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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 451 records · Page 25
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Development of a 300 MWe Utility Scale Oxy-Fuel sCO2 Turbine

A 300 MWe direct-fired supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) oxy-fuel turbine is being developed that will burn natural gas-fired, coal syngas and even hydrogen mixtures capable of 1,150ºC turbine inlet temperature at 300 bar. This design will significantly improve the state-of-the-art for thermal efficiency and results in a high-pressure stream of CO2 with 98%+ carbon capture, making the power plant near emission-free and more efficient than Natural Gas Combined Cycle (NGCC) plants with carbon capture. This power plant will be capable of burning coal through gasification and cleanup of the synthesis gas (syngas). sCO2 power cycles are a transformational technology for the energy industry, providing higher efficiency heat source energy conversion for conventional and alternative energy sources. This novel cycle significantly reduces capital costs because of smaller equipment footprints, design modularity, and allows for rapid cyclic load and source following to balance solar and wind energy power swings. Oxy-fuel sCO2 cycles take these advantages even further, utilizing higher firing temperatures, improved efficiency, and simpler carbon capture strategies. This turbine will require cooled turbine nozzles and blades as well as advanced thermal management systems to accommodate these high temperatures. The cooled blade heat transfer correlations required new test programs at higher Reynolds number than air-breathing gas turbines for impingement, serpentine, and pin-fin regions. Novel blade optimization was performed to maximize aerodynamic efficiency, while minimizing cooling flows. A turbine layout was generated utilizing individual combustor cans with cooled liners feeding into a 6-stage axial flow turbine with cooled stator nozzles and turbine blades. The case design and thermal management preliminary design will be described.

Moore, Jeffrey↗
DOE OSTI2025

Transforming Windows from Energy Liabilities to Zero-Energy Assets: Next-Generation Solutions for Buildings

Windows have traditionally contributed to a building's HVAC load, but they can also become a source of net energy gain or even operate as zero-energy components. For heating applications, highly insulating windows can harness more solar heat than the energy lost through them, transforming windows from energy liabilities to assets. Dynamic glazings provide further benefits by regulating solar heat gain, reducing cooling loads in summer and heating demands in winter. This simulation study focuses on developing the next generation of zero-energy windows (ZEW) for residential new construction. Through annual energy simulations across climate zones 1-8, ZEW performance benchmarks were established based on current code-level buildings, and we've identified the regions where meeting ZEW standards are most achievable. This work evaluates both static and dynamic window technologies, assessing their effects on annual energy use and cost. Key findings demonstrate that ZEW performance is achievable across diverse climate zones, with specific regional requirements. Most climate zones from 3-8 can achieve ZEW with specific configurations, while some warm climates (1-2) appear challenging for ZEW implementation. Climate zones 4-6 consistently allow for zero energy window implementation, offering multiple pathways through either static or dynamic window technologies. Colder climate zones (7-8) ZEW products allow for higher SHGC values while requiring low U-values.

Yu, Lili↗
NASA NTRS1981

Heat for film processing from solar energy

Report describes solar water heating system for laboratory in Mill Valley, California. System furnishes 59 percent of hot water requirements for photographic film processing. Text of report discusses system problems and modifications, analyzes performance and economics, and supplies drawings and operation/maintenance manual.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1976

Design, fabrication, testing, and delivery of a solar energy collector system for residential heating and cooling

A low cost flat plate solar energy collector was designed for the heating and cooling of residential buildings. The system meets specified performance requirements, at the desired system operating levels, for a useful life of 15 to 20 years, at minimum cost and uses state-of-the-art materials and technology. The rationale for the design method was based on identifying possible material candidates for various collector components and then selecting the components which best meet the solar collector design requirements. The criteria used to eliminate certain materials were: performance and durability test results, cost analysis, and prior solar collector fabrication experience.

