Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “high performance”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 577 records · Page 32
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1983

Relationship between the blue response and open-circuit voltage of high performance silicon solar cells

The relationship between the response at blue wavelengths and the open-circuit voltage of high performance silicon solar cells with a virtually 'transparent' emitter is analyzed. It is shown that a one-dimensional cell model cannot simultaneously model the optical collection properties and operating characteristics of such cells. The analysis highlights the importance of surface conditions and shows that previous conclusions regarding bounds on Auger coefficients imposed by correlating these parameters must be treated with caution.

Green, M. A.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Development of a high-performance cryogenic radiator with V-groove radiation shields

A feasibility demonstration model of a new-technology, high-performance, cryogenic radiative cooler has been successfully tested in a helium-cooled vacuum chamber. Thermal isolation of the radiator cold stage from the warm spacecraft and instrument is achieved by a novel arrangement of lightweight radiation shields which form large V-groove cavities, and by the use of low-conductance structural supports. The vacuum chamber experiments demonstrate the thermal isolation capability of the radiator design. Analytical model predictions are all within 1 K of the measured test temperatures. Utilization of this design enables reasonably sized radiative coolers (less than 0.3 sq m) to achieve operating temperatures below 60 K at earth, Mars, and beyond for useful cooling loads below 75 mW. The design can be scaled to accommodate larger heat loads. The reduction in operating temperature of over 15 K relative to any radiative cooler flown in the past will allow the V-groove isolation radiator to meet the challenging instrument cooling requirements of many future space missions.

Bard, Steven↗
NASA NTRS1988

Computer simulation of multiple pilots flying a modern high performance helicopter

A computer simulation of a human response pilot mechanism within the flight control loop of a high-performance modern helicopter is presented. A human response mechanism, implemented by a low order, linear transfer function, is used in a decoupled single variable configuration that exploits the dominant vehicle characteristics by associating cockpit controls and instrumentation with specific vehicle dynamics. Low order helicopter models obtained from evaluations of the time and frequency domain responses of a nonlinear simulation model, provided by NASA Lewis Research Center, are presented and considered in the discussion of the pilot development. Pilot responses and reactions to test maneuvers are presented and discussed. Higher level implementation, using the pilot mechanisms, are discussed and considered for their use in a comprehensive control structure.

Zipf, Mark E.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Synthesis and Characterization of High Performance Polyimides Containing the Bicyclo(2.2.2)oct-7-ene Ring System

Due to the difficulty in processing polyimides with high temperature stability and good solvent resistance, we have synthesized high performance polyimides with bicyclo(2.2.2)-oct-7-ene ring system which can easily be fabricated into films and fibers and subsequently converted to the more stable aromatic polyimides. In order to improve processability, we prepared two polyimides by reacting 1,4-phenylenediamine and 1,3phenylediamine with bicyclo(2.2.2)-7-octene-2,3,5,6-tetracarboxylic dianhydride. The polyimides were characterized by FTIR, FTNMR, solubility and thermal analysis. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) showed that the 1,4-phenylenediamine and 1,3-phenylenediamine containing polyimides were stable up to 460 and 379 C, respectively under nitrogen atmosphere. No melting transitions were observed for both polyimides. The 1,4-phenylenediamine containing polyimide is partially soluble in dimethyl sulfoxide, methane sulfonic acid and soluble in sulfuric acid at room temperature. The 1,3-phenylenediamine containing polyimide is partially soluble in dimethyl sulfoxide, tetramethyl urea, N,N-dimethyl acetamide and soluble in methane sulfonic acid and sulfuric acid.

Alvarado, M.↗
NASA NTRS2005

[High-Performance Active Pixel X-Ray Sensors for X-Ray Astronomy]

The subject grants support development of High-Performance Active Pixel Sensors for X-ray Astronomy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Space Research and at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. This memo reports our progress in the second year of the project, from April, 2004 through the present.

Bautz, Mark↗
NASA NTRS2024

A High-Performance Computing Predictive GNSS Performance Monitor for Autonomous Air Vehicles in Urban Environments

This report offers analysis and design insights for leveraging High-Performance Computing (HPC) to predict line-of-sight (LOS) Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) availability in a city. This work is motivated by the emerging fields of Advanced and Urban Air Mobility (AAM/UAM), where regulatory authorities are seeking city-scale, meter-resolution risk forecasting in order to safely integrate new flight missions with existing urban life and infrastructure. This work addresses the technical challenge of efficiently computing urban GNSS satellite visibility to predict GNSS performance metrics under these requirements. We present a new HPC-optimized shadow casting algorithm variant as a ray-based approach to forecasting satellite visibility. We apply this algorithm variant in a software-defined prognostic service which generates a GNSS navigation risk-correlated map as a path planning-style potential field. We detail dominant computational burdens, viable simplifying assumptions, and different algorithmic implementations, intending to demonstrate a baseline of computation time needed by each stage in such a service. We conclude by analyzing the prototype service’s prediction accuracy compared to receiver data from Corpus Christi, Texas. This informs design trade-offs along the dimensions of hardware, computation time, and tolerable forecasting error (including proportions of false positives and false negatives).

