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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 1,675 records · Page 93
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DOE OSTI2015

Emittance growth in the DARHT Axis-II Downstream Transport

Using a particle-in-cell (PIC) code, we investigated the possibilities for emittance growth through the quadrupole magnets of the system used to transport the high-current electron beam from an induction accelerator to the bremsstrahlung converter target used for flash radiography. We found that even highly mismatched beams exhibited little emittance growth (< 6%), which we attribute to softening of their initial hard edge current distributions. We also used this PIC code to evaluate the accuracy of emittance measurements using a solenoid focal scan following the quadrupole magnets. If the beam is round after the solenoids, the simulations indicate that the measurement is highly accurate, but it is substantially inaccurate for elliptical beams

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Validation of MCNP6 Version 1.0 with the ENDF/B-VII.1 Cross Section Library for Uranium Metal, Oxide, and Solution Systems on the High Performance Computing Platform Moonlight

In this document, the code MCNP is validated with ENDF/B-VII.1 cross section data under the purview of ANSI/ANS-8.24-2007, for use with uranium systems. MCNP is a computer code based on Monte Carlo transport methods. While MCNP has wide reading capability in nuclear transport simulation, this validation is limited to the functionality related to neutron transport and calculation of criticality parameters such as k eff .

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

eRHIC ERL modeling in Zgoubi

This Note discusses on-going work regarding the modeling of eRHIC ERL in the ray-tracing code Zgoubi. The various pieces of the recirculator puzzle, their optical properties and their assemblage into an operational input data file in are addressed. The Note reports in particular on preparatory stages toward extensive end-to-end 6D polarized electron bunch transport simulations, which yield methods, as well a series of preliminary qualitative outcomes, discussed as well.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Formation of massive primordial stars: intermittent UV feedback with episodic mass accretion

We present coupled stellar evolution (SE) and 3D radiation-hydrodynamic (RHD) simulations of the evolution of primordial protostars, their immediate environment, and the dynamic accretion history under the influence of stellar ionizing and dissociating UV feedback. Our coupled SE RHD calculations result in a wide diversity of final stellar masses covering 10 M{sub ⊙} ≲ M {sub *} ≲ 10{sup 3} M{sub ⊙}. The formation of very massive (≳250 M{sub ⊙}) stars is possible under weak UV feedback, whereas ordinary massive (a few ×10 M{sub ⊙}) stars form when UV feedback can efficiently halt the accretion. This may explain the peculiar abundance pattern of a Galactic metal-poor star recently reported by Aoki et al., possibly the observational signature of very massive precursor primordial stars. Weak UV feedback occurs in cases of variable accretion, in particular when repeated short accretion bursts temporarily exceed 0.01 M{sub ⊙} yr{sup −1}, causing the protostar to inflate. In the bloated state, the protostar has low surface temperature and UV feedback is suppressed until the star eventually contracts, on a thermal adjustment timescale, to create an H ii region. If the delay time between successive accretion bursts is sufficiently short, the protostar remains bloated for extended periods, initiating at most only short periods of UV feedback. Disk fragmentation does not necessarily reduce the final stellar mass. Quite the contrary, we find that disk fragmentation enhances episodic accretion as many fragments migrate inward and are accreted onto the star, thus allowing continued stellar mass growth under conditions of intermittent UV feedback. This trend becomes more prominent as we improve the resolution of our simulations. We argue that simulations with significantly higher resolution than reported previously are needed to derive accurate gas mass accretion rates onto primordial protostars.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

A COMPARISON OF GALAXY COUNTING TECHNIQUES IN SPECTROSCOPICALLY UNDERSAMPLED REGIONS

Accurate measures of galactic overdensities are invaluable for precision cosmology. Obtaining these measurements is complicated when members of one’s galaxy sample lack radial depths, most commonly derived via spectroscopic redshifts. In this paper, we utilize the Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s Main Galaxy Sample to compare seven methods of counting galaxies in cells when many of those galaxies lack redshifts. These methods fall into three categories: assigning galaxies discrete redshifts, scaling the numbers counted using regions’ spectroscopic completeness properties, and employing probabilistic techniques. We split spectroscopically undersampled regions into three types—those inside the spectroscopic footprint, those outside but adjacent to it, and those distant from it. Through Monte Carlo simulations, we demonstrate that the preferred counting techniques are a function of region type, cell size, and redshift. We conclude by reporting optimal counting strategies under a variety of conditions.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

