 GJ/tN. The transport of active chemical species and energy are likely key factors controlling the specific energy costs of NO x production in the presence of a catalyst. Air plasma device design and operating conditions must ensure that plasma-generated active intermediate chemical species transport is optimally coupled with catalytically active surfaces.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2024

On the modes of nanosecond pulsed plasmas for combustion ignition of quiescent CH 4 -air mixtures

The effect of transient plasma modes on ignition kernel development are discussed here for a quiescent CH 4 -air combustion model system. A 10 ns high-voltage pulse was applied to a pin-to-pin electrode in lean fuel-air mixtures at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. High-impedance streamer, transient spark and low-impedance spark discharges were identified based on pulse waveforms of voltage and current. A sustained ignition kernel expansion was observed when the plasma discharge transitioned into a transient spark or spark discharge. The minimum ignition energy was obtained at the transient spark mode, which has less than a third of the energy or Coulomb transfer compared to the low-impedance spark. Employing repetitive 10-pulse sequence at 10 kHz, the lean-fuel limit was extended from an equivalence ratio of 0.6 for the single pulse ignition to 0.5. The use of repetitive pulses also allowed streamer breakdown or spark initiation to occur at a lower voltage.

CH 4↗
DOE OSTI2018

Thermal creep and the skyrmion Hall angle in driven skyrmion crystals

In this study, we numerically examine thermal effects on the skyrmion Hall angle for driven skyrmions interacting with quenched disorder. We identify a creep regime in which motion occurs via intermittent jumps between pinned and flowing states. Here the skyrmion Hall angle is zero since the skyrmions have time to relax into equilibrium positions in the pinning sites, eliminating the side-jump motion induced by the Magnus force. At higher drives we find a crossover to a viscous flow regime where the skyrmion Hall angle is finite and increases with increasing drive or temperature. Finally, our results are in agreement with recent experiments which also show a regime of finite skyrmion velocity with zero skyrmion Hall angle crossing over to a viscous flow regime with a skyrmion Hall angle that increases with drive.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Skyrmion transport and annihilation in funnel geometries

Using atomistic simulations, we have investigated the transport and annihilation of skyrmions interacting with a funnel array under a current applied perpendicular to the funnel axis. We find that transport without annihilation is possible at low currents, when the motion is dominated by skyrmion–skyrmion interactions and skyrmions push each other through the funnel opening. Skyrmion annihilation occurs for higher currents when skyrmions in the upper half of the sample exert pressure on skyrmions in the bottom half of the sample due to the external current. Upon interacting with the funnel wall, the skyrmions undergo a size reduction that makes it easier for them to pass through the funnel opening. We find five phases as a function of the applied current and the size of the funnel opening: (i) pinned, (ii) transport without annihilation, (iii) transport with annihilation, (iv) complete annihilation, and (v) a reentrant pinning phase that only occurs for very narrow openings. Finally, our findings provide insight into how to control skyrmion transport using funnel arrays by delineating regimes in which transport of skyrmions is possible as well as the conditions under which annihilation occurs.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2025

Skyrmionium dynamics and stability on one dimensional anisotropy patterns

We examine a skyrmionium driven over a periodic anisotropy pattern, which consists of disorder free regions and disordered regions. For small defect densities, the skyrmionium flows for an extended range of currents, and there is a critical current above which it transforms into a skyrmion. For increased amounts of quenched disorder, the current needed for the skyrmionium to transform into a skyrmion decreases, and there is a critical disorder density above which a moving skyrmionium is not stable. In the moving state, the skyrmionium to skyrmion transformation leads to a drop in the velocity and the onset of a finite skyrmion Hall angle. We also find a reentrance effect in which the pinned skyrmionium transforms into a skyrmion just above depinning, restabilizes into skyrmionium at larger drives, and becomes unstable again at large currents. In conclusion, we also show that adding a transverse shaking drive can increase the lifetime of a moving skyrmionium by reducing the effect of the pinning in the direction of the drive.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2018

Modeling non-equilibrium discharge and validating transient plasma characteristics at above-atmospheric pressure

Non-equilibrium plasma generated from positive-pulsed nanosecond electrical discharges into desiccated air is simulated in this paper using a multi-dimensional, multi-physics plasma solver. A pin-to-pin electrode configuration is used with a fixed 5.2 mm gap spacing. Peak pulse voltages range between 10.2 and 22.5 kV. Care is taken to match the exact electrode profile from the experiments, and adjust the electron collision frequency so that breakdown limits closely match those from corresponding experimental results. The optimized numerical simulations predict qualitative streamer structure that is in close agreement with experimental observations. Quantitative measurements of atomic oxygen at the anode tip and qualitative estimates of streamer gas heating are closely matched by simulations. The model results are used to provide insight into the spatial and temporal development of the transient plasma. Furthermore, the work performed in this paper delivers a numerical tool that can be extremely useful to link the post-discharge plasma properties to low-temperature plasma ignition mechanisms that are of great interest for the automotive industry.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Enhanced critical current in superconducting FeSe 0.5 Te 0.5 films at all magnetic field orientations by scalable gold ion irradiation

