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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 19 records

Field evaluation of semi‐automated moisture estimation from geophysics using machine learning

Geophysical methods can provide three-dimensional (3D), spatially continuous estimates of soil moisture. However, point-to-point comparisons of geophysical properties to measure soil moisture data are frequently unsatisfactory, resulting in geophysics being used for qualitative purposes only. This is because (1) geophysics requires models that relate geophysical signals to soil moisture, (2) geophysical methods have potential uncertainties resulting from smoothing and artifacts introduced from processing and inversion, and (3) results from multiple geophysical methods are not easily combined within a single soil moisture estimation framework. To investigate these potential limitations, an irrigation experiment was performed wherein soil moisture was monitored through time, and several surface geophysical datasets indirectly sensitive to soil moisture were collected before and after irrigation: ground penetrating radar, electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), and frequency domain electromagnetics (FDEM). Data were exported in both raw and processed form, and then snapped to a common 3D grid to facilitate moisture prediction by standard calibration techniques, multivariate regression, and machine learning. A combination of inverted ERT data, raw FDEM, and inverted FDEM data was most informative for predicting soil moisture using a random regression forest model (one-thousand 60/40 training/test cross-validation folds produced root mean squared errors ranging from 0.025–0.046 cm 3 /cm 3 ). This cross-validated model was further supported by a separate evaluation using a test set from a physically separate portion of the study area. Machine learning was conducive to a semi-automated model-selection process that could be used for other sites and datasets to locally improve accuracy.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Extending OpenSHMEM with Aggregation Support for Improved Message Rate Performance

OpenSHMEM is a highly efficient one-sided communication API that implements the PGAS parallel programming model, and is known for its low latency communication operations that can be mapped efficiently to RDMA capabilities of network interconnects. However, applications that use OpenSHMEM can be sensitive to point-to-point message rates, as many-to-many communication patterns can generate large amounts of small messages which tend to overwhelm network hardware that has predominantly been optimised for bandwidth over message rate. Additionally, many important emerging classes of problems such as data analytics are similarly troublesome for the irregular access patterns they employ. Message aggregation strategies have been proven to significantly enhance network performance, but their implementation often involves complex restructuring of user code, making them unwieldy. This paper shows how to combine the best qualities of message aggregation within the communication model of OpenSHMEM such that applications with small and irregular access patterns can improve network performance while maintaining their algorithmic simplicity. We do this by providing a path to a message aggregation framework called conveyors through a minimally intrusive OpenSHMEM extension introducing aggregation contexts that fit more naturally to the OpenSHMEM atomics, gets, and puts model. We test these extensions using four of the bale 3.0 applications which contain essential many-to-many access patterns to show how they can produce performance improvements of up to 65×.

Welch, Aaron↗

A priori analysis on deep learning of subgrid-scale parameterizations for Kraichnan turbulence

In the present study, we investigate different data-driven parameterizations for large eddy simulation of two-dimensional turbulence in the a priori settings. These models utilize resolved flow field variables on the coarser grid to estimate the subgrid-scale stresses. We use data-driven closure models based on localized learning that employs a multilayer feedforward artificial neural network with point-to-point mapping and neighboring stencil data mapping, and convolutional neural network fed by data snapshots of the whole domain. The performance of these data-driven closure models is measured through a probability density function and is compared with the dynamic Smagorinksy model (DSM). The quantitative performance is evaluated using the cross-correlation coefficient between the true and predicted stresses. We analyze different frameworks in terms of the amount of training data, selection of input and output features, their characteristics in modeling with accuracy, and training and deployment computational time. We also demonstrate computational gain that can be achieved using the intelligent eddy viscosity model that learns eddy viscosity computed by the DSM instead of subgrid-scale stresses. Here, we detail the hyperparameters optimization of these models using the grid search algorithm.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Four-dimensional microstructurally small fatigue crack growth in cyclically loaded nickel superalloy specimen

