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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 55 records · Page 3

Studies of acoustic-electric feed-throughs for power transmission through structures

There are numerous engineering design problems where the use of wires to transfer power and communicate data thru the walls of a structure is prohibitive or significantly difficult that it may require a complex design. Using physical feedthroughs in such systems may make them susceptible to leakage of chemicals or gasses, loss of pressure or vacuum, as well as difficulties in providing adequate thermal or electrical insulation. Moreover, feeding wires thru a wall of a structure reduces the strength of the structure and makes the structure prone to cracking due to fatigue that can result from cyclic loading and stress concentrations. One area that has already been identified to require a wireless alternative to electrical feedthroughs is the container of the Mars Sample Return Mission, which will need wireless sensors to sense a pressure leak and to avoid potential contamination. The idea of using elastic or acoustic waves to transfer power was suggested recently by [Y. Hu, et al., July 2003]. This system allows for the avoidance of cabling or wiring. The technology is applicable to the transfer of power for actuation, sensing and other tasks inside any sealed container or vacuum/pressure vessel. An alternative approach to the modeling presented previously [Sherrit et a., 2005] used network analysis to solve the same problem in a clear and expandable manner. Experimental tests on three different designs of these devices were performed. The three designs used different methods of coupling the piezoelectric element to the wall. In the first test the piezoelectric material was bolted using a backing structure. In the second test the piezoelectric was clamped after the application of grease and finally the piezoelectric element was attached using a conductive epoxy. The mechanical clamp with grease produced the highest measured efficiency of 53% however this design was the least practical from a fabrication viewpoint. The power transfer efficiency of conductive epoxy joint was 40% and the stress bolts (12%).

ultrasonics↗

An improved k-epsilon model for near wall turbulence

An improved k-epsilon model for low Reynolds number turbulence near a wall is presented. In the first part of this work, the near-wall asymptotic behavior of the eddy viscosity and the pressure transport term in the turbulent kinetic energy equation are analyzed. Based on these analyses, a modified eddy viscosity model with the correct near-wall behavior is suggested, and a model for the pressure transport term in the k-equation is proposed. In addition, a modeled dissipation rate equation is reformulated, and a boundary condition for the dissipation rate is suggested. In the second part of the work, one of the deficiencies of the existing k-epsilon models, namely, the wall distance dependency of the equations and the damping functions, is examined. An improved model that does not depend on any wall distance is introduced. Fully developed turbulent channel flows and turbulent boundary layers over a flat plate are studied as validations for the proposed new models. Numerical results obtained from the present and other previous k-epsilon models are compared with data from direct numerical simulation. The results show that the present k-epsilon model, with added robustness, performs as well as or better than other existing models in predicting the behavior of near-wall turbulence.

Shih, T. H.↗

Integral Textile Structure for 3-D CMC Turbine Airfoils

An integral textile structure for 3-D CMC turbine airfoils includes top and bottom walls made from an angle-interlock weave, each of the walls comprising warp and weft fiber tows. The top and bottom walls are merged on a first side parallel to the warp fiber tows into a single wall along a portion of their widths, with the weft fiber tows making up the single wall interlocked through the wall's thickness such that delamination of the wall is inhibited. The single wall suitably forms the trailing edge of an airfoil; the top and bottom walls are preferably joined along a second side opposite the first side and parallel to the radial fiber tows by a continuously curved section in which the weave structure remains continuous with the weave structure in the top and bottom walls, the continuously curved section being the leading edge of the airfoil.

Marshall, David B.↗

Computation of a circular-to-rectangular transition duct flow field

This paper presents the results of a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) calibration study of flow through a circular-to-rectangular transition duct. The design of these ducts is critical to the optimum performance of aircraft with rectangular exhaust nozzles, since these ducts transfer the flow from the gas turbine engine to the exhaust nozzle. Two duct inflow conditions are considered, the first with straight inflow and the second with swirling inflow. Both flows contain realistic wall boundary layers. The first case permits examination of the effects of the geometric transition on the flowfield, while the second case adds in the rotational flow effect that can be present from the gas turbine engine. The flowfields associated with the two cases have been shown, both with CFD and experiment, to have significant differences. The Navier-Stokes CFD code PARC with the Baldwin and Lomax turbulence model was used in this study. The turbulence model had to be modified for both cases in order to achieve accurate determination of the edge of the wall bounded vorticity layers and thus turbulent viscosity. The results of this calibration study will be valuable to aircraft designers who rely on CFD to assist in the design and evaluation of propulsion systems.

