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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 1,747 records · Page 97
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Alfalfa Virtual Building Service: Software Engineering Best Practices Applied to Runtime Interaction with Building Energy Models

Buildings are active participants in increasingly complex energy systems. Building Energy Modeling (BEM) has a key role to play in planning and de-risking an equitable energy transition, with BEM-backed "virtual buildings" critical path for diverse applications that include workforce training tools, Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) experimentation to study equipment performance under a range of conditions, Control-Hardware-in-the-Loop (CHIL) experimentation to de-risk commercial control implementations at equipment through grid orchestration levels, and integration of dynamic load profiles into grid modeling tools for energy system experimentation at the urban scale. Modeling requirements vary across these applications, but many software engineering tasks do not. The Alfalfa Virtual Building Service (AVBS, see https://github.com/NREL/alfalfa/wiki) is an open-source web service that solves these common tasks robustly in one place, providing a foundational platform for power users to bootstrap their own applications. AVBS abstracts the specifics of runtime interaction with OpenStudio, Modelica, and Spawn of EnergyPlus models behind a unified REST API. Additionally, AVBS provides resources for cloud deployment and scaling to 100s of parallel simulations, a growing library of modular Operational Technology (OT) integrations for emulation of real-world interfaces, and scripts to automate the population of communities of virtual buildings from URBANopt, ResStock and ComStock.

building automation↗
DOE OSTI2021

FTK: A Simplicial Spacetime Meshing Framework for Robust and Scalable Feature Tracking

In this work, we present the Feature Tracking Kit (FTK), a framework that simplifies, scales, and delivers various feature-tracking algorithms for scientific data. The key of FTK is our simplicial spacetime meshing scheme that generalizes both regular and unstructured spatial meshes to spacetime while tessellating spacetime mesh elements into simplices. The benefits of using simplicial spacetime meshes include (1) reducing ambiguity cases for feature extraction and tracking, (2) simplifying the handling of degeneracies using symbolic perturbations, and (3) enabling scalable and parallel processing. The use of simplicial spacetime meshing simplifies and improves the implementation of several feature-tracking algorithms for critical points, quantum vortices, and isosurfaces. As a software framework, FTK provides end users with VTK/ParaView filters, Python bindings, a command line interface, and programming interfaces for feature-tracking applications. We demonstrate use cases as well as scalability studies through both synthetic data and scientific applications including tokamak, fluid dynamics, and superconductivity simulations. We also conduct end-to-end performance studies on the Summit supercomputer. FTK is open sourced under the MIT license: https://github.com/hguo/ftk.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS1975

Experimental and analytical investigation of 0 G condensation in a mechanical refrigeration system application

Basic equations of momentum and energy are presented and discussed with respect to heat transfer and pressure drop for forced flow condensation in horizontal tubes under 1-g and 0-g conditions. Some experimental results are presented for condensing refrigerant-12 in a system of three parallel-connected quartz tubes (3-mm inside diameter, G = 1.037 to 3.456 x 105 lbm/hr-sq. ft). From high speed photographs, measurements were obtained of film thickness, phase velocities, disturbance wavelengths, and flow regimes and their transitions. Based upon these measurements various dimensionless force ratios (flow and instability parameters) were calculated. Under 0-g conditions a uniformly thick redistribution of liquid condensate about the tube walls was found to result in a lowered heat transfer coefficient as compared with 1-g conditions, based upon fundamental heat transfer theory. A model is proposed that takes into account the difference in heat transfer due to condensate distribution under 1-g and 0-g conditions.

Keshock, E. G.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Research on design feasibility of high-power light-weight dc-to-dc converters for space power applications

Utilizing knowledge gained from past experience with experimental current-or-voltage step-up dc-to-dc converter power stages operating at output powers up to and in excess of 2 kW, a new experimental current-or-voltage step-up power stage using paralleled bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) as the controlled power switch, was constructed during the current reporting period. The major motivation behind the construction of this new experimental power stage was to improve the circuit layout so as to reduce the effects of stray circuit parasitic inductances resulting from excess circuit lead lengths and circuit loops, and to take advantage of the layout improvements which could be made when some recently-available power components, particularly power diodes and polypropylene filter capacitors, were incorporated into the design.

