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DOE OSTI2021

MemXCT: Design, Optimization, Scaling, and Reproducibility of X-Ray Tomography Imaging

Here, this work extends our previous research entitled "MemXCT: Memory-centric X-ray CT Reconstruction with Massive Parallelization" that was originally published at SC19 conference (Hidayetoglu et al., 2019) with reproducibility of the computational imaging performance. X-ray computed tomography (XCT) is regularly used at synchrotron light sources to study the internal morphology of materials at high resolution. However, experimental constraints, such as radiation sensitivity, can result in noisy or undersampled measurements. Further, depending on the resolution, sample size and data acquisition rates, the resulting noisy dataset can be in the order of terabytes. Advanced iterative reconstruction techniques can produce high-quality images from noisy measurements, but their computational requirements have made their use an exception rather than the rule. We propose a novel memory-centric approach that avoids redundant computations at the expense of additional memory complexity. We develop a memory-centric iterative reconstruction system, MemXCT, that uses an optimized SpMV implementation with two-level pseudo-Hilbert ordering and multi-stage input buffering. We evaluate MemXCT on various supercomputer architectures involving KNL and GPU. MemXCT can reconstruct a large (11Kx11K) mouse brain tomogram in 10 seconds using 4096 KNL nodes (256K cores). The results presented in our original article at the SC19 were based on large-scale supercomputing resources. The MemXCT application was selected for the Student Cluster Competition (SCC) Reproducibility Challenge and evaluated on a variety of cloud computing resources by universities around the world in the SC20 conference. We summarize the results of the top-ranked SCC Reproducibility Challenge teams and identify the most pertinent measures for ensuring the reproducibility of our experiments in this article.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

NASA NTRS2018

Turbine Electrified Energy Management (TEEM) For Enabling More Efficient Engine Designs

NASA is investing in Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP) research as part of an effort to assist industry in meeting the future needs of a global aviation market. The integration of electric machines into traditional turbine-based propulsion provides opportunities to change system architectures effecting radical improvements in propulsive efficiency. However, less consideration has been afforded to the utilization of these electrical machines to improve the thermal efficiency and performance of the gas turbine engine. Noting this deficit, a novel operability concept is proposed and is referred to as Turbine Electrified Energy Management (TEEM). The concept is a transient control technology that supplements the main fuel control for the suppression of the natural off-design dynamics associated with changes in engine operating state. Here the electric machines, used as engine actuators during the transient, add or extract torque from the engine shafts to maintain the speed-flow characteristics of steady-state design operation. This greatly reduces the need to maintain transient stall margin stack in the compressors, among other potential benefits. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of the concept in dynamic simulation using a Numerical Propulsion System Simulation (NPSS) engine model of a NASA hybrid electric propulsion concept known as the Parallel Hybrid Electric Turbofan (hFan).

Culley, Dennis E.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Moving formal methods into practice. Verifying the FTPP Scoreboard: Results, phase 1

This report documents the Phase 1 results of an effort aimed at formally verifying a key hardware component, called Scoreboard, of a Fault-Tolerant Parallel Processor (FTPP) being built at Charles Stark Draper Laboratory (CSDL). The Scoreboard is part of the FTPP virtual bus that guarantees reliable communication between processors in the presence of Byzantine faults in the system. The Scoreboard implements a piece of control logic that approves and validates a message before it can be transmitted. The goal of Phase 1 was to lay the foundation of the Scoreboard verification. A formal specification of the functional requirements and a high-level hardware design for the Scoreboard were developed. The hardware design was based on a preliminary Scoreboard design developed at CSDL. A main correctness theorem, from which the functional requirements can be established as corollaries, was proved for the Scoreboard design. The goal of Phase 2 is to verify the final detailed design of Scoreboard. This task is being conducted as part of a NASA-sponsored effort to explore integration of formal methods in the development cycle of current fault-tolerant architectures being built in the aerospace industry.

