Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Performance Analysis”

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 955 records · Page 53

Hybrid hydrostatic/ball bearings in high-speed turbomachinery

A high speed, high pressure liquid hydrogen turbopump was designed, fabricated, and tested under a previous contract. This design was then modified to incorporate hybrid hydrostatic/ball bearings on both the pump end and turbine end to replace the original conventional ball bearing packages. The design, analysis, turbopump modification, assembly, and testing of the turbopump with hybrid bearings is presented here. Initial design considerations and rotordynamic performance analysis was made to define expected turbopump operating characteristics and are reported. The results of testing the turbopump to speeds of 9215 rad/s (88,000 rpm) using a wide range of hydrostatic bearing supply pressures are presented. The hydrostatic bearing test data and the rotordynamic behavior of the turbopump was closely analyzed and are included in the report. The testing of hybrid hydrostatic/ball bearings on a turbopump to the high speed requirements has indicated the configuration concept is feasible. The program has presented a great deal of information on the technology requirements of integrating the hybrid bearing into high speed turbopump designs for improved bearing life.

Nielson, C. E.↗

DACC program cost and work breakdown structure-dictionary. General purpose aft cargo carrier study, volume 2

Results of detailed cost estimates and economic analysis performed on the updated 201 configuration of the dedicated Aft Cargo Carrier (DACC) are given. The objective of this economic analysis is to provide the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with information on the economics of using the DACC on the Space Transportation System (STS). The detailed cost estimates for the DACC are presented by a work breakdown structure (WBS) to ensure that all elements of cost are considered in the economic analysis and related subsystem trades. Costs reported by WBS provide NASA with a basis for comparing competing designs and provide detailed cost information that can be used to forecast phase C/D planning for new projects or programs derived from preliminary conceptual design studies. The scope covers all STS and STS/DACC launch vehicle cost impacts for delivering an orbital transfer vehicle to a 120 NM low Earth orbit (LEO).

Source record↗

Overpressurized zero pressure balloon system

Typical zero pressure scientific balloon systems experiencing diurnal cycles require on board expendable ballast to maintain design float altitude. In the past, pressurized balloon systems have been employed to overcome the need for ballast while maintaining small diurnal altitude excursions. However, requirements on material characteristics and manufacturing methods have enforced limitations on balloon size and therefore payload and altitude capabilities. This effort was aimed at considering the use of current (or slightly modified) zero pressure balloon systems (design, manufacturing and materials) as candidates for pressurized vehicles. Data gathered through performance analysis, structural analysis and flight testing has shown that the use of current zero pressure designs can be expanded to enhance balloon performance.

Simpson, Joel M.↗

Orbiter Autoland reliability analysis

The Space Shuttle Orbiter is the only space reentry vehicle in which the crew is seated upright. This position presents some physiological effects requiring countermeasures to prevent a crewmember from becoming incapacitated. This also introduces a potential need for automated vehicle landing capability. Autoland is a primary procedure that was identified as a requirement for landing following and extended duration orbiter mission. This report documents the results of the reliability analysis performed on the hardware required for an automated landing. A reliability block diagram was used to evaluate system reliability. The analysis considers the manual and automated landing modes currently available on the Orbiter. (Autoland is presently a backup system only.) Results of this study indicate a +/- 36 percent probability of successfully extending a nominal mission to 30 days. Enough variations were evaluated to verify that the reliability could be altered with missions planning and procedures. If the crew is modeled as being fully capable after 30 days, the probability of a successful manual landing is comparable to that of Autoland because much of the hardware is used for both manual and automated landing modes. The analysis indicates that the reliability for the manual mode is limited by the hardware and depends greatly on crew capability. Crew capability for a successful landing after 30 days has not been determined yet.

