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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 1,657 records · Page 92
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2018

Opal: A Centralized Memory Manager for Investigating Disaggregated Memory Systems

Many modern applications have memory footprints that are increasingly large, driving system memory capacities higher and higher. Moreover, these systems are often organized where the bulk of the memory is collocated with the compute capability, which necessitates the need for message passing APIs to facilitate information sharing between compute nodes. Due to the diversity of applications that must run on High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems, the memory utilization can fluctuate wildly from one application to another. And, because memory is located in the node, maintenance can become problematic because each node must be taken offline and upgraded individually. To address these issues, vendors are exploring disaggregated, memory-centric, systems. In this type of organization, there are discrete nodes, reserved solely for memory, which are shared across many compute nodes. Due to their capacity, low-power, and non-volatility, Non-Volatile Memories (NVMs) are ideal candidates for these memory nodes. This report discusses a new component for the Structural Simulation Toolkit (SST), Opal, that can be used to study the impact of using NVMs in a disaggregated system in terms of performance, security, and memory management. This page intentionally left blank.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2017

Shungnak Mini-grid Business Case

A business case analysis was performed for the Village of Shungnak. The business case analysis evaluated the optimal case from the technical analysis performed by the Sandia National Laboratory using Microgrid Design Toolkit (MDT). The optimal case adds a 500 kW wind plant, 100 kW of solar photovoltaics (PV), 100 kW diesel and 46 kW of electric thermal stoves. The project cost 4.3 million. The direct cost of electricity would likely decline from 0.63/kWh to 0.55/kWh. The direct costs don’t include administrative and distribution costs. The addition of the renewable resources reduced diesel fuel consumption by more than 74% or approximately 96,000 gallons. The reduction in cost provides an opportunity for Alaska Village Electric Cooperative to obtain financing through grants and loans to install renewable energy and reduce diesel fuel consumption to the cooperative.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management

The goal of this project was to explore a new methodology for evaluation of potential safety margin upgrades to add a new instrument to the Risk Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) toolkit. To this end, the RAVEN code developed by the Idaho National Laboratory was used to perform a cost-benefit analysis of several potential power plant safety upgrades to compare the material cost of the upgrades with the probabilistic benefit of avoiding accident scenario consequences to find the most cost-effective safety upgrades. By coupling RAVEN to MELCOR to drive Monte-Carlo method stochastic parameter analysis and using data from existing nuclear codes, as well as MELCOR’s radionuclide relocation tracking capabilities, the radionuclide release source term activity in a severe accident scenario can be estimated. Severe Accident Mitigation upgrades were benchmarked against the Hardened Containment Ventilation upgrade mandated by the USNRC for Mk1 BWRs using dollars spent per Curie of release prevented as a metric by which to evaluate the economic efficacy of the upgrades. Additionally, Fault Tree/Event Tree-based analyses were performed to compare older methods of evaluation to the methodology pioneered in this work, and Monthly Operating Report (MORP) outage data was analyzed for insights into power plant outage optimization and reduction.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Risk-Informed Safety Margins Characterization (RISMC) Pathway Technical Program Plan

Safety is central to the design, licensing, operation, and economics of nuclear power plants (NPPs). As the current Light Water Reactor (LWR) NPPs age beyond 60 years, there are possibilities for increased frequency of systems, structures, and components (SSCs) degradations or failures that initiate safety-significant events, reduce existing accident mitigation capabilities, or create new failure modes. Plant designers commonly “over-design” portions of NPPs and provide robustness in the form of redundant and diverse engineered safety features to ensure that, even in the case of well-beyond design basis scenarios, public health and safety will be protected with a very high degree of assurance. This form of defense-in-depth is a reasoned response to uncertainties and is often referred to generically as “safety margin.” Historically, specific safety margin provisions have been formulated, primarily based on “engineering judgment.” The ability to better characterize (i.e., describe and quantify) safety margin is important to improved decision making about LWR design and long-term operation. A systematic approach to characterizing safety margins and the subsequent risk informed margins management options represents a vital input to the licensee and regulatory analysis and decision making that will be involved. In addition, as research and development (R&D) in the LWRS Program and other collaborative efforts yield new data and improved scientific understanding of physical processes that govern the aging and degradation of plant SSCs (and concurrently support technological advances in nuclear reactor fuels and plant instrumentation and control systems), needs and opportunities to better optimize plant safety, economics, and performance will become known. The purpose of the Risk-Informed Safety Margins Characterization (RISMC) Pathway R&D is to support plant decisions for risk-informed margins management with the aim to improve economics, reliability, and sustain safety of current NPPs over periods of extended plant operations. The goals of the RISMC Pathway are twofold: (1) develop and demonstrate a risk-assessment method that is coupled to safety margin quantification that can be used by NPP decision makers as part of risk-informed margin management strategies; (2) create an advanced RISMC Toolkit that enables more accurate representation of NPP safety margins. The methods and tools provided by RISMC are essential to a comprehensive and integrated risk-informed margin management approach that supports effective preservation of margin for both active and passive SSCs.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2018

