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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 163 records · Page 9
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Evaluation of Glovebox Fires Involving Flammable Liquids and Standard Glovebox Tools (Final Report)

This research effort was commissioned to examine factors related to loss of containment due to fire within a glovebox (GB). Tests consisted of multiple trials with varying initial conditions. Com bustible levels and types were chosen to reflect realistic operation conditions (including worst-case scenarios), involving flammable liquids, GB tools, and other combustible items commonly found in GBs at Los Alamos National Labs (LANL).

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2016

Evaluation of Glovebox Glove Material Integrity Under Thermal Insult (Final Report)

The results of the experiments presented above are summarized in Table 1. Timing of critical events, such as appearance of bubbles on the specimen surface and rupture are noted. Relevant temperature and pressure data are also summarized. These results indicate a few critical aspects of the response of Hypalon glove material when exposed to a high temperature environment. Glove specimens began to show changes in surface appearance (appearance of bubbles on surface) when the temperature at the specimen surface was 530 ± 32 °F, regardless of specimen thickness. The bubbles are likely the result of the glove material decomposing and off-gassing. In the case of the 15 mil thickness gloves, specimens ruptured shortly after bubbling was observed. The ruptures are likely the result the bubbles growing in size, eventually forming pinholes through the thickness of the specimen. It should be noted that the specimens did not need to ignite in order to cause a perforation of the specimen. Specimens located 10, 11 and 12 inches from the burner ruptured, while the specimen located 14 inches from the burner did not rupture; in fact no change in surface appearance was observed. The 30 mil thickness specimens exhibited a different post-bubble response with only the specimen located 10 inches from the burner (i.e. highest surface temperature) resulting in rupture. There was a longer delay between surface bubbling and rupture than was observed in the 15 mil thickness specimens. This specimen also ignited before the specimen ruptured. While the 30 mil thickness specimens located 11 and 12 inches from the burner did show surface bubbling corresponding to thermal breakdown, neither specimen ruptured. Examination of the specimens after testing revealed that a slightly hard layer of melted material had formed on the rear of the specimen. This layer may have acted to seal the rear surface of the specimen by forming a barrier that bubbles could not penetrate. The specimen located 14 inches from the burner did not rupture, and did not exhibit any change in surface characteristics. In general the 30 mil thickness glove materials proved more resistant to thermal-induced rupturing as compared with the 15 mil thickness glove material. It was shown to be possible to rupture a 15 mil thick glove without igniting the glove, while the only test case that resulted in a rupture of a 30 mil thickness specimen also showed the specimen igniting several seconds before eventual rupture. Furthermore, it was observed that 30 mil thickness specimens could be exposed to temperatures high enough to cause decomposition (bubbling), yet not rupture. Thus, it is possible that the 30 mil gloves rupture by burning through the specimen material, while the 15 mil thickness specimens could be ruptured by small bubbles formed by thermal off-gassing expanding and causing pinholes through the specimen thickness. We also note that thermal decomposition and the appearance of surface bubbles was observed in all experiments with a maximum temperature exceeding ∼500 °F. Lastly, we can state that specimens subjected to temperatures below 400 °F experienced no thermal damage, staying below this threshold should prevent damage and potential rupture of either thickness glove materials.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2019

Test Report: Glovebox Test Fire for Evaluation of Effects on Containers and Windows

This test report describes a designed Glovebox (GB) fire to identify target environmental conditions that GB containers and windows are subject to such fires. The fire was designed by representatives from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to replicate a realistic worst-case fire scenario at LANL. Key results of these experiments include: • The GB fire was active for more than 30 minutes. • Thermocouples were placed at multiple points in the GB were measured, including one on top of the container. Temperatures at varied widely as a function of location during the fires, as might be expected and as a function of proximity to fire, elevation in the GB, and in relation airflow present during the test, which constantly introduces room-temperature air into the GB. The maximum temperature recorded by a thermocouple was slightly less than 500°F at the elevation of the highest gloveports and near, but not in contact with the GB wall. • A thermographic camera imaged the region of the GB container during the fire. These data report container temperatures of up to approximately 900°F (482°C) over a period of several minutes. • Four kilograms of lead shot were held in the container. The majority of the shot melted during the course of the fire (lead melting point: 621°F/327°C). • Multiple windows fractured during the test. In some cases, the polymer interlayer of the laminated GB window glass appears to have sustained damage due to thermal breakdown of the polymer, though the interlayer of the laminated GB window glass appears to have remained intact in all cases. • The one window with an attached thermocouple was less affected by the fire. The attached thermocouple measured up to approximately 150°F. • Other thermocouples along (but not in contact with) the GB wall and closer to the fire (and cracked windows) reported up to approximately 200°C (392° F). These finding suggest that subjecting containers to 500°C for 45 minutes is bounding and representative for fires of this type. It should also be noted that 500°C (932°F) has been previously used as a test criterion for related work. Similarly, 200°C may be a reasonable target temperature for GB windows subjected to fires of this type.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2019

