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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 253 records · Page 14
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1987

Integration of symbolic and algorithmic hardware and software for the automation of space station subsystems

Traditional expert systems, such as diagnostic and training systems, interact with users only through a keyboard and screen, and are usually symbolic in nature. Expert systems that require access to data bases, complex simulations and real-time instrumentation have both symbolic as well as algorithmic computing needs. These needs could both be met using a general purpose workstation running both symbolic and algorithmic code, or separate, specialized computers networked together. The latter approach was chosen to implement TEXSYS, the thermal expert system, developed by NASA Ames Research Center in conjunction with Johnson Space Center to demonstrate the ability of an expert system to autonomously monitor the thermal control system of the space station. TEXSYS has been implemented on a Symbolics workstation, and will be linked to a microVAX computer that will control a thermal test bed. This paper will explore the integration options, and present several possible solutions.

Gregg, Hugh↗
NASA NTRS1988

Integration of symbolic and algorithmic hardware and software for the automation of space station subsystems

Expert systems that require access to data bases, complex simulations and real time instrumentation have both symbolic and algorithmic needs. Both of these needs could be met using a general purpose workstation running both symbolic and algorithmic codes, or separate, specialized computers networked together. The later approach was chosen to implement TEXSYS, the thermal expert system, developed by the NASA Ames Research Center in conjunction with the Johnson Space Center to demonstrate the ability of an expert system to autonomously monitor the thermal control system of the space station. TEXSYS has been implemented on a Symbolics workstation, and will be linked to a microVAX computer that will control a thermal test bed. The integration options and several possible solutions are presented.

Gregg, Hugh↗
NASA NTRS1991

Development of silicon carbide semiconductor devices for high temperature applications

The semiconducting properties of electronic grade silicon carbide crystals, such as wide energy bandgap, make it particularly attractive for high temperature applications. Applications for high temperature electronic devices include instrumentation for engines under development, engine control and condition monitoring systems, and power conditioning and control systems for space platforms and satellites. Discrete prototype SiC devices were fabricated and tested at elevated temperatures. Grown p-n junction diodes demonstrated very good rectification characteristics at 870 K. A depletion-mode metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor was also successfully fabricated and tested at 770 K. While optimization of SiC fabrication processes remain, it is believed that SiC is an enabling high temperature electronic technology.

Matus, Lawrence G.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Silicon carbide, an emerging high temperature semiconductor

In recent years, the aerospace propulsion and space power communities have expressed a growing need for electronic devices that are capable of sustained high temperature operation. Applications for high temperature electronic devices include development instrumentation within engines, engine control, and condition monitoring systems, and power conditioning and control systems for space platforms and satellites. Other earth-based applications include deep-well drilling instrumentation, nuclear reactor instrumentation and control, and automotive sensors. To meet the needs of these applications, the High Temperature Electronics Program at the Lewis Research Center is developing silicon carbide (SiC) as a high temperature semiconductor material. Research is focussed on developing the crystal growth, characterization, and device fabrication technologies necessary to produce a family of silicon carbide electronic devices and integrated sensors. The progress made in developing silicon carbide is presented, and the challenges that lie ahead are discussed.

Matus, Lawrence G.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Regolith Evolved Gas Analyzer (REGA)

The instrument consists of five subsystems: (1) a programmable furnace which can be loaded with samples of regolith, (2) a mass spectrometer which detects and measures atmospheric gases or gases evolved during heating, (3) a tank of pressurized gas which can be introduced to the regolith material while detecting and measuring volatile reaction products, (4) a mechanism for dumping the regolith sample and repeating the experiment on a fresh sample, and (5) a data system which controls and monitors the furnace, gas system, and mass spectrometer.

Allen, Carlton C.↗
NASA NTRS2024

Review and Performance Testing of the Optical Power Monitor (PMON)

The LISA mission requires a high precision optical power monitoring and control system that combines high reliability and measurement accuracy with extremely low disturbance to the core interferometric detection system. NASA is working with Avo Photonics to design and build this optical power monitor, known as PMON. The high-level design requirements take into account detector redundancy, mechanical rigidity, stability against temperature and input alignment changes, parasitic scatter and reflection artifacts, as well as low magnetic field. Gamma and Proton radiation tests have been performed on the photodiodes from a few vendors to verify radiation tolerance. Engineering development units of the PMON have been fabricated, delivered and evaluated at NASA.

