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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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All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRS1996

NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project: Survey of Reader Preferences Concerning the Format of NASA Langley-Authored Technical Reports - Paper 58

The U.S. government technical report is a primary means by which the results of federally funded research and development (R&D) are transferred to the U.S. aerospace industry. However, little is known about this information product in terms of its actual use, importance, and value in the transfer of federally funded R&D. Little is also known about the intermediary-based system that is used to transfer the results of federally funded R&D to the U.S. aerospace industry. To help establish a body of knowledge, the U.S. government technical report is being investigated as part of the NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. In this paper, we summarize the literature on the U.S. government technical report and present the results of a survey of U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists that solicited their opinions concerning the format of NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC)-authored technical reports. To learn more about the preferences of U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists concerning the format of NASA LaRC-authored technical reports, we surveyed 133 report producers (i.e., authors) and 137 report users in March-April 1996. Questions covered such topics as (1) the order in which report components are read, (2) components used to determine if a report would be read, (3) those components that could be deleted, (4) the placement of such components as the symbols list, (e) the de-sirability of a table of contents, (5) the format of reference citations, (6) column layout and right margin treatment, and (7) and person and voice. Mail (self-reported) surveys were used to collect the data. The response rates for report producers (i.e., authors) was 68% and for users was 62%.

Pinelli, Thomas E.↗

NASA NTRS1997

NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Paper 65: Survey of Reader Preferences Concerning the Format of NASA Langley-Authored Technical Reports

The U.S. government technical report is a primary means by which the results of federally funded research and development (R&D) are transferred to the U.S. aerospace industry. However, little is known about this information product in terms of its actual use, importance, and value in the transfer of federally funded R&D. Little is also known about the intermediary-based system that is used to transfer the results of federally funded R&D to the U.S. aerospace industry. To help establish a body of knowledge, the U.S. government technical report is being investigated as part of the NASA/DoD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. In this article, we summarize the literature on the U.S. government technical report and present the results of a survey of U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists that solicited their opinions concerning the format of NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC)-authored technical reports. To learn more about the preferences of U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists concerning the format of NASA LaRC-authored technical reports, we surveyed 133 report producers (i.e., authors) and 137 report users in March-April 1996. Questions covered such topics as: (a) the order in which report components are read; (b) components used to determine if a report would be read; (c) those components that could be deleted; (d) the placement of such components as the symbols list; (e) the desirability of a table of contents; (f) the format of reference citations; (g) column layout and right margin treatment; and (h) writing style in terms of person and voice. Mail (self-reported) surveys were used to collect the data. The response rates for report producers (i.e., authors) was 68% and for users was 62%.

Pinelli, Thomas E.↗

DOE OSTI2024

Precision Measurements of the Neutron Magnetic Form Factor to High Momentum Transfer using Durand’s Method

Protons and neutrons, collectively known as nucleons, along with electrons, constitute the fundamental building blocks of the visible universe. Understanding their internal structure is crucial for addressing key scientific questions about our origin and existence. Elastic electron-nucleon scattering provides insights into the spatial distributions of charge and current within nucleons through their electromagnetic form factors. Accurate knowledge of these form factors over a broad range of Q2, the squared four-momentum transfer in the scattering process, reveals details about the nucleon's internal structure. However, high-Q2 data of the nucleon electromagnetic form factor is scarce due to the challenges associated with such measurements. This thesis reports preliminary results from high-precision measurements of the neutron magnetic form factor (GMn) to unprecedented Q2 using Durand's method, also known as the "ratio" method. Systematic errors are greatly reduced by ext

Datta, Provakar↗

DOE OSTI2024

Precision Measurements of the Neutron Magnetic Form Factor to High Momentum Transfer using Durand's Method

