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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 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2017

Personalized Infrastructure: Leveraging Behavioral Strategies for Future Mobility

For decades, the transportation system has been built to position the personal automobile at the pinnacle of mobility options. This prominence is strongly reflected in individual and population behaviors, and supported by coevolved transportation policy, social norms, funding, and physical structures. Such has been the status quo for the living memory of the U.S. population. However, with the advent of emergent, technologically driven mobility options, the transportation system is in an era of rapid and disruptive change. No longer is transportation infrastructure an externality predominantly composed of physical elements; it is also now a personalized interface carried in the pockets of the majority of the population. Perceptions of personal mobility are evolving, in large part because of the proliferation of smartphone technology and the related Internet of Things (IoT), which will become increasingly essential within future transportation systems. With the emergence of personalized mobility infrastructure, many intervention approaches to influence transportation behavior do not adequately acknowledge the complexity of the social/digital environment within which transportation decisions are made. Transportation decisions are influenced by multiple facets, including costs and benefits in time and money, but also by sociocultural elements shaped by social norms and diffusion of ideas. Understanding of factors that lead to transportation behaviors can help to identify incentives and leverage points whereby alternative choices may be most accepted by individuals, and which, if well coordinated, may lead to improved transportation energy outcomes. How can change be initiated to shift away from the transportation status quo? Is it possible to use technologically delivered incentives to produce meaningful changes in transportation behavior? What types of incentives and at what perceived value is necessary to induce changes in behavior? As transportation agencies look toward an ever more complex mobility landscape, and with a quickly growing population, we look for answers to these questions as the core of developing strategies for the future of transportation. Using available data from emergent modes, and experiments conducted as part of an Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) Traveler Response Architecture using Novel Signaling for Network Efficiency in Transportation (TRANSNET) project, we look at how the sharing economy and transportation mobility services have begun to radically alter transportation behavior, while operating in parallel with traditional transportation infrastructure. Emerging modes and practices are affecting car dependence and enabling multimodality. We weigh influences on travel behaviors, identify decision breakpoints where inelastic behavior becomes elastic, incentives, and societal leverage points.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2018

Capturing the 'Representative Person' Using Exposure Equations and Input Variable Distributions - 18416

Radiological performance assessments (PAs) for radioactive waste employ the concept of future human receptors, or persons potentially exposed to radiation releases. The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) has defined the 'representative person' as a receptor, to replace the earlier concept of an 'average member of the critical group', for use in individual dose assessments and comparisons to regulatory criteria. A representative person can be assessed in PAs by defining a critical group, which is a relatively highly exposed subpopulation; and then estimating average exposures, doses, and risks for that group. Probabilistic PA models employ probability distributions to characterize uncertainty in exposure characteristics/variables at a scale aligned with contaminant transport and other aspects of the PA model. The concept of a representative person from a critical group, in the context of the first stage of an iterative approach and a probabilistic PA model, is illustrated using a receptor scenario and a set of exposure equations that incorporate probability distributions for input variables. Different scenarios may require different equations and distributions, but the approach taken is broadly generalizable. PA practitioners and regulators may benefit from such a generalizable method, as it may simplify approaches as well as facilitate reviews and comparisons between different PAs. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2018

Personal thermal management using portable thermoelectrics for potential building energy saving

Heating and cooling of buildings consume approximately 15% of all energy used in the United States. Such a large energy demand is primarily due to heating and cooling of the entire building space to temperature setpoints usually between 21.1 degrees C (70 degrees F) and 23.9 degrees C (75 degrees F). However, even with such a narrow range of temperature setpoints, more than 20% of the occupants do not feel thermally comfortable due to individual differences (e.g. age, gender, clothing, or physiology). The personal thermal management techniques, which create a local thermal envelope around a human body instead of heating or cooling the entire building space, have the potential to greatly reduce the building energy consumption and to enhance thermal comfort of individuals. In this study, a portable thermoelectric energy conversion unit (TECU) that converts electricity into cooling and heating energy is developed. The TECU supplies cool air (in the cooling mode) or warm air (in the heating mode) to regulate the thermal comfort of a human body. The cool or warm air is supplied through a tree-like rubber tube network that is knitted into a thermoregulatory undergarment. To achieve a cooling/heating target that provides satisfactory thermal comfort, the required cooling/heating power supply from the TECU is determined first while a theoretical model is then developed to guide the design of the TECU. To minimize the TECU weight and make it suitable for portable applications, relationships between weight and thermal resistances of commercial off-the-shelf heat sinks are established first, and a method to find the minimal weight of heat sinks for the TECU is then developed. This methodology is also applicable for other applications where heat sink weight needs to be minimized. The thermal manikin tests demonstrate that 24.6 W of personal cooling power and 18.5 W of personal heating power are achieved by using the TECU.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2014

