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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 325 records · Page 18

Adapting Existing Energy Models for Resilience Analysis

Resilience is a topic receiving much attention in relation to energy systems, with particular attention being paid to the supply of electricity. As a result of the growing interest in energy sector resilience, research communities have proposed a plethora of candidate resilience indicators and metrics, most of which remain immature at different scales and segments within the energy system. A necessary focus of the research community lies in implementing, testing, and validating resilience metrics and analysis approaches in energy sector models, which will be invaluable for informing resilience planning and investment decisions. Recognizing these challenges that need to be addressed, we explore how to effectively integrate resilience considerations into energy sector models and tools. The overarching goal of the effort was to evaluate the data needs, methodologies, and outcomes—including consequences and/or changes in investment or operational decisions due to avoided consequences—based on resilience analysis in a range of existing tools. In particular, we selected five models originally built at NREL to explore non-resilience energy research questions to implement and exercise resilience metrics and analysis approaches. To demonstrate the importance of perspective, we selected models that represent different segments of the energy sector, geographic scales, and modeling approaches. A second important aspect of our effort was the development of generalized power interruption scenarios. These scenarios were intended to help establish a framework for simulating the effects of real-world threats in terms of their impacts on system components and, in turn, power interruption.

ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Rotary-wing aeroelasticity with application to VTOL vehicles

This survey presents an assessment of the state of the art in rotary-wing aeroelasticity as applied to conventional helicopters as well as other VTOL vehicles such as tilting prop-rotors, the X-wing and a hybrid heavy lift vehicle. The objective is to enable the reader to develop an awareness of what has been accomplished, what remains to be done, and where to find more comprehensive treatments of the various topics discussed. The main topics discussed are: (1) structural modeling; (2) unsteady aerodynamic modeling; (3) formulation of the equations of motion and their solutions; (4) illustrative results for isolated blades in hover and forward flight; (5) illustrative results for coupled rotor/fuselage problems; (6) active control of aeromechanical and aeroelastic problems; (7) active controls for vibration reduction; (8) structural optimization with aeroelastic constraints; (9) gust response analysis of rotors; and (10) aeroelastic problems in special VTOL vehicles. These topics are reviewed with different levels of detail and some useful observation on potentially rewarding areas of future research are made.

Friedmann, Peretz P.↗

Spaceliner Class Operability Gains Via Combined Airbreathing/ Rocket Propulsion: Summarizing an Operational Assessment of Highly Reusable Space Transports

In discussing a new NASA initiative in advanced space transportation systems and technologies, the Director of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Arthur G. Stephenson, noted that, "It would use new propulsion technology, air-breathing engine so you don't have to carry liquid oxygen, at least while your flying through the atmosphere. We are calling it Spaceliner 100 because it would be 100 times cheaper, costing $ 100 dollars a pound to orbit." While airbreathing propulsion is directly named, rocket propulsion is also implied by, "... while you are flying through the atmosphere." In-space final acceleration to orbital speed mandates rocket capabilities. Thus, in this informed view, Spaceliner 100 will be predicated on combined airbreathing/rocket propulsion, the technical subject of this paper. Interestingly, NASA's recently concluded Highly Reusable Space Transportation (HRST) study focused on the same affordability goal as that of the Spaceliner 100 initiative and reflected the decisive contribution of combined propulsion as a way of expanding operability and increasing the design robustness of future space transports, toward "aircraft like" capabilities. The HRST study built on the Access to Space Study and the Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) development activities to identify and characterize space transportation concepts, infrastructure and technologies that have the greatest potential for reducing delivery cost by another order of magnitude, from $1,000 to $100-$200 per pound for 20,000 lb. - 40.000 lb. payloads to low earth orbit (LEO). The HRST study investigated a number of near-term, far-term, and very far-term launch vehicle concepts including all-rocket single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) concepts, two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) concepts, concepts with launch assist, rocket-based combined cycle (RBCC) concepts, advanced expendable vehicles, and more far term ground-based laser powered launchers. The HRST study consisted of preliminary concept studies, assessments and analysis tool development for advanced space transportation systems, followed by end-to-end system concept definitions and trade analyses, specific system concept definition and analysis, specific key technology and topic analysis, system, operational and economics model development, analysis, and integrated assessments. The HRST Integration Task Force (HITF) was formed to synthesize study results in several specific topic areas and support the development of conclusions from the study: Systems Concepts Definitions, Technology Assessment, Operations Assessment, and Cost Assessment. This paper summarizes the work of the Operations Assessment Team: the six approaches used, the analytical tools and methodologies developed and employed, the issues and concerns, and the results of the assessment. The approaches were deliberately varied in measures of merit and procedure to compensate for the uncertainty inherent in operations data in this early phase of concept exploration. In general, rocket based combined cycle (RBCC) concepts appear to have significantly greater potential than all-rocket concepts for reducing operations costs.

