The CSP Systems Analysis project was a three-year effort supporting the Concentrating Solar Power... more The CSP Systems Analysis project was a three-year effort supporting the Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) Subprogram within the Solar Energy Technologies Office of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The goal of the CSP Systems Analysis project was to provide timely and accurate CSP cost data to the DOE and project performance and cost for emerging technologies to inform research directions and industry investment. The project consisted of six, mostly independent tasks. Major accomplishments over the three-year period of performance were as follows. • The NREL team maintained current cost estimates for CSP technologies through annual updates to the cost input parameters within NREL's System Advisor Model (SAM). SAM is a performance and cost simulation software that includes technology models for the primary CSP technologies. During the period from 2016 to 2018, the estimated levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for SAM's default CSP molten-salt power tower technology dropped from 13.0 to 11.1 ¢/kWh (real dollars without incentives). • Power cycle models for the supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO 2 ) Brayton Cycle were developed and made an option within SAM's molten-salt power tower model. These models were subsequently used to evaluate the cost reduction potential of alternative salts. The partial-cooling model was found to provide the greatest cost-reduction potential due to its combination of efficiency and temperature differential across the turbine and thermal energy storage (TES) system. These studies were documented in two journal articles. • NREL's optical modeling software SolTrace and SolarPILOT were made more versatile and released as open-source software to the CSP community. These tools help researchers and developers to model and optimize the optical performance of CSP collector systems. The new features were highlighted in a recorded webinar that can be accessed from the NREL SAM website (). • New models for solar-thermal systems, that is, applications for solar industrial process heat, were developed, validated, and installed within SAM. The analysis includes a 2018 review of linear collectors in the market that are tailored for solar process heat applications. In 2018 the NREL team also developed an annual simulation for a direct steam generation system integrated with a latent-heat thermal energy storage (TES) system. This analysis was submitted for journal publication. • The NREL team continued to support the exchange of information and development of CSP guidelines within the international CSP community of SolarPACES. Much of the work under this project was presented at SolarPACES, including the development of a modeling checklist to help CSP stakeholders standardize the models used for estimating CSP performance and cost. The CSP Systems Analysis project also supported DOE requests for tracking and reporting programmatic targets for the CSP Subprogram. NREL-1651 CSP Systems Analysis 4 This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications. Validation of New Solar IPH Models in SAM -Direct Steam Generation (DSG) Model .
The primary objective of this research was to provide a validated model of Global Medical Isotope... more The primary objective of this research was to provide a validated model of Global Medical Isotope Systems' (GMIS) sub-critical assembly used for isotope production. This model would provide estimates of dose calculations, radioisotope production rates, and neutron flux and energy spectrum A system model was constructed using Monte Carlo N Particle Version 6.1 (MCNP). An initial MCNP model replicated lithium irradiations for tritium production GMIS performed in 2016. MCNP estimated a production rate of 2.259±0.021 Bq g-1 h-1 compared to GMIS' reported rate of 1.48-1.96 MBq g-1 h-1. Exterior dose measurements were performed to provide initial validation of the MCNP model. The MCNP model and empirical dose agreed within 1σ error for three of five measurements; the other two agreed within a factor of 2. Further validation work was performed using activation wires and the neutron unfolding code SAND-II. The planned series of measurements was cut short by equipment failure and system decommissioning limiting available data. Integral fluxes from MCNP and SAND-II agreed within 20% for three of four cases, the fourth differed by a factor of 2. Using the MCNP model, the subcritical multiplication factor was calculated to be 0.25430 ± 0.00090 corresponding to a system power of 9.78 ± 0.05 mW at standard operating parameters. This corresponds to a total 7 day 99 Mo activity production of 11.70±0.02 MBq. This indicates that the system is not a viable method for producing the isotopes of interest as currently designed.
At ports of entry, radiation detectors could be mounted on container gantry crane spreaders to mo... more At ports of entry, radiation detectors could be mounted on container gantry crane spreaders to monitor cargo containers entering and leaving the country. These detectors would have to withstand the extreme physical conditions experienced by these spreaders during normal operations. Physical shock data from the gable ends of a spreader were recorded during the loading and unloading of a cargo ship by two hard mounted PCB Piezotronics model 340A50 accelerometers and two Lansmont SAVER 9X30 units (with padding). The majority of large shocks were observed in the vertical direction. The Lansmont units recorded mean shocks of 22.215 ± 1.174 and 23.776 ± 1.140 g, while the PCB accelerometers recorded mean shocks of 31.608 ± 1.798 and 37.072 ± 2.015 g in this direction. Maximum shocks were as high as 118.854 g. A scatter plot of observed peak acceleration versus velocity change is presented to allow comparison with the damage boundary curve for any planned instrumentation for future systems. It is hoped that the results of this research will aid in the design of future crane-mounted systems.
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Papers by Matthew Boyd