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NASA NTRS1975

Water resources planning for rivers draining into Mobile Bay. Part 2: Non-conservative species transport models

Total coliform group bacteria were selected to expand the mathematical modeling capabilities of the hydrodynamic and salinity models to understand their relationship to commercial fishing ventures within bay waters and to gain a clear insight into the effect that rivers draining into the bay have on water quality conditions. Parametric observations revealed that temperature factors and river flow rate have a pronounced effect on the concentration profiles, while wind conditions showed only slight effects. An examination of coliform group loading concentrations at constant river flow rates and temperature shows these loading changes have an appreciable influence on total coliform distribution within Mobile Bay.

April, G. C.↗

DOE OSTI2020

A higher-order finite element reactive transport model for unstructured and fractured grids

Abstract This work presents a new reactive transport framework that combines a powerful geochemistry engine with advanced numerical methods for flow and transport in subsurface fractured porous media. Specifically, the PhreeqcRM interface (developed by the USGS) is used to take advantage of a large library of equilibrium and kinetic aqueous and fluid-rock reactions, which has been validated by numerous experiments and benchmark studies. Fluid flow is modeled by the Mixed Hybrid Finite Element (FE) method, which provides smooth velocity fields even in highly heterogenous formations with discrete fractures. A multilinear Discontinuous Galerkin FE method is used to solve the multicomponent transport problem. This method is locally mass conserving and its second order convergence significantly reduces numerical dispersion. In terms of thermodynamics, the aqueous phase is considered as a compressible fluid and its properties are derived from a Cubic Plus Association (CPA) equation of state. The new simulator is validated against several benchmark problems (involving, e.g., Fickian and Nernst-Planck diffusion, isotope fractionation, advection-dispersion transport, and rock-fluid reactions) before demonstrating the expanded capabilities offered by the underlying FE foundation, such as high computational efficiency, parallelizability, low numerical dispersion, unstructured 3D gridding, and discrete fraction modeling.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2018

A conservative scheme for electromagnetic simulation of magnetized plasmas with kinetic electrons

A conservative scheme has been formulated and confirmed for gyrokinetic particle simulations of electromagnetic waves and instabilities in magnetized plasmas. An electron continuity equation derived from the drift kinetic equation is used to time advance the electron density perturbation by using the perturbed mechanical flow calculated from the parallel vector potential, and the parallel vector potential is solved by using the perturbed canonical flow from the perturbed distribution function. In gyrokinetic particle simulations using this new scheme, the shear Alfvén wave dispersion relation in the shearless slab and continuum damping in the sheared cylinder have been recovered. The new scheme overcomes the stringent requirement in the conventional perturbative simulation method that perpendicular grid size needs to be as small as electron collisionless skin depth even for the long wavelength Alfvén waves. The new scheme also circumvents the problem in the typical approach that an unphysically large parallel electric field arises due to the inconsistency between electrostatic potential calculated from the perturbed density and vector potential calculated from the perturbed canonical flow. Lastly, the gyrokinetic particle simulations of the Alfvén waves in sheared cylinder have superior numerical properties compared with the fluid simulations, which suffer from numerical difficulties associated with singular mode structures.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2020

Implications of Non-Bingham Rheology

One of the key challenges now facing the US Department of Energy (DOE) is the fate of radioactive waste remaining from World War II and the Cold War which is stored underground in tanks some 75 feet in diameter and over 30 feet tall. Over time, the waste has segmented into multiple layers with sludges and slurries at the bottom with salt crust layers often at the top and liquid in between. DOE’s current official baseline plans call for remaining sludges and slurries to be removed from the tanks and converted into a more stable glass waste form. Minimizing worker exposure to radiation drives DOE to use slurry processing techniques to suspend, mobilize, transport, mix, and process the waste. Therefore, a clear and quantitative understanding of Hanford waste rheology is essential for the success of the DOE mission. Historically much of the waste has been characterized using Eugene Bingham’s model more than a century old that provides a straight line fit to higher shear rate data with the intercept suggesting a yield stress and the slope providing the consistency. Yet, Bingham fits overestimate the shear stress at a given shear rate for low to intermediate shear rates, exactly the range of shear rates typically encountered in pipe flow, where shear rates peak along the pipe wall and vanish in the center. This model produces a fictitious yield stress for some of the wastes that do not exhibit yield phenomena. While over estimating the yield stress may be prudent, safe, and conservative for some applications (e.g., pump sizing to ensure that pumps can handle yield stresses), over estimating the rheology may be inaccurate and non-conservative for other applications (e.g., eroding settled particle beds). Therefore, this paper evaluates the slurry rheology of Hanford and Savannah River wastes using a more modern rheological model that fits the full range of experimental data. Although a bias has been recognized and alternative models proposed, the magnitude of this bias and the implications for tank waste have only been qualitatively suggested. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate quantitatively implications of the poor quality of fit between a Bingham model for rheology and experimental data at modest shear rates. We first demonstrate the magnitude of the bias between the data and the Bingham extrapolation. We then evaluate quantitatively the velocity profile under laminar conditions. This analysis shows that the bias may be large (hundreds of percent or more) at modest shear rates and that modest shear rates dominate pipe velocity profiles.

