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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 1,801 records · Page 100

Analysis of eighty-four commercial aviation incidents - Implications for a resource management approach to crew training

A resource management approach to aircrew performance is defined and utilized in structuring an analysis of 84 exemplary incidents from the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System. The distribution of enabling and associated (evolutionary) and recovery factors between and within five analytic categories suggests that resource management training be concentrated on: (1) interpersonal communications, with air traffic control information of major concern; (2) task management, mainly setting priorities and appropriately allocating tasks under varying workload levels; and (3) planning, coordination, and decisionmaking concerned with preventing and recovering from potentially unsafe situations in certain aircraft maneuvers.

Murphy, M. R.↗

Printed Circuit Board Inspection and Quality Control - PCB Failure Causes and Cures

This two day workshop will discuss a range of topics, including root cause analysis, physics-of-failure principles and failure mechanisms in printed circuit boards. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are the baseline for electronics manufacturing upon which electronic components are mounted and formed into electronic systems. PCBs are used in a variety of electronic circuits from simple one-transistor amplifiers to large super computers. A PCB serves three main functions: 1) it provides the necessary mechanical support for the components in the circuit 2) it provides the necessary electrical interconnections, and 3) it bears some form of legend which identifies the components it carries. The failure modes on the PCBs can be categorized in a hierarchical structure, in which the mechanisms and causes are site or location dependant. Specimen preparation techniques, non-destructive and destructive analysis, and materials characterization will also be discussed. The first day of the workshop will present methodologies for identifying potential failure mechanisms in electronics based on the failure history and, systematic approaches to root cause analysis. The second day will cover failure analysis techniques geared towards various failure mechanisms, along with numerous component and PCB assembly failure analysis case studies that illustrate the techniques and analysis. Failure analysis case studies will be used to illustrate the techniques and analysis principles to arrive at the root cause(s) of field failures on printed circuit boards, active components, and assemblies.

Printed circuit boards↗

Parametric Robust Control and System Identification: Unified Approach

During the period of this support, a new control system design and analysis method has been studied. This approach deals with control systems containing uncertainties that are represented in terms of its transfer function parameters. Such a representation of the control system is common and many physical parameter variations fall into this type of uncertainty. Techniques developed here are capable of providing nonconservative analysis of such control systems with parameter variations. We have also developed techniques to deal with control systems when their state space representations are given rather than transfer functions. In this case, the plant parameters will appear as entries of state space matrices. Finally, a system modeling technique to construct such systems from the raw input - output frequency domain data has been developed.

Keel, L. H.↗

Plane-wave analysis of solar acoustic-gravity waves: A (slightly) new approach

The plane-wave decomposition of the acoustic-gravity wave effects observed in the photosphere provides a computationally efficient technique that probes the structure of the upper convective zone and boundary. In this region, the flat sun approximation is considered as being reasonably accurate. A technique to be used for the systematic plane-wave analysis of Michelson Doppler imager data, as part of the solar oscillations investigation, is described. Estimates of sensitivity are presented, and the effects of using different planar mappings are discussed. The technique is compared with previous approaches to the three dimensional plane-wave problem.

Bogart, Richard S.↗

Discovering invariant spatial features in electron energy loss spectroscopy images on the mesoscopic and atomic levels

Over the last two decades, Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (EELS) imaging with a scanning transmission electron microscope has emerged as a technique of choice for visualizing complex chemical, electronic, plasmonic, and phononic phenomena in complex materials and structures. The availability of the EELS data necessitates the development of methods to analyze multidimensional data sets with complex spatial and energy structures. Traditionally, the analysis of these data sets has been based on analysis of individual spectra, one at a time, whereas the spatial structure and correlations between individual spatial pixels containing the relevant information of the physics of underpinning processes have generally been ignored and analyzed only via the visualization as 2D maps. Here, we develop a machine learning-based approach and workflows for the analysis of spatial structures in 3D EELS data sets using a combination of dimensionality reduction and multichannel rotationally invariant variational autoencoders. This approach is illustrated for the analysis of both the plasmonic phenomena in a system of nanowires and in the core excitations in functional oxides using low loss and core-loss EELS, respectively. The code developed in this manuscript is open sourced and freely available and provided as a Jupyter notebook for the interested reader.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Vector Field Decompositions Using Multiscale Poisson Kernel