HELIOS: AN OPEN-SOURCE, GPU-ACCELERATED RADIATIVE TRANSFER CODE FOR SELF-CONSISTENT EXOPLANETARY ATMOSPHERES

We present the open-source radiative transfer code named HELIOS, which is constructed for studying exoplanetary atmospheres. In its initial version, the model atmospheres of HELIOS are one-dimensional and plane-parallel, and the equation of radiative transfer is solved in the two-stream approximation with nonisotropic scattering. A small set of the main infrared absorbers is employed, computed with the opacity calculator HELIOS-K and combined using a correlated-k approximation. The molecular abundances originate from validated analytical formulae for equilibrium chemistry. We compare HELIOS with the work of Miller-Ricci and Fortney using a model of GJ 1214b, and perform several tests, where we find: model atmospheres with single-temperature layers struggle to converge to radiative equilibrium; k-distribution tables constructed with ≳0.01 cm{sup −1} resolution in the opacity function (≲10{sup 3} points per wavenumber bin) may result in errors ≳1%–10% in the synthetic spectra; and a diffusivity factor of 2 approximates well the exact radiative transfer solution in the limit of pure absorption. We construct “null-hypothesis” models (chemical equilibrium, radiative equilibrium, and solar elemental abundances) for six hot Jupiters. We find that the dayside emission spectra of HD 189733b and WASP-43b are consistent with the null hypothesis, while the latter consistently underpredicts the observed fluxes of WASP-8b, WASP-12b, WASP-14b, and WASP-33b. We demonstrate that our results are somewhat insensitive to the choice of stellar models (blackbody, Kurucz, or PHOENIX) and metallicity, but are strongly affected by higher carbon-to-oxygen ratios. The code is publicly available as part of the Exoclimes Simulation Platform (exoclime.net).

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

The long-term centimeter variability of active galactic nuclei: a new relation between variability timescale and accretion rate

We study the long-term (≈30 years) radio variability of 43 radio-bright active galactic nuclei (AGNs) by exploiting the database of the University of Michigan Radio Astronomy Observatory monitoring program. We model the periodograms (temporal power spectra) of the observed light curves as simple power-law noise (red noise, spectral power P(f)∝f{sup −β}) using Monte Carlo simulations, taking into account windowing effects (red-noise leak, aliasing). The power spectra of 39 (out of 43) sources are in good agreement with the models, yielding a range in power spectral index (β) from ≈1 to ≈3. We fit a Gaussian function to each flare in a given light curve to obtain the flare duration. We discover a correlation between β and the median duration of the flares. We use the derivative of a light curve to obtain a characteristic variability timescale, which does not depend on the assumed functional form of the flares, incomplete fitting, and so on. We find that, once the effects of relativistic Doppler boosting are corrected for, the variability timescales of our sources are proportional to the accretion rate to the power of 0.25 ± 0.03 over five orders of magnitude in accretion rate, regardless of source type. We further find that modeling the periodograms of four of our sources requires the assumption of broken power-law spectra. From simulating light curves as superpositions of exponential flares, we conclude that strong overlap of flares leads to featureless simple power-law periodograms of AGNs at radio wavelengths in most cases.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Unifying the Micro and Macro Properties of AGN Feeding and Feedback