Srivas, Mandayam↗

DOE OSTI2023

Breaking Radial Dipole Symmetry in Planar Macrocycles Modulates Edge‐to‐Edge Packing and Disrupts Cofacial Stacking

Dipolar interactions are ever-present in supramolecular architectures, though their impact is typically revealed by making dipoles stronger. While it is also possible to assess the role of dipoles by altering their orientations by using synthetic design, doing so without altering the molecular shape is not straightforward. We have now done this by flipping one triazole unit in a rigid macrocycle, tricarb. The macrocycle is composed of three carbazoles (2 Debye) and three triazoles (5 Debye) defining an array of dipoles aligned radially but organized alternately in and out. These dipoles are believed to dictate edge-to-edge tiling and face-to-face stacking. We modified our synthesis to prepare isosteric macrocycles with the orientation of one triazole dipole rotated 40°. The new dipole orientation guides edge-to-edge contacts to reorder the stability of two surface-bound 2D polymorphs. The impact on dipole-enhanced π stacking, however, was unexpected. Our stacking model identified an unchanged set of short-range (3.4 Å) anti-parallel dipole contacts. Despite this situation, the reduction in self-association was attributed to long-range (~6.4 Å) dipolar repulsions between π-stacked macrocycles. This work highlights our ability to control the build-up and symmetry of macrocyclic skeletons by synthetic design, and the work needed to further our understanding of how dipoles control self-assembly.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

NASA NTRS2009

Motion Cueing Algorithm Modification for Improved Turbulence Simulation

Atmospheric turbulence cueing produced by flight simulator motion systems has been less than satisfactory because the turbulence profiles have been attenuated by the motion cueing algorithms. Cardullo and Ellor initially addressed this problem by directly porting the turbulence model output to the motion system. Reid and Robinson addressed the problem by employing a parallel aircraft model, which is only stimulated by the turbulence inputs and adding a filter specially designed to pass the higher turbulence frequencies. There have been advances in motion cueing algorithm development at the Man-Machine Systems Laboratory, at SUNY Binghamton. In particular, the system used to generate turbulence cues has been studied. The Reid approach, implemented by Telban and Cardullo, was employed to augment the optimal motion cueing algorithm installed at the NASA LaRC Simulation Laboratory, driving the Visual Motion Simulator. In this implementation, the output of the primary flight channel was added to the output of the turbulence channel and then sent through a non-linear cueing filter. The cueing filter is an adaptive filter; therefore, it is not desirable for the output of the turbulence channel to be augmented by this type of filter. The likelihood of the signal becoming divergent was also an issue in this design. After testing on-site it became apparent that the architecture of the turbulence algorithm was generating unacceptable cues. As mentioned above, this cueing algorithm comprised a filter that was designed to operate at low bandwidth. Therefore, the turbulence was also filtered, augmenting the cues generated by the model. If any filtering is to be done to the turbulence, it will utilize a filter with a much higher bandwidth, above the frequencies produced by the aircraft response to turbulence. The authors have developed an implementation wherein only the signal from the primary flight channel passes through the nonlinear cueing filter. This paper discusses three new algorithms. Testing shows that the new methods provide the pilot with a more realistic sensation of turbulence; the cues are not attenuated by algorithm. Results of offline testing show the credibility of the models. Offline test verification was based primarily on the evaluation of the power spectral density of the outputs and the time response.

Ercole, Anthony V.↗

NASA NTRS1996

Good trellises for IC implementation of viterbi decoders for linear block codes

This paper investigates trellis structures of linear block codes for the IC (integrated circuit) implementation of Viterbi decoders capable of achieving high decoding speed while satisfying a constraint on the structural complexity of the trellis in terms of the maximum number of states at any particular depth. Only uniform sectionalizations of the code trellis diagram are considered. An upper bound on the number of parallel and structurally identical (or isomorphic) subtrellises in a proper trellis for a code without exceeding the maximum state complexity of the minimal trellis of the code is first derived. Parallel structures of trellises with various section lengths for binary BCH and Reed-Muller (RM) codes of lengths 32 and 64 are analyzed. Next, the complexity of IC implementation of a Viterbi decoder based on an L-section trellis diagram for a code is investigated. A structural property of a Viterbi decoder called ACS-connectivity which is related to state connectivity is introduced. This parameter affects the complexity of wire-routing (interconnections within the IC). The effect of five parameters namely: (1) effective computational complexity; (2) complexity of the ACS-circuit; (3) traceback complexity; (4) ACS-connectivity; and (5) branch complexity of a trellis diagram on the VLSI complexity of a Viterbi decoder is investigated. It is shown that an IC implementation of a Viterbi decoder based on a non-minimal trellis requires less area and is capable of operation at higher speed than one based on the minimal trellis when the commonly used ACS-array architecture is considered.