Extraction of multiscale features using scale-space is one of the fundamental approaches to analyze scalar fields. However, similar techniques for vector fields are much less common, even though it is well known that, for example, turbulent flows contain cascades of nested vortices at different scales. The challenge is that the ideas related to scale-space are based upon iteratively smoothing the data to extract features at progressively larger scale, making it difficult to extract overlapping features. Instead, we consider spatial regions of influence in vector fields as scale, and introduce a new approach for the multiscale analysis of vector fields. Rather than smoothing the flow, we use the natural Helmholtz-Hodge decomposition to split it into small-scale and large-scale components using progressively larger neighborhoods. Our approach creates a natural separation of features by extracting local flow behavior, for example, a small vortex, from large-scale effects, for example, a background flow. We demonstrate our technique on large-scale, turbulent flows, and show multiscale features that cannot be extracted using state-of-the-art techniques.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Method for Identifying Probable Archaeological Sites from Remotely Sensed Data

Archaeological sites are being compromised or destroyed at a catastrophic rate in most regions of the world. The best solution to this problem is for archaeologists to find and study these sites before they are compromised or destroyed. One way to facilitate the necessary rapid, wide area surveys needed to find these archaeological sites is through the generation of maps of probable archaeological sites from remotely sensed data. We describe an approach for identifying probable locations of archaeological sites over a wide area based on detecting subtle anomalies in vegetative cover through a statistically based analysis of remotely sensed data from multiple sources. We further developed this approach under a recent NASA ROSES Space Archaeology Program project. Under this project we refined and elaborated this statistical analysis to compensate for potential slight miss-registrations between the remote sensing data sources and the archaeological site location data. We also explored data quantization approaches (required by the statistical analysis approach), and we identified a superior data quantization approached based on a unique image segmentation approach. In our presentation we will summarize our refined approach and demonstrate the effectiveness of the overall approach with test data from Santa Catalina Island off the southern California coast. Finally, we discuss our future plans for further improving our approach.

Tilton, James C.↗

An accelerated framework for predicting creep rupture lifetimes in engineering alloys

Confidently predicting high-temperature deformation, including creep and creep rupture, is paramount for the design and commercialization of candidate materials for advanced nuclear energy systems. To accelerate creep quantification, we introduce a framework that enables rapid, cost-effective, and reliable prediction of creep rupture lifetimes, minimizing reliance on time-intensive bulk creep testing. Unlike conventional creep analysis, which requires extensive time and resources, our method leverages a maximum of four short-term bulk creep tests as training data for prediction. This framework combines high-throughput nanoindentation up to 700 °C with these targeted bulk tests to inform our creep rupture model in order to predict rupture lifetimes. The strong agreement between our predictions and conventional experimental data demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach for accelerated creep analysis and lifetime prediction of structural components in high-temperature applications. Our multi-pronged approach motivates further integration of computational tools and advanced instrumentation to establish a universal framework for understanding high-temperature material responses.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

An Intelligent Distributed Ledger Construction Algorithm for IoT

Blockchain is the next generation of secure data management that creates near-immutable decentralized storage. Secure cryptography created a niche for blockchain to provide alternatives to well-known security compromises. However, design bottlenecks with traditional blockchain data structures scale poorly with increased network usage and are extremely computation-intensive. This made the technology difficult to combine with limited devices, like those in Internet of Things networks. In protocols like IOTA, replacement of blockchain's linked-list queue processing with a lightweight dynamic ledger showed remarkable throughput performance increase. However, current stochastic algorithms for ledger construction suffer distinct trade-offs between efficiency and security. This work proposed a machine-learning approach with a multi-arm bandit that resolved these issues and was designed for auditing on limited devices. This algorithm was tested in a reinforcement-learning environment simulating the IOTA ledger's construction with a decision tree. This study showed through regret analysis and experimentation that this approach was secure against impulse manipulation attacks while remaining energy-efficient. Although the IOTA protocol was a pioneer for lightweight distributed ledgers, it is expected that future blockchain protocols will adopt techniques similar to those presented in this work.

