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At least 1,513 records · Page 84
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Development of a Photoacoustic Formaldehyde Monitor

Key indoor air quality pollutant formaldehyde (H 2 CO) is tracked on International Space Station (ISS) using passive badges returned to the ground periodically for analysis. The process is time-consuming both in preparation and for analysis upon return 6-12 months later. Badges also require precious crew time for deploy, retrieval and stow. As NASA’s focus in space exploration shifts to the Moon and Mars, archival sample return becomes increasingly impractical, so the aim of this project is to develop a highly reliable real-time analyzer for H 2 CO at low concentrations with data downlinked. Potential sources of H 2 CO include materials off gassing, use of formalin as a tissue fixative in biological payloads and overheating of acetal polymers. The Spacecraft Maximum Allowable Concentration (SMAC) for H 2 CO in air is 100 ppb for exposures of 7 days or longer. ISS concentrations of H 2 CO are running only 10 - 30 ppb in the recent several years but have spiked as high as 60 ppb. Gateway real time monitoring requirements for H 2 CO call for a range of 8 - 138 ppb. For this project, a concentration range of 5 - 500 ppb H 2 CO is targeted. The core tunable diode laser spectroscopy (TDLS) technology used for this project was developed by Vista Photonics through the NASA and US Navy Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programs. Monitors based on TDLS have been demonstrated on ISS, trialed on a nuclear submarine and are being certified as portable Anomaly Gas Analyzers (AGA) for both ISS and Orion. Initially, direct absorption TDLS was used exclusively in these devices. The H 2 CO target concentration, however, is low ppb, and a longer wavelength is required, so a photoacoustic spectroscopy (PAS) technique was adapted, where the laser excitation is detected by a sensitive microphone vs. a conventional photodetector. This paper will discuss the results of NASA-JSC laboratory testing of a prototype PAS based formaldehyde in air monitor and briefly discuss next steps.

Photoacoustic Formaldehyde Monitor↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Developmental Hardware Testing Results and Forward Plans for Spacecraft Water Impurity Monitor (SWIM) Organic Water Module (OWM)

We present testing results for developmental hardware of the Spacecraft Water Impurity Monitor (SWIM) Organic Water Module (OWM). SWIM-OWM will monitor spacecraft potable water and system water for trace organic contaminants. The system will detect and identify the specific organic chemical that makes up a given total organic carbon reading. We have built a first development unit (1DU) for SWIM-OWM, which directly injects aqueous water samples and detects chemicals with both a thermal conductivity detector and mass spectrometer sensor. The gas chromatography mass spectrometer (GCMS) system that comprises SWIM-OWM draws on the success of ISS-proven mass spectrometer hardware, and the demonstration of GCMS detection of trace organic contaminants in ISS cabin air. SWIM-OWM benefits from the excellent sensitivity and specificity afforded by GCMS. We have demonstrated detection of a set of chemicals relevant to both crew health and performance as well as system monitoring; these target chemicals range from light, volatile organics such as acetone and ethanol, to heavier, very non-volatile compounds such as dimethyl sulfone and o-phthalaldehyde. Direct aqueous injection was chosen for the general applicability of the technique to clean water sampling and to preclude sample pre-processing, which facilitates an on-line implementation of the SWIM-OWM when deployed in a spacecraft or habitation module. A specific advantage of direct aqueous injection when coupled with appropriate methods is that both the light, volatile organics and heavier non-volatiles can be detected from a single injection, in a single chromatogram. Results from 1DU testing will be discussed, and forward plans will be outlined for continued maturation of SWIM-OWM with the goal of implementing a technology demonstration for the purposes of maturing the engineering design and operations in an environment relevant to NASA’s future goals of exploring and setting up habitation on the Moon and Mars.

