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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 505 records · Page 28

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NASA NTRS1986

CID-720 aircraft Langley Research Center preflight hardware tests: Development, flight acceptance and qualification

The testing conducted on LaRC-developed hardware for the controlled impact demonstration transport aircraft is discussed. To properly develop flight qualified crash systems, two environments were considered: the aircraft flight environment with the focus on vibration and temperature effects, and the crash environment with the long pulse shock effects. Also with the large quantity of fuel in the wing tanks the possibility of fire was considered to be a threat to data retrieval and thus fire tests were included in the development test process. The aircraft test successfully demonstrated the performance of the LaRC developed heat shields. Good telemetered data (S-band) was received during the impact and slide-out phase, and even after the aircraft came to rest. The two onboard DAS tape recorders were protected from the intense fire and high quality tape data was recovered. The complete photographic system performed as planned throughout the 40.0 sec of film supply. The four photo power distribution pallets remained in good condition and all ten onboard 16 mm high speed (400 frames/sec) cameras produced good film data.

Pride, J. D.↗

DOE OSTI2026

Transportation Secure Data Center: Frequently Asked Questions for Data Owners/Contributors

The Transportation Secure Data Center is a centralized repository for detailed transportation data from travel and transit surveys and studies conducted across the nation. It makes vital transportation data broadly available to users while preserving the privacy of survey participants. Hundreds of datasets from surveys and studies of household travel and transit passenger travel are archived in the TSDC, including surveys and studies conducted by state departments of transportation, metropolitan planning organizations, transit agencies, cities, and other public agencies. Detailed data from travel surveys and studies are extremely valuable for research purposes. However, the fine-grained information they contain could potentially be misused to identify individual travelers, so access to these data should only be granted with safeguards in place to protect participant privacy. The TSDC was created to address this challenge and to relieve public agencies from the burden of archiving their data and responding to data requests.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

NASA NTRS1990

Design and Evaluation of Candidate Pressure Distribution and Air Data System Tile Penetration for the Aeroassist Flight Experiment

This program objectives were to produce a pressure measurements system that penetrates the thermal protection system of a spacecraft and is able to obtain accurate pressure data. The design was tested vibro-acoustically, aerothermally, and structurally and found to be adequate. This design is a possible replacement of the current pressure system on the orbiter.

Vontheumer, Alfred E.↗

DOE OSTI2021

Experimental Test Bed to Enable Realistic Evaluations for Direct Transfer Trip Relaying via Private Wireless LTE Communications

Increasing penetration levels of inverter-based distributed energy resources (DERs) in distribution systems are creating challenges in system operation. Currently, wired or proprietary wireless communications are used by advanced distribution management systems (ADMS) to detect the state of the system and control the DERs for optimal operation. Wireless communications are an alternative solution that can enable connectivity between the dispersed assets used in distribution system applications. This paper demonstrates an experimental test bed to enable the realistic evaluation of communications system characteristics for direct transfer trip (DTT) relaying of a photovoltaic inverter system using a private 900-MHz spectrum wireless LTE network. Private LTE network communications can be deployed to many remote DERs and other grid-edge devices to prevent costly infrastructure upgrades across distribution systems. In addition, this paper provides a framework for evaluating the impact of signal strength and network traffic in communications systems. The results shown develop a better understanding of the best practices for using LTE communications systems across multiple utility applications, such as protective relaying, voltage regulation, and supervisory control and data acquisition system messages.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2021

Processing Meteorological Data for the CAP-88 PC Model at Los Alamos National Laboratory

