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At least 1,747 records · Page 97

Verification of Advective Bar Elements Implemented in the Aria Thermal Response Code.

A verification effort was undertaken to evaluate the implementation of the new advective bar capability in the Aria thermal response code. Several approaches to the verification process were taken : a mesh refinement study to demonstrate solution convergence in the fluid and the solid, visually examining the mapping of the advective bar element nodes to the surrounding surfaces, and a comparison of solutions produced using the advective bars for simple geometries with solutions from commercial CFD software . The mesh refinement study has shown solution convergence for simple pipe flow in both temperature and velocity . Guidelines were provided to achieve appropriate meshes between the advective bar elements and the surrounding volume. Simulations of pipe flow using advective bars elements in Aria have been compared to simulations using the commercial CFD software ANSYS Fluent (r) and provided comparable solutions in temperature and velocity supporting proper implementation of the new capability. Verification of Advective Bar Elements iv Acknowledgements A special thanks goes to Dean Dobranich for his guidance and expertise through all stages of this effort . His advice and feedback was instrumental to its completion. Thanks also goes to Sam Subia and Tolu Okusanya for helping to plan many of the verification activities performed in this document. Thank you to Sam, Justin Lamb and Victor Brunini for their assistance in resolving issues encountered with running the advective bar element model. Finally, thanks goes to Dean, Sam, and Adam Hetzler for reviewing the document and providing very valuable comments.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Overview of the Tusas Code for Simulation of Dendritic Solidification

The aim of this project is to conduct a parametric investigation into the modeling of two dimensional dendrite solidification, using the phase field model. Specifically, we use the Tusas code, which is for coupled heat and phase-field simulation of dendritic solidification. Dendritic solidification, which may occur in the presence of an unstable solidification interface, results in treelike microstructures that often grow perpendicular to the rest of the growth front. The interface may become unstable if the enthalpy of the solid material is less than that of the liquid material, or if the solute is less soluble in solid than it is in liquid, potentially causing a partition [1]. A key motivation behind this research is that a broadened understanding of phase-field formulation and microstructural developments can be utilized for macroscopic simulations of phase change. This may be directly implemented as a part of the Telluride project at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), through which a computational additive manufacturing simulation tool is being developed, ultimately to become part of the Advanced Simulation and Computing Program within the U.S. Department of Energy [2].

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Equation-of-State Test Suite for the DYNA3D Code

This document describes the creation and implementation of a test suite for the Equationof- State models in the DYNA3D code. A customized input deck has been created for each model, as well as a script that extracts the relevant data from the high-speed edit file created by DYNA3D. Each equation-of-state model is broken apart and individual elements of the model are tested, as well as testing the entire model. The input deck for each model is described and the results of the tests are discussed. The intent of this work is to add this test suite to the validation suite presently used for DYNA3D.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Incorporation of the Joule Heating of highly conducting materials into the Truchas code via an asymptotic approach

The EM module of the Truchas code currently lacks the capability to model the Joule (Ohmic) heating of highly conducting materials that are inserted into induction furnaces from time to time to change the heating profile. This effect is difficult to simulate directly because of the requirement to resolve the extremely thin skin depth of good conductors, which is computationally costly. For example, copper has a skin depth, δ ~ 1 mm, for an oscillation frequency of tens of kHz. The industry is interested in determining what fraction of the heating power is lost to the Joule heating of these good conductors inserted inside the furnaces. The approach presented in this document is one of asymptotics where the leading order (unperturbed) solution is taken as that which emerges from solving the EM problem for a perfectly conducting insert. The conductor is treated as a boundary of the domain. The perturbative correction enters as a series expansion in terms of the dimensionless skin depth δ/L, where L is the characteristic size of the EM system. The correction at each order depends on the previous. This means that the leading order correction only depends on the unperturbed solution, in other words, it does not require Truchas to perform an additional EM field solve. Thus, the Joule heating can be captured by a clever leveraging of the existing tools in Truchas with only slight modifications.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Advanced Code for Photocathode Design

