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First International Symposium on Strain Gauge Balances

The first International Symposium on Strain Gauge Balances was sponsored and held at NASA Langley Research Center during October 22-25, 1996. The symposium provided an open international forum for presentation, discussion, and exchange of technical information among wind tunnel test technique specialists and strain gauge balance designers. The Symposium also served to initiate organized professional activities among the participating and relevant international technical communities. Over 130 delegates from 15 countries were in attendance. The program opened with a panel discussion, followed by technical paper sessions, and guided tours of the National Transonic Facility (NTF) wind tunnel, a local commercial balance fabrication facility, and the LaRC balance calibration laboratory. The opening panel discussion addressed "Future Trends in Balance Development and Applications." Forty-six technical papers were presented in 11 technical sessions covering the following areas: calibration, automatic calibration, data reduction, facility reports, design, accuracy and uncertainty analysis, strain gauges, instrumentation, balance design, thermal effects, finite element analysis, applications, and special balances. At the conclusion of the Symposium, a steering committee representing most of the nations and several U.S. organizations attending the Symposium was established to initiate planning for a second international balance symposium, to be held in 1999 in the UK.

Tripp, John S↗

9x15 Low Speed Wind Tunnel Acoustic Improvements

The 9- by 15-Foot Low Speed Wind Tunnel (9x15 LSWT) at NASA Glenn Research Center was built in 1969 in the return leg of the 8- by 6-Foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel (8x6 SWT). The 8x6 SWT was completed in 1949 and acoustically treated to mitigate community noise issues in 1950. This treatment included the addition of a large muffler downstream of the 8x6 SWT test section and diffuser. The 9x15 LSWT was designed for performance testing of VSTOL aircraft models, but with the addition of the current acoustic treatment in 1986 the tunnel has been used principally for acoustic and performance testing of aircraft propulsions systems. The present document describes an anticipated acoustic upgrade to be completed in 2017.

acoustic properties↗

Metagenome-assembled genomes from Wind River Basin floodplain sediments Riverton, Wyoming site (August 2015)

Microorganisms play a key role in cycling nutrients and contaminants in the terrestrial environment depending on their genetic potential. Here we present metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) for the bacterial and archaeal community in floodplain sediment samples taken August 29, 2015 at a location (KB1) close to DOE Legacy Management well 855 at the Riverton, Wyoming floodplain site in the Wind River Basin (WRB). The groundwater at this site exhibits persistent U, Mo, and sulfate plumes and is one of the field sites in focus for the SLAC Groundwater Quality SFA program. Sediment samples from a deep soil pit were collected from 0 to 234 cm depth below surface at discrete depths every ~10-20 cm for microbial analyses. 13 metagenomes were sequenced through JGI and can be found under Gold sequencing project: Gs0131241. Metagenomes were assembled, binned, and refined using metawrap to generate MAGs (>50% complete and < 10% contamination based on checkM scores).This dataset includes a zip file of 2216 MAG fasta files and a csv file with quality, taxonomic classification (GTDB RS220), and metagenome accessions for MAGs. This dataset also includes a file-level metadata (flmd.csv) file that lists each file contained in the dataset with associated metadata and a data dictionary (dd.csv) file that contains column/row headers used throughout the files along with a definition, units, and data type

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

The impacts of horizontal resolution on the seasonally-dependent biases of the northeastern Pacific ITCZ in coupled climate models.