Characterization of Mechanical and Thermal Factors Related to Glovebox Container Water Ingress (Final Report)

This report summarizes tests conducted to quantify water ingress into nuclear material containers when damaged. The damage inflicted is meant to replicate realistic worst-case seismic/fire scenario at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Four types (SAVY, Hagan, K-flange, and ROCK) of three-quart containers were subject to drop and then furnace testing. At each stage (as-delivered, post-drop, and post-furnace), water ingress potential was tested by subjecting the containers to a static water column. Key results of these experiments include: • LANL provided two water ingress testing criteria. The first, and most stringent, was a 24 inAq column for a period of one week. These parameters were used for baseline testing on as-delivered containers. The second was a 6 inAq column for a period of two hours. These parameters were used to test containers after impact and furnace testing. • Under the more severe criteria for as-delivered containers, the measured water ingress was: SAVY 7–14 g; Hagan 168–493 g; K-flange 4–5 g; and ROCK 24–280 g of water ingress. • Under the less severe criteria and after drop testing, all containers permitted less than 50 g of water ingress with one exception a ROCK container that had one of three latches release during impact. • Finally, after furnace testing (500°C, 45 minutes), which destroyed the o-ring/gasket materials, and under the same 6 inAq, 2 hr column test, the measured water ingress exceeded 50 g for all but one K-flange and one ROCK container.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2026

Integrated Energy-Water Data for Cross-Sector Resilience

This white paper focuses on the “energy-for-water” domain, addressing the urgent need for integrated, empirical data to support regional management, benchmarking, and research on improving efficiency and developing technologies for water and wastewater management systems. The costs and energy required for the supply, treatment, and distribution of water and wastewater lack a standard data collection mechanism and centralized database or storage infrastructure, limiting data-driven decision-making across interdependent infrastructure systems.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2026

Multimodal Approaches for Leveraging Domain Knowledge with State-of-the-Art Machine Learning to Engineer Biocatalysts

This grant aimed to accelerate the development of specialized enzymes—biological catalysts essential for sustainable manufacturing and medicine—by integrating traditional laboratory evolution with cutting-edge artificial intelligence. To achieve this, we developed a suite of high-throughput sequencing tools and a centralized database to bridge the gap between a protein’s genetic "code" and its physical function. By training machine learning models on large datasets, we also demonstrated the ability to move beyond slow, trial-and-error testing to a "generative" approach, where AI can independently design new, versatile enzymes like tryptophan synthases. Ultimately, these findings demonstrate that combining laboratory data with computer-guided design enables the engineering of highly efficient biological tools with unprecedented speed and precision.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Library of Advanced Materials for Engineering (LAMÉ) 5.30

Accurate and efficient constitutive modeling remains a cornerstone issue for solid mechanics analysis. Over the years, the LAMÉ advanced material model library has grown to address this challenge by implementing models capable of describing material systems spanning soft polymers to stiff ceramics including both isotropic and anisotropic responses. Inelastic behaviors including (visco)plasticity, damage, and fracture have all incorporated for use in various analyses. This multitude of options and flexibility, however, comes at the cost of many capabilities, features, and responses and the ensuing complexity in the resulting implementation. Therefore, to enhance confidence and enable the utilization of the LAMÉ library in application, this effort seeks to document and verify the various models in the LAMÉ library. Specifically, the broader strategy, organization, and interface of the library itself is first presented. The physical theory, numerical implementation, and user guide for a large set of models is then discussed. Importantly, a number of verification tests are performed with each model to not only have confidence in the model itself but also highlight some important response characteristics and features that may be of interest to end-users. Finally, in looking ahead to the future, approaches to add material models to this library and further expand the capabilities are presented.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

The role of photorespiration in plant immunity

To defend themselves in the face of biotic stresses, plants employ a sophisticated immune system that requires the coordination of other biological and metabolic pathways. Photorespiration, a byproduct pathway of oxygenic photosynthesis that spans multiple cellular compartments and links primary metabolisms, plays important roles in defense responses. Hydrogen peroxide, whose homeostasis is strongly impacted by photorespiration, is a crucial signaling molecule in plant immunity. Photorespiratory metabolites, interaction between photorespiration and defense hormone biosynthesis, and other mechanisms, are also implicated. An improved understanding of the relationship between plant immunity and photorespiration may provide a much-needed knowledge basis for crop engineering to maximize photosynthesis without negative tradeoffs in plant immunity, especially because the photorespiratory pathway has become a major target for genetic engineering with the goal to increase photosynthetic efficiency.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Inventory Management Improvement Project