Moorthy, H. T.↗

NASA NTRS1996

Good trellises for IC implementation of viterbi decoders for linear block codes

Lin, Shu↗

NASA NTRS2012

The Keck Interferometer Nuller

The Keck Interferometer Nuller (KIN), the first operational separated-aperture infrared nulling interferometer, was designed to null the mid-infrared emission from nearby stars so as to ease the measurement of faint circumstellar emission. This paper describes the basis of the KIN's four-beam, two-stage measurement approach and compares it 10 the simpler case of a two-beam nuller. In the four-beam KIN system, the starlight is first nulled in a pair of nullers operating on parallel 85 m Keck-Keck baselines, after which "cross-combination" on 4 m baselines across the Keck apertures is used to modulate and detect residual coherent off-axis emission. Comparison to the constructive itellar fringe provides calibration. The response to an extended source is similar in the two cases, except that the four-beam response includes a term due to the visibility of the source on the cross-combiner baseline-a small effect for relatively compact sources. The characteristics of the dominant null depth errors are also compared for the two cases. In the two-beam nuller, instrumental imperfections and asymmetries lead to a series of quadratic, positivedefinite null leakage terms. For the four-beam nuller, the leakage is instead a series of correlation cross-tenns combining corresponding errors in each of the two nullers, which contribute offsets only to the extent that these errors are correlated on the timescale of the measurement. This four-beam architecture has allowed a significant (approx. order of magnitude) improvement in mid-infrared long-baseline fringe-visibility accuracies.

Serabyn, E.↗

DOE OSTI2024

Early experiences on the OLCF Frontier system with AthenaPK and Parthenon–Hydro

The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) has been preparing the nation's first exascale system, Frontier, for production and end users. Frontier is based on HPE Cray's new EX architecture and Slingshot interconnect and features 74 cabinets of optimized 3rd Gen AMD EPYC CPUs for HPC and AI and AMD Instinct 250X accelerators. As a part of this preparation, “real-world” user codes have been selected to help assess the functionality, performance, and usability of the system. This article describes early experiences using the system in collaboration with the Hamburg Observatory for two selected codes, which have since been adopted in the OLCF test harness. Experiences discussed include efforts to resolve performance variability and per-cycle slowdowns. Results are shown for a performance portable astrophysical magnetohydronamics code, AthenaPK, and a mini-application stressing the core functionality of a performance portable block-structured adaptive mesh refinement framework, Parthenon-Hydro. Here, these results show good scaling characteristics to the full system. At the largest scale, the Parthenon-Hydro miniapp reaches a total of $1.7$ $\times$ $10^{13}$ zone-cycles/s on 9216 nodes (73,728 logical GPUs) at ≈92% weak scaling parallel efficiency (starting from a single node using a second-order, finite-volume method).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

NASA NTRS1997

Good Trellises for IC Implementation of Viterbi Decoders for Linear Block Codes

This paper investigates trellis structures of linear block codes for the integrated circuit (IC) implementation of Viterbi decoders capable of achieving high decoding speed while satisfying a constraint on the structural complexity of the trellis in terms of the maximum number of states at any particular depth. Only uniform sectionalizations of the code trellis diagram are considered. An upper-bound on the number of parallel and structurally identical (or isomorphic) subtrellises in a proper trellis for a code without exceeding the maximum state complexity of the minimal trellis of the code is first derived. Parallel structures of trellises with various section lengths for binary BCH and Reed-Muller (RM) codes of lengths 32 and 64 are analyzed. Next, the complexity of IC implementation of a Viterbi decoder based on an L-section trellis diagram for a code is investigated. A structural property of a Viterbi decoder called add-compare-select (ACS)-connectivity which is related to state connectivity is introduced. This parameter affects the complexity of wire-routing (interconnections within the IC). The effect of five parameters namely: (1) effective computational complexity; (2) complexity of the ACS-circuit; (3) traceback complexity; (4) ACS-connectivity; and (5) branch complexity of a trellis diagram on the very large scale integration (VISI) complexity of a Viterbi decoder is investigated. It is shown that an IC implementation of a Viterbi decoder based on a nonminimal trellis requires less area and is capable of operation at higher speed than one based on the minimal trellis when the commonly used ACS-array architecture is considered.