Double-ITCZ has puzzled climate model community for more than two decades. Here, we found that over the eastern Pacific, precipitation and sea surface temperature (SST) biases in the NCAR CESM1 are seasonally-dependent, with positive (negative) precipitation/SST biases during boreal summer/fall (winter/spring), although the easterly wind bias persists around the year. This seasonally-dependent bias of precipitation/SST is found to be caused by the failure of the model to reproduce the climatological seasonal wind reversal of North American monsoon. During winter/spring, the climatological easterly wind dominates, so the stronger wind speed in the model enhances the evaporation and lowers the SST. It is opposite when the climatological wind turns to westerly during summer/fall. The easterly wind bias also occurs in the atmospheric model when the observation SST is prescribed, suggesting it is of atmospheric origin. Further, the easterly wind bias is mainly evident in the lower troposphere and quite independent of time, implying the effect of complex and narrow-ranged Central American topography, which is not depicted well in the coarse model resolution. When the model resolution is doubled, both SST and precipitation are improved with the reduced easterly wind bias. During boreal spring, when ITCZ bias is most significant, the northern and southern ITCZ can be improved by 29% and 18.8% respectively in the higher resolution. Finally, we suggest that these seasonally-dependent biases over the eastern Pacific are quite universal among 37 CMIP5 coupled models, and the ongoing CMIP6 project will provide a valuable opportunity to examine whether the bias can be reduced by increasing model resolution.

Song, Fengfei↗

Chapter 14 - Reliability of Wind Turbines

The global wind energy industry has grown at a fast pace during the past half-decade. Advancements from design and manufacturing to operation and maintenance have led to reduced capital and maintenance costs, which make wind power an indispensable source for a comprehensive solution to global electricity needs. Once wind turbines are installed, the opportunity to lower wind power costs is mainly through improved operation and maintenance practices. Modern wind turbines are equipped with tens or hundreds of measurement channels and are generating an abundance of data, with lot of efforts being put into data analysis by both the research community and the industry. One type of analysis is through the exploration of reliability engineering methods based on readily available data or maintenance records collected at typical wind power plants. If adopted and conducted appropriately, these analyses can quickly save operation and maintenance costs in a potentially impactful manner. The wind industry has adopted this discipline more broadly in recent years. This chapter discusses wind turbine reliability by highlighting the methodology of reliability engineering life data analysis. It first briefly discusses the fundamentals of wind turbine reliability and the current industry status. Then, the reliability engineering method for life analysis, including data collection, model development, and forecasting, is presented in detail and illustrated through two case studies. The chapter concludes with some remarks on potential opportunities to improve wind turbine reliability. An owner and operator's perspective is taken and mechanical components are used to exemplify the potential benefits of reliability engineering analysis to improve wind turbine reliability and availability.

database↗

Demonstration of Wake Steering Through Yaw Control in a Wind Plant Field Experiment: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-16-00629

Over the last few decades, wind energy has evolved into a large international industry involving major players in the manufacturing, construction, and utility sectors. Coinciding with the industry’s growth, significant innovation in the technology has resulted in larger turbines with lower associated costs of energy and more complex designs in all subsystems. However, as the deployment of the technology has grown and its role within the electricity sector become more prominent, so have the expectations of the technology in terms of performance, reliability, and cost. The industry currently partitions its efforts into separate paths for turbine design, plant design and development, finance, grid interaction and operation, mitigation of adverse community and environmental impacts, and other areas. One prominent area where this partition is evident is in wind turbine control. Traditionally, each wind turbine in a wind plant has been controlled separately – via its own internal controller using only its own sensors. However, wind turbines in a plant interact with each other through the plant-level fluid dynamics. Wake losses (due to upstream turbines extracting energy from the winds and “waking” downstream turbines) can be up to 10% or even 20% of the gross energy production (if each turbine experienced the free stream wind inflow to the plant). A series of studies and experiments have demonstrated that there is potential for improving energy output at existing plants through plant control methods which seek to optimize total wind plant energy production over the current “greedy” approach where each turbine maximizes its own production. Wake steering induced by yaw offsets (turning the turbine to be out of the plane perpendicular to wind inflow) for upstream turbines has shown significant promise in simulations and wind tunnel experiments. In simulation studies, annual energy production has been shown to increase by 2% or more depending on the particular aspects of the wind plant (turbine spacing, meteorological conditions, etc). This project seeks to demonstrate the potential of plant-level controls via wake steering at a commercial wind plant. This is an important step towards commercialization and industry adoption of this plant-level modeling and analysis capability.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Understanding Shock Dynamics in the Inner Heliosphere with Modeling and Type II Radio Data: the 2010-04-03 Event