Assessment of toxic metals in waste personal computers

Highlights: • Waste personal computers were collected and dismantled in their main parts. • Motherboards, monitors and plastic housing were examined in their metal content. • Concentrations measured were compared to the RoHS Directive, 2002/95/EC. • Pb in motherboards and funnel glass of devices released <2006 was above the limit. • Waste personal computers need to be recycled and environmentally sound managed. - Abstract: Considering the enormous production of waste personal computers nowadays, it is obvious that the study of their composition is necessary in order to regulate their management and prevent any environmental contamination caused by their inappropriate disposal. This study aimed at determining the toxic metals content of motherboards (printed circuit boards), monitor glass and monitor plastic housing of two Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors, three Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) monitors, one LCD touch screen monitor and six motherboards, all of which were discarded. In addition, concentrations of chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg) were compared with the respective limits set by the RoHS 2002/95/EC Directive, that was recently renewed by the 2012/19/EU recast, in order to verify manufacturers’ compliance with the regulation. The research included disassembly, pulverization, digestion and chemical analyses of all the aforementioned devices. The toxic metals content of all samples was determined using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). The results demonstrated that concentrations of Pb in motherboards and funnel glass of devices with release dates before 2006, that is when the RoHS Directive came into force, exceeded the permissible limit. In general, except from Pb, higher metal concentrations were detected in motherboards in comparison with plastic housing and glass samples. Finally, the results of this work were encouraging, since concentrations of metals referred in the RoHS Directive were found in lower levels than the legislative limits.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2017

The Trip Itinerary Optimization Platform: A Framework for Personalized Travel Information

The New Concepts Incubator team at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) developed a three-stage online platform for travel diary collection, personal travel plan optimization and travel itinerary visualization. In the first stage, users provide a travel diary for the previous day through an interactive map and calendar interface and survey for travel attitudes and behaviors. One or more days later, users are invited via email to engage in a second stage where they view a personal mobility dashboard displaying recommended travel itineraries generated from a novel framework that optimizes travel outcomes over a sequence of interrelated trips. A week or more after viewing these recommended travel itineraries on the dashboard, users are emailed again to engage in a third stage where they complete a final survey about travel attitudes and behaviors. A usability study of the platform conducted online showed that, in general, users found the system valuable for informing their travel decisions. A total of 274 individuals were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk, an online survey platform, to participate in a transportation study using this platform. On average, the platform distilled 65 feasible travel plans per individual into two recommended itineraries, each optimal according to one or more outcomes and dependent on the fixed times and locations from the travel diary. For 45 percent of users, the trip recommendation algorithm returned only a single, typically automobile-centric, itinerary because there were no other viable alternative transportation modes available. Platform users generally agreed that the dashboard was enjoyable and easy to use, and that it would be a helpful tool in adopting new travel behaviors. Users generally agreed most that the time, cost and user preferred recommendations 'made sense' to them, and were most willing to implement these itineraries. Platform users typically expressed low willingness to try the carbon and calories optimized itineraries. Of the platform users who viewed the dashboard, 13 percent reported changing their travel behavior, most adopting the time, calories or carbon optimized itineraries. While the algorithm incorporates a wealth of travel data obtained from online APIs pertaining to a travelers route such as historic traffic condition data, public transit time-tables, and bike path routes, open-ended responses from users expressed an interest in the integration of even more fine-grained traffic data and the ability to dynamically model the effect of changes in travel times. Users also commonly expressed concerns over the safety of walking and biking recommendations. Responses indicate that more information about the amenities available to cyclists and pedestrians (sidewalks, shade from trees, access to food) and routes that avoid areas of perceived elevated danger would reduce barriers to implementing these recommendations. More accurate representations of personal vehicle trips (based on vehicle make and model, implications of parking) and the identification of routes that optimize caloric intensity (seeking out elevation changes or longer walks to public transit) are promising avenues for future research.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2015