Nix, Michael B.↗

Lessons Learned from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Product Development Lead Training Schedule and Cost Development Workshop: Continuous Improvement

This presentation provides a status of the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) effort to increase foundational knowledge of Product Development Leads (PDLs) in schedule and cost management including earned value management (EVM). In 2012, GSFC’s Engineering and Technology Directorate (ETD) implemented an in-house training program to prepare PDLs for managing the technical, cost, schedule, and risk aspects of spaceflight systems to meet their subsystem commitments. Developed in-house, the PDL training program provides an integrated approach to requirements development, risk, schedule and cost management, EVM, performance tracking, and other areas. The program has been held twice yearly since its inception with 531 participating and 451 completing the curriculum. In 2017, the program won the Robert H. Goddard award for Quality and Process Improvement. Program development and evolution were presented in the 2018 NASA Schedule and Cost Symposium. The presentation was so well received that this year we focus on one workshop within the program: Schedule and Cost Development, including EVM. We examine the on-going logic modeling process and how participant and stakeholder data influence workshop content and design, and how the disciplines of schedule and cost contribute to mission success. In this presentation we refresh you on how the approach integrates lecture, small group discussion, estimating, case study exercises, and problem solving. We update you on the data collected from participants and stakeholders, and we discuss how we use these data to measure training effectiveness. Specific topics include: • How the logic model is used as the backbone for continuous program improvement, • How feedback influences implementation and curriculum updates, • How data collection and analysis inform workshop content and development, including participant discoveries of EVM data, • How including the resource analyst and planner in the product development team supports project success.

Lessons Learned↗

Adapting Existing Energy Planning, Simulation, and Operational Models for Resilience Analysis

Resilience is a topic receiving much attention in relation to energy systems, with particular attention being paid to the supply of electricity. As a result, research communities have proposed a plethora of candidate indicators and metrics for resilience, most of which remain immature at different scales and segments within the energy system. Given the complexity of resilience analyses and mitigation strategies, there is limited value in attempting to identify a single resilience metric, as no one metric can quantify resilience or its associated value for all stakeholders. Instead, a necessary focus of the research community should lie in implementing, testing, and validating resilience metrics and analysis approaches in energy sector models, which will be invaluable for informing resilience planning and investment decisions. Recognizing that implementing, testing, and validating resilience metrics are challenges that need to be addressed, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) dedicated staff and time to researching how to effectively integrate resilience considerations into energy sector models and tools, as part of the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program. The overarching goal of the effort was to evaluate the data needs, methodologies, and outcomes - including consequences and/or changes in investment or operational decisions due to avoided consequences - based on resilience analysis in a range of existing tools. In particular, we selected five models originally built at NREL to explore non-resilience energy research questions to implement and exercise resilience metrics and analysis approaches.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

A survey on degradation modeling, prognosis, and prognostics-driven maintenance in wind energy systems

