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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 415 records · Page 23

A spatial model of wind shear and turbulence

The purpose of the spatial model considered in the present investigation is to generate the wind environment for use by others for flight simulation. Winds and gusts are provided over any finite area (e.g., aircraft body) from which aircraft loads and moments may be calculated. Three-dimensional autospectral information and correlation are contained in the data. It is pointed out that the three-dimensionality as contained in the spatial model affords much greater realism than widely used one-dimensional models. The resulting simulated wind is a nonlinear, non-Gaussian combination of real atmospheric winds and Gaussian, three-dimensional turbulence modulated by gust intensities which may vary freely as desired over space. The turbulence as represented by a product of a varying gust intensity and simulated turbulence is nonlinear and non-Gaussian.

Campbell, C. W.↗

A test for interfacial effects and stress transfer in ceramic matrix composites

A test specimen was devised for measuring stress transfer between a high modulus fiber and a ceramic matrix. Single filaments of SiC were embedded in chemically vapor deposited SiC on a thin plate of molybdenum. The CVD overcoating which encapsulated the fiber was continuous with a coating of SiC on the molybdenum. When placed in a microtensile test device and loaded in the fiber direction, the fiber fracture characteristics provide information on the fiber/matrix adhesion and stress transfer. Problems were encountered due to the formation of a weak boundary between the SiC and the molybdenum which obviated any meaningful tensile tests. Also, the high CVD temperature used in fabricating these specimens restrict the fiber, matrix (and substrate) to materials having similar thermal coefficients of expansion in order to minimize thermal stresses.

Source record↗

Materials characterization using acoustic nonlinearity parameters and harmonic generation - Engineering materials

The paper reviews nonlinear bulk compressional wave acoustic measurement systems and the applications of measurements from such systems to engineering materials. Preliminary measurements indicate that it is possible to determine percent second phase precipitates in aluminum alloys, while other measurements show promise in the determination of properties related to the fatigue states of metals. It is also shown that harmonic generation can be used for the study of crack opening loads in compact tension specimens, which in turn gives useful information about the fatigue properties of various engineering materials.

Yost, William T.↗

Pressure Distribution Tests on PW-9 Wing Models from -18 Degree Through 90 Degree Angle of Attack

At the request of the Army Air Corps, an investigation of the pressure distribution over PW-9 wing models was conducted in the atmospheric wind tunnel of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The primary purpose of these tests was to obtain wind-tunnel data on the load distribution on the cellule to be correlated with similar information obtained in flight tests, both to be used for design purposes. Because of the importance of the conditions beyond the stall as affecting the control and stability, this investigation was extended through 90 degree angle of attack. The results for the range of normal flight have been given in NACA Technical Report No. 271. The present paper presents the same results in a different form and includes, in addition, those over the greater range of angle of attack, -18 degrees through 90 degrees. The results show that: (1) at angles of attack above maximum lift, the biplane upper wing pressures are decreased by the shielding action of the lower wing. (2) the burble of the biplane lower wing, with respect to the angle of attack, is delayed, due to the shielding action of the lower wing. (3) the center of pressure of the biplane upper wing (semispan) is, in general, displaced forward and outward with reference to that of the wing as a monoplane, while for the lower wing there is but slight difference for both conditions. (4) the overhanging portion of the upper wing is little affected by the presence of the lower wing.

Loeser, Oscar E , Jr↗

Perforated Materials

National Perforating Corporation (NPC) is a supplier of perforated metals, plastics, and other materials. In production of screens, walkways, and other products for all industries, NPC sought to determine the safe loading of such perforated metal products. NERAC supplied NPC an informational package which included the identification of a firm that already accomplished test and evaluation of the strengths of perforated materials. Using the information available from that firm saved NPC money and time.