Rheology, Radioactive waste↗

DOE OSTI2022

Tundra SGS – Critical Importance of Site-Specific Injectivity Testing for Carbon Dioxide Injection Well Simulation Calibration

Paper presented at 16th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-16), October 23–27, 2022, Lyon, France. Brine injectivity tests were conducted on both the Broom Creek (BC) and Deadwood (DW) storage formations in one of the cored stratigraphic test wells prior to finalized simulations. The injectivity tests entailed injection of brine into the formations, followed by shutting in the wells. The shut-in duration represents the fall-off period which was used to carry out pressure transient analyses of the tests. The analysis of injectivity tests indicated that core-indicated and modeled permeability distributions should be conservatively multiplied by 2.5× and 5× in the BC and DW geologic models, respectively, prior to numerical simulations of CO 2 injection using Computer Modelling Group’s (CMG’s) GEM equation-of-state reservoir simulator. The scaler permeability multipliers allowed the fluid flow simulations to fully represent well test-measured injection well rates in the respective formations.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗

NASA NTRS1987

Numerical and analytical study of fluid dynamic forces in seals and bearings

A numerical model based on a transformed, conservative form of the three dimensional Navier-Stokes equation and an analytical model based on lumped fluid parameters are presented and compared with studies of modeled rotor bearing seal systems. The rotor destabilizing factors are related to the rotative character of the flow field. It is shown that these destabilizing factors can be reduced through a decrease in the fluid average circumferential velocity. However, the rotative character of the flow field is a complex three dimensional system with bifurcated secondary flow patterns that significantly alter the fluid circumferential velocity. By transforming the Navier-Stokes equations to those for a rotating observer and using the numerical code PHOENICS-84 with a nonorthogonal body fitted grid, several numerical experiments were carried out to demonstrate the character of this complex flow field. In general, fluid injection and/or preswirl of the flow field opposing the shaft rotation significantly intensified these secondary recirculation zones and thus reduced the average circumferential velocity; injection or preswirl in the direction of rotation significantly weakened these zones.

Tam, L. T.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Extension of a streamwise upwind algorithm to a moving grid system

A new streamwise upwind algorithm was derived to compute unsteady flow fields with the use of a moving-grid system. The temporally nonconservative LU-ADI (lower-upper-factored, alternating-direction-implicit) method was applied for time marching computations. A comparison of the temporally nonconservative method with a time-conservative implicit upwind method indicates that the solutions are insensitive to the conservative properties of the implicit solvers when practical time steps are used. Using this new method, computations were made for an oscillating wing at a transonic Mach number. The computed results confirm that the present upwind scheme captures the shock motion better than the central-difference scheme based on the beam-warming algorithm. The new upwind option of the code allows larger time-steps and thus is more efficient, even though it requires slightly more computational time per time step than the central-difference option.

