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DOE OSTI2024

Robust Combined Heat and Hybrid Power (CHHP) for High Electrical Efficiency Cogeneration

Georgia Tech (Prime Recipient), the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) investigated a hybrid fuel cell/ gas turbine system concept as a combined heat and hybrid power (CHHP) system for both robust and high power-to-process heat ratio cogeneration. The novelty of the proposed system entailed the distinct, elevated electrical efficiencies it maintains while simultaneously supporting a broad span of heating needs (e.g., supply temperatures) demanded across variable heat loads. The scope included: 1) leveraging a pioneering national lab facility configured for dynamic system operability development of hybrid fuel cell/gas turbine cycles; 2) enabling technology development to adjust and modulate the quality and quantity of thermal supply to bottoming heat loads via novel extreme temperature gas bypass valves. Hybrid fuel cell/gas turbine systems have primarily been reduced-to-practice in a constrained (e.g., initial proof-of-concept) manner and have still demonstrated considerable electrical efficiencies. However, these pre-pilot systems have focused upon electrical efficiencies and electrical power generation as the exclusive energy demand. Such hybrid systems had not been extensively researched or developed for flexible and variable operation consisting of both power and heat demands; however, these variable combined power and heat demands are characteristic of many types of manufacturers such as animal/poultry processing, bakeries and milk/flour/pastry manufacturing, textile mills, and electrochemical processing. Commercially, developing the system into a working combined heat and power system benefits these types of manufacturers by allowing them to meet their power and heat demands at a lower cost, higher efficiency, and/or through onsite generation. Therefore, the technical scope of this project was largely to study and facilitate these hybrid systems as combined heat and hybrid power (CHHP) systems that include dynamic operability for variable heat and power loads and/or grid dynamics for various types of manufacturers. Simulation results were used to predict the performance of the CHHP system and conceptually develop it to achieve desired dynamic operability. Experimentally, the primary goal was to design, manufacture, and experiment upon a high-temperature bypass valve. Experimental data included air mass flow rates through the valve orifice when the valve was changed to variable extent between fully closed and fully open. The experimental data was then used to create a semi-empirical computational model of the bypass valve. Concluded simulation goals for the research included developing computational heat exchanger models for the hybrid system inclusive of the bottoming heat exchanger and the recuperative heat exchanger, and then combining the computational recuperator model with the computational valve model. Afterwards, the computational models were then integrated to predict the dynamic operation of hybrid fuel cell/gas turbine cycles throughout a design space and reporting such. The scope stated in the preceding paragraph was packaged into five specific goals: 1) enabling the simulation of dynamic combined heat and power through the creation of computational, modular heat exchanger models; 2) simulation and exploration of the CHHP system’s performance by integrating the heat exchanger models with the national lab’s pre-existing hybrid system (computational) simulation, but without the recuperator bypass valve concept in order to initially determine how the (baseline) system behaves and can be controlled in order to meet variable heat and power demands; 3) development and initial deployment of the high-temperature recuperator bypass valve technology in order to confirm and characterize the approach; 4) usage of the experimental data for the valve to create a semi-empirical computational model for the bypass valve which could then be combined with the heat exchanger computational models; 5) repeat of the second task of simulating and exploring the system’s performance, but this time including the bypass valve to resolve its efficacy. Tasks were successfully completed, and the general notion of flexibly operating, high electrical efficiency CHHP was further corroborated. Supportive details are provided in the report.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2025

An Agent-Based Modeling Approach for Spatiotemporal Optimization of Electric Vehicle Fast-Charging Station Demand

With increasing electric vehicle (EV) adoption, managing public fast-charging demand effectively is crucial to avoid grid strain. This study investigates the potential of using dynamic pricing schemes to address this challenge. Presented in this study is a scalable agent-based simulation framework, which is applied to a case study in Richmond, Virginia, that assumes a 50% EV adoption rate in 2040. Two pricing schemes are compared: (1) a dynamic-pricing scheme based on station utilization and (2) a dynamic-pricing scheme based on peak power at the station. These schemes are compared to two baseline scenarios: (1) unscheduled first-come, first-served and (2) scheduled with constant price. The study’s results suggest that dynamic pricing has the potential to influence EV charging behavior, inducing both spatial and temporal shifts, but does so at the cost of inducing inconvenience to EV drivers. The results suggest the peak-power dynamic pricing scheme has the potential to mitigate peak demand pressures on the grid with minimal inconvenience, offering a promising approach for sustainable EV charging infrastructure expansion.

