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Results for “Design Extrapolation”

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 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1991

Analysis of an initial lunar outpost life support system preliminary design

A preliminary design of a life-support system (LSS) was developed as part of an ongoing comprehensive trade study of advanced processor technologies and system architectures for an initial lunar outpost. The design is based on a mission scenario requiring intermittent occupation of a lunar-surface habitat by a crew of four. It incorporates physiochemical process technologies that were considered for Space Station Freedom. A system-level simulation model of the design was developed to obtain steady-state material balances for each LSS processor. The mass-flow rate predictions were used to obtain estimates of the LSS mass, volume, and power consumption by means of processor-sizing correlations that were extrapolated from Space Station Freedom processor designs. The results were used to analyze the impacts of varying crew size, mission duration, processor-operation strategy, and crew-cabin loads on the LSS mass, average power consumption, volume, periodic resupply mass, and waste-accumulation rates. The merits of the design were quantified relative to an open-loop LSS, and the implications of this assessment for future LSS research and technology development were identified.

Ballin, Mark G.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Approximate simulation model for analysis and optimization in engineering system design

Computational support of the engineering design process routinely requires mathematical models of behavior to inform designers of the system response to external stimuli. However, designers also need to know the effect of the changes in design variable values on the system behavior. For large engineering systems, the conventional way of evaluating these effects by repetitive simulation of behavior for perturbed variables is impractical because of excessive cost and inadequate accuracy. An alternative is described based on recently developed system sensitivity analysis that is combined with extrapolation to form a model of design. This design model is complementary to the model of behavior and capable of direct simulation of the effects of design variable changes.

Sobieszczanski-Sobieski, Jaroslaw↗
NASA NTRS2004

Application of Recommended Design Practices for Conceptual Nuclear Fusion Space Propulsion Systems

An AIAA Special Project Report was recently produced by AIAA's Nuclear and Future Flight Propulsion Technical Committee and is currently in peer review. The Report provides recommended design practices for conceptual engineering studies of nuclear fusion space propulsion systems. Discussion and recommendations are made on key topics including design reference missions, degree of technological extrapolation and concomitant risk, thoroughness in calculating mass properties (nominal mass properties, weight-growth contingency and propellant margins, and specific impulse), and thoroughness in calculating power generation and usage (power-flow, power contingencies, specific power). The report represents a general consensus of the nuclear fusion space propulsion system conceptual design community and proposes 15 recommendations. This paper expands on the Report by providing specific examples illustrating how to apply each of the recommendations.

Williams, Craig H.↗
DOE OSTI2025

FY25 status report on the addition of candidate materials in Class B Code Case

This report provides the time-dependent allowable stress calculation strategy leveraging the limited creep rupture tests data generated to support the allowable stress for 100,000 hours in American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC), Section II, Part D. A variable confidence index procedure to extrapolate material properties to support 500,000 hours design life is discussed. Time-dependent allowable stresses for Class B component design and analysis are presented for Grade 1 and Grade 2 of Alloy 625. The presented data extrapolation and allowable stress calculation method will support new material addition using limited creep rupture data in the new ASME Boiler and BPVC, Section III, Division 5, Class B rules.

Part D↗
NASA NTRS1978

HEAO attitude reference design

The paper deals with the precision onboard attitude reference implemented as part of the attitude control and determination subsystem for the three High Energy Astronomy Observatories (HEAO-A, HEAO-B, and HEAO-C) in the HEAO scientific spacecraft program. The first observatory (HEAO-A, designated HEAO-1 when in orbit) was launched successfully into near-earth orbit on August 12, 1977. The HEAO attitude reference, analysis techniques for performance prediction, and flight results from the HEAO-1 observatory during its first months of operation. The HEAO-B design is specifically described and analyzed in terms of gyro processing, kinematic integration, ground update algorithm, and star tracker update algorithm. Attitude reference performance estimates are also discussed. It is shown that the orbital performance of the attitude reference correlates very well with the developmental predictions, thereby validating the analytical techniques used during the development. This validation provides a firm basis from which to extrapolate to other applications and related design concepts.

