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At least 469 records · Page 26

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRS1996

Scene-Linked Symbology to Improve Situation Awareness

This paper reviews recent research conducted in the Flight Management and Human Factors Division of NASA Ames Research Center on superimposed symbology (as found on HUDs and HMDs). We first identify various performance problems which suggest that superimposed symbology impairs pilots' ability to maintain simultaneous awareness of instrument information and information in the forward visual scene. Results of experiments supporting an attentional account of the impairment are reported. A design solution involving the concept of 'scene-linked' symbology is developed, and experiments testing the design solution are reported. An application of the scene-linking concept, in the form of a candidate HUD to support ground taxi operations for civil transport, is described.

McCann, Robert S.↗

NASA NTRS2003

Active Control of Separation From the Flap of a Supercritical Airfoil

Active flow control in the form of periodic zero-mass-flux excitation was applied at several regions on the leading edge and trailing edge flaps of a simplified high-lift system t o delay flow separation. The NASA Energy Efficient Transport (EET) supercritical airfoil was equipped with a 15% chord simply hinged leading edge flap and a 25% chord simply hinged trailing edge flap. Detailed flow features were measured in an attempt to identify optimal actuator placement. The measurements included steady and unsteady model and tunnel wall pressures, wake surveys, arrays of surface hot-films, flow visualization, and particle image velocimetry (PIV). The current paper describes the application of active separation control at several locations on the deflected trailing edge flap. High frequency (F(+) approx.= 10) and low frequency amplitude modulation (F(+)AM approx.= 1) of the high frequency excitation were used for control. Preliminary efforts to combine leading and trailing edge flap excitations are also reported.

Melton, La Tunia Pack↗

NASA NTRS2006

Active Control of Separation From the Flap of a Supercritical Airfoil

Zero-mass-flux periodic excitation was applied at several regions on a simplified high-lift system to delay the occurrence of flow separation. The NASA Energy Efficient Transport (EET) supercritical airfoil was equipped with a 15% chord simply hinged leading edge flap and a 25% chord simply hinged trailing edge flap. Detailed flow features were measured in an attempt to identify optimal actuator placement. The measurements included steady and unsteady model and tunnel wall pressures, wake surveys, arrays of surface hot-films, flow visualization, and particle image velocimetry (PIV). The current paper describes the application of active separation control at several locations on the deflected trailing edge flap. High frequency (F(+) approximately equal to 10) and low frequency amplitude modulation (F(+) sub AM approximately equal to 1) of the high frequency excitation were used for control. It was noted that the same performance gains were obtained with amplitude modulation and required only 30% of the momentum input required by pure sine excitation.

Melton, LaTunia Pack↗

NASA NTRS2007

A Study to Estimate the Effectiveness of Visual Testing Training for Aviation Maintenance Management

The Air Commerce Act of 1926 set the beginning for standards in aviation maintenance. Even after deregulation in the late l970s, maintenance standards and requirements still have not changed far from their initial criteria. After a potential candidate completes Federal Aviation Administration training prerequisites, they may test for their Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) certificate. Performing maintenance in the aviation industry for a minimum of three years, the technician may then test for their Inspection Authorization (IA). After receiving their Airframe and Powerplant certificate, a technician is said to have a license to perform. At no time within the three years to eligibility for Inspection Authorization are they required to attend higher-level inspection training. What a technician learns in the aviation maintenance industry is handed down from a seasoned technician to the new hire or is developed from lessons learned on the job. Only in Europe has the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) required higher-level training for their aviation maintenance technicians in order to control maintenance related accidents (Lu, 2005). Throughout the 1990s both the General Accounting Office (GAO) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) made public that the FAA is historically understaffed (GAO, 1996). In a safety recommendation the NTSB stated "The Safety Board continues to lack confidence in the FAA's commitment to provide effective quality assurance and safety oversight of the ATC system (NTSB, 1990)." The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been known to be proactive in creating safer skies. With such reports you would suspect the FAA to also be proactive in developing more stringent inspection training for aviation maintenance technicians. The purpose of this study is to estimate the effectiveness of higher-level inspection training, such as Visual Testing (VT) for aviation maintenance technicians, to improve the safety of aircraft and to make recommendations to management with regard to the value of such training.