Moorthy, Hari T.↗

DOE OSTI2022

Predictive Direct DC-Link Control for 7.2 kV Three-Port Low-Inertia Solid-State Transformer With Active Power Decoupling

Promising for applications including renewable energy and electric vehicle fast charging, a medium-voltage (MV) solid-state transformer (SST) typically has multiple modules series stacked, which requires the modules to be single phase. One critical issue of the single-phase SST is the double-line-frequency power ripple. Traditionally, large passives are used to buffer the ripple, resulting in significantly increased volume and cost. This article for the first time proposes active power decoupling (APD) for the SST and a predictive direct DC-link control method, using a current-source single-stage SST as an example. An electrolytic capacitor-less buffer port is used to absorb the ripple, which tolerates up to a 30% voltage ripple for small capacitance. The APD SST control is challenging. First, the current-source SST realizes isolation, DC link, and multiport in a single stage. Second, different from conventional SSTs or APD converters, the low-inertia DC link in this SST has a 40% switching ripple, which is difficult to stabilize. To address the control challenge, a direct DC-link control architecture and a predictive control method are proposed. Simulation and experimental results verify the proposed control method on an MV SiC modular soft-switching solid-state transformer (M-S4T) prototype. Here, the proposed APD reduces the SST volume by 53.8%. Importantly, the proposed concept is not limited to the M-S4T but is generic to other SSTs or APD converters.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2023

Revealing Deformation Mechanisms in Polymer-Grafted Thermoplastic Elastomers via In Situ Small-Angle X-ray Scattering

The tunable properties of thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs), through polymer chemistry manipulations, enable these technologically critical materials to be employed in a broad range of applications. The need to “dial-in” the mechanical properties and responses of TPEs generally requires the design and synthesis of new macromolecules. In these designs, TPEs with nonlinear macromolecular architectures outperform the mechanical properties of their linear copolymer counterparts, but the differences in the deformation mechanism providing enhanced performance are unknown. Here, in situ small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) measurements during uniaxial extension reveal distinct deformation mechanisms between a commercially available linear poly(styrene)–poly(butadiene)–poly(styrene) (SBS) triblock copolymer and the grafted SBS version containing grafted poly(styrene) (PS) chains from the poly(butadiene) (PBD) midblock. The neat SBS (φ SBS = 100%) sample deforms congruently with the macroscopic dimensions, with the domain spacing between spheres increasing and decreasing along and transverse to the stretch direction, respectively. At high extensions, end segment pullout from the PS-rich domains is detected, which is indicated by a disordering of SBS. Conversely, the PS-grafted SBS that is 30 vol % SBS and 70% styrene (φ SBS = 30%) exhibits a lamellar morphology, and in situ SAXS measurements reveal an unexpected deformation mechanism. During deformation, there are two simultaneous processes: significant lamellar domain rearrangement to preferentially orient the lamellae planes parallel to the stretch direction and crazing. The samples whiten at high strains as expected for crazing, which corresponds with the emergence of features in the 2D SAXS pattern during stretching consistent with fibril-like structures that bridge the voids in crazes. The significant domain rearrangement in the grafted copolymers is attributed to the new junctions formed across multiple PS domains by the grafting of a single chain. In conclusion, the in situ SAXS measurements provide insights into the enhanced mechanical properties of grafted copolymers that arise through improved physical cross-linking that leads to nanostructure domain reorientation for self-reinforcement and craze formation where fibrils help to strengthen the polymer.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

NASA NTRS2011

Comparison of Two Recent Launch Abort Platforms

The development of new and safer manned space vehicles is a top priority at NASA. Recently two different approaches of how to accomplish this mission of keeping astronauts safe was successfully demonstrated. With work already underway on an Apollo-like launch abort system for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), an alternative design concept named the Max Launch Abort System, or MLAS, was developed as a parallel effort. The Orion system, managed by the Constellation office, is based on the design of a single solid launch abort motor in a tower positioned above the capsule. The MLAS design takes a different approach placing the solid launch abort motor underneath the capsule. This effort was led by the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC). Both escape systems were designed with the Ares I Rocket as the launch vehicle and had the same primary requirement to safely propel a crew module away from any emergency event either on the launch pad or during accent. Beyond these two parameters, there was little else in common between the two projects, except that they both concluded in successful launches that will further promote the development of crew launch abort systems. A comparison of these projects from the standpoint of technical requirements; program management and flight test objectives will be done to highlight the synergistic lessons learned by two engineers who worked on each program. This comparison will demonstrate how the scope of the project architecture and management involvement in innovation should be tailored to meet the specific needs of the system under development.