The 2010 April 03 solar event was studied using observations from STEREO SECCHI, SOHO LASCO, and Wind kilometric Type II data (kmTII) combined with WSA-Cone-ENLIL model simulations performed at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC). In particular, we identified the origin of the coronal mass ejection (CME) using STEREO EUVI and SOHO EIT images. A flux-rope model was fit to the SECCHI A and B, and LASCO images to determine the CMEs direction, size, and actual speed. J-maps from STEREO COR2HI-1HI-2 and simulations fromCCMC were used to study the formation and evolution of the shock in the inner heliosphere. In addition, we also studied the time-distance profile of the shock propagation from kmTII radio burst observations. The J-maps together with in-situ datafrom the Wind spacecraft provided an opportunity to validate the simulation results andthe kmTII prediction. Here we report on a comparison of two methods of predictinginterplanetary shock arrival time: the ENLIL model and the kmTII method; andinvestigate whether or not using the ENLIL model density improves the kmTIIprediction. We found that the ENLIL model predicted the kinematics of shock evolutionwell. The shock arrival times (SAT) and linear-fit shock velocities in the ENLILmodel agreed well with those measurements in the J-maps along both the CME leading edge and the Sun-Earth line. The ENLIL model also reproduced most of the largescale structures of the shock propagation and gave the SAT prediction at Earth with an error of 17 hours. The kmTII method predicted the SAT at Earth with an error of 15 hours when using n0 4.16 cm3, the ENLIL model plasma density near Earth; but itimproved to 2 hours when using n0 6.64 cm3, the model density near the CMEleading edge at 1 AU.

Space weather forecast↗

Widening of Wind Stress Anomalies Amplifies ENSO in a Warming Climate

Abstract Climate change simulations generally indicate the strengthening of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) sea surface temperature (SST) variability through the twenty-first century, yet a robust physical mechanism explaining this change across different models is still lacking, and the projections for ENSO amplitude exhibit a large spread. Most commonly, changes in the background state of the tropical Pacific are invoked to explain these changes of ENSO. Here, we show that changes in the structure of wind stress anomalies associated with ENSO are potentially as important as these background state changes. Specifically, changes in the magnitude, meridional width, and zonal structure of wind stress anomalies can explain approximately 53% of the intermodel variance in the projected change of ENSO magnitude through the twenty-first century as well as 43% in ENSO periodicity changes. Among these changes in the wind structure, the meridional widening of wind anomalies plays the most important role. To demonstrate that these changes are indeed critical, we develop a hybrid model of ENSO based on the Community Earth System Model, version 2, which incorporates a dynamical ocean coupled to a simplified statistical atmosphere within the tropical Pacific. In the absence of external forcing and corresponding mean-state changes, the imposed changes in wind stress anomalies in this hybrid model result in an increase of ENSO amplitudes of nearly 10% along the equator. Our results are also theoretically supported by a recharge-oscillator model that incorporates the meridional wind structure. Thus, changes in the structure of wind stress anomalies, together with changes in the mean state, likely play a critical role in the projected strengthening of ENSO.

Stuivenvolt-Allen, Jacob [Yale University, New Hav↗

Design considerations of the national transonic facility

The inability of existing wind tunnels to provide aerodynamic test data at transonic speeds and flight Reynolds numbers was examined. The proposed transonic facility is a high Reynolds number transonic wind tunnel designed to meet the research and development needs of industry, and the scientific community. The facility employs the cryogenic approach to achieve high transonic Reynolds numbers at acceptable model loads and tunnel power. By using temperature as a test variable, a unique capability to separate scale effects from model aeroelastic effects is provided. The performance envelope of the facility is shown to provide a ten fold increase in transonic Reynolds number capability compared to currently available facilities.

Baals, D. D.↗

An Investigation of the Large Scale Evolution and Topology of Coronal Mass Ejections in the Solar Wind

This investigation is concerned with the large-scale evolution and topology of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in the solar wind. During this reporting period we have focused on several aspects of CME properties, their identification and their evolution in the solar wind. The work included both analysis of Ulysses and ACE observations as well as fluid and magnetohydrodynamic simulations. In addition, we analyzed a series of "density holes" observed in the solar wind, that bear many similarities with CMEs. Finally, this work was communicated to the scientific community at three meetings and has led to three scientific papers that are in various stages of review.