Development of Personalized Radiant Cooling System for an Office Room

The building industry nowadays is facing two major challenges increased concern for energy reduction and growing need for thermal comfort. These challenges have led many researchers to develop Radiant Cooling Systems that show a large potential for energy savings. This study aims to develop a personalized cooling system using the principle of radiant cooling integrated with conventional all-air system to achieve better thermal environment at the workspace. Personalized conditioning aims to create a microclimatic zone around a single workspace. In this way, the energy is deployed only where it is actually needed, and the individual s needs for thermal comfort are fulfilled. To study the effect of air temperature along with air temperature distribution for workspace, air temperature near the vicinity of the occupant has been obtained as a result of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation using FLUENT. The analysis showed that personalized radiant system improves thermal environment near the workspace and allows all-air systems to work at higher thermostat temperature without compromising the thermal comfort, which in turn reduces its energy consumption.

CFD↗
DOE OSTI2025

Test–retest reliability for a social discounting of personal information task

Increasing cybercrime rates means identifying potential victims is critically important. Social discounting tasks show that individuals share less personally identifying information as social distance increases. However, the test–retest reliability and uniqueness of this measure is unclear. The current study assessed social discounting for personally identifying information (SDPII), delay discounting, risk taking, and personality at two measurement waves 30 days apart for 64 undergraduate students. Test–retest reliability was statistically significant for the SDPII and all other measures, replicating previous studies. SDPII rates were not significantly correlated with other measures during both measurement waves, showing discriminant validity. SDPII rates were lower than those reported in a previous study but were still well described by a hyperbolic discounting function, suggesting replicability across studies. Furthermore, the high test–retest reliability, uniqueness, and replicability of the SDPII suggests that it may quantitatively identify cybercrime victimization. Future research should test which measure or combination of measures can accurately predict scam and cybercrime victimization to inform data-based interventions.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Comparing the effect of virtual and in-person instruction on students’ performance in a design for additive manufacturing learning activity

The goal of this work is to compare the outcome of a design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) heuristics lesson conducted in a virtual learning environment to the same in an in-person learning environment. Prior work revealed that receiving DfAM heuristics at different points in the design process impacts the quality and novelty of designs produced afterward, but this work may have been limited by the solely virtual format. In this work, an identical experiment was performed in a face-to-face learning environment. Results indicate that neither learning format presents an advantage over the other when it comes to the quality of designs produced during the intervention. Participants across all experimental groups reported an increase in self-efficacy after the intervention, with improved performance on quiz-type questions. Furthermore, the novelty and variety of the designs produced by the in-person experimental groups were significantly lower than that of the virtual experimental groups. In addition to validating the effectiveness of virtual instruction as a teaching method, these results also support the authors’ hypothesis that the priming effect is stronger in an in-person classroom than in a virtual classroom.

Design for additive manufacturing↗
DOE OSTI2018

Assessment of exposure to air pollution in children: Determining whether wearing a personal monitor affects physical activity

Highlights: • Personal air pollution exposure should not interfere with usual patterns of behavior. • Overall, personal pollution samplers did not influence usual patterns of behavior in children. • Small decreases in activity while wearing the monitors were noted among the youngest participants. Personal air pollution monitoring in research studies should not interfere with usual patterns of behavior and bias results. In an urban pediatric cohort study we tested whether wearing an air monitor impacted activity time based on continuous watch-based accelerometry. The majority (71%) reported that activity while wearing the monitor mimicked normal activity. Correspondingly, variation in activity while wearing versus not wearing the monitor did not differ greatly from baseline variation in activity (P = 0.84).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

Seasonal effects on electric vehicle energy consumption and driving range: A case study on personal, taxi, and ridesharing vehicles

The variation in BEV energy consumption and driving range under different weather and driving conditions can affect the usefulness and consumer acceptance of these vehicles. Thus, there is a need to better understand and quantify seasonal factors that affect consumption and range under real-world driving conditions. In this paper, a dataset representing the real-world driving activity of 197 BEVs of the same model recorded over 12 months at a polling frequency of 0.1 Hz is analyzed to estimate BEV performance across different driving applications (personal driving, taxi operation, and ridesharing) and seasons (spring/autumn, summer, and winter). The results show that the electricity consumption, travel patterns, and charging patterns of BEVs vary significantly by both vehicle application and season. For example, BEV models with a range of 160 km, recharged every 1.6 days on average, can meet most trip demands of personal vehicles. However, the same BEV model when used for ridesharing or taxi purposes, is driven much more and recharged more frequently. The results also show that actual BEV electricity consumption (EC) differs significantly from the consumption predicted by the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) test, with real-world EC being 7%–10% higher than predicted by the NEDC test cycle. Furthermore, the real-world range of personal-use BEVs in winter is only 64% of the NEDC-estimated range. The study found that, when the ambient temperature is lower than 10 °C, electricity consumption increases 2.4 kWh/100 km for every 5 °C decrease in temperature. When it is higher than 28 °C, EC increases 2.3 kWh/100 km for every 5 °C increase in temperature. Furthermore, these findings imply that manufacturers should design BEVs with application-appropriate driving ranges and make R&D investments for improving battery performance in cold environments.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2017

