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DOE OSTI2026

Molecular dynamics simulation of hydrodynamic transport coefficients in plasmas

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to calculate transport coefficients in a two-component plasma interacting through a repulsive Coulomb potential. The thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, electrothermal coefficient, thermoelectric coefficient, and shear viscosity are computed using the Green–Kubo formalism over a broad range of Coulomb coupling strength, 0.01 ≤ Γ ≤ 140. Emphasis is placed on testing standard results of the Chapman–Enskog solution in the weakly coupled regime (Γ ≪ 1) using these first-principles simulations. As expected, the results show good agreement for Γ ≲ 0.1. However, this agreement is only possible if careful attention is paid to the definitions of linear constitutive relations in each of the theoretical models, a point that is often overlooked. For example, the standard Green–Kubo expression for thermal conductivity is a linear combination of thermal conductivity, electrothermal, and thermoelectric coefficients computed in the Chapman–Enskog formalism. Meaningful results for electrical conductivity are obtained over the full range of coupling strengths explored, but it is shown that potential and virial components of the other transport coefficients diverge in the strongly coupled regime (Γ ≫ 1). In this regime, only the kinetic components of the transport coefficients are meaningful for a classical plasma.

Electrical conductivity↗

DOE OSTI2025

Review of recent WEC-Sim (v6.1) advanced features

WEC-Sim (Wave Energy Converter SIMulator) is an opensource software for modeling the motions, loads and power generation of wave energy converters. WEC-Sim performs simulations in the time domain using hydrodynamic coefficients calculated by boundary element method (BEM) frequency-domain potential flow solvers such as WAMIT, NEMOH, Capytaine, or Ansys AQWA. WEC-Sim development is ongoing, including various features, applications, and example cases used to demonstrate potential use-cases to meet the needs of the growing marine energy industry. Through input from a broad user base and an extensive team of developers and collaborators, new features of WEC-Sim are developed to expand the software’s use cases and improve overall functionality. Three new WEC-Sim features highlighted in this paper include updating WEC-Sim to be compatible with MoorDyn Version 2, incorporation of second order excitation loads (quadratic transfer functions) and allowing for dynamically changing hydrodynamics.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2025

OC7 Phase I Definition Document

The Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration 7 (OC7) project is organized under the International Energy Agency Wind Technology Collaboration Programme Task 56 with an objective to evaluate and enhance the predictive accuracy of engineering-level modeling tools used in the design of offshore wind energy systems. Phase I of OC7 is focused on improving the models and modeling practices of hydrodynamic viscous loads on floating offshore wind turbine platforms. In alignment with this goal, Work Package 1.1 of OC7 Phase I is formulated to investigate the modeling of hydrodynamic viscous loads on several different geometric components commonly encountered with floating offshore wind platform designs, including cylindrical columns, heave plates, and rectangular pontoons. Work Package 1.1 also explores the dependence of hydrodynamic coefficients on the sea state to drive toward practical guidance on how these coefficients can be selected or adjusted for different conditions. This report outlines the motivation and objectives behind each subphase of OC7 Phase I, along with the necessary technical specifications and load case definitions to guide the project participants. It also serves as an important part of the project documentation for future modelers who would like to reproduce this work or make use of the data and information generated from the OC7 project.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2025

Butterfly valve performance factors using the multiphysics object oriented simulation environment

Butterfly valves are typically used in nuclear reactors to control incompressible fluid flow with high inlet velocities. Performance factors for butterfly valves include the pressure drop across the valve and the loss coefficient from which hydrodynamic torque and flow coefficients can be computed. This work explores a computational fluid dynamics approach for butterfly valve performance factors using the open-source Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) framework. While MOOSE is often used in the nuclear energy modeling and simulation community for simulations ranging from fuel characterization to heat pipe simulation, this work employs the MOOSE open-source Navier–Stokes solver capability for simulating butterfly valve performance factors and compares those to experimentally measured results from the Advanced Test Reactor at Idaho National Laboratory at Reynolds numbers in the order of 10 6 for the partially opened configuration. The MOOSE framework results are compared against experimentally measured butterfly valve performance factors across five valve opening angles using meshes with order 10 4 – 10 5 elements. This validation serves to enable MOOSE-based multiphysics simulations incorporating the open-source Navier–Stokes module.