33 - ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

NASA NTRS2001

Coarse Grid Modeling of Turbine Film Cooling Flows Using Volumetric Source Terms

The recent trend in numerical modeling of turbine film cooling flows has been toward higher fidelity grids and more complex geometries. This trend has been enabled by the rapid increase in computing power available to researchers. However, the turbine design community requires fast turnaround time in its design computations, rendering these comprehensive simulations ineffective in the design cycle. The present study describes a methodology for implementing a volumetric source term distribution in a coarse grid calculation that can model the small-scale and three-dimensional effects present in turbine film cooling flows. This model could be implemented in turbine design codes or in multistage turbomachinery codes such as APNASA, where the computational grid size may be larger than the film hole size. Detailed computations of a single row of 35 deg round holes on a flat plate have been obtained for blowing ratios of 0.5, 0.8, and 1.0, and density ratios of 1.0 and 2.0 using a multiblock grid system to resolve the flows on both sides of the plate as well as inside the hole itself. These detailed flow fields were spatially averaged to generate a field of volumetric source terms for each conservative flow variable. Solutions were also obtained using three coarse grids having streamwise and spanwise grid spacings of 3d, 1d, and d/3. These coarse grid solutions used the integrated hole exit mass, momentum, energy, and turbulence quantities from the detailed solutions as volumetric source terms. It is shown that a uniform source term addition over a distance from the wall on the order of the hole diameter is able to predict adiabatic film effectiveness better than a near-wall source term model, while strictly enforcing correct values of integrated boundary layer quantities.

Heidmann, James D.↗

NASA NTRS2003

Preliminary Analysis and Simulations of July 23rd Extended Anvil Case

A key focus of CRYSTAL-FACE (Cirrus Regional Study of Tropical Anvils and cirrus Layers - Florida Area Cirrus Experiment) was the generation and subsequent evolution of cirrus outflow from deep convective cloud systems. A preliminary integrated look at the observations of an extended cirrus anvil cloud system observed on 23 July 2002 will be presented, including lidar and millimeter radar observations from NASA's ER-2 and in- situ observations from NASA's WB-57 and University of North Dakota Citation. The observations will be compared to preliminary results of simulations using 1-D and 2-D high-resolution (100 meter) cloud resolving models. The CRMs explicitly account for cirrus microphysical development by resolving the evolving ice crystal size distribution (bin model) in time and space. Both homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation are allowed in the model. The CRM simulations are driven using the output of regional simulations using MM5 that produces deep convection similar to what was observed. The MM5 model employs a 2 km inner grid (32 layers) over a 360 km domain, nested within a 6 km grid over a 600 km domain. Initial and boundary conditions for the 36- hour MM5 simulation are taken from NCEP Eta model analysis at 32 km resolution. Key issues to be explored are the settling of the observed anvil versus the model simulations, and comparisons of dynamical properties, such as vertical motions, occurring in the observations and models. The former provides an integrated measure of the validity of the model microphysics (fallspeed) while the latter is the key factor in forcing continued ice generation.

Lin, R.-F.↗

DOE OSTI2026

Roadmap and Benchmarking: Privacy in Federated Load Forecasting

Data-driven techniques for energy demand forecasting continue to emerge with promising impacts on distribution grid planning. However, the development of robust and generalizable machine learning models requires that representative high quality training data are available. Distributed energy resources have begun to embed intelligence, gathering large amounts of data on customer demand, behavior, and household devices that are connected to the grid. Though utilities aggregate meter-level demand data for load shaping, demand response, outage management, reliability planning, and billing applications, there lies an inherent privacy concern in sharing consumption data that may identify individual consumer behavioral patterns. Hence, while sharing the data is crucial, the private sensitive customer data must be safeguarded from being exposed or manipulated. In this study, we propose a roadmap for implementing a based privacy preserving framework to support the advancement of data-driven analytics in data-sensitive distributed energy resources environments. The roadmap incorporates federated learning–a distributed training framework, differential privacy–a statistical framework that provides guarantees to safeguard the leakage of sensitive data, secure multiparty computation and homomorphic encryption– techniques for encrypting model gradients and applying secure aggregation on the server. Moreover, we perform baseline experiments on the federated short-term load forecasting (STLF) task using open-source residential load profile datasets, offering insights into the challenges of integrating differential privacy into federated learning.