Protons and neutrons, collectively known as nucleons, along with electrons, constitute the funda- mental building blocks of the visible universe. Understanding their internal structure is crucial for addressing key scientific questions about our origin and existence. Elastic electron-nucleon scatter- ing provides insights into the spatial distributions of charge and current within nucleons through their electromagnetic form factors. Accurate knowledge of these form factors over a broad range of Q2, the squared four-momentum transfer in the scattering process, reveals details about the nucleon’s internal structure. However, high-Q2 data of the nucleon electromagnetic form factor is scarce due to the challenges associated with such measurements. This thesis reports preliminary results from high-precision measurements of the neutron magnetic form factor (Gn M ) to unprecedented Q2 using Durand’s method, also known as the “ratio” method. Systematic errors are greatly reduced by extracting Gn M from the ratio of neutron-coincident (D(e, e'n)) to proton-coincident (D(e, e'p)) quasi-elastic electron scattering from deuteron. The scattered electrons were detected in the BigBite spectrometer, which features multiple Gas Elec- tron Multiplier (GEM) layers with large active area for high-precision tracking at very high rates. Simultaneous nucleon detection was performed by the Super BigBite spectrometer, which utilizes a dipole magnet with large solid angle acceptance at forward angles and a novel hadron calorimeter with very high and comparable detection efficiencies for both protons and neutrons. This setup could handle very high luminosity, making high-Q2 measurements feasible. Data were collected at five Q2 points: 3, 4.5, 7.4, 9.9, and 13.6 (GeV/c)2. Preliminary results are reported for all, with the lowest two Q2 points in good agreement with existing world data, while the higher points significantly extend the Q2 range in which Gn M is known accurately. The precision of the highest Q2 point is expected to remain unmatched for years to come.

Datta, Provakar↗

DOE OSTI2014

An efficient Bayesian inversion of a geothermal prospect using a multivariate adaptive regression spline method

In this study, an efficient Bayesian framework equipped with a multivariate adaptive regression spline (MARS) technique is developed to alleviate computational burdens encountered in a conventional Bayesian inversion of a geothermal prospect. Fast MARS models are developed from training dataset generated by CPU-intensive hydrothermal models and used as surrogate of high-fidelity physical models in Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling. This Bayesian inference with MARS-enabled MCMC method is used to reduce prior estimates of uncertainty in structural or characteristic hydrothermal flow parameters of the model to posterior distributions. A geothermal prospect near Superstition Mountain in Imperial County of California in USA is used to illustrate the proposed framework and demonstrate the computational efficiency of MARS-based Bayesian inversion. The developed MARS models are also used to efficiently drive calculation of Sobol’ total sensitivity indices. Furthermore, only top sensitive parameters are included in Bayesian inference to further improve the computational efficiency of inversion. Sensitivity analysis also confirms that water circulation through high permeable structures, rather than heat conduction through impermeable granite, is the primary heat transfer method. The presented framework is demonstrated an efficient tool to update knowledge of geothermal prospects by inversing field data. Although only thermal data is used in this study, other type of data, such as flow and transport observations, can be jointly used in this method for underground hydrocarbon reservoirs.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2024

Fermilab s Transition to Token Authentication

Fermilab is the first High Energy Physics institution to transition from X.509 user certificates to authentication tokens in production systems. All of the experiments that Fermilab hosts are now using JSON Web Token (JWT) access tokens in their grid jobs. Many software components have been either updated or created for this transition, and most of the software is available to others as open source. The tokens are defined using the WLCG Common JWT Profile. Token attributes for all the tokens are stored in the Fermilab FERRY system which generates the configuration for the CILogon token issuer. High security-value refresh tokens are stored in Hashicorp Vault configured by htvault-config, and JWT access tokens are requested by the htgettoken client through its integration with HTCondor. The Fermilab job submission system jobsub was redesigned to be a lightweight wrapper around HTCondor. For automated job submissions a managed tokens service was created to reduce duplication of effort and knowledge of how to securely keep tokens active. The existing Fermilab file transfer tool ifdh was updated to work seamlessly with tokens, as well as the Fermilab POMS (Production Operations Management System) which is used to manage automatic job submission and the RCDS (Rapid Code Distribution System) which is used to distribute analysis code via the CernVM FileSystem. The dCache storage system was reconfigured to accept tokens for authentication in place of X.509 proxy certificates. As some services and sites have not yet implemented token support, proxy certificates are still sent with jobs for backwards compatibility but some experiments are beginning to transition to stop using them. There have been some glitches and learning curve issues but in general the system has been performing well and is being improved as operational problems are addressed.