We unify the feeding and feedback of supermassive black holes with the global properties of galaxies, groups, and clusters by linking for the first time the physical mechanical efficiency at the horizon and megaparsec scale. The macro hot halo is tightly constrained by the absence of overheating and overcooling as probed by X-ray data and hydrodynamic simulations (ε{sub BH}≃10{sup −3} T{sub x,7.4}). The micro flow is shaped by general-relativistic effects tracked by state-of-the-art GR-RMHD simulations (ε{sub ∙}≃0.03). The supermassive black hole properties are tied to the X-ray halo temperature T{sub x}, or related cosmic scaling relation (as L{sub x}). The model is minimally based on first principles, such as conservation of energy and mass recycling. The inflow occurs via chaotic cold accretion (CCA), the rain of cold clouds condensing out of the quenched cooling flow and then recurrently funneled via inelastic collisions. Within 100s gravitational radii, the accretion energy is transformed into ultrafast 10{sup 4} km s{sup −1} outflows (UFOs) ejecting most of the inflowing mass. At larger radii, the energy-driven outflow entrains progressively more mass: at roughly kiloparsec scale, the velocities of the hot/warm/cold outflows are a few 10{sup 3}, 1000, and 500 km s{sup −1}, with median mass rates ∼ 10, 100, and several 100 M{sub ⊙} yr{sup −1}, respectively. The unified CCA model is consistent with the observations of nuclear UFOs and ionized, neutral, and molecular macro outflows. We provide step-by-step implementation for subgrid simulations, (semi)analytic works, or observational interpretations that require self-regulated AGN feedback at coarse scales, avoiding the a-posteriori fine-tuning of efficiencies.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Stellar Mass Function of Active and Quiescent Galaxies via the Continuity Equation

The continuity equation is developed for the stellar mass content of galaxies and exploited to derive the stellar mass function of active and quiescent galaxies over the redshift range z∼0--8. The continuity equation requires two specific inputs gauged from observations: (i) the star formation rate functions determined on the basis of the latest UV+far-IR/submillimeter/radio measurements and (ii) average star formation histories for individual galaxies, with different prescriptions for disks and spheroids. The continuity equation also includes a source term taking into account (dry) mergers, based on recent numerical simulations and consistent with observations. The stellar mass function derived from the continuity equation is coupled with the halo mass function and with the SFR functions to derive the star formation efficiency and the main sequence of star-forming galaxies via the abundance-matching technique. A remarkable agreement of the resulting stellar mass functions for active and quiescent galaxies of the galaxy main sequence, and of the star formation efficiency with current observations is found; the comparison with data also allows the characteristic timescales for star formation and quiescence of massive galaxies, the star formation history of their progenitors, and the amount of stellar mass added by in situ star formation versus that contributed by external merger events to be robustly constrained. The continuity equation is shown to yield quantitative outcomes that detailed physical models must comply with, that can provide a basis for improving the (subgrid) physical recipes implemented in theoretical approaches and numerical simulations, and that can offer a benchmark for forecasts on future observations with multiband coverage, as will become routinely achievable in the era of JWST.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Demonstration of fully coupled simplified extended station black-out accident simulation with RELAP-7

The RELAP-7 code is the next generation nuclear reactor system safety analysis code being developed at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The RELAP-7 code develop-ment effort started in October of 2011 and by the end of the second development year, a number of physical components with simplified two phase flow capability have been de-veloped to support the simplified boiling water reactor (BWR) extended station blackout (SBO) analyses. The demonstration case includes the major components for the primary system of a BWR, as well as the safety system components for the safety relief valve (SRV), the reactor core isolation cooling (RCIC) system, and the wet well. Three scenar-ios for the SBO simulations have been considered. Since RELAP-7 is not a severe acci-dent analysis code, the simulation stops when fuel clad temperature reaches damage point. Scenario I represents an extreme station blackout accident without any external cooling and cooling water injection. The system pressure is controlled by automatically releasing steam through SRVs. Scenario II includes the RCIC system but without SRV. The RCIC system is fully coupled with the reactor primary system and all the major components are dynamically simulated. The third scenario includes both the RCIC system and the SRV to provide a more realistic simulation. This paper will describe the major models and dis-cuss the results for the three scenarios. The RELAP-7 simulations for the three simplified SBO scenarios show the importance of dynamically simulating the SRVs, the RCIC sys-tem, and the wet well system to the reactor safety during extended SBO accidents.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Preliminary study of nuclear fuel element testing based on coded source neutron imaging