Sirbaugh, J. R.↗

Analysis of Cryogenic Propellant Liquefaction Rates in Cooled Constant-Wall-TemperatureTanks

NASA has been focused on developing technology that would allow the production of cryogenic propellants on the Lunar and Martian surfaces. Utilizing Lunar/Martian resources, the produced gaseous propellants must first be liquefied and stored prior to use on the Moon or Mars ascent vehicle. Liquefaction of cryogenic propellants is a necessary technical development to enable NASA’s future spaceflight goals. This paper presents an overview of a proposed model for a propellant liquefaction system, and the effect of tank wall temperature and the ullage pressure control band on cryogenic propellant liquefaction rates. The propellant system was assumed to be a receiver of a gas from an In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) harvester and condensed the gas by cooling the tank walls. First, the heat transfer principles pertinent to condensation are summarized, followed by an overview of the model which performed the analysis, including a summary of the Fortran algorithm implementation. The sensitivity of the condensation rate relative to varying tank wall temperatures is also discussed.

cryogenics↗

Direct Numerical Simulation of Supersonic Turbulent Boundary Layers

The talk will present some initial results from the direct numerical simulation (DNS) of compressible turbulent boundary layers. We solve numerically the compressible Navier-Stokes equations using a method based on Spalart's transformation for the incompressible turbulent boundary layer. This allows the spatially developing boundary layer to be transformed to a calculation with periodic boundary conditions in the streamwise and spanwise directions. The equations are solved using Fourier expansions in the horizontal directions and B-splines in the wall-normal direction. The first simulation is at Mach 2.5 with a momentum thickness Reynolds number based on wall viscosity of R(sub theta(sup 1)) = 825. We are examining the physics of the compressible boundary layer using turbulence statistics and budget equations. The turbulence statistics include: rms (root mean square) and mean profiles, energy spectra, and two-point correlations. It is found that there are large density gradients which require significantly more resolution than the incompressible case.

Guarini, Stephen↗

Analysis of Cryogenic Propellant Liquefaction Rates in Cooled Constant-Wall-Temperature Tanks

NASA has been focused on developing technology that would allow the production of cryogenic propellants on the Lunar and Martian surfaces. Utilizing Lunar/Martian resources, the produced gaseous propellants must first be liquefied and stored prior to use on the Moon or Mars ascent vehicle. Liquefaction of cryogenic propellants is a necessary technical development to enable NASA’s future spaceflight goals. This paper presents an overview of a proposed model for a propellant liquefaction system, and the effect of tank wall temperatures on cryogenic propellant liquefaction rates. The propellant system was assumed to be a receiver of a gas from an In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) harvester and condensed the gas by cooling the tank walls. First, the heat transfer principles pertinent to condensation are summarized, followed by an overview of the model which performed the analysis, including a summary of the Fortran algorithm implementation. The sensitivity of the condensation rate relative to varying tank wall temperatures is also discussed.

Anson Koch↗

Modeling of near wall turbulence and modeling of bypass transition

The objectives for this project are as follows: (1) Modeling of the near wall turbulence: We aim to develop a second order closure for the near wall turbulence. As a first step of this project, we try to develop a kappa-epsilon model for near wall turbulence. We require the resulting model to be able to handle both near wall turbulence and turbulent flows away from the wall, computationally robust, and applicable for complex flow situations, flow with separation, for example, and (2) Modeling of the bypass transition: We aim to develop a bypass transition model which contains the effect of intermittency. Thus, the model can be used for both the transitional boundary layers and the turbulent boundary layers. We require the resulting model to give a good prediction of momentum and heat transfer within the transitional boundary and a good prediction of the effect of freestream turbulence on transitional boundary layers.

Yang, Z.↗

Investigation of the components of the NAL high Reynolds number two-dimensional wind tunnel. Part 4: Design, construction and performance of the exhaust silencer

Presented is a description of the design construction and performance of the exhaust silencer for the NAL high Reynolds number two-dimensional transonic blow down wind tunnel, which was completed in October 1979. The silencer is a two-storied construction made of reinforced concrete, 40 m. long, 10 m. wide and 19 m. high and entirely enclosed by thick concrete walls. The upstream part of the first story, particularly, is covered with double walls, the thickness of the two walls being 0.3 m. (inner wall) and 0.2 m. (outer wall), respectively. A noise reduction system using three kinds of parallel baffles and two kinds of lined bends is adopted for the wind tunnel exhaust noise.