Dykstra, David↗

NASA NTRS1984

Holographic aids for internal combustion engine flow studies

Worldwide interest in improving the fuel efficiency of internal combustion (I.C.) engines has sparked research efforts designed to learn more about the flow processes of these engines. The flow fields must be understood prior to fuel injection in order to design efficient valves, piston geometries, and fuel injectors. Knowledge of the flow field is also necessary to determine the heat transfer to combustion chamber surfaces. Computational codes can predict velocity and turbulence patterns, but experimental verification is mandatory to justify their basic assumptions. Due to their nonintrusive nature, optical methods are ideally suited to provide the necessary velocity verification data. Optical sytems such as Schlieren photography, laser velocimetry, and illuminated particle visualization are used in I.C. engines, and now their versatility is improved by employing holography. These holographically enhanced optical techniques are described with emphasis on their applications in I.C. engines.

Regan, C.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) measurement techniques for lenses and linear detector arrays

Application is the determination of the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) for linear detector arrays. A system set up requires knowledge of the MTF of the imaging lens. Procedure for this measurement is described for standard optical lab equipment. Given this information, various possible approaches to MTF measurement for linear arrays is described. The knife edge method is then described in detail.

Schnabel, J. J., Jr.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Information compression in the context model

The Context Model provides a formal framework for the representation, interpretation, and analysis of vague and uncertain data. The clear semantics of the underlying concepts make it feasible to compare well-known approaches to the modeling of imperfect knowledge like that given in Bayes Theory, Shafer's Evidence Theory, the Transferable Belief Model, and Possibility Theory. In this paper we present the basic ideas of the Context Model and show its applicability as an alternative foundation of Possibility Theory and the epistemic view of fuzzy sets.

Gebhardt, Joerg↗

NASA NTRS1995

Marketing NASA Langley Polymeric Materials

A marketing tool was created to expand the knowledge of LaRC developed polymeric materials, in order to facilitate the technology transfer process and increase technology commercialization awareness among a non-technical audience. The created brochure features four materials, LaRC-CP, LaRC-RP46, LaRC-SI, and LaRC-IA, and highlights their competitive strengths in potential commercial applications. Excellent opportunities exist in the $40 million per year microelectronics market and the $6 billion adhesives market. It is hoped that the created brochure will generate inquiries regarding the use of the above materials in markets such as these.

Flynn, Diane M.↗

NASA NTRS1995

The 5-8 Micron Infrared Spectrum of the Galactic Center and the Composition of Interstellar Dust

Interstellar dust is an important component of the interstellar medium which dominates the opacity and, hence, regulates radiative transfer, molecule formation, and thermal balance of the ISM. Much of our knowledge on the composition of interstellar dust results from infrared spect,oscopy. The extinction along the line of sight towards the galactic center is believed to be dominated by dust in the diffuse ISM. Because of the high extinction and high IR flux, IR spectra of galactic center sources have been a prime sampling ground for the characteristics of interstellar dust. We have obtained 5-8 micrometer spectra of the galactic center using the KAO. These spectra show absorption features at 5.5, 5.8, 6.1, and 6.8 micrometers. Together with features in the 3 micrometer region previously observed by us using the IRTF, these features are compared to laboratory spectra of candidate materials. We conclude that the 3.0 and 6.1 micrometer feature are carried by H2O, likely in the form of water of hydration in interstellar silicates. The 3.4, 5.5, 5.8, and 6.8 micrometer features are due to CH2, CH3 and C=O stretching and deformation modes in a hydrocarbon grain component. Comparing derived dust abundances, we conclude that silicates dominate the interstellar dust volume. Hydrocarbon and (small) graphite grains contribute each about 0.1. The remainder of the interstellar dust volume does not show strong IR absorption features and is likely in the form of large graphite, amorphous, carbon, or diamond grains.

