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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 361 records · Page 20
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2010

Modeling of Failure for Analysis of Triaxial Braided Carbon Fiber Composites

In the development of advanced aircraft-engine fan cases and containment systems, composite materials are beginning to be used due to their low weight and high strength. The design of these structures must include the capability of withstanding impact loads from a released fan blade. Relatively complex triaxially braided fiber architectures have been found to yield the best performance for the fan cases. To properly work with and design these structures, robust analytical tools are required that can be used in the design process. A new analytical approach models triaxially braided carbon fiber composite materials within the environment of a transient dynamic finite-element code, specifically the commercially available transient dynamic finite-element code LS-DYNA. The geometry of the braided composites is approximated by a series of parallel laminated composites. The composite is modeled by using shell finite elements. The material property data are computed by examining test data from static tests on braided composites, where optical strain measurement techniques are used to examine the local strain variations within the material. These local strain data from the braided composite tests are used along with a judicious application of composite micromechanics- based methods to compute the stiffness properties of an equivalent unidirectional laminated composite required for the shell elements. The local strain data from the braided composite tests are also applied to back out strength and failure properties of the equivalent unidirectional composite. The properties utilized are geared towards the application of a continuum damage mechanics-based composite constitutive model available within LS-DYNA. The developed model can be applied to conduct impact simulations of structures composed of triaxially braided composites. The advantage of this technology is that it facilitates the analysis of the deformation and damage response of a triaxially braided polymer matrix composite within the environment of a transient dynamic finite-element code such as LS-DYNA in a manner which accounts for the local physical mechanisms but is still computationally efficient. This methodology is tightly coupled to experimental tests on the braided composite, which ensures that the material properties have physical significance. Aerospace or automotive companies interested in using triaxially braided composites in their structures, particularly for impact or crash applications, would find the technology useful. By the development of improved design tools, the amount of very expensive impact testing that will need to be performed can be significantly reduced.

Goldberg, Robert K.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Blade Displacement Measurements of the Full-Scale UH-60A Airloads Rotor

Blade displacement measurements were acquired during a wind tunnel test of the full-scale UH-60A Airloads rotor. The test was conducted in the 40- by 80-Foot Wind Tunnel of the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex at NASA Ames Research Center. Multi-camera photogrammetry was used to measure the blade displacements of the four-bladed rotor. These measurements encompass a range of test conditions that include advance ratios from 0.15 to unique slowed-rotor simulations as high as 1.0, thrust coefficient to rotor solidity ratios from 0.01 to 0.13, and rotor shaft angles from -10.0 to 8.0 degrees. The objective of these measurements is to provide a benchmark blade displacement database to be utilized in the development and validation of rotorcraft computational tools. The methodology, system development, measurement techniques, and preliminary sample blade displacement measurements are presented.

Barrows, Danny A.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Continuous Trailing-Edge Flaps for Primary Flight Control of a Helicopter Main Rotor

The use of continuous trailing-edge flaps (CTEFs) for primary flight control of a helicopter main rotor is studied. A practical, optimized bimorph design with Macro-Fiber Composite actuators is developed for CTEF control, and a coupled structures and computational fluid dynamics methodology is used to study the fundamental behavior of an airfoil with CTEFs. These results are used within a comprehensive rotorcraft analysis model to study the control authority requirements of the CTEFs when utilized for primary flight control of a utility class helicopter. A study of the effect of blade root pitch index (RPI) on CTEF control authority is conducted, and the impact of structural and aerodynamic model complexity on the comprehensive analysis results is presented. The results show that primary flight control using CTEFs is promising; however, a more viable option may include the control of blade RPI, as well.

Thornburgh, Robert P.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Spline Trajectory Algorithm Development: Bezier Curve Control Point Generation for UAVs

A greater need for sophisticated autonomous piloting systems has risen in direct correlation with the ubiquity of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology. Whether surveying unknown or unexplored areas of the world, collecting scientific data from regions in which humans are typically incapable of entering, locating lost or wanted persons, or delivering emergency supplies, an unmanned vehicle moving in close proximity to people and other vehicles, should fly smoothly and predictably. The mathematical application of spline interpolation can play an important role in autopilots' on-board trajectory planning. Spline interpolation allows for the connection of Three-Dimensional Euclidean Space coordinates through a continuous set of smooth curves. This paper explores the motivation, application, and methodology used to compute the spline control points, which shape the curves in such a way that the autopilot trajectory is able to meet vehicle-dynamics limitations. The spline algorithms developed used to generate these curves supply autopilots with the information necessary to compute vehicle paths through a set of coordinate waypoints.