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) conducts research and development for the National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) and its affiliates. The Polymer AM team at LLNL conducts research and development in 3D printing, specifically direct-ink-write, in accordance with LLNL and NNSA missions. The team is composed of machine operators, chemists, testing engineers, and project engineers across multiple lab spaces with one shared storage area at LLNL. The operations use a variety of different consumables and hardware to conduct research applications for LLNL and NNSA. These items are critical to performing operation tasks; if an item is out of stock, operations associated with the respective item could be suspended for weeks. As such, the Polymer AM team manages an inventory of spare consumables and hardware to ensure these items are always available. However, the current management system, an excel sheet managed by the project engineer group, is not intuitive in providing inventory information despite the high labor utilization needed to maintain the system. As such, the team is looking to improve their inventory management that can send notifications regarding inventory needs, accessible to other team members, provide all relevant information to a specific item, and store historical information for budget and operation planning. The proposed solution is a Computer Maintenance Management System (CMMS): a web-based management software that stores inventory information and provides automated notifications. The system will store information on each item including quantity in stock, technical information, supplier information, costs, lead times, and expiration date. The system has a notifications function that can send notifications to the respective team member’s when an item needs to be counted, item inventory is low, or an item is approaching their expiration date. Information for each item can be tracked over time creating data to be used for budget planning and process improvement purposes. Due to its web-based source, the system can be accessed by the respective team member viewing technical information, quantity, and purchasing information.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2015

Study of influence of plastic scintillators thicknesses to detect Beta particles and Gamma radiation by means of spectral analysis of {sup 90}Sr, {sup 90}Y and {sup 137}Cs sources

The Nuclear and Energy Research Institute - IPEN, offers post-graduate programs, namely: Nuclear Technology - Applications (TNA), Nuclear Technology - Materials (TNM), Nuclear Technology - Reactors (TNR). The Institute programs mission is to form expert technicians, physicists and engineers with a strong knowledge in their discipline to work in the nuclear area. The course: 'Theoretical Fundamentals and Practices of the Instrumentation used in Nuclear Data Acquisition' covers the use of laboratory nuclear instrumentation and the accomplishment of experiments to obtain nuclear parameters. One of these experimental exercises is object of this work: 'Study of influence of plastic scintillators to detect Beta particles and Gamma radiation by means of spectral analysis of {sup 90}Sr, {sup 90}Y and {sup 137}Cs sources'. The use of scintillators plastic for the detection has the advantage of low cost, high mechanical strength, is not hygroscopic and can be manufactured in large volumes. This work aims to present the analysis of relative efficiency of detection of plastic scintillators of various thicknesses for beta particles and gamma radiation by the spectrum of {sup 137}Cs and {sup 90}Sr. Due to lack of resolution of the detectors plastic scintillators we worked with relative efficiency. The evaluation was done by reading deposited energy, using the software MAESTRO, for each detector thickness. For beta particles was observed an ideal thickness around 3 mm and the better photon efficiency was observed with increasing the thickness of the detector. The present experiment does not intend to establish a new technique for this subject: it solely aims student's practical exercises in nuclear properties of elements and detectors being part of the nuclear experimental course. (authors)

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2016

Overview of the US Nuclear Science User Facilities

Specialized and often unique and expensive instrumentation, adapted for use on radioactive materials, is essential to conduct research in the area of nuclear energy. Much of this equipment is located in facilities dedicated for such work that have been built and maintained over many decades. The Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) was established in 2007 under the US Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) in order to bring these capabilities together with those innovative ideas from researchers at universities, national laboratories, small business, and industry that might not have regular access to reactors, hot cells, transportation casks, radiologically qualified instrumentation, and associated expertise. Early descriptions of the originally named Advanced Test Reactor National Scientific User Facility have been given. Through a competitively reviewed proposal process, the NSUF offers access to these capabilities and expertise at no cost to the user to promote research that will address the mission of DOE-NE. As a national organization comprised of a number of partner facilities across the US and located at National Laboratory, university, and industry sites, the NSUF supports materials science studies directed at irradiation effects in nuclear fuels and materials as well as in-pile and post irradiation examination (PIE) instrumentation development. The NSUF has created a Nuclear Fuels and Materials Library (NFML) of previously irradiated materials that users may access for their studies. Expanding the library for future applications of advanced technologies and novel concepts is an important objective of the NSUF. The NSUF has established and maintains the Nuclear Energy Infrastructure Database (NEID) as a tool for both DOE-NE and the nuclear energy research community. The extensive catalogue of capabilities is intended to aid DOE-NE, NSUF, and researchers more effectively and efficiently utilize the available capabilities. (authors)