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HEASARC Software Archive

(1) Chandra Archive: SAO has maintained the interfaces through which HEASARC gains access to the Chandra Data Archive. At HEASARC's request, we have implemented an anonymous ftp copy of a major part of the public archive and we keep that archive up-to- date. SAO has participated in the ADEC interoperability working group, establishing guidelines or interoperability standards and prototyping such interfaces. We have provided an NVO-based prototype interface, intending to serve the HEASARC-led NVO demo project. HEASARC's Astrobrowse interface was maintained and updated. In addition, we have participated in design discussions surrounding HEASARC's Caldb project. We have attended the HEASARC Users Group meeting and presented CDA status and developments. (2) Chandra CALDB: SA0 has maintained and expanded the Chandra CALDB by including four new data file types, defining the corresponding CALDB keyword/identification structures. We have provided CALDB upgrades for the public (CIAO) and for Standard Data Processing. Approximately 40 new files have been added to the CALDB in these version releases. There have been in the past year ten of these CALDB upgrades, each with unique index configurations. In addition, with the inputs from software, archive, and calibration scientists, as well as CIAO/SDP software developers, we have defined a generalized expansion of the existing CALDB interface and indexing structure. The purpose of this is to make the CALDB more generally applicable and useful in new and future missions that will be supported archivally by HEASARC. The generalized interface will identify additional configurational keywords and permit more extensive calibration parameter and boundary condition specifications for unique file selection. HEASARC scientists and developers from SAO and GSFC have become involved in this work, which is expected to produce a new interface for general use within the current year. (3) DS9: One of the decisions that came from last year's HEADCC meeting was to make the ds9 image display program the primary vehicle for displaying line graphics (as well as images). The first step required to make this possible was to enhance the line graphics capabilities of ds9. SAO therefore spent considerable effort upgrading ds9 to use Tcl 8.4 so that the BLT line graphics package could be built and imported into ds9 from source code, rather than from a pre-built (and generally outdated) shared library. This task, which is nearly complete, allows us to extend BLT as needed for the HEAD community. Following HEADCC discussion concerning archiving and the display of archived data, we extended ds9 to support full access to many astronomical Web-based archives sites, including HEASARC, MAST, CHANDRA, SKYVIEW, ADS, NED, SIMBAD, IRAS, NVRO, SAO TDC, and FIRST. Using ds9's new internal Web access capabilities, these archives can be accessed via their Web page. FITS images, plots, spectra, and journal abstracts can be referenced, down-loaded, and displayed directly and easily in ds9. For more information, see: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/saord/ds9. Also after the HEADCC discussion concerning region filtering, we extended the Funtools sample implementation of region filtering as described in: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/saord/funtools/regions.html. In particular, we added several new composite regions for event and image filtering, including elliptical and box annuli. We also extended the panda (Pie AND Annulus) region support to include box pandas and elliptical pandas. These new composite regions are especially useful in programs that need to count photons in each separate region using only a single pass through the data. Support for these new regions was added to ds9. In the same vein, we developed new region support for filtering images using simple FITS image masks, i.e. 8-bit or 16-bit FITS images where the value of a pixel is the region id number for that pixel. Other important enhancements to DS9 this year, include supporor multiple world coordinate systems, three dimensional event file binning, image smoothing, region groups and tags, the ability to save images in a number of image formats (such as JPEG, TIFF, PNG, FITS), improvements in support for integrating external analysis tools, and support for the virtual observatory. In particular, a full-featured web browser has been implemented within D S 9 . This provides support for full access to HEASARC archive sites such as SKYVIEW and W3BROWSE, in addition to other astronomical archives sites such as MAST, CHANDRA, ADS, NED, SIMBAD, IRAS, NVRO, SA0 TDC, and FIRST. From within DS9, the archives can be searched, and FITS images, plots, spectra, and journal abstracts can be referenced, downloaded and displayed The web browser provides the basis for the built-in help facility. All DS9 documentation, including the reference manual, FAQ, Know Features, and contact information is now available to the user without the need for external display applications. New versions of DS9 maybe downloaded and installed using this facility. Two important features used in the analysis of high energy astronomical data have been implemented in the past year. The first is support for binning photon event data in three dimensions. By binning the third dimension in time or energy, users are easily able to detect variable x-ray sources and identify other physical properties of their data. Second, a number of fast smoothing algorithms have been implemented in DS9, which allow users to smooth their data in real time. Algorithms for boxcar, tophat, and gaussian smoothing are supported.