Hua Jiao↗
NASA NTRS1981

Solar heating and hot water system installed at James Hurst Elementary School, Portsmouth, Virginia

Solar heating and a hot water system installed in an elementary school in Portsmouth, Virginia are examined. The building is zoned into four heating/cooling areas. Each area is equipped with an air handling unit that is monitored and controlled by central control and monitoring system. The solar system for the building uses a collector area of 3,630 sq. ft. of flat plate liquid collectors, and a 6,000 gallon storage tank. System descriptions, maintenance reports, detailed component specifications, and design drawings to evaluate this solar system are reported.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1990

U.S.-Japan Workshop on Smart/Intelligent Materials and Systems, Honolulu, HI, Mar. 19-23, 1990, Proceedings

Topics presented include the concept of intelligent materials, the molecular engineering of channel proteins, the prospects, limitations, and requirements of intelligent micro motion systems, the modeling of a shape memory integrated actuator for vibration control of large space structures, and intelligent materials for future electronics. Also presented are the slewing of an active structure, the health monitoring of control system components, the numerical modeling of the microstructure of crystals with symmetry-related variants, and the intelligent material system concept.

Ahmad, Iqbal↗
DOE OSTI2023

Bayesian High-Rank Hankel Matrix Completion for Nonlinear Synchrophasor Data Recovery

Phasor measurement units (PMUs) provide high temporal-resolution synchrophasor measurements for power system monitoring and control. The frequent data quality issues, such as missing and bad data, prevent the incorporation of synchrophasor data in real-time operations. Most existing data-driven data recovery methods assume the power system dynamics can be approximated by a linear dynamical system, and the recovery performance degrades significantly when the power system is experiencing nonlinear dynamics during significant events. Here, this paper proposes a data-driven Bayesian nonlinear synchrophasor data recovery method (Ba-NSDR) that can recover a consecutive time period of simultaneous data losses or errors across all channels, even when the underlying system is highly nonlinear. The idea is to lift the Hankel matrix of the spatial-temporal synchrophasor data to a higher dimension such that the lifted Hankel matrix is low-rank in that space and can be processed with the kernel trick. Our proposed Bayesian method then infers the probabilistic distributions of synchrophasor from the partial observations. Some distinctive features of Ba-NSDR include an uncertainty index to measure the accuracy of the recovery result and the robustness to parameter selections. Our method is verified on both synthetic and recorded event datasets.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS1991

A ground test program to support condition monitoring of a spacecraft attitude control propulsion system

The Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) mission involves seven years of flight from 0.6 to 4.57 Astronomical Units (AU), followed by about 915 days of maneuvering around a comet. Ground testing will characterize the very critical attitude control system thrusters' fuel consumption and performance for all anticipated fuel temperatures over thruster life. The ground test program characterization will support flight condition monitoring. A commercial software application hosted on a commercial microcomputer will control ground test operations and data acquisition using a newly designed thrust stand. The data acquisition and control system uses a graphics-based language and features a visual interface to integrate data acquisition and control.

Clark, Douglas J.↗
DOE OSTI2018

New Educational Modules Using a Cyber-Distribution System Testbed

At Washington State University (WSU), a modern cyber-physical system testbed has been implemented based on an industry grade distribution management system (DMS) that is integrated with remote terminal units (RTUs), smart meters, and a solar photovoltaic (PV). In addition, the real model from the Avista Utilities distribution system in Pullman, WA, is modeled in DMS. The proposed testbed environment allows students and instructors to utilize these facilities for innovations in learning and teaching. For power engineering education, this testbed helps students understand the interaction between a cyber system and a physical distribution system through industrial level visualization. The testbed provides a distribution system monitoring and control environment for students. Compared with a simulation based approach, the testbed brings the students' learning environment a step closer to the real world. The educational modules allow students to learn the concepts of a cyber-physical system and an electricity market through an integrated testbed. Furthermore, the testbed provides a platform in the study mode for students to practice working on a real distribution system model. Here, this paper describes the new educational modules based on the testbed environment. Three modules are described together with the underlying educational principles and associated projects.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Unified architecture for data-driven metadata tagging of building automation systems

