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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 217 records · Page 12
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1993

Validation of a nonintrusive optical technique for the measurement of liquid mass distribution in a two-phase spray

This work is the continuation of an optical technique development program initiated as part of the 1992 Summer Faculty Fellowship Program. The 1992 work consisted of the formulation and implementation of a technique ivolving the spatial deconvolution of fluorescence data from a uniformly illuminated, seeded densed spray to obtain quantitative measurements of the liquid density profiles. This measurement approach largely overcomes substantial scattering problems associated with other optical approaches for two-phase flows. However, to apply this measurement approach with confidence to unknown flows, the technique must be validated. Consequently, technique validation using classical grid patternator techniques has been focus of the current work. This work has included the design and construction of a patternator rig and the implementation of a test program designed for the comparison of patternator data with the deconvolved optical data. The flow field used for the validation is the plume of an axisymetric swirl coaxial LOX injector being considered for use in the Space Transportation System Main Engine. The flow facility is an improved version of the test rig which was constructed in 1992 for the initial technique development. This report includes a brief description of the optical measurement technique and the patternator rig and a presentation of the data comparisons.

Hartfield, Roy, Jr.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Intersecting heuristic adaptive strategies, building design and energy saving intentions when facing discomfort environment: A cross-country analysis

Occupants' adaptive strategies play an important role in the energy consumption of office buildings. Previous research has mostly focused on the adaptive strategies triggered by occupants' indoor discomfort; however, it is crucial to understand if specific adaptive strategies are linked to occupants' energy-saving intentions. This study explores the relationships among employees’ heuristic decision-making in their first choice of adaptive strategies (technological solutions or personal adjustments) when facing extreme discomfort conditions, and their energy-saving intentions, then links these patterns with building design, workplace contextual factors, and demographics. A cross-sectional survey was collected among university employees from China, Brazil, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, and the US. Our results demonstrated that the accessibility to indoor environmental controls (IECs) and office type are the significant factors for adaptive strategies. There was a positive relationship between the number of IEC features and the percentage of employees choosing a technological solution. When feeling too hot, occupants in private offices are more likely to adopt a technological solution, whereas occupants in cubicles are more likely to choose a personal adjustment. Occupants with energy-saving intentions are less likely to choose thermostat adjustments or use portable devices as adaptive strategies than their counterparts. Lastly, the cluster analysis suggests females were more likely to use adaptive strategies for energy-saving purposes than males. The majority of occupants would turn on/off lighting to save energy. The study provides the contributions in the connection between the heuristic decision-making process and energy-saving intentions and recommendations on design strategies for building architects, engineers, and managers.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2020

Three-Dimensional Patterning of Nanoparticles by Molecular Stamping

Directing the formation of nanoscale architectures from nanoparticles is one of the key challenges in designing nanomaterials with prescribed functions. Atomic systems, given their ability to form molecules and crystals via directional chemical bonds, provide an inspiration for establishing approaches where nanoparticles with designed anisotropic binding modalities can be assembled into nanoscale architectures. However, fabricating such nanoparticles has been challenging due to their small dimensions and limited ways for site-specific control of their surface. To this end, we present a Molecular Stamping (MOST) approach to pattern DNA-coated nanoparticles with molecules at the predefined positions on a nanoparticle surface. This patterning is realized by use of a rigid and coordinative DNA frame as a molecular stamping apparatus (MOST App). The MOST App transfers multiple types of molecular “inks”, DNA sequences, onto nanoparticle surface and fixes these molecular inks into place to form a designed pattern. After a nanoparticle release from MOST App, it possesses single-molecule patches that can provide anisotropic bonds with distinctive affinities. We further use these stamped nanoparticles to assemble prescribed clusters, whose structure is determined by the locations of patches. Using electron microscopy and tomographic methods, we investigate the efficiency of cluster formation and the resulting spatial arrangements of nanoparticles. The presented approach provides a single-molecule and spatiallydetermined control over nanoparticle functionalization for creating nanoparticles with designed placement of different molecules and for realizing a rational fabrication of nanomaterial architectures.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1980

Application of transmission loss concept in the evaluation of an acoustic filter for liquid-borne transverse resonance modes in a duct of circular cross section

The transmission loss concept is used in the evaluation of an acoustic filter for liquid-borne transverse modes. Tests are conducted to determine the nature of filter element designs required to suppress transverse modes, to verify the presence of transverse modes in the test assembly, to define the acoustic wave incident, and to establish data recording, processing and analysis techniques providing transmission wave filter data. The first, second, and third tangential modes, and the first radial mode are found at frequencies of 2150, 3330, 4420, and 4110 Hz, respectively, and peaks of the tangential modes recede while the radial mode peak remains, demonstrating agreement with theoretical nodal patterns. The present design is found applicable to a liquid-oxygen system, and allows the easy-to-fabricate filter to fit within the available space envelope.