White, Nicholas↗

Forebody and Inlet Design for the HIFiRE 2 Flight Test

A forebody and inlet have been designed for the HIFiRE 2 scramjet flight test. The test will explore the operating, performance, and stability characteristics of a simple hydrocarbon-fueled scramjet combustor as it transitions from dual-mode to scramjet-mode operation and during supersonic combustion at Mach 8+ flight conditions. Requirements for the compression system were derived from inlet starting and combustor inflow requirements as well as physical size constraints. The design process is described. A planar, fixed geometry, mixed compression concept was used to produce laterally uniform flow at the inlet entrance and a conservative amount of internal contraction with respect to inlet starting. A grid sensitivity study was performed so that important flow physics caused by three-dimensional shock boundary layer interactions could be captured with confidence. Results from low Mach number operability studies, nominal trajectory cases, and high dynamic pressure heat load cases are discussed. The forebody and inlet solutions provide information for on-going combustor calculations, mass capture across the trajectory for fuel system design, and surface heating rates for thermal/structural analysis. The design has a one freestream Mach number margin for inlet starting, exceeds the high Mach number combustor entrance pressure requirement, produces high quality flow at the inlet exit for all Mach numbers and vehicle attitudes in the design space, and fits inside the booster shroud.

Ferlemann, Paul G.↗

A Partitioned - Task Parallel Implementation of the NASA Multiscale Analysis Tool for High Performance Computing

The NASA Multiscale Analysis Tool (NASMAT) is a platform for multiscale modeling of composites which can perform analysis of materials with any arbitrary number of length scales. The platform supports modularity, scalability, and interoperability using recursive procedures and data structures. A Macro solver driven parallelization scheme often limits the capability of NASMAT to scale as it has access to limited memory and number of cores (often one core/thread) and often forces to implement macro solver specific changes to the platform. In this work, a partitioned task-parallel approach is adopted, where the parallelization strategy adopted for NASMAT is independent of the macro solver and the computational resources are managed independently. The programming architecture takes into account the hierarchy of multiple scales (task-dependence) and the heterogeneous nature (dynamic load balancing) of computation through implementation of a hierarchy-informed task parallel model. The partitioned nature of the framework further extends the “plug and play” capability of NASMAT. preCICE, an open-source library for coupling multiphysics solver in a partitioned manner, is adopted to integrate NASMAT with an external macro solver by implementing a NASMAT adapter for preCICE. Speedup and scalability of the framework is studied for micromechanical models of varying size.

task-parallel↗

RApid Blade and Blade-Vortex InTeraction (RABBIT) GUI implementation via MATLAB Application Designer

Rotorcraft noise source identification and reduction is crucial to the emergence of the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) market. One key rotor noise source is Blade Vortex Interaction (BVI), caused by the rotor wake interacting with the rotor blades. The low-fidelity RApid Blade and Blade-Vortex InTeraction (RABBIT) tool was created to predict the location and characteristics of Blade-Vortex Interaction (BVI) noise. RABBIT enables engineers to quickly locate and understand designs or configurations that cause significant BVI noise. Furthermore, RABBIT can identify the time and location of blade overlap for coaxial rotors. RABBIT is not a general acoustic prediction tool, but instead utilizes vortex and wake parameters to visualize and predict only BVI noise. To date, RABBIT has been validated against CAMRAD II and ANOPP2/AARON for three NASA Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology (RVLT) concept vehicles: the Quiet Single Main Rotor (QSMR), Side-by-Side, and Quadrotor. RABBIT has been shown to be a useful BVI prediction tool capable of visualizing BVI as a function of various parameters. Impulse factor and time rate of change of loading allows for a unique BVI prediction technique that provides information on impulse strength, location, and frequency. This presentation will highlight how MATLAB’s App Designer was utilized to enable users to navigate RABBIT easily and efficiently without prior experience with MATLAB or rotorcraft acoustics. RABBIT users can build and view rotors in real time with options to control blade chord, radius, phasing, and airfoil geometry. Furthermore, multiple rotors can be combined to create state-of-the-art multi-rotor vehicles or fleets. Editable tables, sliding bars, and push buttons were implemented within MATLAB’s App Designer for RABBIT’s GUI to allow engineers and designers to predict low order acoustic impact of BVI occurrences.

