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At least 325 records · Page 18

Collaborative research on V/STOL control system/cockpit display tradeoffs under the NASA/MOD joint aeronautical program

Summarized here are activities that have taken place from 1979 to the present in a collaborative program between NASA Ames Research Center and the Royal Aerospace Establishment (now Defence Research Agency), Bedford on flight control system and cockpit display tradeoffs for low-speed and hover operations of future V/STOL aircraft. This program was created as Task 8A of the Joint Aeronautical Program between NASA in the United States and the Ministry of Defence (Procurement Executive) in the United Kingdom. The program was initiated based on a recognition by both parties of the strengths of the efforts of their counterparts and a desire to participate jointly in future simulation and flight experiments. In the ensuing years, teams of NASA and RAE engineers and pilots have participated in each other's simulation experiments to evaluate control and display concepts and define design requirements for research aircraft. Both organizations possess Harrier airframes that have undergone extensive modification to provide in-flight research capabilities in the subject areas. Both NASA and RAE have profited by exchanges of control/display concepts, design criteria, fabrication techniques, software development and validation, installation details, and ground and flight clearance techniques for their respective aircraft. This collaboration has permitted the two organizations to achieve jointly substantially more during the period than if they had worked independently. The two organizations are now entering the phase of flight research for the collaborative program as currently defined.

Franklin, J. A.↗

Investigation of advanced counterrotation blade configuration concepts for high speed turboprop systems. Task 5: Unsteady counterrotation ducted propfan analysis. Computer program user's manual

The primary objective of this study was the development of a time-marching three-dimensional Euler/Navier-Stokes aerodynamic analysis to predict steady and unsteady compressible transonic flows about ducted and unducted propfan propulsion systems employing multiple blade rows. The computer codes resulting from this study are referred to as ADPAC-AOACR (Advanced Ducted Propfan Analysis Codes-Angle of Attack Coupled Row). This report is intended to serve as a computer program user's manual for the ADPAC-AOACR codes developed under Task 5 of NASA Contract NAS3-25270, Unsteady Counterrotating Ducted Propfan Analysis. The ADPAC-AOACR program is based on a flexible multiple blocked grid discretization scheme permitting coupled 2-D/3-D mesh block solutions with application to a wide variety of geometries. For convenience, several standard mesh block structures are described for turbomachinery applications. Aerodynamic calculations are based on a four-stage Runge-Kutta time-marching finite volume solution technique with added numerical dissipation. Steady flow predictions are accelerated by a multigrid procedure. Numerical calculations are compared with experimental data for several test cases to demonstrate the utility of this approach for predicting the aerodynamics of modern turbomachinery configurations employing multiple blade rows.

Hall, Edward J.↗

Serial2Parallel

In the era of machine learning, we often need to run the same code/script many times with little or no variations (e.g., performance evaluation, data preprocessing, data generation, hyperparameter tuning, etc.). It is not a problem when you just need to do that a few times, but when the number of repetitions becomes very large, it can be a daunting task. The code “Serial2Parallel” provides an easy way for users to be able to run many numbers of any serial code/scripts in a parallel manner across multiple nodes in an message passing interface (MPI) cluster. The code includes the server program that deals with task pool management and client program that processes task. The server gets the tasks ready and waits for clients' connections. The client code pulls tasks from the server and processes them. The client code will run in parallel.

Sangkeun, MattLee↗

The Environment for Application Software Integration and Execution (EASIE), version 1.0. Volume 3: Program execution guide

The Environment for Application Software Integration and Execution, EASIE, provides a methodology and a set of software utility programs to ease the task of coordinating engineering design and analysis codes. EASIE was designed to meet the needs of conceptual design engineers that face the task of integrating the results of many stand-alone engineering analysis programs. EASIE provides access to these programs via a quick, uniform, user-friendly interface. In addition, EASIE provides utilities which aid in the execution of the following tasks: selection of application programs, modification and review of program data, automatic definition and coordination of data files during program execution and a logging of steps executed throughout a design study. Volume 3, the Program Execution Guide, describes the executive capabilities provided by EASIE and defines the command language and menus available under Version 1.0. EASIE provides users with two basic modes of operation. One is the Application-Derived Executive (ADE) which provides users with sufficient guidance to quickly review data, select menu action items, and execute application programs. The second is the Complete Control Executive (CCE), which provides a full executive interface allowing users in-depth control of the design process.