Riley, Peter↗

Long-Lived In-Situ Solar System Explorer (LLISSE)

Venus, while having similar size, mass, and location in the solar system to Earth, varies from Earth in many ways. The differences include its climate, atmosphere, and surface conditions. Surface conditions present formidable engineering challenges due to the high temperature and pressure. To date, landed missions have not been able to last more than about 2 hours on the surface [1]. This has resulted in significant knowledge gaps about the surface conditions of this important body in the solar system. The science community has effectively no in-situ temporal data on Venus surface conditions (temperature, pressure, winds and chemistry). These data are critical for the development of a thorough understanding of Venus' weather and the processes by which chemical species interact with each other, and are transported throughout the atmospheric column. This will help understand aspects of the atmosphere/planet interactions such as momentum exchange. To date, no capability has been available to enable a long lived surface probe to make these kinds of measurements. However, recently developed Silicon Carbide based electronics, sensors, and other technologies have matured to a state where a simple, but powerful long-life scientific probe would be feasible for Venus. It is now possible to directly qualify the durability and functionality of these components in a simulated Venus surface environment and demonstrate the ability to return valuable scientific data.

Probe↗

Global Reference Atmospheric Model (GRAM) Suite Overview and Current Status

• Engineering-oriented atmospheric models that estimate mean values and statistical variations of atmospheric properties for numerous planetary destinations • Currently available for Earth, Mars, Venus, Titan, Neptune, Uranus, and Jupiter • Outputs include atmospheric density, temperature, pressure, chemical composition, radiative fluxes (for Mars-GRAM), and wind components along a user-defined path – Includes seasonal, diurnal, geographic, and altitude variations • Widely used by the engineering community because of their ability to create realistic atmospheric dispersions • Can be integrated into high fidelity flight dynamic simulations of launch, entry, descent and landing (EDL), aerobraking and aerocapture • Optional trajectory input file consisting of time, height, latitude, and longitude can be used to provide the GRAM trajectory path • Optional auxiliary profile consisting of height, latitude, longitude, temperature, pressure, density, eastward wind, and northward wind may be used to replace model data in the GRAMs • Not a forecast model

atmospheric models↗

SPARC Intercomparison of Middle Atmosphere Climatologies

This atlas presents detailed incomparisons of several climatological wind and temperature data sets which cover the middle atmosphere (over altitudes approx. 10-80 km). A number of middle atmosphere climatologies have been developed in the research community based on a variety of meteorological analyses and satellite data sets. Here we present comparisons between these climatological data sets for a number of basic circulation statistics, such as zonal mean temperature, winds and eddy flux statistics. Special attention is focused on tropical winds and temperatures, where large differences exist among separate analyses. We also include comparisons between the global climatologies and historical rocketsonde wind and temperature measurements, and also with more recent lidar temperature data. These comparisons highlight differences and uncertainties in contemporary middle atmosphere data sets, and allow biases in particular analyses to be isolated. In addition, a brief atlas of zonal mean temperature and wind statistics is provided to highlight data availability and as a quick-look reference. This technical report is intended as a companion to the climatological data sets held in archive at the SPARC Data Center (http://www.sparc.sunysb.edu).

Randel, William↗

Economic dispatch of offshore renewable energy resources for islanded communities with optimal storage sizing

Coastal or isolated microgrids depend on diesel generators and could benefit from renewable energy resources, especially offshore wind and wave energy. Integrating these resources into microgrids is complicated by their high intermittency, which requires optimal economic dispatch to effectively evaluate. This study considers three coastal or islanded sites, and uses mid-fidelity models of wind and wave energy technologies, and local demand data to solve the optimal economic dispatch problem. An optimal storage sizing method is developed that finds the smallest capacity of energy storage required to meet the microgrid load during each season. The storage capacity decreases by a factor of two at most when adding wave energy converters to a system. Adding wave energy converters to a farm decreases cost by about 30%. Furthermore, the required storage size varies by two to three times from summer to winter. Compared with the state-of-the-art approaches that often overlook realistic offshore renewable energy technology in microgrid economic dispatch and optimal storage sizing, the proposed solution introduced in this study allows for better site selection, microgrid design, converter selection, and storage sizing considerations for isolated microgrids.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

