Hot Hydrogen Test Facility

The core in a nuclear thermal rocket will operate at high temperatures and in hydrogen. One of the important parameters in evaluating the performance of a nuclear thermal rocket is specific impulse, ISp. This quantity is proportional to the square root of the propellant’s absolute temperature and inversely proportional to square root of its molecular weight. Therefore, high temperature hydrogen is a favored propellant of nuclear thermal rocket designers. Previous work has shown that one of the life-limiting phenomena for thermal rocket nuclear cores is mass loss of fuel to flowing hydrogen at high temperatures. The hot hydrogen test facility located at the Idaho National Lab (INL) is designed to test suitability of different core materials in 2500°C hydrogen flowing at 1500 liters per minute. The facility is intended to test non-uranium containing materials and therefore is particularly suited for testing potential cladding and coating materials. In this first installment the facility is described. Automated Data acquisition, flow and temperature control, vessel compatibility with various core geometries and overall capabilities are discussed

Microstructure, Processing, Performance Relationships for High Temperature Coatings

HVOF coating have shown high resistance to corrosion in fossil energy applications and it is generally accepted that mechanical failure, e.g. cracking or spalling, ultimately will determine coating lifetime. The high velocity oxygen-fuel method (HVOF) of applying coatings is one of the most commercially viable and allows the control of various parameters including powder particle velocity and temperature which influence coating properties, such as residual stress, bond coat strength and microstructure. Methods of assessing the mechanical durability of coatings are being developed in order to explore the relationship between HVOF spraying parameters and the mechanical properties of the coating and coating bond strength. The room temperature mechanical strength, as well as the resistance of the coating to cracking/spalling during thermal transients, is of considerable importance. Eddy current, acoustic emission and thermal imaging methods are being developed to detect coating failure during thermal cycling tests and room temperature tensile tests. Preliminary results on coating failure of HVOF FeAl coatings on carbon steel, as detected by eddy current measurements during thermal cycling, are presented. The influence of HVOF coating parameters of iron aluminides - applied to more relevant structural steels, like 316 SS and Grade 91 steel, - on coating durability will be explored once reliable methods for identification of coating failure have been developed

Sustained nonoxidative glucose utilization and depletion of glycogen in reperfused canine myocardium

AbstractIschemically injured reperfused myocardium is characterized by increased 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake as demonstrated by positron emission tomography. To elucidate the metabolic fate of exogenous glucose entering reperfused myocardium, D-[6-14C] glucose and L-[U-13C] lactate were used to determine glucose uptake, glucose oxidation and the contribution of exogenous glucose to lactate production. The pathologic model under investigation consisted of a 3 h balloon occlusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery followed by 24 h of reperfusion in canine myocardium. The extent and severity of myocardial injury after the ischemia and reperfusion were assessed by histochemical evaluation (triphenyltetrazolium chloride and periodic acid-Schiff stains). Thirteen intervention and four control dogs were studied.The glucose uptake in the occluded/reperfused area was significantly enhanced compared with that in control dogs (0.40 ± 0.14 versus 0.15 ± 0.10 μmol/ml, respectively). In addition, a significantly greater portion of the glucose extracted immediately entered glycolysis in the intervention group (75%) than in the control dogs (33%). The activity of the nonoxidative glycolytic pathway was markedly increased in the ischemically injured reperfused area, as evidenced by the four times greater lactate release in this area compared with the control value. The dual carbon-labeled isotopes showed that 57% of the exogenous glucose entering glycolysis was being converted to lactate. Exogenous glucose contributed to >90% of the observed lactate production. This finding was confirmed by the histochemical finding of sustained glycogen depletion in the occlusion/reperfusion area. The average area of glycogen depletion (37%) significantly exceeded the average area of necrosis (17%).These data demonstrate enhanced and sustained activity of the nonoxidative glycolytic pathway after a prolonged occlusion with reperfusion in canine myocardium. Because glycogen stores remain depleted, exogenous glucose becomes an important myocardial substrate under these pathologic conditions

Task mapping for non-contiguous allocations.