Abebe, Waqwoya [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORN↗

NASA NTRS1994

Aeroacoustic computation of gust-blade interaction

To better understand and address the challenges faced in computing the acoustics of flow fields, test problems must be considered. In the present study, the sound radiated by the interaction of a flat plate with an oncoming gust containing a two component, mean velocity is computed. The gust has a uniform mean flow in x with Mach number M(infinity) equal to 0.5. The gust's mean velocity in y is of smaller amplitude and is given by: v = 0.1 sin(pi/8(x/M(sub infinity) - t)). This problem has been posed for an upcoming ICASE/LaRC workshop on benchmark problems in computational aeroacoustics. A plate with a length of 30 units in x is used. The plate is assumed to be infinitesimally thin and is centered at the origin. All variables are made dimensionless using the scales specified. Acoustic quantities are obtained by numerically integrating the linearized Euler equations. Integration is performed on the computational domain -100.0 less than or equal to x less than or equal to 100.0, -100.0 less than or equal to y less than or equal to 100.0, using unit length grid spacing in x and in y. An integration scheme is sought which will provide accurate solution to the small quantities of interest at a minimal computational expense. Results indicate that with the given discretization a scheme of minimal fourth order accuracy might be adequate to approximate the waves within the given flow. Thus, a variation of the MacCormack scheme with fourth order accuracy in space and second order accuracy in time was chosen. A scheme with sixth order accuracy in space has also been implemented and results compared with those of the fourth order accurate scheme. To ensure no mass flux, zero normal velocity is assigned at the plate. This condition will induce a discontinuity in the pressure across the plate location. Values for the perturbation pressure p' along the surface of the plate are obtained using a one-sided, third order Taylor expansion, such that p'(sub y) = O. In accordance with the Kutta condition, perturbation pressure at the trailing edge is assigned to zero. In the far field, radiation boundary conditions have been implemented. The effectiveness of the far field conditions are validated by computing in a larger computational domain and comparing the results. Early in time, sound waves begin to radiate from the plate. A Doppler effect is observed. After the initial transients disappear, the strongest waves leave the trailing edge at an approximate 45 degree angle. The intensity pattern of pressure fluctuations shows five lobes (of increasing magnitude with increasing downstream direction) emerging from the plate. Undesirable short wave contaminants are observed in the computed pressure distribution along the plate surface. For a more accurate solution at small scales, a more refined discretization will be required.

Martin, James E.↗

DOE OSTI2022

Assessment of diffuse-interface methods for compressible multiphase fluid flows and elastic-plastic deformation in solids

This work describes three diffuse-interface methods for the simulation of immiscible, compressible multiphase fluid flows and elastic-plastic deformation in solids. The first method is the localized-artificial-diffusivity approach of Cook, Subramaniam et al., and Adler and Lele, in which artificial diffusion terms are added to the individual phase mass fraction transport equations and are coupled with the other conservation equations. The second method is the gradient-form approach that is based on the quasi-conservative method of Shukla et al., in which the diffusion and sharpening terms (together called regularization terms) are added to the individual phase volume fraction transport equations and are coupled with the other conservation equations. The third approach is the divergence-form approach that is based on the fully conservative method of Jain et al., in which the regularization terms are added to the individual phase volume fraction transport equations and are coupled with the other conservation equations. In the present study, all three diffuse-interface methods are used in conjunction with a four-equation, multicomponent mixture model, in which pressure and temperature equilibria are assumed among the various phases. The primary objective of this work is to compare these three methods in terms of their ability to: maintain constant interface thickness throughout the simulation; conserve mass, momentum, and energy; and maintain accurate interface shape for long-time integration. The second objective of this work is to consistently extend these methods to model interfaces between solid materials with strength. To assess and compare the methods, they are used to simulate a wide variety of problems, including (1) advection of an air bubble in water, (2) shock interaction with a helium bubble in air, (3) shock interaction and the collapse of an air bubble in water, and (4) Richtmyer–Meshkov instability of a copper–aluminum interface. The current work focuses on comparing these methods in the limit of relatively coarse grid resolution, which illustrates the true performance of these methods. In conclusion, this is because it is rarely practical to use hundreds of grid points to resolve a single bubble or drop in large-scale simulations of engineering interest.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2022

