An experiment was conducted comparing the effectiveness of individual versus group electronic brainstorming in addressing real-world 'wickedly difficult' challenges. Previous laboratory research has engaged small groups of students in answering questions irrelevant to an industrial setting. The current experiment extended this research to larger, real-world employee groups engaged in addressing organization-relevant challenges. Within the present experiment, the data demonstrated that individuals performed at least as well as groups in terms of number of ideas produced and significantly (p < .02) outperformed groups in terms of the quality of those ideas (as measured along the dimensions of originality, feasibility, and effectiveness).
This LDRD project has produced a tool that makes probabilistic risk assessments (PRAs) of nuclear reactors - analyses which are very resource intensive - more efficient. PRAs of nuclear reactors are being increasingly relied on by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (U.S.N.R.C.) for licensing decisions for current and advanced reactors. Yet, PRAs are produced much as they were 20 years ago. The work here applied a modern systems analysis technique to the accident progression analysis portion of the PRA; the technique was a system-independent multi-task computer driver routine. Initially, the objective of the work was to fuse the accident progression event tree (APET) portion of a PRA to the dynamic system doctor (DSD) created by Ohio State University. Instead, during the initial efforts, it was found that the DSD could be linked directly to a detailed accident progression phenomenological simulation code - the type on which APET construction and analysis relies, albeit indirectly - and thereby directly create and analyze the APET. The expanded DSD computational architecture and infrastructure that was created during this effort is called ADAPT (Analysis of Dynamic Accident Progression Trees). ADAPT is a system software infrastructure that supports execution and analysis of multiple dynamic event-tree simulations on distributed environments. A simulator abstraction layer was developed, and a generic driver was implemented for executing simulators on a distributed environment. As a demonstration of the use of the methodological tool, ADAPT was applied to quantify the likelihood of competing accident progression pathways occurring for a particular accident scenario in a particular reactor type using MELCOR, an integrated severe accident analysis code developed at Sandia. (ADAPT was intentionally created with flexibility, however, and is not limited to interacting with only one code. With minor coding changes to input files, ADAPT can be linked to other such codes.) The results of this demonstration indicate that the approach can significantly reduce the resources required for Level 2 PRAs. From the phenomenological viewpoint, ADAPT can also treat the associated epistemic and aleatory uncertainties. This methodology can also be used for analyses of other complex systems. Any complex system can be analyzed using ADAPT if the workings of that system can be displayed as an event tree, there is a computer code that simulates how those events could progress, and that simulator code has switches to turn on and off system events, phenomena, etc. Using and applying ADAPT to particular problems is not human independent. While the human resources for the creation and analysis of the accident progression are significantly decreased, knowledgeable analysts are still necessary for a given project to apply ADAPT successfully. This research and development effort has met its original goals and then exceeded them.
Musculus, Mark P.B.; Singh, Satbir; Reitz, Rolf D.
Two-color soot optical pyrometry is a widely used technique for measuring soot temperature and volume fraction in many practical combustion devices, but line-of-sight soot temperature and volume fraction gradients can introduce significant uncertainties in the measurements. For diesel engines, these uncertainties usually can only be estimated based on assumptions about the soot property gradients along the line of sight, because full three-dimensional transient diesel soot distribution data are not available. Such information is available, however, from multidimensional computer model simulations, which are phenomenologically based, and have been validated against available in-cylinder soot measurements and diesel engine exhaust soot emissions. Using the model-predicted in-cylinder soot distributions, uncertainties in diesel two-color pyrometry data are assessed, both for a conventional high-sooting, high-temperature combustion (HTC) operating condition, and for a low-sooting, low-temperature combustion (LTC) condition. The simulation results confirm that the two-color soot measurements are strongly biased toward the properties of the hot soot. For the HTC condition, line-of-sight gradients in soot temperature span 600 K, causing relatively large errors. The two-color temperature is 200 K higher than the soot-mass-averaged value, while the two-color volume fraction is 50% lower. For the LTC condition, the two-color measurement errors are half as large as for the HTC condition, because the model-predicted soot temperature gradients along the line of sight are half as large. By contrast, soot temperature and volume fraction gradients across the field of view introduce much smaller errors of less than 50 K in temperature and 20% in volume fraction.
