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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 775 records · Page 43
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2020

Fast Responses on Pre-Industrial Climate from Present-Day Aerosols in A CMIP6 Multi-Model Study

In this work, we use Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) simulations from 10 Earth system models (ESMs) and general circulation models (GCMs) to study the fast climate responses on pre-industrial climate, due to present-day aerosols. All models carried out two sets of simulations: a control experiment with all forcings set to the year 1850 and a perturbation experiment with all forcings identical to the control, except for aerosols with precursor emissions set to the year 2014. In response to the pattern of all aerosols effective radiative forcing (ERF), the fast temperature responses are characterized by cooling over the continental areas, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, with the largest cooling over East Asia and India, sulfate being the dominant aerosol surface temperature driver for present-day emissions. In the Arctic there is a warming signal for winter in the ensemble mean of fast temperature responses, but the model-to-model variability is large, and it is presumably linked to aerosol-induced circulation changes. The largest fast precipitation responses are seen in the tropical belt regions, generally characterized by a reduction over continental regions and presumably a southward shift of the tropical rain belt. This is a characteristic and robust feature among most models in this study, associated with weakening of the monsoon systems around the globe (Asia, Africa and America) in response to hemispherically asymmetric cooling from a Northern Hemisphere aerosol perturbation, forcing possibly the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and tropical precipitation to shift away from the cooled hemisphere despite that aerosols' effects on temperature and precipitation are only partly realized in these simulations as the sea surface temperatures are kept fixed. An interesting feature in aerosol-induced circulation changes is a characteristic dipole pattern with intensification of the Icelandic Low and an anticyclonic anomaly over southeastern Europe, inducing warm air advection towards the northern polar latitudes in winter.

Pre-industrial climate↗
DOE OSTI2022

Evaluation of automated stability testing in machining through closed-loop control and Bayesian machine learning

Here, this paper describes a system for automated identification of the optimal stable cutting parameters in milling through Bayesian machine learning and closed-loop control. The closed-loop control system consists of a process monitoring architecture, an analysis framework, and a feedback mechanism. The analysis framework consists of a Bayesian machine learning algorithm that learns a stability map given test results. The learned stability map is used to select parameters for stability testing using an expected improvement in the material removal rate criterion. The test parameters are communicated to the machine controller to complete the test cut through a feedback mechanism. The test cuts were monitored using an audio signal; the stability of the test cut was determined by analyzing the frequency content of the audio signal. The test result was fed back to the Bayesian learning algorithm to complete the loop. Experimental results demonstrate that the system can identify the optimal stable parameters without information about the cutting force model or the structural dynamics. The system provides a low-cost method for optimal stable parameter identification in an industrial environment.

Chatter↗
DOE OSTI2026

Industrial deposition of wavelength-shifting films for liquid argon photon detection systems

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) Phase-II Far Detector is considering an approximately 2000 m 2 photon detection system to achieve a target mean light yield of 180 PE/MeV. Meeting this requirement demands scalable, cost-effective, and high-quality wavelength-shifter (WLS) coatings capable of converting 127 nm liquid-argon scintillation light into visible photons with controlled and reproducible optical performance. We report on the successful realization of an industrial physical vapor deposition (PVD) process forp-terphenyl (pTP) coatings, adapted from vacuum deposition techniques developed for OLED display manufacturing, to produce uniform WLS layers on large-area inorganic substrates, a task traditionally challenged by adhesion and uniformity issues at organic-inorganic interfaces. Surface characterization by profilometry and spectroscopic measurements demonstrates edge-region thickness variation below 10% and emission spectra consistent with high-quality pTP reference samples. The industrial process demonstrates reproducibility, scalability, and significantly reduced production time compared to laboratory-based methods, while maintaining optical characteristics consistent with established pTP reference samples. These results establish a viable pathway for mass production of high-performance pTP coatings for DUNE FD3 and future neutrino experiments, from a coating manufacturing and process standpoint. Detector-level performance validation, including quantitative VUV conversion efficiency measurements at 127 nm, is identified as future work.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
NASA NTRS1997