Iwanicki, L. R.↗
NASA NTRS1974

An aerodynamic study of scramjet fuel injectors

The aerodynamic drag and fuel distribution patterns of injectors designed for a supersonic combustion ramjet were measured at Mach numbers of 2, 2.5, and 3. The most significant parameter effecting the drag was found to be the injector thickness ratio. A twofold reduction in the thickness ratio caused a 65% decrease in drag. Changing the injector sweep angle by a factor of 2 resulted in only a small change in drag. A reversal of injector sweep, from sweepback to sweepforward, did not change the measured drag. Helium gas was injected through the struts to simulate the penetration and spreading patterns of hydrogen. Sampling measurements were made at approximately two duct heights downstream of the combustor. The spacing required between fuel injectors was found to be about 10 jet diameters. The effect of gas injection on the measured drag was found to be minor.

Povinelli, L. A.↗
NASA NTRS1974

An aerodynamic study of scramjet fuel injectors

The aerodynamic drag and fuel distribution patterns of injectors designed for a supersonic combustion ramjet were measured at Mach numbers of 2, 2.5, and 3. The most significant parameter effecting the drag was found to be the injector thickness ratio. A two-fold reduction in the thickness ratio caused a 65 percent decrease in drag. Changing the injector sweep angle a factor of 2 resulted in only a small change in drag. A reversal of injector sweep, from sweepback to sweepforward, did not change the measured drag. Helium gas was injected through the struts to simulate the penetration and spreading patterns of hydrogen. Sampling measurements were made at approximately 2 duct heights downstream of the combustor. The spacing required between fuel injectors was found to be about 10 jet diameters. The effect of gas injection on the measured drag was found to be minor.

Povinelli, L. A.↗
NASA NTRS2016

A Structured, Model-Based Systems Engineering Methodology for Operations System Design

Two widely accepted techniques for lowering the cost and risk of developing systems are (1) the use of a defined systems engineering (SE) process or methodology and (2) the reuse of existing (previously built) system components. The first technique is represented, for example, in materials published by NASA (e.g., NASA Systems Engineering Handbook) or by professional societies such as INCOSE (International Council on Systems Engineering). Well-formed SE techniques provide value by establishing the proper scope of the system (e.g., requirements), and by identifying and resolving problems relatively early in project lifecycles, when fixes are less expensive. The second technique (reuse) is applied most commonly to hardware and software; it seeks to avoid replicating design and implementation costs while also reducing risk by placing proven capabilities into operational use. In this paper, we outline a methodology combining these two techniques and extending reuse beyond hardware and software to foundational aspects of a Mission Operation System’s (MOS) design. We describe the system design artifacts that result (e.g., requirements, design documentation), as well as the reusable patterns and elements of the design, and their interrelationships. This approach is enabled by model-based systems engineering (MBSE) techniques and tools and is currently available in SysML form as a plug-in to MagicDraw. Additionally, usage of a rigorous MBSE approach allows for training materials and tutorials to be packaged within the overall model itself. The results of such an approach include decreased cost and risk during the design phase, improved ability of the MOS development team to investigate trade spaces and identify impacts to important flight-ground trade studies. Such results extend into decreased costs and risk in later phases due to improved design, decreased need for late fixes or development of "glue-ware" or scripts to fill unanticipated gaps in functionality, and improved ability to identify and plan testing and other validation activities. Finally, lower operational costs can be expected, both due to improved quality of the MOS, increased ease of maintaining updated knowledge of system configuration, and the fact that training and procedural materials are also updated at the same time as accepted system changes.