multi-arm bandit↗

Autoregressive modeling for the spectral analysis of oceanographic data

Over the last decade there has been a dramatic increase in the number and volume of data sets useful for oceanographic studies. Many of these data sets consist of long temporal or spatial series derived from satellites and large-scale oceanographic experiments. These data sets are, however, often 'gappy' in space, irregular in time, and always of finite length. The conventional Fourier transform (FT) approach to the spectral analysis is thus often inapplicable, or where applicable, it provides questionable results. Here, through comparative analysis with the FT for different oceanographic data sets, the possibilities offered by autoregressive (AR) modeling to perform spectral analysis of gappy, finite-length series, are discussed. The applications demonstrate that as the length of the time series becomes shorter, the resolving power of the AR approach as compared with that of the FT improves. For the longest data sets examined here, 98 points, the AR method performed only slightly better than the FT, but for the very short ones, 17 points, the AR method showed a dramatic improvement over the FT. The application of the AR method to a gappy time series, although a secondary concern of this manuscript, further underlines the value of this approach.

Gangopadhyay, Avijit↗

X-ray crystallographic and hydrogen deuterium exchange studies confirm alternate kinetic models for homolog insulin monomers

Despite the crucial role of various insulin analogs in achieving satisfactory glycemic control, a comprehensive understanding of their in-solution dynamic mechanisms still holds the potential to further optimize rapid insulin analogs, thus significantly improving the well-being of individuals with Type 1 Diabetes. Here, we employed hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry to decipher the molecular dynamics of newly modified and functional insulin analog. A comparative analysis of H/D dynamics demonstrated that the modified insulin exchanges deuterium atoms faster and more extensively than the intact insulin aspart. Additionally, we present new insights derived from our 2.5 Å resolution X-ray crystal structure of modified hexamer insulin analog at ambient temperature. Furthermore, we obtained a distinctive side-chain conformation of the Asn3 residue on the B chain (AsnB3) by operating a comparative analysis with a previously available cryogenic rapid-acting insulin structure (PDB_ID: 4GBN). The experimental conclusions have demonstrated compatibility with modified insulin’s distinct cellular activity, comparably to aspart. Additionally, the hybrid structural approach combined with computational analysis employed in this study provides novel insight into the structural dynamics of newly modified and functional insulin vs insulin aspart monomeric entities. It allows further molecular understanding of intermolecular interrelations driving dissociation kinetics and, therefore, a fast action mechanism.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Likelihood Methods for CMB Experiments

A great deal of experimental effort is currently being devoted to the precise measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky in temperature and polarization. Satellites, balloon-borne, and ground-based experiments scrutinize the CMB sky at multiple scales, and therefore enable to investigate not only the evolution of the early Universe, but also its late-time physics with unprecedented accuracy. The pipeline leading from time ordered data as collected by the instrument to the final product is highly structured. Moreover, it has also to provide accurate estimates of statistical and systematic uncertainties connected to the specific experiment. In this paper, we review likelihood approaches targeted to the analysis of the CMB signal at different scales, and to the estimation of key cosmological parameters. We consider methods that analyze the data in the spatial (i.e., pixel-based) or harmonic domain. We highlight the most relevant aspects of each approach and compare their performance.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Self-consistent analysis of gain saturation in channeled-substrate-planar double-heterojunction lasers

A self-consistent model for semiconductor lasers (using the channeled-substrate-planar (CSP) double-heterojunction (DH) laser as an example) which does not assume constant optical power along the laser axis is developed. This approach allows for the analysis of high-power lasers with low facet reflectivities which produce nonuniform photon densities along the propagation direction. Analytical equations for the modal gain coefficient, the threshold current density, and the radiated power for a specific CSP laser structure are obtained.

