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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 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1995

Emergency vehicle alert system (EVAS)

The Emergency Vehicle Alert System (EVAS) program is sponsored by the NASA/MSFC Technology Utilization (TU) office. The program was conceived to support the needs of hearing impaired drivers. The objective of the program is to develop a low-cost, small device which can be located in a personal vehicle and warn the driver, via a visual means, of the approach of an emergency vehicle. Many different technologies might be developed for this purpose and each has its own advantages and drawbacks. The requirements for an acoustic detection system, appear to be pretty stringent and may not allow the development of a reliable, low-cost device in the near future. The problems include variations in the sirens between various types of emergency vehicles, distortions due to wind and surrounding objects, competing background noise, sophisticated signal processing requirements, and omni-directional coverage requirements. Another approach is to use a Radio Frequency (RF) signal between the Emergency Vehicle (EV) and the Personal Vehicle (PV). This approach requires a transmitter on each EV and a receiver in each PV, however it is virtually assured that a system can be developed which works. With this approach, the real technology issue is how to make a system work as inexpensively as possible. This report gives a brief summary of the EVAS program from its inception and concentrates on describing the activities that occurred during Phase 4. References 1-3 describe activities under Phases 1-3. In the fourth phase of the program, the major effort to be expended was in development of the microcontroller system for the PV, refinement of some system elements and packaging for demonstration purposes. An EVAS system was developed and demonstrated which used standard spread spectrum modems with minor modifications.

Reed, Bill↗
NASA NTRS1996

Parallel Climate Data Assimilation PSAS Package

We have designed and implemented a set of highly efficient and highly scalable algorithms for an unstructured computational package, the PSAS data assimilation package, as demonstrated by detailed performance analysis of systematic runs on up to 512node Intel Paragon. The equation solver achieves a sustained 18 Gflops performance. As the results, we achieved an unprecedented 100-fold solution time reduction on the Intel Paragon parallel platform over the Cray C90. This not only meets and exceeds the DAO time requirements, but also significantly enlarges the window of exploration in climate data assimilations.

PSAS data scalable algorithms Intel Paragon 512nod↗
NASA NTRS1996

Climate Data Assimilation on a Massively Parallel Supercomputer

We have designed and implemented a set of highly efficient and highly scalable algorithms for an unstructured computational package, the PSAS data assimilation package, as demonstrated by detailed performance analysis of systematic runs on up to 512-nodes of an Intel Paragon. The preconditioned Conjugate Gradient solver achieves a sustained 18 Gflops performance. Consequently, we achieve an unprecedented 100-fold reduction in time to solution on the Intel Paragon over a single head of a Cray C90. This not only exceeds the daily performance requirement of the Data Assimilation Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, but also makes it possible to explore much larger and challenging data assimilation problems which are unthinkable on a traditional computer platform such as the Cray C90.

supercomputer↗
NASA NTRS2006

Compact, Engineered, 2-Micron Coherent Doppler Wind Lidar Prototype for Field and Airborne Validation: Doppler Aerosol WiNd Lidar (DAWN). Interim Review #1 (6 months)

A new project, selected in 2005 by NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD), under the Instrument Incubator Program (IIP), will be described. The 3-year effort is intended to design, fabricate, and demonstrate a packaged, rugged, compact, space-qualifiable coherent Doppler wind lidar (DWL) transceiver capable of future validation in an aircraft and/or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The state-of-the-art 2-micron coherent DWL breadboard at NASA/LaRC will be engineered and compactly packaged consistent with future aircraft flights. The packaged transceiver will be integrated into a coherent DWL system test bed at LaRC. Atmospheric wind measurements will be made to validate the packaged technology. This will greatly advance the coherent part of the hybrid DWL solution to the need for global tropospheric wind measurements.

Kavaya, Michael J.↗
NASA NTRS2010

High-Temperature Optical Sensor

A high-temperature optical sensor (see Figure 1) has been developed that can operate at temperatures up to 1,000 C. The sensor development process consists of two parts: packaging of a fiber Bragg grating into a housing that allows a more sturdy thermally stable device, and a technological process to which the device is subjected to in order to meet environmental requirements of several hundred C. This technology uses a newly discovered phenomenon of the formation of thermally stable secondary Bragg gratings in communication-grade fibers at high temperatures to construct robust, optical, high-temperature sensors. Testing and performance evaluation (see Figure 2) of packaged sensors demonstrated operability of the devices at 1,000 C for several hundred hours, and during numerous thermal cycling from 400 to 800 C with different heating rates. The technology significantly extends applicability of optical sensors to high-temperature environments including ground testing of engines, flight propulsion control, thermal protection monitoring of launch vehicles, etc. It may also find applications in such non-aerospace arenas as monitoring of nuclear reactors, furnaces, chemical processes, and other hightemperature environments where other measurement techniques are either unreliable, dangerous, undesirable, or unavailable.