Water Monitoring↗
DOE OSTI2012

Beam Position and Phase Monitors Characterized and Installed in the LANSCE CCL

The Los Alamos Neutron Science Center - Risk Mitigation Project is in the process of replacing older Coupled-Cavity-Linac (CCL) Beam-Position Monitors (BPMs) with newer Beam Position and Phase Monitors (BPPMs) and their associated electronics and cable plants. In many locations, these older BPMs include a separate Delta-T loop for measuring the beam's central phase and energy. Thirty-one BPPMs have been installed and many have monitored the charged particle beam. The installation of these newer BPPMs is the first step to installing complete BPPM measurement systems. Prior to the installation, a characterization of each BPPM took place. The characterization procedure includes a mechanical inspection, a vacuum testing, and associated electrical tests. The BPPM electrical tests for all four electrodes include contact resistance measurements, Time Domain Reflectometer (TDR) measurements, relative 201.25-MHz phase measurements, and finally a set of position-sensitive mapping measurements were performed which included associated fitting routines. This paper will show these data for a typical characterized BPPM.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2012

First Operation of the Abort Gap Monitor for LHC

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) beam-dump system relies on extraction kickers that need 3 microseconds to rise to their nominal field. Since particles transiting the kickers during the rise will not be dumped properly, the proton population in this interval must always remain below quench and damage limits. A specific monitor to measure the particle population of this gap has been designed based on the detection of synchrotron radiation using a gated photomultiplier. Since the quench and damage limits change with the beam energy, the acceptable population in the abort gap and the settings of the monitor must adapt accordingly. This paper presents the design of the monitor, the calibration procedure and the detector performance with beam.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2012

Vertically aligned carbon nanofiber as nano-neuron interface for monitoring neural function

Neural chips, which are capable of simultaneous, multi-site neural recording and stimulation, have been used to detect and modulate neural activity for almost 30 years. As a neural interface, neural chips provide dynamic functional information for neural decoding and neural control. By improving sensitivity and spatial resolution, nano-scale electrodes may revolutionize neural detection and modulation at cellular and molecular levels as nano-neuron interfaces. We developed a carbon-nanofiber neural chip with lithographically defined arrays of vertically aligned carbon nanofiber electrodes and demonstrated its capability of both stimulating and monitoring electrophysiological signals from brain tissues in vitro and monitoring dynamic information of neuroplasticity. This novel nano-neuron interface can potentially serve as a precise, informative, biocompatible, and dual-mode neural interface for monitoring of both neuroelectrical and neurochemical activity at the single cell level and even inside the cell.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2012

Controlling radiological and chemical hazards of uranium in the workplace: Applications of biokinetic modeling and occupational monitoring data

This paper describes methods of interpreting and applying occupational uranium (U) monitoring data to avoid chemical damage to the kidneys and limit radiological risk to an acceptable level. The methods are based on current international radiation protection guidance, current information on the chemical toxicity of U, and best available biokinetic models for U. The methods apply to air monitoring data and bioassay (U in urine and faeces and externally measured U in lungs). Reference primary guidance levels for prevention of chemical effects and limitation of radiation effects are selected on the basis of a review of current scientific data and regulatory principles for setting standards. Generic investigation levels (ILs) and immediate action levels (IALs) are defined in terms of the primary guidance levels. The ILs and IALs are stated in terms of generic levels of radiation dose and concentration of U in the kidneys that are not directly measurable quantities. Models are used to relate the generic levels to measured levels of U in air or bioassay. Methods are prescribed for deriving ILs and IALs of U in air and bioassay for known and unknown solubility levels of airborne U. This paper focuses on interpretation of air monitoring to illustrate the general approach.

bioassay↗
DOE OSTI2013

Wind Turbine Drivetrain Condition Monitoring - An Overview (Presentation)

High operation and maintenance costs still hamper the development of the wind industry despite its quick growth worldwide. To reduce unscheduled downtime and avoid catastrophic failures of wind turbines and their components have been and will be crucial to further raise the competitiveness of wind power. Condition monitoring is one of the key tools for achieving such a goal. To enhance the research and development of advanced condition monitoring techniques dedicated to wind turbines, we present an overview of wind turbine condition monitoring, discuss current practices, point out existing challenges, and suggest possible solutions.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Resilient Plant Monitoring System: Design, Analysis, and Performance Evaluation

Resilient monitoring systems are sensor networks that degrade gracefully under malicious attacks on their sensors, causing them to project misleading information. The goal of this paper is to design, analyze, and evaluate the performance of a resilient monitoring system intended to monitor plant conditions (normal or anomalous). The architecture developed consists of four layers: data quality assessment, process variable assessment, plant condition assessment, and sensor network adaptation. Each of these layers is analyzed by either analytical or numerical tools, and the performance of the overall system is evaluated using simulations. The measure of resiliency of the resulting system is evaluated using Kullback Leibler divergence, and is shown to be sufficiently high in all scenarios considered.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2014

