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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 OSTI2023

"Safety First: Though on the Other Hand, Time is Critical”

This talk describes the deployment of research-quality software and hardware for open-road driving experiments by fleets of vehicles. Technological advancements in single-vehicle autonomy have expanded beyond the academic community, and are driven largely by industry stakeholders and manufacturers. However, as the penetration rate of cars with advanced driver assistance features increases, the impact on emergent behavior in traffic is still unknown. Compelling reasons to experiment within open-road conditions must be considered alongside the technical and human factor safety issues in deploying experimental controllers. This is even more challenging when it is necessary to deploy experimental fleets at scale. The talk will describe approaches for co-design of a research testbed for societal-scale systems. Discussion is devoted to the research-quality data gathering and control layers and their technical implementation, the different interfaces for experts in other fields to use these testbeds for research without violating safety requirements, and process and management considerations when deploying the platforms at scale when considering training time and operation complexity of human operators.

Sprinkle, Jonathan↗
DOE OSTI2024

Technical Learning and Integration of Interns in Advanced Protection Lab Space: Enhancements to Testbed and Experiments to Improve Workflows for Producing Datasets

This report presents a successful technical learning integration of student interns in the Advanced Protection Laboratory space, located in the Grid Research Integration and Deployment Center (GRID-C) at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The Advanced Protection Laboratory was created for the primary goal of supporting DOE’s research projects and technical staff at ORNL. As a secondary goal, the space was used for collaborating with ORNL’s intern programs, providing support to the lab’s mentors and student interns. In 2024, three student interns spent a summer in the Advanced Protection lab space and were involved in the DarkNet Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) project. The students had a great opportunity to gain hands-on experience with communication and protective relay equipment focused on information technology, data analytics, and cybersecurity. Experiences in the lab space with real equipment and software integration offer education and professional development for students, which is especially important because of a need in the energy industry to recruit highly skilled power and communication engineers.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Current Magnitude and Frequency Response of SIPROTEC Relays

This project examined the current magnitude and frequency response of 7SJ61 and 7SJ62 SIPROTEC relays. The measured sample frequencies for the 7SJ61 and 7SJS62 relays were 800 and 960 Hz, respectively. The relays were tested at frequencies of up to 1 and 20.16 kHz. Two experiments were run in a lab environment. The first experiment was run at frequencies of up to 1 kHz every 10 Hz. The second one was run at frequencies of up to 20.16 kHz every 200 and 240 Hz (common factors of sample rate frequency) for the 7SJ61 and 7SJ62 SIPROTEC relays, respectively. Both experiments were set at a current magnitude of 0.1 and 0.5 Arms. A testbed with a Relay Test Equipment (RTE) was set to run the experiment at frequencies of up to 1 kHz, while a testbed with a RTE and High Frequency Power Source/ Amplifier (HFPS/A) was set to run at frequencies of up to 20.16 kHz. Currents of 0.1 and 0.5 Arms at different frequencies were connected at Phase A of the relays, and a current of 1 Arms (60 Hz) was connected at Phase B of relays. The 1 Arms current allowed the relays to trip and saved their record events by setting both relays at a definite-time overcurrent protection function. The record events were collected after the 7SJ61 and 7SJ62 relays tripped, and the current magnitude and frequency were plotted. The record events from the relays were collected using the DIGSI® 4 software. The SYNCHROWAVE® Event and MATLAB® software were then used to plot the current magnitude and frequency, respectively, from the relay record events. The current magnitude and frequency were plotted at time and frequency domain, respectively.The 7SJ61 and 7SJ62 relays measured source frequencies of up to 400 and 480 Hz, respectively. The percentage error of frequency for the relays increased after 400 and 480 Hz, respectively. The 7SJ62 relay with 0.1 and 0.5 Arms measured the alias frequency up to 1440 Hz. The 7SJ61 relay with 0.1 and 0.5 Arms measured the alias frequency up to 1000 and 1200 Hz, respectively. At frequencies higher than the alias frequency, the relays measured a DC amplitude current instead of an AC amplitude current. In the DC amplitude current zone, non-desired frequencies were measured by both relays. The current magnitude intensity (dB) for the 7SJ61 and 7SJ62 relays from 1 to 20.16 kHz were plotted. The current magnitude intensity for the 7SJ61 relay decreased up to 2600 and 1200 Hz for 0.5 and 0.1 Arms tests, respectively. However, the current magnitude intensity for the 7SJ62 relay decreased up to 4800 and 2640 Hz for 0.5 and 0.1 Arms tests, respectively. The current magnitude and frequency response study for the 7SJ61 and 7SJ62 relays was performed satisfactorily, observing the source, alias, and non-desired measured frequency zones for both relays.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2019

