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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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All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRS2015

AgMIP Training in Multiple Crop Models and Tools

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) has the goal of using multiple crop models to evaluate climate impacts on agricultural production and food security in developed and developing countries. There are several major limitations that must be overcome to achieve this goal, including the need to train AgMIP regional research team (RRT) crop modelers to use models other than the ones they are currently familiar with, plus the need to harmonize and interconvert the disparate input file formats used for the various models. Two activities were followed to address these shortcomings among AgMIP RRTs to enable them to use multiple models to evaluate climate impacts on crop production and food security. We designed and conducted courses in which participants trained on two different sets of crop models, with emphasis on the model of least experience. In a second activity, the AgMIP IT group created templates for inputting data on soils, management, weather, and crops into AgMIP harmonized databases, and developed translation tools for converting the harmonized data into files that are ready for multiple crop model simulations. The strategies for creating and conducting the multi-model course and developing entry and translation tools are reviewed in this chapter.

farm crops↗

NASA NTRS1980

Noise control prediction for high-speed, propeller-driven aircraft

An analytical study is described which explores add-on treatments and advanced concepts for the reduction of noise levels in three high-speed aircraft driven by propellers. Noise reductions of 25 to 28 dB are required to achieve a goal of an A-weighted sound level not greater than 80 dB. It is found that only a double-wall system, with a limp inner wall or trim panel, can achieve the required noise reductions. Weight penalties are estimated for the double-wall treatments. These penalties are 0.75% to 1.51% of the aircraft takeoff weight for the particular baseline designs selected.

Wilby, J. F.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Systems analysis and technology development for the NASA Orbit Transfer Vehicle

The benefits derived from aerobraking technology development for the Orbit Transfer Vehicle (OTV) are analyzed. The relative advantages of several other candidate OTV technologies are evaluated, and a relative ranking on the basis of performance considerations is presented. It is shown that aerobraking technologies can provide significant cost reductions for delivery of payloads to geosynchronous orbit, and that new and unique design concepts for OTVs must be pursued in order to realize the promised cost benefits. The goal for an aerobraked vehicle is an upper limit of 20 percent of the vehicle devoted to aero systems. Practical OTV configurations based on a concept of integrated structural design that can achieve this goal are suggested. A concept for a flight experiment to acquire the data needed to advance the discussed aeroassist technologies is proposed.

Roberts, B. B.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Advanced Launch System (ALS): Electrical actuation and power systems improve operability and cost picture

To obtain the Advanced Launch System (ALS) primary goals of reduced costs and improved operability, there must be significant reductions in the launch operations and servicing requirements relative to current vehicle designs and practices. One of the primary methods for achieving these goals is by using vehicle electrical power system and controls for all actuation and avionics requirements. A brief status review of the ALS and its associated Advanced Development Program is presented to demonstrate maturation of those technologies that will help meet the overall operability and cost goals. The electric power and actuation systems are highlighted as a specific technology ready not only to meet the stringent ALS goals (cryogenic field valves and thrust vector controls with peak power demands to 75 hp), but also those of other launch vehicles, military and civilian aircraft, lunar/Martian vehicles, and a multitude of commercial applications.

Sundberg, Gale R.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Advanced Launch System (ALS) actuation and power systems impact operability and cost

Sundberg, Gale R.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Advanced launch system (ALS) - Electrical actuation and power systems improve operability and cost picture

To obtain the Advanced Launch System (ALS) primary goals of reduced costs and improved operability, there must be significant reductions in the launch operations and servicing requirements relative to current vehicle designs and practices. One of the primary methods for achieving these goals is by using vehicle electrrical power system and controls for all aviation and avionics requirements. A brief status review of the ALS and its associated Advanced Development Program is presented to demonstrate maturation of those technologies that will help meet the overall operability and cost goals. The electric power and actuation systems are highlighted as a sdpecific technology ready not only to meet the stringent ALS goals (cryogenic field valves and thrust vector controls with peak power demands to 75 hp), but also those of other launch vehicles, military ans civilian aircraft, lunar/Martian vehicles, and a multitude of comercial applications.