Coastal Community Resiliency Enhancement Using Marine Hydrokinetic (MHK) Resources and Networked Microgrids

Enormous challenges are inherent in the operation of modern distribution grids. In particular, distribution feeders can be severely compromised under extreme conditions such as large-scale weather events (e.g., hurricanes, floods, and other types of natural disasters). To combat this problem, they turn to local energy support from distributed energy resources, such as solar and wind, marine hydrolinetic (MHK), and other types of energy. In this report, we investigate the actual characteristics of MHK resources to enhance coastal community resiliency. Two typical types of MHK resources (i.e., wave and tidal resources) illustrate the coastal resilience enhancement framework. By identifying their operational characteristics, such as target time-scales and potential power generation variations, we detail a holistic coastal community resiliency enhancement framework that integrates both optimization and control efforts. The optimization problem is formulated to significantly minimize the power outage time at the critical infrastructures in coastal communities by implementing multiple autonomous and dynamic microgrids around MHK resources. Therefore, during severe power outages caused by natural disasters (e.g., floods, hurricanes), the coastal community load profiles can be satisfied using local MHK resources in each microgrid with limited or no power support from upstream power grids.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

Driving Investment in Wind Energy: An Introduction to Incentives and the Inflation Reduction Act [Slides]

In a webinar hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy's WINDExchange initiative, experts from the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory introduce attendees to the key incentives supporting investment in wind energy deployment and manufacturing in the United States, as well as the role that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) plays in shaping those investments. Over the past few decades, incentives like the production tax credit and investment tax credit have supported the growth of wind energy deployment, while manufacturing-related incentives have helped scale up domestic manufacturing of wind energy components. With its passage in 2022, the IRA ushered in a new wave of investment in wind energy and other renewable technologies, as well as introducing new workforce requirements and equity provisions. This presentation explores the history and impact of major incentives, unpacks some of the complex provisions of the IRA, and highlights the ways federal incentives and policies will continue to shape the wind energy industry.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Global Reference Atmospheric Model (GRAM) Advancements and Additions