Law, Lewis Lyle↗

DOE OSTI2023

Real-time imaging of acoustic waves in bulk materials with X-ray microscopy

The dynamics of lattice vibrations govern many material processes, such as acoustic wave propagation, displacive phase transitions, and ballistic thermal transport. The maximum velocity of these processes and their effects is determined by the speed of sound, which therefore defines the temporal resolution (picoseconds) needed to resolve these phenomena on their characteristic length scales (nanometers). Here, we present an X-ray microscope capable of imaging acoustic waves with subpicosecond resolution within mm-sized crystals. We directly visualize the generation, propagation, branching, and energy dissipation of longitudinal and transverse acoustic waves in diamond, demonstrating how mechanical energy thermalizes from picosecond to microsecond timescales. Bulk characterization techniques capable of resolving this level of structural detail have previously been available on millisecond time scales—orders of magnitude too slow to capture these fundamental phenomena in solid-state physics and geoscience. As such, the reported results provide broad insights into the interaction of acoustic waves with the structure of materials, and the availability of ultrafast time-resolved dark-field X-ray microscopy opens a vista of new opportunities for 3D imaging of materials dynamics on their intrinsic submicrosecond time scales.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2025

Multipoint Correlations in Poisson Media

Multipoint correlations in randomly heterogeneous composite media are determined by the probability that a set of points belong to specific phases. They determine a wide range of macroscopic transport properties such as conductivity, dielectric constant, diffusion coefficient, and transmittance. The Poisson model—a random tesselation of space by hyperplanes—provides realistic descriptions of heterogeneous media in, e.g., radiation-transport applications; yet, until now, it has lacked closed-form expressions for its multipoint correlations. We resolve this problem by presenting an exact solution for the multipoint correlations in the Poisson model. By comparing it to Monte Carlo simulations of four-point correlations in three dimensions, we demonstrate the accuracy of our solution. In conclusion, we visualize the multipoint correlations and discuss their features.

Amorphous materials↗

NASA NTRS1977

Videofile for Law Enforcement

Components of a videotape storage and retrieval system originally developed for NASA have been adapted as a tool for law enforcement agencies. Ampex Corp., Redwood City, Cal., built a unique system for NASA-Marshall. The first application of professional broadcast technology to computerized record-keeping, it incorporates new equipment for transporting tapes within the system. After completing the NASA system, Ampex continued development, primarily to improve image resolution. The resulting advanced system, known as the Ampex Videofile, offers advantages over microfilm for filing, storing, retrieving, and distributing large volumes of information. The system's computer stores information in digital code rather than in pictorial form. While microfilm allows visual storage of whole documents, it requires a step before usage--developing the film. With Videofile, the actual document is recorded, complete with photos and graphic material, and a picture of the document is available instantly.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2015

