Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “PILOT”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 811 records · Page 45
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Pilot Scale Testing of Lignite Adsorption Capability and the Benefits for the Recovery of Rare Earth Elements from Dilute Leach Solutions

Naturally occurring organic materials containing humic acids show a strong affinity towards rare earth elements (REE) and other critical elements. Leaching experiments on lignite coal waste produced from construction sand production revealed that the contained REEs were associated with the organic matter. Furthermore, adsorption studies revealed that the lignite waste was capable of extracting REEs from a model solution and increased the REE content of the lignite waste by more than 100%. As such, this study aimed to utilize the lignite waste to adsorb REEs from pregnant leach solutions and acid mine drainage sources having low REE concentrations and subsequently leach the lignite material to produce pregnant leach solutions containing relatively high amounts of REEs, which benefits the performance and economic viability of downstream separation and purification processes. An integrated flowsheet was developed based on this concept and tested at a pilot scale. The pregnant leachate solution (PLS) was generated from a heap leach pad containing 2000 tons of Baker seam coarse refuse. The pilot scale circuit was comprised of aluminum precipitation, adsorption using the waste lignite, and rare earth-critical metal (RE-CM) precipitation stages in succession. The results indicated that the aluminum precipitation stage removed over 88% and 99% of the Al and Fe, respectively. The adsorption stage increased the REE content associated with the waste lignite from 457 ppm to 1065 ppm on a whole mass basis. Furthermore, the heavy REE (HREE) content in the feedstock increased by approximately 250%, which raised the percentage of HREE in the REE distribution by 19 absolute percentage points. In addition to the REEs, concentrations of other critical elements such as Mn, Ni, and Zn also improved by 75%, 37%, and 250%, respectively. Bench-scale tests revealed that increasing the solids concentration in the waste lignite and PLS mix from 1% to 20% by weight enhanced the adsorption efficiency from 32.0% to 99.5%, respectively. As such, a new flowsheet was proposed which provides significantly higher REE concentrations in the PLS that can be fed directly to solvent extraction and/or oxalic acid precipitation and, thereby, enhancing process efficiency and economics.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2014

Launch Vehicle Manual Steering with Adaptive Augmenting Control In-flight Evaluations Using a Piloted Aircraft

An adaptive augmenting control algorithm for the Space Launch System has been developed at the Marshall Space Flight Center as part of the launch vehicles baseline flight control system. A prototype version of the SLS flight control software was hosted on a piloted aircraft at the Armstrong Flight Research Center to demonstrate the adaptive controller on a full-scale realistic application in a relevant flight environment. Concerns regarding adverse interactions between the adaptive controller and a proposed manual steering mode were investigated by giving the pilot trajectory deviation cues and pitch rate command authority.

pilot ratings↗
NASA NTRS2022

NESC GN&C TDT Best Practices: Design Requirements for Satisfactory Handling Qualities of a Piloted Spacecraft

This document describes work to determine a proposed set of concise design requirements for manned spacecraft to yield satisfactory handling qualities when the pilot is performing manual control. This is done primary via the analysis of various historic spacecraft. Partial requirements verification is performed via the creation of a simulated pilot used to determine limits of satisfactory vehicle performance. Partial requirements validation is per-formed via example conceptual design of a spacecraft that is compliant with all relevant proposed requirements.

Cooper-Harper↗
DOE OSTI2023

High-moisture pelleting of corn stover using pilot- and commercial-scale systems: Impact of moisture content, L / D ratio and hammer mill screen size on pellet quality and energy consumption