Wilson, T. G.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Coherent Doppler Laser Radar: Technology Development and Applications

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has been investigating, developing, and applying coherent Doppler laser radar technology for over 30 years. These efforts have included the first wind measurement in 1967, the first airborne flights in 1972, the first airborne wind field mapping in 1981, and the first measurement of hurricane eyewall winds in 1998. A parallel effort at MSFC since 1982 has been the study, modeling and technology development for a space-based global wind measurement system. These endeavors to date have resulted in compact, robust, eyesafe lidars at 2 micron wavelength based on solid-state laser technology; in a factor of 6 volume reduction in near diffraction limited, space-qualifiable telescopes; in sophisticated airborne scanners with full platform motion subtraction; in local oscillator lasers capable of rapid tuning of 25 GHz for removal of relative laser radar to target velocities over a 25 km/s range; in performance prediction theory and simulations that have been validated experimentally; and in extensive field campaign experience. We have also begun efforts to dramatically improve the fundamental photon efficiency of the laser radar, to demonstrate advanced lower mass laser radar telescopes and scanners; to develop laser and laser radar system alignment maintenance technologies; and to greatly improve the electrical efficiency, cooling technique, and robustness of the pulsed laser. This coherent Doppler laser radar technology is suitable for high resolution, high accuracy wind mapping; for aerosol and cloud measurement; for Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) measurements of atmospheric and trace gases; for hard target range and velocity measurement; and for hard target vibration spectra measurement. It is also suitable for a number of aircraft operations applications such as clear air turbulence (CAT) detection; dangerous wind shear (microburst) detection; airspeed, angle of attack, and sideslip measurement; and fuel savings through headwind minimization. In addition to the airborne and space platforms, a coherent Doppler laser radar system in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) could provide battlefield weather and target identification.

Kavaya, Michael J.↗
NASA NTRS2013

SequenceL: Automated Parallel Algorithms Derived from CSP-NT Computational Laws

With the introduction of new parallel architectures like the cell and multicore chips from IBM, Intel, AMD, and ARM, as well as the petascale processing available for highend computing, a larger number of programmers will need to write parallel codes. Adding the parallel control structure to the sequence, selection, and iterative control constructs increases the complexity of code development, which often results in increased development costs and decreased reliability. SequenceL is a high-level programming language that is, a programming language that is closer to a human s way of thinking than to a machine s. Historically, high-level languages have resulted in decreased development costs and increased reliability, at the expense of performance. In recent applications at JSC and in industry, SequenceL has demonstrated the usual advantages of high-level programming in terms of low cost and high reliability. SequenceL programs, however, have run at speeds typically comparable with, and in many cases faster than, their counterparts written in C and C++ when run on single-core processors. Moreover, SequenceL is able to generate parallel executables automatically for multicore hardware, gaining parallel speedups without any extra effort from the programmer beyond what is required to write the sequen tial/singlecore code. A SequenceL-to-C++ translator has been developed that automatically renders readable multithreaded C++ from a combination of a SequenceL program and sample data input. The SequenceL language is based on two fundamental computational laws, Consume-Simplify- Produce (CSP) and Normalize-Trans - pose (NT), which enable it to automate the creation of parallel algorithms from high-level code that has no annotations of parallelism whatsoever. In our anecdotal experience, SequenceL development has been in every case less costly than development of the same algorithm in sequential (that is, single-core, single process) C or C++, and an order of magnitude less costly than development of comparable parallel code. Moreover, SequenceL not only automatically parallelizes the code, but since it is based on CSP-NT, it is provably race free, thus eliminating the largest quality challenge the parallelized software developer faces.

Cooke, Daniel↗
DOE OSTI2020

Advancement of Commercial Intumescent Expanding Foams for Deactivation and Decommissioning in the Nuclear Sector - 20198

Florida International University (FIU), in collaboration with The Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM), Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), and sites across the Savannah River complex, have identified an operational requirement for a fixative technology that is intended to immobilize and/or isolate residual contamination within a 3-dimensional space. Fixation of radiological contamination can reduce worker risk and mitigate potentially hazardous conditions, however nearly every marketed contamination fixative has been found to be flammable; a significant concern in radiological facilities. Coupled with this, industry fixatives are normally used as a thin coating which can present problems when attempting to stabilize irregular geometry or areas that are difficult to access whilst ensuring full coverage. The technical evaluation and advancement of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) polyurethane foams has yielded a down-selected candidate that shows potential in meeting the requirements to support deactivation and decommissioning activities. Several performance criteria have been established and tested to progress the technology readiness level towards an active field demonstration (TRL-7). Such criteria include: mechanical failure limits, adhesive and cohesive properties, thermal/fire resilience, determining thermal behavior, ability to immobilize contamination, and a means of non-destructive evaluation of applications. The test scenario examined was targeted towards an application for decommissioning nuclear pipework, in which the down-selected polyurethane foam would act as a barrier to segregate pipework and mitigate the potential for release during cutting, packaging, and storage operations. Testing carried out at SRNL included: mechanical evaluation of tensile, compressive, and adhesion strength by dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), as well as thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). FIU examined the foam's fixative properties by utilizing phosphorescent europium-dysprosium doped strontium aluminate powder to investigating the extent to which contamination can be immobilized. FIU has also exploited previous successes in the field of intumescent technologies to assess the down-selected foam's tolerance to an extreme fire scenario, while maintaining the ability to effectively mitigate a contamination release. Parallel to this, extensive thermal investigations were carried out to determine the upper boundary of anticipated heat generation during the curing process as heat generation has the potential to compromise rubber parts of contaminated enclosures. These investigations subsequently yielded a promising method for a non-destructive application evaluation by means of infrared thermography. Utilizing the high sensitivity of modern IR cameras, coupled with the heat generated during the curing process of the polyurethane foam, FIU has been exploring the concept of monitoring the external pipe surface for indications of an irregular or abnormal application, thus informing operational decision making. The testing carried out utilized several current 'best fit' ASTM standards, which serve as helpful guidelines for testing, however, a precise definition of the operational parameters and requirements is still necessary. With continued collaboration with SRNL, FIU aims refine said definitions and develop new standards by which this, and other decommissioning technologies, can be accredited by relevant standards based testing. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2024