PP samples, in which the three unique carbon atom positions along the chain were selectively labeled with C-13, have been subjected to γ-irradiation in the presence of oxygen, and the resulting organic volatile products analyzed by GC/MS. The isotopic labeling patterns in 33 organic degradation compounds have been assigned by comparison of the four mass spectra for each compound (from unlabeled PP, and from the three labeled PP materials). The volatile products have been "mapped" onto their positions of origin from the PP macromolecule, and insights have been gained into the chemistry through which these compounds must have formed. Most products show high specificity of isotopic labeling, indicating a single dominant reaction pathway. Oxidation chemistry occurred heavily at the C(2) tertiary carbon, with chemistry also at C(1) methylene. Methyl ketones are in abundance, along with alcohols, some aliphatic hydrocarbons, and other compound types. The C(3) methyl carbon remained attached to its original C(2) position in all catenated degradation products, and underwent no chemistry. However, products containing "non-catenated" carbons (i.e., not bonded to any other carbon atom) consisted entirely of a mix of C(3) and C(1). By examination of the labeling patterns, many products could be assigned to two successive chain scission events in close proximity, while others are clearly seen to arise from cleavage, followed by radical-radical recombination reactions. Interestingly, the former products (two chain scissions) are all found to have an odd number of carbon atoms along their chain, while the latter (scission followed by radical-radical reaction) all have an even number of carbons. An explanation of this odd/even phenomenon is provided in terms of the symmetry of the PP macromolecule.
The CSI: Dognapping Workshop is a culmination of the more than 65 Sandian staff and intern volunteers dedication to exciting and encouraging the next generation of scientific leaders. This 2 hour workshop used a 'theatrical play' and 'hands on' activities that was fun, exciting and challenging for 3rd-5th graders while meeting science curriculum standards. In addition, new pedagogical methods were developed in order to introduce nanotechnology to the public. Survey analysis indicated that the workshop had an overall improvement and positive impact on helping the students to understand concepts from materials science and chemistry as well as increased our interaction with the K-5 community. Anecdotal analyses showed that this simple exercise will have far reaching impact with the results necessary to maintain the United States as the scientific leader in the world. This experience led to the initiation of over 100 Official Junior Scientists.
We present simulations and measurements of a technology that can manipulate thermal angular and wavelength emission. This work is representative of Sandia National Laboratories' efforts to investigate advanced technologies that are not currently accessible for reasons such as risk, cost, or limited availability. The goal of this project is to demonstrate a passive thermal emission management surface that can tailor the direction of emission as well as the wavelength bands of emission. This new proposed technology enables thermal emission pattern management by structuring the surface. This structuring may be in either the lateral or depth dimension. A lateral structuring consists of a shallow grating on a metal surface. This air/metal interface allows photon/plasmon coupling, which has been shown to coherently and preferentially emit at certain wavelengths.
The effects of modifying the inboard portion of the NREL Phase VI rotor using a thickened, flatback version of the S809 design airfoil are studied using a three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes method. A motivation for using such a thicker airfoil design coupled with a blunt trailing edge is to alleviate structural constraints while reducing blade weight and maintaining the power performance of the rotor. The calculated results for the baseline Phase VI rotor are benchmarked against wind tunnel results obtained at 10, 7, and 5 meters per second. The calculated results for the modified rotor are compared against those of the baseline rotor. The results of this study demonstrate that a thick, flatback blade profile is viable as a bridge to connect structural requirements with aerodynamic performance in designing future wind turbine rotors.
Generating finite-element meshes is a serious bottleneck for large parallel simulations. When mesh generation is limited to serial machines and element counts approach a billion, this bottleneck becomes a roadblock. Pamgen is a parallel mesh generation library that allows on-the-fly scalable generation of hexahedral and quadrilateral finite element meshes for several simple geometries. It has been used to generate more that 1.1 billion elements on 17,576 processors. Pamgen generates an unstructured finite element mesh on each processor at the start of a simulation. The mesh is specified by commands passed to the library as a 'C'-programming language string. The resulting mesh geometry, topology, and communication information can then be queried through an API. pamgen allows specification of boundary condition application regions using sidesets (element faces) and nodesets (collections of nodes). It supports several simple geometry types. It has multiple alternatives for mesh grading. It has several alternatives for the initial domain decomposition. Pamgen makes it easy to change details of the finite element mesh and is very useful for performance studies and scoping calculations.