Holland, T. H.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Nanoengineering Porous Silica for Thermal Management

Thermal insulation of solid materials originates from the nanoscale porous architectures to regulate thermal management in energy-critical applications from energy-efficient buildings to heat-sensitive energy devices. Here, we show nanoengineering of porous silica materials to control the architecture transition from mesoporous to nanocage networks. A low thermal conductivity of such a porous silica network is achieved at 0.018 W/(m K) while exhibiting a porosity of 92.05%, specific surface area of 504 m 2 /g, and pore volume of 2.37 cm 3 /g after ambient pressure drying. Meanwhile, the crosslinking of the porous silica and ceramic fiber frameworks show a tensile Young’s modulus of 2.8 MPa while maintaining high thermal insulation, which provides an effective thermal runway mitigation strategy for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Furthermore, the nanoengineering strategy reported here would shed light on achieving superthermal insulation of nanostructures for energy-critical applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS1997

The first living systems: a bioenergetic perspective

The first systems of molecules having the properties of the living state presumably self-assembled from a mixture of organic compounds available on the prebiotic Earth. To carry out the polymer synthesis characteristic of all forms of life, such systems would require one or more sources of energy to activate monomers to be incorporated into polymers. Possible sources of energy for this process include heat, light energy, chemical energy, and ionic potentials across membranes. These energy sources are explored here, with a particular focus on mechanisms by which self-assembled molecular aggregates could capture the energy and use it to form chemical bonds in polymers. Based on available evidence, a reasonable conjecture is that membranous vesicles were present on the prebiotic Earth and that systems of replicating and catalytic macromolecules could become encapsulated in the vesicles. In the laboratory, this can be modeled by encapsulated polymerases prepared as liposomes. By an appropriate choice of lipids, the permeability properties of the liposomes can be adjusted so that ionic substrates permeate at a sufficient rate to provide a source of monomers for the enzymes, with the result that nucleic acids accumulate in the vesicles. Despite this progress, there is still no clear mechanism by which the free energy of light, ion gradients, or redox potential can be coupled to polymer bond formation in a protocellular structure.

Review↗
NASA NTRS2009

Global Atmospheric Heat Distributions Observed from Space

This study focuses on the observations of global atmospheric heat distributions using satellite measurements. Major heat components such as radiation energy, latent heat and sensible heat are considered. The uncertainties and error sources are assessed. Results show that the atmospheric heat is basically balanced, and the observed patterns of radiation and latent heat from precipitation are clearly related to general circulation.

Lin, Bing↗
DOE OSTI2023

Modeling of Particle Thermal Energy Reservoir for Solar Industrial Process Heat (Final Technical Report)

Industrial process heat is a leading source of carbon emissions in the United States. To achieve decarbonization goals and reduce costs, solar industrial process heat (SIPH) systems have been investigated as a means of providing a carbon-free heat supply. Particle thermal energy storage (TES) could supplement solar resources (i.e., concentrating solar thermal and photovoltaics) to enable a high capacity factor (> 90%), carbon-free heat source. Particle TES has been considered due to its low-cost storage medium and capability to support a wide range of temperatures. This report provides technical details of developing a component and system modeling tool for a unique particle TES platform to assist the adoption of SIPH technology.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Improving energy efficiency while reducing anthropogenic heat from buildings: how retrofits influence the building stock and urban microclimate in Los Angeles

Anthropogenic heat (AH) from buildings contributes to urban overheating, especially during heat waves, yet building retrofit studies usually evaluate energy savings without assessing impacts on AH. This study quantifies how common building retrofit measures affect both building energy use and AH emissions across the City of Los Angeles. Using a bottom-up urban building energy modeling framework coupled with high-resolution local weather from the Weather Research and Forecasting model with Building Effect Parameterization (WRF-BEP), we evaluate eleven retrofit measures and two multi-measure retrofit packages. HVAC and LED lighting retrofits provide the largest city-wide annual site energy savings, while roof coating is most effective for reducing AH. A package optimized for energy savings reduces summer site energy use by about 32% (2.3 TWh), while a package incorporating AH-focused measures reduces the total AH by over 50% (137 PJ) with minimal difference in energy savings. The AH-aware package produces substantially greater urban cooling, reducing mean near-surface air temperature by up to 0.62 ℃ and peak temperature by up to 3.79 ℃. These results show that retrofit strategies selected only for energy savings may overlook major opportunities for urban heat mitigation. The study provides a framework for integrating AH into building retrofit planning and urban heat resilience policy.