The Environmental Protection and Compliance-Compliance Programs (EPC-CP) group at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) uses the Clean Air Act Assessment Package 1988 (CAP-88, Littleton 2020) PC model (Version 4.1) to estimate radiological doses for a set of areal sectors surrounding a release location, in order to satisfy the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) dose calculation requirement in 40 CFR 61 Subpart H. Among several types of data that must be prepared for CAP-88 input is a text file of meteorological data (“WIND” file), consisting of the joint frequency of wind direction, wind speed, and atmospheric stability categories. EPC-CP produces customized WIND files by running a CAP-88 utility program on a user generated text file of wind data in a different format, known as a STability ARray (STAR) file (Turner, 1964). At LANL, EPC-CP meteorologists prepare customized STAR files with data over desired time periods at selected meteorological towers. A custom program written in Precision Visuals -Workstation Analysis and Visualization Environment (PV-WAVE), a commercial Fortran-like language, is used to read LANL meteorological data and write a STAR file; the executable filename is “Star.out”. However, the outdated PV-WAVE utility program is being phased out by EPC-CP, due to the inefficient process to run it and an inability to modify the code. To preserve the ability to create customized meteorological data for CAP-88 in a way that will be easy to use and maintain, a new replacement utility program, written in the Python programming language, has been developed. The new, improved program reads a data file from any LANL meteorological tower, and at each desired observation time, determines the wind direction, wind speed, and stability categories defined in the CAP-88 documentation. The frequencies of all combinations of the three sets of categories are calculated and written to a file in the STAR format, which can later be converted to a WIND file for input into CAP-88.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS1981

Use of an engineering data management system in the analysis of space shuttle orbiter tiles

The use of an engineering data management system to facilitate the extensive stress analyses of the space shuttle orbiter thermal protection system is demonstrated. The methods used to gather, organize, and store the data; to query data interactively; to generate graphic displays of the data; and to access, transform, and prepare the data for input to a stress analysis program are described. Information related to many separate tiles can be accessed individually from the data base which has a natural organization from an engineering viewpoint. The flexible user features of the system facilitate changes in data content and organization which occur during the development and refinement of the tile analysis procedure. Additionally, the query language supports retrieval of data to satisfy a variety of user-specified conditions.

Giles, G. L.↗

DOE OSTI2020

Recent evolutions in the LTDP CDF project

In the latest years, CNAF (the national center of the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics INFN dedicated to Research and Development on Information and Communication Technologies) has been working on the Long Term Data Preservation (LTDP) project for the CDF experiment, active at Fermilab from 1990 to 2011. The main aims of the project are to protect the most relevant part of the CDF RUN-2 data collected between 2001 and 2011 and already stored on tape at CNAF (4 PB), as well as to ensure the availability and the access to the analysis facility to those data over time. Lately, the CDF database, hosting information about CDF datasets such as their structure, file locations and metadata, has been imported from Fermilab to CNAF. Also, the Sequential Access via Metadata (SAM) station data handling tool for CDF data management, that allows to manage data transfers and to retrieve information from the CDF database, has been properly installed and configured at CNAF. This was a fundamental step in the perspective of a complete decommissioning of CDF services on Fermilab side. An access system has been designed and tested to submit CDF analysis jobs, using CDF software distributed via CERN Virtual Machine File System (CVMFS) and requesting delivery of CDF files stored on CNAF tapes, as well as data present only on Fermilab storage archive. Moreover, the availability and the correctness of all CDF data stored on CNAF tapes has been verified. This paper describes all these recent evolutions in detail, presenting the future plans for the LTDP project at CNAF.

Fornari, Federico↗

DOE OSTI2020

Improved plutonium and americium photon branching ratios from microcalorimeter gamma spectroscopy

Photon branching ratios are critical input data for activities such as nuclear materials protection and accounting because they allow material compositions to be extracted from measurements of gamma-ray intensities. Uncertainties in these branching ratios are often a limiting source of uncertainty in composition determination. Here, we use high statistics, high resolution - (60–70 eV full-width-at-half-maximum at 100 keV) gamma-ray spectra acquired using microcalorimeter sensors to substantially reduce the uncertainties for 11 plutonium ( 238 Pu, 239 Pu, 241 Pu) and 241 Am branching ratios important for material control and accountability and nuclear forensics in the energy range of 125 keV to 208 keV. Lastly, we show a reduction in uncertainty of over a factor of three for one branching ratio and a factor of 2–3 for four branching ratios.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2020

Metabolic and functional connections between cytoplasmic and chloroplast triacylglycerol storage

