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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

LANDO: Developing Autonomous Payload Offloading Capabilities for Lunar Surface Operations

Introduction: The Lightweight Surface Manipulation System (LSMS) AutoNomy capabilities Development for surface Operations and construction (LANDO) project is an Early Career Initiative selected for funding by NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate. LANDO is developing a general-purpose autonomy framework applicable to serial and tension-actuated manipulation agents, that will be validated using an existing prototype of the LSMS-L35 (35-kg wrist lift capacity on the lunar surface [Fig. 1], sized for a Commercial Lunar Pay-load Services (CLPS) mission). The autonomous LSMS-L35 will be used to demonstrate autonomous payload handling capabilities for Lunar and other planetary surfaces, directly addressing STMD capability gaps in autonomous excavation and construction operations, advanced robotics and spacecraft autonomy technologies, and technologies supporting emerging space industries including the In-Space Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing national strategy. LSMS: The LSMS is a tension actuated robotic agent that is scalable (reach and lifting capacity in different gravity environments), versatile (types of surface operations), and reusable. Compared to serial arms, the LSMS provides significantly higher structural efficiency and mechanical advantage, enabling a greater payload lift capacity at a lower system mass. The LSMS is envisioned to be a crucial part of the excavation and construction portfolio, capable of supporting a variety of activities on the lunar surface. Autonomous payload handling is one of the first activities the LSMS can support that develops capabilities that are extensible to other surface operations. Payload handling is required to: remove payloads from a lander; place payloads on mobile agents for transport from a lander to construction site/assembly point; emplace payloads in their operational configuration, and aggregate components to create an asset. As an example of this critical gap, manifested CLPS missions do not currently have a ubiquitous payload offloading capability; payloads (excluding rovers) are designed to remain on the lander. Why Autonomy? Autonomous robotic systems capable of carrying out excavation and construction operations are a fundamental and critical capability required for realizing the NASA Artemis program vision to “emplace and build the infrastructure, systems, and robotic missions that can enable a sustained lunar surface presence.” While teleoperation is still feasible for lunar surface operations, increased latency at Mars will require validated supervised autonomous technologies capable of operating with minimal human involvement (human-on-the-loop) unless an unexpected event occurs requiring human intervention. Autonomy reduces operator burden, allows operations to continue during uncrewed periods, in-creases the safety of operations by automatically detecting and handling faults, and allows operating in high latency environments. Development Activities: LANDO is extending critical autonomous operations to the manipulation domain and creating an integrated system, based on reusable software modules, that is capable of planning and executing payload handling and autonomous surface operations without requiring hu-man intervention beyond a supervisory role. The priority features under development are 1) autonomously offload payloads from a tilted lander deck without buckling the LSMS; 2) sensing whether a payload is safe to lift and handle; and 3) integrate with Astrobotic’s CLPS lander. The poster presentation will highlight current development activities over the past year on LSMS-L35 prototype hard-ware design, and autonomy software.

in-space assembly↗
NASA NTRS1988

The CSM testbed software system: A development environment for structural analysis methods on the NAS CRAY-2

The Computational Structural Mechanics (CSM) Activity at Langley Research Center is developing methods for structural analysis on modern computers. To facilitate that research effort, an applications development environment has been constructed to insulate the researcher from the many computer operating systems of a widely distributed computer network. The CSM Testbed development system was ported to the Numerical Aerodynamic Simulator (NAS) Cray-2, at the Ames Research Center, to provide a high end computational capability. This paper describes the implementation experiences, the resulting capability, and the future directions for the Testbed on supercomputers.

Gillian, Ronnie E.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Utah FORGE: Composite 3D Seismic Velocity Model

This is a composite 3D seismic velocity that was constructed from compiled information from several local studies regarding seismic velocities and structural information. This seismic velocity model is provided in NonLinLoc format (slow_len), which is readily usable in NonLinLoc software. Other model formats and versions of the model can be produced using the Python script provided with this data set. Details on how the model was created and prior velocity and structural information was used is provided in the accompanying documentation.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Model Package Report: Hanford Soil Inventory Model SIM v.2 Build 1

The Hanford Soil Inventory Model (SIM) is a tool for the estimation of inventory of contaminants that were released to soil from liquid discharges during the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hanford Site operations. This model package report documents the construction and development of a second version of SIM (SIM-v2) to support the needs of Hanford Site Composite Analysis. The SIM-v2 is implemented using GoldSim Pro® 1 software with a new model architecture that preserves the uncertainty in inventory estimates while reducing the computational burden (compared to the previous version) and allowing more traceability and transparency in calculation methodology. The calculation architecture is designed in such a manner that future updates to the waste stream composition along with addition or deletion of waste sites can be performed with relative ease. In addition, the new computational platform allows for continued hardware upgrade.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2025