Dittemore, Gary D.↗

DOE OSTI2024

Developing And Scaling an OpenFOAM Model to Study Turbulent Flow in a HFIR Coolant Channel

Improving the understanding of how computational fluid dynamics (CFD) direct numerical simulations (DNS) of flows in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) perform when run in parallel using the high performance computing (HPC) platform Summit at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) is of particular importance to boost the computational tools used to support HFIR conversion to low enriched fuel (LEU). Evaluation of scaling performance was driven by the increasing importance of graphics processing unit (GPU) usage in HPC, which is becoming the standard for modern supercomputers such as Summit. The desired results are to obtain a strong positive correlation between the computational resources dedicated to a problem and the relative speed-up of the simulation in comparison to a benchmark. This capability will allow substantially improvement in HFIR flow analytical capabilities, specifically when predicting turbulence properties at high Reynolds numbers. The study leverages previous simulation results performed with code PHASTA (finite element) on HPC platforms Cori (NERSC) and Theta (ALCF) [1] with computing options provided in the computing platform OpenFOAM (finite volume) at OLCF. Transitioning from PHASTA to OpenFOAM will (1) eliminate dependence on third-party software for mesh generation and manipulation, (2) reduce resource needs by employing modern architectures, and (3) build expertise for future modeling of HFIR-specific problems like heat transfer in involute geometry, entrance effects, flow structure in channel corners, and so on—all important issues when defining the available thermal margins in the transition to LEU. CPUs and GPUs differ significantly in their architecture and utilization, as discussed in the literature [2]. The most important differences are in the approach to computations and their memory. A single GPU contains a large quantity of cores, enabling it to perform with a much higher throughput than a CPU, but execution requires a different approach. GPU codes execute instructions using the Single-Instruction Multiple-Thread (SIMT) approach in which a single instruction is used for groups of threads called warps. A warp typically consists of 32 threads which must execute the same set of instructions, although on separate threads. Alternately, a CPU has far fewer cores that are much more flexible in their operation, excelling at quickly performing more complex serial computations. This is why GPUs have greater throughput when properly utilized. The second important difference is seen when comparing their memory spaces. Limited memory allocations and CPU–GPU communications cause a significant bottleneck in GPU-accelerated programs. Further study was required to properly take advantage of GPU resources. A comprehensive analysis of code performance and the model-specific features of turbulence constitutes the core of this work. In this study, a DNS simulation of HFIR channel turbulence was performed with the finite volume CFD code OpenFOAM v2112 and CUDA v11.0 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux v8.2. The OpenFOAM installation had AMGx integrated to enable GPU acceleration and utilizes the PETSc4FOAM library. The computational resources and the problem size were scaled on CPU and CPU + GPU architectures to gain a better understanding of the performance of a DNS problem on modern computing hardware. The study aimed to analyze the scaling of the code exclusively on CPUs and then to examine the scaling of the codes with GPU acceleration enabled. Scaling studies included CPU and GPU acceleration on a mesh of varying resolution to analyze the impact of problem size relative to computational resources. In the course of preparing the GPU configuration on Summit, mainly using the AMGX solvers, difficulties were encountered stemming from constant changes resulting from extensive ongoing development activities and the changing environment. This resulted in the inability to complete the GPU portion of the work. The code was compiled and tested, but production runs to assess acceleration were not performed because the used discretional compute time allocation expired as year-end approached. The Summit HPC platform is scheduled for decommissioning in 2024, making it unattractive for future use with Nvidia-based GPUs. Therefore, the work will be moved onto NERSC machines in FY24. An application was prepared and submitted, and sufficient node-hours were awarded to continue the research in the next calendar year. This report summarizes work performed thus far, which mostly focused on CPU OpenFOAM computing.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

DOE OSTI2020

Striped Data Analysis Framework

A columnar data representation is known to be an efficient way for data storage, specifically in cases when the analysis is often done based only on a small fragment of the available data structures. A data representation like Apache Parquet is a step forward from a columnar representation, which splits data horizontally to allow for easy parallelization of data analysis. Based on the general idea of columnar data storage, working on the [LDRD Project], we have developed a striped data representation, which, we believe, is better suited to the needs of High Energy Physics data analysis. A traditional columnar approach allows for efficient data analysis of complex structures. While keeping all the benefits of columnar data representations, the striped mechanism goes further by enabling easy parallelization of computations without requiring special hardware. We will present an implementation and some performance characteristics of such a data representation mechanism using a distributed no-SQL database or a local file system, unified under the same API and data representation model. The representation is efficient and at the same time simple so that it allows for a common data model and APIs for wide range of underlying storage mechanisms such as distributed no-SQL databases and local file systems. Striped storage adopts Numpy arrays as its basic data representation format, which makes it easy and efficient to use in Python applications. The Striped Data Server is a web service, which allows to hide the server implementation details from the end user, easily exposes data to WAN users, and allows to utilize well known and developed data caching solutions to further increase data access efficiency. We are considering the Striped Data Server as the core of an enterprise scale data analysis platform for High Energy Physics and similar areas of data processing. We have been testing this architecture with a 2TB dataset from a CMS dark matter search and plan to expand it to multiple 100 TB or even PB scale. We will present the striped format, Striped Data Server architecture and performance test results.

