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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 397 records · Page 22
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2009

Parametric Optimization of Ares I Propellant Slosh Characteristics Using Frequency Response Criteria

A novel technique for developing propellant slosh damping requirements with respect to the stability characteristics of large flexible launch vehicles is presented. A numerical algorithm is devised which allows an automated software program to rapidly converge to pseudo-optimal solutions that minimize required propellant slosh damping for multiple tanks while maintaining constraints on the frequency response characteristics of a particular open-loop plant transfer function. An implementation of the algorithm using a high-order linear model of the Ares I plant dynamics considers all relevant dynamic interactions of flexible body modes, propellant slosh, and nozzle inertia effects. A high-resolution propellant damping requirements table is produced that can be used for baffle design. The method is demonstrated to provide exceptional speed and accuracy when compared with the alternative human-in-the-loop approach.

Orr, Jeb S.↗
NASA NTRS2007

Simplified Generation of High-Angular-Momentum Light Beams

A simplified method of generating a beam of light having a relatively high value of angular momentum (see figure) involves the use of a compact apparatus consisting mainly of a laser, a whispering- gallery-mode (WGM) resonator, and optical fibers. The method also can be used to generate a Bessel beam. ( Bessel beam denotes a member of a class of non-diffracting beams, so named because their amplitudes are proportional to Bessel functions of the radii from their central axes. High-order Bessel beams can have high values of angular momentum.) High-angular-momentum light beams are used in some applications in biology and nanotechnology, wherein they are known for their ability to apply torque to make microscopic objects rotate. High-angular-momentum light beams could also be used to increase bandwidths of fiber-optic communication systems. The present simplified method of generating a high-angular-momentum light beam was conceived as an alternative to prior such methods, which are complicated and require optical setups that include, variously, holograms, modulating Fabry-Perot cavities, or special microstructures. The present simplified method exploits a combination of the complex structure of the electromagnetic field inside a WGM resonator, total internal reflection in the WGM resonator, and the electromagnetic modes supported by an optical fiber. The optical fiber used to extract light from the WGM resonator is made of fused quartz. The output end of this fiber is polished flat and perpendicular to the fiber axis. The input end of this fiber is cut on a slant and placed very close to the WGM resonator at an appropriate position and orientation. To excite the resonant whispering- gallery modes, light is introduced into the WGM resonator via another optical fiber that is part of a pigtailed fiber-optic coupler. Light extracted from the WGM resonator is transformed into a high-angular- momentum beam inside the extraction optical fiber and this beam is emitted from the polished flat output end. By adjusting the geometry of this apparatus, it is possible to generate a variety of optical beams characterized by a wide range of parameters. These beams generally have high angular momenta and can be of either Bessel or Bessel-related types.

Savchenkov, Anatoliy↗
NASA NTRS2009

WGM resonators for studying orbital angular momentum of a photon, and methods

An optical system, device, and method that are capable of generating high-order Bessel beams and determining the orbital angular momentum of at least one of the photons of a Bessel beam are provided. The optical system and device include a tapered waveguide having an outer surface defined by a diameter that varies along a longitudinal axis of the waveguide from a first end to an opposing second end. The optical system and device include a resonator that is arranged in optical communication with the first end of the tapered waveguide such that an evanescent field emitted from (i) the waveguide can be coupled with the resonator, or (ii) the resonator can be coupled with the waveguide.

Matsko, Andrey B.↗
NASA NTRS2007

Procedures for Tuning a Multiresonator Photonic Filter

Two procedures have been devised for tuning a photonic filter that comprises multiple whispering-gallery mode (WGM) disk resonators. As used here, tuning signifies locking the filter to a specific laser frequency and configuring the filter to obtain a desired high-order transfer function. The main problem in tuning such a filter is how to select the correct relative loading of the resonators to realize a prescribed filter function. The first of the two procedures solves this problem. As temperature gradients develop during operation, the spectra of individual resonators tend to drift, primarily because of the thermorefractive effect. Thus, there arises the additional problem of how to adjust the tuning during operation to maintain the desired transfer function. The second of the two procedures solves this problem. To implement the procedures, it is necessary to incorporate the resonators into an apparatus like that of Figure 1. In this apparatus, the spectrum of each resonator can be adjusted individually, via the electro-optical effect, by adjusting a bias voltage applied to that resonator. In addition, the positions of the coupling prisms and resonators can be adjusted to increase or reduce the gaps between them, thereby reducing or increasing, respectively, the optical coupling between them. The optical power (Pi) in resonator i is monitored by use of a tracking photodiode. Another tracking diode monitors the power reflected from the input terminal (Pr), and still others monitor the input power (Pin) and output power (Po). The readings of these photodiodes are used to guide the tuning adjustments described in this paper.