FY25 Mid-Year Report: FNCL Enhancements Implementation

During the first half of FY25 the FNCL team has made consistent progress toward the completion of our project goals. The FNCL prototype panel design has been successfully applied to a fully instrumented 3-panel system which is actively under construction. The FNCL Demonstrator System contains solid scintillators instrumented with SiPMs, which operate on an updated CAEN digitizer, requires no high-voltage, and has a smaller overall footprint. The onboard software will include the LLNL-developed GMM-PSD signal processing. Later this year the system will be experimentally tested alongside the baseline FNCL instrument at LLNLs ISSA facility. In addition to a full systems test, the performance of a DD generator for active interrogation measurements compared to the standard AmLi source will be established for both systems. The data collected at the ISSA facility will be used to experimentally validate the FNCL-Fast Isotopic Fuel Assay’s (FIFA) capability to measure U-235 loading and to predict gadolinium poison content with passive interrogation. The FNCL-FIFA modal was benchmarked with simulation-based data and a user-friendly GUI was added earlier this year. Three separate codes have been submitted to the LLNL ESW system for review prior to their transfers. These include the Predictive Modeling Response toolkit, GMM-PSD firmware beta version, and the FNCL-FIFA analysis package with GUI and user documentation.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
NASA NTRS1984

SAGA: A project to automate the management of software production systems

The project to automate the management of software production systems is described. The SAGA system is a software environment that is designed to support most of the software development activities that occur in a software lifecycle. The system can be configured to support specific software development applications using given programming languages, tools, and methodologies. Meta-tools are provided to ease configuration. Several major components of the SAGA system are completed to prototype form. The construction methods are described.

Campbell, R. H.↗
NASA NTRS2022

Aerospace Regenerative Fuel Cell Fluidic Component Design Challenges

A discrete regenerative fuel cell (RFC) system is currently under development at the NASA Glenn Research Center and Johnson Space Center. The objective of this activity is to produce an energy storage system with a higher specific energy (W·hr/kg) than the state-of-the-art battery technologies then test that system within an environment simulating the temperatures and pressures expected over a full lunar day cycle on the lunar surface. The system is designed to be as flight-like as possible given resource and commercially available technology limitations. The RFC system is comprised of a fuel cell power system, a high pressure electrolysis system, fluidic and electronic balance of plant systems, avionics, power management and distribution system, and software. This technical memorandum discusses components and subsystems that present challenges in developing flight ready RFCs. To remedy identified issues, functional application test plans are presented for components and subsystems primarily constructed with commercially available options due to the budget and schedule constraints of this ground technology demonstration project.

fuel cell↗
DOE OSTI2019

Particle Size Analysis and Distribution

Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) is a instrument used for examining samples at magnifications from 32 X to 500,000 X (for our instrument). The SEM is attached with an electron gun and is directed onto the sample. The sample then produces an image where it is read on the monitor. The electron gun is positioned at the top because it needs to shoot at the sample that is being tested. The electrons are then shot in a downward motion traveling through several lenses, such as the condenser lens for a more precise reading. Once the samples have been read by the instrument, it will show a picture that has a certain number of particles. Particle size distribution have many uses that are essential to life habits (health) or even conventional use for example construction. Here are just a few examples of how particle size analysis and distribution are being used even today. This Standard Reference Material (SRM) is primarily intended for use in the calibration of equipment used to measure particle size distributions (PSD) in the 9 μm to 30 μm range. A unit of SRM 1984 consists of a single bottle containing approximately 14 g of tungsten carbide/cobalt powder. Certified values: The PSD values at five mass percentiles were measured by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and laser light scattering (LLS). The NIST certified PSD values by SEM are listed. These certified values were determined by the measurement of over 10 000 individual particles from three bottles. Comparing the certified NIST SRM 1984 tungsten carbide/cobalt powder with our results are almost identical. This is great because more accurate work can be done and proves that our laboratory is able to reproduce NIST results. In conclusion, the scanning electron microscope is used to capture the sampled element and display it to be counted. Without the use of particle distribution, it would be a difficult time to get necessities such as medicine, asthma pumps, constructing materials, or as simple as ink. Overall, our study is an experimental comparison of the techniques we have in house, which are LLS and SEM (combined with the NIH ImageJ software) using the NIST SRM-1984 as a common, well characterized sample so that we have an idea of how the results from the techniques compare.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2019