GNSS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Design of High-Performance Photon-Number-Resolving Photodetectors Based on Coherently Interacting Nanoscale Elements

A number of applications in basic science and technology would benefit from high-fidelity photon-number-resolving photodetectors. While some recent experimental progress has been made in this direction, the requirements for true photon number resolution are stringent, and no design currently exists that achieves this goal. Here we employ techniques from fundamental quantum optics to demonstrate that detectors composed of subwavelength elements interacting collectively with the photon field can achieve high-performance photon number resolution. We propose a new design that simultaneously achieves photon number resolution, high efficiency, low jitter, low dark counts, and high count rate. Finally, we discuss specific systems that satisfy the design requirements, pointing to the important role of nanoscale device elements.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
NASA NTRS2002

Ion Storage Tests with the High Performance Antimatter Trap (HiPAT)

The NASA/Marshall Space Flight Centers (NASA/MSFC) Propulsion Research Center (PRC) is evaluating an antiproton storage system, referred to as the High Performance Antiproton Trap (HiPAT). This interest stems from the sheer energy represented by matter/antimatter annihilation process with has an energy density approximately 10 order of magnitude above that of chemical propellants. In other terms, one gram of antiprotons contains the equivalent energy of approximately 23 space shuttle external tanks or ET's (each ET contains roughly 740,000 kgs of fuel and oxidizer). This incredible source of stored energy, if harnessed, would be an enabling technology for deep space mission where both spacecraft weight and propulsion performance are key to satisfying aggressive mission requirements. The HiPAT hardware consists of a 4 Tesla superconductor system, an ultra high vacuum test section (vacuum approaching 10(exp -12) torr), and a high voltage confinement electrode system (up to 20 kvolts operation). The current laboratory layout is illustrated. The HiPAT designed objectives included storage of up to 1 trillion antiprotons with corresponding lifetimes approaching 18 days. To date, testing has centered on the storage of positive hydrogen ions produced in situ by a stream of high-energy electrons that passes through the trapping region. However, due to space charge issues and electron beam compression as it passes through the HiPAT central field, current ion production is limited to less then 50,000 ions. Ion lifetime was determined by counting particle populations at the end of various storage time intervals. Particle detection was accomplished by destructively expelling the ions against a micro-channel plate located just outside the traps magnetic field. The effect of radio frequency (RF) stabilization on the lifetime of trapped particles was also examined. This technique, referred to as a rotating wall, made use of a segmented electrode located near the center of the trap on which various phases of a particular frequency were applied. Various experiments were performed illustrating the ability of an RF drive to both prolong and reduced the lifetimes of various ion species depending on the selected frequency. HiPAT is now being reconfigured for testing with an ion source that will provide both positive and negative hydrogen ions from an external source. This ion system shall provide higher fill capacity (order of million of ions per shot), stacking of multiple shots, and injection schemes typical of a realistic antiproton delivery system.

Martin, James J.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Information Power Grid: Distributed High-Performance Computing and Large-Scale Data Management for Science and Engineering