Wind and Solar Hybrid Power Plants for Energy Resilience

Wind-solar-storage hybrid power plants represent a significant and growing share of new proposed projects in the United States (U.S.). Their uptake is supported by increasing renewable energy market share, technical abilities for dispatch and control, and decreasing wind, solar, and battery storage costs. Simultaneously, generation and storage resources are increasingly used in distributed power systems. While concerns around the reliability of the aging, transforming U.S. electric grid are growing, diversifying energy resources through hybridization or spatial distribution provides an opportunity to enhance power system resilience compared to single-source generation. Understanding where to build hybrids for resilience value, rather than bulk power supply, has not been fully explored in previous studies. Therefore, in this study, we complete a national complementarity analysis to identify areas in the U.S. that are particularly suited for wind-solar hybrid power plant development. We show the importance of seasonal and diurnal patterns in assessing complementarity, and identify that regions in the Great Plains, Midwest, and Southeast are particularly suited for hybrid power plants. We demonstrate the resilience value of hybridization for a reference system based near Memphis, Tennessee, and show optimal sizing of wind, solar, and storage assets given 1.0 and 0.9 critical load factors. Results indicate that pairing wind and solar assets better meet constant load demand and reduce storage requirements compared to solar alone. These results enable future work integrating complementarity metrics in resilience frameworks and indicate a need for more finer resolution of local resource, demand, and hazard data.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2024

Power System Frequency Dynamics Modeling, State Estimation, and Control using Neural Ordinary Differential Equations (NODEs) and Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) Machine Learning Approaches

With the global energy transition of the electric power system, grid control, supervision, and protection is becoming more challenging. With the increasing integration of renewable energy sources (RES), the system dynamics are changing, causing traditional power system dynamic modeling with swing equation-based modeling approaches to fail. Additionally, the converter-dominated power grid is decreasing the system inertia, making the power system more fragile to the frequency swings. This paper first investigates and compares the application of a model-based Kalman filter state estimation approach with (i) a model-free machine learning approach --- neural ordinary differential equations (NODEs) --- and (ii) a data-driven system identification (SysId) approach to model and infer critical state values of the power system frequency dynamics. Then a model predictive control (MPC) framework is compared to a model-free Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) reinforcement learning (RL) control algorithm in providing efficient fast frequency response (FFR) to the power system frequency dynamics. The approaches are compared in terms of their performance goals as well as their per-timestep computational efficiency. Furthermore, the comparative study for state estimation shows that for the model-free requirement, both NODEs and SysId can provide accurate state estimates; however, with increasing model complexity, NODEs can be a better choice for model identification. Similarly, the results from the FFR comparative study show that the SAC RL-based FFR, once trained, outperforms MPC with better control signals and faster computation time, making the SAC RL-based FFR better option for providing FFR to the power system.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

NASA NTRS2019

Validation, Comparison, and Integration of GOCI, AHI, MODIS, MISR, and VIIRS Aerosol Optical Depth Over East Asia During the 2016 KORUS-AQ Campaign