This article presents a Unified Architecture (UA) for automated point tagging of Building Automation System (BAS) data, based on a combination of data-driven approaches. Advanced energy analytics applications—including fault detection and diagnostics and supervisory control—have emerged as a significant opportunity for improving the performance of our built environment. Effective application of these analytics depends on harnessing structured data from the various building control and monitoring systems, but typical BAS implementations do not employ any standardized metadata schema. While standards such as Project Haystack and Brick Schema have been developed to address this issue, the process of structuring the data, i.e., tagging the points to apply a standard metadata schema, has, to date, been a manual process. This process is typically costly, labor-intensive, and error-prone. In this work we address this gap by proposing a UA that automates the process of point tagging by leveraging the data accessible through connection to the BAS, including time-series data and the raw point names. The UA intertwines supervised classification and unsupervised clustering techniques from machine learning and leverages both their deterministic and probabilistic outputs to inform the point tagging process. Furthermore, we extend the UA to embed additional input and output data-processing modules that are designed to address the challenges associated with the real-time deployment of this automation solution. We test the UA on two datasets for real-life buildings: (i) commercial retail buildings and (ii) office buildings from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) campus. We report the proposed methodology correctly applied 85–90% and 70–75% of the tags in each of these test scenarios, respectively for two significantly different building types used for testing UA's fully-functional prototype. The proposed UA, therefore, offers promising approach for automatically tagging BAS data as it reaches close to 90% accuracy. Further building upon this framework to algorithmically identify the equipment type and their relationships is an apt future research direction to pursue.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS2014

Supporting Multiple Programs and Projects at NASA's Kennedy Space Center

With the conclusion of the shuttle program in 2011, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had found itself at a crossroads for finding transportation of United States astronauts and experiments to space. The agency would eventually hand off the taxiing of American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) that orbits in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) about 210 miles above the earth under the requirements of the Commercial Crew Program (CCP). By privatizing the round trip journey from Earth to the ISS, the space agency has been given the additional time to focus funding and resources to projects that operate beyond LEO; however, adding even more stress to the agency, the premature cancellation of the program that would succeed the Shuttle Program - The Constellation Program (CxP) -it would inevitably delay the goal to travel beyond LEO for a number of years. Enter the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV). Currently, the SLS is under development at NASA's Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, while the Orion Capsule, built by government contractor Lockheed Martin Corporation, has been assembled and is currently under testing at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. In its current vision, SLS will take Orion and its crew to an asteroid that had been captured in an earlier mission in lunar orbit. Additionally, this vehicle and its configuration is NASA's transportation to Mars. Engineers at the Kennedy Space Center are currently working to test the ground systems that will facilitate the launch of Orion and the SLS within its Ground Services Development and Operations (GSDO) Program. Firing Room 1 in the Launch Control Center (LCC) has been refurbished and outfitted to support the SLS Program. In addition, the Spaceport Command and Control System (SCCS) is the underlying control system for monitoring and launching manned launch vehicles. As NASA finds itself at a junction, so does all of its associated centers across the US. KSC has found itself at the blunt end of change as the entire center has transitioned from an operations mindset to a development mentality. The author of this paper has had the fortunate privilege and opportunity to be part of a transforming NASA during the fall months of 2014. The following is a high level account of projects that he had the chance to work on including the Spaceport Command and Control System, the Advanced Ground System and Maintenance Program Project, Customer Avionics Development & Analysis (CAIDA) Lab and Swamp Works.

