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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 649 records · Page 36
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2018

Curating NASA's Past, Present, and Future Extraterrestrial Sample Collections

As codified in NASA Policy Directive 7100.10F, the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office at NASA Johnson Space Center (hereafter JSC Curation) is charged with curation of all extraterrestrial material under NASA control, including future NASA missions. JSC Curation curates all or part of nine astromaterial collections in seven clean room suites: (1) Apollo Samples (1969; ISO 6-7), (2) Luna Samples (from USSR; 1972; ISO 7), (3) Antarctic Meteorites (1976; ISO 7), (4) Cosmic Dust (1981; ISO 5), (5) Microparticle Impact Collection (formerly called Space Exposed Hardware; 1985; ISO 5), (6) Genesis Solar Wind Atoms (2004; ISO 4); (7) Stardust Comet Particles (2006; ISO 5), (8) Stardust Interstellar Particles (2006; ISO 5), (9) Hayabusa Asteroid Particles (from JAXA; 2010; ISO 5). In addition to the labs that house the samples, we have installed and maintained a wide variety of facilities and infrastructure required to support the clean-rooms: more than 10 different HEPA-filtered air-handling systems, ultrapure dry gaseous nitrogen systems, an ultrapure water system (UPW) and cleaning facilities to provide clean tools and equipment for the labs. We also have sample preparation facilities for making thin sections, microtome sections, and even focused ion-beam (FIB) sections to meet the research requirements of scientists. To ensure that we are keeping the samples as pristine as possible, we routinely monitor the cleanliness of our clean rooms and infrastructure systems. This monitoring includes: daily monitoring of the quality of our UPW, weekly airborne particle counts in the labs, monthly monitoring of the stable isotope composition of the gaseous N2 system, and annual measurements of inorganic or organic contamination in processing cabinets. We track within our databases the current and ever-changing characteristics of more than 250,000 individual samples across our various collections (including the 19,141 samples on loan to 433 Principal Investigators in 24 countries). The next sample return missions that NASA will participate in are Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security - Regolith Explorer). The designs for a new state-of-the-art suite of clean rooms to house these samples at JSC have been finalized. This includes separate ISO class 5 clean rooms to house each collection, a common ISO class 7 area for general use, an ISO class 7 microtome laboratory, and a separate thin section lab. Additionally, a new cleaning facility is being designed and procedures developed that will allow for enhanced cleaning of cabinets and tools in an inorganically, organically, and biologically clean manner. We are also designing a large multi-purpose Advanced Curation laboratory that will allow us to develop the techniques necessary to fully support the Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx missions, as well as future possible sample return missions (e.g., Lunar Polar Volatiles, Mars, Comet Surface). A micro-CT (micro Computed Tomography) laboratory dedicated to the study of astromaterials has come online within JSC Curation, and we plan to add additional facilities that will enable non-destructive (or minimally-destructive) analyses of astromaterials in the near future (e.g., micro-XRF (micro X-Ray Fluorescence), confocal imaging Raman Spectroscopy). These facilities will be available to: (1) develop sample handling and storage techniques for future sample return missions, (2) be utilized by PET (Positron Emission Tomography) for future sample return missions, (3) for retroactive PET-style analyses of our existing collections, and (4) for periodic assessments of the existing sample collections.

Zeigler, Ryan A.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Prototype Wash Water Renovation System Integration with Government-Furnished Wash Fixture

A total renovation concept for removing objectionable materials from spacecraft wash water to make the water reusable was developed. This concept included ferric chloride pretreatment to coagulate suspended solids such as soap and lint, pressure filtration, and carbon adsorption and ion exchange to remove trace dissolved organics and inorganic salts. A breadboard model which was developed to demonstrate the design adequacy of the various system components and the limits on system capacities and efficiencies.

Source record↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Lunar Water ISRU System Study for Human-Scale Propellant Production

NASA’s plans to return to the moon in the Artemis campaign include intentions for sustainable surface operations. In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) is key to enabling sustainability. The use of water, which has been identified in the lunar polar regions [1-4], could be pivotal to a sustainable architecture. While water has been identified, there is limited information regarding its form and distribution. The Lunar Water ISRU Measurement Study (LWIMS) [5] outlined the current state of knowledge regarding water resources on the moon, what information is lacking, and how to approach a measurement campaign to close those knowledge gaps. However the NASA timeline necessitates that lunar surface water prospecting, or reconnaissance, efforts and ISRU system design to occur in parallel. ISRU hardware and systems development must proceed without key resource knowledge. Yet, engineering design requires come constraints and targets to work to. The goal of this study was to define a set of lunar water reference cases, based on the cur-rent lunar water information, to help focus ISRU de-sign and planning. This approach is similar to an study focused on Mars resources called Mars Water ISRU Planning (MWIP) [6].