Adamovsky, Grigory↗
NASA NTRS2012

Non-Toxic, Low-Freezing, Drop-In Replacement Heat Transfer Fluids

A non-toxic, non-flammable, low-freezing heat transfer fluid is being developed for drop-in replacement within current and future heat transfer loops currently using water or alcohol-based coolants. Numerous water-soluble compounds were down-selected and screened for toxicological, physical, chemical, compatibility, thermodynamic, and heat transfer properties. Two fluids were developed, one with a freezing point near 0 C, and one with a suppressed freezing point. Both fluids contain an additive package to improve material compatibility and microbial resistance. The optimized sub-zero solution had a freezing point of 30 C, and a freezing volume expansion of 10-percent of water. The toxicity of the solutions was experimentally determined as LD(50) greater than 5g/kg. The solutions were found to produce minimal corrosion with materials identified by NASA as potentially existing in secondary cooling loops. Thermal/hydrodynamic performance exceeded that of glycol-based fluids with comparable freezing points for temperatures Tf greater than 20 C. The additive package was demonstrated as a buffering agent to compensate for CO2 absorption, and to prevent microbial growth. The optimized solutions were determined to have physically/chemically stable shelf lives for freeze/thaw cycles and longterm test loop tests.

Cutbirth, J. Michael↗
NASA NTRS2013

Fully Printed, Flexible, Phased Array Antenna for Lunar Surface Communication

NASAs future exploration missions focus on the manned exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond, which will rely heavily on the development of a reliable communications infrastructure from planetary surface-to-surface, surface-to-orbit, and back to Earth. Flexible antennas are highly desired in many scenarios. Active phased array antennas (active PAAs) with distributed control and processing electronics at the surface of an antenna aperture offer numerous advantages for radar communications. Large-area active PAAs on flexible substrates are of particular interest in NASA s space radars due to their efficient inflatable package that can be rolled up during transportation and deployed in space. Such an inflatable package significantly reduces stowage volume and mass. Because of these performance and packaging advantages, large-area inflatable active PAAs are highly desired in NASA s surface-to-orbit and surface-to-relay communications. To address the issues of flexible electronics, a room-temperature printing process of active phased-array antennas on a flexible Kapton substrate was developed. Field effect transistors (FETs) based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs), with many unique physical properties, were successfully proved feasible for the PAA system. This innovation is a new type of fully inkjet-printable, two-dimensional, high-frequency PAA on a flexible substrate at room temperature. The designed electronic circuit components, such as the FET switches in the phase shifter, metal interconnection lines, microstrip transmission lines, etc., are all printed using a special inkjet printer. Using the developed technology, entire 1x4, 2x2, and 4x4 PAA systems were developed, packaged, and demonstrated at 5.3 GHz. Several key solutions are addressed in this work to solve the fabrication issues. The source/drain contact is developed using droplets of silver ink printed on the source/drain areas prior to applying CNT thin-film. The wet silver ink droplets allow the silver to wet the CNT thin-film area and enable good contact with the source and drain contact after annealing. A passivation layer to protect the device channel is developed by bonding a thin Kapton film on top of the device channel. This film is also used as the media for transferring the aligned CNT thin-film on the device substrate. A simple and cost-effective technique to form multilayer metal interconnections on flexible substrate is developed and demonstrated. Contact vias are formed on the second substrate prior to bonding on the first substrate. Inkjet printing is used to fill the silver ink into the via structure. The printed silver ink penetrates through the vias to contact with the contact pads on the bottom layer. It is then annealed to form a good connection. One-dimensional and two-dimensional PAAs were fabricated and characterized. In these circuits, multilayer metal interconnects were used to make a complete PAA system.

Subbaraman, Harish↗
NASA NTRS2014

Space Evaporator Absorber Radiator (SEAR) for Thermal Storage on Manned Spacecraft

Future manned exploration spacecraft will need to operate in challenging thermal environments. State-of the- art technology for active thermal control relies on sublimating water ice and venting the vapor overboard in very hot environments. This approach can lead to large loss of water and a significant mass penalty for the spacecraft. This paper describes an innovative thermal control system that uses a Space Evaporator Absorber Radiator (SEAR) to control spacecraft temperatures in highly variable environments without venting water. SEAR uses heat pumping and energy storage by LiCl/water absorption to enable effective cooling during hot periods and regeneration during cool periods. The LiCl absorber technology has the potential to absorb over 800 kJ per kg of system mass, compared to phase change heat sink systems that typically achieve approx. 50 kJ/kg. The optimal system is based on a trade-off between the mass of water saved and extra power needed to regenerate the LiCl absorber. This paper describes analysis models and the predicted performance and optimize the size of the SEAR system, estimated size and mass of key components, and power requirements for regeneration. We also present a concept design for an ISS test package to demonstrate operation of a subscale system in zero gravity.