Obayashi, Shigeru↗

NASA NTRS1991

Opposed Flow Flame Spread in Normal, Enhanced and Reduced Gravity

Experimental and theoretical aspects of opposed-flow flame spread over solid fuels are presented with emphasis on the microgravity environments of spacecraft. For high opposing flow velocities, spread rate decreases with increasing velocity eventually leading to flame blowoff due to kinetic effects. At low opposing flow velocities, where diffusional effects are slowed and radiation becomes important, flame spread rate increases with increasing flow velocity. Extinction at low velocities is due to radiative effects. Modeling efforts that include radiation, both solid surface radiation and gas-phase radiation, predict qualitatively the experimental trends observed. Computationally, gas-phase radiation is conveniently included in solution of the conservation equations by employing a Plank mean absorption coefficient, a fraction of radiation that is fed back to the surface, and a shape function that describes the radiative flux distribution along the surface.

Altenkirch, Robert A.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Generalized Fluid System Simulation Program

A general purpose program implemented on a computer analyzes steady state and transient flow in a complex fluid network, modeling phase changes, compressibility, mixture thermodynamics and external body forces such as gravity and centrifugal force. A preprocessor provides for the inter- active development of a fluid network simulation having nodes and branches. Mass, energy, and specie conservation equations are solved at the nodes, and momentum conservation equations are solved in the branches. Contained herein are subroutines for computing "real fluid" thermodynamic and thermophysical properties for 12 fluids, and a number of different source options are provided for model- ing momentum sources or sinks in the branches. The system of equations describing the fluid network is solved by a hybrid numerical method that is a combination of the Newton-Raphson and successive substitution methods. Application and verification of this invention are provided through an example problem, which demonstrates that the predictions of the present invention compare most reasonably with test data.

Alok Kumar Majumdar↗

NASA NTRS2014

Steady and Unsteady Nozzle Simulations Using the Conservation Element and Solution Element Method

This paper presents results from computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations of a three-stream plug nozzle. Time-accurate, Euler, quasi-1D and 2D-axisymmetric simulations were performed as part of an effort to provide a CFD-based approach to modeling nozzle dynamics. The CFD code used for the simulations is based on the space-time Conservation Element and Solution Element (CESE) method. Steady-state results were validated using the Wind-US code and a code utilizing the MacCormack method while the unsteady results were partially validated via an aeroacoustic benchmark problem. The CESE steady-state flow field solutions showed excellent agreement with solutions derived from the other methods and codes while preliminary unsteady results for the three-stream plug nozzle are also shown. Additionally, a study was performed to explore the sensitivity of gross thrust computations to the control surface definition. The results showed that most of the sensitivity while computing the gross thrust is attributed to the control surface stencil resolution and choice of stencil end points and not to the control surface definition itself.Finally, comparisons between the quasi-1D and 2D-axisymetric solutions were performed in order to gain insight on whether a quasi-1D solution can capture the steady and unsteady nozzle phenomena without the cost of a 2D-axisymmetric simulation. Initial results show that while the quasi-1D solutions are similar to the 2D-axisymmetric solutions, the inability of the quasi-1D simulations to predict two dimensional phenomena limits its accuracy.

Nozzle gross thrust calculations↗

DOE OSTI2019

Anthropogenic Obstructions to Paddlefish Movement and Migration

Paddlefish Polyodon spathula are behaviorally, morphologically, and physiologically adapted for prolonged free-swimming at moderately high speeds but not for maneuverability which makes them prone to impacts from submerged structures. These structures include low-head dams, weirs, dikes, levees, high-head dams, dredges, diversions, intakes, and vessels. Impacts include blocked migrations, reduced access and quality of habitat, entrainment, impingement, trauma, and stranding. Effects of these impacts on individuals are displacement, injuries, and death; effects on populations are fragmentation, lower gene flow, lower reproductive success, and elevated rate of mortality. Despite this, the status of the Paddlefish in most parts of its historic range is secure. Management techniques, like stocking and habitat restoration, are typically implemented at the local level but appear effective at conserving the species range wide. Refinement of management techniques, however, is still possible by modifying operations of structures and by rescuing stranded Paddlefish.

