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At least 1,477 records · Page 82

Graphical User Interface Development for Representing Air Flow Patterns

In the Turbine Branch, scientists carry out experimental and computational work to advance the efficiency and diminish the noise production of jet engine turbines. One way to do this is by decreasing the heat that the turbine blades receive. Most of the experimental work is carried out by taking a single turbine blade and analyzing the air flow patterns around it, because this data indicates the sections of the turbine blade that are getting too hot. Since the cost of doing turbine blade air flow experiments is very high, researchers try to do computational work that fits the experimental data. The goal of computational fluid dynamics is for scientists to find a numerical way to predict the complex flow patterns around different turbine blades without physically having to perform tests or costly experiments. When visualizing flow patterns, scientists need a way to represent the flow conditions around a turbine blade. A researcher will assign specific zones that surround the turbine blade. In a two-dimensional view, the zones are usually quadrilaterals. The next step is to assign boundary conditions which define how the flow enters or exits one side of a zone. way of setting up computational zones and grids, visualizing flow patterns, and storing all the flow conditions in a file on the computer for future computation. Such a program is necessary because the only method for creating flow pattern graphs is by hand, which is tedious and time-consuming. By using a computer program to create the zones and grids, the graph would be faster to make and easier to edit. Basically, the user would run a program that is an editable graph. The user could click and drag with the mouse to form various zones and grids, then edit the locations of these grids, add flow and boundary conditions, and finally save the graph for future use and analysis. My goal this summer is to create a graphical user interface (GUI) that incorporates all of these elements. I am writing the program in Java, a language that is portable among platforms, because it can run on different operating systems such as Windows and Unix without having to be rewritten. I had no prior experience of programming in Java at the start of my internship; I am continuously learning as I create the program. I have written the part of the program that enables a user to draw several zones, edit them, and store their locations. The next phase of my project is to allow the user to click on the side of a zone and create a boundary condition for it. A previous intern wrote a program that allows the user to input boundary conditions. I can integrate the two programs to create a larger, more usable program. After that, I will develop a way for the user to save the graph for future reference. Another eventual goal is to make the GUI capable of creating three-dimensional zones as well. Researchers such as my mentor, Dr. David Ashpis, need a quick, user-friendly

Chaudhary, Nilika↗

Displaying and Analyzing Antenna Radiation Patterns

Radiant Energy Display and Analysis Software Package (REDAP) is a computer program for processing antenna-radiation- pattern data that have been preprocessed by a data-collection program and stored in a spherical-coordinate format. REDAP is designed specifically for application to data generated in testing of antennas in an anechoic chamber at Johnson Space Center; parts of REDAP may be reusable for processing antenna-test data collected elsewhere. REDAP provides a graphical user interface (GUI) and executes mathematical and plotting routines on a personal computer.

Siekierski, Jim↗

Visualization software for a global three-dimensional upper atmosphere model

A software environment has been developed to assist in analysis and visualization of numerical outputs from NCAR's thermospheric general circulation models. The codes produce vector graphics, raster imagery, and time dependent animation of model results, with provision for comparison with empirical models and relevant data from satellite and ground based instruments. Separate programs are executed on the NCAR CRAY YMP8/864 and HAO divisional Sun workstations, providing both large volume highspeed batch and custom interactive computing environments. The visualization system assembles a suite of existing software packages including NCAR Graphics, IDL, netCDF, and the Xt intrinsics library with the Athena widget set.

Foster, Benjamin T.↗

A Nonrelational Data Warehouse for the Analysis of Field and Laboratory Data From Multiple Heterogeneous Photovoltaic Test Sites

A nonrelational, distributed computing, data warehouse, and analytics environment (Energy-CRADLE) was developed for the analysis of field and laboratory data from multiple heterogeneous photovoltaic (PV) test sites. This data informatics and analytics infrastructure was designed to process diverse formats of PV performance data and climatic telemetry time-series data collected from a PV outdoor test network, i.e., the Solar Durability and Lifetime Extension global SunFarm network, as well as point-in-time laboratory spectral and image measurements of PV material samples. Using Hadoop/HBase for the distributed data warehouse, Energy-CRADLE does not have a predefined data table schema, which enables ingestion of data in diverse and changing formats. For easy data ingestion and data retrieval, Energy-CRADLE utilizes Hadoop streaming to enable Python MapReduce and provides a graphical user interface, i.e., py-CRADLE. By developing the Hadoop distributed computing platform and the HBase NoSQL database schema for solar energy, Energy-CRADLE exemplifies an integrated, scalable, secure, and user-friendly data informatics and analytics system for PV researchers. Furthermore, an example of Energy-CRADLE enabled scalable, data-driven, analytics is presented, where machine learning is used for anomaly detection across 2.2 million real-world current-voltage (I–V) curves of PV modules in three distinct Koppen–Geiger climatic zones.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Ab initio studies of structural, electronic, optical, elastic and thermal properties of silver gallium dichalcogenides (AgGaX{sub 2}: X = S, Se, Te)

