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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
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1973

Evaluation of remote sensing in control of pink bollworm in cotton

The author has identified the following significant results. The main objective is to evaluate the use of a satellite in monitoring the cotton production regulation program of the State of California as an aid in controlling pink bollworm infestation in the southern deserts of California. Color combined images of ERTS-1 multispectral images simulating color infrared are being used for crop identification. The status of each field (i.e., crop, bare, harvested, wet, plowed) is mapped from the imagery and is then compared to ground survey information taken at the time of ERTS-1 overflights. A computer analysis has been performed to compare field and satellite data to a crop calendar. Correlation to data has been 97% for field condition. Actual crop identification varies; cotton identification is only 63% due to lack of full season coverage.

Lewis, L. N.↗
NASA NTRS1979

The effects of regional insolation differences upon advanced solar thermal electric power plant performance and energy costs

This paper presents the performance and cost of four 10-MWe advanced solar thermal electric power plants sited in various regions of the continental United States. Each region has different insolation characteristics which result in varying collector field areas, plant performance, capital costs, and energy costs. The paraboloidal dish, central receiver, cylindrical parabolic trough, and compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) comprise the advanced concepts studied. This paper contains a discussion of the regional insolation data base, a description of the solar systems' performances and costs, and a presentation of a range for the forecast cost of conventional electricity by region and nationally over the next several decades.

Latta, A. F.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Microwave performance of a quarter-micrometer gate low-noise pseudomorphic InGaAs/AlGaAs modulation-doped field effect transistor

Excellent dc and millimeter-wave performance is reported in In0.15Ga0.85As/Al0.15Ga0.85As pseudomorphic modulation-doped field effect transistors (MODFET's) with 0.25-micron-length gates. Extrinsic transconductances as high as 495 mS/mm at 300 K and unprecedented power performance in the 60-GHz range were observed. Although not yet optimized, excellent low noise characteristics, 0.9 dB, with an associated gain of 10.4 dB at 18 GHz, and a noise figure of 2.4 dB with an associated gain of 4.4 dB at 62 GHz were obtained. This is the best noise performance ever reported for a MODFET in this frequency range. These results clearly demonstrate the superiority of pseudomorphic MODFET structures in high-frequency applications.

Henderson, T.↗
NASA NTRS1980

The effects of regional insolation differences upon advanced solar thermal electric power plant performance and energy costs

The performance and cost of four 10 MWe advanced solar thermal electric power plants sited in various regions of the continental United States was studied. Each region has different insolation characteristics which result in varying collector field areas, plant performance, capital costs and energy costs. The regional variation in solar plant performance was assessed in relation to the expected rise in the future cost of residential and commercial electricity supplied by conventional utility power systems in the same regions. A discussion of the regional insolation data base is presented along with a description of the solar systems performance and costs. A range for the forecast cost of conventional electricity by region and nationally over the next several decades is given.

Latta, A. F.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Hot Chips and Hot Interconnects for High End Computing Systems

I will discuss several processors: 1. The Cray proprietary processor used in the Cray X1; 2. The IBM Power 3 and Power 4 used in an IBM SP 3 and IBM SP 4 systems; 3. The Intel Itanium and Xeon, used in the SGI Altix systems and clusters respectively; 4. IBM System-on-a-Chip used in IBM BlueGene/L; 5. HP Alpha EV68 processor used in DOE ASCI Q cluster; 6. SPARC64 V processor, which is used in the Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER HPC2500; 7. An NEC proprietary processor, which is used in NEC SX-6/7; 8. Power 4+ processor, which is used in Hitachi SR11000; 9. NEC proprietary processor, which is used in Earth Simulator. The IBM POWER5 and Red Storm Computing Systems will also be discussed. The architectures of these processors will first be presented, followed by interconnection networks and a description of high-end computer systems based on these processors and networks. The performance of various hardware/programming model combinations will then be compared, based on latest NAS Parallel Benchmark results (MPI, OpenMP/HPF and hybrid (MPI + OpenMP). The tutorial will conclude with a discussion of general trends in the field of high performance computing, (quantum computing, DNA computing, cellular engineering, and neural networks).

Saini, Subhash↗
NASA NTRS1972

A 30-cm diameter bombardment thruster with a variable magnetic baffle

Variable magnetic baffles were used to allow a change in baffle geometry to improve thruster performance and stability. Test results are presented. Thruster performance characteristics were analyzed to show how magnetic baffle field strength can improve performance at a fixed beam current, as well as increase the range of ion beam current for throttling.