Bindschadler, Duane L.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Block QCA Fault-Tolerant Logic Gates

Suitably patterned arrays (blocks) of quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) have been proposed as fault-tolerant universal logic gates. These block QCA gates could be used to realize the potential of QCA for further miniaturization, reduction of power consumption, increase in switching speed, and increased degree of integration of very-large-scale integrated (VLSI) electronic circuits. The limitations of conventional VLSI circuitry, the basic principle of operation of QCA, and the potential advantages of QCA-based VLSI circuitry were described in several NASA Tech Briefs articles, namely Implementing Permutation Matrices by Use of Quantum Dots (NPO-20801), Vol. 25, No. 10 (October 2001), page 42; Compact Interconnection Networks Based on Quantum Dots (NPO-20855) Vol. 27, No. 1 (January 2003), page 32; Bit-Serial Adder Based on Quantum Dots (NPO-20869), Vol. 27, No. 1 (January 2003), page 35; and Hybrid VLSI/QCA Architecture for Computing FFTs (NPO-20923), which follows this article. To recapitulate the principle of operation (greatly oversimplified because of the limitation on space available for this article): A quantum-dot cellular automata contains four quantum dots positioned at or between the corners of a square cell. The cell contains two extra mobile electrons that can tunnel (in the quantummechanical sense) between neighboring dots within the cell. The Coulomb repulsion between the two electrons tends to make them occupy antipodal dots in the cell. For an isolated cell, there are two energetically equivalent arrangements (denoted polarization states) of the extra electrons. The cell polarization is used to encode binary information. Because the polarization of a nonisolated cell depends on Coulomb-repulsion interactions with neighboring cells, universal logic gates and binary wires could be constructed, in principle, by arraying QCA of suitable design in suitable patterns. Heretofore, researchers have recognized two major obstacles to realization of QCA-based logic gates: One is the need for (and the difficulty of attaining) operation of QCA circuitry at room temperature or, for that matter, at any temperature above a few Kelvins. It has been theorized that room-temperature operation could be made possible by constructing QCA as molecular-scale devices. However, in approaching the lower limit of miniaturization at the molecular level, it becomes increasingly imperative to overcome the second major obstacle, which is the need for (and the difficulty of attaining) high precision in the alignments of adjacent QCA in order to ensure the correct interactions among the quantum dots.

Firjany, Amir↗
DOE OSTI2024

Forecast of Wildfire Potential Across California USA Using a Transformer

Wildfires are a major issue facing the United States, a matter further exacerbated by an ever-changing climate. In California alone, wildfires are responsible for billions of dollars in damages and take lives each year. Accurately predicting fire danger conditions allows preparation awareness before wildfires start. Transformers are a class of deep learning models designed to identify patterns in sequential datasets. In recent years, transformers have gained popularity through their impressive performance in natural language processing and other applications of signal recognition. This analysis demonstrates the ability of a transformer with a residual connection to forecast fire danger potential over the state of California. Wildland fire potential index (WFPI) maps collected from the US Geological Survey database from January 1st 2020 to December 31st 2023 were used to tune, train and evaluate the transformer. Meteorological inputs (provided by Daymet daily weather and climatological summaries), the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) (calculated from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)), and outputs from the Scott and Burgman fire behavior fuel models (to characterize maps of fuel types), were used as inputs. Our results show that a transformer can effectively emulate the US Forest Service modeled WFPI maps of California USA for four week long forecasts over the month of July, 2023, with correlations ranging from 0.85 – 0.98.

Limber, Russell [ORNL]↗
DOE OSTI2021

Improving I/O Performance for Exascale Applications through Online Data Layout Reorganization

The applications being developed within the U.S. Exascale Computing Project (ECP) to run on imminent Exascale computers will generate scientific results with unprecedented fidelity and record turn-around time. Many of these codes are based on particle-mesh methods and use advanced algorithms, especially dynamic load-balancing and mesh-refinement, to achieve high performance on Exascale machines. Yet, as such algorithms improve parallel application efficiency, they raise new challenges for I/O logic due to their irregular and dynamic data distributions. Thus, while the enormous data rates of Exascale simulations already challenge existing file system write strategies, the need for efficient read and processing of generated data introduces additional constraints on the data layout strategies that can be used when writing data to secondary storage. We review these I/O challenges and introduce two online data layout reorganization approaches for achieving good tradeoffs between read and write performance. We demonstrate the benefits of using these two approaches for the ECP particle-in-cell simulation WarpX, which serves as a motif for a large class of important Exascale applications. Here, we show that by understanding application I/O patterns and carefully designing data layouts we can increase read performance by more than 80 percent.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Hydropower Flexibility Framework (Final Technical Report)