Ultra-Capacitor Energy Storage in a Large Hybrid Electric Bus

The power requirements for inner city transit buses are characterized by power peaks about an order of magnitude larger than the average power usage of the vehicle. For these vehicles, hybrid power trains can offer significantly improved fuel economy and exhaust emissions. A critical design challenge, however, has been developing the energy storage and power management system to respond to these rapid power variations. Most hybrid vehicles today use chemical energy storage batteries to supplement the power from the fuel burning generator unit. Chemical storage batteries however, present several difficulties in power management and control. These difficulties include (1) inadequate life, (2) limited current delivery as well as absorption during regenerative braking, (3) inaccurate measurement of state of charge, and (4) stored energy safety issues. Recent advances in ultra-capacitor technology create an opportunity to address these concerns. The NASA Lewis Research Center, in cooperation with industry and academia, has developed an advanced hybrid electric transit bus using ultra-capacitors as the primary energy storage system. At over 15,000-kg gross weight, this is the largest vehicle of its kind ever built using this advanced energy storage technology. Results of analyses show that the vehicle will match the performance of an equivalent conventionally powered vehicle over typical inner city drive cycles. This paper describes the overall power system architecture, the evolution of the control strategy, and analysis of power flow and vehicle performance.

Viterna, L. A.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Guidance and Control Software Project Data - Volume 2: Development Documents

The Guidance and Control Software (GCS) project was the last in a series of software reliability studies conducted at Langley Research Center between 1977 and 1994. The technical results of the GCS project were recorded after the experiment was completed. Some of the support documentation produced as part of the experiment, however, is serving an unexpected role far beyond its original project context. Some of the software used as part of the GCS project was developed to conform to the RTCA/DO-178B software standard, "Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification," used in the civil aviation industry. That standard requires extensive documentation throughout the software development life cycle, including plans, software requirements, design and source code, verification cases and results, and configuration management and quality control data. The project documentation that includes this information is open for public scrutiny without the legal or safety implications associated with comparable data from an avionics manufacturer. This public availability has afforded an opportunity to use the GCS project documents for DO-178B training. This report provides a brief overview of the GCS project, describes the 4-volume set of documents and the role they are playing in training, and includes the development documents from the GCS project. Volume 2 contains three appendices: A. Guidance and Control Software Development Specification; B. Design Description for the Pluto Implementation of the Guidance and Control Software; and C. Source Code for the Pluto Implementation of the Guidance and Control Software

Hayhurst, Kelly J.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Guidance and Control Software Project Data - Volume 1: Planning Documents

The Guidance and Control Software (GCS) project was the last in a series of software reliability studies conducted at Langley Research Center between 1977 and 1994. The technical results of the GCS project were recorded after the experiment was completed. Some of the support documentation produced as part of the experiment, however, is serving an unexpected role far beyond its original project context. Some of the software used as part of the GCS project was developed to conform to the RTCA/DO-178B software standard, "Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification," used in the civil aviation industry. That standard requires extensive documentation throughout the software development life cycle, including plans, software requirements, design and source code, verification cases and results, and configuration management and quality control data. The project documentation that includes this information is open for public scrutiny without the legal or safety implications associated with comparable data from an avionics manufacturer. This public availability has afforded an opportunity to use the GCS project documents for DO-178B training. This report provides a brief overview of the GCS project, describes the 4-volume set of documents and the role they are playing in training, and includes the planning documents from the GCS project. Volume 1 contains five appendices: A. Plan for Software Aspects of Certification for the Guidance and Control Software Project; B. Software Development Standards for the Guidance and Control Software Project; C. Software Verification Plan for the Guidance and Control Software Project; D. Software Configuration Management Plan for the Guidance and Control Software Project; and E. Software Quality Assurance Activities.