Butler, Jerome K.↗

A general model for attitude determination error analysis

An overview is given of a comprehensive approach to filter and dynamics modeling for attitude determination error analysis. The models presented include both batch least-squares and sequential attitude estimation processes for both spin-stabilized and three-axis stabilized spacecraft. The discussion includes a brief description of a dynamics model of strapdown gyros, but it does not cover other sensor models. Model parameters can be chosen to be solve-for parameters, which are assumed to be estimated as part of the determination process, or consider parameters, which are assumed to have errors but not to be estimated. The only restriction on this choice is that the time evolution of the consider parameters must not depend on any of the solve-for parameters. The result of an error analysis is an indication of the contributions of the various error sources to the uncertainties in the determination of the spacecraft solve-for parameters. The model presented gives the uncertainty due to errors in the a priori estimates of the solve-for parameters, the uncertainty due to measurement noise, the uncertainty due to dynamic noise (also known as process noise or measurement noise), the uncertainty due to the consider parameters, and the overall uncertainty due to all these sources of error.

Markley, F. Landis↗

Thermal-structural finite element analysis using linear flux formulation

A linear flux approach is developed for a finite element thermal-structural analysis of steady-state thermal and structural problems. The element fluxes are assumed to vary linearly in the same form as the element unknown variables, and the finite element matrices are evaluated in closed form. Since numerical integration is avoided, significant computational time saving is achieved. Solution accuracy and computational speed improvements are demonstrated by solving several two-and three-dimensional thermal-structural examples.

Pandey, Ajay K.↗

Thermal-structural finite element analysis using linear flux formulation

A linear flux approach is developed for a finite element thermal-structural analysis of steady state thermal and structural problems. The element fluxes are assumed to vary linearly in the same form as the element unknown variables, and the finite element matrices are evaluated in closed form. Since numerical integration is avoided, significant computational time saving is achieved. Solution accuracy and computational speed improvements are demonstrated by solving several two and three dimensional thermal-structural examples.

Pandey, Ajay K.↗

Determination of Ballistic Limit for IM7/8552 Using Peridynamics

Significant testing is required to design and certify primary aircraft structure subject to High Energy Dynamic Impact (HEDI) events; current work under the NASA Advanced Composites Consortium (ACC) HEDI Project seeks to determine the state-of-the-art of dynamic fracture simulations for composite structures in these events. This paper discusses one of four Progressive Damage Analysis (PDA) methods selected for this project: peridynamics, through EMU implementation. A brief discussion of peridynamic theory is provided, followed by an outline of ballistic impact testing performed for model development and assessment. Detailed modeling approach and test-analysis correlation for a single open test case are presented, followed by the results of a series of blind predictions made prior to testing and test-analysis correlation performed with measured NASA test results. Specifically, we present simulation results for the ballistic limit (V50) of IM7/8552 composite panels ballistically tested with an impactor representative of a high-velocity fan-blade-out condition. In particular, force and displacement history and the damage state determined analytically are compared to measured results. Ultimately, peridynamics has the ability to predict damage patterns, impact force and deflections during a high energy dynamic impact event on composite panels of different layups using two different types of impactors. Blind predictions were promising and increased confidence in the model for impact simulation. There are open questions regarding the fidelity of the test fixture idealization in regards to stiffness and damping which will need to be addressed in future work.

Cuenca, Fernando↗

Robust Conceptual Design of Transonic Airfoils

This paper describes an integrated, multi-fidelity analysis and heuristic design approach that can be used to derive initial airfoil designs for transonic flight. If successful, the final result is a geometry that can be expected to produce reasonable aerodynamic performance when used with higher order analysis methods. A key aspect of the methodology is the use of a “sonic-plateau” pressure distribution as the target distribution for inverse design. The sonic- plateau distribution is easily parameterized and has the advantage of automatically resulting in a smooth airfoil shape without any discontinuities built into the surface due to the presence of a shock in the target pressure distribution. Inverse design is performed on each airfoil using a parametrically defined pressure distribution at a reduced lift coefficient and Mach number from the design condition. The methodology is demonstrated by designing an airfoil at 38% of the wing semispan for a 737-200-like aircraft. The demonstration problem shows that the methodology is able to achieve rapid and robust convergence to the solution. The calculated designed airfoil was found to be sufficiently higher than Mach number, and the maximum thickness was close to the targeted value.

Olson, Erik D.↗

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