Here, we nondestructively image a low-solvus high refractory (LSHR) nickel base specimen microstructure during cyclic loading to characterize crack propagation during the microstructurally small crack (MSC) growth regime. Micro-computed tomography (uCT) is used to characterize the material density and identify crack interfaces, while high-energy diffraction microscopy (HEDM) provides snapshots of the microstructural orientation field changes. From these measurements, data are computationally reconstructed and coregistered to describe the specimen’s configuration before load, before crack nucleation, and throughout the crack propagation/loading process. An MSC forms at a FIB-cut notch, which was previously placed to concentrate stress at the center of the specimen gauge, and propagates along a facet parallel to the local {1 1 1} crystallographic plane. Analysis of available crystallographic slip directions and measured point-to-point disorientation axes indicate probable single and coplanar slip activity along FCC octahedral planes within this region. Similar analyses of other crack propagation facets reveal generally slower growth along directions favoring zig-zag cross and codirectional cross slip, which are often disfavored at room temperature.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A Fine-grained Asynchronous Bulk Synchronous parallelism model for PGAS applications

The Partitioned Global Address Space (PGAS) model is well suited for executing irregular applications on cluster-based systems, due to its efficient support for short, one-sided messages. Separately, the actor model has been gaining popularity as a productive asynchronous message-passing approach for distributed objects in enterprise and cloud computing platforms, typically implemented in languages such as Erlang, Scala or Rust. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no past work on using the actor model to deliver both productivity and scalability to irregular PGAS applications with large number of small messages. In this paper, we introduce a new programming system for PGAS applications, in which point-to-point remote operations can be expressed as fine-grained asynchronous actor messages. In our approach, the programmer does not need to worry about programming complexities related to message aggregation and termination detection. Our approach can be viewed as extending the classical Bulk Synchronous Parallelism model with fine-grained asynchronous communications within a phase or superstep. Here, we believe that our approach offers a desirable point in the productivity-performance space for PGAS applications, with more scalable performance and higher productivity relative to past approaches. Specifically, for seven irregular mini-applications from the Bale Kernels and three graph kernels executed using 2048 cores in the NERSC Cori system, our approach shows geometric mean performance improvements of ≥ 20X relative to standard PGAS versions (UPC and OpenSHMEM) while maintaining comparable productivity to those versions.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Towards a high-performance garnet-based solid-state Li metal battery: A perspective on recent advances

Garnet-based solid-state Li metal batteries have been widely considered one of the most promising next-generation energy storage systems. However, the performance of these batteries is plagued by various limitations caused by the solid-state electrolyte (SSE). The poor wetting of lithium on the garnet surface diminishes the contact between the anode and electrolyte, leading to extremely high anode interfacial resistance. Similarly, the point-to-point contact between the cathode and electrolyte leads to high impedance on the cathode side. Moreover, although the SSE serves a firm barrier separating the anode and cathode, lithium dendrites can still grow through, causing a short circuit. Lastly, the solid/solid interface cannot be well maintained under cycling at high current density and capacity. Recently, remarkable progress has been achieved in garnet electrolyte to resolve these problems towards the aim of a high-performance solid-state Li metal battery. In this perspective, we highlight various recent advances in the field of garnet-based solid-state battery, including improving the anode/electrolyte interface, lithium dendrite detection, reducing cathode impedance, and electrolyte architecture design.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Improving magnitude and phase comparison metrics for frequency response functions using cross-correlation and log-frequency shifting

This paper provides a new method for matching dominant features of Frequency Response Functions (FRFs). In particular, this paper proposes a slicing and shifting method where the key features (in this case, resonant amplitudes) of a baseline FRF are compared with a similar FRF using cross-correlation and a Log-Frequency Shift (LFS). Here, the goal is to provide an alternative to classic point-to-point methods for FRF comparison and instead to match the dominant features of two FRFs in a way similar to visual inspection. This enables existing FRF comparison metrics to then be applied with greater fidelity. Additionally, this paper introduces the Phase Similarity Metric (PSM) for comparing phases of two FRFs and illustrates the improvement of using LFS for phase comparisons as well. This paper uses a cantilever beam experiment in multiple configurations to provide a benchmark case for FRF comparison improvements.