Balancing Performance and Portability with Containers in HPC: An OpenSHMEM Example

There is a growing interest in using Linux containers to streamline software development and application deployment. A container enables the user to bundle the salient elements of the software stack from an application’s perspective. In this paper, we discuss initial experiences in using the Open MPI implementation of OpenSHMEM with containers on HPC resources. We provide a brief overview of two container runtimes, Docker & Singularity, highlighting elements that are of interest for HPC users. The Docker platform offers a rich set of services that are widely used in enterprise environments, whereas Singularity is an emerging container runtime that is specifically written for use on HPC systems. We describe our procedure for container assembly and deployment that strives to maintain the portability of the container-based application. We show performance results for the Graph500 benchmark running along the typical continuum of development testbed up to full production supercomputer (ORNL’s Titan). The results show consistent performance between the native and Singularity (container) tests. The results also showed an unexplained drop in performance when using the Cray Gemini network with Open MPI’s OpenSHMEM, which was unrelated to the container usage.

Naughton III, Thomas↗
DOE OSTI2026

SDN-Based Smart Cyber Switching (SCS) for Cyber Restoration of a Digital Substation

In recent years, critical infrastructure and power grids have increasingly been targets of cyber-attacks, causing widespread and extended blackouts. Digital substations are particularly vulnerable to such cyber incursions, jeopardizing grid stability. This paper addresses these risks by proposing a cybersecurity framework that leverages software-defined networking (SDN) to bolster the resilience of substations based on the IEC- 61850 standard. The research introduces a strategy involving smart cyber switching (SCS) for mitigation and concurrent intelligent electronic device (CIED) for restoration, ensuring ongoing operational integrity and cybersecurity within a substation. The SCS framework improves the physical network’s behavior (i.e., leveraging commercial SDN capabilities) by incorporating an adaptive port controller (APC) module for dynamic port management and an intrusion detection system (IDS) to detect and counteract malicious IEC-61850-based sampled value (SV) and generic object-oriented system event (GOOSE) messages within the substation’s communication network. The framework’s effectiveness is validated through comprehensive simulations and a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testbed, demonstrating its ability to sustain substation operations during cyber-attacks and significantly improve the overall resilience of the power grid.

Liu, Chen-Ching (ORCID:0000000289417958)↗
DOE OSTI2018

So ware-Defined Network Solutions for Science Scenarios: Performance Testing Framework and Measurements

High-performance scientific work flows utilize supercomputers, scientific instruments, and large storage systems. Their executions require fast setup of a small number of dedicated network connections across the geographically distributed facility sites. We present Software-Defined Network (SDN) solutions consisting of site daemons that use dpctl, Floodlight, ONOS, or OpenDaylight controllers to set up these connections. The development of these SDN solutions could be quite disruptive to the infrastructure, while requiring a close coordination among multiple sites; in addition, the large number of possible controller and device combinations to investigate could make the infrastructure unavailable to regular users for extended periods of time. In response, we develop a Virtual Science Network Environment (VSNE) using virtual machines, Mininet, and custom scripts that support the development, testing, and evaluation of SDN solutions, without the constraints and expenses of multi-site physical infrastructures; furthermore, the chosen solutions can be directly transferred to production deployments. By complementing VSNE with a physical testbed, we conduct targeted performance tests of various SDN solutions to help choose the best candidates. In addition, we propose a switching response method to assess the setup times and throughput performances of different SDN solutions, and present experimental results that show their advantages and limitations.