The Phase I activity demonstrated that PhotoQE could be upgraded and modified to allow input using a graphical user interface. Specific calls to platform-dependent (e.g. IMSL) function calls were removed, and Fortran77 components were rewritten for Fortran95 compliance. The subroutines, specifically the common block structures and shared data parameters, were reworked to allow the GUI to update material parameter data, and the system was targeted for desktop personal computer operation. The new structures overcomes the previous rigid and unmodifiable library structures by implementing new, materials library data sets and repositioning the library values to external files. Material data may originate from published literature or experimental measurements. Further optimization and restructuring would allow custom and specific emission models for beam codes that rely on parameterized photoemission algorithms. These would be based on simplified and parametric representations updated and extended from previous versions (e.g., Modified Fowler-Dubridge, Modified Three-Step, etc.).

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Predictions for the drive capabilities of the RancheroS Flux Compression Generator into various load inductances using the Eulerian AMR Code Roxane

The Ranchero Magnetic Flux Compression Generator (FCG) has been used to create current pulses in the 10-­100 MA range for driving both “static” low inductance (0.5 nH) loads1 for generator demonstration purposes and high inductance (10-­20 nH) imploding liner loads2 for ultimate use in physics experiments at very high energy density. Simulations of the standard Ranchero generator have recently shown that it had a design issue that could lead to flux trapping in the generator, and a non-­ robust predictability in its use in high energy density experiments. A re-­examination of the design concept for the standard Ranchero generator, prompted by the possible appearance of an aneurism at the output glide plane, has led to a new generation of Ranchero generators designated the RancheroS (for swooped). This generator has removed the problematic output glide plane and replaced it with a region of constantly increasing diameter in the output end of the FCG cavity in which the armature is driven outward under the influence of an additional HE load not present in the original Ranchero. The resultant RancheroS generator, to be tested in LA43S-­L13, probably in early FY17, has a significantly increased initial inductance and may be able to drive a somewhat higher load inductance than the standard Ranchero. This report will use the Eulerian AMR code Roxane to study the ability of the new design to drive static loads, with a goal of providing a database corresponding to the load inductances for which the generator might be used and the anticipated peak currents such loads might produce in physics experiments. Such a database, combined with a simple analytic model of an ideal generator, where d(LI)/dt = 0, and supplemented by earlier estimates of losses in actual use of the standard Ranchero, scaled to estimate the increase in losses due to the longer current carrying perimeter in the RancheroS, can then be used to bound the expectations for the current drive one may apply to any load assembly in future experiments.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Guide to Using Onionskin Analysis Code (U)

This document is a guide to using R-code written for the purpose of analyzing onionskin experiments. We expect the user to be very familiar with statistical methods and the R programming language. For more details about onionskin experiments and the statistical methods mentioned in this document see Storlie, Fugate, et al. (2013). Engineers at LANL experiment with detonators and high explosives to assess performance. The experimental unit, called an onionskin, is a hemisphere consisting of a detonator and a booster pellet surrounded by explosive material. When the detonator explodes, a streak camera mounted above the pole of the hemisphere records when the shock wave arrives at the surface. The output from the camera is a two-dimensional image that is transformed into a curve that shows the arrival time as a function of polar angle. The statistical challenge is to characterize a baseline population of arrival time curves and to compare the baseline curves to curves from a new, so-called, test series. The hope is that the new test series of curves is statistically similar to the baseline population.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

Event Localization in Bulk Scintillator Crystals Using Coded Apertures

The localization of radiation interactions in bulk scintillators is generally limited by the size of the light distribution at the readout surface of the crystal/light-pipe system. By finding the centroid of the light spot, which is typically of order centimeters across, practical single-event localization is limited to ~2 mm/cm of crystal thickness. Similar resolution can also be achieved for the depth of interaction by measuring the size of the light spot. Through the use of near-field coded-aperture techniques applied to the scintillation light, light transport simulations show that for 3-cm-thick crystals, more than a five-fold improvement (millimeter spatial resolution) can be achieved both laterally and in event depth. At the core of the technique is the requirement to resolve the shadow from an optical mask placed in the scintillation light path between the crystal and the readout. In this paper, experimental results are presented that demonstrate the overall concept using a 1D shadow mask, a thin-scintillator crystal and a light pipe of varying thickness to emulate a 2.2-cm-thick crystal. Spatial resolutions of ~ 1 mm in both depth and transverse to the readout face are obtained over most of the crystal depth.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

