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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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NASA NTRS1977

High spectral resolution ground-based observations of Venus in the 450- to 1250 kayser region

Ground-based observations of Venus were made with a 5-cm drive Michelson interferometer during December 1970 and December 1973. The thermal emission spectrum of the central portion of the apparent disk was recorded from 450-1250 kaysers with an apodized spectral resolution of 0.25 kaysers. All statistically significant sharp line-absorption features in the spectrum have been identified with gaseous CO2. Comparison between the observed spectrum and a synthetic spectrum computed from a model atmosphere, assuming gaseous CO2 and a sulfuric acid haze as opacity sources, indicates good agreement. A broad diffuse absorption feature associated with the sulfuric acid haze is evident in the 870- to 930 kayser region. With the exception of the rotational lines of the 927 kayser CO2 band, the above feature appears as a continuum down to 0.25 kayser resolution. In the 750- to 1250 kayser range, the spectrum exhibits moderate thermal contrast with maximum brightness temperatures of 234-238 K occurring near 825 kaysers. These temperatures are in general agreement with previous measurements.

Kunde, V. G.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Study of advanced fuel system concepts for commercial aircraft

An analytical study was performed in order to assess relative performance and economic factors involved with alternative advanced fuel systems for future commercial aircraft operating with broadened property fuels. The DC-10-30 wide-body tri-jet aircraft and the CF6-8OX engine were used as a baseline design for the study. Three advanced systems were considered and were specifically aimed at addressing freezing point, thermal stability and lubricity fuel properties. Actual DC-10-30 routes and flight profiles were simulated by computer modeling and resulted in prediction of aircraft and engine fuel system temperatures during a nominal flight and during statistical one-day-per-year cold and hot flights. Emergency conditions were also evaluated. Fuel consumption and weight and power extraction results were obtained. An economic analysis was performed for new aircraft and systems. Advanced system means for fuel tank heating included fuel recirculation loops using engine lube heat and generator heat. Environmental control system bleed air heat was used for tank heating in a water recirculation loop. The results showed that fundamentally all of the three advanced systems are feasible but vary in their degree of compatibility with broadened-property fuel.

Coffinberry, G. A.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Control of optical systems

Some of the current and planned activities at the Air Force Systems Command in structures and controls for optical-type systems are summarized. Many of the activities are contracted to industry; one task is an in-house program which includes a hardware test program. The objective of the in-house program, referred to as the Aluminum Beam Expander Structure (ABES), is to address issues involved in on-orbit system identification. The structure, which appears similar to the LDR backup structure, is about 35 feet tall. The activity to date has been limited to acquisition of about 250 hours of test data. About 30 hours of data per excitation force is gathered in order to obtain sufficient data for a good statistical estimate of the structural parameters. The development of an Integrated Structural Modeling (ISM) computer program is being done by Boeing Aerospace Company. The objective of the contracted effort is to develop a combined optics, structures, thermal, controls, and multibody dynamics simulation code.

Founds, D.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Design of an Adsorption Bed for Exploration Trace Contaminant Control

The state-of-the-art in long mission duration spacecraft trace contaminant control processes relies on physical and chemical adsorption for contaminant removal. Target species for adsorption include low and semivolatile organic compounds while chemisorption is utilized for metabolic ammonia control. When adsorption is employed in conjunction with a high temperature oxidation process, a complementary impact on cabin air quality may be realized. The adsorption bed also serves to guard the downstream oxidation catalyst from foulants and potential poisons which may decrease its lifetime and activity. To this end, a packed adsorption guard-bed was sized to control a statistical contaminant load model over a simulated Mars transit mission duration. The updated load model incorporates flight air-quality data and contemporary metabolic source emission literature. The guard-bed was operated in tandem with an exploration prototype thermal catalytic oxidizer. The exploration guard-bed prototype included design considerations from recent flight technology demonstrations and changes intended to improve compatibility with enriched oxygen exploration cabin environments as compared to the prior-art of contaminant control system design.

