Research program to develop a technology improvement program for closed die forging Final report
Upset forging tests on aluminum and titanium alloys and maraging steel using high temperature dies
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Upset forging tests on aluminum and titanium alloys and maraging steel using high temperature dies
Programming environments is an area of recent origin and refers to an integrated set of tools, such as program library, text editor, compiler, and debugger, in support of program development. Understanding of programs and programming has lead to automated techniques for program development. Knowledge based programming system using program transformations offer significant impact on future program development methodologies. A review of recent developments in the area of knowledge based programming environments, from the perspective of software engineering, is presented.
The research concerning space-based solar power conversion and delivery systems is summarized. The potential concepts for a photovoltaic satellite solar power system was studied with emphasis on ground output power levels of 5,000 MW and 10,000 MW. A power relay satellite, and certain aspects of the economics of these systems were also studied. A second study phase examined in greater depth the technical and economic aspects of satellite solar power systems. Throughout this study, the focus was on the economics of satellite solar power. The results indicate technical feasibility of the concept, and provide a preliminary economic justification for the first phase of a substantial development program. A development program containing test satellites is recommended. Also, development of alternative solar cell materials (other than silicon) is recommended.
Developments in research programs related to launch-vehicle technology and space-vehicle technology
NASA's Advanced Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) development program is developing next generation radioisotope power conversion technologies that will enable future missions that have requirements that can not be met by either photovoltaic systems or by current Radioisotope Power System (RPS) technology. The Advanced Power Conversion Research and Technology project of the Advanced RPS development program is funding research and technology activities through the NASA Research Announcement (NRA) 02-OSS-01, "Research Opportunities in Space Science 2002" entitled "Radioisotope Power Conversion Technology" (RPCT), August 13, 2002. The objective of the RPCT NRA is to advance the development of radioisotope power conversion technologies to provide significant improvements over the state-of-practice General Purpose Heat Source/Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator by providing significantly higher efficiency to reduce the number of radioisotope fuel modules, and increase specific power (watts/kilogram). Other Advanced RPS goals include safety, long-life, reliability, scalability, multi-mission capability, resistance to radiation, and minimal interference with the scientific payload. Ten RPCT NRA contracts were awarded in 2003 in the areas of Brayton, Stirling, thermoelectric (TE), and thermophotovoltaic (TPV) power conversion technologies. This paper will provide an overview of the RPCT NRA, and a brief summary of accomplishments over the first 18 months but focusing on advancements made over the last 6 months.
NASA's Advanced Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) development program is developing next generation radioisotope power conversion technologies that will enable future missions that have requirements that can not be met by either photovoltaic systems or by current Radioisotope Power System (RPS) technology. The Advanced Power Conversion Research and Technology project of the Advanced RPS development program is funding research and technology activities through the NASA Research Announcement (NRA) 02- OSS-01, "Research Opportunities in Space Science 2002" entitled "Radioisotope Power Conversion Technology" (RPCT), 13 August 2002. The objective of the RPCT NRA is to advance the development of radioisotope power conversion technologies to provide significant improvements over the state-of-practice General Purpose Heat Source/Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator by providing significantly higher efficiency to reduce the number of radioisotope fuel modules, and increase specific power (watts/kilogram). Other Advanced RPS goals include safety, long-life, reliability, scalability, multi-mission capability, resistance to radiation, and minimal interference with the scientific payload. These advances would enable a factor of 2 to 4 decrease in the amount of fuel required to generate electrical power. The RPCT NRA selected advanced RPS power conversion technology research and development proposals in the following three areas: innovative RPS power conversion research, RPS power conversion technology development in a nominal 100We scale; and, milliwatt/multi-watt RPS (mWRPS) power conversion research. Ten RPCT NRA contracts were awarded in 2003 in the areas of Brayton, Stirling, thermoelectric (TE), and thermophotovoltaic (TPV) power conversion technologies. This paper will provide an overview of the RPCT NRA, and a brief summary of accomplishments over the first 18 months but focusing on advancements made over the last 6 months.
Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) and its contractors at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) are conducting a development program to develop / refine the cementitious waste form for the wastes treated at the ETF and to provide the data needed to support the IDF PA. This technical approach document is intended to provide guidance to the cementitious waste form development program with respect to the waste form characterization and testing information needed to support the IDF PA. At the time of the preparation of this technical approach document, the IDF PA effort is just getting started and the approach to analyze the performance of the cementitious waste form has not been determined. Therefore, this document looks at a number of different approaches for evaluating the waste form performance and describes the testing needed to provide data for each approach. Though the approach addresses a cementitious secondary aqueous waste form, it is applicable to other waste forms such as Cast Stone for supplemental immobilization of Hanford LAW. The performance of Cast Stone as a physical and chemical barrier to the release of contaminants of concern (COCs) from solidification of Hanford liquid low activity waste (LAW) and secondary wastes processed through the Effluent Treatment Facility (ETF) is of critical importance to the Hanford Integrated Disposal Facility (IDF) total system performance assessment (TSPA). The effectiveness of cementitious waste forms as a barrier to COC release is expected to evolve with time. PA modeling must therefore anticipate and address processes, properties, and conditions that alter the physical and chemical controls on COC transport in the cementitious waste forms over time. Most organizations responsible for disposal facility operation and their regulators support an iterative hierarchical safety/performance assessment approach with a general philosophy that modeling provides the critical link between the short-term understanding from laboratory and field tests, and the prediction of repository performance over repository time frames and scales. One common recommendation is that experiments be designed to permit the appropriate scaling in the models. There is a large contrast in the physical and chemical properties between the Cast Stone waste package and the IDF backfill and surrounding sediments. Cast Stone exhibits low permeability, high tortuosity, low carbonate, high pH, and low Eh whereas the backfill and native sediments have high permeability, low tortuosity, high carbonate, circumneutral pH, and high Eh. These contrasts have important implications for flow, transport, and reactions across the Cast Stone – backfill interface. Over time with transport across the interface and subsequent reactions, the sharp geochemical contrast will blur and there will be a range of spatially-distributed conditions. In general, COC mobility and transport will be sensitive to these geochemical variations, which also include physical changes in porosity and permeability from mineral reactions. Therefore, PA modeling must address processes, properties, and conditions that alter the physical and chemical controls on COC transport in the cementitious waste forms over time. Section 2 of this document reviews past Hanford PAs and SRS Saltstone PAs, which to date have mostly relied on the lumped parameter COC release conceptual models for TSPA predictions, and provides some details on the chosen values for the lumped parameters. Section 3 provides more details on the hierarchical modeling strategy and processes and mechanisms that control COC release. Section 4 summarizes and lists the key parameters for which numerical values are needed to perform PAs. Section 5 provides brief summaries of the methods used to measure the needed parameters and references to get more details.
Under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratories, Siemens has completed the Advanced Hydrogen Turbine Development Program to develop an advanced gas turbine for incorporation into future coal-based Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plants. All the scheduled DOE Milestones were completed and significant technical progress was made in the development of new technologies and concepts. Advanced computer simulations and modeling, as well as subscale, full scale laboratory, rig and engine testing were utilized to evaluate and select concepts for further development. Program Requirements of: A 3 to 5 percentage point improvement in overall plant combined cycle efficiency when compared to the reference baseline plant; 20 to 30 percent reduction in overall plant capital cost when compared to the reference baseline plant; and NOx emissions of 2 PPM out of the stack. were all met. The program was completed on schedule and within the allotted budget
Efficient programs were developed for computing all four characteristics of the radiation scattered by a plane-parallel, turbid, terrestrial atmospheric model. They were developed (FORTRAN 4) and tested on the IBM /360 computers with 2314 direct access storage facility. The storage requirement varies between 200K and 750K bytes depending upon the task. The scattering phase matrix (or function) is expanded in a Fourier series whose number of terms depend upon the zenith angles of the incident and scattered radiations, as well as on the nature of aerosols. A Gauss-Seidel procedure is used for obtaining the numerical solution of the transfer equation.