The Hydropower Flexibility Framework (HFF) tool focuses on providing the hydropower community with an effective means of assessing optimized hydropower plant outcomes. This tool combines both site specific characteristics, which act to constrain plant operation, and the hydrologic and grid characteristics which drive hydropower plant operation. The hydropower community faces a confluence of factors which drive the importance of developing such a capability, including an aging hydropower fleet subject to a range of modernization opportunities, a large number of hydropower plant relicensing activities which may affect operational requirements, an electrical grid with increasing levels of variable resources which must be balanced to maintain grid stability, and climate change influencing riverine hydrologic patterns outside of design characteristics. With support from the hydropower community, the project team developed the HFF tool and demonstrated the tool through a series of Use Cases. This guidance was developed as a part of the larger HFF tool User’s Manual (see Appendix B), a resource designed to inform other users and to empower community uptake of the tool. The HFF tool, hosted at https://hfftool.com/, was developed with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO). EPRI is currently exploring alternatives to support the continued maintenance and functionally of the online tool.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Direct Ink Write and Processing of Complex 3D Marine Compatible Structures with Calcium Carbonate Slurries

Ocean acidification heavily impacts marine ecosystems by reducing calcification. Many coral-algae symbiotic relationships are in jeopardy due to the destruction of coral reefs. Here, a ceramic ink compatible with the direct ink write additive manufacturing technique was formulated and used to print marine compatible structures that could grow algae and restore that relationship. A diacrylate polymer was mixed with calcium carbonate, a material that comprises a coral skeleton, to create a slurry with shear thinning properties. Rheology studies were conducted to confirm printing properties and characterize the slurry. Printed parts demonstrated strong control over print features, including size and infill design. Various infill patterns and percentages were attempted to optimize printability and potential algae growth. Thermogravimetric analysis helped determine a logical burnout and sintering procedure to avoid large cracking. This project developed a printable and sinter-able calcium carbonate ceramic slurry for complex marine-compatible structures and algae growth. This research was conducted in the support of the Eco Reef project.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS1984

Design and test of a four channel motor for electromechanical flight control actuation

To provide a suitable electromagnetic torque summing approach to flight control system redundancy, a four channel motor capable of sustaining full performance after any two credible failures was designed, fabricated, and tested. The design consists of a single samarium cobalt permanent magnet rotor with four separate three phase windings arrayed in individual stator quadrants around the periphery. Trade studies established the sensitivities of weight and performance to such parameters as design speed, winding pattern, number of poles, magnet configuration, and strength. The motor electromagnetically sums the torque of the individual channels on a single rotor and eliminate complex mechanical gearing arrangements.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1986

Advanced detectors and signal processing

Continued progress is reported toward development of a silicon on garnet technology which would allow fabrication of advanced detection and signal processing circuits on bubble memories. The first integrated detectors and propagation patterns have been designed and incorporated on a new mask set. In addition, annealing studies on spacer layers are performed. Based on those studies, a new double layer spacer is proposed which should reduce contamination of the silicon originating in the substrate. Finally, the magnetic sensitivity of uncontaminated detectors from the last lot of wafers is measured. The measured sensitivity is lower than anticipated but still higher than present magnetoresistive detectors.

Greve, D. W.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Fuel/Air Premixing System

Fuel and air mixed thoroughly within short distance. In new, simplified system, centrally located fuel injector combined with perforated plate mounted on premixing-duct inlet. Plate causes some fuel spray to move radially outward while mixing with air. Hole patterns in plate designed to enhance even burning and prevent excess fuel from reaching chamber walls. Uniform fuel/air distribution results in improved operation and efficiencies in minimum-length combustor systems.

Ekstedt, E.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Millimeter wavelength rectenna development

Rectennas were studied with the intent of converting the Earth's (black body) radiation into dc power for satellites in earth orbit. Power densities; metal-oxide-metal diodes; antenna design configurations; fluid patterns; substrate mounted antennas; and directions for future work are outlined. This presentation is represented by viewgraphs only.

Gallagher, James↗