Matsko, Andrey↗
NASA NTRS2010

Efficient Bit-to-Symbol Likelihood Mappings

This innovation is an efficient algorithm designed to perform bit-to-symbol and symbol-to-bit likelihood mappings that represent a significant portion of the complexity of an error-correction code decoder for high-order constellations. Recent implementation of the algorithm in hardware has yielded an 8- percent reduction in overall area relative to the prior design.

Moision, Bruce E.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Trajectory Optimization: OTIS 4

The latest release of the Optimal Trajectories by Implicit Simulation (OTIS4) allows users to simulate and optimize aerospace vehicle trajectories. With OTIS4, one can seamlessly generate optimal trajectories and parametric vehicle designs simultaneously. New features also allow OTIS4 to solve non-aerospace continuous time optimal control problems. The inputs and outputs of OTIS4 have been updated extensively from previous versions. Inputs now make use of objectoriented constructs, including one called a metastring. Metastrings use a greatly improved calculator and common nomenclature to reduce the user s workload. They allow for more flexibility in specifying vehicle physical models, boundary conditions, and path constraints. The OTIS4 calculator supports common mathematical functions, Boolean operations, and conditional statements. This allows users to define their own variables for use as outputs, constraints, or objective functions. The user-defined outputs can directly interface with other programs, such as spreadsheets, plotting packages, and visualization programs. Internally, OTIS4 has more explicit and implicit integration procedures, including high-order collocation methods, the pseudo-spectral method, and several variations of multiple shooting. Users may switch easily between the various methods. Several unique numerical techniques such as automated variable scaling and implicit integration grid refinement, support the integration methods. OTIS4 is also significantly more user friendly than previous versions. The installation process is nearly identical on various platforms, including Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X, and Linux operating systems. Cross-platform scripts also help make the execution of OTIS and post-processing of data easier. OTIS4 is supplied free by NASA and is subject to ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) restrictions. Users must have a Fortran compiler, and a Python interpreter is highly recommended.

Riehl, John P.↗
NASA NTRS2006

Tunable Filter Made From Three Coupled WGM Resonators

A tunable third-order band-pass optical filter has been constructed as an assembly of three coupled, tunable, whispering-gallery-mode resonators similar to the one described in Whispering-Gallery-Mode Tunable Narrow-Band-Pass Filter (NPO-30896), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 28, No. 4 (April 2004), page 5a. This filter offers a combination of four characteristics that are desirable for potential applications in photonics: (1) wide real-time tunability accompanied by a high-order filter function, (2) narrowness of the passband, (3) relatively low loss between input and output coupling optical fibers, and (4) a sparse spectrum. In contrast, prior tunable band-pass optical filters have exhibited, at most, two of these four characteristics. As described in several prior NASA Tech Briefs articles, a whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) resonator is a spheroidal, disklike, or toroidal body made of a highly transparent material. It is so named because it is designed to exploit whispering-gallery electromagnetic modes, which are waveguide modes that propagate circumferentially and are concentrated in a narrow toroidal region centered on the equatorial plane and located near the outermost edge. Figure 1 depicts the optical layout of the present filter comprising an assembly of three coupled, tunable WGM resonators. Each WGM resonator is made from a disk of Z-cut LiNbO3 of 3.3-mm diameter and 50-m thickness. The perimeter of the disk is polished and rounded to a radius of curvature of 40 microns. The free spectral range of each WGM resonator is about 13.3 GHz. Gold coats on the flat faces of the disk serve as electrodes for exploiting the electro-optical effect in LiNbO3 for tuning. There is no metal coat on the rounded perimeter region, where the whispering-gallery modes propagate. Light is coupled from an input optical fiber into the whispering-gallery-modes of the first WGM resonator by means of a diamond prism. Another diamond prism is used to couple light from the whispering-gallery-modes of the third WGM resonator to an output optical fiber. The filter operates at a nominal wavelength of 1,550 nm and can be tuned over a frequency range of plus or minus 12 GHz by applying a potential in the range of plus or minus 150 V to the electrodes. The insertion loss (the loss between the input and output coupling optical fibers) was found to be repeatable at 6 dB. The resonance quality factor (Q) of the main sequence of resonator modes was found to be 5 x 10(exp 6), which corresponds to a bandwidth of 30 MHz. The filter can be shifted from one operating frequency to another within a tuning time less than or equal to 30 micro seconds. The transmission curve of the filter at frequencies near the middle of the passband closely approximates a theoretical third-order Butterworth filter profile, as shown in Figure 2.