Schwing, James L.↗

Crew procedures for microwave landing system operations

The objective of this study was to identify crew procedures involved in Microwave Landing System (MLS) operations and to obtain a preliminary assessment of crew workload. The crew procedures were identified for three different complements of airborne equipment coupled to an autopilot. Using these three equipment complements, crew tasks were identified for MLS approaches and precision departures and compared to an ILS approach and a normal departure. Workload comparisons between the approaches and departures were made by using a task-timeline analysis program that obtained workload indexes, i.e., the radio of time required to complete the tasks to the time available. The results showed an increase in workload for the MLS scenario for one of the equipment complements. However, even this workload was within the capacity of two crew members.

Summers, Leland G.↗

Advancing the practice of systems engineering at JPL

In FY 2004, JPL launched an initiative to improve the way it practices systems engineering. The Lab's senior management formed the Systems Engineering Advancement (SEA) Project in order to "significantly advance the practice and organizational capabilities of systems engineering at JPL on flight projects and ground support tasks." The scope of the SEA Project includes the systems engineering work performed in all three dimensions of a program, project, or task: 1. the full life-cycle, i.e., concept through end of operations 2. the full depth, i.e., Program, Project, System, Subsystem, Element (SE Levels 1 to 5) 3. the full technical scope, e.g., the flight, ground and launch systems, avionics, power, propulsion, telecommunications, thermal, etc. The initial focus of their efforts defined the following basic systems engineering functions at JPL: systems architecture, requirements management, interface definition, technical resource management, system design and analysis, system verification and validation, risk management, technical peer reviews, design process management and systems engineering task management, They also developed a list of highly valued personal behaviors of systems engineers, and are working to inculcate those behaviors into members of their systems engineering community. The SEA Project is developing products, services, and training to support managers and practitioners throughout the entire system lifecycle. As these are developed, each one needs to be systematically deployed. Hence, the SEA Project developed a deployment process that includes four aspects: infrastructure and operations, communication and outreach, education and training, and consulting support. In addition, the SEA Project has taken a proactive approach to organizational change management and customer relationship management - both concepts and approaches not usually invoked in an engineering environment. This paper'3 describes JPL's approach to advancing the practice of systems engineering at the Lab. It describes the general approach used and how they addressed the three key aspects of change: people, process and technology. It highlights a list of highly valued personal behaviors of systems engineers, discusses the various products, services and training that were developed, describes the deployment approach used, and concludes with several lessons learned.

process improvement↗

Report of the Cost Assessment and Validation Task Force on the International Space Station

The Cost Assessment and Validation (CAV) Task Force was established for independent review and assessment of cost, schedule and partnership performance on the International Space Station (ISS) Program. The CAV Task Force has made the following key findings: The International Space Station Program has made notable and reasonable progress over the past four years in defining and executing a very challenging and technically complex effort. The Program size, complexity, and ambitious schedule goals were beyond that which could be reasonably achieved within the $2.1 billion annual cap or $17.4 billion total cap. A number of critical risk elements are likely to have an adverse impact on the International Space Station cost and schedule. The schedule uncertainty associated with Russian implementation of joint Partnership agreements is the major threat to the ISS Program. The Fiscal Year (FY) 1999 budget submission to Congress is not adequate to execute the baseline ISS Program, cover normal program growth, and address the known critical risks. Additional annual funding of between $130 million and $250 million will be required. Completion of ISS assembly is likely to be delayed from one to three years beyond December 2003.

Source record↗

Cost Assessment and Validation Task Force on the International Space Station

The Cost Assessment and Validation (CAV) Task Force was established for independent review and assessment of cost, schedule and partnership performance on the International Space Station (ISS) Program. The CAV Task Force has made the following key findings: The International Space Station Program has made notable and reasonable progress over the past four years in defining and executing a very challenging and technically complex effort; The Program, size, complexity, and ambitious schedule goals were beyond that which could be reasonably achieved within the $2.1 billion annual cap or $17.4 billion total cap; A number of critical risk elements are likely to have an adverse impact on the International Space Station cost and schedule; The schedule uncertainty associated with Russian implementation of joint Partnership agreements is the major threat to the ISS Program; The Fiscal Year (FY) 1999 budget submission to Congress is not adequate to execute the baseline ISS Program, cover normal program, growth, and address the known critical risks. Additional annual funding of between $130 million and $250 million will be required; and Completion of ISS assembly is likely to be delayed from, one to three years beyond December 2003.