Graphical abstract: - Highlights: • FP-LAPW method has been used to compute the solid state properties of AgGaX{sub 2} (X = S, Se, Te). • Electronic and optical properties reported with recently developed mBJ potential. • Thermal expansion, heat capacity, Debye temperature, entropy and Grüneisen parameter were evaluated. • Hardness was calculated for the first time at different temperature and pressure. - Abstract: We have performed ab initio calculations for the structural, electronic, optical, elastic and thermal properties of the silver gallium dichalcogenides (AgGaX{sub 2}: X = S, Se, Te). In this study, we have used the accurate full potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method to find the equilibrium structural parameters and to compute the six elastic constants (C{sub 11}, C{sub 12}, C{sub 13}, C{sub 33}, C{sub 44} and C{sub 66}). We have reported electronic and optical properties with the recently developed density functional theory of Tran and Blaha, and this theory is used along with the Wu-Cohen generalized gradient approximation (WC-GGA) for the exchange-correlation potential. Furthermore, optical features such as dielectric functions, refractive indices, extinction coefficient, optical reflectivity, absorption coefficients and optical conductivities were calculated for photon energies up to 40 eV. The thermodynamical properties such as thermal expansion, heat capacity, debye temperature, entropy, Grüneisen parameter and bulk modulus were calculated employing the quasi-harmonic Debye model at different temperatures (0–900 K) and pressures (0–8 GPa) and the silent results were interpreted. Hardness of the materials was calculated for the first time at different temperatures and pressures.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Forces and stress in second order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory for condensed phase systems within the resolution-of-identity Gaussian and plane waves approach

The forces acting on the atoms as well as the stress tensor are crucial ingredients for calculating the structural and dynamical properties of systems in the condensed phase. Here, these derivatives of the total energy are evaluated for the second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation energy (MP2) in the framework of the resolution of identity Gaussian and plane waves method, in a way that is fully consistent with how the total energy is computed. This consistency is non-trivial, given the different ways employed to compute Coulomb, exchange, and canonical four center integrals, and allows, for example, for energy conserving dynamics in various ensembles. Based on this formalism, a massively parallel algorithm has been developed for finite and extended system. The designed parallel algorithm displays, with respect to the system size, cubic, quartic, and quintic requirements, respectively, for the memory, communication, and computation. All these requirements are reduced with an increasing number of processes, and the measured performance shows excellent parallel scalability and efficiency up to thousands of nodes. Additionally, the computationally more demanding quintic scaling steps can be accelerated by employing graphics processing units (GPU’s) showing, for large systems, a gain of almost a factor two compared to the standard central processing unit-only case. In this way, the evaluation of the derivatives of the RI-MP2 energy can be performed within a few minutes for systems containing hundreds of atoms and thousands of basis functions. With good time to solution, the implementation thus opens the possibility to perform molecular dynamics (MD) simulations in various ensembles (microcanonical ensemble and isobaric-isothermal ensemble) at the MP2 level of theory. Geometry optimization, full cell relaxation, and energy conserving MD simulations have been performed for a variety of molecular crystals including NH{sub 3}, CO{sub 2}, formic acid, and benzene.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Designing a graphics processing unit accelerated petaflop capable lattice Boltzmann solver: Read aligned data layouts and asynchronous communication

The lattice Boltzmann method is a well-established numerical approach for complex fluid flow simulations. Recently, general-purpose graphics processing units (GPUs) have become available as high-performance computing resources at large scale. We report on designing and implementing a lattice Boltzmann solver for multi-GPU systems that achieves 1.79 PFLOPS performance on 16,384 GPUs. To achieve this performance, we introduce a GPU compatible version of the so-called bundle data layout and eliminate the halo sites in order to improve data access alignment. Furthermore, we make use of the possibility to overlap data transfer between the host central processing unit and the device GPU with computing on the GPU. As a benchmark case, we simulate flow in porous media and measure both strong and weak scaling performance with the emphasis being on large-scale simulations using realistic input data.