Sakakibara, S.↗

Analysis of Cryogenic Propellant Liquefaction Rates in Cooled Constant-Wall-TemperatureTanks

NASA has been focused on developing technology that would allow the production of cryogenic propellants on the Lunar and Martian surfaces. Utilizing Lunar/Martian resources, the produced gaseous propellants must first be liquefied and stored prior to use on the Moon or Mars ascent vehicle. Liquefaction of cryogenic propellant is a necessary technical development to enable NASA’s future spaceflight goals. This paper presents an overview of the effect of spacecraft propellant system parameters on cryogenic propellant liquefaction rates. The propellant system was assumed to be a receiver of a gas from an In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) harvester and condensed the gas by cooling the tank walls. First, the general thermodynamic principles pertinent to condensation are summarized, followed by an overview of the model which performed the analysis, including a summary of the Fortran implementation. Comparisons between the model results and test data are discussed, as well as sensitivity of the condensation rate to various parameters.

cryogenics↗

Analysis of Cryogenic Propellant Liquefaction Rates in Cooled Constant-Wall-Temperature Tanks

NASA has been focused on developing technology that would allow the production of cryogenic propellants on the Lunar and Martian surfaces. Utilizing Lunar/Martian resources, the produced gaseous propellants must first be liquefied and stored prior to use on the Moon or Mars ascent vehicle. Liquefaction of cryogenic propellant is a necessary technical development to enable NASA’s future spaceflight goals. This paper presents an overview of the effect of spacecraft propellant system parameters on cryogenic propellant liquefaction rates. The propellant system was assumed to be a receiver of a gas from an In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) harvester and condensed the gas by cooling the tank walls. First, the general thermodynamic principles pertinent to condensation are summarized, followed by an overview of the model which performed the analysis, including a summary of the Fortran implementation. Comparisons between the model results and test data are discussed, as well as sensitivity of the condensation rate to various parameters.

Anson Koch↗

Analysis of Cryogenic Propellant Liquefaction Rates in Cooled Constant-Wall-Temperature Tanks

NASA has been focused on developing technology that would allow the production of cryogenic propellants on the Lunar and Martian surfaces. Utilizing Lunar/Martian resources, the produced gaseous propellants must first be liquefied and stored prior to use on the Moon or Mars ascent vehicle. Liquefaction of cryogenic propellant is a necessary technical development to enable NASA’s future spaceflight goals. This paper presents an overview of the effect of spacecraft propellant system parameters on cryogenic propellant liquefaction rates. The propellant system was assumed to be a receiver of a gas from an In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) harvester and condensed the gas by cooling the tank walls. First, the general thermodynamic principles pertinent to condensation are summarized, followed by an overview of the model which performed the analysis, including a summary of the Fortran implementation. Comparisons between the model results and test data are discussed, as well as sensitivity of the condensation rate to various parameters.

cryogenics↗

Reynolds stress closure modeling in wall-bounded flows

This report describes two projects. Firstly, a Reynolds stress closure for near-wall turbulence is described. It was motivated by the simpler k-epsilon-(v-bar(exp 2)) model described in last year's annual research brief. Direct Numerical Simulation of three-dimensional channel flow shows a curious decrease of the turbulent kinetic energy. The second topic of this report is a model which reproduces this effect. That model is described and used to discuss the relevance of the three dimensional channel flow simulation to swept wing boundary layers.

Durbin, Paul A.↗

Direct Validation of the Wall Interference Correction System of the Ames 11-Foot Transonic Wind Tunnel

Data from the test of a large semispan model was used to perform a direct validation of a wall interference correction system for a transonic slotted wall wind tunnel. At first, different sets of uncorrected aerodynamic coefficients were generated by physically changing the boundary condition of the test section walls. Then, wall interference corrections were computed and applied to all data points. Finally, an interpolation of the corrected aerodynamic coefficients was performed. This interpolation made sure that the corrected Mach number of a given run would be constant. Overall, the agreement between corresponding interpolated lift, drag, and pitching moment coefficient sets was very good. Buoyancy corrections were also investigated. These studies showed that the accuracy goal of one drag count may only be achieved if reliable estimates of the wall interference induced buoyancy correction are available during a test.