Howell, Lauren R.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Towards Verification of Unstructured-Grid Solvers

New methodology for verification of computational methods using unstructured grids is presented. The discretization order properties are studied in computational windows, easily constructed within a collection of grids or a single grid. The windows can be adjusted to isolate the interior discretization, the boundary discretization, or singularities. A major component of the methodology is the downscaling test, introduced previously for studying the convergence rates of truncation and discretization errors of finite-volume discretization schemes on general unstructured grids. Demonstrations of the method are shown, including a comparative accuracy assessment of commonly-used schemes on general mixed grids and the identification of local accuracy deterioration at intersections of tangency and inflow/outflow boundaries. Recommendations for the use of the methodology in large-scale computational simulations are given.

Thomas, James L.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Numerical methods and a computer program for subsonic and supersonic aerodynamic design and analysis of wings with attainable thrust considerations

This paper describes methodology and an associated computer program for the design of wing lifting surfaces with attainable thrust taken into consideration. The approach is based on the determination of an optimum combination of a series of candidate surfaces rather than the more commonly used candidate loadings. Special leading-edge surfaces are selected to provide distributed leading-edge thrust forces which compensate for any failure to achieve the full theoretical leading-edge thrust, and a second series of general candidate surfaces is selected to minimize drag subject to constraints on the lift coefficient and, if desired, on the pitching moment coefficient. A primary purpose of the design approach is the introduction of attainable leading-edge thrust considerations so that relatively mild camber surfaces may be employed in the achievement of aerodynamic efficiencies comparable to those attainable if full theoretical leading-edge thrust could be achieved. The program provides an analysis as well as a design capability and is applicable to both subsonic and supersonic flow.

Carlson, H. W.↗
DOE OSTI2025

ChemComp: Compiling and Computing with Chemical Reaction Networks

The exponential growth in computing demands driven by scientific computing, data analytics, and artificial intelligence is pushing conventional CMOS-based high-performance computing systems to their physical and energy efficiency limits. As we approach the era of post-exascale computing, disruptive approaches are necessary to overcome these barriers and achieve substantial gains in energy efficiency. Analog and hybrid digital-analog computing systems have emerged as promising alternatives, offering the potential for orders-of-magnitude improvements in efficiency. Among these, biochemical computing stands out as a novel paradigm capable of leveraging the natural efficiency of chemical reactions, which have shown promise in solving optimization problems by converging to steady states. By scaling up reaction networks or reaction vessel sizes, biochemical systems present an opportunity to meet the high-performance demands of modern computing tasks. Despite their promise, significant theoretical and practical challenges remain, particularly in formulating and mapping computational problems to chemical reaction networks (CRNs) and designing viable biochemical computing devices. This paper addresses these challenges by introducing new ideas to ChemComp, a compilation and emulation framework for chemical computation. This work describes the mechanisms through which solutions to ordinary differential equations (ODEs) that can be represented as CRN systems can be achieved. Furthermore, we explain the design principles of an ODE dialect implemented as a multi-level intermediate representation (MLIR) compiler extension that will be coupled with existing infrastructure. We demonstrate the potential of our framework through a case study emulating a simplified chemical reservoir computing device. This work establishes foundational tools and methodologies necessary to harness the computational power of chemistry, paving the way for the development of energy-efficient, high-performance computing systems tailored to contemporary and future computational needs.

Bohm Agostini, Nicolas↗
NASA NTRS1990

Experience with abstract notation one

The development of computer science has produced a vast number of machine architectures, programming languages, and compiler technologies. The cross product of these three characteristics defines the spectrum of previous and present data representation methodologies. With regard to computer networks, the uniqueness of these methodologies presents an obstacle when disparate host environments are to be interconnected. Interoperability within a heterogeneous network relies upon the establishment of data representation commonality. The International Standards Organization (ISO) is currently developing the abstract syntax notation one standard (ASN.1) and the basic encoding rules standard (BER) that collectively address this problem. When used within the presentation layer of the open systems interconnection reference model, these two standards provide the data representation commonality required to facilitate interoperability. The details of a compiler that was built to automate the use of ASN.1 and BER are described. From this experience, insights into both standards are given and potential problems relating to this development effort are discussed.