The I4 Online Query Tool for Earth Observations Data

The NASA Earth Observation System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) delivers an average of 22 terabytes per day of data collected by orbital and airborne sensor systems to end users through an integrated online search environment (the Reverb/ECHO system). Earth observations data collected by sensors on the International Space Station (ISS) are not currently included in the EOSDIS system, and are only accessible through various individual online locations. This increases the effort required by end users to query multiple datasets, and limits the opportunity for data discovery and innovations in analysis. The Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit of the Exploration Integration and Science Directorate at NASA Johnson Space Center has collaborated with the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University (ASU) to develop the ISS Instrument Integration Implementation (I4) data query tool to provide end users a clean, simple online interface for querying both current and historical ISS Earth Observations data. The I4 interface is based on the Lunaserv and Lunaserv Global Explorer (LGE) open-source software packages developed at ASU for query of lunar datasets. In order to avoid mirroring existing databases - and the need to continually sync/update those mirrors - our design philosophy is for the I4 tool to be a pure query engine only. Once an end user identifies a specific scene or scenes of interest, I4 transparently takes the user to the appropriate online location to download the data. The tool consists of two public-facing web interfaces. The Map Tool provides a graphic geobrowser environment where the end user can navigate to an area of interest and select single or multiple datasets to query. The Map Tool displays active image footprints for the selected datasets (Figure 1). Selecting a footprint will open a pop-up window that includes a browse image and a link to available image metadata, along with a link to the online location to order or download the actual data. Search results are either delivered in the form of browse images linked to the appropriate online database, similar to the Map Tool, or they may be transferred within the I4 environment for display as footprints in the Map Tool. Datasets searchable through I4 (http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/I4_tool) currently include: Crew Earth Observations (CEO) cataloged and uncataloged handheld astronaut photography; Sally Ride EarthKAM; Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean (HICO); and the ISS SERVIR Environmental Research and Visualization System (ISERV). The ISS is a unique platform in that it will have multiple users over its lifetime, and that no single remote sensing system has a permanent internal or external berth. The open source I4 tool is designed to enable straightforward addition of new datasets as they become available such as ISS-RapidSCAT, Cloud Aerosol Transport System (CATS), and the High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) system. Data from other sensor systems, such as those operated by the ISS International Partners or under the auspices of the US National Laboratory program, can also be added to I4 provided sufficient access to enable searching of data or metadata is available. Commercial providers of remotely sensed data from the ISS may be particularly interested in I4 as an additional means of directing potential customers and clients to their products.

Stefanov, William L.↗

NASA NTRS2017

Analysis of Eye-Tracking Data During Conditions Conducive to Loss of Airplane State Awareness

In the constant drive to further the safety and efficiency of air travel, the complexity of avionics-related systems and of the procedures for interacting with them appear to be on an ever-increasing trend. While this growing complexity often yields productive results with respect to system capabilities and flight efficiency, it typically places a larger burden on pilots to manage increasing amounts of information and to understand intricate system designs. This can be problematic as too much information and/or ineffective provisions of information can potentially overwhelm and/or confuse pilots, and as a result, increase the likelihood of loss of airplane state awareness (ASA). One way to gain more insight into this issue is through experimentation using more objective measures. This study summarizes an analysis of eye-tracking data obtained during a high-fidelity flight simulation study that included most of the complexities of current flight decks, as well as several planned for the next generation air transportation system. Multiple analyses were performed to understand how the 22 participating airline pilots were observing ASA-related information provided during different stages of flights and in response to specific events within these stages. Also, study findings are compared to data presented in similar previous studies to assess trends or common themes regarding how airline crews apply visual attention in complex flight deck and operational environments.

Dill, Evan T.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Transcriptomic Analysis of Irradiated Mouse Retina Following Readaptation

Rodent models are used as analogs for studying the effects of spaceflight. NASA GeneLab provides access to relevant omics datasets generated from spaceflight and ground-based experiments allowing for additional retrospective analysis. In this study, we used GeneLab’s GLDS-203, a dataset generated by researchers at Loma Linda University to study the impact of prolonged unloading and/or low-dose radiation on mouse retina. We analyzed transcriptomics data from retina of mice irradiated with gamma-rays for 21 days followed by 7 days, 1 month, or 4 months of readaptation. We obtained raw gene counts from GeneLab and performed differential gene expression analysis after data normalization. For each of the three timepoints, we performed differential expression analysis to compare transcriptional profiles for retina from irradiated vs. non-irradiated (controls) mice, all exposed to gravity. We observed the highest number of differentially expressed genes at 7 days, followed by 1 month and 4 months. Enrichment analysis showed top pathways (adjusted p-value < 0.05) were related to transport along microtubule and photoreceptor cell development in the 7-day readaptation group. Fewer significantly enriched pathways were observed for the 1-month group and included mRNA metabolic processes and neuron differentiation. No significantly enriched pathways were found in the 4-month group. The Gene Ontology biological processes common between the 7 days and 1-month groups include visual perception, synapse organization, and perception of light stimulus. This analysis is part of a larger effort to characterize the molecular mechanisms involved in retinal readaptation following radiation exposure. Future analyses will include other related retina datasets in GeneLab repository to assess whether gene expression patterns are consistent across different study cohorts.