Trace Contaminant Control↗

NASA NTRS1991

Composite load spectra for select space propulsion structural components

The objective of this program is to develop generic load models with multiple levels of progressive sophistication to simulate the composite load spectra that are induced in space propulsion system components, representative of Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME), such as transfer ducts, turbine blades, and liquid oxygen (LOX) posts and system ducting. These models will be developed using two independent approaches. The first approach consists of using state-of-the-art probabilistic methods to describe the individual loading conditions and combinations of these loading conditions to synthesize the composite load spectra simulation. The methodology required to combine the various individual load simulation models (hot-gas dynamic, vibrations, instantaneous position, centrifugal field, etc.) into composite load spectra simulation models will be developed under this program. A computer code incorporating the various individual and composite load spectra models will be developed to construct the specific load model desired. The second approach, which is covered under the options portion of the contract, will consist of developing coupled models for composite load spectra simulation which combine the (deterministic) models for composite load dynamic, acoustic, high-pressure and high rotational speed, etc., load simulation using statistically varying coefficients. These coefficients will then be determined using advanced probabilistic simulation methods with and without strategically selected experimental data. This report covers the efforts of the third year of the contract. The overall program status is that the turbine blade loads have been completed and implemented. The transfer duct loads are defined and are being implemented. The thermal loads for all components are defined and coding is being developed. A dynamic pressure load model is under development. The parallel work on the probabilistic methodology is essentially completed. The overall effort is being integrated in an expert system code specifically developed for this project.

Newell, J. F.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Line blanketing without local thermodynamic equilibrium. II - A solar-type model in radiative equilibrium

A statistical solution for the problem of non-LTE radiative transfer in the millions of atomic transitions responsible for line blanketing is proposed which takes into account the influence of scattering on the atomic populations. A multifrequency/multigray algorithm is used to analyze the thermal equilibrium. Although CO is shown to cool the upper atmosphere to a boundary temperature of 2640 K, the molecule has little influence in the region of the solar temperature minimum.

Anderson, Lawrence S.↗

NASA NTRS1967

Physics

Polar substorm model on auroral effects, algebra of fermi-dirac operators applied to many-body problems, and dynamitron accelerator as thermal neutron source

MANY-BODY PROBLEM↗

NASA NTRS1975

UV stars and the interstellar medium - A statistical time-dependent model

A statistical time-dependent model for the effects on the interstellar gas of the ionizing radiation from UV stars is presented. The radiation from the stars is assumed to be emitted as monochromatic bursts at random times and locations. The thermal and ionization history of the gas is followed in a Monte Carlo simulation. Probability densities as well as mean values for the ionization fraction, temperature, and other observable quantities are derived. The fluctuations in observed quantities due to the stochastic nature of the model are estimated. Models of the interstellar medium perpendicular to the galactic plane are developed and compared with observations. The action of the UV stars can explain the bulk properties of the interstellar gas toward the galactic poles and is consistent with the Copernicus satellite observations toward lambda Scorpii.

Lyon, J.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Multiple Equilibria of the Barotropic Vorticity Equation on a Sphere

Multiple states of the barotropic vorticity equation in which the balance is between the first and third terms on the r.h.s. of (1) are given. Solutions of this type were also considered by Charney and Devore (1979) in their discussion of thermally, rather than topographically, forced waves. Whereas in the case of topographic forcing the multiplicity arises from what they called form-drag instability in the wave-zonal flow interaction, in the thermal forcing case the associated instability appears to be the Rossby-wave instability discussed by Lorenz (1972), and the multiple states of the highly truncated model proved to be unstable when more degrees of freedom were added. The multiple statistically steady solutions described are thus novel in that they do not involve form-drag instability, they have stable statistics in calculations with a large number of degrees of freedoms, and they occur on the sphere, with no artificial confinement in a resonant cavity. Furthermore, the solutions are obtained with no external forcing of the zonal flow. The full non-linear equations for two-dimensional non-divergent motion between smooth, rigid boundaries on a sphere were used.

Suarez, M. J.↗

NASA NTRS2013

Micromechanics Fatigue Damage Analysis Modeling for Fabric Reinforced Ceramic Matrix Composites

A micromechanics analysis modeling method was developed to analyze the damage progression and fatigue failure of fabric reinforced composite structures, especially for the brittle ceramic matrix material composites. A repeating unit cell concept of fabric reinforced composites was used to represent the global composite structure. The thermal and mechanical properties of the repeating unit cell were considered as the same as those of the global composite structure. The three-phase micromechanics, the shear-lag, and the continuum fracture mechanics models were integrated with a statistical model in the repeating unit cell to predict the progressive damages and fatigue life of the composite structures. The global structure failure was defined as the loss of loading capability of the repeating unit cell, which depends on the stiffness reduction due to material slice failures and nonlinear material properties in the repeating unit cell. The present methodology is demonstrated with the analysis results evaluated through the experimental test performed with carbon fiber reinforced silicon carbide matrix plain weave composite specimens.