Wind energy generation proliferated over the past decades, introducing unique challenges and opportunities for failure prediction, operation and maintenance. Decision-makers are continuously looking into new methods to infer failure mechanisms and behaviors of wind turbine components to detect and intervene in the failures before they happen. Evidently, degradation modeling and prognosis become engaging topics for researchers and practitioners to prevent catastrophic failures. Prognostics-driven approaches predict the time of failure for the components (e.g., predicting remaining useful life), which provides significant insights for scheduling of operations and maintenance activities. Integrating these prognostics-driven insights into wind farm operations and maintenance presents a substantial challenge, demanding careful consideration of numerous factors such as accessibility, crew routing, and spare part logistics. This study provides state-of-the-art review for degradation modeling, prognosis, and prognostics-driven maintenance techniques for wind energy systems. The discussed techniques align with the United Nations' sustainable development goals, in particular Goal 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), by enhancing effectiveness and sustainability of wind energy operations. This work also showcases open research questions related to degradation modeling, prognosis, and prognostics-driven maintenance.

Altinpulluk, Nur Banu↗

AWT Modeling Status

The NASA Altitude Wind Tunnel (AWT) modeling status is presented through analytical and physical performance assessments. Topics covered in viewgraph format include: performance assessment and modeling, geometric dimensions, organization of task force, and schedule of events.

Abbott, John M.↗

Joint sessions on modeling of boundary layer and radiative transfer processes

During the session on modeling of the planetary boundary layer (PBL) processes the following topics were addressed: current PBL parameterizations used in mesoscale models; critical issues in improving PBL parameterizations for mesoscale models; suggestions for future modeling efforts; and suggestions for observing system strategies.

Moeng, Chin-Hoh↗

Model Atmospheres for Novae in Outburst: Summary of Research

This paper presents a final report and summary of research on Model Atmospheres for Novae in Outburst. Some of the topics include: 1) Detailed NLTE (non-local thermodynamic equilibrium) Model Atmospheres for Novae during Outburst: II. Modeling optical and ultraviolet observations of Nova LMC 1988 #1; 2) A Non-LTE Line-Blanketed Stellar Atmosphere Model of the Early B Giant epsilon CMa; 3) Spectroscopy of Low Metallicity Stellar atmospheres; 4) Infrared Colors at the Stellar/Substellar Boundary; 5) On the abundance of Lithium in T CrB; 6) Numerical Solution of the Expanding Stellar Atmosphere Problem; and 7) The NextGen Model Atmosphere grid for 3000 less than or equal to T (sub eff) less than or equal to 10000K.

Hauschildt, Peter H.↗

NEP systems model

Various aspects of nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) systems analysis and modeling are discussed. The following specific topics are covered: (1) systems analysis challenges; (2) goals for NEP systems analysis; (3) the Nuclear Propulsion Office approach; and (4) NEP subsystem model development. The discussion is presented in vugraph form.

Gilland, Jim↗

Asynchronous Message Service Reference Implementation

This software provides a library of middleware functions with a simple application programming interface, enabling implementation of distributed applications in conformance with the CCSDS AMS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems Asynchronous Message Service) specification. The AMS service, and its protocols, implement an architectural concept under which the modules of mission systems may be designed as if they were to operate in isolation, each one producing and consuming mission information without explicit awareness of which other modules are currently operating. Communication relationships among such modules are self-configuring; this tends to minimize complexity in the development and operations of modular data systems. A system built on this model is a society of generally autonomous, inter-operating modules that may fluctuate freely over time in response to changing mission objectives, modules functional upgrades, and recovery from individual module failure. The purpose of AMS, then, is to reduce mission cost and risk by providing standard, reusable infrastructure for the exchange of information among data system modules in a manner that is simple to use, highly automated, flexible, robust, scalable, and efficient. The implementation is designed to spawn multiple threads of AMS functionality under the control of an AMS application program. These threads enable all members of an AMS-based, distributed application to discover one another in real time, subscribe to messages on specific topics, and to publish messages on specific topics. The query/reply (client/server) communication model is also supported. Message exchange is optionally subject to encryption (to support confidentiality) and authorization. Fault tolerance measures in the discovery protocol minimize the likelihood of overall application failure due to any single operational error anywhere in the system. The multi-threaded design simplifies processing while enabling application nodes to operate at high speeds; linked lists protected by mutex semaphores and condition variables are used for efficient, inter-thread communication. Applications may use a variety of transport protocols underlying AMS itself, including TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), UDP (User Datagram Protocol), and message queues.