Tielens, A. G. G. M.↗

NASA NTRS2002

A Mechanistic Study of Nucleate Boiling Under Microgravity Conditions

The overall objective of this work is to study nucleate boiling heat transfer under microgravity conditions in such a way that while providing basic knowledge of the phenomena, it also leads to development of simulation models and correlations that can be used as design tools for a wide range of gravity levels. In the study a building block type of approach is used and both pool and low velocity flow boiling are investigated. Starting with experiments using a single bubble, the complexity of the experiments is increased to two or three inline bubbles, to five bubbles placed on a two-dimensional grid. Finally, experiments are conducted where a large number of prescribed cavities nucleate on the heater and when a commercial surface is used. So far experiments have been conducted at earth normal gravity and in the reduced gravity environment of the KC-135 aircraft whereas experiments on the space station are planned. Modeling/complete numerical simulation of the boiling process is an integral part of the total effort. Experiments conducted with single bubbles formed on a nucleation site microfabricated on a polished silicon wafer show that for gravity levels (g) varying from 1.5g(sub e) to 0.01g(sub e), the bubble diameter at departure varies approximately as (g(sub e)/g)(exp 1/2) and the growth period as (g(sub e)/g). When bubbles merge either inline or in a plane, the bubble diameter at departure is found to be smaller than that obtained for a single bubble and shows a weaker dependence on the level of gravity. The possible reason is that as the bubbles merge they create fluid circulation around the bubbles, which in turn induces a lift force that is responsible for the earlier departure of the bubbles. The verification of this proposition is being sought through numerical simulations. There is a merger of two inline, three inline, and several bubbles in a plane in the low gravity environment of the KC-135 aircraft. After merger and before departure, a mushroom type of bubble with several stems attached to the heater surface is clearly evident. Local heat fluxes during growth and departure of a single bubble were also measured. It was found that during most of the growth period of the bubble, generally the wall heat flux decreased with time because of the increased dry area under the bubble. However, the heat flux increased rapidly just prior to departure of the bubble because of the transient conduction into the cold liquid rushing to fill the space vacated by the bubble as the bubble base shrinks. The measured heat fluxes at various radial locations are found to be in qualitative agreement with the numerical predictions. Single bubble studies at earth normal gravity have also been performed on surfaces oriented at different angles to the gravitational acceleration with flow parallel to the surface. It is found that in all cases the bubbles slide along the surface before lift-off from the surface. The lift force generated as a result of the relative motion between the sliding bubbles and the imposed flow is found to play an important role when the normal force due to buoyancy is reduced. An experimental apparatus for the study of the bubble behavior with imposed flow under reduced gravity conditions has been developed and will soon be employed for experiments in the KC-135 aircraft.

Dhir, V. K.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Paramedir: A Tool for Programmable Performance Analysis

Performance analysis of parallel scientific applications is time consuming and requires great expertise in areas such as programming paradigms, system software, and computer hardware architectures. In this paper we describe a tool that facilitates the programmability of performance metric calculations thereby allowing the automation of the analysis and reducing the application development time. We demonstrate how the system can be used to capture knowledge and intuition acquired by advanced parallel programmers in order to be transferred to novice users.