SIERRA/Aero User Manual - Version 4.50

SIERRA/Aero is a compressible fluid dynamics program intended to solve a wide variety compressible fluid flows including transonic and hypersonic problems. This document describes the commands for assembling a fluid model for analysis with this module, henceforth referred to simply as Aero for brevity. Aero is an application developed using the SIERRA Toolkit (STK). The intent of STK is to provide a set of tools for handling common tasks that programmers encounter when developing a code for numerical simulation. For example, components of STK provide field allocation and management, and parallel input/output of field and mesh data. These services also allow the development of coupled mechanics analysis software for a massively parallel computing environment. In the definitions of the commands that follow, the term Real_Max denotes the largest floating point value that can be represented on a given computer. Int_Max is the largest such integer value.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2018

Uncertainty in master-equation-based rate coefficient calculations

Rate coefficients are key quantities in gas phase kinetics and can be determined theoretically via master equation (ME) calculations. Rate coefficients characterize how fast a certain chemical species reacts away due to collisions into a specific product. Some of these collisions are simply transferring energy between the colliding partners, in which case the initial chemical species can undergo a unimolecular reaction: dissociation or isomerization. Other collisions are reactive, and the colliding partners either exchange atoms, these are direct reactions, or form complexes that can themselves react further or get stabilized by deactivating collisions with a bath gas. The input of MEs are molecular parameters: geometries, energies, and frequencies determined from ab initio calculations. While the calculation of these rate coefficients using ab initio data is becoming routine in many cases, the determination of the uncertainties of the rate coefficients are often ignored, sometimes crudely assessed by varying independently just a few of the numerous parameters, and only occasionally studied in detail. In this study, molecular frequencies, barrier heights, well depths, and imaginary frequencies (needed to calculate quantum mechanical tunneling) were automatically perturbed in an uncorrelated fashion. Our Python tool, MEUQ, takes user requests to change all or specified well, barrier, or bimolecular product parameters for a reaction. We propagate the uncertainty in these input parameters and perform global sensitivity analysis in the rate coefficients for the ethyl + O 2 system using state-of-the-art uncertainty quantification (UQ) techniques via Python interface to UQ Toolkit (www . sandia.gov/uqtoolkit). A total of 10,000 sets of rate coefficients were collected after perturbing 240 molecular parameters. With our methodology, sensitive mechanistic steps can be revealed to a modeler in a straightforward manner for identification of significant and negligible influences in bimolecular reactions.

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

Calibration of MAMBA and CRUD Sources Using Full-Core CTF+MAMBA

This report outlines a process for the deterministic calibration of MAMBA using the computational toolkit Dakota. The tools and processes for deterministic calibration have been built and are laid out in this report. While completing this milestone, issues emerged with MAMBA that resulted in delays. The consequences for these difficulties to the calibration process are briefly discussed. The report concludes with an outline of a path forward for Bayesian calibration. The Bayesian calibration will be performed next year. This process was laid out by Benjamin Collins, Robert Salko, and Adam Hetzler.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2018

SIERRA/Aero User Manual - Version 4.48

SIERRA/Aero is a compressible fluid dynamics program intended to solve a wide variety compressible fluid flows including transonic and hypersonic problems. This document describes the commands for assembling a fluid model for analysis with this module, henceforth referred to simply as Aero for brevity. Aero is an application developed using the SIERRA Toolkit (STK). The intent of STK is to provide a set of tools for handling common tasks that programmers encounter when developing a code for numerical simulation. For example, components of STK provide field allocation and management, and parallel input/output of field and mesh data. These services also allow the development of coupled mechanics analysis software for a massively parallel computing environment. In the definitions of the commands that follow, the term Real_Max denotes the largest floating point value that can be represented on a given computer. Int_Max is the largest such integer value.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Development of The PaR Tool: Modernization of the Planning and Routing Scripts