Burleigh, Scott C.↗

Airspace Systems Program: Virtual Airspace Modeling and Simulation Project

The Airspace Systems Program (ASP) has identified a set of goals based on projections of annual passenger demands. The topics of discussion include: 1) Virtual Airspace Modeling and Simulation Project (VAMS) Project Description; 2) VAMS Project Management; 3) VAMS Project Schedule; and 4) Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM). This paper is in viewgraph form.

Jacobsen, Robert↗

Notes and comments on computational elastoplasticity - Some new models and their numerical implementation

The following topics are discussed in this paper: (1) the basic interactive nature of classical elasto-plasticity and a redefinition of elastic and plastic processes that facilitates numerical calculations, (2) generalized mid-point or end-point algorithms to determine the stress increment in an elastic-plastic solid from a given strain increment, (3) an endochronic (internal time) rate theory of time-independent plasticity which encompasses various multiple-yield-surface theories and nonlinear kinematic hardening theories as its specializations, and (4) comments on finite element and boundary element methods for solving boundary value problems in elasto-plasticity.

Atluri, S. N.↗

Neural networks modeling and control of dynamical systems

The topics are presented in viewgraph form and include: an overview of research; first year research objectives (starting 5/91); background; current work; accomplishments from 5/91-9/91; and second year research objectives.

Donald I Soloway↗

Electron cyclotron thruster new modeling results preparation for initial experiments

The following topics are discussed: a whistler-based electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) thruster; cross-field coupling in the helicon approximation; wave propagation; wave structure; plasma density; wave absorption; the electron distribution function; isothermal and adiabatic plasma flow; ECRH thruster modeling; a PIC code model; electron temperature; electron energy; and initial experimental tests. The discussion is presented in vugraph form.

Hooper, E. Bickford↗

Optimal vocabulary selection approaches for privacy-preserving deep NLP model training for information extraction and cancer epidemiology

With the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques for biomedical informatics, security and privacy concerns over the data and subject identities have also become an important issue and essential research topic. Without intentional safeguards, machine learning models may find patterns and features to improve task performance that are associated with private personal information. The privacy vulnerability of deep learning models for information extraction from medical textural contents needs to be quantified since the models are exposed to private health information and personally identifiable information. The objective of the study is to quantify the privacy vulnerability of the deep learning models for natural language processing and explore a proper way of securing patients’ information to mitigate confidentiality breaches. The target model is the multitask convolutional neural network for information extraction from cancer pathology reports, where the data for training the model are from multiple state population-based cancer registries. This study proposes the following schemes to collect vocabularies from the cancer pathology reports; (a) words appearing in multiple registries, and (b) words that have higher mutual information. We performed membership inference attacks on the models in high-performance computing environments. The comparison outcomes suggest that the proposed vocabulary selection methods resulted in lower privacy vulnerability while maintaining the same level of clinical task performance.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

The dynamics of hydroponic crops for simulation studies of the CELSS initial reference configurations

The goal of this research is to develop a progressive series of mathematical models for the CELSS hydroponic crops. These models will systematize the experimental findings from the crop researchers in the CELSS Program into a form useful to investigate system-level considerations, for example, dynamic studies of the CELSS Initial Reference Configurations. The crop models will organize data from different crops into a common modeling framework. This is the fifth semiannual report for this project. The following topics are discussed: (1) use of field crop models to explore phasic control of CELSS crops for optimizing yield; (2) seminar presented at Purdue CELSS NSCORT; and (3) paper submitted on analysis of bioprocessing of inedible plant materials.

Volk, Tyler↗