Izenson, Michael G.↗
NASA NTRS2014

JPSS Science Data Services for the Direct Readout Community

The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) and Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) High Rate Data (HRD) link provides Direct Broadcast data to users in real-time, utilizing their own remote field terminals. The Field Terminal Support (FTS) provides the resources needed to support the Direct Readout communities by providing software, documentation, and periodic updates to enable them to produce data products from SNPP and JPSS. The FTS distribution server will also provide the necessary ancillary and auxiliary data needed for processing the broadcasts, as well as making orbital data available to assist in locating the satellites of interest. In addition, the FTS provides development support for the algorithm and software through GSFC Direct Readout Laboratory (DRL) International Polar Orbiter Processing Package (IPOPP) and University of Wisconsin (UWISC) Community Satellite Processing Package (CSPP), to enable users to integrate the algorithms into their remote terminals. The support the JPSS Program provides to the institutions developing and maintaining these two software packages, will demonstrate the ability to produce ready-to-use products from the HRD link and provide risk reduction effort at a minimal cost. This paper discusses the key functions and system architecture of FTS.

Data Processing↗
NASA NTRS2015

Space Evaporator Absorber Radiator (SEAR) for Thermal Storage on Manned Spacecraft

Future manned exploration spacecraft will need to operate in challenging thermal environments. State-of-the-art technology for active thermal control relies on sublimating water ice and venting the vapor overboard in very hot environments, and or heavy phase change material heat exchangers for thermal storage. These approaches can lead to large loss of water and a significant mass penalties for the spacecraft. This paper describes an innovative thermal control system that uses a Space Evaporator Absorber Radiator (SEAR) to control spacecraft temperatures in highly variable environments without venting water. SEAR uses heat pumping and energy storage by LiCl/water absorption to enable effective cooling during hot periods and regeneration during cool periods. The LiCl absorber technology has the potential to absorb over 800 kJ per kg of system mass, compared to phase change heat sink systems that typically achieve approx. 50 kJ/kg. This paper describes analysis models to predict performance and optimize the size of the SEAR system, estimated size and mass of key components, and an assessment of potential mass savings compared with alternative thermal management approaches. We also describe a concept design for an ISS test package to demonstrate operation of a subscale system in zero gravity.

Izenson, Michael G.↗
NASA NTRS2023

The SunPy Project: An Interoperable Ecosystem for Solar Data Analysis

The SunPy Project is a community of scientists and software developers creating an ecosystem of Python packages for solar physics. The project includes the sunpy core package as well as a set of affiliated packages. The sunpy core package provides general purpose tools to access data from different providers, read image and time series data, and transform between commonly used coordinate systems. Affiliated packages perform more specialized tasks that do not fall within the more general scope of the sunpy core package. In this article, we give a high-level overview of the SunPy Project, how it is broader than the sunpy core package, and how the project curates and fosters the affiliated package system. We demonstrate how components of the SunPy ecosystem, including sunpy and several affiliated packages, work together to enable multi-instrument data analysis workflows. We also describe members of the SunPy Project and how the project interacts with the wider solar physics and scientific Python communities. Finally, we discuss the future direction and priorities of the SunPy Project.

Solar physics↗
NASA NTRS2001

Active Flow Control For Inlets

This presentation describes the progress to date of the Small-Scale Demonstration for the Active Flow Control element of the Propulsion Airframe Integration Project. The goal of this work package is to demonstrate at small scale the ability to improve pressure recovery and distortion in an S-inlet with boundary layer ingestion representative of a Blended Wing Body (BWB) configuration. The effectiveness of several active and passive devices to control flow in an adverse pressure gradient with secondary flows present was evaluated in the Langley 15-Inch Low-Turbulence Tunnel. In this study, passive microvanes, microbumps, and piezoelectric synthetic jets were evaluated for their flow control characteristics using surface static pressures, flow visualization, and 3D Stereo Digital Particle Image Velocimetry. The microvanes imparted a higher level of vorticity to the flow than any of the other devices tested. Alternative actuator concepts are being pursued to support the Small-Scale Demonstration Level 1 milestone in FY03.