Capsule system advanced development sterilization program for Mars 71 lander
A development status report is presented for the NASA/Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency convertible turbofan-turboshaft engine, which can power a high speed rotorcraft in vertical flight, as well as in horizontal flight up to speeds of Mach 0.85. The basis for this development program is a modified TF34-GE-400 engine. Program objectives include both the demonstration of dual output mode (jet thrust and shaft horsepower) capability and the development of a control system which will operate the engine in either mode and convert operation between the modes.
SET program developments, and four-converter thermionic generator thermal analysis and performance characteristics
Over the last twenty years, with growing policy emphasis on improving energy efficiency and reducing environmental pollution and carbon emissions, China has implemented a series of new minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) and mandatory and voluntary energy labels to improve appliance energy efficiency. As China begins planning for the next phase of standards and labeling (S&L) program development under the 12th Five Year Plan, an evaluation of recent program developments and future directions is needed to identify gaps that still exist when compared with international best practices. The review of China’s S&L program development and implementation in comparison with major findings from international experiences reveal that there are still areas of improvement, particularly when compared to success factors observed across leading international S&L program. China currently lacks a formalized regulatory process for standard-setting and do not have any legal or regulatory guidance on elements of S&L development such as stakeholder participation or the issue of legal precedence between conflicting national, industrial and local standards. Consequently, China’s laws regarding standard-setting and management of the mandatory energy label program could be updated, as they have not been amended or revised recently and no longer reflects the current situation. While China uses similar principles for choosing target products as the U.S., Australia, EU and Japan, including high energy-consumption, mature industry and testing procedure and stakeholder support, recent MEPS revisions have generally aimed at only eliminating the bottom 20% efficiency of the market. Setting a firm principle based on maximizing energy savings that are technically feasible and economically justified may help improve the stringency of China’s MEPS program and reduce the need for frequent revisions. China also lacks robust survey data and relies primarily on market research data in relatively simple techno-economic analyses used to determine its efficiency standards levels rather than the specific sets of analyses and tools used internationally. Based on international experiences, inclusion of more detailed energy consumption surveys in the Chinese national census surveys and statistical reporting systems could help provide the necessary data for more comprehensive standard-setting analyses. In terms of stakeholder participation in the standards development process, stakeholder participation in China is limited to membership on technical committees responsible for developing or revising standards and generally do not include environmental groups, consumer associations, utilities and other NGOs. Increasing stakeholder involvement to broader interest groups could help garner more support and feedback in the S&L implementation process. China has emerged as a leader in a national verification testing scheme with complementary pilot checktesting projects, but it still faces challenges with insufficient funding, low local awareness amongst some regulatory agencies and resistance to check-testing by some manufacturers, limited product sampling scope, and testing inconsistency and incomparability of results. Thus, further financial and staff resources and capacity building will be needed to overcome these remaining challenges and to expand impacts evaluations to assess the actual effectiveness of implementation and enforcement.