Neutron radiography (NR) is one of the most important nondestructive testing methods, which is sensitive to low density materials. Especially, Neutron transfer imaging method could be used to test radioactivity materials refraining from γ effect, but it is difficult to realize tomography. Coded source neutron imaging (CSNI) is a newly NR method developed fast in the last several years. The distance between object and detector is much longer than traditional NR, which could be used to test radioactivity materials. With pre-reconstruction process from fold-cover projections, CSNI could easily realize tomography. This thesis carries out preliminary study on the nuclear fuel element testing by coded source neutron imaging. We calculate different enrichment, flaws and activity in nuclear fuel elements tested by CSNI with Monte-Carlo simulation. The results show that CSNI could be a useful testing method for nuclear fuel element testing. (authors)

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2016

Modeling thermochemistry of fuel and coupling to fuel performance codes

A thermochemical library, Thermochimica, utilizes new algorithms and solvers designed for calculating equilibria of multicomponent and multiphase systems and has been coupled to the nuclear fuel performance code BISON. Thermochimica utilizes a generalized thermochemical database for urania-based fuels that has been under development for a number of years and continues to be expanded. One of the key motivations for use of thermodynamic models is that they can better represent the physics of oxygen migration. The coupling of the BISON code with Thermochimica and examples of its use in representing fuel phenomena are described. In the current implementation in BISON, fluxes are driven by the elemental concentration gradient. However, equilibrium is characterized by the absence of spatial variations of chemical potentials of the system species/components. The driving force to equilibrium (species flux) is proportional to the deviation from equilibrium, i.e., the gradient in chemical potential. It is therefore necessary to integrate chemical potential driven diffusion in the BISON representation of oxygen transport. The diffusion kernels based on thermodynamic models have been developed to simulate multicomponent transport in light water reactor (LWR) materials. The Thermochimica library was used to calculate various thermodynamics properties needed for transport calculations. The library also can calculate properties that are specific to various transport mechanisms for different fuel materials. For example, it can calculate defect site fractions among the sublattices in oxide fuels as a function of temperature, burnup, and stoichiometry. The transport and thermodynamic models are being integrated with other simulation efforts such as calculation of mobility functions that couple fluxes and chemical gradients. (authors)

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Development of a Smart Signal Detection Method for Cyclic Voltammetry via Artificial Neural Intelligence

The electrorefiner (ER) is the heart of pyroprocessing technology which is a high-temperature method for separating uranium from Used Nuclear Fuel (UNF). It is important to improve this technology with respect to nuclear materials detection and accountability. Artificial Neural Intelligence (ANI) is a novel data analysis and simulation method that can be applied to electrochemical data sets. This computational code, which has been performed using the commercial software MATLAB, can be trained to generalize adequate electrical current and potential simulated data sets for the unseen data with a high accuracy of prediction. For this purpose, a massive collection of cyclic voltammetry (CV) data sets by Hoover (2014), for 0.5, 1, 2.5, and 5 wt% of zirconium chloride in LiCl-KCl molten salt with different scan rates at 773 K has been considered. The computer is trained via ANI to predict the unseen data after providing suitable hidden layers and validation numbers. In addition, this work can trace the CV plot for a blind condition by interpolating between two simulated data set. The different hidden layers with various neurons (from 5 to 30) at several validation numbers (from 5 to 30) has been studied and the average percent error between experimental and theoretical data for 0.5 wt% with 200 and 450 mV/s has been calculated. Preliminary results demonstrate that if the number of hidden layers increases from one to three, the average error falls down from 44% to around 8%. The best condition which gives a minimum average percent error has been discovered and the simulated CV graph has been compared with the experimental data. (authors)

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Multi-species Modeling of Molten-Salt Electrochemical Process

Spent nuclear fuel has been produced and stored in over 30 different countries which are operating commercial nuclear power plants. Molten-salt pyroprocessing has been developed for treating both oxide and metal spent nuclear fuels. This process separates long-lived actinide isotopes together as a group from fission products for burning the long-lived isotopes in fast reactors. Main processes of pyroprocessing such as oxide reduction, electrorefining, and electrowinning are based on a concept of electrolytic cell consuming energy to proceed electrochemical reactions. To scale-up the electrochemical processes, the design optimization of the key steps is required to reach high throughput that improves economic competitiveness and reduces an environmental impact. For the optimization, it is significant to compare different unit process designs and find optimum designs and operating conditions. However, this optimization process is very costly if we need to conduct experiments on every case with spent nuclear fuel. Instead, a validated simulation model can help to rapidly calculate and evaluate different case at significantly reduced costs. This paper presents recent development of multi-physics simulation of molten salt electrochemistry for partitioning spent nuclear fuel with limiting factors. (authors)