Settlemyer, Bradley↗
DOE OSTI2019

Throughput Analytics of Data Transfer Infrastructures

To support increasingly distributed scientific and big-data applications, powerful data transfer infrastructures are being built with dedicated networks and software frameworks customized to distributed file systems and data transfer nodes. The data transfer performance of such infrastructures critically depends on the combined choices of file, disk, and host systems as well as network protocols and file transfer software, all of which may vary across sites. The randomness of throughput measurements makes it challenging to assess the impact of these choices on the performance of infrastructure or its parts. We propose regression-based throughput profiles by aggregating measurements from sites of the infrastructure, with RTT as the independent variable. The peak values and convex-concave shape of a profile together determine the overall throughput performance of memory and file transfers, and its variations show the performance differences among the sites. We then present projection and difference operators, and coefficients of throughput profiles to characterize the performance of infrastructure and its parts, including sites and file transfer tools. In particular, the utilization-concavity coefficient provides a value in the range [0, 1] that reflects overall transfer effectiveness. We present results of measurements collected using (i) testbed experiments over dedicated 0–366 ms 10 Gbps connections with combinations of TCP versions, file systems, host systems and transfer tools, and (ii) Globus GridFTP transfers over production infrastructure with varying site configurations.

Rao, Nageswara S.↗
DOE OSTI2023

CROCUS Sodar Measurements of Lower Atmospheric Wind Profiles at Argonne Testbed for Multiscale Observational Science (ATMOS) Site

The Scintec MFAS Sodar (Multiple-Frequency Acoustic Sounder) is an autonomous, ground-based acoustic remote sensing system designed to measure vertical profiles of horizontal wind speed, wind direction, and vertical velocity in the lower atmosphere. The instrument transmits sequences of acoustic pulses and detects the Doppler-shifted sound waves backscattered by small-scale temperature and velocity fluctuations caused by atmospheric turbulence. From these Doppler shifts, the system derives three-dimensional wind vectors by combining radial velocities from multiple beam orientations.The MFAS Sodar operates with a first usable range gate beginning at approximately 30 m above ground level and a configurable vertical resolution of 10 m. Under favorable acoustic conditions, the system provides wind profiles extending up to 600 m above ground level. Measurements are processed into 15-minute averaged profiles containing wind speed, direction, vertical velocity, and diagnostic quantities such as signal-to-noise ratio and echo strength.This dataset was collected at the Argonne Testbed for Multiscale Observational Science (ATMOS) facility in Lemont, Illinois, as part of DOE's CROCUS Urban Integrated Field Laboratory (UIFL) initiative. The purpose of these observations is to characterize the vertical wind structure and boundary-layer evolution across the urban–suburban gradient of the greater Chicago region. In particular, these data are intended to improve understanding of how local meteorology, such as lake-breeze penetration, nocturnal jets, and daytime mixing, varies between the densely built urban core and the suburban periphery. The MFAS observations provide critical context for evaluating high-resolution model simulations and for integrating with complementary lidar, radar, and in-situ meteorological measurements within the broader CROCUS UIFL network.All data are archived in NetCDF (Network Common Data Form) format and include wind and diagnostic parameters. The files can be accessed and analyzed using standard software that supports NetCDF, such as Python (e.g., xarray, netCDF4), MATLAB, R (e.g., ncdf4, raster), or Panoply (NASA’s NetCDF visualization application).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Application Experiences on a GPU-Accelerated Arm-based HPC Testbed

This paper assesses and reports the experience of ten teams working to port, validate, and benchmark several High Performance Computing applications on a novel GPU-accelerated Arm testbed system. The testbed consists of eight NVIDIA Arm HPC Developer Kit systems, each one equipped with a server-class Arm CPU from Ampere Computing and two data center GPUs from NVIDIA Corp. The systems are connected together using InfiniBand interconnect. The selected applications and mini-apps are written using several programming languages and use multiple accelerator-based programming models for GPUs such as CUDA, OpenACC, and OpenMP offloading. Working on application porting requires a robust and easy-to-access programming environment, including a variety of compilers and optimized scientific libraries. The goal of this work is to evaluate platform readiness and assess the effort required from developers to deploy well-established scientific workloads on current and future generation Arm-based GPU-accelerated HPC systems. The reported case studies demonstrate that the current level of maturity and diversity of software and tools is already adequate for large-scale production deployments.