Sundberg, Gale R.↗

NASA NTRS2002

A Virtual Mission Operations Center: Collaborative Environment

The Virtual Mission Operations Center - Collaborative Environment (VMOC-CE) intent is to have a central access point for all the resources used in a collaborative mission operations environment to assist mission operators in communicating on-site and off-site in the investigation and resolution of anomalies. It is a framework that as a minimum incorporates online chat, realtime file sharing and remote application sharing components in one central location. The use of a collaborative environment in mission operations opens up the possibilities for a central framework for other project members to access and interact with mission operations staff remotely. The goal of the Virtual Mission Operations Center (VMOC) Project is to identify, develop, and infuse technology to enable mission control by on-call personnel in geographically dispersed locations. In order to achieve this goal, the following capabilities are needed: Autonomous mission control systems Automated systems to contact on-call personnel Synthesis and presentation of mission control status and history information Desktop tools for data and situation analysis Secure mechanism for remote collaboration commanding Collaborative environment for remote cooperative work The VMOC-CE is a collaborative environment that facilitates remote cooperative work. It is an application instance of the Virtual System Design Environment (VSDE), developed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's (GSFC) Systems Engineering Services & Advanced Concepts (SESAC) Branch. The VSDE is a web-based portal that includes a knowledge repository and collaborative environment to serve science and engineering teams in product development. It is a "one stop shop" for product design, providing users real-time access to product development data, engineering and management tools, and relevant design specifications and resources through the Internet. The initial focus of the VSDE has been to serve teams working in the early portion of the system/product lifecycle - concept development, proposal preparation, and formulation. The VMOC-CE expands the application of the VSDE into the operations portion of the system lifecycle. It will enable meaningful and real-time collaboration regardless of the geographical distribution of project team members. Team members will be able to interact in satellite operations, specifically for resolving anomalies, through access to a desktop computer and the Internet. Mission Operations Management will be able to participate and monitor up to the minute status of anomalies or other mission operations issues. In this paper we present the VMOC-CE project, system capabilities, and technologies.

Medina, Barbara↗

NASA NTRS2004

Risk communication strategy development using the aerospace systems engineering process

This paper explains the goals and challenges of NASA's risk communication efforts and how the Aerospace Systems Engineering Process (ASEP) was used to map the risk communication strategy used at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to achieve these goals.

risk communication↗

DOE OSTI2023

Hydrogen Safety Review for Gas Turbines, SOFC, and High Temperature Hydrogen Production

This report presents an introduction and summary on hydrogen safety issues, as they relate to hydrogen production, storage, and use in the energy sector, primarily as related to electricity generation by gas turbines, and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC), and hydrogen production from gasification and steam methane reforming processes. The impetus behind this effort is the U.S. DOE goal for decarbonization of the power generation sector by the year 2035. In many cases, hydrogen is expected to replace natural gas as the primary fuel source (or form of energy storage) to achieve this goal. Advanced technologies for large-scale energy production using hydrogen as a fuel source which can be deployed over the next 5–10 years will be required. However, to develop and mature these hydrogen-based technologies, it will be critical to identify the safety issues related to widespread use of hydrogen as a fuel source, so that they may be addressed prior to widespread deployment.

08 HYDROGEN↗

DOE OSTI2025

Integration Methods for High-Density Integrated Electric Drives (Final Technical Report)

The project goal was to research, design and fabricate high-power-density, high-performance SiC power electronic modules for motor drive inverters in electric vehicles (EVs) to enable the subsequent motor drive to achieve a power density of 100 kW/l. EVs use electric motors instead of internal combustion engines as the prime mover, and their core components are semiconductor-based power electronic modules. Efficient power electronic modules play a vital role in power conversion systems. The performance of power modules directly affects the energy efficiency and overall performance of electric vehicles. Therefore, it is particularly important to develop power modules with high power density and high electrical performance that will perform reliably under EV environmental conditions. To achieve these goals, advanced electronic packaging technologies are required. This report describes a 5-year effort to integrate key aspects surrounding the basic power devices into the module itself to increase power density. These include sensing and sensing readout circuits, gate driver circuits, and two-sided cooling solutions.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

NASA NTRS1975

Time of Apollo

In the year 1961, President John F. Kennedy set forth the task that...'This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely tio Earth'. The decade is over and the task has been accomplished. Project Apollo has been achieved. This video documentary is a tribute to the historical accomplishments of the Apollo program.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2014

Functional Analysis for an Integrated Capability of Arrival/Departure/Surface Management with Tactical Runway Management

The runway is a critical resource of any air transport system. It is used for arrivals, departures, and for taxiing aircraft and is universally acknowledged as a constraining factor to capacity for both surface and airspace operations. It follows that investigation of the effective use of runways, both in terms of selection and assignment as well as the timing and sequencing of the traffic is paramount to the efficient traffic flows. Both the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and NASA have developed concepts and tools to improve atomic aspects of coordinated arrival/departure/surface management operations and runway configuration management. In December 2012, NASA entered into a Collaborative Agreement with DLR. Four collaborative work areas were identified, one of which is called "Runway Management." As part of collaborative research in the "Runway Management" area, which is conducted with the DLR Institute of Flight Guidance, located in Braunschweig, the goal is to develop an integrated system comprised of the three DLR tools - arrival, departure, and surface management (collectively referred to as A/D/S-MAN) - and NASA's tactical runway configuration management (TRCM) tool. To achieve this goal, it is critical to prepare a concept of operations (ConOps) detailing how the NASA runway management and DLR arrival, departure, and surface management tools will function together to the benefit of each. To assist with the preparation of the ConOps, the integrated NASA and DLR tools are assessed through a functional analysis method described in this report. The report first provides the highlevel operational environments for air traffic management (ATM) in Germany and in the U.S., and the descriptions of the DLR's A/D/S-MAN and NASA's TRCM tools at the level of details necessary to compliment the purpose of the study. Functional analyses of each tool and a completed functional analysis of an integrated system design are presented next in the report. Future efforts to fully develop the ConOps will include: developing scenarios to fully test environmental, procedural, and data availability assumptions; executing the analysis by a walk-through of the integrated system using these scenarios; defining the appropriate role of operators in terms of their monitoring requirements and decision authority; executing the analysis by a walk-through of the integrated system with operator involvement; characterizing the environmental, system data requirements, and operator role assumptions for the ConOps.