Learning View-Invariant Features for Person Identification in Temporally Synchronized Videos Taken by Wearable Cameras

In this paper, we study the problem of Cross-View Person Identification (CVPI), which aims at identifying the same person from temporally synchronized videos taken by different wearable cameras. Our basic idea is to utilize the human motion consistency for CVPI, where human motion can be computed by optical flow. However, optical flow is view-variant - the same person's optical flow in different videos can be very different due to view angle change. In this paper, we attempt to utilize 3D human-skeleton sequences to learn a model that can extract view-invariant motion features from optical flows in different views. For this purpose, we use 3D Mocap database to build a synthetic optical flow dataset and train a Triplet Network (TN) consisting of three sub-networks: two for optical flow sequences from different views and one for the underlying 3D Mocap skeleton sequence. Finally, sub-networks for optical flows are used to extract view-invariant features for CVPI. Experimental results show that, using only the motion information, the proposed method can achieve comparable performance with the state-of-the-art methods. Further combination of the proposed method with an appearance-based method achieves new state-of-the-art performance.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2018

Development of an Active, Man-Portable, Cooling System with Dehumidification Capabilities for Personal Protective Clothing/Equipment

Mainstream Engineering Corporation completed a highly successful SBIR program, during which we developed and commercialized products for microclimate cooling systems (MCS) and the heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC/R) industry. We are marketing the MCS family of products for use with personal protective clothing/equipment (PPC/PPE) for firefighters, workers in clean rooms, HAZMAT response and other contamination/remediation teams, and military personnel that are required to wear Mission-Oriented Protective Posture (MOPP) suits and bomb disposal suits. Workers in these industries risk heat stress when confined within protective garments while in hot and humid environments. Our family of MCS and HVAC/R products that resulted from this SBIR program includes: 1. Active, Man-Portable, MCS for PPC/E—Our active system provides 350 W cooling of personal cooling for workers in thermally stressed environments. Although industrially hardened, this system is compact (0.69 ft 3 ) and lightweight (22.9 lbs). The MSC is easily decontaminated or disposed of between uses. 2. Miniature Screw Compressor for MCS—Our 350 Wcooling miniature screw compressor was originally designed for MCS and personal cooling systems. Occupying only 11 in 3 and weighing 1.4 lbs, the size and weight are less than any commercially available compressor with a similar cooling capacity. This miniature screw compressor is marketable as a low-pressure compressor or refrigerant pump. 3. Miniature Sliding Vane Compressor and Drive for MCS—Our 350 Wcooling compressor subassembly consists of a commercial miniature sliding vane compressor packaged with our motor controller. At 29.4 in3 and 1.5 lbs, this compressor is larger and heavier than the miniature screw but is lower cost and capable of producing higher head pressure. 4. Small Screw Compressor for HVAC/R—Our 50 kW cooling small screw compressor is for commercial HVAC/R applications. This compressor is extremely power dense at 0.34 ft 3 and 43 lbs and has a specific cooling capacity (kW/lb) five times greater than existing commercial compressors. We demonstrated high reliability (>5,100 hrs of operation and >3,400 on/off cycles), and we are currently discussing commercialization opportunities with laser manufacturers for cooling of their high-power devices. This final report summarizes the design, fabrication, testing, features, and benefits of each product. The commercialization potential and recommendations for the future are included.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Evaluation and optimization for the decontamination/sterilization of personal protective equipment using a novel ozone chamber (CRADA Final Report)

Personal protective equipment slows the spread of the SARS-Cov-2 virus and protects first responders and the general population. However, there is a significant and well-publicized shortage of personal protective equipment for healthcare workers. Treatment with ozone may be a compelling, affordable, and scalable method to rapidly decontaminate personal protective equipment but more work is needed to verify these claims. Together with colleagues at the University of Nevada Reno and FATHHOME we helped design the experiments that evaluated the virucidal efficacy of FATHHOME’s device on N95 face masks and face shields. The results of our study were published in the journal Pathogens.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1980