97 - MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2025

Optimal Control of an Oscillating Surge Wave Energy Converter

During this project, we experimentally investigated the hydrodynamics and performance of a laboratory-scale oscillating surge wave energy converter (OSWEC).We looked at how flap buoyancy and driveline losses (primarily in the form of stiction) affected the dynamics and performance of the device. In addition, we assessed the influence of flap profile (rounded vs. square edges) on OSWEC hydrodynamics. Through this, we were able to develop a deeper understanding of OSWEC performance and provide guidance on strategies to counteract artifacts that may be present in laboratory models, but are absent in field-scale devices. To do this, we tested a laboratory-scale OSWEC in the Sea Wave Environmental Lab (SWEL) wave tank at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). We ran several types of experiments to investigate the hydrodynamics and performance of the device. Overall, we achieved the overall goal of experimentally investigating the hydrodynamics and performance of this device. We discovered important and unexpected trends in performance, and collected time-resolved data to help us further investigate the underlying hydrodynamics responsible for these trends. In addition, we are currently using the time-resolved data from these experiments to build data-driven models of the dynamics, which can in turn be used to inform data-driven model predictive control of this device and address this objective in the future.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

DOE OSTI2024

Atomistic Simulations for Thermophysical Properties of Uranium-Containing Halide Molten Salts

Characterizing the thermophysical properties in both fuel and coolant salts are critical in modeling, developing, process optimizing and utilizing molten salt reactors (MSRs), as these properties directly relate to operation metrics and can inform on the selection of candidate salts. The demand for consistent, accurate and publicly available thermophysical property data has become more apparent in recent years as interests have increased from molten salt reactor developers. There are a number of challenges in experimentally measuring properties such as thermal conductivity, viscosity, density and heat capacity , which have led to sparse and often times conflicting data points or molten salts in general. Additionally, there are a number of hazards to consider when synthesizing, storing, using, treating and disposing of molten salts. With the advances in computational capabilities over the last 10 years, the use of atomistic simulations can be implemented to support these efforts. The primary objective of this work is characterize the thermophysical transport properties in a number of molten chloride salts, and in particular NaCl-UCl 3 using ab-initio molecular dynamic (AIMD) simulations. In this binary salt the UCl 3 acts as the primary fissile material and NaCl acts as a carrier salt due with its’ high solubility for actinides A number of studies on the thermophysical properties of NaCl-UCl 3 have been published but there is not a vast amount of viscosity data for this system. In 1975, Desyatnik, et al published a study reporting dynamic viscosities that were calculated from kinematic viscosity measurements, and using the coefficients provided the viscosity in a 70:30 NaCl:UCl 3 mixture is 2.29 cP and 2.88 for a 60:40 mixture. Termini et al. recently reported viscosities in the range of 2.75 – 3 cP for the 63:37 NaCl-UCl 3 mixture in the same temperature range using rolling ball viscosity measurements. Computational viscosity of a similar mixture (64:36) can be obtained from the work Andersson et al. using the reported diffusion coefficients, and the hydrodynamic radius from the pair-radial distribution functions (RDFs). Using Eq (1) (vida infra), the viscosity would be 2.50 cP at 1100K. This is not to say that these values are incorrect due to the varying reported values, but aims to highlight the necessity of this work. The data reported in this ongoing work are computations on a 64:36 mixture of NaCl-UCl 3 at 987K. This work is likely to be expanded into varying concentrations of this mixture along with the inclusion of other salt candidate mixtures.

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEA↗

DOE OSTI2024

ETHOS: An automated framework to generate multi-fidelity constitutive data tables and propagate uncertainties to hydrodynamic simulations

Accurate constitutive data, such as equations of state and plasma transport coefficients, are necessary for reliable hydrodynamic simulations of plasma systems such as fusion targets, planets, and stars. Here, we develop a framework for automatically generating transport-coefficient tables using a parameterized model that incorporates data from both high-fidelity sources (e.g., density functional theory calculations and reference experiments) and lower-fidelity sources (e.g., average-atom and analytic models). The framework incorporates uncertainties from these multi-fidelity sources, generating ensembles of optimally diverse tables that are suitable for uncertainty quantification of hydrodynamic simulations. We illustrate the utility of the framework with magnetohydrodynamic simulations of magnetically launched flyer plates, which are used to measure material properties in pulsed-power experiments. We explore how changes in the uncertainties assigned to the multi-fidelity data sources propagate to changes in simulation outputs and find that our simulations are most sensitive to uncertainties near the melting transition. The presented framework enables computationally efficient uncertainty quantification that readily incorporates new high-fidelity measurements or calculations and identifies plasma regimes where additional data will have high impact.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2026