Prachi Kothiyal↗

NASA NTRS2014

An Analysis and Review of Measures and Relationships in Space Transportation Affordability

The affordability of transportation to or from space is of continued interest across numerous and diverse stakeholders in our aerospace industry. Such an important metric as affordability deserves a clear understanding among stakeholders about what is meant by affordability, costs, and related terms, as otherwise it's difficult to see where specific improvements are needed or where to target specific investments. As captured in the famous words of Lewis Carroll, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there". As important as understanding a metric may be, with terms such as costs, prices, specific costs, average costs, marginal costs, etc., it is equally important to understand the relationship among these measures. In turn, these measures intermingle with caveats and factors that introduce more measures in need of a common understanding among stakeholders. These factors include flight rates, capability, and payload. This paper seeks to review the costs of space transportation systems and the relationships among the many factors involved in costs from the points of view of diverse decision makers. A decision maker may have an interest in acquiring a single launch considering the best price (along with other factors in their business case), or an interest in many launches over time. Alternately, a decision maker may have a specific interest in developing a space transportation system that will offer certain prices, or flight rate capability, or both, at a certain up-front cost. The question arises for the later, to reuse or to expend? As it is necessary in thinking about the future to clearly understand the past and the present, this paper will present data and graphics to assist stakeholders in visualizing trends and the current state of affairs in the launch industry. At all times, raw data will be referenced (or made available separately) alongside detailed explanations about the data, so as to avoid the confusion or misleading conclusions that occur more often than not with complex graphs or statements when such context is lacking.

affordability↗

NASA NTRS2020

Motion Sickness and Concerns for Urban Air Mobility Vehicles: A Literature Review

Motion sickness is a general term for a constellation of signs and symptoms, generally due to exposure to abrupt, periodic, or unnatural accelerations, especially when traveling in a vehicle. Motion sickness results from a mismatch of the visual and nonvisual (vestibular and kinesthetic) information, the observed scene and the motion felt or lack of it. Motion sickness onset is associated with a pattern of physiological changes in heart rate, peripheral blood flow, respiration, and skin conductance and the pattern is repeatable for a particular subject but variable between subjects. Demographic factors such as gender and age that affect motion sickness are well known with children, women, and older adults more likely to be susceptible. Often motion sickness is assessed and quantified using variations of the motion sickness susceptibility questionnaires including the Pensacola Diagnostic Rating Scale and the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire. Even though symptoms are easily identified by such questionnaires, they commonly are subjective. Tools such as these questionnaires for screening individuals susceptible to motion sickness are useful, however, they are only mildly predictive. Moreover, models for predicting motion sickness, which have largely been developed for sea sickness, do not consider task characteristics. Predictions of motion sickness rates and prevalence for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) vehicles are not possible at present because data from actual flight or full-fidelity simulation are simply not yet available. Extrapolation from other modes of transportation (i.e., automobiles, buses, trains, boats, other types of aircraft) is difficult because of differences in the motion stimulus experienced, trip duration, and other factors. How UAM vehicles will change the social dynamics of passenger interaction and vehicle interior design changes (e.g., seat orientations) is unknown. Should motion sickness prove to be an issue, vehicle design modifications such as having passengers face forward, providing additional seat recline, giving each person their own climate control for airflow, perhaps ensuring the horizon is visible to all passengers (reducing visual occlusion by the headrest) and visually stabilizing displays on carry-on devices (smart phones, tablets, etc.) may benefit passengers. Several commercial companies provide wearable devices for physiological monitoring that have been validated and are suitable for use with passengers in UAM vehicles or high-fidelity simulators. Potential countermeasures for motion sickness include user-worn devices, anti-motion sickness medications, and non-pharmacological approaches such as biofeedback and Autogenic Feedback Training Exercise. Both simulator and in-vehicle UAM research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of any potential countermeasure.