Min, J. B.↗

NASA NTRS2013

Enigma Version 12

Enigma Version 12 software combines model building, animation, and engineering visualization into one concise software package. Enigma employs a versatile user interface to allow average users access to even the most complex pieces of the application. Using Enigma eliminates the need to buy and learn several software packages to create an engineering visualization. Models can be created and/or modified within Enigma down to the polygon level. Textures and materials can be applied for additional realism. Within Enigma, these models can be combined to create systems of models that have a hierarchical relationship to one another, such as a robotic arm. Then these systems can be animated within the program or controlled by an external application programming interface (API). In addition, Enigma provides the ability to use plug-ins. Plugins allow the user to create custom code for a specific application and access the Enigma model and system data, but still use the Enigma drawing functionality. CAD files can be imported into Enigma and combined to create systems of computer graphics models that can be manipulated with constraints. An API is available so that an engineer can write a simulation and drive the computer graphics models with no knowledge of computer graphics. An animation editor allows an engineer to set up sequences of animations generated by simulations or by conceptual trajectories in order to record these to highquality media for presentation. Enigma Version 12 Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas 28 NASA Tech Briefs, September 2013 Planetary Protection Bioburden Analysis Program NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California This program is a Microsoft Access program that performed statistical analysis of the colony counts from assays performed on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft to determine the bioburden density, 3-sigma biodensity, and the total bioburdens required for the MSL prelaunch reports. It also contains numerous tools that report the data in various ways to simplify the reports required. The program performs all the calculations directly in the MS Access program. Prior to this development, the data was exported to large Excel files that had to be cut and pasted to provide the desired results. The program contains a main menu and a number of submenus. Analyses can be performed by using either all the assays, or only the accountable assays that will be used in the final analysis. There are three options on the first menu: either calculate using (1) the old MER (Mars Exploration Rover) statistics, (2) the MSL statistics for all the assays, or This software implements penetration limit equations for common micrometeoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) shield configurations, windows, and thermal protection systems. Allowable MMOD risk is formulated in terms of the probability of penetration (PNP) of the spacecraft pressure hull. For calculating the risk, spacecraft geometry models, mission profiles, debris environment models, and penetration limit equations for installed shielding configurations are required. Risk assessment software such as NASA's BUMPERII is used to calculate mission PNP; however, they are unsuitable for use in shield design and preliminary analysis studies. The software defines a single equation for the design and performance evaluation of common MMOD shielding configurations, windows, and thermal protection systems, along with a description of their validity range and guidelines for their application. Recommendations are based on preliminary reviews of fundamental assumptions, and accuracy in predicting experimental impact test results. The software is programmed in Visual Basic for Applications for installation as a simple add-in for Microsoft Excel. The user is directed to a graphical user interface (GUI) that requires user inputs and provides solutions directly in Microsoft Excel workbooks. This work was done by Shannon Ryan of the USRA Lunar and Planetary Institute for Johnson Space Center. Further information is contained in a TSP (see page 1). MSC- 24582-1 Micrometeoroid and Orbital Debris (MMOD) Shield Ballistic Limit Analysis Program Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas Commercially, because it is so generic, Enigma can be used for almost any project that requires engineering visualization, model building, or animation. Models in Enigma can be exported to many other formats for use in other applications as well. Educationally, Enigma is being used to allow university students to visualize robotic algorithms in a simulation mode before using them with actual hardware.

Shores, David↗

NASA NTRS2001

Improving Metallic Thermal Protection System Hypervelocity Impact Resistance Through Design of Experiments Approach

A design of experiments approach has been implemented using computational hypervelocity impact simulations to determine the most effective place to add mass to an existing metallic Thermal Protection System (TPS) to improve hypervelocity impact protection. Simulations were performed using axisymmetric models in CTH, a shock-physics code developed by Sandia National Laboratories, and validated by comparison with existing test data. The axisymmetric models were then used in a statistical sensitivity analysis to determine the influence of five design parameters on degree of hypervelocity particle dispersion. Several damage metrics were identified and evaluated. Damage metrics related to the extent of substructure damage were seen to produce misleading results, however damage metrics related to the degree of dispersion of the hypervelocity particle produced results that corresponded to physical intuition. Based on analysis of variance results it was concluded that the most effective way to increase hypervelocity impact resistance is to increase the thickness of the outer foil layer. Increasing the spacing between the outer surface and the substructure is also very effective at increasing dispersion.