OC7 phase I: CFD investigation of viscous forces on rectangular members of semisubmersibles

In Phase I of the Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration 7 (OC7) project, we aim to address key questions related to the modeling of viscous hydrodynamic loads on floating platforms. Here, this paper presents results from a collaborative effort within Phase I of the OC7 project. We investigate viscous forces acting on the rectangular members of semisubmersible platforms using high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The parametric CFD analyses include two-and-a-half-dimensional (2.5D) simulations of pontoon sections of two different semisubmersible platform designs (the VolturnUS-S and the INO WINDMOOR) and full three-dimensional (3D) structure simulations of the VolturnUS-S platform. We extract both the added mass and drag coefficients that are typically used in engineering-level hydrodynamic models from the 2.5D forced oscillation simulations with various Keulegan-Carpenter numbers and compare them to the coefficients from the 3D forced oscillation simulations. We observe consistent variation of the coefficients along the pontoon legs due to 3D platform and free-surface effects. With the breadth of the simulations and component-level detailed analyses, this work establishes a useful database and several empirical formulas for selecting hydrodynamic coefficients when modeling semisubmersible platforms in engineering tools.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2025

OC7 phase I: Toward practical sea-state-dependent modeling of hydrodynamic viscous drag and damping

Here, this article presents a collaborative research campaign under the OC7 project on refining the engineering modeling approach for hydrodynamic viscous drag and damping on floating wind platforms, focusing on the adjustment of hydrodynamic drag and damping coefficients for different sea states. The participant simulation results show significant improvements over the previous OC6 project in predicting the low-frequency resonance motion under nonoperational conditions. The improvements are mainly due to enhanced modeling, including the adoption of wave stretching, and directly tuning the coefficients to measured platform motion in waves instead of free decay. For accurate predictions of mean- and slow-drift motion, the better performing models use a decreasing column splash zone drag coefficient and increasing surge damping/drag with increasing wave height. The model tuning for heave and pitch resonance shows less consistency. Generally, both quadratic drag and additional heave or pitch damping are needed for accurate predictions. Alternatively, a quadratic drag formulation with velocity filtering for the rectangular pontoons leads to improved predictions without additional damping. This model is also potentially more predictive, requiring minimal adjustment to its parameters for different conditions.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2026

Mechanistic mass transfer in hollow fiber membrane solvent extraction for bio-based isobutanol

Membrane solvent extraction (MSE) has emerged as a promising method for selectively recovering bioproducts from complex aqueous streams. Bio-isobutanol, a next-generation feedstock for biofuel, remains challenging to recover because of its low concentration and the presence of inhibitory substances. This study explores the potential of hollow fiber (HF) MSE for bio-isobutanol recovery and systematically examines the coupled effects of fiber packing, shell-side flow dynamics, and aqueous chemistry on performance. A resistance-in-series model is applied to understand mass transfer in the HF MSE modules, quantify local resistances, and validate overall performance. The results show that increasing the fiber packing provides a larger interfacial area but induces poor flow distribution and channeling, hindering effective isobutanol transport. Meanwhile, increasing the shell-side velocity improves isobutanol recovery due to reductions in the boundary layer thickness. The presence of salts, added to mimic fermentation broth, increases the partition coefficient through salting-out effects, further improving isobutanol flux. A modified correlation for the shell-side mass transfer coefficient (k s,ϕ+v ), integrating geometric and hydrodynamic effects, was developed and validated. The proposed model achieves highly predictive accuracy (r 2 = 0.9808) across a wide range of conditions, outperforming previous models. The findings provide mechanistic insight into the interaction of geometric packing, hydrodynamics, and chemistry in governing mass transfer in HF MSE. Overall, this work demonstrates the potential of HF MSE for efficient bio-isobutanol recovery and also provides practical guidelines on critical factors (packing fraction, partition coefficient, and shell-side velocity), aiding in the design and scaling of MSE systems for resource recovery.

