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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
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

Testing for Controlled Rapid Pressurization

Borehole W1 is a NQ core hole drilled at our test site in Socorro. The rock is rhyolite. Borehole W1 which was used to test gas-gas explosive mixtures is 55 feet deep with casing (pinkish in the drawing) set to 35 feet. The model is a representation of the borehole and the holes we cored around the central borehole after the test. The brown colored core holes showed dye when we filled W1 with water and slightly pressurized it. This indicates there was some path between W1 and the colored core hole. The core holes are shown to their TD in the drawing. The green plane is a fracture plane which we believe is the result of the explosions of the gas mixture in W1. Data resource is a 2D .pdf Solid Works Drawing of borehole W1.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Two-step synthesis of few layer graphene using plasma etching and atmospheric pressure rapid thermal annealing

A two-step process using halogen based plasma etching combined with atmospheric pressure rapid thermal annealing has been used to synthesize few layer graphene films on 6H-SiC (0001) surfaces. In this process, the 6H-SiC substrates were etched under different plasma conditions to produce a carbon rich surface layer. This was followed by rapid thermal annealing in a flow of atmospheric pressure Ar to produce the graphene films. The effects of different etching conditions, heating rates, and average and maximum annealing temperatures were investigated. Changes in surface and near-surface composition after each step were characterized by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and overall film quality was assessed using Raman spectroscopy. Film defects associated with this synthesis method included a buffer layer between the SiC substrate and graphene as well as oxygen-based defects on the graphene surface. Electrical characterization of these films was performed using both two and four point methods. In the two point measurements, these films exhibited back-to-back Schottky behavior from which the Schottky barrier height, carrier density and mobility were determined. The four point measurements were used to determine the contact and film resistivity as well as the transfer length.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2015

Comparative Study of Barotrauma Risk during Fish Passage through Kaplan Turbines

Rapid pressure changes in hydroelectric turbine flows can cause barotrauma that can be hazardous to the passage of fish, in particular migratory juvenile salmonids. Although numerous laboratory tests have evaluated the effect of rapid decompression in fish species of relevance, numerical modeling studies offer the advantage of predicting, for new turbine designs, the potential risks of mortality and injury from rapid pressure change during turbine passage. However, rapid pressure change is only one of several hydraulic risks encountered by fish during turbine passage in addition to blade strike, shear, and turbulence. To better understand the role of rapid pressure changes, the present work focuses on the application of a computational fluid dynamics based method for evaluating the risk of pressure-related mortality to fish passing through an early 1960s era original hydroelectric Kaplan turbine at Wanapum Dam (Columbia River, Washington), and a modern advanced Kaplan turbine installed in 2005. The results show that the modeling approach acceptably reproduced the nadir pressure distributions compared to field data previously collected at the site using an autonomous sensor. Our findings show that the new advanced-design unit performs better, in terms of reduced barotrauma risk to fish from exposure to low pressures, than the original turbine unit. The outcomes allow for comparative analyses of turbine designs and operations prior to installation, an advantage that can potentially be integrated in the process of designing new turbine units to achieve superior environmental performance. Overall, the results show that modern turbine designs can achieve the multiple objectives of increasing power generation, lowering cavitation potential, and reducing barotrauma risks to passing fish.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Low Temperature Time-to-Explosion Experiments on HMX in the LLNL's ODTX/P-ODTX System (FY 2020 Annual Report)

Over the last few decades, there has been a considerable research effort on the thermal decomposition and thermal explosion violence of energetic materials at elevated temperatures in different sample geometries and confinements. Thermal explosion studies on various energetic materials in two-dimensional geometry such as the Scaled-Thermal-Explosion-Experiment (STEX) system and the Sandia-Instrumented-Thermal-Ignition (SITI) system have been reported. The One-Dimensional Time to Explosion (ODTX) system, designed and built by LLNL, has been used since 1970s for thermal explosion studies. The system is attractive because of the one-dimensional geometry and minimal sample requirement. With the recent integration of a pressure monitoring element, the system can study pressure behavior of materials subjected to and during thermal exposure. Rapid pressure monitoring in µsec intervals allow for enhanced pressure determination in the time right before thermal explosion. The test data can be used for the validation of existing thermal models, particularly for introducing pressure terms. This report summarizes the efforts in performing small-scale safety tests, particle size measurements and conducting 7 ODTX/P-ODTX experiments on the Cl5 HMX material that Hunting uses for oil field applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Electron Tomography of Cryo-Immobilized Plant Tissue: A Novel Approach to Studying 3D Macromolecular Architecture of Mature Plant Cell Walls In Situ