Hoffman, D. P.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Measurement and Characterization of Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Motor Plume Acoustics

Lift-off acoustic environments generated by the future Ares I launch vehicle are assessed by the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) acoustics team using several prediction tools. This acoustic environment is directly caused by the Ares I First Stage booster, powered by the five-segment Reusable Solid Rocket Motor (RSRMV). The RSRMV is a larger-thrust derivative design from the currently used Space Shuttle solid rocket motor, the Reusable Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM). Lift-off acoustics is an integral part of the composite launch vibration environment affecting the Ares launch vehicle and must be assessed to help generate hardware qualification levels and ensure structural integrity of the vehicle during launch and lift-off. Available prediction tools that use free field noise source spectrums as a starting point for generation of lift-off acoustic environments are described in the monograph NASA SP-8072: "Acoustic Loads Generated by the Propulsion System." This monograph uses a reference database for free field noise source spectrums which consist of subscale rocket motor firings, oriented in horizontal static configurations. The phrase "subscale" is appropriate, since the thrust levels of rockets in the reference database are orders of magnitude lower than the current design thrust for the Ares launch family. Thus, extrapolation is needed to extend the various reference curves to match Ares-scale acoustic levels. This extrapolation process yields a subsequent amount of uncertainty added upon the acoustic environment predictions. As the Ares launch vehicle design schedule progresses, it is important to take every opportunity to lower prediction uncertainty and subsequently increase prediction accuracy. Never before in NASA s history has plume acoustics been measured for large scale solid rocket motors. Approximately twice a year, the RSRM prime vendor, ATK Launch Systems, static fires an assembled RSRM motor in a horizontal configuration at their test facility in Utah. The remaining RSRM static firings will take place on elevated terrain, with the nozzle exit plume being mostly undeflected and the landscape allowing placement of microphones within direct line of sight to the exhaust plume. These measurements will help assess the current extrapolation process by direct comparison between subscale and full scale solid rocket motor data.

Kenny, Jeremy↗
NASA NTRS1995

Supersonic civil airplane study and design: Performance and sonic boom

Since aircraft configuration plays an important role in aerodynamic performance and sonic boom shape, the configuration of the next generation supersonic civil transport has to be tailored to meet high aerodynamic performance and low sonic boom requirements. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can be used to design airplanes to meet these dual objectives. The work and results in this report are used to support NASA's High Speed Research Program (HSRP). CFD tools and techniques have been developed for general usages of sonic boom propagation study and aerodynamic design. Parallel to the research effort on sonic boom extrapolation, CFD flow solvers have been coupled with a numeric optimization tool to form a design package for aircraft configuration. This CFD optimization package has been applied to configuration design on a low-boom concept and an oblique all-wing concept. A nonlinear unconstrained optimizer for Parallel Virtual Machine has been developed for aerodynamic design and study.

Cheung, Samson↗
DOE OSTI2023

Extrapolation of the Rainflow-Counted Load Ranges for Fatigue Assessment of the Wind Turbine's Blades

Wind turbine design standards recommend the use of statistical modeling coupled with extrapolation of the short-term load data to long-term periods for fatigue reliability assessment. However, statistical error and computational expense can limit the accuracy of such approaches. In the case of wind turbine blades, the errors are more significant because of the high material fatigue exponent that makes the damage estimations more sensitive to variations. In addition, due to different excitation sources, the flapwise load range histogram is not unimodal, and thus its statistical modeling is complex. In the present work, we provide three methods for statistical modeling of the flapwise bending moment ranges including a novel approach based on frequency-based separation of the modes. The first two methods are simplified approaches for modeling the most crucial load ranges using unimodal distributions and the third method involves multimodal distribution fitting. The research is based on 3600 10-minute aeroelastic simulations of DTU 10MW case study wind turbine from which a benchmark damage equivalent load (DEL) is calculated. The DEL calculated by each of the three proposed methods is compared to this reference. The results show that the conventional approach based on using 6 seeds as well as using mixture models fitted on the limited data lead to under-conservative results with errors up to 23%. On the other hand, the simplified unimodal approaches provided in this work can provide conservative estimations of the fatigue damage with mean values 5% and 12% higher than the benchmark. However, the variability of the DEL estimates is higher when using unimodal extrapolation of the load ranges, and the data can be conservative by 17.5%. The proposed unimodal fits suggested for modeling and extrapolation of the blade's load ranges provide less errors relatively and most importantly conservative DEL estimations while maintaining computational efficiency.

blade fatigue↗
DOE OSTI2021

Fast Charging of Li-Ion Cells: Part V. Design and Demonstration of Protocols to Avoid Li-Plating

Fast charging of Li-ion batteries would make “fueling” of electric vehicles comparable in time to fueling of gasoline-powered cars, increasing consumer appeal of the new technology. Taking the US Department of Energy goal of safe 6 C charging to 80% capacity as a guide, we describe approaches that can mitigate Li plating on the graphite anode. To make this possible, a variable-rate anode potential charging protocol has been implemented by using a microprobe reference electrode to continuously monitor and adjust the current, in this way avoiding low anode potentials that favor Li deposition. Various implementations of the anode potential control are considered using electrochemical modeling and compared with the experimental data. For charge to 80% capacity at 30 °C, an average C-rate of 4.97 C was obtained for an NCM523/graphite cell with 70 μ m thick graphite electrode and 7.40 C for a cell with 47 μ m thick graphite electrode. Our electrochemical model accounts for these observations and provides a means to extrapolate the approach to other cell designs and operation regimes, drawing the maximum average fast charging rates that can still avoid Li plating.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Results of Oklo Diffusion Couple Experiments