Anthropogenic heat↗
DOE OSTI2022

Application of thermal energy storage with electrified heating and cooling in a cold climate

Ground source heat pumps (GSHPs) have been shown to be an effective means of decarbonizing building heating and cooling, but the operation of these systems at scale presents challenges to sites and the grid due to increases in peak demand. Here, in this study, we investigate how the use of Thermal Energy Storage (TES), in the form of stratified water storage, could reduce the peak daily demand associated with GSHP systems and thus improve their cost effectiveness. This system was compared to a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant, to investigate the potential cost and emissions impacts of electrification on large energy users transitioning from high efficiency fossil fuel equipment. This study builds on previous research by using a significant campus area, and investigating the various impacts of an electrified system versus a state of the art fossil fuel system. An established method of TRNSYS modeling is used for the heat pumps and borehole heat exchangers (BHEs), along with the TES. The GSHP system with TES is modeled to follow industry standards and sized to provide an optimal balance of capital and operating costs. Costs were investigated for a unique large energy user rate structure, as well as for a more common generalized rate structure. The results show that the addition of TES to the GSHP system could reduce operating costs by 4.5%, but still incurs a 5.64% cost increase from the baseline CHP system. It is also shown, however, that a tactical integration of heat pumps into the CHP system is the most cost effective solution, only increasing the operating costs by 4.71%. Likewise, the impacts of different rate structures are highlighted, with the TES only resulting in 0.75% cost savings under the generalized utility rate. Furthermore, it is shown that thermal storage has great potential for demand reduction, with the addition of storage incurring a decrease of 7–22% in annual peak demand kW, dependent on the rate structure.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
NASA NTRS1985

Middle atmosphere modeling

Breaking gravity waves generate and maintain a background level of turbulence which is capable of producing substantial cooling and/or heating in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere. The net thermodynamic effect of breaking gravity waves is critically dependent on the eddy Prandt number (P sub t) applicable to mesospheric turbulence. When P sub t is approximately 1, the calculations of the heat budget for the mesopause region imply that the globally averaged eddy or turbulent diffusion coefficient cannot exceed .000001 sq cm/s. This upper limit on turbulant diffusion applies to both potential temperature transport and chemically inert tracer transport when radiative damping is neglible. For chemically active species larger diffusion coefficients are permitted, because the effective eddy diffusion coefficient is increased by an additive term L/2 gamma (sup 2), where L is the chemical loss rate and gamma is the vertical wavenumber. For P sub t is approximately 4 to 6, the turbulent diffusion of momentum (D sub M) is sufficiently greater than the turbulent diffusion of heat (D sub H) that the conversion of gravity wave energy to heat with high efficiency nearly balances the divergence of the downward eddy heat flux in the wave breaking zone. Therefore the heat budget of the mesopause region would no longer provide a powerful and useful constraint on D sub H. If P sub t exceeds 6 with high efficiency for energy conversion to heat, gravity waves would heat the mesosphere throughout the wave breaking region.

Strobel, D. F.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Modeling and Experimental Validation of a Direct-Contact Counter-Flow Fluidized Bed Heat Exchanger for Thermal Energy Storage (TES) Applications

Particle-based thermal energy storage (TES) systems are an emerging energy storage technology. The technological advances have reduced costs, making TES more competitive and reliable in the marketplace but an efficient and reliable operation is heavily dependent on coherent heat transfer between air to particles or vice versa. The particle-based TES technologies provide an intermediate system that can store energy for short (0-10 h), long (10-200 h) and seasonal (> 200 h) timescales. The TES systems store energy by converting electricity to thermal energy; electricity can be directly sourced intermittent generation technologies and/or the grid, helping manage peak loads and other mismatches in supply and demand. The overall efficiency of the TES system depends on the performance of system components (particle storage silos and particle transfer mechanism etc.). The particle heat exchanger is one of the key system components that affects the system efficiency. The pressurized fluidized bed heat exchanger (PFB HX) performance is challenging to predict due to the chaotic behavior of particle and fluid interaction. This research presents a computational study of a novel direct-contact, counter-flow and air-to-particles PFB HX, that contributes in advancing the particle-based long-duration TES technologies. For the current analysis an unsteady Eulerian-Eulerian CFD model was developed and validated against experiments performed at the National Laboratory of the Rockies for two particle sizes (600 ..mu..m and 825 ..mu..m ). Following validation, parametric simulations were conducted to evaluate the effects of interphase drag models (Syamlal-O'Brien and Gidaspow), particle size, bed height and the influence of a frictional-viscosity term on hydrodynamics and heat transfer between the air & particles. The key findings from the analysis are: (1) for the studied operating window Syamlal-O'Brien provides superior agreement with measured gas temperatures (errors generally < 10%) while Gidaspow shows large deviations for the coarse particle case; (2) model predictions are most sensitive in the lower 0.2 m above the air distributor where bubble initiation and local mixing dominate interphase heat transfer; (3) representation of the distributor (number of inlet ports) materially affects predicted local mixing and temperature stratification; and (4) the Eulerian-Eulerian framework reproduces bulk thermal trends but shows regime dependent limitations for coarse particles, motivating mesoscale informed closures for scale-up analysis for future studies. These results provide validated guidance for drag selection and distributor design in particle-based thermal energy storage applications. Collectively, the validated model and parametric results quantify key drivers of PHB-HX performance and provide practical guidance for design and optimization. The results provide confidence in the model predictability and provide a step forward to improve on heat exchange performance. The demonstrated performance and modeling approach support the deployment and further development of this novel PHB-HX concept for robust, particle-based long-duration thermal energy storage systems.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
NASA NTRS1979