Cost-effective production of lignocellulosic biofuel requires efficient breakdown of cell walls present in plant biomass to retrieve the wall polysaccharides for fermentation. In-depth knowledge of plant cell wall composition is therefore essential for improving the fuel production process. The precise spatial three-dimensional (3D) organization of cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin and lignin within plant cell walls remains unclear to date since the microscopy techniques used so far have been limited to two-dimensional, topographic or low-resolution imaging, or required isolation or chemical extraction of the cell walls. In this paper we demonstrate that by cryo-immobilizing fresh tissue, then either cryo-sectioning or freeze-substituting and resin embedding, followed by cryo- or room temperature (RT) electron tomography, respectively, we can visualize previously unseen details of plant cell wall architecture in 3D, at macromolecular resolution (~2 nm), and in near-native state. Qualitative and quantitative analyses showed that wall organization of cryo-immobilized samples were preserved remarkably better than conventionally prepared samples that suffer substantial extraction. Lignin-less primary cell walls were well preserved in both self-pressurized rapidly frozen (SPRF), cryo-sectioned samples as well as high-pressure frozen, freeze-substituted and resin embedded (HPF-FS-resin) samples. Lignin-rich secondary cell walls appeared featureless in HPF-FS-resin sections presumably due to poor stain penetration, but their macromolecular features could be visualized in unprecedented details in our cryo-sections. While cryo-tomography of vitreous tissue sections is currently proving to be instrumental in developing 3D models of lignin-rich secondary cell walls, here we confirm that the technically easier method of RT-tomography of HPF-FS-resin sections could be used immediately for routine study of low-lignin cell walls. As a proof of principle, we characterized the primary cell walls of a mutant (cob-6) and wild type Arabidopsis hypocotyl parenchyma cells by RT-tomography of HPF-FS-resin sections, and detected a small but significant difference in spatial organization of cellulose microfibrils in the mutant walls.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Fast and Accurate Core Analysis by the Full-Immersion Pressure-Pulse Decay: Part 1—Theory

Summary Core-scale measurements are considered the ground truth that oil and gas or electric utility companies use to predict the migration of fluids such as oil, natural gas, carbon dioxide, or brine deep underground during their extraction or injection operations. To provide a greater understanding of petrophysical properties of low-permeability geologic formations such as shales and tight gas sandstones, this study introduces a novel core-analysis procedure. The technique follows conventional pressure-pulse-decay permeametry, where the pressure in an inlet chamber adjacent to a cylindrical core plug undergoes a rapid pressurization, the system is shut in, and the pressure reaches a new equilibrium. However, unlike a standard unidirectional pressure-pulse decay, the full-immersion pressure-pulse decay (Hannon 2019) applies a pressure disturbance to the entire outer surface area of the sample. This article covers the numerical simulator designed to model flow through an anisotropic porous sample in this scenario. The model assumes distinct but uniform permeabilities along the radial and axial directions of the cylindrical plug sample. When extracting a plug vertically (or perpendicular to bedding), the permeability along the radial direction associates with the horizontal permeability (i.e., parallel to bedding), whereas in the axial direction, flow occurs perpendicular to bedding (a vertical permeability). Investigations of these model outputs demonstrate an approximately 20-fold decrease in time to complete a full-immersion experiment compared with conventional pressure-pulse decay. Furthermore, the pressure-decay curves resulting from the full-immersion method have slightly different shapes than those resulting from other unidimensional transient methods. These differences begin to demonstrate that, under achievable experimental conditions, the analysis of pressure data from one full-immersion test could enable the simultaneous estimation of the apparent permeabilities parallel and perpendicular to bedding of a cylindrical sample in addition to its porosity. A follow-up article finalizes the proof of this capability with a parameter-estimation procedure and presents experimental verification through a proof-of-concept study. Described in greater detail in that article, the parameter estimator requires multiple forward simulations to analyze the data, which behooves minimizing the compute time for each simulation. By using an alternating direction implicit time-marching scheme and a structured but variably spaced grid, the numerical simulator built for this purpose provides a forward model output with suitable accuracy in approximately 0.5 seconds.