A computational fluid dynamics study of thick wind turbine section shapes in the test section of the UC Davis wind tunnel at a chord Reynolds number of one million is presented. The goals of this study are to validate standard wind tunnel wall corrections for high solid blockage conditions and to reaffirm the favorable effect of a blunt trailing edge or flatback on the performance characteristics of a representative thick airfoil shape prior to building the wind tunnel models and conducting the experiment. The numerical simulations prove the standard wind tunnel corrections to be largely valid for the proposed test of 40% maximum thickness to chord ratio airfoils at a solid blockage ratio of 10%. Comparison of the computed lift characteristics of a sharp trailing edge baseline airfoil and derived flatback airfoils reaffirms the earlier observed trend of reduced sensitivity to surface contamination with increasing trailing edge thickness.
This report summarizes the activities of the Computer Science Research Institute (CSRI) at Sandia National Laboratories during the period January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2005. During this period, the CSRI hosted 182 visitors representing 83 universities, companies and laboratories. Of these, 60 were summer students or faculty. The CSRI partially sponsored 2 workshops and also organized and was the primary host for 3 workshops. These 3 CSRI sponsored workshops had 105 participants, 78 from universities, companies and laboratories, and 27 from Sandia. Finally, the CSRI sponsored 12 long-term collaborative research projects and 3 Sabbaticals.
Although laboratory experiments have produced glowing balls of light that fade in <1 s after external power is removed and theories have been proposed to explain low-energy events, energetic ball lightning is not understood. A seminal event that illuminates the fundamental nature of ball lightning is needed to advance our understanding of the phenomenon. We report such a seminal event: the energetic ball lightning event of August 6, 1868, in County Donegal, Ireland, extensively reported to the Royal Society by M. Fitzgerald. It lasted for 20 minutes, left a 6 m square hole and a 100 m long by 1.2 m deep trench, tore away a 25 m long and 1.5 m deep stream bank that diverted the course of the stream, and terminated by producing a shallow cave in the opposite bank of the stream. We found and characterized the site and show that the geomorphology and carbon dating support the account by M. Fitzgerald. We find that the excavation is not consistent with chemical, nuclear, or electrostatic forces but is consistent with Analysis of the event and the local conditions in 2006 is consistent with magnetic induction at {approx} 1 MHz frequency expelling the moderately conductive, water saturated peat down to the underlying clay/rock layer. The 60-cm diameter--which diminished to 10 cm diameter without reducing the impact of the ball lightning on the environment--and the size of the depressions, the yield strength of the peat, and the lack of any mention of smoke or steam in Fitzgerald's report would be consistent with the core of the ball lightning being a magnetically levitated mini black hole weighing more than 20,000 kg. The results suggest that such energetic ball lightning should be detectable at great distances by its electromagnetic emissions, which might provide a characteristic signature to reveal the source of the energy and the equilibrium configuration of the contained currents. Unexplained intermittent emissions in the MHz range are necessary but not sufficient indicators of such emissions. We report on over fifty 1 to >1000-s bursts of electromagnetic energy between 3 MHz and 350 MHz that were recorded by the FORTE satellite in October of 1997 and that are not consistent with known sources.Ground-based time-resolved observations should help identify the origin of the FORTE emissions and may help find and understand modern energetic ball lightning events to move us beyond glowing balls of light.
Sandia National Laboratories has made major investments in microsystems-related infrastructure and research staff development over the past two decades, culminating most recently in the MESA project. These investment decisions have been made based in part upon the necessity for highly reliable, secure, and for some purposes, radiation-hardened devices and subsystems for safety and sustainability of the United States nuclear arsenal and other national security applications. SNL's microsystems development and fabrication capabilities are located almost entirely within its New Mexico site, rendering their effectiveness somewhat dependent on the depth and breadth of the local microsystems workforce. Consequently, the status and development capacity of this workforce has been seen as a key personnel readiness issue in relation to the maintenance of SNL's microsystems capabilities. For this reason SNL has supported the instantiation and development of the Southwest Center for Microsystems Education, an Advanced Technology Education center funded primarily by the National Science Foundation, in order to foster the development of local training capacity for microsystems technologists. Although the SCME and the associated Manufacturing Technology program at Central New Mexico Community College have developed an effective curriculum and graduated several highly capable microsystems technologists, the future of both the center and the degree program remain uncertain due to insufficient student enrollment. The central region of New Mexico has become home to many microsystems-oriented commercial firms. As the demands of those firms for technologists evolve, SNL may face staffing problems in the future, especially if local training capacity is lost.