Enhancement of EM Pump Performance through Modeling and Testing

Liquid sodium has seen development as a nuclear reactor coolant in the United States for over 50 years. While sodium has many desirable characteristics as a heat transfer fluid, its reactivity poses numerous engineering challenges for even the most basic plant components like pumps. Despite the challenges, mechanical pumps have seen success in sodium service albeit at the expense of simplicity and flexibility. In fact, significant failures of these pumps have been recorded which can be attributed to their complexity. Notwithstanding the complexity, mechanical pumps are still widely proposed for the main circuit pump of sodium cooled reactors. However, an alternative to mechanical pumps are Electromagnetic Induction Pumps (EMIPs) which use the principle of the Lorentz Force. EMIPs avoid mechanically moving parts in contact with sodium which simplifies the design by avoiding mechanical wear and seals. Therefore, these pumps are generally safer and more reliable than their mechanical counterparts. That being said, EMIPs suffer from relatively low efficiencies that range from 5% to 45%. Some of the inefficiencies are inherent to the EMIPs pumps; namely, inefficiencies arise in the form of resistive heating losses in the fluid itself. However, other inefficiencies arise from Edge Effects which include Finite Length and Finite Width effects. Due to the significant safety advantages EMIPs have compared to mechanical pumps, there is a strong motivation to integrate these technologies into the design of Generation IV liquid-metal-cooled nuclear power plants. However, EMIPs have low efficiencies partly attributed to Edge Effects. Much of the literature focusing on Edge Effects is dated or simply does not exist in the public domain. More recently, numerical models of EMIPs have shown promising results. However, these models are often custom solvers or use complex software suits which limit their application. This report describes the work completed to understand Edge Effects in two EMIPs designs. These designs are the Annular Linear Induction Pump (ALIP) and Permanent Magnet Induction Pump (PMIP) also known as a Moving Magnet Pump (MMP). The methodology developed during this project aim at measuring key performance parameters (pressure-flowrate and efficiency-slip performance) using high temperature liquid-sodium. Baseline experimental measurements were then used to verify the accuracy of numerical models developed in the software suit ANSYS/FLUENT. On the experimental side, instrumentation was developed to characterize the pressure-flowrate and efficiency-slip performance of both the ALIP and PMIP in high-temperature liquid-sodium. Additionally, instrumentation was developed to measure potential output pressure pulsations and the magnetic field distributions. Moreover, a specialized ALIP was constructed to study the impacts magnetic field tapering, also known as coil grading, on the Finite Length Effect. Lastly, experimental performance curves of the PMIP were collected at 300 oC and 600 oC and compared to analytical theory which accounted for Finite Width Effects. These results showed that the Finite Width Effect and non-uniform magnetic field in a PMIP impact the performance. On the numerical side, models were developed using the software suit FLUENT/ANSYS. These methods were initially compared against a simple MHD flow in a Permanent Magnet Electromagnet Flowmeter (PMEMFM). The results were significant in that they showed agreeance between the numerical model and demonstrated that PMEMFM’s could be calibrated numerically. These modeling methods were then applied to a prototypic PMIP. Results showed that this simple model provided reasonably accurate results of the PMIP p-Q performance.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
NASA NTRS2017

Collaborative Data Publication Utilizing the Open Data Repository's (ODR) Data Publisher