Natasha Lydia Schatzman↗

Statistical Estimation of EV Driver Charging Behavior and Influential Factors

INL received data collected via telematics from battery electric vehicles (BEVs), and these vehicles were owned by retail customers who had entered into a telematics user agreement. The goal of analyzing these data was to develop mathematical models to characterize how different sets of BEV drivers use charging infrastructure at home and away from home (i.e., public charging) and quantify how various factors influence BEV drivers’ decision to charge and use available infrastructure. The data used in this analysis are unique because they provide real world BEV driving and charging behavior at the individual driving and parking event level. In this study we seek to leverage this data to quantify BEV charging and driving metrics to help inform models that predict quantities like the specific times when loads are imposed on the electrical grid due to BEV charging. Most models that have been developed to predict electrical grid load due to BEV charging, use simulations of BEV driving events and rely on assumptions such as every vehicle charges every night. Using a statistical modelling framework, we seek to investigate BEV charging behavior and quantitatively assess these common assumptions of BEV charging behavior.

33 - ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Modeling and Prediction of Wildfire Hazard in Southern California, Integration of Models with Imaging Spectrometry

Large urban wildfires throughout southern California have caused billions of dollars of damage and significant loss of life over the last few decades. Rapid urban growth along the wildland interface, high fuel loads and a potential increase in the frequency of large fires due to climatic change suggest that the problem will worsen in the future. Improved fire spread prediction and reduced uncertainty in assessing fire hazard would be significant, both economically and socially. Current problems in the modeling of fire spread include the role of plant community differences, spatial heterogeneity in fuels and spatio-temporal changes in fuels. In this research, we evaluated the potential of Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) and Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) data for providing improved maps of wildfire fuel properties. Analysis concentrated in two areas of Southern California, the Santa Monica Mountains and Santa Barbara Front Range. Wildfire fuel information can be divided into four basic categories: fuel type, fuel load (live green and woody biomass), fuel moisture and fuel condition (live vs senesced fuels). To map fuel type, AVIRIS data were used to map vegetation species using Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA) and Binary Decision Trees. Green live biomass and canopy moisture were mapped using AVIRIS through analysis of the 980 nm liquid water absorption feature and compared to alternate measures of moisture and field measurements. Woody biomass was mapped using L and P band cross polarimetric data acquired in 1998 and 1999. Fuel condition was mapped using spectral mixture analysis to map green vegetation (green leaves), nonphotosynthetic vegetation (NPV; stems, wood and litter), shade and soil. Summaries describing the potential of hyperspectral and SAR data for fuel mapping are provided by Roberts et al. and Dennison et al. To utilize remotely sensed data to assess fire hazard, fuel-type maps were translated into standard fuel models accessible to the FARSITE fire spread simulator. The FARSITE model and BEHAVE are considered industry standards for fire behavior analysis. Anderson level fuels map, generated using a binary decision tree classifier are available for multiple dates in the Santa Monica Mountains and at least one date for Santa Barbara. Fuel maps that will fill in the areas between Santa Barbara and the Santa Monica Mountains study sites are in progress, as part of a NASA Regional Earth Science Application Center, the Southern California Wildfire Hazard Center. Species-level maps, were supplied to fire managing agencies (Los Angeles County Fire, California Department of Forestry). Research results were published extensively in the refereed and non-refereed literature. Educational outreach included funding of several graduate students, undergraduate intern training and an article featured in the California Alliance for Minorities Program (CAMP) Quarterly Journal.

Roberts, Dar A.↗

Guidelines for Determining the Load Resistance of Thin-Glass Triple-Pane Insulating Glass Unit Configurations

This guideline is intended to provide information relevant to the specification of triple- pane insulating glass (IG) units where the thickness of lite number 2 (center lite) is less than or equal to the thickness of lite numbers 1 and 3. Procedures and charts are presented to determine the load resistance (LR) of common soda-lime glass thicknesses from 0.7 mm (3/128 in.) to 1.8 mm (9/128 in.) exposed to a uniform lateral load of short or long duration, for a 0.008 probability of breakage. Deflection under load, horizontal self-weight deflection, and natural frequency procedures and charts are also included to aide in the selection of glass thickness to meet manufacturing and/or loading criteria determined by the user.

42 ENGINEERING↗

LDV measurements on propellers

Laser Doppler velocimeter (LDV) measurements of the flow velocity around high-efficiency propeller blades for high disk loading turboprop propulsion systems are reported. The wind-tunnel flow around sets of eight straight and swept propeller blades with the same twist and chord distributions was measured using a conventional two-color dual scatter LDV system. The measurements of the axial flow velocities a small distance in front of the propeller blade, between the blade row, and downstream of the propeller are shown to provide information necessary for the determination of overall performance, swirl angle distribution, blade loading distributions, local lift and drag coefficients, interference effects, shock location, local induced velocities, wake characteristics and stall pattern.