42 ENGINEERING↗

A dynamic, unified design for dedicated message matching engines for collective and point-to-point communications

The Message Passing Interface (MPI) libraries use message queues to guarantee correct message ordering between communicating processes. Message queues are in the critical path of MPI communications and thus, the performance of message queue operations can have significant impact on the performance of applications. Collective communications are widely used in MPI applications and they can have considerable impact on generating long message queues. In this paper, we propose a unified message matching mechanism that improves the message queue search time by distinguishing messages coming from point-to-point and collective communications and using a distinct message queue data structure for them. For collective operations, it dynamically profiles the impact of each collective call on message queues during the application runtime and uses this information to adapt the message queue data structure for each collective dynamically. Moreover, we use a partner/non-partner message queue data structure for the messages coming from point-to-point communications. The proposed approach can successfully reduce the queue search time while maintaining scalable memory consumption. The evaluation results show that we can obtain up to 5.5x runtime speedup for applications with long list traversals. Moreover, we can gain up to 15% and 94% queue search time improvement for all elements in applications with short and medium list traversals, respectively.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Characterizing the performance of node-aware strategies for irregular point-to-point communication on heterogeneous architectures

Supercomputer architectures are trending toward higher computational throughput due to the inclusion of heterogeneous compute nodes. These multi-GPU nodes increase on-node computational efficiency, while also increasing the amount of data to be communicated and the number of potential data flow paths. In this work, we characterize the performance of irregular point-to-point communication with MPI on heterogeneous compute environments through performance modeling, demonstrating the limitations of standard communication strategies for both device-aware and staging-through-host communication techniques. Presented models suggest staging communicated data through host processes then using node-aware communication strategies for high inter-node message counts. Notably, the models also predict that node-aware communication utilizing all available CPU cores to communicate inter-node data leads to the most performant strategy when communicating with a high number of nodes. Furthermore, model validation is provided via a case study of irregular point-to-point communication patterns in distributed sparse matrix–vector products. Importantly, we include a discussion on the implications model predictions have on communication strategy design for emerging supercomputer architectures.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Joint Optimization of Multimodal Transit Frequency and Shared Autonomous Vehicle Fleet Size with Hybrid Metaheuristic and Nonlinear Programming

Shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) bring competition to traditional transit services but redesigning multimodal transit network can utilize SAVs as feeders to enhance service efficiency and coverage. This paper presents an optimization framework for the joint multimodal transit frequency and SAV fleet size problem, a variant of the transit network frequency setting problem. The objective is to maximize total transit ridership (including SAV-fed trips and subtracting boarding rejections) across multiple time periods under budget constraints, considering endogenous mode choice (transit, point-to-point SAVs, driving) and route selection, while allowing for strategic route removal by setting frequencies to zero. Due to the problem’s non-linear, non-convex nature and the computational challenges of large-scale networks, we develop a hybrid solution approach that combines a metaheuristic approach (particle swarm optimization) with nonlinear programming for local solution refinement. To ensure computational tractability, the framework integrates analytical approximation models for SAV waiting times based on fleet utilization, multimodal network assignment for route choice, and multinomial logit mode choice behavior, bypassing the need for computationally intensive simulations within the main optimization loop. Applied to the Chicago metropolitan area’s multimodal network, our method illustrates a 33.3% increase in transit ridership through optimized transit route frequencies and SAV integration, particularly enhancing off-peak service accessibility and strategically reallocating resources.

Ng, Max↗

Determining the Conformation of Supported Complexes Using an 17 O TEDOR-like NMR Experiment

Dynamic nuclear polarization surface-enhanced nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has enabled the determination of the three-dimensional configuration of surface sites, in particular supported metal complexes of relevance to single-site heterogeneous catalysis. These approaches have chiefly leveraged the application of NMR double-resonance experiments that either reveal the complex conformation via point-to-point intramolecular distances between spin-labeled atoms or the complex-surface orientation via distances between the spins and the surface plane. Either method typically requires expensive isotope labeling and each reports on different structural features. The application of an experiment that simultaneously reveals both types of distances with chemical resolution would be ideal. Here, in this article, we describe an 17 O{ 1 H} pseudo-3D correlation experiment that achieves this goal. Specifically, Si–O–Si and Si–O–M oxygens are well-resolved by 17 O NMR; therefore, distances can be simultaneously measured radially, between Si– 17 O–M and the 1 H’s of the ligands, and vertically to the Si– 17 O–Si linkages of the silica support. We demonstrate the experiment using supported yttrium and zirconium complexes. Good agreement is obtained when comparing the experimental results to theoretical predictions from density functional theory calculations, highlighting the reliability of this relatively simple experiment.