University of Washington/ Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center Tidal Current Technology Test Protocol, Instrumentation, Design Code, and Oceanographic Modeling Collaboration: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-11-452

The University of Washington (UW) - Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (UW-NNMREC) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will collaborate to advance research and development (R&D) of Marine Hydrokinetic (MHK) renewable energy technology, specifically renewable energy captured from ocean tidal currents. UW-NNMREC is endeavoring to establish infrastructure, capabilities and tools to support in-water testing of marine energy technology. NREL is leveraging its experience and capabilities in field testing of wind systems to develop protocols and instrumentation to advance field testing of MHK systems. Under this work, UW-NNMREC and NREL will work together to develop a common instrumentation system and testing methodologies, standards and protocols. UW-NNMREC is also establishing simulation capabilities for MHK turbine and turbine arrays. NREL has extensive experience in wind turbine array modeling and is developing several computer based numerical simulation capabilities for MHK systems. Under this CRADA, UW-NNMREC and NREL will work together to augment single device and array modeling codes. As part of this effort UW NNMREC will also work with NREL to run simulations on NREL's high performance computer system.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

Turbulence statistics in a spectral element code: a toolbox for High-Fidelity Simulations

In the present document we describe a toolbox for the spectral-element code Nek5000, aimed at computing turbulence statistics. The toolbox is presented for a small test case, namely a square duct with L x = 2h, L y = 2h and L z = 4h, where x, y and z are the horizontal, vertical and streamwise directions, respectively. The number of elements in the xy-plane is 16 X 16 = 256, and the number of elements in z is 4, leading to a total of 1,204 spectral elements. A polynomial order of N = 5 is chosen, and the mesh is generated using the Nek5000 tool genbox. The toolbox presented here allows to compute mean-velocity components, the Reynolds-stress tensor as well as turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) and Reynolds-stress budgets. Note that the present toolbox allows to compute turbulence statistics in turbulent flows with one homogeneous direction (where the statistics are based on time-averaging as well as averaging in the homogeneous direction), as well as in fully three-dimensional flows (with no periodic directions, where only time-averaging is considered).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

The STAT7 Code for Statistical Propagation of Uncertainties In Steady-State Thermal Hydraulics Analysis of Plate-Fueled Reactors

The STAT code was written to automate many of the steady-state thermal hydraulic safety calculations for the MIT research reactor, both for conversion of the reactor from high enrichment uranium fuel to low enrichment uranium fuel and for future fuel re-loads after the conversion. A Monte-Carlo statistical propagation approach is used to treat uncertainties in important parameters in the analysis. These safety calculations are ultimately intended to protect against high fuel plate temperatures due to critical heat flux or departure from nucleate boiling or onset of flow instability; but additional margin is obtained by basing the limiting safety settings on avoiding onset of nucleate boiling. STAT7 can simultaneously analyze all of the axial nodes of all of the fuel plates and all of the coolant channels for one stripe of a fuel element. The stripes run the length of the fuel, from the bottom to the top. Power splits are calculated for each axial node of each plate to determine how much of the power goes out each face of the plate. By running STAT7 multiple times, full core analysis has been performed by analyzing the margin to ONB for each axial node of each stripe of each plate of each element in the core.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