Source record↗

Extreme-Scale Stochastic Particle Tracing for Uncertain Unsteady Flow Visualization and Analysis

We present an efficient and scalable solution to estimate uncertain transport behaviors-stochastic flow maps (SFMs)-for visualizing and analyzing uncertain unsteady flows. Computing flow maps from uncertain flow fields is extremely expensive because it requires many Monte Carlo runs to trace densely seeded particles in the flow. We reduce the computational cost by decoupling the time dependencies in SFMs so that we can process shorter sub time intervals independently and then compose them together for longer time periods. Adaptive refinement is also used to reduce the number of runs for each location. We parallelize over tasks-packets of particles in our design-to achieve high efficiency in MPI/thread hybrid programming. Such a task model also enables CPU/GPU coprocessing. We show the scalability on two supercomputers, Mira (up to 256K Blue Gene/Q cores) and Titan (up to 128K Opteron cores and 8K GPUs), that can trace billions of particles in seconds.

CPU-GPU hybrid parallelism↗

INPUTB: A thermal/structural data interface program for 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional interpolation

A computer program (INPUTB) for interpolation in both space and time, and based on a linear interpolation scheme using simplex spatial regions is described. The program was developed to provide data interfacing between the output from thermal analyzers and the input to the BOPACE 3-D program. The INPUTB interpolator is of a general nature and could be used for other tasks. The INPUTB program utilizes temperature values which are given at some sequence of time for a list of strategically located thermal nodes. It operates on these values by performing a double interpolation to provide temperature values at another desired sequence of times for a list of structural nodes.

Vos, R. G.↗

Graphical programming and the use of simulation for space-based manipulators

Robotic manipulators are difficult to program even without the special requirements of a zero-gravity environment. While attention should be paid to investigating the usefulness of industrial application programming methods to space manipulators, new methods with potential application to both environments need to be invented. These methods should allow various levels of autonomy and human-in-the-loop interaction and simple, rapid switching among them. For all methods simulation must be integrated to provide reliability and safety. Graphical programming of manipulators is a candidate for an effective robot programming method despite current limitations in input devices and displays. A research project in task-level robot programming has built an innovative interface to a state-of-the-art commercial simulation and robot programming platform. The prototype demonstrates simple augmented methods for graphical programming and simulation which may be of particular interest to those concerned with Space Station applications; its development has also raised important issues for the development of more sophisticated robot programming tools. Both aspects of the project are discussed.

Mcgrath, Debra S.↗

The NASA Scientific and Technical Information (STI) Program's Implementation of Open Archives Initiation (OAI) for Data Interoperability and Data Exchange

Interoperability and data-exchange are critical for the survival of government information management programs. E-government initiatives are transforming the way the government interacts with the public. More information is to be made available through web-enabled technologies. Programs such as the NASA's Scientific and Technical Information (STI) Program Office are tasked to find more effective ways to disseminate information to the public. The NASA STI Program is an agency-wide program charged with gathering, organizing, storing, and disseminating NASA-produced information for research and public use. The program is investigating the use of a new protocol called the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) as a means to improve data interoperability and data collection. OAI promotes the use of the OAI harvesting protocol as a simple way for data sharing among repositories. In two separate initiatives, the STI Program is implementing OAI In collaboration with the Air Force, Department of Energy, and Old Dominion University, the NASA STI Program has funded research on implementing the OAI to exchange data between the three organizations. The second initiative is the deployment of OAI for the NASA technical report server (TRS) environment. The NASA TRS environment is comprised of distributed technical report servers with a centralized search interface. This paper focuses on the implementation of OAI to promote interoperability among diverse data repositories.

Rocker, JoAnne↗

Focused Rocket-Ejector RBCC Experiments

This document reports the results of additional efforts for the Rocket Based Combined Cycle (RBCC) rocket-ejector mode research work carried out at the Perm State Propulsion Engineering Research Center in support of NASA s technology development efforts for enabling 3rd generation Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLV). The two tasks conducted under this program build on earlier NASA MSFC funded research program on rocket ejector investigations. The first task continued a systematic investigation of the improvements provided by a gaseous hydrogen (GHz)/oxygen (GO2) twin thruster RBCC rocket ejector system over a single rocket system. In a similar vein, the second task continued investigations into the performance of a hydrocarbon (liquid JP-7)/gaseous oxygen single thruster rocket-ejector system. To gain a systematic understanding of the rocket-ejector s internal fluid mechanic/combustion phenomena, experiments were conducted with both direct-connect and sea-level static diffusion and afterburning (DAB) configurations for a range of rocket operating conditions. For all experimental conditions, overall system performance was obtained through global measurements of wall static pressure profiles, heat flux profiles and engine thrust. For the GH2/GO2 propellant rocket ejector experiments, high frequency measurements of the pressure field within the system were also made to understand the unsteady behavior of the flowfield.