Introduction:The Global Reference Atmospheric Model (GRAM) is one of the most widely used engineering models of the atmosphere. GRAM development and maintenance has been led by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) has provided funding support to upgrade the GRAMs since Fiscal Year 2018. NASA Langley Research Center has been working with MSFC on the upgrades.This presentation will provide details regarding the upgrades that have been made to the existing GRAMs, the development of new GRAMs, as well as the ongoing objectives, tasks, and milestones re-lated to the GRAM upgrades funded by NASA SMD. GRAM: The GRAMs are engineering-oriented atmospheric models that estimate mean values and statistical variations of the atmospheric properties for numerous planetary destinations.They provide mean values and variability for any point in the atmosphere as well as seasonal, geographic, and altitude variations. GRAM outputs include atmospheric density, temperature, pressure, winds, and chemical composition along a user-defined path.Theyhave been widely used by the engineering community because of their ability to create realistic dispersions. GRAMs have been integrated into high fidelity flight dynamic simulations of launch, entry, descent and landing (EDL), aerobraking and aerocapture. MSFC has been developing and updating GRAMs since 1974; GRAMs are currently available for Earth, Mars, Venus, Neptune, and Titan. GRAM Upgrade Status: Code Moderization.The planetary GRAMs are being rearchitected from Fortran to a common object-ori-entedC++ framework called the GRAM Suite. This new architecture creates a common GRAM library of data models and utilities. The first C++ releases of the existing planetary GRAMs (Mars, Venus, Neptune, and Titan-GRAM) in the GRAM Suite are straight conversions from the latest Fortran version. Model Upgrades.The focus of the model upgrade task is to improve the atmosphere models in the existing GRAMs and to establish a foundation for developing GRAMs for additional destinations. The GRAM ephemerishas been upgraded to the NASA Navigation and Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF) SPICE toolkit (version N0066). The calculation of the speed of sound has also been improved in the GRAMs. The GRAM team has received updated Mars General Circulation Model (MGCM) datasets from NASA Ames Research Center. Mars Global Ionosphere-Thermosphere Model (M-GITM) data is being obtained toreplace the Mars Thermospheric General Circulation Model (MTGCM) data in legacy Mars-GRAM. M-GITM and updated MGCM data will be incorporated into a future GRAM Suite release.Twoprojects that will improve the atmospheric model data in the GRAMs have been funded by the GRAM team since Fiscal Year 2020. Sanjay Limaye and Patrick Fry at the University of Wisconsin are reanalyzing the Venus Express radio occultation observations and analyzing the Akatsukiradio occultation observations.This will lead tothe calculation of number density, temperature, and pressure profiles for the 40-90 km altitude range. Kunio Sayanagi, Justin Garland, and Ryan McCabeat Hampton University are developing empirical global models for Venus,Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Titan that incorporates the latest data available for each of these planetary destinations. Upgraded GRAM Releases. GRAM Suite Version 1.0 was released in May 2020 and contains the rearchitected Neptune-GRAM, including the common GRAM framework and planet–specific code. GRAM Suite Version 1.1 was released in September 2020 and addedthe rearchitected Titan-GRAM to the GRAM Suite. A User Guide and Programmer’s Manualarereleased with all GRAMs. The rearchitected Mars and Venus-GRAMs will be released in upcomingversions of the GRAM Suite. New GRAM Releases. New GRAMs have been de-veloped for Uranus and Jupiter. Uranus-GRAM is based on an individual profile generated by Gary Allen (ARC) from Voyager 2 occultation data and will be released in GRAM Suite Version 1.2. Jupiter-GRAM is based on individual profile produced from Al Seiff’s Ju-piter model[1].Jupiter-GRAM will be released in GRAM Suite Version 1.3. Saturn-GRAM is currently under development and will be released in a future version of the GRAM Suite. Conclusions: GRAMs are vital and frequently used toolsets. Releases of the GRAM Suite, upgrades of the existing planetary GRAMs, and development of new planetary GRAMs are ongoing. NASA SMD funding has been essential to addressing current limitations and accomplishing GRAM developmental goals. Continua-tion ofSMD fundingwill ensure the development, up-grades, and maintenance of the GRAMs. References: [1] Seiff, A., et al. (1998) JGR, 103, 22,857-22,889. Acknowledgments: The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the NASA SMD

atmospheric models↗

BatAnalysis - A Comprehensive Python Pipeline for Swift BAT Survey Analysis

The Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) is a coded-aperture gamma-ray instrument with a large field of view that primarily operates in survey mode when it is not triggering on transient events. The survey data consist of 80- channel detector plane histograms that accumulate photon counts over periods of at least 5 minutes. These histograms are processed on the ground and are used to produce the survey data set between 14 and 195 keV. Survey data comprise >90% of all BAT data by volume and allow for the tracking of long-term light curves and spectral properties of cataloged and uncataloged hard X-ray sources. Until now, the survey data set has not been used to its full potential due to the complexity associated with its analysis and the lack of easily usable pipelines. Here, we introduce the BatAnalysis Python package, a wrapper for HEASoftpy, which provides a modern, opensource pipeline to process and analyze BAT survey data. BatAnalysis allows members of the community to use BAT survey data in more advanced analyses of astrophysical sources, including pulsars, pulsar wind nebula, active galactic nuclei, and other known/unknown transient events that may be detected in the hard X-ray band. We outline the steps taken by the Python code and exemplify its usefulness and accuracy by analyzing survey data of the Crab Nebula, NGC 2992, and a previously uncataloged MAXI transient. The BatAnalysis package allows for ~18 yr of BAT survey data to be used in a systematic way to study a large variety of astrophysical sources.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