Article accompanying a poster presentation for the 2013 Computational Neuroscience Annual Meeting. This article discusses the decoding of movement direction using optical imaging of motor cortex.

This paper documents the process (and results) of applying Advanced Power Strips with various control approaches.

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Inconel Alloy 617 is a high temperature creep and

The DeepCwind consortium is a group of universities, national labs, and companies funded under a research initiative by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to support the research and development of floating offshore wind power. The two main objectives of the project are to better understand the complex dynamic behavior of floating offshore wind systems and to create experimental data for use in validating the tools used in modeling these systems. In support of these objectives, the DeepCwind consortium conducted a model test campaign in 2011 of three generic floating wind systems, a tension-leg platform (TLP), a spar-buoy (spar), and a semisubmersible (semi). Each of the three platforms was designed to support a 1/50th-scale model of a 5 MW wind turbine and was tested under a variety of wind/wave conditions. The focus of this paper is to summarize the work done by consortium members in analyzing the data obtained from the test campaign and its use for validating the offshore wind modeling tool, FAST.

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With the push towards siting wind turbines farther offshore due to higher wind quality and less visibility, floating offshore wind turbines, which can be located in deep water, are becoming an economically attractive option. The International Electrotechnical Commission's (IEC) 61400-3 design standard covers fixed-bottom offshore wind turbines, but there are a number of new research questions that need to be answered to modify these standards so that they are applicable to floating wind turbines. One issue is the appropriate simulation length needed for floating turbines. This paper will discuss the results from a study assessing the impact of simulation length on the ultimate and fatigue loads of the structure, and will address uncertainties associated with changing the simulation length for the analyzed floating platform. Recommendations of required simulation length based on load uncertainty will be made and compared to current simulation length requirements.

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Using a scale/analytical analysis approach, we model phase change (melting) for pure materials which generate constant internal heat generation for small Stefan numbers (approximately one). The analysis considers conduction in the solid phase and natural convection, driven by internal heat generation, in the liquid regime. The model is applied for a constant surface temperature boundary condition where the melting temperature is greater than the surface temperature in a cylindrical geometry. The analysis also consider constant heat flux (in a cylindrical geometry).We show the time scales in which conduction and convection heat transfer dominate.

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The Defense Waste Processing Facility at the Savannah River Site processes high-level radioactive waste from the processing of nuclear materials that contains dissolved and precipitated metals and radionuclides. Vitrification of this waste into borosilicate glass for ultimate disposal at a geologic repository involves chemically modifying the waste to make it compatible with the glass melter system. Pretreatment steps include removal of excess aluminum by dissolution and washing, and processing with formic and nitric acids to: 1) adjust the reduction-oxidation (redox) potential in the glass melter to reduce radionuclide volatility and improve melt rate; 2) adjust feed rheology; and 3) reduce by steam stripping the amount of mercury that must be processed in the melter. Elimination of formic acid in pretreatment has been studied to eliminate the production of hydrogen in the pretreatment systems, which requires nuclear grade monitoring equipment. An alternative reductant, glycolic acid, has been studied as a substitute for formic acid. However, in the melter, the potential for greater formation of flammable gases exists with glycolic acid. Melter flammability is difficult to control because flammable mixtures can be formed during surges in offgases that both increase the amount of flammable species and decrease the temperature in the vapor …

It is widely understood that energy storage is the key to integrating variable generators into the grid. It has been proposed that the thermal mass of buildings could be used as a distributed energy storage solution and several researchers are making headway in this problem. However, the inability to easily determine the magnitude of the building’s effective thermal mass, and how the heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system exchanges thermal energy with it, is a significant challenge to designing systems which utilize this storage mechanism. In this paper we adapt modal analysis methods used in mechanical structures to identify the primary modes of energy transfer among thermal masses in a building. The paper describes the technique using data from an idealized building model. The approach is successfully applied to actual temperature data from a commercial building in downtown Boise, Idaho.

The ITER in-vessel coil system includes Vertical Stability (VS) coils and Edge Localized Mode (ELM) coils. There are two large VS ring coils, one upper and one lower. Each has four turns which are independently connected. The VS coils are needed for successful operation of ITER for most all of its operating modes. The VS coils must be highly reliable and fault tolerant. The operating environment includes normal and disruption Lorentz forces. To parametrically address all these design conditions in a tractable analysis requires a simplified model. The VS coils are predominately axisymmetric, and this suggests that an axisymmetric model can be meaningfully used to address the variations in mechanical design, loading, material properties, and time dependency. The axisymmetric finite element analysis described in this paper includes simulations of the bolted frictional connections used for the mounting details. Radiation and elastic-plastic response are modeled particularly for the extreme faulted conditions. Thermal connectivity is varied to study the effects of partial thermal connection of the actively cooled conductor to the remaining structure.

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Inconel Alloy 617 is a high temperature creep and corrosion resistant alloy and is a leading candidate for use in Intermediate Heat Exchangers (IHX) of the Next Generation Nuclear Plants (NGNP). The IHX of the NGNP is expected to experience operating temperatures in the range of 800 degrees - 950 degrees C, which is in the creep regime of Alloy 617. A broad set of uniaxial, low-cycle fatigue, fatigue-creep, ratcheting, and ratcheting-creep experiments are conducted in order to study the fatigue and ratcheting responses, and their interactions with the creep response at high temperatures. A unified constitutive model developed at North Carolina State University is used to simulate these experimental responses. The model is developed based on the Chaboche viscoplastic model framework. It includes cyclic hardening/softening, strain rate dependence, strain range dependence, static and dynamic recovery modeling features. For simulation of the alloy 617 responses, new techniques of model parameter determination are developed for optimized simulations. This paper compares the experimental responses and model simulations for demonstrating the strengths and shortcomings of the model.

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Tritium (3 1 H ) is a radioactive isotope of hydro