Welch, D. Phillip↗

Final Search for Short-Baseline Neutrino Oscillations with the PROSPECT-I Detector at HFIR

The PROSPECT experiment is designed to perform precise searches for antineutrino disappearance at short distances (7–9 m) from compact nuclear reactor cores. This Letter reports results from a new neutrino oscillation analysis performed using the complete data sample from the PROSPECT-I detector operated at the High Flux Isotope Reactor in 2018. The analysis uses a multiperiod selection of inverse beta decay neutrino interactions with reduced backgrounds and enhanced statistical power to set limits on electron neutrino disappearance caused by mixing with sterile neutrinos with 0.2–20 eV 2 mass splittings. Inverse beta decay positron energy spectra from six different reactor-detector distance ranges are found to be statistically consistent with one another, as would be expected in the absence of sterile neutrino oscillations. The data excludes at 95% confidence level the existence of sterile neutrinos in regions above 3 eV 2 previously unexplored by terrestrial experiments, including all space below 10 eV 2 suggested by the recently strengthened Gallium Anomaly. The best-fit point of the Neutrino-4 reactor experiment’s claimed observation of short-baseline oscillation is ruled out at more than 5 standard deviations.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

An OpenMP GPU-offload implementation of a non-equilibrium solidification cellular automata model for additive manufacturing

Here, in this paper, performance strategies on GPU-based HPC platforms of a cellular automata (CA) simulation code for non-equilibrium solidification, including nucleation, grain growth, solute partitioning and transport for the metal additive manufacturing (AM) process are investigated using OpenMP 4.5. To accurately report the speed-up for multicore CPUs and GPUs, a rigorous performance analysis employed optimizations appropriate for both CPU-only code (baseline) and GPU offload codes for an isothermal test problem. The performance results on Summit at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility indicate that using a precomputed list of interface cells significantly decreased the wall-clock time on GPUs. The speedup due to GPU acceleration was evaluated for a full Summit node and measured to be 1.8X when comparing a 6 MPI tasks run with 6 GPUs versus 36 MPI tasks on the CPU only. That speed-up was found to be 7.9X when comparing 6 MPI tasks with 6 GPUs versus the 6 MPI tasks running on the CPU only. Performance measurements showed that system total time is almost constant for runs with more than 96 MPI tasks (or GPUs), indicating that the GPU-accelerated code showed an excellent weak scaling performance. Finally, a rapid directional solidification problem was considered to demonstrate the CA code capability on Summit. It was found that a mesh size of at least 0.05 μm is recommended for the AM-like simulations in order to obtain accurate elongated grain microstructure and elongated subgrain features, which are in qualitative good agreement with experimental data. The results presented in this study indicate that the performance strategies on GPU-based HPC platforms for the CA code are appropriate for novel HPC exascale platforms.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Environmental life cycle assessment methods applied to amine-ionic liquid hybrid CO 2 absorbents

A hybrid solvent mixture of triethyl(octyl)phosphonium cyanopyrrolide [P2228][2-CNPyr] and aqueous monoethanolamine (MEA) has the potential for absorbing CO 2 from post combustion flue gas. However, previous studies have found that the production of phosphonium based ionic liquids (IL) had significantly higher potential environmental impacts compared to MEA. Literature attributes these higher environmental impacts to the phosphine and phosgene-based intermediates required to produce the phosphonium ion of the ionic liquid. This study proposes a novel synthesis pathway that eliminates the need for phosphine and phosgene intermediates in the production of [P2228][2-CNPyr]. The environmental impacts of producing 1kg of the ionic liquid through this novel synthesis route was evaluated using the TRACI 2.1 methodology within the life cycle assessment (LCA) framework. Additionally, the environmental impacts for the production of 1kg of a hybrid solvent was also evaluated and compared against MEA. The life cycle inventory for the production of the IL and its hybrid solvent were calculated based on the stoichiometry and then scaled up. This study found that the IL and its hybrid solvents had higher environmental impacts among 9 of the 10 environmental impact categories calculated by the TRACI 2.1 methodology, except for the ecotoxicity potential. A sensitivity analysis indicated that these solvents were more sensitive to the assumptions of the material requirements of the phosphonium cation than the overall energy or transportation requirements. Despite this sensitivity, both the solvents demonstrated a lower Ecotoxicity Potential compared to MEA, the rest of the environmental impacts were still found to be higher than that of MEA, thereby underscoring the need to investigate novel synthesis routes for the production of phosphonium cation. The uncertainty analysis performed confirmed the findings that the IL has a higher environmental impact potentials across all categories except ecotoxicity potential. The uncertainty analysis also confirms that the phosphonium cation is a major hotspot in production route of these solvents and a source of uncertainty in the model compared to the anion. Altogether, this study underscores the need for investigating novel green chemistry pathway for the synthesis of phosphonium based ionic liquids, such as [P2228][2-CNPyr], to ensure that the these ILs can be a truly green alternative to MEA by not only offering superior CO₂ capture capacity compared to MEA but also being sustainably produced.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Altitude-wind-tunnel investigation of a 4000-pound-thrust axial-flow turbojet engine VI : combustion-chamber performance