Recently launched multichannel geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellite sensors, such as the Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI) and the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI), provide aerosol products over East Asia with high accuracy, which enables the monitoring of rapid diurnal variations and the transboundary transport of aerosols. Most aerosol studies to date have used low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite sensors, such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR), with a maximum of one or two overpass daylight times per day from midlatitudes to low latitudes. Thus, the demand for new GEO observations with high temporal resolution and improved accuracy has been significant. In this study the latest versions of aerosol optical depth (AOD) products from three LEO sensors – MODIS (Dark Target, Deep Blue, and MAIAC), MISR, and the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), along with two GEO sensors (GOCI and AHI), are validated, compared, and integrated for a period during the Korea–United States Air Quality Study (KORUS-AQ) field campaign from 1 May to 12 June 2016 over East Asia. The AOD products analyzed here generally have high accuracy with high R (0.84–0.93) and low RMSE (0.12–0.17), but their error characteristics differ according to the use of several different surface-reflectance estimation methods. High-accuracy near-real-time GOCI and AHI measurements facilitate the detection of rapid AOD changes, such as smoke aerosol transport from Russia to Japan on 18–21 May 2016, heavy pollution transport from China to the Korean Peninsula on 25 May 2016, and local emission transport from the Seoul Metropolitan Area to the Yellow Sea in South Korea on 5 June 2016. These high-temporal-resolution GEO measurements result in more representative daily AOD values and make a greater contribution to a combined daily AOD product assembled by median value selection with a 0.5∘×0.5∘ grid resolution. The combined AOD is spatially continuous and has a greater number of pixels with high accuracy (fraction within expected error range of 0.61) than individual products. This study characterizes aerosol measurements from LEO and GEO satellites currently in operation over East Asia, and the results presented here can be used to evaluate satellite measurement bias and air quality models.

Myungje Choi↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Full Stall Simulations of a Redesigned Ventilation Fan for the ISS

The concept of a stall is studied rigorously in the aerospace industry. From a design standpoint, instabilities such as stall are undesirable– operation in the stall regime has a tremendous impact on aerodynamic performance as well as structural integrity. In extreme cases, operating in stall conditions can cause failure. Further, stall can cause a loss of lift on aircraft wings or a loss of thrust in aircraft engines. In any case, stall continues to be a topic of interest in the aerospace industry. The present work aims to analyze the stall characteristics of a ventilation fan that was recently designed for the International Space Station (ISS). Although the ventilation fan has a rotor-stator design, this paper considers a rotor-only configuration. The FUN3D Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) solver developed by NASA Langley Research Center was used to simulate the operational characteristics of the ventilation fan. FUN3D solves the Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Naiver-Stokes (URANS) equations using implicit time marching and a dynamic overset grid. The FUN3D solver was originally written for exterior flow fields; however, this work represents an extension of the FUN3D solver to turbomachinery or interior flow fields. The FUN3D results for the rotor-only ventilation fan accurately captured the operational characteristics inherent to compressors– the results shared similar performance trends when compared to the experimental results for the rotor-stator case. A peak adiabatic efficiency of 96% occurred at a MFR of 105.2 CFM, the minimum aerodynamically stable point. A computationally stable stall occurred at a mass flow rate of 43.8 CFM where the adiabatic efficiency dropped to 69%.

CFD↗

DOE OSTI2020

Opportunities for Clean Energy in Natural Gas Well Operations: Preprint

The oil and gas industry is increasingly seeking operational improvements to reduce both costs and emissions. Currently, oil and gas directly and indirectly contributes forty-two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, with over twenty percent of the industry’s emissions coming from operations. Given the opportunity for emissions reductions, this study describes techno-economic analysis evaluating opportunities for distributed energy generation and storage technologies – including solar photovoltaics (PV), distributed wind energy, and battery energy storage – to support companies’ energy cost savings targets, clean energy goals, and energy resiliency needs at hypothetical upstream well sites in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, both grid-connected and off-grid. These technologies reduce the site’s consumption of grid electricity and natural gas and thus help reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions associated with electricity and natural gas. For each scenario, a cost of avoided emissions was calculated; these values can be compared to internal organizational value placed on emissions reductions, compared to other emissions reduction strategies such as energy efficiency, reducing flaring, and direct carbon capture and sequestration, and compared to existing (albeit limited) U.S. carbon markets such as California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard. The study also explores the ability of these electric clean energy technologies to support site resiliency against utility outages.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2025

Enhancing heat pump water heater performance with embedded phase change materials thermal energy storage: First hour rating improvement and demand response operation