Bechtel, R. T.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Consideration of the Martian magnetotail as evidence for an intrinsic magnetic field

It has been suggested by Verigin et al. (1993) that the response of the Martian magnetotail to changes in the solar wind ram pressure indicates the presence of an intrinsic dipole magnetic field. 3-D hybrid particle simulations of Mars were performed including the magnetotail regions. The simulations are in agreement with published Phobos 2 data from the 3 elliptical orbits and reproduce the magnetopause diameter dependence on the solar wind ram pressure reported by Verigin et al. (1993). However, the simulations were performed with no intrinsic field present, indicating that the dependence of the magnetotail width on ram pressure, is not a discriminator for the presence of the intrinsic field.

Brecht, Stephen H.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Development of a Robust and Efficient Parallel Solver for Unsteady Turbomachinery Flows

The traditional design and analysis practice for advanced propulsion systems relies heavily on expensive full-scale prototype development and testing. Over the past decade, use of high-fidelity analysis and design tools such as CFD early in the product development cycle has been identified as one way to alleviate testing costs and to develop these devices better, faster and cheaper. In the design of advanced propulsion systems, CFD plays a major role in defining the required performance over the entire flight regime, as well as in testing the sensitivity of the design to the different modes of operation. Increased emphasis is being placed on developing and applying CFD models to simulate the flow field environments and performance of advanced propulsion systems. This necessitates the development of next generation computational tools which can be used effectively and reliably in a design environment. The turbomachinery simulation capability presented here is being developed in a computational tool called Loci-STREAM [1]. It integrates proven numerical methods for generalized grids and state-of-the-art physical models in a novel rule-based programming framework called Loci [2] which allows: (a) seamless integration of multidisciplinary physics in a unified manner, and (b) automatic handling of massively parallel computing. The objective is to be able to routinely simulate problems involving complex geometries requiring large unstructured grids and complex multidisciplinary physics. An immediate application of interest is simulation of unsteady flows in rocket turbopumps, particularly in cryogenic liquid rocket engines. The key components of the overall methodology presented in this paper are the following: (a) high fidelity unsteady simulation capability based on Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) in conjunction with second-order temporal discretization, (b) compliance with Geometric Conservation Law (GCL) in order to maintain conservative property on moving meshes for second-order time-stepping scheme, (c) a novel cloud-of-points interpolation method (based on a fast parallel kd-tree search algorithm) for interfaces between turbomachinery components in relative motion which is demonstrated to be highly scalable, and (d) demonstrated accuracy and parallel scalability on large grids (approx 250 million cells) in full turbomachinery geometries.

West, Jeff↗
NASA NTRS1993

Performance of the FOS Detectors in a Variable External Magnetic Field

We present the results of an investigation of the in-orbit performance of the Digicon detectors in the Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS), conducted as part of the commissioning phase of the Hubble Space Telescope. This paper includes orbital results on detector background noise, sensor image stability, and photometric stability along with several typical FOS observations. New techniques for suppressing cosmic ray induced background and geomagnetic induced image motion in electron tube detectors are also discussed.

Fitch, J. E.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Multiplier Architecture for Coding Circuits

Multipliers based on new algorithm for Galois-field (GF) arithmetic regular and expandable. Pipeline structures used for computing both multiplications and inverses. Designs suitable for implementation in very-large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuits. This general type of inverter and multiplier architecture especially useful in performing finite-field arithmetic of Reed-Solomon error-correcting codes and of some cryptographic algorithms.

Wang, C. C.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Antenna Near-Field Probe Station Scanner

A miniaturized antenna system is characterized non-destructively through the use of a scanner that measures its near-field radiated power performance. When taking measurements, the scanner can be moved linearly along the x, y and z axis, as well as rotationally relative to the antenna. The data obtained from the characterization are processed to determine the far-field properties of the system and to optimize the system. Each antenna is excited using a probe station system while a scanning probe scans the space above the antenna to measure the near field signals. Upon completion of the scan, the near-field patterns are transformed into far-field patterns. Along with taking data, this system also allows for extensive graphing and analysis of both the near-field and far-field data. The details of the probe station as well as the procedures for setting up a test, conducting a test, and analyzing the resulting data are also described.

Zaman, Afroz J.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Turbulence spectrum of strongly conductive temperature field in a rapidly stirred fluid

A simulation is performed of a passive scalar field convected by a rapidly fluctuating velocity field whose correlation time approaches zero. By using a code proposed in a previous study (Chasnov et al., 1988), the turbulence spectrum of the passive temperature field in the conductive subrange is determined. A theoretical model is proposed which explains the result obtained by representing the transfer of scalar variance by an eddy conductivity, whose correlation time is limited by the correlation time of the velocity field.

Chasnov, J.↗
NASA NTRS1987

A zonal method for modeling 3-D aircraft flow fields with jet plume effects

A coupled zonal method has been developed for modeling flows about aircraft with highly integrated advanced nozzle installations in which the exhaust plume interacts with the aircraft flow field to enhance performance. A cost effective flow analysis is achieved by dividing the flow domain into zones and coupling the zonal solutions. PAN AIR is used to model the flow in the inviscid zone which surrounds the aircraft. The plume zone flow field is solved with a PNS code. The flow in the optional internal nozzle zone is modeled using a full Navier-Stokes code. An automated iterative procedure couples the inviscid and plume zones by passing updated boundary conditions between the zones. The coupled analysis provides converged solutions for the overall flow field. The method is demonstrated for a highly integrated nonaxisymmetric vectored nozzle installed on a swept-wing aircraft.