Through the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) initiative, the U.S. Department of Energy funded a GAIN Nuclear Energy Voucher to perform out-of-pile experiments related to the fuel design for Oklo Inc., headquartered in Santa Clara, CA. GAIN’s goal is to accelerate the innovation and application of advanced nuclear technologies, and voucher recipients do not receive direct financial awards but are provided access to national laboratory capabilities at no cost. This report documents the results of diffusion couple experiments performed as part of the GAIN-funded project for Oklo. This work addresses the specific problem of filling the gap in understanding of the fuel-cladding chemical interaction (FCCI) that result from the past focus on a particular fuel design. These knowledge and mechanistic modeling gaps make it difficult to extrapolate from prior fuel performance data to advance an economically competitive fuel design. Specifically, the current state-of-the-art fuel performance modeling cannot separate the entangled effects of temperature ranges, burnups, materials, and geometries.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Influence of Water Sorption on Ionic Conductivity in Polyether Electrolytes at Low Hydration

Ion-containing polymers are subject to a wide range of hydration conditions across electrochemical and water treatment applications. Significant work on dry polymer electrolytes for batteries and highly swollen membranes for water purification has informed our understanding of ion transport under extreme conditions. However, knowledge of intermediate conditions (i.e., low hydration) is essential to emerging applications (e.g., electrolyzers, fuel cells, and lithium extraction). Ion transport under low levels of hydration is distinct from the extreme conditions typically investigated, and the relevant physics cannot be extrapolated from existing knowledge, stifling materials design. In this study, we conducted ion transport measurements in LiTFSI-doped polyethers that were systematically hydrated from dry conditions. A semiautomated apparatus that performs parallel measurements of water uptake and ionic conductivity in thin-film polymers under controlled humidity was developed. For the materials and swelling range considered in this study (i.e., <0.07 g water/g dry polymer electrolyte), ionic conductivity depends nonlinearly on water uptake, with the initial sorbed water weakly affecting conductivity. With additional increases in swelling, more significant increases in conductivity were observed. Remarkably, changes in conductivity induced by water sorption were correlated with the number of water molecules per lithium ion, with the normalized molar conductivity of different samples effectively collapsing onto one another until this unit of hydration exceeded the solvation number of lithium ions under aqueous conditions. Furthermore, these results provide important knowledge regarding the effects of trace water contamination on conductivity measurements in polymer electrolytes and demonstrate that the lithium-ion solvation number marks a key transition point regarding the influence of water on ion transport in ion-containing polymers.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS1977

The epoch state navigation filter

The formulation of a recursive maximum likelihood navigation system employing reference position and velocity vectors as state variables is presented. Convenient forms of the required variational equations of motion are developed together with an explicit form of the associated state transition matrix needed to refer measurement data from the measurement time to the epoch time. Computational advantages accrue from this design in that the usual forward extrapolation of the covariance matrix of estimation errors can be avoided without incurring unacceptable system errors. Simulation data for earth orbiting satellites are provided to substantiate this assertion.

Battin, R. H.↗
NASA NTRS1972

Precision state and filter weighting matrix extrapolation, revision 3

The matrix extrapolation routine presented is a coded algorithm for the numerical solution of modified forms of the basic differential equations which are satisfied by the geocentric state vector of a spacecraft's center of mass and by the filter-weighting matrix. The equations are described in detail and the various input and output variables designated. The capability is thus established to extrapolate any spacecraft's geocentric state vector, either backwards or forwards in time, through a force field consisting of the earth's primary central-force gravitational attraction, and a superimposed perturbing acceleration.

Robertson, W. M.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Spanning surface interaction length scales for the design of industrial antifouling materials

Fouling of surfaces introduces significant operational and economic challenges in marine and membrane systems. While empirical fouling assays and surface science methodologies have independently introduced fouling resistant methodologies and functionalities within each of these respective application spaces, they remain limited by their inability to extrapolate findings across length scales and inform materials design strategies. This perspective emphasizes the need to bridge the macroscale fouling assays conducted in the marine community and molecular-scale insights obtained from the membranes community. Here, by uniting these approaches, generalized design strategies can be developed across applications, leading to the realization of effective antifouling materials over a wide spectrum of operating conditions and foulant types. Standardized and high-throughput methodologies are proposed as tools to unify research efforts to drive the development of next-generation antifouling coatings and treatments.