Aqueous chemistry↗

DOE OSTI2023

Impact of Limited Degree of Freedom Drag Coefficients on a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Simulation

The worldwide effort to design and commission floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT) is motivating the need for reliable numerical models that adequately represent their physical behavior under realistic sea states. However, properly representing the hydrodynamic quadratic damping for FOWT remains uncertain, because of its dependency on the choice of drag coefficients (dimensionless or not). It is hypothesized that the limited degree of freedom (DoF) drag coefficient formulation that uses only translational drag coefficients causes mischaracterization of the rotational DoF drag, leading to underestimation of FOWT global loads, such as tower base fore-aft shear. To address these hydrodynamic modeling uncertainties, different quadratic drag models implemented in the open-source mid-fidelity simulation tool, OpenFAST, were investigated and compared with the experimental data from the Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration, Continued, with Correlation (OC5) project. The tower base fore-aft shear and up-wave mooring line tension were compared under an irregular wave loading condition to demonstrate the effects of the different damping models. Two types of hydrodynamic quadratic drag formulations were considered: (1) member-based dimensionless drag coefficients applied only at the translational DoF (namely limited-DoF drag model) and (2) quadratic drag matrix model (in dimensional form). Based on the results, the former consistently underestimated the 95th percentile peak loads and spectral responses when compared to the OC5 experimental data. In contrast, the drag matrix models reduced errors in estimates of the tower base shear peak load by 7–10% compared to the limited-DoF drag model. The underestimation in the tower base fore-aft shear was thus inferred be related to mischaracterization of the rotational pitch drag and the heave motion/drag by the limited-DoF model.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2025

Critical fluid dynamics in two and three dimensions

We describe a numerical method for simulating stochastic fluid dynamics near a critical point in the Ising universality class. This theory is known as model H, and is expected to govern the nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) near a possible critical endpoint of the phase transition between a hadron liquid and the quark-gluon plasma. The numerical algorithm is based on a Metropolis scheme, and automatically ensures that the distribution function of the hydrodynamic variables in equilibrium is independent of the transport coefficients and only governed by the microscopic free energy. We verify dynamic scaling near the critical point of a two and three-dimensional fluid and extract the associated critical exponent z. Here, we find z≃3 in three dimensions, and z≃2 for a two-dimensional fluid. In a finite system, we observe a crossover between the mean field value z=4 and the true critical exponent z≃3 (z≃2 in d=2). This crossover is governed by the values of the correlation length and the renormalized shear viscosity.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2025

Simulation of a High-Confinement Tidal Energy Array (Abstract)

When the projected area of a current turbine array occupies a substantial fraction of a tidal or river channel cross-sectional area, the confinement associated with the channel boundaries substantially increases turbine efficiency. This effect can be exploited to substantially reduce the levelized cost of energy for current turbine arrays. However, the presence of such an array will affect inflow velocity, water depth, and circulation in the surrounding area. This has implications for array performance and environmental impacts. This project combines existing numerical modeling capability from PNNL with an understanding of confined array performance from UW. The work will 1) Simulate tidal currents and water surface elevation in a regional circulation model that includes the Knik Arm site at appropriate resolution; 2) Incorporate a varying thrust coefficient into this model that reflects the outcomes of tidal hydrodynamic simulations of confined turbine arrays; 3) Use the model to determine the effects of array operation on water levels and inflow conditions as a function of different blockage ratios and control strategies; and 4) Identify the “far field” environmental implications of operating an array of this type. UW will use the outputs from this model to evaluate the implications of “feedback effects” and variable inflow conditions on levelized cost of energy estimates for a confinement exploiting array of cross-flow turbines.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

DOE OSTI2026

Plasma hydrodynamics from mean force kinetic theory

Mean force kinetic theory is used to evaluate the electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, electrothermal coefficient, thermoelectric coefficient, and shear viscosity of a two-component plasma. The results are compared with molecular dynamics simulations. These simulations are made possible by assuming a repulsive Coulomb force for all interactions. Good agreement is found for all coefficients up to a Coulomb coupling strength of Γ ≈ 20. This is over 100-times larger than the coupling strength at which traditional theories break down. It is concluded that mean force kinetic theory is a promising framework for extending hydrodynamics to dense plasmas.