The placement of an efficient route for power lines is a poorly understood. Owners of the land are often divided about whether to allow their land to have a pole placed. A planning and routing toolkit allows for the people to allow and deny access to land then instantly see the route recalculate. The original planning and routing scripts were the original proof of concept, there was a series of problems that greatly hindered the functionality of the system. The PaR Tool a fully featured application replaced the proof of concept scripts and the speed of the system was increased by 254%. It is readily extensible and far easier to use.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

PETSc Users Manual: Revision 3.10

This manual describes the use of PETSc for the numerical solution of partial differential equa-tions and related problems on high-performance computers. The Portable, Extensible Toolkit forScientific Computation (PETSc) is a suite of data structures and routines that provide the buildingblocks for the implementation of large-scale application codes on parallel (and serial) computers.PETSc uses the MPI standard for all message-passing communication.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2018

TAO 3.10 Users Manual

The Toolkit for Advanced Optimization (TAO) focuses on the development of algorithms and software for the solution of large-scale optimization problems on high-performance architectures. Areas of interest include unconstrained and bound-constrained optimization, nonlinear least squares problems, optimization problems with partial differential equation constraints, and variational inequalities and complementarity constraints.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2018

BOP-301 and BOP-302R: Test Definitions and Analyses

Following the conclusion of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) coordinated research project (CRP) on analysis of two EBR-II tests, Argonne has continued its EBR-II analysis with additional tests from the Shutdown Heat Removal Test (SHRT) series. The tests selected for this follow-up analysis are BOP-301 and BOP-302R, two unprotected loss of heat of sink tests in which the intermediate sodium pump tripped without scramming the control rods or tripping the primary pumps. The IAEA CRP focused on the SHRT-17 and SHRT-45R tests, the most severe protected and unprotected loss of flow tests performed during the SHRT series. With the primary pumps tripping, flow rates decreased to levels where flowmeter uncertainty was very high. Accurately capturing the progressions of the two tests despite this uncertainty was one of the key modeling and simulation challenges during the CRP. BOP-301 and BOP-302R were selected because the primary sodium pumps did not trip for those tests. Primary flow rate measurements are known with greater certainty. Power and temperature discrepancies can be explored without concern that flow predictions match test measurements but not the actual flow rates from the tests. These two tests were performed during the same test window as SHRT-45R and had the same core load configuration. Therefore, core models created for analysis of SHRT-45R were easily adapted for analysis of BOP-301 and BOP-302R. Another reason for analyzing BOP-301 and BOP-302R is to analyze tests in which the core inlet temperature changed significantly, which did not occur during the loss of flow tests. The transient progression of the unprotected SHRT-45R test was driven by a decreasing core flow rate while the core inlet temperature remained relatively constant. For the BOP tests, the transient progression was driven by an increasing core inlet temperature while the core flow rate was stable. This report defines the BOP-301 and BOP-302R tests and provides a selection of measured test data. Initial predictions from SAS4A/SASSYS-1 simulations of these tests are then presented. Following these simulations, additional analysis was performed with the Dakota uncertainty quantification and optimization toolkit to determine which parameters have the greater impact on the transient results and the optimal values of the most important parameters.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Integration of Solar Training into Allied Professional Development Platforms - Final Technical Report

The Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) designed the “Integration of Solar Training into Allied Professional Development Platforms” project to surmount barriers to the expansion of solar technology caused by gaps in knowledge impacting on-the-job performance of allied professionals. At project start, questionnaires deployed nationally indicated that only 9% of firefighters felt certain they could shut down a PV system to the extent possible, and only a third of code officials thought they could even discern the difference between a PV and solar thermal system. Therefore, the project objective was to measurably and significantly increase the number of code officials and fire service professionals with solar knowledge directly applicable to their job function. IREC identified specific gaps in current knowledge, and integrated research-proven adult learning principles and technology solutions to enable a cost-effect but impactful reach. The project design ensured that solar training is a continuing component of the targeted sector professional development toolkit. To this end, the key partners recruited and cultivated were existing, trusted training partners in the targeted sectors: International Code Council Solar Rating and Certification Corporation (ICC-SRCC), International Association of Electrical Inspectors (IAEI), International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) and National Association of State Fire Marshals (NASFM). During the project, IREC held 79 courses in 25 states that trained 4,156 people, offered a PV in the 2017 National Electric Code webinar attended by 787 people, developed on-line training for code officials with 2,298 on-line learners, and developed an on-line training for firefighters with 4,930 on-line learners. In addition, the project participated in 28 conferences and reached over 537,000 professionals with solar information.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification

This project led to the design and construction of a system of novel micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) and their deployment as part of a series of steady-state and transient experiments at the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor (UWNR). The data acquired during these experiments is intended for use in validation of reactor-physics models, including those developed as part of the NEAMS Toolkit (e.g., PROTEUS) and others. Part of the work led to a completely new computational model of UWNR based on Python-automated input generation for both MCNP and Serpent, and preliminary efforts have been made to develop a mesh for models in PROTEUS and other deterministic tools.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Accelerated Climate Model for Energy (Final Report)

The E3SM (formerly ACME) project utilizes the netCDF Operator (NCO) toolkit to generate, regrid, and split climate datasets for pre- and post-processing analysis. NCO tools are themselves embedded in the E3SM-unified, E3SM-diags, A-Prime, MPAS-Analysis, Processflow, and LIVVkit diagnostic suites, and so improve and leverage the analysis and diagnostics capabilities of the E3SM Science and Infrastructure teams. In this project, the UCI team extended and customized NCO features used standalone and by the diagnostic suites to accelerate and ease analysis and distribution of E3SM experiments. With supplementary funding, the UCI team also contributed physical improvements to the treatment of snow in the E3SM land, land-ice, and sea-ice model components.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2017

Optimizing the Energy Usage and Cognitive Value of Extreme-Scale Data-Analysis Approaches

This report serves as a record that we have successfully completed work on the proposal Optimizing the Energy Usage and Cognitive Value of Extreme Scale Analysis Approaches, or, more succinctly, ECX. This includes successful completion of all three phases of the project, findings as summarized below, strong publications across the fields represented in the proposal, and a set of artifacts (code, websites, and other documentation) available to the public. In total, the results of this project represent significant findings in each domain, and a toolkit that will allow the community to engage with this work, advancing it and contributing to it in the years ahead. They also form the basis for a successfully funded follow-on project. This executive summary presents findings, tools and publications resulting from the ECX project. The balance of the report then provides more detail on these results.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2019

Smart DG Hub Resilient Solar Project Final Report

Hurricanes, unstable fossil fuel supplies and increased energy loads have revealed the vulnerability of America’s electric grids. Renewable energy has emerged as a viable option; however in order for this sector to reach its full potential it needs to be paired with storage. For example, all of the solar installations in New York City in 2014 were wired to automatically shut down during grid outages for safety reasons and lacked battery backup or other means to function during outages. Pairing solar with batteries can provide critical power needs and reduce dependency on delivered fuel. Additionally, resilient solar systems can also provide benefits outside of emergencies such as utility bill savings and grid support services. Solar+Storage needed a pathway through regulatory, policy and financial hurdles, some of which are unique to urban environments. Sustainable CUNY of the City University of New York (CUNY) formed the Smart Distributed Generation (DG) Hub to develop a strategic pathway to a resilient distributed energy system that integrates storage into resiliency planning and provide support to the grid on peak power days. Through the Smart DG Hub Resilient Solar Project, with support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as well as the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, the New York Power Authority and private funding, Sustainable CUNY worked with project partners - including the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Meister Consultant Group (now Cadmus), subject matter experts at utility companies, and authorities having jurisdiction - to develop a roadmap for the greater deployment of solar+storage as well as a toolkit of resources. Ultimately, in addition to the completed deliverables of multiple resources, the project established a baseline of the current policy, financial, and market landscape, and an understanding of which key areas would require further actions. The DG Hub’s collaborative platform and subject matter expertise gained through this project led directly to a new award from the NYS Energy Research & Development Authority to continue CUNY’s work in targeted areas including energy storage permitting and stakeholder education, similar to the way DOE’s prior support had sowed the initial seeds for the growth of the solar market in NYC, to the NYS market. Finally, the Resilient Solar Project helped inform the New York City (NYC) administration, leading to a significant policy development that included Mayor Bill de Blasio setting a city-wide storage goal of 100 MW by 2020, the first of any city in the country.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2018

Towards a Discontinuous Galerkin Method for the Multi-Group Two-Moment Model of Neutrino Transport

We present progress on the development of a Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method for solving the non-relativistic, multi-group two-moment model for neutrino transport. The method - ultimately targeted for simulation of neutrino transport in core-collapse supernovae - includes the use of curvilinear coordinates and tabulated microphysics (i.e., nuclear equation of state and weak interaction rates) to model neutrino-matter coupling. In this report, we provide algorithm details and present results from an extensive set of benchmark problems in one spatial dimension. The algorithms have been implemented in the Toolkit for High-Order Neutrino-Radiation Hydrodynamics ( thornado ), and Fortran code used to generate the results has been made available to the public through GitHub.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