fouling assays↗
DOE OSTI2025

Combining physics-based and data-driven models for quantitatively accurate plasma profile prediction that extrapolates well; with application to DIII-D, AUG, and ITER tokamaks

For design, scenario planning, and control, ITER and all other envisioned tokamaks rely on a variety of statistical and physics-based models to extrapolate to unseen regimes; most notably from low plasma current to high. A 'meta-learning' methodology for combining the accuracy of data-driven models with the generalizability of physics-based models is described and tested, yielding a 5–10 percent improvement in performance beyond either alone for the task of extrapolating time-dependent plasma profile prediction from low- to high- plasma current DIII-D tokamak discharges. Meanwhile, it is shown that both machine learning models extrapolated far-distribution and state-of-the-art 'physics-based' profile predictors fare worse than merely assuming plasma profiles do not change from their initial values. Finally, a variety of other mechanisms for helping data-driven models generalize—transfer learning, adding contextual information from physics simulators, and adding data from the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak—are attempted for similar extrapolation tasks but, in the methodology used in this paper, yield no significant improvement beyond simple data-driven models. Results are summarized in figures 15 and 16.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Learning plasma dynamics and robust rampdown trajectories with predict-first experiments at TCV

The rampdown phase of a tokamak pulse is difficult to simulate and often exacerbates multiple plasma instabilities. To reduce the risk of disrupting operations, we leverage advances in Scientific Machine Learning (SciML) to combine physics with data-driven models, developing a neural state-space model (NSSM) that predicts plasma dynamics during Tokamak à Configuration Variable (TCV) rampdowns. The NSSM efficiently learns dynamics from a modest dataset of 311 pulses with only five pulses in a reactor-relevant high-performance regime. The NSSM is parallelized across uncertainties, and reinforcement learning (RL) is applied to design trajectories that avoid instability limits. High-performance experiments at TCV show statistically significant improvements in relevant metrics. A predict-first experiment, increasing plasma current by 20% from baseline, demonstrates the NSSM’s ability to make small extrapolations. The developed approach paves the way for designing tokamak controls with robustness to considerable uncertainty and demonstrates the relevance of SciML for fusion experiments.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1994

High speed civil transport: Sonic boom softening and aerodynamic optimization

An improvement in sonic boom extrapolation techniques has been the desire of aerospace designers for years. This is because the linear acoustic theory developed in the 60's is incapable of predicting the nonlinear phenomenon of shock wave propagation. On the other hand, CFD techniques are too computationally expensive to employ on sonic boom problems. Therefore, this research focused on the development of a fast and accurate sonic boom extrapolation method that solves the Euler equations for axisymmetric flow. This new technique has brought the sonic boom extrapolation techniques up to the standards of the 90's. Parallel computing is a fast growing subject in the field of computer science because of its promising speed. A new optimizer (IIOWA) for the parallel computing environment has been developed and tested for aerodynamic drag minimization. This is a promising method for CFD optimization making use of the computational resources of workstations, which unlike supercomputers can spend most of their time idle. Finally, the OAW concept is attractive because of its overall theoretical performance. In order to fully understand the concept, a wind-tunnel model was built and is currently being tested at NASA Ames Research Center. The CFD calculations performed under this cooperative agreement helped to identify the problem of the flow separation, and also aided the design by optimizing the wing deflection for roll trim.

Cheung, Samson↗
DOE OSTI2021

Draft Rules for Alloy 617 Creep-Fatigue Design Using an EPP+SMT Approach

The report describes an improved new creep-fatigue design method for structural components in high temperature nuclear service. The new method uses an integrated elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis and Simplified Model Test (SMT) approach that greatly simplifies the design process by avoiding the separate evaluation of creep and fatigue damages and eliminating the requirement of stress classification. The report includes draft design rules, presented in a format compatible with an ASME nuclear Code Case, as well as a commentary on the rules and the validation of the rules using pressurized SMT (p-SMT) test data. Areas of potential improvement have been identified for further evaluation. The report also develops EPP+SMT design charts for Alloy 617 at temperatures between 800°C and 950°C by extrapolating high strain range, short hold test data to low strain range and long hold times, typical for structural components in high temperature nuclear service. The design charts are currently limited to 10,000 cycles to avoid excessive extrapolation outside the test database. More robust alternate extrapolation procedures will be considered in future work. The report includes several verification problems comparing the new EPP+SMT design method with current ASME creep-fatigue design methods. The comparison demonstrates that the EPP+SMT method significantly reduces the over-conservatism in current methods. Finally, the report includes a fully-documented sample problem with multiple load cases detailing the application of proposed EPP+SMT design rules.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