Here, high-moisture pelleting of corn stover was tested in pilot- and commercial-scale systems. For the pilot-scale study, a 6.35 mm screen size hammer mill ground corn stover was reconditioned to moisture between 14 and 29.6% (w.b.), and 5, 7 and 9 L/D ratio pellet die were used. At 29% corn stover moisture content and L/D ratios of 5 and 9, the bulk density and durability of the pellets were ≤450 kg/m 3 and <90% and >540 kg/m 3 and >90%, respectively. Increasing the feedstock moisture and L/D ratio increased the pelleting energy. Increasing the hammer mill screen size to 11.11 mm reduced the bulk density but not the durability. The response surface models adequately described the pelleting process (R 2 ≥ 0.88), and analysis of variance showed a strong interaction between the process variables and pellet properties. Commercial-scale testing of high-moisture pelleting using 6.35 mm ground corn stover bales in the moisture range 24–26% (w.b.) produced pellets with a density of >675 kg/m 3 and durability of >98%, whereas increasing the hammer mill screen size to 11.11 mm reduced the bulk density by about 100 kg/m 3 but not the durability. The energy consumption of the commercial-scale unit operations for the high-moisture pelleting process was in the range 98–124 kW h/ton, which is 64–72% less energy than conventional pelleting that requires energy about 350 kW h/ton for biomass drying from 30% (w.b.) to 10% (w.b.) moisture content before pelleting. Pellets produced using high-moisture pelleting met International Organization for Standardization and Pellets Fuel Institute international standards. Published 2023. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Experimental study and demonstration of pilot-scale oxy-coal combustion at elevated temperatures and pressures

High pressure oxy-fuel firing is a promising next-generation combustion technology for electricity generation, allowing net efficiency improvement compared to traditional oxy-fuel firing systems. Oxy-coal combustion has been extensively investigated at ambient pressure, but limited experimental data is available regarding this combustion method at elevated pressures at pilot or full scale. The study presented here investigates the operational performance of a high pressure, high temperature pilot-scale oxy-fuel combustor. Pulverized Utah bituminous coal in form of coal-water slurry was combusted at pressures up to 14 bar, temperatures up to 1600 °C and firing rates up to 300 kW. Eight different runs were selected for presentation and the measurements include flue gas composition (CO, CO 2 , CH 4 , SO 2 , O 2 ), carbon and sulfur content of fly ash, combustor temperature profile and flame radiation profile. The flame radiation measurements were carried out with a novel narrow beam radiometer which measures local radiant heat flux at a specific location in the combustor. The radiation ranged from 108 to 279 kW/m 2 depending mainly on combustor temperature. Additionally, the temperature significantly impacted the carbon content of fly ash: 2.66% was measured near 1600 °C, while the concentration increased to 36.7% when the temperature was decreased to 1300°C. Furthermore, the successful experimental demonstrations showed that increasing pressure is a viable combustion method and a step towards enhancing the efficiency in oxy-fuel firing based power plants.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2021

Experimental study and demonstration of pilot-scale, dry feed, oxy-coal combustion under pressure

In this paper, we discuss how pressurized oxy-combustion is a promising technology for low-carbon, fossil fuel utilization. It has the potential of improved efficiency and economics compared with conventional atmospheric pressure oxy-combustion. Washington University in St. Louis has proposed a new pressurized oxy-combustion process, namely Staged Pressurized Oxy-Combustion, which has the potential to improve further the plant efficiency, operational flexibility, and economics. This process burns pulverized coal in a pressurized, oxy-combustion environment, which has not been demonstrated in a pilot-scale system before. To address this gap, a 100 kWth pressurized oxy-combustion facility was designed and constructed. This facility has a unique burner and furnace design featuring a co-axial, low-mixing flow field, which is drastically different from conventional coal-fired boiler designs where strong mixing is sought by introducing swirl or recirculating flows. This work aims to present the first pilot-scale experimental results of a dry-feed, pressurized oxy-combustion system. The tests focused on exploring flame stability and shape, char burnout, and fine particulate matter formation. Testing results suggest that the burner has excellent flame stability. The flame shape is consistent with the design philosophy and agrees with large eddy simulations. Importantly, complete char combustion can be achieved with an oxygen mole fraction in the flue gas of only 0.8%, as opposed to a required value of ~3% for conventional atmospheric pressure air-fired or oxyfuel combustion, which reduces the costs of both oxygen generation upstream and oxygen removal downstream. The testing results show promise for dry-feed, pressurized oxy-combustion, and the new burner and furnace design.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2025

Predicting the evolution of biomass bulk density through feedstock preprocessing: Discrete element modeling, regression analysis, and pilot-scale validation