Ulbrich, Norbert↗

Prediction of Liquid Slosh Damping Using a High Resolution CFD Tool

Propellant slosh is a potential source of disturbance critical to the stability of space vehicles. The slosh dynamics are typically represented by a mechanical model of a spring mass damper. This mechanical model is then included in the equation of motion of the entire vehicle for Guidance, Navigation and Control analysis. Our previous effort has demonstrated the soundness of a CFD approach in modeling the detailed fluid dynamics of tank slosh and the excellent accuracy in extracting mechanical properties (slosh natural frequency, slosh mass, and slosh mass center coordinates). For a practical partially-filled smooth wall propellant tank with a diameter of 1 meter, the damping ratio is as low as 0.0005 (or 0.05%). To accurately predict this very low damping value is a challenge for any CFD tool, as one must resolve a thin boundary layer near the wall and must minimize numerical damping. This work extends our previous effort to extract this challenging parameter from first principles: slosh damping for smooth wall and for ring baffle. First the experimental data correlated into the industry standard for smooth wall were used as the baseline validation. It is demonstrated that with proper grid resolution, CFD can indeed accurately predict low damping values from smooth walls for different tank sizes. The damping due to ring baffles at different depths from the free surface and for different sizes of tank was then simulated, and fairly good agreement with experimental correlation was observed. The study demonstrates that CFD technology can be applied to the design of future propellant tanks with complex configurations and with smooth walls or multiple baffles, where previous experimental data is not available.

Yang, H. Q.↗

Investigating the Relationship between the Cell Wall Integrity Pathway and Unfolded Protein Response

Plants have made significant contributions to astronaut health in spaceflight missions. To further spaceflight research in optimizing plant viability, this study aims to understand the factors involved in maintaining cell wall integrity, which is vital to plant morphology and structural stability. Spaceflight can negatively impact the cell wall; thus, it is crucial to investigate how to mitigate spaceflight stressors to maintain the integrity of the cell wall. The structural integrity of plants’ cell walls depends on secondary cell wall biogenesis, which enables the repair and architectural support of plants like A. thaliana. This biogenesis is triggered by a signal transduction cascade: first initiated by cell wall stress, the CWI (cell wall integrity) pathway is activated, followed by the UPR (unfolded protein response), then the cell wall’s integrity is maintained through secondary cell wall biogenesis. Through a re-analysis of GeneLab Dataset 321 (GLDS-321), a study from NASA’s Open Science Data Repository that investigates the effects of spaceflight on the UPR, several genes were found to be associated with the cell wall. This proposal postulates a relationship between the UPR and the CWI pathway and their direct effect on secondary cell wall biogenesis by investigating IRX7, a gene associated with secondary cell wall biogenesis. The predicted outcome of overexpressing IRX7 is increased resilience of the cell wall by upregulating both the UPR and the CWI pathway, while silencing IRX7 is predicted to compromise the cell wall integrity by downregulating the UPR and the CWI pathway. This study will give insight into the needed measures to increase cell wall resilience in stressful environments: As spaceflight durations increase and uncertain climate change events progress on Earth, understanding how to optimize cell wall resilience – a fundamental pillar of plant health – can effectively enhance mass crop production and quality and ensure the physical and psychological health of astronauts in long-term space missions.

GL4HS↗

Toroidal cell and battery

A toroidal storage battery designed to handle relatively high amp-hour loads is described. The cell includes a wound core disposed within a pair of toroidal channel shaped electrodes spaced apart by nylon insulator. The shape of the case electrodes of this toroidal cell allows a first planar doughnut shaped surface and the inner cylindrical case wall to be used as a first electrode and a second planar doughnut shaped surface and the outer cylindrical case wall to be used as a second electrode. Connectors may be used to stack two or more toroidal cells together by connecting substantially the entire surface area of the first electrode of a first cell to substantially the entire surface area of the second electrode of a second cell. The central cavity of each toroidal cell may be used as a conduit for pumping a fluid through the toroidal cell to thereby cool the cell.

Nagle, W. J.↗

Thermocapillary convection in zone-melting crystal growth - An open-boat physical simulation

Thermocapillary convection in a molten zone of NaNO3 contained in a boat with a free horizontal surface, that is heated from above by a centered wire heater, was studied to simulate flow in zone-melting crystal growth. Using a laser-light-cut technique and fine SiO powder as a tracer, convection in the melt zone was visualized in two different cases. In the first case, the entire melt surface was free, while in the second the melt surface was free only in the immediate vicinity of one vertical wall and was covered elsewhere, this wall being to simulate the melt/crystal interface during crystal growth. It was observed that thermocapillary convection near this wall prevailed in the first case, but was reduced significantly in the second. Since thermocapillary rather than natural convection dominated in the melt, the effect of the partial covering of the melt surface on thermocapillary convection in the melt observed in this study is expected to be similar under microgravity.

Kim, Y. J.↗