Hayhurst, Kelly J.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Guidance and Control Software Project Data - Volume 3: Verification Documents

The Guidance and Control Software (GCS) project was the last in a series of software reliability studies conducted at Langley Research Center between 1977 and 1994. The technical results of the GCS project were recorded after the experiment was completed. Some of the support documentation produced as part of the experiment, however, is serving an unexpected role far beyond its original project context. Some of the software used as part of the GCS project was developed to conform to the RTCA/DO-178B software standard, "Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification," used in the civil aviation industry. That standard requires extensive documentation throughout the software development life cycle, including plans, software requirements, design and source code, verification cases and results, and configuration management and quality control data. The project documentation that includes this information is open for public scrutiny without the legal or safety implications associated with comparable data from an avionics manufacturer. This public availability has afforded an opportunity to use the GCS project documents for DO-178B training. This report provides a brief overview of the GCS project, describes the 4-volume set of documents and the role they are playing in training, and includes the verification documents from the GCS project. Volume 3 contains four appendices: A. Software Verification Cases and Procedures for the Guidance and Control Software Project; B. Software Verification Results for the Pluto Implementation of the Guidance and Control Software; C. Review Records for the Pluto Implementation of the Guidance and Control Software; and D. Test Results Logs for the Pluto Implementation of the Guidance and Control Software.

Hayhurst, Kelly J.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Guidance and Control Software Project Data - Volume 4: Configuration Management and Quality Assurance Documents

The Guidance and Control Software (GCS) project was the last in a series of software reliability studies conducted at Langley Research Center between 1977 and 1994. The technical results of the GCS project were recorded after the experiment was completed. Some of the support documentation produced as part of the experiment, however, is serving an unexpected role far beyond its original project context. Some of the software used as part of the GCS project was developed to conform to the RTCA/DO-178B software standard, "Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification," used in the civil aviation industry. That standard requires extensive documentation throughout the software development life cycle, including plans, software requirements, design and source code, verification cases and results, and configuration management and quality control data. The project documentation that includes this information is open for public scrutiny without the legal or safety implications associated with comparable data from an avionics manufacturer. This public availability has afforded an opportunity to use the GCS project documents for DO-178B training. This report provides a brief overview of the GCS project, describes the 4-volume set of documents and the role they are playing in training, and includes configuration management and quality assurance documents from the GCS project. Volume 4 contains six appendices: A. Software Accomplishment Summary for the Guidance and Control Software Project; B. Software Configuration Index for the Guidance and Control Software Project; C. Configuration Management Records for the Guidance and Control Software Project; D. Software Quality Assurance Records for the Guidance and Control Software Project; E. Problem Report for the Pluto Implementation of the Guidance and Control Software Project; and F. Support Documentation Change Reports for the Guidance and Control Software Project.

Hayhurst, Kelly J.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Programmable Automated Welding System (PAWS): Control of welding through software and hardware

The ATD phase of the PAWS program ended in November 1992 and the follow-on ManTech program was started in September 1993. The system will be industrially hardened during the first year of this program. Follow-on years will focus upon the transition into specific end-user sites. These implementations will also expand the system into other welding processes (e.g. FCAW, GTAW, PAW). In addition, the architecture is being developed for application to other non-welding robotic processes (e.g. inspection, surface finishing). Future development is anticipated to encompass hardening for extreme environments, expanded exception handling techniques, and application to a range of manipulators.