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2016

Research and Development Capabilities available through the Nuclear Science User Facilities

The Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF), established in 2007 as the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) National Scientific User Facility is chartered to provide cost-free access to unique and important research and development capabilities and infrastructure to nuclear energy-focused researchers. Originally, the NSUF was formed to utilize excess capacity in the ATR and the Hot Fuels Examination Facility (HFEF) hot cells. In the eight years since its inception, the NSUF has expanded to include most of the capabilities at the Idaho National Laboratory as well as twelve external 'partner' facilities. The inclusion of the partner facilities makes the NSUF the first distributed user facility, a 'laboratory without walls.' Users can apply for access to any of the NSUF INL or partner facilities using the same process, either through the annual Office of Nuclear Energy Consolidated Innovative Nuclear Research funding announcement or the NSUF Rapid Turnaround Experiment (RTE) opportunities, offered three times each year. In support of the capability access mission, the NSUF also offers access to additional resources. In order to help researchers connect with the appropriate capabilities, the NSUF has developed a comprehensive searchable database of nuclear energy R and D infrastructure in the US and worldwide. Additionally, the NSUF hosts a Fuels and Materials Sample Library (FMSL) that includes an ever-expanding set of previously irradiated materials, supporting un-irradiated archive material and fabrication and irradiation data for the materials. The capabilities of the NSUF partner facilities, the NEID, the fuels and materials sample library and the access application information is all available at the NSUF web site: ATRNSUF.INL.gov. (author)

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Knowledge-Informed Uncertainty-Aware Machine Learning for Time Series Forecasting of Dynamical Engineered Systems

The high complexity and multiscale nature of many engineered systems—such as those in nuclear power plants—make representing and forecasting their dynamic behavior challenging. Physics-based models can be overly complex and computationally intractable, whereas machine learning (ML) tools are often data-hungry and prone to unphysical solutions. This study proposes a knowledge-informed ML-aided hybrid residual modeling approach that offers accurate and efficient time series forecasting for the operation of dynamical engineered systems. Hybrid residual modeling entails a baseline solution from domain knowledge and known physics expressions about the system dynamics integrated with an ML model to capture undiscovered information from the mismatch (i.e., residuals) between true states from measurements and baseline-predicted outputs. This study further quantifies the ML model uncertainty to provide trustworthy solutions. Real-time operational data from thermal-hydraulic flow loops of the cryogenic moderator system in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Spallation Neutron Source facility were used to demonstrate the potential of knowledge-informed uncertainty-aware ML in real-world applications. The state variables of the cryogenic helium loop were modeled with (1) first principles–based system identification (sysID), (2) long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network, and (3) hybrid sysID (baseline) + LSTM (residual). The superior predictive capability of the sysID+LSTM model versus stand-alone sysID and LSTM is confirmed by average performance metrics and individual data points across different prediction horizons. By creating a robust representation of the underlying physical system, the widely applicable hybrid residual modeling approach will enable the future development of digital twins for performance prediction, prognostics, and operation control.

Zhao, Xingang↗
DOE OSTI2022

Expanding the genetic engineering toolbox for the metabolically flexible acetogen Eubacterium limosum

Abstract Acetogenic bacteria are an increasingly popular choice for producing fuels and chemicals from single carbon (C1) substrates. Eubacterium limosum is a promising acetogen with several native advantages, including the ability to catabolize a wide repertoire of C1 feedstocks and the ability to grow well on agar plates. However, despite its promise as a strain for synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, there are insufficient engineering tools and molecular biology knowledge to leverage its native strengths for these applications. To capitalize on the natural advantages of this organism, here we extended its limited engineering toolbox. We evaluated the copy number of three common plasmid origins of replication and devised a method of controlling copy number and heterologous gene expression level by modulating antibiotic concentration. We further quantitatively assessed the strength and regulatory tightness of a panel of promoters, developing a series of well-characterized vectors for gene expression at varying levels. In addition, we developed a black/white colorimetric genetic reporter assay and leveraged the high oxygen tolerance of E. limosum to develop a simple and rapid transformation protocol that enables benchtop transformation. Finally, we developed two new antibiotic selection markers—doubling the number available for this organism. These developments will enable enhanced metabolic engineering and synthetic biology work with E. limosum.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