Neutral lipids in the form of triacylglycerol (TAG) have emerged as critical regulators of cellular energy balance, lipid homeostasis, growth, development and stress response in organisms ranging from plants to yeast. Although TAGs are mostly recognized as the main storage component in cytoplasmic lipid droplets (LDs), TAG-rich LDs with similar structural and functional characteristics to those found in the cytoplasm also exist in chloroplasts of microalgae and higher plants. Chloroplasts contain up to 70% of total lipids in photosynthetic cells, yet how organisms maintain chloroplast lipid homeostasis remains an under-investigated area of research. In this work, we summarize the current state of knowledge about the metabolism of TAG and its function in chloroplasts, with a focus on the enzymes catalyzing the final steps of TAG assembly and the role of TAG synthesis in protection against lipotoxicity. We also discuss emerging data regarding connections between cytoplasmic and chloroplast TAG metabolism and the role of autophagy in the degradation of chloroplast storage lipids.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2022

Plant litter traits control microbial decomposition and drive soil carbon stabilization

Efforts to manage soils for carbon (C) sequestration remain limited by our understanding of how differences in plant traits and microbial traits mechanistically drive soil organic C (SOC) storage. Addressing this uncertainty is particularly critical in bioenergy agriculture, due to its potential to enhance soil C and provide a C neutral fuel. As such, we examined differences between two contrasting feedstocks, Zea mays (corn) and Miscanthus x giganteus (miscanthus), in the ability of their litter to form new chemically resistant particulate SOC vs. physically protected mineral associated SOC and used this data to improve the parameterization of a microbial SOC model. We tested a hypothesized conceptual model whereby easy to decompose corn litters drive greater microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) and the formation of more mineral associated SOC over particulate SOC than more complex miscanthus litters. To do this, we performed a soil microcosm experiment where we added 13 C enriched aboveground and belowground litters to soils and traced the fate of the 13 C into microbial respiration and SOC pools. We found that corn litters promoted higher microbial CUE (0.37) than miscanthus litters (0.24). In turn, corn litter formed approximately 50% more mineral associated SOC than miscanthus litters. Similarly, structurally complex root litters promoted a lower CUE and formed less mineral associated SOC than leaf and shoot litters for both crops. When we used our data to parameterize the SOC model, we found that modelling microbial trait differences uniquely allowed the model to capture the fate of litter C in SOC. Collectively, we found a robust link between litter quality, microbial efficiency, and the formation of SOC. This link bridges the empirical uncertainty in how different crops can form new soil C and provides an empirical basis for modelling SOC transformations.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2023

Disposition of Solids from Hydrothermal Liquefaction of Biomass: Current Understanding, Research Gaps, and Opportunities

Characteristics of solid residuals generated during hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of biomass are reported to establish disposition options for these residuals to reduce liability or barriers to commercialization of HTL. HTL solids from pilot scale are reported and compared to existing HTL solids literature for a variety of biomass feedstocks and HTL configurations, noting differences among literature HTL solids due to solids collection methods. Reported analyses include CHNOS, moisture, ash, inorganics by Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP), and High Heating Value (HHV). HTL solids are determined to be substantially compatible with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disposal regulations within existing data. Disposition and valorization routes are identified, yet combustion as valorization is determined to be not economically beneficial. Further, research gaps are identified, which include the need for future research to be performed on HTL solids that are representative of a continuous, commercializable flowsheet; verification that specific HTL solids meet EPA disposal requirements; exploration of valorization options; and the need for invention of continuous HTL solids separations/management.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

DOE OSTI2021

Chloroplast SRP43 autonomously protects chlorophyll biosynthesis proteins against heat shock

The assembly of light-harvesting chlorophyll-binding proteins (LHCPs) is coordinated with chlorophyll biosynthesis during chloroplast development. The ATP-independent chaperone known as chloroplast signal recognition particle 43 (cpSRP43) mediates post-translational LHCP targeting to the thylakoid membrane and also participates in tetrapyrrole biosynthesis (TBS). How these distinct actions of cpSRP43 are controlled has remained unclear. Here, we demonstrate that cpSRP43 effectively protects several TBS proteins from heat-induced aggregation and enhances their stability during leaf greening and heat shock. While the substrate-binding domain of cpSRP43 is sufficient for chaperoning LHCPs, the stabilization of TBS clients requires the chromodomain 2 of the protein. Strikingly, cpSRP54—which activates cpSRP43’s LHCP-targeted function—inhibits the chaperone activity of cpSRP43 towards TBS proteins. High temperature weakens the interaction of cpSRP54 with cpSRP43, thus freeing cpSRP43 to interact with and protect the integrity of TBS proteins. Our data indicate that the temperature sensitivity of the cpSRP43–cpSRP54 complex enables cpSRP43 to serve as an autonomous chaperone for the thermoprotection of TBS proteins.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Theory of Nonlinear Diffusion with a Physical Gapped Mode