We Need to Talk... Developing Communicating Power Supplies to Monitor & Control Miscellaneous Electric Loads

Plug loads represent 30percent of total electricity use in residential buildings. Significant energy savings would result from an accurate understanding of which miscellaneous electric devices are using energy, at what time, and in what quantity. Commercially available plug load monitoring and control solutions replace or limit the attached device's native controls - forcing the user to adapt to a separate set of controls associated with the monitoring and control hardware. A better solution is integration of these capabilities at the power supply level. In this paper, we demonstrate a method achieving this integration. Our solution allows unobtrusive power monitoring and control while retaining native device control features. Further, our prototype enables intelligent behaviors by allowing devices to respond to the state of one another automatically. The CPS enables energy savings while demonstrating an added level of functionality to the user. If CPS technology became widespread in devices, a combination of automated and human interactive solutions would enable high levels of energy savings in buildings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2015

Predictive based monitoring of nuclear plant component degradation using support vector regression

Nuclear power plants (NPPs) are large installations comprised of many active and passive assets. Degradation monitoring of all these assets is expensive (labor cost) and highly demanding task. In this paper a framework based on Support Vector Regression (SVR) for online surveillance of critical parameter degradation of NPP components is proposed. In this case, on time replacement or maintenance of components will prevent potential plant malfunctions, and reduce the overall operational cost. In the current work, we apply SVR equipped with a Gaussian kernel function to monitor components. Monitoring includes the one-step-ahead prediction of the component’s respective operational quantity using the SVR model, while the SVR model is trained using a set of previous recorded degradation histories of similar components. Predictive capability of the model is evaluated upon arrival of a sensor measurement, which is compared to the component failure threshold. A maintenance decision is based on a fuzzy inference system that utilizes three parameters: (i) prediction evaluation in the previous steps, (ii) predicted value of the current step, (iii) and difference of current predicted value with components failure thresholds. The proposed framework will be tested on turbine blade degradation data.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2013

A NEW DIFFERENTIAL AND ERRANT BEAM CURRENT MONITOR FOR THE SNS* ACCELERATOR

A new Differential and errant Beam Current Monitor (DBCM) is being implemented for both the Spallation Neutron Source's Medium Energy Beam Transport (MEBT) and the Super Conducting Linac (SCL) accelerator sections. These new current monitors will abort the beam when the difference between two toroidal pickups exceeds a threshold. The MEBT DBCM will protect the MEBT chopper target, while the SCL DBCM will abort beam to minimize fast beam losses in the SCL cavities. The new DBCM will also record instances of errant beam, such as beam dropouts, to assist in further optimization of the SNS Accelerator. A software Errant Beam Monitor was implemented on the regular BCM hardware to study errant beam pulses. The new system will take over this functionality and will also be able to abort beam on pulse-to-pulse variations. Because the system is based on the FlexRIO hardware and programmed in LabVIEW FPGA, it will be able to abort beam in about 5 us. This paper describes the development, implementation, and initial test results of the DBCM, as well as errant beam examples.

beam current monitor↗
DOE OSTI2015

Monitoring Extreme-scale Lustre Toolkit

We discuss the design and ongoing development of the Monitoring Extreme-scale Lustre Toolkit (MELT), a unified Lustre performance monitoring and analysis infrastructure that provides continuous, low-overhead summary information on the health and performance of Lustre, as well as on-demand, in-depth problem diagnosis and root-cause analysis. The MELT infrastructure leverages a distributed overlay network to enable monitoring of center-wide Lustre filesystems where clients are located across many network domains. We preview interactive command-line utilities that help administrators and users to observe Lustre performance at various levels of resolution, from individual servers or clients to whole filesystems, including job-level reporting. Finally, we discuss our future plans for automating the root-cause analysis of common Lustre performance problems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2014

Technology Solutions Case Study: Advanced Boiler Load Monitoring Controls, Chicago, Illinois