Jost, Gabriele↗

NASA NTRS2011

Feature Acquisition with Imbalanced Training Data

This work considers cost-sensitive feature acquisition that attempts to classify a candidate datapoint from incomplete information. In this task, an agent acquires features of the datapoint using one or more costly diagnostic tests, and eventually ascribes a classification label. A cost function describes both the penalties for feature acquisition, as well as misclassification errors. A common solution is a Cost Sensitive Decision Tree (CSDT), a branching sequence of tests with features acquired at interior decision points and class assignment at the leaves. CSDT's can incorporate a wide range of diagnostic tests and can reflect arbitrary cost structures. They are particularly useful for online applications due to their low computational overhead. In this innovation, CSDT's are applied to cost-sensitive feature acquisition where the goal is to recognize very rare or unique phenomena in real time. Example applications from this domain include four areas. In stream processing, one seeks unique events in a real time data stream that is too large to store. In fault protection, a system must adapt quickly to react to anticipated errors by triggering repair activities or follow- up diagnostics. With real-time sensor networks, one seeks to classify unique, new events as they occur. With observational sciences, a new generation of instrumentation seeks unique events through online analysis of large observational datasets. This work presents a solution based on transfer learning principles that permits principled CSDT learning while exploiting any prior knowledge of the designer to correct both between-class and withinclass imbalance. Training examples are adaptively reweighted based on a decomposition of the data attributes. The result is a new, nonparametric representation that matches the anticipated attribute distribution for the target events.

Thompson, David R.↗

DOE OSTI2025

Fermilab's Transition to Token Authentication

Fermilab is the first High Energy Physics institution to transition from X.509 user certificates to authentication tokens in production systems. All the experiments that Fermilab hosts are now using JSON Web Token (JWT) access tokens in their grid jobs. Many software components have been either updated or created for this transition, and most of the software is available to others as open source. The tokens are defined using the WLCG Common JWT Profile. Token attributes for all the tokens are stored in the Fermilab FERRY system which generates the configuration for the CILogon token issuer. High security-value refresh tokens are stored in Hashicorp Vault configured by htvault-config, and JWT access tokens are requested by the htgettoken client through its integration with HTCondor. The Fermilab job submission system jobsub was redesigned to be a lightweight wrapper around HTCondor. The grid workload management system GlideinWMS which is also based on HTCondor was updated to use tokens for pilot job submission. For automated job submissions a managed tokens service was created to reduce duplication of effort and knowledge of how to securely keep tokens active. The existing Fermilab file transfer tool ifdh was updated to work seamlessly with tokens, as well as the Fermilab POMS (Production Operations Management System) which is used to manage automatic job submission and the RCDS (Rapid Code Distribution System) which is used to distribute analysis code via the CernVM FileSystem. The dCache storage system was reconfigured to accept tokens for authentication in place of X.509 proxy certificates. As some services and sites have not yet implemented token support, proxy certificates are still sent with jobs for backwards compatibility, but some experiments are beginning to transition to stop using them.