Phojanamongkolkij, Nipa↗

DOE OSTI2020

The Accelerator Neutrino Neutron InteractionExperiment: Design, Construction and Preparationfor First Physics

This thesis covers work performed for the Accelerator Neutrino Neutron Interaction Experiment (ANNIE) between 2015 and 2020. ANNIE is a beamline neutrino experiment located at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Chicago. Its primary physics goals are the measurement of neutrino interaction cross-sections on oxygen, and a measurement of the multiplicity of final state neutrons from these interactions, both as functions of final state kinematics. In order to achieve these goals ANNIE will be pioneering the use of Large Area Picosecond Photodetectors and the use of gadolinium doping to enhance neutron visibility in a water Cherenkov detector. Over the time period of this thesis the ANNIE detector was constructed, an initial 'Phase I' background run was completed, the detector was decommissioned and then substantially upgraded in preparation for the main 'Phase II' physics run. At the time of writing ANNIE is being re-commissioned, with Phase II data taking anticipated to begin in 2021. During this time I spent 21/2 years on-site contributing to almost all aspects of hardware work, while performing software development for the simulation and analysis frameworks. As my first software task I developed Monte Carlo simulations of the detector response, based on the WCSim framework. While thismore » framework provided a starting point for the tank simulation significant modifications were required to implement the complete ANNIE detector system. This included a rewrite of the geometry, along with modifications to the photosensor definitions, hit collections, digitization, triggering, input and output interfaces, etc. To take advantage of improved modelling of neutrons in Geant4.10 the physics lists were also reimplemented in the new version format. As part of this work I determined performance metrics based on the output files, calculating kinematic acceptance, detector efficiency and expected event rates. My contributions on reconstruction focused primarily on the MRD, for which I implemented two track reconstruction algorithms, specialised for high and low energy muons. The high energy algorithm achieves >90% efficiency for tracks with at least 8 hits, and is robust against dead paddles and unrelated hits. The low energy algorithm performs a search in combination with tank information to provide sensitivity down to a single MRD hit. Early data handling work for the Phase I background run included writing the code for handling TDC hits and performing studies on neutron detection without the requirement of multi-hit coincidence. As the collaboration moved to a new framework for the Phase II analysis I performed a substantial amount of work to develop the codebase, implementing tools to perform tasks such as file IO, data parsing, waveform processing, event building, timestamp alignment, time clustering, hit residual calculation, event visualisation etc. I helped develop the python API for integrating multi-language tools, and ported the framework into a Singularity container to provide a self-contained environment that…« less

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2021

Techno-Economic Optimization of CSP Plants with Free-Falling Particle Receivers

Particle receivers are one of the candidates for the next generation of CSP plants, whose goal is to reduce the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) to 0.05 $/kWh. This paper presents a techno-economic analysis to study if a CSP system with free-falling particle receiver can achieve this goal. The plant analyzed integrates two ground-based bins to store the excess energy and a supercritical CO2 cycle to generate electricity. The model used for the analysis presents several upgrades to previous particle systems models in order to increase its fidelity, accuracy, and representativeness of an actual system. The main upgrades are the addition of off-design conditions during the annual simulations in all the components and an improved receiver model validated against CFD simulations. The size of the main components is optimized to obtain the system configuration with minimum LCOE. The results show that particle CSP systems can reduce the LCOE to 0.056 $/kWh if the configuration is composed of 1.61 × 106 m2 of heliostats, a 250 m high tower with a 537 m2 falling particle curtain, and 16 h thermal energy storage.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS1992

Task definition, decoupling and redundancy resolution by nonlinear feedback in multi-robot object handling

The problem of rigid object handling by multiple robot arms is investigated. The primary goal is to make the object exhibit a prescribed behavior while in contact with a fully known environment. Point contacts are assumed between the object and the arms. The aspect of task definition to achieve decoupling and linearizing control laws is discussed. Control laws are first formulated at the object level to provide decoupled force and position servo loops. It is then used to form control laws for the individual arms. Redundancies exist at the object and arm levels. The object level redundancy is used to achieve secondary goals in object handling. The arm level redundancies are the zero dynamics and can be controlled by redundant inputs. Full use of the available inputs are used to control the system as a whole. Numerical simulations for a dual-arm situation illustrate the validity of the approach.