We use the term "Grid" to refer to distributed, high performance computing and data handling infrastructure that incorporates geographically and organizationally dispersed, heterogeneous resources that are persistent and supported. This infrastructure includes: (1) Tools for constructing collaborative, application oriented Problem Solving Environments / Frameworks (the primary user interfaces for Grids); (2) Programming environments, tools, and services providing various approaches for building applications that use aggregated computing and storage resources, and federated data sources; (3) Comprehensive and consistent set of location independent tools and services for accessing and managing dynamic collections of widely distributed resources: heterogeneous computing systems, storage systems, real-time data sources and instruments, human collaborators, and communications systems; (4) Operational infrastructure including management tools for distributed systems and distributed resources, user services, accounting and auditing, strong and location independent user authentication and authorization, and overall system security services The vision for NASA's Information Power Grid - a computing and data Grid - is that it will provide significant new capabilities to scientists and engineers by facilitating routine construction of information based problem solving environments / frameworks. Such Grids will knit together widely distributed computing, data, instrument, and human resources into just-in-time systems that can address complex and large-scale computing and data analysis problems. Examples of these problems include: (1) Coupled, multidisciplinary simulations too large for single systems (e.g., multi-component NPSS turbomachine simulation); (2) Use of widely distributed, federated data archives (e.g., simultaneous access to metrological, topological, aircraft performance, and flight path scheduling databases supporting a National Air Space Simulation systems}; (3) Coupling large-scale computing and data systems to scientific and engineering instruments (e.g., realtime interaction with experiments through real-time data analysis and interpretation presented to the experimentalist in ways that allow direct interaction with the experiment (instead of just with instrument control); (5) Highly interactive, augmented reality and virtual reality remote collaborations (e.g., Ames / Boeing Remote Help Desk providing field maintenance use of coupled video and NDI to a remote, on-line airframe structures expert who uses this data to index into detailed design databases, and returns 3D internal aircraft geometry to the field); (5) Single computational problems too large for any single system (e.g. the rotocraft reference calculation). Grids also have the potential to provide pools of resources that could be called on in extraordinary / rapid response situations (such as disaster response) because they can provide common interfaces and access mechanisms, standardized management, and uniform user authentication and authorization, for large collections of distributed resources (whether or not they normally function in concert). IPG development and deployment is addressing requirements obtained by analyzing a number of different application areas, in particular from the NASA Aero-Space Technology Enterprise. This analysis has focussed primarily on two types of users: the scientist / design engineer whose primary interest is problem solving (e.g. determining wing aerodynamic characteristics in many different operating environments), and whose primary interface to IPG will be through various sorts of problem solving frameworks. The second type of user is the tool designer: the computational scientists who convert physics and mathematics into code that can simulate the physical world. These are the two primary users of IPG, and they have rather different requirements. The results of the analysis of the needs of these two types of users provides a broad set of requirements that gives rise to a general set of required capabilities. The IPG project is intended to address all of these requirements. In some cases the required computing technology exists, and in some cases it must be researched and developed. The project is using available technology to provide a prototype set of capabilities in a persistent distributed computing testbed. Beyond this, there are required capabilities that are not immediately available, and whose development spans the range from near-term engineering development (one to two years) to much longer term R&D (three to six years). Additional information is contained in the original.

Johnston, William E.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Towards elastic in situ analysis for high-performance computing simulations

In situ analysis and visualization have grown increasingly popular for enabling direct access to data from high-performance computing (HPC) simulations. As a simulation progresses and interesting physical phenomena emerge, however, the data produced may become increasingly complex, and users may need to dynamically change the type and scale of in situ analysis tasks being carried out and consequently adapt the amount of resources allocated to such tasks. To date, none of the production in situ analysis frameworks offer such an elasticity feature, and for good reason: the assumption that the number of processes could vary during run time would force developers to rethink software and algorithms at every level of the in situ analysis stack. In this paper we present Colza, a data staging service with elastic in situ visualization capabilities. We demonstrate the use of Colza with the Deep Water Impact and the AMR-Wind simulations, coupling them with the ParaView Catalyst and Ascent in situ libraries, and show that Colza enables dynamic rescaling of these widely-used frameworks with no interruption to the simulation or staging service. Here, we highlight the challenges of enabling such elasticity, which requires overcoming these frameworks' reliance on MPI, using distinct engineering approaches, namely dependency injection and dependency overload. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first to enable elastic in situ visualization capabilities for HPC applications on top of existing production analysis tools.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Recent Developments in High-Performance Membranes for CO 2 Separation

In this perspective article, we provide a detailed outlook on recent developments of high-performance membranes used in CO 2 separation applications. A wide range of membrane materials including polymers of intrinsic microporosity, thermally rearranged polymers, metal–organic framework membranes, poly ionic liquid membranes, and facilitated transport membranes were surveyed from the recent literature. In addition, mixed matrix and polymer blend membranes were covered. The CO 2 separation performance, as well as other membrane properties such as film flexibility, processibility, aging, and plasticization, were analyzed.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1983

High performance liquid chromatographic hydrocarbon group-type analyses of mid-distillates employing fuel-derived fractions as standards

Two high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) methods have been developed for the determination of saturates, olefins and aromatics in petroleum and shale derived mid-distillate fuels. In one method the fuel to be analyzed is reacted with sulfuric acid, to remove a substantial portion of the aromatics, which provides a reacted fuel fraction for use in group type quantitation. The second involves the removal of a substantial portion of the saturates fraction from the HPLC system to permit the determination of olefin concentrations as low as 0.3 volume percent, and to improve the accuracy and precision of olefins determinations. Each method was evaluated using model compound mixtures and real fuel samples.

Seng, G. T.↗