Bulk density is an important material property of biomass feedstocks, influencing handling, storage, transport costs, and conversion efficiency. In this study, predictive regression models for loose and tapped bulk densities of Alamo and Cave-in-Rock switchgrass are developed using a comprehensive dataset generated via calibrated bonded-sphere discrete element method (DEM) simulations. Here, a key contribution of this study is the use of a DEM-based approach, which correlates density with moisture content and particle size distribution parameters and enables analysis across a continuous particle size range, overcoming limitations of purely experimental data. For comparison, regression models are also developed using only experimental data from pilot-scale runs at the Biomass Feedstock National User Facility at Idaho National Laboratory. Validation against pilot-scale data showed reasonable prediction accuracy for both model types, particularly for smaller particle sizes (post-secondary grinding). While the experimental model showed slightly better performance matching the validation data in some cases, the DEM-based model benefits from a much larger dataset, reduced predictor multicollinearity, and continuous parameter coverage, highlighting the utility of validated simulation models for developing robust predictive tools for biomass preprocessing applications.

09 - BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Treatment of slaughterhouse blood waste using pilot scale two-stage anaerobic digesters for biogas production

Anaerobic digestion (AD) is an attractive technology for treatment of slaughterhouse blood waste for energy recovery to offset energy used in the slaughterhouse. However, no studies have been conducted at the pilot or full scales using such waste streams as the primary substrate. In this study, three 197-L pilot scale two-stage AD systems, with or without bamboo biocarriers, treating poultry blood waste were evaluated at two organic loading rates (OLRs) (low = 0.4 and high = 0.7 g COD L -1 day -1 ) under mesophilic condition (26 ± 2 °C) for 260 days. Biocarriers were added to immobilize the microflora and increase cell residence time in the digesters. Results show that the system with biocarriers had methane yield of 192 mL g -1 COD added and COD removal of 32.4% at the high OLR, and methane yield of 384 mL g -1 COD added and COD removal of 68.5% at the low OLR, which were significantly higher than those of the system without biocarriers (used as control). Methanobrevibacter and Methanobacterium beijingense were the dominant archaea in the system using biocarriers. It is estimated that 39.7–41.4 kJ can be recovered from the treatment of blood waste from each kg of slaughtered livestock weight using the two-stage AD system.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2012

MBM fuel feeding system design and evaluation for FBG pilot plant

Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer A 1-5 g/s fuel feeding system for pilot scale FBG was designed, built and tested. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Multiple conveying stages improve pressure balancing, flow control and stability. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Secondary conveyor stage reduced output irregularity from 47% to 15%. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Pneumatic air sparging effective in dealing with poor flow ability of MBM powder. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Pneumatic injection port plugs with char at gasification temperature of 850 Degree-Sign C. - Abstract: A biomass fuel feeding system has been designed, constructed and evaluated for a fluidized bed gasifier (FBG) pilot plant at the University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, SK, Canada). The system was designed for meat and bone meal (MBM) to be injected into the gasifier at a mass flow-rate range of 1-5 g/s. The designed system consists of two stages of screw conveyors, including a metering stage which controlled the flow-rate of fuel, a rotary airlock and an injection conveyor stage, which delivered that fuel at a consistent rate to the FBG. The rotary airlock which was placed between these conveyors, proved unable to maintain a pressure seal, thus the entire conveying system was sealed and pressurized. A pneumatic injection nozzle was also fabricated, tested and fitted to the end of the injection conveyor for direct injection and dispersal into the fluidized bed. The 150 mm metering screw conveyor was shown to effectively control the mass output rate of the system, across a fuel output range of 1-25 g/s, while the addition of the 50 mm injection screw conveyor reduced the irregularity (error) of the system output rate from 47% to 15%. Although material plugging was found to be an issue in the inlet hopper to the injection conveyor, the addition of air sparging ports and a system to pulse air into those ports was found to successfully eliminate this issue. The addition of the pneumatic injection nozzle reduced the output irregularity further to 13%, with an air supply of 50 slpm as the minimum air supply to drive this injector. After commissioning of this final system to the FBG reactor, the injection nozzle was found to plug with char however, and was subsequently removed from the system. Final operation of the reactor continues satisfactorily with the two screw conveyors operating at matching pressure with the fluidized bed, with the output rate of the system estimated based on system characteristic equations, and confirmed by static weight measurements made before and after testing. The error rate by this method is reported to be approximately 10%, which is slightly better than the estimated error rate of 15% for the conveyor system. The reliability of this measurement prediction method relies upon the relative consistency of the physical properties of MBM with respect to its bulk density and feeding characteristics.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Fusion Pilot Plant performance and the role of a Sustained High Power Density tokamak