Most of Chicago’s older multifamily housing stock is heated by centrally metered steam or hydronic systems. The cost of heat is typically absorbed into the owner’s operating cost and is then passed to tenants. Central boilers typically have long service lifetimes; the incentive for retrofit system efficiency upgrades is greater than equipment replacement for the efficiency-minded owner. System improvements as the “low-hanging fruit” are familiar, from improved pipe insulation to aftermarket controls such as outdoor temperature reset (OTR) or lead/lag controllers for sites with multiple boilers. Beyond these initial system efficiency upgrades are an emerging class of Advanced Load Monitoring (ALM) aftermarket controllers that dynamically respond to the boiler load, with claims of 10% to 30% of fuel savings over a heating season. In this project, the Building America team Partnership for Advanced Residential Retrofit (PARR) installed and monitored an ALM aftermarket controller, the M2G from Greffen Systems, at two Chicago area multifamily buildings with existing OTR control. Results show that energy savings depend on the degree to which boilers are oversized for their load, represented by cycling rates. Also, savings vary over the heating season with cycling rates, with greater savings observed in shoulder months. Over the monitoring period, oversized boilers at one site showed reductions in cycling and energy consumption in line with prior laboratory studies, while less oversized boilers at another site showed muted savings.

Building America↗
DOE OSTI2015

Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring of HVAC Components using Signal Unmixing

Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning units (HVAC) are a major electrical energy consumer in buildings. Monitoring of the operation and energy consumption of HVAC would increase the awareness of building owners and maintenance service providers of the condition and quality of performance of these units, enabling conditioned-based maintenance which would help achieving higher energy efficiency. In this paper, a novel non-intrusive load monitoring method based on group constrained non-negative matrix factorization is proposed for monitoring the different components of HVAC unit by only measuring the whole building aggregated power signal. At the first level of this hierarchical approach, power consumption of the building is decomposed to energy consumption of the HVAC unit and all the other electrical devices operating in the building such as lighting and plug loads. Then, the estimated power signal of the HVAC is used for estimating the power consumption profile of the HVAC major electrical loads such as compressors, condenser fans and indoor blower. Experiments conducted on real data collected from a building testbed maintained at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) demonstrate high accuracy on the disaggregation task.

Flexible Research Platform↗
DOE OSTI2017

Remote Monitoring System Design Requirements for Accountable Nuclear Materials at the Nevada National Security Site

The Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) worked with other sites within the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration weapons complex to develop design requirements for a Remote Monitoring System. System objectives include: • Continuous monitoring of packaging (containers) within a Facility's buildings to meet Material Control and Accountability (MC&A) inventory requirements. • Remotely access and receive monitoring data for tamper detection/alarm, tracking information, environmental conditions, equipment metadata (serial number, date of manufacturer, etc.), and assessment video feeds. • All data processing, storage/retrieval, and communications will be protected in a manner commensurate with its trust level and classification. • Remotely collected and processed data will be securely stored, backed up, and archived. • Current and historical data will accessible within and outside of a Building (location). • Automated creation of reports and data visualization. • Design features to facilitate the potential future integration with the Facility's physical security alarm and display system. The requirements may be used to develop an integrated conceptual design or may be used in a modular fashion to inform separate designs. The guiding principles in developing the system objectives include: • For MC&A needs, remotely perform the physical inventory and evidence collection of tamper for Security Category I and II packaged material within a facility and be capable of satisfying guidelines establish by DOE M 470.4-6, “Nuclear Material Control and Accountability.” • For personnel safety needs: o Meet/satisfy Nuclear Explosive Safety requirements. o Minimize the exposure of personnel to radiation to be as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA) in accordance with NSTec Radiological Controls Manual (Ref TBD). • For DOE nuclear materials, Building environment shall be controlled to meet requirements for packaged nuclear materials specified in weapons laboratory literature.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Concrete Structural Health Monitoring in Nuclear Power Plants