Gutsche, Oliver↗

DOE OSTI2021

Implementing Arbitrary/Common Concurrent Writes of CRCW PRAM

The Parallel Random Access Machines (PRAM) abstraction is the simplest and most elegant algorithmic model for the design and analysis of parallel algorithms. It consists of different models categorized based on the underlying memory access mode used, the most powerful of which is the Concurrent Read Concurrent Write (CRCW) model. A PRAM algorithm describes a series of rounds, each of which consists of a collection of operations that can be executed concurrently within the same time step. However, the lack of support for concurrent memory accesses and the prevalence of asynchronous programming models led to the belief that implementing CRCW PRAM algorithms is unattainable and prompted many to avoid this model except for theoretical studies of optimal performance.In this work, we study the arbitrary and common concurrent writes in the CRCW PRAM model and explore implementation challenges on general-purpose systems. Moreover, we examine current practices for implementing common/arbitrary concurrent writes and propose a new efficient lightweight and thread-safe method to implement concurrent writes through leveraging atomic instructions. To demonstrate the efficacy of our method, we developed OpenMP kernels for classical CRCW PRAM algorithms and provide experimental results and comparisons based on run time performance measured over the x86 multicore architecture. Our results show a performance speedup compared to current practices up to 4.5x across all our benchmarks.

Ghanim, Fady↗

DOE OSTI2024

High-Fidelity Modeling of a Type-5 Wind Turbine Gearbox (Intern Poster) [Poster]

Type-5 wind turbines are unique in their use of a permanent magnet synchronous generator, as well as their use of a hydraulic torque converter. This architecture presents an opportunity to provide steady and grid-ready energy without the need for a power converter. With infrastructure continuity and reliability being an important topic amongst renewable energies, researchers have been prompted to further investigate the benefits of type-5 turbines’ unique electromechanical configuration on stable electricity generation. Researchers involved in the WindSG project, SG standing for synchronous generator, are aiming to model a type-5 turbine using Real Time Digital Simulation (RTDS) to evaluate its efficacy in the grid. RSCAD, the software run on the RTDS, comes pre-loaded with electrical and electromechanical components to help simulate electrical generation and grid conditions. However, within this repertoire there is a lack of a component to represent a gearbox with high-fidelity. Within RSCAD’s case studies, the gearbox is often represented simply by a gear ratio value. This presented the task of developing a high-fidelity gearbox model in RSCAD for use in the larger RTDS type-5 wind turbine model. This poster describes a method of developing a lumped parameter mathematical model to represent a planetary-parallel-parallel gearbox in RSCAD for use in RTDS.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2024

High-Fidelity Modeling of a Type-5 Wind Turbine Gearbox (Intern Technical Presentation) (Poster)

Type-5 wind turbines are unique in their use of a permanent magnet synchronous generator, as well as their use of a hydraulic torque converter. This architecture presents an opportunity to provide steady and grid-ready energy without the need for a power converter. With infrastructure continuity and reliability being an important topic amongst renewable energies, researchers have been prompted to further investigate the benefits of type-5 turbines’ unique electromechanical configuration on stable electricity generation. Researchers involved in the WindSG project, SG standing for synchronous generator, are aiming to model a type-5 turbine using Real Time Digital Simulation (RTDS) to evaluate its efficacy in the grid. RSCAD, the software run on the RTDS, comes pre-loaded with electrical and electromechanical components to help simulate electrical generation and grid conditions. However, within this repertoire there is a lack of a component to represent a gearbox with high-fidelity. Within RSCAD’s case studies, the gearbox is often represented simply by a gear ratio value. This presented the task of developing a high-fidelity gearbox model in RSCAD for use in the larger RTDS type-5 wind turbine model. This presentation describes a method of developing a lumped parameter mathematical model to represent a planetary-parallel-parallel gearbox in RSCAD for use in RTDS.

17 WIND ENERGY↗