Introduction: For small communities in diverse fields such as astrobiology, publishing and sharing data can be a difficult challenge. While large, homogenous fields often have repositories and existing data standards, small groups of independent researchers have few options for publishing standards and data that can be utilized within their community. In conjunction with teams at NASA Ames and the University of Arizona, the Open Data Repository's (ODR) Data Publisher has been conducting ongoing pilots to assess the needs of diverse research groups and to develop software to allow them to publish and share their data collaboratively. Objectives: The ODR's Data Publisher aims to provide an easy-to-use and implement software tool that will allow researchers to create and publish database templates and related data. The end product will facilitate both human-readable interfaces (web-based with embedded images, files, and charts) and machine-readable interfaces utilizing semantic standards. Characteristics: The Data Publisher software runs on the standard LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack to provide the widest server base available. The software is based on Symfony (www.symfony.com) which provides a robust framework for creating extensible, object-oriented software in PHP. The software interface consists of a template designer where individual or master database templates can be created. A master database template can be shared by many researchers to provide a common metadata standard that will set a compatibility standard for all derivative databases. Individual researchers can then extend their instance of the template with custom fields, file storage, or visualizations that may be unique to their studies. This allows groups to create compatible databases for data discovery and sharing purposes while still providing the flexibility needed to meet the needs of scientists in rapidly evolving areas of research. Research: As part of this effort, a number of ongoing pilot and test projects are currently in progress. The Astrobiology Habitable Environments Database Working Group is developing a shared database standard using the ODR's Data Publisher and has a number of example databases where astrobiology data are shared. Soon these databases will be integrated via the template-based standard. Work with this group helps determine what data researchers in these diverse fields need to share and archive. Additionally, this pilot helps determine what standards are viable for sharing these types of data from internally developed standards to existing open standards such as the Dublin Core (http://dublincore.org) and Darwin Core (http://rs.twdg.org) metadata standards. Further studies are ongoing with the University of Arizona Department of Geosciences where a number of mineralogy databases are being constructed within the ODR Data Publisher system. Conclusions: Through the ongoing pilots and discussions with individual researchers and small research teams, a definition of the tools desired by these groups is coming into focus. As the software development moves forward, the goal is to meet the publication and collaboration needs of these scientists in an unobtrusive and functional way.

easy to use and implement software tool↗
DOE OSTI2014

WE-D-18A-05: Construction of Realistic Liver Phantoms From Patient Images and a Commercial 3D Printer

Purpose: To assess image quality and radiation dose reduction in abdominal CT imaging, physical phantoms having realistic background textures and lesions are highly desirable. The purpose of this work was to construct a liver phantom with realistic background and lesions using patient CT images and a 3D printer. Methods: Patient CT images containing liver lesions were segmented into liver tissue, contrast-enhanced vessels, and liver lesions using commercial software (Mimics, Materialise, Belgium). Stereolithography (STL) files of each segmented object were created and imported to a 3D printer (Object350 Connex, Stratasys, MN). After test scans were performed to map the eight available printing materials into CT numbers, printing materials were assigned to each object and a physical liver phantom printed. The printed phantom was scanned on a clinical CT scanner and resulting images were compared with the original patient CT images. Results: The eight available materials used to print the liver phantom had CT number ranging from 62 to 117 HU. In scans of the liver phantom, the liver lesions and veins represented in the STL files were all visible. Although the absolute value of the CT number in the background liver material (approx. 85 HU) was higher than in patients (approx. 40 HU), the difference in CT numbers between lesions and background were representative of the low contrast values needed for optimization tasks. Future work will investigate materials with contrast sufficient to emulate contrast-enhanced arteries. Conclusion: Realistic liver phantoms can be constructed from patient CT images using a commercial 3D printer. This technique may provide phantoms able to determine the effect of radiation dose reduction and noise reduction techniques on the ability to detect subtle liver lesions in the context of realistic background textures.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Real time computations of cryogenic He properties

The Fermilab PIP-II (proton improvement plan - II) project is being constructed at Fermilab to deliver $800\,MeV$ protons of $>1\,MW$ beam power to replace the present LINAC and provide protons to the remainder of the existing accelerator complex. The new LINAC consists of a warm front end, 23 superconducting RF cryomodules, and a beam transfer line to the existing complex. The cryomodules (CMs) are to be tested at Fermilab's CryoModule Test Facility (CMTF).An important measurement in cryogenic testing is the heat load of each CM. Traditionally, at Fermilab, these measurements were made collecting archived data offline and analyzing it. The new control system for PIP-II is being developed with the EPICS (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System) framework, which allows us to compute the heat load in real time using the HePak library.We are exploring other $He$ properties, such as flow, where flow meters are not available, which can also be calculated in real time and fed back to the cryogenics engineers.This paper details the real time heat load calculation and $He$ flow software developed for CM testing at CMTF, as well as the first results from the prototype HB650 CM. Future plans for 2-phase $LHe$ flow will also be outlined.

Hanlet, Pierrick [Fermilab]↗
NASA NTRS2015

FEAMAC-CARES Software Coupling Development Effort for CMC Stochastic-Strength-Based Damage Simulation

Reported here is a coupling of two NASA developed codes: CARES (Ceramics Analysis and Reliability Evaluation of Structures) with the MACGMC composite material analysis code. The resulting code is called FEAMACCARES and is constructed as an Abaqus finite element analysis UMAT (user defined material). Here we describe the FEAMACCARES code and an example problem (taken from the open literature) of a laminated CMC in off-axis loading is shown. FEAMACCARES performs stochastic-strength-based damage simulation response of a CMC under multiaxial loading using elastic stiffness reduction of the failed elements.