Roberts, D. W.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Monte Carlo Based Ray Tracing Tool for Evaluating Wolter-Type Prescriptions

Evaluating Wolter-like X-ray mirror prescriptions via ray tracing is useful for selecting and optimizing the right mirror prescriptions for a specified application. Moreover, incorporating real metrology data into a ray trace and simulating point spread functions (PSF) allows for performance predictions representative of real manufacturing errors and tolerances. In fulfillment of an internship project, an X-ray ray trace routine using a Monte-Carlo method has been developed to examine different Wolter-like prescriptions and characterize their theoretical performances over a specified field of view. This routine includes the ability to use real metrology data to evaluate the impact of figure error on imaging performance. As a test case, the Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS) Wolter-I mirror prescription and an equivalent Wolter-Schwarzschild prescription were traced and imaging performance of a specified field of view were mapped. Here we present the approach used in this routine, showcase example results, and discuss future goals for expanding the routine to address azimuthally varying figure errors and surface roughness.

X-ray optics↗
NASA NTRS1982

Use of optimization to predict the effect of selected parameters on commuter aircraft performance

The relationships between field length and cruise speed and aircraft direct operating cost were determined. A gradient optimizing computer program was developed to minimize direct operating cost (DOC) as a function of airplane geometry. In this way, the best airplane operating under one set of constraints can be compared with the best operating under another. A constant 30-passenger fuselage and rubberized engines based on the General Electric CT-7 were used as a baseline. All aircraft had to have a 600 nautical mile maximum range and were designed to FAR part 25 structural integrity and climb gradient regulations. Direct operating cost was minimized for a typical design mission of 150 nautical miles. For purposes of C sub L sub max calculation, all aircraft had double-slotted flaps but with no Fowler action.

Wells, V. L.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Time dependent wind fields

Two tasks were performed: (1) determination of the accuracy of Seasat scatterometer, altimeter, and scanning multichannel microwave radiometer measurements of wind speed; and (2) application of Seasat altimeter measurements of sea level to study the spatial and temporal variability of geostrophic flow in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. The results of the first task have identified systematic errors in wind speeds estimated by all three satellite sensors. However, in all cases the errors are correctable and corrected wind speeds agree between the three sensors to better than 1 ms sup -1 in 96-day 2 deg. latitude by 6 deg. longitude averages. The second task has resulted in development of a new technique for using altimeter sea level measurements to study the temporal variability of large scale sea level variations. Application of the technique to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current yielded new information about the ocean circulation in this region of the ocean that is poorly sampled by conventional ship-based measurements.

Chelton, D. B.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Unsteady aerodynamics of an oscillating cascade in a compressible flow field

Fundamental experiments were performed in the NASA Lewis Transonic Oscillating Cascade Facility to investigate and quantify the unsteady aerodynamics of a cascade of biconvex airfoils executing torsion-mode oscillations at realistic reduced frequencies. Flush-mounted, high-response miniature pressure transducers were used to measure the unsteady airfoil surface pressures. The pressures were measured for three interblade phase angles at two inlet Mach numbers, 0.65 and 0.80, and two incidence angles, 0 and 7 deg. The time-variant pressures were analyzed by means of discrete Fourier transform techniques, and these unique data were then compared with predictions from a linearized unsteady cascade model. The experimental results indicate that the interblade phase angle had a major effect on the chordwise distributions of the airfoil surface unsteady pressure, and that reduced frequency, incidence angle, and Mach number had a somewhat less significant effect.

Buffum, Daniel H.↗
NASA NTRS1988

The unsteady aerodynamics of an oscillating cascade in a compressible flow field

Fundamental experiments were performed in the NASA Lewis Transonic Oscillating Cascade Facility to investigate and quantify the unsteady aerodynamics of a cascade of biconvex airfoils executing torsion-mode oscillations at realistic reduced frequencies. Flush-mounted, high-response miniature pressure transducers were used to measure the unsteady airfoil surface pressures. The pressures were measured for three interblade phase angles at two inlet Mach numbers, 0.65 and 0.80, and two incidence angles, 0 and 7 deg. The time-variant pressures were analyzed by means of discrete Fourier transform techniques, and these unique data were then compared with predictions from a linearized unsteady cascade model. The experimental results indicate that the interblade phase angle had a major effect on the chordwise distributions of the airfoil surface unsteady pressure, and that reduced frequency, incidence angle, and Mach number had a somewhat less significant effect.

Buffum, Daniel H.↗