Computer Science↗

Assimilation of Wave Imaging Radar Observations for Real-time Wave-by-Wave Forecasting

This project addressed Topic 3: “Wave Measurement Instrumentation for Feed Forward Controls” under the FOA number DE-FOA-0000971. The overall goal of the program was to develop a phase-resolving wave forecasting technique for application to the active control of Wave Energy Conversion (WEC) devices. We have developed an approach that couples a wave imaging marine radar with a phase-resolving linear wave model for real-time wave field reconstruction and forward propagation of the wave field in space and time. The scope of the project was to develop and assess the performance of this novel forecasting system. Specific project goals were as follows: Develop and verify a fast, GPU-based (Graphical Processing Unit) wave propagation model suitable for phase-resolved computation of nearshore wave transformation over variable bathymetry; Compare the accuracy and speed of performance of the wave model against a deep water model in their ability to predict wave field transformation in the intermediate water depths (50 to 70 m) typical of planned WEC sites; Develop and implement a variational assimilation algorithm that can ingest wave imaging radar observations and estimate the time-varying wave conditions offshore of the domain of interest such that the observed wave field is best reconstructed throughout the domain and then use this to produce model forecasts for a given WEC location; Collect wave-resolving marine radar data, along with relevant in situ wave data, at a suitable wave energy test site, apply the algorithm to the field data, assess performance, and identify any necessary improvements; and Develop a production cost estimate that addresses the affordability of the wave forecasting technology and include in the Final Report. The developed forecasting algorithm (“Wavecast”) was evaluated for both speed and accuracy against a substantial synthetic dataset. Early in the project, performance tests definitively demonstrated that the system was capable of forecasting in real-time, as the GPU-based wave model backbone was very computationally efficient. The data assimilation algorithm was developed on a polar grid domain in order to match the sampling characteristics of the observation system (wave imaging marine radar). For verification purposes, a substantial set of synthetic wave data (i.e. forward runs of the wave model) were generated to be used as ground truth for comparison to the reconstructions and forecasts produced by Wavecast. For these synthetic cases, Wavecast demonstrated very good accuracy, for example, typical forecast correlation coefficients were between 0.84-0.95 when compared to the input data. Dependencies on shadowing, observational noise, and forecast horizon were also identified. During the second year of the project, a short field deployment was conducted in order to assess forecast accuracy under field conditions. For this, a radar was installed on a fishing vessel and observations were collected at the South Energy Test Site (SETS) off the coast of Newport, OR. At the SETS site, simultaneous in situ wave observations were also available owing to an ongoing field project funded separately. Unfortunately, the position and heading information that was available for the fishing vessel were not of sufficient accuracy in order to validate the forecast in a phase-resolving sense. Instead, a spectral comparison was made between the Wavecast forecast and the data from the in situ wave buoy. Although the wave and wind conditions during the field test were complex, the comparison showed a promising reconstruction of the wave spectral shape, where both peaks in the bimodal spectrum were represented. However, the total reconstructed spectral energy (across all directions and frequencies) was limited to 44% of the observed spectrum. Overall, wave-by-wave forecasting using a data assimilation approach based on wave imaging radar observations and a physics-based wave model shows promise for short-term phase-resolved predictions. Two recommendations for future work are as follows: first, we would recommend additional focused field campaigns for algorithm validation. The field campaign should be long enough to capture a range of wave conditions relevant to the target application and WEC site. In addition, it will be crucial to make sure the vessel of choice has high accuracy position and heading instrumentation (this instrumentation is commercially available but not standard on commercial fishing vessels). The second recommendation is to expand the model physics in the wave model backbone to include some nonlinear effects. Specifically, the third-order correction to the wave speed due to amplitude dispersion would be the next step in order to more accurately represent the phase speeds of large amplitude waves.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

Real-Time Drilling Optimization System for Improved Overall Rate of Penetration and Reduced Cost Per Foot in Geothermal Drilling