Poteet, Carl C.↗

NASA NTRS2019

Sea Surface Salinity Retrievals from Aquarius Using Neural Networks

Even though the Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) retrieved from Aquarius are generally very close to in-situ measurements, the level of similarity varies with the region and with the circumstances of the observations (wind speed, sea surface temperature, etc.). SSS is currently retrieved from the brightness temperatures measured by Aquarius and applying the current theoretical model for the propagation and emission of the natural thermal radiation. In this contribution we consider an alternative retrieval approach based on a Neural Network (NN) with the goal of improving the subsets of Aquarius SSS data that are in poorer agreement within-situ measurements. The subset considered here are the SSS retrieved at latitudes higher than 30 ̊. The output of the NN approach are compared against in-situ measurements using four statistical metrics (correlation coefficient, bias, RMSD and 5% trimmed range). The output of the NN and the nominal Aquarius SSS are compared against SSS values from in-situ measurements and from ocean models. From these comparisons it appears that the output of the NN matches the in-situ measurements better than the nominal Aquarius SSS.

Soldo, Yan↗

NASA NTRS1982

Solidification of undercooled liquids

During rapid solidification processing (RSP) the amount of liquid undercooling is an important factor in determining microstructural development by controlling phase selection during nucleation and morphological evolution during crystal growth. While undercooling is an inherent feature of many techniques of RSP, the deepest undercoolings and most controlled studies have been possible in carefully prepared fine droplet samples. From past work and recent advances in studies of nucleation kinetics it has become clear that the initiation of crystallization during RSP is governed usually by heterogeneous sites located at surfaces. With known nucleant sites, it has been possible to identify specific pathways of metastable phase formation and microstructural development in alloys. These advances have allowed for a clearer assessment of the interplay between undercooling, cooling rate and particle size statistics in structure formation. New approaches to the examination of growth processes have been developed to follow the thermal behavior and morphology in small samples in the period of rapid crystallization and recalescence. Based upon the new experimental information from these studies, useful models can be developed for the overall solidification process to include nucleation behavior, thermodynamic constraints, thermal history, growth kinetics, solute redistribution and resulting structures. From the refinement of knowledge concerning the underlying factors that govern RSP a basis is emerging for an effective alloy design and processing strategy.

Perepezko, J. H.↗

NASA NTRS1992

A compressible near-wall turbulence model for boundary layer calculations

A compressible near-wall two-equation model is derived by relaxing the assumption of dynamical field similarity between compressible and incompressible flows. This requires justifications for extending the incompressible models to compressible flows and the formulation of the turbulent kinetic energy equation in a form similar to its incompressible counterpart. As a result, the compressible dissipation function has to be split into a solenoidal part, which is not sensitive to changes of compressibility indicators, and a dilational part, which is directly affected by these changes. This approach isolates terms with explicit dependence on compressibility so that they can be modeled accordingly. An equation that governs the transport of the solenoidal dissipation rate with additional terms that are explicitly dependent on the compressibility effects is derived similarly. A model with an explicit dependence on the turbulent Mach number is proposed for the dilational dissipation rate. Thus formulated, all near-wall incompressible flow models could be expressed in terms of the solenoidal dissipation rate and straight-forwardly extended to compressible flows. Therefore, the incompressible equations are recovered correctly in the limit of constant density. The two-equation model and the assumption of constant turbulent Prandtl number are used to calculate compressible boundary layers on a flat plate with different wall thermal boundary conditions and free-stream Mach numbers. The calculated results, including the near-wall distributions of turbulence statistics and their limiting behavior, are in good agreement with measurements. In particular, the near-wall asymptotic properties are found to be consistent with incompressible behavior; thus suggesting that turbulent flows in the viscous sublayer are not much affected by compressibility effects.