Elwasif, Wael↗
DOE OSTI2025

Cybersecurity Enhancement in Digital Substations: Hidden Markov Model-Based Smart Cyber Switching and Threat Response

The rising incidence of cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure and power grids poses significant threats to the stability and reliability of electrical substations, with potentially devastating consequences such as extended blackouts. This paper introduces an advanced cybersecurity framework aimed at safeguarding IEC 61850-based substations through the integration of software-defined networking (SDN) and digital twin (DT) technologies. The proposed DT-based framework employs smart cyber switching (SCS) for proactive threat mitigation and concurrent intelligent electronic device (CIED) for swift system restoration, thereby maintaining continuous operational integrity and robust cybersecurity defenses. Central to this framework is the adaptive port controller (APC), which enables dynamic port management to adapt to evolving threats, and an intrusion detection system (IDS) designed to detect and neutralize malicious attacks on IEC 61850-based sampled value (SV) and generic object-oriented substation event (GOOSE) messages within the substation’s communication network. Further, novel predictive intrusion detection and response (PIDR) algorithm is implemented on a digital substation (DS) to predict the best route to be taken by the attacker. The efficacy of these comprehensive cybersecurity frameworks is validated through rigorous simulations and a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testbed, showcasing the system’s ability to sustain substation operations amidst cyber-attacks.

Digital substation↗
DOE OSTI2019

Application-based QoE support with P4 and OpenFlow

Although Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WANs) are now widely deployed in several production networks, they are largely restricted to traffic engineering approaches based on layer 4 (L4) of the network protocol stack that result in improved Quality-of-Service (QoS) of the network overall without necessarily focusing on a specific application. However, the emergence of application protocols such as QUIC and HTTP/2 needs an investigation of layer 5-based (L5) approaches in order to improve users’ Quality-of-Experience (QoE). In this paper, we leverage the capabilities of flexible, P4-based switches that incorporate protocol-independent packet processing in order to intelligently route traffic based on application headers. We use Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) video streaming as an example to show how such an approach can not only provide flexible traffic management but also improve application QoE. Our evaluation consists of an actual deployment in a research testbed, Chameleon, where we leverage the benefits of fast paths in order to retransmit video segments in higher qualities. Further, we analyze real-world ABR streaming sessions from a large-scale CDN and show that our approach can successfully maximize QoE for all users in the dataset.

Bhat, Divyashri↗
DOE OSTI2021

AlphaBuilding ResCommunity: A multi-agent virtual testbed for community-level load coordination

Training and validating algorithms in a simulation testbed can accelerate research and applications of optimal control of residential loads to improve energy flexibility and grid resilience. We developed an open-source simulation environment, AlphaBuilding ResCommunity, that can be used to train and validate algorithms to control a single thermostatically controlled load (TCL) or coordinate a group of TCLs. We used reduced-order models to simulate the thermodynamics of TCLs, and the parameter values were determined from the connected smart thermostat data of real households. The environment was built upon the standardized OpenAI Gym interface. Ancillary functions, such as retrieving the parameters and weather forecasts, are provided to facilitate control strategies that require predictive information. Compared with existing efforts, AlphaBuilding ResCommunity has three advantages: (1) more realistic model settings because the parameter values are identified from actual household operating data, and modelling and measurement uncertainty are considered; (2) passive thermal storage control; and (3) ease of use due to a simple software dependency and standardized interface. We demonstrated the applications of the environment by implementing a Kalman Filter and Model Predictive Control on a single TCL and a Priority-Stack-Based Control and Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers to coordinate multiple TCLs for load tracking.

Wang, Z↗
DOE OSTI2014

An Advanced Network and distributed Storage Laboratory (ANDSL) for Data Intensive Science (Final Report)

The original intent of this project was to build and operate an Advanced Network and Distributed Storage Laboratory (ANDSL) for Data Intensive Science that will prepare the Open Science Grid (OSG) community for a new generation of wide area communication capabilities operating at a 100Gb rate. The plan was to engage a team of four dedicated scientists that will design, develop and operate a state of the art laboratory that will be fully integrated into the organizational and operational infrastructure of the OSG. The ANDSL was planned to include host-based hardware and software required to profile, emulate and study real-life distributed storage workloads at rates of 100 Gbps. The laboratory was designed to utilize the Department Of Energy’s Advanced Network Initiative (ANI) 100GbTestbed as connections to the fabric become available so that OSG stakeholders can use it to profile real-life data intensive science applications as well as experiment with advanced storage and data management technologies. The goal of the original program of work was to close the adoption gap, decreasing the time between availability of production 100Gbps links and the end-to-end use of such a network to enable scientific discovery.