motion sickness↗

DOE OSTI2020

In Situ Chemical Monitoring and Imaging of Contents within Microfluidic Devices Having a Porous Membrane Wall Using Liquid Microjunction Surface Sampling Probe Mass Spectrometry

The ability to observe dynamic chemical processes (e.g., signaling, transport, etc.) in vivo or in situ using nondestructive chemical imaging opens a new door to understanding the complex dynamics of developing biological systems. With the advent of “biology-on-a-chip” devices has come the ability to monitor dynamic chemical processes in a controlled environment, using these engineered habitats to capture key features of natural systems while allowing visual observation of system development. Having the capability to spatially and temporally map the chemical signals within these devices may yield new insights into the forces that drive biosystem development. Here, a porous membrane sealed microfluidic device was designed to allow normal microfluidic operation while enabling continuous, location specific sampling and chemical characterization by liquid microjunction surface sampling probe mass spectrometry (LMJ-SSP MS). LMJ-SSP was used to extract fluids with nL-to-μL/min flow rates directly from selected areas of the microfluidic device without negatively impacting the device function. These extracts were subsequently characterized using MS. This technique was used to acquire MS images of the entirety of several multi-input microfluidic devices having different degrees of fluid mixing. LMJ-SSP MS imaging visualized the spatial distribution of chemical components within the microfluidic channels and could visualize chemical reactions occurring in the device. These microfluidic devices with a porous membrane wall are wholly compatible with the construction of biology-on-a-chip devices. This ultimately would enable correlation of biosystem physical structure with an evolving chemical environment

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

DOE OSTI2023

Wassersplines for Neural Vector Field-Controlled Animation

Much of computer-generated animation is created by manipulating meshes with rigs. While this approach works well for animating articulated objects like animals, it has limited flexibility for animating less structured free-form objects. Here we introduce Wassersplines, a novel trajectory inference method for animating unstructured densities based on recent advances in continuous normalizing flows and optimal transport. The key idea is to train a neurally-parameterized velocity field that represents the motion between keyframes. Trajectories are then computed by advecting keyframes through the velocity field. We solve an additional Wasserstein barycenter interpolation problem to guarantee strict adherence to keyframes. Our tool can stylize trajectories through a variety of PDE-based regularizers to create different visual effects. We demonstrate our tool on various keyframe interpolation problems to produce temporally-coherent animations without meshing or rigging.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2023

ParFlow Sand Tank: A tool for groundwater exploration

The ParFlow Sand Tank model is an open source application designed to allow users to interactively simulate and visualize groundwater movement through the subsurface. The app is designed for both research and education; teaching hydrogeology concepts and making it easy explore and run sophisticated groundwater simulations. Our goal is to support increased accessibility and usability of research grade hydrology tools for research and teaching. The Sand Tank application simulates groundwater and surface water fluxes as well as contaminant transport in real time using the integrated physical hydrology model ParFlow (Kollet & Maxwell, 2006; Maxwell & Miller, 2005; Osei-Kuffuor et al., 2014) and the particle tracking code EcoSlim (Maxwell et al., 2019). ParFlow is a numerical hydrology model that simulates spatially distributed groundwater and surface water flow. It is a well established research tool with more than 90 publications documenting its development use to advance our understanding of groundwater dynamics and groundwater surface water interactions from the hillslope to the continental scale e.g. (Condon et al., 2020; Condon & Maxwell, 2019; Maxwell & Condon, 2016). It is designed for efficient parallel computation and has been run on many platforms spanning from laptops to supercomputers. However, one of the challenges of ParFlow is that it requires significant training and hydrologic expertise to develop simulations. The Sand Tank application makes this model accessible to anyone for education and exploration. Our application uses ParFlow for its simulation backend and ParaView for the data loading and processing. The communication infrastructure relies on the ParaViewWeb framework. We use model templates deployed in Docker images to setup the Sand Tank framework. Users can build the application locally or interact with it through our web deployment. When interacting with a template users can interactively change model parameters like subsurface processes or pump/inject water into the subsurface and watch the system respond to their changes in real time as the simulation runs. Additionally, our template setup will allow more advanced users to build custom templates of increasing complexity for both research and educational purposes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2024