FY16 ASME High Temperature Code Activities

One of the objectives of the ASME high temperature Code activities is to develop and validate both improvements and the basic features of Section III, Division 5, Subsection HB, Subpart B (HBB). The overall scope of this task is to develop a computer program to be used to assess whether or not a specific component under specified loading conditions will satisfy the elevated temperature design requirements for Class A components in Section III, Division 5, Subsection HB, Subpart B (HBB). There are many features and alternative paths of varying complexity in HBB. The initial focus of this task is a basic path through the various options for a single reference material, 316H stainless steel. However, the program will be structured for eventual incorporation all the features and permitted materials of HBB. Since this task has recently been initiated, this report focuses on the description of the initial path forward and an overall description of the approach to computer program development.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

The SAS4A/SASSYS-1 Safety Analysis Code System, Version 5

The SAS4A/SASSYS-1 computer code is developed by Argonne National Laboratory for thermal, hydraulic, and neutronic analysis of power and flow transients in liquidmetal- cooled nuclear reactors (LMRs). SAS4A was developed to analyze severe core disruption accidents with coolant boiling and fuel melting and relocation, initiated by a very low probability coincidence of an accident precursor and failure of one or more safety systems. SASSYS-1, originally developed to address loss-of-decay-heat-removal accidents, has evolved into a tool for margin assessment in design basis accident (DBA) analysis and for consequence assessment in beyond-design-basis accident (BDBA) analysis. SAS4A contains detailed, mechanistic models of transient thermal, hydraulic, neutronic, and mechanical phenomena to describe the response of the reactor core, its coolant, fuel elements, and structural members to accident conditions. The core channel models in SAS4A provide the capability to analyze the initial phase of core disruptive accidents, through coolant heat-up and boiling, fuel element failure, and fuel melting and relocation. Originally developed to analyze oxide fuel clad with stainless steel, the models in SAS4A have been extended and specialized to metallic fuel with advanced alloy cladding. SASSYS-1 provides the capability to perform a detailed thermal/hydraulic simulation of the primary and secondary sodium coolant circuits and the balance-ofplant steam/water circuit. These sodium and steam circuit models include component models for heat exchangers, pumps, valves, turbines, and condensers, and thermal/hydraulic models of pipes and plena. SASSYS-1 also contains a plant protection and control system modeling capability, which provides digital representations of reactor, pump, and valve controllers and their response to input signal changes.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Enhancements to the RAVEN code in FY16

The RAVEN code has been under development at the Idaho National Laboratory since 2012. Its main goal is to create a multi-purpose platform for the deploying of all the capabilities needed for Probabilistic Risk Assessment, uncertainty quantification, data mining analysis and optimization studies. RAVEN has currently reached a good level of maturity in terms of deployed state-of-art and advanced capabilities. The main subject of this report is to show the activities that have been recently accomplished: • Implementation of ensemble modeling for time-series, and • initial implementation of model validation for surrogate models, and • advanced visualization capability for topology based data analysis The development of ensemble modeling for time-series has been performed in order to begin tackling the needs of those RISMC applications that need to communicate 1-Dimensional information (e.g. power histories, etc.) among different models. In this document the implementation details and an application example is reported. The second subject of this report is about the initial development of methods, within the RAVEN framework, to assess the validity of the predictive capabilities of surrogate models. Indeed, after the construction of a surrogate tight to a certain physical model, it is crucial to assess the goodness of its representation, in order to be confident with its prediction. In this initial activity, a cross-validation technique has been employed. This report will highlight the implementation details and proof its correct implementation by an application example. The final subject of this report is about the implementation of advanced visualization capability in RAVEN, for interactive data analysis. Indeed, RAVEN offers several post-processing capabilities that can structurally decompose data extracted from experimental results offering both data clustering/partitioning and dimensionality reduction techniques. A disadvantage of the workflow available in RAVEN is that it treats these as black box operations and the user is expected to know specific information about their data including the number of partitions to expect in some cases or the “correct” parameter settings for a particular algorithm. In order to overcome this limitation, it has been added an interactive user interface that can be run in RAVEN to explore different parameter settings on the fly specifically for the topological post-processor and allows the user to explore the data interactively. The design of this user interface is generalizable to other algorithms and can be used as a model to generate more dynamic and user-friendly visualization capabilities within RAVEN.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