Sullivan, J. P.↗

Performance of High Stopping Power Bismuth-Loaded Plastic Scintillators for Radiation Portal Monitors

Plastic scintillators are widely used in radiation portal monitors because of their low cost and availability in large sizes. However, due to their low density and low effective atomic number (Z), they offer low intrinsic efficiency and little spectroscopic information. The addition of high-Z constituents to these plastics can greatly increase both their total stopping power and the amount of photoelectric absorption, leading to full-energy deposition and thus useful gamma spectra. Herein, we present the performance of the latest formulation of Bi-loaded plastic scintillators showing their useful spectroscopic information up to relatively high energy (~1 MeV) due to their high stopping power compared to the current commercially available plastics. These Bi-loaded plastics use 20 weight percent (wt%) Bi-pivalate (8 wt% elemental Bi) dissolved in polyvinyltoluene (PVT) matrix and conventional fast fluors (~10 ns decay time). These Bi-loaded plastics achieve up to approximately 6000 photons/MeV and have been produced in sizes up to 17 in 3 . The performance of these Bi-loaded plastics is also demonstrated in the existing portal monitor hardware (Rapiscan Model TSA Trainer 770) showing the possibility to provide improved sensitivity as a drop-in replacement with continued scale-up.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Mneme

A simple tool allowing recording the execution of a GPU (CUDA) kernel and replaying that kernel as an independent executable. The tool operates in 3 phases. During compile time the user needs to apply a provided LLVM pass to instrument the code. The pass detects all device global variables and device functions and stores this information with the respective LLVM-IR in the global device memory. The compilation generates a record-able executable. The second phase involves running the application executable with a desired input and using LD_PRELOAD to enable recording. When recording before invoking a device kernel the pre-loaded library stores device memory in persistent storage and associates the memory with the device kernel and an LLVM IR file. At the end of the recorded execution the pre-load library generates a database in the form of a JSON file containing information regarding the LLVM-IR files and the snapshots of device memory. During the third and last phase the user can replay the execution of an kernel as a separate independent executable. Besides executing it the user can modify the LLVM IR file and auto-tune parameters such as kernel launch-bounds or kernel runtime execution parameters (e.g. Kernel Block and Grid Dimensions). Is

Parasyris, Konstantinos↗

Cockpit displayed traffic information and distributed management in air traffic control

A graphical display of information (such as surrounding aircraft and navigation routes) in the cockpit on a cathode ray tube has been proposed for improving the safety, orderliness, and expeditiousness of the air traffic control system. An investigation of this method at NASA-Ames indicated a large reduction in controller verbal work load without increasing pilot verbal load; the visual work may be increased. The cockpit displayed traffic and navigation information system reduced response delays permitting pilots to maintain their spacing more closely and precisely than when depending entirely on controller-issued radar vectors and speed command.

Kreifeldt, J. G.↗

Investigating Marine Environmental Degradation of Additive Manufacturing Materials for Renewable Energy Applications

Marine renewable energy is a relatively young industry where there is a great need for rapid prototyping in design-build-test campaigns to quickly mature groundbreaking technologies. Additive manufacturing has an important role to play in the industry; however, little information is available to marine energy developers to help inform them on which additive manufacturing materials are appropriate for highly loaded structures in harsh marine environments. This paper presents an initial study on the mechanical characterization of polymeric additive manufacturing materials and the degradation effects due to the marine environment. Ultem 9085, acrylonitrile styrene acrylate, and chopped carbon-filled nylon, as well as continuous carbon and glass fiber-reinforced nylon were chosen for this study. Samples were manufactured to perform a variety of tension, shear, and compression mechanical characterization tests on the materials. Half of the samples were conditioned in Pacific Ocean water for approximately 6 months at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Marine and Coastal Research Laboratory before being returned for mechanical characterization. The mechanical testing results showed that the Ultem 9085 and acrylonitrile styrene acrylate materials experienced little to no degradation in stiffness or strength after exposure to the marine environment. On the other hand, the nylon-based materials suffered significant stiffness and strength degradation (over 50% in some cases) after environmental conditioning. Ultimately, these data sets should serve as starting points to allow marine renewable energy developers to make informed additive manufacturing material choices for their prototype deployments.

additive manufacturing↗