Recent U.S. fusion development strategy reports all recommend that the U.S. should pursue innovative science and technology to enable construction of a Fusion Pilot Plant (FPP) that produces net electricity from fusion at low capital cost. Compact tokamaks have been proposed as a means of potentially reducing the capital cost of a fusion pilot plant. However, compact steady-state tokamak FPPs face the challenge of integrating a high fraction of self-driven current with high core confinement, plasma pressure, and high divertor parallel heat flux. This integration is sufficiently challenging that a dedicated sustained-high-power-density (SHPD) tokamak facility is proposed by the U.S. community as the optimal way to close this integration gap. Performance projections for the steady-state tokamak FPP regime are presented and a preliminary SHPD device with substantial flexibility in lower aspect ratio (A=2-2.5), shaping, and divertor configuration to narrow gaps to a FPP is described.

core-edge integration↗
DOE OSTI2020

Experimental Investigation of Polymer Induced Fouling of Heater Tubes in the First-ever Polymer Flood Pilot on Alaska North Slope

Polymer flooding has been validated in the lab and by successful applications in other countries, such as Canada and China, to be an effective EOR technique for heavy oil reservoirs. Currently, polymer flooding is being pilot tested for the first time in the Schrader Bluff viscous oil reservoir at Milne Point field on Alaska North Slope (ANS). One of the major concerns of the operator is the impact of polymer on the oil production system after polymer breakthrough, especially the polymer induced fouling issues in the heat exchanger. This study investigates the propensity of polymer fouling on the heater tubes as a function of different variables, with the ultimate goal of determining safe and efficient operating conditions. A unique experimental set-up was indigenously designed and developed to simulate the fouling process on the heating tube. The influence of heating tube skin temperature, tube material, and polymer concentration on fouling tendency was investigated. Under each test condition, the test was run five times with the same tube, and in each run, the freshly prepared synthetic brine and polymer solution were heated from 77°F to 122°F to mimic field operating conditions. The heating time and fouling amount were recorded for each run. The morphology and composition of the deposit samples were analyzed by environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), respectively. It has been found that, in general, the presence of polymer in produced fluids would aggravate the fouling issues on both carbon steel and stainless steel surfaces at all tested skin temperatures (165°F, 250 °F and 350°F), but only higher skin temperatures of 250°F and 350°F could cause polymer induced fouling issues on the copper tube surface and the fouling tendency increased with polymer concentration. At the lower skin temperatures of 165°F, no polymer-induced fouling was identified on the copper tube. A critical temperature that is related to the cloud point of the polymer solution was believed to exist, below which polymer induced fouling would not occur and only mineral scale deposited, but above which the polymer would obviously aggravate the fouling issue. The heating efficiency of the tube would be reduced gradually as more fouling material accumulates on its surface. The ESEM results indicate that if polymer precipitated and deposited on the surface, it would bond to the mineral crystals to form a stronger three- dimensional network structure, and that is why the polymer induced fouling was tougher and more difficult to be removed from the tube surface. The XRD analysis results confirm that the presence of polymer in the fluids can enhance the mineral scale propensity. Overall, the study results have provided practical guidance to the field operator for the ongoing polymer flooding pilot test on ANS. This study may also prove to be valuable for other chemical EOR projects around the world.