Energy & Fuels↗
DOE OSTI2020

Generation of shock trains in free liquid jets with a nanosecond green laser

Shock wave trains in liquid jets were previously generated only by ablation with femtosecond x-ray lasers. Here we show that shock trains in water microjets can be also generated using nanosecond green laser pulses with 1- to 10-mJ energy. Furthermore, the ablation of 15-, 20-, 30-, and 70-μm water microjets opened a gap in the jets and launched an initial shock wave. Fully developed shock trains were observed in the 30- and 70-μm jets up to 250-ns delays, and these trains were also transmitted inside the nozzles. A few tens of nanoseconds after the pulse, the shock dynamics and its pressure became similar to the ones generated by x-ray lasers, with a more rapid pressure decay in thinner jets. At time delays exceeding 100 ns in the 30-μm jets, the leading shock pressure stabilized to an approximately constant pressure of 40 MPa. The energy density deposited in the jets was estimated at 30 MJ/cm 3 by comparing the jet gaps in the green and x-ray laser experiments, and matched previous estimates for optical ablation in water. Here, the pressure decay in the 30-μm jets was modeled based on the pressure decay observed in x-ray laser experiments.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Pilot Testing of a Modular Oxygen Production System Using Oxygen Binding Adsorbents (Final Report)

In this project, RTI and Air Liquide have focused on the development of innovative oxygen separation materials and technologies based on reversibly binding of oxygen to enable smaller and cheaper air separations. In alignment with that object the team has had multiple achievements to advance the technology including: Synthesized and characterized novel M-CoSalen (RTIO2Sorb-1) material which showed a dynamic oxygen adsorption capacity in excess of 1wt%. Developed synthesis routes for RTIO2Sorb-1 with commercially relevant techniques and produced batches of 0.25kg and over 4 kg of total synthesis. Synthesized and characterized extrudate forms of the RTIO2Sorb-1 with relevant crush strength and maintained dynamic oxygen adsorption capacity in near 1wt%. Developed techniques for forming structured beds in fiber shapes with conventional materials. Developed a model for O 2 sorption processes to analyze various bed configurations and cycle parameters. Studied classic O 2 solid sorbents reported in the literature to learn oxygen binding mechanisms. Design a 10 kg/day O 2 VPSA pilot system with 2 or 4-bed operation. Completed a techno-economic analysis based on the experimental results and modeling. The overall objective of the project was to design, fabricate, and test a modular O 2 production system and perform a techno-economic analysis (TEA) after testing to determine the cost-benefit of the advanced modular air separation system. The goals of this technology development project were to achieve a bed-size factor (BSF) of less than 600 lb-adsorbent/TPD O 2 (ton/day O 2 ) (as compared with the state-of-the-art BSF of 850), and O 2 -purity greater than 95% at a cost that is projected to be equivalent or lower than the current state of the art (SOTA), commercially available large-scale cryogenic air separation systems. To achieve these goals and objective, the project team executed on (1) oxygen binding adsorbent optimization and scale up, (2) adsorbent material formation process studies to form the adsorbent material into structured beds for rapid pressure swing adsorption (PSA) cycles with low pressure drop, fast mass transfer, and low attrition, (3) cycle development studies to optimize the PSA process, and (4) develop simulation tools for rapid cycle modeling and numerical evaluation/optimization.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2018

The potential for avoiding hydrogen release from cryogenic pressure vessels after vacuum insulation failure