Lunar Water↗
DOE OSTI2019

Water Processing System at Pilgrim Nuclear Station - 19665

Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station (PNPS) has been using reverse osmosis (RO) to process equipment and floor drain water to the condensate storage tank for 23 years. In 1996 a Thermex unit was designed, fabricated and installed by Chem-Nuclear Systems, now EnergySolutions. This unit consisted of a dual pass RO followed by ion exchange for polishing. In April 2017, PNPS and EnergySolutions commissioned a new Thermex unit consisting of a single pass RO followed by electrodeionization (EDI) for polishing. The new Thermex unit provides consistence product water quality meeting specifications for reactor reuse and lowering the amount of ion exchange usage when compared to the previous generation of Thermex. (author)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
NASA NTRS1975

Potable water supply

The history and evolution of the Apollo potable water system is reviewed. Its operation in the space environment and in the spacecraft is described. Its performance is evaluated. The Apollo potable water system satisfied the dual purpose of providing metabolic water for the crewmen and water for spacecraft cooling.

Richard L. Sauer↗
NASA NTRS2012

Water Treatment Systems for Long Spaceflights

Space exploration will require new life support systems to support the crew on journeys lasting from a few days to several weeks, or longer. These systems should also be designed to reduce the mass required to keep humans alive in space. Water accounts for about 80 percent of the daily mass intake required to keep a person alive. As a result, recycling water offers a high return on investment for space life support. Water recycling can also increase mission safety by providing an emergency supply of drinking water, where another supply is exhausted or contaminated. These technologies also increase safety by providing a lightweight backup to stored supplies, and they allow astronauts to meet daily drinking water requirements by recycling the water contained in their own urine. They also convert urine into concentrated brine that is biologically stable and nonthreatening, and can be safely stored onboard. This approach eliminates the need to have a dedicated vent to dump urine overboard. These needs are met by a system that provides a contaminant treatment pouch, referred to as a urine cell or contaminant cell, that converts urine or another liquid containing contaminants into a fortified drink, engineered to meet human hydration, electrolyte, and caloric requirements, using a variant of forward osmosis (FO) to draw water from a urine container into the concentrated fortified drink as part of a recycling stage. An activated carbon pretreatment removes most organic molecules. Salinity of the initial liquid mix (urine plus other) is synergistically used to enhance the precipitation of organic molecules so that activated carbon can remove most of the organics. A functional osmotic bag is then used to remove inorganic contaminants. If a contaminant is processed for which the saline content is different than optimal for precipitating organic molecules, the saline content of the liquid should be adjusted toward the optimal value for that contaminant. A first urine treatment method converts urine into a fortified sports drink, resembling Gatorade, using a first urine cell.

FLynn, Michael T.↗
NASA NTRS1980

Solar space and water heating system installed at Charlottesville, Virginia

The solar energy system located at David C. Wilson Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Charlottesville, Virginia, is described. The solar energy system consists of 88 single glazed, Sunworks 'Solector' copper base plate collector modules, hot water coils in the hot air ducts, a Domestic Hot Water (DHW) preheat tank, a 3,000 gallon concrete urethane insulated storage tank and other miscellaneous components. Extracts from the site files, specifications, drawings, installation, operation and maintenance instructions are included.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2024

Tapping municipal water supply systems for low-impact hydropower growth

Conduit hydropower is a form of low-impact hydropower that uses existing water infrastructure, such as canals or pipelines, to capture what would otherwise be wasted energy. Agricultural conduits convey irrigation water across vast stretches of the U.S., primarily in the west, and are well-suited for hydrokinetic power capture within the flow stream or for hydro potential power capture where excess pressure exists. Drop structures within irrigation canals are suitable candidates for this type of hydropower development and have been retrofitted across a large number of sites over the past few decades.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1981

Airborne differential absorption lidar system for water vapor investigations

Range-resolved water vapor measurements using the differential-absorption lidar (DIAL) technique is described in detail. The system uses two independently tunable optically pumped lasers operating in the near infrared with laser pulses of less than 100 microseconds separation, to minimize concentration errors caused by atmospheric scattering. Water vapor concentration profiles are calculated for each measurement by a minicomputer, in real time. The work is needed in the study of atmospheric motion and thermodynamics as well as in forestry and agriculture problems.