Kline, Martin D.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Performance Evaluation of High-Temperature Ultrasonic Communication System

Ultrasonic communication is a technique that allows transmitting information through a solid material such as tubes or bars using high-frequency elastic waves. The communication channels often extend into a high-temperature range in the field of power, oil, or nuclear industry. When the temperature is taken into consideration, the ultrasonic wave propagation through the solid channel is complex and unpredictable. It is necessary to study the influence of temperature on the ultrasonic guided wave to improve ultrasonic communication. In this study, a temperature control system is assembled to adjust the temperature of a steel pipe channel ranging from room temperature to 150 degrees C. The temperature performance evaluation is conducted to estimate the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and bit error rate (BER) of transferring the ultrasonic signal. The work aims to develop a reliable ultrasonic communication system in a high-temperature environment. The system temperature can be maintained at 150 degrees C and the LiNbO3 transducers are used as transmitters and receivers. No power amplifier is used in the communication system. The high-temperature ultrasonic communication system (HT-UCS) is feasible at 150 degrees C and can achieve a bit rate of 10 kbps without any error.

HT-UCS↗
NASA NTRS1984

The historical development and basis of human factors guidelines for automated systems in aeronautical operations

In order to derive general design guidelines for automated systems a study was conducted on the utilization and acceptance of existing automated systems as currently employed in several commercial fields. Four principal study area were investigated by means of structured interviews, and in some cases questionnaires. The study areas were aviation, a both scheduled airline and general commercial aviation; process control and factory applications; office automation; and automation in the power industry. The results of over eighty structured interviews were analyzed and responses categoried as various human factors issues for use by both designers and users of automated equipment. These guidelines address such items as general physical features of automated equipment; personnel orientation, acceptance, and training; and both personnel and system reliability.

Ciciora, J. A.↗
NASA NTRS1985

The space shuttle program from challenge to achievement: Space exploration rolling on tires

The Space Shuttle Transportation System is the first space program to employ the pneumatic tire as a part of space exploration. For aircraft tires, this program establishes new expectations as to what constitutes acceptable performance within a set of tough environmental and operational conditions. Tire design, stresses the usual low weight, high load, high speed, and excellent air retention features but at extremes well outside industry standards. Tires will continue to be an integral part of the Shuttle's landing phase in the immediate future since they afford a unique combination of directional control, braking traction, flotation and shock absorption not available by other systems.

Felder, G. L.↗
NASA NTRS1981

The 15th Aerospace Mechanisms Symposium

The purpose of the symposium was to provide a forum for the interchange of information among those active in the field of mechanism technology. To that end, 27 papers were presented on aeronautics and space flight, with special emphasis on actuators and aerospace applications for pointing systems, latches, connectors, and other mechanisms for large space structures. The papers were authored by engineers from a broad aerospace spectrum including the U. S. aerospace industry, NASA, and several European participants. Technological areas covered include: aerospace propulsion; aerodynamic devices; crew safety; space vehicle control; spacecraft deployment, positioning, and pointing; deployable antennas/reflectors; and large space structures. Devices for payload deployment, payload retention, and crew extravehicular activities on the space shuttle orbiter are also described.

Actuators↗
DOE OSTI2024

Detection of Control Injection Attacks using Energy Data Anomalies in CNC Machining

The widespread adoption of networked devices, sophisticated automation, and data-driven processes in the industry - also known as Industry 4.0 - has boosted the quantity and quality of manufacturing products. With these benefits, however, comes a substantial increase in the attack surface of these systems. In addition to affecting the readiness and the quality of critical products, the attacks against manufacturing processes and systems carry the potential to have severe physical consequences, including human injury and death. In this paper we present the results of a remote network-based control injection attack on a CNC mill. Specifically, we focus on the impact of this type of the attack on the movement of CNC mill during operation. Evaluating the physical effect of these attacks on a workpiece, we provide machine agnostic, affordable, and scalable solution for their monitoring. We then demonstrate a simple threshold-based method for the detection of these attacks and evaluate the effectiveness of detection.

Taylor, Curtis↗
NASA NTRS1991

Theoretical foundations for information representation and constraint specification

Research accomplished at the Knowledge Based Systems Laboratory of the Department of Industrial Engineering at Texas A&M University is described. Outlined here are the theoretical foundations necessary to construct a Neutral Information Representation Scheme (NIRS), which will allow for automated data transfer and translation between model languages, procedural programming languages, database languages, transaction and process languages, and knowledge representation and reasoning control languages for information system specification.