Electrical conductivity↗

DOE OSTI2026

Emergent viscous hydrodynamics from a single quantum particle

We investigate an explicit example of how spatial decoherence can lead to hydrodynamic behavior in the late-time, long-wavelength regime of open quantum systems. We focus on the case of a single nonrelativistic quantum particle linearly coupled to a thermal bath of noninteracting harmonic oscillators at temperature T , a la Caldeira and Leggett. Taking advantage of decoherence in the position representation, we expand the reduced density matrix in powers of the off-diagonal spatial components, so that high-order terms are suppressed at late times. Truncating the resulting power series at second order leads to a set of dissipative transient hydrodynamic equations similar to the nonrelativistic limit of equations widely used in simulations of the quark-gluon plasma formed in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. Transport coefficients are directly determined by the damping constant γ , which quantifies the influence of the environment. The asymptotic limit of our hydrodynamic equations reduces to the celebrated Navier-Stokes equations for a compressible fluid in the presence of a drag force. Furthermore, our results shed new light on the onset of hydrodynamic behavior in open quantum systems where a system with few degrees of freedom is coupled to a large thermal environment.

Hydrodynamics↗

DOE OSTI2025

Bayesian reconstruction of anisotropic flow fluctuations at fixed impact parameter

The cumulants of the distribution of anisotropic flow are measured accurately in Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC as a function of centrality classifiers (charged multiplicity and/or transverse energy). Using Bayesian inference, we reconstruct from these measurements the probability distribution of anisotropic flow in the ``theorists' frame'' where the impact parameter has a fixed magnitude and orientation, up to ∼70% centrality. The variation of flow fluctuations with impact parameter displays direct evidence of viscous damping, which is larger for higher Fourier harmonics, in line with expectations from hydrodynamics. We use intensive measures of non-Gaussian flow fluctuations, which have reduced dependence on centrality. Here, we infer from ATLAS data the magnitude of these intensive non-Gaussianities in each Fourier harmonic. They provide data-driven estimates of response coefficients to initial anisotropies, without resorting to any specific microscopic model of initial conditions. These estimates agree with viscous hydrodynamic calculations.

Bayesian methods↗

DOE OSTI2024

Near wake evolution of a tidal stream turbine due to asymmetric sheared turbulent inflow with different integral length scales

Tidal stream turbines deployed at highly energetic open water sites are subjected to sheared inflow in the rotor plane. The inflow shear is expected to cause asymmetric loading on the rotor blades and affect the downstream wake. In the current study, two different turbulent inflow conditions, static-high shear and dynamic shear, were generated via an active-grid turbulence generator. A 1:20 scaled three-bladed horizontal axis tidal turbine model was tested in those conditions. The results were compared to a quasi-laminar case with no imposed turbulence or shear. The results show that the high shear reduces the average performance, with a drop of up to 16% in the optimal power coefficient. Besides, the shear profiles increase torque fluctuations and induce significant differences in wake hydrodynamics between the high-speed (upper) and low-speed (lower) regions. The large integral length scales further enhance the load fluctuations perceived by the rotor but have a negligible effect on the mean wake field quantities and the wake recovery. The lower half region featured a faster breakdown of tip vortex structure and a rapid drop of swirl number, a phenomenon conjectured to be a consequence of the strong turbulence intensities and Reynolds stresses in the lower half region. Furthermore, the sheared turbulent inflow also results in a very intensive energy redistribution process towards large-scale, low-frequency motions, which is important to the downstream turbines.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

DOE OSTI2026

Hydrodynamic Modelling for Tidal Energy Kites: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-24-30123

The primary goal of the work is to improve accuracy of hydrodynamic loads acting on the lifting surface of the kite turbine due to complex air-water-lifting body interaction in a low-order numerical model using high-fidelity numerical input. The result of this study will help the Participant better design control algorithms for the kite turbine so that the turbine can harvest more energy while maintaining stability of the platform as well as its reliability. The use of hydrodynamic coefficients/load components from computational fluid dynamic simulation will inform better inputs for a medium-fidelity dynamic model (specifically an OrcaFlex model) which is intended for use in rapid design iterations in the design process.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