Browell, E. V.↗
DOE OSTI2014

Colloid Rates of Radionuclides in Cooling Water of the 120-GeV Proton Accelerator Facilities at Fermilab - Paper 58

Cooling water systems for high-energy accelerators are typically equipped with a deionizer to keep water pure for accelerator materials and to remove radionuclides for radioactivity control. Although the deionizers are expected to collect the entire radionuclides, more radioactivity than expected remains in the cooling water in typical cooling water operations at J-PARC and the Tsukuba Campus of High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Japan. For example, specific activity of {sup 7}Be in the cooling water for magnetic horns at the J-PARC Neutrino Experimental Facility was observed to be comparable to the limit of {sup 7}Be activity for drain (30 Bq/mL) after enough deionization duration. Removing this activity from the cooling water is an important problem that must be solved before the water can be released into the environment. In our previous study, it was found that some radionuclides had weak retention on ion-exchange resins in the cooling water deionizer system for the K2K target and magnetic horns at the 12-GeV proton accelerator in KEK, Japan. Incomplete adsorption in the deionizer was attributed to colloid formation. Therefore, understanding the colloid formation of radionuclides in cooling water is important for understanding the activity remaining in the cooling water. Colloid formation in water under high-intensity radiation fields has been investigated by previous irradiation experiments. Under 120-GeV proton irradiation of Cu foils in water, it was found that the colloid formation rates of Mg, Mn, Co, Ni, and Cu isotopes and those of {sup 7}Be, {sup 24}Na, {sup 42}K, and {sup 43}K were approximately 30% and 1.8-3.9%, respectively. Sc, Cr, and Fe isotopes were missing from the water. In the photon irradiation of water in a Cu tube using Bremsstrahlung from an electron linear accelerator and a {sup 60}Co γ-ray source at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, we observed Cu colloid formation in consequence of the corrosion of Cu. It is possible that radionuclides attach to the colloids formed by the corrosion of accelerator materials and pass through the deionizer. To enhance the understanding of the behavior of radionuclides in cooling water in a high-energy accelerator environment, we investigated the colloid formation of radionuclides in cooling waters at the 120-GeV proton accelerator facilities at Fermilab, USA. We have already reported the previous results of specific activities of γemitting radionuclides and {sup 3}H in water samples collected from eight cooling water systems. Following the previous study, this paper is concerned with the measurement of colloid formation rates of radionuclides in cooling waters. (authors)

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Investigation of the Polymorphs and Hydrolysis of Uranium Trioxide

This work focuses on progress in gaining a better understanding of the polymorphic nature of the UO3-water system, one of several important materials associated with the nuclear fuel cycle. The UO3-water system is complex and has not been fully characterized, even though these species are common throughout the fuel cycle. Powder x-ray diffraction, Raman and fluorescence characterization was performed on polymorphic forms of UO3 and UO3 hydrolysis products for the purpose of developing some predictive capability of estimating process history and utility, e.g. for polymorphic phases of unknown origin. Specifically, we have investigated three industrially relevant production pathways of UO3 and discovered a previously unknown low temperature route to β-UO3. Pure phases of UO3, hydrolysis products and starting materials were used to establish optical spectroscopic signatures for these compounds.

Sweet, Lucas E↗
DOE OSTI2019

Using Heat as a Predictor of CO 2 Breakthrough in Highly Heterogeneous Reservoirs

Injecting supercritical CO 2 into the subsurface changes the temperature, pressure, and geochemistry of the storage reservoir. Understanding these perturbations within the reservoir may be used to monitor the CO 2 plume during a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project. Here we analyze results from 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D numerical modeling studies to investigate how the thermal signature of the CO 2 -water system evolves during CCS. These models show that the thermodynamic processes of the CO 2 -water system results in a characteristic thermal profile within a homogeneous storage reservoir during a CO 2 injection. This thermal signature is characterized by warming front of up to 4 °C, which is caused by CO 2 dissolution and migrates contemporaneously with free-phase CO 2 migration. When reservoir properties are highly heterogeneous, this thermal front travels well ahead of free-phase CO 2 , thus implying that thermal monitoring may be an effective predictor of CO 2 breakthrough.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1976

ASTP chemical and microbiological analysis of potable water

The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project procedures for potable water system servicing and the results of preflight and postflight chemical and microbiological analyses of the water are discussed. Tables show results of the analyses. The effectiveness of the water system is evaluated.