Wire arc additive manufactured A36 steel performance for marine renewable energy systems

Additive manufacturing has established itself to be advantageous beyond small-scale prototyping, now supporting full-scale production of components for a variety of applications. Despite its integration across industries, marine renewable energy technology is one largely untapped application with potential to bolster clean energy production on the global scale. Wave energy converters (WEC) are one specific facet within this realm that could benefit from AM. As such, wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) has been identified as a practical method to produce larger scale marine energy components by leveraging cost-effective and readily available A36 steel feedstock material. The flexibility associated with WAAM can benefit production of WEC by producing more complex structural geometries that are challenging to produce traditionally. Additionally, for large components where fine details are less critical, the high deposition rate of WAAM in comparison to traditional wrought techniques could reduce build times by an order of magnitude. In this context of building and supporting WEC, which experience harsh marine environments, an understanding of performance under large loads and corrosive environments must be understood. Hence, WAAM and wrought A36 steel tensile samples were manufactured, and mechanical properties compared under both dry and corroded conditions. Here, the unique microstructure created via the WAAM process was found to directly correlate to the increased ultimate tensile and yield strength compared to the wrought condition. Static corrosion testing in a simulated saltwater environment in parallel with electrochemical testing highlighted an outperformance of corroded WAAM A36 steel than wrought, despite having a slighter higher corrosion rate. Ultimately, this study shows how marine energy systems may benefit from additive manufacturing components and provides a foundation for future applications of WAAM A36 steel.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Robustness of Deep Learning Classification to Adversarial Input on GPUs: Asynchronous Parallel Accumulation Is a Source of Vulnerability

The ability of machine learning (ML) classification models to resist small, targeted input perturbations—known as adversarial attacks—is a key measure of their safety and reliability. We show that floating-point non associativity (FPNA) coupled with asynchronous parallel programming on GPUs is sufficient to result in misclassification, without any perturbation to the input. Additionally, we show that this misclassification is particularly significant for inputs close to the decision boundary and that standard adversarial robustness results may be overestimated up to 4.6 when not considering machine-level details. We first study a linear classifier, before focusing on standard Graph Neural Network (GNN) architectures and datasets used in robustness assessments. We develop a novel black-box attack using Bayesian optimization to discover external workloads that can change the instruction scheduling which bias the output of reductions on GPUs and reliably lead to misclassification. Motivated by these results, we present a new learnable permutation (LP) gradient-based approach to learning floating-point operation orderings that lead to misclassifications. The LP approach provides a worst-case estimate in a computationally efficient manner, avoiding the need to run identical experiments tens of thousands of times over a potentially large set of possible GPU states or architectures. Finally, using instrumentation-based testing, we investigate parallel reduction ordering across different GPU architectures under external background workloads, when utilizing multi-GPU virtualization, and when applying power capping. Our results demonstrate that parallel reduction ordering varies significantly across architectures under the first two conditions, substantially increasing the search space required to fully test the effects of this parallel scheduler-based vulnerability. These results and the methods developed here can help to include machine-level considerations into adversarial robustness assessments, which can make a difference in safety and mission critical applications.

Shanmugavelu, Sanjif [Maxeler Technologies, a Groq↗
DOE OSTI2020

A Sparse Tensor Benchmark Suite for CPUs and GPUs

Tensor computations present significant performance chal- lenges that impact a wide spectrum of applications ranging from machine learning, healthcare analytics, social network analysis, data mining to quantum chemistry and signal processing. Efforts to improve the perfor- mance of tensor computations include exploring data layout, execution scheduling, and parallelism in common tensor kernels. This work presents a benchmark suite for arbitrary-order sparse tensor kernels using state- of-the-art tensor formats: coordinate (COO) and hierarchical coordinate (HiCOO) on CPUs and GPUs. It presents a set of reference tensor kernel implementations that are compatible with real-world tensors and power law tensors extended from synthetic graph generation techniques. We also propose Roofline performance models for these kernels to provide insights of computer platforms from sparse tensor view. This benchmark suite along with the synthetic tensor generator is publicly available.