Reliability↗
DOE OSTI2014

Analyzing the Energy and Power Consumption of Remote Memory Accesses in the OpenSHMEM Model

PGAS models like OpenSHMEM provide interfaces to explicitly initiate one-sided remote memory accesses among processes. In addition, the model also provides synchronizing barriers to ensure a consistent view of the distributed memory at different phases of an application. The incorrect use of such interfaces affects the scalability achievable while using a parallel programming model. This study aims at understanding the effects of these constructs on the energy and power consumption behavior of OpenSHMEM applications. Our experiments show that cost incurred in terms of the total energy and power consumed depends on multiple factors across the software and hardware stack. We conclude that there is a significant impact on the power consumed by the CPU and DRAM due to multiple factors including the design of the data transfer patterns within an application, the design of the communication protocols within a middleware, the architectural constraints laid by the interconnect solutions, and also the levels of memory hierarchy within a compute node. This work motivates treating energy and power consumption as important factors while designing compute solutions for current and future distributed systems.

Jana, Siddhartha↗
DOE OSTI2019

Resonant ultrasound spectroscopy: The essential toolbox

Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy (RUS) is an ultrasound-based minimal-effort high-accuracy elastic modulus measurement technique. RUS as described here uses the mechanical resonances (normal modes of vibration or just modes) of rectangular parallelepiped or cylindrical specimens with a dimension of from a fraction of a millimeter to as large as will fit into the apparatus. Provided here is all that is needed so that the reader can construct and use a state-of-the-art RUS system. Included are links to open-source circuit diagrams, links to download Los Alamos National Laboratory open-source data acquisition software, links to request free analysis software, procedures for acquiring measurements, considerations on building transducers, 3-D printed stage designs, and a full mathematical explanation of how the analysis software extracts elastic moduli from resonances.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2016

SU-F-T-443: Quantification of Dosimetric Effects of Dental Metallic Implant On VMAT Plans

Purpose: To evaluate the dosimetric impact of metallic implant that correlates with the size of targets and metallic implants and distance in between on volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) plans for head and neck (H&N) cancer patients with dental metallic implant. Methods: CT images of H&N cancer patients with dental metallic implant were used. Target volumes with different sizes and locations were contoured. Metal artifact regions excluding surrounding critical organs were outlined and assigned with CT numbers close to water (0HU). VMAT plans with half-arc, one-full-arc and two-full-arcs were constructed and same plans were applied to structure sets with and without CT number assignment of metal artifact regions and compared. D95% was utilized to investigate PTV dose coverage and SNC Patient− Software was used for the analysis of dose distribution difference slice by slice. Results: For different targets sizes, variation of PTV dose coverage (Delta-D95%) with and without CT number replacement reduced with larger target volume for all half-arc, one-arc and two-arc VMAT plans even though there were no clinically significant differences. Additionally, there were no significant variations of the maximum percent difference (max.%diff) of dose distribution. With regard to the target location, Delta-D95% and max. %diff dropped with increasing distance between target and metallic implant. Furthermore, half-arc plans showed greater impact than one-arc plans, and two-arc plans had smallest influence for PTV dose coverage and dose distribution. Conclusion: The target size has less correlation of doseimetric impact than the target location relative to metallic implants. Plans with more arcs alleviate the dosimetric effect of metal artifact because of less contribution to the target dose from beams going through the regions with metallic artifacts. Incorrect CT number causes inaccurate dose distribution, therefore appropriately overwriting metallic artifact regions with reasonable CT numbers is recommended. More patient data are collected and under further analysis.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2017

smoothG

smoothG is a collection of parallel C++ classes/functions that algebraically constructs reduced models of different resolutions from a given high-fidelity graph model. In addition, smoothG also provides efficient linear solvers for the reduced models. Other than pure graph problem, the software finds its application in subsurface flow and power grid simulations in which graph Laplacians are found

Barker, AndrewT.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Design of electromagnetic bearing for vibration control of flexible transmission shaft

Recently magnetic bearings were proposed by several researchers and shown to be viable on a variety of rotor assemblies. The design and construction of such a bearing, which employs features hitherto not used by other workers is examined. These include an original approach to the design of the electromagnets and their amplifiers, and to software in a digital control system, to condition the control signals so as to make the magnets appear to be linear and uncoupled. The resulting system is used to control a rotor-bearing assembly, whose speed range covers two flexural-critical speeds.

Gondhalekar, V.↗