Sauer, R. L.↗
DOE OSTI2020

The role of the spatial heterogeneity and correlation length of surface wettability on two-phase flow in a CO 2 -water-rock system

This study characterized and modeled heterogeneous surface wettability in sandstone and investigated the role of spatial heterogeneity and correlation length of surface wettability on relative permeability in a supercritical CO 2 (scCO 2 )-brine-rock system. Understanding the role of wettability heterogeneity on relative permeability is essential to geological CO 2 sequestration, oil and gas recovery, and contaminated groundwater remediation. Although numerous studies have attempted to understand the influences of surface wettability, capillary number (Ca), and viscosity ratio, the role of the spatial variation and correlation length of surface wettability on two-phase flow in three-dimensional (3D) porous media has not been unraveled due to the challenges in the measurement and representation of realistic rock surface wettability. In this work, we conducted in-situ measurements of surface contact angle (CA) in a Bentheimer sandstone after CO 2 flooding using micro-computed tomography (micro-CT), and found that the pore-scale CA distribution on rock surfaces followed a log-normal distribution associated with a spatial correlation length. Based on the statistical information from CT scanning, a Gaussian random field was used to model CA distributions that had desired standard deviations and spatial correlation lengths, which were then adjusted within a certain range of values for sensitivity analyses to study their combined effects on the two-phase flow in the porous medium using the lattice Boltzmann (LB) method. The LB two-phase flow simulation was accelerated using hybrid, multicore parallel computing to overcome the challenges in simulating multiphase flow in a large 3D domain having 800 × 800 × 600 nodes. The simulation results showed that the surface wettability heterogeneity (i.e., standard deviation of CA) had a lesser effect on the relative permeability of the wetting fluid (water) but a more significant impact on the relative permeability of the non-wetting fluid (scCO 2 ). The Corey model was used to fit the LB-simulated relative permeability curves of water and scCO 2 and showed that the variations in the relative permeability curves for both water and scCO 2 increased as the standard deviation and spatial correlation length of CA increased. This study illustrated that the assumption of homogeneous surface wettability may cause errors in multiphase flow simulations. Furthermore, the impacts of both the standard deviation and spatial correlation length of CAs should be accounted for. This is the first study that explored the spatial correlation lengths associated with CA distributions on sandstone surfaces and comprehensively investigated the roles of both spatial variation and correlation length of CA on two-phase flow properties in 3D porous media. The optimized LB multiphase flow model was proved a powerful tool to study the interplays and combined effects of these statistical parameters, which had critical applications in numerous natural and engineering processes that involved multiphase flow in porous media.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Application of unsupervised deep learning to image segmentation and in-situ contact angle measurements in a CO 2 -water-rock system

Rock surface wettability is a critical property that regulates multiphase flows in porous media, which can be quantified using the surface contact angle (CA). X-ray micro-computed tomography (μCT) provides an effective approach to in-situ measurements of surface CAs. However, the CA measurement accuracy depends significantly on the quality of CT image segmentation, which is the clustering of CT pixels into separate phases. Inspired by this, we developed a deep learning (DL)-based CA measurement workflow. Motivated by the recent tremendous progress in unsupervised learning techniques and aiming to avoid expensive manual data annotations, an unsupervised DL pipeline for CT image segmentation was proposed and implemented, which includes unsupervised model training and post-processing. The unsupervised model training was driven by a novel loss function constrained with feature similarity and spatial continuity and implemented by iterative forward and backward paths; the former clustered the pixel-wise feature vectors extracted by convolution neural networks, whereas the latter updated the parameters using gradient descent. An over-segmentation strategy was adopted for model training. The post-processing steps based on agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) were implemented to further merge the over-segmented model output to the desired cluster number, which is intended to improve the efficiency of image segmentation. The developed unsupervised DL pipeline was compared with other commonly-used image segmentation methods using pixel-wise and physics-based evaluation metrics on a synthetic raw-image dataset, which had a known ground truth. The unsupervised DL pipeline showed the best performance. Next, the segmented images were input to an automatic CA measurement tool, and the results were validated by comparisons with manual measurements. The CA values from the manual and automatic measurements showed similar distributions and statistical properties. The automatic measurement demonstrated a wider spectrum because of the much larger number of measurement data points. The primary novelty of the unsupervised DL pipeline developed in this study lies in the novel loss function and the over-segmentation strategy associated with AHC post-processing. Finally, the workflow has been proven an efficient tool for pore-scale wettability characterization, which has a wide range of applications in fundamental studies of multiphase flows in natural porous media, which have critical implications to geological carbon sequestration, hydrocarbon energy recovery, and contaminant transport in groundwater.

42 ENGINEERING↗