An analysis of the performance of the types A, B, and C combustion chambers of the 4000-pound-thrust axial-flow turbojet engine is presented. The data were obtained from investigations of the complete engine over a range of pressure altitudes from 5000 to 40,000 feet and ram pressure ratios from 1.00 to 1.86. The combustion-chamber pressure losses, the effect of the losses on cycle efficiency, and the combustion efficiency are discussed.

Pinkel, I Irving↗

Evolutionary computing for the design search and optimization of space vehicle power subsystems

Evolutionary computing has proven to be a straightforward and robust approach for optimizing a wide range of difficult analysis and design problems. This paper discusses the application of these techniques to an existing space vehicle power subsystem resource and performance analysis simulation in a parallel processing environment.

evolutionary computing genetic algorithms optimiza↗

In-flight measurement of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-10 static Earth sensor error

Analysis performed in the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Flight Dynamics Division (FDD) measures error in the static Earth sensor onboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-10 spacecraft using flight data. Errors are computed as the difference between Earth sensor pitch and roll angle telemetry and reference pitch and roll attitude histories propagated by gyros. The flight data error determination illustrates the effect on horizon sensing of systemic variation in the Earth infrared (IR) horizon radiance with latitude and season, as well as the effect of anomalies in the global IR radiance. Results of the analysis provide a comparison between static Earth sensor flight performance and that of scanning Earth sensors studied previously in the GSFC/FDD. The results also provide a baseline for evaluating various models of the static Earth sensor. Representative days from the NOAA-10 mission indicate the extent of uniformity and consistency over time of the global IR horizon. A unique aspect of the NOAA-10 analysis is the correlation of flight data errors with independent radiometric measurements of stratospheric temperature. The determination of the NOAA-10 static Earth sensor error contributes to realistic performance expectations for missions to be equipped with similar sensors.

Harvie, E.↗

Development of a computer technique for the prediction of transport aircraft flight profile sonic boom signatures

A new computer technique for the analysis of transport aircraft sonic boom signature characteristics was developed. This new technique, based on linear theory methods, combines the previously separate equivalent area and F function development with a signature propagation method using a single geometry description. The new technique was implemented in a stand-alone computer program and was incorporated into an aircraft performance analysis program. Through these implementations, both configuration designers and performance analysts are given new capabilities to rapidly analyze an aircraft's sonic boom characteristics throughout the flight envelope.

Coen, Peter G.↗

Performance of the rigorous renormalization group for first-order phase transitions and topological phases

Expanding and improving the repertoire of numerical methods for studying quantum lattice models is an ongoing focus in many-body physics. While the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) has been established as a practically useful algorithm for finding the ground state in one-dimensional systems, a provably efficient and accurate algorithm remained elusive until the introduction of the rigorous renormalization group (RRG) by Landau [Nat. Phys. 11, 566 (2015)1745-247310.1038/nphys3345]. In this paper, we study the accuracy and performance of a numerical implementation of RRG at first-order phase transitions and in symmetry-protected topological phases. Our study is motivated by the question of when RRG might provide a useful complement to the more established DMRG technique. In particular, despite its general utility, DMRG can give unreliable results near first-order phase transitions and in topological phases, since its local update procedure can fail to adequately explore (near-)degenerate manifolds. Furthermore, the rigorous theoretical underpinnings of RRG, meanwhile, suggest that it should not suffer from the same difficulties. We show this optimism is justified, and that RRG indeed determines well-ordered, accurate energies even when DMRG does not. Moreover, our performance analysis indicates that in certain circumstances seeding DMRG with states determined by coarse runs of RRG may provide an advantage over simply performing DMRG.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Optimal solar sail planetocentric trajectories