Gorton, Susan A.↗
NASA NTRS2015

Demonstration of Long Vacuum Integrity Lifetime of Trapped Ion Standard Package

A compact Hg ion trap package that was vacuum-sealed since 9 years has been demonstrated to be successfully operational showing excellent ion-trap lifetime exceeding 400 days. In addition to the vacuum package, the same 9-year old optical and detection packages are utilized to obtain these results. Charge transfer relaxation effects between neutral Hg and trapped Hg ion are studied. This work shows the reliability of such units in view of next-generation ground and space-borne trapped ion clocks.

charge-transfer relaxation↗
NASA NTRS1995

Solar Concentrator Conceptual Design for the /SUS Advanced Technology Demonstration

An Integrated Solar Upper stage would permit such realignment to smaller vehicles but would also change the current expendable stage paradigm to a reusable one. ISUS would remain with the satellite following orbit insertion and function as its electrical power and propulsion subsystems. Since a satellite's power subsystem represents as much as 30% of its total mass, using the upper stage to replace an onboard photovoltaic/battery system will purchase additional mass for sensors and communication packages. The timely demonstration of an ISUS system, before the turn of the century, will permit such devices to be fielded in the early 2000's and in time to fly aboard major satellite block changes.

Charles H. Castle↗
NASA NTRS2007

High Temperature Wireless Communication And Electronics For Harsh Environment Applications

In order for future aerospace propulsion systems to meet the increasing requirements for decreased maintenance, improved capability, and increased safety, the inclusion of intelligence into the propulsion system design and operation becomes necessary. These propulsion systems will have to incorporate technology that will monitor propulsion component conditions, analyze the incoming data, and modify operating parameters to optimize propulsion system operations. This implies the development of sensors, actuators, and electronics, with associated packaging, that will be able to operate under the harsh environments present in an engine. However, given the harsh environments inherent in propulsion systems, the development of engine-compatible electronics and sensors is not straightforward. The ability of a sensor system to operate in a given environment often depends as much on the technologies supporting the sensor element as the element itself. If the supporting technology cannot handle the application, then no matter how good the sensor is itself, the sensor system will fail. An example is high temperature environments where supporting technologies are often not capable of operation in engine conditions. Further, for every sensor going into an engine environment, i.e., for every new piece of hardware that improves the in-situ intelligence of the components, communication wires almost always must follow. The communication wires may be within or between parts, or from the engine to the controller. As more hardware is added, more wires, weight, complexity, and potential for unreliability is also introduced. Thus, wireless communication combined with in-situ processing of data would significantly improve the ability to include sensors into high temperature systems and thus lead toward more intelligent engine systems. NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) is presently leading the development of electronics, communication systems, and sensors capable of prolonged stable operation in harsh 500C environments. This has included world record operation of SiC-based transistor technology (including packaging) that has demonstrated continuous electrical operation at 500C for over 2000 hours. Based on SiC electronics, development of high temperature wireless communication has been on-going. This work has concentrated on maturing the SiC electronic devices for communication purposes as well as the passive components such as resistors and capacitors needed to enable a high temperature wireless system. The objective is to eliminate wires associated with high temperature sensors which add weight to a vehicle and can be a cause of sensor unreliability. This paper discusses the development of SiC based electronics and wireless communications technology for harsh environment applications such as propulsion health management systems and in Venus missions. A brief overview of the future directions in sensor technology is given including maturing of near-room temperature "Lick and Stick" leak sensor technology for possible implementation in the Crew Launch Vehicle program. Then an overview of high temperature electronics and the development of high temperature communication systems is presented. The maturity of related technologies such as sensor and packaging will also be discussed. It is concluded that a significant component of efforts to improve the intelligence of harsh environment operating systems is the development and implementation of high temperature wireless technology

Hunter, G. W.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Final Design and Integration of Micro-Chip Inductive Edge Sensors for the Seven Segment Demonstrator. Testing of Integrated Edge Sensors in Test Packages

The contractor attended the critical design review and evaluated the presentations of other team members and presented data on the inductive edge sensor. The prototype micro-chip inductive edge sensor was evaluated, and devices were found to have a number of characteristics which made them unsuitable for installation on the seven segment demonstrator. The amplifier bandwidth was too low, the output drive current was too small, and there is an interaction between the digital circuitry and the amplifier that causes the amplifier to stop functioning. Therefore, the inductive edge sensors were not installed on the seven segment demonstrator. The contractor has participated in instruction, problem analysis, and provided technical assistance to NASA and its contractors for the development of 8 hexagonal mirror faceplates with electronics and edge sensors.

Karpinsky, John↗
NASA NTRS1978

Advanced instrumentation concepts for environmental control subsystems

Design, evaluation and demonstration of advanced instrumentation concepts for improving performance of manned spacecraft environmental control and life support systems were successfully completed. Concepts to aid maintenance following fault detection and isolation were defined. A computer-guided fault correction instruction program was developed and demonstrated in a packaged unit which also contains the operator/system interface.

Yang, P. Y.↗