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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 235 records · Page 13

Acoustics and Trust of Separate-Flow Exhaust Nozzles With Mixing Devices for High-Bypass-Ratio Engines

The NASA Glenn Research Center recently completed an experimental study to reduce the jet noise from modern turbofan engines. The study concentrated on exhaust nozzle designs for high-bypass-ratio engines. These designs modified the core and fan nozzles individually and simultaneously. Several designs provided an ideal jet noise reduction of over 2.5 EPNdB for the effective perceived noise level (EPNL) metric. Noise data, after correcting for takeoff thrust losses, indicated over a 2.0-EPNdB reduction for nine designs. Individually modifying the fan nozzle did not provide attractive EPNL reductions. Designs in which only the core nozzle was modified provided greater EPNL reductions. Designs in which core and fan nozzles were modified simultaneously provided the greatest EPNL reduction. The best nozzle design had a 2.7-EPNdB reduction (corrected for takeoff thrust loss) with a 0.06-point cruise thrust loss. This design simultaneously employed chevrons on the core and fan nozzles. In comparison with chevrons, tabs appeared to be an inefficient method for reducing jet noise. Data trends indicate that the sum of the thrust losses from individually modifying core and fan nozzles did not generally equal the thrust loss from modifying them simultaneously. Flow blockage from tabs did not scale directly with cruise thrust loss and the interaction between fan flow and the core nozzle seemed to strongly affect noise and cruise performance. Finally, the nozzle configuration candidates for full-scale engine demonstrations are identified.

Naseem H Saiyed↗

Trust Control of VTOL Aircraft Part Deux

Thrust control of Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) aircraft has always been a debatable issue. In most cases, it comes down to the fundamental question of throttle versus collective. Some aircraft used throttle(s), with a fore and aft longitudinal motion, some had collectives, some have used Thrust Levers where the protocol is still "Up is Up and Down is Down," and some have incorporated both throttles and collectives when designers did not want to deal with the Human Factors issues. There have even been combinations of throttles that incorporated an arc that have been met with varying degrees of success. A previous review was made of nineteen designs without attempting to judge the merits of the controller. Included in this paper are twelve designs entered in competition for the 1961 Tri-Service VTOL transport. Entries were from a Bell/Lockheed tiltduct, a North American tiltwing, a Vanguard liftfan, and even a Sikorsky tiltwing. Additional designs were submitted from Boeing Wichita (direct lift), Ling-Temco-Vought with its XC-142 tiltwing, Boeing Vertol's tiltwing, Mcdonnell's compound and tiltwing, and the Douglas turboduct and turboprop designs. A private party submitted a re-design of the Breguet 941 as a VTOL transport. It is important to document these 53 year-old designs to preserve a part of this country's aviation heritage.

Thrust control↗

Don't Trust a Management Metric, Especially in Life Support

Goodhart's law states that metrics do not work. Metrics become distorted when used and they deflect effort away from more important goals. These well-known and unavoidable problems occurred when the closure and system mass metrics were used to manage life support research. The intent of life support research should be to develop flyable, operable, reliable systems, not merely to increase life support system closure or to reduce its total mass. It would be better to design life support systems to meet the anticipated mission requirements and user needs. Substituting the metrics of closure and total mass for these goals seems to have led life support research to solve the wrong problems.

life support↗

Can We Trust Computational Modeling for Medical Applications?

Operations in extreme environments such as spaceflight pose human health risks that are currently not well understood and potentially unanticipated. In addition, there are limited clinical and research data to inform development and implementation of therapeutics for these unique health risks. In this light, NASA's Human Research Program (HRP) is leveraging biomedical computational models and simulations (M&S) to help inform, predict, assess and mitigate spaceflight health and performance risks, and enhance countermeasure development. To ensure that these M&S can be applied with confidence to the space environment, it is imperative to incorporate a rigorous verification, validation and credibility assessment (VV&C) processes to ensure that the computational tools are sufficiently reliable to answer questions within their intended use domain. In this presentation, we will discuss how NASA's Integrated Medical Model (IMM) and Digital Astronaut Project (DAP) have successfully adapted NASA's Standard for Models and Simulations, NASA-STD-7009 (7009) to achieve this goal. These VV&C methods are also being leveraged by organization such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institute of Health (NIH) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) to establish new M&S VV&C standards and guidelines for healthcare applications. Similarly, we hope to provide some insight to the greater aerospace medicine community on how to develop and implement M&S with sufficient confidence to augment medical research and operations.

Mulugeta, Lealem↗

The Importance of User Feedback in Sustaining Trusted Repositories

The NASA Earth Observation System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) has been operating since 1994 and is serving a global user community with well-managed Earth science data in a variety of scientific disciplines. EOSDIS processes, archives and distributes data and information products resulting from spaceborne and airborne instruments as well as in situ measurements from field campaigns. The Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center manages EOSDIS with its 12 Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) located across the United States. During the entire life of EOSDIS, the ESDIS Project and the DAACs have deployed many different mechanisms for user feedback, which have proven extremely valuable to their evolution and performance in their service to user communities. Some of the inputs from our user groups have resulted in fundamental changes in the architecture, design and operations of EOSDIS, while others have provided novel ideas for incremental changes. The EOSDIS DAACs have User Working Groups (UWGs) that represent broad user communities in the Earth science disciplines served by the DAACs. The UWGs meet periodically to assess and provide feedback on dataset and service priorities. As regular users of the data and services of the DAAC and experts in the scientific disciplines, the UWG members provide valuable inputs for planning and prioritizing the services, as well as addition of new datasets, for the benefit of the community. The EOSDIS is evaluated annually through an independently administered survey of its users resulting in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The survey provides an ACSI score as well as free-text suggestions from users, which are also helpful in making specific system improvements. In addition, each of the DAACs has a user services group that address on-going requests for help and other comments from users. The ESDIS Project has established a mechanism through the "earthdata" website (http://earthdata.nasa.gov) for users to provide feedback of any kind and these questions/comments are routed to the appropriate individuals in the Project or the DAACs. These various forms of receiving user feedback and responding to them continue to be extremely valuable in evolving and sustaining our Earth Science repository.

Behnke, Jeanne↗

Recommendations to Advance Space Trusted Autonomy

While the various space agencies of the U.S. federal government have distinctly different visions for future operational space systems, all share important foundational commonalities: improve mission performance, reduce mission costs, incorporate technology advances more rapidly, increase reliability and resiliency, reduce risk, and adapt to anomalies and environmental hazards. These common needs, combined with the maturation of autonomous technology and the prospect of leveraging autonomous systems to address these needs, have led each agency to consider how and when to implement increasing levels of autonomy in their space systems. Simultaneously, the related question of how to determine the trustworthiness of an autonomous system is also escalating in significance.

Christopher A Jones↗