alkyls↗

Grain Size Variations in the Murray Formation: Stratigraphic Evidence for Changing Depositional Environments in Gale Crater, Mars

The lowermost exposure of the Murray formation in Gale crater, Mars, was interpreted as sediment deposited in an ancient lake based on data collected by the Curiosity rover. Constraining the stratigraphic extent and duration of this environment has important implications for the paleohydrology of Gale. Insights into early Martian environments and paleofluid flow velocity can be obtained from grain size in rocks. Visual inspection of grain size is not always available for rocks investigated at field sites on Mars due to limited image coverage. But grain sizes can also be estimated from the Gini Index Mean Score, a grain-size proxy that uses point-to-point chemical variations in ChemCam Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy data. Here, new Gini Index Mean Score results indicate that the Murray formation is dominated by mudstones with grains smaller than the spatial resolution of all rover cameras. Intervals of fine to coarse sandstone also are present, some of which are verified using observations of grain size and sedimentary structures in associated images. Overall, results demonstrate that most of the Murray consists of mudstone, suggesting settling of grains from suspension in low energy depositional environments such as lakes. Some of the mudstones contain desiccation cracks indicating periods of drying with a lowering of lake water level. However, beds and lenses of cross-bedded sandstones are common at specific intervals, suggesting episodes of fluvial and possibly eolian deposition. The persistence of lacustrine deposits interspersed with fluvial deposits suggests that liquid water was sustained on the Martian surface for tens of thousands to millions of years.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Insights into interfacial effect and local lithium-ion transport in polycrystalline cathodes of solid-state batteries

Interfacial issues commonly exist in solid-state batteries, and the microstructural complexity combines with the chemical heterogeneity to govern the local interfacial chemistry. The conventional wisdom suggests that “point-to-point” ion diffusion at the interface determines the ion transport kinetics. Here, we show that solid-solid ion transport kinetics are not only impacted by the physical interfacial contact but are also closely associated with the interior local environments within polycrystalline particles. In spite of the initial discrete interfacial contact, solid-state batteries may still display homogeneous lithium-ion transportation owing to the chemical potential force to achieve an ionic-electronic equilibrium. Nevertheless, once the interior local environment within secondary particle is disrupted upon cycling, it triggers charge distribution from homogeneity to heterogeneity and leads to fast capacity fading. Our work highlights the importance of interior local environment within polycrystalline particles for electrochemical reactions in solid-state batteries and provides crucial insights into underlying mechanism in interfacial transport.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Observing flow of He II with unsupervised machine learning

Abstract Time dependent observations of point-to-point correlations of the velocity vector field (structure functions) are necessary to model and understand fluid flow around complex objects. Using thermal gradients, we observed fluid flow by recording fluorescence of $${\text{He}}_{2}^{*}$$ He 2 ∗ excimers produced by neutron capture throughout a ~ cm 3 volume. Because the photon emitted by an excited excimer is unlikely to be recorded by the camera, the techniques of particle tracking (PTV) and particle imaging (PIV) velocimetry cannot be applied to extract information from the fluorescence of individual excimers. Therefore, we applied an unsupervised machine learning algorithm to identify light from ensembles of excimers (clusters) and then tracked the centroids of the clusters using a particle displacement determination algorithm developed for PTV.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Automated Electric Vehicle Fleet Operations for On-Demand Service: Challenges and Opportunities

Automated/autonomous vehicle fleet operations within automated mobility districts have been studied over the past five years by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a US Department of Energy federally funded research and development center. This paper extends the analysis in this third phase of research underway to include considerations for electric vehicle operations and charging within a fleet of right-sized automated vehicles providing on-demand public mobility services. The current focus of research is on the operational complexities and associated challenges for automated/autonomous vehicles employing electric drivetrains and the resultant need for an efficient battery charging process while vehicles are operating in an "on-demand" mode of service. The blossoming of microtransit with shared-ride and point-to-point dispatching of each vehicle instills complex operations, with multiple mobility-on-demand transit operating sites being deployed, studied, and analyzed across North America. As a starting point, the authors' experience over the past 20 years with the analysis of automated transit network systems operating on and within dedicated and protected transitways provides initial insights into the system-level operational implications for maintaining a sufficient battery charge for a fleet of automated vehicles. Lessons learned through the prior analyses of automated transit network systems operating in on-demand service are identified, along with the capital cost implications for the requisite operating fleet size and charging station infrastructure for various approaches. These costs are summarized in juxtaposition with the benefits of realizing the higher goals of reducing environmental impacts and energy use within automated mobility districts as automated/autonomous vehicle technology matures. Finally, the discussion addresses key aspects of battery-electric propulsion for managed fleets in fully automated operation that will be studied as the third phase of research continues.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