Assessment and management of aging concrete structures in nuclear power plants require a more systematic approach than simple reliance on existing code margins of safety. Health monitoring of concrete structures is performed in order to understand the current condition of a structure based on heterogeneous measurements and then produce high confidence actionable information regarding structural integrity; this information can then be used to support operational and maintenance decisions. The paper describes a framework of research activities for the health monitoring of nuclear power plant concrete structures. The proposed framework consists of four elements: health monitoring, data analytics, uncertainty quantification, and prognosis. The goal of this framework is to enable plant operators to make risk-informed decisions on structural integrity, remaining useful life, and performance of concrete structures across the nuclear fleet. Among several concrete degradations, the research focuses on the degradation caused by the Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR). ASR is a chemical reaction that in presence of sufficient moisture forms a gel that increases in volume and exerts an expansive pressure inside the material causing micro- to macro-cracks. The paper also presents development of controlled concrete samples with reactive aggregates to cause ASR degradation and application of different non-destructive evaluation techniques to detect the damage caused by ASR. Initial results are presented in the paper along with potential path forward.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2017

Remote Monitoring System Design Requirements for Accountable Nuclear Materials at the Nevada National Security Site

The Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) worked with other sites within the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration weapons complex to develop design requirements for a Remote Monitoring System. System objectives included: Continuous monitoring of packaging (containers) within a Facility's buildings to meet Material Control and Accountability (MC&A) inventory requirements. Remotely access and receive monitoring data for tamper detection/alarm, tracking information, environmental conditions, equipment metadata (serial number, date of manufacture, etc.), and assessment video feeds. All data processing, storage/retrieval, and communications will be protected in a manner commensurate with its trust level and classification. Remotely collected and processed data will be securely stored, backed up, and archived. Current and historical data will accessible within and outside of a Building (location). Automated creation of reports and data visualization. Design features to facilitate the potential future integration with the Facility's physical security alarm and display system. The requirements may be used to develop an integrated conceptual design or may be used in a modular fashion to inform separate designs. The guiding principles in developing the system objectives include: For MC&A needs, remotely perform the physical inventory and evidence collection of tamper for Security Category I and II packaged material within a facility and be capable of satisfying guidelines establish by DOE M 470.4-6, “Nuclear Material Control and Accountability.” For personnel safety needs: Meet/satisfy Nuclear Explosive Safety requirements. Minimize the exposure of personnel to radiation to be as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA) in accordance with NSTec Radiological Controls Manual. For DOE nuclear materials, Building environment shall be controlled to meet requirements for packaged nuclear materials specified in weapons laboratory literature.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2013

NRC Monitoring of Salt Waste Disposal at the Savannah River Site - 13147

As part of monitoring required under Section 3116 of the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 (NDAA), the NRC staff reviewed an updated DOE performance assessment (PA) for salt waste disposal at the Saltstone Disposal Facility (SDF). The NRC staff concluded that it has reasonable assurance that waste disposal at the SDF meets the 10 CFR 61 performance objectives for protection of individuals against intrusion (chap.61.42), protection of individuals during operations (chap.61.43), and site stability (chap.61.44). However, based on its evaluation of DOE's results and independent sensitivity analyses conducted with DOE's models, the NRC staff concluded that it did not have reasonable assurance that DOE's disposal activities at the SDF meet the performance objective for protection of the general population from releases of radioactivity (chap.61.41) evaluated at a dose limit of 0.25 mSv/yr (25 mrem/yr) total effective dose equivalent (TEDE). NRC staff also concluded that the potential dose to a member of the public is expected to be limited (i.e., is expected to be similar to or less than the public dose limit in chap.20.1301 of 1 mSv/yr [100 mrem/yr] TEDE) and is expected to occur many years after site closure. The NRC staff used risk insights gained from review of the SDF PA, its experience monitoring DOE disposal actions at the SDF over the last 5 years, as well as independent analysis and modeling to identify factors that are important to assessing whether DOE's disposal actions meet the performance objectives. Many of these factors are similar to factors identified in the NRC staff's 2005 review of salt waste disposal at the SDF. Key areas of interest continue to be waste form and disposal unit degradation, the effectiveness of infiltration and erosion controls, and estimation of the radiological inventory. Based on these factors, NRC is revising its plan for monitoring salt waste disposal at the SDF in coordination with South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC). DOE has completed or begun additional work related to salt waste disposal to address these factors. NRC staff continues to evaluate information related to the performance of the SDF and has been working with DOE and SCDHEC to resolve NRC staff's technical concerns. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