Hoover, Jan Jeffrey↗

DOE OSTI2018

Numerical Modelling of Radionuclide Migration in the Context of a Near-Surface LILW Disposal Facility - 18618

The reference solution for the management of low and intermediate level short-lived waste (LILW) in France consists in their emplacement in concrete vaults built at the near-surface. The corresponding disposal facility under operation by the French waste management organization (Andra), is located in North-eastern France and planned to be closed in 2060. The safety case developed by Andra has to show the evidence that, amongst other aspects, the radionuclide transfer through the confinement barriers will occur in such a way that the human and environmental exposure will be as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA) and in accordance with the dose constraints. For this purpose, modelling is used to integrate uncertainties about the characteristics of concrete components, waste and water table and their evolution in time and space. At last, modelling is finally used to investigate the radiological impact of specific scenarios in which the failure of safety barriers occurs. In the frame of its technical review of the safety assessment, the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) also performs such kind of numerical modelling of radionuclide fate from the waste to the hydrogeological outlets, in order to check whether the assessment performed by Andra takes into account sufficiently conservative assumptions. The present work aims to evaluate the role of components of the vaults on radionuclide transport during the post-closure period over a few thousand years. For this purpose, IRSN carries out numerical calculations with MELODIE software, which simulates water flow and transport of species, in order to simulate radionuclide migration from waste packages emplaced in a concrete vault to the surrounding groundwater. The developed transport model focuses on 3-H radionuclide and integrates Andra's main assumptions (release model from the waste packages, chemical and hydraulic properties of the vault components, shrinkage and cracks in concrete components). An adaptive mesh method, based on an a posteriori error estimator, was used to model the cracks and the consideration of a strong heterogeneity in the hydraulic and transport parameters values in the different components of the model. This method shows an improvement of results of about 40 times, whereas the mesh size was increased by only 2%. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

NASA NTRS1991

A hybrid numerical method for three-dimensional spatially-developing free-shear flows

The present novel algorithm for 3D incompressible Navier-Stokes equations treats a domain which is (1) infinite in the vertical direction, using a mapped spectral method; (2) finite in the streamwise direction, using a classical Fourier method; and (3) homogeneous in the spanwise direction, using high-order compact finite differencing. A projection method is employed which ensures the exact conservation of mass, as well as the satisfaction of the boundary conditions at infinity. The novel aspects of these methods are noted, and the code they constitute is validated in light of several test cases. Results are presented for two- and three-dimensional mixing layers.

Buell, Jeffrey C.↗

DOE OSTI2014

Thermal transfer structures coupling electronics card(s) to coolant-cooled structure(s)

Cooling apparatuses and coolant-cooled electronic systems are provided which include thermal transfer structures configured to engage with a spring force one or more electronics cards with docking of the electronics card(s) within a respective socket(s) of the electronic system. A thermal transfer structure of the cooling apparatus includes a thermal spreader having a first thermal conduction surface, and a thermally conductive spring assembly coupled to the conduction surface of the thermal spreader and positioned and configured to reside between and physically couple a first surface of an electronics card to the first surface of the thermal spreader with docking of the electronics card within a socket of the electronic system. The thermal transfer structure is, in one embodiment, metallurgically bonded to a coolant-cooled structure and facilitates transfer of heat from the electronics card to coolant flowing through the coolant-cooled structure.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2020

Low-dissipation centred schemes for hyperbolic equations in conservative and non-conservative form

We propose a one-parameter family of low-dissipation centred numerical schemes for solving hyperbolic equations in conservative or non-conservative form, using finite volume or discontinuous Galerkin finite element methods. The new schemes spring out from the multi-dimensional FORCE method and are determined by a single parameter α ≥ 1. Given an increasing sequence of real numbers 1 ≤ α 1 < α 2 < . . . < α K , there corresponds a sequence of numerical schemes with stability restriction associated to a decreasing sequence of Courant numbers 1 > c 1 > c 2 > . . . > c K > 0 and a decreasing sequence of corresponding numerical viscosity functions d 1 > d 2 > . . . > d K . For a given Courant number c k ≤ 1 there is a real number α k > 0 and a corresponding stable scheme with minimal numerical viscosity d k . The proposed schemes suit very well the family of high-order discontinuous Galerkin finite element methods and the recently proposed class of ADER-TR schemes, whose orders of accuracy define decreasing sequences of Courant numbers, as the order of accuracy increases. The centred methods of this paper are stable in 2D and 3D in the frame of simultaneous updating formulae, unlike other centred methods, such as 1D FORCE, which are not. Furthermore, the schemes are highly accurate for slowly-moving waves, which is precisely the kind of waves that traditional centred methods smear disastrously. Additional features of the proposed schemes include ease of implementation and applicability to any hyperbolic system either in conservative or non-conservative form. Here, the proposed schemes are analysed and computationally assessed through a suite of test problems for a linear model system, for the Euler equations in one and two space dimensions, and for the Baer-Nunziato equations for compressible two-phase flow.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2020