In a system with one conserved charge the charge diffusion is modified by nonlinear self-interactions within an effective field theory (EFT) of diffusive fluctuations. We include the slowest ultraviolet (UV) mode, constructing a UV-regulated EFT. The relaxation time of this UV mode is protected from renormalization, as supported by experimental data in a bad metal system. Furthermore, the retarded density-density Green’s function acquires four branch points, eventually increasing the range of applicability. We discuss the fate of long time tails as well as implications for the quark gluon plasma. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Physics↗

DOE OSTI2022

BrzostekEcologyLab/CORPSE-soil-jars

Efforts to manage soils for carbon (C) sequestration remain limited by our understanding of how differences in plant traits and microbial traits mechanistically drive soil organic C (SOC) storage. Addressing this uncertainty is particularly critical in bioenergy agriculture, due to its potential to enhance soil C and provide a C neutral fuel. As such, we examined differences between two contrasting feedstocks, Zea mays (corn) and Miscanthus x giganteus (miscanthus), in the ability of their litter to form new chemically resistant particulate SOC vs. physically protected mineral associated SOC and used this data to improve the parameterization of a microbial SOC model. We tested a hypothesized conceptual model whereby easy to decompose corn litters drive greater microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) and the formation of more mineral associated SOC over particulate SOC than more complex miscanthus litters. To do this, we performed a soil microcosm experiment where we added 13C enriched aboveground and belowground litters to soils and traced the fate of the 13C into microbial respiration and SOC pools. We found that corn litters promoted higher microbial CUE (0.37) than miscanthus litters (0.24). In turn, corn litter formed approximately 50% more mineral associated SOC than miscanthus litters. Similarly, structurally complex root litters promoted a lower CUE and formed less mineral associated SOC than leaf and shoot litters for both crops. When we used our data to parameterize the SOC model, we found that modeling microbial trait differences uniquely allowed the model to capture the fate of litter C in SOC. Collectively, we found a robust link between litter quality, microbial efficiency, and the formation of SOC. This link bridges the empirical uncertainty in how different crops can form new soil C and provides an empirical basis for modeling SOC transformations.

Ridgeway, Joanna↗

DOE OSTI2020

Multi-Functional Distributed Fiber Sensors for Pipeline Monitoring and Methane Detections. Final Report

As an abundant and cheap fossil energy source, natural gas has become a significant energy supply to support the United States’ economy. However, the large-scale extraction and utilization of natural gas also impose significant challenges on methane leakage. This problem is exacerbated by aging gas utility delivery systems, including interstate high-pressure pipelines, storage, and transmission facilities. This project aims to develop a cost-effective fiber optical sensing method that can perform multi-parameter real-time measurements of natural gas pipelines across long interrogation distances up to 100 km with 1-meter spatial resolution. This sensing tool can evaluate overall pipeline efficiency and reduce methane emissions for mid-stream methane infrastructures. To accomplish this objective, research and development efforts funded by this project have resulted in the following accomplishments: This project successfully has developed new functional sensory polymer materials using Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) that can be coated on optical fiber through the reel-to-reel coating process. Functional polymer-coated optical fibers can perform sensitive methane detection through evanescence wave interaction and strain-based measurements to achieve 1% detection sensitivities. The new sensors fibers support both distributed measurements and multiplexed fiber sensors array for multi-point measurements. This project developed and optimized a new multi-core optical fiber that supports simultaneous and distributed measurements of strain and temperatures with 1-meter spatial resolutions across up to 100-km interrogation distance. This new fiber, combined with sensory polymercoated fiber, could perform both distributed temperature and methane detections. This project developed a new artificial intelligence big data algorithm approach that can effectively analyze high-resolution data harnessed by distributed fiber sensors to protect natural gas pipelines against external threats and detect internal defects induced by corrosion. Working with our industry partner, this project developed new optical fibers that support fiber sensor fabrications through polymer coating after the fibers are drawn. These new fibers eliminate the need for direct sensor fabrication when the fiber is fabricated on a fiber draw tower, which drastically expands fiber sensors' applicability. This research project has significantly advanced the distributed fiber sensing technology. It will dramatically increase the applicability and adaptability of distributed fiber sensors for a wide array of applications in energy, sustainability, and environmental science, including structural health monitoring of natural gas pipelines, oil infrastructures, hydrogen facilities, and environmental monitoring of carbon storage sites, water supply systems, and others.