Harvey, James D.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Development of a fault-tolerant microprocessor based computer system for space flight

A methodology for the design of a tightly coupled, highly reliable microprocessor based computer system is described. The concept of triple modular redundancy with sparing is used. The notion of synchronizing by using a single crystal oscillator is examined. The use of decoders to replace voters is also used. The decoders not only isolate the failed module but also allow error identification to be accomplished. Each module is to have its own RAM memory. The necessary circuitry to select a correct memory and the corresponding DMA controller was designed.

Montgomery, V. T.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Evolutionary Computing Methods for Spectral Retrieval

A methodology for processing spectral images to retrieve information on underlying physical, chemical, and/or biological phenomena is based on evolutionary and related computational methods implemented in software. In a typical case, the solution (the information that one seeks to retrieve) consists of parameters of a mathematical model that represents one or more of the phenomena of interest. The methodology was developed for the initial purpose of retrieving the desired information from spectral image data acquired by remote-sensing instruments aimed at planets (including the Earth). Examples of information desired in such applications include trace gas concentrations, temperature profiles, surface types, day/night fractions, cloud/aerosol fractions, seasons, and viewing angles. The methodology is also potentially useful for retrieving information on chemical and/or biological hazards in terrestrial settings. In this methodology, one utilizes an iterative process that minimizes a fitness function indicative of the degree of dissimilarity between observed and synthetic spectral and angular data. The evolutionary computing methods that lie at the heart of this process yield a population of solutions (sets of the desired parameters) within an accuracy represented by a fitness-function value specified by the user. The evolutionary computing methods (ECM) used in this methodology are Genetic Algorithms and Simulated Annealing, both of which are well-established optimization techniques and have also been described in previous NASA Tech Briefs articles. These are embedded in a conceptual framework, represented in the architecture of the implementing software, that enables automatic retrieval of spectral and angular data and analysis of the retrieved solutions for uniqueness.

Terrile, Richard↗
NASA NTRS2001

Distributed Accounting on the Grid

By the late 1990s, the Internet was adequately equipped to move vast amounts of data between HPC (High Performance Computing) systems, and efforts were initiated to link together the national infrastructure of high performance computational and data storage resources together into a general computational utility 'grid', analogous to the national electrical power grid infrastructure. The purpose of the Computational grid is to provide dependable, consistent, pervasive, and inexpensive access to computational resources for the computing community in the form of a computing utility. This paper presents a fully distributed view of Grid usage accounting and a methodology for allocating Grid computational resources for use on a Grid computing system.

Thigpen, William↗
NASA NTRS1993

Conjugate gradient based projection - A new explicit methodology for frictional contact

With special attention towards the applicability to parallel computation or vectorization, a new and effective explicit approach for linear complementary formulations involving a conjugate gradient based projection methodology is proposed in this study for contact problems with Coulomb friction. The overall objectives are focussed towards providing an explicit methodology of computation for the complete contact problem with friction. In this regard, the primary idea for solving the linear complementary formulations stems from an established search direction which is projected to a feasible region determined by the non-negative constraint condition; this direction is then applied to the Fletcher-Reeves conjugate gradient method resulting in a powerful explicit methodology which possesses high accuracy, excellent convergence characteristics, fast computational speed and is relatively simple to implement for contact problems involving Coulomb friction.

Tamma, Kumar K.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Optimization of contoured hypersonic scramjet inlets with a least-squares parabolized Navier-Stokes procedure