The increasing global emphasis on energy efficiency and sustainability has put heat pump water heaters (HPWHs) in the spotlight as an energy-efficient alternative to traditional water heating systems. However, their widespread adoption is limited by challenges such as insufficient First Hour Rating (FHR), suboptimal control mechanisms, and limited flexibility for demand response operations. Here, to address these limitations, this study proposes an innovative HPWH system integrated with embedded phase change material (PCM)-based thermal energy storage (TES). The research introduces a novel design and control strategy that leverages optimized PCM integration to enhance thermal storage capacity, improve hot water delivery during peak demand, and increase load-shifting potential. A combination of system modeling, performance simulation, and demand response control strategy evaluation was employed to quantify the benefits of PCM integration. Results demonstrate that the proposed PCM-TES HPWH system significantly enhances FHR, with an optimal 7.0 lb. of PCM increasing FHR by over 26 %—from 62 to 78 gal—for a standard 50-gal HPWH. Additionally, under advanced demand response operation using a preheat strategy, the system reduces the percentage of control temperature out-of-band time from 65 % (conventional HPWH) to just 11.6 %, enabling a more stable and efficient hot water supply. This research contributes a novel PCM-embedded HPWH design and control framework that addresses both performance and grid-interactivity challenges. The findings offer a viable pathway to enhancing the operational efficiency, flexibility, and grid responsiveness of residential water heating systems.

Demand response control↗

DOE OSTI2023

Comparison of ozone formation attribution techniques in the northeastern United States

The Integrated Source Apportionment Method (ISAM) has been revised in the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model. This work updates ISAM to maximize its flexibility, particularly for ozone (O 3 ) modeling, by providing multiple attribution options, including products inheriting attribution fully from nitrogen oxide reactants, fully from volatile organic compound (VOC) reactants, equally from all reactants, or dynamically from NO x or VOC reactants based on the indicator gross production ratio of hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) to nitric acid (HNO 3 ). The updated ISAM has been incorporated into the most recent publicly accessible versions of CMAQ (v5.3.2 and beyond). This study's primary objective is to document these ISAM updates and demonstrate their impacts on source apportionment results for O 3 and its precursors. Additionally, the ISAM results are compared with the Ozone Source Apportionment Technology (OSAT) in the Comprehensive Air-quality Model with Extensions (CAMx) and the brute-force method (BF). All comparisons are performed for a 4 km horizontal grid resolution application over the northeastern US for a selected 2 d summer case study (9 and 10 August 2018). General similarities among ISAM, OSAT, and BF results add credibility to the new ISAM algorithms. However, some discrepancies in magnitude or relative proportions among tracked sources illustrate the distinct features of each approach, while others may be related to differences in model formulation of chemical and physical processes. Despite these differences, OSAT and ISAM still provide useful apportionment data by identifying the geographical and temporal contributions of O 3 and its precursors. Both OSAT and ISAM attribute the majority of O 3 and NO x contributions to boundary, mobile, and biogenic sources, whereas the top three contributors to VOCs are found to be biogenic, boundary, and area sources.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS2015

Biomaterials Out of Thin Air: in Situ, On-Demand Printing of Advanced Biocomposites