100Gb networks↗
DOE OSTI2016

SU-F-T-65: AutomaticTreatment Planning for High-Dose Rate (HDR) Brachytherapy with a VaginalCylinder Applicator

Purpose: High dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy treatment planning is conventionally performed in a manual fashion. Yet it is highly desirable to perform computerized automated planning to improve treatment planning efficiency, eliminate human errors, and reduce plan quality variation. The goal of this research is to develop an automatic treatment planning tool for HDR brachytherapy with a cylinder applicator for vaginal cancer. Methods: After inserting the cylinder applicator into the patient, a CT scan was acquired and was loaded to an in-house developed treatment planning software. The cylinder applicator was automatically segmented using image-processing techniques. CTV was generated based on user-specified treatment depth and length. Locations of relevant points (apex point, prescription point, and vaginal surface point), central applicator channel coordinates, and dwell positions were determined according to their geometric relations with the applicator. Dwell time was computed through an inverse optimization process. The planning information was written into DICOM-RT plan and structure files to transfer the automatically generated plan to a commercial treatment planning system for plan verification and delivery. Results: We have tested the system retrospectively in nine patients treated with vaginal cylinder applicator. These cases were selected with different treatment prescriptions, lengths, depths, and cylinder diameters to represent a large patient population. Our system was able to generate treatment plans for these cases with clinically acceptable quality. Computation time varied from 3–6 min. Conclusion: We have developed a system to perform automated treatment planning for HDR brachytherapy with a cylinder applicator. Such a novel system has greatly improved treatment planning efficiency and reduced plan quality variation. It also served as a testbed to demonstrate the feasibility of automatic HDR treatment planning for more complicated cases.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Variational Quantum Chemistry Programs in JaqalPaq

We present example quantum chemistry programs written with JaqalPaq, a python meta-programming language used to code in Jaqal (Just Another Quantum Assembly Language). These JaqalPaq algorithms are intended to be run on the Quantum Scientific Computing Open User Testbed (QSCOUT) platform at Sandia National Laboratories. Our exemplars use the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) quantum algorithm to compute the ground state energies of the H2, HeH+, and LiH molecules. Since the exemplars focus on how to program in JaqalPaq, the calculations of the second-quantized Hamiltonians are performed with the PySCF python package, and the mappings of the fermions to qubits are obtained from the OpenFermion python package. Using the emulator functionality of JaqalPaq, we emulate how these exemplars would be executed on an error-free QSCOUT platform and compare the emulated computation of the bond-dissociation curves for these molecules with their exact forms within the relevant basis.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2018

Utilization of Renewable Energy to Meet New National Challenges in Energy and Climate Change

The project aims to design a microgrid system to promote utilization of renewable energy resources such as wind and solar to address the national challenges in energy and climate change. Different optimization techniques and simulation software are used to study the performance of the renewable energy system under study. A series of research works performed under the grant Department of Energy (DOE) is presented. This grant opportunity affords Howard faculty, students, graduates, undergraduates, K-12, postdocs and visiting scholars to benefit state of the art research work. The research work has led to improve or advance understanding of new hardware technologies, software development and engineering optimization methods necessary and sufficient for handling probabilistic models and real-time computation and functions necessary for development of microgrid system. Consistent with State of Project Objective Howard University has partitioned the task into the following integrated activities: 1. Stochastic Model for RER and Load • Development of modeling Renewable Energy Resources (RER) and load which is used to perform distribution power flow study which leads to publication in refereed journals and conferences. The work was also published at the IEEE conference. 2. Stochastic optimization for voltage/Var • The development of voltage VAr optimization based on a review of existing knowledge in optimization led to the use of stochastic program and evolution of programming optimization method for V/VAr optimization. Papers were presented at the North America Power Systems Conference and the IEEE PES general meeting. 3. Modeling RER and Storage • Extending the concept of optimization method an RER with storage, such as the development of microgrid V/VAr and storage is performed. Several papers were published at the North America Power Systems Conference and the IEEE PES general meeting. 4. Power Game • Development of power game experiment using Labvolt to allow for hands on understanding of design and development of microgrid functions is performed. Publication were done by students at the end of their summer program. 5. Designing Microgrid Testbed • Example microgrid test bed is developed. In addition, function of the test bed are developed. The papers were presented at the North America Power Systems Conference and the IEEE general meeting. 6. Outreach Program • From the outreach program, topics from the project have been included in the revision of courses at Howard University, new book called Energy Processing and Smartgrid has being developed. • Hosted masters students from University of Denver to complete their projects with us. • Hosted high school students for early exposure for careers in STEM • Representations made in IEEE conferences to share the lessons learned in the use of micro grid to expose students to STEM education and research.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