03 NATURAL GAS↗

DOE OSTI2020

Site Environmental Report–Pantex Plant (CY2020)

The 2020 Annual Site Environmental Report (ASER) summarizes the Pantex Plant’s status, data, and efforts for the environmental compliance, protection, and restoration programs. It has been prepared in accordance with DOE Order 231.1B, Environment, Safety and Health Reporting (DOEa), and DOE Order 458.1, Radiation Protection of the Public and the Environment (DOEb). These orders outline the requirements for environmental protection programs at DOE facilities to ensure that programs fully comply with applicable federal, state, and local environmental laws and regulations, executive orders, and DOE policies.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2022

Pantex Plant Calendar Year 2021 (Annual Site Environmental Report)

The 2021 Annual Site Environmental Report (ASER) summarizes the Pantex Plant’s status, data, and efforts for the environmental compliance, protection, and restoration programs. It has been prepared in accordance with DOE Order 231.1B, Environment, Safety and Health Reporting (DOEa), and DOE Order 458.1, Radiation Protection of the Public and the Environment (DOEb). These orders outline the requirements for environmental protection programs at DOE facilities to ensure that programs fully comply with applicable federal, state, and local environmental laws and regulations, executive orders, and DOE policies.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2023

Electrical Fault Detection, Power Quality, Distributed Energy Resource Use Cases, and Cyber Event Applications with the Cyber Grid Guard System Using Distributed Ledger Technology

Electrical utilities continue to deploy more intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) inside and outside electrical substation and are associated with distributed energy resources (DERs). The integrity and confidentiality of data from IEDs is crucial, and distributed ledger technology (DLT) could improve the resilience of microgrids by helping to make these data more secure. The most popular applications using blockchain technology for electrical utilities is in the field is based on energy trading. However, the dynamism of the penetration of customer owned DERs and the deployment of sensors with IEDs have led to the identification of new applications using DLT that are focused on other areas, such as monitoring, operation and management of the grid and its assets. In addition, the majority of studies on electrical grid applications with blockchain were validated with software simulations. Although general monitoring of power systems for using DLT could be evaluated in operational electric grids, other DLT research applications such as defense against cyber-attacks and/or electrical fault detection are not likely to be performed in a real infrastructure because of possible risks to the network/equipment security. This report summarizes the application of power system applications using distributed ledger technology (DLT), providing a secure DLT framework for collecting data from IEDs like power meters and protective relays inside and outside of an electrical substation and/or between two different electrical utilities. In this study, the use case scenarios were created and assessed for different power system application by using DLT. The electrical fault detection for faulted phases (1), power quality monitoring of phase voltage magnitudes, frequency levels and load power factor (2), DERs use case monitoring (3), and cyber-event applications (4) were performed in a test bed with a Cyber-Grid Guard (CGG) system using DLT. It had a real-time simulator with power meters and protective relays in-the-loop. The first section of this report presents a literature review of power system applications using blockchain at research level. The second section shows the theory and equations used on this report. The third section shows the description of the test bed, equipment, architecture, and electrical grid diagrams. The fourth section shows the experimental models and use case scenarios that were performed for the electrical fault detection, power quality, DERs use case, and cyber event applications with the CGG system using DLT. The fifth section shows the results collected from the tests based on comparing the time stamped events of the analog signals from the IEDs, DLT computer and real time simulator. The sixth section performed the discussion of the results for the use case scenarios. Finally, section seven presents the conclusions for this report were presented.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