Savchenkov, Anatoliy↗
NASA NTRS2000

Cellular Responses to Mechanical Stress Selected Contribution: A Three-Dimensional Model for Assessment of in Vitro Toxicity in Balaena Mysticetus Renal Tissue

This study established two- and three-dimensional renal proximal tubular cell cultures of the endangered species bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus), developed SV40-transfected cultures, and cloned the 61-amino acid open reading frame for the metallothionein protein, the primary binding site for heavy metal contamination in mammals. Microgravity research, modulations in mechanical culture conditions (modeled microgravity), and shear stress have spawned innovative approaches to understanding the dynamics of cellular interactions, gene expression, and differentiation in several cellular systems. These investigations have led to the creation of ex vivo tissue models capable of serving as physiological research analogs for three-dimensional cellular interactions. These models are enabling studies in immune function, tissue modeling for basic research, and neoplasia. Three-dimensional cellular models emulate aspects of in vivo cellular architecture and physiology and may facilitate environmental toxicological studies aimed at elucidating biological functions and responses at the cellular level. Marine mammals occupy a significant ecological niche (72% of the Earth's surface is water) in terms of the potential for information on bioaccumulation and transport of terrestrial and marine environmental toxins in high-order vertebrates. Few ex vivo models of marine mammal physiology exist in vitro to accomplish the aforementioned studies. Techniques developed in this investigation, based on previous tissue modeling successes, may serve to facilitate similar research in other marine mammals.

Goodwin, T. J.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Phase Contrast Wavefront Sensing for Adaptive Optics

Most ground-based adaptive optics systems use one of a small number of wavefront sensor technologies, notably (for relatively high-order systems) the Shack-Hartmann sensor, which provides local measurements of the phase slope (first-derivative) at a number of regularly-spaced points across the telescope pupil. The curvature sensor, with response proportional to the second derivative of the phase, is also sometimes used, but has undesirable noise propagation properties during wavefront reconstruction as the number of actuators becomes large. It is interesting to consider the use for astronomical adaptive optics of the "phase contrast" technique, originally developed for microscopy by Zemike to allow convenient viewing of phase objects. In this technique, the wavefront sensor provides a direct measurement of the local value of phase in each sub-aperture of the pupil. This approach has some obvious disadvantages compared to Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensing, but has some less obvious but substantial advantages as well. Here we evaluate the relative merits in a practical ground-based adaptive optics system.

adaptive optics↗
NASA NTRS2011

The Legacy of Space Shuttle Flight Software

The initial goals of the Space Shuttle Program required that the avionics and software systems blaze new trails in advancing avionics system technology. Many of the requirements placed on avionics and software were accomplished for the first time on this program. Examples include comprehensive digital fly-by-wire technology, use of a digital databus for flight critical functions, fail operational/fail safe requirements, complex automated redundancy management, and the use of a high-order software language for flight software development. In order to meet the operational and safety goals of the program, the Space Shuttle software had to be extremely high quality, reliable, robust, reconfigurable and maintainable. To achieve this, the software development team evolved a software process focused on continuous process improvement and defect elimination that consistently produced highly predictable and top quality results, providing software managers the confidence needed to sign each Certificate of Flight Readiness (COFR). This process, which has been appraised at Capability Maturity Model (CMM)/Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Level 5, has resulted in one of the lowest software defect rates in the industry. This paper will present an overview of the evolution of the Primary Avionics Software System (PASS) project and processes over thirty years, an argument for strong statistical control of software processes with examples, an overview of the success story for identifying and driving out errors before flight, a case study of the few significant software issues and how they were either identified before flight or slipped through the process onto a flight vehicle, and identification of the valuable lessons learned over the life of the project.