100 Gb/s High Throughput Serial Protocol (HTSP) for data acquisition systems with interleaved streaming

Demands on Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) data transport have been increasing over the years as frame sizes and refresh rates increase. As the bandwidths requirements increase the ability to implement data transport protocol layers using "soft" programmable logic becomes harder and start to require harden IP blocks implementation. To reduce the number of physical links and interconnects, it is common for data acquisition systems to require interleaving of streams on the same link (e.g. streaming data and streaming register access). Further, this paper presents a way to leverage existing FPGA harden IP blocks to achieve a robust, low latency 100 Gb/s point-to-point link with minimal programmable logic overhead geared towards the needs of data acquisition systems with interleaved streaming requirements.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Less than the sum of its parts: the dust-corrected H α luminosity of star-forming galaxies explored at different spatial resolutions with MaNGA and MUSE

ABSTRACT The H α and H β emission-line luminosities measured in a single integrated spectrum are affected in non-trivial ways by point-to-point variations in dust attenuation in a galaxy. This work investigates the impact of this variation when estimating global H α luminosities corrected for the presence of dust by a global Balmer decrement. Analytical arguments show that the dust-corrected H α luminosity is always underestimated when using the global H α/H β flux ratio to correct for dust attenuation. We measure this effect on 156 face-on star-forming galaxies from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey. At 1–2 kpc spatial resolution, the effect is small but systematic, with the integrated dust-corrected H α luminosity underestimated by 2–4 per cent (and typically not more than by 10 per cent), and depends on the specific star formation rate of the galaxy. Given the spatial resolution of MaNGA, these are lower limits for the effect. From Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) observations of NGC 628 with a resolution of 36 pc, we find the discrepancy between the globally and the point-by-point dust-corrected H α luminosity to be 14 ± 1 per cent, which may still underestimate the true effect. We use toy models and simulations to show that the true difference depends strongly on the spatial variance of the H α/H β flux ratio, and on the slope of the relation between H αluminosity and dust attenuation within a galaxy. Larger samples of higher spatial resolution observations are required to quantify the dependence of this effect as a function of galaxy properties.

Vale Asari, N.↗

A MeerKAT-meets-LOFAR study of MS 1455.0 + 2232: a 590 kiloparsec ‘mini’-halo in a sloshing cool-core cluster

ABSTRACT Radio mini-haloes are poorly understood, moderately extended diffuse radio sources that trace the presence of magnetic fields and relativistic electrons on scales of hundreds of kiloparsecs, predominantly in relaxed clusters. With relatively few confirmed detections to-date, many questions remain unanswered. This paper presents new radio observations of the galaxy cluster MS 1455.0+2232 performed with MeerKAT (covering the frequency range 872−1712 MHz) and LOFAR (covering 120−168 MHz), the first results from a homogeneously selected mini-halo census. We find that this mini-halo extends for ∼590 kpc at 1283 MHz, significantly larger than previously believed, and has a flatter spectral index (α = −0.97 ± 0.05) than typically expected. Our X-ray analysis clearly reveals a large-scale (254 kpc) sloshing spiral in the intracluster medium. We perform a point-to-point analysis, finding a tight single correlation between radio and X-ray surface brightness with a super-linear slope of $b_{\rm 1283\, MHz} = 1.16^{+0.06}_{-0.07}$ and $b_{\rm 145\, MHz} = 1.15^{+0.09}_{-0.08}$; this indicates a strong link between the thermal and non-thermal components of the intracluster medium. Conversely, in the spectral index/X-ray surface brightness plane, we find that regions inside and outside the sloshing spiral follow different correlations. We find compelling evidence for multiple sub-components in this mini-halo for the first time. While both the turbulent (re-)acceleration and hadronic scenarios are able to explain some observed properties of the mini-halo in MS 1455.0+2232, neither scenario is able to account for all the evidence presented by our analysis.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