A new optimization procedure, in which a parabolized Navier-Stokes solver is coupled with a non-linear least-squares optimization algorithm, is applied to the design of a Mach 14, laminar two-dimensional hypersonic subscale flight inlet with an internal contraction ratio of 15:1 and a length-to-throat half-height ratio of 150:1. An automated numerical search of multiple geometric wall contours, which are defined by polynomical splines, results in an optimal geometry that yields the maximum total-pressure recovery for the compression process. Optimal inlet geometry is obtained for both inviscid and viscous flows, with the assumption that the gas is either calorically or thermally perfect. The analysis with a calorically perfect gas results in an optimized inviscid inlet design that is defined by two cubic splines and yields a mass-weighted total-pressure recovery of 0.787, which is a 23% improvement compared with the optimized shock-canceled two-ramp inlet design. Similarly, the design procedure obtains the optimized contour for a viscous calorically perfect gas to yield a mass-weighted total-pressure recovery value of 0.749. Additionally, an optimized contour for a viscous thermally perfect gas is obtained to yield a mass-weighted total-pressure recovery value of 0.768. The design methodology incorporates both complex fluid dynamic physics and optimal search techniques without an excessive compromise of computational speed; hence, this methodology is a practical technique that is applicable to optimal inlet design procedures.

Korte, J. J.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Gigaflop performance on a CRAY-2: Multitasking a computational fluid dynamics application

The methodology is described for converting a large, long-running applications code that executed on a single processor of a CRAY-2 supercomputer to a version that executed efficiently on multiple processors. Although the conversion of every application is different, a discussion of the types of modification used to achieve gigaflop performance is included to assist others in the parallelization of applications for CRAY computers, especially those that were developed for other computers. An existing application, from the discipline of computational fluid dynamics, that had utilized over 2000 hrs of CPU time on CRAY-2 during the previous year was chosen as a test case to study the effectiveness of multitasking on a CRAY-2. The nature of dominant calculations within the application indicated that a sustained computational rate of 1 billion floating-point operations per second, or 1 gigaflop, might be achieved. The code was first analyzed and modified for optimal performance on a single processor in a batch environment. After optimal performance on a single CPU was achieved, the code was modified to use multiple processors in a dedicated environment. The results of these two efforts were merged into a single code that had a sustained computational rate of over 1 gigaflop on a CRAY-2. Timings and analysis of performance are given for both single- and multiple-processor runs.

Tennille, Geoffrey M.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Probabilistic evaluation of fuselage-type composite structures

A methodology is developed to computationally simulate the uncertain behavior of composite structures. Uncertain behavior is the consequence of the random variation (scatter) of the primitive (independent random) variables at the constituent, ply, laminate and structural levels. This methodology is implemented in the IPACS (Integrated Probabilistic Assessment of Composite Structures) computer code. A fuselage-type composite structure is analyzed to demonstrate the code's capability. The probability distribution functions of structural responses are computed. Sensitivity of a given structural response to each primitive variable is also determined from the analyses.

Shiao, Michael C.↗
NASA NTRS1987

A shared position/force control methodology for teleoperation

A flexible and computationally efficient shared position/force control concept and its implementation in the Robot Control C Library (RCCL) are presented form the point of teleoperation. This methodology enables certain degrees of freedom to be position-controlled through real time manual inputs and the remaining degrees of freedom to be force-controlled by computer. Functionally, it is a hybrid control scheme in that certain degrees of freedom are designated to be under position control, and the remaining degrees of freedom to be under force control. However, the methodology is also a shared control scheme because some degrees of freedom can be put under manual control and the other degrees of freedom put under computer control. Unlike other hybrid control schemes, which process position and force commands independently, this scheme provides a force control loop built on top of a position control inner loop. This feature minimizes the computational burden and increases disturbance rejection. A simple implementation is achieved partly because the joint control servos that are part of most robots can be used to provide the position control inner loop. Along with this control scheme, several menus were implemented for the convenience of the user. The implemented control scheme was successfully demonstrated for the tasks of hinged-panel opening and peg-in-hole insertion.

Lee, Jin S.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Interactive multi-mode blade impact analysis

The theoretical methodology used in developing an analysis for the response of turbine engine fan blades subjected to soft-body (bird) impacts is reported, and the computer program developed using this methodology as its basis is described. This computer program is an outgrowth of two programs that were previously developed for the purpose of studying problems of a similar nature (a 3-mode beam impact analysis and a multi-mode beam impact analysis). The present program utilizes an improved missile model that is interactively coupled with blade motion which is more consistent with actual observations. It takes into account local deformation at the impact area, blade camber effects, and the spreading of the impacted missile mass on the blade surface. In addition, it accommodates plate-type mode shapes. The analysis capability in this computer program represents a significant improvement in the development of the methodology for evaluating potential fan blade materials and designs with regard to foreign object impact resistance.

Alexander, A.↗