We present a final report on our program to raise the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of enhanced charge‐coupled‐device (CCD) detectors capable of meeting the requirements of X‐ray grating spectrometers (XGS) and wide‐field X‐ray imaging instruments for small, medium, and large missions. Because they are made of silicon, all X‐ray CCDs require blocking filters to prevent corruption of the Xray signal by out‐of‐band, mainly optical and near‐infrared (near‐IR) radiation. Our primary objective is to demonstrate technology that can replace the fragile, extremely thin, free‐standing blocking filter that has been standard practice with a much more robust filter deposited directly on the detector surface. High‐performance, back‐illuminated CCDs have flown with free‐standing filters (e.g., one of our detectors on Suzaku), and other relatively low‐performance CCDs with directly deposited filters have flown (e.g., on the X‐ray Multi‐mirror Mission‐Newton, XMM‐Newton Reflection Grating Spectrometer, RGS). At the inception of our program, a high‐performance, back‐illuminated CCD with a directly deposited filter has not been demonstrated. Our effort will be the first to show such a filter can be deposited on an X‐ray CCD that meets the requirements of a variety of contemplated future instruments. Our principal results are as follows: i) we have demonstrated a process for direct deposition of aluminum optical blocking filters on back‐illuminated MIT Lincoln Laboratory CCDs. Filters ranging in thickness from 70 nm to 220 nm exhibit expected bulk visible‐band and X‐ray transmission properties except in a small number (affecting ≲ 1% of detector area) of isolated detector pixels ("pinholes"), which show higher‐than‐expected visible‐band transmission; ii) these filters produce no measurable degradation in soft‐X‐ray spectral resolution, demonstrating that direct filter deposition is compatible with the MIT Lincoln Laboratory back‐illumination process; iii) we have shown that under sufficiently intense visible and near‐IR illumination, out‐of‐band light can enter the detector through its sidewalls and mounting surfaces, compromising detector performance. This 'sidewall leakage' has been observed, for example, by a previous experiment on the International Space Station during its orbit‐day operations. We have developed effective countermeasures for this sidewall leakage; iv) we developed an exceptionally productive collaboration with the Regolith X‐ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS) team. REXIS is a student instrument now flying on the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security - Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS‐REx) mission. REXIS students participated in our filter development program, adopted our technology for their flight instrument, and raised the TRL of this technology beyond our initial goals. This Strategic Astrophysics Technology (SAT) project, a collaboration between the MKI and MIT Lincoln Laboratory, began July 1, 2012, and ended on June 30, 2018.
A computer program developed to calculate the ordinates and surface slopes of any thickness, symmetrical or cambered NACA airfoil of the 4-digit, 4-digit modified, 5-digit, and 16-series airfoil families is presented. The program produces plots of the airfoil nondimensional ordinates and a punch card output of ordinates in the input format of a readily available program for determining the pressure distributions of arbitrary airfoils in subsonic potential viscous flow.
Development of generalized digital contouring program
Programs are now underway to develop and demonstrate the detector/array technology needed for the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), Large Deployable Reflector (LDR), and other future NASA missions. The development goal is to achieve focal plane sensitivities, at extended integration times over the 2 to 700 microns range, limited only by the low astrophysical backgrounds encountered in cryogenic telescopes such as SIRTF. Dramatic progress has been made in the last 2 to 3 years in integrated array and detector systems for low background astronomical applications. With the broadly based developments and lab characterizations now underway for SIRTF and similar space applications, coupled with the rapidly expanding art and science of ground based astronomical imagery with arrays, the potential for effective utilization of arrays with LDR appears to be very good.
Nuclear power has contributed almost 20% of the total amount of electricity generated in the United States over the past two decades. High capacity factors and low operating costs make nuclear power plants (NPPs) some of the most economical power generators available. Further, nuclear power remains the single largest contributor (nearly 70%) of non-greenhouse gas-emitting electric power generation in the United States. Even when major refurbishments are performed to extend operating life, these plants continue to represent cost-effective, low-carbon assets to the nation’s electrical generation capability. By the end of 2014, about one-third of the existing domestic fleet will have passed their 40th anniversary of power operations, and about one-half of the fleet will reach the same 40-year mark within this decade. Recognizing the challenges associated with pursuing extended service life of commercial nuclear power plants, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) have established separate but complementary research and development programs (DOE-NE’s Light Water Reactor Sustainability [LWRS] Program and EPRI’s Long-Term Operations [LTO] Program) to address these challenges. To ensure that a proper linkage is maintained between the programs, DOE-NE and EPRI executed a memorandum of understanding in late 2010 to “establish guiding principles under which research activities (between LWRS and LTO) could be coordinated to the benefit of both parties.” This document represents the third annual revision to the initial version (March 2011) of the plan as called for in the memorandum of understanding.