FECM/NETL Natural Gas with Hydrogen Pipeline Cost Model (2024): Description and User’s Manual

This is the user’s manual for The FECM/NETL Natural Gas with Hydrogen Pipeline Cost Model (NG-H2_P_COM) that estimates costs for transporting gaseous hydrogen with natural gas in a pipeline from a source, such as a hydrogen production facility, to a final destination which may be a user of the hydrogen and natural gas or a distribution center where hydrogen in the pipeline with natural gas is diverted to multiple end users. This user’s manual provides two main functions. First, the detailed statement describes the equations and algorithms that are used by the model to calculate technical quantities (such as blend hydrogen percentage, reuse percentage of the pipeline and stations, the pipe diameter size and length needed to transport a user-specified hydrogen with natural gas rate in a specified distance) and engineering-economic quantities (such as capital costs, operating costs, and cash flows). Second, the document is a user’s manual for the model that describes the procedures the user must follow to configure and setup the model, run the model, analyze the results, and visualize the outcomes. Such details offer user a quick and handy way to utilize the model for their application and decision making. The model can be accessed at this URL: https://www.netl.doe.gov/energy-analysis/details?id=cf3f6564-3c55-4aa5-b712-7160e558d9f6. The Model Results and Comparative Analysis can be accessed here: https://www.netl.doe.gov/energy-analysis/details?id=83862799-a28c-4944-a809-90b7e23d4af6.

03 NATURAL GAS↗

NASA NTRS1996

Wind Tunnel Measured Effects on a Twin-Engine Short-Haul Transport Caused by Simulated Ice Accretions

A series of wind tunnel tests were conducted to assess the effects of leading edge ice contamination upon the performance of a short-haul transport. The wind tunnel test was conducted in the NASA Langley 14 by 22 foot facility. The test article was a 1/8 scale twin-engine short-haul jet transport model. Two separate leading edge ice contamination configurations were tested in addition to the uncontaminated baseline configuration. Several aircraft configurations were examined including various flap and slat deflections, with and without landing gear. Data gathered included force measurements via an internal six-component force balance, pressure measurements through 700 electronically scanned wing pressure ports, and wing surface flow visualization measurements. The artificial ice contamination caused significant performance degradation and caused visible changes demonstrated by the flow visualization. The data presented here is just a portion of the data gathered. A more complete data report is planned for publication as a NASA Technical Memorandum and data supplement.

Reehorst, Andrew↗

NASA NTRS2001

Major Optical Depth Perturbations to the Stratosphere from Volcanic Eruptions: Stellar-Extinction Period, 1961-1978

A revised chronology of stratospheric aerosol extinction due to volcanic eruptions has been assembled for the period 1961-1978, which immediately precedes the era of dedicated satellite measurements. On the whole, the most accurate data consist of published observations of stellar extinction, supplemented in part by other kinds of observational data. The period covered encompasses the important eruptions of Agung (1963) and Fuego (1974), whose dust veils are discussed with respect to their transport, decay, and total mass. The effective (area-weighted mean) radii of the aerosols for both eruptions are found to be 0.3-0.4 microns. It is confirmed that, among known tropical eruptions, Agung's dust was unique for a low-latitude eruption in remaining almost entirely confined to the hemisphere of its production. A new table of homogeneous visual optical depth perturbations, listed by year and by hemisphere, is provided for the whole period 1881-1978, including the pyrheliometric period before 1961 that was investigated previously.

Stothers, Richard B.↗