Search for CME in U+U and Au+Au collisions in STAR with different approaches of handling backgrounds

We report the chiral magnetic effect (CME) refers to charge separation along a strong magnetic field between left- and right-handed quarks, caused by interactions with topological gluon fields from QCD vacuum fluctuations. We present two approaches to handle the dominant elliptic flow (v 2 ) background in the three-particle correlator (Δγ 112 ), sensitive to CME. In the first approach, we present the Δγ 112 and Δγ 123 measurements in U+U and Au+Au collisions. While hydrodynamic simulations including resonance decays and local charge conservation predict that Δγ 112 scaled by N part /ν 2 will be similar in U+U and Au+Au collisions, the projected B-field exhibits a distinct difference between the two systems and with varying N part . Therefore, U+U and Au+Au collisions provide configurations with different expectations for both CME signal and background. Moreover, the three-particle observable Δγ 123 scaled by N part /ν 3 provide baseline measurement for only the background. In the second approach, we handle the ν 2 background by measuring Δγ 112 with respect to the planes of spectators measured by Zero Degree Calorimeters and participants measured by Time Projection Chamber. These measurements contain different amounts of contributions from CME signal (along B-field, due to spectators) and ν 2 background (determined by the participant geometry). With the two Δγ 112 measurements, the possible CME signal and the background contribution can be determined. We report such a measurement in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 27GeV with the newly installed event plane detector, and report the new findings in U+U system where the spectator-participant plane correlations are expected to differ from those in Au+Au collisions.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2022

A physics-constrained neural network for multiphase flows

The present study develops a physics-constrained neural network (PCNN) to predict sequential patterns and motions of multiphase flows (MPFs), which includes strong interactions among various fluid phases. To predict the order parameters, which locate individual phases in the future time, a neural network (NN) is applied to quickly infer the dynamics of the phases by encoding observations. The multiphase consistent and conservative boundedness mapping algorithm (MCBOM) is next implemented to correct the predicted order parameters. This enforces the predicted order parameters to strictly satisfy the mass conservation, the summation of the volume fractions of the phases to be unity, the consistency of reduction, and the boundedness of the order parameters. Then, the density of the fluid mixture is updated from the corrected order parameters. Finally, the velocity in the future time is predicted by another NN with the same network structure, but the conservation of momentum is included in the loss function to shrink the parameter space. The proposed PCNN for MPFs sequentially performs (NN)-(MCBOM)-(NN), which avoids nonphysical behaviors of the order parameters, accelerates the convergence, and requires fewer data to make predictions. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposed PCNN is capable of predicting MPFs effectively.

Mechanics↗

DOE OSTI2014

Revealing the location and structure of the accretion disk wind in PDS 456

We present evidence for the rapid variability of the high-velocity iron K-shell absorption in the nearby (z = 0.184) quasar PDS 456. From a recent long Suzaku observation in 2013 (∼1 Ms effective duration), we find that the equivalent width of iron K absorption increases by a factor of ∼5 during the observation, increasing from <105 eV within the first 100 ks of the observation, toward a maximum depth of ∼500 eV near the end. The implied outflow velocity of ∼0.25 c is consistent with that claimed from earlier (2007, 2011) Suzaku observations. The absorption varies on timescales as short as ∼1 week. We show that this variability can be equally well attributed to either (1) an increase in column density, plausibly associated with a clumpy time-variable outflow, or (2) the decreasing ionization of a smooth homogeneous outflow which is in photo-ionization equilibrium with the local photon field. The variability allows a direct measure of absorber location, which is constrained to within r = 200-3500 r {sub g} of the black hole. Even in the most conservative case, the kinetic power of the outflow is ≳ 6% of the Eddington luminosity, with a mass outflow rate in excess of ∼40% of the Eddington accretion rate. The wind momentum rate is directly equivalent to the Eddington momentum rate which suggests that the flow may have been accelerated by continuum scattering during an episode of Eddington-limited accretion.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