Advanced Ground System Maintenance↗
DOE OSTI2017

Real-time monitoring, prognosis, and resilient control for wind turbine systems

This special issue aims to provide a platform for academic and industrial communities to report recent results and emerging research in real-time monitoring, fault diagnosis, prognosis, and resilient control and design of wind turbine systems. After a strict peer-review process, 20 papers were selected, which represent the most recent progress of the real-time monitoring, diagnosis, prognosis, and resilient control methods/techniques in wind turbine systems.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2000

Preserving Fresh Fruit

Geo-Centers, Inc. has developed an Ethlyene Monitoring and Control System through an SBIR contract with Kennedy Space Center. As plants grow, they produce by products of ethylene and ammonia which are harmful to plant development. The system provides optimal exposure of fruit to ethylene since the proper balance in ethylene is necessary to prevent fruit loss. It can be used to monitor the de-greening process of citrus fruits, in particular.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2015

Process monitoring of additive manufacturing by using optical tomography

Parts fabricated by means of additive manufacturing are usually of complex shape and owing to the fabrication procedure by using selective laser melting (SLM), potential defects and inaccuracies are often very small in lateral size. Therefore, an adequate quality inspection of such parts is rather challenging, while non-destructive-techniques (NDT) are difficult to realize, but considerable efforts are necessary in order to ensure the quality of SLM-parts especially used for aerospace components. Thus, MTU Aero Engines is currently focusing on the development of an Online Process Control system which monitors and documents the complete welding process during the SLM fabrication procedure. A high-resolution camera system is used to obtain images, from which tomographic data for a 3dim analysis of SLM-parts are processed. From the analysis, structural irregularities and structural disorder resulting from any possible erroneous melting process become visible and may be allocated anywhere within the 3dim structure. Results of our optical tomography (OT) method as obtained on real defects are presented.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2018

Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages

This report is being submitted for the task “Final Report” of DOE NEUP Project 15-8121 “Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages.” Typical nuclear power plant (NPP) outages always involve thousands of maintenance and refueling activities and a large number of workers in limited workspaces, while having tight schedules and zero-tolerance for accidents. During an outage, thousands of workers will be working in various workspaces across the NPP. High outage costs and expensive delays (approximately 1.5 million dollars of loss per day of delay) in NPP maintenance demand tight outage schedules. In packed workspaces, an automatic system that monitors human behaviors in real-time and provides insights about current and pending schedule deviations from the plan is critical for ensuring: 1) effective collaboration among workers and worker teams from different trades; 2) less waste of time and resources due to the lack of situational awareness; and 3) proactive outage project control. The overall goal of this project is to test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling of outage participants, will significantly improve the efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. Three objectives of this project are: 1) Establish real-time object tracking and spatiotemporal analysis methods that automatically assess the productivity of field activities and detect anomalous spatiotemporal relationships among activities that cause inefficiencies and risks; 2) Establish realtime human tracking and human factor modeling methods for automatically diagnosing unexpected actions of and interactions between outage participants, those which cause inefficient collaborations between Advanced Outage Control Center (AOCC), satellite outage centers, NPP workers, and maintenance service providers; and 3) Test the proposed automated object tracking, human behavior modeling, and spatiotemporal analysis methods in outage control case studies in order to characterize the effectiveness of automated imagery-data-driven methods in proactively improving the efficiency and safety of workflows in outage coordination and risk management. Recent studies of detailed human behavior monitoring on construction sites have examined the potential of applying advanced computer vision algorithms in detecting and tracking anomalous workers (i.e., workers who do not wear hard hats or safety vests) for ensuring job site safety. Some studies of human factor studies revealed the importance of modeling detailed interactions between individuals within and across teams in better understanding the impact of human in proactive project control. Other studies in the construction domain have developed computational simulation frameworks that formalize detailed spatiotemporal interactions between tasks in order to simulate the impacts of individual tasks on the performance of workflows. While integrated analyses that combine human factor assessment, as well as image processing and simulation, are in demand for effective decision-making, limited studies have examined the potential of such integrated analyses in NPP outage control. This research project has examined an automatic outage monitoring and control system that integrates human factor analysis, computer vision techniques, and simulation methods in order to enable engineers to better understand the interactions between humans, resources, and workflows during outage processes. The project aims at providing NPP maintenance agencies insights into more efficient use of limited resources in extending the life of a nuclear plant, as well as reducing waste while ensuring sufficient generation of electricity. This study is significant for the safety of nuclear plants, sustainable electricity generation for livable communities, and cost savings for maintaining electricity infrastructures in the United States.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