Dykstra, Dave [Fermilab] (ORCID:0000000326539015)↗

DOE OSTI2016

Device Scale Modeling of Solvent Absorption using MFIX-TFM

Recent climate change is largely attributed to greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide, methane) and fossil fuels account for a large majority of global CO 2 emissions. That said, fossil fuels will continue to play a significant role in the generation of power for the foreseeable future. The extent to which CO 2 is emitted needs to be reduced, however, carbon capture and sequestration are also necessary actions to tackle climate change. Different approaches exist for CO 2 capture including both post-combustion and pre-combustion technologies, oxy-fuel combustion and/or chemical looping combustion. The focus of this effort is on post-combustion solvent-absorption technology. To apply CO 2 technologies at commercial scale, the availability and maturity and the potential for scalability of that technology need to be considered. Solvent absorption is a proven technology but not at the scale needed by typical power plant. The scale up and down and design of laboratory and commercial packed bed reactors depends heavily on the specific knowledge of two-phase pressure drop, liquid holdup, the wetting efficiency and mass transfer efficiency as a function of operating conditions. Simple scaling rules often fail to provide proper design. Conventional reactor design modeling approaches will generally characterize complex non-ideal flow and mixing patterns using simplified and/or mechanistic flow assumptions. While there are varying levels of complexity used within these approaches, none of these models resolve the local velocity fields. Consequently, they are unable to account for important design factors such as flow maldistribution and channeling from a fundamental perspective. Ideally design would be aided by development of predictive models based on truer representation of the physical and chemical processes that occur at different scales. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) models are based on multidimensional flow equations with first principle foundations. CFD models can include a more accurate physical description of flow processes and be modified to include more complex behavior. Wetting performance and spatial liquid distribution inside the absorber are recognized as weak areas of knowledge requiring further investigation. CFD tools offer a possible method to investigating such topics and gaining a better understanding of their influence on reactor performance. This report focuses first on describing a hydrodynamic model for countercurrent gas-liquid flow through a packed column and then on the chemistry, heat and mass transfer specific to CO 2 absorption using monoethanolamine (MEA). The indicated model is implemented in MFIX, a CFD open source software package. The user defined functions needed to build this model are described in detail along with the keywords for the corresponding input file. A test case is outlined along with a few results. The example serves to briefly illustrate the developed CFD tool and its potential capability to investigate solvent absorption.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Impact of Variable Gas Mixtures on Bubble Size Distribution and Mass Transfer in Gas Fermentation Reactors

Gas fermentation has emerged as a promising new technology for the generation of fuels and chemicals from mixtures of greenhouse and energy rich gas streams (CO2/CH4/H2/CO) via microbial bioreaction. Example pathways include biomethanation (CO2/H2 to CH4), biogas upgrading, CO fermentation and wet-waste conversion. Effective Gas-liquid mass-transfer is an important physical phenomenon that determines the design and scale-up of these systems. There is currently a knowledge-gap regarding bubble-size distributions when using a mixture of gases with vastly different properties, which can have a significant impact on overall mass-transfer. For example, hydrogen bubbles are more buoyant compared to other relatively heavier gases (CO2/CH4/CO), resulting in a large distribution of residence times and bubble sizes. This work therefore develops a deeper understanding of bubble dynamics and interphase mass transfer in such heterogenous gas mixtures through well-resolved computational models. We use a detailed multiphase computational-fluid-dynamics (CFD) model to study the impact of gas-mixtures on overall mass-transfer in bubble column and air-lift reactors. The CFD tool previously developed by the authors (1) for simulating aerobic fermentation reactors at scale is used in this study. The Reynolds-averaged mass, momentum, energy, and species transport equations are solved for interpenetrating gas and liquid phase in this model. We use a population balance-based bubble-size-distribution model that is validated against small-scale experiments in our solver. Results pertaining to multiple simulations of gas-fermentation reactors are presented where gas mixtures with varying compositions of CO2/CH4/CO/H2 are imposed at the sparger boundaries. The spatio-temporal variations in bubble-size distribution and mass transfer coefficient is analyzed for varying superficial velocities and gas-compositions for varying sizes of bubble-column and airlift reactors.

BIOMASS FUELS,MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

NASA NTRS1985

A knowledge based software engineering environment testbed

The Carnegie Group Incorporated and Boeing Computer Services Company are developing a testbed which will provide a framework for integrating conventional software engineering tools with Artifical Intelligence (AI) tools to promote automation and productivity. The emphasis is on the transfer of AI technology to the software development process. Experiments relate to AI issues such as scaling up, inference, and knowledge representation. In its first year, the project has created a model of software development by representing software activities; developed a module representation formalism to specify the behavior and structure of software objects; integrated the model with the formalism to identify shared representation and inheritance mechanisms; demonstrated object programming by writing procedures and applying them to software objects; used data-directed and goal-directed reasoning to, respectively, infer the cause of bugs and evaluate the appropriateness of a configuration; and demonstrated knowledge-based graphics. Future plans include introduction of knowledge-based systems for rapid prototyping or rescheduling; natural language interfaces; blackboard architecture; and distributed processing

Gill, C.↗