This paper presents an analysis of vacuum insulation failure in an automotive cryogenic pressure vessel (also known as cryo-compressed vessel) storing hydrogen. Vacuum insulation failure increases heat transfer into cryogenic vessels by about a factor of 100, potentially leading to rapid pressurization and venting of the cryogen to avoid exceeding maximum allowable working pressure (MAWP). Hydrogen release to the environment may be dangerous, especially if the vehicle is located in a closed space (e.g. a garage or tunnel) at the moment of insulation failure. We therefore consider utilization of the hydrogen in the vehicle fuel cell and dissipation of the electricity by operating vehicle accessories or electric resistances as an alternative to releasing hydrogen to the environment. We consider two strategies: initiating hydrogen extraction immediately after vacuum insulation failure or waiting until maximum operating pressure is reached before extraction. The results indicate that cryogenic pressure vessels have thermodynamic advantages that enable slowing down hydrogen release to moderate levels that can be consumed in the fuel cell and dissipated in vehicle accessories supplemented by electric resistances, even in the worst case when the insulation fails at the moment when the vessel stores hydrogen near its maximum density (70 g/L at 300 bar). As a result, the two proposed strategies are therefore feasible, and the best alternative can be chosen based on economic and/or implementation constraints.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2016

New insights into the high-pressure polymorphism of SiO[subscript 2] cristobalite

Single-crystal X-ray diffraction experiments with SiO{sub 2} {alpha}-cristobalite reveal that the well-known reversible displacive phase transition to cristobalite-II, which occurs at approximately 1.8 GPa, can be suppressed by rapid pressure increase, leading to an overpressurized metastable state, persisting to pressure as high as 10 GPa. In another, slow pressure increase experiment, the monoclinic high-pressure phase-II was observed to form at {approx}1.8 GPa, in agreement with earlier in situ studies, and its crystal structure has been unambiguously determined. Single-crystal data have been used to refine the structure models of both phases over the range of pressure up to the threshold of formation of cristobalite X-I at {approx}12 GPa, providing important constraints on the feasibility of the two competing silica densification models proposed in the literature, based on quantum mechanical calculations. Preliminary diffraction data obtained for cristobalite X-I reveal a monoclinic unit cell that contradicts the currently assumed model.

Dera, Przemyslaw↗
DOE OSTI2019

Design Rules for Metal‐Organic Framework Stability in High‐Pressure Hydrogen Environments

Abstract Stability of metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs) under hydrogen is of particular importance for a diverse range of applications, including catalysis, gas separations, and hydrogen storage. Hydrogen in gaseous form is known to be a strong reducing agent and can potentially react with the secondary building units of a MOF and decompose the porous framework structure. Moreover, rapid pressure swings expected in vehicular hydrogen storage could create significant mechanical stresses within MOF crystals that cause partial or complete pore collapse. In this work, we examined the stability of a structurally representative suite of MOFs by testing them under both static (70 MPa) and dynamic hydrogen exposure (0.5 to 10 MPa, 1000 pressure cycles) at room temperature. We aim to provide stability information for development of near room‐temperature hydrogen storage media based on MOFs and suggest framework design rules to avoid materials unstable for hydrogen storage under relevant technical conditions.

Wang, Timothy C.↗
DOE OSTI2017

Thermal safety characterization on PETN, PBX-9407, LX-10-2, LX-17-1 and detonator in the LLNL's P-ODTX system

Incidents caused by fire and other thermal events can heat energetic materials that may lead to thermal explosion and result in structural damage and casualty. Thus, it is important to understand the response of energetic materials to thermal insults. The One-Dimensional-Time to Explosion (ODTX) system at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has been used for decades to characterize thermal safety of energetic materials. In this study, an integration of a pressure monitoring element has been added into the ODTX system (P-ODTX) to perform thermal explosion (cook-off) experiments (thermal runaway) on PETN powder, PBX-9407, LX-10-2, LX-17-1, and detonator samples (cup tests). The P-ODTX testing generates useful data (thermal explosion temperature, thermal explosion time, and gas pressures) to assist with the thermal safety assessment of relevant energetic materials and components. This report summarizes the results of P-ODTX experiments that were performed from May 2015 to July 2017. Recent upgrades to the data acquisition system allows for rapid pressure monitoring in microsecond intervals during thermal explosion. These pressure data are also included in the report.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