Li, Jiajia↗
NASA NTRS1975

Steering law for parallel mounted double-gimbaled control moment gyros

Parallel mounting of double-gimbaled control moment gyros (DG CMG) is discussed in terms of simplification of the steering law. The steering law/parallel mounted DG CMG is considered to be a 'CMG kit' applicable to any space vehicle where the need for DG CMG's has been established.

Kennel, H. F.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Magnetic properties of superconducting GdBa2Cu3O(6 + delta) at low temperature and high field

The magnetization of antiferromagnetic superconducting GdBa2Cu3O(6 + delta) has been measured for T in the range of 1.5 - 4.2 K for magnetic fields up to about 20 T. It is found that all Gd(3+) spins are nearly parallel at very high fields, and that this saturated spin subsystem coexists with superconductivity. Below the Neel temperature, 2.22 K, the transition from the 'canted' phase to the paramagnetic phase is observed by the application of a high magnetic field. The temperature dependence of this phase transition is also reported.

Huang, C. Y.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Domain decomposition methods in computational fluid dynamics

The divide-and-conquer paradigm of iterative domain decomposition, or substructuring, has become a practical tool in computational fluid dynamic applications because of its flexibility in accommodating adaptive refinement through locally uniform (or quasi-uniform) grids, its ability to exploit multiple discretizations of the operator equations, and the modular pathway it provides towards parallelism. These features are illustrated on the classic model problem of flow over a backstep using Newton's method as the nonlinear iteration. Multiple discretizations (second-order in the operator and first-order in the preconditioner) and locally uniform mesh refinement pay dividends separately, and they can be combined synergistically. Sample performance results are included from an Intel iPSC/860 hypercube implementation.

Gropp, William D.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Domain decomposition methods in computational fluid dynamics

The divide-and-conquer paradigm of iterative domain decomposition, or substructuring, has become a practical tool in computational fluid dynamic applications because of its flexibility in accommodating adaptive refinement through locally uniform (or quasi-uniform) grids, its ability to exploit multiple discretizations of the operator equations, and the modular pathway it provides towards parallelism. These features are illustrated on the classic model problem of flow over a backstep using Newton's method as the nonlinear iteration. Multiple discretizations (second-order in the operator and first-order in the preconditioner) and locally uniform mesh refinement pay dividends separately, and they can be combined synergistically. Sample performance results are included from an Intel iPSC/860 hypercube implementation.

Gropp, William D.↗
NASA NTRS1994

SODR Memory Control Buffer Control ASIC

The Spacecraft Optical Disk Recorder (SODR) is a state of the art mass storage system for future NASA missions requiring high transmission rates and a large capacity storage system. This report covers the design and development of an SODR memory buffer control applications specific integrated circuit (ASIC). The memory buffer control ASIC has two primary functions: (1) buffering data to prevent loss of data during disk access times, (2) converting data formats from a high performance parallel interface format to a small computer systems interface format. Ten 144 p in, 50 MHz CMOS ASIC's were designed, fabricated and tested to implement the memory buffer control function.

Hodson, Robert F.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Broadband Venetian-Blind Polarizer With Dual Vanes

Improved venetian-blind polarizer features optimized tandem, two-layer vane configuration reducing undesired reflections and deformation of radiation pattern below those of prior single-layer vane configuration. Consists of number of thin, parallel metal strips placed in path of propagating radio-frequency beam. Offers simple way to convert polarization from linear to circular or from circular to linear. Particularly useful for beam-wave-guide applications.

Conroy, Bruce L.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Materials Science Experiments Under Microgravity - A Review of History, Facilities, and Future Opportunities

Materials science experiments have been a key issue already since the early days of research under microgravity conditions. A microgravity environment facilitates processing of metallic and semiconductor melts without buoyancy driven convection and sedimentation. Hence, crystal growth of semiconductors, solidification of metallic alloys, and the measurement of thermo-physical parameters are the major applications in the field of materials science making use of these dedicated conditions in space. In the last three decades a large number of successful experiments have been performed, mainly in international collaborations. In parallel, the development of high-performance research facilities and the technological upgrade of diagnostic and stimuli elements have also contributed to providing optimum conditions to perform such experiments. A review of the history of materials science experiments in space focussing on the development of research facilities is given. Furthermore, current opportunities to perform such experiments onboard ISS are described and potential future options are outlined.

Stenzel, Ch.↗