State of gas exchange in recumbent and orthostatic positions and under physical load in healthy persons of varying age, sex and body build

Age effect on gas exchange was studied in the recumbent and orthostatic positions and under physical load. In the case of the older age group and for normal as compared with hypersthenic persons, oxygen consumption during rest and during moderate physical overload diminishes. When the vertical position is assumed oxygen consumption in persons of various age groups is distinctly increased, particularly in the elderly group. There is a reduction in the amount of oxygen consumption, oxygen pulse, recovery coefficient, and work efficiency under moderate overload. In persons over 50, physical labor induces a large oxygen requirement and a sharp rise in the level of lactic acid and the blood's lactate/pyruvate ratio. No distinct difference was noted in the amount of oxygen consumed during rest and during physical overload in men and women of the same physical development and age.

Glezer, G. A.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Space Station personal hygiene study

A personal hygiene system is currently under development for Space Station application that will provide capabilities equivalent to those found on earth. This paper addresses the study approach for specifying both primary and contingency personal hygiene systems and provisions for specified growth. Topics covered are system definition and subsystem descriptions. Subsystem interfaces are explored to determine which concurrent NASA study efforts must be monitored during future design phases to stay up-to-date on critical Space Station parameters. A design concept for a three (3) compartment personal hygiene facility is included as a baseline for planned test and verification activities.

Prejean, Stephen E.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Development of a personal-computer-based intelligent tutoring system

A large number of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) have been built since they were first proposed in the early 1970's. Research conducted on the use of the best of these systems has demonstrated their effectiveness in tutoring in selected domains. A prototype ITS for tutoring students in the use of CLIPS language: CLIPSIT (CLIPS Intelligent Tutor) was developed. For an ITS to be widely accepted, not only must it be effective, flexible, and very responsive, it must also be capable of functioning on readily available computers. While most ITSs have been developed on powerful workstations, CLIPSIT is designed for use on the IBM PC/XT/AT personal computer family (and their clones). There are many issues to consider when developing an ITS on a personal computer such as the teaching strategy, user interface, knowledge representation, and program design methodology. Based on experiences in developing CLIPSIT, results on how to address some of these issues are reported and approaches are suggested for maintaining a powerful learning environment while delivering robust performance within the speed and memory constraints of the personal computer.

Mueller, Stephen J.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Leader personality and crew effectiveness: Factors influencing performance in full-mission air transport simulation

A full mission simulation research study was completed to assess the potential for selection along dimensions of personality. Using a selection algorithm described by Chidester (1987), captains were classified as fitting one of three profiles using a battery of personality assessment scales, and the performances of 23 crews led by captains fitting each profile were contrasted over a one and one-half day simulated trip. Crews led by captains fitting a Positive Instrumental Expressive profile (high achievement motivation and interpersonal skill) were consistently effective and made fewer errors. Crews led by captains fitting a Negative Communion profile (below average achievement motivation, negative expressive style, such as complaining) were consistently less effective and made more errors. Crews led by captains fitting a Negative Instrumental profile (high levels of Competitiveness, Verbal Aggressiveness, and Impatience and Irritability) were less effective on the first day but equal to the best on the second day. These results underscore the importance of stable personality variables as predictors of team coordination and performance.

Chidester, Thomas R.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Leader personality and crew effectiveness - A full-mission simulation experiment

A full-mission simulation research study was completed to assess the impact of individual personality on crew performance. Using a selection algorithm described by Chidester (1987), captains were classified as fitting one of three profiles along a battery of personality assessment scales. The performances of 23 crews led by captains fitting each profile were contrasted over a one and one-half day simulated trip. Crews led by captains fitting a positive Instrumental-Expressive profile (high achievement motivation and interpersonal skill) were consistently effective and made fewer errors. Crews led by captains fitting a Negative Expressive profile (below average achievement motivation, negative expressive style, such as complaining) were consistently less effective and made more errors. Crews led by captains fitting a Negative Instrumental profile (high levels of competitiveness, Verbal Aggressiveness, and Impatience and Irritability) were less effective on the first day but equal to the best on the second day. These results underscore the importance of stable personality variables as predictors of team coordination and performance.

Chidester, Thomas R.↗