Santoro, Robert J.↗

Formulation of consumables management models. Volume 1: Mission planning

Development of an STS (Space Transportation System) interactive computer program MPP (Mission Planning Processor) working model was conducted. A summary of the computer program development and those supporting tasks conducted is presented. Development of the MPP Computer Program is discussed. This development was supported by several parallel tasks. These tasks either directly supported the program development, or provided information for future application and/or modification to the program in relation to the flight planning and flight operations of the STS and advanced spacecraft. The supporting tasks also included development of a Space Station MPP to demonstrate the applicability of the analytical methods developed under this RTOP to more advanced spacecraft than the STS.

Torian, J. G.↗

Orbit transfer rocket engine technology program

An advanced near term (1990's) space-based Orbit Transfer Vehicle Engine (OTVE) system was designed, and the technologies applicable to its construction, maintenance, and operations were developed under Tasks A through F of the Orbit Transfer Rocket Engine Technology Program. Task A was a reporting task. In Task B, promising OTV turbomachinery technologies were explored: two stage partial admission turbines, high velocity ratio diffusing crossovers, soft wear ring seals, advanced bearing concepts, and a rotordynamic analysis. In Task C, a ribbed combustor design was developed. Possible rib and channel geometries were chosen analytically. Rib candidates were hot air tested and laser velocimeter boundary layer analyses were conducted. A channel geometry was also chosen on the basis of laser velocimeter data. To verify the predicted heat enhancement effects, a ribbed calorimeter spool was hot fire tested. Under Task D, the optimum expander cycle engine thrust, performance and envelope were established for a set of OTV missions. Optimal nozzle contours and quick disconnects for modularity were developed. Failure Modes and Effects Analyses, maintenance and reliability studies and component study results were incorporated into the engine system. Parametric trades on engine thrust, mixture ratio, and area ratio were also generated. A control system and the health monitoring and maintenance operations necessary for a space-based engine were outlined in Task E. In addition, combustor wall thickness measuring devices and a fiberoptic shaft monitor were developed. These monitoring devices were incorporated into preflight engine readiness checkout procedures. In Task F, the Integrated Component Evaluator (I.C.E.) was used to demonstrate performance and operational characteristics of an advanced expander cycle engine system and its component technologies. Sub-system checkouts and a system blowdown were performed. Short transitions were then made into main combustor ignition and main stage operation.

Gustafson, N. B.↗

Baseline Characterization Database Verification Report – IG-110 Billet 10X69

The purpose of this engineering calculations and analysis report (ECAR) is to present the data being collected in the Baseline Graphite Characterization program. This program is directly tasked with supporting Idaho National Laboratory’s (INL’s) research and development efforts in the Advanced Reactor Technologies (ART) program. This program populates a comprehensive database that will reflect the baseline properties of nuclear-grade graphite with regard to individual grade, billet, and position within individual billets. The physical- and mechanical-property information being collected will be transferred to the Nuclear Data Management and Analysis System (NDMAS), and that database will help populate the handbook of property data available to member nations of the Generation-IV International Forum. The transfer of these data from the applicable technical lead to the dissemination databases available to other end users requires a full review of test procedures and data-collection efforts through an analysis of the multiple summary spreadsheets and values being collected. This report represents that analysis for IG-110, Billet 10X69 and facilitates the release of the associated data to the NDMAS custodians.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Quantitative understanding of the cycles of oxidized and reduced sulfur on Venus

The evolution of the Venus atmosphere is determined by the supply of gases from the interior of the planet and outer space, and by the loss of particles to space over time. In particular, questions pertaining to the initial inventory of water and the current and past rates of outgassing can be addressed by studying the loss rates of H, D, He3 and He4. The photochemistry of the H2SO4 clouds may also have played an important role in regulating the amount of water above the cloud tops, and hence limit the rate of escape of hydrogen from the planet. Thus the problems of evolution and chemistry are intimately related. In our proposal the principal tasks we undertook to advance our understanding of the origin and evolution of water on Venus included: (1) escape of light atoms from Venus and (2) develop a photochemical model of sulfate formation. In the last two years we have made progress on Task 1 regarding how light atoms can escape from the exosphere of Venus with the development of a Monte Carlo program and in Task 2 have developed a thorough update on the SO2 photochemistry that had been previously carried out.

Yung, Yuk L.↗

Determining Training Device Requirements in Army Aviation Systems

A decision making methodology which applies the systems approach to the training problem is discussed. Training is viewed as a total system instead of a collection of individual devices and unrelated techniques. The core of the methodology is the use of optimization techniques such as the transportation algorithm and multiobjective goal programming with training task and training device specific data. The role of computers, especially automated data bases and computer simulation models, in the development of training programs is also discussed. The approach can provide significant training enhancement and cost savings over the more traditional, intuitive form of training development and device requirements process. While given from an aviation perspective, the methodology is equally applicable to other training development efforts.

Poumade, M. L.↗