The key to success in geothermal drilling is economic feasibility, and a major cost in the development of geothermal resources is the actual drilling of the wells. In this project, a real-time drilling optimization system for geothermal drilling was developed. The system couples three individual components while drilling. The first component is a drill stem vibration analysis model, the second is Mechanical Specific Energy (MSE) analyses, and the third is a detailed PDC Rate of Penetration (ROP) drill bit model for optimum RPM and WOB combinations. The benefit of the coupled system is that the range of WOB and RPM could be selected to avoid drill stem vibrations. Secondly, MSE is used as an efficiency measure and the detailed PDC drill bit model ensures the drill bit does not endure temperatures that exceed the temperature at which the PDC cutters experience accelerated wear. The new detailed PDC bit model is based on rock/bit interaction that physically tracks the PDC cutter wear flats as the bit drills ahead giving the capability to calculate the temperature being generated underneath the worn cutters to better advise on operational parameters to avoid accelerated cutter wear and failure and to ensure that operational parameters are applied so that overall ROP is maximized. By combining the drill stem vibrations and the detailed PDC bit cutter wear and “safe” non-accelerated cutter wear temperature and optimum ranges of operating parameters, it results in higher ROP and lower cost drilling. Single cutter PDC testing performed in different lithologies at Sandia was utilized to verify the PDC cutter forces and depth of cut for new and worn cutters. Based on single cutter PDC temperature modeling, verification using single cutter data from the testing done by National Oilwell Varco (NOV) was performed. Sandia’s Hard-Rock Drilling Facility (HRDF) was utilized to test different drill bit configurations with different cutter designs and wear status with different induced modes of vibration to obtain the critical bit RPM/WOB ranges resulting in ineffective drilling and low ROP. The collected test data were further used to verify and calibrate the full hole PDC ROP model that was developed based on single cutter interaction data. A full coupled drill stem vibration model was formulated and verified with geothermal field data from the Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range (CMAGR). A graphical user interface (GUI) was developed using Tkinter library in the computer programming language Python, which integrates all the developed models in one system. The developed system consists mainly of the PDC ROP model, PDC bit wear model, PDC cutter temperature model, Mechanical Specific Energy (MSE) model, and drillstring vibration model integrated into one system. The developed system can be used for both, post well analysis and real-time optimization using different criteria such as ROP maximization or MSE minimization. The software uses Differential Evolution Algorithm (DEA) to find optimum values for operational parameters based on last foot drilled while avoiding the drillstring vibration and cutter temperature critical operating parameters.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

PERT ''C''

Computer program, PERT, provides method and technique for planning, evaluating, and graphically portraying in orderly related sequence the activities necessary to achieve a stated objective.

Source record↗

Sequential control chart methodology

A modification of the V mask sequential control chart is proposed. In this modified scheme, a parabolic section is included in the mask to provide better performance when the process undergoes a large change in the mean from goal conditions. It is shown that the modified V mask can be implemented either in conventional graphic form, or in an algorithmic form suitable for a digital computer. Average run lengths are given for a typical range of circumstances. It also is shown that the conventional Shewhart chart is better than a sequential chart for the specific purpose of promptly detecting very large shifts of the mean from goal conditions.

Source record↗

Solution of the wave equation for open surfaces involving a line integral over the edge

A simple mathematical model of a stationary source distribution for the supersonic-propeller noise-prediction formula of Farassat (1983) is developed to test the validity of the formula solutions. The conventional thickness source term is used in place of the Isom thickness formula; the relative importance of the line and surface integrals in the solutions is evaluated; and the numerical results are compared with those obtained with a conventional retarded-time solution in tables. Good agreement is obtained over elevation angles from 10 to 90 deg, and the line-integral contribution is found to be significant at all elevation angles and of the same order of magnitude as the surface-integral contribution at angles less than 30 deg. The amplitude-normalized directivity patterns for the four cases computed (x = 1.5 or 10; k = 5.0 or 50) are presented graphically.

Farassat, F.↗

Scan line graphics generation on the massively parallel processor

Described here is how researchers implemented a scan line graphics generation algorithm on the Massively Parallel Processor (MPP). Pixels are computed in parallel and their results are applied to the Z buffer in large groups. To perform pixel value calculations, facilitate load balancing across the processors and apply the results to the Z buffer efficiently in parallel requires special virtual routing (sort computation) techniques developed by the author especially for use on single-instruction multiple-data (SIMD) architectures.

Dorband, John E.↗

User interface user's guide for HYPGEN

The user interface (UI) of HYPGEN is developed using Panel Library to shorten the learning curve for new users and provide easier ways to run HYPGEN for casual users as well as for advanced users. Menus, buttons, sliders, and type-in fields are used extensively in UI to allow users to point and click with a mouse to choose various available options or to change values of parameters. On-line help is provided to give users information on using UI without consulting the manual. Default values are set for most parameters and boundary conditions are determined by UI to further reduce the effort needed to run HYPGEN; however, users are free to make any changes and save it in a file for later use. A hook to PLOT3D is built in to allow graphics manipulation. The viewpoint and min/max box for PLOT3D windows are computed by UI and saved in a PLOT3D journal file. For large grids which take a long time to generate on workstations, the grid generator (HYPGEN) can be run on faster computers such as Crays, while UI stays at the workstation.

Chiu, Ing-Tsau↗