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Derivation of the Point-Kinetics Parameters for the Coupled Reactors

The design of coupled reactors, which provide two distinct spectral zones (fast and thermal), has recently drawn attention because it can provide configurations that could not be met in current thermal neutron test reactors and thus allows versatile irradiation tasks. A coupled reactor core is characterized by the neutron multiplicity of each zone as well as by the coupling between the two zones. It is desired to evaluate the integral point kinetics parameters that characterize the neutron physics of the coupled system. This summary provides a derivation of the equations for evaluating these point kinetics parameters. Following the strong and the weak form of the multigroup diffusion equation, the weak forms for the partial forward and adjoint solutions, each for a particular active region of the reactor core, are derived. These partial solutions are then used to collapse the weak form into the coupled-reactor point kinetics equations with the approximation of equilibrium. It is noted that these parameters are not meant for transient analysis because of the equilibrium approximation. They are rather used for characterizing the coupled system. The derived reactivity equations are then compared with those in Ref. 1. The equations are implemented in Rattlesnake, the INL MOOSE-based radiation transport application for multi-physics simulations. Numerical results are presented for a simple two-group problem. (authors)

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2016

SAS4A model development for the analysis of postulated severe accidents in metal fuel sodium fast reactors

The SAS4A code has been designed to simulate the events that occur in Sodium Fast Reactor (SFR) during the initiating phase of severe unprotected accidents. The initial SAS4A models were focused on the behavior of oxide fuel cores. An effort to expand the SAS4A models for the analysis of metal fuel cores is currently underway. This paper describes the status of the SAS4A metal fuel model development and presents initial results from the simulation of a postulated fuel assembly blockage accident in the Prototype Gen-IV Sodium Fast Reactor (PGSFR). (authors)

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Analysis of COBRA-TF Critical Heat Flux Models for Triangular Fuel Assembly Pitch

The Coolant Boiling in Rod Arrays-Two Fluid (COBRA-TF) code is a best estimate code which is used to perform thermal-hydraulic analyses of a light water reactor vessel. The COBRA-TF heat transfer package has models calculating the critical heat flux (CHF). In order to verify code's predictive capability for CHF for triangular nuclear fuel assembly pitch, experiment results and system parameters of KS-1 test facility that is single loop model of the VVER primary system located in Kurchatov Institute were simulated using COBRA-TF. In order to calculate CHF for triangular nuclear fuel assembly pitch there is a look-up table generated. In addition, there are some correction factors for critical heat flux values listed the table. In this study, once KS-1 experiment results were simulated using COBRA-TF, correction factors were used to correct CHF results from COBRA-TF calculations.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Application of adaptive multilevel splitting on coupled neutron-photon TRIPOLI-4{sup R} Monte Carlo simulations - 25427

In the context of radiation protection simulations, the Adaptive Multilevel Splitting (AMS) algorithm is a challenging variance reduction (VR) technique that has been recently investigated in the field of particle transport simulation. It has been implemented in the forthcoming version 11 of the Monte Carlo code TRIPOLI-4{sup R} and successfully tested in neutron-only and photon-only configurations. This paper addresses the application of the AMS algorithm to coupled simulations, and particularly to neutron-photon Monte Carlo calculations. The branching process occurring during the Monte Carlo coupled transport is taken into account in the new coupled-AMS algorithm and is explained in this paper. Two different neutron-photon configurations are then investigated, leading to a comparison of the coupled-AMS algorithm with the analog simulation on the one hand, and with the Exponential Transform (ET) on the other hand, which is the standard VR technique of TRIPOLI-4. Gains up to 30 are obtained in terms of Figure of Merit relatively to the analog simulation, which is about 4 to 6 times more efficient than the ET method for these configurations. (authors)

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