This paper examines task mapping algorithms for non-contiguously allocated parallel jobs. Several studies have shown that task placement affects job running time for both contiguously and non-contiguously allocated jobs. Traditionally, work on task mapping either uses a very general model where the job has an arbitrary communication pattern or assumes that jobs are allocated contiguously, making them completely isolated from each other. A middle ground between these two cases is the mapping problem for non-contiguous jobs having a specific communication pattern. We propose several task mapping algorithms for jobs with a stencil communication pattern and evaluate them using experiments and simulations. Our strategies improve the running time of a MiniApp by as much as 30% over a baseline strategy. Furthermore, this improvement increases markedly with the job size, demonstrating the importance of task mapping as systems grow toward exascale

Monolithic Fuel Fabrication Process Development at the Idaho National Laboratory

Within the Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR) program directed by the US Department of Energy (DOE), UMo fuel-foils are being developed in an effort to realize high density monolithic fuel plates for use in high-flux research and test reactors. Namely, targeted are reactors that are not amenable to Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) fuel conversion via utilization of high density dispersion-based fuels, i.e. 8-9 gU/cc. LEU conversion of reactors having a need for >8-9 gU/cc fuel density will only be possible by way of monolithic fuel forms. The UMo fuel foils under development afford fuel meat density of ~16 gU/cc and thus have the potential to facilitate LEU conversions without any significant reactor-performance penalty. Two primary challenges have been established with respect to UMo monolithic fuel development; namely, fuel element fabrication and in-reactor fuel element performance. Both issues are being addressed concurrently at the Idaho National Laboratory. An overview is provided of the ongoing monolithic UMo fuel development effort at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL); including development of complex/graded fuel foils. Fabrication processes to be discussed include: UMo alloying and casting, foil fabrication via hot rolling, fuel-clad interlayer application via co-rolling and thermal spray processes, clad bonding via Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) and Friction Bonding (FB), and fuel plate finishing

Functional material features of Bombyx mori silk light versus heavy chain proteins

Bombyx mori (BM) silk fibroin is composed of two different subunits; heavy chain and light chain fibroin linked by a covalent disulphide bond. Current methods of separating the two silk fractions is complicated and produces inadequate quantities of the isolated components for the study of the individual light and heavy chain silks with respect to new materials. We report a simple method of separating silk fractions using formic acid. The formic acid treatment partially releases predominately the light chain fragment (soluble fraction) and then the soluble fraction and insoluble fractions can be converted into new materials. The regenerated original (total) silk fibroin and the separated fractions (soluble vs. insoluble) had different molecular weights and showed distinctive pH stabilities against aggregation/precipitation based on particle charging. All silk fractions could be electrospun to give fibre mats with viscosity of the regenerated fractions being the controlling factor for successful electrospinning. The silk fractions could be mixed to give blends with different proportions of the two fractions to modify the diameter and uniformity of the electrospun fibres formed. The soluble fraction containing the light chain was able to modify the viscosity by thinning the insoluble fraction containing heavy chain fragments, perhaps analogous to its role in natural fibre formation where the light chain provides increased mobility and the heavy chain producing shear thickening effects. The simplicity of this new separation method should enable access to these different silk protein fractions and accelerate the identification of methods, modifications and potential applications of these materials in biomedical and industrial applications

Pathways to cellular supremacy in biocomputing

Synthetic biology uses living cells as the substrate for performing human-defined computations. Many current implementations of cellular computing are based on the “genetic circuit” metaphor, an approximation of the operation of silicon-based computers. Although this conceptual mapping has been relatively successful, we argue that it fundamentally limits the types of computation that may be engineered inside the cell, and fails to exploit the rich and diverse functionality available in natural living systems. We propose the notion of “cellular supremacy” to focus attention on domains in which biocomputing might offer superior performance over traditional computers. We consider potential pathways toward cellular supremacy, and suggest application areas in which it may be found.A.G.-M. was supported by the SynBio3D project of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/R019002/1) and the European CSA on biological standardization BIOROBOOST (EU grant number 820699). T.E.G. was supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (grant UF160357) and BrisSynBio, a BBSRC/ EPSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre (grant BB/L01386X/1). P.Z. was supported by the EPSRC Portabolomics project (grant EP/N031962/1). P.C. was supported by SynBioChem, a BBSRC/EPSRC Centre for Synthetic Biology of Fine and Specialty Chemicals (grant BB/M017702/1) and the ShikiFactory100 project of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 814408