Menzel, Christopher P.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Bridging semantics, control specifications and assessment: A library for scalable demand flexibility controls

There is growing recognition that Demand Flexibility (DF) can play a major role in enhancing grid reliability, with building control applications emerging as key enablers for DF. However, the traditional approach to deploying new control applications in buildings, including those for DF, remains largely manual and tailored to individual buildings, making it difficult to scale. While research efforts have explored semantics-driven portability, DF controls specification, and assessment approaches, these initiatives are fragmented and limited in scope. This paper proposes a novel methodology, grounded in design science research, to integrate these elements and create a comprehensive DF controls library for both industry and academia. This approach is applied to develop the Demand FLEXibility controls LIBrary using Semantics (DFLEXLIBS), an extensible open-source library that provides DF controls for HVAC systems in Python. DFLEXLIBS enables portable, easy-to-deploy controls that abstract building-specific data points, facilitating assessment across diverse buildings. DFLEXLIBS features nine different control applications, and it is successfully implemented and tested across four virtual and two real buildings, bridging the gap between semantics-driven portability, DF controls specification, and rigorous performance assessment. Its benefits are measured by a reusability ratio greater than 90% and a functional overlap ratio of around 70% for the most common functions used in the library, significantly reducing time for deploying new controls.

Controls library↗
DOE OSTI2025

Pointing stabilization of a 1 Hz high-power laser via machine learning

Abstract High-power lasers are vital for particle acceleration, imaging, fusion and materials processing, requiring precise control and high-energy delivery. Laser plasma accelerators (LPAs) demand laser positional stability at focus to ensure consistent electron beams in applications such as X-ray free-electron lasers and high-energy colliders. Achieving this stability is especially challenging for the low-repetition-rate lasers in current LPAs. We present a machine learning method that predicts and corrects laser pointing instabilities in real-time using a high-frequency pilot beam. By preemptively adjusting a correction mirror, this approach overcomes traditional feedback limits. Demonstrated on the BELLA petawatt laser operating at the terawatt level (30 mJ amplification), our method achieved root mean square pointing stabilization of 0.34 and 0.59 $\unicode{x3bc} \mathrm{rad}$ in the x and y directions, reducing jitter by 65% and 47%, respectively. This is the first successful application of predictive control for shot-to-shot stabilization in low-repetition-rate laser systems, paving the way for full-energy petawatt lasers and transformative advances across science, industry and security.

Amodio, Alessio↗
DOE OSTI2023

Advances in S. cerevisiae Engineering for Xylose Fermentation and Biofuel Production: Balancing Growth, Metabolism, and Defense

Genetically engineering microorganisms to produce chemicals has changed the industrialized world. The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is frequently used in industry due to its genetic tractability and unique metabolic capabilities. S. cerevisiae has been engineered to produce novel compounds from diverse sugars found in lignocellulosic biomass, including pentose sugars, like xylose, not recognized by the organism. Engineering high flux toward novel compounds has proved to be more challenging than anticipated since simply introducing pathway components is often not enough. Several studies show that the rewiring of upstream signaling is required to direct products toward pathways of interest, but doing so can diminish stress tolerance, which is important in industrial conditions. As an example of these challenges, we reviewed S. cerevisiae engineering efforts, enabling anaerobic xylose fermentation as a model system and showcasing the regulatory interplay’s controlling growth, metabolism, and stress defense. Enabling xylose fermentation in S. cerevisiae requires the introduction of several key metabolic enzymes but also regulatory rewiring of three signaling pathways at the intersection of the growth and stress defense responses: the RAS/PKA, Snf1, and high osmolarity glycerol (HOG) pathways. The current studies reviewed here suggest the modulation of global signaling pathways should be adopted into biorefinery microbial engineering pipelines to increase efficient product yields.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