The loss-less electrical current-carrying capability of type II superconductors, measured by the critical current density J c , can be increased by engineering desirable defects in superconductors to pin the magnetic vortices. Here, we demonstrate that such desirable defects can be created in superconducting FeSe 0.5 Te 0.5 films by 6 MeV Au-ions irradiations that produce cluster-like defects with sizes of 10–15 nm over the entire film. The pristine FeSe 0.5 Te 0.5 film exhibits a low anisotropy in the angular dependence of J c . A clear improvement in the J c is observed upon Au-ion irradiation for all field orientations at 4.2 K. Furthermore, a nearly 70% increase in J c is observed at a magnetic field of 9 T applied parallel to the crystallographic c-axis at 10 K with little reduction of the superconducting transition temperature T c . Our studies show that a dose of 1×10 12 Au cm –2 irradiation at a few MeV is sufficient in order to provide a strong isotropic pinning defect landscape in iron-based superconducting films.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

New insight into strain and composition of BaZrO 3 nanorods in REBCO superconductor

We report on strain and composition effects associated with growth of self-assembled BaZrO 3 (BZO) nanorods in REBa 2 Cu 3 O 7–δ (REBCO) superconductors (RE = rare earth = Y and Gd), which have a profound effect on flux pinning and in-field critical current performance. The a-b plane mismatch between BZO and REBCO is never fully coherently accommodated. Instead, the nanorods always assume a size at least one unit cell smaller than the corresponding 'hole' in the REBCO matrix, thus providing deep minima of in-plane mismatch strain. Next, we show that the nominal BZO nanorods are in fact solid solution Ba 2+ (Zr 4+ 1–z RE 3+ z )O 3–δ perovskite, thus strongly affecting the stoichiometry and relative amounts of REBCO and BZO. We demonstrate that by varying only the Ba content in the nominal composition of 15 mol.% BZO + REBCO, the unit cell density of BZO can be tuned from 5% to 23%, and the linear density of RE 2 O 3 (REO) precipitates from 18 to 1 μm –1 . Furthermore, the results explain the wide range of pinning performances observed for the same nominal amount of Zr addition and provide insight into the mechanisms behind the complex phenomenon of growth of nanorods by self-assembly in REBCO superconductors.

2G-HTS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Understanding vortex dynamics in CaK(Fe,Ni) 4 As 4 and Ba(Fe,Co) 2 As 2 single crystals under the influence of random point disorder

We report on the influence of doping on vortex dynamics in 3 MeV proton-irradiated single crystals of CaK(Fe 1–x Ni x ) 4 As 4 (1144, x = 0.015, 0.025, and 0.03) and Ba(Fe 1–x Co x ) 2 As 2 (x = 0.04, 0.062, 0.066 and 0.074). Non-irradiated crystals of the 1144 system display superconducting critical temperatures ranging from 31 K for x = 0.015–20.5 K, as doping increases to 0.03. On the other hand, pristine crystals of the 122 system show T c values between 14.6 and 23.6 K, with the maximum T c occurring at intermediate doping levels. The fluence was set at 3 × 10 16 p cm –2 , resulting in a decrease in the T c by around 1.5 K for all samples and significantly affecting the vortex dynamics by reducing the flux creep relaxation compared to previously reported values for unirradiated crystals. Parameters such as vortex pinning energy U 0 and the glassy exponent μ dependencies on doping and magnetic field strength are identified. For the 1144 system, U 0 reaches values approaching 500 K for small fields in samples with T c = 29.3 K (x = 0.015), systematically decreasing to around 200 K as T c falls below 20 K. Furthermore, U 0 decreases as the field increases to 3 T for the same sample, varying from approximately 250 K to 100 K as T c decreases. These changes are typically accompanied by modifications in μ, gradually increasing from values around 1 towards 1.5, corresponding to small bundle relaxation in the collective creep theory. Despite differences in the substitutional disorder and magnetic phase diagram with respect to the 1144 system, the results for 122 single crystals follow a similar tendency in which U 0 usually reduces and μ increase rise as the applied magnetic field is increased. Due to moderate U 0 in these systems (few hundreds of kelvins), the resulting decay of persistent current at liquid helium temperatures is primarily determined by a balance between U 0 and bundle size contribution. Furthermore, these findings provide valuable insights for potential applications of these systems, particularly in the context of intrinsic superconducting parameters and the resulting pinning landscape.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2024

Role of microstructure on flux expulsion of superconducting radio frequency cavities

The trapped residual magnetic flux during the cool-down due to the incomplete Meissner state is a significant source of radio frequency losses in superconducting radio frequency cavities. Here, in this study, we clearly correlate the niobium microstructure in elliptical cavity geometry and flux expulsion behavior. In particular, a traditionally fabricated Nb cavity half-cell from an annealed poly-crystalline Nb sheet after an 800 °C heat treatment leads to a bi-modal microstructure that ties in with flux trapping and inefficient flux expulsion. This non-uniform microstructure is related to varying strain profiles along the cavity shape. A novel approach to prevent this non-uniform microstructure is presented by fabricating a 1.3 GHz single cell Nb cavity with a cold-worked sheet and subsequent heat treatment leading to better flux expulsion after 800 °C/3 h. Microstructural evolution by electron backscattered diffraction-orientation imaging microscopy on cavity cutouts, and flux pinning behavior by dc-magnetization on coupon samples confirms a reduction in flux pinning centers with increased heat treatment temperature. The heat treatment temperature-dependent mechanical properties and thermal conductivity are reported. The significant impact of cold work in this study demonstrates clear evidence for the importance of the microstructure required for high-performance superconducting cavities with reduced losses caused by magnetic flux trapping.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