So, R. M. C.↗

NASA NTRS1994

A time-dependent gyro-kinetic model of thermal ion upflows in the high-latitude F region

Ample evidence supports the significance of the high-latitude ionospheric contribution to magnetospheric plasma. Assuming flux conservation along a flux tube, the upward field-aligned ion flows observed in the magnetosphere require high-latitude ionospheric field-aligned ion upflows of the order of 10(exp 8) to 10(exp 9)/sq cm/s. Since radar and satellite observations of high-latitude F region flows at times exceed this flux requirement by an order of magnitude, the thermal ionospheric upflows are not simply the ionospheric response to a magnetospheric flux requirement. Several ionospheric ion upflow mechanisms have been proposed, but simulations based on fluid theory do not reproduce all the observed features of ionospheric ion upflows. Certain asymmetries in the statistical morphology of high-latitude F region ion upflows suggest that the ion upflows may be generated by ion-neutral frictional heating. We developed a single-component (O(+)), time-dependent gyro-kinetic model of the high-latitude F region response to frictional heating in which the neutral exobase is a discontinuous boundary between fully collisional and collisionless plasmas. The concept of a discontinuous neutreal exobase and the assumption of a constant and uniform polarization electric field reduce the ion velocity distribution function, from which we can compute the ion density, parallel velocity, parallel and perpendicular temperature, and parallel flux. Using our model, we simulated the response of a convecting flux tube between 500 km and 2500 km to various frictional heating inputs; the results were both qualitatively and quantitatively different from fluid model results, which may indicate an inadequacy of the fluid theory approach. The gyro-kinetic frictional heating model responses to the various simulations were qualitatively similar: (1) initial perturbations of all the modeled parameters propagated rapidly up the flux tube, (2) transient values of the ion parallel velocity, temperature, and flux exceeded 3 km/s, 2 x 10(exp 4) K, and 10(exp 9)/sq cm/s, respectively, (3) a second transient regime developed wherein the parallel temperature drops to very low values (a few hundred Kelvins), and (4) well after heating ceased, large parallel temperatures and large downward parallel velocities and fluxes developed as the flux tube slowly returned to diffusive equilibrium. The ion velocity distributions during the simulation are often non-Maxwellian and are sometimes composed of two distinct ion populations.

Loranc, M.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Research Relative to High Spatial Resolution Passive Microwave Sounding Systems

Methods to obtain high resolution passive microwave weather observations, and understanding of their probable impact on numerical weather prediction accuracy were investigated. The development of synthetic aperture concepts for geosynchronous passive microwave sounders were studied. The effects of clouds, precipitation, surface phenomena, and atmospheric thermal fine structure on a scale of several kilometers were examined. High resolution passive microwave sounders (e.g., AMSU) with an increased number of channels will produce initialization data for numerical weather prediction (NWP) models with both increased spatial resolution and coverage. The development of statistical models for error growth in high resolution primitive equation NWP models which permit the consequences of various observing system alternatives, including sensors and assimilation times and procedures is discussed. A high resolution three dimensional primitive equation NWP model to determine parameters in an error growth model similar to that formulated by Lorenz, but with more degrees of freedom is utilized.

Staelin, D. H.↗

NASA NTRS2008

Suzaku Observations of Thermal and Non-Thermal X-Ray Emission from the Middle-Aged Supernova Remnant G156.2+5.7

We present results from X-ray analysis of a Galactic middle-aged supernova remnant (SNR) G156.2+5.7 which is bright and largely extended in X-ray wavelengths, showing a clear circular shape (radius approx.50'). Using the Suzaku satellite, we observed this SNR in three pointings; partially covering the northwestern (NW) rim, the eastern (E) rim, and the central portion of this SNR. In the NW rim and the central portion, we confirm that the X-ray spectra consist of soft and hard-tail emission, while in the E rim we find no significant hard-tail emission. The soft emission is well fitted by either a one-component or two-component non-equilibrium ionization (NEI) model. In the NW and E rims, a one-component (the swept-up interstellar medium) NEI model well represents the soft emission. On the other hand, in the central portion, a two-component (the interstellar medium and the metal-rich ejecta) NEI model fits the soft emission better than the one-component NEI model from a statistical point of view. The relative abundances in the ejecta component suggest that G156.2+5.7 is a remnant from a core-collapse SN explosion whose progenitor mass is less than 15 Solar Mass. The origin of the hard-tail emission detected in the NW rim and the central portion of the SNR is highly likely non-thermal synchrotron emission from relativistic electrons. In the NW rim, the relativistic electrons seems to be accelerated by a forward shock with a slow velocity of APPROX.500 km/sec.

Katsuda, Satoru↗