Ramadorai, A. K.↗

NASA NTRS1996

Damage accumulation in closed cross-section, laminated, composite structures

The need for safe, lightweight, less expensive, and more reliable launch vehicle components is being driven by the competitiveness of the commercial launch market. The United States has lost 2/3 of the commercial lunch market to Europe. As low cost Russian and Chinese vehicles become available, the US market share could be reduced even further. This international climate is driving the Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO) program at NASA. The goal of the SSTO program is to radically reduce the cost of safe, routine transportation to and from space with a totally reusable launch vehicle designed for low-cost aircraft-like operations. Achieving this goal will require more efficient uses of materials. Composite materials can provide this program with the material and structural efficiencies needed to stay competitive in the international launch market place. In satellite systems the high specific properties, design flexibility, improved corrosion and wear resistance, increased fatigue life, and low coefficient of thermal expansion that are characteristic of composite materials can all be used to improve the overall satellite performance. Some of the satellites that may be able to take advantage of these performance characteristics are the Tethered Satellite Systems (TOSCIFER, AIRSEDS, TSS2, SEDS1, and SEDS2), AXAF, GRO, and the next generation Hubble Space Telescope. These materials can also be utilized in projects at the NASAIMSFC Space Optics Technology and System Center of Excellence. The successful implementation of composite materials requires accurate performance characterization. Materials characterization data for composite materials is typically generated using flat coupons of finite width. At the free edge of these coupons the stress state is exacerbated by the presence of stiffness and geometric discontinuities. The exacerbated stress state has been shown to dominate the damage accumulation in these materials and to have a profound affect on the material constants. Space structures typically have closed cross-sections, absent of free edges. As a result, composite material characterization data generated using finite width flat specimens does not accurately reflect the performance of the composite materials used in a closed cross-section structural configuration. Several investigators have recognized the need to develop characterization techniques for composite materials in closed cross-sectioned structures. In these investigations test methods were developed and cylindrical specimens were evaluated. The behavior of the cylindrical specimens were observed to depart from behavior typical of flat coupons. However, no attempts were made to identify and monitor the progression of damage in these cylindrical specimens during loading. The identification and monitoring of damage is fundamental to the characterization of composite materials in closed cross-section configurations. In the study reported here, a closed cross-sectioned test method was developed to monitor damage progression in 2 in. diameter cylindrical specimens and 1.5 in. finite width flat coupons subjected to quasi-static, tensile loading conditions. Damage in these specimen configurations was monitored using pulse echo ultrasonic, acoustic emission, and X-ray techniques.

Bucinell, Ronald B.↗

NASA NTRS2002

National Aeronautics and Space Administration FY 02 Revised Final Annual Performance Plan

The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) was passed by Congress and signed by the President in 1993. GPRA was enacted to improve the efficiency of all Federal agencies, with the following specific goals: (1) Improve Federal program management, effectiveness, and public accountability; (2) Improve Congressional decision making on where to commit the Nation's financial and human resources; and (3) Improve citizen confidence in government performance. GPRA directs Executive Branch agencies to develop a customer-focused strategic plan that aligns activities with concrete missions and goals. The Act directs agencies to manage and measure results to justify Congressional appropriations and authorizations. The Report Consolidation Act of 2000 directs agencies to provide a report on the degree of success in achieving the goals and performance measures defined in the strategic and performance plans one hundred and fifty days after the completion of the fiscal year.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2013

Management of the Atmosphere Resource Recovery and Environmental Monitoring Project

The Advanced Exploration Systems Program's Atmosphere Resource Recovery and Environmental Monitoring (ARREM) project is working to further optimize atmosphere revitalization and environmental monitoring system architectures. This paper discusses project management strategies that tap into skill sets across multiple engineering disciplines, projects, field centers, and industry to achieve the project success. It is the project's objective to contribute to system advances that will enable sustained exploration missions beyond Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) and improve affordability by focusing on the primary goals of achieving high reliability, improving efficiency, and reducing dependence on ground-based logistics resupply. Technology demonstrations are achieved by infusing new technologies and concepts with existing developmental hardware and operating in a controlled environment simulating various crewed habitat scenarios. The ARREM project's strengths include access to a vast array of existing developmental hardware that perform all the vital atmosphere revitalization functions, exceptional test facilities to fully evaluate system performance, and a well-coordinated partnering effort among the NASA field centers and industry partners to provide the innovative expertise necessary to succeed.

Roman, Monsi↗