Alaska North Slope↗
DOE OSTI2015

Jamaica National Net-Billing Pilot Program Evaluation

This technical report discusses the effectiveness of the Jamaica Public Service Company Limited Net-Billing Pilot Program. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) collected and analyzed data from a wide range of stakeholders, conducted in-country research, and compared program elements to common interconnection practices to form programmatic recommendations for the Jamaica context. NREL finds that the net-billing pilot program has successfully contributed to the support of the emerging solar market in Jamaica with the interconnection of 80 systems under the program for a total of 1.38 megawatts (MW) at the time of original analysis.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

High BMEP and High Efficiency Micro-Pilot Ignition Natural Gas Engine (Final Project Report)

The project objectives were to develop demonstrate a high-efficiency high-output natural gas diesel micro-pilot stoichiometric engine operating with diesel pilot contribution of less than 5% on a medium duty engine. The program’s outcomes achieve in a partnership between Michigan Technological University and Westport Power Inc. were very successful. The engine platform was a 6.7L I6 engine with a compression ratio of 15:1 and achieved 24 bar BMEP and 41% brake thermal efficiency at lambda. Simulation and modeling with an improved turbocharger and combustion chamber improvements demonstrated a clear path to 43% BTE. The operational stoichiometric range was from 5 to 24 bar with minimal throttling. Diesel contribution over the cycle was 4.6%. The results achieved in this program are well above the best in-class baseline natural gas spark ignition engines of 19.5 bar BMEP and 40% BTE.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Development of a framework for sequential Bayesian design of experiments: Application to a pilot-scale solvent-based CO 2 capture process

In this paper, a methodology is developed for sequential design of experiments (SDoE) for process systems and applied to a solvent-based CO 2 capture system. In this approach, the prior knowledge of the system is used to prioritize process data collection at specific operating conditions. These data are then incorporated into a Bayesian inference methodology for updating a stochastic model by refining estimations of its underlying parameters, and the updated model is then used to generate the next set of test runs. Thus, the new knowledge obtained from the data is used to guide subsequent iterations of the experimental runs, ensuring that the overall data collection is maximally informative given that most experimental campaigns, especially at pilot or higher-scale plants, are costly, time-consuming, and resource-limited. The test run objective for this work was to minimize the maximum model prediction uncertainty for key output variables, but the methodology is generic and can be readily applied to other test run objectives. This methodology is applied to an aqueous monoethanolamine (MEA) pilot plant campaign at the National Carbon Capture Center (NCCC) in Wilsonville, Alabama, USA. The SDoE framework was utilized for two iterations, while collecting 18 sets of data representing different process conditions, and this resulted in an overall average reduction in uncertainty of approximately 50% in the prediction of CO 2 capture percentage. Moreover, 11 additional data sets were obtained with variation of absorber packing height for further model validation. This work shows the capability of the SDoE framework to maximize learning given limited resources, allowing for the reduction of model uncertainty, which is of great importance for many applications including reduction of technical risk associated with scale-up and economic analysis.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Continuous Fiber Bath Treatments at Pilot Scale: A Novel Testbed System

The technical demands on high performance textiles continues to expand, and the research community has answered the call with innovative fiber bath treatments for enhanced properties and sizings for improved composites. However, little translation to greater scale has been demonstrated. To fill this gap, a novel, multifunctional system has been developed to explore polymer fiber treatment methods, the deployment of nanoadditive coatings and other sizings, and smart processing methods at the pilot scale. Continuous tows of fibers can be passed through a temperature-controlled, crossflow bath with an immersion residence time exceeding 2 hours. The modular system is resistant to corrosive solutions, includes additional inline stations for washing and drying after processing, is equipped with a bevy of sensors, pumps, and valves monitored and controlled by a LabView program, and can be fully contained in a standard lab fume hood. This new testbed system, when coupled with high fidelity materials characterization methods, will enable rapid evaluation of new fiber treatment methods at pilot-scale.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS1991

Use of piloted simulation for high-angle-of-attack agility research and design criteria development

This paper reviews the use of piloted simulation at Langley Research Center as part of the NASA High-Angle-of-Attack Technology Program (HAATP) program to provide methods and concepts for the design of advanced fighter aircraft. A major focus of this program is to develop the design process required to fully exploit the benefits from advanced control concept for high-angle-of-attack agility. Important methodologies associated with the effective us of piloted simulation of the research are described, particularly those relating to the test techniques, validation of the test results, and design guidelines/criteria development.

Angle of attack↗