Upmass is the single most significant limitation of our current space mission capability. Although biomaterials and biocomposites have mass, strength, flexibility, and self-healing properties that could significantly reduce upmass, their use is limited by the following drawbacks: Expensive, specific production. Many biomaterials can only be produced as part of significant support ecosystem; Inaccessible functional customization. The grain of wood, the porosity of bone, and so on are an integral part of the materials' desired mechanical properties, but are not deterministic when the material is naturally grown; Limited compositions. Most biomaterials (unlike metal, plastic, etc.) cannot be easily combined or modified to produce new materials. This project builds on recent advances in: Synthetic biology. Libraries of standardized genetic parts which can be used for controlled cellular material production, delivery, and binding; 3D printing. Commercial off-the-shelf components which can be used to make of a pico- to nanoliter cell deposition system; Tissue engineering. Proven cell-compatible support hydrogels and scaffolds can be modified to bind the deposited biomaterials of interest. Objectives: Feasibility and benefit analysis. Two mission contexts span the concept's scope (see below); Proof-of-concept demonstration. A simple grid of two proteins, fluorescent for easy detection, to validate the core technology concept; Proposed implementations for follow-on work. Avenues for future work on each core component (host cell, production control, material delivery, material binding, etc.); Complementary studies exploration. A survey of other emerging areas (in situ resource utilization, protein engineering, etc.) with the potential to multiply our technology's impact. Potential Impacts: This application could dramatically expand manufacturing capabilities on Earth and in space: In situ resource utilization. A far greater range of materials and products will be available from the limited palette offered by in situ resource extraction techniques; Reduced equipment and material upmass for off-Earth habitats. Ready- to-use highly specialized construction materials (radiation hardened, compressive/tensile, light or dense) from an extremely low starting mass; Structured biomaterial production. New ready-to-use macro, micro, and molecular manufacturing techniques for traditional biomaterials such as wood, bone and shell; New and novel biocomposite creation. The ability to create completely novel material composites from any base material that cells can be engineered to produce. Suggested Mission Contexts: ISS part manufacturing. A 'minimal working example' making a finished biomaterial part aboard the International Space Station; A long-term Mars habitat. 'Cradle-to-grave' use at a hypothetical Mars habitat, covering everything from tools to construction materials. Alternate Abstract: Imagine being able to print anything from tools and composite building materials to food and human tissues. Imagine being on Mars with the ability to replace any broken part, whether it's a part of your spacesuit, your habitat, or your own body. We propose a technique that would allow just that. By printing 3D arrays of cells engineered to secrete the necessary materials, the abundant in situ resources of atmosphere and regolith become organic, inorganic, or organic-inorganic composite materials. Such materials include novel, biologically derived materials not previously possible to fabricate.

habitats↗

NASA NTRS2015

Biomaterials Out of Thin Air: in Situ, On-demand Printing of Advanced Biocomposites

habitats↗

DOE OSTI2023

Transient Physical Modelling for the Coupling of a High Temperature Gas Reactor with Thermal Energy Storage

Improving the flexibility of nuclear reactors to meet fluctuating demand on grids with high renewable energy generation penetration is key to improving reactor economics. Economic optimization using the code HERON gives maximum profit of coupling high temperature gas reactors (HTGRs) to thermal energy storage (TES) systems in the configuration shown in Figure 1 when following the demand in Figure 3. We look to model the physics of operation for a HTGR-TES using the HYBRID library in the code Modelica.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

NASA NTRS1995

Computational Modeling of the Ames 11-Ft Transonic Wind Tunnel in Conjunction with IofNEWT

Technical advances in Computational Fluid Dynamics have now made it possible to simulate complex three-dimensional internal flows about models of various size placed in a Transonic Wind Tunnel. TWT wall interference effects have been a source of error in predicting flight data from actual wind tunnel measured data. An advantage of such internal CFD calculations is to directly compare numerical results with the actual tunnel data for code assessment and tunnel flow analysis. A CFD capability has recently been devised for flow analysis of the NASA/Ames 11-Ft TWT facility. The primary objectives of this work are to provide a CFD tool to study the NASA/Ames 11-Ft TWT flow characteristics, to understand the slotted wall interference effects, and to validate CFD codes. A secondary objective is to integrate the internal flowfield calculations with the Pressure Sensitive Paint data, a surface pressure distribution capability in Ames' production wind tunnels. The effort has been part of the Ames IofNEWT, Integration of Numerical and Experimental Wind Tunnels project, which is aimed at providing further analytical tools for industrial application. We used the NASA/Ames OVERFLOW code to solve the thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations. Viscosity effects near the model are captured by Baldwin-Lomax or Baldwin-Barth turbulence models. The solver was modified to model the flow behavior in the vicinity of the tunnel longitudinal slotted walls. A suitable porous type wall boundary condition was coded to account for the cross-flow through the test section. Viscous flow equations were solved in generalized coordinates with a three-factor implicit central difference scheme in conjunction with the Chimera grid procedure. The internal flow field about the model and the tunnel walls were descretized by the Chimera overset grid system. This approach allows the application of efficient grid generation codes about individual components of the configuration; separate minor grids were developed to resolve the model and overset onto a main grid which discretizes the interior of the tunnel test section. Individual grid components axe not required to have mesh boundaries joined in any special way to each other or to the main tunnel grid. Programs have been developed to rotate the model about the tunnel pivot point and rotation axis, similar to that of the tunnel turntable mechanism for adjusting the pitch of the physical model in the test section.

Djomehri, M. Jahed↗