The analysis of solar sail planetocentric optimal trajectory problem is described. A computer program was produced to calculate optimal trajectories for a limited performance analysis. A square sail model is included and some consideration is given to a heliogyro sail model. Orbit to a subescape point and orbit to orbit transfer are considered. Trajectories about the four inner planets can be calculated and shadowing, oblateness, and solar motion may be included. Equinoctial orbital elements are used to avoid the classical singularities, and the method of averaging is applied to increase computational speed. Solution of the two-point boundary value problem which arises from the application of optimization theory is accomplished with a Newton procedure. Time optimal trajectories are emphasized, but a penalty function has been considered to prevent trajectories which intersect a planet's surface.

Sackett, L. L.↗

GPACC program cost work breakdown structure-dictionary. General purpose aft cargo carrier study, volume 3

The results of detailed cost estimates and economic analysis performed on the updated Model 101 configuration of the general purpose Aft Cargo Carrier (ACC) are given. The objective of this economic analysis is to provide the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with information on the economics of using the ACC on the Space Transportation System (STS). The detailed cost estimates for the ACC are presented by a work breakdown structure (WBS) to ensure that all elements of cost are considered in the economic analysis and related subsystem trades. Costs reported by WBS provide NASA with a basis for comparing competing designs and provide detailed cost information that can be used to forecast phase C/D planning for new projects or programs derived from preliminary conceptual design studies. The scope covers all STS and STS/ACC launch vehicle cost impacts for delivering payloads to a 160 NM low Earth orbit (LEO).

Source record↗

Operational improvements of long-term predicted ephemerides of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRSs)

Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) orbit determination and prediction are supported by the Flight Dynamics Facility (FDF) of the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Flight Dynamics Division (FDD). TDRS System (TDRSS)-user satellites require predicted TDRS ephemerides that are up to 10 weeks in length. Previously, long-term ephemerides generated by the FDF included predictions from the White Sands Complex (WSC), which plans and executes TDRS maneuvers. TDRSs typically have monthly stationkeeping maneuvers, and predicted postmaneuver state vectors are received from WSC up to a month in advance. This paper presents the results of an analysis performed in the FDF to investigate more accurate and economical long-term ephemerides for the TDRSs. As a result of this analysis, two new methods for generating long-term TDRS ephemeris predictions have been implemented by the FDF. The Center-of-Box (COB) method models a TDRS as fixed at the center of its stationkeeping box. Using this method, long-term ephemeris updates are made semiannually instead of weekly. The impulse method is used to model more maneuvers. The impulse method yields better short-term accuracy than the COB method, especially for larger stationkeeping boxes. The accuracy of the impulse method depends primarily on the accuracy of maneuver date forecasting.

Kostoff, J. L.↗

An XML-Based Protocol for Distributed Event Services

A recent trend in distributed computing is the construction of high-performance distributed systems called computational grids. One difficulty we have encountered is that there is no standard format for the representation of performance information and no standard protocol for transmitting this information. This limits the types of performance analysis that can be undertaken in complex distributed systems. To address this problem, we present an XML-based protocol for transmitting performance events in distributed systems and evaluate the performance of this protocol.

Smith, Warren↗

Domain Adaptation for Measurements of Strong Gravitational Lenses

Upcoming surveys are predicted to discover galaxy-scale strong lenses on the magnitude of 105, making deep learning methods necessary in lensing data analysis. Currently, there is insufficient real lensing data to train deep learning algorithms, but training only on simulated data results in poor performance on real data. Domain adaptation can bridge the gap between simulated and real datasets. We adopt domain adaptation on the estimation of Einstein radius in simulated galaxy-scale gravitational lensing images. We evaluate two domain adaptation techniques - domain adversarial neural networks (DANN) and maximum mean discrepancy (MMD). We train on a source domain of simulated lenses and apply it to a target domain with emulation of DES survey conditions. We show that both domain adaptation techniques can significantly improve the model performance on the more complex target domain datasets. Our results show the potential of using domain adaptation to perform analysis on future survey data with a deep neural network trained on simulated data.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