A Conceptual Design Study on the Application of Liquid Metal Heat Transfer Technology to the Solar Thermal Power Plant

Alkali metal heat transfer technology was used in the development of conceptual designs for the transport and storage of sensible and latent heat thermal energy in distributed concentrator, solar Stirling power conversion systems at a power level of 15 kWe per unit. Both liquid metal pumped loop and heat pipe thermal transport were considered; system configurations included: (1) an integrated, focal mounted sodium heat pipe solar receiver (HPSR) with latent heat thermal energy storage; (2) a liquid sodium pumped loop with the latent heat storage, Stirling engine-generator, pump and valves located on the back side of the concentrator; and (3) similar pumped loops serving several concentrators with more centralized power conversion and storage. The focus mounted HPSR was most efficient, lightest and lowest in estimated cost. Design confirmation testing indicated satisfactory performance at all angles of inclination of the primary heat pipes to be used in the solar receiver.

Zimmerman, W. F.↗
DOE OSTI2022

A geo-visual analysis for exploring the socioeconomic benefits of the heating electrification using geothermal energy

In parallel to population growth and climate change, the rapid pace of urbanization worldwide has led to an enormous increase in energy demand and costs in urban areas. The subsequent energy burden has become an increasing concern for many households in the U.S. Previous studies have revealed that geothermal resources can effectively lower the electricity demand and carbon emissions in large cities. In this paper, we focus on the socioeconomic impacts of geothermal energy on urban systems by presenting an interactive visual analytics dashboard. The dashboard allows urban planners to spatially examine geothermal energy's practical benefits on energy affordability, urban livability, and resilience across the U.S. We compiled a list of socioeconomic metrics by integrating the simulation results from multiple geothermal and building models with multi-domain urban datasets (socioeconomic, demographic, and electricity utility). These metrics are created to characterize the benefits of the heating electrification of buildings using Geothermal Heat Pumps (GHP) for lowering the energy burden of middle-and low-income households nationwide. The visual dashboard employs a combination of multivariate, glyph-based, and geospatial visualization to reveal the variability and patterns in our metrics. We present a pilot study to demonstrate the GHPs' potential as a renewable and affordable solution for increasing the economic and energy grid resilience in U.S cities.

Xu, Haowen↗
NASA NTRS1985

Mechanisms for chromospheric heating

A nonthermal energy source is required to heat the solar chromosphere and corona. A survey is made of the properties of waves that propagate along magnetic flux tubes, which may transport the needed energy from the convection zone to the chromosphere. It is next explored how convective motions can generate those waves. Finally, various mechanisms by which these waves may develop small scale structures and dissipate via viscosity and resistivity are discussed.

Stein, R. F.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Evaluation of Energy Efficiency Performance of Heated Windows

Fenestration systems are widely used across the world. There is expansive research on window configurations, frames, and glazing technology, but not enough research has been published on reducing window heat loss through heat application to a pane. The presented study attempted to evaluate the performance of heated windows by developing an experimental setup to test a window at various temperatures by varying the power input to the window. Heated double pane window was installed in an insulated box. A temperature gradient was developed across the window by cooling one side of the window using gel-based ice packs. The other face of the window was heated by enabling power at different wattages through the window. The temperature of the inside and outside panes, current and voltage input, and temperature of the room and box were recorded. The data was used to calculate the apparent effective resistance of the window when not being heated vs. when being heated. The study concluded that, when window temperature was maintained close to the room temperature, the heated double pane window is effective in reducing heat loss by as much as 50% as compared to a non-heated double pane window. When temperature of the window was much higher than the room temperature, the heat loss through the window increased beyond that of a non-heated window. The issues encountered during the current stages of experiments are noted, and recommendations are provided for future studies.

42 ENGINEERING↗