Hickey, Christopher J.↗
NASA NTRS2005

A Broad-Band Phase-Contrast Wave-Front Sensor

A broadband phase-contrast wave-front sensor has been proposed as a real-time wave-front sensor in an adaptive-optics system. The proposed sensor would offer an alternative to the Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensors now used in high-order adaptive-optics systems of some astronomical telescopes. Broadband sensing gives higher sensitivity than does narrow-band sensing, and it appears that for a given bandwidth, the sensitivity of the proposed phase-contrast sensor could exceed that of a Shack-Hartmann sensor. Relative to a Shack-Hartmann sensor, the proposed sensor may be optically and mechanically simpler. As described below, an important element of the principle of operation of a phase-contrast wave-front sensor is the imposition of a 90deg phase shift between diffracted and undiffracted parts of the same light beam. In the proposed sensor, this phase shift would be obtained by utilizing the intrinsic 90 phase shift between the transmitted and reflected beams in an ideal (thin, symmetric) beam splitter. This phase shift can be characterized as achromatic or broadband because it is 90deg at every wavelength over a broad wavelength range.

Bloemhof, Eric↗
NASA NTRS2004

Imaging of gamma-Irradiated Regions of a Crystal

A holographic technique has been devised for generating a visible display of the effect of exposure of a photorefractive crystal to gamma rays. The technique exploits the space charge that results from trapping of electrons in defects induced by gamma rays. The technique involves a three-stage process. In the first stage, one writes a holographic pattern in the crystal by use of the apparatus shown in Figure 1. A laser beam of 532-nm wavelength is collimated and split into signal and reference beams by use of a polarizing beam splitter. On its way to the crystal, the reference beam goes through a two-dimensional optical scanner that contains two pairs of lenses (L1y, L2y and L1x,L2x) and mirrors M1 and M2, which can be rotated by use of micrometer drives to make fine adjustments. The signal beam is sent through a spatial light modulator that imposes the holographic pattern, then through two imaging lenses L(sub img) on its way to the crystal. An aperture is placed at the common focus of lenses Limg to suppress high-order diffraction from the spatial light modulator. The hologram is formed by interference between the signal and reference beams. A camera lens focuses an image of the interior of the crystal onto a charge-coupled device (CCD). If the crystal is illuminated by only the reference beam once the hologram has been formed, then an image of the hologram is formed on the CCD: this phenomenon is exploited to make visible the pattern of gamma irradiation of the crystal, as described next. In the second stage of the process, the crystal is removed from the holographic apparatus and irradiated with rays at a dose of about 100 krad. In the third stage of the process, the crystal is remounted in the holographic apparatus in the same position as in the first stage and illuminated with only the reference beam to obtain the image of the hologram as modified by the effect of the rays. The orientations of M1 and M2 can be adjusted slightly, if necessary, to maximize the intensity of the image. Figure 2 shows such an image that was formed in a crystal of Fe:LiNbO3.

Dragoi, Danut↗
NASA NTRS2003

Parallel Subconvolution Filtering Architectures

These architectures are based on methods of vector processing and the discrete-Fourier-transform/inverse-discrete- Fourier-transform (DFT-IDFT) overlap-and-save method, combined with time-block separation of digital filters into frequency-domain subfilters implemented by use of sub-convolutions. The parallel-processing method implemented in these architectures enables the use of relatively small DFT-IDFT pairs, while filter tap lengths are theoretically unlimited. The size of a DFT-IDFT pair is determined by the desired reduction in processing rate, rather than on the order of the filter that one seeks to implement. The emphasis in this report is on those aspects of the underlying theory and design rules that promote computational efficiency, parallel processing at reduced data rates, and simplification of the designs of very-large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuits needed to implement high-order filters and correlators.

Gray, Andrew A.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Post-Coronagraph Wavefront Sensor for Gemini Planet Imager

The calibration wavefront system for the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) will measure the complex wavefront at the apodized pupil and provide slow phase errors to the AO system to mitigate against image plane speckles that would cause a loss in contrast. This talk describes both the low-order and high-order sensors in the calibration wavefront sensor and how the information is combined to form the wavefront estimate before the coronagraph. We will show laboratory results from our calibration testbed that demonstrate the subsystem performance at levels commensurate with those required on the final instrument.

interferometry↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

TPSAS-NF1676L-12494-DND

Outline: NASA Missions and their requirements for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methodology, CFD state-of-the-art employed in NASA applications, examples of applications challenging NASA’s CFD capability, desired characteristics of future CFD solvers and the role of high-order methods in their development, and a vision for future production CFD methods.

David M Schuster↗